Elevate - The Story Pt 26 - Reclaiming Hope

Jesus rose from the dead defeating death, but not everyone viewed it as a victory. Two disciples on their way to Emmaus were confused and had lost hope. They didn't recognize Jesus when he joined them because they didn't expect to see him again. Expectation plays a huge role in encountering Jesus. They explained to Jesus what had happened and how their hope had been dashed. They were walking from promise to despair, from hope to hopelessness. Hope is vital to our faith and ability to walk in joy and peace. You know what eagles do when it's stormy and terrible weather? They soar up above the storm. They've got this 30,000 foot view. He wants you to soar above the storm to be victorious and to be blessed no matter what you're seeing and whatever you're facing in your life. He's saying, come on up here with me and get the 30,000 foot view because there's more to life than what you're facing right here in this moment. There's something bigger that I'm doing and you may not be able to see it and you may not be able to understand it. But by God, I'm asking that you believe it. Welcome to Elevate from Authentic Life Church in Mobile, Alabama with Pastor John DiQuatro. We hope it builds your faith and helps you to live a life for God that you've always wanted to live. We hope it inspires you to be a fully devoted, authentic follower of Jesus Christ. Enjoy the message and welcome to Elevate. We are continuing in our The Story series. So this week in your chapter, you read that Jesus did not stay in the grave for very long. After three days, Jesus rises from the dead, defeating death once and for all. And His resurrection ushered in a whole new era whereby the law has no power. And faith in the finished work on the cross is what brings us salvation. It brings power. It brings the promise of the Holy Spirit. And what a victory was won that day when Jesus rose from the dead. But it was not viewed that way by everybody. And for us, listen, if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, there's no reason for us to be sitting in this room today. That's the most pivotal, most important piece of narrative in the entire Bible is the truth and the fact that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, defeating death. Amen. And because of that, we have life today. But in that moment, it was not viewed as a victory for everybody. To many, Jesus' death dashed all of their hopes in Jesus being the Redeemer that would rescue national Israel and bring them freedom from their oppressors. And so in Luke 24, following the resurrection of Jesus, in Luke 24, we read about two disciples of Jesus that were in this place of confusion and dashed hopes. And so we're going to look at Luke chapter 24, beginning in verse 13. That very day, two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. And they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus Himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing Him. Now, let's stop right there. These guys, these are disciples of Jesus. These are people that followed Jesus' teaching and they believed that He was who He said He was. And they're walking along and they're discussing everything that happened. And as they're walking, Jesus joins them. But they don't recognize Him. They didn't recognize Jesus. We have to ask the question, why? Were they blinded to His presence? Perhaps they were blinded by the despair that they felt at learning that He had died. Perhaps they never had gotten a close look at Him when He was alive. Maybe they only followed Him and saw Him from a distance among the crowds. For whatever reason, they were not able to recognize Him. Now, I'd like to offer another reason perhaps why they did not recognize Jesus. Another explanation as to how Jesus could be walking and talking with them, but they had no idea, they had no clue that it was Jesus. I believe that they didn't recognize Jesus because they did not expect Jesus to be there. In their mind, Jesus was dead. They couldn't see past that. He was dead and buried in a grave, and so because of that, they did not expect to see Jesus in their midst. Can I tell you something? An expectation plays a huge role in our ability to see and encounter and experience Jesus. You know, if you come into church on a Sunday morning, and your attitude is, I don't like this music. I wish our pastor would use a different translation of the Bible. Why do they got to have all these lights? If that's your attitude when you come into church, or if it's, you know, if someone doesn't say hi to me, I'm out of here. If that's your attitude, I tell you, you're going to have a hard time seeing Jesus. If that's your attitude when you come into a church, you're going to have a hard time seeing Jesus. But if you come into church on a Sunday morning, and your attitude is, I'm going to give Him all of my worship today. I'm going to take notes. Come on, somebody. And I'm going to receive the Word. I'm going to meet Jesus and leave this place full of His glory and His presence, and full of the Holy Spirit, then I promise you, your level of expectation will allow you to encounter Jesus in a huge way. Expectation plays a huge role as to whether or not we can see Jesus. These guys had no expectation. No expectation that they would ever see Jesus again, let alone be in their presence. And so they didn't recognize Him. They didn't see Him. So Jesus asked them what they're talking about. And so they explained it to Him, and we see this in verse 18. They say, then one of them, named Cleopas, answered Him, Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days? I'm like, look out guys, y'all are being sarcastic with Jesus. But He said to them, what things? You know, Jesus is playing stupid now. He's like, yeah, what are you talking about? I don't know what you're talking about. And they said to Him, concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet, mighty indeed, and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death, and they crucified Him. And that's where they're stuck. They're stuck right in that spot. Jesus came, and He's