The Greatest Sermon Ever Preached

And if you would open your Bibles to Luke chapter 24 and to

Luke 24 · chapter mention

pray for us, and we'll dig in, Father God, as we come together

in the name of your son to read a story about your son on the

day of his resurrection. We pray that you would do for us

what you, what Christ, did for Cleopas and the unnamed disciple

that was with him, or that you would open our eyes.

That we wouldn't be merely surrounded by the things of God

without understanding, but that you would open our eyes so that

when we see what you have done, we would not only see it, but

also understand it and to take in its meaning.

And so, Holy Spirit, would you come and would you, would you

open our eyes? Would you give us understanding

of the illumination of Your Word so that we could treasure it, so

that we could respond and worship, so that we could obey,

so that we could be edified and be glad in Christ?

So would you do that among us today, Lord, for the sake of

Your name among all nations, we ask it.

Amen. So we have in our family a

series of questions that will ask one another to try and just

determine what kind of soul each of us have.

What is your Patronus? What is your?

If you could, if you could pick any superpower, what would it

be? 1 of the great questions that we

ask each other on the regular is if you maybe not on the regular,

but in times past, if you had a time machine and you could go

anywhere at any time and see anything, where would you go?

You have one shot. It's like 1 wish but to go and

to see absolutely anything and there's a bunch of things that

you would doubtless a bunch of answers that we would give

depending on what we love and what parts of the Scripture

really excite our interest. There's a million places I would

want to go, but if God told me I could only go one place, this

would be it. I would go right here and walk

with Christ and listen to him for seven miles to give the

seven mile sermon. It's not to put too much weight

on this sermon, but we are looking at you're not going to

hear this morning, but we are looking at this morning the

greatest sermon that's ever been preached.

This is Christ. There is in Christ who's going

to come to his people and he's going to exposite.

He's going to take the meaning of the entirety of the Old

Testament and show it to them and the meaning is Christ

himself. So we get to walk through this

together. The first thing I want to show

you is the Mary masquerade. I look look in verse, look in

verse 13, Luke says that very that very day for the life of

me, I don't know why the the Bible translators never include

there's a there's a word here. The word is it do it's a it's a

Greek word that means behold, watch, look at this like I'm

about to blow your mind with what I'm about to show you.

It's calling attention. It's the preacher leaning

forward and saying, listen to me.

This is important, Luke. That's that's the that's at the

very start of this whole text. He says, behold, listen, watch.

The very day that Christ was risen from the dead, in the

morning he reveals himself to the women.

In the afternoon he walks with these two nameless disciples.

It's wild. What do you do on the day of

your greatest triumph, right when you just defeated sin,

Satan, death, hell, fulfilled all of God's promises, what do

you do? Well, Jesus planned a surprise

for these two disciples. He said these things, these

things I've spoken to you, that my joy may be in you and that

your joy may be full. This is John 1511.

And so our risen Christ intends for us to be glad in his

triumph. The way that this text reads,

it's really fascinating and I'll show you as we get, as we get

into it. But you, you can just imagine a

dad who's planning a great surprise for his kids.

That's Christ. He's concealing himself so that

he can blow their minds. So that very day, two of them

were going to a village named Emmaus, about 7 miles from

Jerusalem. You need to have in your mind

there's probably millions, at least a million, probably

millions plural, that have come up to Jerusalem to celebrate the

Passover. Sabbath is now ended.

And so the first day of the week, they're going back out.

There's still some. There's like an ebb and a flow

to Jerusalem at this point. So you have all of these people

coming from the diaspora up to worship, but the the city

doesn't have the infrastructure. And so you come up to worship,

you worship, and then you go back out to the surrounding

villages, spend the night so that you can come back the next

day. They're going to Emmaus, which

is a 7/7 mile journey from Jerusalem and they were talking

with one another about all these things.

And if you write in your Bible, put that in brackets.

It's something that Luke repeats again and again and again.

These things, the the things concerning the Passion week of

Christ, they're talking about these things that had happened

in verse 15. 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?

