A few years ago, I heard Malcolm Gladwell talk about why country music is more melancholy than other kinds of music. As he made his argument, he read the lyrics from a number of the most notable pop or rock songs from the past 50 years. As he read those lyrics, he noted a few characteristics.[1] First, the words were often repetitive. Because the aim of these genres is often to appeal to a broad audience––an audience that might not share the same culture or experiences––the songwriter regularly uses cliché, doing so over and over again. Secondly, it goes without saying, but songs that are lyrically repetitive and full of cliché end up being generic/vague. Not only do the broad swath of people that listen to those genres often not share a common culture or experience, many of them don’t share a common language. I don’t mean they don’t speak English. But people in different parts of the country talk different.[2]

However, in contrast, Gladwell contends that country music comes from and appeals to a more tightly–knit community. Most of these songs, especially in the past, were written by people living in the same region. Therefore, he says of country songwriters, “when you’re speaking to people who understand your world and your culture and your language, you can tell more complicated stories, you can use much more precise imagery, you can lay yourself bare because you’re among your own.” Gladwell goes through sad song after sad song and notes the contrast between the generic repetitiveness of much popular music and the despondent details that dominate the storied lyrics of folk or country songs. For example, one lyric he quotes comes from a heartbroken older man, “Kept some letters by his bed, dated nineteen sixty–two, he had underlined in red, every single “I love you.”

That’s a really sad lyric. Part of the reason it pulls at us is because we can see the details. There’s nothing vague about it. So, here’s Gladwell’s conclusion to his argument: “Country music makes people cry because it’s not afraid to be specific.”[3] I think he’s right, not just about how that particular genre of music works, but also about how humans in our day process emotions while reading texts or hearing music. If we find the language to be vague, unable to see or connect with what someone is saying, our emotions often dismiss it.

These Psalms of Lament are, at least in part, sad songs. Regardless of what they think, Nashville did not come up with everything.[4] But these melodies for the choirmaster––often melancholy––are not songs that just one culture in a particular time and place can identify with, they’re ones that men and women have seen themselves in and sung themselves through for thousands of years in thousands of places.

Note first,

1. David Laments

Verse 1: How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?

In these first two verses, David laments. But he laments not merely his circumstance, he laments the duration of his circumstance.

One time I was on the coast when a Tropical Storm came through. Because I deeply enjoy watching storms over the ocean, a strange part of me was way too excited about it. I thought, “I’ve never been able to see a storm like this in my life. We timed this trip perfectly!” But, to be honest, I was a bit underwhelmed at first. Because if you’d isolated any 20 minutes of this tropical storm, you’ve probably seen it before. The wind wasn’t any stronger. You’ve seen 20 minutes of 60 mile per hour winds. The lightning wasn’t any stronger. In fact, I think I’ve seen much scarier lightning. And the rain wasn’t any harder over any 20-minute stretch than I’d experienced many, many times before. So, isolate any 20 minutes of that storm and it wasn’t anything too impressive. What set it apart, however, was that the hard rain, strong winds, and lightning strikes continued at the same ferocious intensity for nearly 48 hours. The rain just kept coming. The palm trees were at a 45–degre[...]

In a world that offers and shouts pleasures without number, the language of sorrow is often muffled or muted altogether. The deafening roars of entertainment and hedonism have a way of doing just that. Even in places where being broken and somber should be the norm, people are opting for other alternatives. Just research “funeral humor/antics.” The findings will make you squirm with awkwardness.[1] The rise in opioid use in the last half-century is certainly no secret. Our hyper-sexual culture was just made more so by the supreme court not two weeks ago with the reinterpretation of a single word.[2] Humor and pleasure are tools taken up by humanity to mute the sorrows that are inevitable in a fallen world. Being broken over anything is often a show of weakness, and a dominant pattern in our culture is to duck and dodge the harder realities in this world. The godless world system doesn’t fail altogether at lamentation, but even in the deepest grief there is often shallow introspection and certainly no correspondence to what God has declared to be true inside of grief. Yet, this should not be so with those who have cast their trust upon the Man of Sorrows. And though we’ll not foolheartedly invite troubles into the spaces carved out for us by God’s wisdom, we have the space afforded to us to linger in the minor key. This Psalm, along with others Psalms of lament, gives us a kind of permission to approach the Lord and allow Him hear from us about the deepest experiential dungeons that this fallen world possesses. And what we’ll inevitably find in turning to the scriptures is that those gloomy dungeons aren’t devoid of some surprising and kind pathways to the Son. The beams of Psalm 6 can illumine our journey, even when the darkness veils our life, or worse, veils the good that God is shaping through our pain.

