Sermon Transcript
They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them, but they were kept from recognizing him. He asked them, what are you discussing together as you walk along? They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them named Cleopas asked him, are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?
What things? he asked. About Jesus of Nazareth, they replied. He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him.
But we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel And what is more, it is the 3rd day since all this took place. In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels who said he was alive. Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus.
He said to them, how foolish you are and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself. As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, stay with us, for it is nearly evening, the day is almost over. So he went in to stay with them.
Them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, and broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the scriptures to us?
And now And now, and now it’s my privilege and honor to introduce someone who really needs no introduction, but I’m gonna introduce him anyway. About 8 years ago, this man was crazy enough to bring me on staff here at Bridges Community Church, and the point is, since then, over those last 8 years, years, I have known Dave to become a friend, my boss, and a mentor. And he continues to be all of those except my boss to this day. My friend and mentor who was the pastor here for over 11 years and retired just— didn’t retire, excuse me, he made sure I didn’t say that and then it came right out— who, uh, graduated on to new ministry work, working with churches around the Bay Area just over a year ago. Please welcome back Mr. Dave Gudgel.
Well, thank you everybody. It’s sure good to be back, and what a privilege it is to be here today. And I just trust that you’ve already been encouraged. I know that I have. I’ve been touring a lot of churches.
It feels so like. A couple weeks ago, I was in Monterey preaching at Monterey First Baptist Church and Grace Baptist Church over in San Leandro here recently as well. So different churches like that ministering in different ways to these churches, and it’s just been amazing to see what God’s been doing. Next week, I’ll be back at San Leandro. We’re helping them make a decision to gift their property and their building buildings to a younger church.
So they’re at a place as a church, unfortunately, where there are about 20 of them left, and they either are going to die literally or they’re just going to die because the church is just— it’s done. And so they’ve come to a place of knowing that the best thing that they could do would be to gift this church to some others who are young and vibrant and ministering in that area in San Leandro and do some new things. So we’re about ready to help them move into that step of ministry over there. So it’s been fun. It’s been great over on the farm where we live.
We’ve added a few more chickens and some more bunnies. And, you know, it’s unbelievable. The flowers are few and far between right now. Now, but hopefully we’ll get a new crop of flowers and that’ll be some more fun again. But Bernice and I are just really enjoying being around the family.
All of our family is there, and so we’ve pretty much lived through this whole crazy time as a family, and it’s been a wonderful time for us. Well, we’re going to just look together at this passage in Luke, at least spring from this, and talk about some matters I hope be really helpful to all of us. But I got to thinking as I was looking back over this passage in Luke chapter 24, I got to thinking about, you know, the celebration that we all had last week on Easter. I know that you had a wonderful time celebrating as a church. I heard the place was pretty full last week, and many things were happening here on the campus all throughout the weekend.
Much good was taking place. But it was a time of celebration for churches. But if you go back into the first century, you would think that on the first Resurrection Sunday they would have been doing the same thing, that they would have been celebrating. You know, I mean, after all, they had already heard an angelic announcement from somebody that the angel had come, an angel had come and said, He’s not here; He’s risen. That would have been a perfect opportunity, had you heard that, to say, we’re throwing a party.
We’re going to have a lot of food and dancing and singing, and maybe we’ll share some tears of joy. And while we’re at it, why don’t we just have a worship service, and let’s praise God for what He has done, that He fulfilled His promise to raise the Messiah from the dead. But the fact is, and you can see it here in Luke chapter 24, that what happened after Jesus’ tomb was found empty was not really a celebration. Even though there are a number of post-resurrection appearances to individuals and groups of people, the majority response to that news really fell on what we might call the late adopter side of the bell curve, you know, over there with, until I get more information, a lot more information, I’m not going there. Can you imagine that?
There were some people right away that believed that Jesus was resurrected from the dead, and they spread that good news to other people. But many people— and if you want a fascinating study, just read through Luke 24 here and notice the different responses— the majority response was a struggle to believe that the resurrection actually occurred. Some even thought that the reports that they were getting, that they were nonsense. Notice that in verse 11. And one of the late adopters’ stories at the time is this story here in Luke 24 that focuses on 2 people, one whose name was Cleopas and the other person isn’t named.
