God With Us

God doesn’t stand far off waiting for you to clean up your life. He comes to you, steps into your mess, and stays close even when your faith feels fragile. Jonathan Locklear and Tyler Edge dig into Hebrews and Luke 24 to show why the heart of Christianity is not self-improvement but grace: Jesus is the true High Priest who brings the perfect sacrifice, not just covering sin but removing it.

We follow two grieving disciples on the Road to Emmaus as their expectations collapse. They wanted a political rescuer and missed the deeper rescue God was working all along. That moment exposes something in all of us: hope becomes shaky when it is built on what we think God “should” do. The conversation gets practical and personal, moving through grief, disappointment, and the question of why God can feel nearer in seasons of loss, anchored by Psalm 34:18 and the promise that the brokenhearted are not abandoned.

You’ll also hear a steadying perspective from 2 Corinthians 4:17 on “light affliction” and an eternal weight of glory, plus a simple way to fight spiritual coldness: let Scripture move from head knowledge to heart change through repentance, gratitude, and obedience. We end with an invitation drawn straight from Emmaus and Revelation 3:20: ask Jesus to abide with you and make space to be with Him.

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Transcript

God Who Comes To Us

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, and welcome back to the Faith Works Podcast, where we believe we have a biblically informed faith that works every day for everyday believers like you and I. I'm one of your hosts, Jonathan Locklear.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

And I'm the other one, Tyler Edge. Hey, buddy. Good morning. Good to see you. It's good to be here, buddy. Last time we talked about, uh, we talked about Hebrews. You've been going through Hebrews, this series on Hebrews, right?

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Man, it has been so rich. Encouraged. It has helped me so much. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

So you talked to me today, you were telling me simply about a Jesus that comes to us, right? Yeah. Tell me more about that. What does that mean for the believer that we serve a God who comes running to us? What does that mean?

SPEAKER_00 0:32

It's completely unique in terms of world faith, in terms of world religions, in terms of beliefs. There is nothing else in the world like Jesus coming out of heaven, wrapping himself in human flesh, dying on a cross, you know, for the very cockroaches that he created. Right. Like it doesn't make any earthly sense at all. Nope. That, as it says in Hebrews, that he condescended to low degree. Making himself a little lower than the angels. But he comes to us. That literally was the thought that thrilled the apostle John. And God became flesh and dwelt among us, right? That's the whole Christmas Emmanuel, and you shall call his name Emmanuel, being interpreted God with us. We have the only God that comes to us. The Muslim cannot say that. Allah is He is invisible. And his prophet Muhammad would uh was a you know was having strange visions and uh was pedophilic and his Quran is full of historical inaccuracies. Right. And the whole point is if you get good enough, you can get to God.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Right? Judaism is the same way. Yeah. Hinduism, Buddhism, even where there's no God figure, yeah. If you behave yourself well enough, good things will happen to you. That's not the Christian message. Right. Our God undeservingly comes to us. We we do not deserve it. Yeah. But he comes and he wraps himself right here in our mess. Right. It's the only faith system like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

We have the comfort of knowing that we'll never be good enough, right? It sounds so funny, but I take such a comfort in that, right? Knowing that I don't have to earn my salvation. I cannot, right? I'll never be pure enough, I'll never be righteous enough or holy enough. That doesn't mean I don't try. Of course I do, right? I want to be pleasing to my father, but that's such a burden off of our shoulders.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Yeah, and be encouraged with this. God knew exactly who you were before he sent his son. In fact, the Bible speaks about the resurrection and the crucifixion, and that these things were preordained before the foundation of the world. So, like, go to Genesis 1 and then back up. And that's when God said, I'm gonna do this. We know how it's gonna go down. Yes, right. We know about Noah, we know about you know Hamas, we know about all the sins of the world, we know about the Tower of Babel, we know all about, you know, King Saul and his wickedness. The whole thing, we're gonna right on down, all the way. And Jesus is gonna step out of heaven and go and be nailed to a cross.

