of this morning, and that theme is the Scriptures.
I love this story, and while honestly this is
one of my favorite parts of the Easter story,
we're not actually going to focus on the Easter
part of this story. That yes, this happened on
that Resurrection Sunday. But I want everyone
to look at your Bibles right here. Because let's
be really honest, okay? This is a real big book,
right? Pop quiz, how many books? Very good. 66
books in this Bible, many of them written by
different people in amassing many, many, many
different years. So many different stories and
passages, parables, teachings, Proverbs, Psalms,
all of these things included in this book. And
we as this church believe something very special
about this book. We don't believe that this is
just a good book. We don't believe that it's
just a book of good writings that give us moral
teachings. It is that, but it is much more than
that. We believe that this book, most of your
Bibles will probably have a word before the word
Bible, and what word is that? Holy. See, the
word Bible on its own or on its own isn't special.
You can have a Bible of a bunch of different
things, but that word there before is very important
because this God's Word written for us. As the
human authors wrote it, the Bible says they were
guided by the Holy Spirit so that every single
word on these pages is what God wants us to know.
And that's an incredible miracle, amen? But if
there's this many pages, this many books, what
is really the point of all of it? Because it
seems like some of it could be pretty disconnected.
When you go all the way to the Old Testament
and then think of some of the stories in the
New Testament, we might wonder, how do we really
connect all these things together? And the point
of it all, of course, as we will discuss in detail
today, is Jesus himself. And this is a question,
or it moves us to another question, that even
the people in biblical times us today and even
Jesus's 12 apostles had to tackle themselves.
It leads us to a question, who is Jesus to you?
And I want to challenge you that if your answer
comes from anywhere other than God's word, it's
not going to be a correct answer. See, Even the
apostles were asked this question by Jesus in
Matthew chapter 16 before we dive into the road
to Emmaus passage I want us to look at this as
we introduce the passage here Jesus is talking
to them after they've come off of a boat and
a really harrowing experience on the sea and
he says now when Jesus came into the district
of Caesarea Philippi he asked his disciples who
do people say that the son of man is? and they
give this answer and they said some say it's
John the Baptist others say Elijah and others
Jeremiah or one of the prophets and they continue
but Jesus said to them and this is the question
every single human needs to answer but who do
you say that I am I don't care what other people
say who do you say that I am and good old Peter
gives he blurts it out as Peter normally does,
but he gives a really good answer, doesn't he?
Simon Peter replied, you are the Christ, the
son of the living God. I wish the story ended
right there, right? Because let's be honest,
did Peter give the correct answer? Yes, he did.
Great job, Peter, okay? Now, your foot is not
currently in your mouth, let's leave it that
way, right? But he didn't. Because it sure sounds
like Peter understands who Jesus is, but we find
out just a few verses later that he's missing
something crucial. Look at verse 21. From that
time Jesus began to show his disciples that he
must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from
the elders and chief priests and scribes and
be killed and on the third day be raised. He
starts telling his apostles and his followers
that this is what he's going to go through. And
I honestly believe that Peter didn't even hear
the part where Jesus said he was going to be
raised because he was so caught up in the first
part. Go to the next verse, because look what
Peter does. And Peter took Jesus aside and began
to rebuke him. He's rebuking Jesus, which Foot
and mouth. It's already happened saying far be
it from you Lord. This shall never happen to
you Jesus's reply, but he turned and said to
Peter get behind me Satan You are a hindrance
to me for you are not setting your mind on the
things of God but on the things of man So how
did Peter? Go from saying something so right
To saying something so wrong that Jesus looks
at him and says get behind me Satan For this
is a hindrance to me. How does he go that far
because? Peter completely misunderstood what
the Old Testament scriptures actually said about
the Messiah Just like the other people who had
wrong ideas of who Jesus was, Peter had a wrong
interpretation of the Bible which led him to
a wrong understanding of Jesus. At this point,
I truly believe that Peter had come to the conclusion
that Jesus was the Messiah. But he still didn't
get it. He still thought like so many people
then did that the Messiah was going to come in
as this conquering King with no issues and overthrow
Rome and take over and bring God's kingdom physically
on earth right then and when he heard that Jesus
said I need to be good I need to go and be captured
and suffered and crucified and killed Peter said
whoa that doesn't match up with what I think
supposed to happen here He had a wrong understanding.
