Luke 24:13-35 | Hearts That Burn | Alex Culpepper

Well, if you don't know me, it is a joy for me to be here with you this morning. My name is Alex Culpepper. I'm the lead pastor here at Renovation Church. And it's my joy every Sunday to be able to open up God's Word. And that's what we're going to do here.

We're going to be in Luke chapter 24. If you have a Bible and want to follow along, if you don't have one, we do also put the passage up on the screen so that you can follow along with us. Let me just tell you first, if you're new or visiting, we're really glad that you're here. And I just want to say, if you're here this morning and you don't believe in Jesus, you're not really sure what to think about Jesus. You're still figuring that out for yourself.

I just want to let you know that the deep desire of me and also just everybody in our church is that you would come to an encounter with the living Christ, that you would meet him, that you would know what it is for him to meet you, that you could experience his love and have him change your life. That is our heart for you. And so along those lines, this morning, I just. As we start out, I want to ask you a question. And the question is this.

What makes your heart burn? Some of you are like, pizza makes my heart burn. We're gonna have Easter lunch in a little bit. And you're like, maybe that'll make my heart burn. But no, that's not the kind of heartburn that I'm talking about.

Talking about passion, what brings you to tears?

What would cause you to maybe even, like, stand up and shout about something. I'm just going to put a premise up here on the screen for you, something to think through as we think about the idea of our hearts burning. Our hearts burn. I believe when we are desperate and we have a hope of overcoming the combination of desperation and hope is something that would stir us up on the inside, that would make us passionate, that would get us excited. So some of you have this kind of passion for your kids and your grandkids.

This is the experience that you have. And I would tell you there is nothing like parenting to make you desperate, right? To help you recognize how great the need is, Right? And so what this causes, though, in you is that when you're. You're with your kids, you're parenting you.

You hope to see them grow up into something, even the smallest of wins with Your kids can elicit like the greatest of responses from you. I'll give you an example of this. So. So my daughter Autumn has been in a particular gymnastics class for almost a year now. And, and in this gymnastics class, what they have to do is they have to learn how to do back bends.

Right where you go from. I'm not gonna demonstrate it. Just wanna let you know where you go from standing up and you kind of bend backwards and you're able to catch yourself. And she has not been able to do this the entire year. And there's a gymnastics showcase coming up where she's gonna have to do this as a part of the routine that she has.

And she's been very nervous about it. And so she's been working on it and trying to figure it out, but she's also been kind of worried. And Friday, you know, I'm just sitting there like working on my own thing and I see her off in the corner of my eye and, and like she's in the middle of the floor and all of a sudden she just does a backbend. And I went, yeah, good job, Autumn. Like just like it erupted out of me.

I didn't know that it was coming, but that's what happened, right? Because that was the posture of my heart. Right. I was desperate for her to get through this and indeed my hope was realized. So another thing that makes us get up and shout is sports.

Right now. I haven't watched basketball in probably nine years, but I will let you know, if I had to pick an NCAA team that is my team, I would pick the University of Illinois. I just want to let. Yeah, yeah. I've got like three people in here who are like, yes, University of Illinois.

And you know, it has been a long time since I've watched basketball. I watched basketball last night and sadly you of I lost. But I tell you, I was invested in that game all the way through. And it doesn't matter how long it's been since I've watched basketball. I'm like, I have this hope all the way through that maybe they're just going to get ahead, but maybe they're gonna score finally a three pointer, but then they can never make one.

And so I point that out because this idea of burning hearts is actually central to the story that we're gonna encounter about Jesus resurrection today. And so as we do that, I'm gonna pray and I'd invite you to pray with me. As we just approach God's word, Lord Jesus, I recognize that what we need more than anything else. More than impressive, more than the ability to relate. Lord Jesus, we need an encounter with you by your Holy Spirit.