SPEAKER_02 3:09

Right.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

And they said, Yeah, okay, let's do it. Yeah, he knows the knucklehead you are, yeah, and he chose you anyways. He comes to you anyways.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Boggles my brain. We talk about that. I feel like it's in every podcast I mentioned this where I just say I just it's you can't understand it, you know. That's right. Boggles your brain. We can't comprehend it, but what a beautiful thing it is, you know. That causes me to have such a joy in thinking of that, that he saved me. I don't understand why, but I'm just I'll sit in the comfort knowing that he has, right? Yeah, he knows you and still loves you.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Despite that, so many people are afraid that if I, as their pastor, really got to know them, right? I'd be so disappointed. Right. Well, I'm kind of uh nervous about the same thing. Like if they really got to know me, they'd be like, I don't think I like him as much as I thought I did. Jesus knows you like no one else knows you and loves you like no one else loves you. And this is the God who has

Hebrews And The True High Priest

SPEAKER_00 3:58

come to us. So the Old Testament in the book of Hebrews is portrayed as a shadow of things to come. And namely it's talking about the Levitical priesthood and how God told Moses, write this stuff down, all these sacrifices, all these offerings, all these rituals. This is in a way how you can be right with me. This is how you can come to me, right? And so the priest comes and stands in between God and the people, and we see that it's not enough. There's insufficiencies in the law. It's not insufficient. And he goes, Now that was just a shadow of things to come. Jesus is the real high priest, right? He's the real perfect one, and he brings with him the real perfect sacrifice. And he doesn't just cover your sins, he abolishes our sins, wipes them away completely. As far as the east is from the west, as high as the heavens are above, this is the God and this is what he does, and there's nothing else like it.

Road To Emmaus And Lost Hope

SPEAKER_00 4:52

And what I tried to say there Sunday was from Luke chapter 24, is that God comes to us in this instance on the road to Emmaus, where the people are, these disciples of Christ, they're leaving Easter Sunday morning. They've heard rumors about the resurrection, they don't believe them, they don't know what to make of them. And Jesus literally catches up to them on the road. And he goes, Why is everybody so sad? What what's why the long face? And they're like, How do you not know? Are you the only guy in town that doesn't know? This Jesus. And he literally even goes further, goes, What do you mean? What what what a bad news? And they're like, Oh my gosh, Jesus, who's this great teacher, and he was a great teacher, and we did believe. Right. It's so sad. Their hope is just dashed. And like all of that, what God, Jesus comes to them. Yeah, he doesn't just let them go, all right, go home, go home in your dis in your despair, yeah, go home in your delusion, go home in your thinking, well, I've wasted all this time serving the Lord, and he's not real. Yeah, he comes to them to teach them about himself. And I'm so thankful for the patience of the Lord, that he is kind with us and dwells with us, he's gentle with us, and you know, the Bible says that he's so interested in uh 2 Chronicles 16 9. It says the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, looking for someone that he can show himself strong on their behalf. He's wanting to come to us and wanting to be involved and wanting to bless us and with his strength to show himself strong. Not on his behalf, right? On our behalf. We have a God who comes with the best of intentions and with the kindness and meets us where we are. Yeah, it's a truth, Tyler. I've not gotten over, and I don't intend on getting over it anytime soon.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

Now, to to rewind it back about 30, 40 seconds, um, just thinking about the reaction that they have there, right? And you kind of you boiled it down, and you basically, if we boil it down to something, they thought something was gonna happen in a certain way. Yeah, they thought this was gonna happen. These are my expectations for what this Jesus is gonna do.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

And what did they think? What did they think he would come to do?

SPEAKER_01 7:09

Oh, to a war, right? To take everything over to how's it worded? Help me here.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