Sometimes the the so we're told that their eyes were kept from

recognizing him. He he draws near and doesn't

say, hey, here I am. I've been risen from the dead.

He asks them about what do you what is this conversation?

And Luke tells us something fascinating.

He doesn't give just the answer. He gives the the pause to the

answer to show us kind of the gravity of what these men are

dealing with. It says they stood still looking

sad. They don't give their answer

right away. They just have you ever, have

you ever been there where somebody asked you a question

And it's like it, it goes to the very soul of your being and you

can't give an answer right away. I heard a UFC fighter this week

being interviewed by a podcaster and this guy was just asking

about why he got into fighting. And this guy started telling a

story about growing up in a family where his his mom was

unfaithful to his dad. His dad was extremely violent

and he said I would, I would sneak into my parents room and

sleep under the bed thinking my dad was going to kill my mom at

any moment. And so I was there to protect.

And as he's talking about these things, this, this podcaster

asked him a, a question, a follow up question to it.

And you just hear this like pause and you hear this like

gutter roll, soul shattering, like, like a a soul that is

wounded and broken. He can't answer.

And there's just this dead silence.

And the podcaster said something awesome.

He was like, it's OK, buddy. I'll just I'll just sit and give

you a moment and and just sit here with you as this as this

man who could break all of us in a line just weeping about his

childhood. Have you ever been there where

somebody asks you a question and it goes to the to the deepest

brokenness that you've ever dealt with and you just can't

answer right away. Luke tells us that Clay Opus and

this guy that he's with. What are the things that you're

talking about? And they stood there looking

sad. And then one of them named

Cleopas answered him. Are you And I watched the irony

here as as the as the one who is a very God, a very God is veiled

in human flesh and also risen from the dead and re veiled to

them so that they don't recognize that it's Christ.

Watch the irony, they say. Are you the only visitor to

Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened that

if these things that have happened there in these days,

are you, are you the only one who hasn't heard the news?

The irony is they're talking to the only one that actually knows

everything that's happened. He's the one that these things

happened to and he's the one that overcame all of these

things. And watch what Jesus does again.

He asks a follow up question in verse 19.

What things? What things?

Tell me what? What?

What things are you talking about?

Yeah, Maybe I'm the only one I haven't heard.

Behold your risen Christ playing the hand of his sacred surprise

like a master that he is. He is veiled from their eyes.

They're meditating on his passion week, and they're

devastated. Their soul is shattered because

they had they had hoped that he was the one to redeem them, and

he died. And they're so all of their hope

is over and he sort of sucks out their sadness like poison.

Now it's very interesting because the, the gospel, if you

were to ask what is the gospel? There's, there's sort of a

Cliffs Notes of the gospel. That is the person and the work

of Christ. It's who Jesus is very God of

very God who incarnated, born of the Virgin Mary, lived a perfect

life, that that's that's his essential identity.

He is God and his man. It's the person and the work of

Christ. What did Christ do when he

incarnated? What did he accomplish?

So you've got his person and you've got his work.

And what's wild is you've got the person of Christ standing

there talking with Cleopas and this unnamed disciple, and they

know the work of Christ. They just don't know what it

means. This is the very first time

where the gospel is the the facts of the gospel are

communicated by anybody other than Christ.

This is the very first time. And I want you to, I want you to

listen to how much they know about what happens to Christ.

Meanwhile, they, they still don't know the meaning after he

says what things they said to him concerning Jesus of

Nazareth, the man who was a prophet, mighty and 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 noticed the tents here.

We had hoped that He was the one to redeem Israel.

Have you ever hoped desperately for something and it just comes

up empty? Most devastating thing ever.

We had hoped he was the one we've we've all been waiting for

since Genesis 3. We thought this was the serpent

crusher. Yes.

And beside all this, so they even know about the

resurrection. Beside all this, it is now the

third day. Luke highlights this.

The third day since these things had happened.

Moreover, some of the 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 visions of angels and that he was alive.

