You're listening to audio from Faith Church located on the North Side Of Indianapolis. If you'd like to check out more information about our church and ministry, you can find us at faithchurchindy.com. Now, here's the teaching. Well, good morning. The resurrection changes everything.

Does it not? I'm thankful that we don't just get to celebrate the resurrection on Easter, but it's that it's something that we can come back to week after week, Sunday after Sunday. And so, you know, I get to get a chance to preach this wrap up to our disrupted series, this series where we've been in the parables of Jesus. We've looked at how Jesus used these fictitious stories that had a point, and he would use it to disrupt the the pride, the the prejudices, the ways of thinking of his disciples, of, even some of his adversaries, like the religious leaders and Pharisees. And the passage we just heard read from Luke is not a parable.

It's not a fictitious story. It's a a story grounded in reality of actual events, but it's still a story with a point. Now, before we get there, I want you to think about this proposition. There is a simple two word question that I think really can pack a punch when you ask it. It can be both a rhetorical question or a question trying to find a straightforward answer.

Maybe it's a question you've heard in a variety of different circumstances, maybe at work, maybe from your kids, maybe to your kids, or even in your church or community. And if we're honest, I think it's a question we probably have all asked ourselves at least once or twice in the last week. And it's a question that invites some deep soul searching within about where our faith lies and what we're gonna do with our place in the world, and what are we gonna do with our doubts and questions that we may have. So that question is, now what? Now what?

You know, you tell your kids to go play outside, and they come back in ten minutes later, like, now what? What am I supposed to do now? Right? Or you finish some big project at work and you're like, okay. Now what?

What am I supposed to do now? How am I supposed to occupy myself? As you can see, there's a lot of different ways you could ask that question. And as I mentioned, we're wrapping up this series, you know, post Easter. And, as we've looked at these parables, gee, pastor Jeff actually took us last week on Easter Sunday and showed us how through the death and resurrection of Jesus, our whole lives have been disrupted in a good way.

Right? That Jesus had to die in order to bring life to each one of us. And so I think for Jesus's disciples, if we can, you know, rewind pre resurrection just for a minute before they really were filled with joy and thankfulness that Jesus rose from the dead, what were his disciples thinking and feeling? And if I had to guess, it was probably some variation of this question of now what? Jesus has died.

He's been buried. Now what? So as we get ready to jump into this passage, let's just pause for a moment and pray. Heavenly Father, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, oh Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

So as I mentioned, Jesus's death left his disciples feeling a lot of things. Among them were sadness, doubt, and confusion. And I think we see a pretty good picture of that in this passage here with these two disciples on the road to Emmaus. I think he also his death left them wondering, where is our hope? Where is our hope now that Jesus has died?

And Luke, as the author of this gospel, is not throughout his gospel, he's not trying to give an exact play by play of everything he could possibly amass about the life of Jesus. Right? That each gospel writer has their own unique perspective that they're trying to communicate, and we see the same thing in the book of Acts as well, which is Luke's part two that he's writing to Theophilus. The gospel is part one, the book of Acts is part two, and we kind of call it a theological history. It is a history of real events that happened, but he's telling these stories with a point, a point that he's trying to communicate.

And it's also interesting that this story, these two disciples on the road to Emmaus, is unique to Luke. None of the other gospels include this story, even though there I'm sure there were hundreds of stories about those forty days that Jesus was on earth after he rose from the dead with his disciples. So as we jump in, let's unpack this Hitchhiker's Guide to Emmaus together. That joke killed first hour, by the way. I was expecting a little bit more.

Joey led me astray. Alright. Well, let's jump in. Verse 13. It's he says here, the the very next or sorry, not the very next day.

That very day, two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. And already, we have two questions just from reading this, if this is indeed where we're picking up. Right? Which day is this and who are them? Right?

So the day he's referring to is Resurrection Sunday. Right? Backing up to the beginning of chapter 24 here in Luke, he talks about the events that led to this point. And he says that very day. So same day, resurrection Sunday, this event takes place.

