Luke, The Orderly Account of Truth - What to Expect When You are Expecting - Luke 24:13-25

Father God, we love you, and we thank you that

we get to have this opportunity to open your word

and hear your voice. And so Lord, we just asked

that your spirit would be with us, your spirit would

be illuminating the scriptures and your word, that they'd be

coming alive as we go through them with one another.

Where God, help it be something that is planted in

our heart, and that you would give growth to help

it bear fruit in our lives, that today and after

today we are no longer the same. So we love you, Lord,

we thank you, We give you this time and submit

it to You and Jesus. Then we pray Amen. Well,

if this is your first time, welcome to the roots

where it's all about Jesus. We love God, we love people,

We reach the lost, and we make disciples. My name

is Duncan. I am one of the pastors here. Me

and my wife. We have four children, and so our

house lately has just been so loud, and we love

our children, but it's it's just something like I having

four children who are there's only four of them, but

it sounds like there's eighteen in the front room. It's

kind of an impressive thing. I don't know how they

all do it. But children are wonderful. We love children

here at the church, and we have also lots of

people expecting to have children. My sister just even over

this weekend and her husband they had another child, which

is really awesome. It's a big, big win, big yeah,

big win. They're doing great. Things are really awesome, and

so I'm really grateful to hear that. But it's kind

of crazy because I was thinking about it this week.

And when you find out that you are going to

have a child, or maybe you have another child on

the way, it can be one of the most exciting

and terrifying things in the world because this is an event,

especially if it's the first time that is completely foreign

to you. Right, you were raised by somebody, right, no

matter who that was, you were raised by somebody. You

were a child once. But now you have a child,

and now that is going to be your responsibility, regardless

if this is even your second or third time. Like

even those pregnancies or those experiences can be way different

than the first ones you had, so regardless, it can

be very hard to know what to expect. So what

we do, what do we do to prepare? We read books,

We listen to podcasts. What else do we do? We

read blogs, we read or we listen to people. We

ask other people's experiences of what they've gone through also

that we can have some kind of idea or try

and get a grasp on what we can't expect from

this this experience or this situation. And so it's kind

of funny because I was thinking about it, I was like, Yeah,

the wives buy the books, and the wives read them

and maybe the guys get around to them eventually. So

normally the husbands maybe are just waiting and listening to

what if their wives have to report from the books

that they're reading. The guys like, oh, that's interesting, that

sounds kind of crazy. But because we don't read these books,

and sometimes we don't read these books. If you do,

good on you. I'm happy, that's awesome. I'm sure your

wife loves you a lot. But it's helpful to know

what to expect. But there's times where when you don't

know what to expect and things start happening that that

can be overwhelming. It can be overwhelming if we don't

know what to expect. If we're maybe doing this just

kind of in our own strength and our own wisdom,

kind of hoping it will all pan out in the end. Ultimately,

there's I think something that we realize. It's like, it's

not that there's not material there to prepare us, just

sometimes we're lazy. Sometimes we think maybe we can figure

it out on our own. We don't need anyone to

tell us how to do it. We've been doing this

for thousands of years. We'll figure it out. Maybe. As

guys we go like, how hard can it be? And

the wives reading the material go, man, I hope it's

not as hard as some people say it's going to be.

Even the pregnancy itself during that time, those nine months,

it can be very unexpected. I remember me and my

wife we were out years ago. We were pregnant with

our first child, and we were at a theology conference.

It was a great time and it was time to

eat some food, and they had some different food trucks

out there. My wife wasn't too happy with the options

that were out there, and so I was like, Hey,

let's just get some cheeseburgers. It's food, it will nourish

our body. And she's like, I do not want a cheeseburger.

I was like, you gotta eat something. She's like, I'll

just give me some fries or whatever. I was like,

that's not real food. We gotta eat real food. So

I got us two cheeseburgers and we're in the cafeteria

and she's eating a cheeseburger crying, and I'm like, what

is happening? What is going on here? Now? Here's the deal?