Now it's, it's very interesting because in this time, neither in

the Jewish culture nor the Roman culture could a woman testify in

Israel on the on the evidence of two or more witnesses is a fact

confirmed. You could have 1000 women who

testified to the same thing and in court, it doesn't matter

because they're just, they were seen as a class that that

couldn't vote, that that couldn't bear witness.

They're just, they're, they're not in the class of witness

bearers. And God, in his glorious wisdom,

decided that it would be women who were the first to testify to

the resurrection of Christ. And a lot of a lot of people are

ashamed about that. It's something we should boast

in. This is what God has done is

that the IT was the women watch this now the the entire

testimony of the church, the spread of the gospel is built on

the witness of the apostles who saw him.

But you need to understand that the women who the women were the

first ones to bear witness to the apostles.

They're the ones that came to the apostles and said we've seen

him. He's he's risen from the dead.

And so the the foundation of the witness bearers is among the

women. This is very interesting, right?

It's a biblical mega theme that Eve was told in the very

beginning that her seed would come and crush the the serpent.

And so not that she would come and crush the serpent, but that

she would give that that through the woman light would come into

the world. And so throughout history,

there's always been this glorious feminine responsibility

to be the light bringers that that they're not going to be the

warriors. They are forbidden to be the

warriors, but they are supposed to give birth to the warriors

and raise them up to be that way.

And so when the real final Savior comes, it is also women

not only who bring him into the world through the the Virgin

Mary, but also women who are the 1st to see the evidence of the

new world that Christ has been raised from the dead.

And they bear witness to the apostles.

And so these guys say, look, our, our women said the women of

our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in

the morning when they did not find his body.

They came back saying they'd seen visions of angels who said

that he was alive. Some of them who were with us

went to the tomb and found it, just as the women had said.

But him they did not see. So this is the first time that

somebody other than Christ preaches the facts of the

gospel. Paul says it this way in First

Corinthians 15. Now I would remind you,

brothers, of the gospel I preach to you.

Watch this which you received, in which you stand and by which

you are being saved. If you hold fast to the word, I

preach to you unless you believed in vain.

What he's saying is this whole notion that has kind of plagued

our culture for a while of like you hear the gospel, you walk an

aisle, pray a prayer, fill out a prayer card, and then you just

live your life as before, waiting for Jesus to save you on

the last day is not it's not a biblical it's not a biblical

response to the gospel. Paul says three things.

This is a gospel which Once Upon a time you received and you were

born again in which right now you are standing.

So don't don't talk to me about like, well, one time I walked in

now prayed a prayer, signed a card.

And so I'm I'm good. No, it's the gospel in which you

stand today or not like are you standing in the person and work

of Christ which he's going to detail out in a few moments, but

he says this is the gospel you received in which you stand by

which you are being safe. It's continually saving you if

you hold fast to the word. I preach to you and he and he

goes on to say for I delivered to you as of first importance of

what I also received that Christ died for our sins in accordance

with the Scriptures. OK notice in accordance with the

Scriptures. This is the plan all along, that

he was buried and then he was raised on the third day in

accordance with the Scriptures. That this was a biblical

fulfillment, that Christ was crucified and raised on the

third day. It was in accordance with the

Scriptures. So I just want you to see this,

brother. Sister, the facts of the gospel

are all here, but their eyes are as blind to the meaning as they

are to the man who is asking them about their troubles.

They can't recognize Christ and they can't recognize the meaning

of the gospel. They know all the facts, they

just don't know what it means. The facts of the gospel.

Think about this, right? It's the very facts of the

gospel that we boast in. Christ crucified for us,

rejected by the Jewish leaders, risen from the dead.

That's your boast. That's my boast.

That's their devastation. They don't understand it.

We're it's, it's caused them great fear, anxiety, because

they don't know the meaning. This is a great metaphor for

unbelievers and believers alike. You can make the case that all

of our troubles talking about believers, all of our troubles,

all of our fears, doubts, anxieties, they're all rooted in

the fact that we are unable to see God as he is in light of the

gospel. Or we are unable to see

ourselves as we are in light of the gospel or we are unable to

see the world as it is in light of the gospel.