They want they thought he was going to be a political rescuer. Yeah, you know, that the Romans had oppressed them and abused them so bad. And they had read in the Old Testament prophets that a king would come, a king would come out of the line of David. Right. They're thinking so a king like Saul, like David, like Solomon. And over. Yeah, and this would be great, like Hezekiah, and he would deliver the people. And that's what they thought, that's what they intended. Yeah. And Jesus does come, but he doesn't fulfill in the way that they thought.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Right. And that's what I was gonna ask about is is that something that's so painfully relatable, right, to us as well? When we have a certain idea or preconceived notion of what it is that God is going to do in our lives, and then he doesn't do it the way that we think of, and we lose hope. Like you said, they started speaking about everything in the past tense, right? And so I just want to relate that over to us, and I think that's something that we can all relate to on a daily basis, where we think this is the way that Jesus should show up in my life, this is what God should do here. He doesn't do it the way we think, and we start to lose hope a little bit, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Sure. Because it doesn't go the way that we thought it would go. Yeah. Is it possible that we misinterpreted? Or is it possible that God's not good like I thought he was? Right. Yep. We we know that's not the case. Right. We often need to be reminded that we don't see things clearly. We like to think that life is about us, yeah, and that the point of life is pleasure and the absence of pain and the absence of confusion and the absence of struggle. Right. Literally, the word Israel to wrestle with God. It means those who wrestle, those who labor, those who struggle, right? And so that's clearly not the biblical picture. There will be pain, there will be trouble. The point of the Bible is that we have a God who comes to us in our trouble, and you know, I it's easy for some people to be so disillusioned when they bury a child. Yeah, man. When their wife comes down with leukemia or another terrible diagnosis, and it's easy to say, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. This is not what I saw. This is not what I thought. I didn't, I did not see this coming. And it's easy to be disillusioned, like somehow God is mistreating me. Yeah, right. Yeah, I thought he was gonna be different. That's what these disciples on on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24, that's what they thought. Yeah, we thought he was gonna do it in this way. Well, I mean, and and lo and behold, he had done it in a different way, hundredfold better. Right, yeah, he didn't push the Romans out of Judea, right? By the way, that would have been so temporary and so unimportant. He didn't push them out of Judea, he pushed all believers into heaven. Yeah, right, right for eternity. Right. So that's what actually happened. The veil was torn, right? God was proven right, the sacrifice was accepted of the Father. That's what the resurrection means. And they're going, oh, I really thought he was gonna give us a break on our taxes. Right. Right. That's the that's the equivalent. I I thought this was a tragedy. This is awful. Right. No, this is exactly the will of God. And and sometimes we don't see clearly and we miss it.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Yeah, well, we kind of have in our heads, I feel like we have two options there, right? What we can decide on either God's made a mistake and he's done something wrong, or the second second option is that God's will and his plan is always going to be better than what we're thinking, right? And that was the reality here. That was the reality here. They didn't realize that, but obviously, us looking into this, we definitely prefer the way he did it than to the way that they were thinking about it, right? We benefited infinitely from the the way he did it, not the way they were desiring for him to do it.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And you know what? That was one of the points that uh we see in the scriptures is that our hope can be fragile.

When God Defies Our Expectations

SPEAKER_00 10:56

You know, our hope can easily fall apart if it's not in the right thing.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

Whatever it's built on, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

Right. And so, man, and you and you see that in the scriptures there in Luke 24, he was a great prophet. We did believe, verse 21, but we did not see him resurrect like we we and you know, and their hearts. This is what we need to know about ourselves, guys, is that our hearts are desperately wicked. We are fickle, and we cannot trust you know, right our emotions. We cannot trust, man, it's Monday, therefore it's uh gonna be a bad day. This is the most, you know, Monday Monday ever. Well, yeah, I understand that we might feel down sometimes when the sky is cloudy and the sun doesn't shine. Right. It's easy for the circumstances of our life to really dictate how we feel. Yes, it is. Right? Businesses are not growing, churches are not growing, the person I'm disciple shit discipling is not growing, people are disappointing me, my kids are idiots, you know, I poured everything into them, they're disappointing me, my boss, my spouse, my parents. It's easy to be discouraged because we are fragile, we don't see things clearly, and it's uh it's easy to to become sad when we get our eyes off of Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Right. And our hope, as we said a minute ago, you know, are the the foundation of our hope, our hope is only as powerful as whatever it's built upon, right? And it makes me think of that deeply theological from Matthew 7, that that kids' songs, right? Wise man built this house upon a rock. Yeah, yeah, wise man built. And it just it makes me think of that, right? What is what is it that our hope is founded on, right? So for these people on the road, their hope was founded in their idea of what they wanted Jesus to do, right? But not in Jesus himself, there, right? And so we have to be careful of that. That if it's not, this isn't exactly what I want, then we're gonna shake, right? Our foundation is built on that sand. Yeah. But if it's just Lord, whatever it is that's your will, that's where my hope lies. Right. That's unshakable.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

And and so instead of saying, why, God, why? We have to remember two things. And I want our listeners to remember these two things. Our God is too kind to be cruel. So it's not why. Why are you doing this? Well, because I hate you and and I, you know, I'm punishing you for your sin. That's not the truth. Right. He's too kind to be cruel, and he's too wise to be mistaken. So we have to know that what he allows into our life, number one, he doesn't cause. He's not, he got God's not causing cancer, but he is allowing it. He's not killing children, but sometimes he will allow us to go through those incredible, right, incredible, right? God is too kind to be cruel, he's too wise to be mistaken. And so, really, the the thing that our mind should go to is I'm I'm not seeing things clearly here. Right. I've got to get my eyes back on Jesus. I've got to, and he will give you clarity, he will show you those things, but we sometimes surmise oh, God's not who I thought he was. And I'm gonna walk away, my hopes are dashed, and so I think he should have treated me better than this.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