And church, I don't know about you, but I don't
want to have a wrong understanding of Jesus.
Do you? I want to be sure that I know the true
Jesus, not a wrong version of him that I have
made up in my own mind. So how do we do that?
Well, that leads us to the main point of today's
message. To know Jesus correctly, we must know
Scripture correctly. This might seem like it's
just another Easter story, but it's so much more
than that. The entire point of this story in
this passage on that Easter Sunday is to teach
us the importance of Scripture, because to know
Jesus correctly, we must know Scripture correctly.
Our two disciples on the road to Emmaus had this
same problem. I want you to think about the state
that they're in mentally and emotionally. These
aren't two of the 12 apostles. They're two disciples
of Jesus. And we only even get a name of one
of them. We don't even know the gender of the
other one. It could have been a husband and wife.
We don't know, but we have Cleopas, or however
Christian pronounced it, his is probably right.
We need Alex. He would know how to pronounce
it. But we get him and this other disciple. And
while they're not part of the apostles, we know
that they were with them. They were with the
apostles when the women came back and gave the
report of the empty tomb So we can surmise that
these men were extremely close to Jesus They
had seen him teach they had believed in him just
like Peter but then they saw him die and clearly
they didn't believe that he had risen from the
dead as these women had come back and told them
and now they're making this journey on the road
to Emmaus heartbroken Confused and I can guarantee
you they were scared because now They're the
fugitives They're the bad guys in the eyes of
Jerusalem and the Israelites because they're
the ones that were following Jesus and they're
feeling defeated They're thinking everything
that we had believed everything that the Bible
had led us to believe seems to have been shattered
before our eyes until Jesus comes and corrects
it as he always does Let's look at verses 19
through 21. Again, I don't know if those will
be on the screen here, but I'm gonna read them
for you. Just verses 19 through 21. When Jesus
appeared to them, he said to them, and I love
this by the way, I love that when they're asking,
they don't know it's Jesus, and they're like,
are you the only person who doesn't know what
happened in Jerusalem? Talking to the man who
was crucified and killed, and Jesus says, what
things? I love Jesus's humor. I really hope you
guys notice Jesus's humor. He's my kind of person,
right? I can just imagine. He went through all
of that and now he's going, hmm, what things?
Do tell, please. Enlighten me. What happened
in Jerusalem? And look at their response. they
said to him concerning Jesus of Nazareth a man
who was a prophet mighty indeed 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 had hoped that
he was the one to redeem Israel yes and besides
all this it is now the third day since these
things had happened they make the same mistake
that these people before, just like Peter or
the Apostle said other people had made, and calling
Jesus just a prophet. But we really find the
source of their error, I believe, in verse 21.
Did you catch it? But we had hoped that he was
the one to redeem Israel. That word hope See,
as I said before, these disciples were clearly
close to Jesus. They had heard him preach and
prophesy, perform miracles, and claim to be the
Son of God, and yet they used this word. We had
hoped that he was the Messiah. Instead of using
a different word, that we had trusted that he
was the Messiah. I want to show you a difference
this morning in this idea that they had in hoping
in Jesus and trusting in him. The dictionary
defines these two words in these ways. Hope means
to want something to happen or be true, but to
trust means assured reliance on the character,
ability, strength, or truth of someone or something.
And you can really feel the frustration in Jesus
when he responds to them. Did you catch Jesus'
response to them? He says, Oh, foolish ones and
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 his
glory? Jesus reminds them the Old Testament prophets
spoke of the Messiah being a suffering servant.
If they truly knew what the scriptures taught,
they would have expected this. Yet the religious
leaders of their time had morphed the prophecies
of the Messiah away from that and into the military
leader who would overthrow Rome. Because that
was much easier to sell to a crowd than a suffering
servant. And yet all it takes is a study of Isaiah
53 to see what the Messiah would have to go through.
