Matthew 16:21-17:8 | Kingdom Now: Listen to Him (with Jeff Stemple)

Amen. Thank you John.

Well welcome everyone.

I'll add my good morning to those that hopefully you've already heard.

I'll also add my Happy Father's Day to those fathers who are here today.

Hey, if you're a dad here today, whether you're flying solo

or you're here with your family, I just want to call attention to you

and say, good on you for starting the week off, right.

It cannot be overstated the importance of a dad

being involved in a faith life,

especially those times where you think nobody's watching.

Those are times where possibly and usually there are the most people watching.

So if you're a dad and you're here today, I just want to call attention

to you and say thank you for for being that sort of man.

That's a good, good thing.

Yes. That's worth clapping for.

Yeah.

Hey, if we have not met.

My name is Jeff.

I'm here on staff at Flip side, and I get the privilege of sharing God's

word of of walking through this series we've been in in the book of Matthew.

Pastor Carl is away this weekend.

He'll be back soon.

But in the meantime, we get to share some time together today.

You hear me

say it every time we we spend time that I'm hoping you're going to be encouraged.

And today is no different.

But there's some specifics to that.

I'm hoping you're going to be encouraged through gaining some clarity.

Gaining some honesty.

Really, one of the things I love about Jesus is how honest he is.

He doesn't sugarcoat it.

He he just tells us and then he helps us through it, as difficult as that may be.

Quick show of hands.

How many of you have ever signed up for something or agreed to

something, said yes to something, and then at some point, as you're walking

that yes out, you realize I really didn't know what I was getting myself into.

How many of you have done that?

Yeah, the majority of us. Right.

Like, I didn't like the like the experience didn't match

the advertisement.

I didn't really realize what I was getting signed up for

a story about that.

And I'm going to probably divide the room here.

Probably half of you are going to hate me after this,

and half of you are going to be like, yeah, I agree.

So confession of mine, I do not like Disneyland.

I cannot stand.

I know gasps, gasps and fists in the air.

Yes, I know I cannot stand Disneyland you guys.

I just I know some of you have fond childhood

memories of Disneyland and you're like, oh, how could you?

That is not me.

I just don't like it.

So and you're going to find out why.

So the best Disneyland

story I can think of this as an example of this is when I graduated from college.

College was a grind for me.

It was just by any means necessary get done,

get graduated, knows of the grindstone right up to the very end.

And so when I finally graduated, I was just it was like

this giant weight lifted off of me when I was talking

to a buddy of mine about it, and he said, you know what?

We should celebrate.

He said, the angels are playing the Red Sox in Anaheim this weekend.

We should go. I'm like, fantastic.

Not a big baseball fan, but that sounds good.

Let's do that.

And then he added something onto that that I thought he said, it's

an afternoon game.

So we'll stay the night in Anaheim and we'll go to Disneyland the next day.

And I thought, maybe it's time to give Disneyland another try.

And so we did that, you guys. It was awful.

I had the worst time.

The lines were long,

the food was expensive, overpriced food that really wasn't all that good.

It was hot that day, brutally hot down in Anaheim that day.

And I remember thinking, this is why I hate Disneyland.

And as we were leaving, of course,

we're socked in the traditional traffic of Disneyland.

And just as soon as the traffic starts to loosen up, the car in front of us

for no apparent reason just stopped right in the middle of the road,

and my buddy leans out the window, full torso out the window,

fists in the air, and he shouts, get out of the way, jackass!

And just as he said that, I looked up and there was the sign.

Disneyland. The happiest place on Earth.

I know

the experience does not match the advertisement.

That's why I don't like Disneyland.

I was telling my wife that story, and she was telling me her story

of when we first moved out to the ranchos, and she said yes to being the

cookie chair. Does anybody know what the cookie chair is?

If you have Girl Scouts or Boy Scout?

Well, Girl Scouts, really?

You're in charge of the Girl Scout cookies.

The cookie. What a great title.

I want to sit and I'm going to I'm going to eat cookies.

No, that is not it.

You're in charge of all the girls.

The sale and distribution of all the Girl Scout cookies, any discrepancies,

any conflicts that come up.

You're in charge of that with regard to Girl Scout cookies.

And we all know how we feel about Girl Scout cookies.

And I remember her saying, I had no idea what I was getting myself into

when I said yes to being the cookie chair, I had no idea what that meant.

So I'm

sure you guys have hundreds of stories that are kind of like that, right?

I said, yes, we talk about it here all the time.

So yes, on the front end and see what God was having you say yes to.

A lot of times these stories fall out of of that.

Yes. On the front end.