A cursory reading of this Psalm easily shows us that things are not stable for Jesse’s son, who, in days past cut his teeth on peaceful, hillside blades of grass while shepherding flocks of sheep. The simpler life of sheering wool, composing music, and being playfully picked-on by his older brothers probably seemed so long ago. There was no more living on the legendary status of slaying beasts and men in the various fields of life.[3] A king-sized amount of trouble and stresses are now residing in the very life of our broken-hearted, praying poet, David.

I. A cry of sorrow

A. Spiritual alarm

[1] O LORD, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath.

The words rebuke and discipline, as well as anger and wrath are synonymous here. David’s pleading against God’s displeasure, and he’s overloaded with the very thought. Whatever the load is, it’s unbearable for David. It was time to pray. It was time to pick up his stringed instrument and pour out his soul before the God of his life.[4] Was the central issue David’s sin or David’s circumstances? Were the events he’s bemoaning out of his control, or because he tried to seize control that belongs only to His Lord? It seems like there’s a mix of all of the above when considering the his life. In 2 Samuel 11 and onward, when considering David’s involvement with Bathsheba and his responsibility of the death of her husband Uriah, it’s clear that David was sinfully unwise. And that sin affected some other issues swirling in the kingdom. It was many of those other problems—the rape of his daughter by one of his sons, the murder of one of his sons done to him by a brother—these were some of the details that brought David to this moment of alarm before God in prayer. When things are amiss, when it seems that life is snow-balling, it’s not unwise to search our lives, to reflect on matters of the heart, motivations, inclinations, attitudes, consequences. A slice of David’s current angst was him looking at himself, thinking back, and drawing this normal conclusion for those that seek to live a life of trust in the LORD—”I am under God’s disciplining hand.” Have you e[...]

“No Fear” might’ve been cool on that middle school t-shirt, but it’s borderline sociopath. There’s an impulse within you and me, I assume, that avoids rattlesnakes, for example. And that feeling––that fear––isn’t necessarily bad. When we say, “emotions” or “feelings” we often immediately think of the pejorative connotations of the word, “emotional,” meaning, someone driven by their feelings in an unhealthy way, swinging from mood to mood from moment to moment.[1] But, emotion, in essence, is not necessarily pure evil. In fact, we’re commanded to love certain things. We’re commanded to fear certain things. As we saw last week, we’re commanded to be angry about certain things.

The problem, of course, is total depravity. All of our feelings, emotions, and affections have been affected by sin. Sometimes we don’t fear what we should. Sometimes we fear things we ought not. Our loves are disordered. We love what we shouldn’t and don’t love what we should. We’re angry and we shouldn’t be. We’re not angry; and we should be.

Speaking of anger and fear, both are plastered on our screens and are maybe infiltrating our hearts. Day after day, we see many processing their emotions publicly. And, privately, maybe we wonder which feelings of our own are legitimate? What words should I use to process them?

In our text today, like the past few weeks, we’ve picked up someone else’s journal. We’re eavesdropping. Psalm 5 includes all kinds of emotion––fear, joy, love, and anger. But, different than our personal journals or our feeds, it’s authoritative and true. If we want direction, or guardrails for the emotional makeup God put within us, this is where we find it.

Note first,

1. The Psalmist groans and cries out

Verse 1: Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my groaning.

The Psalmist begins his prayer, his plea, by asking the Lord to hear what he’s said and what he’s about to say. But he also asks the Lord to discern something beyond what he voices. “Groaning” might be translated, “my inmost thoughts” or “my sighs.”[2]

Do you have anyone in your life that knows something’s wrong even when you don’t say it? You exhale over your salad; they ask what’s wrong. In some ways, God knowing our deepest thoughts is terrifying. I wouldn’t want this or that on the big screen. But, in other ways, might it be a comfort? As Pastor Phil mentioned last week, maybe the stiff upper lip will never acknowledge that burden to another. But you carry it late into the evening. God knows it.

