The Road to Emmaus versus the Road to Damascus

The following is the text from The Underground sermon preached on May 15, 2011. Normally these messages are recorded, but we had technical difficulties.

The Road to Emmaus versus the Road to Damascus

Prologue, part 1

[ Introduction ]
Grace and peace to you! Good evening church! Welcome to our friends listening to the podcast online.

What a journey we have been on. This is our second to last gathering studying the book of Luke. Next week (don’t miss next week) we will conclude, and then we have some stuff planned for June 5^th and for the Summer.

As we begin, let’s pray together.

[ Prayer ]
Gracious God, we ask that you give each us ears to hear your voice, eyes to see your path, a mind to understand your will, a heart to know you, and a desire to act in obedience to your truth. In Christ’s holy name, Amen.

[ Scripture ]

Tonight’s message is from Luke 24:13-49. I’ll be reading and pausing to dive into what this is telling us at The Underground tonight. When we start we must remember that Jesus was recently crucified, and it is the third day since that happening. Some women who were his disciples took the initiative to go and prepare his body properly, only to find that the guarded tomb where he had been laid to rest was empty. They ran to tell the eleven Apostles, who weren’t quite sure what to think of this. Remember, there are only eleven at this point because Judas has slipped out. We find out in other books of the Bible that he hanged himself… but the author of Luke-Acts puts it a little more diplomatically and says he fell headlong into a field.

Chapter 24, starting in verse 13.

¹³ That same day two of Jesus’ followers were walking to the village of Emmaus, seven miles from Jerusalem. ¹⁴ As they walked along they were talking about everything that had happened. ¹⁵ As they talked and discussed these things, Jesus himself suddenly came and began walking with them. ¹⁶ But God kept them from recognizing him.
¹⁷ He asked them, “What are you discussing so intently as you walk along?”
They stopped short, sadness written across their faces. ¹⁸ Then one of them, Cleopas, replied, “You must be the only person in Jerusalem who hasn’t heard about all the things that have happened there the last few days.”¹⁹ “What things?” Jesus asked.
“The things that happened to Jesus, the man from Nazareth,” they said. “He was a prophet who did powerful miracles, and he was a mighty teacher in the eyes of God and all the people. ²⁰ But our leading priests and other religious leaders handed him over to be condemned to death, and they crucified him. ²¹ We had hoped he was the Messiah who had come to rescue Israel. This all happened three days ago.²² “Then some women from our group of his followers were at his tomb early this morning, and they came back with an amazing report. ²³ They said his body was missing, and they had seen angels who told them Jesus is alive! ²⁴ Some of our men ran out to see, and sure enough, his body was gone, just as the women had said.”
²⁵ Then Jesus said to them, “You foolish people! You find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures. ²⁶ Wasn’t it clearly predicted that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his glory?” ²⁷ Then Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
²⁸ By this time they were nearing Emmaus and the end of their journey. Jesus acted as if he were going on, ²⁹ but they begged him, “Stay the night with us, since it is getting late.” So he went home with them. ³⁰ As they sat down to eat, he took the bread and blessed it. Then he broke it and gave it to them. ³¹ Suddenly, their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And at that moment he disappeared!
³² They said to each other, “Didn’t our hearts burn within us as he talked with us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?” ³³ And within the hour they were on their way back to Jerusalem. There they found the eleven disciples and the others who had gathered with them, ³⁴ who said, “The Lord has really risen! He appeared to Peter.”

This brings us to our first point tonight, and for your notes: Sometimes we have to look back to see where God has brought us.

This is what I mean: how many of you have heard of the Apostle Paul? He was also called Saul in the Bible. Paul says that he persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. We learn in the book of Acts that Paul was going from town to town and having Jesus followers. Then something happened. We are told that on the road to Damascus, Paul was blinded and met Jesus. Jesus reached into Paul’s life and said, “Why do you persecute me?” And from that moment on, Paul dedicated his life to Jesus. When Paul talks about this story in Galatians, he just says, “He who had set me apart before I was born called me by his grace was pleased to reveal his son to me.” 