It's interesting, as trivial

and as fun as it is to talk about Disneyland and Girl Scout cookies

when those types of things happen as we walk out

this idea of faith, it can lead to a real crisis of faith.

When you get to a point where you say, you know what?

I really didn't know what I was saying yes to when I when I signed up

to be a follower of Jesus.

When I said yes to Jesus, I'm really getting this feeling

that I was kind of duped. Like I got fooled.

Like I didn't really read the fine print, or maybe I should have read the

fine print.

And now I'm at this point now where I'm kind of having a real crisis of faith.

And so I'm hoping today what we talk about today is going to help us with that.

The wonderful thing about God is he doesn't leave us to

just figure that out on our own.

He comes alongside us and he says, let me help you work through that.

Let me help you work that out.

In order to do that, I'm

going to have to back up a little bit and talk a little bit about the end.

We're going to be in Matthew chapter 17.

Matthew 17 · chapter mention

So if you brought your Bibles, that's where

we're going to really revolve our time around together today.

But in order to really set the stage for that, in order for us

to get some perspective on where we're going to be in Matthew chapter 17,

Matthew 17 · chapter mention

I need to back up a little bit to where we were last week.

If you were here last week, you know, it was a marathon.

We we had a long 6.5 minute

pop up Sunday video, like John just talked about.

We got the news about our friend Sean Berry spending his first Sunday in glory

with Jesus. And Pastor Carl gave a great message.

But all that together made for a really long Sunday.

And if you weren't here or didn't catch it online, it's worth especially going back

and revisiting something that was said at the end of Matthew.

Well, towards the end of Matthew chapter 16, we're going to be in verse 21.

Matthew 16 · chapter mention

And it says this.

From that time on, Jesus began to explain to his disciples.

So from that time on, those first four words imply we've turned a corner here

where things are a little different or a lot different.

Now we've turned a corner.

Major turning point.

And Jesus says this

he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders,

chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed

on the third day and be raised to life.

So now Jesus is speaking plainly about suffering,

about rejection, about death.

And yes, he does talk about resurrection.

But the disciples are so caught up on the first three,

they really don't hear a lot about that.

They really don't hear that.

If you've ever gotten news like that, you kind of just want to go, hold on.

I'm still processing the thing you did, the first thing you just said,

and you went on and said, 3 or 4 more other things.

Just wait a second.

I'm not sure what to do with what you just said.

So much so Peter says,

Peter, it's verse 22.

Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

Never, Lord, he said, this shall never happen to you.

This is a real turning point because the disciples really

didn't have a framework for the suffering and death part of following Jesus.

In their minds, the Messiah would come and conquer.

The Messiah would come and be victorious.

The Messiah would come and liberate, the Messiah would come and rain.

And now Jesus is talking about some specifics suffering and death.

Here's the thing.

Earlier in the book of Matthew and the other gospels, Jesus

just kind of alludes to this whole thing. He.

If you Bible scholars know Jesus talked about the bridegroom being taken away.

So Jesus is just kind of giving breadcrumbs, dropping hints.

But now he's speaking in clear, plain terms

and they don't know what to do with it.

And so Peter brings him aside and kind of rebukes him.

And then Jesus turned to Peter and said, get behind me, Satan.

You are a stumbling block to me.

You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.

Then Jesus said to all these disciples, then he's kind of on a roll here.

He turns to all of them and he says, hey, you guys, if anyone would come after me,

he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses

his life for me will find it.

Whoever would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his.

What cross

did I?

The disciples are thinking.

Hold on a second. You.

Surely you didn't say cross.

And Jesus is like.

That's exactly what I said.

Because we all know what cross means.

We see these Roman executions and you're.

Are you talking about that cross?

And Jesus says, that's how I'm going to suffer.

That's how I'm going to die.

And the disciples just are just kind of going, what did we sign up for?

Not this, I know what I didn't sign up for.

All the things he's talking about clearly and plainly now are things

that weren't on the list that I had in mind.

Basically, Peter's reply is

Jesus, this is not what I signed up for when I signed up for you.

That's not part of it.

You know how hard this is to tell people who are back in the career

that I left, that that's what I signed up for, that this is what's going on.

You want me to recruit for this movement?

You have come follow Jesus.

Oh, and by the way, he's going to suffer and he's going to die a really,

really bad death.

Shame on a cross.

How do I recruit for that? Jesus,

this is not what I signed up for.

The the the experience has just taken a turn

and it's not matching the advertisement.

The disciples are confused, they're disappointed, they're struggling.

And then

if you were here last week, you know, Matthew, chapter 616

just kind of ends there.