That's my But reading a book on what to expect

would have been very helpful for me. And there's all

kinds of books out there that help you learn what

to expect for all kinds of different things. You might

read a book on what it's going to be like

going back to school or getting into school for the

first time. Maybe what to expect when it comes to

your jobs, or your marriage or parenting or relationships waits.

There's so many books that are just trying to help

prepare you and tell you what to expect. Well, what

if I told you that there is a book specifically

written to help you know and learn what to expect

about God? You'd be in good company. I know, right,

you'd be a good company if you do know that.

And if you don't know that, it's our Bible, it's

the scriptures but the second question would be, it's like, awesome,

you have the book in your house, it's sitting on

your shelf. You purchased it because you heard it's a

good reader, it's kind of helpful. But have you actually

read it, Because if you're anything like the people in

the text today, you not only need to know it,

but you also need to believe it if you truly

want to know what to expect from God. And what's more,

you need to read it so that you know what

He expects from you. If you'd please open your bibles

with me to Luke chapter twenty four. We have bibles

in the back for you. Please go grab one take

for yourself. They're out in the resource desk out in

the lobby, so you can follow along with us. But

we're in actually the final weeks. This is the second

to last message in our series of Luke, which is insane.

We've been doing this for over two years and here

we are finally right at the end. But we've been

in the Gospel of Luke. Luke has written an orderly

account of truth, an orderly account of all the things

Jesus said and did, so that we could have certainty

concerning the person and work of Jesus. And last week

we looked at the incredible account of the empty tomb

and the announcement that Jesus is alive, and I will

not make you repeated. I hope you got that enough

from last week, but that Jesus had been raised from

the dead. And now today we're going to see the

risen Christ actually interact with some of his disciples who

need clarity concerning all these events. So today's message is

titled what to expect When you are expecting. You can start.

Verse thirteen says that very day two of them were

going to a village named Emmaeus, 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. So this is kind

of a nice setup to the story that we're about

to interact with. Jesus shows up on these two disciples

who are on their way out of town, who are

talking about all the crazy stuff that has been happening

over the last couple of days, and Jesus rolls up

on these disciples and they they don't recognize him, and

actually Luke tells us that they were kept from recognizing him.

And this is actually gonna be something that's very interesting

because this is primarily through the big chunk of our

text that Jesus, they're not they don't recognize Jesus is

the one talking to them, And in our text, we're

actually going to see Jesus do things that maybe we

wouldn't expect to do if we were in his shoes.

But what we will see in our text something that

was kind of helpful as I was thinking about this week. Ultimately,

what we do is we see Jesus reveals him or

before Jesus reveals himself to his disciples, he is going

to reveal something in them. First, before Jesus reveals himself disciples,

he's also going to reveal something to them. And Luke

in writing this account, is going to be revealing to

us what these disciples were thinking. Let's look at the

first clue in the next verse, Verse seventeen says and

he said to them, what is this conversation that you're

holding with each other as you walk? And they stood

still looking sad. So when Jesus comes up to them.

They don't recognize him. He just seems like some guy

who is asking about their conversation as they go along

their way. And the first clue we get about these

disciples is the description that Luke gives to us that

Jesus asked them, Hey, what's going on? What are you

guys talking about? Is you're going along your way and

this question makes them stop dead in their tracks, looking

sad and gloomy. And this actually sparks one of the

disciples to ask kind of a funny yet reasonable question.

He says, are you new? That's basically what he says.

Look at this In the next verse, verse eighteen. Then

one of them, named Cleopas answered him, are you the

only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things

that have happened there in these days? So after the

insane week that has happened in Jerusalem and now the

recent stir of the empty tomb, the disciples says to

the supposed stranger, are you new? Are you the only

person who doesn't know about all the crazy things going

on around here? Which tells us what is that this

has created some kind of big commotion in that area.

But then once again Jesus does something very fascinating. Instead

of revealing himself and saying, of course I know I'm

the risen god man Jesus, instead of doing that, he

asks another question that is going to reveal the hearts

of these disciples. I'll get this in verse nineteen. And

he said to them, what things and he's And they

said to him concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who

is a prophet mighty indeed and word before God and

all the people, And how our chief priests and rulers

delivered him up to be condemned to death and crucify 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 happen. Did you catch that?

