His Transfiguration

Introduction

Movie: Be Transformed (1.5 minutes)

Romans 12:2 ESV

2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

What a great truth to be focusing in on right now. To not submit to the fear, panic or chaos that the what the world around us would form us into, but instead...to be transformed by the renewal of our mind so that we can know what is truly good acceptable and perfect. “Good, acceptable and perfect” in that they are in line with the will of God. To be transformed.

Tension

The Greek word for “transformed” is μεταμορφόω (metamorphoo) and you might recognize this sound of this word as it is where we get our English word “metamorphosis”. If you were to look up the word “metamorphosis” in an English Dictionary you would get two definitions:

I. In an insect or amphibian, it is the process of transformation from an immature form to an adult form in two or more distinct stages. We love to learn about this process at our house. We have a couple of small ponds where we have seen eggs turn into tadpoles that grow legs and eventually crawl out as frogs. We also participate in “search and rescue missions” for monarch caterpillars, as we walk along our country road and try and get to the milkweed plants before the township brush cutters do. Again, we love watching the metamorphosis of these tiny, green, crawling, worm like creatures transform into colorful full winged butterflies that fly off back into the wild. It’s a transformation. It’s a metamorphosis, as these insects and amphibians go from one form to a distinctly different one.

But there is a second definition:

2. A change of the form or nature of a thing or person into a completely different one, by natural or supernatural means. We can see a “thing” change by natural means in something like the “Fixer-upper” show with Chip and Joanna Gaines. Anyone watch that show? It is fun to watch this couple use their natural skills and talents to transform a “fixer upper” house into a dream home. Then at the end of every episode, they host this “big reveal” event, where they pull back the curtain and reveal the fully transformed house to the buyers. It’s a metamorphosis, a change in the form of the house by natural means.

But Romans 12 is talking about this last definition…a change of the form of a person by supernatural means. God wants to do that transformation in each one of our lives, just as He did in a much greater way in the life of Jesus. All the signs and wonders that Jesus did in his life and ministry were meant to point to who Jesus was, but today we are going to look at what we could call, God’s “big reveal” ceremony for His Son Jesus. And as cool as the transformation process of frogs, butterflies and home remodels can be, they are nothing compared to what Peter James and John experience as they watched Jesus goes through His “metamorphosis”.

This story is found in Matthew chapter 17, so if you will open your Bibles up with me there, it is on page 822 in the Bibles in chairs. As you are turning there, I will pray and we will dive into God’s Word together.

Truth

So we are continuing in our series called “CHRISTOS” where we are diving deep into the life of Jesus the Christ. Last week we saw Jesus asking this all important question: Who do you say that I am? And one of the Disciples, Peter steps up on behalf of the other 11 and declares, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God”. And he had the right answer, he nailed it…this time, but just a few short verses later Peter gets it terribly wrong.

This is encouraging, isn’t it? That even the Apostle Peter had room to grow when it came to understanding God’s “good, acceptable and perfect” will. If we back up a bit from Chapter 17 into verse 21 of chapter 16 we read...

Matthew 16:21 ESV

21 From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.

Remember Peter’s confession marks this turning point in Jesus’ ministry. He is no longer going to be drawing the same size crowds that He once did and He will be doing fewer signs and wonders because His focus now is on preparing His Disciples for the rest of His mission. So He reveals to the Disciples the Father’s plan that He should suffer under the religions leaders hand, be killed and then rise again.

Don’t miss this guys, because it is so important. We are going to return to this idea next week but hear it now: Jesus was not a victim of circumstances. He was not killed because He got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yes, there were power issues at play. Yes, there were political conflicts involved. Yes, there were men with evil hearts making choices in it all…but nothing forced Jesus into this position except His love for you and I. As the “God-Man” He could have walked away at any moment. Instead, knowing all that would happen to Him, He resolutely walked into it.

Why? Because this was the will of the Father and He was not going to let anyone get in the way of His obeying His Heavenly Father…even one of His own Disciples. Because after Jesus told His disciples He would suffer, die and rise again, it says...

Matthew 16:22–23 ESV

22 And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” 23 But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

Jesus calls his Satan! Now don’t misunderstand this, Jesus isn’t saying that Satan has now possessed Peter or that Peter is secretly a Satan worshiper who has infiltrated their ranks. No. What Jesus is saying is that as much as Peter was blessed in that he declared something that God had revealed to him, he is now cursed in that he is expressing something that opposes the Word and will of God.

That is who and what Satan is. It is what his name means. He is the adversary. The one who opposes. The one who is dead set on stopping God’s will here on the earth - as if he even could, but he keeps trying and any time any of us oppose the Word and Will of God, then we are playing for Satan’s team. We are doing “Satanic” things.

