Series: Faces Sermon: “Face of Restoration”

Series: Faces Sermon: “Face of Restoration”

Misnomer that it is our responsibility to be the pursuer in our relationship with God.

Our pursuit for God and our pursuit for intimacy with Him is a topic often preached about, however, the flip side of this scenario doesn’t always get as much airtime.

That is God’s pursuit for man and that he not only chases after us but he never takes His eyes off me.

God is engaged in an unmitigated pursuit of us…

There is a constant wooing from heaven… to call those who are lost… and to call those who got lost in the way…

Throughout Scripture, God reveals Himself as a seeker on a continual pursuit for something.

• We find the Father seeking those that would worship (John 4:23),
• Scanning the earth from heaven (Ps 14:2)
• His eyes running to and fro throughout the planet to find someone he can strengthen(2 Chr 16:9).
• We find Jesus telling us that He has come to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10).
• We find Him giving us a deeper glimpse into His heart by comparing Himself with a shepherd who leaves 99 sheep to seek the one lost (Luke 15:4-7),
• He is like a father who incessantly scans the horizon for the return of the prodigal son (Luke 15:20), He is like a merchant seeking fine pearls (Mt 13:45-46).
• He is in the Psalmist words when he declares surely goodness and steadfast love will follow my all days of my life. That word translated follow- yirdĕpûnî when used elsewhere has the connotation of hunting, pursuing.

Despite our sin, our waywardness, our piety, our efforts, our failures, despite everything. From the complaining, Moses to the rejection of God as King, from idolatry under the monarchs to the compromise under the Romans, God across thousands of years has pursued His people.

God appeared in the flesh to knock on their doors, to sleep in their gardens, to eat at their tables, to call them back to Him.

He possesses reckless/uncontrollable wild devotion to his children.

Scottish Anglican theologian John Macquarrie says,  “We are the objects of a search directed towards us.”  God is always and everywhere reaching out for us, nudging us back into the sheepfold or on into our futures, gluing together shards from what was shattered to offer us something useful and beautiful, usually not on our schedule and not in ways we would imagine.

“We need never shout across the spaces to an absent God. He is nearer than our own soul, closer than our most secret thoughts” ― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

“Always, everywhere God is present, and always He seeks to discover Himself to each one”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

We have a God who is seeking us.

We have a God who is after us.

We have a God who pursues us.    

Not just for the purpose of saving our souls but even more profound the King of the universe will come after us even when we walking away..

Today as we finish off our Faces Series let’s look at Luke’s Gospel and the two guys on the Road to Emmaus as we discover  like the psalmist, if I ascend to heavens he is there, if I make my bed in Sheol he is there, if I dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea he is there… If I am disappointed, discouraged, despondent he is there.

Because:

• God has Joined himself to us
• God journeys with us
• God restores us — He is the FACE of RESTORATION

This story is reminiscent  of Paul bent on destruction encountering Jesus on the wrong road as well.

The story is about two men, and one of them was  named Cleopas, who found themselves in a spiritual conundrum. 

They had just witnessed the crucifixion of the one they hoped had been the Messiah. They had been taught as young men in the synagogue that the Messiah would bring about a political, social and spiritual change. They had hoped that the Messiah would overturn the rule and oppression of the Romans.  

However, they had seen something with their eyes that did not make sense- the crucifixion Jesus.

These two guys were so negatively impacted by what they had witnessed that they turned their and walked away. 

William Barclay’s Commentary says that when Jesus asked them what they were talking about, “they stood with faces twisted with grief” 

The hopes, the dreams, the expectations, that Jesus was the Redeemer, the Deliverer, the Saviour, the Messiah, came to a sudden and complete end. This Jesus who was to end the slavery, and rescue the least, the last, and the lost, suddenly and abruptly had died the death of a criminal hung between two thieves crucified on a cross.

They had lost hope

It has been said that, “A soul without hope is like a body without food.”

Can you identify with these disciples?

Do you know what it’s like to think of hope as a thing of the past?

Have you ever walked a lonely road with grief written across your face?