So anytime we have fear, anxiety, stress, anger, like

those things that are, that are fruits of the flesh, not fruits

of the Spirit. All of those things are rooted

in the fact that we have not yet learned to see all things

through the lens of Jesus Christ crucified and raised for Sinner.

Who is God in light of the gospel?

Who, who is he in light of the gospel?

Well, if we didn't know the gospel, we would typically

offload what we received from our fathers on to God that he's

either non existent, never met him or he's he's there.

And I know he has like a a kindness or an affection towards

me, but he's but he's distant. He's never around.

I never get to see him. And so I would never call him to

ask for help because you know, he's, he's like out there or

he's abusive and violent and vengeful and I'm afraid of him.

But when we come to the gospel and we see God as the the Father

of lights in whom every good gift comes from him and whom

there's no variation or shadows due to change, that he is the

fountain head of all goodness and blessing toward us.

This is who God is in the gospel.

He is our Father. Who are you in light of the

gospel? If without the gospel, who are

you? You are a grain and a sand, one

among million just sad people walking around with no purpose

and no future. That's it.

And you can, you can medicate that and numb that, but

ultimately without the gospel, you are just a cosmic nobody.

And so am I. But in the light of the gospel,

who are you? You're the beloved of Christ.

You are one for whom Christ died.

And so is the person sitting next to you.

What is the world in light of the gospel?

It's it's chaos. The, the evil men are in charge

and they're ruining everything and they're ruining everything.

And, and if that's all we can see and we, we fail to see that

the world as it is, is the, is the canvas upon which Christ is

going to paint his sovereign mercy, his sovereign grace.

So all of our anxiety is rooted right here that we look at God's

self for the world without Christ and we live therefore in

despair. But to look at anything, all

three of those things through the lens of Christ crucified and

raised for sinners is joy unmeasured.

Now so, so they have all of the facts of the gospel, but they

have no meaning. Now.

Watch what Jesus does for them. In verse 25, He says this

gracious but firm rebuke. He said to them, oh, foolish

ones and slow of heart to believe, I love that he gives

them that grace. It's not just that he calls them

like you, our guys are so dumb. He says you're slow of heart to

believe that the book of Exodus describes Israel in their

bondage, that Moses comes and he says, I've been sent my God to

redeem you. I'm I'm going to rescue you.

God is going to rescue you. He's heard your troubles and

he's going to rescue and. They've been enslaved for 400

years and the text says that they had they were unable to

believe the word of Moses because of their long slavery.

They just been beat down and crushed in spirit.

They could not muster the joy to to hear the promises of God and

hold the promises of God and rejoice in them.

Jesus says these guys are the same way, oh foolish ones.

And slow of heart to believe. Now watch what they're slow of

heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.

Was it not necessary? Circle that word that the Christ

circle that word should suffer circle that word these things

and enter into glory. Circle the word glory necessary

Christ suffer glory. So just to think about this with

me, if we could read all of the Scriptures imaginatively, like

with a with a lens, the way that the the way that the New

Testament writers read the Old Testament.

If we could read it imaginatively, we would know

that the overwhelming mega theme of God's people is this promise

first suffering next glory to follow.

OK, wise man once said that God's favorite shape is a check

mark, right? You start here, you go down, and

then you go up higher. I think God's favorite shape is

the square root. And I don't do math, but I just

know this, this, this symbol. So a square root, right?

If you're going to draw it with a pen, you start here, you go up

a little bit, then you go down really far, then you go up

really far, and then straight over.

So amending it never the horizontal, just the continued

vector into eternity. But you start here, go down, up.

You go a little bit down, way up, super down, way high.

That's the square root. That's God's favorite shape.

And that's the purpose of or the, the the picture of the

whole Old Testament. And so think about this.

We're told that Christ begins with Moses and all the prophets.

