[0:00] Luke chapter 24 verses 13 through 32.
[0:30] The Bible is truly about one story, about one person, and that person is Jesus Christ. So today we'll conclude that in Luke chapter 24 verses 13 through 32.
[0:41] And then next week begin a verse-by-verse study in 1 John. If you want to go ahead and be reading in 1 John, I encourage you to do that. There are Bibles in the pews. If you don't have a Bible with you and if you don't own a Bible, please take that Bible home today as a gift from our church to you in our hopes you'll continue to be reading the wonderful Word of God.
[0:59] But would you please stand with me as we honor God's Word together again? Luke 24 beginning in verse 13 going through verse 35. That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus about seven miles from Jerusalem.
[1:15] And they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him.
[1:26] And he said to them, What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk? And they stood still, looking sad. Then one of them named Cleopas answered him, Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?
[1:45] And Jesus said to them, What things? And they said to him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, the man who was a prophet, mighty indeed, and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death and crucified him.
[2:02] But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us.
[2:13] They were at the tomb early in the morning. And when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.
[2:30] And he said to them, Oh foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?
[2:44] And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. So they drew near to the village to which they were going.
[2:59] And he acted as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly saying, Stay with us for it is towards evening and the day is now far spent. So he went in to stay with them.
[3:10] When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed it 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?
[3:26] While he opened up to us the scriptures? And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together saying, The Lord has risen indeed and has appeared to Simon.
[3:40] Then they told what had happened on the road and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread. May God add a blessing to the reading of his word. Would you please be seated? Have you ever been frustrated or confused by a problem that had an obvious solution?
[4:01] When I was in the third grade, our class was preparing to celebrate Valentine's Day. We brought shoe boxes from home to our class and we covered them with construction paper and stickers and tape and glue to hold it all together to make mailboxes that our classmates would drop their Valentine's Day into the next day.
[4:25] Well, at the end of that day, I remember our teacher told us, Now there are, I think it was 27 kids in this class, and you'd better have a Valentine for every student in this class tomorrow.
[4:42] If you don't, there's going to be trouble. So I remember that night in my bedroom, I had my stack of Valentines and I had a pencil and a piece of paper and I wrote out all the names of every student in my class.
[4:59] And when I finished and I went through it, counted it, I had 26. And so I did it again, 26. I paced back and forth in my room and just trying to think, Who is this mysterious person?
[5:18] You know, trying to envision every student in my class and where they sit and thinking, I'm going to go to school tomorrow and there's going to be somebody whose heart I am going to break because I did not bring them a Valentine.
[5:37] Even thinking worse of what my teacher would do to me if she found out that this mysterious 27th person did not have a Valentine from me.
[5:47] And so what I decided to do is, you know what? I have an extra one. I will take it with me. And as class begins, I'll search the room, figure out who this mysterious person is who's eluding my memory, scribble their name on it, and all will be well.
[6:02] And so as I rose from the ground with my Valentines in my hand, preparing to go downstairs to put them in my backpack, I walked across my bedroom mirror.
[6:15] And I stopped. And I turned. And I realized that I had just found the missing 27th person.
[6:26] It was me. It had been me all along. Have you ever had a moment like that? Or having misplaced something that was either in your hand or on your head or maybe in your pocket the entire time?
[6:44] A moment where you were so mentally distracted by something that it blinded your eyes to whatever it is you were searching for, even though that thing that you were searching for was right in front of your face the whole time.
[7:00] If so, and I'm sure that it is, and you can probably relate in some way to these two men who encountered Jesus on the road to Emmaus after his resurrection.
[7:11] It had been three days since Jesus had died on the cross. And as they traveled from Jerusalem to Emmaus, the last person that they would have expected to meet was Jesus.
[7:28] And these two men had a problem. They had a problem that perplexed their minds, that was breaking their hearts, that had sapped them of joy and shattered the hopes that they had.
[7:45] They believed that Jesus was the Messiah. But they believed that Jesus was the kind of Messiah who would come and overthrow the Roman occupation of their land and establish a kingdom like the one that they had read about in their scriptures.
[8:07] But Jesus had been crucified. And a crucified Messiah, a crucified Christ, and their understanding of the scripture at that time did not fit together.
[8:22] There was a major hole in their theology, a truth in scripture that they just could not see until Jesus came to them.
[8:33] And Jesus, who is the truth, came and opened their minds and their hearts to the truth. And they saw that all of the Bible is about him.