And that's that's bad theology. Yeah. Right? That faith does not work.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

This right this feels like that's very temporary.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

This feels like out of all the topics that we've discussed, one of the heaviest and most just unpleasant. The reason I say that is simply just because I see myself so much on the other side of that, right? I see myself as those guys walking down that road, right? And it's it's convicting to know to see yourself in that, right? Yeah. All the things we're saying right now, all the wisdom that we're speaking here. I wish that that's what I was speaking to myself in those moments, right? And sometimes, sometimes I do, sometimes I'm convicted. The Lord gets a hold of me, but I just know that I've been guilty of that, right? And there's such a shame there.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

Well, you and me and everyone listening.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Exactly. I know it's relatable to everyone.

Why Grief Makes God Feel Near

SPEAKER_01 14:55

Right. Um, so I had a question here. It says this says the the sermon emphasizes that Jesus met these disciples in their sadness and their confusion. Why do you think it is that God often seems nearer to us in seasons of grief, disappointment, or brokenness?

SPEAKER_00 15:11

Well, first of all, let me just say this isn't that possibly why God allows seasons of grief and loss and brokenness so that he can be near to us.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

Remember that Charles Spurgeon quote that I talk about all the time that I absolutely adore, right? And it it's him saying that I have learned to love the um wave that crashes me against the rock of ages. Yeah. I mean, it's it's one sentence, and that's like, well, I literally have chills right now under my jacket.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

Yeah, it's incredible. That's a learned uh flavor.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Oh my goodness, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 15:38

That is a learned flavor. Yeah, you don't automatically love it. That is acquired. You have to you have to live there a long time sometimes to realize my good is what he has in in mind. Right. There's a beautiful Bible verse that answers your question perfectly. It's Psalm 34, 18. Yep. It says, and I read this a lot at funerals the Lord is nigh unto the broke unto them that are of a broken heart, and he saves such as be of a contrite spirit. Yes. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. And that's in an ultimate sense, right? So God is near to us when we are sad. And a lot of times things are so good in our lives, we forget about the Lord. We forget. We don't need when when the sun is shining and things are well and everything's just, you know, but it's when the storm clouds come, we go, Oh Lord, where are you? My goodness. By the way, Tyler, that was the whole point of the entire Bible. The whole entire point of the Bible from Genesis chapter one is let us make man in our image. Why? Well, because we're lonely? No, so that we can show man ourselves, right? So that we can show ourselves to him and reveal ourselves to him, so they can know us. Right? Isn't that what will be the question at the end of all of our days? Matthew 7. Lord, did we not preach in your name and saying I gave and I was on mission trips, and and I'll say I never knew you. The whole point is to know God. Yeah. And I can attest to the fact that I I have known him in sorrow more intimately than I have known him in joy.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

To the point where I have been able to say, Thank you, Lord, for the sorrow, because in it you came to me. It's like here's a really good question: Meshal, Hanani, and Azarai, or as the layman may know them, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They are cast into the fiery furnace under the administration of Nebuchadnezzar. And the Bible says they were thrown in there, and the only thing that burned was the ropes off their ankles and their wrists. And Nebuchadnezzar looks over the railing, looks down in there, and he goes, I see not three, but four. And the fourth is like unto the Son of God. And the first question I'm like, why are they not scrambling to get out of there? Right? I'm coming out of that furnace. Even if I'm not on fire, I you know, I'm like Ricky Bobby, I'm on fire, I'm on fire. It dawns on me. This is gonna help you.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

They would rather stay in the furnace with the Savior than get out and not have him. So if Jesus is nearest to the brokenhearted, and if you believe that and know that, and I believe I do. I agree. Then I'm okay with a broken heart as long as Jesus comes with it.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Amen. Yeah, I I couldn't agree more with that. And and that's so true. And I don't know if that's just a human thing. I don't know if that's just a you and I thing, but I know with absolute certainty that I always draw closer to the Lord when things are going poorly than when they're going well, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:46

Yeah, it drives us to our knees. I know some things that are going on in your life right now, and have driven you nearer to the Lord, and and you know mine. And this is the truth for all of us. And what does James chapter one tell us about these things? Count it all joy, brethren. You know, why? Because Jesus is on the move and he's coming to us, and he's near. I have told friends at the passing of loved ones and family members get ready. I mean, we're sitting around the bedside of dying people, and I have said to the family in the other room, get ready because the peace of God is coming in a way that you've never known. One, one, because you've never needed it like this, but he is precious in these perfect moments. Like I'm just warning you, get ready.