Recently, I keep hearing Christians that I respect describing various movements and ideologies in our culture as being “Satanic” or “Demonic” and it’s makes me uncomfortable…but I don’t know that they are wrong. I don’t know about you, but I guess I have always thought that to truly be “Satanic” means that it is somehow involved with the cultic practices and rituals of the Satanic Church…but here Jesus is calling Peter “Satan” because he is opposing the will of the Father.

Peter probably had good intentions. He probably thought he was doing a good thing, even trying to protect his Rabbi, His Savior His Lord. “Don’t worry, they are aren’t going to get you, I got your back kind of thing” But Jesus didn’t need rescuing. He wasn’t a victim. He came to do this very thing, and so in the strongest terms He could use He tells Peter to stop thinking in earthly terms and set your mind on God’s Word and Will.

And I understand if that makes you uncomfortable like it does me - but that doesn’t make it untrue. And it makes me sit up and take notice, guys. If Peter can find himself working for Satan’s team, who am I to say that I haven’t opposed God’s will in my life. Maybe this experience was a part of Peter’s later warning in 1 Peter 5:8-9a where He says...

“Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 Resist him, firm in your faith,...”

And one of many things that I love about Jesus is that He doesn’t give correction like this without following it up with teaching...

Matthew 16:24–26 ESV

24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?

Peter’s understanding of Jesus’ Kingdom was still limited to a temporary earthly reign, but Jesus was following God’s will into something much bigger than that.

Matthew 16:27–28 ESV

27 For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. 28 Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Of course if all of this is about Jesus’ triumphal return, then this last is a very confusing one, because everyone who was standing there that day has now tasted death. So what is Jesus talking about? It seems clear that he is talking about what is about to happen at His “Transformation” where only “some” of the Disciples saw Jesus in His “kingdom” form, and that is what Matthew gives us next in chapter 17.

Our first them for the week then is...

1. Our faith in Christ is strengthened when we see His glory revealed (Matthew 17:1-2).

Matthew 17:1–2 ESV

1 And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. 2 And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.

So the word “transfigured” here is a form of the same Greek word, “metamorphoo”, but more than that Matthew and the other Gospel writers give us a vivid description of what happened. His face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light.

And I feel like there have been a lot of story tellers who have borrowed this imagery of brilliant light accompanying transformation. Have you ever noticed how many Disney films and cartoons use this same imagery? The one that comes quickest to my mind is from the movie “Shrek”, do you remember at the end of the first “Shrek” where the “spell” that princess Fiona lived under was finally broken with “true loves first kiss” and then she would be transformed into take “loves pure form”...Right? And so she kisses the Ogre Shrek and immediatelyshe was spun around and light radiated out from her…and then ended up in the form of an Ogre like here “true love” Shrek. This is common imagery in “fairy tale” movies like this, but what we are reading this morning is no fairy tale.

The transformation that Jesus goes through here is something that pointed to His dual identity, His being fully Man and yet fully God. In this moment, Jesus was radiating the glory that belongs to Him as the Son of God. For these brief moments these three men were able to see Jesus in his “Kingdom” form, and they then bore witness to what they saw.

One of these three men John, began his Gospel account with this description...

John 1:14 ESV

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

He was there that day, so He could speak with great confidence of the glory of the Son of God. And later in his Gospel, John quotes Jesus having said...

John 17:5 ESV

5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

You see Jesus was not being given this glory, it was already His. It had been His for eternity past, but as it says in Philippians Jesus “emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” So what these three men saw on the mountain that day was Jesus true form, and He showed it to these men so that they would be witnesses of it for all people, even to us today.

We can also read Peter’s testimony of this account in his second letter where it says...

2 Peter 1:16–18 ESV

16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” 18 we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.

Peter is speaking of this moment here and how the faith of these three men was strengthened in their witnessing of Jesus’ glory, the glory of God. And just as Jesus had this glory since before all time, He maintains it for all eternity. In the book of Revelations, also written by the John who was there on the mountain, we find this description of the returning Jesus:

Revelation 1:16 ESV

16 In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.

There is nothing brighter, nothing purer, nothing more impactful than the glory of God as it reveals to us the other-worldliness of the Christ. The Heavenliness of Christ. It is his glory, His Godness on display.

1. Our faith in Christ is strengthened when we see His glory revealed (Matthew 17:1-2).

2. Our faith in Christ is enriched when we immerse ourselves in His presence (Matthew 17:3-4).

Matthew 17:3–4 ESV

3 And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. 4 And Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.”

So along with Jesus radiating His eternal glory, He also held conference with Moses and Elijah, one of the other Gospels tells us that this conference was about the rest of Jesus’ mission to suffer and die on the cross.

