Hi, and welcome to this special series on the glorious person and work of Jesus Christ. In these messages, we journey through the scriptures from the astonishment of the temple to the road to Emmaus, from the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to the assurance of the Good Shepherd. Each sermon reveals how Christ meets us, renews us, and transforms us by His Word, by His Spirit, and by His finished work on the cross. Whether you're exploring Christ's comfort and obedience, the triumph of his cross, or the reckless love revealed in his resurrection, this series invites you to see Jesus more clearly and respond in faith. Because the Scripture reminds us faith comes by hearing and hearing through the Word of Christ.
We pray these messages strengthen your faith and deepen your confidence in the gospel of grace. Here's Pastor John Fonville with a message called Hearts Burning, Eyes Wide Opened, When Christ is No Longer a Stranger. Take your Bibles and turn to Luke 24. Luke 24. How the Holy Spirit Takes scripture.
and takes sacraments. And the Holy Spirit takes these gifts. And he opens up our eyes. Mines. to see who Christ truly is for us.
This is just so critical. Why? Because when people come to our church I get this question often. Why do you guys have the Lord's Supper every single Sunday? Why?
Yeah. This passage is going to tell us why. This passage tells us exactly why we come each week to this table. To be served by Christ. This passage tells us each week, I get this question.
I once had a person come, they came up to me and they said, I'm not coming back to this church again. I said, okay. You know, did we offend you? I'm so sorry. You know, what can we do to help?
And this was the answer. Because, what? Why are you not going to come back? Because. You never tell me to leave here with a list of things to do.
Well I didn't have time to respond to that because that was after the church, held in the church lobby moments. Right after church, just save it for the pastor. Wait till Monday morning, right? But here's the point of that. You come to our church, why do I preach Christ and the gospel from every passage of Scripture every single week?
Why do you come here to hear that? This passage tells us. This passage tells us what the Holy Spirit does. What he takes Right. To open up people's eyes to see who he is and what he's done for them.
To show that the reality that he's actually alive. That he's actually the risen Messiah, Christ. Who we all need. And when I come to church, what is it that I need? Why do I come to church?
I come to church primarily. To just sit. down and be served by Christ. That's why I come. The Holy Spirit.
As well see from this passage. Luke 24. Isn't this exact thing for two disciples? It's possible to be a disciple of Christ and actually he'd be a stranger. You ever thought about that?
There were two disciples with Jesus walking on the Emmaus road. And Jesus is a stranger to them. And then what is it that people often say when they come to our church? I just really don't get what you guys are teaching there. And I respond, I understand.
Jesus is a stranger to all of us. He's a stranger. Why? Because he's the God-man. How do you explain the mystery of that?
How do you explain that Jesus is risen from the dead and that he appeared and that he's physically alive, exalted to the right hand of the Father? How do you explain that? It's great mysteries of the faith. Yet it's the heart and center of our faith. But here's our problem.
When we come to church, our problem is not a mental problem. It's not an intellectual problem. Our problem is a moral problem. Our hearts Or darkened. Listen to what the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians chapter 4, verses 17 through 18.
He describes this spiritual state of blindness. He says, this I say and affirm together with the Lord. That you no longer walk just as the Gentiles walk. Walk. Listen carefully.
In the futility of their mind. Listen to how he describes the mind. being darkened in their understanding. Excluded from the life of God. Why?
Why? Why? Because of the ignorance that is in them. Why do they have ignorance? Why are they excluded from the life of God?
Why do they have a darkened understanding and just can't comprehend spiritual truth? Because of the hardness of their heart. You see, when we come together. As a church. T Listen to scripture.
Scripture preached, scripture read, scripture sung. When we come to receive the sacraments, It's not a natural thing to do. Listening to God's word being preached to us, the gospel, is not like sitting down being taught math. The math teacher tells you one plus one equals Cheers, yeah.
Now think about this. The Gospel says Jesus. Is the eternal Son of God who has taken upon himself humanity, who was created by the Holy Spirit in the womb of a virgin. Who gave ahead a perfect life of obedience to God's law, so he secured perfect righteousness on our behalf. He died on a cross for our sin, took the penalty, went to the grave.
Why? Because to dusk you shall return, which is the curse, the penalty of God's own law. And he crushed the penalty of that. He went down into the dust of death, was what the psalmist says. He destroyed death forever.
And on the third day, he physically, physically rose back from the dead, and he appeared over 500 witnesses. He has ascended. Physically to the right hand of the Father in heaven, where he is currently interceding for us as our advocate before the Father if we sin. And one day, hopefully soon, hopefully this afternoon, maybe we're worshiping now, he will return physically and consummate the kingdom. That's not one plus one equals two.
