Matthew 17:1-8
Well, as we come to our time in God’s Word this morning, I’d like to return to Matthew’s Gospel, if you have your Bibles, you can take them and turn to an earlier scene in Matthew’s Gospel. Remarkable, very special event, occasion in Matthew known as the Transfiguration, which you’ll find in Matthew chapter 17, Matthew 17, the transfiguration is really a preview of resurrection glory. And now from the vantage point of hindsight, hindsight is 2020.
We can look back with retrospect now that the resurrection has happened, and we can discern more of the significance of the transfiguration and what it teaches even about the resurrection and the meaning of the resurrection, the significance of it for us today. Matthew chapter 17, I’ll read the text there, verses 1 through 9, “Six days later, Jesus brought with him Peter and 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 garments became as white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them talking with him, when Peter answered and said to Jesus, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will make three booths here, one for you and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’
While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them. And behold, a voice out of the cloud said, ‘This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased, Listen to him.’ And when the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified. And Jesus came to them and touched them and said, ‘Get up, do not be afraid.’ Lifting up their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. And as they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them, saying, ‘Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man has risen from the dead,’”
Mark adds in his account of the same event. The three disciples, it says in his account. “They seized upon that statement, arguing with one another what rising from the dead meant.” Now they understood what rising from the dead is, that was not a mystery to them. Their question is about what it means about its significance.
It’s a good question for us today, isn’t it, about the significance of the resurrection? What is the meaning of rising from the dead? What’s the significance of resurrection itself or Jesus’ resurrection in particular? There are many people today who believe the biblical count of the resurrection is nothing more than a religious myth, a story, a legend. All religions have them.
Resurrection is a Christian one with an uplifting theme about life after death, promise of a better world, bright tomorrow full of hope. And from a distance I can understand that from the distant perspective of unbelief, the doctrine of the resurrection does appear fantastical.
But upon closer inspection, and when it is examined through the educated scrutiny of the ages, and there have been some strong voices of criticism and doubt and skepticism that have tried to topple the doctrine of the resurrection and other doctrines of Scripture as well, all proving unfruitful. But upon closer inspection, Jesus Christ has indeed risen from the dead, just as the Bible says he did.
The empty tomb is a silent and yet inflexibly stubborn piece of, a testing evidence that endures. No one can answer adequately the reason for an empty tomb and the reason for all that has happened since. No one can answer the fact that we are here today, 2000 years later, speaking a completely barbarian language to the people of that day on the other side of the world.
Why are we here proclaiming the resurrection? Why does Christianity continue? Why do churches continue? Why does this gospel message continue, if it’s all a lie or a big mistake? There is no adequate reason for all that is, except that God is who he says he is. The Bible is true; it has no errors. It’s infallible. And the resurrection happened, validating everything Jesus said and taught and did.
There are others who are more sympathetic to Christianity, often raised in Christian lands, and they recognize in the claim that Jesus rose from the dead, that somehow the fact that he rose from the dead means his followers will likewise live again after they die. They get that much about the doctrine, about the meaning of this.
And it is of course true that the resurrection of Jesus Christ has everything to do with the hope of resurrection. If there is no resurrection from the dead in Christ, there is no resurrection from the dead for anybody. There’d be no hope of life after death. There’d be no escape from the power of the grave without him. If he doesn’t have victory over death and the grave, no one does.
But now, Paul declares confidently, Christ has been raised from the dead, 1 Corinthians 15:20. And that has implications for all who believe, because he is the first fruits of those who’ve fallen asleep, as to say he’s the first fruits gleaned from the field and offered in sacrifice of thanksgiving to God, promising that the rest of the harvest will come. Same harvest from the same field of the same fruit.
One resurrection of Christ means resurrection for all his people. All who trust in Jesus Christ have forgiveness of sins because of his death. They have eternal life in him. They will rise from the dead that’s what the Bible teaches. That which is corruptible will put on the incorruptible. That which is mortal will put on immortality, and death will be swallowed up in victory, 1 Corinthians 15:24.
Beyond the hope of life after death, which is a life-giving powerful message, isn’t it? It’s transformative. This hope changes the life. We want to ask this morning what other hopes are fulfilled in the doctrine of the resurrection? What is the further significance of the meaning and the significance of the resurrection?
Because listen, because of Jesus’ resurrection, the very deepest of human hopes and longings, will find all perfect fulfilment, things that we all share as humanity, things that we all long for, want even. I could put it this way, because of who we are, designed by God, the way we are, as religious beings, as worshipping beings, because of who we are and what we are, and because of our fallen condition, you and I share some things in common.
In fact, we’re not the only ones, but everywhere on the planet we share things in common. And if you go through all time and history and every culture and every people, every tribe, tongue, language, people, nation, we all share some of these same hopes. And all hopes, all human longing finds its perfect fulfillment in Christ, in his resurrection, and are sharing in that resurrection.
Let me put it this way, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the guarantee that four of the deepest longings of the human soul will be realized, will be fulfilled, and will be satisfied. That’s what you need to think about every time you think about the resurrection is the fulfillment of all hope, all satisfaction. And I’ll name them for you; four longings of beauty and fellowship and focus and assurance.
Those will form four points for our outline this morning. Four longings of the human soul, for beauty, for fellowship, for focus, and for assurance. So it’s by the Resurrection retrospective that we’re going to practice and conduct today. As we go back and reflect on what happened at the Mount of Transfiguration, we’ll discover even more significance of what happened on the Mount of Calvary and in escaping from the empty tomb and the resurrection, hope.