But why these two? Well there were a lot of reasons. For one thing, both of these men left this world in mysterious ways. Elijah was taken up to heaven in fiery chariot and scripture says only God knows where He buried Moses. But these men were also two of them most notable leaders of the children of God in their time, and they represented two of the past ages that led up to the coming of the Christ. Moses was given the Law, and so He was there representing the Law, and Elijah widely recognized as the most significant prophet, was there representing the collective knowledge of the prophets. This is what God’s people relied upon up until the coming of the Christ, the Messiah. Even as Jesus said back in Matthew 5:

Matthew 5:17 ESV

17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

And here these two iconic figures are conferencing with Jesus over the next steps in the plan and to fulfull the plan of the Father.

And as they were meeting together, Peter speaks up again. Overwhelmed by Christ’s glory and all He is experiencing, Peter wants this moment to continue so he suggests that they take steps to preserve this experience, setting up dwelling places for all three of them because He doesn’t want the majesty of this moment to end.

I love how Mark’s Gospel gives us a fuller picture of this event, because remember John Mark wrote his Gospel primarily from the testimony of the Apostle Peter who was there that day.

Mark 9:5 ESV

5 And Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.”

reads just like Matthew, and then Mark adds this to the picture

Mark 9:6 ESV

6 For he did not know what to say, for they were terrified.

It’s like Peter is sayin, “Man I didn’t know what to say I was so scared...” And I love that Mark gives us this side of the picture because too often we have been told that “presence of God glory” brings us into some sort of relaxed blissful just …haaaaaa state, but that is not what we see throughout Scripture.

Think of the Nativity story when the shepherd experienced the “glory of the Lord that shown about them and they were what? Terribly afraid.

Or when the apostle Paul met Christ in His glory and it literally knocked him off his horse

Or every time a heavenly messenger shows up the response is never: Oh, good an Angel is here....I just feel so relaxed. That is never the response.

The Glory of God doesn’t relax us in our state of brokenness, it illuminates our brokeness, sheds light on it, even inflames it inside us. We cannot help but be moved and shaken up by any encounter with the one that Scripture describes elsewhere as the one who “dwells in unapproachable light.”

And so “our faith IS enriched when we immerse ourselves in God’s presence” but only in the sense that we are reminded once again that except for the Never-Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love of God we would have no hope. And so with nowhere else to turn, we place all our “faith” in the one who died for us, in our place so that we can now approach the glory of God with confidence.

Our faith is strengthened when we see His glory, and enriched when we immerse ourselves in His presence and lastly this morning...

3. Our faith in Christ is evident when we worship Him and obey His commands (Matthew 17:5-9).

So the three Disciples are standing there overwhelmed at all they have witnessed and Peter being a “ready-jump-look” kind of guy offers his suggestion and...

Matthew 17:5–6 ESV

5 He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” 6 When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified.

This is where Matthew tells us the Disciple are terrified, but we have head these words spoken from heaven before...at Jesus’ baptism, with the exception of that last phrase. “Listen to him!”

You see this is where Peter got it wrong earlier, he was not listening to Jesus, but making his own plans on how He could best serve Jesus. He had good intentions, but he wasn’t listening to Jesus, so he ended up working for the other team. This is what God tells Peter, mid sentence. As if to say to Peter, as well as all of us, “Stop trying to serve me on your own terms, and listen to my Son.

The verb “listen” here is in the present, active, imperative, tense…yeah, I had to look it up too... but what that means is that this is something that God is commanding us to do continually. It is an ongoing command that we should continually be “listening” to Jesus. And they had the opportunity in the next moment...

Matthew 17:7–9 ESV

7 But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no fear.” 8 And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only. 9 And as they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, “Tell no one the vision, until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.”

Gospel Application

And just like our text last week, we see this strange thing where Jesus is revealed as the Christ and then says…but, Shhh don’t tell anyone. Sitting on this side of these historical events this sounds weird to us, but Jesus was following the perfect timing of the Father’s plan and it just wasn’t time to reveal these things yet.

But that time does come and the event that initiates it is also on a mountain. Just as Jesus said he did go to Jerusalem and he did suffer many things from the elders, priests and scribes and then he was killed, crucified on the cross, but three days later he rose again. Showing himself to hundreds of people. Revealing in this final sign that He is indeed the Christ Savior of the World.

Matthew 28:18–20 ESV

18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Jesus instructs His followers that now is the time. Tell the whole world that I am the Christ. Make disciples and teach them all you have heard and seen in me. And what these disciples saw they have passed on to you and me.

2 Corinthians 3:18 ESV

18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Landing

When we truly believe that Jesus is God and Savior, may we fall on our faces before the glory of the living Lord, listening to Him and obeying His every command and allowing our obedience to transform us so that they world may see Him in us.