[8:45] And that's the main idea for this morning's message. The Bible is all about Jesus. The Bible is all about Jesus. Now this is the first post-resurrection appearance recorded in Luke's gospel.
[9:04] As Jesus confronts two of his followers who were filled with doubt and who at this time were ignorant of biblical truth and confused by a problem that wasn't really a problem.
[9:18] It wasn't that these two men didn't believe scripture, but that their understanding of it was deficient. And a deficient knowledge of scripture is dangerous.
[9:30] God repeatedly in his word declares that it is the source of truth. That those who truly understand his word know him and they know the truth.
[9:45] All of God's purposes for humanity, all of his purposes in time and eternity can be known by those who understand his word and know who it is about.
[10:00] Jesus Christ, his son. And so that being the case, the greatest service that anyone can render to another is to explain to them the meaning of the Bible.
[10:16] And nowhere is that truth more powerfully illustrated than in our passage today. But why is this important? Why is this important? We live in a culture that has exchanged the truth for a lie.
[10:34] And as they've done that, the consequences have been disastrous and are getting worse.
[10:47] We live in a time where more so than maybe any other time, feelings have supplanted and replaced facts as the basis of truth.
[11:00] And I ask you, do we think that it's a coincidence that the decline of our mental health, especially in our young people, happens to be taking place at the same time that our society has been telling them that they can be the determiner of their own truth, to just trust their feelings and follow their heart.
[11:31] There's a big problem with that because the Bible says that our hearts can't be trusted. Jeremiah 17, 9 through 10 says, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick.
[11:45] Who can understand it? I, the Lord, search the heart and test the mind to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds. So why is this important? It's important because people need the truth.
[12:00] And God has given us Christians, those whom he saved, he's given it to us to share it and to combat the lies that are being passed off as the truth in our society.
[12:18] But now here's another question. What happens when Christians give more authority to their feelings than they do to God's word?
[12:33] Well, a lot of bad things. Ultimately, the worst thing that can happen is that Jesus removes our lampstand. And in doing so, we no longer become the city on the hill that we are called by God to be.
[12:53] Instead, we're more like a dilapidated, empty ghost town with no life and no help to give to those who are in desperate need of it.
[13:07] And so in our text today, there are three facts that support Jesus' claim here that the Bible, all of it, is about him.
[13:18] And it's important that we see this and we know it because we need to be people of the word. We need to be abiding in his word for ourselves, for our churches, for our homes, for our communities, for this world.
[13:31] It's our job to be the light. And we will do that more effectively if we understand the Bible and who it's about. So the first fact that supports Jesus' claim here is that the Bible is incoherent without him.
[13:47] The Bible is incoherent without Jesus. Look again with me at verses 13 through 14. That very day, this is the day of Jesus' resurrection, three days after his crucifixion, two of them two followers of Jesus, were going to a village named Emmaus about seven miles from Jerusalem, which depending on your level of fitness could take you an hour and 45 minutes up to two hours and 20 minutes.
[14:17] And they were talking with each other about these things that had happened. So again, here we meet two guys who at some point had decided that they were going to follow Jesus.
[14:30] They weren't part of the twelve disciples, but belonged to a larger contingent of those who saw Jesus' miracles, heard him preach, and trusted that this man was the long-awaited Messiah that their scriptures had promised.
[14:48] But again, they were heartbroken. They were devastated. They were totally confused by the events that had just recently taken place in Jerusalem. Jesus died on the cross, and when he died, so did their hopes and dreams and what they believed he would do.
[15:09] Like many others, they believed that Jesus was a different kind of Messiah, a political Messiah, someone who would overthrow the Romans by force, but a Messiah who surrendered to his Jewish captors and then was crucified by the Romans did not fit their interpretation of the Old Testament prophecies that predicted a triumphant king who would liberate his people.
[15:43] In their minds, Jesus' death disqualified him from being the Messiah. So they are trudging along this dirt road together.
[15:57] They're feeling defeated as they converse about all these things that had recently happened. And specifically, all these things that had happened encompassed everything that happened the week leading up to Jesus' death.
[16:13] They would have been talking about Monday in his triumphal entry into Jerusalem when the crowds gathered and threw their coats on the ground and palm leaves on the ground as they chanted Hosanna, Hosanna and were calling Jesus the son of David asking him to come and to save them.
[16:31] And then on Tuesday, they would have been talking about how Jesus entered the temple and purified it for the second time casting out the money changers and in doing so in a way that displayed his righteous anger.