So, if you like to take notes and you want to jot this down for a first point in your outline, here’s the first point. First, because of the resurrection, number one we get to gaze at perfect beauty. We get to gaze at perfect beauty. Going back to verse 1, it says, “And six days later, Jesus brought with him Peter and James and John his brother, and he led them up on a high mountain by themselves.”
Peter, these two brothers, sons of Zebedee, James and John, they’re part of Jesus inner circle. They’re always near Jesus, even closer than the rest of the Twelve, they are near. They’re always there. They’re part of every single event. They can’t part themselves from him.
And Jesus has chosen these three for another special privilege as he brings them up to the top of this high mountain with him. He’s going there to pray, but the father has something else in store for what’s going to happen on this high mountain.
They’ve been in the region of Caesarea Philippi, which is north of the Sea of Galilee. And Luke uses the definite article in his account. He calls it the mountain, and that refers to Mount Hermon in that region. It sits about 92,000 feet above sea level. And there are three prominent peaks on Mount Hermon, each one of them commanding fantastic views of this panoramic beauty.
Spectacular beauty of this vantage point was about to be outshine by the one who created all this beauty in the first place, as we see in verse 2, it says, “He was transfigured before them and his face shone like the sun.” So his skin is radiating, “and his garments became white as light.”
It’s as if his skin was radiating through his garments, bleaching them and then shining forth. The word transfigure metamorphoo sounds like metamorphosis. May sound as if Jesus here metamorphosized, he transformed from a human being into some other kind of being, but that’s not really the sense here.
The sense is, it just means that his outward appearance changed. I say, just, as if it’s a small thing. It’s not a small thing. His face shines brilliantly like the sun. So yesterday we had a great sunshine; me and took Cali for her birthday up to Estes Park and we’re walking down the street and I look ahead and the sun is setting and it’s shining full force in my face.
And I couldn’t help but think about this text and thinking that was like looking at Jesus face. Nothing but a orb of bright shining light, shining and blinding their eyes. His clothes became a dazzling white, Mark writes in his account, “His clothes were radiant, intensely white,” as no launderer on earth could bleach them.
Language similar to that used of the Angel, we just read about who rolled away the stone in Matthew 28:3, “His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing shown white as snow.” What are we seeing here on the Mount of Transfiguration? We’re seeing at least this, that Jesus is a heavenly being. He’s not from around these parts. He’s something else.
He’s taken on human flesh, yes, but there is a power and there is an essence, and there is a being in him that is brighter and greater and heavenly than any earthly existence. Now this experience is happening to a man, whom Peter and James and John had counted as a close friend. They’d been hanging around him for a couple of years at least.
This is a man with whom they’d traveled. They’d gone fishing with him. They had camped out under the stars with him, ate and drank with him. They listened to his teaching, walked along the way. They had every occasion to bump into him to, to put their arm around him, to do what men do out in the wild. What do they do? They wrestle, they do, they do all kinds of stuff out there. You ladies don’t know this, but we have great times.
Jesus was a man with men, a man among men. They knew him. The disciples did know that there was more to him than mere manhood. He was no mere man, but it’s because he was so normal that they sometimes took him for granted. Isaiah 53:2 says, “That he had no stately form or majesty, that they should look upon him any differently.”
That is, he was physically unremarkable. He didn’t stand ten feet tall and shoulders broad and able to wipe out armies. He was a guy. He had, no appearance, Isaiah 53 says, “No appearance, that they should be attracted to him.” He had no Hollywood beauty. He wasn’t some actor with carefully managed good looks, even after his resurrection. It’s interesting, isn’t it, that Jesus still appeared relatively normal as a human being.
Mary Magdalene saw him at the tomb according to John 20, and she thought he was the gardener. Two disciples on the road to Emmaus thought he was some recent visitor to Jerusalem and they walked and talked to them as if he’s any other man; thought he was a stranger to the area, but still nothing special, just a man that’s post resurrection.
So what’s going on here? What’s going on in Matthew 17? What’s going on is that the father wants the full glory of Christ’s ascended glory to be seen by these men. The father wanted to show them the glorified humanity in Christ so they could see him as he really is, not robed in his humiliation, but in his perfected glorification. So he’s giving them a preview of coming events.
God wants these disciples to know the resplendent beauty of the son’s glory, so that they would know where they must forever fix their gaze is on the beauty in the face of Jesus Christ. We all love beauty, don’t we? We do. We love beauty in nature, love beauty in the animal Kingdom, love beauty in the oceans, love beauty in the heavens, sunrises, sunsets, scenery.
Any of those images that come back to us from the folks who are circling around the moon right now. Any of that. We’re going to eat it up once it’s posted on the Internet. We’re going to want to look at that. Every time Jeff Williams, the astronaut, comes here and puts those images up on the screens, we’re transfixed by the beauty and the color and the splendor in the heavens.
We like looking at beauty, and that’s not wrong. We’re created by God to do that. But there is nothing quite like the human face, the human form that catches our eye. God did, after all, create us in his image, the image of God in the image bearers. We happen to find that attractive, and that’s a good thing. So much what is set before us today as beauty is garish and ugly, it’s the opposite of beauty.
