April 16th, 2023
Message Text: Luke 24:13-27
“It Is Finished”
Service Orientation: Jesus promised to fulfill the Law and the Prophets. And He finished the job. We should not allow temporary circumstances to blind us to eternal truths and the promises of God. We SHOULD have great hope because all the promises of God find their AMEN in Jesus’ completed work.
The Word for the Day: Fulfilled
Memory Verse: For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God. — 2 Corinthians 1:20
Background Information:
- (v.25) “Foolish” (NIV) = not knowing, unintelligent, foolish “Slow of heart”(NIV) = slow, stupid,
- The two men who were on their way to Emmaus deserved to be called “foolish” or “dull” for failing to believe that for Christ the way to glory was and had to be through suffering. (William Hendriksen, New Testament Commentary: Luke, 1065)
- (v. 27, 44) We too need to realize that the entire OT points to Jesus. To read it without that presupposition, is (according to Jesus) to read it in error. Which was, by the way, nearly everyone’s mistake at the time of Jesus . . . and is true still today!
- Someone has counted 333 specific prophecies in the Old Testament concerning the Christ. Each of them was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. (D. James Kennedy; What Is God Like?, 45)
What can we learn from Jesus for which Cleopas was foolish and slow of heart?:
I- If you REALLY know your Bible, you’ll see that Jesus fulfills every page.
(Luke 24: 19b-25, 27 see also: Gn 3:15; 9:26; 12:3; 22:18; 49:10; Ex 12:13; Nm 24:17; Dt 18:15, 18; 2 Sm 7:12-13; Ps 2:2; 16:10-11; 22:1, 18; 45:11; 49:15; 68:18; 69:20-21; 72:8-9; 110:1; 118:22; 132:11; Isa 2:4; 7:14; 8:8, 10; 9:1-2, 6-7; 11:10; 25:8; 28:16; 35:5-6; 42:1; 49:6; 52:14; ch. 53; 55:4; 59:16; Jer 23:5; Ezek 17:22; Dn 2:24, 35, 44; 7:13-14; 9:25; Mic 5:2; Hag 2:6-9; Zech 3:8; 6:12f; 9:9; 11:12; 12:10; 13:7; Mal 3:1; Mt Mt 1:22; ; 2:5, 15, 17, 23; 3:3, 15; 4:14; 5:17; 8:17; 12:17; 13:14, 35; 21:4, 42; 26:54; 27:9; Mk 1:2; 7:6; 12:10; 14:49, 72; Lk 3:4; 4:21; 18:31; 21:22; Jn 1:44-45; 5:39-40, 45-47; 7:42; 8:54-59; 12:12-19, 37-43; 13:18-19; 15:22-25; 17:12; 19:24, 28, 36-37; 20:9; Acts 1:16; 8:32-35; 10:43; 1 Cor 15:2-4; Heb 1:1-4; 1 Jn 1:1)
Today we need an “Emmaus road” experience in reverse. The disciples knew Moses and the Prophets but could not conceive how they might relate to Jesus the Christ. The modern church knows Jesus the Christ but is fast losing any grasp of Moses and the Prophets. (Philip Yancey; The Bible Jesus Read, 25)
II- God’s ways are counter-intuitive to our ways. Duh!
(Luke 24:26-27 see also: Prv 14:12; 16:25; Isa 55:8-9)
The kingdom of God always appears upside down to the human perspective. We think it’s strange to die in order to live, or to give in order to receive, or to serve in order to lead. Solomon captures the perpetual enigma of our looking-glass values just as Jesus describes them in the Sermon on the Mount. He insists we should embrace sorrow over laughter, rebukes over praise, the long way instead of the short, and today instead of yesterday.
The truth is that it’s not the kingdom of God that is upside down–it’s the world. It’s not the Word of God that turns life inside out–it’s the world that has reversed all the equations that God designed for our lives. (David Jeremiah, Searching for Heaven on Earth, 189)
III- God must keep His promises.
