Transcript
In your Bibles, will you turn to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 24 and verse 30. Luke chapter 24 and verse 30. Luke 24:30. Though that is where our passage starts, for the sake of connection, let's begin our reading with verse 28.
Luke 24 and verse 28,
Then they drew near to the village where they were going, and He indicated that He would have gone farther. But they constrained Him, saying, ‘Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.’ And He went in to stay with them.
Now it came to pass, as He sat at the table with them, that He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him, and He vanished from their sight. And they said one to another, ‘Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?’
So they rose up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, ‘The Lord is risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!’ And they told about the things that had happened on the road, and how He was known to them in the breaking of bread.
Sherry Milam of Mesquite and Susan Johnson of Plymouth, England, wrote their first letters to each other when Sherry was 10 years old and Susan was 11 years old. Those original letters were part of a cultural exchange program between school girls. But long after the school assignment was over, they continued to write to each other.
They were both approximately the same age. They were going through the same stages of life, and they both liked to chat on paper. Would you believe that the original letters that started their correspondence were sent in 1959? And after nine U.S. presidents, after eight British prime ministers, after five royal Windsor weddings, after two decades of Masterpiece Theater, after one Beatles invasion of the U.S., they were still writing.
As of November 1991, by this time Sherry was 46 years of age and Susan was 47 years of age. Sherry had a daughter 23 years old and a son 21, and Susan had two daughters 17 and 20. Of course, as time went on, their subject matter changed. And they moved on from Beatlemania to Princess Diana watching. And of course their letters were often filled with information about the kids.
Then last year Sherry noticed an ad in the newspaper for a rock bottom round fare price of 349 dollars from Dallas Fort Worth to London, England. She snapped it up. And she was planning, as of November of last year, to fly to England to meet her long-time correspondent pal at London and to spend the Thanksgiving holidays with Susan in her Tudor style home in Devon.
Now I wasn't there when they met each other for the first time. But I've got to believe that it was a very moving and touching moment when they saw each other. And you know what I'm sure of? I'm sure of this fact, that they had no problem talking to each other. They had been talking to each other for many, many years. And I'm sure they just took off where the last letter left off.
The newspaper article that reported this got it right. And as the headline for the article they had this: “Sealing the Friendship.” Sealing the friendship. And the sub-headline said, “Two long distance pen pals are going to meet after a 36 year correspondence.”
Now folks, I don't know whether you have any pen pals of your own who live in other countries. But this I do know, that if you're a Christian, and by that I mean if you have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ for the free gift of everlasting life, you do have a long-distance friendship which it is important for you to cultivate each and every day of your life.
Do you realize that the day is coming, and maybe very, very near, when you will meet this friend face to face? And the question is this: when you meet this long-distance friend face-to-face, will it be like meeting a stranger? Or will it simply be the climax of many, many years of intimate friendship?
And because that is an important question, I would like you to carry with you today the following exhortation. My exhortation is, seal that friendship. And as you probably already guessed, my exhortation is also the title of my message to you this morning: Seal That Friendship.
Now those of you who have been listening to me for several decades have already heard more than once that when I was a little boy in second grade, I fell madly and head over heels in love with a little second grade girl named Anne Nuttall. Now whenever I mention that, I have to set the record straight. And Nuttall was not my last girlfriend. And Nuttall was just my first girlfriend.
And I discovered in that first affair of my life that love can make you do some very strange things. I remember that during that romantic period of my life, my parents allowed me to have a birthday party. And they gave me a limited number of people that I could invite to the party.
And when I had invited the kids down at church and all the necessary people, I wound up with one invitation left. Now I confess to you, I don't really remember whether I invited Anne Nuttall and she couldn't come, or whether I didn't have the courage to invite her. The latter is more probable. But I do remember this, that I had to choose who was going to be the last person that I invited.
And my choice fell to two people: either a little girl named Sonja, who was a good friend of Anne Nuttall, or a little boy whose name I think was Eddie Davis, who was a good friend of mine. And it's with embarrassment, but I tell you this, I invited Sonja. And we spent a little time talking about Anne Nuttall.
And I want you to understand that inviting Sonja to my birthday party didn't do one thing for my romance with Anne Nuttall. But it did almost destroy my friendship with Eddie Davis. He was deeply offended that his good buddy at school had not invited him to his birthday party.
Is my face red? Uh, it should be. I'm embarrassed by that. And that is why I am so very, very happy that the two travelers that we've read about this morning didn't make a mistake very much like that.
You remember, if you were here last time, that these two travelers were walking all the way from Jerusalem to the little village of Emmaus, a seven mile walk. We know that one of their names was Cleopas. The other one may have been his wife or a friend or somebody like that.
