Well, grab your Bibles this morning and let's go to Matthew chapter 17. I've got a lot of work done on Malachi, but we don't have time for Malachi. He requires a lot. But we will be going to Matthew chapter 17 and While you're turning there, as you know, it's my tradition to take the month of July away. Generally, usually, I take two weeks for vacation, just try to think about nothing and do nothing.
Uh well My way to relax is to be productive, try to get things done.
So I do a lot of. Outdoor stuff. We put up like a quarter and a half of firewood yesterday, and I feel it this morning. I'm telling you. Um That's not going to quite happen this year.
We are doing a conference, and I'm preaching at two church plants in London and Scotland during the break. And Miss Pam will be playing for the whole conference, and that's a pretty heavy load.
So we would ask you to pray for us in London and Scotland, and pray that God would bless in a great way for His glory. And as always, keep us safe and keep us healthy that we might be effective for him.
So that's going to take up a chunk of our time, but we're looking forward to that. All right, Matthew chapter 17. And my Bible opened to Malachi just it just stuck there, I think. Um We're going to talk about a mountaintop experience. The Transfiguration of Jesus.
Verse 1 down through verse 8. Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John his brother, and led them up on a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them. And his face shone like the sun, and his garbage became white as light. Behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them talking with him.
Just right there, you could stop and say, Can you imagine such a thing? I mean, just the text just states it. And I want to just say: wait a minute, you can't just read that and go on. What an an amazing, magnificent setting. Here comes Peter.
You know the guy that's always got to be the first out of the chute to take care of something. Peter, we're better off to sit back and relax. And look at this for a moment. But Peter says, Lord, it's good for us to be here. If you wish, I'll make three tabernacles.
One for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. And God the Father says, we'll have none of that. We don't have three equals here. Verse 5, while he was still speaking, Peter still speaking, God interrupts him. A bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, This is my beloved Son.
with whom I'm well pleased. Listen. To him. When the disciples heard this, they fell face down to the ground and were terrified. Jesus came to them and touched them and said, Get up and do not be afraid.
And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus himself. Alone. A. B. Bruce, the very Well-known commentary writer said.
This is one of the passages from Jesus' earthly ministry. In which biblical expositors would rather pass over in silence. It's just awesome. In this passage, the power The wisdom, the beauty, and the glory of God rises and cascades over us, leaving us hopefully in a state of awe and silence. There is no descriptive capacity.
Among men got kind. capable of capturing the magnificent aura of this narrative.
Now, there are some things in the narrative text that are obvious and clear. And we'll look at those. But understand, no preacher can fully unpack this text. If he's convinced he has done so, he misses the point completely. Because I think one of the main points is to leave you in awe.
is to leave you marveling. To leave you without words. As you see, this event, but it's like Mary. When Mary gave birth to the baby Jesus, the angel had told her about who Jesus was. But the shepherds come rushing in, and they had seen the angels' announcement out there on the hillsides.
They rush into Bethlehem, and they come to Mary and told her everything the angels had told them. And the Bible says that Mary just. treasured these things in her heart. Maybe that's what we should pray for. God, help me to treasure these things.
May we embrace The obvious as we look at the text. But may we leave this scene treasuring The power, the wisdom, the beauty, the glory of God.
Well, now for the obvious things. Number one, Roman number one, the place. Actually, first of all, it's a secluded place. Verse 1 says it was a high mountain. Jesus picks Peter, James, and John.
They go up on this, quote, high mountain. This was an area that people didn't live in for sure, and they didn't travel up there and stay there very long. It wasn't conducive. to cohabitating our making a home in such a region. It was probably Mount Hermon, though we do not know for sure.
Mount Hermon is a place of great beauty and grandeur. And it overlooks the entire region of Palestine. It rises north of Caesarea Philippi and it dominates the whole region. Matter of fact, it's the only mountain in the whole area that has snow on its peaks. It's a beautiful, excuse me, a beautiful area.