When I was in my college dorm, I had no more than 10 books on my singular shelf. Three of them were my three volumes of Spurgeon’s Treasury of David. This week I opened to Psalm 5 and found that I’d underlined this sentence, most likely years ago: “Words are not the essence but the garments of prayer.”[3]

That means, I think, sometimes our prayer might not take the form––put on the garment––of actual words. It could be that if we’re carrying a weight throughout the day––and most of us are––and we can somehow regularly cast that weight upon Another––Someone with an infinitely stronger back––maybe we’re praying more than we thought. Or at least we’re being heard.

Have you ever asked the Lord to consider your sighs? Do you think He’s only concerned about the burdens you’ve vocally bracketed with “Dear Father” on one side and “Amen” on the other? This Psalmist’s prayer consists of spoken words––Give ear to my words––and broken ones––Consider my groaning.[4]

Many of us don’t even know how to express what we’re feeling currently. I heard a stadium–filling multiple Grammy–award winning songwriter talk last week about the current moment. He was in the middle of recording an album when COVID hit back in March. He has a studio in his house, tons of free time on his hands, but he’s not writing or recording any songs. Why? Because songs give expression to how we feel. A good song connects with how lots of people feel. But he can’t write because he doesn’t have any idea how we’re all going [...]

History reveals plenty of scandalous actions done in the name of gentlemanly conduct. In July 1804, two well-known political opponents that had slugged it out verbally, met to settle the conflict. Alexander Hamilton, the first secretary of the treasury and Aaron Burr, sitting Vice President under Thomas Jefferson, had exchanged barbs on numerous occasions. It started 13 years earlier when Burr beat out Hamilton’s father-in-law for a U.S. Senate seat. Later, still smarting over the Senate race, Hamilton campaigned against Burr when the House broke the 1800 electoral college tie favoring Jefferson over Burr for President. After serving four years as the VP, Burr decided to run for governor of New York. Hamilton could not be silent. He assailed Burr’s character, “calling him dangerous and untrustworthy.” Burr challenged him to a duel. On the fateful morning Hamilton fired first, missing Burr. However, Burr didn’t miss. The next day Hamilton died of wounds from the duel.[1]

Psalm 4 feels like a duel. Only in this case, David ended up, not as a dueler but in the middle while opponents fired away at each other. Although the superscript of this psalm doesn’t give the same details as the occasion of the Absalom revolt in Psalm 3, many scholars think it’s a continuation of David’s laments during that hard season of life.[2] David feels the weight of these conflicting people of Israel—fellow citizens he had sought to shepherd as their king, experiencing the heaviness of being pulled down by both, while sensing the need to give direction and clarity to each faction. Unrest, incivility, factious conflict, spiritual blindness, and danger to the soul brewed in their midst. He lamented the claustrophobic squeeze so evident from the people around him; he lamented being hemmed in by conflict he could not order out of existence.[3]

But David is not alone. We’re living in a season of disturbing unrest, feeling hard pressed by various positions, political and cultural wrangling, multiple conflicting ideologies, verbal barrages, media frenzies, moral conflict, and a cacophony of voices trying to drown out those around them. We feel the distress and anguish of these days. We lament the wounds that drain the lifeblood from communities. This psalm speaks to our need. When you feel the squeeze of dueling voices let your lament lead you to joyful rest. We need the rest that lasts, the kind that comes only through the Prince of Peace anchoring us in the stormy seas. How do we get anchored by Him? Let’s consider how David navigated through lament the stormy season of life on the run from Absalom.