In a fallen world, we find the desecration of true beauty, subversion of all that is beautiful and truly wonderful to look at, to see, to behold, that is thrown into the trash heap. And what is elevated instead is what’s shameful and desecrating and defiled and depraved, all smeared with a lot of lipstick.
Standards of beauty today, and I’ve always been in a fallen world, standards of beauty are distorted, perverted. So all of our attention is set on all the wrong characteristics. We esteem all the wrong things. We’re made to be attracted to all the wrong things.
Well, listen, in the beauty of Jesus glory, God put something before our eyes. It’s truly worth staring at a truly perfect person and he doesn’t rebuke us for looking. He doesn’t tell us to turn our gaze, turn our eyes, look away. Instead, he says, look, come gaze, look all you want to.
Stare full into his face, gaze at his beauty, see the grandeur of his glory; see it, wonder at it, rejoice in it, let it fill your soul. John did that, tells us about it in, 1 John 1:1 and 2. He says, “What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, and what we beheld concerning the word of life.
“The life was manifested. We have seen it. We bear witness to you about it. We proclaim to you this, this eternal life.” This is no mere man, this is eternal life. I’m telling you this. I’m writing this to you beloved, for your fellowship and for your joy. I want your fellowship to be with us. Our fellowship was with the father and with his son Jesus Christ.
John writes 2 chapters later and 1 John, he says, “We know that when he appears we shall be like Him because we shall see Him just as He is.” And how is that? How is he really? Well, Jesus is now in the state of ascended glory. This is where Peter, James, and John are there now, even right now, to gaze upon his beauty continually and to their full satisfaction.
And all of those who, you and I have lost to death, who are in the Lord, are there now with them, gazing upon this same beauty, fully satisfied, the deepest longing of their heart for true beauty, true glory, majesty, greatness; satisfied as they look in the face of the glorified Christ, because as they look at his face, they see God himself.
Jesus said to Philip, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” This is what’s known, as we are ascended into heaven it’s known as the beatific vision, where we see the face of God and the face of Jesus Christ. In his physical, improved and perfected form, in his glory, in his ascended glory, resurrected glory, we see his perfection and the perfection of God coming through and shining through his face, who is the image of God.
And we will see that forever, in Jesus, they are now seeing God, and one day we’ll join them. Here on this mountain, God gave them a sneak peek of a perfect beauty. As I said, even after rising from the dead, Jesus doesn’t appear to his disciples prior to his ascension as he does here. He doesn’t appear in the perfected beauty of his blazing glory. Angels appear that way, but not Jesus.
Again, Mary saw him, thought he was the gardener, but ever since his ascension, we can see this in the pages of scripture. Ever since his ascension into heaven, Jesus is now, when he appears, when he’s seen, when he appears in a vision, when he’s written about, he appears in the full perfected beauty of his resurrection glory, his ascended glory and that is how he now is. That’s how he appears now.
If we were to be translated from here, go up into heaven and see him; he’s in glory and he is there forevermore. In fact, John would see him that way 60 years later in the way that he saw him on the Mount of Transfiguration, Matthew 17. He sees him that way again in Revelation 1:14, That his head, his hair were white like white wool, like snow, his eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet are like burnished bronze. And when caused to glow in a furnace, His voice is like the sound of many waters, like a rumbling tidal wave, hurricane, powerful.
Jesus himself, he promised that when he comes again, that’s how the entire world is going to see him, the believing and the unbelieving. You notice that after his resurrection, only believer saw him. Well, in his second coming the entire world’s going to see him, believing and unbelieving, human and angelic, Angel and demon. That is how they will see him.
Luke 21:27, Jesus, himself said, They will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” The second coming, John writes about that in the Revelation. Revelation 19:11, “And then I saw heaven open to behold a White Horse. And He who sits on his called faithful and true, and in righteousness He judges and wages war.” Get out of his way.
You know, when the time is to get out of his way? Now. Psalm 2 says, “Bow, kiss the Son, lest He be angry with you.” You do not want to face the angry end of his sword. His eyes, Revelation 19:12, “are like a flame of fire, on his head are many diadems; having a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself, being clothed with a garment dipped in blood, His name is also called The Word of God.
“And the armies which are in heaven are clothed in fine linen, white and clean,” They, “were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may STRIKE DOWN THE NATIONs, and He will RULE THEM WITH A ROD OF IRON; and HE TREADS THE WINEPRESS OF THE RAGE OF GOS, the Almighty. He has on his garment and on his thigh a name written, ‘KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.” That’s him.
That’s him now, that’s who they saw on the Mount of Transfiguration is that one. The beauty, the power, the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ? As Revelation 19 says, He shares it with us, his saints. They returned from heaven with him on that day, the armies of heaven clothed in fine linen, white and clean. In his beauty ours is realized.
We become all that God has designed us to be, all that God destined us to be, in beauty and perfection in him and this is why Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:18, Where do you keep on looking at that face? Now on the pages of Scripture, we’re to keep on staring because it’s transformative, this gaze. We all with unveiled face, beholding in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory. We long for beauty. In him we find all beauty, perfect beauty.
Next, because of the resurrection, point number two, we get to rest in perfect fellowship. We get to rest in perfect fellowship. Jesus is transfigured before them in verse 2. And then Matthew 17:3 says, “Behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to him, talking with him.” Moses represents the law; Elijah represents the prophets. Together they represent all of Scripture at that time, and their service was to God for Israel, and through the Signiotic covenant, they were leaders in service to mediating the Signiotic covenant to Israel.
