So we pour out our praise. We pour out our praise. It’s your breath in our lungs. So we pour out our praise to you only. Sing it out with all your might this morning.

And all the earth will shout your praise. Our hearts will cry. These bones will sing. Great are you, Lord. And all the earth will shout your praise.

Our hearts will cry. These bones will sing. Great are you, Lord. And all the earth will shout your praise. Our hearts will cry.

These bones will sing. Great are you, Lord. It’s your breath in our lungs. So we pour out our praise. Pour out our praise.

It’s your breath in our lungs, so we pour out our praise to you only. It’s your breath in our lungs, so we pour out our praise. We pour out our praise. It’s your breath in our lungs. So we pour out our praise to you only.

Great are you, Lord. Great are you, Lord. Father, we thank you so much for what you’ve done for us. Thank you for being of the God who oversees all of creation. This whole world is designed to give you glory.

Our bodies are designed to give you glory. And so, as we are gathered together as the body of Christ this morning, we sing it out because we love who you are. We love what you’ve done for us. We love your son, Jesus. And so it’s in his mighty name we pray.

Amen. Thank you. May be seated. And we’ll go ahead and invite the kids to take off to Kids Church. We’re starting a new series but really it’s a continuation from Easter.

Just this last week we were looking at Luke 24. We’re going to continue in Luke 24 this morning. And you know it’s an amazing thing when you think about it. We we talk about the resurrection for sure on Easter and we talk about it here and there, but to really get into it and and focus on the resurrection for a whole series and to see everything that’s there for us particularly in what Luke has written in the Gospel of Luke and in Acts. I think it’s going to be a real blessing to all of us because we know this.

There is no gospel without the resurrection. Amen. We need to know the resurrection. And so we’ll be in Luke 24 this morning. Not long ago, I was watching a show called The Undercovers.

It’s an NFL kind of show where they they have a a quarterback or sometimes it’s just a famous athlete on the team go undercover as a fan. And they did this with Baker Mayfield. It was a pretty fun show to watch. He went undercover as a super fan. He wore the the makeup, the wig, he even had a prosthetic nose and he was posing as this guy named Gus Sees.

And you know he got to go on this tour and he was with some other season ticket holders and he’s got to tour the facility and all this time. It’s actually really touching and it was also very comical because none of these fans knew who they were talking to. This whole time they’re they’re thinking this is another fan. He’s one of us. Until it finally is revealed in the final segment that they’ve been talking to the current quarterback who they’ve been bragging on and just loving on.

Now, something vaguely similar happens on the road to Emmas here in Luke 24. Jesus comes up and approaches two disciples that are leaving Jerusalem. And this is in the wake of the crucifixion and and the report of the empty tomb. And Jesus approaches these two disciples and the irony of the whole situation is they don’t know they’re talking to Jesus. This is something where God in his providence, he doesn’t allow them to see who they are talking to.

And so because of that, we get the unvarnished truth of what they think of Jesus, what they think of what’s all that’s happened. And they give their explanation. But the the better part of all this is that Jesus then gets to reframe their whole perspective on the past weekend and he explains the gospel to them. He explains the empty tomb to them from the Hebrew scriptures. So here’s the big idea this morning.

Jesus preached that the whole Bible ultimately points to the gospel as the main storyline and to himself as the main hero. So, if you would please stand for and if you’re able to, please stand for the reading of God’s holy word. This is Luke 24 beginning in verse 13 here. Luke says this in verse 13. That very day, two of them were going to a village named Emmas about 7 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. 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 Cleopus answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” And he said to them, “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, 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. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. 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. Thank you. May be seated. Now, let me see if this situation sounds familiar to you.

You’re in the middle of talking with someone about something big. Maybe it’s something big in the news or something recently that’s happened with you. And then another person walks up out of the blue and says, “Hey guys, what are you talking about?” And then you have to rehash the conversation and go back through the steps you had just taken. Well, here in Luke 24, we see two of Jesus’s disciples who are still brokenhearted.

They’re still devastated because all they know is they saw Jesus, the Lord they love, crucified. They saw him treated horribly and then they they know that he was laid in a tomb and they know that the tomb is empty but that beyond that they haven’t seen Jesus. And so imagine as you’re in shock over all that just put yourself in in their situation for a moment. You suddenly hear a report about an empty tomb and angels announcing maybe Jesus is alive after all. You know I think at this point you’d be very guarded.