(Nm 23:19; Ps 119:41, 50, 116, 140, 162; 145:13; Isa 38:7; Jer 29:10; 32:42; 33:14; Lk 2:29; 24:49; Acts 1:4; 2:30, 33; 3:21; 7:5, 17; 13:23, 32, 34; 26:6-7; Rom 1:2; 4:13-21; 15:8; 2 Cor 1:20; 7:1; Gal 3:14-29; 4:23; Eph 3:6; 2 Tm 1:1; Ti 1:2; Heb 6:12-17; 10:23; 11:11; Jam 1:12; 2 Pt 1:4; 3:9, 13; 1 Jn 2:25)
In the Gospels and in Acts, Jesus claimed that the Old Testament promise was unified in him. He was the prophet like Moses, the Son of David, the Suffering Servant, the Messiah, and the Son of Man all wrapped together in one person. His career involved both suffering and triumph. The bridge between the two stages was the resurrection. This is why Jesus claimed to be teaching what the whole Scriptures taught. Only this understanding of who he was made sense of the various strands of promise in the Scriptures. When Luke 24 describes Jesus as prophet and Messiah, it underscores how the promise only makes sense when it is combined with Jesus. This is the central interpretive claim Christianity makes about God’s promises and their relationship to Jesus. (Darrell L. Bock, NIV Application Commentary: Luke, 615-6)
How can we avoid being foolish and slow of heart?:
A- Know and believe your Bible . . . all of it.
(Luke 24:25-27, 44-47; see also: Ps 119:11, 105; Mt 16:21; 17:22-23; Mk 9:31-32; Lk 9:21-27; 9:44-45; 18:31-34; Jn 2:19; 2 Tm 3:15-16; Heb 4:12)
It is the Bible that enables us to know the Bible. It is through the Bible that we discover what is in the Bible. Unless we are confronted with the word, unless we continue our dialogue with the prophets, unless we respond, the Bible ceases to be Scripture. . . . No human mind, conditioned as it is by its own perspectives, relations and aspiration, is able on its own to proclaim for all men and all times “This is God and nothing else.” Thus we must accept the Bible in order to know the Bible; we must accept its unique authority in order to sense its unique quality. This, indeed, is the paradox of faith, the paradox of existence. (Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man, 253)
This expression should be carefully noted. The disciples believed many things which the prophets had spoken. But they did not believe all. They believed the predictions of Messiah’s glory, but not of Messiah’s sufferings. Christians in modern times too often err in like manner, though in a totally different direction. They believe all that the prophets say about Christ’s sufferings, but not all that they say about Christ coming the second time in glory. (John Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Luke, Part 1, 504-5)
B- Read your Bible and understand that the REAL Jesus is counter-intuitive.
(Ps 18:30; Isa 5:24; Jer 6:10; 8:9; 25:3; Amos 8:12; Mt 22:29; Mk 4:33; 7:13; 12:24; Lk 24:45; 2 Pt 3:16)
If these two had listened to the “prophets,” they would have understood their Master, and known that a divine “must” wrought itself out in His Death and Resurrection. How often, like them, do we torture ourselves with problems of belief and conduct of which the solution lies close beside us, if we would use it? (Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture: Luke, 340)
After the two disciples had explained their sadness and confusion, Jesus responded by going to Scripture and applying it to his ministry. When you are puzzled by questions or problems, you too can go to Scripture to find authoritative help. (Bruce Barton, Life Application Bible Commentary, Luke, 562)
C- Jesus MUST be magnified in your heart and mind by knowing and trusting God and the Bible.
(1 Chr 17:24; Ps 35:27; 40:16; 70:4; Acts 19:17; Rom 10:17; 1 Jn 4:8)
If you don’t see the absolute holiness of God, the magnitude of your debt, the categorical necessity of God’s just punishment of your sin, and therefore the utter hopelessness of your condition, then the knowledge of your pardon and deliverance will not be amazing and electrifying! —Tim Keller
In the end; we will conserve what we love, we will love what we understand, and we will understand what we have been taught. —Baba Dioun; African environmentalist
Jesus Christ is too great for our small hearts. We cannot hold him all. He shows us stars we never saw before; he wakes desires we never may forget–finite souls that we are, trying to answer the call of the infinite deep. (George Buttrick, The Interpreter’s Bible Vol. 8, 423)
D- Be like Jesus. Obey the God of the Bible.