The law and the prophets together now with Christ and his several apostles, are here on the Mount of Transfiguration. So we’ve got the law, the prophets, and the gospel all on the mountain. Now, what Moses and Elijah represent, that is important. These three figures together, Moses, Elijah, Jesus the Christ, Law, prophets, gospel, all of that is important.
And there’s so much we could explore of that significance. But we do not want to miss the simple, straightforward and very profound fact that Moses and Elijah, they’re here. They’re here with Jesus, talking with him. That is to say, they are very much alive. Moses died in 1405 BC, 14 centuries before Christ, and God buried his dead body in some unknown place in the valley of the land of Moab. There’s no spectacle, no fanfare, no funeral.
Elijah, we know, did not die, but in the 850s BC, so eight and a half centuries before Christ, he was taken up alive in his natural body. His successor, Elijah saw it, wrote about it, saw the whole thing, that there were Chariots of fire, horses of fire that separated, both he from his master, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. He was transported there in his natural body.
These two saints of the past, I mean centuries past, these two faithful believers are very much alive here, engaging with Jesus, interacting with him, conversing with him in fellowship with him. This is the one to whom both of their ministries pointed. He’s the, he’s the terminus of all their efforts. He’s what they were talking about. He’s the one they were pointing to these two saints of the past.
And consider this Moses and Elijah, here they are on Mount Hermon on this occasion, but you got to realize they’re not seeing the Son of God for the first time here. They’ve spent centuries in his preincarnate presence, in his company, in his fellowship. They are here on this mountain with a first. In the presence of Peter and James and John, they’re meeting the human Jesus for the very first time.
Pretty remarkable event. Moses and Elijah, they’re seeing here the Son of God Incarnate, as the Son of man, but not in the state of his humiliation, as Peter, James, and John have seen him and will see him when he dies on the cross. They are seeing him in the state of his glorification, in a state of being with which they become accustomed and been accustomed for centuries.
So God is pleased to bring these two Old Testament stalwarts into this fellowship. He sends Moses and Elijah back to earth to meet the one to whom they had pointed. What a privilege, what a reward, the one of whom they’d prophesied, the one in whom they’d hoped, the one who they anticipated, the one they pointed others to, to hope in.
And God is also pleased, on the other hand, to give Peter, James, and John the joy of joining this fellowship, to lift them up into this believing fellowship. He allows them to get the glimpse of a, a future fellowship with Christ in his resurrected state, ascended glory along with the Saints of all the ages represented here by Moses and Elijah.
Okay, so looking at verse 4, Peter answered and said to Jesus, wait a minute, he answered. What was the question? Well, we know Peter, and we know that Peter doesn’t need a question for him to start talking and answering. Matthew provides no extra commentary on this, but Mark and Luke, both tell us that Peter, he didn’t know what to say. Again, he’s not silenced by not knowing what to say.
He was frightened, Peter was, by this otherworldly experience. Most people would stay quiet. Most people would be dumbfounded. Say nothing. Not Peter. And for our sakes, I am so thankful he spoke up. Peter answered and said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will make three booths here, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” In not knowing what he was saying. That’s, that’s pretty good. You got to give Peter credit.
They were fearful here. They were frightened. And Mark uses an intensified form of the verb that says they were terrified. But again, that didn’t stop Peter from recognizing, even in his scared, terrified state of mind, he recognized the goodness of this. He saw this for what it is. Lord, it’s, it’s good for us to be here.
He knows God has planned this and God has been favorable in his planning of this because if, if this is happening in front of my eyes and God did not show me favor, I’d be dead right now. He’s got the sense enough, even in his fear to recognize he’s still breathing and he gets to see this.
God’s planned this, Jesus has led them into it, that’s good. They’re experiencing it. The word, good is kalos and it refers here, it refers to morally good, in a lot of context. Here, it refers to the beauty of the experience, the privilege of being able to be there, here, witnessing this exceeding excellence of what they’re seeing, beholding such a privilege.
Again, and it’s even in his frightened state that Peter has the sense enough to be deferential. “Lord,” he calls him Lord, “it’s good for us to be here.” And then he says what’s appropriate and fitting for a Lord, and speaking to him, “if you wish,” if you want this, “I’ll make three booths.”
I love how he takes the initiative here. This is what a good servant of Jesus Christ does. He doesn’t let fear cowl him into silence and inactivity, by the paralysis of analysis, burying his talent under the earth until his master returns and he can show him his talent, rub off the dirt and say, here it is I’ve preserved it for you.
Now he takes whatever he’s given and he does something with it. And Peter, he just takes his ingenuity, his skill and says here’s what I can do. He takes the initiative, even if it’s not actually his to take, he takes it. He’s proactive, comes up with an idea, and yet still in submission to the Lord. I love that he’s resourceful. He’s eager to get to work. His big idea. Here, I’ll make three booths here, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.
He wants to make them all comfortable. He wants to provide a setting for serving, for showing hospitality. And what is the point? Why does he want to keep them there? He wants to further this fellowship. Is that a good desire? Is that a longing we all have for friendship, for intimacy, for closeness, for fellowship? Of course it is. This is drawn out from him here. It’s evoked by this astounding experience.
