Luke: Listen to Him (9:28-36)

Hello, friends.

This is Pastor Creighton.

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This is the holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke.

Glory to you, Lord Christ.

Now, about eight days after these sayings, Jesus took with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray.

And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothes became dazzling white.

And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.

Now Peter and those who were with him were heavy with sleep, but when they became fully awake they saw his glory in the two men who stood with him.

And as the men were parting from him, Peter said to Jesus, Master, it is good that we are here.

Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses, and one for Elijah, not knowing what he said.

As he was saying these things, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud.

And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my son, my chosen one.

Listen to him.

And when the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone, and they kept silent, and told no one in those days anything of what they had seen.

This is the gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, Lord Christ.

So we hear a voice coming out of the cloud saying, This is my son, my chosen one.

Listen to him.

Let's pray.

O God, who before the passion of your only begotten Son revealed his glory upon the holy mountain, grant that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Please be seated.

So this week I learned about a series of commercials from a brokerage called E.F.

Hutton.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

I think it's an American thing, so I didn't know if this was a Canadian thing, but this would have been late 70s, early 80s.

The phrase for E.F.

Hutton, this uh you know, financial broker and uh and would offer financial sound and financial advice, the the tagline was this when E.

F.

Hutton talks, people listen.

And so from commercial to commercial, you'd have different uh scenarios.

In one, you know, two friends are jogging along the uh the path, and in another, you know, two folks are talking on an airplane, and then another, you know, a whole crowd, like kind of like ourselves, watching a tennis match.

So, you know, you watch the heads kind of go from one side of the court to the other, you know, every time the ball gets whacked.

And at some point in this commercial, you know, these folks are talking finances, and one says, Well, this is what my broker tells me to do, and the other would say, Well, my broker is E.F.

Hutton.

And that's where everything stops.

Whatever's going on, whether their folks are outside or whether they're on the airplane or whether it's the tennis match, all the attention is now focused on the person sharing E.F.

Hutton's financial advice.

And why is that?

It's because when E.F.

Hutton talks, people listen.

We want to hear what E.F.

Hutton is saying.

No, I'm not uh selling you, you know, what E.F.

Hutton shares or something this morning.

But uh I came, I became aware of this uh commercial series through a commentator who draws a certain parallel between these commercials and our passage from Luke this morning.

He says that this passage, or pardon me, these commercials feel very much is very much the feel of the transfiguration.

He says, instruction is needed because the path Jesus walks is unexpected.

If disciples are to understand and walk and follow in its footsteps, they will need to listen to him.

And if we endeavor to be Jesus' disciples this morning, wherever it is we're coming from, we need to be those who listen to him.

And so we've been traveling through the Gospel of Luke with a mind to come and see who Jesus reveals himself to be, not just our idea of Jesus, but who Jesus wants us to know who he is.

The question that we're left with from last Sunday through the passage that Matt shared with us is this the question is, who is this?

Who is this Jesus?

What do we do with him?

And that's what the disciples are confronted with.

And here in our Luke passage this morning, we hear an answer.

We hear an answer from God Himself speaking through the cloud, answering exactly who Jesus is, and giving us one key imperative, one key application.

Usually the application is at the end of the sermon, but here it's front loaded.

The application is listen to him.

That's what we're called to do as his disciples.

And the word is akuo in Greek.

We get the word acoustic from this word.

It's to hear, to understand, to pay attention.

Even more than just, you know, hearing E.

F.

Hutton's advice.

The idea here is that we don't just hear what's said, but we we act accordingly.

We pay attention, but we also do, we put into practice.

There is listening and obeying that naturally follows that.

And the people of God would be very familiar with this rhythm.

Central to biblical religion in the Old Testament is Deuteronomy chapter 6, kind of the call of God's people, hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one.

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

And that word here gets picked up in the New Testament is listen.

The idea is don't just hear things about God.

Don't just sort of passively receive some interesting factoids, but put into practice that which you hear.

Let the God whose word is proclaimed shape and mold and transform your life.

Listening to Jesus has the risk of transformation.

But the question we might want to ask is this why should we listen to Jesus?

What is it about listening to Jesus that becomes so central and so important to the Christian life?

And I want to suggest that Luke has at least three things in mind for us this morning.

