Burning Hearts

Main idea: (Keep) open your heart to the true hope of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

1. Foolish hearts
2. Open hearts
3. Burning hearts

• Automated Transcription

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  Well, good morning friends. Good morning church family and good morning guests. It's good to have you here this morning. If you are brand new to church, there's a tradition that Christians often have. There's a response where I say He is risen, and then the congregation says He is risen. Indeed, they're all used to it. But if you're new, you can join in. He is risen. And my My Russian is poor, but I'm going to try it. I tried every every year, Христос Воскресе, I love my excellent we have a bigger crowd this year. That's that's really, that's really great. Welcome to all of you. This is a weekend where we pull out all the stops, because what we celebrate that happened nearly 2000 years ago, changed the course of world history by God's design and plan, and it has changed untold billions of people's lives, and we love to celebrate it. It deserves the highest of our praise and our efforts, just like the Jews did that with Passover. Now, Christians do that with the weekend that is the Lord's that is Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday. So it's great because I got a new tie. My wife's put on a new dress, like all the fun things for it, and you're gonna see the tie every day for a year. No, it's not quite like that, but I do have some new options now. Right now, we're going to read God's word again. If you're a visitor with us, what we do is we stand in honor of God's word because we want to hear from God. So please stand with me. I'll read the Scripture text, and I'll say this is the word of the Lord to which our church is really well trained. They say thanks be to God, because God keeps speaking to us. And like the disciples, our hearts burn when we hear God's word. We love hearing God's word, so we thank him that he is so kind to keep speaking to us through His Word. We're in Luke. I'm going to read 25 through 28 through 35 this morning, and it is a story of Cleopas and his friend who are leaving Jerusalem on the Sunday of Jesus resurrection. And they don't know what to make of any of it. They're very confused. They don't believe in resurrection, yet they don't know what to think of all the reports they're talking and Jesus is getting at their hearts. Verse 28 so Cleopas and his friend and Jesus drew near to the village to which they were going. Jesus acted as if he were going farther, but they urged him strongly, saying, Stay with us. Furnace toward evening, and the day is now far spent. So he went in to stay with them, and when he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them, and their eyes were opened and they recognized Him, and He vanished from their sight. They said to each other, did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures. And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. They found the 11 and those who were with them gathered together saying, The Lord has risen indeed and has appeared to Simon. Then they told what had happened on the road and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread. This is the word of the Lord God. We, thank you, our Father. We, thank you, Lord Jesus, God the Son. We, thank you Holy Spirit, the illuminator and one who gives us new life. We, thank you for what you have penned here, what you keep speaking to us and how you keep changing lives. This, this room is filled with people who have experienced the life changing power of the resurrected Jesus. And we want to say thank you yet again. We want to worship you yet again. We want to offer the rest of our lives yet again. And we want to see you glorified in our city, in our world. I pray that you would be at work in us, in us. Help us. Help those who don't yet understand, to come to more understanding, to trust Jesus. That's true often for our kids. It's true for many who've been sitting here for weeks and weeks and years and years and the light hasn't gone on. Holy Spirit, help them see Father. We pray for the. The people who are faithfully proclaiming the gospel from east to west in our city. And I pray for Christ, the Redeemer church, and Carrie Hughes and their outreach to West Central and to that area of town. I pray that Carrie would be faithful, that the congregation would continue on. I look to the east Trinity Church of the valley. Paul funchess, I pray that You would help him faithfully proclaim this that the congregations, we would all be a witness to you by this worship. And after we ask all this in Christ's name. Amen, you may be seated there's a question that grips me as I read through the passage this morning, what was going on in the hearts of Cleopas and his friends that made Jesus say, oh, foolish ones, slow of heart, like what was, what was going on in their heart. Jesus had joined them on the road to Emmaus. If we looked back up earlier in the context, it says that they were kept from recognizing him, kept from seeing him. So, you know, it's a little bit like of the use of the Force. You know, don't recognize me, and they don't. And then Jesus asks them, what's going on. They stop, devastated, Jesus, if you've been under a rock, I mean, didn't literally say that, but they say, how are you the only person in Jerusalem who doesn't know what's going on? Well, tell me what's going on, fellas, you know, tell me what's going on, and they unpack, really, the story of Jesus. Ministry His miracles. They thought he was a prophet. They thought he was the Messiah, but he was arrested, betrayed and crucified, and here they are devastated. And Jesus says, oh, foolish ones, slow of heart. Now this is a stranger to them, and the stranger is walking along with them and suddenly insults them. O foolish one, slow of heart. It's a patient rebuke, an earnest rebuke. They don't have a fact problem. Do they? They have a heart problem. Jesus addresses the heart at the beginning of the passage, foolish, slow of heart. End of the passage, burning hearts. They have a heart problem, because the heart in the Bible is the command center of life. The heart in the Bible is where you take in your information, and you process your information, you believe, you worship, you feel love, hate, joy, sorrow. It's where you choose, it's where you plan, then you speak and act. It's all in your heart. So from the beginning of the chapter, they go from foolish, slow hearts to the end of the section, they go to open eyes, open hearts and burning hearts, they become some of the first to say, in effect, I don't care what it costs. I must follow Jesus, and I must tell my friends to follow Jesus. They're among the first to do this. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most important event in history. It's celebrated around the world. But if you're here this morning with a friend or a loved one and you're not so sure about how true the story is, you're not any different than Cleopas and his friend. In fact, every gospel ends with the disciples looking less than stellar in their belief what Jesus had done in dying and rising was still beyond their comprehension. And patient Jesus is bringing his disciples to fully understand, submit, to surrender, to rest in these truths. Story for you might be hard to believe. It was hard for them to believe, and this is the facts. Jesus is someone who has done something that changes everything. Luke includes this story about Cleopas and his friends go. On a journey, because, in some sense, every person needs to go on the same journey.
  