Not only does he recount the events of the person

work of Jesus, but he shares his disappointment. He says,

we had hoped that he had been the one to

redeem Israel. We had hoped so first, it tells us

that they were sad and gloomy. Just by even being

asked the question, to have to even think about it

kind of gives him a snarky remark and now here

they're saying, yeah, there was this Jesus guy. Definitely was

a prophet doing awesome stuff, doing incredible things, but he died.

The leaders killed him. But we had hoped that he

was the one. So these disciples are messed up and

confused about all of these events. What they mean. They're

sad and discouraged because Jesus didn't do what they expected

him to do. They had an idea or expectation of Jesus.

When Jesus didn't match it, his disciples were disheartened. But

this is I mean, this is very much like us

as people, right, isn't it many of us maybe ourselves

or we know people who have been disappointed by Jesus

or disappointed by God. Maybe they're angry or frustrated or confused.

They're disenchanted with him all because God didn't do the

things that they thought that he should. People can get

angry or upset disappointed with God because of the things

they thought he was going to do in their life

but didn't. These disciples are so discouraged because they thought

Jesus was the one. But now we're going to see

Jesus respond again, and once again, not in a way

that you might expect. Put yourself in Gesi shoes. Your

disciples are standing right before you, and they're really sad,

they're really disappointed, and all the things that have happened,

and they're like, yeah, our our teacher died and was

he was amazing, but now he's gone, and we don't

even know what to make of this. Oh, actually I

skipped a section. Is not only that, but they go

on to say that, yeah, and now his body's missing.

His body's missing. Some women saw some visions of angels,

and we saw that. We sent some disciples there to

go and look and try and find what was there,

and we found that there was an empty tomb, but

there's no Jesus. And so Jesus is looking at these

these saddened disciples, once again, doing something that maybe we

wouldn't expect. Maybe if we were in Jesus's shoes, he'd

be like, don't worry, guys, I'm alive. But that's not

what Jesus does. Instead, Jesus rebukes the disciples. Jesus rebukes

the disciples and sets the record straight. Listen to this

verse twenty five. And he said to them, O foolish ones,

and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets

have spoken. Jesus just starts laying into them. He rebukes

the disciples for their unbelief, and honestly, no matter which

way you slice it, in this text, these disciples have

a problem. Either they didn't read and know the scriptures

that God had made very prevalent and important in their society,

or they did know these scriptures and they didn't believe it.

Either way, no matter how you want to go, it's like, oh, well,

maybe they just didn't know that that's what the prophets

had spoken. That's not like that doesn't get them off

the hook. That's not a good God had made his

words so prevalent in the day to day life of

the Israelites at this time that they should have known it.

If they do know it, then the other problem is

that they didn't believe it, which is what he's specifically

rebuking them for slow to believe all that the prophets

have spoken. So either way, these disciples need rebuking because

the reason they were sad wasn't even based on truth.

They were sad because they had unbiblical expectations of God.

Jesus calls them foolish and slow to believe all the

prophets have spoken, and Jesus is really calling them out

for not knowing their Bible well enough and believing it

because as a result, they're unbiblical and incomplete expectations of

Jesus have only let them down. Think about that, their

unbiblical and incomplete expectations of Jesus have only let them down.