You’d be very careful to to imagine that something as amazing as a resurrection has happened because, you know, nobody likes to have the rug pulled out from under them. You know, we we want to know that our hope has a solid foundation. And so, I think they have a sense of guardedness here. They don’t want to be given false hope. Luke says that these two disciples were walking on the road to Emmas, which means that they were leaving Jerusalem.

And that tells us that they were doubtful that Jesus really did rise from the dead. Because if you think about this, if Jesus did rise from the dead, that’s cause for celebration. That they’re not going to go anywhere. They’re going to stay in the city and they’re going to celebrate with all the believers. They’re going to gather together just like we’re gathered right now and they’re going to lift up the name of Jesus.

But instead, on this same day, this Easter afternoon, they’re headed to their hometown, Emmas, seven miles away. And they’re just trying to make sense of all the known facts. And so they’re they’re discussing this. They’re they’re debating what what really happened? Why why are we seeing that the tomb is empty?

What does this all mean? It says in verse 15, while they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. And so this is the first time that Luke has put Jesus in front of the camera, so to speak, ever since the crucifixion. Jesus is walking up with them. It’s like he comes up behinds them and matches them stride for stride.

But Luke is careful to mention verse 16, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. Now, what does that mean? More on that in a minute here. But Jesus basically says, “Hey guys, what are you two talking about? What’s what’s the discussion you’re you two are having?

You you both are obviously sad. You’re gloomy.” And and he says, “What are you talking about?” And Luke says that they stop dead in their tracks. Verse 17.

They stood still, looking sad. These guys are dejected, downcast, and depressed. As far as they’re concerned, there’s no reason to be happy. No reason for celebration. They’re just a pitiful pair standing there sad and upset, even though right there in front of them is the living God himself.

The resurrected king is right there and they can’t see him. And here’s the first point in your notes. Spiritual sight comes through faith in Jesus. Through faith in Jesus. Why couldn’t they see Jesus?

Well, some people think that they were so sad that they were hanging their heads so much that they didn’t even look up to see that it was Jesus talking to them. But I don’t know about that explanation because verse 16 clearly says their eyes were kept from recognizing him. In one sense, we could say it was their unbelief that was keeping them from recognizing Jesus. You know, this went against all their expectations. They they didn’t think of a Messiah as one who could be crucified, let alone raised from the dead.

And so, this contradicted everything they expected. But I think it’s also because it’s written in the passive sense, they were kept from seeing Jesus. I think this is saying that ultimately God was keeping them from recognizing who they’re talking to at this point. God can do that. And ultimately that means God is the one that opens our eyes.

He’s the one who through faith in Jesus gives us the sight to see the world as it really is. You know, we’re all coming into this world and in a sense we all have the blinders on initially. We we don’t see things as they really are until we are born again and we have the Holy Spirit given to us. We come into new life. That’s when our eyes are opened and we finally see this.

Oh, this is why I’ve been made. This is who Jesus is. This is what it means to be loved by my creator. The crucifixion was a very public event. And so the disciples are a little bit astonished that Jesus or at this point they just know him as the stranger does not know what happened.

This would be like being in New York a few days after 9/11 and a stranger walking up and saying hey what’s happened here? You know they’re thinking how do you not know? Verse 18 says, “Then one of them, Cleopus, answered him, are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days? Everybody knows what happened. Jesus, the carpenter, the rabbi, the teacher, the prophet, the one mighty in word and deed, he was killed.

He was killed publicly. Everybody could see it. It was outside the gates, but it was right there on Skull Mountain for all to see. It was a public event. How do you not know this?

Of course, this is just dripping with irony. Cleopus is saying, “Are you the only one who doesn’t know?” Jesus is the only one who does know exactly what happened because it happened to him. Cleopus even sounds a little irritated, like, “Come on, you got to know this.” But it’s Cleopus that doesn’t know what happened.

He’s the one in the dark, and that’s why he’s so glum. And I love the playful side of Jesus here. Do you guys know that Jesus has a playful side? He does. He knows exactly what happened.

But he said, “What things?” You know, “Tell me more. What are you talking about?” And you see Jesus doing this throughout the gospels. He will know the answer to something.