He interpreted that in to them in all the scriptures, the

things concerning himself. He's just going through.

It's the greatest sermon ever preached.

He's going through the beginning to the end of the Old Testament

and he's saying these are the things concerning myself.

So you think about Adam, he's a perfect man in a in a garden.

And he's given a future Commission, right?

A future oriented Commission. But the problem is we're told

that he's not good alone. So he's so he's a perfect man in

a garden. He's given a command that that

goes up a little bit, but then we're told it's not good that

you're alone. And so God in a picture kills

him, breaks him, wounds his side, takes from his side a rib

that he fashions into a bride. And then he's risen from the

dead. And he's so much higher than he

was before. He's so much more now.

He has power, he has ability to be fruitful, multiply, fill the

earth, and so he receives back his self, which is his second

self, and he's better off than he ever was.

Adam and Eve, perfect in a garden, naked, unashamed,

blessed by God. So they're, so they're there.

They receive blessing from God and they become the prototype of

marriage in the picture of Christ in this church.

And then when they believe Satan, they fall out of favor,

they are expelled from the garden and they go down, down,

down, down, down until Christ takes their ultimate punishment,

their death. And then he rises from the dead

and all humanity with him. And so the human arc is is up

really far down, really far up, and then forever.

That way you think about Abraham, he receives a promise.

Abraham, Earl of the Chaldeans, right?

He receives a promise from God in Genesis 12.

God calls him out of nowhere. He goes, He gets this like

little blip of upward command of God.

I promise you, I'll bless you. I'll give you land seed

blessing. I'll make of you a great nation,

a great name in all the earth and in you all the nations of

the earth will be blessed. So he goes, he gets this promise

and then he goes so far down because in 20 years of

barrenness, this exalted father Abraham, exalted father is, is

what his name means. He has 20 years of barrenness in

the land of promise where he never acquires a square inch of

land until his wife dies and then he has to buy it.

So it's this, it's this promise first, subjection later.

And then he rises up with his with his offspring to inherit,

to inherit the, the land. So you have, you have Isaac,

right? God had promised Isaac Abraham's

20 years barren. And then he has a son of the

flesh, which is a really good thing.

Ishmael, it's a, it's a Ishmael is a blessing.

But God says, no, my covenant is not going to be through Ishmael.

It's going to be through a son from you and from Sarah.

You're going to have a son of the promise.

And so Isaac is born and God says it's not going to be my

covenant is not going to go through Ishmael.

It's going to go through Isaac. And so finally Abraham is

holding in his hand that the the, the person through whom God

is going to bless and inherit and bring about the covenant

promises. And then God says, now I want

you to take that son and I want you to go to a place called

Mount Moriah. More on that in a moment.

But I want you to go there and I want you to take your son and I

want you to take the wood of his offering and lay it on his back.

And I want you, exalted Father, to take the your son, your only

son, the son whom you love, Isaac.

And I want you to put the wood of the sacrifice on his

shoulders. And I want you to go up on Mount

Moriah and offer him as a burnt offering.

And so, and so the text tells us not New Testament, but Old

Testament texts says that they were three days journeying.

So in the mind of Abraham, the author of Hebrews tells us that

in the mind of Abraham, Isaac was as good as dead for three

days. And his conclusion was Isaac is

the son of the promise, but I've got to kill him.

And so God is going to have to raise him from the dead.

That was his faith. That's the reasoning of faith is

that Abraham said, I'm going to, I'm going to offer him up and

God is going to raise him up from the dead.

And so when they go up on to Mount Moriah, they find the

substitute. And it's not, listen to me, it's

not a lamb, it's not a baby lamb.

It's a ram caught by his horns. The text tells us the horns are

always a symbol for Kingdom, for authority, for kingship.

Think about the book of Daniel. This ram is caught in his horns

in a Bush of thorns on Mount Moriah, and and the lamb dies in

Isaac's stead, and Abraham receives Isaac back in

resurrection. So you have this, you have this

up, you have this down really far.