SPEAKER_02 19:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

Because the power of God is coming and the peace of God is coming. And it's the most beautiful thing. And I think it only comes in pain, right? I agree. I think it only comes in sorrow, only comes in despair. And these in Luke 24, they are there. They are there. I think it's husband and wife, the Bible doesn't tell us, it just says the man's name. And and they're just going down the road, they're going back home to Emmaus, which is like seven miles outside of Jerusalem. And this is this is Sunday. It's the first Easter, and it's in the afternoon, and they're they're they're walking, and they cannot get over the pain, the disillusionment, the grief. And that's when Jesus shows up and goes, What are y'all talking about? Praise the Lord for that. Yeah. That he comes to the fragile, those who don't see clearly, those whose faith is growing slowly, but he meets them there.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

And I think it takes a mature believer to be able to say that, to be able to truly mean it, that you'd rather have the difficult life that draws you and keeps you closer to the savior than an easy life that keeps you away from him, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:47

That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

And it's and it's tough. Nobody necessarily wants to say that, right? Yeah, bring me all the difficulties, bring me all the trials, but would I rather be closer to the savior and closer to the things of this world? You know, that's an easy answer right there. But the means by which we get there can be a little less enjoyable.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

Yeah, but you have to make that choice before you get to know the means of how you're gonna get there. Yes, you do, right? So it's not like, okay, well, behind door number one is a close walk with the Lord. All right, how's that accomplished? Well, we're not gonna tell you. Do you do you still want it?

SPEAKER_01 21:19

Do you want to move the curtain here?

SPEAKER_00 21:21

I'm here. I'm I'm on the other side of the curtain.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

All right.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

And I'm telling you, you want it.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

But I don't know what it's gonna cost me to get there. You want it. I want it. You you do, you want it. The other one, door number two, is hell. So I'll take door number one. The door number two, there's no Jesus. Yes. Oh, really? What's that like? I don't know. It's probably great until you die.

unknown 21:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

But I'm so thankful for the Lord who has come to me in my dark moments.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

Uh, we were talking about I I can't off the top

Light Affliction And Heavy Glory

SPEAKER_01 21:50

of my head, I'm trying to Google it right now to see. Oh, 2 Corinthians 4 17, where where it talks about that these difficulties, these struggles that we have are temporary, right? Yeah. But they're just they're they're they're crazy. And I mean, and that's not referring, he's not saying certain trials, certain difficulties, the not as bad ones. He's saying that every trial in your life, every difficulty you have, it is light and it is momentary. Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

And if you have that in the world, in comparison. Yes. Right. And so not to belittle anyone who's listening struggles. But this is written by a man who was stoned twice, whipped three times, shipwrecked, abandoned, lied about, whipped some more, beat some more. One time they stoned him so bad that they thought he was dead for sure. They drug him outside literally to like where you like leave dead bodies. And he woke back up and went back inside. Like, this man knows suffering. He knows, he knows nothing but suffering. He's been in prison, he's been in and out of jail, as any good Christian should be, right? Occasionally. And um and then he says, For which cause we faint not. Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. Right? For our light affliction. Paul's light affliction? Yeah, I don't think. And also, it's almost insulting to say for our light affliction, but you have to keep going. It is light in comparison to the glory. And how does he say that? How can Paul say that? Because he says in First Corinthians, he says, seven years ago, whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know. A man went to heaven and he saw the Lord and he saw the things of heaven. And you're going, Cool, Paul, explain it to us. You know, tell us describe it. And he goes, and it would be a dishonor and a disservice to describe it. I can't even begin. He goes, So he doesn't even try. I'm like, would you try? Give it a good shot. Like and he says that the Lord gave me a thorn in the flesh, lest I be lifted up above measure. He saw the glories. And so he's going, in comparison to the glories, this grief is temporary. And then he goes, It is light and temporary, but most of all, it is working for us a far more an eternal and exceeding weight of glory. Right? That it's doing something, that every tear you cry in obedience to the Lord is not meaningless. Yeah, purposefully. God is saying bottling it. He is not going to waste your grief. Now listen, everyone grieves. Right. Christians, non-Christians, but it's only the Christian that it is benefiting them. It is laying up for you a treasure far more and exceeding, and he says, eternal. So anything is brief compared to eternal things, right? And anything is light compared to the weight of God's glory. And that's exactly the truth. Now it's easier said than done.