But he asks a question. And it’s because he wants to draw out of that person the the thoughts. He wants to draw out of their heart. What’s going on? Tell me what you’re thinking.

And so Cleopus gives a long answer about everything that happened. He says, “Oh, Jesus of Nazareth.” This man was incredible. I can’t believe you missed it. This this man, he could do so many things.

When he spoke, lives were changed. Hearts were touched. It was so compelling to hear him talk. You know, I was never the the same after hearing him. That’s what Cleopus is telling him.

And then if you saw his miracles, oh man, his miracles, you should have seen the way he touched the blind man’s eyes and gave him sight. Or the time that he he multiplied just a few bread and fish and fed 5,000 plus people. Or if you could have been there when he called out to Lazarus, Lazarus, who was dead in the tomb four days, and yet he said, Lazarus, in this commanding voice, come forth. And Lazarus came out of the tomb. You know, Jesus, there’s no one like him.

There was no one like him. How could there ever be someone again like him? I imagine Jesus listening to all this with a subtle smile and a twinkle in his eye. But that’s not all Cleopus tells Jesus. He goes on to say, you know, we had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel.

We had hoped he was the Messiah. That was promised by God. We had so much hope riding on Jesus. We had put all our eggs in one basket. We thought he was the one who would deliver us from Roman oppression and give us the freedom we so longed for.

Then Cleopus says, “Some women we know went to the tomb and they reported that the the tomb was empty and that they even saw some angels. But you know, at the same time, our our own people went there.” And it says in verse 24, “But him they did not see.” And so Cleopus is thinking, “If Jesus really was alive, surely he would have been seen.” And he wasn’t seen, so we have no hope.

Again, notice the irony. Jesus is standing right in front of him and he’s saying, “Him they did not see.” But you can hear the grief in Cleopus’s words. We had hoped he was the Messiah. We had hoped for this.

And I think that, you know, a lot of us can resonate with what Cleopus is saying here. You might even be be able to hear your own heart in that statement. Have there been times where you’ve said something like, “We had hoped that God was going to do something about our situation. We had prayed for God to intercede in our life, but he didn’t. That’s Cleopus.

He’s saying we had hoped so much. I think the best way to sum up the words of Cleopus is to say that he was expressing disappointment with God. He was disappointed with God. Now, if you’ve ever felt disappointment with God, first of all, no, you’re not alone. Just read the Psalms.

You can see that’s all through the Bible. And and how gracious of God to put this into his word where we can express we’re sad, we’re disappointed, this isn’t what we expected. And yet I also want us to see how Jesus reframed everything for this two these two disciples. There’s an important sense in which Cleopus is right. He was right to put his hope in Jesus.

He was right to look to Jesus for redemption. Everything he’s saying here about this is what we had thought about, this is what we thought Jesus was about, that was right. The reason the disciples were so sad wasn’t because they expected too much of Jesus. I want you to hear this. The problem was that they expected too little of Jesus.

That’s why they were so sad. Their view of redemption was too small. Hopefully, this will help you reframe your disappointments in life. I mentioned this last week, but I want to come back to what Paul in his letter to the Philippians said in Philippians chapter 3. He says, “I want to know Christ.”

Yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so somehow attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Now, what does Paul mean by this? Whenever I read the Bible, I want to ask questions of the text. I want to I want to ask, what does this mean? Why does it worded that way?

Why did Paul say it like that? What does it mean to know the power of his resurrection? And so, in this series, that’s what we’re going to be looking at. What does it mean to know the power of Christ’s resurrection in our lives today? Not just in some far off distant time.

Not in not in heaven, not in the new creation today. How does it how do we know the power of his resurrection? First, Paul says, I want to know Christ. In other words, I want to know Jesus more. I want to know his heart.

I want to sense his life in my life. And that should be the heart of every one of us. We should long to know Jesus more. That’s what life is all about. We’ve missed something major.

If that’s not the heartbeat, we we get up and and we should be thinking, “Today, I want to know Jesus better than I did yesterday. I want to know him more because he’s the resurrected king. And I want to bring more and more of my life, my mind, my body, my soul. I want to bring that under the reign of King Jesus because he is king.” The worst thing for a Christian is to grow complacent about their relationship with Jesus Christ.

