Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How to Recognize Jesus | Learning to Follow Jesus | Luke 24.13-35

Episode Date: July 20, 2020

Have you ever greeted someone you've met before but didn't recognize? It happens to all of us, even some of Jesus's followers in https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke+24&version=NIV (Luke 24.13-35). Figure out how to recognize Jesus as https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/staff/keith-simon/ (Keith) continues our series on https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/podcast-series/how-to-follow-jesus/ (Learning to Follow Jesus). Interested in more content like this? Check out some of our earlier episodes, including https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/podcasts/how-gods-kingdom-conquers-learning-to-follow-jesus-luke-22-47-53/ (How God's Kingdom Conquers) and https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/podcasts/how-to-answer-jesuss-calling-learning-to-follow-jesus-luke-9-23-24/ (How to Answer Jesus's Calling). Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. To learn more, visit our https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/ (website) and follow us on https://www.facebook.com/TenMinuteBibleTalks/ (Facebook), https://www.instagram.com/thecrossingcomo/ (Instagram), and https://twitter.com/thecrossingcomo (Twitter) @TheCrossingCOMO and @TenMinuteBibleTalks.  Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. And I'm Patrick Miller. Right now, we're learning how to follow Jesus by working our way through the Gospel of Luke. Today we get to explore a fantastic little story in Luke chapter 24. It's a story about two of Jesus' followers who are walking to a city called Amas, which is about seven miles from Jerusalem. This is all happening after Jesus's crucifixion. And these two followers were incredibly discouraged by what they had seen go down in Jerusalem.

Now, one of these followers we learn is named Cleopis. There is speculation that the other follower is his wife, Mary, that's based on other New Testament books. But that's really just speculation. We don't know for sure who the other person was. But while these two people are walking on the road to Amas, they are discussing everything that's been happening in Jerusalem. And that's when Jesus approached them and began to walk with them. But we're told that God kept them from recognizing who Jesus was. So tell me this isn't a crazy little scene.

Two friends walking down the road talking about how discouraged they are about the death of Jesus. when the resurrected Jesus starts walking with them, but of course they don't know it. So these two people, they tell Jesus that they're really disappointed because they hoped that Jesus was going to be the one to redeem Israel, but instead he'd been crucified and now someone had stolen his body. Now that says a lot about what they thought the Messiah was going to be and do, doesn't it? They were disappointed because Jesus had, been crucified. They were looking for a Messiah who would come and deliver Israel from oppression by Rome. They were looking for a political and military leader to deliver them from a political

and military oppression. And therefore, when Jesus was crucified, they thought the revolution had been extinguished. They thought their side had lost. They had lost hope because it looked like here was another person who claimed to be the Messiah who simply was crucified by Rome. But I think what it reveals is that they had a completely wrong view of what God was doing in the Messiah. They had a wrong view about Jesus' mission because it turned out that Jesus was going to win, not by overthrowing Rome, but by dying. Jesus doesn't come to defeat his enemies, but to die for them. Jesus comes and he wins by what we would call losing.

And Jesus thinks that they should have understood more about who he was and what his mission was going to be by the reading of the scriptures. Because it says that Jesus, again, remember, they don't know it's Jesus, but that Jesus rebuked them for being slow to believe all that the prophets had taught. And then in verse 27 it says, and beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself. That must have been a fantastic Bible study. Can you imagine Jesus walking you through the whole Bible showing you how all of it points to who he is? According to Jesus, Moses and all the prophets pointed to him. It's not that every verse or every story was explicitly about Jesus. Some for sure were, but overall it was that the plot line, the storyline of the whole Bible points to Jesus as the center.

In a conversation with the Pharisees, Jesus said to them, you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. And it is they that bear witness about me. Yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. what scriptures were the Pharisees searching? Well, we would call it the Old Testament. That's not how they would have thought of it, but it's how we refer to it today. And Jesus says that those scriptures,

in other words, what we think of as the Old Testament, bear witness to him. So there as you walk along the road to Amas, you're with Jesus, who is unpacking and unfolding the Bible for you. We don't know exactly what he talks about. about. Maybe he interpreted the sacrifice of Isaac in the book of Genesis, showing how that just as the ram died in Isaac's place, so Jesus had just died in our place. Maybe he talked about the significance

of the Passover lamb and how it pointed to his own death. Maybe he showed them how the tabernacle and the temple pointed to his divine presence in the world. Maybe he talked about the manna that God had provided for the Israelites and talked about how he was the bread of life. Maybe he talked about the bronze serpent being lifted up in the book of numbers and how he had been lifted up on the cross. Maybe he talked about Isaiah 53 and how He, Jesus, had now been numbered with the transgressors. And that all of Isaiah 53 talked about a suffering servant who would die on behalf of. of the nation. Perhaps he talked about Psalm 22, and he started with the words, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The words that were written by David, but that Jesus had

prayed on the cross. Since they had a wrong view of what the Messiah was going to do and who the Messiah was, I'm sure that Jesus highlighted those passages that showed that the Messiah was going to suffer, that the Messiah was going to give his life on behalf of the people. I wonder if these two people on the road to Amas were kept from recognizing who Jesus was so that they would base their understanding of the resurrection on the Bible, on what the scripture taught, and not on their personal experience of having encountered Jesus. Because the vast, vast, vast majority of people will never encounter Jesus in the same way they did. But all of us can read the same Bible they read. All of us can see the truth that Jesus pointed out to them.

So Luke 24 tells us that when they arrived, this couple, these two people urged Jesus to come in. They wanted him to eat with them. Again, remember, they still don't know he is. And when he was at the table, it says he took bread and blessed it and broke it and gave it to them. And that's when their eyes were open and they recognized him and he vanished from their sight. Maybe the moment of recognition of who Jesus was came when he broke the bread and they saw his nail-pierced hands. Maybe that's why communion is so special because that is the place with the breaking of the bread that we can see with the eyes of our heart, Jesus, in a new and powerful way. they finally understood who Jesus was.

They finally understood his mission. They finally understood that when he died on that cross, he had not been defeated. That when they hoisted him up on that cross, that he was being enthroned. That when Pilate put over Jesus, king of the Jews, he was telling the truth. This really was not just king of the Jews, but king of the world. After Jesus had disappeared, they looked at each other and said, Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road when he opened up the scriptures for us? They got up and immediately went back to Jerusalem.

Now, sensible Palestinians did not travel lonely roads at night. That would have been foolish and dangerous because of thieves and muggers. But these two disciples, these two Jesus followers, could not keep this. news to themselves. It says, and they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. They found the 11 and those who are with them gathered, saying the Lord has risen indeed. They told them everything that happened on the road to Amas and how they saw Jesus in the breaking of the bread and how they recognized Jesus when he broke the bread with them. This is the group that would bear witness to Jesus, to an entire world. This is the group that Jesus would use to change the world to, as

Acts says, turn the world upside down. And yet this same group was confused. This same group was unsure about who Jesus was, even after his death. And in some sense, that gives me hope. It gives me hope that Jesus will use people like me, ordinary people who are often confused, who are slow to get it, who don't quite recognize who he is, but who when we eventually see him, we have a heart that wants to tell others, a heart that can't stay quiet, a heart that wants to bear witness, that Jesus is alive, that Jesus is king, that Jesus has won by giving his life. And then, of course, it calls me, calls you, calls all Jesus followers to win the same way he did, not by getting power, but instead by relinquishing power, laying aside power so that we can give our life.

We win through sacrifice. Before we leave this passage, I want us to make sure that we understand that Jesus won by dying. These two followers on the road to Amas, they were confused because they expected a different kind of Messiah. But after Jesus had done this Bible study with them, they understood that Jesus won when he gave his life. And as followers of a crucified Lord, that means that we win by giving our life. We win by sacrifice. We win by serving. We win by loving and praying for our enemies. This is the Jesus who came and changed the world. This is the Jesus who now reigns as king. This is the Jesus that we now call Lord.

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