Burning Hearts

Introduction

Last Sunday evening we watched the first session of the DVD series we’ve started titled, Behold Your God and in that first session we looked at the life of A. W. Tozer. Tozer was a man committed to seeing the church revived from a cold formalism into a living and breathing Christianity, the Christianity we see present throughout Church history and promoted by the giants of church history. Those who joined him he called the fellowship of the burning heart, a name that finds its origin in our text today. As we’ve been going through the book of Genesis I want to explore why we are here, me preaching and you listening, and what we hope to gain from it. We are meeting today and I want to explore why. Specifically, why are we going, verse by verse, through the book of Genesis and through all of Scripture. Is it so you can have more bible knowledge? Is it because that’s just what we do? Are we just stubborn and refuse to give up our Sunday services for selfish reasons? I certainly hope not. No, you goal is to be among those that Tozer spoke of, those with a burning heart that seeks more than a nice 40 minute sermon, nice singing, and a few short prayers. those who seek to know what it means to abide in Christ, to dwell in him. Those who want to know what it means to pray without ceasing, who want to know the joy that Paul was willing to give up everything for, and who are convinced that Christian faith is more than someone we add on to the rest of our life. Today we will look at this curious phrase, “burning heart” and with it look at why we gather under the Word of God preached and what it all means to us in our lives.

What is a Burning Heart?

To understand what is meant by the two disciples when they say their hearts burned within them, we need to look at the whole story. Leading up to this passage we find ourselves in this morning, we know that at this point the disciples had already found the empty tomb and were in a state of wonder and fear. The crucifixion of Christ was fresh in their minds and despite Christ’s words to them of how he would rise again, they are slow to understand or believe these words and their lack of belief has left them in a state of doubt and insecurity. Has everything they believed about Jesus been wrong? How are they to pick up the ashes of a broken faith? Then the women that had gone down to the tomb of our Lord that morning come back to the disciples with an incredible story: The stone in front of the tomb had been rolled away, Jesus’ body was gone, and two angels sat nearby telling them that he had indeed risen from the dead. And as we read the rest of the story, how the disciples doubted, how Peter ran to the tomb to look himself and marvelled at what had happened, knowing the rest of the story and the various promises Jesus had made, find the rest of the story natural and familiar. Even if this were your first time reading through this Gospel, you would know that Jesus had foretold his death and resurrection three times before, and it is no surprise to see his promises come to pass.

But in this story of the two disciples on the Road to Emmaus, a story unique to Luke’s Gospel, We see the resurrected Jesus take this a step further. The scene is set up as we are told of two disciples, one we learn later is named Cleopas, walking the seven miles from Jerusalem to a town called Emmaus, where they presumably live, and they are talking about all the things that had happened, according to verse 14. It would be appropriate for us to ask ourselves, what exactly are they saying about all the things that had happened? Is this a conversation of hope and faith in the words Jesus had told them about being raised from the dead? Or is it a doubtful conversation full of lost hope and disappointment? We are soon given more information as Jesus enters the scene.

As he approaches them, he asks them what they are talking about, going straight to the reason he appeared. Images and appearances of Christ that have been purported by many people are often shrouded with mysticism and subjective experience without the solid nature of biblical revelation. When God appears, it is to tell us something about himself or how we may know him better, and it is given in no uncertain terms, and that is exact what happens in this story. Now is there an significance in the fact that Jesus hides himself from their view at this time? There absolutely is. In fact, the whole point of this story revolved around this detail. If Jesus had been made known to them right away, would it have been helpful for these two men and their faith? They certainly would have been happy, their sorrow would have been turned to joy in an instant. Their state of grief, their pain, their confusion, and their insecurity could have been taken away in a moment, but God is always looking for our greater good and what is important for these men is not the immediate relief from grief, but a trust and understanding of the Word of God and what it says about him. As it is, these two neither understand the Scriptures nor do they believe the very explicit promises Jesus had made before his crucifixion. Jesus calls them foolish and slow of heart for this reason. So instead of revealing himself, Jesus wants their faith to be in the Scriptures rightly understood and so this is what happens. Jesus points them to the Scriptures for proof of his resurrection before he points to the physical evidence in front of them.