That just sounds fantastically crazy. And it is if you don't have the Holy Spirit. Why? Because it's not an intellectual issue. It's a moral issue.
My heart, because of the fall, has been darkened. In my understanding, I am filled with ignorance because I have been separated. Listen to this, from the life of God. Why? Because of the hardness.
Of my heart. This condition is precisely why I don't expect anybody, Christian or non-Christian, to come here and understand gospel-centered preaching from Genesis to Revelation. I don't expect anybody to come here and go, godly, the Lord's Supper again. Ah! Yeah.
But Jesus is a stranger to us. Because our hearts are hardened by sin. And it prevents us from recognizing him. But because of grace alone, right? La gratia, we heard this conference.
By grace alone, the Holy Spirit promised by Ezekiel, he comes and he says, he removes our heart of stone. And the Holy Spirit gives us a heart of flesh. He breathes life into us again, where we had no life of God. He breathes the life of God into me. And he gives me spiritual comprehension, and I see the risen Christ.
And my heart burns by the Holy Spirit. He transforms the spiritual deadness of my heart and he raises it to life and I see Jesus. The efficacy of the gospel lies in the Holy Spirit's work. And so again, I have once had right after a church service, I had not left these steps until a young man came up to me and he says, I can't come back to your church anymore. I was like, okay, here's another one of those conversations.
Why would you want? Because you guys don't believe in the Holy Spirit. I've got to go to a church that's got the Holy Spirit. The efficacy of the gospel lies in the Holy Spirit's work, making it effective in our hearts. We believe in the Holy Spirit so much that we believe that faith comes from, listen, hearing.
That's what Paul says in Romans 10:17. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4, verse 6, that the Holy Spirit does ex nihilo creation through the proclamation of the gospel. Oh, we believe in the power of the Holy Spirit. He creates faith by just sitting there hearing something. Faith comes from Hearing, hearing, hearing.
How does that work? I don't know. I've said this before because it's a great illustration. How do the walls of Jericho come down when you march around it seven times and blow a trumpet? I have no idea except the fact that it is the power of the Holy Spirit who does it.
That's why Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and 2 that the Gentiles believe that the gospel and its methods. Or foolishness. There's no power there. There's no Holy Spirit there. How can drinking some juice and eating some bread and just sitting for 35 minutes to hear, how does that have power?
You see. Without the Holy Spirit, the gospel just remains obscure. Jesus is a stranger to us. This truth is presented to us. In the 24th chapter of Luke, look at it.
There's this story of the resurrected Jesus walking with two dejected and disillusioned disciples on the mayas road. And Jesus is a stranger to them. They're walking and talking with the resurrected Jesus, and he is completely unaware. They are completely unaware of who he is and what he just accomplished. Look at verse 15.
While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself approached and began traveling with them. But their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. We'll come back to that. There would come a time when the disciples' eyes wouldn't be open in this story. But in their present uncertainty, Jesus had lessons to teach them.
And so here's the tension. When will they recognize him? How, how will they finally recognize him and comprehend him? That's detention. Look at verse 17.
I'm just going to paraphrase it for the sake of time. Jesus questions them. As he walks up to them and he says, I'll just paraphrase it like this: verse 17: hey, guys, what are you talking about? Yeah. Yeah.
You imagine this moment. One of them, Cleopas, answered and said to him, Love this. Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem and unaware of the things which have happened here in these days? Ah! Yeah.
Jesus graciously. Right, he replies to Cleopas. He says to him, verse 19, he goes, What thanks? Yeah. Yeah.
You see how graciously patient he is with us? Then, just to paraphrase verses 20 through 24, the two disciples answer Jesus' questions from what things, and they give a foolish answer. How do we know it was foolish? Because Jesus says, oh, foolish men. We're going to come back to that.
They completely miss the entire point of who Jesus is, the resurrected Messiah, and what he had just accomplished that weekend, namely death, burial, and resurrection for their salvation. They have no idea who he is. Jesus is a total stranger to them. They do not comprehend who he is and what the gospel is. They have no clue.
Look at verses twenty-four through twenty-seven. Jesus. Replies and he gives them. What does he give them? Here's the first clue: how he has to open up their eyes.
Listen, he gifts to them. Listen to this. A Christ centered exposition from Genesis to Malachi. Showing them that the Old Testament scriptures are about. Him.