And he says, there were two of them going to a village named Emmaus about seven miles, or about a two and a half hour journey, away from Jerusalem. And I think who he has in mind here is two of the disciples of Jesus, but not necessarily the 12. Right? There were lots of disciples that followed Jesus beyond, just the 12 that are often named or that often went with Jesus. And if we back up to verse 10, he kind of hints backwards to this.

This is the report that the women gave as they came back from the empty tomb. Now as Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary, the mother of James, and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter rose and ran to the tomb, stooping and looking in. He saw the linen cloths by themselves, and he went home marveling at what had happened.

So Peter is at least marveling, but there's some other factions within this group of disciples. Maybe they're no longer fearing for their lives because it's been a couple days, nothing has happened, but they don't really know what to believe. So these two are going back to their hometown, probably, Emmaus. Still unpacking. They're still talking about what's been happening.

Right? They're just kind of talking. They're a little downtrodden, you know, going down to, Amayas from Jerusilla. And it says, as they were doing this, Jesus drew near and started walking with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him.

Now, it might be that they just, you know, as they're kind of sad, they're grieving, maybe slightly even depressed thinking about what happened to Jesus, they're watching the the path on the way. They're just kind of you know, when you go for a hike, you're watching the road. You don't want to trip and fall. And so, you know, maybe they don't recognize him. It's also possible there was some sort of, like, divine veil where they were actually kept from being able to recognize him.

But Luke doesn't really say, and I don't think it really matters which way that is. But in any case, they don't recognize Jesus for who he is. And it gives us this picture into this story. It's just a really beautiful understanding of what Jesus and what Jesus did and how he interacted with his disciples after rising from the dead. So he said to them, what is this conversation that you were holding with each other as you walk?

And they stood still looking sad. You know, like, they're already talking about it, but having, you you know, been forced to tell this stranger about it, it, like, causes them to just stop dead in their tracks. Like, I I can't believe you don't really know. And and 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? It's like, where have you been living under a rock?

Alright. You're catching on. You're catching on. It's good. Jesus could have responded, yeah.

I've been hold up for a few days now. Alright. Alright. We're moving on. But yeah.

Jesus could have responded when he when Cleopas asked him, do you not know anything that's been going on? Jesus could have responded with, actually, yes. Right? Like, I know about this Jesus who was delivered over to the religious authorities, that he was betrayed by one of his disciples, that he was not just handed to the religious authorities, but delivered over to Pilate. He was flogged by Roman soldiers.

He was stripped naked and crucified, and then he was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. You know, he could have told them everything he knew, you know, still playing dumb in a sense, but he just does it slightly differently. And he said to them, what things? What things are you talking about? You tell me what you hear about what's going on in Jerusalem.

And so they tell him. They tell this stranger what has been happening concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet, mighty in deed 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. And that's pretty accurate picture of what happened. Right? That's the short summary of what everything that happened to Jesus on that Friday.

But then in verse 21, we we get this sense of where where the thoughts and feelings and emotions of these disciples are, because they say, 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. So you've seen sadness. Now we see some doubt because they're trying to understand how this Jesus that they thought was this prophet, not just maybe even beyond a prophet, this holy one promised of God, we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.

Meaning that now that he's dead, we're not so sure about that anymore. Doubt is creeping in about what they believe about Jesus. Like, surely, if he was who we thought he was, if he was the one to redeem Israel, he wouldn't die. And then to add to their confusion, verse 22. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us.

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 women had said, but him, they did not see. So adding to their confusion is this report that comes back from these women who went to the tomb early on Sunday morning, came back to the broader group of disciples and said, hey, the angels have told us that Jesus is risen. He's risen from the dead. And I don't think it was just Thomas who gets a bad rap for the group of them that were maybe doubting what the women had said.

And so they went and verified their claims. They see that the tomb is empty, but not all of them, I think, are ready to believe. So they're confused. What do we believe? Do we believe that Jesus, like we saw him raise Lazarus or raise other people from the dead, that he raised himself from the dead?

Do we believe that? And so they have confusion as well. I think they're kinda asking themselves, now what? What do we believe? Was this Jesus of Nazareth the one to redeem Israel?