But both of them had a deep interest, maybe even a belief in who Jesus was said to be before he died. But now he’s dead as far as they know, and, and it’s 2 days after he died. It’s Sunday now, and they even though have been hearing reports that he rose from the dead, these 2 guys or these 2 individuals— it could have been Cleopas and his wife if you go back to John. It’s very possible that his wife was one of the 2 that walked on the road to Emmaus because she was at the death of Jesus. She was one of the Marys who was at the death of Jesus right there as he was crucified.
So it’s very possible that it was Cleopas and his wife, or Cleopas and somebody else. We don’t— we’re not told. But here’s what we do know, is that in the mess, or whatever they would call it at that time, they took a walk, a walk to Emmaus. We’ve heard about that before. That walk was 7 miles, as it says here in Luke 24, which would mean it was about a 2 to 3 hour walk.
And as they had this walk, evidently they were talking about a lot of things related to what had been happening, what they had heard, what they had seen, what they knew. And they were talking about, it says, Jesus the Nazarene. And as they’re having this conversation, an unexpected stranger walked up and started talking to them. In fact, asked them a question, and the question was, so what are you talking about? And they then replied, and their reply expressed 2 things.
One, disappointment. Their disappointment was obvious, first of all, on their faces. Verse 17, their faces were downcast. And also, their hopes were dashed, evidently, verse 21, because they had thought that Jesus was a prophet that was powerful in what He taught and did before God and others, but He was sentenced to death, and then He was crucified. Well, they had thought, they said, that maybe He was the Messiah, the Redeemer of Israel, verses 19 to 21 there in Luke 24.
They also not only were in a state of disappointment, but evidently a state of confusion because it was the 3rd day, a day that Jesus had said he would rise from the dead. And even though they had already heard from several women who had seen the risen Jesus and said that he was alive, that report left them bewildered. And some translations say stupefied. And this translation we heard read this morning said amazed. The concept here was they were just mixed up about this.
How could this possibly be? That kind of perplexed. They didn’t get it. So this stranger who’s joined them was— we all know it was Jesus. They didn’t know that.
They didn’t know that. That. And Jesus could have easily pulled them out of their disappointment. He could have easily pulled them out of their confusion. He could have just done something like, it’s me!
Look at me, okay? It’s me! Yes, I’m no longer dead. All right? Believe it!
He could have done that. Any questions? But that’s not the approach that he took. And this is what fascinates me and where I want to go with this this morning. He did 2 other things.
He did one thing that we could do, and then he did one thing that we can’t do, but we can pray that God would do for us and in the lives of other people, people that are on the road to Emmaus, people that are disappointed perhaps in a relationship with Jesus Christ. People are confused perhaps. What did Jesus do? Well, he explained something that’s singled out in verse 27. And he also gave something, and that’s pointed to in verse 31.
Now I want you to notice, what did Jesus explain? Well, verse 25 said that he says to them, how foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory? Now notice Jesus isn’t talking in first person. Here.
They still don’t know this is Jesus. And so Jesus says essentially, guys, what happened here was not a blunder on God’s part. This was planned. It was prophesied. The Messiah had to die, had to suffer.
It was his— and I love this— it was his path to glory. What he did was necessary to fulfill God’s salvation plan. And then this stranger, who we know just happened to be Jesus, he then said this. So actually, we might say he did this. Verse 27, and beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself.
So what does Jesus do? And he still hasn’t told them who he is. He explained to them what the scriptures say or said about himself. In essence then, he explained God’s redemption story. He explained God’s good news story.
He explained God’s life-giving story. And in order to do that, he worked with the Old Testament Scriptures. He worked first, suggests, with Moses, the first 5 books. And then he also spoke about the prophets. Now, when we think about the prophets, we think of 17 books that are found in the Old Testament.
But at that time, when they talked about the prophets, they talked about the former prophets and the latter prophets. And the former prophets began with Joshua. So after Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, you got Joshua. So he talked about Moses, the first 5 books, and then he talked about the former prophets: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. Those books, by the way, at that time were united.