So I say, come, Holy Spirit. Would you increase. Would our risen king increase in the eyes of all who are gathered here? Would I decrease that we might truly meet and encounter you and know what it is to be loved by one who is so powerful as you?

So draw near to us, we ask in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. So Luke 24, verse 13 starts out like this. It says that very day, that very day would be the Lord's day.

Sunday, the day of the resurrection. That very day, two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. So two of them, that would be two of Jesus disciples. Now we think of Jesus as having 12 disciples, and he did have 12 core disciples, but then he had a number of other people who followed him. And these are two of those other people who followed him.

And it says all these things. What had happened on Friday is that Jesus had just died. He had died during the Passover. And in Luke's telling of the story, what, what we have, we find out before this actually that Jesus did raise from the dead that, that he appeared to some people. But these disciples whose story we're considering, they have not seen the living Jesus yet.

And this passage, what it does for us is it gives us insight into what's happening inside of their hearts. And so it goes on. In verse 15, it says while they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. So they're walking on the road. They're on this seven mile journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus, which is going to be a long walk for them.

And they're discussing all of these things and all of a sudden Jesus walks up like. In fact, what this is telling us is that the risen Jesus is making a point of finding these two people that he could draw near to them on the road. But it says in verse 16 that their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, what is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk? And they stood still, looking sad.

I want you to take note of a few things so that you can remember them with me. The first thing that I want you to notice is that they were kept from recognizing them. Somehow, some way. It seems that Jesus both intentionally changed his appearance. And how that worked, I'm not exactly sure.

But the idea is that Jesus intentionally changed how he appeared to them, but that simultaneously something else is happening in the hearts of these two disciples of his that they were not ready to see the risen Jesus. There was something about them that was not prepared to encounter the risen Jesus. And the second thing I want you to take note of is that they were sad. They have broken hearts, they're stuck in grief. And as we go further in the story, we'll see exactly why they were Sad.

So verse 18, one of them named Cleopas answered him. Are you the only visitor in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days? So who is Cleopas? If I were a first century Christian, which is like the kind of Christian that the Gospel of Luke is written to, so this telling of the gospel is written to first century Christians and Luke brings up the name Cleopas in his gospel, I would have known that that name would have rung familiar in my ear, because as people were telling and retelling the story of Jesus, Cleopas name became common. And so that's why he can write this name here and people understand who, who he's talking about.

And if, if I know that, then I would have also known that Cleopas had a wife named Mary. If you were to go to the Gospel of John, in John 19:25, it mentions a man named Clopas and his wife Mary. And what that probably tells us is that these two disciples on the road are a man and his wife who had spent significant amount of time following Jesus. And they are struck, this man and his wife, Cleopas and his wife, they are struck by the fact that there is a person who happens to be traveling from Jerusalem who does not know about these things that have been happening. How could you have been in Jerusalem and not know about these things that have been happening?

Like the whole city has been in uproar about these things. How could you possibly not know about these things? And so verse 19, he said to them, what things? You just need to know. Jesus has a sense of humor, right?

Tell me more. I want to hear more about what you have to say about this. And they said to him, well, the things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet, mighty in word and in deed before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death and crucified him. So can I tell you about what it means that Jesus was mighty in deed and in word. One of the things that Jesus did in his ministry as he went around is that Jesus healed people he healed a number of people.

I think of a girl who had been struck with a fever on her bed. And in fact she died. The girl died because of the fever. And the girls father came to Jesus and said, hey, could you help my daughter? And the father didn't know that she had already died.

And Jesus said, yeah, I can help her. And by the time Jesus arrives at their house, the mourners for death are already there. There are these people whose job it is literally to go and just to wail and cry when somebody dies. And those people had already arrived at the house. And Jesus goes in, he starts going into the girl's room, and everybody's like, hey, what are you doing?

