Burning Bibles
The Milwaukee riots last week were an example of
a burning passion gone bad. The work of the Holy Spirit is burning passion gone
good. Better than that, holy. Social media was the primary tool for the rioters
to share their burning passion, enflame desires for destruction, and create a
mob mentality. The gospel is the Holy Spirit’s primary tool to create burning
passion in people, enflame our righteous desires, and create a bunch of
believers on mission.
Today, we explore the first few verses of Luke’s
gospel in chapter one where he explains the process of verbal inspiration (2 Peter 1:20,21) he employed. Like Luke, we want to be “servants of the word”
(v. 2). We do this in three ways:
1.
We
search the Scriptures. Luke writes in v. 3, “I myself have carefully
investigated everything.” Accuracy important and there is absolute truth.
You can “know the certainty of the things you have been taught” (v. 4). Two
questions to ask yourself that help with this: 1) Am I teachable (give up my
personal opinion)? 2) Am I biased (that God’s truth trumps an over-opinioned
society)?
2.
We
find the truth. When you are willing to say that something is the truth, it
eliminates a thousand other things that aren’t true. This gives clarity and
clarity gives confidence and confidence gives courage and you live your life
with more courage. Don’t be afraid to say, “This is what God’s Word says and
it’s the truth and that means this and that are not true, and I’m sticking with
it!” Luke writes in v. 1 about “the things that have been fulfilled among us.” The truth changes you.
3.
Do
something with it. A dusty Bible on a shelf does you no good, and even reading
it does you no good, and even knowing where to find the book of Habakkuk or how
to recite the ten commandments does you no good, unless you do something with it.
Mary pondered God’s word (1:29) and obeyed God’ word (1:38). John lived and
preached God’s word (3:2,3). Jesus fought temptation and selfish desires with
God’s word (4:4).
Can you imagine Steve Jobs sitting next to you on
an airplane and asking for your iPhone, then showing you 5 or 6 hidden features
on the phone that you never knew about. Life hacks that will change your game?
Yup, I know, first of all Steve Jobs is dead, so he’d have to come back to
life. And secondly, who, you? Like he’d ever fly economy class and sit next to
you? Well, that happened to the two disciples walking to Emmaus except it was
someone even more significant. Jesus. It is reported in Luke chapter 24.
Do you know why the disciples were “kept from
recognizing [Jesus]” (v. 16)? Their outward inability reflected their inner
unbelief of Scriptures. Jesus put it this way when he said to them, “How
foolish you are and slow of heart to believe” (v. 25). When you are
confused, stressed, or just don’t see God’s work in your life, it’s not God’s
problem. It’s your foolish thinking. When you then start “talking with each
other about everything” (v. 14) you validate your foolish thinking with
others’ foolish thinking. Then you create your own version of Jesus, and you
pray to a Jesus who isn’t the real Jesus but a figment of your imagination,
usually a replica of your desires. Here’s how it happened with these two
disciples. “We had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel”
(v. 21). And the result? Their “faces (were) downcast” (v. 17).
So a lack of clarity, and unanswered prayers, and guilt and shame that hangs
wearily over your heart through the day and as you’re trying to go to bed, are
all the result of your foolish thinking. That’s good news, because you can
change your thinking. Better yet, Jesus can change your thinking.
“Jesus himself came up and walked along with
them” (v. 15). Jesus
hangs out with fools. Jesus slackens his pace for slow people. Jesus then, step
by step, walks along with us. Talks with us. Opens Scripture to us. Shows us
that the answer isn’t a bunch of fill-in-the-blanks we need to figure out and
piece together like winning a Scrabble game or solving a crossword puzzle. The
answer is a person. Jesus. He filled in all of the Scriptures. He solved all of
our sin and guilt when he made the payment on the cross. He doesn’t call us
foolish but wise, and says that we shine like stars he is so proud of who we
are in him (Daniel 12:3, Philippians 2:15).
There’s one last thing to learn about this moment
of Jesus with the two Emmaus disciples. There is an order in which Jesus meets
them, ministers to them, and moves them from slow of heart to burning heart.
Here it is: 1. He first opens the Scriptures, what they are hearing. 2. Then he
opens their hearts, what they are believing. 3. Then he opens their eyes, what
they are seeing (see vv. 31,32).
Hear. Believe. See. That’s the order. When things
are whacky in your world, when you’re not getting what you want, when life is
overwhelming, when your secret sin seduces you and then tortures you with
guilt, when you can’t get over something terrible you’ve done or something good
you haven’t done. Don’t believe what you see. First, believe what you hear,
from God’s Word. Go to Jesus in the Scriptures first. Then, your heart needs to
change before your perspective changes. Your faith needs to share the framework
for your feelings, not the other way around. Only then can you truly see, can
you truly filter all the circumstances around you in the world.
Then you will ask like the Emmaus disciples, “were
not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened
the Scriptures to us” (v. 32)?
And Jesus will answer, “Yes.”
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