The whole thing. The whole story is about Him and his work of salvation. The Old Testament clearly presents to us the gospel. That's the point. And he says, Oh, foolish man, you have given a foolish answer.
Slow of heart to believe what? All that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary? That divine must, throughout Luke's gospel, the Son of Man must, the Son of Man must, says it throughout the whole gospel. Was it not necessary, was it not necessary that the Son of Man must, for the Christ to suffer these things and then enter into his glory?
Then, beginning with Moses. And with all the prophets, he explained to them, he exposited the scriptures to them. The things concerning himself in all the scriptures. What lesson? What a lesson.
Then look at verse 31. Having given in Christ-centered exposition from the scriptures. Right? He goes to their house. And he begins to become the host.
We'll come back to that. which was shocking. And he took the bread and he blessed it and he broke it and began giving it to them. We'll come back to that because this is critical. These words here are critical.
He took, he blessed, he broke, he gave. What did he do? He served them the first Lord's Supper after his resurrection. He gave them this table right here. He gave them Word Christ-centered exposition from these scriptures.
Then he took them to the table and he served them the first Lord's Supper sacrament after his resurrection. Look at verse thirty one. Having served them both Word and sacrament. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him. He's preparing his disciples for his departure to carry out the great commission so that other people, like those two disciples on the Emmaus Road, can join the Emmaus Road and recognize Christ.
Do you know what our Emmaus Road is today? Word and sacrament, where we see Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit. That's what he's preparing them for. That's why he prevented them from seeing because he wanted to teach them this profound lesson. How do you see?
Encounter the life of God, the risen, resurrected Messiah. And he's going to say you do it through going through Scripture and seeing that every page of Scripture is him. It's about him. And then you come to his table, and this is his table where he is not only the host, but the food that feeds you to eternal life. Listen to Michael Horton.
This is great. I could not say it better than my professor and my mentor.
So just listen to how Michael Horton describes what takes place here. First, Jesus is a humble guest, receiving the invitation to stay kindly and accepting it. But then he does something that you just never did in Middle Eastern culture. The guest became the host. He started taking over the meal.
He was invited there to be given a meal, and he just takes over and he breaks Middle Eastern cultural customs. He becomes the host at the meal, just as he had been in the upper room. Right, where he instituted the Lord's Supper. In doing so, when he becomes the host, when he becomes the one serving. Their sorrow is turned to joy.
When listen to this, he became the host, the one serving. Their sorrow was turned to joy. And their unbelief. Turn to recognition. They recognize him in the breaking of the bread.
Verse 31 says, The verbs used in verse 30, he took, he broke, he gave. These are the same form that you find in the upper room when he instituted the Lord's Supper. It's unmistakable. What's happening here is that the first celebration of the Lord's Supper after the resurrection of Jesus is taking place. And that's when they recognize all that He had spoken about was about himself.
That's when their eyes were opened and they recognized him. Our story began with two dejected disciples. It ends with two witnesses. Yeah. Verse 33, listen to it.
And they got up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem and found gathered together the 11 and those who were with them, saying, Now here it is, because this is the whole point. This is what Jesus is trying to do: teach them the reality of his physical resurrection. Which proves that he's the Christ Messiah, the Savior, to forgive their sins and restore them to the life of God. Listen, saying the Lord has really risen and he's appeared to Simon. They're witnessing, listen, first-hand counter, they have seen Jesus physically resurrected.
But they know this because of word and sacrament, the gifts of God for the people of God. They began to relate their experiences on the road and how he was recognized them in the breaking of the bread. We have very, very spiritually powerful encounters with the risen Christ at this church every Sunday. And it comes the murdering sacrament. And I can't explain it.
It's a mystery, but that's what the Holy Spirit does. And listen, we can become witnesses to these things throughout Jacksonville. And we can tell people, we can relate our experience here every Sunday to them that we come on the Damascus Road. Every Sunday at Paramount Church, then we encounter the risen Christ. And we recognize Him through word and sacrament.
Come with us and come and see and come and hear and come and taste that the Lord is good. Michael Horton says, Jesus still meets us on the road, as it were. We come to Jesus with our own problems. Who's got problems today? I've got problems, feet, hands, everything jumping.
Yeah. We come to Jesus, to church with our problems. And therefore, with our own vision of what kind of king we think we need. But the important thing that we learn from this story is that Jesus tells us who he is. He tells us who he is as we hear his word preached from Genesis to Revelation.
I love this. Listen, the king still joins us for dinner. Right there. He makes himself the host of a heavenly banquet. In the bread and the wine of communion, we have a foretaste of that bread and wine that we will share with him in our resurrected flesh when the Lord comes again in glory.