1. A Cry in a Tight Spot

This psalm hangs together in four movements: verse 1, vv. 2–3, vv. 4–6, and vv. 7–8. The first introduces the dilemma David faced and sets the stage for his lament before the Lord. As we saw in our study of Psalm 3, lament faces and describes difficulties, sorrows, pains, and trials we’re encountering rather than dodging them in our prayers.[4] We verbalize them, knowing the Lord sees all, but sympathizes with us in our weaknesses and welcomes our heart cries (Heb. 4:14–16). Davis adds, “Prayer is worship that is both intelligent and desperate.”[5]

The plea. “Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness!” You feel the heaviness expressed as David knows no other path to come out of this crisis but the Lord hearing and answering. Prayer is not a nice add-on so he might think himself spiritual. It’s desperation; dependence; utter neediness verbalized. But what right did he have to make such a plea to the Lord God? “O God of my righteousness” provides the basis and standing with God so that he might pray. Earlier in his life, David confessed, “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit” (Ps. 32:1–2). Paul explained that through this declaration, David spoke “of the blessing on the man to whom God credit[...]

A Plea for Deliverance

Psalm 3

June 7, 2020

 

Last year at this time, I finally settled into being home. For four months, I lived with the rhythm of flying to Houston, a week of being strapped to an IV machine pumping chemicals into my chest, nasty side effects, longing for but dreading the flight home, easing back into the space for my body to fight the punishment it had received, struggling with depths of fatigue I’d never imagined, a little improvement, and only to repeat the same process. Some among us have gone through far worse experiences with loss, opposition, abandonment, betrayal, sickness. Everything you’ve grown to call normal, totally absent. Life has crashed in. Although you know it won’t last forever your mind remains unconvinced. Just like the psalmist, the words mumble from our lips, “How long, O Lord? Why, O Lord, have You turned Your back on me?”

We lament.

Or maybe we’re afraid to do so. We wonder if we might be denying the faith or calling the Lord’s character and faithfulness into question. We question our spiritual sanity. We’ve been told not to complain, to never question God, and to just suck it up and be silent. The British “stiff upper lip” runs through many of our veins. Can we even use a question mark in a prayer? How could things happen the way they’ve happened? We wonder if we’ve done something horrible and now face God’s wrath upon our lives. We second-guess what we’ve heard about God’s love and the cross. What did we miss? Where did we misstep? How did we fail? Where is the Lord God?

If we would bear up in such times and move from pain to praise, “from heartbreak to hope,” from brokenness to joy, we must learn to lament. It is no barren complaint baring angry fangs at deity. Nor is it unrequited bitterness over what seems personal injustice. Rather, as Mark Vroegop has helpfully written in, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, “Lament is rooted in what we believe. It is a prayer loaded with theology. . . . Therefore, lament stands in the gap between pain and promise. To cry is human, but to lament is Christian. . . . The space between brokenness and God’s mercy is where this song is sung.”[1] A third of the psalms carry this song of lament, both personally and corporately. Vroegop writes, “One out of three psalms is in a minor key.”[2] But that’s life, isn’t it? The idea of smooth seas until you reach the golden shore is fantasy.

The Lord is not passive in our suffering as He welcomes our lament. He’s chosen it as “a path to praise” as He leads us “through our brokenness and disappointment”[3] to levels of glory and joy found only in Him. So, how do we respond when our world crashes in on us? We learn to lament. And through lament, we’re led to deeper satisfaction and joyful hope.

 

I. Entering into Lament

The opening Psalms (1–2) are often called the doorway to the Psalter. The first prizes the life built on the Lord and His Word. The second assures us of God’s sovereign unfolding of His eternal purposes in His Son. How ironic as we come to the 3rd Psalm to find a lament. But how realistic. For life, real life in the nitty-gritty daily happening of human existence, knows more about suffering, hardship, difficulties, trials, and pain than the happy-go-lucky, not a problem in sight frame idealized in pop culture. So effective has been culture’s misshapen slant on life, that we tend to live in despondency when the least thing wrinkles our shirt. That’s why we need the truth of God’s Word. Holy Scripture doesn’t paint a carefree picture of God’s people. We feel the deep anguish from one character to another who awaits the day when faith becomes sight. Maybe no one pictures this better than David, a man who knew the highest highs and the deepest lows.

