Transcript

Let's pray.

God, You are exalted, high and lifted up. You are full of glory, and Your word reveals to us that the whole earth is full of Your glory. Every powerful thing on earth, every beautiful thing on earth, everything on earth exclaims that You are glorious. But most of all, we see Your glory in Your dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank You for manifesting Yourself to us through Your Son. We see in Him Your glory, full of grace and truth, full of power, full of love, and full of righteousness. All that You are is seen in all that He is. We thank You that every day we can turn our eyes toward Christ and see in Him who You are. And we pray that as we look more and more to Christ and hear from Him, that You would change us and conform us to His likeness, that our lives will be worth something of use on this earth for Your purpose and honor. Thank You for Your redeeming grace upon all those who turn to You with faith and repentance, and that all who submit to Christ, are the most blessed; and I seek for that continued rich blessing upon everyone here. We pray that Your word would speak to our hearts this morning. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

The next scripture to be read is Matthew 17:1-13. The truth that I want to highlight from this passage is this: Listen to the Son of God. The key verse is found in verse 5 where God speaks from the cloud and says, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!” It’s that last part that I really wanted to focus our attention on today, which is very pivotal in the broader context. In terms of the whole passage before us, there are four parts to the story. First, there is the prediction. Then there is the change, then a voice, and then Elijah.

The first part is the prediction. We find this in verse 28 of Chapter 16, where Jesus said to the disciples, “Truly, I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” Jesus made this interesting prediction that some of His disciples will not die until they have seen Christ coming in His kingdom. This very remarkable prediction is fulfilled about one week later. In Chapter 17, we find Jesus showing Himself with that glory with which He is going to come when He comes in His kingdom. By the way, in 16:27, Jesus said that He will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and will then repay everyone according to their deeds. And so in Chapter 17, Jesus shows Himself fully clad in the glory of God with which He will come in His kingdom.

This glory is what the second part is about, which is change. The word that's used to describe this change is transfiguration. You can see that word in verse 2. Jesus was transfigured before the disciples. Transfigure simply means to change. Jesus was changed before them. His appearance changed before the disciples. Let me rewind a little bit and tell you the full story. So about a week has passed since Jesus’ prediction, and Jesus heads to a high mountain with three of His disciples: Peter, James, and John. He heads there to pray with His disciples. We get that detail from Luke 9:28. That’s the setting. As Jesus had predicted in 16:28, some of His disciples head to the high mountain, and they're there to pray. And there on the mountain, Jesus' body changed for a moment. Jesus was shining with the glory of God. We're given various details of this change. First, His face changed. His face was shining like the sun. And then His clothing changed. His clothes became white as light, we are told. We're also told in Luke 9 and 2 Peter 1, that this was the display of Jesus’ glory. Something more happened. Two other men appeared with Jesus. They're identified as Moses and Elijah. These are of course two prominent prophets from the Old Testament. They appeared with Jesus and they were talking with Him, and the three disciples were seeing all of these things. Furthermore, something else happened. A bright cloud came over them and even enveloped them (per Luke 9). This is a spectacular scene where Jesus now appears with the glory with which He is going to return in His kingdom. This is then further augmented with God the Father's voice peering through the clouds.