There are passages in Scripture like this.

It just kind of falls off a cliff.

It just hangs on a dissonant note.

And so that's where we are

as we take a running start into chapter 17.

So I'm going to read the beginning of chapter 17.

I'm going to go probably down to around verse 7 or 8, and then we'll come back

and we'll, we'll kind of try to make some sense of this,

because there's just a lot of

this is one of those passages in Scripture where there's just some gold here.

So it says in verse one, chapter 17, after six days,

Jesus took with

him Peter, James, and John, the brother of James,

and led them up a high mountain by themselves.

There he was transfigured before them.

His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as light.

Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.

Peter.

Peter said to Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here.

If you wish,

I will put up three shelters, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.

While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them in.

A voice from the cloud said, this is my son, whom I love.

With him I am well pleased.

Listen to him.

When the disciples heard this, they fell face down to the ground, terrified.

But Jesus came and touched them.

Get up, he said. Don't be afraid.

When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.

So we'll stop right there.

So back up to verse one.

Let's try to make some sense of this. What does it say?

What are the first first couple of words

after six days?

You guys have all been in situations

like this before stuff went down, words got said.

There was a heated dare I say argument and then things just end.

I always call these.

I love it when the Bible does this,

because it always gives me a chance to think what happened.

These were people.

I mean, a lot of times we read the Bible like, oh, they don't

they don't think like they don't have the experiences.

Like we six days.

What was life like around the camp?

Silent treatment tents.

Yeah. You guys have all experienced this.

I really don't even want to be in the same room with them right now.

I don't even know the words that I would say right now.

Peter got told

he got he got a tongue lashing.

So much so Peter was like, can you just stop?

Why are you talking to them now?

I was kind of taking the heat and Jesus like, no,

because they're all thinking what you're thinking.

And then six days go by.

What was like were people walking around,

you know, moping around, moping around the camp,

moping around the house, trying to figure out how to process it?

Confusion,

questions, doubts, wrestling

as best they can with things.

I love the fact that God says, enough of this.

I love the fact that God says, all right, guys, here's what we're going to do.

You've spent six days trying to figure this out on your own.

Here's my answer.

It says Jesus took with him

Peter, James, and John, the brother of James,

and led them up a high mountain by themselves.

There he was transfigured before them.

His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as light.

This was no ordinary experience orchestrated by God.

This was meant to grab attention

and create an event that they would not forget.

This needed to hit.

God was doing something that the disciples it was.

He was doing something that the disciples needed to see and that they needed

to experience.

Before they could understand his suffering.

They must see his glory in order to process and to really comprehend

this whole suffering and death thing, they needed to see

the glory of Jesus, who Jesus really was.

And that was what God was doing here.

Verse three.

This is really interesting. Verse three.

Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah

talking with Jesus.

At this point, I could imagine these were all Jewish

guys who knew their scripture.

This was they knew the rituals, they knew the traditions.

And now here is Moses, the Old Testament representation of the law.

Remember when Moses went up

the hill, met with God, got the tablets, got the Ten Commandments, came down

the represent the Old Testament

representation of the law, and then Elijah, the Old Testament

representation of the prophets, Elijah being probably the most prominent Old

Testament prophets. And they were recognized by these guys.

And these guys are pointing straight to Jesus.

Their face wasn't shining like the sun Jesus was.

And they were talking with Jesus.

And the book of Luke, I think it is in his gospel, actually gives us a

actually peels back the curtain a little more

and gives us a glimpse into what they were talking about.

They were actually talking about Jesus's coming departure,

this thing that Jesus was trying to tell them about.

So now they're standing there talking with Jesus,

giving credibility to Jesus.

And then in verse four, as he is so prone to do,

our friend Peter opens his big mouth and he says something crazy.

Peter said to Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here.

If you wish,

I will put up three shelters, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Ilija.

You know, if things wouldn't have been so tense around the camp,

this probably would have been a great time for Jesus to mess with Peter.

Yeah. Do that.

And then he starts doing it.

And Jesus, like, what are you doing?

Peter's like, I, you know, if you know anything about Peter,

you know, he's the guy who cannot keep silent.

He's got to say something.

That awkward silence will maybe last for five seconds around Peter,

and then he's saying something.

And the something he happened to say is, hey,

I'm not sure what to say, but somebody's got to say something tense.

Temporary shelters.

I'll build three of them.

I would imagine people are like, what did you just say?

Peter is grasping here.

He's trying to manage the situation.

He's just trying to make sense of it all, and this is what comes out of his mouth.

And then thank God.