To think, “Well, I’ve got my ticket to heaven and I’m I’m set. I’m ready. You know, I’m going to wait this one out.” No, we want to know Jesus more. That’s our heart.

If you’re ever in danger of having too small a view of Jesus, I’d encourage you to turn to Ephesians chapter 1. And there it says that when God the father raised Jesus from the dead, he placed him at his right hand in the heavenly places far above all rule and authority, power and dominion. And then it says something astonishing. It says that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is available to us today. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and participate in his sufferings.

See, the cross and resurrection transform our perspective when we face disappointments in life. They give us a whole new worldview of what it means to go through what I’m going through right now. And here’s Jesus. He’s the embodiment of resurrection power. And he’s standing right there in front of Cleopus.

And he’s going to transform the way these men think about all that’s happened. First, I want you to notice the way he does this. He begins by asking good questions. So secondly in your notes, Jesus proved to be the consumate evangelist through asking good questions. Throughout this whole exchange, Jesus keeps asking questions.

That’s Jesus’s way. As I said, he he comes up and he says, “What are you talking about? You know, tell me what’s on your mind.” And then he says, “What things?” You know, “Tell me more.”

He’s helping to lead these disciples through questions to the hope of the resurrection. And what Jesus is doing is he’s he’s modeling for us how to be good evangelists, how to share the good news of salvation. We need to be able to ask those who don’t yet know Jesus or are still exploring what Christianity is, asking them good questions, help them and guide them in their thinking towards the resurrection. Generally speaking, unchurched people don’t really want to hear what we have to say until they know that we care about them. You know, they they want to be heard.

They want to be able to share what’s on their heart. Everybody wants to be able to talk about what’s going on in their lives. And so a great way to open things up rather than going right into debate mode or or to look for ways to disagree with them which is only going to reinforce their intuition that you know Christians are often smuggly self-righteous or you know mad at the world or whatever it might be. If you instead begin with questions asking them where are you at on this? You know it could be a question like what gives you a sense of purpose each day?

You know, you get up and you go to work. What’s motivating you? I want to know. Or it could be tell me where are you at in your spiritual journey? You know, everybody’s got to think about these big questions in life.

What do you think about them? That will in many times open up conversations about the gospel. And so here Jesus is asking questions of Cleopus. And by asking these questions, what he’s also doing is he’s helping to uncover Cleopus’s pain. You notice that he he goes right for what is disturbing Cleopus?

What’s what’s causing this angst and his hopes are dashed? All of that. When you do that, when you help uncover pain in people’s lives, that also paves the way to the gospel. After uncovering their p pain, Jesus offers them a mild rebuke when he says verse 25, “Oh foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.” Now, that’s not an insult.

We need to know. He’s saying he’s saying this to faithful Jewish guys who should have known their Hebrew scriptures, right? This is Bible 101. He’s saying you should have seen this. This is in your Bible.

You are reading this and you should have known this. And then he asks yet another question. Verse 26, was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? So here Jesus is offering a counter perspective. Cleopus is all doom and gloom.

It’s all hopeless. You know, the world’s come to an end basically in his mind. And Jesus says, “Let me change your perspective. Let me let me give you some more information. Let me show you what you did not see.

Cleopus was wondering, is it possible that the Messiah could have suffered like this? And Jesus is saying, it’s not just possible. It’s necessary that the Messiah suffered like this. Verse 27, and beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. Now remember, at this time there was no New Testament.

That hadn’t been written yet. So when it says Jesus interpreted to them all the scriptures, it’s talking about the Hebrew scriptures, what we call the Old Testament. He’s opening to them Moses all the way through the Psalms and into the historical writings, all of it. He’s uncovering for them all that spoke of him. Just think about how amazing this would be to be there on the road to Emmas and to hear Jesus preach from the Bible about himself.

That would have been awesome on Easter. This is his Easter sermon. And Jesus could have pointed any to any number of places in the Old Testament because it’s really it’s all through the Bible. All through the Old Testament, you see prophecies or types which are, you know, foreshadowing of what is to come. Jesus could have began in in Genesis.

