See the Glory of God Part 1
Notes
Transcript
See the Glory of God Part 1
See the Glory of God Part 1
1 And Jesus was saying to them, “Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.”
2 Six days later, Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John, and brought them up on a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them;
3 and His garments became radiant and exceedingly white, as no launderer on earth can whiten them.
4 Elijah appeared to them along with Moses; and they were talking with Jesus.
5 Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three tabernacles, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
6 For he did not know what to answer; for they became terrified.
7 Then a cloud formed, overshadowing them, and a voice came out of the cloud, “This is My beloved Son, listen to Him!”
We need to see the glory of God. We live in crazy times and need to be reminded how strong our anchor in Jesus Christ really is. The glory of God is overwhelming and slightly mind blowing. This is going to be a 3-part message. There is so much here, it could easily be much more. Jesus is an amazing speaker in how He packed so much into small amounts of time.
Verse 1 starts out with a prophecy. I am sure there were prophecies quite plentiful at this time as in our times. We have heard so many prophecies and majority did not come to pass. This would be the same during the time of Jesus. People were under an oppressive government and were desperate for the Messiah. They were looking for another King David to fight for them and set them free. There were numerous prophets who prophesied falsely in the Old Testament or the Old Covenant. They spoke words which the king and the people wanted to hear. It is no different today. Jesus is different. If He says it, then He will do it. You can depend on it.
1 And Jesus was saying to them, “Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.”
He fulfilled it six days later. He took Peter, James, and John. Why these three? Why not all?
11 For there is no partiality with God.
So why not Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot. Well we can imagine why not Judas Iscariot, the traitor. What makes the difference? There are many times we judge our value to God by the task He has given us. What are our gifts? It is in our human nature. Pride and envy. We are not the only ones who may struggle with this. The disciples struggled also especially after this experience of witnessing Jesus’ transfiguration.
33 They came to Capernaum; and when He was in the house, He began to question them, “What were you discussing on the way?”
34 But they kept silent, for on the way they had discussed with one another which of them was the greatest.
They are going from town to town doing ministry and in between stops debating who is the greatest among them. Competition among the saints. It should not be so. But sadly, we see too much in our world today. We get so focused on ourselves and how spiritual we think we may be especially compared to someone else that we miss the big picture. The big picture is not, “I am more righteous than you”, but the big picture is:
PROCLAIM GOOD NEWS TO THE POOR
PROCLAIM FREEDOM FOR THE PRISONERS
RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND
SET THE OPPRESSED FREE
PROCLAIM THE LORD’S FAVOR
Jesus gave the answer in
35 Sitting down, He called the twelve and said to them, “If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.”
So why did Jesus choose these three?
Would it be a consolation? An anchor when things would get very difficult. Peter would be crucified upside down. Not only that, but his wife was killed right before him, presumably crucified. As they led his wife to her death, Peter called out “Remember the Master”. When they brought Peter out to be crucified, he begged not to be crucified in the same manner of Jesus. He felt he was unworthy to die the same way as Jesus, so he begged them to crucify him upside down. Peter was the rock the church was built on. He was the one to preach at the day of Pentecost and 3,000 people came to a salvation knowledge of Jesus Christ.
James was the first martyr. James was killed by the sword. Probably the quickest and least painful death of all the disciples.
John lived the longest. He died of natural causes, certainly not because Rome did try. During either the reign of Nero or Domitian, John was arrested for preaching Jesus around Ephesus. They tried to kill him with poison. Nothing happened. The poison must have been made wrong, so they gave to another prisoner. Guess what? He died immediately and John revived him. Either the emperor or proconsul figured out a way to kill John for sure while entertaining the public. They decided they put him in a caldron of boiling oil at the next gladiatorial games in the great theatre in Ephesus. This idea should rid them of John once and for all and satisfy the mob.
God had other plans. Don’t you just love it when God has other plans. I know I do. The boiling oil did not harm him. Not only did things not go the way the emperor was counting on, not only did John not suffer, not only did John not die, but many people came to a salvation knowledge of Jesus Christ because of what they saw. Praise God. God can take the difficult things in our life and turn them around for His glory.
Conclusion:
It all comes from servanthood. These three men were blessed by seeing the glory of God. To see Jesus Christ in His glory and hear God the Father speak over Him. They let it go to their heads and felt they deserved more power because of it. They learned it comes down to servanthood. If we want to be the greatest, we must come last. We must serve. It is counter cultural, but it is wealth in God’s economy.
Bow your heads and close your eyes.
Where do you stand in God’s economy?
Does pride in what God has blessed you with or the talents God has given clouded your vision? God gave you those gifts to further the kingdom of Christ.
Is servanthood something you struggle with? Do you find it hard to serve others? It all starts with our relationship with the Lord.
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
31 They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
9 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;
10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.