Messianic Hopes and Dreams

Does anyone know what this is? Dryer sheet. Raise your hand if you’ve ever used a dryer sheet. Dryer sheets come in handy.

Without a dryer sheet, we have first world problems, especially when it’s wintertime. And that first world problem is something called static cleaning. Not only can you get static shock, but then things stick together and you gotta pull them apart.

And the dryer sheet helps them not to stick together so much. If there’s anything, it’s almost worse to run out of dryer sheets for me than it is for detergent. Now, the dryer sheet isn’t going to work like detergent, even though it can help make it smell better, but the dryer sheet keeps it from clinging to there when those two things do not belong together.

Now, I just wanted to vent, just to share my unnatural cling to dryer sheets. But the point of that is that we have so many things in our lives that we just cling to. We just stick to them.

And we need to find a way to detach ourselves from things that aren’t of God. And it’s tough to do because no matter what happens, somehow they get right back attached after that. And that is one of the reasons we need to walk with Jesus.

Now, we are going through Luke 24. This is the walk to Emmaus, that two disciples named Cleopas and the other disciple, that was an interesting name his mom chose for him, but he is the other disciple. And while they were walking on the road to Emmaus, last week we talked about how they were commiserating with each other about all the things that had been going on, about how Jesus had died.

And they got up while in the midst of hanging out with the disciples and left before all the good stuff seemed to happen. Will you stand as you are able? We’re picking up right in verse 17, after their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, what is this conversation you are holding with each other as you walk? And they stood still looking sad.

Then one of them named Cleopas answered him, are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened these days? And he said to them, what things? And they said to him concerning Jesus of Nazareth, the man who was a prophet, mighty indeed in word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened.

The word of God, inspired by God, for the people of God, thanks be to God, amen. You may be seated. The first thing Jesus did as he started walking with the disciples was start doing something called active listening.

Have you guys ever done any active listening? Do chaplains actively listen? It’s better to actively listen than to just say, now why don’t you be quiet and let me tell you how to do it. Actively listening is what Jesus came up to do, and when he did that, he starts with general questions and then moves to probing questions so they can vocalize what their problem was, what the difficulty was they were having. If we look at verse 17, he says, what is this conversation you are holding with each other as you walk? And then later, then when they say, are you not the only one? Are you the only visitor not to know the things that have happened? And Jesus says, what things? I mean, he is Jesus, and as Peter declared after the resurrection, you know all things.

You know that I love you. So Jesus knew, but he wanted them to say it. He wanted them to understand and express what was going on with them, what their difficulty was, why they were so sad.

Now, the disciples were in a place where we are often at a place in our lives where if you look at 24, 17, they were basically sad, stuck, and scared. As soon as he asked them what they were talking about, they stopped. They stopped in their tracks, and they stared at the ground.

They didn’t want to talk about it. It was too fresh. It was too difficult to talk about what had happened to Jesus.

Of course, not recognizing they were walking and talking with Jesus, and they were, they were just upset. They had some expectations. They had some things they wanted to happen, but they didn’t happen.

Justin Buzzard, who is a pastor and writes a blog, said that whatever your greatest fear, and what does that say about your worship? Think about what your fear is, the thing that makes you scared, the thing that stops you in your tracks, the things that makes you just stare at the ground and not be able to move forward. What is your greatest fear? Justin Buzzard uses the following assessment tool to determine which idol lurks in your heart. Control, has anybody ever met the idol of control? Control, you know you have a control idol if your greatest nightmare is uncertainty.

Who loves uncertainty? Who wakes up and says, God, give me some uncertainty today? Another one he says is approval. You know you have an approval idol if your greatest nightmare is rejection, that somebody will reject you and turn you away. I’ve had that one.

So why would you be a pastor if you didn’t wanna be rejected? That’s kind of a God-irony thing. Comfort, this one might hurt a little bit. You know you have a comfort idol if your greatest nightmare is stress or power.