This brings us to the next part on the voice. God speaks, and the voice of God communicates two things. First, Jesus’ identity, then His authority. Jesus’ identity: this is what the Father said about the Son at His baptism. The language is very similar, if not identical, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased.” That language shows us that God loves His Son and that the Son pleased His Father. They had this wonderful relationship that stretched all throughout eternity. And God here confirms that this is indeed His relationship with His Son. Then comes the next part which speaks of Jesus’ authority. God speaks to those three disciples, and He tells them, “Listen to Him!” That's a command. God is telling them they must listen to Jesus. This part is really striking in this scene because as you would recall in Chapter 16, Peter had failed to listen to Jesus. When Jesus was talking about His impending crucifixion, Peter rejected Jesus’ words and even rebuked Him. Well, I believe God the Father picked up on that and He wanted to make sure that Peter would never do such a thing again. So He tells him, “listen to Him!” I like the way the NASB punctuated that sentence. It ends with an exclamation point. I think that captures the intensity with which the Father spoke these words. The disciples really had to pay attention and take heed to the words of Jesus. That's the will of God, that we would recognize Jesus as His beloved Son who pleased Him and that we would indeed listen to Him. That command to listen to Jesus is, in the end, the call to repentance and to submit under Jesus’ authority. This is, of course, what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and to follow Him, to wholeheartedly submit to Him as the Lord. This is the call of God. By the way, this shows us that if anyone teaches us that we don't need to submit to Jesus, that He will just love us and that's all there is to trusting in Christ, they are not conveying the full message of Christ. The full message of the gospel is that God loved us and sent us the Savior, and that He calls everyone to trust in the Savior and submit to Him as the Lord, if you would, to listen to Him. Well, this whole scene is very terrifying to the disciples. Maybe it's because they were a little guilt stricken, especially Simon Peter who had rebuked Jesus. At the very least, they were terrified at the voice of God, and perhaps also the ominous cloud that had come upon them. So, they fell down with their faces to the ground, and they were gripped with fear. At that moment, then, Jesus comes up to them and touched them. And He told them, “Get up and do not be afraid.” Those are familiar words from the mouth of Jesus, “Do not be afraid.” And at that juncture, the transfiguration ended. All that they saw simply disappeared. Jesus was back to the way He was before.

Then as they came down the mountain, they talked about Elijah, one of the two whom they saw speaking with Jesus. The disciples were a bit curious, and they asked Jesus a question about Elijah. They asked Him, “Why did the scribes say that Elijah comes first before the Messiah?” Now this is intriguing, because the scribes and the Pharisees there were wrong about many things in the Bible; but with this particular fact, they actually got it right. And so Jesus affirmed that the scribes did in fact get this right and that Elijah does indeed come first. But as He just goes on to explain this, Jesus shows that it's not the literal Elijah who comes, but it is someone in the spirit of Elijah who comes, someone like Elijah. Jesus further explains that that the Elijah-like person was John the Baptist. But of course, the religious leaders rejected him; and the Governor of Galilee, Herod Antipus, killed him. At this point, Jesus again predicts His own death. He tells them that the way Elijah was treated is the same way Jesus will be treated. Jesus will suffer at the hands of men. What this captures once again is that Jesus willingly goes to the cross. He knew He would die in Jerusalem, but He went anyway. This was the great love and the mercy of Christ for us. Though He knew He was going to suffer, He went to Jerusalem anyway.

There are a number of things we can pray about from this passage. First, Jesus is the Son of God. He is the beloved Son of God. We should affirm that in our prayer. Moreover, the Father loves Him, and we should love Him also. Secondly, we should listen to Christ. As I emphasized earlier, this is God's call for repentance, that we would submit to Jesus as the Lord. Thirdly, we can thank Jesus for going to the cross willingly for us. He went to Jerusalem, knowing that He was going to die. Lots of wonderful things to pray about.

With that, let me close us in prayer and we'll wrap up our time.

God, we thank You for revealing to us Jesus Your Son. You love Him, because He always pleased You. And it is Your will that we love Him also. We also hear Your command, that we are to listen to Jesus. Our God, forgive us for the times when we failed to listen to Christ. But we want to make that right with You. Thank You that there is mercy for sinners who humbly seek for Your forgiveness in Jesus’ name. We understand that Your command is firm. It is that we listen to Christ, that we would turn back to you and submit ourselves wholly to Christ and live by His words. Enable us to keep His words fresh in our minds and in our hearts. We also recognize that Jesus came not only to call us to repentance, but to bear our sins on the cross. And thank You that He did so willingly. He went to the cross out of His great love for us, to pay for our sins that were despicable in Your eyes and to turn us to true repentance. Thank You for this glorious gospel of Your Son. Our hearts are committed to Christ to submit to Him. And we pray for the power of Your Spirit, that we would be faithful to do so. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Well, that's the lesson for today. Lord bless you all. And we are done.