 

1. Reality (Sometimes) Stinks

The superscript identifies this as one of seventy-three psalms attributed to David. Some simply state, “Of David” (lēdāwīd, belonging to David).[4] This one clues us in on the circumstances around the psalm: “A Psa[...]

Living with the Ascended Lord

Luke 24:50–53

May 31, 2020

 

When we began our study of Luke’s Gospel on November 21, 2017, I described it as a journey. Matt, Chris, and I have journeyed through the text, considering its language, context, grammar, historical background, cultural particulars, theological implications, biblical theology, and many gospel applications. With us, you’ve read, memorized, pondered, asked questions, worshiped, and applied almost 27 months of studies in Luke to your lives. We’ve faced life together as we studied this Gospel, with ups and downs, great joys and deep griefs, struggles and triumphs, disappointment and elation, weakness and remarkable strength, gatherings and quarantine. We’ve found applications in the text week-after-week to the details of our daily walks. Now we conclude with the ascension of Christ, which one writer called “an organizing principle for the reading of Scripture.”[1] In other words, the often-neglected doctrine of Christ’s ascension[2] serves as a cohesive element to understand the broad scope of the Bible.[3]

What is the ascension of Christ? It’s the divine act by which the God-man ended His post-resurrection appearances and physically left this world for the other that never ends.[4] For our study, we need to frame the way that the ascension weaves a tapestry throughout Luke’s Gospel in at least a dozen particular ways. We’ll look at five of them while the rest is in the manuscript.

(1) Luke starts off in the temple with Zacharias offering incense but muted by the angelic visitor for his unbelief in the predicted birth of the Messiah’s forerunner (1:5–23). Luke ends with the disciples in the temple praising God unmuted at the Messiah’s completed mission.[5]

(2) Zacharias prophesies of God raising up the Kingly Savior in David’s lineage, while the ascension declares redemption accomplished, and Jesus exalted as Davidic King (1:68–71).

(3) Luke 4 pictures Satan tempting Jesus to worship him, while the ascension shows the disciples worshiping Jesus as the true and living God (4:1–12; 24:52).

(4) Jesus spoke of His return in glory with the holy angels in Luke 9:26; now He ascends to be with the Father and the angels in glory, awaiting His return.

(5) Luke narrates the ascension as Jesus’ aim when determining to go to Jerusalem to suffer and rise (9:51); chapter 24:50–53 emphasizes that He completed His aim.

(6) Jesus told the returning Seventy not to rejoice that the demons were subject to them but to rejoice that their names were written in heaven. In the ascension, He bodily departs to the very heaven He had spoken of (10:20; 24:51).

(7) Jesus corrected the bad theology of the Sadducees by declaring that God is the God of the living not the dead, and then bodily ascended to appear before God as exalted (20:37–38; 24:51).

(8) Jesus quotes the royal Psalm 110 describing His exaltation as Lord which took place via the ascension, and then demonstrated it by the disciples worshiping Jesus as Lord (20:41–44; 24:52).

(9) The prediction of seeing “the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory” is predicated in the ascension (21:27; Acts 1:11; cf. Dan. 7:13; Rev. 1:7).

(10) References to the kingdom, particularly in 22:28–30, where Jesus described real people eating and drinking at His table, and His disciples sitting on thrones to judge Israel, happens due to the bodily ascension of Jesus, awaiting that heavenly feast (24:51–52).

(11) Before the Sanhedrin, Jesus declared, “But from now on the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God.” That’s ascension and enthronement language; the same kind of language used extensively about Jesus in Hebrews (22:69; Heb. 1:3; 8:1; 10:12–13; 12:1–2).

(12) When Jesus gave the Great Commission to the disciples, He instructed them to wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit to come in power; that divine promise of power in the Person of the Spirit would follow His ascension (24:49; Acts 1:8; 2:1–4).

Wh[...]

All Scripture to All Nations (Luke 24:44-49) from South Woods Baptist Church on Vimeo.

