Title: “The Road to Emmaus” Text: :13-35

“And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.”

Wow! That must have been some study.

Jesus starts at the beginning of the with the first 5 Books of Moses: -Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, -and then he walks these two disciples through the whole Old Testament -explaining to them how all of the Scriptures speak about him.

And maybe you are thinking, “Hey, wait a minute. How can Jesus use the Old Testament to talk about himself? -Jesus isn’t even in the Old Testament! -He isn’t born until the , which is the first book of the !”

And there’s a sense in which you are right. -It IS in the New Testament that Jesus really comes on the scene. -And it’s the New Testament that proclaims and explains the birth, life, death, resurrection and . -You might say: Jesus is THE topic of the New Testament.

But as Jesus walks with these two disciples on the Road to Emmaus, -he explains to them that amazingly enough, He is also the whole topic of the Old Testament as well.

“Everything in there,” Jesus says, “points forward to me.” “And everything I have said and done in my life and ministry was in fulfillment of all of those Old Testament Scriptures.”

And my friends, this is what we are going to be unpacking in the coming year.

-We are going to walk the Emmaus Road together this year. -We are going to put ourselves in the shoes of those two disciples, -and invite Jesus to walk along with us this year and teach us all about himself from the Old Testament Scriptures.

We are going to ask him to start with Moses and the Prophets and explain to us how all of the Scriptures point to him.

So next week we will go all the way back to Genesis 1 and 2, -the very first chapters of the Old Testament. -And then as we walk through the year we will take a tour of the whole rest of the Old Testament, -seeing how all of the Scriptures either implicitly or explicitly point to the wonder of who the Christ is, -and what the Christ would do for us and for our salvation.

But that’s not all. -Here’s the thing about walking the road to Emmaus: -Those two disciples didn’t just get an amazing Bible Study that day. -The conclusion of the story is that they actually met the risen Lord Jesus.

And this is our goal for every day of the coming year. -Not just that we would learn ABOUT Jesus, but that we would actually meet and experience Jesus along the way.

And those two things are not mutually exclusive! No. It was as those disciples walked along the road learning about Jesus that their hearts began burning within them. -What they learned made them long for a real relationship with this Savior more and more.

And when they got to the Village of Emmaus, they then begged this stranger to stay with them, and eat with them. -It was what they had learned that made them want more. -And it was then in the breaking of the bread that their eyes were opened to realize that it was Jesus who had been with them all along.

You see, the learning about Jesus and then having our eyes opened to see and experience Jesus with us go hand in hand.

They feed each other. -The more we learn about Jesus the more we want to be with him and experience His presence with us. -And the more we experience his presence with us, the more we want to know of him.

That is what the Road to Emmaus is all about. -A rich study of God’s word, that ignites a fire in our minds and our hearts and causes us to want to embrace Jesus, -and experience more and more of his presence with us every day.

And so I am inviting you to come along on the continuing Journey of Discipleship this year: -walking the road to Emmaus and discovering Christ in the Old Testament, -and discovering the risen Lord Jesus right here with us now in all His goodness and glory.

Will you come with me?

Now as in past years, as we walk this road together, -there will be weekly sermons, as well as the Adult Study class on Sunday mornings unpacking the week’s Old Testament text. -There will also be small groups gathering to share this journey together, -and the Wednesday morning Bible study as well.

-And as in past years, we have a team of people putting together a daily devotional for Monday to Friday.

We invite you to participate in any and all of these opportunities for growth. -In the sermon, you get to hear me make the connection between the OT text, and Jesus as the fulfillment. -But in the Adult Study at 9:45am, you get to interact with that connection, and ask questions,

-and talk about how it applies to your life.

Or you can do that in a small group during the week. -And it is in those smaller groups that you get to meet other people and have some companionship along the road.

And then there is the devotional for each day of the week. -Let me say a word about this year’s devotional. -It will be different than last year’s devotional. -In fact, each year that we do this the devotional is a little different, -because it is shaped around what we are studying.