He thinks he's going to die. And then God raises him from the

dead. Jacob promised in the womb to

rule his brothers, to rule his brother.

The older shall serve the younger.

Jacob receives Esau's birthright and his blessing, assuring that

he would be Lord of the earth. And then he spends 21 years.

Think about this, he's promised you are going to be the covenant

son, but then he has to leave home fleeing from a fratricidic

brother. Esau was going to kill him.

So he spends 21 years in Laban's house being cheated, lied to,

humiliated and abused by his father-in-law, right?

Not exactly how you would expect the one to inherit the nations

to be treated, but he spends 21 years suffering that way and

then the end of his story, the end of Jacob's story is he's in

Egypt. His son has saved the world and

Pharaoh comes to Jacob and asks for a blessing and fulfillment

of the Abrahamic covenant that Abraham, as it were his blessing

the nation's you have Joseph given 2 dreams and of domination

when he was 17 that the fruit of his hands and the and the

essential character like his, his name, his his Kingdom is

going to be exalted above that of his brothers and his

father's. And then he spends the next 13

years enslaved, slandered in prison, forgotten, impoverished

cap. The capstone of that is he

slandered and he's thrown into the prison and he's there for a

number of for a number of years until he interprets the dreams

of two men who are who are escape from prison, one to

death, 1 to exaltation. And they forget about him not

for three, not for three days, but the text says they forget

about him for two measures of time.

For two years they forgot about him, which means on the third

year Joseph is rised up, not released from prison.

That would be awesome. Congratulations, you're now free

to go. No, we're, we're taking you out

of prison to put you on the throne and you're going to rule

the world. You're going to save the world.

So again, you have this guy who go, he gets a promise.

He goes down into the pit and he's exalted to glory.

You have David anointed as a young man, anointed as king.

He was so young. The text tells us he was

identified in the tent of his mother.

Think about this. Samuel comes to Jesse's house

and he says, call all of your sons.

So imagine if you came to my house and said, I want you to

call your sons. And I say, Eli, come here.

And I I don't even mention Judah.

It's a pretty wild thing. Like, yeah, well, he's just a

kid. He doesn't really matter.

The idea is David is identified in the tent of his mother, but

he's anointed king. And then the next story that we

read about him is he goes to battle Goliath on on the

battlefield. And when he shows up there

having been anointed king, his brother slander him.

They say that he's shirking work, that he's that he's a hot

head. David comes out onto the

battlefield. You know the story and you and

you should be able to guess it. David is identified with the

tint of his mother. Goliath is identified again and

again and again with bronze armor, bronze Nahosh, serpent,

Nahoshet. There, there he is.

If you, if we spoke Hebrew, the description of Goliath, we would

read serpent, serpent, serpent, serpent, serpent, serpent.

He's a, he's a Serpentine man, a giant.

So you have the seed of the woman, this little boy, he's

been anointed king. And you have the seed of the

serpent. And they're going to do battle.

And we, if we recognize or, or knew our Genesis 3, we would

know what's going to happen. The serpent's head is going to

be crushed. Exactly what happens.

David crushes his head, cuts his head off, but the story ends

marvelously. David takes Goliath's head and

he makes his way to Jerusalem of all places, to the very place

where Abraham brought Isaac and Isaac was substituted and his

life was spared. And David takes Goliath's head,

Goliath of Gath, which becomes through usage Galgotha, the

place of the skull, and he buries Goliath's skull in

Jerusalem. It's not that the place looked

like a skull, it was that David buried the head of Goliath there

and that's the very place where our Christ was crucified for our

sin. Christ, right?

All of these again exalt exaltation, supreme suffering

and then further exaltation to glory.

Jesus was called in the womb before he entered the womb, the

son of David, the Son of God. He was, he was called at two

years after his birth. The wise men show up and say

where is he who has been born King of the Jews.