And then he talked about the latter prophets, and the latter prophets were the remaining books of the Old Testament, all 39 books he focused on. Sometimes you’ll notice down in verse 44 of Luke 24 here, in verse 44, Jesus talked about this again, but then he added the So sometimes the Psalms are pulled out as the writings, but sometimes they’re not pulled out that way. And so you get this, this idea of just all the Old Testament scriptures. So what Jesus does, and this is what I want you to see, is he goes all the way back to the beginning and shows this thread of redemption from the very beginning of the scriptures. Now, this isn’t the first time that somebody has done this in the Bible.
In fact, I was just pulling together a few passages. We’ll pop them up here on the screen for you. But these are sections of Scripture or verses found in the Scriptures where somebody takes somebody through the story, all or part of God’s redemption story. So it’s found in many places, and many of us think about Acts chapter 7 where Stephen gave a walk through the entire Bible all the way up through Jesus Christ. And what essentially these people do in these sections of Scripture is they’re addressing certain events or things that are going on, and they’re trying to help people get it.
As you’ve been defining it, the better story. We’re trying to help them get the redemption story. And often these stories then are tailored to the need of the moment. Now you can recognize that even in Jesus, how he presented the gospel. He never really presented the gospel in the same way twice.
You notice that, that in John chapter 3, he’s talking to a guy who was a Pharisee, and this guy thought he was okay spiritually. But Jesus said to him, no, no, no, you got to be what? Born again. And in John chapter 4, Jesus talked to a woman, a woman at the well, a woman who evidently was an immoral woman, a woman who had troubles in marriages. She had been married 5 times, and the guy that she was living with at the time was not her husband.
In other words, she was living together with somebody not married. And Jesus talks to her about living water. Now both of them Jesus is communicating the gospel to, but He communicates the gospel to them in different ways. And I just point that out to say See this, what’s fascinating here is that we don’t even get as much of the story that Jesus evidently went through with these guys or the man and a woman, whoever it was, on the road to Emmaus, the 2 on the road to Emmaus. We’re not told the specifics.
I kind of think that God knew that if we had the specifics, we would make that the template for sharing the gospel. I think that what you have in the Scriptures is that you have the need to share the redemption story, but there’s not a template. But there certainly are key major places and events and people that need to be communicated in order to communicate the whole story. Bernice and I, the past 7 years, have been working with something that some of you know about. It’s called Bible Storyboards.
And what we’ve been doing is we’ve been working with this, is we’ve been using these storyboards to help us tell the story But there’s not a script to help us tell the story. It really fits whatever the circumstance is. But essentially, the first row there, the first 5 are focused on Moses. They’re focused on the books of Moses, the first 5 books, the Pentateuch, the Torah, the scrolls, the rolls, whatever you want to call them. And the next 5 storyboards are focused on the Former and the Latter Prophets.
Prophets. And then the bottom row of storyboards there are focused first of all on the years between the Old and the New Testament, and then you have the life of Christ, and then you have the eternal impact of Christ on people in the first century and beyond. Now you talk about a better story, there it is. When you communicate the whole story from beginning to end, it’s incredible to see people’s eyes open up to what God has done for them and why they need a Savior. So to go all the way back to the beginning sets the scene.
It’s kind of like, you know, you can come to the culmination in a novel or whatever it is, and, and you’re told the answer and the solution, but Where’s all the tension? Well, all the tension is back here, all the, you know, the problems and all the rest of that that leads up ultimately to this. And it— this— what this does here is it makes this so much more wonderful.
We thought, well, why don’t we just share what a little bit of what we’ve learned about this story past 7 years. The story begins in Genesis, doesn’t it in the book of Beginnings. Actually, the story takes us from the book of Beginnings to the book of new beginnings, Revelation. The book of Beginnings is all about God creating many things. There are a lot of beginnings.
There’s the beginning of flowers and birds and rivers, beginning of elephants, but most importantly, there was the beginning of man and woman who God created in his image. So that they might choose to love God like God loved them. And everything was perfect in all that God created. He created a place where they could enjoy life with God in all of its fullness and all of its beauty and all of its goodness forever. But what happened?