Do we do we believe these women who claim that they were told by angels that Jesus is alive? Where is our hope? And I think one of the reasons that Luke includes this story is because he is showing us how the resurrection changes everything, truly does. And throughout the remainder of this encounter between Jesus and these two disciples, everything shifts for these disciples, Where there once was confusion and doubt and sadness, Jesus brings something else. And the first thing that we see is that the resurrection produces clarity from the confusion, that Jesus brings clarity.

If you look at verse 25, where we left off, and he said to them, oh foolish ones and 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? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them and all the scriptures the things concerning himself. So the first thing that Jesus actually says in response to them is a rebuke. He rebukes them for not understanding everything that the scriptures had said, that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer. See, I think for these two disciples, Jesus, as the promised one to redeem Israel, and Jesus, who died a criminal's death on a cross, were incompatible.

They didn't see how those things could go together. And Jesus is rebuking them for that misunderstanding, saying, actually, not only is it compatible, it is necessary. It was necessary for the Christ to suffer. And then it says, beginning with Moses and all the prophets. Right?

Jesus takes out his pocket Old Testament. Not really because he didn't have that. But from memory is interpreting the scriptures to them so that they can see and understand everything about who Jesus is and what he's about. So they drew near to the village to which they were going. They get close to Emmaus, and Jesus acts as if he's gonna keep going.

Right? He kind of does the polite thing, the polite Midwest goodbye, where I'm not gonna assume that you're gonna invite me over to your house, but when they invite him in, he decides to stay with them. They urged him strongly saying, stay with us for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent. Also, just, you know, another thing in the defense of these disciples who, if there wasn't some sort of divine veil, like, how could they not recognize Jesus? Right?

It's getting dark. There's no street lights. They might never even had any, you know, torches or lanterns with them. You know, it's the first century. Maybe everyone's a little dirty, got a beard on.

I I give them the benefit of the doubt that they did not maybe recognize Jesus. So they he they go together and they share a meal together. But it was when he decided to eat with them that something changes. 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.

Now, even though we might read this in the description, the words that Luke uses sounds kind of like the Lord's supper, I don't think that's what, Luke has in mind here. I don't think that's what Jesus was doing. You know, a couple days after Passover, like, hey, yeah, let's do the Passover again. No. This is just a normal meal.

Bread's a part of that meal. But the odd part that is in this passage is that Jesus is the one who blesses the meal. Right? He's the visitor. He's the stranger.

He should not be the one doing that. It should be whoever's house they're in, whether it's ClearPass or the other guy, wherever they find themselves. And yet, it's when he does this, when he blesses the meal and breaks the bread, that either the divine veil was lifted or it kind of just finally clicked for them. Because no doubt, Jesus shared many meals with his disciples, not just the ones we read about, like, where Jesus broke bread and blessed it and fed 5,000 people, but even just the daily meals that he shared with them. So in this moment, it clicks for them.

They see Jesus for who he is, and and clarity finally comes for them to understand. And just as they wish, like, oh, I finally see. I see Jesus. He vanishes. Right?

Not convenient for them, but in the moment, they're no longer confused. They don't have any questions about whether Jesus did or didn't rise from the dead. They know because they've seen him. So the resurrection produces clarity from confusion, and it also produces faith where there once was doubt. Verse 32.

They said to each other, did not our hearts burn within us while we talked while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures? So what they describe to each other as they think back to their day, as they think back to, man, how did we not get it? How did we not understand that this was Jesus the whole time? They're thinking about as he was interpreting the scriptures to them and they're like, yeah, it wasn't just this like intellectual agreement with what he was saying, but our hearts were burning within us. And that's what faith is, that it's not always just gonna be this intellectual agreement toward correct doctrine, but that there is belief.

There's something that comes from within us. It's a it's like a visceral, deep belief. Sometimes, it can be hard to believe something even when your gut and everything else around you is telling you to believe the opposite. Yesterday afternoon, our family decided to take a walk after dinner, something we do often when the weather is nice, live on a nice quiet street. And, for us, it usually looks like, my wife, Claire, and I walk, our kids ride scooters until they decide they don't want to ride their scooters anymore, and then Claire and I carry the scooters.

