The Gospel Story

Good morning everyone and welcome. I’m excited to have you all here this morning because we are starting a new sermon series today since we are at the beginning of a new year. And I gotta be honest with you all, I am both extremely excited and extremely nervous for this series! Now, you’re probably wondering, why that is. Well, this sermon series is not going to take place over the next month or two, not even the next three months, but the entire year! This whole year is going to be focused on the broad gospel story that we see laid out for us in the entire Bible. Today’s sermon will help serve as the backdrop as to what we are going to attempt to do and provide us with the purpose behind it.

This series then is going to walk us through the gospel story as a whole, starting in Genesis and ending in Revelation. (This is where the nervous part comes from!) This is a big undertaking and I am sure that I won’t do it perfectly, I’m shooting for fair to middling. But I am so excited about it because I think it can help all of us have a better understanding of what God is like and really demonstrate to us the importance of Jesus, since everything ultimately points to him. As we start then, I also want to encourage everyone, in fact I want to challenge everyone to do something. This year, I want to challenge each and everyone one of us to read the entire Bible, front to back. Read it or listen to it while you drive, but soak in God’s Word as we go through this series. We definitely won’t be able to touch on everything in church on Sundays, so if you follow a reading plan you will be able to understand even more of how the Bible points us to Jesus.

(Bible Recap, Bible Project, great resources that can help you do this.)

Prayer

The Gospel Story Intro

If you are anything like me, you have likely opened your Bible in the Old Testament and sometimes thought, “What on earth is this about?” Even as Amy and I have just started reading through it for the year, we’ve already had a few conversations about how the Bible can seem weird at times, especially in the Old Testament. And what can happen though is that we neglect the Old Testament. There are weird stories and names, scary things that happen, and so we brush it off and don’t read it very often. Yet, Jesus himself points out that all of it points to him. (The Bible project has a phrase that they use a lot that says, “The Bible is a unified story that points to Jesus.”) For instance in the passage we are going to read today in Luke 24 we see Jesus on the walk to Emmaus where he tells the people he is walking with this very fact.

Luke 24:27 “27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.”

This then is where we are going to start our series. Not at Genesis 1, but after Jesus’ death and resurrection where Jesus points out that the entire Bible, the books of the law, prophets, psalms, all of it points to him as our suffering messiah.

The Walk to Emmaus

Luke 24:13–24 NIV

13 Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. 14 They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. 15 As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; 16 but they were kept from recognizing him. 17 He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?” They stood still, their faces downcast. 18 One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” 19 “What things?” he asked. “About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. 20 The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; 21 but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. 22 In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning 23 but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. 24 Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus.”

Luke records that two followers of Jesus were travelling back to a village called Emmaus after Jesus’ death and burial. As they are walking and discussing the events that took place over the last few days, Jesus himself shows up and walks along with them. He doesn’t openly reveal to them who he is yet, he just seems to be another traveler on the road. Jesus asks them what they are talking about and it actually causes them to stop walking. It says that they stand still with faces downcast and one of them, named Cleopas, asks in disbelief if this stranger really has no idea about what has happened.

Now, brief side note. Who is this Cleopas? Luke doesn’t tell us the name of the other traveller here, but we are given some good information in John’s gospel as to who this second traveller might be. John 19:25 “25 Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.” Cleopas and Clopas are generally agreed by scholars to be the same person, but this person is actually the younger brother of Joseph. This explains why that verse in John says that Mary’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, was with her at the cross. Jesus’ mother, would be the sister in law to Cleopas and Mary. This is Jesus’ aunt and uncle on their way back home after watching everything happen to their nephew.

And in their interaction we see something important happen that has meaning for us as well. Cleopas lays everything out to this stranger. He talks about the confusion they feel, the depression that they are facing, his faltering faith, everything that he is thinking about he tells this stranger. After hearing the doubts of his aunt and uncle, did Jesus reject them? Did he move on from them? No, he walked with them. He understands what they are going through, he knows why they might be confused, why they are struggling, and he walks beside them. Jesus is not surprised by our doubts and questions. In fact, he invites them. He wants us to be honest with him. When they were honest with their doubts, they were then opening themselves to hear from Jesus. This should describe us as well. Everyone in this room has to have some kind of questions about God. If you don’t, we should have coffee and you can tell me how that is possible… We should express those questions to God just as the travellers talked to Jesus on the road. Open ourselves up to Jesus and then have open hearts and ears to hear what Jesus has to say through his written Word and through his Holy Spirit.

Jesus then addresses them and their doubts and questions.

Luke 24:25–35 NIV

25 He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. 28 As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. 29 But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them. 30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. 32 They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” 33 They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together 34 and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” 35 Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.

Jesus first points out to his aunt and uncle the crux of what this series is about. Haven’t they read the prophets? Haven’t they read the scriptures that talked about how the Messiah must suffer these things for his glory? And it is at this moment that Jesus launches into quite possibly the best sermon ever given about the Old Testament and Luke doesn’t record it...

But what Jesus does is point out to his aunt and uncle how all the way from the beginning of scripture it has been pointing to him. This walk to Emmaus is what I hope and pray this next year does for us. I hope we see the central message of the Bible, which is Jesus himself. That we would understand how from the beginning of creation God has had a plan to redeem and restore his fallen creation because of his great love and mercy towards them. Jesus fulfills and satisfies every part, aspect, and inch of the Bible. Even though the disciples and his follower were confused and distraught about what has happened, Jesus points out to them that all of it was necessary and in fact can be seen in the scriptures that they have been reading their whole lives.

John’s Gospel also says that from the start of Jesus’ ministry, he taught that he was central to the Old Testament. “You diligently study the Scriptures,” he told the Pharisees, “because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life” (5:39, 40).

To further illustrate the point that the Bible ultimately points us to Jesus, we can look at the story of when Philip encountered the Ethiopian eunuch on the road who was reading from the book of Isaiah. He asked Philip who the passage was talking about and Philip responded. Acts 8:35 “35 Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.” Isaiah was preaching Jesus hundreds of years earlier, and Philip was able to point to Jesus through that passage.

Application

As we go through the Gospel story this year, we are going to see Jesus all over the place. We are going to see him in the sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis, we will see him as the passover lamb, as the tabernacle and temple for his people, as the bread of heaven that came down like manna, and as the suffering servant who suffered on our behalf when he bore our sins. All of this points to a God who loves us so much that this grand story is his story of redemption. This story points us to God and his glory. I pray that we would develop a deeper love for this story and for our God who created us, loves us despite our sin, and bought redemption for us through the blood of the lamb, through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and honor forever. Amen.