Sin came into the world. The first couple did the one thing that God forbid. They bit the proverbial apple, the forbidden fruit, and that led to them doing something that we’ve done to this day. What’s that? Hiding from God.
They hid from God in an attempt to cover up their sin. And after that, things got worse. Didn’t they? Much worse. In fact, as mankind multiplied, so did wickedness and evil.
It got to the point where God said that He was grieved He had made mankind. And you know what He did? He actually, instead of wiping mankind out, which was something that He said He would do, He found an individual named— do you remember? Noah. And Noah found favor with God, didn’t he?
He was a righteous man. He walked with God. And God, through Noah, made it possible for people to be saved. Noah built a God-designed ark, and he and his family survived the rains of judgment that fell on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights in that ark, and then they went on to repopulate the earth. And everything was good for evidently a short period of time until mankind went right back to sin.
Sin raised its ugly, ugly head again. We could talk about several accounts, but one of the accounts was where the people came together and decided they wanted to make a name for themselves. So they started building a city and they started building a tower. And evidently it was a way for them to all stay together in one place in opposition to God’s command to do what? Spread out, populate the earth.
You remember that? So what did God do? Well, he stepped in, got done what he wanted done. How did he do that? He created a diversity of languages.
Up to that point in time, everybody spoke the same native language. I think it was English.
And from that point on, mankind, in order to understand each other, had to divide up into various language groups. And what did God do after that? Our God, who is rich in kindness and mercy, what did he do? He launched a plan to save mankind through a man named Abram. And this is his family tree, Abram’s family tree.
There’s Abraham, there’s Isaac, there’s Jacob, and there’s Joseph. And what God said is that he was going to, through Abraham, send a Redeemer. He was going to send somebody who ultimately would bless the world. That someone who would come would come through Abraham’s family. They came to be called the chosen people.
And as you read these scriptures, you find out that they played a significant part in God’s salvation story. Now, if you finish out the rest of the book of Genesis that focuses on Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph, we know by the time we get to the end of Genesis that God’s children are down in Egypt. And while they were down in Egypt, they ended up in bondage and slavery. Do you remember that? For how many years?
For about 400 years. That’s a long time. I mean, when they went down there, they’re just one big family, but 400 years later there are millions of them and they’re in slavery. And so God decides it’s time to do something about this, so he enlists a guy named who? Moses.
Did Moses want the job? No. In fact, he tried to pawn it off on other people. But God wanted to use Moses, but Moses knew this was a humanly impossible task. Lead the children of Israel out of Egypt?
I don’t think that’s going to happen. And it didn’t happen in human ways. It happened because of the miracles that God did. You heard of the plagues? This is where the plagues fit in.
But this was also a where that miracle of crossing the Red Sea on dry land happened, where God parted the waters of the Red Sea. And God then, having set his children free, not only led them to the land that was promised to them through Abraham, but he also provided for them all along the way. So when they needed water, he gave them water. When they needed bread, he gave them bread. What was it called?
Manna. He also gave them meat in spite of their whining and complaining.
Why would God do that? Because he loved them. He cared about his people. And he also gave them, though, his laws so that they might learn to love God and that they might learn to love each other with all of their heart, with all of their heart. And you think that would have sunk in.
God also gave them his laws so that they might live set apart as his chosen people from the ways of the world. Boy, that one needs to sink in.
Now what happened? Well, you’d think that God, after all that he had done to provide for his children over those years, do you think that they would have willingly entered the Promised Land when God brought them to the Promised Land? But what happened? Do you remember this? They ended up wandering in that land, the land outside the Promised Land, I should say, simply said what happened was when God brought them to the Promised Land, they sent one representative from every nation into the land, call them 12 spies, and they checked the land out for 40 days and they came back and they gave a report.
And the part of the report that was hard for everybody was the scary part of the report. What was the scary part? There were big and strong giants. They saw big and strong giants. They only could see the obstacles.
They couldn’t see anything related to God. They just saw the obstacles. That was it. Big and strong giants lived there. And so when God said, okay, let’s go, we’re going into the land, I promised we’re going in, they said no.