So he's wanting to get away to a very secluded place. But secondly, I want you to note that it's a very special place. In that it's a sanctified place. He's setting them apart from everything else, Jesus is. To this particular place.
Verse 1 says, He took them by themselves. and led them up there. Actually, that would be in another gospel.
So, Jesus doesn't take anyone else. He doesn't take the rest of the 12 disciples. He doesn't take any of the disciples who've been following around with them. He picks Peter, James, and John to have this special. if you will retreat together in this special place.
And the Bible says in our text that as he leads them up there, That he is um Bringing, if you will. What I would call the elect of the elect. I think that's a phrase Charles Haddon Spurgeon used first. He had the elect, the 12 disciples, then he had Peter, James, and John. They go to the sick room of Jairis' daughter.
They go up here to the Mount of Transfiguration. They even go to the Garden of Gethsemane, but none of the others. Those person calls them the elect out of the elect, but I actually call them the elect out of the elect out of the elect. Because all of those who come to Jesus are the elect, and then the 12 were the elect out of the elect, and then Peter, James, and John.
So God has divisions and structures of responsibility within the apostolic man. But he brings them up there that they might be alone with him. When Jesus brings you to the place where you're alone with him. That's a special place. You know, worship services are essential.
They're foundational to our Christian growth and life. To our ministry for God in the world. Small groups are so very important as we bond together and become transparent and honest, and help one another, and sharpen each other, encourage each other, strengthen each other. There's so many things that are special, but... There's just something really special about being alone with Jesus.
When I was studying this last night, just before I went to sleep, I just felt so alone with Jesus. And I remember thinking to myself. I could just stay right here forever. It's just sweet. God sometimes works in your life.
So that he leaves you stranded somewhere. With Jesus. And you realize, hey, this is really what I've been looking for.
Now, he had to bring me here kicking and screaming, but this is great.
Well, that's kind of the picture here. You remember Peter, James, and John have just been through something with Jesus in the previous chapter. Peter has actually been rebuking Jesus about going to the cross of all things. If you can imagine such a thing, they didn't want to hear that Jesus was going to a cross. And so he pulls them aside, and I think Or Bring this out in a moment, but particularly to strengthen these disciples.
So that's the Human persons that we see in this situation that Are here. They're in this secluded place. They're in this special sanctified place. Peter, James, and John, this would be A under Roman 2, the persons. Peter, James, and John are the inner circle.
They're the ones that are going to be responsible.
So I think that's why they needed the special encouragement. James, sort of the pastor of the church in Jerusalem. Peter, sort of the leading apostle out of the gate at Pentecost. And so there's a special need, you might say, for them to be more encouraged. As time goes on.
But not only Peter, James, and John, which I call the human persons, but secondly, Moses and Elijah, which I call the heavenly persons that are present. Here they come down out of heaven. Moses, the writer of the Pentateuch, the great lawgiver, gave us the Ten Commandments. And then Elijah, who was always esteemed in Israel as the foremost prophet. Why were they there?
Because Jesus was prefigured in the law, and Jesus was foretold by the prophets. It's all coming to him. Matter of fact, Jesus said in John 5:39, you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is these that testify about me. If you search the Bible and you've got any illumination of the Holy Spirit, Christ comes forth. He reveals himself.
They're the whole canon of scripture. On the Emmaus Road, Luke 24:27, Jesus speaks to these folks. They don't know who he is, but it says, Then, beginning with Moses. And all the prophets, including Elijah, of course. He, Jesus, explained to them the things concerning himself.
in all the scriptures.
So here Moses appears on this mountain, and here Elijah appears on this mountain, the lawgiver and the foremost prophet, as witnesses of Christ's divine Messiahship. He's the Savior promised by God. The law and the prophets come to a triumphant completion in Jesus. He fulfills all the law and all the prophets. As some scholars like to say, he doesn't just fulfill them, he fills them full.