For most of that walk they had the company of a stranger who was the Lord Jesus Christ. But God sort of shielded their eyes so that they didn't recognize Him. And all along the path the Lord Jesus Christ was opening and explaining the Word of God in the Old Testament. And how the Word of God had predicted the sufferings and burial and death and glorification of God's Savior.
And then they found themselves at the end of the journey. And their unknown traveling companion acted as if He was going to travel farther. And they couldn't just have let Him go. They could just have let Him go, but they didn't. They urged Him to come in. They invited Him into what was probably their home.
And after a seven mile journey, one of the first things you want to do is to eat. And so pretty soon they were at a table together. But then a strange thing happened, folks. A strange thing happened. Jesus was their guest, but He takes over as if He were the host.
And Luke tells us that Jesus took bread and He blessed that bread and He broke it and He gave it to them. That's what the host usually did. But it was just as if the roles had been reversed. And you know there must have been something, there must have been something familiar about the way He did this.
In any case, the Bible tells us that when He did it, their eyes were opened and they knew Him. Their eyes were opened and they knew Him. Think about it for a moment. If they had let Him go on down the road, they would never have known, or at least that night they would not have discovered, who it was that had been their companion.
Their eyes were opened and they knew Him. Do you know what is one of the great tragedies of Christian experience? There are people who are really saved. They're born again by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. They know that they have eternal life. They know that they're going to be with God in His kingdom.
And they also know that God is with them, that the Lord Jesus Christ is with them all along the journey. But you know what? After years of being saved, Jesus is still a stranger to them. After years of being saved, Jesus is still virtually unknown to them in any intimate and personal way.
And you know why that's true? Because they haven't invited Him into their life. Because they haven't encouraged Him to sit down at the table of their daily experience, to become a part of their personal life day by day. And my friends, if we don't invite the very best friend we have, we are making a terrible mistake.
Joseph Scriven was born in Ireland many years ago. He graduated from college and he was engaged to be married to a very beautiful girl. But just before the wedding this girl was drowned. And overwhelmed with grief over the loss of his bride-to-be, Joseph Scriven shipped out to Canada.
In Canada he began to help people who needed food and clothing. Pretty soon he was widely known as a friend to the needy. If anybody had the money to pay him, he didn't work for them. And then one time his mother fell sick. And in order to encourage his mother, he sat down and wrote a poem for her and he sent it to her.
He never intended for this poem to be published or to be made public. It was simply for his mother. And had it not been for a neighbor who got an opportunity to see it, we probably would never have heard of it. But do you know something? That poem became a hymn. And it is one of the best loved hymns in our hymnal.
And the words of Joseph Scriven in his poem began like this: “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer.” And don't you see that Joseph Scriven had opened the door of his grief-stricken life? He had allowed the Lord Jesus to come in. He had fellowship with the Son of God.
And he learned to know Jesus as a friend. And as a result he became a friend to those who are in need. And even though you may be saved, even though you may know that you're going to heaven by the grace of God, you need to know Jesus Christ in an intimate and personal way. You need to invite Him in to your daily experience.
Well it was quite a discovery, wasn't it? The man who had walked with them all the way from Jerusalem to Emmaus turned out to be the risen Lord Himself. And the moment they made the discovery, He vanished. He vanished. You say, “What was left behind?” I tell you what was left behind. What was left behind was the tremendous and wonderful impact of His Word.
And they turned to each other and they said to one another, “Did not our hearts burn within us? Weren't our very souls on fire as He talked with us along the road and as He opened to us the Scriptures?” And don't you see, my friends, that all along the way as our hearts were burning within, with excitement and enthusiasm for the Word of God, God was preparing them for the moment when they could really recognize Him, really see Him, really know who it was that was with them.
And isn't it obvious too that if you and I are going to have personal and intimate friendship with Jesus Christ, His Word has got to be in our hearts like a burning fire? It has to excite us. It has to move us. It has to motivate us. It has to change us. And when it does, we will know Him as we should.
Many years ago a man by the name of Stephen Marsh lost his aunt. And his aunt left him the family Bible. And a portion of her will read something like this: “To my beloved Stephen Marsh I leave my family Bible and all it contains, and the rest of my estate after my funeral expenses and my just and lawful debts are paid.”
Well after everything was settled, Stephen Marsh had the family Bible and a few hundred dollars. And they were very quickly spent. And for the next 30 years Stephen Marsh lived in poverty, subsisting on a very meager pension that he was receiving. And finally he decided to move into his son's house to spend the remainder of his old age.
So one day he was up in the attic getting ready to move to his son's house. And lo and behold, guess what was in the attic? The family Bible that had been left to him by his aunt. And he began to leaf through it. And to his amazement there were bank notes stuck in the pages of the Bible. And by the time he had collected them all, he had a total of five thousand dollars, which in those days, my friend, was a very, very large amount of money.