That he would suffer. that He would be pierced
for our transgressions, that that's what the
Messiah is, and if these people had rightly understood
the Scriptures, then they would have rightly
understood Jesus. You see, church, I want you
to know this, that the truth of Scripture leads
us from hoping in Jesus to trusting in Jesus.
The truth of Scripture leads us from hoping in
Jesus to trusting in Jesus. And I can tell some
of you are wondering there's you're feeling the
tension of like well We use this word hope as
a positive thing all the time in church, right?
Faith hope and love and the greatest of these
is love, right? And I'm not writing off the word
hope I want to make sure we understand that hope
is a beautiful thing and scripture tells us we
find our hope in Christ But you will only find
your true hope in Jesus when you trust that Jesus
is who he said he is Because if we have a false
version of Jesus in our minds, we cannot place
our hope in Him. We have to trust beyond the
shadow of a doubt that Jesus truly is the Son
of God, the Savior of the world who came for
us. And the only place where we will find the
information to show us that and prove that to
us so that we can trust Him is right here in
God's Word. But then next let's look at how Jesus
used the scriptures to teach these disciples
about himself So if we need the Bible to make
sure we can trust that Jesus is who he says he
is so we can place Our hope in him. How did Jesus
do it? Look at what he did. It says this is how
Jesus did a Bible study Okay, I love this it
says and beginning with Moses and all the prophets
Jesus interpreted to them in all the scriptures
the things concerning himself. You see, these
disciples, like many people of their time and
ours, had missed the point of who the Bible said
the Messiah would be. So Jesus showed them, bless
you, the proper way to study the Bible. Now,
if you were to go on the street and ask random
people what part of the Bible talks about Jesus,
where would they probably say? The New Testament.
And do we blame them? No, where do we find the
specific stories of Jesus's birth, ministry,
death, and resurrection? Where do we find them?
In the New Testament. We find those in the Gospels.
Where do we find where his followers told people
about him and taught the theology of who Jesus
is in the New Testament? That's what people go
to. But listen, Jesus interpreted the Bible with
them and used not just the New Testament. You
know how I know that? Because the New Testament
didn't exist yet. And what was Jesus's goal?
Don't miss this. Was he just giving them a random
Bible study? To say, hey guys, here's some really
cool stories you probably didn't learn in Jewish
Sunday school, okay? That makes no sense because
they didn't meet on Sunday. Saturday school,
okay? Something you didn't meet on Sabbath school.
That's what we'll call it, right? No, they didn't
have the New Testament yet, but his only goal
was to teach them what all the scriptures said
concerning who? Himself. Let me teach you how
the Old Testament points to Jesus. Let me show
you how all of the Bible points to Jesus, because
that's the point of the entire Bible. It's all
about Jesus. See, there's been a disturbing trend
in Christianity in the last decade or so to lessen
the importance of the Old Testament. It's called
archaic or outdated. Some say it portrays a different
God than the New Testament does We even have
mega church pastors like Andy Stanley saying
like things that we should unhitch His words
from the Old Testament I mean, why do we need
that old thing when we have the New Testament?
I mean all the things we need for Jesus are right
there in the New Testament, right? So that's
all we need now I told Jessica It's May the 4th
as a Star Wars fan, I had to mention something
with Star Wars. It made me think of this way,
okay? I loved Star Wars growing up and Disney
bought Star Wars and made it awful. And one of
the worst things Disney ever did was before Disney
ever bought, I promise there's a point to this,
before Disney ever bought Star Wars, there were
tons and tons of books for all the nerds like
me. to go and read. So you had the movies and
there were only a few movies, but there were
tons of books with incredible stories from the
Star Wars universe for fans to dive into and
love. And Disney came in and they said, Hey,
we don't want any of that. And they said all
of those old stories, none of them matter anymore.
We're not getting rid of them. That'd be too
evil. We're not getting rid of them, right? We're
just going to say none of them are true anymore.
