John Gunter: I want to do a couple of things before we get into the lesson. I know we're we're running long today. That's alright. Amen. Amen.
Alright. One, I want to thank Ryan for filling in last week. Did a phenomenal job. Phenomenal job. Please, I hope you thanked him.
I was able to tune in and see right as Ryan was starting, and as soon as he mentioned what he was going to say, thought, oh, it's going be good. And it was good because it's a difficult difficult topic. He talked about changing your mind. You believe that? I had a guy that I went to school with when I went back for ministry, and he told the joke.
He said, how many Church of Christ people does it take to change a light bulb? And then as soon as you say, how many? He said, change? It's not just true for churches of Christ, but it is a difficult thing for us to do. And I opened up kind of the curtain in in Bible class this morning just to just to kind of put forth a difficulty that ministers have, myself, and I'm I'm in groups of many Church of Christ ministers, because we grow up in churches that that tell us the importance of the word of God.
And they they train us up, and we hopefully are doing that here for our young ones, to love the word of God. And so we do that, and everybody encourages us, and we some of us love the word of God so much, like, I I want a preacher, I want to teach, and I want to go study about it, and you go, yes. And we send them off, and we do all this study, and then after we do that, and we come back, then the question is, well, why do you believe something different than we all believed in the first place? And so it's a difficult thing to, yeah, go do all the study, go learn different languages, come back, and what we really wanted was you to already believe what we believed in the first place before we sent you. And so it's a very difficult thing, and we as a church have not often disagreed in a good way.
And unfortunately, that's kind of what we saw this week with Charlie Kirk, is that both as Americans and as Christians, as Americans we have free speech. Right? We should be able to talk about our ideas, we should be able to disagree and be okay, but often, we're not able to do that because we have have vilified people, we have dehumanized people to the point where we feel like their life is no longer does no longer have any meaning, and it's worthless, and can be snuffed out. And so, I think the church, in almost every instance, should be the example, should be the leading light in the world of how to disagree. Because guess what?
Even if you have the illusion this morning that everyone in here agrees, you're wrong. Let me tell you. Right? And so what we have to do is learn to love, guess what? Love God and love your neighbor, love each other.
Jesus said that very simply, and we're still struggling with it, aren't we? And so what I want to do is encourage you as you deal with such a difficult circumstance, and I had somebody tell me their stomach has been hurting all week, mine has been the same way. It just kills me that something like this can happen. But what I want to encourage you to do is not just go demonizing other groups of people because of it. Because what you'll find is if you do that, if you get in the business of doing that, you'll find yourself looking at another group and saying, you know, they're not worthy of life, or something like that, and we don't want go down that rabbit hole.
We should, as Jesus did, vilify violence. Right? We don't have to be violent. The Christ we follow is the Christ that came and said, turn the other cheek. I don't necessarily like that all the time, I'll be honest with you.
But that's what he did, that's the way he lived, and that's the example he took even to the cross when he looked down on the people killing him saying, forgive them father, they don't know what they're doing. Let's start with a word of prayer, shall we? Our father in heaven, Lord, again, thank you for this day. Lord, we we just wanna honor you, and may your name be holy among us and among all the nations. God, we wanna lift up, Lord, just our hearts this morning, that we've witnessed violence this past week that should not happen.
Lord, would you help us to give us strength, to give us patience and understanding, to walk beside other people who may not understand things exactly as we do, or may have even opposing opinions. God, we understand that when you sent Jesus to this earth, Lord, you did so with him choosing disciples that were very different. People who had different backgrounds, different things that would have separated them. Lord, help us to to model that same behavior. God, help us draw us close together in a spirit of unity, that at the end of the day, Lord, that we may agree in you.
Lord, help us to always condemn violence as things from from the devil, things that are evil. Lord, help us to stay strong, just as Americans or some other title, Lord, but as Christians and as followers of you. It's in the name of Jesus we pray. Amen. Our final sermon in this series is here.
We've been talking about tell me the story, life lessons from scripture's greatest moments. And this morning, we're gonna talk about Luke chapter 24, and this is titled Roadside Encounter. This is the road to Emmaus event, right after Jesus has been crucified, and we begin there this morning with a scripture reading starting in verse 13. That very day, two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.
Now, we're gonna read in just a minute, but spoiler alert. They talk about in verse 22 through 24, how the ladies had gone even to the tomb and had found it empty, and then told them that, and they had a hard time believing it. And guess what? If somebody doesn't wanna believe something, they will not believe something. You know that?
I told you a few weeks ago I'd come up with a little proverb about that. Right? The perfect argument means nothing to the one who isn't listening. Right? And if you're not listening, if you already decided it couldn't happen, your eyes are closed, your heart is shut.
You have decided already nothing else is getting in. Scripture talks over and over about having a hardened heart. And so they're trying, really, to digest everything that has just happened. And all of a sudden, Jesus is in their midst. What would you do, what would your reaction be this morning if Jesus was in your midst?
We've got some some visitors this morning, maybe I should look at them and see, are they Jesus? This man is shaking his head, You're not him. Okay. Okay. I appreciate that.
