Latest / Beyond the Sermon / Revelation, Transformation, Awakening: Sermon

Transcript

Revelation, Transformation, Awakening: Sermon · Beyond the Sermon

0:04
You're listening to Beyond the Sermon, the podcast the First
0:06
Methodist Church in Collingswood, NJ.
0:09
On this podcast, the goal is not just to share our sermons, but
0:12
to go beyond the sermon and talk about what we're learning and
0:15
what God is doing in us and in our community.
0:18
This fall, we're living in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke
0:21
and John. And learning how to live from
0:23
our model. Jesus.
0:25
This sermon is part of our series The Gospels.
0:28
You can find. Out more information about our
0:29
church at fumccollingswood.org. Thanks for listening.
0:40
Today's scripture comes from Matthew 17, one through 13.
0:46
Six days later, Jesus took Peter and the two brothers, James and
0:49
John, and LED them up a high mountain to be alone.
0:54
As the men watched Jesus, Jesus appearance was transformed so
0:57
that his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as white
1:00
as light. Suddenly Moses and Elijah
1:03
appeared and began talking with Jesus.
1:06
Peter exclaimed. Lord, it's wonderful for us to
1:08
be here. If you want, I'll make 3
1:10
shelters as memorials, one for you, one for Moses and 1:00 for
1:14
Elijah. But even as he spoke, a bright
1:17
cloud overshadowed them. And a voice from the cloud said,
1:20
This is my dearly loved son who brings me great joy, Listen to
1:24
him. The disciples were terrified and
1:26
fell face down on the ground. Then Jesus came over and touched
1:30
them. Get up, he said, don't be
1:32
afraid. And when they woke up, Moses and
1:35
Elijah were gone and they and they saw only Jesus.
1:39
As they went back down the mountain, Jesus commanded them,
1:42
don't tell anyone what you've seen until the Son of Man has
1:45
been raised from the dead. Then his disciples asked him,
1:48
why did the teachers of religious fall insist that
1:51
Elijah must return before the Messiah comes?
1:54
Jesus replied, Elijah is indeed coming 1st to get everything
1:57
ready. If I tell you Elijah has already
2:00
come but he wasn't recognized and they chose to abuse him.
2:04
And in the same way, they will also make the Son of Man suffer.
2:07
Then the disciples realized he was talking about John the
2:10
Baptist. This is the word of God for the
2:12
people of God. God.
2:17
Well, even better. I had Jeremy written down and we
2:19
get Nathaniel. Well, I can, I'm not so.
2:24
Old I can. Still remember the summer
2:27
between our junior and senior years at Asbury College.
2:33
Meg and I were working at Delanco Camp for the summer.
2:37
Meg was the assistant cook and I was serving as the staff
2:42
chaplain and, and, and there was some tension between us as Meg
2:50
was trying to figure out how to break up with me while I was
2:54
trying to figure out how to propose to her and tell her we
2:57
were going to the seminary in Mississippi before going to
3:01
Uganda. That's a story for another day,
3:04
or at least that part is. But there's this, this, this
3:08
tension between US. And so one night during snack I,
3:13
I came into the kitchen and blindfolded Meg and LED her out
3:18
by the hand that led her to a place there at the camp called
3:22
the Chapel in the Pines. And, and I have no idea what she
3:25
was expecting at that point, but when we got there, I took off
3:31
her blindfold and tiki torches arranged and lit music was
3:38
playing. I invited her to dance.
3:41
It might be the last time I invited her to dance, if you ask
3:44
her. Invited her to dance and then
3:48
ended up sitting her down on one of the benches.
3:51
I got down on one knee and asked her to marry me and there she
3:57
was in her kitchen work clothes with her hair pulled back in a
4:03
messy bun. I think we had managed to leave
4:06
the apron in the kitchen, but none of that mattered.