a great prophet, and He did all these great things, but now He's dead. And look at what Cleopas says next in verse 21. But we had hoped that He was the one to redeem Israel. We had hoped. Yes, and besides all that, it is now the third day since these things happened. Cleopas says, we had hoped. They're using the word hope in the past tense. Because at one point, they did hope. They had hope that Jesus would redeem Israel. They had hope that Jesus was the Messiah sent from God to deliver Israel from their captivity. They at one point had hope that their desires to be free from Roman occupation would finally be met in Jesus Christ. Because this Man, Jesus, He comes to Galilee and He opens blind eyes, and He opens deaf ears, and He makes the lame walk again, and He's healed numerous other people with all kinds of issues. He casts out demons with authority and speaks of a kingdom with the authority of God Himself. Surely, surely this is the Messiah that we have been waiting for. This has to be Him. They were full of hope. But now, they're no longer hoping. Their hope is gone. He says, we had hoped. You see, they saw a few things. They witnessed a few things. They saw Jesus be led to a hill and be crucified. They saw this, and so now, because they saw that with their eyes, now they are without hope. They heard that Jesus was crucified. They heard that Jesus had died. But they also heard that when the women went to the tomb, that it was empty. And they also heard that some angels had said some things about Jesus rising from the dead. And so, this brought more hope that maybe the story wasn't over. And so, they went to see it for themselves. And they saw the empty tomb. But no Jesus. No resurrected Jesus. And so, for them, this is all just a story. Whatever it was that they're talking about, because if you read on for a few more verses, you'll see, they're like, yeah, we heard about these women. They went. We heard about the angels telling them that Jesus rises from the dead. And some of the people that we knew, we got together. We went and we saw. We looked too. We saw the empty tomb, but we didn't see Jesus. And so, they're thinking, oh, this is just all a big story. It's a big hoax. Their hope was gone. Their hope was dashed. And so, now these guys are on the way to Emmaus. These two disciples are on their way to Emmaus discussing everything that happened. Now, Emmaus is not very far from Jerusalem. It's only about seven miles. But Jerusalem, for the Jew, for a Jewish person in those days, Jerusalem was the city of promise. It was the city of purpose. It was the city of God's presence. But Emmaus represented something else. You see, the name Emmaus actually means people despised or obscurity. That's what Emmaus means. So, the picture that we have here is of two disciples walking away from purpose and promise. Right? The city of Jerusalem that represented purpose and promise. Walking towards a place of obscurity or being despised. Or a better way of putting it, they were walking from promise to despair. They were walking from hope to hopelessness. And they were losing hope. And listen, hope is so vital to our faith. Hope is so vital to our ability to walk in joy and to walk in peace. Hope is what gets us up in the morning. No matter what you're facing today, that hope in Jesus Christ, that whatever is going on in my life today, I know God is working on it and it's going to be different tomorrow or maybe next week. I have hope. I believe. That's what hope does for you. Hoping in the promises of God in our lives, that Jesus is who He says that He is. Hope is vital. We have to have hope. But these two guys were literally walking from a place of hope to a place of hopelessness. Now look at what they said here. We just read it. It says, And besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. Now that's an interesting statement. It's now the third day since these things happened. You see, what they're doing is they're doubling down on their despair. They're doubling down on their hopelessness, saying, now listen, it's been three days now since this all went down. And for them, each day that goes by adds more proof to them that what we had hoped is just not going to happen. Every day that goes by, they don't see the promise fulfilled. They're like, well, it's been three days. My goodness. And they're doubling down on their despair. Basically, they're saying, we have resolved ourselves to the fact that what we had hoped Jesus would do is no longer possible. Have you ever had hope for something, but then all of a sudden it just seems impossible? You felt like you had a promise from God. You felt like God was opening a door of opportunity for you. Or you thought that something was going to transpire and you had a lot of hope in Jesus and a lot of faith and you were praying and you were believing, and all of a sudden it just looks impossible. So each day that goes by, you increasingly resign yourself to the fact that it's a hopeless situation. You know what I'm talking about? Each passing day is proof that God won't do what He said He would do. That's despair. That's hopelessness. God, I thought You were going to fill in the blank. But now what I see is this, and it doesn't seem to reconcile. It doesn't seem to jive. You all know what I'm talking about, right? Many of you are in that place of tension right now between the what is reality and the what will be. You're in that place. You're waiting for the miracle. You're between the promise and your current reality. Let me encourage you, do not leave Jerusalem and go to Emmaus. Don't leave the promise. Don't leave hope and head to a place of despair and hopelessness. You know, these two guys doubted if Jesus was who He said He was. Let me encourage you, don't ever doubt who Jesus is in your life. Trust Him in the face of what you see of your current reality. Don't walk away from the promise. And you know what? One of the promises that it's so easy for us to walk away from is eternal life. You know, we mess up sometimes, and we begin to reason that we're beyond hope. And so we walk away from the promise. You know, every