[16:46] They would have remembered how then on Wednesday and Thursday, Jesus pretty much had the temple to himself as he taught the people though his opponents would come and try to trap him with gotcha questions and over and over again, Jesus turned things on them and revealed that this man was someone incredibly special.
[17:10] But then on Thursday, on Thursday night, into the wee hours of Friday morning, the unimaginable happened. Jesus was arrested and then he was tried and he was falsely accused.
[17:23] He was mocked, beaten, crucified, and buried. It was a shocking end that dealt a devastating blow to their hopes in him.
[17:39] then in verse 15 we read, while they were talking about these things and discussing these things together, a stranger joined them. Now this wasn't uncommon during this time.
[17:52] People traveled on these roads and many traveled by foot on these roads at the same time and so they didn't have the concept of stranger danger that we have. If you were walking a road and somebody came along you, you'd be, you know, wondering where your gun was at or something like that, right?
[18:08] Not in this case. This was common. Stranger comes up and joins the conversation. Verse 15 says, Jesus himself drew near and went with them but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.
[18:22] So Jesus here in his post-resurrection form, not looking like the way he did in his transfiguration before his crucifixion but we know that he had the ability as he often did after his resurrection to hide his appearance for a specific reason and I think here the specific reason that he has for hiding his appearance is that he's about to preach to these two men and one thing that he wants them to see and I think for us to see as well is that power lies in the explanation of the Bible not in the person who is explaining it.
[19:02] It lies in the explanation of the Bible not in the person who is explaining it. I was a little kid my favorite baseball player was Kyle Ripken Jr.
[19:14] and if you know who Kyle Ripken Jr. is Kyle Ripken Jr. had these really weird baseball batting stances and he put the bat flat on his back sometimes sometimes he put it out here sometimes it looked like he was playing the violin very strange but for whatever reason it worked for him.
[19:30] Now in my mind I'm thinking I want to be as good of a baseball player as Kyle Ripken Jr. and so in order to do that I need to bat like Kyle Ripken Jr.
[19:43] and so there I was looking weird at home plate and not having the kind of success that Kyle Ripken Jr. had. But you know even when I became a pastor and first was regularly preaching I had the same temptation to look at the men who I admired who preached and wanting to to copy their mannerisms and their preaching style thinking that I would have the results that they had.
[20:07] Now I think it's important that we need to do all that we can to be the best kind of communicators that we can be of God's word if he calls you to preach it and teach it but the most important thing isn't the way you communicate but what you communicate.
[20:29] And so again if God has called you to teach whether that's in the nursery on up through our senior adults or to preach there is no doubt pressure that comes with that and the Bible says it's not to be something that you ever take lightly but the goal is to explain biblical truth.
[20:52] and if you've done that then you've done well you've done your job. We scatter seed and God is the one who causes the growth and the best teachers of God's word know that power comes through him through his word not from themselves.
[21:14] Now Jesus was obviously different. He did have the power within himself he was the son of God but here he hides his appearance again I believe in part to demonstrate the power of God's word to us.
[21:29] And good communicators also ask provocative questions which Jesus again being the greatest teacher of all time does in verse 17.
[21:39] And he said to them what is this conversation that you're holding with each other as you walk? And they stood still looking sad. Then one of them named Cleopas answered him are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened in these days?
[21:58] So these two men here they hear Jesus' question and they're stunned that this news had yet to reach this stranger's ears because it was the talk of the town.
[22:12] It was the talk of the community. It was headline news. I didn't live through the assassination of John F. Kennedy but I did live through the events of 9-11.
[22:26] And if you live through one or both you know how those things stunned and saddened and devastated our nation.
[22:41] It wasn't long before word of those things reached everyone. And so the same thing had happened here in Jerusalem concerning the death of Jesus.
[22:54] It was an event that gripped their nation. Everyone knew what had happened. And then in verse 19 Jesus asked a follow-up question.
[23:07] You know he obviously knew what had happened. It happened to him after all. His question was intended though to elicit further response from his traveling companions.
[23:18] These men assumed they were journeying to Emmaus but truly what's happening here is Jesus is taking them on a spiritual journey that will change their lives.
[23:30] And so again in verses 19 through 24 more. And Jesus said to them what things and they said to him concerning Jesus of Nazareth a man who is a prophet mighty indeed in word before God and all the people how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death and crucified him.
[23:47] But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes and besides all that it is now the third day since these things happened. Moreover some women of our company amazed us.
[23:59] they were at the tomb early in the morning and when they did not find his body they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the woman had said but him they did not see.