4:11
Right in, in that moment, bathed in the light of the tiki
4:17
torches, she was radiant beauty. You've ever had a moment like
4:26
that, a moment where you were completely enraptured by what
4:33
you saw before you? It doesn't have to be another
4:35
person. It could be, you know, a grand
4:39
sunset or a majestic Mountain View, maybe the the first time
4:46
you held a grandchild. I think in some less romantic
4:54
but still life altering way, what Peter, James and John
5:01
experienced that day on the mountaintop there with Jesus,
5:06
something completely unexpected by them.
5:12
I think it was something like that proposal that night.
5:17
So I want to take a look at the story we read this morning that
5:20
Nathaniel read for us this morning from Matthew chapter 17.
5:23
Now, as we've seen each week, we can't just jump into a story
5:31
somewhere in the Gospels, right? It matters what's happening in
5:35
the larger narrative in which the story takes place.
5:38
And so the chapters that we've read leading up to this story
5:42
are full of stories focused on the issue of Jesus's identity,
5:50
where his authority came from, how he did the things he did,
5:54
how he could prove where that authority and identity came
5:58
from. And so at the end of of chapter
6:00
14, which was the end of our reading for last week, right
6:03
after Jesus and Peter, right, Jesus and Peter walked on water,
6:12
you find the disciples saying you really are the Son of God.
6:20
Then you have some interactions between Jesus and the religious
6:24
leaders who are trying to figure out exactly who this guy is and
6:28
who he thinks he is. You have a an interaction with a
6:31
Gentile woman, which helps to shape the view of Jesus.
6:36
And then one day Jesus asks his students, those who are
6:42
following him, he said, who? Who are people saying that I am?
6:49
They give Jesus a whole variety of answers.
6:52
You know, some say John the Baptist, others say you're
6:56
Elijah, some say Jeremiah or maybe one of the other prophets
7:00
from the Old Testament. No real consensus here.
7:07
But then he asks them the question, the question that
7:12
everyone who claims to follow Jesus has to wrestle with at
7:17
some point. What about you?
7:22
Who do you say that I am? Because ultimately, it doesn't
7:31
matter for us what other people are saying about Jesus.
7:36
It matters what we say, matters what we believe, how we respond
7:44
to Jesus. And so good old people, good old
7:49
Peter pipes up on behalf of his friends and says, you're the
7:55
Christ, the the Messiah, the anointed one, the one that they
7:59
had been waiting and hoping and longing for, not just Jesus
8:04
disciples, but but the Jewish people down from from the very
8:08
beginning. You are the Messiah, the Son of
8:15
the living God, Peter says. And I think in that moment,
8:23
something shifted with Jesus, or at least in Jesus's relationship
8:28
with those apprentices, right? It's, it's, it's that moment, I
8:33
think of pride when one of your students or one of your
8:36
children, they, they finally get it right.
8:39
The the light bulb comes on and everything from that moment
8:43
forward is different. I, I can almost hear Jesus
8:48
thinking. Finally they get it and Jesus
8:53
training plan for those disciples.
8:56
It shifts into another gear. There's a change of tone and
9:01
content in the way that Jesus is is teaching his disciples from
9:06
here forward. In the next section, Jesus tells
9:11
them for the first time of what will be 3 times before it
9:17
actually happens, that they're headed to Jerusalem.
9:22
A trip to Jerusalem. It was nothing new for them.
9:25
They had traveled that way together before.
9:29
But this time, this trip to Jerusalem is going to lead to
9:34
Jesus's suffering and death. And this is that, that famous
9:40
moment when the previously brilliant Peter right, who had
9:44
just confessed that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of the
9:47
living God, got things equally as wrong as he had just gotten
9:51
them right. Because here Peter says, oh,
9:55
heaven forbid, Lord, this will never happen to you.
10:03
And Jesus, flashing back to his encounter with the devil in the
10:07
wilderness, rebukes Peter, calls him Satan.
10:13
He recognized in the words of Peter the same temptation that
10:19
he had been faced with from the the very words of the devil.