And so he says, listen carefully. The table is set. The Lord is risen. He has risen indeed. Amen.
He's exactly right. We come here to church every single week and guess what? The table is set. The word is open. Jesus, the risen King is here to serve you.
He's the host. Then look at verse thirty-two. They said to one another, Were not our hearts burning? Within us. While he was speaking to us on the road, While he was, here it is, explaining the scriptures to us.
I don't know about you, but this past October, when I went to this retreat that we hosted here. The uh the pastor uh came from uh Oxford. Absolutely brilliant exegesis from the Old Testament. of Christ-centered sermons. And I always get concerned when pastors take us to the Old Testament because I'm like, oh gosh, please don't turn this into Aesop's fables.
Please don't make these stories about how to beat like David and conquer the giants in your life. Please don't do that. Play it pressure. He opened up the scriptures to us in Zechariah, and for three days he just poured out Christ in Zechariah. And as I sat there, I had tears come down my eyes, just all of a sudden, they just started streaming down my cheek.
And my heart, I felt my heart rate going up. And I was excited and I was happy. And I was filled with joy. And I just thanked him every single time. I'd go up to him because I know how powerful, and I would just hug him.
I thank you.
Okay. Thank you for giving me Jesus today and showing me Christ in the scriptures. Thank you. That's what happened here to these disciples. Christ wasn't a stranger to them.
As their spirits were illumined, their hope revived. This wasn't natural, this wasn't math, this wasn't one plus one equals two, this was a powerful, divine, supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. They recognized him. They understood that which before they had not understood. What is it?
Jesus is the Christ. He's the Messiah, the Son of David. He is the Son of Man, Daniel 7. He is our Savior. He had to suffer these things first, then enter into his glory.
All throughout Luke's gospel, it says they didn't understand. They didn't understand when Jesus said the Son of Man must suffer. They didn't understand. It's repeated throughout the whole gospel. It comes to a climax here in chapter 24.
And now they knew that the women who told them Jesus is a lie, that they were foolish. That they were talking nonsense, but they had spoken the truth about who Jesus is to them. As we finish, there are lots of lessons that I could pull from this. Here are just two. Our ability to see.
To hear. to understand depends entirely upon the Holy Spirit, who is the Lord, the giver of life. If we can understand and grasp the gospel just this much. That's not because of my intellect. That is a supernatural, gracious work of the power of the Holy Spirit.
Who takes my darkened fallen mind and like it, like I walk into a dark room, and the first thing that I can see is just a little tiny candle lit in the middle. And then I come back next week and it's a lamp bulb. And I come back the next week and it's a raging fire with lots of light bulbs. And eventually, that room that I could not see just gets brighter and brighter. Why?
Because that's the work of the Spirit who illumines me to see the unsearchable riches of Christ through the gospel. That's how it works. Just as our physical senses function by the power of God, what does Paul say? Our breath comes from him. We live and move and have our being in him.
I am standing here speaking, breathing, and moving because he's giving me physical life. I am understanding the gospel equally because the spirit is moving and working by his power to overcome my darkness, my fallenness, to give me a gift. My mind is clouded by my sin, constantly making mistaking falsehood for truth. And I have to have the Holy Spirit to clarify the truth. The Apostle Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 2, verse 14, crystal clear.
He says, the man without the Holy Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness to him. And he cannot understand them. Because they're spiritually discerned, that is, they are empowered by the Spirit to understand. The proper discrimination between truth and falsehood.
does not come from my insight and my intellect. It comes as a gracious gift of the Holy Spirit of wisdom and truth. Here's the second lesson. Though God uses ministers of his word to call people to faith. True transformation comes from the work of the Holy Spirit who calls and creates people of faith.
When the disciples recognized Jesus, they realized that their hearts had been burning within them when he spoke. What is this burning? Listen carefully. It's the hidden Secret, mysterious, powerful. work of the Holy Spirit.
Which they had experienced but didn't fully understand at the time. And often God works in his people in ways that they do not immediately perceive. I've never forgotten when Eric and Heather came to church. It was what, 12 to 14 years ago, something like that. You guys told me this: you said you sat in our church for about 15 months?
Long time. And they said, we just didn't have a clue what you're talking about. Isn't that a great thing to say to a pastor? Like, you are just as opa, you are just as. Hard to understand is muddy water.
Yeah. And then they said this. I was preaching to Galatians. I'll never forget it. Eric came to me and says, you know what?
