What a Living Hope Means

Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones preached a message on this section of scripture. In it made an interesting comparison. He compared the disciples to the church and challenged us to examine ourselves to know if we have met the resurrected Lord. I think that it is time to use this comparison again, for it is as accurate today as when it was first preached.

The Church Today

What kind of impression does the Christian give the World today?

Are we joyous, happy, marching forward to victory?

Or are we gloomy miserable sad individual bemoaning our state in the world?

Are we excited about church or is Church a duty that must be attended to only?

In other words, where is our heart....

This is an important line of questioning.

Let Look at the two Disciples

Luke 24:13–15 “13 Now behold, two of them were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was seven miles from Jerusalem. 14 And they talked together of all these things which had happened. 15 So it was, while they conversed and reasoned, that Jesus Himself drew near and went with them.”

They talked together about all these things that had happened....

The conversed and reasoned....

They looked back, remember all that God had did and felt that it was over, it had come to an end. Jesus was dead and in the grave.

“Is this not a perfect picture of the church today? So often we just spend our time talking about the great days that once were, the things that some of us even remember. Those of us who are older are particularly prone to this trouble. We look to the past and talk about the past, and we begin to idealize it, and the more we do so, the more unhappy we become. Tradition is excellent, but when you live on it, and when you become depressed by it, you already have a wrong attitude toward it. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “The Church Today: The Road to Emmaus,” in Setting Our Affections upon Glory: Nine Sermons on the Gospel and the Church (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013), 72.

They are looking back, trying to understand all that has happened and why they have come to the end and where they are now…

Luke 24:18 “18 Then the one whose name was Cleopas answered and said to Him, “Are You the only stranger in Jerusalem, and have You not known the things which happened there in these days?””

Then they define the things they are thinking.

Luke 24:19–21 “19 And He said to them, “What things?” So they said to Him, “The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a Prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. 21 But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened.”

They are trying to understand this, to reason with it, to explain it.

There eyes are closed to the scriptures, and it shows the lack of a important truth of scripture and the Lord’s message being their theme.

There they are: “We had thought … but, oh, what’s the use of thinking? They tried him and condemned him unjustly. They crucified him. He died, and they buried him. And he’s in the tomb.” They are so certain of this that they have become oblivious of everything else and blind to everything else. And I have a fear, my dear friends, that that is the trouble with so many of us. We are so aware of the problems, so immersed in them, that we have forgotten all of the glory that is around us and have seen nothing but the problems that lead to this increasing dejection. That is my analysis of these men on the road to Emmaus.

Now lets see how the Lord defines them.

Luke 24:25 “25 Then He said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!”

They were foolish.

Who is a fool? Psalm 14:1 “1 The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.”

Had the disciples forgotten God? Not really, but by their error they were leaving Jesus in the tomb. Thinking that things were over, that the hope of Israel was done, that there was no going forward....

Now if we get to this point where we look only at the world and the past and think, this is it, it is over, there is no hope going forward, that we as well are looking like these disciples.

The Church must be ready to believe and to think. The question is always what to think?

1 Peter 1:13 “13 Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;”

We must start with what God has done and has promised and use this to lay the foundation we build our thoughts upon.

If we start with man, with our ‘visible problems’ and troubles we will be trying to build with sand.

Yet if we go back to the Word to lay a foundation, we will be building on a rock which never moves.

This is one of the reasons that I am a pastor. WE are address the ultimate areas of life.

We don’t just give into the world, but we apply scripture and place our hope in the Lord.

They were also “Slow of heart.

Where elsewhere we are excited and put in the work to know, in the scriptures we are often slow of heart.

We wonder how small a section I can read. Your mind wonders and eyes grow heavy.

This is also something that we must deal with…

We don’t just gird up the loins of our mind, but we also stir up the gifts of God in us.

2 Timothy 1:6 “6 Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands.”

It isn’t enough to have these gifts, we must use them, stir them up and get them ready.

The disciples were content to think back and stop. To now get into the theology of God, but to focus on their recent loss.

The next phrase might be the most important. They were slow of heart “to believe in all that the prophets have spoken.”

Here is a trouble not just for them, but for us.

If we get off on the scriptures, we will find no hope. If we turn from the light, only darkness awaits.

Notice how severe Jesus is with them.

It is justified. They have the scriptures, He has repeated pointed them to the Word of God and they have forgotten it. It hasn’t been in their calculation of events....

It is the same words that He uses in the upper room later that night to the rest of the disciples.

Luke 24:44 “44 Then He said to them, “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.””

Why were they so wrong and rebuked?

They were Jews with a Jewish tradition that wasn’t biblical. It didn’t take everything into account. They failed to hear the words of Jesus and to understand that He came to die.

The Result of Meeting with the Real Jesus

Luke 24:28–35 “28 Then they drew near to the village where they were going, and He indicated that He would have gone farther. 29 But they constrained Him, saying, “Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.” And He went in to stay with them. 30 Now it came to pass, as He sat at the table with them, that He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight. 32 And they said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” 33 So they rose up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, 34 saying, “The Lord is risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” 35 And they told about the things that had happened on the road, and how He was known to them in the breaking of bread.”

Notice the change. These are no longer that same men. They are men who the Master has sought.

You might say that they had seen the Christ, this is what made the difference, but it isn’t what the scriptures record.

Luke 24:32 “32 And they said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?””

It isn’t seeing the miracles, or even Jesus in person, it is having the truth of scripture laid open before us. It lights our heart anew. It is the fire that burn away the dross that has covered our hearts and smothered the flame of our love.

This death was not a loss but a gain. This was the fulfillment of God’s promise in Gen.

Genesis 3:15 “15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.””

You shall bruise His head, The seed of the woman that would conquer Satan… It was here at the cross that this happened. This was God’s plan.

Notice the change in their lives.

There is a holy energy. They return to Jerusalem. Whatever their reason for leaving, now they must return and rejoice with the others. They must, the must… They must find others and share.

Jesus is risen and is alive.

Thoughts for the evening.

If we had to chose between the before and after, which would we be tonight?

This is first to us as individuals. Are we depressed? Hope is lost? Thinking that it is over?

Or are we overflowing with Joy in having met the Lord?

This is what draws people. Our passion and joy in God. We are not following a hard slave driver, under the judgmental eye of God, but we are following and walking with our Lord and friend, our savior, our God and it is a privilege.

Are we laying the right foundation with God’s Word? Are we hoping in Him and the Power of the Gospel or are we looking at the strength of the World?

Are we girding up our Minds to know God better? Are we stirring up the gifts He has given us? Again this shouldn’t be drugery, but joy…

1 John 3:1–3 “1 Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. 2 Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. 3 And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”