Beholding the Face of God: Mark 9:2-13

Our sermon series is in the Gospel of Mark this summer.

This morning we're looking at chapter 9, verses 2 through 13.

Reading God's Word.

And after six days, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John and led them up a high mountain by themselves.

And he was transfigured before them.

And his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them.

And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus.

And Peter said to Jesus, Rabbi, it's good that we're here.

Let us make three tents, one for you, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.

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

And a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud.

Listen to him.

And suddenly looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only.

And as they were coming down the mountain, he charged them to tell no one what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead might mean.

And they asked him, Why do the scribes say that first Elijah must come?

And he said to them, Elijah does come first to restore all things.

And how is it written of the Son of Man that he should suffer many things and be treated with contempt?

But I tell you that Elijah has come.

And they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written of him.

This is the reading of God's powerful, majestic word.

Only the Spirit can open our ears and soften our hearts.

Let's ask the Spirit for his work.

Lord, we pray this morning that through the work of your Spirit our eyes would be opened.

Our eyes, our ears, our hearts, our minds.

Holy Spirit, would you unlock what is keeping the truth out?

Would you give us a desire?

Would you give us even a vision to see the real Jesus this morning?

We pray in his name, amen.

This morning we're talking about the transfiguration of Jesus.

One of the most amazing miracles in the Bible.

As Jesus was revealed to his disciples, a few of them, Peter, James, and John, on the top of a mountain.

Mark tells us six days later, six days later than what?

Peter's confession of Jesus as Messiah.

Last week we looked at a very important point.

The connection, the correlation between messiahship and discipleship.

If you weren't here with us last Sunday, let me encourage you to go back and give it a listen.

It is foundational to your understanding of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.

Our discipleship has everything to do with our understanding of his Messiahship.

Six days later, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John and goes up a hike to a high mountain, most likely Mount Hermon, over 9,000 feet high.

Have any of you ever climbed a mountain that high?

One of my favorite mountain hikes was in New Hampshire and Mount Washington many years ago, and that was only like 6,200 feet.

This was a tall mountain.

Luke tells us, Matthew and Luke give us other background material for the same event.

Luke tells us that they went up to pray.

Take that in for a moment.

9,000-foot mountain.

I mean, they must have been exhausted when they got to the top.

But think about the view they had.

But they didn't go up primarily for the view, they went up to pray.

Jesus knew that's what was needed at that time.

And then the disciples did what they do well, right?

They fell asleep.

Jesus starts the prayer meeting, and the disciples doze off.

Well, you could say, well, yeah, but Tom, it was a 9,000-foot hike.

Yeah.

Jesus managed to stay awake.

As Jesus was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling.

And behold, two men were talking with him: Moses and Elijah.

Moses representing the law of God, the Pentateuch.

Elijah representing the prophets of God in the Old Testament.

And they were speaking of Jesus' departure.

Luke tells us now Jesus, James and John were heavy with sleep.

The disciples were, but then the radiance of Jesus glowed like they had never seen, they could not have imagined.

And they saw his glory.

As I compare Matthew's account and Luke's account with Mark, again, we just see this is Mark.

Brevity.

Mark likes to get right to the facts, right to the points.

And yet, when we look at all three synoptic gospels, as we talked about, we see as we compare it, we see a fuller, the fullest picture of this.

Peter says, Rabbi, it's good that we're here.

Let's make three tents for you, Moses, and Elijah.

Jesus says, That's not such a great idea, Peter, and he goes on to explain why.

Peter, Mark tells us, Peter didn't know what to say, for they were terrified.

They had seen God in the flesh, fully God, his divine splendor unveiled.

That's what this transfiguration is about.

What we have here is a snapshot of the essence of worship.

What is worship?

There's really two points this morning: revelation and response.

Dr.

John Murray, the great theologian, said there are two aspects to worship: God's address to us and our response to his address.

The former consists particularly in every worship service, in reading and preaching of the Word of God.

The response consists of our adoration, our reception, our thanksgiving, our prayer.

In worship, God is speaking to us.

The reading and the preaching of the Word of God are the voice of God.

Our first response then will be characterized by the reverence that consists in a profound sense of the majesty of God.

There's nothing casual about worship.

When you are in the presence of a holy God, as we sang about this morning, and you sense his presence, there's nothing casual about your worship.

This is what they encountered that morning.

Revelation.

Let's look at first the revelation of Jesus' glory.

And Jesus was transfigured.

This word, this verb transfigured, is used only four times in the New Testament.

We get our English word metamorphosis from this word.

Something that's changed radically.

Now, what's when you think of that word, metamorphosis, what do you think of from high school biology?

Right?

The caterpillar that turns is metamorphosed into a beautiful butterfly.

There's this radical change that takes place.

That's the word in the New Testament for this.

Other than the transfiguration account, it occurs in Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2.