[24:17] So again the crucifixion of Jesus created an existential and theological crisis for these men. They had hoped that Jesus would redeem Israel but if they had given greater attention and trust to what God's word says rather than their feelings they would have remembered that to redeem something you have to pay for it.
[24:52] There is a price that comes with redemption. This especially should have been fresh in their minds since they had just completed Passover where thousands of lambs were slaughtered and offered to God as sacrifices to atone for their sins.
[25:09] Their blood was the price paid for them to receive forgiveness. Though they understood that redemption required death and that the principle that principle was taught throughout their scriptures they did not see nor understand how all of those things foreshadowed Jesus and pointed to a much greater truth in him that his sinless life his death his resurrection were necessary for them to be redeemed from their sin.
[25:50] But though they had these scriptures they could not see it and could not understand how what happened to Jesus was consistent with what they read there.
[26:04] This is probably now a year or two ago but Ben Shapiro had an interview with John MacArthur and Ben Shapiro is a great voice of reason in this age.
[26:20] He's brilliant and I appreciate his courage to speak against the evils that many are trying to normalize in our society but he's not a Christian.
[26:33] Ben Shapiro is a Jew and in that interview John MacArthur who is a Christian who is a pastor talks with him and this is what Ben Shapiro says to him. I want to share just a brief part of that.
[26:46] He said Ben Shapiro when I read the New Testament and I'm obviously not a believer in the divinity of Jesus I see the similarities in what Jesus says with the Old Testament prophets that sacrifices themselves are basically of no use unless there is actual meaning behind the sacrifice.
[27:08] He says they weren't there because God likes to barbecue. you. Shapiro talks about how much he admires Jesus and the teachings of Jesus and how he sees the similarities in Jesus and what he taught and what he reads in the Old Testament in between Christianity and Judaism.
[27:30] And then John MacArthur walks him through the Old Testament and he shows him how all of the Old Testament is fulfilled in Jesus.
[27:42] And at the end of their conversation MacArthur says to Shapiro I want to say this to you personally you are a testimony to the glory of God in man. I see the beauty of God's creation in you.
[27:55] I see the use of reason and compassion and care. I see so many things in you. I'm not denying that reflection of God in you but I'm saying you either believe Jesus is the Savior or you don't and that's the distinction.
[28:11] He said I could spend hours with you and be far richer for it but I'd always be saying the same thing. And then I think it was edited this way but Ben Shapiro hears that and then he just turns to the camera and he gives the plug for his next advertisement and it's just so frustrating.
[28:30] Here it is. It's so clear and you know the scriptures that are all about it. Why can't you see it? You know you can have great reason.
[28:42] You can have a good moral compass and knowledge of the Bible. You can even have large parts of it memorized but if you don't see how all of those things connect to Jesus how all of it is about Jesus then the Bible will forever be incoherent to you.
[29:03] You won't be able to make absolute sense of it. But Jesus' desire is that you do. Knowing and quoting scripture will not save you.
[29:16] Knowing understanding and trusting in the one who scripture is about that will. So now the second fact. It's incoherent without Jesus and now secondly the Bible's interpretive key is Jesus.
[29:32] The Bible's interpretive key is Jesus. before unlocking the scriptures for them Jesus gave these men a stern talking to first in verses 25 and 26 and he said to them!
[29:48] Oh foolish ones slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?