He could have looked at Genesis 3 and said, “Look, see the seed of the woman. It says that the seed of the woman will crush the serpent’s head and yet he will be healed or he will be wounded in his heel.” He could have pointed to the sacrificial system in the law of Moses, which shows that there has to be a substitute for sinners, someone to die in our place. He could have pointed to Isaiah 53 where we see a suffering servant who dies bearing the sins of others. I mean that’s the gospel right there.

It’s all through the Old Testament. You see the Messiah had to die. It was necessary. Jesus says. So when Jesus is rebuking them, he’s saying, “Don’t you see this?

Don’t you see that it was it was exactly what happened? What the Messiah did? What would happened to Jesus if he was to speak in the third person? What happened to Jesus is exactly what you should have expected because it’s all through the Old Testament written hundreds of years in advance. It happened to a tea.

But we also see clues of a resurrection. The Messiah in the Old Testament is said to triumph over all his enemies. He said to rule and reign over Israel, but beyond that over the entire world from Jerusalem. These two disciples are looking sad. Luke says they’re looking glum.

Not because they’re wrong about the state of the world. Things often do look very sad, very tragic. That that’s how we view a lot of things. I mean, we we see death, decay, disease. It’s all over.

There’s disasters that happen. We you turn on the news and you you can be very quickly convinced that this world is broken. Something is totally out of whack. Something is wrong with this world. So like us, these two disciples long for the world to be put right.

And let me put it this way. When you whenever you experience disappointment in life, here’s what’s happening. You are longing for the kingdom of God. That’s what’s happening. You’re you’re longing for all things to be put right under the reign of God.

Cleopus stated some of the facts of the gospel. He even talks about the empty tomb, but he’s missing this crucial piece. He’s missing the power of the resurrection. And so, he has no gospel because it all ends at the cross and there’s no empty tomb for him. That’s why he’s so sad.

Do you remember what Jesus’s first message was when he came on the scene? He said, “Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.” In other words, the the rule and reign of God is very near. It’s at hand. It’s something that’s already breaking into this world.

Today, we live in a world that is both beautiful and broken. Just this last week, I was on the hills up above Portland and I was overlooking, you know, the city, which is beautiful. But then beyond that, I was seeing, you know, the snowcapped Mount Hood and all the mountains surrounding that. And it’s beautiful and it’s all there for the glory of God. It’s all pointing to his goodness.

Or I could think about the way I I love my wife and kids so much and they love me. You know, anytime you you experience love, there’s just nothing better than that, right? That points to the beauty in this world. But we also can’t help but see that this world is badly broken and everybody sees it even if they don’t want to acknowledge it. You know, they can write it off as this is just the natural course of events.

This is just how things are. But if that’s the case, why are we so grieved when we go to a funeral? See, things are not the way they should be and not the way they one day will be. We experience hurricanes and wildfires that devastate cities and homes. We experience the death of a loved one, the devastation of divorce, the diagnosis of a friend getting cancer.

We don’t see everything put right. As the book of Hebrews puts it, we do not yet see the world in subjection to him. Our eyes can’t see it yet. But we also see what Jesus tells Cleopus. And remember, Cleopus at this point, he’s he’s sad.

But this is what Jesus points these disciples to. He says, “The Old Testament promised a day of redemption.” The redemption you were hoping for in the small scale. You know, you were hoping for the redemption of Israel from the Roman oppressors. I’ve got something so much better for you.

The redemption of the whole world. And it’s through the re resurrection. So what happened to Jesus on the third day according to Jesus will one day happen to the whole world. There will be no more death or decay or sadness. All of the things that that bring sadness into our life today.

All of that will be ancient history. We’ll be able to to look back at all of that as if that was just a dream because we will know the power of the resurrection. Jesus tells these sad disciples, “You may have been impressed with my words and my miraculous power and all those amazing things, but somehow you still miss the ultimate storyline of scripture.” Jesus explains that the entire Bible is about him. It’s about his redemption of his people.

Jesus in your notes preached that the whole Bible is about him and his work of salvation. But, and this is important, it can only happen through suffering. It can only happen through the cross in order to save us. A lot of people wonder, why did Jesus have to die? Well, sometimes when people talk about the problem of evil, as it’s often called, they’ll say things like, “Why doesn’t God, if he’s so good, why doesn’t he just rid the world of evil?”