He was declared to be the Son of God at his baptism, and then he

spends the next three years of his life in the outskirts of

Israel, only to be rejected by the Jewish leader, sold out by a

close friend, abandoned by his closest disciples and friends,

and nailed to a tree like a common thief and

insurrectionist. Think about this, the most

dignified part of the death of Christ.

If I were to ask you, what is the one thing in the death of

Christ where he where he was uncommonly dignified?

And it would be his tomb that he wasn't thrown out on the refuse

heap in Gehenna, that he was put in the tomb of a wealthy man, a

new tomb that had been cut for a wealthy man.

That's the most dignified part of his humiliation.

But then he rose up three days later to eternal dominion.

And so the question I would ask you is, why does God do it this

way? If we were writing the story,

and Paul tells us that we are, we are being transformed from 1°

of glory to the next, just like triumphalism.

I don't ever want to take a step back.

If I'm telling the story, there's no set back, there's no

loss, 1° of glory to the next. Well, two things.

Because God, by God's decree, the fundamental gesture of the

universe is death and resurrection.

That's the fundamental gesture of the story that God is telling

is death and resurrection is comedy.

It's comedy. That's what God loves to tell.

If if if we had a family movie night and I gave you three

options. You can, you can go watch Gone

with the Wind, which is sort of epic.

You can watch Of Mice and Men where where Lenny gets shot in

the back of the head tragedy. Or you can watch Nacho Libre,

Gone with the Wind, Anybody. No.

Of Mice and Men, Anybody. No.

Maybe, maybe some. No.

We would choose Nacho Libre. We would choose where this

lovable loser right kills Ramses and gets incarnation incarnacion

where he where he kills the dragon, he gets the girl, he

rescues all the orphans of the world.

Listen, there's a reason we like comedy best of all.

Comedy always ends with a wedding.

It always ends with with the lovable loser conquering the the

foe that cannot be defeated and then he gets married.

That's because we're Christians and God has seen to it that the

world is comedic. He promises that the world is

comedy. Listen to me, brothers and

sisters, the world ends well. The world ends in the defeat of

evil and in the marriage covenant of the Lord.

The second reason is because our God would not have us lose heart

even in the worst of circumstances.

This life is the closest thing to hell that a believer will

ever face. Some of us are going through

really rough times. Some of us are neutral, some of

us are in great times. But when it's at its worst, this

life is the closest thing to hell that you'll ever face.

It only gets better. It only gets better.

Sadly, the reverse is true for those outside of Christ, This

life, it's an unthinkable devastating truth.

But this life is the closest thing to heaven that they will

ever know. But but for the believer, like

as as bad as it can get, God is going to raise it up to much

greater glory. So give me please 5 more minutes

to show you something magic. So Christ is interpreting the

things concerning himself in the Scripture.

In verse 28, the text says they drew near to the village to

which they were going. So 7 miles, leisurely walk while

they're talking. We're talking about a number of

hours. And so as I beg you for five

more minutes, just be grateful that I'm not preaching for four

hours in light of the sermon that they got, that they got

theirs was much better. So they drew near to the village

in which they were going and he acted so.

So he's still playing this mystery.

He's still teasing them. He acted as if he were going

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

for the afraid of stored evening and the day is now far spent.

And so he went in to stay with them.

And when he was at table with them, he took bread and he

blessed and broke it and gave it to them.

And their eyes were open and they recognized him.

Now this could be that as he's, this could be just the physical

act of he's been walking. They haven't noticed what's

going on, but now he grabs the bread and he lifts it up and his

sleeves fall and they see the scars and they say it's, it's

him, it's the Lord. It could be just physical.

It could also be the, the spiritual blindness that that

was put on them, that they could not recognize him.

But the text stresses and emphasizes this, that it was

when he took bread and blessed it and broke it and gave it to

them. Their eyes were open and they

recognized and they recognized him in the breaking of bread, in

the feeding of his people. And then unthinkably, he

vanishes from their sight. Now just pause for a moment.

You've, you've been, you've been taught the entirety of the Old

Testament. You've seen now the meaning of

all the sacred Scripture, and the meaning is Christ who was to

be rejected, suffered, and exalted to glory.