SPEAKER_01 24:47

Of course it is.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

But it is the truth, and that is the case.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

And it is possible by the grace of God, right? He will sustain you, he will help you, he'll lift you up, and he'll make it worth something. The reason I bring this up, the reason I think of that, Second Corinthians, is I just find it I really find it quite beautiful how scripturally, as Christians, we can talk about quite literally anything. We can talk about death, we can talk about sickness, we can talk about sadness, we can talk about sin. We can talk about all these horrible things. But somewhere in scripture, there is some way in which we can end up smiling after talking about these things, right? That God is the God of hope, right? He does give us joy, he does give us a peace that surpasses understanding. So there's nothing that you can't throw at me that I can't say, My Lord has me, right? He's got me. That's exactly right. There's nothing you can throw at me. And and and and I need to remind myself of that daily, though, right?

Feelings Versus Gospel Facts

SPEAKER_01 25:36

Correct. Every single day. Yeah. It's not just something that's natural to me. Naturally, I want to go into despair and to depression and those things. Right. And we've talked about this before, and I really like saying it, but what do I feel versus what do I know? Right? What I feel is sad, what I feel is depressed, what I feel is despondent. Well, what do I know, right? Well, I'm a loving father. What is true, right?

SPEAKER_00 25:55

So many times what I feel is not actual. It's a lie. And I counsel folks, and I'm always careful to acknowledge those feelings. They really are real, but they might not be based on reality. Yes. Right? Like I might feel like there's a boogeyman under the bed. Right. I really am convinced that that's the case. Right. Now, is it a reality? Right. No, but I have a you know, have a phobia of it. I guess you know, and it it's it's panicky, and I and I can't sleep. Yes. Okay. However, yeah, it's not really there. Yeah. Yep. Right. And so so much of our worries, and you know this in your life, so much of our things that we worry about, they they never actually come to pass.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

No, we've created them.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

They, you know, they are things that we worry about, they might happen, and you know, that they don't, but we have to focus on what actually is.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

And our king is on the throne. And all the forces of darkness have been defeated. And Jesus will come back for us one day. And death and disease are ultimately destroyed.

SPEAKER_02 26:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

And he will never leave us and he will never forsake us. And the penalty for my sins has been paid. And the wrath of God no longer abides over my head. The way to heaven has been prepared for my children. These are things that I have to believe. These are truths. Yes. And I don't always feel like they are. Right. But they are the truth.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Yeah, and you must believe them, right? If you don't believe them, there's no hope there. That's what we're talking about, right? Absolutely. What's my hope built upon? And there's just those times where I have to remind myself of certain things. I think that's why it's so important. Uh, you know, thy word have I hidden my heart that I might not sin against thee, right? Yeah. I find it so important. And I will be the first to tell you, I certainly do not have large swathes of scripture memorized, but I generally have enough scripture memorized that I can I can minister to myself in really difficult times. That's right. One of the things a lot of people will tell me, or when I'm talking on the phone with them, or just my friends who I love and they call me because they're struggling, right? There's simple things that, you know, I feel alone, right? I feel like the Lord's not here, he's not listening. And I go, hey, I get that. I've been there too, right? When I do that, Hebrews 13, 5, right? I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. You know, it's like, okay, so I feel this way, but but God has said this to be true. What am I gonna believe here? Am I gonna believe what Tyler feels, or am I gonna believe what my savior has promised to me, right? And if we can say that second one, if we can minister to ourselves in that, we go, oh hey, I was wrong. Yeah, and it changes everything, right? Right. And so I just I have to do that to myself so frequently because we have all these feelings. I feel like this, I feel like this, and you go, wait a second, where are those founded? What where are those coming from, right? Right. Okay, but what do I know? What is my father doing? Exactly. What does my father said? That's what he said, then that's what's true. Let's move along here, right?