(Psa 119:11, 105; Mic 4:2; Acts 20:32; Eph 6:17; 2 Tm 3:15-16)
If you are a follower of Christ, then you must have within you a deep desire to want to love and obey God’s Word because that is what drove Jesus. Constantly, Jesus refers to his actions as being what His father told him to do or Jesus does what he does so that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. How can you say you follow Christ and contradict the very principle upon which his life was based . . . To fulfill the Scriptures. You cannot call yourself a Christian and do less than read, obey and love God’s Word. Otherwise, to call yourself a Christian and to live contrary to what we have just said, is to make a mockery of Jesus. (Tim Keller; Message from Acts 3)
Worship Point: Your worship will be in Spirit and in Truth to the degree you have a Spirit guided understanding of the Bible.
Obviously, unless the conception of God is something higher than a Magnification of our own good qualities, our service and worship will be no more and no less than the service and worship of ourselves. (J. B. Phillips, Your God is Too Small, 54)
Gospel Application: The “Good News” of the Gospel is that Jesus did what we failed to do in fulfilling every sacrifice, ceremony, celebration, feast day, and especially the Law of God. By faith Jesus’ work is credited to those who are “In Christ.”
(Mt 5:17; Acts 10:43; Rom 1:2, 17; ch 2-3, 3:21; 7:18; 8:2-3, 13; 10:3-4; 2 Cor 5:21; Gal ch. 3-4; 5:17; Phil 3:9; Bk of Heb)
The purpose and efficacy of the Levitical system was misunderstood and abused, but the shedding of blood was continued into the New Covenant. In both covenants the ultimate requirement is a total sacrifice of one’s self in humility before God’s great work of objective atonement through the life that is in the sacrificial blood. Both a perfect blood sacrifice and a perfect sacrifice of love and allegiance to God were found in Christ, bringing an end to the forward look of the Levitical system. (Geoffrey W. Bromiley, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: Vol. Four, 272)
In Paul’s epistles he expressed a highly developed and sophisticated interpretation of Christ’s crucifixion as an expiatory sacrifice (Rom 3:25; 5:9; also 1 Cor 10:16; Eph 1:7; 2:13; Col 1:20). He identified the Messiah with the sin offering (Rom 8:3; 2 Cor 5:21) and the Passover Lamb (1 Cor 5:7). He obviously expected his readers to be knowledgeable with regard to the OT ritual system. The “pleasing odor” sacrifices, esp. the whole burnt offering, provided the basis for his plea “to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” (Rom 12:1). (Merrill C. Tenney, The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible: Vol. Five, 210)
Spiritual Challenge: God’s ways are upside down from our own. Actually, we are upside down. God alone is upside right. Don’t allow temporary circumstances to blind you to eternal realities.
(Prov 3:5-6 see also; Isa 55:8-9; Mt 5:3-12; 18:1-4; 20:26; 23:11; Mk 10:43; Lk 9:46-48; 22:24-27; 1 Cor 1:18-3:21)
“The antithesis of worldly behavior, and the cure for conformity to the world, is set forth particularly in the “upside-down kingdom” of the Sermon on the Mount. The lifestyle of the kingdom is not proud but poor in spirit, not self-confident but meek and sensitive to conviction of sin, not self-righteous but repentant, not praise-seeking but God-obeying even to the point of suffering persecution, not vengeful but forgiving, not ostentatious or laborious in piety but secretive and simple, not anxious or acquisitive but content in serving God, not judgmental but merciful. If these patterns can be nurtured in the church, they will affect the moral structure of the rest of humanity.” (Renewal as a Way of Life; by Richard Lovelace; Intervarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL; 1985, 97)
So What?: The better you know the Word the better you know the WORD (Jn 1:1-14; 5:39; Acts 18:28). The better you know the WORD, the greater your grasp of reality (Jn 8:31-36). The greater your grasp of reality the greater your hope (Lk 11:28; Rom 5:1-5; 15:4; Phil 4:4-7; Jam 1:2-4; 1 Pt 4:12-19). The Word of God is Truth revealed in flesh, Spirit and print (Heb 1:1-4; Ps 19:7-14; 119; Jn 1:1-14; 14:6; Rom 10:17; Jam 1:23-24; Rv 19:13).