So what is it that makes this fellowship a most perfect fellowship? Well, it’s a believing fellowship. All of them here share faith in Jesus Christ. There’s no one on this mountain who doesn’t believe. There’s no one on this mountain who’s going to become treacherous, turn the traitor, betray. There. It’s a believing fellowship. It’s also a small and exclusive fellowship, which I’ll explain in a moment, and it proves to be a loyal and a faithful fellowship, as all of them served to the very end.
As a believing fellowship, all these men are exemplary believers. They believe wholeheartedly in God’s Word. They trust in God fully. And because the Word of God points us to Jesus Christ, this fellowship is therefore characterized by faith in him and by trust in him and by wholehearted devotion to him.
They love him with all their heart, soul, strength and mind. And because of what must be believed to enter into a fellowship such as this and remain in this fellowship, we need to understand this is a small and exclusive fellowship. Because they believe that this Jesus is Son of God, Son of man.
He’s second member of the Trinity. He’s God of very God. He’s also a man. He is the God man. He, he’s the only one of His kind, the Incarnate Son of God. Not many believing that. He’s perfect, sinless, not many believing that. He is Savior and the exclusive Savior. There’s salvation, no other name, not a lot of people believing that. And even among the people who say they believe in that, not many live as if he is truly their Lord.
The best friendships form in the partnership of gospel ministry, working together, doing significant good things together for the glory of God in the blessed name of Christ.” Travis Allen
This is a small and exclusive fellowship of the believing, and not everyone will enter into it. Not everyone can enter into it, and that means this and this is, as many of us have experienced, those outside of this fellowship become hostile to it. Jesus said in Matthew 10:36, that a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household, because of believing fellowship. He’ll become enemies to those who he counted as not only friends, but blood, flesh and blood.
Unbelievers grumble against a fellowship like this. They criticize it, it offends them, they oppose it, and finally, when they can’t tolerate it any longer, they finally persecute it. Take the believing fellowship of Moses day. Remember leaving Exodus that there were 600,000 military aged males that were numbered in a census that was taken after they left Egypt.
600,000 and that means, including males who are not of military age and women and kids; what are there a million and a half Israelites, two million? Paul says of them 1 Corinthians 10:5 that with most of them God was not well pleased. They were struck down in judgement. Their bodies were strewn throughout the desert over the forty-year wilderness wandering.
Out of a million plus, who’s left among the believing fellowship? Moses and his siblings, Miriam and Aaron, they weren’t stellar examples of believers, were they? Joshua and Caleb, very small fellowship. What about the believing fellowship in Elijah’s time? Was that any better? Maybe a little, but that faithful prophet, he felt quite alone in his time.
Right after he stood for the Lord in triumph of the 400 prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, Elijah had to go on; after slaughtering those 450 prophets, he had to leave. He had to go on the run because evil Queen Jezebel, along with her feckless husband Ahab the king, they intended to track him down and kill him.
So Elijah’s on the run right after this great victory, you would think that the nation would in wholeheartedly repent to put their faith in God, but they didn’t. Elijah stood before the Lord, as he’s on the run and he said the sons of Israel have forsaken your covenant, they’ve torn down your altars, killed your prophets with the sword. I alone him left and they seek my life too to take it away.
Very sad state of affairs here where Elijah thinks he’s the only believer left in the land. And the Lord answered, assuring him and trying to harden him. He says you’re not alone among the believing. There’s a bigger fellowship than you think, he said, I believe 7000 in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, every mouth that has not kissed him.
Here are Moses and Elijah from the past, both of them surrounded by religious believers. All, all these religious people, very religious people, worshipping people, gathering people, sacrificing people, praying people, but they’re not biblical believers. They’re not true believers in a biblical sense. They’re not those who hold fast to God’s word. They’re not those who keep themselves from idols. They’re not those who are exclusive in their worship and exclusive in their fellowship.
Moses and Elijah and the small fellowships of believers in their day, they’re surrounded by what Jesus would later call wide gate people, broad Road people, all of them religious, all attending synagogue, all sacrificing at the temple. But not true believers, not fellow partakers of this exclusive fellowship in Christ.
It’s no different than Jesus’ day. It had seemed for a while that Jesus had enjoyed a very wide appeal, great popularity, his preachings all over the Internet. You can download his sermons, after he fed the 5000 men if YouTube had been around then that day, feeding the 5000, watching the crowds flock to him, everybody’s saying he’s great.
They loved his miracles, especially the ones that fed them food. They love to hear his stories and tell parables, even if they didn’t have the slightest idea what those parables meant. They’re really good stories. But a response to his teaching about the exclusivity of those who are in the fellowship of the believing. They started to complain against him in John 6:60, started to complain right to his face.
Many of his disciples, and they’re called disciples here because they had been following after him. They looked like disciples when they heard him speaking. They said, whoa, Jesus, “this is a difficult statement. Who can listen to it?” Hey, we’re all in your campaign, Jesus. We’re all about electing you Messiah.
We want to follow you, but you have got to compromise a little bit on this message. This is not going to play well in public. It’s not a good optic. All this exclusivity stuff you’re talking about, this feeding on your flesh and drinking your blood. That doesn’t make any sense. Your enemies are going to take that and make great hay out of that kind of a comment.
And as a result, many of His disciples withdrew. They were not walking with him anymore. There are very few who are willing to pay this price, to endure the loss of worldly fellowship, worldly friendship, worldly approval, family relationships, for the sake of remaining faithful to this believing fellowship. Very few willing to pay the price. Even Peter, James and John, they too fled.