And I don't know about you, but I've known many

people disappointed by God because people told them promises that

God never made. I've known people upset with God because

they had expectations of Him that He never told them

to expect. These disciples didn't have the full picture. And

the common kind of idea of the day of the

Messiah was kind of I was saying about, It's kind

of like a health and wealth Messiah. He was going

to show up and make everything awesome for Israel, destroy Rome,

take over, set Israel up as the top dog in

the area once again forever. Now, is it a biblical

truth that the Christ will come as a king who

will tread down his enemies and save his people? Yes,

and amen, But what if that person the first time

they show up, before they do any of that stuff dies,

you'd be confused. But what does Jesus say? Next verse

twenty six, he says, was it not necessary that the

Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? Jesus,

who they still don't know is Jesus. Just to be clear,

remember that in this rebuke, this is just some guy

on the road like throwing it down with scripture. He's

rebuking their unbelief in the scriptures or their failure of

having incomplete and unbiblical expectations. He says, wasn't it necessary

that Christ should suffer and then enter his glory? Have

you ever started building something from Ikea and you were

reading the instructions, but then maybe gift a couple steps

and you kind of end up towards the end going,

this doesn't look right. I have these extra pieces and

it's wobbly. That's kind of what's going on here. Actually,

And actually this last week I teach music lessons and

I was working with a piano student. He was working

through this music piece that he's been working on, and

as he was playing through it, I had to have

him go back and keep going over a certain part

because there was something wrong. And I'm trying to figure

out what is wrong here, is what's missing here? And

what's very interesting is in music, when you're reading music,

you can learn to read what the notes are. But eventually,

once you kind of memorize what the notes are, you

can start to kind of go off patterns. You can

start to look at the patterns and follow the patterns

and go like, oh, that's just kind of a descending line.

So you can just kind of go with that flow.

You can kind of almost go on autopilot. But the

problem is is that if you follow a pattern but

you started in the wrong place, you started on the

wrong note, you end up in a completely wrong situation.

And that is exactly what had happened. I was like, oh,

it was just by one. It wasn't it wasn't super

far off, it didn't sound crazy bad, but it was like,

this isn't right. And it's because we got the starting

point wrong. We went on autopilot and we weren't actually

reading it. That one missed note had them starting at

the wrong point and so landing at the wrong point.

And when we read the Bible, we can't afford to

go on autopilot. We can't afford to not actually read it,

because then we end up in wrong places with incomplete

or completely wrong conclusions about God or completely wrong conclusions

about life and what it's about, who it's for. Here,

Jesus is not only going to remind them of this

fact that they needed rebuking for not believing what has

been spoken and written long before, but that they had

actually missed it. They're complaining about all of these things

or being like, look, we missed it. This isn't right,

this isn't what was supposed to happen. Jesus is like,

this is kind of actually exactly what was supposed to happen.

Have you not read? Was it not necessary? How this plan,

these events that have happened are exactly what God had

actually said was going to happen. And he proves it

to him. He is look at this. In the next

verse twenty seven, it says, and beginning with Moses and

all the prophets he interpreted to them in all the scriptures,

the things concerning himself. He takes them to the Old Testament,

the ot. He takes them there and says, let's dig

into our Bible a little bit, which I actually was

realizing this is this is good news and something really

cool for us as believers that when we open and

are reading our Old Testament, we can look for Jesus. Now,

don't get weird about it, but when I read my

Old Testament, since I've learned that he's there, that there's shadows,

there's things that point to him, that prophesy about him,

maybe in a picture, maybe directly a quote being like

there's a guy who's going to come and he's gonna

look like this. It's so cool that we can look

and read in our Old Testament. But do we read

to see Jesus Even in our Old Testament. It's kind

of easy. In the New Testament. He's all over the place.

They're talking about him, he's living his life, all kinds

of stuff, and the Old Testament can be a little

bit more tricky. You go, how where's Jesus in this?

But that's actually a great question to ask, where is

Jesus in this? But I can imagine that Jesus is

walking these disciples through all the things that show that

there was a messiah who would come and who would

suffer and yet be victorious. I can think about it

in the Garden after the Fall, after man rebels against God.

There's promises given, and one of those promises is that

the seed of the woman, the offspring of the woman,

is going to crush the serpent's head, though the serpent

will bruise his heel. It's a shadow. It's not a

one for one, but there's this shadow that someone's coming

who's going to crush the serpent, and it's going to

leave him wounded, but the ospring will be victorious. What

about Abraham when he went to sacrifice his only son,

but had his son spared and the lamb provided, like

God would one day provide the spotless lamb for us,

God's one and only son, the lamb that was slain

on passover, covering the door posts of God's people, so

that the destruction would pass over them and in turn

they would be let out of the bondage of slavery

by the prophet of God. Samson kind of a random one.