We have all kinds of hopes and dreams—

• The hope that we might meet that perfect mate and get married
• The hope to have children
• The hope that our adult children might finally turn their lives around.
• We hope for entry into a desired college
• The perfect job
• To get out of poverty
• To get out of soul crushing debt
• To be free of stress and anxiety and depression
• To be healed of some disease or disability,
• To be free of addiction that keeps dragging us down.

When dreams go unfulfilled or our hopes are shattered, it’s discouraging, and sometimes devastating.

Proverbs tells us, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick…

Proverbs 18:14 A man’s spirit will endure sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear?

In fact the saddest death of all is the death of HOPE

Luke 24:13-33New King James Version (NKJV)

The Road to Emmaus

¹³ Now behold, two of them were traveling that same day (what same day? The day that the women went to grave/angels he is risen/ go tell/ come running but he is not there) to a village called Emmaus,( walk warm bath, medicinal springs)  which was seven miles^[a] from Jerusalem. ¹⁴ And they talked together of all these things which had happened. ¹⁵ So it was, while they conversed and reasoned, (perhaps  seeking for answers, shocked, confused, disillusioned, grief twisted faces) that Jesus Himself drew near and went with them.( some translations say suddenly, out of no where, he pulled a Nanny Mcphee) ¹⁶ But their eyes were restrained,(restrained by God/restrained because their disappointment, it is to see, hard to see what you don’t expect, so devastated were they by what happened the last thing they expected was to see Jesus) so that they did not know Him.  

 ¹⁷ And He said to them, “What kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as you walk and are sad?” (sullen, gloomy, mournful) ¹⁸ Then the one whose name was Cleopas answered and said to Him, “Are You the only stranger in Jerusalem, (you must be new, not from here) and have You not known the things which happened there in these days?”(the whole world knows what happened, twin towers)

¹⁹ And He said to them, “What things?”

So they said to Him, “The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a Prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, ²⁰ and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. ²¹ But we were hoping (trusting, put all trust in, people had left life to follow Jesus, risk rejection of family) that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, (if that’s not bad enough) today is the third day since these things happened. ²² Yes, and certain women of our company, who arrived at the tomb early, astonished us. ²³ When they did not find His body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said He was alive. ²⁴ And certain 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.” (could you imagine the roller coaster of emotion… he’s alive, he’s not at the tomb, where is he, what did the women really hear,  no wonder they were on their way back to medicinal springs, total despondency)

²⁵ Then He said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! (without understanding, dull, slow to apprehend, slow to be persuaded) ²⁶ Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?”(You can read something and believe in head but until it is experienced in the heart it is hard to apprehend. Jesus was about to give them an experience that would be etched in their hearts forever) 27 And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.

He would have proven through a tour of scripture that the Messiah was

• The voice in the bush
• The Passover lamb
• The deliverance of Israel
• The significance of son David
• The suffering Saviour from the Psalms
• The Good Shepherd from Psalm 23
• The wisdom of Proverbs
• The suffering servant from Isaiah 53
• The prophecies concerning Him

²⁸ Then they drew near to the village where they were going, and He indicated that He would have gone farther. ²⁹ But they constrained (to compel and employ force) Him, saying, “Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.” And He went in to stay with them.

³⁰ Now it came to pass, as He sat at the table with them, that He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. ³¹ Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight. (He Nanny Mcpheed them again)

³² And they said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” ³³ So they rose up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together.”

There are so many observations one can draw from this illustration but for today we want to highlight that the FACE OF RESTORATION has joined himself to you and will journey with you come what may.

1. Join himself to us- Verse 14 “He drew near” that word drew near is  engizo- en/ge/zo— to join one thing to another, to be at hand. He positioned himself with them.

Like gluing two blocks of wood. – he is our gorilla super glue

A spiritual way to say this is we have union with Christ now and forever. We are in Christ-

Paul used this phrase in one form or another 164 times.

Union with Christ is indissoluble. It is rooted in the unconditional and immutable decree of divine election “in him [Christ] before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4

He has chosen to forever be in union with humanity.