10:23
To do things outside of God's plan, to make things easier for
10:28
himself, to find a way to save the world and the people within
10:33
it without suffering and death. Clearly these disciples hadn't
10:42
quite gotten it yet. So that's the context.
10:48
That's that's what's happening leading up to this encounter
10:53
that we read about this morning where where we find Jesus and
10:58
his disciples as he's leading Peter, James and John up the
11:02
mountain. So let's take a look.
11:05
Our our story begins with the words after six days.
11:11
After six days, this was a phrase that that would have rung
11:16
clear in the ears of Matthew's original audience.
11:20
Their their first thought on hearing that phrase that just
11:24
six days, their minds would have immediately gone back to
11:29
creation when God created everything that existed in six
11:34
days and then rested on the 7th right.
11:37
There's a sense here that that what God is doing in this story
11:42
points beyond what's happening in this moment.
11:44
It's it points to the grand story that God is writing that
11:49
Jesus finds himself in. Can can anyone remember from
11:54
back in Genesis what, what Genesis tells us that God
11:59
created on the 6th day anybody humans, right?
12:06
He created the animals, but but specifically he created
12:10
humanity. And so here on the 6th day,
12:15
after six days, there's an echo of creation.
12:20
God is pointing forward to a new creation, to a renewed and
12:25
redeemed humanity that he was going to bring in to being.
12:29
But the second thing I think God is pointing us to here in this
12:34
phrase after six days is in Exodus chapter 24 when God
12:41
called Moses up onto Mount Sinai to meet with him.
12:46
Listen to these verses from Exodus 24.
12:52
We'll put those up beginning in verse 15.
12:57
It says Then Moses climbed up the mountain and the cloud
13:04
covered it. The glory of the Lord settled
13:07
down on Mount Sinai and the cloud covered it for six days.
13:15
On the 7th day the Lord called to Moses from inside the cloud.
13:22
The glory of the Lord covered the mountain for six days like a
13:29
cloud, and then God called to Moses, and God gave to Moses a
13:36
new revelation of himself, a new revelation of who He is.
13:44
And so as Jesus and this inner circle of disciples, Peter,
13:50
James and John, as they climb higher up the mountain, suddenly
13:57
Jesus was transformed right before their very eyes.
14:03
He's just transformed. All of a sudden he's changed.
14:06
Now, I know most translations say that Jesus was transfigured
14:11
right. And if you have your Bible open
14:12
to Matthew 17, it probably says the transfiguration.
14:18
What's a transfiguration though? Great.
14:21
I'm glad the NLT, the New Living translation that we read from
14:24
this morning, used the word transformed, because transformed
14:28
or or changed is how it's translated in the two other
14:32
places that this Greek root word appears in the New Testament.
14:35
Let me read you those verses so maybe it'll help you understand
14:39
a little bit of of what God was doing here on the mount of
14:44
transfiguration or transformation.
14:47
Romans 12 verse 2 says don't copy the behavior and customs of
14:53
this world, but let God transform you into a new person
14:59
by changing the way you think. Then you'll learn to know God's
15:02
will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect, right?
15:06
Don't be conformed, the NIV says, but be transformed.
15:12
Or listen to 2nd Corinthians 318, it says.
15:17
So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect
15:22
the glory of the Lord. And the Lord who is the Spirit
15:26
makes us more and more like Him as we are changed, transformed
15:33
into His glorious image. Or maybe that one's a little
15:38
more familiar too, from from the NIV says.
15:41
And we all who with unveiled faces, all reflect the Lord's
15:45
glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever
15:50
increasing glory, which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit,
15:57
right? Jesus was transformed.
16:01
That's, that's the point right there.
16:02
There was a sudden and dramatic change in the way that Jesus
16:06
appeared to his friends. He's radiant.