And that's often how it goes. It's a lot of fun. Trust me, you should try it sometime. But last night was a little different in that Hazel decided she wanted to try riding her bike again. Now, at the end of last summer, we had gotten her a bike without training wheels because she wanted to practice, and, you know, we gave it a couple of shots, but it just wasn't something she was really catching on to.

And so we're like, hey, Don't worry. We'll try again next summer. So here we are, and she's like, I wanna try. Okay. Let's do it.

So, I'm helping her get her helmet on and her elbow pads and her knee pads, the latter of which were her additions, not mine. But I'm I'm in support of it. If she wants to feel safer, that's good. And so she's as we're getting ready, she's telling me she's kind of like preaching to me, but I think really preaching to herself about she's trying to psych herself up. Like, okay.

Yeah. I can do this. I'm just gonna keep pedaling, keep my feet on the pedals, keep pedaling, and, if I fall, it's okay. I'll get right back up. And I'm like, yes.

You can do this. I'm encouraging her. I'm trying to, like, say and, you know, embolden her to try this really hard thing that she's doing. And so we get out to the street, and I get her on the bike, and she just, like, freezes. Like, I can't do this.

I can't do this. What if I fall? What if a car comes? What if I hit a tree? What if I hit a mailbox?

I don't know how to steer. And she and all that fear and worry and everything else that, you know, kind of was emblematic of what had happened at the end of last summer, all came rushing back. And that boldness that she was feeling just moments before felt like it had vanished. And so, of course, I'm trying to encourage her, like, hey, you got this. Come on.

It's okay. Let's just try. Let's just try. No. I don't want to.

I don't want to. And she's just she's not letting go. She's white knuckling, holding onto the handlebars. And, like, we haven't even moved yet. We're just standing still, and she still can't get herself to to do anything.

And then I don't I don't know why I went this direction, but I felt like something I wasn't getting through to her intellectually, and something had to change. I'm like, Hazel, sometimes you just gotta like, like give it a you know, like just put your gut into it. I mean, it's the same thing that Pastor Joey tells me every time I get up to here to preach. You know, you just gotta, you know, psych yourself up for it. And it usually works.

But in that moment, she gave me a pretty pathetic, you know, and I'm like, alright. Here we go, and we're just gonna we're doing it. And so I'm with her the whole way, and then she did it. And it was great. And she could not believe Yeah.

Round of applause for Hazel. I thought about I thought about, you know, pulling up the video, but it felt a little, you know, too self aggrandizing to show show a video. But if you want to see it, I can show it to you later. But yeah, for the next thirty minutes, forty five minutes, she was going up and down the streets. She still hasn't figured out how to steer yet.

She still had some falls, but that's okay. Right? I never promised her that she was never going to fall, because I knew that it was probably going to happen. But I did promise her that I was going to be with her no matter what. I was going to be running alongside next to her.

I was going to catch her as best I could. And so, I think when we think about our own faith, when we think about our own relationship to God, sometimes it's built on this intellectual belief that we believe the right things and and that's enough. And sometimes when difficulty comes, when we're faced with a difficult problem in front of us, the intellectual part of our brain doesn't keep us going, and we get frozen. We get terrified a little bit. We're just holding on.

And sometimes we need that that deep belief that comes from the Lord to stir that fire within us, to deepen our faith. It doesn't mean we're not gonna have doubts, doesn't mean we're not gonna fall at times, but it does mean that we can trust that he'll be with us. So the last thing that the resurrection produces is joy. Instead of sadness, there is now joy. Let's finish out this passage.

Verse 33. And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. They found the 11 and those who were there 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. And as they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, 'Peace to you.' very hour, didn't finish dinner, didn't finish cleaning up after dinner. As soon as Jesus vanishes and they realize what's happening, they're like, we gotta go back.

It's dark. It's past the time where we should be traveling, but grab a torch. We're going back to Jerusalem. The disciples, the the group that's gathered and wandering in confusion, the same confusion we felt moments before, they've got to know the truth. And so they, you know, saddle up and get going.

Not really. They're probably walking, but I like to think that the journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus downhill probably took about two and a half hours, and that journey back in the middle of the night took much less time. Right? There was a pep in their step as they're running to Jerusalem. They're telling back and forth.