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  Usually, I try to tell you, don't put yourself in the passage. It's usually not about you. This time I'm telling you to put yourself in the passage, because it's about you. I mean, here is Cleopas and his friend, like every disciple who has got to sort out all the truths about Jesus' death and resurrection, and in the middle of the trip hearing Jesus, they are giving their life, their heart for Jesus to rule and reign in. And it's an exchange filled with satisfaction and hope bigger than the world. So the big idea, I want a word like this, because we got to deal with the heart, keep or open, depending on who you are today, some of you believe and you need to hear this again. Keep open your heart to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Keep open to it, letting it shape you. Every triumph that you experience in this life is measured and shaped by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. However you think this is here, compare it to what Jesus has done, and it puts it in perspective. So is every tragedy. Every tragedy is measured by and shaped by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So Luke is inviting you to be Cleopas and his friends for 35 minutes. Okay, probably for 40. Knowing how I work, you are here looking for answers, just like Cleopas and his friends and he's dealing with your heart. I put two statements in your notes. You can fill in the blank on paper or in your head, depending on whether you want your wife to see it or not. My biggest challenge in life is the biggest challenge in my life is blank. Since Jesus is really alive from the dead, that means blank. What does that mean? I'll give you one example from my life. My mom has Alzheimer's, and she is in assisted living. Hi, Mom, because she is probably watching this live streamed in her in her assisted living at least. I hope it's my week. You know, it's, I don't say that to engender sympathy, because all of you are going to face something caring for aging parents. Unless you die early, you're going to have to face this. So I'm not, I'm not saying this for sympathy, but there are real issues watching her praise the Lord she had trusted Christ when she was 68 and I know that what I see is not the final version of my mother, but it's still hard to watch the slow decline, and it's still hard to deal with The guilt I'm not there enough. I don't do enough. Like you always feel like you should be visiting one more time and staying longer. And she's right now saying, yes, you should. Thanks, mom, yes.
  