And they ended up, instead of enjoying the land of milk and honey, they ended up wandering in the wilderness one year for every day they spied out the land. They spied out the land 40 days, they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years until that entire unbelieving generation died in the wilderness. But fortunately, the children of the parents and grandparents that died in the desert didn’t die. And when God brought them to the edge of the Promised Land, this time they trusted God and they followed a new leader, and his name was Joshua. And I know you know about this story where Joshua brought them into the Promised Land.
They trusted God. They followed Joshua, Moses’ replacement, leadership into the land where, beginning with the walled city of Jericho, they took possession of the Promised Land. They enjoyed living in the land of milk and honey. They sought to bring God pleasure. They lived according to God’s Word, according to God’s will.
You could say it was a high moment for God’s children. A big, wonderful time in the history of Israel. But unfortunately, the generation that followed this generation, which ultimately is a generation we know as, as the Judges, that generation that followed this generation did not walk in God’s ways like the previous generation, but instead did evil in the sight of God. They basically lived according to what they wanted in their own eyes instead of the eyes of God. They abandoned the God of their fathers.
They turned toward idolatry. And ultimately what happened was that they had to cry out to God Almighty to rescue them, and God did rescue them. And how he rescued them was by sending judges, and these judges delivered them from their enemies’ hands. But ultimately the people fell right back into their sinful ways by going back to what was right in their own eyes. And that pattern it repeated itself over and over during the Judges period of time where the people would turn to God, they’d turn away from God, they’d obey God, they’d disobey God.
In other words, it really was a time kind of similar to how we’re living in right now, where sometimes we love God and other times we don’t. And this pattern went on for almost 400 years. It came to an end when God’s children were sick and tired of judges. In fact, they looked around at the other nations and they saw everybody else had a king, so they wanted a king. So they came to Samuel and they said to Samuel, we’re tired of not having a visible king.
We want a visible king to lead us, which is to say, we’re done with our invisible King of Kings. Can you imagine this? So Samuel went to God and told them— told him that your people want a king like everybody else. And God sent a stern warning back with Samuel, and he said, okay, I’m gonna give them a king. I’m gonna give them what they think will make their lives better, but with that’s gonna come some huge problems.
And so God gave them 42 kings. 42. You want a king? Okay. He gave them 42 over 4 centuries.
Who was the first king? Saul. How did Saul do? Well, he turned his back on God. Who was the second king?
David. Yeah. How did David do? Well, he did pretty good, right? I mean, he walked in God’s ways.
He was a person who had a heart for God, but he didn’t do it perfectly. He had his problems. Who was the 3rd king? Solomon. How did Solomon do?
Well, he was on and off in his relationship with God. Things went good for a while, but then he ended up writing a book of regrets. What was that book called? Ecclesiastes. You know how many kings followed then?
You can do your subtraction. 39. 39 kings followed these first 3. And you know how many of those kings walked with God of the 39?
8. 8: Hezekiah, Asa, Josiah, and the others. You go read it, read them, read about it, figure it out.
That’s to say that out of 42 kings, maybe 9 and a half Half? If Solomon gets a half, say 10. 10 out of 42 walked with God. You see that little megaphone right there? That’s a prophetic megaphone.
Go back one slide. That’s a prophetic megaphone. Please go back one slide, one slide. There we go, Kings. You see that little prophetic megaphone?
This is where the prophets begin to show up. The prophets, as we know, the 17 prophets— Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Isaiah, Jeremiah— God, who is rich in kindness and mercy, began to send the prophets during this time where essentially everybody is turning their back on God. I mean, that’s what it felt like. They weren’t walking in the ways of God. And so God sent these prophets to call the people back to himself.
But in spite of admonitions, in spite of warnings, in spite of pleadings, in spite of promises about a coming Messiah, in spite of all of that, God’s children did not give up their wicked practices or their stubborn ways. So what did God do? Well, God sent— well, let me say it this way. What God did is what a parent often will do, what a father often would do. In this case, the Heavenly Father did— he let his children experience the consequences for their sin.
There’s that next slide, the consequences for their sin. What happened was the land that God had given them was taken from them. Think about that. This was a big deal to them, and it was a big deal even in the prophets’ eyes. You remember Jeremiah, who was called the weeping prophet, wrote an entire book called Lamentations, which is all about the death of Judah, the death of God’s children that no longer living in their land.