They really did this. None of them count in the
Star Wars story anymore. So now all the new stuff
we write, that's all the actual new stuff. And
their new stuff is pretty awful if you're a Star
Wars fan because they got rid of the incredible
things of the past. Do you see what I'm doing
here? The Old Testament is not something for
us to leave behind in the past and Jesus certainly
didn't think so Jesus used it to point to him
and because all of scripture points to him and
church I don't want us to fall into that lie
that the Old Testament isn't necessary Because
I want us to understand what Paul wrote to second
Timothy Or to Timothy in 2nd Timothy. We'll get
that to a second. Sorry I flipped the page and
got out of order here. I do want you to understand
this. It's not just the New Testament. Every
single part of Scripture points to Jesus. Every
part of it points to Him. Listen to what was
read earlier this morning. What Paul wrote to
Timothy in 2nd Timothy 3 16 through 17 all scripture
is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching
for reproof for correction and for training in
righteousness. Why? That the man of God may be
competent and equipped for every good work. I've
taught the Old Testament to students in Christian
schools for many years now, and my favorite part
is watching them discover how Jesus is the center
of every single thing that happens in the Old
Testament. From the very beginning God was pointing
people to the coming Savior, and every book of
the Bible is useful for us. as believers. Paul
said we need all of it to be complete and competent
and able to teach and help other people trust
in God. We need to find the books of the Old
Testament that people don't like to open or talk
about and cherish those books as God's word.
I mean let's be honest, how many of us have cherished
the book of Leviticus lately? Right? How many
of you are doing the read through the Bible in
a year plan? Okay. Yeah. Okay. When you get to
those books of all the laws, is that a really
enjoyable devotion time? Be honest. No. Right.
And the temptation is we look in a book like
Leviticus and we go, okay, these are really old
archaic laws for the Jewish people. I'm a New
Testament Gentile, probably. Right. And here,
right. So it doesn't technically apply to me.
And so we're tempted to write them off. But if
we do that We completely miss the beauty of seeing
what it meant for the people of God to be completely
different than the world around them Because
that's the point of those laws for God's people
to be holy And while some of those laws might
not physically apply to us today, the point of
them sure does, that as Christians we should
be set apart, holy and different from the world
around us. Or what about everybody's favorite
book to get embarrassed by, Song of Solomon,
or Song of Songs, whatever we call it now, right?
That's a book that even as adults we get embarrassed
to read sometimes, right? If you haven't read
it yet, you don't know why. Go home, have fun,
read the Song of Solomon. I want you to now imagine
if it's embarrassing to talk about it as adults,
try being the teacher who has to teach it to
middle schoolers every year. All the prayers,
the headaches you mentioned Lorraine, that's
the hard one because even if I don't dive deep
into it, I mentioned it, the kids start reading
it, and then I get emails from parents and it's
a special time. But why do we need Song of Solomon?
It's just a romance book. Why? Because it paints
an incredible beautiful picture of a godly romance
between a husband and a wife that points us to
the type of love that we have and share with
Jesus as the bridegroom in his church as the
bride That's what it's about and all this to
say Don't skip through the Bible God gave us
all of it because he knows that we need every
bit of it because it all points Jesus. But now
lastly let's look at the disciples response to
what Jesus taught them. This is my favorite part
of the story is what happens to them. Look at
verse 32. Verse 32 says this, 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 I love about this
is when you follow the timeline of what they're
saying here because right before they said this
Jesus revealed who he was The whole time he was
giving them the Bible study. They had no idea
that he was Jesus He was just a random dude that
showed up and knew his Bible really well And
then he breaks bread with them and they realized
who he is and then Jesus and I love this He just
he teleports away. He's just gone right and I
love that Jesus does that it's just again Don't
miss the cool things Jesus does in the Bible.
They're awesome. But that's not what they're
talking about here. When they say their hearts
were burning within them, they're not talking
about when they suddenly realized it was Jesus.
I'm sure it got even better then. But they said,
our hearts burned within us while he opened the
scriptures to us. Church, when is the last time
you were truly amazed while just reading the
Bible? I'm sure that these disciples were godly
Jewish people who would have said that they loved
the scriptures, but clearly they didn't understand
them enough before this to recognize that Jesus
truly was the Messiah. But then here when they
got the best Bible study in history, when Jesus
himself interpreted it to them, it felt different.