You know you have a power idol if your greatest nightmare is humiliation or embarrassment. Control, approval, comfort, power, it’s not an exhaustive list of idols, but those are some idols we can all suffer with at different times, and some of us suffer from some of these more than others. By knowing what our nightmare is or our fears, we can understand a little more about what idols we have in our lives that we are still clinging to.

And you need a driver’s sheet for your idols to pull you apart from that so it doesn’t stick to you and control you and drive your decisions, drive your faith, drive what you are doing in your life. When Cleopas and the other side go on to explain in 18 and 19, they said, it’s game over now. In 18 and 19, they say, are you the only visitor who does not know the things that have happened? And he said to them, what things? And they said, concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet, mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to condemn him to death and crucified him.

But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yet besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. So they knew the third day was a significant thing.

Jesus said, son of man will rise on the third day. But they didn’t see it happen. So they thought, it’s game over.

We’ve given our lives to Jesus. Now you say, who is Cleopas? He wasn’t one of the 12. He wasn’t one of them that, he wasn’t Matthias that replaced Judas in the book of Acts, Acts 1. He was one, probably one of, he and the other disciple were probably one of the 70 or 72 that went out when Jesus commissioned them.

And they went out and they drove out demons. They preached the gospel. They did amazing things for a point in time so they could see what they would be doing after Pentecost came.

And he said, we thought he was the one who was to redeem Israel. He wasn’t alone. Remember, the disciples would fight about who would be, have a throne right by Jesus.

Who would get to sit on his left and right. The Peter, making his greatest proclamation when Jesus said, who do people say that I am? And they said, some say you are Elijah. Some say you are John the Baptist.

And some say other things. Some say you’re a prophet. And Jesus said, but who do you say I am? And Peter said, you’re the Christ, the son of the living God.

Such an amazing declaration. And then Jesus said, I am. And here’s what happens to the Messiah.

The Messiah will be arrested, falsely accused and killed for you. And Peter said, no way am I gonna let that happen. Stop saying that, Jesus.

Did you ever say, stop saying that, Jesus? And so he believed that. And then even in the book of Acts, which is after this, because this is Luke, and Luke wrote the book of Acts too, and you get to Acts one, and they get there before the ascension. One of the disciples say to Jesus at that time, they say, is now when you’re gonna do it? Is now when you’re gonna redeem Israel? Is now when you’re gonna smite Rome? Is this the time? And Jesus said, it’s not for you to know the time and the place.

It’s just for you to be ready for when I come back. The disciples had no invention of bounds back in those days. They actually had an idea of who the Messiah was and what the Messiah was supposed to do that they clung to.

And they couldn’t get rid of it. And they thought, Jesus, he’s the Messiah. This is what he’s gonna do.

But Jesus did such an even more amazing thing. It’s one of those God things that happens sometimes where when a Christian is picking songs, and the King of Kings, the song we started with, and it was, when he was practicing, it had the words, you came to redeem all of creation. And I was like, did you pick that because it had those words in there? And he goes, no, it was just a God thing.

That it just happened. And you see the difference between them saying, I thought you were gonna redeem Israel, and King of Kings saying, he redeems all of creation, where he redeems us, he sets us free, he breaks the bond and the hold and the bind of sin in our lives. And we often still think, that’s not the greatest bound, bind, clean thing we have in our lives.

We think it’s an idol. An idol is what we pray for. God, give me comfort.

God, give me clarity. Oh my gosh, I pray that word a lot. God, don’t give me any confusion.

Give me control. Don’t let this get out of control. I pray for approval here.

I pray for this. We pray for these idols that we cling to, and we think that is who the Messiah is, and that’s the job and the role of Jesus, is to give me comfort, or to give me these things. And the job and the role of Jesus is to forgive us for our sins, to redeem us from what we have done, from these fears that we have, that become sin because they separate us from God, and who we think God is, that we cling to things we are not called to cling to.

That we have fears that we shouldn’t fear in our life, that we don’t fully trust in God for who God is. We don’t still trust for the Messiah, for who the Messiah is, and the amazing things that Jesus has done for us. And we want it to be our kingdom when we say this is what we want.