This year the goal of our devotional time each day is -to help each of us make that move -from the “learning about Christ in the Old Testament,” -to “meeting with the risen Jesus” and spending time with Him in personal relationship.”

The devotional is to help us move from content to connection. -So the sermons and the Bible studies will provide the content of what we are learning about Jesus, -like the disciples on the Road to Emmaus as they listened to Jesus explain to them from all the Scriptures about himself.

-But we are patterning our devotional times this year around those moments at the Village of Emmaus, -when the disciples turned to Jesus and urged him saying, “Stay with us. Don’t leave. Come and eat with us. Please stay.” -And he did. And in the breaking of bread their eyes were opened and they recognized him with them.

That is the goal of the devotionals. -Not more content, but more personal connection with Jesus.

And so the devotional will have far less content this year. -The format will look like this. (Put up the Power Point slide)

We are inviting us all to begin and end the devotional time with a few moments of silence to be still before the Lord.

-These quiet moments are to create a little sacred space in our lives to meet with Jesus. -They are moments like with the disciples in the story: to stop what we are doing, -and to say, “Jesus, abide with me now. Stay with me. Come, sit we me for a while.”

And then there will be just one verse, or maybe two, from that week’s Scripture reading for us to focus in on and reflect upon. -And then a very brief devotional thought about that verse -and a question to stimulate our reflections.

And we end again in a time of quiet.

And there is an overall pattern to the reflections each week. -The Monday devotional will seek to briefly remind you of the connection that was made in the sermon between the Old Testament text and Jesus. -How is it that this text points to Jesus?

-Then the rest of the week, each day has a focus on a different aspect of a healthy spiritual life: -Tuesday the focus is prayer. -Wednesday the focus is rest. -Thursday the focus is our relationships. -Friday the focus is our work life.

So all week we will be reflecting on the same Old Testament text and on Jesus, -but each day will point us to Jesus in a slightly different way, -and will invite Jesus to make himself known to us in these various aspects of our lives. -In prayer, in rest, in relationships, in work.

I know that in the past years, many of you have gotten your devotional and immediately read the whole thing all at once. -And you are still free to use the devotional any way you want. -But this year, I’d like you to remember the story of the Road to Emmaus,

-and that the goal is not just to learn about Jesus, but to spend time… actually being with Jesus.

These devotionals will be most effective if you take them one day at a time, -and actually take a few minutes at the beginning and end to be still before the Lord. -And then read slowly, and reflectively.

The goal is not to just read the page, or get the content. -The goal is to take time to actually be with Jesus each day. -And to take the content that we have learned about him, and move to then abide in him, love him, enjoy his friendship, give thanks for his grace and mercy.

Our on-going prayer for these devotional times is the words of the disciples in the passage: “Stay with me, Lord. For evening is at hand, and the day is almost over. Don’t leave, Lord. -Come and sit with me. Break bread with me. -Open my eyes that I might recognize you right here with me.”

Now finally let me say that one of the reasons we are doing this study this year, -is because of last year’s study of the Book of Acts. -I don’t know if you noticed it specifically or not, but every time Peter or Paul preached the gospel, -or taught about Jesus in the Book of Acts -they always were quoting the Old Testament.

As they were making their case for Jesus being the Messiah, -they would call on Moses and the prophets, and David, and the Psalms, as witnesses to back them up.

Look at all these texts that they quote to prove that Jesus is the Christ. -Well these are the very kinds of texts that Jesus probably used with those disciples on the Road to Emmaus that day. -And over the course of the 40 days that Jesus met with his

disciples after his resurrection and before his ascension, -these are probably some of the texts he used to teach them about what he had just done.

And so we are going to go back and use these very texts to learn more about Jesus this year ourselves, -and so that we will have these witnesses ready to hand to bolster our own witness to the risen Lord.

My prayer is that we will not only come to a deeper appreciation of who Jesus is and what He has done for us, -but to a deeper place of relationship with Jesus, -a deeper place of worship, and sanctification, and love for Him, -and a richer witness to the world.

Let us pray.