All Scripture to All Nations

Luke 24:44–49

May 23–24, 2020

 

When we pick up a book to read, in those few moments we mentally––maybe we’d even say emotionally––enter into someone else’s world. You can easily think of some fictional narrative where that’d be the case. Those stories are often about as different from our life as they could possibly be. This is even true when reading history. We pick up a book, and if it’s good, we leave 2020[1] to read about 16th century Germany or New England during the revolution. Many times, story functions as something of an escape, whether that’s fiction, non–fiction, a TV show, or a film. Because those stories, generally, have nothing to do with us personally. We’re not pivotal characters. Most of the time, I’m not affected by what happens in that story. Maybe that’s why we enjoy it.[2] So, we pick up the book, turn on the episode, enter into that story for a few moments, and then when we put the book down, real life returns.

We’ve been having quite the book club on Luke’s Gospel for a few years now. Luke started by stating his purpose, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught (Luke 1:3–4). And as He approaches the end of this book, He summarizes. Of course, that’s not all he’ll do. Because this isn’t book club. And this isn’t every other book.

I don’t normally tell you the points of the sermon before we start, but I think it’s important today to see the big picture even at the outset.

Christ in all the Scriptures

For all of us

For all the nations

Through all His people

By all His power

 

Christ in all the Scriptures

 

A key point here: The story Luke tells isn’t impromptu. What happens throughout the narrative of Luke’s Gospel is far from unplanned.

Verse 44: Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.

In last week’s text, Jesus startled the eleven by entering the room they stood in. Knowing their fear, He graciously addressed their hearts by saying, see my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see (24:39). Then He ate in front of them, giving them evidence that He had risen, indeed; He’d conquered sin and death.

Now, He’s going to remind them––or make even clearer to them––that they shouldn’t be surprised. Verse 44: These are the words that I spoke to you while I was still with you. Jesus might not say, “I told you so,” with the gotcha mentality we do, but He does say it. Maybe you ask, “What’s He mean by while I was still with you? He’s standing right in front of them, right? Jesus is merely drawing a distinction between His earthly life pre–cross and His resurrected life.[3] In essence, He’s saying, before I was crucified and rose, these are the words that I spoke to you.

What did He tell them? Verse 44b: that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.

For these Jewish men, still processing it all, they needed to know that what had transpired over the weekend squared with the religion they’d followed since they were children. Jesus makes that exact case by appealing to the threefold division of the Old Testament[4]––the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings, which would include the Psalms.[5] You might think of this like you would a famous trilogy. If I reference all three parts of a trilogy, you know I’m referring to the whole thing.[6]

            And Jesus says that everything written in all three parts––or the whole of the Old Testament––must be fulfilled. Pastor Phil and I have told you about this word, δει (dei), probably a dozen times during this study. I’m confident this will be the final time. That word––δει––is employed 18 times in Luke’s Gospel, translated, “ne[...]

I bet many of you remember March 11th. A lot happened that Wednesday. That was the night President Trump barred flights entering the US from Europe, the NBA put an immediate halt to their season, and the unfortunate reality of what had been looming came into most of the nation’s consciousness.

Earlier in the day that Wednesday, about 9:30 or so, I was sitting in my office over there and I received a call from Julie. And she doesn’t have a poker voice. Clearly rattled, she said, “Matt, I think lightning just struck a tree in the front yard. It sounded like a bomb.” I can’t remember what I said to Debbie on the way out the door, but it was probably not measured. I drove the 6 minutes home and, as I approached, saw tree debris in the road, in our driveway, and all over the yard.

A small distance from our front door, this is not a small tree. Various tree guys told me this Pin Oak was around 80 years old and nearly 100 feet tall. And this Wednesday bark shot off both sides of it, the electricity from the strike went down into the tree’s roots, and in making its escape that lightning created a significant ditch in the front yard leading to our mailbox. And there it looked like some jokester took the 5 to 10–pound rocks encircling our mailbox and threw them up in the air to land wherever they wanted. It was quite a scene.

On March 11th, deeply rooted things in my front yard were revealed to be less permanent, less lasting, than we’d assumed.

In our text today, it’s evening on Easter Sunday. Early that morning, when the women went to the tomb, they did not find the body of their crucified Friend. Instead, angels had news for them. That afternoon, two people were walking toward Emmaus when an unrecognized third person joined their conversation, asked a few questions of them, and then answered all the questions ever asked. Then, over dinner that same night, their eyes were opened and they recognized the Man. Then He was gone.