now and then I go on a diet. I'm currently not on one. I don't know if you can tell. But every now and then I go on a diet. And you all know that diets are really hard to stick with unless you have, every now and then, you have one of those cheat days, right? My mantra during a cheat day is, hey, if you're going to take a bath, you might as well fill the tub. Right? I'm just not going to have one slice of pizza and say, ooh, I cheated, I feel so good. No, I'm eating that whole pizza. And I'm having some buffalo wings with it on the side. Right? Ice cream, oh, all of it, whatever. If I'm going to cheat, you better believe I'm cheating. You can all use this too. If you're going to take a bath, you might as well fill the tub. But let me tell you something. Don't take that mentality with regards to your salvation. Right? Just because you made a mistake, don't go all the way and fill the tub. Don't take that mentality with yourself. Your mistakes are not beyond what God can forgive. There is no sin that falls outside of the grace of God. His promise of eternal life, now listen to me, it extends to you when your fallen nature is getting the best of you. There are times when your fallen nature is going to get the best of you. It happens. But the promise of eternal life is still extended to you in that moment. Don't walk away from the promise of eternal life. That's just an aside. But let's ask this question. So why did hopelessness take over these two disciples? Well, the first one we've already discussed. They were walking away from their promise. They left Jerusalem in the hope of the promise of the Messiah. They allowed what they saw in the natural to cause them to move towards despair. Now, what did Jesus tell them to do? Let's look at what Jesus reminds them in this conversation of what He had told His disciples. Look at verse 44. He says, 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. Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. And He said to him, And thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer, and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things, and behold, I am sending the promise of My Father upon you, but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high. Now, here they are in a place of like, well, Jesus is dead, this is all over. But He reminds them, He told them that He would suffer and die. He told them that He would rise from the dead. He told them that He would send His Holy Spirit. And He told them to stay in the city and wait. But that's not what they did. That's not what these two guys... they did not stay in the city and wait. They chose to leave the promise and go towards hopelessness. They forgot what Jesus said. They forgot that Jesus told them to wait. Which implies that He knew that they were going to have to deal with the reality of Jesus' death between that time and the fulfillment of the promise. But they didn't wait. They didn't stay in that place of hope. They didn't stay in that place of promise. They didn't stay in obedience to Christ. They chose to walk away. And why is it that they chose to leave the promise and move on towards hopelessness and despair? Well, it says in Luke 24, in 14 and 15, right? It says, while they were talking and discussing together, right? It says they walked along and they were talking about everything. And as they were talking and discussing together... Listen, they were reasoning in the natural. They were reasoning in the natural. They talked about everything. I can't imagine the discussion that they were having. Like, was Jesus really who He said He was? Like, what are we supposed to do now? We were going to follow this guy. We were going to be a part of a new kingdom. We thought Jesus was going to kick the Romans out and that we were going to have a free Israel again. What are we supposed to do? Have we been hoodwinked into believing a lie? Now what? And it's fine to ask questions, right? We are all searching for answers throughout this life. But the problem with this particular discussion, with their search for answers, is that they were searching for answers within themselves, trying to figure out what had occurred and what had happened. But their reasoning and their searching was not founded in the Word of God. It was not founded in the promise or on anything that Jesus had taught them and had already spoken to them. And that's our natural tendency, right? When our reality doesn't jive with the promises of God, we try to make sense of it. We try to figure out what's going on. And that's what these guys were doing. But by trying to figure it out in the natural, they were unable to hold on to hope. As they started figuring it out, as they started talking about it and discussing it, they were on their way to a place of complete hopelessness. They were unable to even see and recognize that Jesus was in the midst of their situation. Listen, fight the temptation to always try to figure everything out. Do you think what's happening here is that... I know God said this, but this is what I see. Maybe God's trying to put this together, and if I go over it... Just listen, hold on to the promise. Just hold on to the promise. Whether it's a promise straight out of God's Word, or it's a promise that He gave you directly in your spirit, stick with it. If you try to figure it out, and if you try to talk through it too much, you're going to talk yourself right out of believing what Jesus said. And right into a place of hope and despair. So the question is, the title of this message is Reclaiming Hope. How do we reclaim hope when we've walked away from our promise and are doubting what Jesus had said to us? When we're no longer looking forward with eager expectation to what God is doing, and we begin to resign ourselves to accepting that our current reality is our final destination, how do we get back to that place? How do we get back to hope? How do we reclaim hope again in our lives? Number one, remember the promise. Remember the promise. For our two travelers, Jesus had to remind them of everything that He had said would happen. And if we read further on, we'll