We’re approaching that special time of year… college football season. You will probably never hear me talk about it again. You may not know this about me, but my first job was as a sports journalist at a local TV station. Because of that, I love storylines and personalities more than I’m attached to any one team.
One of my favorite moments in college football happened 10 years ago on a rainy October night in Clemson, South Carolina, when the Tigers faced Notre Dame in a top-10 matchup. At the time, “Clemsoning” was a real term — it meant finding spectacular ways to lose in the national spotlight. But that night, Clemson stuffed Notre Dame’s offense and pulled out a historic win.
In the interview on the field after the game, Coach Dabo Swinney shared with the reporter his message to the team: “We give you scholarships, we give you stipends and meals and a place to live. We give you nice uniforms. I can't give you guts and I can't give you heart. Tonight, it was BYOG — bring your own guts.”
That interview is burned into my memory because my late father-in-law, Don, was standing right next to him. As a state trooper captain, Don escorted Coach Dabo at every home game for a few seasons during their national championship runs. We have more Clemson memorabilia in our house than I could’ve stomached as a kid. When Don died of Alzheimer’s last year, Dabo sent flowers to the funeral and later mailed us this football.
You’ll notice in these pictures, everything Dabo signs has this one phrase: “All In.” It’s about being fully committed to the task at hand, a way of life that shapes your choices and relationships.
I’m cautious about using sports as a direct comparison to our faith. Championships are fleeting, but the kingdom of God is eternal. And yet players and fans often risk pouring more passion and devotion into game day than the Lord’s Day.
That’s why the “All In” mindset only makes sense when it points ultimately to Jesus. And to his credit, Coach Dabo is very vocal about his faith in Jesus. In Luke 12:49–56, Jesus says the day of salvation is drawing near. This isn’t just any time — it’s kairos time, God’s decisive moment of action. When it’s kairos time, the only right response is to be all in with Jesus. In the kingdom of God, “all in” means surrendering our lives to follow Jesus no matter the cost.
This is a difficult Gospel reading, and we’ve been working our way through some tough passages this month. Here we have what seems to be a fire-breathing, housewrecking Jesus. But Jesus is showing his disciples a resolute commitment to the cross and what it looks like for us to follow him wholeheartedly. To set ourselves apart for full-fledged devotion to Jesus.1 And to make sense of that, let’s break our passage down in three sections, to look at the task, the cost, and the moment.
The Task (verses 49-50)
Jesus said, “I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!”
Jesus knows what time it is. This is kairos time, not the kind of time we keep on our watch. It’s the God-appointed time of salvation, for his death to deliver us from the domain of darkness into his glorious light. The time of salvation and God’s kingdom is breaking in.
These two verses are challenging. I have a helpful reference book called Hard Sayings of the Bible. And this is one of the rare places where it covers back-to-back verses. Jesus wants to cast fire on the earth and he is distressed about a baptism that is coming. So what is going on here?
Let’s hone in on the two images: fire and baptism. Fire in this context can refer to judgment or purification.2 This would be a helpful place for a recap of an earlier episode. “Previously in the Gospel of Luke,” or if you remember all the way back to our Gospel reading in chapter 3, verses 16-17: John the Baptist said about Jesus, “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
Baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire. This is a refiner’s fire—burning away everything that keeps us away from God. That’s what we pray each week in our Collect for Purity: “Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit.” That’s the work of the Holy Spirit—setting our hearts on fire so that the clutter burns away and we can be lifted up to God.
Jesus has been leading us to this moment in our last few Gospel readings. “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” If your heart is stuck to material possessions, it will burn up with them in judgment. But if your treasure is in heaven, the refining fire of the Holy Spirit will lift you up to the throne room of God. We need to declutter our hearts from the things that pull us down. This is why we lift our hearts as a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving during the Eucharistic prayer. The Holy Spirit sets our sacrifice on fire, so it can be lifted up!
Jesus wants us to be all in but he leads the way with his sacrificial love. And Jesus shows us this with the image of his baptism. He’s not talking about water… that happened with John the Baptist in the Jordan at the beginning of his ministry. This baptism is the baptism of death, the cross that crowns his ministry (see 1 John 5:6). Notice the words Jesus says here: “how great is my distress until it is accomplished!” And what are Jesus’s final words on the cross? “It is finished.” Only when Jesus passes through this baptism of death and is glorified in his resurrection and ascension will the Holy Spirit be unleashed and poured out.3
In other words, the task is clear: Jesus must go to the cross first, and the Spirit comes to us after. The fire that will refine us is possible only because Jesus took the judgment that was meant for us.
Jesus has set his face toward Jerusalem, his eyes are on the goal line. And if our King Jesus is all in for his task, then his flock must be all in for him to receive all that he has in store for us.
And Jesus doesn’t sugarcoat the Cost that we find in verses 51-53.