We looked at that in the summer, where like, he's

not really a model citizen, but he has this miracle birth.

He's the savior of Israel at the time, but he's

ultimately given it to the hands of his enemies, where

he strikes a final blow that also costs him his life.

King David writing in the Psalms that would many of

them prophesying about the Messiah and the one who is

going to be a son of David. In Psalm twenty three,

I believe we looked at this a couple weeks ago

or twenty two. We looked at it a couple weeks ago.

It talks about him being pierced in his hands and feet,

and I'm just like, you could go read a lot

more that's there. I'm just trying to give you little

snippets of where these things where maybe Jesus would have

taken them, or in Psalm sixteen, where the Holy One

would not see corruption speaking of a resurrection, or Isaiah

fifty three, the suffering servant who was pierced for our transgressions.

He was crushed for our iniquities, and they made his

grave with the wicked and with a rich man, and

his death, yet he bore the sin of many, and

yet would have his days prolonged. And you start going like, well,

what it was. There's this suffering servant who's going to

die for the sins of his people, but also his

days will be prolonged. There's this resurrection that's being spoken of.

It's all over the Old Testament. We could go on

and on, because the whole Old Testament in so many

ways testifies too and about Jesus. It tells us what

to expect from the one we are expecting. The people

in their day, they're expecting a Messiah, and the whole

Old Testament is there to tell them what to expect,

who they're looking for. And Jesus is telling these disciples.

It's all in the book. It's all in the book,

which leads me to the main point of today's text.

Scripture must set our expectations for Christ. Scripture must set

our expectations for Christ. If you don't know your Bible,

you won't recognize your savior. And you can't afford to

let other people tell you who Christ is and leave

it at that. Now, here's the deal. It's a good

thing that people tell you about Jesus. We should tell

other people about Jesus. None of us can afford to

leave it at that. We need to confirm what they're saying.

How do we know they're telling us the truth? How

do we know it's the right Jesus, He's just like

these disciples. You could end up with incorrect or incomplete

ideas of who Jesus is and you will miss him. Well,

that can't be the guy. He doesn't meet the qualifications.

This happened to him, that wasn't supposed to happen. Now,

once again, these disciples are getting schooled by some random guy.

Like that's can you imagine the being on the road,

Like you're talking to your friend about these things, and

some guy just comes and he's just laying it down

thing after thing. But isn't it kind of weird that

Jesus hasn't revealed himself yet and that is kind of weird?

I was reading going like, I think this is weird.

Maybe you don't think it's weird. That's totally fine. I

think it's kind of weird. And at first it feels weird,

but if you really think about it, I maybe it

isn't that weird. Maybe it's not that odd. I believe

Jesus here is showing his disciples the sufficiency of God's word.

Jesus is showing the disciples before he reveals himself, the

sufficiency of God's word, the fact that scripture is sufficient

to reveal who Christ is. And this is the point

Jesus has already made earlier in his ministry. It's a

point Luke has made sure to take account of. Do

you remember that it was the parable of the rich

man in Lazarus. There's a rich man who dies goes

to a place of torment. There's a man who's poor

all of his life, and he dies, and he goes

to Abraham's side. It's like paradise, it's like heaven. And

now there's this weird dialogue. It's a very fascinating place.

But this man is crying out in anguish in torment, saying, well,

if I can't be saved, I'm stuck here. Can you

send send someone send Lazarus back from the dead to

warn my brothers, because they're headed for the same place

I am. Can you just send him back from the dead.

Because surely if a guy rises from the dead says, hey,

your brother had a message for you, you might be

inclined to listen to him. But listen to what Jesus

says in this parable. And he said, then I beg

you father to send him to my father's house. This

is the man in torment speaking for I have five brothers,

so that he may warn them, lest they also come

into this place of torment. But Abraham said, they have

Moses and the Prophets, let them hear them. And he said, no,

Father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead,

they will repent. He said to him. If they do

not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will be or

will they be convinced. If someone should rise from the dead.