God’s desire is to become the same as man and to make man the same as God…

Therefore, God Himself has been man-ized, and man is being God-ized; we will never become God in the sense of being worshipped but in the sense of having God’s life, nature, expression, and function, and ruling and reigning with God.

Nothing can separate us from the love of God… so Christ has made a decision to be joined with us. 

Which means He has decided that He will journey with us no matter our condition or position.

2. Journey with us– Verse 15 “he went with them” soom-por-yoo’-om-ahee- to journey together- he began to journey with them. 

Journeying with someone implies much more than just taking a walk. 

• Journey focuses on the process of getting there, not the arrival. 
• Journey implies changes, transitions, challenges and adventures. 

1. Engages– Verse 17 “^{? 17} And He said to them, “What kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as you walk and are sad?

• He knew
• I love that says that you are so sad
• He listened to their sad story///
• Jesus already knows the source of our disappointment sadness, but he asks anyways

2. Instruct us- Verse 27 “And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.”  He illuminated the word to them… divine illumination…The word will come along side and while he journeys with you he will illuminate the scripture. The Word expounding the word…

It was like a floodlight on the word that brought  clarification, explanation, and revelation and passion.

In the midst of our despondency, despair and disappointment Jesus will journey with you whether you are hot for him or hiding from him.

The Emmaus Road story reminds us that… we are loved, supported, and guided on our way. 

He is journeying with you even though you may not  recognize him.

3. Restores us– to return something to an earlier good condition or position

Verse 32 “did not our hearts burn” : (kah’-yo) kaió: to kindle, burn…, ignite…, light, set on fire, he fills us with great emotion…

After a 7 mile walk one way they headed right back, and probably much faster. When you have good news you can’t wait to go and tell someone.

Verse 33 “so they returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together.”

The went back and shared the news with the rest…

Verse 3 35- 36 as they were telling the story suddenly Jesus appeared/// verified their story

God sees our heart (1 Sam 16:7), He sees the hidden feelings and movements of our hearts, even the ones we are not yet aware of.

God knows who we are, He knows our frame (Ps 103:14). He is aware of our weaknesses and limitations and the frailty of our heart.

Jesus isn’t shocked by our weaknesses.

• He was pursuing us before we ever responded to Him.
• He has been the jealous, wooing Bridegroom all along.
• He won’t relent, even when our response feels weak or when we fail to act.

Jesus is walking that road with you listening to your sorrows. He has joined himself to you, he is committed to journey with you, fill you with passion, and restore you in mission and fill your heart with joy.

No matter how discouraging or depressing life gets, no matter how hurt or heartbroken you are or how lonely you feel; Jesus won’t make you walk that road alone. You may not see him, but he’s there. He will come alongside.

Jesus Will pursue the:

• Tax Collectors and the Pharisees
• The Sinners and the Saint
• The Outcasts
• The rejected and the Respected
• Those who need deep forgiveness
• Those who break the rules and those who live by them
• Those who loose their way
• Those who loose hope—–He is right in there, in the midst.

Conclusion

• He is the lord our God and he will never forsake us- Deuteronomy 31:8
• Jesus said behold I am with you always Mathew 28:20
• When I sit/walk in darkness the Lord will be a light to me Micah 7:8
• He is the strength of my heart and my portion forever Ps 73:26
• He the Lord will strengthen us, help us and holds our right hand- Is 41:10-13
• If God is for us who can be against us
• Who can separate us from the love of God-NOTHING can separate me from His love toward me- Romans 8:30-39

Nothing can ever extinguish the flame in God’s heart, it is his love for us that fuels his relentless pursuit of us, even when we mess up and get terribly lost.

Appeal 1- if you are lost and have not experienced Christ, open your eyes He is right here

Appeal 2- you and I are now Christ representatives on earth, and this story teaches us  to join others in their journey. 

The lesson of the road to Emmaus is to understand:

The importance of listening to others, especially as they share their pain and doubt. 

Is to help people see  that their story is caught up in God’s story.  

May our eyes be opened, so that we can recognize Jesus in our midst. 

May our hearts burn with joy as we see our story wrapped up in his.