This is called a radical conversion. When we talk about testimonies in church, this is what most people expect. They expect something like Paul, who was doing something 100% wrong, and then did a 180 and started doing it right. We love this type of story. We eat it up. We love hearing from the former drug addicts and drug dealers and prostitutes and murderers. We want to hear how God spoke to them in a dream or in a vision or in a comic book or a burning bush, and how he reached into their lives and slapped the needle out of their hands and they gave their lives to God as an angel massaged their scalp with olive oil and poured them a bowl of cereal and now they’re pastors and missionaries and motivational speakers and politicians. We love hearing those stories. We want them. We hear them and we are inspired. We look around at all of the pain and hurt and terribleness and we remember these testimonies, which are good and right, and we are reminded that God does that sort of thing.

But there’s a problem with this too. It’s a danger that we fall into. It’s that we only want to hear this stuff. And because we only hear those sort of testimonies, we start to think that our testimony doesn’t matter if we haven’t turned from something terrible. At one of the recent meetings we had with students and parents, one person said, “I want to hear testimonies of all the terrible stuff!”

I caution you that the danger in focusing on the road to Damascus is that we miss what God has done in our lives on the road to Emmaus. On the road to Emmaus, which was a town near Jerusalem, some people who had been Jesus’ disciples were walking home. They were walking home and Jesus himself started walking with them. That’s what’s happening with many of you and is happening in our church and the church in the whole world. We are walking with Jesus, and we’re crying out, “Why aren’t you doing anything? What’s going on? I don’t see you! I don’t feel you!” But he is right there with us, and he is teaching us all about who he is.

And then it happens. It. Happens.  There is a moment when Jesus does something, and we recognize him, and it’s like everything clicks. We look back at the whole time he has been walking with us and how he explained everything and how he brought us to a place and a state of mind and a state of being where we could really understand him, but it takes looking back and testifying to that place where we came from.

That is the road to Emmaus. It’s not a blinding light. It’s not a slap in the face.  You walk with Jesus and he teaches you about who he is and he helps you understand the things he is doing and then brings you to a place where you are capable of understanding. And your testimony is that as you walked with Jesus, he changed you. He made you a stronger disciple. He changed the way you approach life. He changed the way you look at your culture.

Let me testify to you about culture. My ministry background was in Christian summer camps. Every summer I would lead five-day camps for elementary students, junior high, and high school. And I would lead the counselors and staff. My job was to build and lead, by the power of the Holy Spirit working through me, a high impact five-day experience so that at the end of the week kids would be able to honestly say, “I met with God this week and he changed me and this is my testimony.” Do you know what I’m saying here? Camp is great. Kids who don’t know Jesus are getting saved. Kids who know God are filled with the Holy Spirit. Lives are changed in a moment.

Student ministry in a church is different from that. It’s not five days and total immersion in a spiritual culture. God had to change me and my default approach to ministry when he brought me to this role as your youth pastor. My default was to give a testimony and tell an inspirational story and then invite people to the altar. My default was not to look at Scripture and preach the truth of what God was saying there so that others could know God better through his word. That was the job of the youth pastor.

And then I became the youth pastor. And I had to let God reach into my life and change me in a moment so that through preaching the Holy word of God those who came to the Underground to hear his word would be changed, over time, in a less dramatic but still very powerful way.

Let me testify to you that the work that God has done in your hearts over the last several years has been like a garden. The default in our culture is a grocery store mentality. We say, “I need a tomato.” So we go to Wal-mart and buy a tomato and we have a tomato. We eat the tomato and the tomato is gone.

God is doing something different here. It’s like the garden. The garden that God is growing in you is like this. This is a metaphor, not prophecy, but it’s going to speak to many of you quite clearly. It’s as if God looked at your life and said, “You’re going to need a tomato.” And you said, “But I don’t want a tomato, and even if I did I would just go get one at the store.”

And then God said, “Take these seeds.” The way many of us look at God is like a grocery store or a vending machine. We say, “God we’re hungry!” so we expect that the thing he gives us is going to feed us right away. But if we eat those seeds just as they are, we aren’t full. We look at what God is doing and we’re disappointed because it wasn’t what we expected.