In Jesus moment of need, you and I put to the test, apart from God’s preserving grace, we would not fare much better. So God gave Peter, James, and John a preview of what this glorified, perfected fellowship is. He wanted to cement in their minds, man, don’t go anywhere.
Things are going to look tough. People are going to decry you. They’re going to marginalize you. They’re going to make you look like fools and enemies of all goodness. They’re going to make your religion look harmful to the public. Stick with it. Sad to see many walk away, but it does make the believing fellowship which is a small exclusive fellowship and makes it all that more precious to us because there are so few who remain loyal to the end, so few who remain faithful.
When the many so-called disciples walked away from Jesus because his teaching was too hard, his demands seem too great, Jesus turned to the Twelve and said, do you also want to go, you guys? Peter answered, and here he was asked a question. Blessed, courageous, believing Peter, he answered and said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and come to know that you are the Holy One of God.”
You know why he said that? Jesus said, Did I not choose you? Did I not choose you? What others counted as hard sayings, difficult statements, overbearing, overburdening, Peter in this believing fellowship, they call them words of eternal life. That’s how we see the words of Jesus. That’s how we see his commands and his demands is eternal life.
While others consider Jesus nothing more than a great man and a powerful prophet and a good teacher and a moral example, believing fellowship, they know him to be something way more than that, he’s the holy One of God, the Holy One of God. The believing fellowship, we’re all united in the exclusivity of the teaching of Jesus Christ. They’re able to hear his voice.
By the Spirit’s help and work, they come to understand His words, they see him for who he really is. They’re thus loyal to him, and they’re faithful to the end, because God has opened their hearts to believe. And by the time we get to the events that we are here to remember and to celebrate this weekend, the death of Jesus by crucifixion, the burial of his dead body in the tomb, the resurrection of his body, his physical body, human body from the dead.
After all his acclaim, there’s still, at that time, only a small group of true believers who remained. In the end, Luke sets the number in Acts 1:15, as a gathering of about 120 persons. 120, that’s where the New Testament Christian Church started, 120 people; about the typical size of faithful churches throughout history.
Wherever they are, all over the world, among every tribe, tongue, people and nation, if you take that total of 120 persons and total that up across the globe throughout time, that’s millions and millions and millions of true believers who belong to this exclusive, faithful believing fellowship.
That’s what Peter longed for, to enjoy this perfect fellowship just a little longer, to indulge in the pleasure of believing company, to invest in and improve himself in and benefit from the fellowship and the friendship of of these believers. That’s what we all want.
Is it not the longing of every heart, to have close friendships, close marriages, close families, close fellowship. I’m sure it’s the same way for you. But it’s so sad to me, so tragic how many there are today who so desperately long for friendship and for fellowship, but it eludes them.
For all of our modern connectivity, aided by technological communications that enable us all to be socially networked, we really don’t do friendship very well, do we? So many in churches today, so many religious people talking a lot about fellowship, but they have no idea what fellowship means.
The biblical word for fellowship is Koinonia, and it doesn’t refer to standing around and chatting after some religious service, as good as that is, doesn’t mean having each over for food and drink. Those things are good too, as far as they go. But those things are facilitators of fellowship and not fellowship in and of themselves.
Biblical fellowship, this true Koinonia means partnership it means a a mutually engaged shared interest deeply rooted in spiritual things, partnership for a spiritual God-given purpose. Now, there are other fellowships we see on the earth right now, all you know, people who join together for shared interests, such as political interests or sporting interests or gaming or entertainment interests, schooling interests, family interests, even religious attendance interests, all kinds of fellowships like that.
They may be momentarily meaningful, but they are shallow not deep, temporal not eternal, fleshly not spiritual. All the guys from your fantasy football club are not going to be at your deathbed ministering to you, helping your family. The best friendships, they form in a believing fellowship.
The best friendships form in the partnership of gospel ministry, working together, doing significant good things together for the glory of God in the blessed name of Christ, building and growing together, not sitting as a spectator, but jumping into the ring and doing and working and growing. That’s where friendships are forged through the good and the bad, in the thick and the thin, in the good days and the bad days.
In fact, I’d say it’s the hard and the bad and the difficult and the sometimes sad that that deepens the friendships beyond anything that the good times can. So few today enjoy the privilege of a believing fellowship like that. They shy away from hard. They don’t give themselves to things that will truly cause them to sacrifice, and so they forfeit believing fellowship.
Having perfect focus on Jesus, the Son of God, the Son of man is the father’s will for us.” Travis Allen
So few today are then able to even understand this promise, even anticipate a promise of a fullness of a believing fellowship that let’s face it, even in a church like ours, we’re still left wanting, aren’t we? We want to build booths and just stay and enjoy and relish in one another’s company. And it’s not one another so much as it’s Christ in one another that we just can’t get enough of.
Even as good as our fellowship is today, it’s just a little taste of heaven, a foretaste of glory divine that will one day be fulfilled. But so many people are just too busy thinking about themselves, too busy serving themselves, too busy worrying about what they’re getting out of the transaction. Their minds are not set on eternal things, but temporal things. And as believers, we’re wired differently.
By God’s grace, we’re given a heart to look beyond the temporal, beyond what is seen, to look at what’s unseen and invisible and eternal. We long for a perfect fellowship to be present and abiding, never ending reality, don’t we? It’s what Peter wanted right then and there, but the father intended to teach him a more important lesson, in verse 5.