That's it. This is like a teaching of Jesus. Jesus

saying if if they don't believe God's word, it doesn't

matter what miracle happens. God's word is sufficient to reveal God.

So now Jesus, before he reveals himself risen from the dead,

he reveals himself to the disciples by God's word. Jesus

doesn't reveal himself physically until he has revealed himself from scripture.

Here he shows how the scripture has been sufficient all

along to point them to Christ, sufficient to reveal Christ

to you. But is this how we interact with God's word?

Do we interact with God's word in a way that

we are expecting God to reveal himself through it. Do

we view God's word as truly sufficient and most importantly

sufficient to reveal Jesus to us because he used the deal.

Too many people pray on the fact that people don't

know their Bibles. You need to hear that. We need

to hear that as believers, as people people sitting in

this room. Too many people are prayed upon, not prayed

prayed upon because they don't know their Bible. They can

dupe you because you don't know the difference. It's so

much easier to listen to a podcast, that's so much

easier to watch this YouTube video. They can dupe you.

And not only do they dupe you, it's just lies,

half truths, incomplete truths, all these things. They also try

to give you counterfeit means of knowing Jesus. Hey, you

should read my book. I have conversations with Jesus every

single morning. I talked to him and you know, he

talks to me, and I wrote him down and they're

for you too. Shots fired or maybe your daily prophetic

word from God sent to you the email. Here is

your horoscope or your personality trait that will help you

relate to God. If you would only look into nature,

look into the hoodoo, voodoo, look within yourself, then you

will see God. That is what's out there. Jesus says,

that's all bogus. It's bogus. You want to know Jesus,

you want to know God. Look into his word. There's

only one place that truly reveals Christ. Is only one

place that can perfectly set your expectations for who Christ

is and what He does and what He has promised

in It's in your Bible. So my question to you

is this what shapes your expectations of Christ self or scripture?

You have to make sure we're not like, oh, yeah,

it was someone else he told me this. No, even

sometimes we try and go like, well, I think God

would be like this, or I think God would do

this based on what you what shapes your expectations of

anything in life for that matter, The Bible doesn't just

talk about God. It does, it's like the main point,

but he also tells you how to live your life

in light of who God is. So do you shape

that or do you let scripture do that for you?

Because it's all in there. But the reason we struggle

in our relationship with God is the same reason as

the problems with these disciples. We either don't know his

word or we don't believe it. We either don't know it,

or we do know it and we don't believe it,

and that they both hurt. God tells us not to worry,

not to be anxious or be fearful, because we have

a heavenly father who sees our needs, knows our needs,

and we'll take care of us. But we still worry.

We're still fearful, We're still anxious. Why well, we either

don't know that the Bible says that, or we do

and we don't believe it. We're told that we can

resist sin and temptations of our lust, but do we

live it? Do we live like we can actually do that?

Or do we just go like this is this is impossible?

Scripture says it's not. But do we know that, Do

we know that there's an actual fight to be had?

Or do we know it and go like I try

Maybe I tried it, It doesn't really work. He didn't

believe it. You don't believe it. God's good for his word.

We struggle to find meaning in this life as we

constantly live for ourselves. But Christ tells us to lose

our life and we will truly find it in him.

You weren't going to come up with that one on

your own. By the way, we either don't know that

Jesus said that, or we do know and we don't

believe it. When Jesus rebukes these disciples, he's not just

rebuking them, he's rebuking us. You need to let stop

letting other things, other people were, even yourself, shape your

expectations in your belief about God and his word. You

need to read it and believe it. Say it, read

it and believe it. God has given us a standard

for our expectations for this life, and it's found in

His Word. When we do marriage counseling, pre marriage counseling,

post marriage counseling. One of our favorite go to books

is a book that what used to be called What

Did You Expect. It's a fantastic book because what tries

to help you do is make sure that you're expectations

going into this marriage are biblical. Yeah, because most people

go into relationships marriage with unbiblical expectations. They go in

with expectations brought to them by Hallmark Right, or or

their latest romance novel, or the people that they see

on Instagram. That's what it's supposed to be. Like, but

a marriage counseling we try to help remind or tell,

maybe even for the first time couples, that one day,

soon enough, the heart and true reality that you are

a sinner married to another sinner is gonna hit you.