Well, if he did it that way, he would have to rid the world of us. Because at the root of all sin and evil in the world is the human rebellion. The rebellion in the human heart against God’s kingly authority. And that’s at the root of all the evil we see. And so the only way to rid the world of evil was to come into this world and to take all that evil on himself.

To take all the sin and all the judgment that that sin deserved on himself. That’s how to rid the world of evil and bring redemption. It was our sin that killed Jesus. But the resurrection means that Jesus triumphed over sin and death. So these disciples, their hopes were too small.

They they were thinking so small about redemption. They were wanting rescue from their Roman overlords. And what Jesus came to do is to overturn death, sin, and all that was coming against them. Cleopus’s problem of evil is why didn’t Jesus just get rid of those evil Roman oppressors? But he hadn’t accounted for the evil that dwells in all of us.

And because Jesus rose from the dead, that means that all who come to him in repentance and faith have access to the power of his resurrection. I imagine as Jesus was explaining all this to the disciples, they started to lift their heads. You know, their eyes started to brighten and their hearts started to beat with excitement as they realize, of course, Jesus had to die. He died for me in my place out of love for me. See, what Jesus explained to these disciples is that his crucifixion and resurrection were not just one-off events in history.

They are at the crux of all of history. They are the turning point. They are the key that unlocks the meaning of all of history because without the cross and resurrection, we have no hope. This world is headed for that cosmic trash bin that we’re told about. We we have no hope apart from the resurrection.

It is God’s means to reverse the curse and undo all the evil humanity brought into the world going back to Adam. I wonder how many of you are fans of Lord of the Rings. Just a just a few here. Okay. Yeah.

Well, I love this line in Tolken’s Return of the King at the end of the the final book. Sam Gamji wakes up and he realizes that, you know, the evil Sauron has been destroyed and that the wizard Gandalf is still alive. And he says this, Gandalf, I thought you were dead, but then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?

And the resurrection of Jesus means that ultimately everything sad is going to come untrue. It’s going to be totally reversed. That’s what Cleopus needed to see. You know, you and I are inevitably shaped by the stories we believe. And if we believe a story about the world that ends in death, we’re going to be depressed.

We’re going to be as as glum and gloomy as Cleopus. But Jesus comes to them and he says, “There’s a better story you need to hear.” And it doesn’t end in death. It ends in resurrection. It ends in life.

Eternal life. Goes on forever. Love and joy going on forever. No more death. That’s what you’re headed for.

It transforms the way we face everything in life. Verse 28 says, “So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if as if he were going farther, but they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them. I love that these disciples wanted to invite Jesus into their home.

You remember way back at the beginning of Luke’s gospel in the Christmas story, we’re told that, you know, baby Jesus was there in in Bethlehem and it says there was no room for him in the end. Remember that. And here at the end of Luke’s gospel, I think Luke inserts this story intentionally to say, “Look, now people are making room for Jesus. They’re inviting him in. They’re saying,”Come on into my house.

Stay at my house tonight. That gives us hope. And it says that suddenly as Jesus broke the bread, their eyes were opened and they knew it was Jesus. And then he vanishes from sight just as quickly. And they look at each other and say, verse 32, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures?”

Now, I want you to see this. They went from being dismal, desparing, and depressed to now they’re burning. Their hearts are burning with joy. And it’s because Jesus opened to them the scriptures. What a great goal for the next time you read the Bible.

Make it a goal to have that sense of burning joy at knowing Jesus just a little bit better than you did before. That’s why scripture matters so much. So here’s the question I want to leave you with. Do you know the burning joy of spending time with Jesus and his word? Do you know that?

Does that resonate with you? These two disciples got to experience something awesome on the road to Emmas. We would long to be there for all of that. And yet we can experience the same thing. Jesus is present by his holy spirit.

And this is the awesome thing about when the church gathers like this and we meet like this together as the body. Jesus himself meets with us by the Holy Spirit because he’s the living Lord. And he opens eyes today to see the truth of scripture, to see the truth of the resurrection. And so after a week of seeing things in our culture that maybe are out of whack or maybe we’re recognizing things in our own life that are out of whack, how amazing is it to come back together like this and to hear the truths of scripture, to sing the truths of scripture and to encourage one another? We have resurrection power available to us today.

And we can live like that. We can have our hearts burn with joy, too. Let’s pray together. Lord Jesus, thank

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