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  Since Jesus is really alive from the dead. That means what? I took her to a doctor's appointment this week. It was an early doctor's appointment, so I pick her up early, and then the nurse asks, Do you have the right day? Because I came the week before for the same appointment and I did not have the wrong day, right day, she says, I said, so who really belongs here? My mom, or me, or both? She says, we have a word for that. Here. We call it some timers. We we all have some timers. Like, man, do we? Do we? Since Jesus is really alive from the dead, that means what? I want to circle back to these kinds of things when we get to the end. But I want to tell you that the resurrection of Jesus Christ changes all of it. We're going to follow the story here from foolish hearts to open hearts to burning hearts. It's the focus that I want to give us this time as we go through it. Foolish hearts, open hearts, burning hearts, and we're going to see Cleopas and his friend, the average disciple, sorting out and processing the truth about the death, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Let's start with the foolish hearts. They tell Jesus the fundamental truths that are going. Be the preaching, the apostolic preaching. Jesus was born. He did miracles. He was considered a prophet. We thought he was the Messiah. He was the one to redeem Israel. They're all correct. Those are all correct, and that's going to be what we're going to preach from here on out. But they still had no sense of what the death of Christ meant in the resurrection meant. And Jesus said to them, O foolish ones and slow of heart to believe. I mean, I don't know if they stood there and like, well, who are you to talk to us like that? Oh foolish ones, slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. The word for foolish in the Bible always refers to people who could know wisdom, but their selfishness and pride get in the way they end up doing everything, really for self, stupidly. Slow of heart is a sense of dullness or stupidity also. So Jesus is not flattering. Oh, foolish and slow of heart. This dullness is an unwillingness to accept something unexpected. It's an unwillingness to accept something unexpected. Death and Resurrection were unexpected for them. Now I want to be clear, because it's not an issue of intelligence, physicists, university professors, software engineers might be among the most intelligent people in the world, but they can be like everyone else when it comes to Jesus, foolish and slow of heart. And Jesus has a very specific issue. And think about this. We'll return to it again. He keeps them from recognizing who he is. He will open their eyes in a few minutes, and what he is concerned about is what they have been doing with the scriptures. They have not been believing them. The first thing we find in the chapter is that Jesus told the disciples himself that he would be betrayed, crucified and rise from the dead. Bump up to verse six in the same chapter, look up at verse six. The women come to the tomb ready to finish the burial. They see the women see angels. The angels speak. This is as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground. The men said to them, Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember? Remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee, that's way up to the north. This was weeks ago, years ago, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day, rise again. Circle the little word must, he must have this happen. There's a divine necessity for this. Now jump down to where we are. Verse 26 this is now Cleopas and his friend. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory. Remember all the prophets. Why are you slow of heart to believe all the prophets have spoken to you? Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into glory? Circle the word necessary, it's the same word. Remember, in life, he told you that this is necessary. Remember, in the Scriptures, the whole Genesis to Malachi told you that this was necessary.
  