People get married hoping they found the perfect person, and

then because of their unbiblical expectations, realized that they were

duped and in fact they married the worst sinner of

all time. But no one else can see it. But

the reason no one else can see is because they're

convinced that they're married to the worst sinner of all time.

But we could only arrive at that conclusion if we've

taken the beautiful parts of what the Bible does say

marriage is supposed to be and left out the rest

about the hard work of forgiveness, humility, self sacrifice, true

biblical love. That's not just when I'm feeling it, but

the commitment to choose to love by action. You need

the full picture. When your expectations of marriage are shaped

by scripture, it won't come as such a surprise. You're like, oh, yeah,

we knew this was coming. We knew the sin was coming,

we knew the fight was coming. But we remember we're

on the same team trying to fight against this sin

rather than fight for ourselves. If your expectations for emotions

are shaped by scripture, you'll be ready to tell them

the truth. Tell your emotions, tell your feelings the truth

rather than being taken captive by unbiblical emotions. We need

to know the truth so we can tell ourselves the truth.

And I heard a passor say a while back. He said,

too many Christians spend too much time listening to themselves

rather than telling themselves or talking to themselves. They need

to speak to themselves, right, we listen to ourselves. I

feel sad, well, I guess I'm sad, rather than be like,

why are you sad? Why are you? Said? What does

the Bible say about that? Do we confront our emotions

with what the Bible says, with what God's word says.

We can do that, and we know that because we've

read in our Bible that we're told not to worry.

So what do we tell ourselves? Do not worry? Cast

all your anxieties on him, knowing that he cares for you.

It's a good one. We have to tell ourselves the truth,

and so we need to be soaked in truth, because

most importantly, we need our expectations of God to be

shaped by scripture what we expect of Him, because if

we don't, the problems and consequences are endless. If we

end up with unbiblical expectations of God, we like these disciples,

might start to lose faith in Him. It's people today

who think that maybe God owes them something, But when

you read your Bible, you go, in fact, every moment

we're living, every moment stealing breaths from Him and with

ungrateful hearts. The reality that Scripture when we read it,

the reality that scripture brings to our life is unparalleled.

Because also the Bible just tells you the truth. You

read it and it's like this is how it is,

and you're like, that is how it is, right, and

it gives you solutions, and it gives you God's promises.

We got to know God's promises, and we can't afford

to get God's promises wrong or believing things that our

promises that He never said were promises. If you don't

know your Bible, how will you know if you've been

sold the real Jesus. So many of us, especially in Washington,

grow up with different ideas of Jesus. The hippie Jesus

a predominant one. Jesus would be my homeboy. Jesus is

all love and rainbows. Unfortunately that yeah, I don't stop there. Uh.

Jesus would be maybe bros with Yeah, yeah, it's reeling in,

reeling in. Jesus would be bro That's not what we're

talking about. We can't talk about it. That's not what

we're talking about today. Read your Bible. It talks about it,

and it will tell you, Okay, these different Jesus that

we might be being sold Jesus would be bros with,

you know, Buddha, Gandhi. They basically say the same thing.

Jesus wants everyone to get along and wants world peace

and is merely a way to God. Those are different Jesus.

And then you open your Bible and, like me in

my experience, you realize Jesus says things that you kind

of can't believe that Jesus says. I remember the first

time I read through Luke. It's one of the reasons

it's one of my favorite gospels in the Bibles, because

I read through Luke and I was like, this is

a Jesus story. He tells his disciples that if they

don't hate their own family, even their own life, they're

not able to be his disciple. What he's saying is

they have to put him actually first. It's not just

lip service, Like, actually, Jesus has to come before everything

in your life. You're like, did Jesus just say that?

Jesus really say he's the only way to the Father?