And Jesus says, well, she's only sleeping. I'm gonna go wake her up. And the people who are supposed to be mourning start laughing because what Jesus said is so ridiculous to them. But Jesus goes into the room, Jesus sits down next to that girl, and Jesus simply says, wake up, little girl. And he reaches down into death and pulls her out of death and into life.

I think of other kinds of stories. I think of a man who is born blind. And Jesus sees him sitting on the road and he's just. He's begging in his normal place. And Jesus comes up to him and he.

He heals him, right? He heals him of his blindness. He had never been able to see. Suddenly he is now able to see. And that man, as he went and told Jesus had done and started explaining himself.

And he was asked questions by the rulers and the chief priests and all of these people. And they said, tell us, you know, this man claims to be the son of God. And Jesus or the guy who was healed says, yeah, I don't really much know what he claims to be or not be. But one thing I do know, I was blind and now I can see, right? Like, I know everything I need to know in these things.

So Jesus healed people. The other thing that Jesus did is that he went around and he taught the truth of God's word with clarity. The religious leaders of the day, they would have these debates among themselves about maybe this passage means this and maybe this passage means this. And they would create a lot of uncertainty about what it means to really love God and follow God. And Jesus would come and he would bring clarity where before there was ambiguity.

So Jesus spoke the words of God with clarity in it and conveyed to people that they could themselves actually know God in some. Some way actually have a relationship with him. Jesus took authority over evil spirits and freed people from them. I think of a story where there was a woman who had been. Her back had been curled and bent over and Jesus comes up next to her and sends a whole.

An evil spirit away from her, casts out an evil spirit and then all of a sudden her back is not in pain anymore. She is able to straighten up and she is fine now because of what has happened. I think of another story where there was a young boy who would throw himself on a fire and then throw himself into water and nearly drowned and have epileptic seizures. And he was stuck in this constant pattern of always trying to find different ways to put himself to death. And Jesus casts an evil spirit out of that boy and he's completely healed and recovered.

He doesn't do those things anymore. Right? So all of these things, what the point I. The reason I point all of this out is that as Jesus was going, there were things that seemed to be wrong with the world and Jesus was setting them right. There were things that were not right and Jesus was fixing them.

He was piecing back together the brokenness. And that same Jesus, who had done things that people had never witnessed or experienced before, that same Jesus was put to death by the religious leaders from among his own people.

So verse 21 says. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Remember, we're paying attention to what's going on in the hearts of these two individuals. And I hope that as we pay attention to them, that you would also be paying attention to what's going on in your own heart. So Cleopas and Mary had followed Jesus because they believed that Jesus was the one to redeem Israel.

They believe that Jesus was their Messiah. We call him Jesus Christ. And Christ is not his last name. Christ is his title. Christ is reference to his role as the Promised One of Israel, who indeed was told by all the prophecy, he would come and he would set right all that is wrong in the world.

When you look at the bulk of prophecies of the Messiah, they speak of one who's coming, yes, to sit on the throne of Israel. But then from that place he is going to spread the rule and reign of God out to the whole world. That the earth will would be full of the knowledge of the Lord, that a world that was distant from God would come back into alignment with him.

And so this brings us back to our idea of burning hearts. Remember, our hearts burn when we're desperate and have hope of overcoming.

You see, after spending time with someone like Jesus, your perspective on desperation gets reframed.

This is not the desperation of a sports competition. It was fun to talk about that, right? This is not even the desperation of wanting a better life for your kids, although that is a very real thing. This is the desperation of seeing a disordered and dark world. This is the desperation of seeing disorder and darkness in your own heart.

This is the desperation of living in a world where people give into the lie of addiction, where you would curse people in your own heart, where pride and status become more valuable than integrity, where the poor suffer, where people are stuck under spiritual oppression, where people get rich and then after they get rich, they get satisfied with their own stuff and forget about their neighbors. Where people get sick, where people suffer with anxieties and depressions and griefs and sorrows. This is how Jesus understood desperation. This is how Jesus reframed the lives of his followers to understand and see desperation. And if these disciples walked with Jesus, it means that they let Jesus put their their attention on these kinds of desperations.

