Seeing Jesus on the Road to Emmaus

Heartbreak is replaced by heartburn, the good kind, the fire of you know that fire. You know when it happens to you. You know when you come here heavy and you leave here light. In some measure, you've had a revelation of God in your mind, but you've also had an encounter with him. He hears their disappointment. He walks with them. He unpacks the scriptures so that he can minister to their mind, and then he gives them a a concrete example of his love for them. [00:43:13] (42 seconds)  #EncounterWithJesus

And and and something happened when he reached out with that bread and and broke it open and they saw something. And imagine that moment, they saw the scars in his wrist. They saw the suffering that he endured for them. Love without sacrifice is not love at all. Love is defined by sacrifice. You know someone loves you. When they sacrifice for you. In that moment, they knew the depth of the love that Christ had for them, for he gave his life for them. [00:41:56] (49 seconds)  #LoveThroughSacrifice

He doesn't just point to the empty tomb to prove that he's alive. He opens up the bible, and he acts as a master key unlocking every door in the Old Testament. He shows them that the seed that the woman, the seed of the woman crushing the serpent in Genesis is him, that the Passover lamb in Exodus is him, that the suffering servant in Isaiah 53 is him. And they continue to go again and again and again pointing to how the bible points to him. [00:36:37] (45 seconds)  #BiblePointsToChrist

When you truly encounter the resurrected Jesus, it changes your direction. You can't keep it to yourself. The joy of the witness is a natural expression of that burning revelation in your heart. To be honest, some of us would have walked in this room today on the road to Emmaus. I mean, you might be here physically, but but a part of your heart is drifting from love for Jesus. [00:44:59] (38 seconds)  #ResurrectionTransforms

You're carrying within you a shattered bag of expectations, whispering, I had hoped for, but. I'm here to tell you that Jesus is with you, right beside you in the dust of your disappointment. And he wants to and and he's inviting you to open up his word and to sit at his table and let him open your eyes. That the cross isn't an accident. It was a plan. [00:45:36] (37 seconds)  #JesusInDisappointment

It's Jesus, but verse 16 says that their eyes were kept from recognizing him. Why? Because they were looking for a conquering king who would overthrow Rome, not a crucified rabbi. Their own expectations about who Jesus is and what he was called to do and what happened on the cross had blinded them to his very presence with them on this road. [00:32:53] (37 seconds)  #ExpectationsBlind

If we look at the places where we're blinded from knowing who Jesus is, often we have a we had hoped moment. We had hoped that the marriage would have worked. We had hoped that the treatment would have succeeded. We had hoped that God had heard our prayer and answered and helped in our time of need. We had hoped that our child would have come back to faith. [00:33:50] (30 seconds)  #HopeDeferred

Sometimes you'll leave here and those thoughts just stay with you. And as you ponder them, they they begin to change you. They're the author that begins to wipe the the the the the scales off your eyes. And that's what's going on as Jesus gives this bible study. We're told that that within the hearts of those disciples, there's something burning in them. They're starting to understand why this Jesus was crucified on the cross. [00:38:45] (31 seconds)  #ScalesOffEyes