The story ends when they implore Jesus to stay with them the night. As he breaks bread, they suddenly realize who he is and he disappears. Later, these two disciples will learn that Jesus also appeared to Peter, and be present when he appears again to the disciples. There is significance in this action. For a few hours, Jesus had been taking them through the Scriptures, from Genesis right up to the present time. Jesus was not just pointing out Scripture verses here and there that prophesied his coming, he was telling them the story of Scripture, from the creation of Adam, the covenants with Noah and then Abraham, the exodus, the covenant with David, and the promise of the prophets for a new covenant through the suffering servant of the Lord prophesied of in Isaiah. Jesus chose the moment when he broke bread to reveal himself to them because it completes that grand story. What did Jesus say at the last supper when he broke the bread and poured the cup? He said that these were signs of the new covenant formed in his blood. The same covenant foretold of in the prophets, the same covenant that all the other covenants pointed to in the person that was being looked forward to ever since the fall, all of these things pointed to the new covenant through Christ. Not only does Jesus reveal that he is indeed Jesus, he is showing them that he is this Christ whom all the Scriptures spoke of. It is at this point that the two disciples use this phrase, “did not our hearts burn within us.”

The Opposite of being slow (vs 25)

Our first clue to what they mean by having burning hearts is in verse 25 when Jesus calls them “slow of heart.” There is a definite progression in these two disciples and their attitude towards the hidden Christ. At first they call him a stranger and accuse him of ignorance, at the end they invite him to stay with them. At first they treat him as ignorant, by the end they are learning from him. At first their hearts are slow, at the end their hearts burn within them. So whatever they mean by having burning hearts, it is the opposite of having slow hearts and it is the positive change that overcomes them as a result of what they heard and experienced on the road with the hidden Christ.

So what does it means to have a slow heart? Jesus actually tells us. What are their hearts slow at? Look at verse 25, they are slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken. Jesus cuts right to their main problem, unbelief in the written Word of God. As that unbelief changes, their hearts change.

Hearts burning while they heard the Word

There are two aspects to the slowness of their heart that keeps them from embracing the things the Scriptures have spoken of.

A blindness to the true message of Scripture.

First there is a blindness to the true message of Scripture. We can assume that these two men where at least somewhat familiar with the OT law, the prophets, and the writings such as the Psalms since these were read in the Synagogue every week. It’s not that they are ignorant about what the Scriptures say, but they are ignorant about what Scripture is about. Have you ever had a conversation with someone and no matter how many different ways you try to get your point across, you can just tell that the other person doesn’t really get it? Or perhaps you have heard some something several times but one time you finally get what it means and it just makes sense, it drives home. So these man, while familiar with the words of Scripture, were blind to it’s true message and thus were slow to believe that message. I can think of many times when I have been evangelizing to someone, carefully attempting to communicate the core message of the Gospel, and their response has indicated that they didn’t really understand the message. This is true of most of the world, even those who are able to recite the Gospel accurately. Even bible scholars with PhD’s that have written books and articles about theological topics most of us have never even heard of can be completely blind when it comes to the Gospel’s core message and how it affects us. Perhaps some of you remember at your own conversion if you grew up in the church how old truths that you always said you believed all of a sudden made sense and it felt like something completely new. Or a Scripture passage you had read countless times all of a sudden made sense. When we approach Scripture, we must approach it with the conviction that it all centres around a single theme and message, and if you are blind to this message you are blind to Scripture regardless of how well you think you know it.

Jesus gives these men a lesson in biblical theology, theology is so important, and this theology revolved around one person: the Christ, and clarifies one of their biggest misunderstandings of this person by showing them that it is necessary according to the Scriptures that the Christ would suffer and die before rising from the dead. Correct theology is extremely important here. I’ve heard some say that Christianity isn’t knowing about God, it’s knowing God. To that I would give a hearty “amen” along with the reminder that if you know someone, you also know about them. The people you love the most are the people you know the most about. Unfortunately, many who claim a love for Christ know next to nothing about him or his Word.

A Spiritual Blindness of doubt.

The second way their spiritual blindness is apparent is a spiritual blindness of doubt. During Jesus’ life before his crucifixion, these two men had believed that he was the Christ until his death. After that, he had gone down in their mind from Christ to prophet, quite a demotion for the King of glory. This reveals not only their ignorance of Scripture’s main point, but it shows a lack of faith in the person of Christ. This unbelief did not come about after the death of Christ, it was already there even when they believed Jesus to be the Christ. How do we know that? Because the fact that they stopped believing after his death means that they never believed that Christ was greater than death. Of all they believed about who Christ was, in the end they believed that death was stronger than Christ, that death was the victor. These men, who at this point have not been filled with the Holy Spirit, do not have the faith that God expects of his people, they are doubters like the Israelites in the wilderness whose complaining and idolatry always came back to this one big problem: they kept doubting God. Moses is gone for 40 days and they are worshipping a golden calf because they thought God had forsaken them. They complained after three days in the wilderness because they didn’t believe God would provide for them. The fact is that God is trustworthy, and those who cannot see that are dull and slow in their heart. They don’t believe what they ought to and they doubt that which is certain and reliable.