He completes them. He perfects them, if you will. He's the end of the law. He's the end of the prophets. The law promises a path.
A path to God's favor and God's blessing, but the law never could deliver. It never could perform that for us. But Jesus does. The prophets foretold a new path that would bring men to God and bring men to God's favor and God's blessing, but it never delivered the new way. But Jesus is the way.
It foretold of him, but it never delivered him. He is the way. He is the truth. He is the life. And particularly, in his death, his burial, and his resurrection, he made the way for us.
The law could not die for us. The law could not be buried for us. The law could not be raised for us. The prophets could not die for us, be buried, or raised for us. They could only foreshadow and project and predict the one coming.
He is the one.
So there they stand. Moses. And Elijah. With Jesus. Everything they stood for, everything they preached, everything they declared was summed up in him.
It's like you know when a river Mississippi River flows down through the middle of the country. And you know what happens when the Mississippi River reaches the Gulf of Mexico and comes into an ocean that's no longer a river. The river parts over. It done its job. It's just to get it down the water down to the ocean.
And that's the way the law and the prophets were. They were to kind of carry us along until He came. And when he came. They're no longer needed. You can't compare a river with an ocean, can you?
There's no comparison. And then I think also, of course, as Commentary writers like to point out Moses died a natural death, and obviously he's been resurrected in a sense, and there'll be a later resurrection of the body. We know that in the chronology of end times, but there he is in a body. He represents those who die in Christ and live again with Christ in heaven in some sort of physical body. Elijah, we know, was translated to heaven in a fiery chariot.
He represents those who are alive and remain when Christ will return. Either way, we're secure in him. We are secure with him. In Luke's account of the gospel, he says Moses and Elijah are there speaking of his departure. Oh my goodness.
Just just try to fathom that. Moses Talking about the law and how Jesus is the personification in the fulfillment of all the law. Elijah. The great pronouncer of things to come and Saying, you are the one that's coming. Just uh What'd they talk about?
What'd they say? Do you know? Pretty awesome setting.
Well, that's the heavenly folks who show up. We've got human folks, Peter saying, to John. We've got some heavenly folks, Moses and Elijah.
Now we have. The holy. Persons. present, the Father, and of course the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is standing there, Moses and Elijah are standing there, and Peter Tries to Bring this down to an earthly realm.
But what's happening is, though, it's happening on earth, this is a heavenly scene. Earthly stuff don't fit in a heavenly scene.
So Peter jumps in thinking earthly and said, We'll just build three tabernacles here: one for Moses, one for Elijah, and one for you, Jesus. And if anybody else pops up important, I'll give them one too. That's what I feel like Peter's thinking. I want to make sure we're appropriate in everything we do. And God the Father, verse 5, speaks up, overrules Peter.
While Peter's talking, he interrupts him and says, Stop it, in effect. This is my beloved son. And whom I am well pleased. There's only one person ever walked the earth whom God said, I'm well pleased with Him. Listen to him.
Moses has nothing to say about Jesus. Elijah has nothing to say about Jesus. And Peter, you shouldn't have anything to say in this context. You just be quiet and listen to him. Yeah.
These are holy ones who are before us. Jesus is the one to which now they must look. They look to Moses and the law, and Moses gave us the moral law and all the ceremonial law and the Levitical priesthood and all the ordinances and rituals of the old economy of Judaism. And then, of course, Elijah would come and he represents all the prophets who would correct and teach the people and call them to repentance. But no longer, no longer do we listen to them.
Now we listen to Jesus. He is the one to which they now must look, and he is the one to which they now must hear. He is here. And this literal word is used in Hebrews. Abolishing The law and the prophets, in the sense That he's the completion of them, in the sense that he has fulfilled them, in the sense that he's filled them full, if you will.
And he is abolishing that old covenant and establishing a new covenant in his blood. It's kind of like the placenta. A woman gets pregnant and God has created this organ. This system I read something about it this week. It's absolutely miraculous.