Very inclusive Jesus, And like me, you read him say

that you can't even come to him unless you're drawn

by the Father, And you're like, what is this? What

is this book? Well? Who is this Jesus? But now

I want to know this Jesus because he's in here

and he's very different than the person I was taught,

and very different only because I had these snippets of

the nice, pretty parts of Jesus. But the reality, the

actually the thing that I need to be able to

stand on in truth that was missing. I got to

know the true Christ from reading the pages of the Bible.

I let God tell me who he is. And that's

what we need to do. We need to let God

tell us who he is. And you're gonna find out

that he's way better than you've been told when you

read your Bible, he's way more incredible than you could imagine.

This is why scripture must set your expectations for Christ.

This isn't only what Jesus is telling his disciples, but

it's what Luke wants his reader to understand. That everything

that Jesus did and everything that happened to Jesus was

the plan all along. You just have to know where

to look to why Paul says in one Corinthians fifteen

about the message he gave them, which was the gospel.

He says, now I want to remind you, brothers of

the gospel I preached you, which you received, in which

you stand, and by which you were being saved. If

you hold faster the word I preached you, unless you

believed in vain, for I delivered to you of first

importance what I also received, that Christ died for our

sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried,

and that he was raised on the third day in

accordance with the scriptures. Your belief about your expectations of

Christ should all be according to the scriptures. And when

you find your expectations of Jesus line up with what

scripture says, you will never be disappointed him. But this

isn't the end of our text. We have two final

pieces that we're going to run through, and if I

could have the band come up, please, we have the

reveal and the report. Starting verse twenty eight, it says,

so they drew near to the village to which they

were going. He acted as if they were going farther,

but they urged him strongly, saying, stay with us, for

his toward evening in the day is now far spent.

So he went into stay with them. When he was

at table with them, he took the bread and blessed

and broke it and gave it to them. And their

eyes were opened, and they recognized him, and he vanished

from their sight. They said to each other, 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 eleven, and those who were with

them gathered together, saying, the Lord has risen, indeed, and

has appeared to Simon. Then they told what had happened

on the road, and how he was known to them

in the breaking of the bread. These disciples, who have

at the beginning of our story been sad, discouraged, unbelieving,

headed out of town, after they've had this incredible interaction

with Jesus end up completely changed. They now are filled

with joy, wonder and awe, encouraged, believing, and running back

into town to tell the others the good news, which

I think we have a beautiful picture here of what

encountering scripture can be like. Discouraged, hurting, but when you

have a real interaction with Jesus and his word, his

Holy Spirit explaining his word to you, that on the

other side of that you will not be the same.

And I want you to know this good news has

come to you also today that if there's one thing

that Scripture tells us that you can expect, that you

can believe, that you can trust in as a starting place,

it's right here. Romans ten, starting in verse nine, says,

because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord,

and believe in your heart that God raised him from

the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart

one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one

confesses and is saved. For the scripture says everyone who

believes in him will not be put to shame. For

there is no distinction between jew and Greek. For the

same Lord is lord of all, bestowing his riches on

all who call on him. For everyone who calls on

the name of the Lord will be saved. What a

great promise. How then, will they call on him whom

they have not believed? And how are they to believe

in Him of whom they have never heard? And how

are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are

they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written?

How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the

good news? But they have not all obeyed the gospel.

For Isaiah says Lord, who has believed what he has

heard from us. So faith comes from hearing, and hearing

through the Word of Christ. Faith comes from hearing the

word of God. That's why it's so important that we

open it up, not only for ourselves but for other people.

How greatly do we need God's word daily in our lives?

And I'll ask again what shapes your expectations of life?

What shapes your expectations of Christ? Is it yourself or

is it scripture? And make that decision and don't choose yourself.

That's the wrong option. I hope that was today. Don't

be deceived by unbiblical expectations. Scripture must set your expectations

for Christ. Let God tell you who he is. In

the fourth century, there was a man named Augustine who

he was in despair over his life an unbeliever, when

he heard a little child chanting the phrase take up

and read, Take up and read. And this man opened

his Bible and came to know Christ. So my prayer,

my hope and encouragement to you today is the same

that you believer, that you unbeliever would take up and read. Amen,

would you please stand