But what’s amazing is that God’s loving kindnesses—you heard this before—never. Ceased, and his compassions never failed, and they were new every morning. And God continued to be faithful. And one of the ways he continued to be faithful was— you see the prophetic megaphone— was he continued to send prophets to his children to call them back from their wicked practices and their wicked ways. And ultimately what happened was then, as God predicted, they returned to their homeland They returned to their homeland after 70 years.
Now think about that. 70 years means that they had 25,000, more than 25,000 days away from their homeland, which means they had plenty of time to get things right in their relationship with God. I mean, that’s enough time, don’t you think? Go sit in your room for 70 years. Well, how did that turn out?
Well, here’s what we know. After their return from Babylon to Jerusalem, things looked like they were going to be better than before. I mean, really better, because they rebuilt the temple, they rebuilt the city walls, and they reinstituted worship. So things were looking up, but the, the children of God again went right back to their ways. Their wicked ways.
In fact, the passages speak about how they stiffened their neck toward God, how they hardened their hearts toward God. And so what did God do? Did he say, oh, we’re done? You know, I thought this would work. He sent 3 more prophets.
See the prophetic megaphone there? He sent Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. And why did they come? They came again to address the need at the moment. In this case, they were going through the religious motions.
They would come to services and just go through it. I just got it off my checklist. Their hearts weren’t in it, and they returned to their self-centered living. That’s where the Old Testament story of redemption ends, right there. Kind of like a setup for Jesus in some ways, wouldn’t you say?
I mean, basically, if you weren’t sure if we had a sin problem, problem, look again. We need a Redeemer. We need a Savior. We can’t get it right ourselves. We keep on going back to what’s right in our own eyes instead of what’s right in God’s eyes.
And after that passage found in Malachi ends, there’s a gap of time between the Old Testament and the New Testament, a gap of about 400 years of waiting, of waiting. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever looked at this gap of time, but God wasn’t ready to send Jesus the Savior into the world immediately after Malachi. There was a time where there were no prophets to declare God’s Word. That was during this period of waiting. God didn’t show up in clouds or burning bushes during these years.
It was just a time of waiting. It was a time of silence, but God was working. In fact, he was working through what was happening in the world. He worked through Greece. Greece brought a common language into the world.
Do you think that could make a difference when Jesus came? And he worked through Rome, and Rome built all of these roads of access through the world. Do you think that could make a difference for the gospel to spread when Jesus came. And he worked in the lives of the chosen people because they endured a lot of persecution during these years. And what that did was it ultimately intensified their desire and longing for a Savior, for the Savior to come, for the Messiah to come.
And when the time was right, God sent his Son. His name was Jesus. Jesus, the long-awaited and promised Messiah, a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the one through whom the whole world would be blessed. And his story is told in the first 4 books of the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Jesus was born, he grew up, he ministered to all kinds of people, he died on a cross, he was buried in a tomb, he rose from the dead, and he went back to That essentially is the story.
Essentially, Jesus came to save us from our sins and to bring us back into a close relationship with God. Jesus himself said that, I came to give sinners eternal life. He said, it’s abundant life. It’s a brand new life. And he said that this life begins the day a person receives me as their Savior and Lord.
Lord. Their sins are forgiven, their death penalty is canceled, they’re adopted into my family, into God’s family, and their future is filled with hope. And this hope in part is directly connected to the work God does in people through the Holy Spirit. And we really read about the Holy Spirit in the book that follows the gospel account, the book of Acts, sometimes called the Acts of the Apostles, but even early on it was called the Acts of the Holy Spirit. You say, what are you talking about?
Well, we know even here in Luke chapter 24 and Acts chapter 1 that Jesus said to his followers, you need to wait. You don’t go anywhere until after you have received who? The Holy Spirit. Because the task that’s before you is greater than your human ability. And so after Jesus ascended, he went back to heaven, the Holy Spirit descended, came down from heaven and came into the lives of the apostles and 120 other believers.