What all happens. While a precious mom is gestating that precious baby, and the protection, the nourishment. And that placenta actually sorts out the blood of the baby from the blood of the mother. It's just amazing all that happens. But once he or she comes forth, we discard.
The placenta. That's over. That's Moses and Elijah. Don't need that. They carried it to this point.
They were just the warm-up band. But Jesus is here now. One of the holy persons.
Well, verse 5 says, when God speaks to overrule Peter and kind of drowned him out, verse 5 says, While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them. And behold, a voice out of the cloud.
So here God comes in their presence with the veil of a cloud. And you know, a cloud is significant. A cloud speaks of the grandeur and unapproachable glory of God. Psalmist says that God makes the clouds his chariots. We know God led the children of Israel in a pillar of cloud by day.
He filled the temple with his presence in a cloud. In a thick cloud, God appeared to Moses on Mount Sinai. Clouds received Jesus at his ascension back up into glory, and Jesus will come again in the clouds. God likes clouds. And by the way.
Had God just appeared. In His manifold glory, they would have been consumed immediately.
So it's a veil. But praise the Lord, these are not dark, harsh clouds like when the law was given on Mount Sinai. But bright, hopeful clouds here on The Grace Mountain of Mount Hermon. And of course, the Father's here, but Jesus is here. What a meeting.
We have the leading apostles, Peter, James, and John. We have the great lawgiver and Moses. We have the foremost prophet. Elijah, we have God the Father, and then in the center of it all, we have Jesus. Co-equal to God the Father, but he is the agent of redemption.
He is the preeminent one, and as the preeminent one, he performed the preeminent task. And the preeminent work of preeminent one was to build his church. And you got in on that. You didn't have to. God didn't owe it to you, but you did.
If you've believed on Christ, you're the work of Christ. in his large work, the preeminent work of building his church. In the earth. And I'm telling you, as a pastor, it's one of the most humbling. Uh challenging things to Grasp and be settled with, and that is that God uses imperfect men to lead his work on the earth.
Well, actually, I'm glad of that in some ways, trust me. But here's my point. You would think he deserves better. But it shows his wisdom. It shows his greatness that he can perform his perfect ends using imperfect vessels.
Verse 2, speaking of Jesus in particular, says, He was transfigured. His face shone like the sun. His garments became white as light. And this word transfigured is the word morphé. And it's the word we get metamorphosis from.
It means a change in essential nature, not just some outside light change. He radically changed in his very essential nature. I'm not losing his deity, nothing like that, as far as his nature, but somehow that veiled. Deity was pulled back. The veil was pulled back, at least partially, and some of his very true essence came out.
And he was brilliant. and bright and shining Linsky, in his Greek commentary, says, He was as brilliant as the sun itself. His very garments had the translucent whiteness of pure. White.
So, this was a temporary and partial unveiling of the true glorious nature of Jesus Christ.
Now, listen to me, which this world has never seen. But listen to me, friend. He is returning one day. And you know why the book of the Bible, Revelation, is called Revelation? Because it means unveiling.
He's coming again, and he'll come again with the brilliance of his very Shekana glory shining. And the Bible says, in effect, everything will flee from him.
So this is just a little glimpse. Of coming Features. that we have before us Peter later wrote after this experience in 1 Peter or 2 Peter rather 1:16, we're eyewitnesses of his majesty. How could Peter write that? Because he was here.
That's why he writes it later. John later writes. We beheld His glory as the only begotten of the Father. Why? Because they were here.
They saw it. That's why these men could be so bold and courageous and wouldn't quit. And when they were threatened with jail or prison and even their own life, they looked at those religious authorities and the Roman authorities and said, This, we must obey God rather than men, because do away with us and we'll be just like Moses and Elijah in just a moment. And then one day when Jesus returns. Revelation 21:23 says, And the city has no need of the sun.