Romans 12:1

Won't take the time to turn there, but what it says is when you meet Jesus, the real Jesus, when the real you meets the real Jesus, you undergo a metamorphosis.

Did you know that?

You become a new creature, the Bible says.

The old is gone, the old is dead, the new is present.

That's because you were born again by the Spirit of God, believing in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That's what this word is pointing to there.

The other time it's used is in 2 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 18.

2 Corinthians 3:18

As we behold the glory of God, and look, you can go to worship and miss the glory of God, all right?

We all know that.

Just because you go to a worship service doesn't mean you behold the glory of God.

But sometimes you do.

I didn't plan it.

When we got done singing that second song, Christ the Victor, I was weeping.

I didn't schedule that.

I didn't plan that.

It wasn't in my notes.

I was beholding the glory of God as we were singing about Christ the Victor.

And you all sang the amens beautifully.

I couldn't sing it.

I couldn't sing it.

But it was in my heart.

When you encounter by the work of the Holy Spirit, and you behold the real God, and you bring the real you to Him, your change from the inside out.

That's what this word means.

The revelation of Jesus' glory.

Here, the change is not in Jesus' nature because he's always been God.

He's always going to be God.

He did not become God at this moment.

But rather, it was an outward visible transformation of his appearance that changed.

These disciples saw something that most believers see only at death: the unveiled glory of Jesus Christ.

You're going to see that, Christian, one day.

You're going to see what they saw.

All of a sudden, Jesus was revealed to them in all of his divine splendor.

His face shone like the sun.

The disciples saw a blinding display of light as if they were caught, as one commentator said, as if they were caught in the high beams of heaven.

I love that.

Have you ever been caught in the high beams?

Yes, you have.

It's blinding.

Multiply that a thousand million times.

They were looking at the high beams of the glory of God shining in the face of the Son of God.

And it was life-changing.

His deity shining through the veil of his humanity.

They were seeing a visible manifestation of God's invisible glory.

Commentator David Gooding puts it like this: it was to convince the disciples beyond any shadow of a doubt of the real existence of the other world, the eternal kingdom.

Our world is not the only world.

There's another world.

They were given to see that that other world is not just future to our world, but concurrent with it, though also before it and beyond it.

They further saw that though this world is normally invisible to us, Christ had contact with both worlds simultaneously.

And what is more, though he was still on earth, his person in clothes could and did take on a radiance suited to the glory of the other world.

Did you catch that?

That's what they saw.

They worshiped that day.

They didn't just go to church, they worshiped.

And a cloud overshadowed them.

This word is used in the Old Testament in Exodus chapter 40, verse 35, to describe the cloud, the Shekinah glory cloud that filled the tabernacle with the glory of God.

Exodus 40:35

That's when this word is used, overshadowed.

This word, this Greek word is only used a few times in the scriptures.

That's a very appropriate time.

That doesn't surprise us, right?

When the tabernacle was constructed, when the tabernacle was finished, only the high priest could go into the Holy of Holies one day a year on the Day of Atonement.

Otherwise, he would die in the presence of this kind of radiant holiness.

And God filled that tabernacle, and later God filled that temple with the glory, his glory.

Think hard for a moment.

Do you remember in the New Testament?

Think about Jesus' family when someone was overshadowed.

Mary.

Remember?

Jesus' mother?

Chapter 1.

The power of the Most High overshadowed Mary at the Annunciation.

This is rare air we're breathing when the Bible talks about this overshadowing.

Listen to me carefully.

Jesus does not point to the glory of God.

Jesus is the glory of God.

If you don't understand that, you're not a Christian.

He's not just pointing to God's glory.

Jesus is saying on the top of that mountain, I am the fullness of the glory of God in my body.

Hebrews tells us in chapter 1, verse 3, Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.

He's not a facsimile light.

As the brilliance of the sun is inseparable from the sun itself, so the sun's radiance is inseparable from his deity, for he himself is God.

This is essential that we understand this doctrine.

This is essential that we live out of this doctrine.

Otherwise, our discipleship will be very poor.

It will basically be a nondescript discipleship.

This is the revelation of Jesus' glory.

But secondly, the revelation of Jesus' departure.

Luke tells us that he spoke, Jesus spoke of his departure with Elijah and Moses.

Guess what that Greek word is?

His Exodus.

This is the greater Exodus.

You think about the Exodus in the Old Testament.

That was great.

God delivered his people from Egypt after over 400 years.

That was wonderful.

But that wasn't the truest exodus.

This is.

Sometimes Jesus has a rebuke for me.

It's not always the comfort and the encouragement, although we need that.

We need a word of comfort.

We need a word of assurance.

But if you if you're if we're stiff arming him and say, but no words of a rebuke, don't tell me how to live my life.

You're not listening to Jesus.

Oh, by the way, what did Jesus say, his last recorded words before he ascended into heaven?

Go and make the Disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to obey, observe everything I've commanded you.