What would we do? How would our demeanor change if Jesus was in our midst? Would you be any different? What's your first thought? Yeah?
Maybe a little bit? Let put that me put that mint in my mouth. I wanna meet the Lord and savior with bad breath. I wanna tighten up, I wanna you know, the kids, hey, Jesus is here. Right?
We would act a little differently. They had decided, right, that this couldn't be true really, and so Jesus is now standing in their midst. He said, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And so, I think what we see right here is God actually working because they they decided, you know, this wasn't happening, or maybe weren't sure of it anyway. And so God's maybe delaying their recognition of Jesus because they need to be taught first.
They need to learn something first before they are able to to see him. But I do wanna say this, just because you don't see him, doesn't mean he isn't here. Where two or more are gathered let's hear it, church. Have you thought about that this morning? Have you considered that this morning, that as we gather to worship God, that Jesus is here with us?
Sometimes we feel all alone, we feel like, oh, we're just going at it by ourselves. Boy, I wish God would do something great in my life. But we're so closed, our eyes are closed to the situation at hand because we've already decided something else, that he can't do this, or he won't, or I don't have enough faith. And so Jesus is right in our midst, and yet we can't see him. In verse 17, and he said to them, what is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?
And they stood still looking sad. Then one of them named Cleopas answered him, are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened here in these days? Boy, wouldn't you? Is that what you all were thinking? You said, if Jesus was here, I'd tell him off.
Are you the only goofball that wasn't around and don't know what's happening? Right? Then he said to them, what things? Oh, man. Jesus can be coy.
Do you know that? What things? And they said to him, concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet, mighty in deed and word before God and all the people. What's left out in that? Say it louder.
Son of God. I'm okay going as far as saying, mighty prophet, which even groups today will still say, even if they don't see him as Lord and savior. But mighty indeed, and word before God and all the people. Again, he was a prophet, that's as far as we're gonna go. And how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him, but we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.
Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. So what they're saying in this moment is we actually had hope. We wanted this to be true that he was the redeemer of Israel. Church, was he the redeemer of Israel? What's the problem here?
What's the disconnect? He didn't redeem in the way they thought he should. Has God ever worked in your life in a way that you wouldn't have chosen? You wouldn't have chosen it, you don't maybe you didn't even want it once it's over. But God is gonna work how God is going to work.
Now, they they traveled around with Jesus all the time thinking he's gonna be sitting on a throne, we're gonna surround him, we're gonna be the the position of we're gonna be the party in power. Well, we're still fighting over that today, aren't we? I wanna be the party in power. My guy's at the top. That's what they thought was going to happen, and it didn't happen.
Because God had God's way, a way of love, a way of self sacrifice, not a way of conquest, and we still can't wrap our minds around it to this day. They had this idea again of political redemption. But God reminds us of this, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. It's been said many times, but I think if we could understand all the things of God, he wouldn't really be God.
And so if you leave here with questions about God this morning, good. That means you're human, and God is God, and you're not gonna be able to wrap your mind around all the things of God. Why in the world would we have the hubris to think we can? I don't understand that. But God said, His ways are higher than our ways, but hopelessness grows when we build our faith on the wrong foundation.
Because again, their hope was that he would save them, not just save them, but save them in the very particular way that they expected. And as we just said, God tends to do things we don't expect. And guess what? He gets results from those things. Don't you say?
In verse 22, Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. This is what I was talking about. They were at the tomb early in the morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see. And he said to them, oh, foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.
Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. Jesus had had had played along with them long enough. And he said to these people who seem to be plugged in, they seem to be people of the word. Right?
He they seem to be expecting and being a part of this, but he said, you've missed it all. And notice what he doesn't do, he doesn't say, well, turned over to the book of Matthew, or Mark, or even Luke that we're in right now, and started with the New Testament and preached to them Jesus. No. He, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them all the scriptures the things concerning himself. That God has been setting this up for a long time.
After the fall in the Garden of Eden, God has been working on repairing that relationship, and this is the culmination of all of that. And here it is. Here is his work in Christ Jesus. Not the way you expected, but here is the work in Christ Jesus. And so he says, the cross here was not failure, which that's what they were seeing.
Right? The cross was not failure. The fact that he died doesn't mean it was failure. Now, had he not risen, okay, you could argue that. But Jesus was back.
Now, you see they have at least said, okay, the women, we don't really believe women, so we sent some other people, I'm sorry ladies, that's what they did. I'm not gonna stick up for them. It's there. The women didn't believe or they they said, alright, he's going ahead of vision, we can't find him, we had some more guys go down, Peter and John, Who won that race? John did.
Alright? We're still not sure what to do with this. And Jesus explains all of these things, what you're gonna have or what had to happen to the Christ, and it was necessary. In Romans fifteen four, Paul says this, for whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope. Jesus pulls them back to the scriptures to show them exactly how God was working.
Would you like to have a roadmap for your life if you if God was going to give that to you? I don't know if I would. I might fear it all the time. How about you? Would you like to have a road map?