That extraordinary event happened to make it possible for God’s children to spread God’s good news story throughout the city of Jerusalem. In the regions of Judea and Samaria, and from there to the 4 corners of the earth. And if you follow the story, the incredible impact that the early church had on people everywhere was nothing short of the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers and unbelievers that brought conviction and courage and life change in people like Peter and Paul and Barnabas and and Priscilla and Lydia and others who were dramatically changed and who were significantly used by God in the first century. And this is where we come into this story, because God wants to use us to make a difference in our world. Through the permanent dwelling work of the Holy Spirit in us, helping us communicate that gospel story to people everywhere.
22 letters that follow Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts are all about how the early church went out and they did what Jesus did. They followed Jesus’ example. They made disciples. From the outset of Jesus’ ministry, Jesus was all about discipleship. When he said to some fishermen, follow me and I will make you fishers of men, Jesus had intentional discipleship in mind where one person impacts another who then impact others.
Jesus impacted some fishermen who went on to impact other men and women with the gospel of Jesus Christ. That wasn’t just something for the first century. That model and that mandate is something for the 21st century. We still today have the privilege, in fact even the responsibility, to carry out Christ’s intentional disciple-making commission by helping people come into a relationship with God and then become more like God. In fact, discipleship, that’s what it’s all about.
About, helping people grow in love for God and for others and encouraging them to go on and do the same toward others. You know, the Bible says there’s going to be a day when the era of making disciples is done. You’re not going to get this opportunity anymore. And God’s salvation story, God’s life-giving story is going to come to an end. Book of Revelation speaks about a time where there’s going to be new beginnings, that God is going to judge evil and he’s going to eliminate it.
Listen, once and for all, he’s going to judge evil and sin and he’s going to eliminate it once and for all. And God’s children are forever going to enjoy and inhabit a new heaven and a new earth like it was in the beginning, back in the Garden of Eden. This new beginning, these new beginnings, this Earth 2.0, call it whatever you want to call it, is going to be inhabited by perfect people who are walking in a perfect relationship with God and each other. Wickedness, crime, disease, death, pain, that’s all going to be something in the past. And God’s long-awaited promises are going to be fulfilled through Jesus a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the entire world is going to be blessed, and God is going to live with his people, and life is going to be like it was meant to be all along.
Now that’s the better story. That’s the story of redemption. That’s God’s life-giving story. And what’s amazing to me in Luke chapter 24 is that Jesus, after all he had done, he came back and he wanted to do what he could in this moment for 2 people who weren’t getting it, who had not yet got it. I mean, that’s how much God cares.
It could be that you are here today because God cares enough about you you getting this story that he would bring you here today. He cares. He wants you to know the story and he wants you to be impacted by the story. In fact, what’s wonderful about this passage is that the explanation, even from Jesus, was not enough. He not only explained something for these 2, But he also gave them something.
And what did he give them? He gave them eyes to see so that they could recognize that it was Jesus. And I heard this, Christina, in your story as you talked about, maybe it will be today, and 3 months later, maybe it will be today. And, well, it’s when Jesus gives them eyes to see And it impacted them to such a degree that what did they do immediately? They got up and they said, we’re going back to Jerusalem.
They took a 7-mile walk again so that they could then tell others that Jesus is the promised Messiah. They could share the redemption story with others. And couldn’t you just hear them going all the way back to Moses? And the prophets and helping them totally understand that God wants to adopt us into his family and it’s been possible through Jesus, the promised Messiah, the one who’s been resurrected from the dead.
Well, however you tell the story, tell the story. And as you tell the story, pray for God to open the eyes of those who are hearing this story. In the words of Peter, may you always be ready to give quiet and reverent answers to anyone who asks the reason for the hope you have in you. Simply tell the story. Amen.
Let’s pray. Lord, thanks that we can share together in this amazing story. I pray that what we’ve heard today will help us tell that story in its simplicity, in appropriate ways to meet the needs of the moment. And Lord, I pray that if there’s anybody here today that has not yet received Christ as their Savior, that today would be the day of salvation for them. They would say, I want you, Lord, to save me from my sins.
I believe you are the Lord and Savior Jesus, the resurrected Savior. Please, Father, change my life. Give me new life. Give me abundant life in Jesus. Thank you, Lord.
Lord, you hear those prayers. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