16:11
His face is shining. His clothes all of a sudden are
16:16
brilliantly, blindingly white. It's even better than Clorox,
16:23
right? And just as, just as suddenly,
16:26
there were two men who appear alongside Jesus, speaking to
16:30
him. They're they're Moses and
16:32
Elijah. I, I don't know quite how they
16:36
recognized him. Maybe Moses had the stone
16:39
tablets, I don't know. But somehow they knew this was
16:43
Moses and Elijah, Israel's 2 greatest figures, who between
16:49
them they represented the Law and the prophets, the revelation
16:54
of God to his people, right? That's how God had showed
16:59
himself to his people, through the law, through the prophets.
17:04
And as Jesus and Moses and Elijah are there speaking, this
17:12
cloud descends, overshadows them all.
17:18
Just like the cloud that led the people of Israel out of Egypt at
17:25
the Exodus and then descended on Mount Sinai, like we read in
17:31
Exodus 24, and subsequently on the Tabernacle and the Temple.
17:36
Any place that God chose to reveal His presence, the glory
17:44
of God, the manifest presence of God, it descended on them there
17:52
on the mountain. And a voice, God's voice spoke
17:58
to them from within the cloud, repeating the words that God had
18:02
spoken over Jesus and his baptism.
18:05
He said, this is my dearly loved Son who brings me great joy,
18:13
right? That's what he said at the
18:14
baptism. But then here he adds to the
18:16
message. He says, listen to him.
18:21
This is my dearly loved son who brings me great joy.
18:24
Listen to him. You see, this time the the the
18:31
revelation of Jesus's identity wasn't for Jesus's own sake.
18:36
These weren't words that Jesus needed to hear again in order to
18:41
be ready to step into his calling like it happened at his
18:44
baptism. These words, this, this message,
18:48
this was for Peter and James and John.
18:53
God was confirming what they were beginning to believe about
18:58
Jesus, right? Like they had said in the boat,
19:01
you really are the Son of God. We're like Peter had said just
19:06
in, in recent days, you are the Messiah, the Son of the living
19:12
God. Those three, they, they were
19:18
experiencing a revelation of Jesus which was undeniable.
19:27
Any doubts they had should have been swept away in that moment,
19:34
and in this moment when the veil was torn, when heaven touched
19:44
earth. I have to imagine that Peter and
19:48
James and John felt like their prayers had finally been
19:52
answered right? That that this was the moment
19:57
when the Kingdom of heaven was going to descend on the earth.
20:00
Maybe they fought from that very mountain.
20:04
This was the encounter with God that his people long to have in
20:13
their own way. In their own context, they
20:18
probably felt like revival or awakening had come.
20:24
And Peter, who good old Peter, he never let thinking get in the
20:30
way of his speaking. He he he blurts out Lord, right?
20:34
No, it's not Rabbi like they usually call him teacher.
20:38
He says Lord, he uses the the Jewish title for God.
20:42
He said, Lord, it's good for us to be here.
20:46
He said, let's let us build some shelters, some tabernacles.
20:51
We can stay here and enjoy this moment forever.
21:00
And that's when the voice spoke out of the cloud.
21:06
This is my son, my dearly loved son with whom I'm pleased.
21:13
Listen to him. Him and the disciples are
21:17
terrified. They they fall down on their
21:21
faces in worship. And just as quickly as it
21:28
happened, it was over. They look up again and it's just
21:37
Jesus. No Moses, no Elijah, no cloud,
21:44
no voice, just Jesus, just normal everyday Jesus, if there
21:52
was such a thing. And Jesus begins to lead him
21:59
back down the mountain and he and he gives them an
22:02
instruction. He tells them don't tell anyone
22:06
about this. Don't tell anyone about this
22:10
experience that you've just had until you've seen the Son of Man
22:16
title Jesus used for himself. Until you see the Son of Man
22:20
raised from the dead. Which I have to imagine since
22:27
they had only just days before been introduced to this idea
22:31
that Jesus was going to die and then rise again, it's kind of
22:38
blowing their minds a little, right?