He lived in poverty and there were riches in the Bible just within his reach. Now I'm not going to tell you if you go home and leaf through your Bible you're going to find bank notes. You do understand that. But I am going to tell you this, that the greatest riches the world can offer you, the spiritual wisdom, the spiritual understanding, the privilege of fellowship with God, is what is contained in your Bible.
And you know what? In some households the Bible is one of the most neglected books that we possess. We get home from church and we put it up on the shelf. Yes, when the next time is that we pull it down? Sometimes it's not till next Sunday when we're going to church.
Let me tell you something. If you want friendship with Jesus Christ, this book has got to be precious to you. And you have got to allow the Holy Spirit of God to set your heart and soul on fire with the Word of God and to attract you, to pull you into the fellowship of God's Son and into friendship with Him.
So even though He vanished, His Word would sit in their heart. And then they did something very surprising. Remember this, folks. They had just walked seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus. It was dark and getting darker. Anything that they had in mind could be held over till tomorrow. Don't you think? Wouldn't that be the sensible thing to do?
But the Bible tells us that they rose up that very hour. They rose up that very hour and they walked all the way back to Jerusalem, seven miles more by foot. And the roads of Palestine were dangerous at night. But they had to get back to their fellow Christians.
They went to the place where the eleven apostles, minus Judas of course, were assembled and other people were assembled there. And they discovered that these believers had also realized that Jesus was alive. And as soon as they walked in the door, these assembled believers said, “The Lord has risen indeed, and He's appeared to Simon. He's appeared to Peter.”
And then their turn came and they shared with the assembled group the things that had happened on the road and how Jesus was made known to them in the breaking of bread.
Do you know that Luke is the man who wrote these words? And he also wrote the book of Acts. And the expression “breaking of bread” is used in the book of Acts more than once for the Lord's Supper. And I'm sure that as Luke wrote these words he was conscious of the allusion that he was making to the breaking of bread and the Lord's Supper.
Do you see what these people did? These two travelers, yes they invited Jesus into their home. Yes they were impacted by the Word of God. But the impact of the Word of God was so great they had to get together with other Christians. They had to go and assemble with those who shared their faith in Jesus Christ.
And together they praised God because He was alive. Tell me, where is it of all the places on earth where we are best likely to get to know the Lord Jesus Christ in a personal way? May I suggest that it's the breaking of bread? May I suggest that it's the Lord's Supper?
Oh yes, we can come to know Him in a meeting like this. But it's not the same. Because you see, the Lord's Supper is His ordinance. The Lord's Supper is His command. The Lord's Supper is where He manifests Himself to us as the one who died, who was buried and rose again.
Do you really want to be an intimate friend of Jesus Christ? Do you? Do you? Then invite Him into your life. Make Him a part of your daily experience. Allow His Word to impact you fully. And then seal that friendship. Seal that friendship by coming faithfully to the Lord's Supper and allowing Him to make Himself known to you in the breaking of bread.
Leonardo da Vinci, the brilliant genius of the Renaissance, a marvelous painter, was 43 years of age when the Duke of Milan asked him to paint a picture of the Last Supper. As you know, that is one of the most famous pictures that Leonardo ever painted.
He started to work on it. He worked carefully. He worked meticulously. He was painstaking about the detail. He divided the disciples of Jesus into four groups of three. Jesus was in the center and there were two groups of disciples on either side of Him.
The Lord Jesus Christ had His hands outstretched. And in one of His hands, His right hand, He held the cup. And Leonardo da Vinci painted that cup with exquisite detail, with marvelous realism. And when he had finished his painting, he contacted a friend of his and invited him to come up and look at this masterpiece.
And his friend came up. And Leonardo said, “Consider it and tell me what you think.” And his friend looked at it. And the friend said, “It's wonderful. And that cup, that cup is so real I can't take my eyes off of it.” And Leonardo, when he heard that, took a brush and with that brush in one stroke he wiped out the cup.
And he said, “Nothing shall detract from the figure of Christ.” My brothers and sisters, do you realize that the Lord Jesus Christ is the central figure at the Lord's Table? He has promised to be there. It is on Him that we focus. It is Him that we remember. It is Him that we worship and praise.
Yes, the rule over here is very simple. It's not fancy. We don't have a golden chalice in which to take the cup as some churches do. We have simple little transparent cups that we use. Everything is simple. Do you know why? Nothing must detract from the person of Jesus Christ. He is why we are there. And He must be at the center.
You want friendship with Him? Be there. Seal your friendship at the Lord's Table and let Him reveal Himself to you in the breaking of bread.
Shall we pray?
Father, what a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to Thee through Him in prayer. He is such a marvelous friend and we are such poor friends so often to Him. Teach us how to be closer to Him and how to seal our friendship by worshiping Him at His table. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen.