As Big As Your Head

Luke 12:49-56

Family camp is coming up.  By fire my favorite part of camp is sitting around the campfire having conversations with people, watching the fire grow and diminish with each new piece of wood.  Watch the embers glow and at the end of the night watching the light fade.  To start a fire (and this is where the title of the message came from) I have been advised to start with a pile of tinder that is as big as your head. That way there is enough heat to light the bigger sticks you add to that the fire has the best chance of getting the fire going.

Jesus said, “I came to bring fire on the earth and how I wish it were already kindled.” I have to admit that this is tough scripture.  I struggled with this text this week.  What is this fire? 

It is about destruction of the earth like we read in Rev 8:8? The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea.

Is the fire of final judgment like we read about in Rev 20:14? Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death.

Is fire meant to inspire as the Apostle Peter intends when he gave the very first Christian sermon in Acts 2

“‘In the last days, God says,
    I will pour out my Spirit on all people.

A barley field just before harvest. 

Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
    your young men will see visions,
    your old men will dream dreams.
¹⁸ Even on my servants, both men and women,
    I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
    and they will prophesy.
¹⁹ I will show wonders in the heavens above
    and signs on the earth below,
    blood and fire and billows of smoke. “

Whatever fire Jesus is referring to, acknowledges if not intends to use that fire to draw distinctions and separate people. 

I realize that separating people does not jive with our modern way of thinking.  We think that we should all get along at all costs.  But Jesus often talks about divisions: The parable of the sheep and the goats, the wheat and the weeds, the grain and the chaff, the tree that bears fruit and the one that needs to be taken down because it does not bear fruit.  Jesus asks, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to eh earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!” What are these divisions?  What is this fire? He said, “I came to bring fire on the earth and how I wish it were already kindled.”

I don’t think it’s literally ‘fire on the earth.’ I mean, I don’t think Jesus is out starting brush fires or burning down buildings.  Although there was that one bush that Moses saw. 

When Moses had run away to go in to hiding. He was raised as a prince. He was raised with privilege.  He never went hungry but he killed a man and ran away. He got married to a farmer’s daughter and was living a good life.  He was probably content. But one day he was out in the field with the sheep when he saw a bush that was on fire, but the thing is, the bush was not being consumed by the fire. So Moses went over to the bush to get a closer look because this is a very strange occurrence, but something even stranger happened next.  The voice of God called Moses.  The voice of God that called to Moses didn’t make a bunch of lofty pronouncements and theological…things.  God explained that he had seen how miserable his chosen people, the Hebrews, were in Egypt, Where they were being held as slaves. Scripture says “God had come down from heaven to rescue them. He picked Moses to carry out that task.”

So God picked Moses to free his people from slavery.  And the people were indeed freed from slavery.  He used Moses to do it.  Is that the whole story?  Did Moses just head back into Pharaoh’s chamber and say hey brother, God sent me.  God said let the Hebrew slaves go.  And that was that?  No, there was much resistance to Moses.  There were many trials and difficulties for Moses and the Hebrew people as they were trying to find their freedom.  There was even resistance from some of the Hebrew slaves to the whole process. They had to get past themselves.  They had to get past the way that they had been conditioned to think for hundreds of years.  A life of slavery was all they knew it was all their grandparents and their grandparents ever knew.  The situation required a movement of God in people’s lives and God started with Moses.

God got through to Moses.  He was a prince.  He became a shepherd.  God revealed his presence in the appearance of a burning bush.  Moses had to get through all the layers of social necessity and conditioned responses and prejudices to become the person God intended him to be.

How many layers of necessity and conditioned response and prejudice does God have to burn away in your life before you can be available to hear what God would have you do?

I’m not talking about a self-help program where you can feel good about yourself.  I am talking about getting yourself out of the way so that you can be an instrument in the hand of God.

It is our inflated sense of “self” that gets in the way of noticing God in our world.  You know what the term is when we have an inflated sense of self; it’s called “having a big head.”

A good word to illustrate this is “Hubris.”  Hubris means having excessive pride or self-confidence.  Hubris is thinking that you can ride a bike for 8 hours when the longest you have ever ridden is an hour and a half.  Hubris is thinking that it can be done without training. Proverbs 16:18 says “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Was it my pride, my ego, by hubris, my “big head” that thought I could do it without more rigorous training?  Probably. But remember what I said about starting a fire.  You need a pile of kindling the size of your head to get a good fire going.  The good fire in your spirit is the one that removes distractions, gets you past social necessity, and gives you the ability to rise above your conditions responses to hear God’s call in your life.

My “Big Head” about this bike ride provided a lot of kindling for the fire that would consume the distractions in my spirit. http://ow.ly/24L3ZL 

I learned a few things on my bike ride.  I learned that I need to learn win at HORSE. 

I learned, or was reminded that even when I doubt myself that my wife is a great encourager.  I learned that I am surrounded by a loving community.  And most importantly I learned that it’s not about me it’s about how God wants to use me.  It’s about How God wants to use you.

Hebrews 12:25-29

²⁵ See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven? ²⁶ At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.”²⁷ The words “once more” indicate the removing of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.

²⁸ Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, ²⁹ for our “God is a consuming fire.”

So how is it with you today?  What does the fire of God have to consume in you to set you on the path that he has always intended for you?

Would you pray with me?