They can't wait to share with the disciples what they just experienced. And so they get to the room, they get to the house where the disciples are gathered, they open up the door, and they're just ready to drop this bombshell like you will not believe what happened. And before they can say anything, the disciples gathered there tell these two, hey, you'll never believe it. He has indeed risen, and he's appeared to Simon. Not to say that they were less excited, but they didn't get to break the news.

But that's okay. They still get to share what had happened. They get like, I we can't believe it. We we didn't see him for who he was, and then as soon as he broke bread with us and was sharing the meal with us, we saw it. And wouldn't you know, as soon as we saw it, he disappeared.

You know? But you can sense the joy in this situation. If you use your sanctified imagination to imagine what it'd be like for these disciples, that sadness that they felt when Jesus asked them, what are you talking about? That caused them just to stop dead in their tracks. It's been replaced with joy.

So the death of Jesus produced doubt and fear and sadness and confusion and anxiety in his disciples. Now what? What were they supposed to do now? But when they met the resurrected Jesus, they were no longer asking, now what? For the same reason, but for a different reason.

Because the resurrection changes everything. Now what? Well, Jesus is back here with us. He's alive. We can spend so many years together learning and listening to his teaching.

We can travel the world and proclaim the news that Jesus is the Messiah, that he was crucified and killed, that he's conquered sin and death, and that he rose from the dead. I can't wait to do this with Jesus. He's gonna be by our side for a long time. He is alive again. And obviously, they couldn't predict at that time that he was only gonna be with them for forty days, and he would leave them again, even though it's not the same as it was before.

So they're still asking, now what? What about for you and me? Have you allowed the resurrection of Jesus to change everything in your life? Or maybe you've thought to yourself that, yes, I believe that Jesus is the savior of the world and that he died and rose again for me. But now what?

Yes, I believe that Jesus gave me a purpose until he comes again, but I always don't always know what that is. So now what? Yes, I believe that I'm supposed to tell others about Jesus and spread the good news to all, but I'm feeling discouraged and nobody will listen. So now what? I believe that Jesus loves me and cares for me and knows my every need.

But I just feel so stuck in a rut, and I feel like I've tried everything to break free from this cycle of sin and shame. Now what, Lord? Well, the great news of the resurrection of Jesus is that he has indeed answered all these questions. Doesn't mean that we won't struggle, that we won't have our own questions that follow or experience hardship, but he has promised us something, and he's fulfilled that promise, that he has left us with an advocate, a helper, which is the Holy Spirit. Jesus's disciples were no doubt shocked and saddened when they found out that Jesus was not staying on this earth indefinitely with them and that he was leaving again, even though probably to them it made the most sense that Jesus would stay.

Like, Jesus, we get to keep doing this together. Why are you leaving? But Jesus tells them about the promise of the Holy Spirit. And as disciples of Jesus, here in 2025, we have the same God living within us. If you have placed your faith in Jesus and submitted to your your life to him as both your savior and your Lord, then the Holy Spirit has come upon you to guide you, to convict you of sin, to illuminate God's word for you, to bless you with gifts for the benefit of the community around you, and advocate for you on your behalf to your heavenly father.

So in light of the death and resurrection of Jesus, will you continue to go through life with sadness, doubt, confusion? There will definitely be moments of that. Don't get me wrong. But will we, with those things, give them to God, surrender them to him, and in the power of the Holy Spirit, instead of saying, now what? Grab those handlebars, keep your feet on the pedals, say, okay, Lord.

Now what? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we're thankful for your word and this account of what it was like for these disciples to encounter Jesus, to encounter the risen Lord in a moment where they were not expecting it. And if we're honest, sometimes it's really easy to use our intellect, to use our smarts, to come to a place where we logically can see that you are God and that Jesus is the Son of God and that he rose from the dead. Sometimes we wanna believe, but it's hard.

And so we we pray the prayer of the centurion to, Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief. So in those moments where we're faced with something difficult in front of us, a trial, a struggle, our own doubts and questions, father, may we always come back to this truth, that you love us and that you will always be with us. We're thankful for that truth and that promise this morning. It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.