Hearts Warmed By Scripture And Obedience

SPEAKER_01 28:31

Absolutely. It's a beautiful thing. So moving onwards a little bit here, uh, going back to the disciples here. It's the question was this it says, when the disciples said, Did not our hearts burn within us? What do you think it means to be stirred by the word of God? And why do so many believers struggle to stay spiritually warm? Man, we could talk about this for an hour.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

Well, I think it was because they were enlightened of the scriptures, right? They knew the old testament well. Yeah. And Jesus had, I mean, they had sat there for his preaching, which is the best preaching in the world. Right. And here he comes to them on this day and explains to them just a few verses earlier, it says in verse 27, and beginning at Moses, he began to teach them and expound unto them all the scriptures of the things concerning himself. And so now they're understanding it. Whoa. And when they they connect these dots and the prophecies are fulfilled, and oh my goodness, yes, it is a warming of our hearts. I also think that it's more than just a a head knowledge, right? I I have friends with PhDs in theology that are immoral. Yes. Okay, so that that that didn't do you a whole lot of good. You're still a lowlife. Yes, right. But what I what I would say is if we're not having our hearts warmed by the scriptures and we're seeing these dots connected, and these things are becoming real to us in our daily devotions, right? If you get up and you read your daily bread, for example, which is a great thing. I love the daily breads we give them out here, and you read it just to read it, to say I did it. Check it through the I'm telling you, it's not long before you will get chilled, you will get cool. You will, right? It's got to be a diet of the word that actually is sustenance. Yeah. Where it's not just in your ear, into your head, yeah. It's in your ear, into your head, and down into your heart. Right. Where David would say, Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. And if I can go in that same metaphor as David, and it is also a flame that warms my heart. Right? Yes, it is a light that shows me, but it also is a flame that warms me.

SPEAKER_02 30:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:47

And so I would ask our listeners, are you hearing God's word? Are you making application to it? Because I preach all the time.

SPEAKER_01 30:55

Right.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

And if you just come hear me preach without actually saying to yourself, now what should I do with this truth? How can I apply this to my life? What can I thank God for? What can I repent of and stop doing? What can I start doing? Amen, right. And putting it, you know, into action where these dots are connected, right? If Jesus is holy and Jesus is watching, how does that affect your life? Right. Well, then you're gonna be cool. And they go, so basically what I what they're saying there in verse 32, were not our hearts warm? Did they not burn within us while he was talking with us? I think it was for the first time. It became real to them. Yeah, it became real. And they were going, that's new. I want to love the Lord in a different way. I want to I want to serve the Lord. It's not just a head knowledge, it's a heart knowledge, it's a change. And that's that's where real faith comes from. It's a real faith when it changes your experience with sin and when it changes your experience with Christ.

SPEAKER_01 31:56

Amen. Yeah, I always uh pray on Sunday mornings before Sunday school. That's that's always part of my prayer, is that we will not just hear these things, but that we will apply them to our lives. There's always been something for me. I don't know if this is correct. I think it is. I'm gonna keep on telling myself it is because it encourages me. A knowledge versus a wisdom, right? I I like knowledge, but what I pray for is wisdom. And for me, I've always thought of it that that wisdom is the the proper application of knowledge.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

Yeah, it's what to do with it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

And so if I just have a knowledge of scripture, I it's it's useless to me.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

Here you go, ready? Yeah, the the the Sadducees, the Pharisees were more knowledgeable than anyone. Amen. And like almost none of them went to heaven.

SPEAKER_01 32:36

How about Paul when he was Saul, right? Oh, no one's more knowledgeable than this.

SPEAKER_00 32:40

He sat at the feet of Gamaliel and was bound for hell.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 32:45

Until the Lord knocked him off his animal. And then it happened just like it happened here. Let me tell you some things about myself.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

Clicked and he said, Oh.

SPEAKER_00 32:51

And he was never that's what it is. And it literally turned the world upside down, right? Great. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 32:57

That gets me pumped up. Okay, that got me on topic. I'm sorry. I get excited about that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 33:03