The eleven disciples had already been told by the women what the angels announced that morning. Now these two on the road to Emmaus quickly leave their dinner––that same hour––and rush to the eleven to tell them the truths they’d already heard (Luke 24:34). That’s the scene.

Note, first:

1. This can’t be real (vv. 36–37)

Verse 36: As they were talking about these things. As they were talking about what things? While it’s been a month since we celebrated Easter, it’s only been a few hours since the eleven heard the women return with a story like none they’d ever heard before.[1] And then these other two, people they’d trusted, came late that afternoon with the same news. First, they hear, “He’s been seen.” Then they hear, “we’ve seen him too!” The events are coming quickly––one after the other––and they’re talking with one another, attempting to process it all that Easter evening. What are they talking about? What else would they be talking about? Then verse 36: As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them. He’s been seen. “We saw Him too!” Verse 36: Here He is.

Pastor Phil preached from the parallel account in John 20 just a few weeks ago for the church anniversary.[2] In that passage, we know that the doors were locked to this room.[3] Nonetheless, verse 36 continues: Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!”

How many times do you think He’d said this phrase before to the eleven? Leon Morris says it was the normal greeting of the day.[4] Maybe you can think of phrases you’ve heard from the same person over and over again. My dad is one of the funniest humans alive. And 30 something years in, I still laugh at the jokes I know are coming. For example, if I don’t call him for a few days, when I do he’ll answer the phone saying, “Uh . . . who is this?” I know all the aspects of his vocal delivery, the timing, the timbre of his voice, the inflection. I’ve heard him say it a few times.

The eleven had heard rumors of Jesus being alive. For the past few minutes, ma[...]

Confidence to Come Back

Hosea 6:1–3

 

ILL: Christmas Eve or on the eve of one of our children’s birthdays—these were often far from the peaks of our most spiritual moments of marital bliss. The stubborn thought that often came out of my mouth, “Who needs those written instructions, dear wife, when the picture is right here, plainly showing us how to put this slide or bicycle?” Many of those times concluded with a serving of crow. Just a couple of weeks ago I read from a woman who hilariously described her and her husband’s success in putting a bookshelf together in harmony. She ended her description of that experience with, “God is real!”[1] The picture that God has painted through the life and message of His servant Hosea possesses a messy clarity as well—a powerful clarity that places a most unexpected marriage front and center.

 

Notorious and scandalous are not beyond the bounds of what any thoughtful reader might describe in evaluating the book of Hosea. No doubt that most of us shared a similar sense of shock when we understood for the first time what God was actually demanding of the prophet: Go and say “I do” to a prostitute.

 

It is the very life of Hosea with his adulterous wife Gomer which projects and symbolizes Israel’s unfaithfulness at the time of his own prophetic ministry. Within that unfaithfulness other words could be mined from the book as a whole—promiscuous, indifferent, ungrateful, obstinate, trivial, half-hearted, and wild. Many descriptors of modern marriages, really. Yet here’s the strength of Hosea’s message: Israel’s stubbornness could not exhaust God’s redeeming love. Hosea’s overarching priority? To have Israel see her own darkness, to have Israel lay spiritual eyes upon the greatness of her God, and to see Israel turn back to Him who loved her first and best. For these things to happen, Hosea must declare some hard truths to hard hearts. In fact, his prophecy often takes on the mood of being sharp and bitter, and has the marks of a judicial indictment.[2] But there’s another mood of the text—that of a living hope, rooted in the character of a God who will always be there for His people.

 

I. Tough Love

 

Many scholars note that there are 6 basic “hope” sections in Hosea—3 in the biographical section, chapters 1-3, and 3 in the preaching sections, which are chapters 6 to the end. Our text is the first section of hope contained within Hosea’s proclamations to the nation.[3] Yet note the parentheses that hems in our text. This is Hosea’s own plea. It’s personal. He’s identifying with the people, just as every good prophet and leader. He’s calling the nation to return back to fidelity with the God who has filled Israel’s history with His lovingkindness. And through a message like this one, we can see clearly that God’s grace never stops annexing these people’s lives.