see that it wasn't until they were reminded of this that they were finally able to recognize that Jesus was in their midst. But understand this. Jesus is the one who initiated contact with these two. Jesus came to them, joined them on their road. He's going to join you on your road. When you've gotten to that place where you're just like, oh, I feel hopeless, and you're just on that way to hope and despair, I promise you, Jesus is going to join you on that road. And when Jesus joined them on that road, He reminded them of the promise so that they could remember what He had said. And Jesus will do the same for you when you are traveling towards the Emmaus in your life. Do you want to remember the promise? If you do, then you've got to spend some time with Jesus. You've got to connect. They were reconnecting with Jesus here in this moment. They hadn't recognized Him yet, but they were reconnecting with Him. You've got to connect with Him. You've got to go back to what you wrote down in your journal or in the margin of your Bible. You've got to go back to the altar where God spoke His promise to you. You've got to get in your prayer closet and begin to recount everything that Jesus said to you and every promise that He gave you and invite Him into your place of doubt. Invite Him into your memory issues and let Him remind you of everything that He promised you. You can only do that if you reconnect with Him. See, the problem is when we walk away from hope and we start walking towards despair, oftentimes we start walking away from Jesus altogether. Because we're not full of faith anymore. We're not excited anymore for what we feel like God's doing. And so we just kind of leave Him in the dust. I'm telling you, if you're in that place where you're in the tension between what is and what will be and you can't see how the what will be is even possible, reconnect with Jesus and let Him remind you of the promises that He gave you. Because all of God's promises are yes and amen. He don't lie. God is not a man that He should lie. He is only truth. Let Him remind you of everything He promised you. But then, the second thing is this. First of all, we've got to remember what Jesus said. We've got to remember the promise. But then we also have to expect that God will do what He said. That's the cornerstone of faith in your life. God said it. I believe it. And now I live in the light of that promise expecting that God is going to do what He said. Because it's the promise that brings that hope back. It's the promise that keeps us going. It's the expectation that God will do it in our lives that keeps us going. If we did not have the promise of eternal life, how could we possibly live for God in this life? It would be hopeless. It would be purposeless. But the promise gives us hope. The hope of glory, right? That's what keeps us going. Because we know that one day we're going to live with Him forever. And so, in this life, we keep our eyes on that promise. It gives us hope. The hope of glory. We keep moving. It's the same way with everything in your life. God gave me a promise. I'm going to keep my eye on what Jesus said. I'm going to keep going. I'm going to expect that He's going to do what He said. And let hope flood your soul. If you have a promise of provision in your life, then live your life in light of that promise. God, I know things are tight right now, but You promised to provide for me. And I expect that You will do what You promised and stay in that place of hope. If you have a promise of healing, then live your life in light of that promise. God, I know my body is sick right now, but You promised that You would heal me. So I choose to live in expectation of that promise and thereby live in hope of the Healer. If you have a promise that your children will serve God, then live your life in light of that promise. Give them over to God in prayer every single day and expect that God will do what you can't do and that God will get a hold of them and let hope flood your soul. Fill in the blank. If you have a promise, then expect that God will do it and live in hope every day of that promise being fulfilled. Romans 15 verse 13 tells us, May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Hope is what keeps us going. Hope, the Scripture tells us, is what brings us joy. It's what brings us peace in this life. Isaiah 40 chapter 31 tells us this, But they who wait for the Lord, they that wait for the Lord, shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. The Scripture tells us that those of us that will wait on the Lord, our strength will be renewed. You won't be languishing in that place of hope and despair, but you understand that there's a waiting that's involved here. There's a process that's involved here and it strengthens you. Because if you believe the promise, it says that we will mount up with wings like eagles. You know what eagles do when it's stormy and terrible weather? They soar up above the storm. And they just soar up in the sky. They look down. They've got this 30,000 foot view and they can see all of it. And He wants you to soar above the storm to be victorious and to be blessed no matter what you're seeing and whatever you're facing in your life. He's saying, come on up here with Me and get the 30,000 foot view because there's more to life than what you're facing right here in this moment. There's something bigger than I'm doing and you might not be able to see it and you may not be able to understand it, but by God I'm asking that you believe it. Thank you for listening to Elevate. We hope this message encouraged, inspired, and challenged you. Authentic Life Church is located at 3750 Michael Boulevard in Mobile, Alabama. Visit our website authenticlife.tv for more information about Authentic Life Church to find out what we have going on or to make a donation. You can also find us on Facebook. We'd love for you to join us on Sundays at 10 a.m. for our weekend service. We have excellent children's, nursery, and youth programs so bring the family. For Pastor John DiQuatro, I'm Scott Chestnut. Thanks again for listening and God bless you.