And their hope in walking with Jesus was that Christ Messiah would set right all that is wrong with this world. That's what their hearts were set on. That's what they came to believe. That Jesus would come and resolve all that is broken, that he would put it back together. And here's what's happening.

The more time that they spent with Jesus, something was taking place. The more time they spent with Jesus, the more they noticed their own hearts changing. The more time they spent with Jesus, the more they saw him heal and restore lives in tangible ways. The more time they spent with Jesus, the more redemption came to seemingly unredeemable circumstances. The more time they spent with Jesus, the more their hope grew.

In fact, the passage that Jesus read at the beginning of his ministry to explain the purpose of his ministry fully explains, like, what they were seeing and experiencing with their own eyes. In Luke 4:18 and 19, Jesus said, this is what I am here for. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives recovering of sight to the blind to set at liberty those who are oppressed to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. That's what Jesus had come to do.

That's what they had come to believe about Jesus. But verse 21 says, but we had hoped, meaning their hope died with Jesus on the cross. The fire that was in the hearts of this husband and wife had flickered out. I mean, that's why they were looking sad when Jesus came up and they didn't recognize him. And he said, what are you talking about?

About?

So they speak a little bit more about how they heard reports of, like, a missing body and how some woman disciples had said that they saw him risen from the dead, but they didn't really believe that. It's clear in the story that they didn't believe that. They probably believed somebody had stolen his body. But either way, their hope at this point had been dashed into pieces. Their desperation had turned into despair.

And so verse 25, he said to them, o foolish ones, and slow of heart, he's paying attention to what's going on in their hearts. Slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into glory?

Verse 27 and beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

I don't know what this Bible lesson was, right? But they've got a long time. Like they're walking from one place to another. They're on quite a journey. And so as Jesus is walking along, they still don't recognize him.

He starts going through prophecies.

Perhaps he would have explained in Isaiah 7:14, the reference to a king who would be born of a virgin. Or in Micah 5:2 of a king who would be born in a place called Bethlehem. Or in Hosea 11:1, which says, out of Egypt have I called my son and said, you remember how they told us Mary and Joseph with Jesus went to Egypt and then came back. Or perhaps Isaiah 9:1:2, which says that the Messiah would have a ministry in the northern part of Israel, in a place called galilee. Or Isaiah 35, 5, 6, which would speak of the healing ministry of Jesus, saying, the lame shall leap like a deer, the blind shall receive their sight.

Or Malachi 3:1, which would speak of the cleansing of the temple, where the writer would say, zeal, for your house has consumed me. Or Zechariah 9, 9, which spoke of the triumphal entry of a king on a donkey into Jerusalem. Or Zechariah 11:12 and 13, which would speak of the king being betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. Or Psalm 22:16, which would speak of pierced hands and pierced feet. Or Psalm 22:18, which would say, they would cast lots for my garments.

Or Psalm 34, 20, which would say, not above bone of his would be broken. Or Isaiah 53, 9, which would say that he would be buried with the rich in a rich man's tomb. Or Psalm 16:10, which would speak of a Resurrection. And those are all prophecies specifically about Jesus. But then if you go back through the Old Testament, you also see that there are kind of roles predicted, places of need in humanity that need to be fulfilled, that are pointed to and forecasted by the Old Testament.

You could go all the way back to the beginning of the Bible in Genesis chapter three, where there is a promise of one who would crush the head of the serpent, right? Or Deuteronomy 18, where there is a promise of a prophet who would speak God's words. Or Psalm 110, where there's a promise of a priest who could actually bring people near to God. Or 2nd Samuel 7, which speaks of a king whose throne would last forever. Or Psalm 96, which speaks of a judge who judges with perfect righteousness.