How much time, attention do you give to knowing the commands of Jesus and obeying the commands of Jesus?

Can you go a week without even thinking about that?

Can you go a month without even thinking about that?

Jesus said, I want my people to observe and to obey everything I have commanded.

And I want you to take that seriously, Tom.

This veil is briefly drawn aside on the top of that mountain, and the glory of heaven shines through.

The spotlight is on Jesus.

It always is.

The spotlight is not on the people on this stage.

The spotlight should always be on Jesus.

He's the altogether beautiful one.

But as we close, we said it's revelation and response worship, right?

We've been talking about the revelation when the spotlight is on Jesus.

But what's the response?

Well, what was Peter's response?

This is great.

Jesus, I didn't know that you'd planned all this.

I thought we were just going to go on a hike and have a little prayer meeting.

Peter now gives this novel idea.

Well, let's institutionalize this experience.

Sound familiar?

How many of us?

How many of us have gone to a summer camp or a conference, Bible conference, or something, and we had this mountaintop experience?

And you just knew it was going to be different when you got home.

And it wasn't something it wasn't everything you drew.

You can't hold on to it.

You can't bottle this.

When you experience the glory of God, take it in.

Revel in it.

Rejoice in his presence.

But you can't bottle it.

You've got to go back down the mountain to your real life.

That's just the way it is.

That's what Jesus did.

Pastor Mike is going to preach two weeks from today on what it was like when they went down the mountain to the real world.

But don't you dare think that we can live without mountaintop experiences, even though you can't institutionalize it.

Okay, let's build tents.

Jesus, that's your tent?

Moses, that's yours.

Elijah, that's yours, and we're just going to stay here and we're just going to be your servants or we're going to do whatever you want us to do because we just don't want to lose this moment.

You can't do that.

If you're blessed to sense the presence of God in worship, thank him for it.

Do you know what?

One experience in worship where you know that you're seeing the real God and He loves you and He's forgiven you.

And He wants you.

And you believe that, that will get you through a hard week.

I see a lot of heads nodding.

Yeah, that's right.

You know that.

If you meet Jesus in worship, it'll get you through the things that you don't know that you can get through.

That's the kind of glory he has.

Our worship is often too much like Peter's.

We come to Jesus with all of our attempts to use Jesus, even with our spiritual projects and ministries.

Isn't that insidious?

In the name of Jesus, our ministries, our programs, we can lose Jesus.

And we can make it more about us.

God forbid.

You can't institutionalize this.

Can't do it.

We sometimes have agendas for Jesus.

Worship is not about agendas, it's about adoration.

This is it.

Worship is not about agendas.

We're not coming into the sanctuary on Sunday morning with our with our list and say, Jesus, would you please just sign my check?

That's not worship.

We're not coming in and worship on Sundays and saying, Jesus, I have I have this in mind, I have that in mind, and I have that in mind, and I'm trying to be good, I'm trying to be a good follower of Christ.

I heard the example used one time, illustration used one time.

It's like if you were if you were engaged, if you're engaged and your fiancee all of a sudden loses all of their wealth.

For whatever reason.

Your fiance loses all of their wealth and you break off the engagement.

What are you thinking right now?

That's pretty low.

Are you saying that you're just marrying them for the money?

Do you see where this is going?

You know, sometimes you can you can marry Jesus for the money.

You can marry Jesus because you think, okay, I'm gonna follow Jesus.

He's gonna do this for me, and he's gonna do that for me, he's gonna do all these things for me.

Are you marrying him for his money?

That's not Christianity.

That's not Christianity.

Jesus says, I don't want you to marry me.

I didn't come to marry you for the money.

I came out of love.

I came out of love for you.

And I want us to be together forever.

We're gonna sing about it in a couple minutes.

There's a time when we should do nothing but worship.

It's better to worship God than to run a program.

It's better to worship God than to build a tabernacle.

I'm so grateful for the worship service this morning.

I've worshiped well.

Thank you for those of you who have been leading.

But most of all, Jesus shows up.

And when Jesus shows up, things change.

When we see your face, Peter, James, and John saw the face of Jesus, unveiled glory on the top of a very high mountain.

One day, Christian, you're going to see the face of Jesus unveiled, full splendor.

When we see your face, we will see and we will know like we've never known before.

We will be found, we will be home, we will be yours forevermore.

And you'll gather us together in your arms of endless grace as your bride forever when we see your face.

If you take this truth in right now, it's going to change your week.

It might change your life.

It's true.

Pray with me.

Holy Spirit, please.

Please take away the veils from our eyes.

Take away our stony hearts.

Take away, take away the evil thoughts that sometimes enter our hearts.

That we will serve you, Jesus, if we will serve you and we will worship you if you meet our agendas.

Forgive us when we think such evil thoughts.

Jesus, we love you because you first loved us.

And even this morning, we would pray for soul-ravishing sights of your glory and your beauty.

Holy Spirit, make it so.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.