You've seen all of that, and now you see the resurrected Christ

and he vanishes. What's the first words in your

mouth? Where did he go?

Run outside, Call him back. Where are you going?

Watch what they do in verse 32. 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 they are.

They are so overwhelmed by the meaning of Scripture that they

can't even lament that Christ has gone from their presence and

watch what they do in verse 33, they rose that same hour

returned to Jerusalem. How do you like that?

That's like my friend will over here in the corner that jogs to

Taco Tuesday and then jogs home. Like who walks 7 miles just gets

there and says we, we got to go back right And so they turn and

they go back to Jerusalem same day.

They found the 11 and those who are with them gathered together

saying the Lord has risen indeed and he appeared to Simon verse

35 and then they were told what had happened on the road and how

he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Something about the breaking of the bread that causes Christ to

be known to them. So they say, did not our hearts

burn within us while he talked to us on the road when he opened

to us the scriptures? 2 things I I just learned this

week digging into this and, and I've it's the smartest human

I've ever learned from. His name is Doctor Warren Gage.

He was he's a he's a theologian. He was a practicing lawyer, like

super, super, big time Dallas mega lawyer firm.

He's really phenomenal. And he was saying that they were

taught in court. You put your when you're

building a case, you put your strongest arguments first so

that by the end you don't lose your audience.

So you put you, you start off with your strongest argument.

And so I want you to, I want you to see these these disciples are

devastated because they think that Christ is not alive.

They think that he's gone. They think that their hope is

perished. And he has at his disposal at

any moment the trump card of like, look at the scars, put

your hand here. But he doesn't do that because

that's not as good proof as the testimony of the Old Testament.

The scriptures of the Old Testament are more sure

testimony to us than the scars on his hands.

And so he takes the time to teach them the entirety of the

Old Testament. Secondly, that he leaves them,

which sounds heartbreaking until you realize that he leaves them

to ponder the scriptures that he had just taught them.

So he gives them everything they need to be fed on his, on his

rejection, on his crucifixion, and on His exaltation by leaving

them with the Scripture. So Jesus is risen.

We cannot see him. The good news is that he is

still made known to us in his word and in his sacrament.

He still reveals himself to us in the breaking of bread.

Why do we break the bread? Why do we come to the Lord's

Table every Sunday? Because and I quote.

He was made known to them in the breaking of bread, and it's

still the same way. Christ is still the living Lord

who feeds His people, and who surprises us with hope made new,

and who reveals Himself in the tending of His flock.

We are His body. He gave Himself up for us that

He might sanctify us, having cleansed us and washed us with

the water of the Word, so that He can present us back to

Himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, so

that for the rest of all time Christ can nourish and cherish

us, because we are His body and we are his bride.

So can I just invite you, brother, sister, look here at

the table. See the normal bread that brings

with it, by God's grace, God's Holy Spirit, a real

participation in the body of Christ.

See the wine that by God's Holy Spirit is a real participation

in the forgiveness of sins every Lord's day of our lives.

And in the breaking of this bread and the pouring out of

this wine, we see Christ who suffered for us, that he might

rise up and enter into his glory, and that he might bring

us with him. There is no greater joy

available to man than Christ himself who has offered to you

here and now and succumb and welcome to Jesus Christ.

And we pray for us, Lord Jesus, we confess we are just like

Cleopas and the unnamed disciple that we we lose sight of and and

have not fully understood the meaning and the accomplishment

of your rejection, your crucifixion, your resurrection,

and your ascension. These are things we need help.

We need help recognizing who you are as the resurrected Lord of

the earth. And so, Lord, we ask you this

morning once again that you would reveal yourself in the

breaking of bread, that you would show yourself to us as we

come to this table together, eating the bread, drinking the

wine, remembering the broken body in the shed blood of our

Savior. So would you draw near to us?

Would you minister to us at the table?

Lord, we ask him in Jesus name, Amen.