 

Hosea prophesied a couple hundred years after the days of Saul and David, approximately the mid 700’s BC. This is 200 years after the split of Israel into the Northern Kingdom which was called Israel, and the Southern Kingdom called Judah. And Hosea’s prophetic ministry is strictly geared to the north. For 100 years leading up to Hosea’s time, God had raised up Elijah, Elisha, and Amos to declare the rank idolatry of the people and her leaders. And this northern kingdom, in fact, never had a king that repented. Judah, the southern kingdom, yes, but not Israel the north. The shared message from Hosea and Amos was acknowledge, confess, and turn from sin, to place a renewed trust in the Lord, and to be astounded by the fragrant riches of His faithfulness and grace.

 

 [1] “Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.

 

How has God torn them, and how has He struck Israel down? Considering chapter 5, it seems as if there’s an already but not yet aspect to the Lord’s judgment. It’s quite clear that the splitti[...]

 

The Burning Hearts Society

Luke 24:28–35

May 3, 2020

On our text, Martin Luther penned, “God sees more deeply into the bottom of our hearts than we ourselves, and gives us more than we desire.”[1] He implied that the two disciples on the Emmaus Road, like us, had deep longings to see the Lord Jesus alive and reigning over His kingdom. The cross dashed their hopes, only because they failed to understand the OT teaching that “the Christ had to suffer these things and to enter into His glory” (v. 26). Jesus then explained the Scriptures from Moses to Malachi to show from them the things concerning Himself in the Old Testament (v. 27). They had a skewed theology because of a failure to properly interpret the Word Christologically,[2] shaping the teaching of Scripture to fit their notions instead of being shaped by Scripture—something we still suffer with quite often today. They had deep longings of heart they didn’t understand. They knew they needed something, Someone, to fill that longing. The Lord God had put eternity in their hearts, as Solomon wrote, but they had yet to grasp how the cross and empty tomb would bring them into this experience of eternal glory (Eccl. 3:11).[3] They thought Christ Jesus to be the one who would do so but when He died on the cross, they questioned why their hopes faded before their eyes. The longing for more, for something God-sized to fill the aching desire of their hearts still remained.

Their problem, and ours, is nothing that a good resurrection can’t cure!

The women who had witnessed the empty tomb only increased their heart desire to see Christ. Resurrection, while intimated, had not settled into their thinking as a possibility, and more, as a divine necessity following Jesus’ suffering at the cross. They longed and panted after the experience that only Christ can fill to bring their hearts into immeasurable joy and intense satisfaction. But their eyes were closed. They couldn’t see Him. Only the Lord God opening their eyes could set them free. And in doing so, He would give them more than they desired.

The risen Lord brings burning hearts into glory and joy. The Lord Jesus, risen from the dead, still brings burning hearts into glory and joy. What does Jesus do to bring burning hearts into glory and joy? Let’s consider how this unfolds, as we look at this passage.

 

Jesus makes burning hearts (vv. 28–29)

As Matt helped us to see last week, these two disciples listened to the greatest explanation of Holy Scripture that the world had ever heard (vv. 26–27): “Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.” Later, they tell us how they felt as Jesus taught. “Were not our hearts burning [and burning] within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the Scriptures to us?” Their hearts pounded with an inner joy and glory they’d never known; nor could they explain it. Hearing Jesus affected them to the very depths of their being. Paul points out that when we truly hear the gospel, we’re hearing Christ. “But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus” (Eph. 4:20–21). Even as we’re being taught about Him, He speaks to us. That puts fire in the heart!

How did the crescendo of the story unfold? “And they approached the village where they were going, and He acted as though He were going farther.” As the disciples got close to home, Jesus, yet again (e.g. vv. 17, 19) drew out a response from the disciples. “He acted as though He were going farther.” The word literally means ‘to make toward, to seem, to appear as though, to pretend.’[4] Here’s what happened. While dealing with the most serious and amazing truths, Jesus is playful[5] with these dear friends, showing a twist of “comic irony,”[6] leading to immeasurable joy.

Sometimes, out of an intense love for the joy that lies ahead, a father or mother might [...]