What God does instead is plants these seeds. And they start to grow. And they grow. And they grow. The cells multiple. Suddenly the black dirt of an empty garden is full of plants. There is growth everywhere. Okay, that’s good. We’ve got all this interesting stuff to look at. People notice a difference in the garden of our life. They say, “My, isn’t it wonderful how you’re growing!”

And it is.  But there’s no fruit. And there are some weeds.

And we hate weeding. Weeding is work. We don’t want to do the hard work of looking at the flaws in our garden. We want to point out how great it is that plants are growing. We don’t want to look at the sin. We don’t want to get rid of our filthy language. We don’t want to live in purity. We don’t want to stop the things we like doing just so that some stupid garden can grow. And we get mad at the preacher for always telling us that there are weeds, and all we want is for the preacher to say, “Wow, yeah there’s a weed, but look at how your plants are growing!” People don’t want conviction, they want compliments. Compliments make for a very hard landing.

But when we don’t get rid of those weeds, the weeds choke out and kill the thing that God is trying to grow in our garden.

So we weed. The preacher waters. God makes the growth. God grows you. And then, that tomato that God said you were going to need, it shows up. It’s growing. You have actual fruit growing.  It’s there, and praise God! Because you just got assigned something that required a tomato.

And you get your tomato. And there it is. And now you realize that there are a lot of people who need this tomato. You’ve got a whole garden full of them. And you know how to grow them and take care of them. And not only are you able to use the gift that God gave to you to help others, but you are now able to show them how to do the same.

That’s called maturity and discipleship.

You, my brothers and sisters, are disciples of Jesus. He is growing you. I don’t ignore the weeds in your life, because you shouldn’t ignore them. I love you too much to ignore them.

Now to verse 35:

³⁵ Then the two from Emmaus told their story of how Jesus had appeared to them as they were walking along the road, and how they had recognized him as he was breaking the bread. ³⁶ And just as they were telling about it, Jesus himself was suddenly standing there among them. “Peace be with you,” he said. ³⁷ But the whole group was startled and frightened, thinking they were seeing a ghost!
³⁸ “Why are you frightened?” he asked. “Why are your hearts filled with doubt? ³⁹ Look at my hands. Look at my feet. You can see that it’s really me. Touch me and make sure that I am not a ghost, because ghosts don’t have bodies, as you see that I do.” ⁴⁰ As he spoke, he showed them his hands and his feet.
⁴¹ Still they stood there in disbelief, filled with joy and wonder. Then he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” ⁴² They gave him a piece of broiled fish, ⁴³ and he ate it as they watched.
⁴⁴ Then he said, “When I was with you before, I told you that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and in the Psalms must be fulfilled.” ⁴⁵ Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. ⁴⁶ And he said, “Yes, it was written long ago that the Messiah would suffer and die and rise from the dead on the third day. ⁴⁷ It was also written that this message would be proclaimed in the authority of his name to all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem: ‘There is forgiveness of sins for all who repent.’ ⁴⁸ You are witnesses of all these things.
⁴⁹ “And now I will send the Holy Spirit, just as my Father promised. But stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven.”

Jesus meets with his disciples. He eats with them. Eating is very important to Jesus and so eating together should be very important to us. That’s not the real point here, but it is important for us to recognize. The discussions that happen over meals can be very powerful.  Every time the Underground leaders get together, we eat first. We eat and we pray and we laugh and we seek God together. Last August, I ended up with a cupcake smashed in my face. It was hilarious. Frosting up my nose. And that night we prayed and asked God what he wanted to do through us for the next year. Meals are the time when relationships build. This summer, we’re going to have opportunities to eat together.

When Jesus met with his disciples on the road to Emmaus, and then again with his apostles, he took the time to explain to them how all of the Scripture proclaimed him and pointed to him.

[ Altar Call ]

Tonight here’s how this is going to go—we’re going to worship, proclaiming God’s truth. Some of us need to repent for the sin of dishonoring the work God is doing in us by envying another’s testimony. What I mean by that is that you have failed to recognize and proclaim what God has done in your life, or you thought that your testimony isn’t as good as someone else’s because it wasn’t as dramatic. That’s a lie from Satan, and he wants you to believe it so that you don’t tell what God is doing in your life. As you pray, reject Satan, ask God for forgiveness, and then live in God’s forgiveness.

Amen!