I just wanted

Abide With Us Final Prayer

SPEAKER_00 33:04

to conclude today with this little thought that I saw in our text. It says while they're talking with Jesus on the road to Emmaus, right? Which is so wild, so this is how this happened. Jesus catches up to them, they're walking, and they get all the way to the house just about the time Jesus is saying, and John the Baptist was the forerunner for me. And I am the Lamb of God that takes away sins of the world. Maybe you were there the day I got baptized, you know, and and was a foreshadowing of my crucifixion and resurrection. Anyways, that's the gospel. That's about the time they got to the house. So if you look in Luke 24, and it says there in verse 28, and they drew nigh unto the village where they went, and he made as though he would have gone further. So it was like Jesus was like, This has been great, guys. I'll talk to you later. I'll see ya. And the they can't imagine him not coming in. They can't imagine not inviting him in. And the next verse says, but they constrained him. That that literally means they grabbed him by the arm, saying, Abide with us. It's toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he did. He went and the King James says he tarried with them. It means he went in and broke bread and they had communion just like he had done three nights earlier in the upper room on that Thursday night, the Last Supper. And the Bible says that he broke the bread and he vanished. And he, well, and the Bible says he went back into the upper room. He met the disciples there, just like he told Mary that he would do earlier that morning when he resurrected. I just want to ask our listeners have you asked Jesus to tarry with you, to come in and to spend time with you? He says this in Revelation. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. And if anyone will hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and will sup with him. That means have a meal. That means really reside. Yeah. Not just a brief visit. Not like the mailman comes by, opens the mailbox, and thanks, and he's gonna come in and dwell. Yeah. And I just want to encourage our listeners to just take a minute when this podcast goes off and just turn the radio off, turn the computer off, and just be with the Lord. Amen. Right? It was one thing to hear the Bible explained from Jesus, all the way from Moses to Jesus. It's another thing just to spend time with him and to be in his presence. And I lack that, Tyler. I'm sometimes overly busy. Sure. Sometimes I have even jokingly said, I am so busy working for the Lord that I don't spend any time with the Lord. Man. You know, I like to convict my own heart sometimes. Yeah, absolutely. But that's the truth.

SPEAKER_01 35:55

It is, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:57

Tarry with us. Please come in and spend time with me. That really, dear friends, is what you need. You need time with the Lord. Amen. You need to be with him. You need to let him minister to your heart. Yes, you have the head knowledge. You may even have the heart knowledge, but you need the God who's on the move to come and to minister to you and to be with you. And that's a promise that we find all throughout the Bible, especially in the book of Hebrews, as we've been, you know, so heavy into. But he is the God who comes to us, especially in our grief, but he comes to us. And I just wanted to remind you again, you know this. Jesus is available.

SPEAKER_02 36:35

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 36:36

He's available for the asking.

SPEAKER_01 36:37

Right.

SPEAKER_00 36:38

And so, would you ask for him?

SPEAKER_01 36:40

Amen. I just want to say this kind of in closing here before you close us in a word of prayer. Because at a cursory glance, people might look at you, Jonathan, and me, Tyler, and think we're perfect. And understandably so by looking at us from the outside. But we have a lot of things going on in our lives as well, right? A lot of difficulties, a lot of struggles and such. And we've both been struggling. I know the last week with several things, trials of our own and such. And this is just so helpful to me. And the reason I bring this up isn't for pity. It's simply because I'm going to use it as an excuse to talk about the Lord some more. But that's been it for me. Really, the only hope I've had these last several weeks to several months has simply been that when I go to the Father, he is there, right? I know that he's listening. I know that he cares. I know that he comes to me when I'm too ignorant to go to him. And that's kind of been my life the last several months, you know. And I praise God for that, right? We as Christians, everybody who's listening to this isn't going, oh, poor Tyler, I've never experienced that. They're going, Yeah, I'm in the exact same spot as you right now. Right. Right. And everything we're talking about today and we've been talking about, right? There's just such a source of joy for us that's beyond comprehension, that's beyond understanding. But just because we don't understand it doesn't mean it's not accessible to us, right?

SPEAKER_00 37:47

Yeah. Well, and I don't care who you are, and I don't care how long you've been a Christian. We never really graduate past these elementary truths. Amen. Yeah. Right. Have you spent time with Jesus today? Well, I've got I've got so much education and I've got great. Yep. Wonderful. Have you spent time at the feet of Jesus? Right? Amen. Anyways, I want to pray for our listeners just as we close. We're recording this at a day and a time. You're going to be listening to this at another determined time. We don't think that there's going to be any coincidence to that.

SPEAKER_01 38:20

Right.

SPEAKER_00 38:20

But we believe that this will find you at the right moment. And we pray that God's truth will be relevant, fresh, clear, and that this will build in you a faith that works. Amen. Father, you see those that are listening and are considering their walk with you. Lord, help us to remember you chose to come to us. That the listener today is not an imposition for you, but that you stepped out of glory for their good. You stepped out of heaven to help them. And so, Father, cause us and remind us to walk with you, to get up early, and to open our Bibles and to ask you into our day and to invite you into our decisions, into our marriages, into our parenting, into our work life, and our hobbies and everything in between. We thank you that you're the God on the move who catches up to us on our little road home to Emmaus, so to speak, that you may show us yourself, explain to us your truth, reassure us that you have all things in hand. So, Father, forgive us where we have doubted and complained when we didn't see things clearly. Father, I pray that we would turn to you, love you, be cleaned by you. And Lord, that you would strengthen us in the high and the holy name of our risen Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 39:53

Amen.