[29:59] See Jesus did not excuse their lack of understanding since in their scriptures God had made his will and his plan to redeem his people clear remember Jesus was repeatedly challenging his opponents who were supposed to be the religious leaders of Israel who were supposed to be experts in the word and what would he continue to say to them he'd say have you not read have you not read how can you not understand these things here and how they're about me again if you teach preach or study God's word without connecting it to Jesus his sinless life his sacrificial death his victorious resurrection then you've tragically missed the point and wasted your time and the time of whoever else you're teaching to and then in verse 27 it says in beginning with Moses the first five books of the Bible and all the prophets all the rest he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself for the next two hours
[31:09] Jesus preached to these two men in what I think is probably the greatest sermon never recorded of all the moments of Jesus life on earth recorded in the New Testament outside of his birth his crucifixion and his resurrection I think this would be one of my top five things that I would like to have been able to go back and witness and be a part of and we hear that we read that and we think well what would Jesus have shown them in scripture what things in the Old Testament that he specifically draw their attention to well I'll try to summarize and it will take me a lot less than two hours in Genesis he would have shown them that he is the eternal word of God the promised seed of the woman whose heel would be stricken by Satan but whose foot would crush his head and deliver the death blow which he did on the cross he would have shown that he is the true and better ark whose sinners enter into and who carries them safely through the waters of divine judgment he would have shown them that he is the true and promised son of
[32:24] Abraham who ascended to the same location Abraham climbed with his son Isaac and that he is the ram that was caught in the thicket who substituted his life to redeem his people he would have shown them that he is the true and better Joseph the rejected brother who suffered before ascending to a high place of power in order to save his people in Exodus he would have shown them that he is the true and better Passover lamb the one whose blood was shed and who is applied to the doorposts of our hearts and sets us free from the bondage that we have to sin and its deadly consequences in Leviticus he would have shown them that he is the true and better high priest the true and better tabernacle who dwells through his spirit in the hearts of his people he is the one through whom access to God is permanently granted in Numbers he is the ever present guide who leads his people by a pillar of cloud in the day and a pillar of fire by night he is the water in the desert and the manna from heaven that nourishes our famished souls in Deuteronomy he is the true and better prophet who is greater than Moses the one who became a curse for us in Judges he is the true and better
[33:45] Joshua the true commander of God's armies who leads his people into the promised land and the true and better Samson who by his death in his death defeated his enemies in Ruth he would have shown them that he is the true and better Boaz our kinsman redeemer who takes us as his bride and lavishes us with his riches in first and second Samuel he would have shown them that he is the true and better David who slays the greatest giants that we face of sin Satan and death and invites us to share in his victory in first and second kings he would have shown them that I am the prophet and the priest and the king that you need and did not get in first and second chronicles he would have shown them that he is the restorer of the kingdom who reigns and rules eternally in Ezra he is the faithful scribe the priest proclaiming freedom in Nehemiah he is the one who rebuilds and restores what is broken in us he is the true and better
[34:46] Esther who risks his life to save his people he is the true and better Job who suffered worse and trusted in God all along the way in Psalms he is our shepherd who walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death who is our song in the morning and in the night the one who hears our cries and fills our souls with joy and our mouths with praise in Proverbs he is our wisdom he is wisdom incarnate in Ecclesiastes he is the one who gives the true meaning and better purpose to our lives in Song of Solomon he is the true and better lover of his bride in Isaiah he is wonderful counselor mighty God everlasting father prince of peace he is the suffering servant who has borne our grief carried our sorrows was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities he is the lamb who was led to slaughter and by whose wounds we are healed in Jeremiah he is the righteous branch the one through whom the spirit of God writes his law on our hearts in lamentations he is the one who weeps for his people and shoulders
[36:03] God's wrath for their sins in Ezekiel he is the river of life that brings healing to the nations in Daniel he is the fourth man in the fire in Hosea he is the faithful husband who does not divorce his adulterous wife in Joel he is the day of the Lord pouring out judgment on God's enemies and blessings to those who trust in him in Amos he is the one who delivers justice to the oppressed and bears their burdens in Jonah he is the true and better missionary the one cast out into the storm to bring us in in Micah he is everlasting ruler born in Bethlehem who cast all of our sin into the depths of the sea in Nahum he is the avenger of God's elect in Habakkuk he is our strength though all that could go wrong does go wrong he brings us and gives us reason to rejoice causing us to tread on the high places in Zephaniah he is the great reformer and savior in Haggai he is the cleansing fountain in Zechariah he is the pure son whom every eye on earth will one day behold and in
[37:14] Malachi he is the son of righteousness who shall rise and has risen with healing in his wings I don't I don't know how long it took me to do that but I can imagine being with Jesus for nearly two hours as he did could you imagine that this is the way that Jesus exposited he taught scripture and so I say to you if the preaching that you hear doesn't match Jesus' words and the way he did it if it doesn't point to him if he's not the main subject if the gospel is not presented and proclaimed and if it's preaching is like that then it's not worth your time it's not worth your time every text has something to teach you and proclaim to you about Jesus it takes work but it's worth it and now the third fact that supports Jesus' claim that all of the bible is about him