If we find ourselves hurting and despairing and do not find that Scripture speaks to our condition, it is not because the Bible has failed us, but because we do not know it well enough. We cannot be profoundly comforted by that which we do not know. We need to study our Bible with an eye to our Savior, because everything to do with our salvation and shalom is “yes” in Christ. (R. Kent Hughes, Preaching the Word: Luke, Vol. Two, 410)
As D. L. Moody said, “Those who read the Bible most find it ever new.” The Bible that is falling apart, it has been said, usually belongs to someone who isn’t! (David Jeremiah, Searching for Heaven on Earth, 306)
How Can the Fulfilled Promises of Jesus Bring Hope and Encouragement to those Who Are “In Christ”?:
1- You know you are right with God.
(Acts 10:43; Rom 3:24-28; 5:1, 9, 16-18; 10:10; 1 Cor 6:11; 2 Cor 5:21; Gal 2:16-17; 5:4; Ti 3:7; Heb 2:17; Jam 2:24; 1 Jn 1:9)
2- You know God will provide for your every need.
(Dt 2:7; 1 Kgs 17:6, 16; Ps 23:1; 121; Isa 40:11; 41:10; 46:3-4; Joel 2:21-27; Mt 6:19-34; Lk 22:35; Rom 8:32; Phil 4:12-13, 19; 2 Tim 4:18; 1 Pt 5:7)
3- You have a significance and purpose for your life.
(Job 7:17-18; Ps 8; Mt 6:19-34; Lk 12:23; Rom 8; 2 Cor 4:7-5:10)
4- You know you have eternal life with Jesus.
(See: Psa 121:8; 133:3; Dan 12:2; Mt 19:16-29; 25:46; Lk 18:30; Jn 3:14-16; 4:14; 5:24-29; 6:27, 40, 47, 50-68; 10:10, 27-28; 12:25; 17:2-3; Acts 13:46-48; Rom 5:21; 6:22-23; 1 Cor 15:53-54; 2 Cor 5:1; Gal 6:8; 1 Tm 1:16; 6:12; 2 Tm 1:10; Ti 1:2; 3:7; 1 Jn 2:25; 5:11-20; Jude 21)
5- You know that EVERYTHING that happens to you will ultimately work for your good.
(Rom 8:28; Gn 50:20)
6- You know Jesus will never leave you.
(Gn 28:15; 48:21; Ex 3:12; Dt 20:1; 31:6, 8, 23; Josh 1:5, 9, 17; 1 Sm 20:13; 1 Chr 28:20; 2 Chr 15:2; 20:17; Isa 43:2; Amos 5:14; Jn 14:16, 18; 2 Cor 13:11, 14; Phil 4:9; 2 Tm 4:22; Heb 13:5)
7- You can NOW live life fearlessly.
(Psa 23:4; 27:1-3; 34:4; 46:2; 49;5; 56:4, 11; 91:5; 112:7-8; 118:6; Prv 1:33; 3:24-25; 31:21; Isa 8:12-13; 10:24; 12:2; 35:4; 37:6; 40:9; 41:10, 13-14; 43:1, 5; 44:2, 8; 51:7; 54:4, 14; Jer 1:8; 10:5; 17:8; 23:4; 30:10; 42:11; 46:27-28; 51:46; Ezek 2:6; 3:9; Dan 10:12, 19; Jl 2:21-22; Mch 4:4; Hag 2:5; Zec 8:13, 15; Mt 1:20; 8:26; 10:26, 28; 10:31; 14:26-27; 17:7; 28:10; Mk 4:40; 5:36; 6:50; Lk 1:13, 30, 74; 2:10; 5:10; 8:50; 12:4-7, 32; Jn 6:20; 14:27; 20:19; Acts 9:26-27; 18:9; 27:24; Rom 8:15; Heb 2:14-15; 13:6; 1 Pt 3:14; 1 Jn 4:18; Rv 1:17; 2:10)
If fear wins, you lose.
Real gold fears no fire. (Randy Alcorn, Safely Home, 149)
Jesus says that the root of anxiety is inadequate faith in our Father’s future grace. As unbelief gets the upper hand in our hearts, one of the effects is anxiety. The root cause of anxiety is a failure to trust all that God has promised to be for us in Jesus. (John Piper, Future Grace, 54)
Fear does not stop death. It stops life. And worry does not take away tomorrow’s troubles. It takes away today’s peace. —Lori Deem
When you see, really see, and know the love of God hate becomes impossible. Fear becomes impossible. —Buddy Briggs
All God’s promises are “Yes” in Christ.
— 2 Corinthians 1:20a