And instead, we should just pray. God, whatever you have in store for me, help me to be ready. Give me strength.

We should pray, God, help me to just trust in you, to step out in faith, to not worry so much about things, to not let this world bring me down, but to break from that clinging to me so I can stick with you. Luke 24, 21, he says, but we had hopes. They had hopes, they had dreams for what Jesus was gonna do.

Instead of just trusting in the plan Jesus had. Messianic hopes and dreams can get us in trouble when they’re not grounded in the truth of who Jesus is, when they’re not grounded in who Jesus says he is. Messianic hopes and dreams is what they clung to because of tradition, because of the word of man, instead of trusting in the word of God.

How many of you know the famous professional baseball player named Grant Desmay? Oh. Oh. Because he shocked the world.

He was 23. I don’t know how familiar you are with how baseball works differently than other sports, but when you are drafted, even if you are the number one draft pick in baseball, where do you start? The farm system. You have to learn about corn and beans.

Oh, wait, the minor league farm system. In the minor leagues, you have to develop and build and play against stronger and stronger competition until you work through over the years when you are ready to be in the major leagues. Grant was 23 years old.

He had worked through the farm system, was just about to his time to go to the major leagues, and guess what he did? He retired. He retired from baseball, and he decided to lead a life of simplicity in order to become Brother Matthew at St. Michael’s Abbey in Silverado, California. In an interview years later, a reporter asked him, do you miss playing baseball? Desmay said he still enjoys playing baseball with his friends, and then he added, I still don’t miss playing professionally, but I’ve come to enjoy the game of baseball itself more.

When I let go of it as my idol, I enabled me to enjoy its worth for what it’s worth. When you’re projecting your own designs on something and taking it more seriously than it should be, you don’t get what God intended you to get out of it. When you simply accept things for what they are and don’t expect more than what they can give, you experience the satisfaction you’re supposed to.

Now, I wouldn’t say that Jesus couldn’t give us something, but there is a point where, instead of having a messianic idol, we have a true Lord and Savior in Jesus Christ when we accept God’s will in our lives, and accept that sometimes we’re gonna have uncertainty with God. Sometimes we’re not gonna know step-by-step on what to do. Last week we talked about how the lady was talking about how driving in that thick fog, she could see one light and she would go to that light and then another light and go to that light, and we just have to trust that God will guide our steps, God will walk with us.

He doesn’t just sit down and say, okay, here’s the plan for your life, here are the obstacles you are going to face, and here is how you can overcome them. Sometimes we’re gonna have uncertainty. Sometimes we’re going to not be able to control everything and everyone in our lives.

I’ll just let that sit with you for a minute. Sometimes we’re gonna have to let God be in control. Sometimes we’re not gonna get approval in this world, especially by loving Jesus.

The world’s gonna think we’re crazy, or we’re even haters for loving. Approval might not always come. Sometimes, although we strive so hard for it in our lives, we’re not gonna have comfort.

And that lack of comfort doesn’t mean a lack of faith. It can just mean that God is building us and working in us. And sometimes we don’t need all the power.

We can trust God to have that power. May our messianic hopes and dreams be a part of walking with the true Messiah, the one who loves us, the one who says, don’t cling to those fears. It just smells so good, so I keep touching it.

Don’t cling to those fears. Don’t cling to those doubts. Don’t cling to what the world says Jesus should be like.

Trust in the one who walks with you. Trust in Jesus who is on a road with you to amaze and loves you and wants to be with you through every step of life. That’s the Messiah we have.

Let’s pray. Almighty God, thank you so much for Jesus. Help us just receive you as who you are.

Help us to love you as who you are. Help us to trust in your will and your plan and what you have in store for us. Sometimes our hopes and dreams don’t match your hopes and dreams for us.

Part of being a disciple is learning to trust in you and your words and your guidance and your strength. We thank you, God, for everything you give us in our Messiah, and we bless you today. Amen.