This is the new glorified city in the eternal state. This has no need of the sun. Doesn't mean there won't be a son, just won't need one. Yeah. Do you realize in creation that God made the light holders before He made the light?
He made the sun, the moon, the stars, and then he gave them light. Because they're just a reflection of him. A weak one, but a reflection of him. Matter of fact, I had a um A school girl. Tell me this week.
that in her science class she learned that you could put a million earths in our sun. That's a pretty big sun. And there are many, many, many, many, many more suns all through the galaxies of the universe. And Jesus outshines them all put together. Because when he returns, the lamb will be the lamp therein.
He'll be the lamp of the whole new creation. And the sun and the moon might be there, but not because you need them, just because he decided to let them hang around. Because his light will illumine everything. Revelation 21:23. The city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the lamb.
Well These things are Obvious, but one other thing I'd like to point out, and I'll go quickly, we have a lot to get done, but the purposes. First of all, I think the purpose of this Transfiguration mountaintop experience was to encourage Jesus. You see, he came to Earth. His incarnation putting on human form. Voluntarily denying himself.
of many of his divine prerogatives. Not all of them. He never ceased to be divine, but he denied himself the exercise, you might say, of so many. of his divine prerogatives.
So he lived on the earth very much like us in very many ways. I often think about this when I'm about to take a break, and like my July break, and that is that Jesus, 11 times in the Gospels, got away from the people, the Bible says, and got along with God to be renewed, to be restored, to rest. He's God incarnate, but he needed rest. Because he was denying himself of many of his divine prerogatives.
So Jesus has just announced in the previous chapter, I'm headed to the cross. And I think Jesus needed the encouragement of Moses. He needed the encouragement of Elijah. He needed the encouragement of the glorified state, which is soon going to be his. Because he's about to go to the hellish darkness of the cross.
Not that he ever would fail. Not that we can wrap our brains around this. But heeding in that foretaste of the glory to come, He needed to be strengthened from the understanding of the saints in glory as Moses and Elijah. discussed these things with him. He needed to hear afresh the approval of his heavenly father.
I believe it was an encouragement to Jesus. Secondly, it's an encouragement to these disciples, Peter, James, and John. And without question, they had the most to be gained by it. Again, back in Matthew chapter 16, Peter, leader of the apostolic band, rebukes Jesus and says, You're not going to the cross. God forbid it, he says.
That's not going to happen. They're very mixed up. They're thinking very humanly. They're thinking like mere men, not with faith, and they needed to see there's more than this earth. It's a glorious Ram coming.
So they needed something to sustain their faith, and it was good. That once in Jesus' life of humility and in lowliness, they could behold His supreme glory. They needed a view of death from the standpoint of heaven rather than the world of Satan. He helped them to later count their lives as nothing. Save for the cause of Christ.
So this event is recorded, is recorded for us. It's a testimony. Of the faithful ones who's gone on before us. Is it not true? You have precious loved ones.
You have precious pastors. Parents, grandparents. Friends Who are now like Moses and Elijah. Just waiting for the rest of us. Plus, we have the fellowship of the church and the fullness of the Spirit.
So it was an encouragement for sure to Jesus. It's an encouragement to these disciples, and it's a prelude and a pledge of things to come. This is what it's going to be like. but even much, much greater. than these men experienced on the Mount of Transfiguration.
And you know We have these tables out here because we're going to take the Lord's Supper, the communion. Table of the Lord. And that too is a prelude. of things to come. You and I have a fellowship with each other.
Because we know Jesus and we fellowship with him. And it's always true. It's always true. If you fellowship with Jesus, you fellowship with his people. That's what local churches are for.
If you fellowship with Jesus, you fellowship with his people. And we have this table to remind us of all that He's done to make us one and to give us eternal life, forgiving our sins. And it's a prelude. Of things to come.
Now, we have some dear, precious folks who are coming to be members of Gracelife Church. And we're going to present them. And then we'll all share in this supper together. All right, Brother Matt, would you come? Mm-hmm.