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  Why was there so much sorrow and confusion among Jesus closest followers? And these are the these are the people who are committed. Why they thought too small? They thought too small about the problem that they had. They thought too small about the problems of society. They thought too small about the solution. They thought Jesus was that Messiah, the Redeemer of Israel, the Messiah who. Would conquer their enemies, but to their horror, he was betrayed, captured, crucified, buried. They had put all their hope in a man, and the man had been rejected and killed. What's the problem with that? He's the God man, not a mere man. So Jesus doing for them what the Old Testament does for us, beginning with Moses, starting in Genesis, all the prophets, finishing in Malachi, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures, the things concerning himself. Here's what you must know and recall about the grand narrative of the Bible. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, had made a plan before time to make a grand kingdom for the full display of His glory with a people he could shower with His love and grace. He made the heavens and the earth. He made men and women created in His image to be princes and princesses in his kingdom. God had made a spiritual realm. God had made an earthly realm. He had made angels created to serve God and men. But the first rebellion happened in the spiritual realm. Satan rebelled and tempted Eve and Adam in the garden. Adam and Eve rebelled and committed treason. Then, ever since, ever since we have all done the same, we have committed treason. Because, as we read over and over at the Seder on Friday, God is the King of the universe, treason deserves justice and wrath, and God sentenced mankind to die, the earth to be cursed and judgment to come. That sentence happened in the opening chapters, but also in the opening chapters, God displayed patience, mercy, grace and love, just like Jesus is doing right here, one of the attributes, one of the qualities of Jesus I love about the walk to Emma says how patient he is. God has been patient since the beginning. From Genesis to Malachi is a steady stream of prophecies promised to the day, promised a day that one person, fully God, fully, man would come to conquer and reclaim what was stolen. Jesus would come and do just what Cleopas And his friend said, But what they didn't embrace or understand that Jesus first must bear God's wrath on the cross in place of his people. Jesus had to die for sinners, taking the justice that the sinners deserved. He had to defeat Satan, who tempts. He defeated sin which leaves us guilty. He provided obedience to those of us, to all who were rebellious. On the third day, Jesus rose from the dead, proving that the sacrifice was acceptable, that death was not the ultimate enemy, and he had to enter into his glory. So he had to rise from the dead, and he had to ascend to the right hand of the throne of God, and he is now our king over heaven and earth. His realm will be filled with saints. He sent His Spirit. His spirit is preaching the gospel through people, and people are being gathered into His kingdom. They love Him and serve Him now, and he loves them and satisfies and promises to return to enjoy him in a perfected state forever. That is the story that the Old Testament tells. Join us next week, we're going to keep on with that Genesis 15. We're going to see Jesus there. And here is the fundamental foolishness for every human. We don't trust the Scripture. We think we know better, but the reality is we think too small. We think too small. One pastor used to say it like this, you are far more sinful than you ever imagined, but you are far more loved than you ever thought possible. Ian. It's the reality of the gospel. It was necessary for Jesus to come to die, to rise to reign, and this reign, reclaimed by His death and resurrection, spread by a spirit, is going to culminate in a Christian's resurrection at His return. Life defeats death. Isaiah describes it as a new heavens and a new earth, a kingdom of peace and righteousness and finally, an utter elimination of all death, impurity and sin. O foolish hearts. The scriptures have been talking about this, so we have their foolish hearts. Now we're watching Jesus open their hearts. We see open hearts. What the text says is that their eyes were opened, and that's a metaphor that their understanding finally came clear, so that their heart could really process what was going on. Jesus pretends not to know about what had happened in Jerusalem to draw out what they understood. He wanted to draw out what their hearts believed, and it it fell short of believing what was obvious in the Scripture, verse 28 so they drew near to the village to which they were going. Couple hours had passed, and he acted as if he were going farther. Jesus pretended to be going on. But now they were hooked. I mean, he has to pretend to go on. I want to see if they want more. What are they going to think about this news? Remember, he's still hiding who he is. He's still just a stranger to them, but he is finding out, do they want more of this good news? And they do. They urged him strongly, saying, Stay with us. This urge strongly is almost like taking him by force. You can see they're just so passionate. Stay with us. Oh no, I've got to go. No, really, stay with us. We'd love to have you. Oh no, I've got to go on. You know, I don't know if it was, you know, like the average person, like, four or five times, oh, I don't really want to bother you. Fill in the blanks here, but they say, stay with us. Well, let's use this one. It's toward evening, the day is far spent. You know, this isn't a safe neighborhood. You should probably who knows how they worked it, but they were insistent, as we say, in fishing, the hook was set. They had to know more. Something was changing within Cleopas and his friend verse 30, when he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed it and broke it and gave it to them. There's an oddity here, because Cleopas and his friend invited Jesus to say they should be playing the part of the host. Jesus takes the role of the host. He asserts his authority over the meal. Now, here's here's something interesting. The same formula is used three times in Luke. This formula took blessed, broke, gave. Sometimes the blessed is giving thanks, but it's the same formula the first time happens in Luke chapter nine, the famous story of the feeding of the 5000 5000 men, not including the women and children, were there listening to Jesus teach all day, Jesus felt compassion and wanted to feed them. And they said, What do we have? The disciples are like, are you crazy? Like this? Boy has a few loaves and a few fish. It's the same, same. Jesus took the bread, gave thanks, broke it and gave it to them. In Luke nine,
  
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  we see Jesus the compassionate provider for the people of his kingdom, the all satisfying one, the one who satisfies something much deeper than hunger. The second time we see it, we looked at last week. We call it the Lord's Supper, he does the same thing. It's part of the Passover meal. In that case, he takes one of the loaves of bread. He took He blessed, he gave thanks. He broke it where he said, This is my body given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Now Jesus is wanting them to remember him. Remember. Remember his death. This is significant because that was a preview. This now has happened, and in remembering of the bread Jesus, Jesus says this is the ground you stand on for a forever relationship with me. There is no relationship with me without you fully embracing eating. You know, it's the picture of total consumption. It is the picture of taking it for satisfaction and for food. Until I my death is your food. You have no standing for eternity the Lord's Supper. We look back like Passover, we look back at deliverance. Like Passover, we look forward to the future when Jesus returns. What is the Christians standing to be right with God, to be at rest with Christ, to have peace in life. It's his death. This is the third time. This is the third time he's at table. I don't think it's communion. I don't think it's the Lord's Supper. It's it's a meal, but this is where Jesus chooses to reveal himself. The third time he takes that bread, he gives thanks, he breaks it, and he starts handing it out. Look at verse 31 and their eyes were opened. They were held shut. They kept they were they were unable to recognize him. Now, they were able to see him. It's passive, so somebody has to open their eyes. Either it's Jesus and His power right there, or very likely, it's the Holy Spirit of Jesus that is opening eyes. That's how it happens now, from here on out in the Bible, the Holy Spirit is the one, the blessed God who helps us see Jesus and the Father, their eyes were opened and they recognized him. I mean, can you imagine the sight all of a sudden, here is this person who's been talking with him for hours. And I don't know if it's like magic eye. You know, Magic Eye, that's the computer printed stuff where you if you look two inches past or two inches in front. I don't remember what it is, because I could never figure out magic eye. And all of a sudden it came clear. I don't know if it's like that, or if it's like, Where's Waldo, and you're missing this one last piece, and your little brother comes over from beside you. He's like, there it is. I see it right away. Shush, I was gonna find it myself. Like, oh, there it's been all. I don't know if it was like that. Something really significant happens. They suddenly recognize Jesus, who they have spent years with and have watched all the work, and he's alive,
  
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  and he vanished from their sight. I read that, and I go, Really, I just saw him and he's gone. Jesus revealed himself as the resurrected Savior, Messiah at the supper table of his precious friends, they were kept from recognizing now they can see the it.
  
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  Now they were ready to believe in Jesus Christ as King, conquering sin and death and as king, ready to reign. He reveals Himself enough so that it would confirm all the promises it really happened. I liked how one author put it. He reveals Himself enough to give them faith, but not too much to eliminate the need for faith, they're still going to have to remember his words. They're still going to have to do what every other Christian does after the death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus, which is to trust the story that's written for us. And when we look at these closing chapters of gospels, there are five things. Jesus is not. He is not a fictional character. 10s of 1000s saw him, watched his miracles, heard his teaching and witnessed his execution. All over Israel, Jesus is not dead. Eyewitnesses saw him take a loaf and break it. Eyewitnesses saw him at the empty tomb. Eyewitnesses saw him on the road, these guys, Cleopas and his friend at the meal the next section in a locked Upper Room. Eyewitnesses saw him from Earth into heaven. Stephen. It as he is about to be killed, looks up into heaven. Jesus is revealed. He sees him and witnesses to the people who are holding the stones to kill him. An eyewitness, Saul of Tarsus saw his glory on the road to Damascus. These eyewitnesses testified, were jailed, tortured, executed for what they saw only eyewitnesses would do that. Jesus is not a ghost. He had real dusty feet. He had real hands that broke real bread scars still on the hands, he had a mouth and a stomach. Ate fish. In other words, he didn't throw it back and down on the ground falls a fish. He really eats in front of them. He's not a ghost, and he's not a mere man. He is the resurrected God, man that could leave a room by vanishing into a spiritual realm appear in another room that was barred and locked. Jesus is alive. Sins are really forgiven. Guidance is really given a future resurrection awaits for all his followers. He will recreate all things again. This is what you open your hearts to. Then you have the testimony of the scriptures. You have the eyewitnesses who saw it. You
  
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  one of the earliest church history fathers, Papias, sometime in the 70s, after Jerusalem was destroyed and Jews were heavily mistreated, he was in Ephesus, and no longer did they need to look to the oral traditions to talk about Jesus, because So many first hand witnesses showed up as exiles. You
  
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  they finally had open hearts. Back at your line of what's the biggest challenge in my life? What does the resurrection have to do with it? I'll just give you one verse, just one Romans, 811 because all the letters that are written are an unpacking of the implication of the death, resurrection and return of Jesus. That's what they all are. You want to know more about what it means, then just start reading letters Romans 811 says, If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Jesus, Christ, Jesus from the dead, will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. So that means, as you live in this life now waiting a resurrected body or death. And a resurrection, the Holy Spirit gives you power to please God, honor God, and do the tasks that he's called you to do. That's why this event changes everything you
  
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  foolish hearts, open hearts, finally, burning hearts. There's something compelling about Jesus and the scriptures, because as soon as he disappears from them, they look to each other, and they say this in verse 32 did our did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road while he opened to us the scriptures, weren't we inflamed inside? Yes, this is true. I want more. Tell me, tell me, tell me. This is the news I have been waiting for my whole life. This is going to be crucial, because God's word is our witness today. You it. This truth changes everything. They arose the same hour and returned to Jerusalem. It's dark. It's dark. You should they don't care if it's dark. There are not street lamps all along the way. There's no freeway. It's a dark path. And I imagine their pace was pretty good. They found the 11 and those who were with them gathered together saying, The Lord has risen indeed. And. Has appeared to Simon. I mean, Simon's there, so I don't know what's been going on all day now, late into the night, I don't know if it's Simon. Isn't crazy. I think Simon might be going, Yeah, I'm not crazy. Am I? This is hard for everyone to process. We saw him. We spent two hours on the road with him. Then they told what had happened on the road and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread. This truth changes everything you know, those things that you filled out on those blanks. This is the person who has power, wisdom, grace, to help you face those challenges the right way, the way that honors God, that genuinely loves the people around you, and this way will be a witness to the world. Luke ends here because this was what the Holy Spirit was doing, convicting their hearts, working in their hearts in such a way. One of the great gospel preachers in England in the 1700s was John Wesley. You've heard of Methodists. He was a co founder of the Methodists. He went to Oxford, so he was pretty smart. He was really serious about religion. He and his friends founded a movement called the Holy Club, where they had specific methods for being religious. They believed in strict religious practices. They wake up at 530 have an 18 hour quiet time. By six o'clock, we get a lot in in an hour, and then we have all these religious practices during the day. And they they spread this everywhere. They were compelling speakers. They went to the States. The Wesley brothers went to Savannah where they would preach this moral preaching, do better. Be better. Don't be slackers.
  
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  They thought hard religious work was necessary to be saved by God. It's not really unlike the disciples who thought, if they devoted themselves to Jesus, when Jesus took his kingdom, they would get these special thrones and have an elite status. It's just another version of the same story of I earn my way to God's special favor. At some point, one of Wesley's friends gets truly saved and tells him about it. And Wesley, with all his effort, is feeling like that, that foil taken off of the baked potato suddenly crumpled like his soul is crumpled and crushed under the weight of working out his salvation, of working it. And he decides, back in London, after a preaching trip, to visit a society where people were studying the Bible. And that was just like a way of saying visiting a small group. And it's just 10 minutes from where our missionary, Mike Dean serves. It's under this office complex, and you can walk by it, and there's this plaque on the wall and Wesley's statement there. He said, after after hearing about the grace of Christ and the gospel, he says, My heart was strangely warmed. I finally understood grace. Do you know you're a sinner? Do you know judgment and hell is coming to you because you betrayed God? Do you know that, if you do, do you also know that God's plan was to send Jesus to live and die for you? You can call out right here, right from your heart, I'm a sinner. You're my king. I repent. I trust you. You died to pay for my sin. You rose in victory. You are the king over heaven and earth. I'm yours. You could do that right now.
  
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  End the folly and the stupidity. Have you cried out to him? Is this already the story that's confirmed in your heart? Then don't let your good works or your failures be the determiner for your eternity. Let Jesus work and his victory be the thing that determines your your eternity, trust in Him alone. This is just as much a story about the Christian. It is about the one who is not yet a Christian. Believe the whole story and then go tell someone. Let's pray, Father at. You for what you have given us here, we are grateful for the Gospel story. We hear it year in and year out, week in and week out. As a church, we never get tired of it. Thank you for the mercy that has been poured out in Jesus Christ, the grace and the hope of future resurrection. And we would pray that You would help us rest in the gospel and be eager to serve you, giving our lives and our energy for your glory to see you gather more in to spend eternity with you. I pray for those here who have not yet come to that, that moment like Cleopas and his friend finally came to that they understood it. Their eyes were open. Pray that some would be able to do that even now, Christ's name, we pray. Amen.

Dan Jarms

Dr. Dan Jarms is lead pastor at Faith Bible Church in Spokane Washington, as well as associate dean at The Master's Seminary in Spokane. He has been married for over 30 years to Linda, and has three adult children. He earned his B.A. in English at the Master’s College, B.Ed. at Eastern Washington University, M.Div and D.Min in Expository Preaching at The Master’s Seminary. His other interests include NCAA basketball, woodworking, and art.

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