Now we have, especially with Alex, he's an incredible
expositor of God's Word, amen? But can you imagine?
If next Sunday we said, Hey, we have a guest
speaker. Okay, I think you're going to love him.
It's Jesus. he came up here. I don't think anyone
would get distracted, sleepy, or like we might
still get hungry, we're still human and Baptist,
right? But we would all be riveted paying attention
to Jesus opening the Word to us, and we might
be tempted to think that, wow, I wish I was like
one of these two people, that I got to hear Jesus
explain the Bible to us. Well church, I guarantee
you these two disciples would be jealous of us
today. Yes, I want to hear and hear the Bible
preach from Jesus's feet in one day. Praise God.
I will But we have something incredible right
here This book that we hold is not just one Bible
study from Jesus. It is his entire word It's
everything Jesus wants to tell us and every time
you open this word. I want you to do this I want
you to expect God to do something amazing Here's
what I want you to know, that we should study
scripture expecting God to do something amazing.
When you go to do your Bible study, don't go
there and sit there and go, man, I hope there's
something interesting this time. When you walk
in on a Sunday morning, Don't walk in thinking,
man, I really hope Alex or Jordan are interesting
today. I really hope I get something out of it
today. No, walk in with a prayer, a prayerful
heart saying, God, I can't wait to find out what
you have for me today, because I'm going to read
from your holy word. I'm going to hear it preached
to me, and I can't wait to hear what you're going
to do in my life through your word. I had a really
great experience growing up in a church where
the youth group that I attended, it was a sizable
youth group, but almost every single kid in that
youth group grew up in church for their entire
life. Almost all of them, their families, were
in church every Sunday. I grew up with these
kids. Many of them went to the Christian school
that I did attached to that church. We had all
heard the Bible stories a million times, and
that's a good thing. That's a blessing. Possible
downside to that is, I noticed as I got older
in youth group, when the youth pastor would give
messages, he would say, all right, let's open,
let's read the story of Daniel and the lion's
den. What an incredible story, right? And you
could feel the eyes roll of these students that
go, well, I can tune this one out. I've heard
this story a million times because it's a cool
story, but I've heard it a million times and
they tune it out. Well fast forward to when I
was in college at North Greenville and I started
helping serve at a church in Greenville to help
run their youth ministry and this group was completely
different. There was about 30 students and Jessica
was there for a lot of this. She helped me with
it and there was a big difference in these kids
because I think maybe two of them had grown up
in church and maybe one of them, their family,
attended that church. See this these kids didn't
know the Bible at all and I remember Going and
standing on stage one Wednesday night going thinking
I was gonna have the same response and literally
saying the words alright I'm sure you guys have
heard this story before but tonight we're gonna
talk about Daniel and the lion's den and I've
watched is almost every single kid in that room
went What's that I was like wait you guys don't
know this story no Sweet I get to teach you about
this incredible story and it was every single
service. I noticed something about these kids
They were so stinking excited To get into that
Wednesday night service because they were gonna
hear from God's word for maybe the very first
time You could feel that excitement in them church
Do we have that kind of excitement? when we listen
to God's Word. Do we have that kind of expectancy?
I pray that I can get the kind of fervor and
excitement that those teenagers had, those rowdy,
crazy kids we had in that youth group, because
every Wednesday they walked in expecting to hear
something new. And that's my challenge to us
today, church. When we open this Bible, when
we hear it preached to us or read to us, come
ready for God to do something incredible. So
let me end the same way that I started this morning.
Who is Jesus to you? But before you answer, I
want to make sure the source of your answer is
Scripture. Let God's Word prove to you that Jesus
truly is God's Son who took our place on the
cross, rose from the dead to offer us eternal
life with Him. Cherish every single page in this
holy book as it all points to Him and read it
every day with your hearts on fire as you see
just how amazing our God truly is. Let's pray
together.