Verse five comes while he was still speaking.

He ever had anybody do you a favor by interrupting you?

It's like, oh, thank God, I don't know what was coming out of my mouth.

Thank God they said something because I just needed to shut up.

While Peter was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them

and a voice from the clouds said, this is my son, whom I love with him.

With him I am well pleased. Listen to him.

This voice from heaven

speaks and says the same something very familiar.

If you were with us when we started this series back in Matthew chapter three.

So if you have your Bibles, keep your keep a finger.

In Matthew chapter 17, go back

Matthew 17 · chapter mention

to Matthew chapter three down to verse.

Let's start in. Yeah, I think I have it up there.

Let's start in verse 13.

So this is the baptism of Jesus.

Then Jesus came to Galilee, to the Jordan to be baptized by John.

But John tried to deter him, saying, I need to be baptized by you,

and do you come to me?

Jesus replied, let it be so.

Now it is proper for us to do to

to this, to fulfill this all, with all this righteousness.

Then John consented.

As soon as Jesus was baptized, he came up out of the water.

At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending

like a dove and lighting on him.

And a voice from heaven said, this is my son, whom I love.

With him I am well pleased.

The exact same things that the voice from heaven

just said about Jesus here in chapter 17.

But there's three words added. Did anybody catch it?

What was it?

Listen to him.

The exact same thing.

But God says, I'm going to add something to that.

Listen to him.

The things that he's talking about.

Listen to him.

This is not trivial.

This is not unimportant.

This is not by accident.

This is a point where the disciples were having a very difficult time

reconciling their ideas and notions of what the Messiah should be.

So weird.

The Old Testament does talk about the Messiah suffering and dying,

but for some reason the disciples were like,

there's the conquering champion part that lane.

And then there's

the suffering and death lane, and that's all going to work itself out.

We're focused on this.

And Jesus is like, no, those are all one single lane.

That is me.

And they're struggling with that right now.

And so God says, I'm going to say the same thing I said back in chapter

three, but I'm going to drive the point, the importance of these three words.

Listen to him.

Right when the disciples

were struggling most with it.

The disciples are like, yeah,

but he's going to suffer.

Listen to him.

Yeah, but he's talking about dying.

Listen to him.

Yeah, but this wasn't what I signed up for.

Listen to him.

The main point of our time here today, everybody.

If we take nothing away other than this, we're still doing okay.

Jesus is the glorious Son of God.

And his disciples must listen to him

above every other voice.

That is the whole point of this story called the Transfiguration.

This is meant to grab the disciples attention.

This is meant to drive home and give credibility

from these Old Testament guys like Moses and Elijah.

And where is it all going?

It's going to this.

Listen to what he's saying.

So of course, the

challenge for us is, all right, how do we do this?

Just question the disciples.

We're asking to how do I how do I do this whole listening thing?

There's three things I want to talk about that will get us to this point.

The first thing we have to see his glory.

Well, what does that mean?

Well, for the disciples, it was meant they went up a mountain.

They got away. They were by themselves. They were with Jesus.

He he became transfigured, his face shown like the sun is big.

His clothes became white.

But we must see his glory.

I think God wants us to see a transfigure Jesus, however that looks in our lives.

God wants to take us to a place where we do this,

where we see the glory of Jesus.

God wants to answer our confusion.

He doesn't just want us to sit in it for six days or six hours or six weeks.

God wants to

answer our confusion before they can understand his suffering.

They must see his glory.

So the application point for us today is we.

We must see Jesus for who he really is, not merely who we want him to be.

It's a very difficult line to cross, to see Jesus and to accept

Jesus for who he truly is, and not merely who

we want him to be.

Second thing

oh my gosh, this is really

resist our desire to control.

Can I get an amen on that?

Oh my goodness, if we could get this down.

Holy crime.

And he Peter wanted to manage the moment, spiritually speaking.

When we are listening to him, we are surrendering to practical

obedience.

It's so interesting to see how Peter was looking for something to do.

Peter was doing what every one of us in this room will try to do.

I want to control.

I have a desire to control the situation Peter had to.

He was trying to figure out or get to a point where

there was some sort of effort he could put forth

to make sure he knew he had done something, and the command

was simply listen to him not fully understand.

We'll never get to a point

where we not this side of heaven anyway, where we fully understand,

not make perfect sense,

but just listen to him.

We have to abandon our preconceived

notions of how Jesus should move and work in our lives,

because every one of us has an idea of how we like things to go.

It's so interesting

to see when the cloud lifts, it's only Jesus.

The voice says, listen to him, not Elijah, not Moses, not what you had in mind.