The resurrection of Jesus means we get a gaze at perfect beauty. We get a rest in believing perfect fellowship, and it’s in this life that we await for the perfect fulfilment of that hope, which becomes increasingly clear as we focus on him.
So let’s give you a Third Point. We get to learn with perfect focus, number three, we get to learn with perfect focus. While Peter was still speaking. I like that, it shows that God the father had no problem interrupting. All right, can I just tell you, as someone who interrupts every now and again, it’s okay to interrupt every now and again. It’s often considered rude, and I’ve certainly been duly corrected.
But there are sometimes that what Peter has to say is not important than what the father has to say. “While he was still speaking, behold a bright cloud overshadowed them. And behold a voice out of the clouds saying, ‘This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.’
The father interrupts Peter’s good but rather untimely idea to make it abundantly clear, now is not the time to rest in booths. Now is not the time to sit and chat awhile with Moses and Elijah and fellowship with all the believing. Now is time to rest in the beloved son, to listen to him and to follow him and serve him into his will.
We have the privilege because of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. We have the privilege of knowing that everything he said was true. Everything that he’s promised has come to pass and will come to pass. So we have the joy of communing with him in the Spirit by the reading and the study of Scripture, hearing his voice in what’s written, worshipping Him in the joy of private and public prayer. That’s ours.
We couldn’t do that if he didn’t rise from the dead. We couldn’t do that apart from the resurrection. If he didn’t rise from the dead, he’d be nothing more than another false Messiah. All of his musings and teachings and all that would be lost to the dustbin of history.
But because Jesus has risen from the dead, because he left his grave clothes behind in the empty tomb, he’s the first fruits of the resurrection. This transfiguration glory, which is the promise of a future resurrection, is also a promise of what’s to come for all the believing, us. This is the point that God the Father wants us to see.
Moses in the law pointed to Christ, Elijah and all the prophets pointed to Christ, and the father too, now points to Christ. Let’s follow that direction. It’s clear and unmistakable here. God doesn’t allow us to interpret his words any other way. Focus on Christ, listen to him.
By God’s eternal degree, he chose to concentrate all the focus of his eternal intertrinitarian love in the beautiful person, in the glorious redemption of his beloved son and all of those with believing hearts, all those who are members of his Church, all who abide in Christ and the fellowship of the Saints.
They submit cheerfully to the direction of the father. They trace the path of the divine affections to their glorious end, focused in the beloved son. Just as Paul prayed in Ephesians chapter 3, “For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, for whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.
“And I pray that He would give you according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And that you being firmly rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth. And to know the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.”
If having perfect focus on Jesus, the Son of God, the Son of man is the father’s will for us. And if that is to be our eternal joy, if that’s what makes heaven heavenly, well, that fulfills one of the deepest longings of every human heart for knowledge and truth and love. To see reality of all being, to enjoy the satisfaction of full understanding in him.
Now, this glorious future secured by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, forever seeing the beauty of God and man together in the face of Christ, forever resting in the believing fellowship, forever focusing all attention on the one in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge dwell, the one in whom all the fullness of Deity dwells. None of that happens for any of us apart from the kind condescension of God, apart from the tender mercies of God, apart from the redeeming grace of God.
And so finally, this brings us to a final point, another perfection of our resurrection hope, number four we get to stand in perfect assurance. We get to stand in perfect assurance. When the disciples heard the word of the father, it says they fell on their faces and they were terrified.
When God came to focus their attention on the son, it says that a bright cloud overshadowed them and a voice came out of the cloud. You know what that’s about? That’s about what’s called Shekinah Glory. Disciples knew their Bibles. They remember Sinai. They remember that Shekinah coming down on Sinai.
They know what happens when God shows up, what happens when the bright cloud of that Shekinah glory comes to over shadow mortal men. They know what happens when the voice of God is heard and the hearts of men are struck with fear and wonder and awe. And yet in spite of fear, the believing draw near anyway.
Same thing happened at Sinai. Exodus chapter 20 verse 18 says, when the people witnessed the presence of God and those terrible manifestations of thunder and lightning flashes, ear piercing trumpet blasts, the fire of God coming down and causing the rocks of Sinai to smoke. It says there that the people shook with fear. They stood at a distance and they said to Moses, you speak to us and we’ll listen, but don’t let that God speak to us lest we die.
In other words, people we’re not fully assured in the presence of God, they weren’t confident to stand before him. Why is that? Well, we can understand they were sinners. They knew they were sinners. They had no assurance of being right before God. They had no confidence of forgiven sins. And so they shook with fear.
When fear characterizes your heart, dominates your thinking, there’s a good reason to check and see, do I know this God in a saving way? Do I have the confidence that I’m reconciled to him or is something wrong? Because Moses, he’s seeing the same stuff. He’s a man of the same flesh. He has his fears, his worries, his anxieties. But you know what he said to his own people. Don’t be afraid, for God has come in order to test you, in order the fear of him may be with you so that you may not sin.
The point of the fear and the awesomeness of God is to drive away your sin, so that you may draw near. Don’t you get it? He’s seeing this whole thing with believing eyes. They’re seeing it through unbelieving eyes. And why does he see it that way? Because God assured his heart. Unbelievers recoil, they draw back, they stay away.