22:40
I have to imagine that the idea of Jesus being raised from the
22:43
dead through them for as much of A loop as seeing Moses and
22:47
Elijah, of the cloud descending in glory on them, of hearing the
22:52
voice of God speak to them out of the cloud.
22:56
They've got to be just trying their hardest to wrap their
23:02
minds around what has just happened.
23:05
And now Jesus is saying, but we're not going to talk about
23:08
it, right? You can't go back down and tell
23:13
the other disciples about this yet.
23:15
You can't, you know, keep verbally processing to try to
23:18
figure out what happened. And Jesus leads him back down
23:24
the mountain, back to normal life, back into ministry to the
23:31
world. And I think we should be
23:35
careful. Like sometimes you hear people
23:38
talk and they're about this passage.
23:40
You're like, oh, that Peter, it's always, always spouting
23:44
something off. But but I think we should be
23:47
careful about judging Peter too quickly here.
23:52
I think he gets a bad rap a lot of the time because most of the
23:57
time I think what Peter said, I think what he says here, it's
24:02
probably the same thing that we would have said if we had been
24:06
in his sandals, or at least we would have thought it if we
24:11
weren't bold enough to say it. I mean, how many of us today,
24:18
we'd love to have a worship experience like this, like we
24:24
just read about, right? Isn't this what we often think
24:27
of when we think about a revival coming or awakening coming?
24:32
A situation where the presence of God is manifest, where the
24:37
glory of God is almost palpable, right?
24:42
Because God is present everywhere.
24:46
But there are times when God comes near, when God draws close
24:53
to us, where his presence is manifested in a different way
25:00
than his omnipresence, his presence everywhere.
25:07
And when we get glimpses of that nearness to God of, of the glory
25:13
of God, maybe on on a retreat or at a camp or a conference, maybe
25:19
in a prayer session or a worship service, we don't usually want
25:26
to leave it either, right? We want to stay and bask in the
25:31
presence of God. During the outpouring at Asbury
25:38
University a couple years ago, people went that they descended
25:43
upon that little town of Wilmore, Kentucky, which when
25:46
schools in session has, you know, about 5000 people and
25:51
people stood in line for hours just for the chance to step into
25:58
Hughes Auditorium to, to experience the presence of God
26:06
in a unique way. And everyone I've heard from
26:10
says it wasn't fire and cloud and glory like we'd expect
26:16
revival to be or an outpouring to be.
26:19
It was. It was nearness.
26:22
God felt close. There was a gentleness to the
26:28
Lord's presence. And I think when we attempt to
26:36
stay in an experience like that of God's nearness, it's almost
26:44
to miss the point of why God reveals himself in those ways in
26:50
the 1st place, right? Because the point of the
26:55
transfiguration, the story we're talking about, it wasn't for
26:58
Peter and James and John to stay up there on the mountain in the
27:03
midst of the cloud worshipping Jesus and Moses and Elijah,
27:09
right? And the point for us, when God
27:12
comes close to us, it isn't for us just to seek to stay in God's
27:20
presence, right? For the sake of of hiding
27:22
ourselves away in God's presence.
27:27
The point is for God to make his identity, Jesus's identity,
27:33
undeniable, for God's revelation of his glory to transform us, to
27:43
transfigure us, for God to be able to send us back into the
27:50
world to live as we've heard Jesus command us to live.
27:57
There's, there's a lot of focus these days, people looking at,
28:02
at the statistics and the things that are happening, the stories
28:05
from around the world of, of what God is doing.
28:07
There's a lot of focus on on whether we're in the early
28:13
stages of some kind of revival or awakening.
28:18
People have different thoughts about all that.
28:19
I'm not going to get into it all this morning, but I'm one of
28:23
those who's praying that we are. But even as we pray for that
28:32
reality to be true, we have to be careful that we don't limit
28:38
our prayers for an outpouring of God's Spirit to just prayers to
28:43
have an experience, right? We don't seek revival for the
28:50
sake of awakening. We seek a fresh revelation of
28:54
Jesus that transforms people, that sends them out on mission
28:59
for the sake of the Kingdom of God in the world.