We came into church this Sunday, and all of a sudden we were sitting there, and the light bulb went off. Wow, that's what he's been saying. The disciples felt this deep stirring in their hearts after Jesus revealed himself by word and sacrament. Why do we have word and sacrament every Sunday in this church? Because we're just doing what Jesus has given to us to open people's eyes.
And the world looks at that and says, that's not electric. I don't feel I don't feel that when I come there. It's not a fog machine with a laser show and just a perfect band. It just got. Me groove it on Sunday.
This is what a person came and told me. Again, I'm being blunt and honest with you guys to help you to understand. A person came and said, Well, we don't, your church, we go to this church because we're going to go to this church. It takes me back 30 years back in the 70s. I used to go to these.
Youth concerts. And I just feel like I'm in a youth concert every Sunday, and I just love it.
Sorry to tell you that church is not a youth concert. Jesus. opens people's eyes by the power of the Spirit through the means that he has instituted, which is word and sacrament, and it's not entertainment. Listen to this. This is what.
this passage teaches us. That the true purpose of God's word, which is law and gospel, The true purpose is this, to ignite the fire of the Holy Spirit within us. To burn away our sinful desires of our flesh and to stir in us by grace. Love for God and love for our neighbor. This is why we began every worship service with this colic for purity.
This prayer sets the tone for the entire worship service that follows. Almighty God. To you, all hearts are open. All desires are known. And listen to this.
In front of you, no. Secrets are hid. I come to church. God, Almighty God, here I am, works and all. You know all about bad desires and good desires, unfulfilled desires, hopes, dreams, aspirations, disappointments, failures, and sorrows.
I'm sitting before you here again this week, just like last week, having failed the past six days. Nothing's hidden from you. Here I am. What a prayer. What a powerful way to start a worship service.
And then we pray, cleanse the thoughts. Why? Because it's not an intellectual problem, it's a moral problem. Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts, because as a man. Thinks in his Heart.
So is he. Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit. What is the inspiration of the Holy Spirit? Look right here. Scripture.
More awe and gospel. Law and gospel. Holy Spirit, take the law and the gospel and the word of God today, the scriptures, and cleanse the thoughts of my heart. Why? so that I might perfectly love you.
First commandment. and worthily magnify your holy name. What is that? You were created. I was created to love God and enjoy him forever.
The life of God restored. Create, take the scriptures today, take this feast of scripture where I hear tons of it read to me over here at the lectern, where I have tons of it preached to me, where I have it given to me visibly through the objective, visible gospel of the Lord's Supper. Take all this scripture here today, and by the power of your Holy Spirit, cleanse my heart again so that I can love you. And so that I can fulfill the very purpose for which I was created, which is to glorify you and to have life in you again. And then send me out like that into this world to live from that gift given here today.
That's worship. You don't need a fog machine for that. You don't need light shows and laser shows and a groovy band for that. That doesn't bring the Holy Spirit. That brings dopamine.
You're addicted to dopamine. Oxytocin. The feel-good hormone that gives you what? Those jigger things that you just go, oh, I feel, you know. No We pray for the Holy Spirit to give us a feast of scripture.
to cleanse our hearts. to change our hearts. And to fulfill in our life the very purpose for which God created us. Mm-hmm. Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we are so grateful. And we are humbled. By your grace to us, we're just like those two disciples. You're a stranger to us. We come faltering our way into church every week.
Flopping and failing and failing, and just like these disciples, ignorant and foolish. And by your grace. When we come here, you're a stranger. And when we leave here, you're our great savior. Awaken us, Holy Spirit, as we come to your table.
and help us to have the faith. to receive your service to us. and confirm and assure of these Gospel promises that we've heard that you are the living. Resin. Christ.
We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. John Fawnville sends his thanks for listening today. And before we wrap up, can I tell you about an encouraging book you might want to get soon? It's called Hope and Holiness: How the Gospel Enables and Empowers Sexual Purity.
You're not alone if you've tried to conquer sexual temptations and tried all the methods available, only to find yourself feeling defeated again. This book may be just what you're looking for. With his shepherding heart, John shows that the gospel, not practical steps or more self-discipline, is God's provision for the power to live a life of sexual purity. and it's available to every Christian. What I like is the book is available in three convenient ways, paperback, audiobook, or Kindle.
The links are in our podcast descriptions or just search for Hope and Holiness by John Fonville on Amazon to get a copy for you and it's a wonderful book to go through with a small group. Him we proclaim is a ministry of Paramount Church in Jacksonville, Florida. You can find us at paramountchurch.com. We'll talk again soon.