The Cost (verses 51-53)
“Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
Now hold up, you might say. There’s a contradiction. Isn’t Jesus the Prince of Peace? Didn’t the angels sing “peace on earth” in Luke 2 when Jesus was born?
Yes, but the issue isn’t Jesus’s consistency, but rather ours. The peace of Jesus is real. But Jesus paid the price for us. The peace of Jesus comes through the cross. And it calls for a wholehearted response. We’ve got to be all in. We can’t belong to him halfway.
When we declare that Jesus is King over our lives, it changes everything. It shapes our decisions, our relationships, and our loyalties in private and in public. In baptism, we die to our self and to the world, and we belong wholly to Jesus and his kingdom.4
As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, following Jesus is “costly, because it costs people their lives; it is grace, because it thereby makes them live. . .. Nothing can be cheap to us which is costly to God. Above all, it is grace because the life of God’s Son was not too costly for God to give in order to make us live.”5 Jesus bore the cost for our salvation, and following him means offering all that we are as a living sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.
We’ve made following Jesus too comfortable and convenient. This isn’t just “I go to church on Sundays,” although that means a lot more now than it used to. It isn’t “I like Jesus’s teachings.” Because if he says this, he’s more than just a good teacher, he’s our King and Savior. The cost of following Jesus offers us peace by transforming our lives to look like his. And our allegiance to Jesus can affect even our closest relationships.
In the past 10 years, we’ve seen houses torn apart because of presidential politics. Families are strained, parents against children, siblings against each other, over leaders whose terms only last four years and whose kingdom will pass away. And that kind of division is toxic. Because there is no lasting path to peace.
We often imagine our enemies to be out there. In politics we give them cartoonish labels. We dehumanize them.
But Jesus warns us of a different division, not over casting a vote but over determining who is Lord of my life. Jesus says if you follow me, your enemy might be your mother or your son. Is there good news in this?
Well how does Jesus tell us to treat our enemies? To love them. Our attitude toward those who reject us because of our allegiance to Jesus doesn’t change. We love them and we pursue peace with them.
So if you have strained relationships with family members or children, it’s important to ask: is it because of your politics or your faith? Do they know more about who you vote for than who you belong to?
Maybe the first step in repairing that relationship could be untangling your political preference from your highest allegiance to Jesus, so that the way you share Jesus is clear that he is your greatest treasure.
The cost of following Jesus provides an opportunity to share the love of Jesus. We can’t change how they respond to us, but we do have control over our response in living with love and integrity. We can live peaceably toward all people in the hopes that our words and actions could be the instrument of salvation and peace in the lives of those around us.
The Moment, (verses 54-56)
He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you say at once, ‘A shower is coming.’ And so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat,’ and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?”
As a new Florida resident, I’ve learned quickly how to adjust my life to the weather. It’s summer, so I don’t plan on any outdoor activities between 2 and 4 in the afternoon. Some of you just don’t bother and flee north.
The skies, the markets, we know how to adjust our plans. We cast our vote depending on the price of eggs and gas. We pay attention to what’s going on and we take action.
Jesus says, you know how to do that for the weather, why can’t you do it when eternity is on the line?
We need to know what time it is and take action.
When Jesus says “time” he’s using the word kairos. This is different from “chronos,” the Greek word for time we use in words like “chronological.” So Jesus is not referring to the ticking of the clock but the God-appointed moment of salvation.
Jesus is saying that all of time, the minutes and hours of chronos history, are pointed toward God’s eternal plan and the decisive moment of salvation.
For Jesus, everything leads to the cross. That’s where his task will be accomplished. Then the fire is kindled and the Spirit is poured out.
The question is for you, Do you know what time it is? It’s the day of salvation, when God’s kingdom is breaking through. It’s time to be all in with Jesus—heart, soul, mind, and strength—while the God-appointed moment is here.
To be all in with Jesus means a holy surrender of our time, our talents, and our resources to make him our treasure. So that in every area of our lives Jesus is on the throne, not us. He is the center of it all.
Lift up your hearts today, let them burn with the cleansing power of the Spirit and be raised up to where your treasure is in heaven. Declare your allegiance to King Jesus and pursue peace with those who reject you because of him. Because they’re not rejecting you, but their created purpose to be with God. And God can use your loving witness, your perseverance in faith, to jumpstart their healing and new life in Christ.
In the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing ministry opportunities for you to go out in the community and be all in with Jesus. How you can offer yourself, to sacrifice your time and resources to make the message of Jesus known to others.
It’s time to be all in. Are you ready?
***SONG***: “I’m a Dog” by the Hillbilly Thomists is a reflection on Luke 12:49-56
Mark Batterson, All In, 19.
Darrell L. Bock, Luke 9:51-24:53, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, 1194.
Hard Sayings of the Bible, 472-74.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works Vol. 4, 207-8.
Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, 45.
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