Or Psalm 23, which speaks of a good shepherd who leads us through the valley of the shadow of death. Or Hosea 2, which speaks of a groom who is very patient with an incredibly adulterous bride. Or Isaiah 53, which speaks of a Messiah who would come as a servant to suffer for the sins of his people, to be crushed so that they could receive redemption. See all of this, what I've named for you up here, I just want to let you know this is only a small portion of all of the ways that Jesus is visible on the pages of the Old Testament. The Old Testament was proof to God's people, proof to Israel, proof to these disciples of a creator, of a creator who had been interacting with his creation, even though that creation had rebelled against him, Right?

And so God entered into creation and he gave promises about a man to a man named Abraham, who would have this nation. And through that nation, many families of the earth would be blessed. And so this nation called Israel comes about, and God cares for them and does miracles for them. And out of that nation, what happens is that he would extend invitation to people everywhere in the whole world to come and encounter their Creator who loves them and who is pursuing them and who desires them to know Him. This is what the Bible is about.

This is what the pages of the Old Testament. And so when he was explaining the Scriptures, Jesus essentially says to them, look, the Christ is on every page. He did in fact come and show that he was who he had been promised to be.

So verse 28, they're coming to the end of their journey. And so they drew near to the village to which they were going, and he acted as if he were going further on.

But they urged him strongly, saying, stay with us, for it is toward evening. And the day is now far spent. Something has shifted in this husband and wife. They went from being in despair to now it says they are acting and speaking with urgency. There was nothing urgent about their attitude before, but now they are urging him strongly, would you stay with us?

There's something about this conversation that they have just had with Jesus that makes them not want to let go of this moment when they see the wonder of what he was accomplishing and all of the promises that are laced through Scripture. And there something is going on in them, something has shifted. And so he did go in to stay with them. So they're going to sit down and have dinner. And verse 30, when he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed it and broke it and gave it to them.

So undoubtedly this moment would have been recognizable to them, right? Even. Even when they couldn't see and understand who Jesus was at the time, they would have looked at this moment because this is the moment of intimacy that Jesus had with his disciples before his arrest. Right before his arrest, Jesus took bread and broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you. And he took wine and put it into a cup and said, this is my blood which is poured out for the forgiveness of sins.

He said these things, and he said, this is symbol to you of my love for you. Greater love has no one than this that he would give up his life for his friends. And something snaps for them, something clicks in their mind in this moment when Jesus blesses the bread and broke it, that points them back to this moment. And it is the repetition of that very intimate moment that brings about the next part, verse 31. And their eyes were opened and they recognized Him.

And then he vanished from their sight.

So remember, they were kept from recognizing him. But now they see Him. Now they know that he's alive. Now their hearts are in a place to receive the truth of his resurrection.

And apparently that's all they needed, because after that, he disappeared. And their story from that point, their story with Jesus would become one of the most influential stories with Jesus in the entire world throughout all of history.

What happened? What happened? Like, what changed? Why now were they able to recognize what they couldn't recognize before?

Verse 32? This shows us why they said to each other, did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road and while he opened to us the Scriptures? What happened is that their hearts changed. Their hearts were hard and cold and despairing. Their shattered hopes, their grief that had all of their attention.

It had so much of their attention, that they could not see beyond it. They couldn't get their attention beyond the hopelessness that they were experiencing, the despair that they were experiencing, until Jesus came along and encountered them and spoke scripture into their hearts. And as he spoke the words about himself in all of the scriptures, it lit their hearts on fire. And these desperate people once again had hope rekindled in their hearts, a hope of overcoming. And my prayer is that the same would happen to each of us this morning.

They rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem, and they found the 11. So they're going to Emmaus. They decide, you know what, we need to go back to Jerusalem. So they go back to Jerusalem and they found the 11 and those who were with them and gathered together, saying, the Lord has risen indeed, church, he is risen. Amen.