But what Jesus is saying is, okay, well, come back to the scriptures, see what's already there. He didn't make something up in the fact he said, here's what God has said, look at the prophets, look at Moses, look at all of these things. And then Paul says, all of these things written in our former days was written for our instructions that through endurance, through the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope. Well, I like that word. Because if you don't have hope, you're in a bad situation, aren't you?
That's where you see violence, that's where you see uprising, when people, maybe through no fault of their own, have no hope. But what Paul says is because the writing of scripture, we have hope, the word of God turns this information into a transformation of our hearts. And we don't just come just to get information every week, or at least I hope you don't, but that we come desiring a transformed heart. Because guess what? If you've already decided it's not gonna happen, there's no way it can happen, I'm this person, I don't have faith, whatever, it won't.
Because you have chosen. God has given you this free will. He has given you this scripture, this word of God, and if you decide that's not for you, well, it won't be. Verse 28, so they drew near the village to which they were going, he acted as if he were going further. Jesus has got a sense of humor.
I'm just gonna say that right now. He acted as if he was going further, I think kind of allowing them to to start this conversation, but they urged him strongly saying, stay with us, for it is it is toward evening and the day is now far spent. So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took the bread and blessed it or blessed and broke it and gave it to them, and their eyes were opened and they recognized him and he vanished from their sight. I don't know what to do with that.
Never had that happen. How about you? Listen, you show up at my house and all of sudden we're we're breaking bread and you disappear. Guess what? I'm probably not gonna tell anybody because you're gonna put me in an institution.
But that's how Jesus decides in the moment, okay, I've preached to them, I've shown them the words of God and how God has worked, and all of a sudden, here he comes, just like Paul after he's seen the light on the road to Damascus. Right? My scales falling from his side, all of a sudden, his side again. All of a sudden, eyes were opened, they recognized him, and he vanished from their sight. And so, I don't know why Jesus chose to reveal himself this way, but Jesus still, he still, just like this morning, promises to come in and to dine with those of us who invite him.
That if that's your desire, is to have fellowship with Jesus, you are afforded that opportunity. You have to have eyes to see the situation. Revelation three twenty, behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him, and he with me. Now, what Jesus forgot to say, what he forgot to list was all the things you could have done wrong that would keep him from doing that.
I know it's got to be in there because I hear from people all the time, I've done too much, you don't know all the things I've done, there's no way I could be forgiven. Whose words are those? Is that what Jesus says here? Behold, I stand at the door and knock, and if anyone hears my voice and opens the door There's not a list of prerequisites to get into the course. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him, and he with me.
We ought to have an amen for that invitation from the Lord this morning. Jesus makes himself known both in the word and in the everyday table, that he is comfortable in both places. In verse 32, they said to each other, as they're trying to figure out why this man just disappeared in front of them, did our did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures? And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem, and they found the 11, and those who were with them gathered together, saying, the Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon. They just missed out.
Right? They he's already appeared to Simon. And then they told what had happened on the road and how he was known to them in the breaking of bread. And so, I I think what we see here as these men are describing what has happened, did our hearts not burn within us? And and what we see, I think, in the day of Pentecost is this burning of the flame of the spirit.
This the way God is going to work is to fire that spirit up within you, that he's going to work in this way. And notice their response. Their response is not to just go on about their day, they return back to Jerusalem because their response to this had to be, I've got to tell people about this. We've been trying to figure this out. I've got to tell someone about this.
We we see this also in Jeremiah 20 verse nine. If I say, I will not mention him or speak anymore in his name, There is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot. When's the last time you prayed for this type of fire to be lit within you? That even if someone said, don't talk about it anymore, the fire burning within you said, I can't even that that's uh-uh. I can't do that.
I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot. I have to tell people what God has done. In John 20 verse 29, Jesus said to him, have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen, yet have believed. Jesus understands that we did not walk side by side with him physically.
Jesus understands that there can be issues of faith because we did not see, and that's why he says this, have you believed because you have seen me? Is that really faith? Faith is believing in those things which you have not seen. Right? Blessed are those who have not seen, yet have believed.
And when he said that, he's talking about people like us. In Acts two verses thirty eight and thirty nine, verses that are very familiar to us, Peter said to them after on the day of Pentecost here, said, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, and for your children, and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord God calls to himself. Knock and the door will be opened. Seek and you will find.
If we turn that around, don't knock, it won't open. Don't seek, and you're probably not going to find. The Emmaus story moved from private encounter to a public witness of sorts. An experience that they can't explain all of, but it ends with a burning of fire within them that they have to share, and real faith has to be shared. So, eyes can be opened, your heart can burn, your life can witness, walk in faith with him.
If you're not walking a life of faith, if you're not repenting of the sins that God says just repent and you will be forgiven. Yet, we sit back and say, well, it's not possible. Repent and be forgiven, Come to him. Be baptized into his name. Pray for God to light that fire or relight that fire within you.
We understand that things happen in life that throw you off course. You've been there before? Amen? Say amen because somebody may be struggling here. Amen.
Something may happen in your life to throw you off course and you don't know how to get back on track. Pray to God to relight that fire. And if we can do anything for you this morning, we would love to do so. We'd love to pray with you. We'd love to see you baptized into his name.
Would you come as we stand?