As Jesus explains the Scriptures to them, this unbelief disappears. They show hears begin to burn within them with a faith. The language of burning reminds us of what Luke would later write about the coming of the Holy Spirit to the Church, and that language signals to us that what these men experience is some kind of spiritual foretaste of the great blessing God was going to give the church after the ascension of Christ, a blessing that remains very real in the lives of Christians today. As the OT is explained to them, they don’t take this in a simple head knowledge. They begin to change, the Spirit begins to work in their hearts so that they are in a very different situation after

Knowing Scripture is much more than memourizing verses or citing theological doctrines, it is an intimate knowledge that makes all of Scripture beautiful specifically because it leads you to Christ and helps you to know him, love him, and serve him. Scripture is only rightly understood when it centres around Jesus Christ and when it changes you. The man who built his house on the sand and not the rock did not necessarily disagree with the propositions of Christ’s words, but he did not put them into practice, he was not changed by them. Hearing the Gospel expounded from the OT changed these men from being slow in their hearts to burning in their hearts.

Remember that Jesus is just expounding the OT here. The idea that Christians can basically put the OT aside because we have the NT is not only unbiblical, it stops us from understanding the NT rightly. The NT is simply the explanation of the OT and the revelation of it’s fulfilment. Fulfillment doesn’t mean irrelevant, it means made full, brought to its greatest end. In other words, the NT takes everything from the OT and brings about its great conclusion. When you read a book or watch a movie, you don’t skip to the end do you? Not only would that not make sense, you would loose any gravity or weight that the story has to offer. Jesus goes over the OT with these two men because they need to hear the story before they see the glorious conclusion of the risen Son of God. This is why we have spent so much time in Genesis. For some of you, being in the OT for so long in the morning service might seem foreign or even difficult. And as I’ve preached through that book, I’ve tried to take care to keep pointing us back to the NT. What we see is that the message of Genesis is the same message as Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the other Apostles who authored the NT books. It’s all the same story, and we can comfortably spend over a year in Genesis because it is constantly pointing us back to Christ and the Gospel.

Hearts burning while they walked with Christ

But there is something else that contributes to the burning that they were aware of in their hearts. It was who they were with as they walked and who it was that gave them the Words of life and a right understanding of the Word that caused their hearts to grow from slow to burning. Throughout the NT, the Christian life is described as more than what we know, it is a walk, that is, a lifelong experience with Christ. Jesus tells his disciples in John 15 that we need to abide in him. The Apostle Paul often talked about knowing Christ with a desperation that made him forsake everything else in his life that he may gain Christ. In 2 Cor 3:18 Paul describes the Christian life like this: “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” The Christian life is an experience in which we behold the glory of the Lord. What kind of effect does such glory have in the life of the beholder? Moses’ face glowed, and yet we are told that he saw fading version of the glory we behold every day in a spiritual sense. The Scribes and most Pharisees knew the Word of God well, but they did not receive the baptism of John or walk with Christ as a disciple, and their knowledge of the Word proved meaningless, only a witness to condemn their unbelief.

Cleopas and his companion note after Christ reveals himself that they should have known it was him, not by the look of his face, but by the burning in their hearts. The Spirit worked in their hearts and sparked faith into them as they walked with the Lord and hung on his every Word. When Christ called his disciples, he called them to leave their previous life and identity and go with him wherever he would go. They would later be filled with the Holy Spirit and continue to walk with Christ in a less physical yet much more real sense. What happened on the road to Emmaus was not simply a theology lecture, it was an experience of walking with Christ from glory to glory, and it is that experience that causes a burning heart.

How do I know I have a burning heart?

But how can we be sure we have hearts that burn as theirs did? Many have mistaken a passion for theology for a burning heart, just as many have mistaken the emotional atmosphere of a conference or other religious experience as burning of the heart. How can I know that my experience is indeed an experience of walking with Christ?

First, your desire is ultimately for Christ and not for the experience. The Westminster confession says we are created to glorify God and enjoy him forever. That enjoyment assumes a genuine, felt experience. However, if the joy is in the enjoyment itself and not in the end, that is, God himself, it is idolatry and not a true burning of the heart. Those who walk with Christ need more of him, and find no rest or true enjoyment unless it is in him. The Christian is called to put all their eggs in one basket and look for joy only in walking with him.