29:02
The point isn't for Christians, those of us in the church to to
29:06
have a nice experience of God, right?
29:10
The point is for people in a broken world that's all around
29:15
us to know deep healing and wholeness, for the church to be
29:20
renewed and recommissioned into that work so that a generation
29:26
can be one for Christ and and our societies can be
29:29
transformed. So this morning, this morning, I
29:38
want to encourage us to pray for God to bring awakening in our
29:43
day, but not just for a really good church service, not just
29:53
for an experience where people in the church come and enjoy a
30:01
nice moment together. I want us to pray that Jesus
30:07
would be revealed to people both inside and outside the church in
30:13
whatever ways God needs to do that.
30:17
Because it's only in the light of the revelation of Jesus that
30:21
we're truly able to see who we are, which is what leads to our
30:26
transformation into the image of Jesus for the sake of the world,
30:32
right? God finds us where we are.
30:33
He wants to show us where we are so we can turn away from those
30:37
things and turn to God and experience his transformation in
30:41
our lives. For the sake of the world.
30:46
I want to encourage us to pray for a vision of Jesus that
30:49
transforms people's hearts and lives.
30:55
A vision of Jesus that brings peace in place of anxiety, hope
31:02
in the places of despair and depression, healing in the
31:08
places of brokenness, unity where there's division,
31:12
reconciliation in places of estrangement, love where there's
31:20
hate. I want to encourage us to pray
31:25
for God's manifest presence to over shadow us and send us back
31:34
into the world, changed, transformed, with a vision to
31:40
listen and obey everything Jesus tells us for the cause of what
31:47
God's doing in the world. When encouraged to pray that God
31:54
would reveal himself to you in a real way, in a way that gets
32:02
your attention, maybe in an unexpected way, but not just to
32:09
you and not just for you, but for the sake of what God's doing
32:17
in the world. So I'd invite you to pray with
32:21
me this morning and to take any kind of posture you need to in
32:29
order to, to meet with God. You can stand where you are.
32:32
You can sit where you are. You can come and kneel at the
32:34
altar. You can kneel at your seat.
32:36
But let's pray together this morning and let's let's ask God
32:45
to reveal himself to us. And so Jesus, we come to you
32:55
this morning and we're asking, God, would you reveal yourself
33:05
to us? Would you give us a fresh
33:10
revelation of who you are? Would you help us to see you as
33:18
you truly are? Not as we've wanted to make you,
33:24
Not as the world has defined you, not even as the church
33:30
necessarily has taught who you are.
33:34
But would you show us as we continue this journey through
33:39
the Gospels, these stories from your life and ministry on Earth?
33:49
Would you show us who you are? Reveal to us your character,
33:59
your nature? Would you show us in the light,
34:07
in your light because you are light?
34:12
Would you show us who we are? Would you show us where there's
34:17
maybe still darkness in us that you want to come and cast out
34:23
with your light? Would you come and deal with the
34:29
brokenness and the anxiety, the depression, the the hate, all
34:35
those things that that exist within us?
34:42
We want to let go of those things, Jesus.
34:46
But in order to let him go, we need to receive your peace, your
34:53
hope, your joy, your love. So would you pour yourself out
35:01
upon us here even this morning, Jesus?
35:08
Would you come and meet with us, transform us?
35:15
Would you give us a vision of life and ministry in you?
35:21
And would you send us out from this place on mission with you
35:32
to join you in the work that you are already and always doing in
35:38
the world? Because Jesus, your work doesn't
35:42
start when when you send us out these doors, you're already
35:46
working in the lives of our friends, our neighbors, our
35:50
family members. Would you show us what our part
35:55
is in your mission in the world? Would you help us to turn our
36:11
eyes on Jesus, to fix our eyes on Jesus the author and
36:17
perfector of our faith? We pray this Jesus in your name
36:29
and for your sake.