[38:17] Jesus uses the bible to influence transformation in our lives Jesus uses the bible to influence transformation in our lives so now that he's done this in verse 38 through 30 it said so they drew near to the village which they were going he acted as if he were going farther but they urged him strongly saying stay with us for it's towards the evening and day is now far spent so he stayed with them now have you ever heard preaching so good that you didn't want it to end I hope that I'd hear a really hearty amen with that one okay amen well that's the case here they've heard such great teaching such great preaching that they are not ready for it to end and so they urged Jesus to come back with him and when he's at table with them he took the bread he blessed it he broke it he gave it to them and when he did their eyes were opened and they recognized him and then he just vanished poofed from their sight and they said to each other having recognized who they were with did not our hearts burn within us as he talked to us on the road while he opened up to us the scriptures now it's interesting to me here that after Jesus vanished that wasn't the topic of the conversation it wasn't where did he go instead they were reveling in the revelation that they had received from him their hearts were on fire and burning with joy in what
[39:52] Jesus had just taught them and the rest of the passage says in verses 33 through 35 and they rose that same hour now it's late at night but they don't care and returned to Jerusalem and they found the eleven 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 when the truth of God's word is expounded when it is exposed when Christ is seen in it it becomes clear and it sets hearts on fire and it moves their feet to share it and that's been my hope throughout this whole series of sermons to motivate you to encourage you to spend more time in God's word to break bread with him every day fellowshipping with him in his spirit as you open it and as you read and as you study and that as you do your heart will be set on fire and you will share its truth with those in desperate need of hearing it so the main application for this sermon to abide in Christ you must abide in his word remember
[41:21] Jesus said to his disciples how important it is that in order to abide in him they must abide in his word be reading his word be studying his word be asking questions of others about his word grow in your knowledge of it and it will not be time wasted I promise you that I'm showing you the things in the Old Testament where you'll see Jesus what about the New Testament what about the New Testament well in Matthew you'll see that he is king of the Jews and Mark that he is the son of God and Luke that he is the son of man and John that he is the eternal word of God who became flesh!
[42:09] In 1 Corinthians he is the one who unites his people when they are divided in 2 Corinthians he is the one whom all the promises of God find their yes in Galatians he is the one who sets us free in Ephesians he is the head of the church in Philippians he is our joy and peace which surpass understanding in Colossians he is the fullness of the God head in 1 and 2 Thessalonians he is the soon coming king in Titus he is the truth and our blessed hope in Hebrews he is our perfection the one who supplies the blood that washes away our sins in James he is the great physician who empowers our faith in 1 Peter he is our example in 2 Peter our purity in 1 John he is our life in 2 John he is our pattern for living in 3 John he is the one whom we are to imitate in doing good in Jude he is God our savior and in revelations he is our coming conquering king king of kings lord of lords the rider on the white horse whose enemies don't stand a chance he is the alpha and the omega he is the one who says in revelations 22 7 and behold
[43:26] I am coming soon blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book and I take him to me not just revelation but everything that came before it and my hope for you brother or sister in Christ is that you will spend more time with God in his word that it will abide in you and you will abide in it and if you don't know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior today I am glad that you are here there is no one like him there is no one who can set you free from sin there is no one who can give purpose and meaning to your life like him he is the one who has truth and he willing!
[44:17] to give it to you you sinned and you fallen short just like me God is holy his standard is perfect and you don't measure up God in his grace has sent his one and only son Jesus Christ to live that sinless life that you and I could not live not even for one day unless we were asleep the whole time and still probably not and he willingly gave his life on the cross substituting himself for sinners bearing the wrath of God in our place enduring our shame our sin and the consequences for it and he died but on the third day he arose as proof that his sacrifice was sufficient as proof and validation that he is the son of God and that there is salvation in him and him alone and if you believe in him if you trust in that the
[45:18] Bible says that you will be saved and I hope that today is the day of salvation for you three questions of application for you to look at today and later this week encourage you as you are studying God's word right question number one what is the danger of reading and teaching without making mention of and the Bible without making mention of Jesus and the gospel what would that type of reading and teaching produce question number two are there parts of the Bible that you disagree with or neglect to study why why is that why do you disagree why do you avoid reading those texts and then finally read John 15 7 through 10 what does it mean to abide in Jesus word and how does Jesus expect you to study and apply his word let's pray heavenly father we thank you for for your word for its truth the way you use it to light our paths the way your
[46:43] Holy Spirit opens our eyes our hearts our minds to see what we need to see to shape us and make us more like Jesus Christ your son God we live in a time where the truth has been exchanged for a lie and Lord you've given us your word you've called us to be your ambassadors to be your representatives to be lights in the world dispelling darkness and God in order to do that we must know your word better and know how all of it points to you and so I pray Lord for me for all of us that it would be our conviction that we would be people of the word that greater and more powerful ways to bear witness to how great and awesome you are in the hopes that people will be saved by you we ask these things in
[47:48] Jesus name amen