Listen to him.

Despite all our yabba it's.

So. See his glory.

Resist our desire to control. And then the third thing.

Follow him down the mountain.

Follow him down the mountain.

The challenge now is to live out the listening part by being obedient.

That has that word has such negative connotations in our society.

Be obedient.

No no no no.

That just means I'm under somebody's thumb and I'm getting controlled and

I'm getting managed.

Not so

with Jesus, but it gets very hard for every one of us

when it comes to living out this listening part by being obedient.

This is the challenge for kids that go to winter camp who are literally up

the mountain, who literally have a mountaintop experience.

I cannot tell you how many times I've talked to junior high

and high school students that have been to winter camp.

Winter camp 2020 was fantastic.

The band was awesome, the speaker was awesome.

It snowed.

I remember that winter camp.

It was great.

The kids had a fantastic time.

And then we came down the mountain

and I remember talking to a few of them, especially the high school students,

because shut down for Covid shortly after that trip.

And I remember talking to the high school students saying, this is hard.

I want to go back up the mountain where the band was good

and the speaker was good, and it snowed and I got to wear my Christmas boots.

Look so cute. And I

know now

you got to go through the obedience of living it out, listening to what

he said, listening to what you heard and live it out and it gets tough.

But this is how the church's mission advances.

Through ordinary disciples

who come down the mountain ready to obey.

Glory seen must be obedience lived out.

So wrapping up, coming back to our main point,

Jesus is the Son of God, and his disciples must listen to him

above every other voice.

You know the struggle with the every other voices, is it?

They're loud, they're demanding.

They're convincing.

The every other voices are convincing.

They make a really good argument.

So many voices compete for our listening.

And when they compete for our listening, they're competing for our obedience.

So interesting.

In order to

listen, sure,

you need to have a certain amount of understanding the Bible talks about,

especially when it comes to following Jesus.

Weigh the cost before you go to war.

Before you build the tower, weigh the cost.

You know, don't be naive. Don't be delusional.

But knowing that we're never fully going to understand.

In order to listen,

we have to get to a point where we're being obedient.

Listening is not merely understanding.

So the question for us today, where is Jesus

asking you to trust him right now?

Is it in a relationship?

Maybe you're moping around.

The camp right now just happens to be your house.

Is it is he asking you to trust him in a relationship?

Is he asking you to trust him in forgiveness?

Is he asking you to trust him in service?

Do you need to get involved in serving here at the church?

Is it generosity?

Is the obedience flushing?

It's it's it's way out in your life through generosity.

For some of us, this is our application of obedience.

Because last week we talked about a wonderful opportunity

that we're going through right here, right now at flipside with a giving campaign.

Pastor Carl talked about raising $150,000.

And the good news is, has already been front loaded with a lot of thousands

of dollars for renovations and improvements

all, all around the campus.

He even proposed a very practical amount

of $1,200 per giving unit, gets the gets the whole job done.

Or if you're a high school student, by your chair, 60 bucks.

This is such a practical way of living out

the obedience of listening to Jesus.

The question is not what do I want to do?

The question

is, what is Jesus asking me to do?

Sometimes Jesus leads us to places we didn't expect in our marriage,

in our parenting, in our health,

in our career, in our finances.

Sometimes we find ourselves saying, this is not what I signed up for.

Jesus.

When I signed up to follow you, I did not have this in mind.

This did not come up on the radar.

But the question remains from God will I listen?

Will I listen knowing that listening is more than understanding?

It's obedience and it's trust.

Listening is following Jesus when the experience

does not meet the advertisement.

When we're disillusioned, the way the disciples were at the end of chapter

16. So in conclusion, the disciples wanted a messiah without suffering.

That would have been nice.

Sure.

And it was so interesting that God's answer was not an explanation.

God didn't say, okay, I get just sit down and let me explain this all to you.

God's answer was not an explanation.

God's answer was a simple command.

And that command is listen to him.

What is he saying to you?

Listen to him in the same command remains for us today.

Amen.

Let's pray.

God, thank you so much for today.

Thank you for the opportunity that you've given

all of us to just come together and start the week off

this Father's Day by giving this first amount of time back to you.

I pray that as we go about doing the things

you've called us to do in the places you've called us to do it,

you will help us to get past those periods of disillusionment

where we realize that maybe things aren't shaping up the way we had in mind.

Help us to remember that that does not mean you're not still at work.

Give us clarity.

We appreciate your honesty.

We ask that you continue to do that,

and we will see your glory and live in your obedience.

Jesus, we thank you for all this and it's in your name we pray.

Amen.