But Peter, James and John look at them. They’re here. They stay put, make no mistake they’re afraid. I mean, they fell on their faces. They fell down terrified. Why? Because they know what they are too, that they’re sinners. Then they’re sinners in the presence of terrifying holiness.
But they are not going to go anywhere. They can’t. They bow before God’s mercy, and God’s mercy and grace is what they receive. Look at verse 7, “Jesus came to them and he touched them.” I love the human touch there, don’t you? “He touched them and he said, ‘Get up and do not be afraid.’ Lifting up their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.”
Elijah had his own moment like this when he was dejected, as I mentioned before, lamenting the low ebb of piety in Israel, the idolatry, the killing of the faithful, the prophets. It’s feeling the loneliness that’s known only to the faithful believing.
God told Elijah to go stand on the Mount Horeb, which is Sinai. Stand there. Several manifestations of God’s magnificent, terrifying power were unleashed on the mountain. You may remember hurricane force winds tearing the mountains and the rocks apart, breaking the rocks in pieces. An earthquake followed that, followed by a blazing fire. And God is in none of those manifestations. But then came a thin, gentle whisper, the voice of great comfort and encouragement and tenderness and recommissioning.
Moses too, after Israel’s idolatrous sin in Exodus 32. Remember when they were dancing like pagans around the golden calf? Moses is utterly befuddled, totally enraged, indignant to see his people turning again, back to idolatry. What is going on? He is utterly alone in his believing fellowship. Even Aaron, his brother, has led them into this. Why? And God comes to him and says, like Moses, I’ll wipe them all out. We’ll start over with you. And God could have done that, could start over with Moses, Except for Moses being drawn into his mediatorial role.
He mediates for his people. He’s concerned for the glory of God and the reputation of God among the nations. And so God in this act of great condescension says, yeah, okay, I won’t start over. I’ll continue to bless you, but I’m not going to be with you. And Moses says, then don’t even send me. If you’re not going to be with me, don’t even send me. If you’re not going to go with us, forget it, kill me now.
So in an act of great condescension, in God’s infinite mercy, God said he would continue with them, and he visited Moses, his faithful servant in the spirit of gentleness. He draws Moses close, proclaims to Moses his name, and with it his character. In Exodus 34:6, he says his name, “Yahweh, Yahweh God,” and then he starts to proclaim his character, “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding and loving kindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, and who forgives iniquity, and transgression, and sin; and yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished.”
For Peter, James and John, here on the Mount of Transfiguration, on Mount Hermon, they’re lying on their faces. They too are in fear and trembling before the awesome glory of God. They too recognize their own sinfulness and their need for a Savior, their need for forgiveness, their need of cleansing to be pure, to be made righteous. And they too here experience the compassion of God, the tender mercy of God, the graciousness and lovingkindness of God. And for, for them it came in the gentle and very human touch of the hand of Jesus.
The grace came in the assuring words of the Savior. Get up, stand up, get to your feet, do not be afraid. In the cross, your sin will be atoned for. In the tomb your shame will be forever buried, and in the resurrection your life will be fully realized, your heart’s fully assured, your glory fulfilled.
Listen, beloved, this is the greatest longing of the human heart, to be right, to be justified, to have our consciences clear, because we know that our sin has been fully dealt with. To know that we have a a righteous standing and we know that righteous standing can’t come because of our own merits of righteousness, because we don’t have any.
Our righteous standing is found in one who never committed any sin, nor was any deceit found in his mouth. He’s righteous in every way. He’s the very righteousness of God Incarnate, and being found in him, we’re able to stand in him. That’s the longing of every human heart. And I can say that without fear of contradiction, because it’s not just the believing that think that way and feel that way.
You know, unbelievers, they want to justify themselves all the time. They’re justifying their actions left and right, trying to give reasons and excuses and justifications for every one of their bad thoughts and bad behaviors; who want to defend themselves, excuse themselves, justify themselves.
Everybody wants to be right, but only those who find themselves in Christ are right, not because of themselves, but because Christ is right. He’s righteous. If you will put all your trust in Jesus, God will justify you, full stop. He will declare you righteous in Christ and then get ready, because your life will change forever. He’ll rescue you from death, which all deserve because of our sins. And instead of death, he’ll grant you life. He’ll grant you eternal life. He’ll grant you perfect beauty and perfect fellowship and perfect focus and perfect assurance.
If there are any of you who do not yet know this gospel and know this Christ in a saving way, if you’d like to know more, I’ll be down here at the front after the service. And I mean, you’ve got neighbors on your left and your right who are members of this church who would love to speak to you as well. But I’d love to meet you. And if you’re visiting our church, I’d love to meet you as well. But let me pray for you now. I want to see everybody within the sound of my voice be stirred to believing faith because the Holy Spirit is working in you to open your eyes to the truth.
Our Father, thank you. Thank you for this resurrection celebration and thank you for the significance of the fullness of all of our longings met in the resurrection of Jesus the Christ and our resurrection with him. We’re so thankful that by your grace and by your mercy were found in him, not having a righteousness of our own, but one that comes by faith in Jesus Christ. We thank you that you’ve granted us eternal life, and we look forward to the fullness of gazing at perfect beauty, of resting in perfect fellowship, of learning with, with a perfect focus on listening to the son with our hearts fully assured in the full and perfect forgiveness of our sins. We do pray for those who are here who do not yet know you, grant them life everlasting. And for those of us who do know you, we want to thank you yet again as we get to do right now in song. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.