Second, a burning heart delights in prayer and the Word. Historically, reading you Bible and praying have always gone hand in hand in the legacy of our faith. While some emphasize the experience of prayer over solid theology, others emphasize good theology over using that theology to draw us closer to God in prayer. For Martin Luther, prayer was always done with an open Bible, and Scripture was always studied in prayer. How is your prayer life? Is it centred around Scripture and around the glory of God? Is it more like going through a list? Does it really exist at all? John Knox called prayer the breath of the Christian. Are your breathing spiritually? Are you praying without ceasing? A burning heart is fueled by the Word, but cold wood is useless without the fan of Spirit-filled prayer. Do you desire prayer? Do you desire to grow in the Word? These are how we walk with Christ.

Third, doubt gives way to faith. Those who walk with Christ begin in a place of doubt, with faith that begins as a tiny mustard seed, but as you walk it grows into the confidence that God means us to have. As doubt gives way to faith, sins gives way to obedience, foolishness gives way to wisdom, pride gives way to humility, our private concerns and goals give way to the cause of Christ and his church, ignorance gives way to knowledge and love for God’s Word, and self interest gives way to sacrificial love among the saints. As Paul said, we are growing from glory to glory. To have a burning heart is nothing less than to be in the continual presence of Christ, and to have that presence more realized as we grow in faith.

Fourth, you become invested in the Kingdom of God. To walk with Christ means to become more and more like him, and that leads us to desire the things he desires. What does Christ desire? Why did he come? To establish his Kingdom of earth. How is that done? Through the preaching of the Gospel by the power of the Spirit. By the growth of the church and her representation of God and his character. A heart that burns rightly is one that yearns to see Christ glorified. It is one that suffers to think of the destruction of the lost and urgently looks to see the Gospel preached to them. It is someone who can say, like Paul in 2 Cor 11:28, that they suffer anxiety for the churches of God every day, that they would be healthy and glorifying to Christ. It’s someone who is brought to leave the comfort of their life to live completely in light of the Kingdom of God, perhaps to the mission field, the preacher’s pulpit, the evangelist’s burden, or even the martyrs stake. Whatever our role in the body of Christ is, those with a burning heart are invested in the ministry of Christ and his Kingdom, even to the loss of their own personal interests.

Conclusion: Pursue a Burning Heart

My singular desire for each of you this morning today is this: that you would desire and pursue a burning heart. Christ approached these two men for this exact reason, that they would walk with him, grow in their faith, and thus grow in their affection and love for God through the work of the Spirit. This is God’s will for your life. The church is not meant to be a cold place with a few burning coals, we are called to be a bonfire made up of burning hearts, heating each other and being heated by the encouragement of our love and common faith. There is no place in the church for someone who stays in a slow hearted state forever. So why should you pursue a burning heart?

It is what you were created for. Just as Adam walked with God in the garden before the fall, you were created to walk with God through Christ. You don’t create your own destiny or purpose, you were made for this. It is why you exist, and to pursue the road of a burning heart is to pursue your own natural habitat and be led into the green valleys of God’s presence.

It is the only source of true joy. Listen to the words of Psalm 16:11, “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Because this is what you were created for, you will find no greater joy, indeed no true joy at all, outside of a dedicated walk with Christ. Put all of your eggs in life into this one basket, be radical, don’t show temperance or balance here. All joy is found only in the presence of God, a presence that gives a burning heart to all those in it. It is a truth so vital that it is absolutely correct without exaggeration or hyperbole to say that if you life without a burning heart, you have never truly lived.

It’s the only way to serve God. If you want to serve God, you can only truly do so with a burning heart. Nothing makes our worship more disgusting in God’s sight than the presence of a cold, slow heart. But God is pleased when we serve with a burning heart. Later on in this chapter we see that what happens to these two disciples happens to the rest of them. They also begin with doubt according to verse 38 and Christ relieves this doubt by appearing among them and revealing the true meaning of the OT Scriptures to them in verse 45. Christ does this to equip them for the work of ministry that they would soon engage in with great power and zeal.

Is your experience of the Christian life one that includes a burning heart as I’ve described it here? Because if it is not, I urge you to be discontent with that kind of Christian life. It’s less than what God wants for you, provides for you, and expects of you. God wants you to have a thriving prayer life, a devouring hunger for the Word, a passionate love for the saints, and an unreserved allegiance to the cause of the Gospel. Do not rest until you have it, and when you have it do not stop, but in his Spirit seek to grow from glory to glory. If you want to get practical, get on your knees and seek the Lord, read the word as your pray until your heart is convicted and encouraged and led to pursue him more. Oh that each of us would walk with hearts more violently aflame with such glory, what a force we would be for the Gospel in this community. Seek it, with all you are seek it, don’t stop and don’t be sidetracked from the pearl of great price. There is nothing else worth obtaining and if you lose everything else once you have, you have gained a value infinitely greater than what you could loose.