Amen. So what I ask this at the end of each sermon because I've been talking for a little bit, and we should know what to do with this. How do we walk away from with this? I just want to ask the question, because it's a question that should be relevant to every single one of us. How does a heart begin to burn?

How does a heart begin to burn? It starts with desperation. We need to become desperate over sin and death. We live in the suburbs of Chicago, for what it's worth, one of the most affluent, affluent places in the entire world.

And desperation looks like for us, like we're just desperate for the bears to win guys like, that's. Or we're desperate for our kids to succeed.

And I think that because of where we live, we're often too comfortable to be desperate for more than that.

We don't understand what it means to be desperate for our disconnection from our Creator. We don't understand what it means to be desperate for a world that is wrongly ordered to be rightly ordered. We don't understand what it means to be desperate for true justice or to be desperate for healing, or to be desperate over the darkness that is in our own heart hearts. In fact, the gospel of John says we love the darkness because it lets us continue to stay comfortable.

But if Jesus were here, if Jesus were with us, do you know what he would do? He would labor to show us that our comfort is an illusion, that our comfort is lulling us to sleep while we give ourselves over to empty causes, causes that could never really truly restore our relationship with our creator. He would labor to show us how the kingdom of God is breaking into the world, which brings healing, to sickness and peace, to anxiety and joy. To grief. He would teach our hearts to long for connection with God and see that God could bring about good in the world.

And he would cause this is the beautiful thing is once you see the good, the wonder that Jesus can do, it takes those comforts and they begin to turn to dust in our mouths. So Jesus would make us desperate. So that's number one. But then number two is that you would see the Jesus who loves you. Jesus fulfilled all of the prophecies surrounding his death so that he could suffer and die for what is disordered and sinful and rebellious and wicked in you and me.

He loves you. He died for you. If you were the only human being to die for, he still would have died for you. He still would have suffered for your sin and rebellion, and he still would have risen from the dead, proving that he was powerful to conquer it.

So then finally confess him as Lord and believe. So if you find that 1 and 2 are true, that you are indeed desperate over sin and death, that you are beginning to see the Jesus who loves you, then your response to what he has done is step three. Would you make him the Lord of your life? Romans 10, 9, 10 says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. And that's what happened to those disciples.

Yeah, that's what happened to those disciples on the way to Emmaus. And that's what God has made available to everyone who is desperate and willing to hope in what Jesus has made for our overcoming.

So if you want to take that step today, this is what I'm going to do. I'm actually, I'm going to pray. And after I finish praying, we have prayer ministers who are going to be on my right and on the right and left side of the stage.

And so once I finish praying, the worship team is going to come up here during my prayer. We're gonna sing some music in response. But if today you want to take the step of placing your faith in Jesus, there are prayer ministers who are gonna be serving up here. They would love to walk with you through that step. You can go up here to the sides and have them pray for you and just say, yeah, I wanna trust Jesus today.

You go up there and while we're all singing, you go. You don't pay attention to what's going on here. You go and you give your life to Jesus.

So I'm going to pray and I'll ask the worship team to come up while I'm Praying.

So, Father, thank you.

Thank you for your wisdom in piecing together this plan of yours that you had set before the ages to die. To send your son to die for sin. That we could be forgiven. That we could know what it is to have grace and peace and life and hope and joy.

But also to plan ahead of time that your son would rise, that death would spit him out. That he would crush death and sin under his foot. That he would conquer the enemy of our souls.

Father, thank you for what you have done for us. I pray for each and every person in this room that you would make us open and receptive to you changing our hearts.

God, even as we go to Easter dinner. May we? And as our Easter gatherings, Lord, that we would recognize that you're still seeking all the more to change us from the inside out.

God, I ask for renovation church. That you would give us hearts that burn with passion for you, Holy Spirit. That you would fill us and make us effective to participate in the work of your kingdom breaking into this world.

And so, Jesus, we lift up your name. And as we worship, we ask that you would continue to make us aware of your presence with us. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.