If we were to ask Luke, why ought we to listen to Jesus?

I think Luke would respond from this passage by saying, we listen to Jesus as his disciples, one, because of his accomplished work, two, because of our confusion, and three because of his unique person.

So his accomplished work, our confusion, and his unique person.

Here's why we listen to Jesus.

And the good Bishop JC Ryle comments of this passage.

He says, This passage lifts a corner of the veil which hangs over the world to come and throws light on some of the deepest truths of our religion, of what it is that we believe.

We're encountering in this passage some of the deepest truth of what it means to be a Christian.

So we would do well to listen to what Jesus has to say to us here in our hearts.

So let's open up our scriptures.

Let's open up Luke chapter 9, if we haven't already in our Bibles and our order of service.

Luke 9 · chapter mention

Let's have a look through this passage.

Why ought we to listen to Jesus?

Well, first Luke would tell us because of the work that he has accomplished.

So what is it that Jesus has accomplished becomes the question.

Let's look at the first three verses.

Now, about eight days after these sayings, so that's connecting this passage with the passage that we studied last Sunday, right?

Peter confesses Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and Jesus bids his disciples to take up your cross and follow me.

So about eight days after Jesus says these things to his disciples, he took with him Peter and John and James, kind of the inner circle of disciples, so to speak, and he went up on the mountain to pray.

And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered.

Matthew, I think, says that shines like the sun.

And we get that impression here because Luke says the appearance, pardon me, the his clothing became dazzling white.

And behold, Luke says, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.

So let's come back to the altered face and dazzling white clothing, but for now let's notice a couple of things here.

Let's notice that meeting Jesus in this profound moment of revealed glory, it's like the veil is being peeled back just a little bit.

Meeting Jesus in this moment is Moses and Elijah.

And we might want to ask, what are these guys doing here?

These guys have long been in glory.

Now they stand next to Jesus, I assume, on his right side and his left, and they're conversing with him.

And the idea that the disciples understand is that Jesus has everything to do with what the law and the prophets were looking or were pointing towards.

The promises of God, the things God committed himself to accomplish, these are the things that Moses and Elijah as the representatives of the Old Testament, the Old Testament law and the Old Testament prophets, they're conversing with Jesus.

They're pointing us forward to Jesus.

The whole of Old Testament witness is meant to culminate in the person and work of Christ.

And I think, friends, this is the right way for us Christians to read the Old Testament.

It doesn't clarify every, you know, weedy passage of the Old Testament, but when we look at the, when we look at the ark and promises that we find in the Old Testament, we find that inevitably they point us to Jesus.

And that's why later on in Luke's gospel, Luke can say that Jesus can say to disciples on the road to Emmaus, he can begin with Moses and all the prophets and explain to them what was said in the scriptures concerning himself.

Jesus leads this Bible study on the road towards the end of this gospel, and he says, Look, everything you know about the Old Testament, all of God's promises, all of the things that God committed to do, all of that has me in the center of all of that.

Jesus is the substance of God's word because he is God's word incarnate.

So here Moses and Elijah, the representatives of the law and the prophets, are pointing us to Jesus.

And not just that, but they speak of his departure, which is a really, really loaded word.

If you've got a Bible in front of you, you might have a footnote there.

And if you follow that footnote, it might say something like this: that this word departure is the Greek word Exodus.

That's a loaded word if we've been to Sunday school, isn't it?

The book of Exodus tells us about the rescuing work that God accomplished for his people Israel by raising up this leader, Moses, to deliver God's people from bondage to slavery in Egypt, to freedom in the promised land.

This is a really loaded word.

It's not just talking about, you know, Jesus boarding a plane and departing.

This is talking about the rescuing work of God, the rescuing work that this first Exodus points to.

It's a greater exodus to come, and it's going to be accomplished in Jesus, and it's going to be accomplished by what happens at Jerusalem.

Boy, I wonder what is going to happen at Jerusalem.

See, Jesus accomplishes the whole goal of the Old Testament, the whole goal of God's word up to this point.

Through his cross and through his resurrection, he has accomplished the work of redemption, of rescue.

It is accomplished.

It is finished.

Put a period on that sentence because Jesus has done it.

And friends, I think this is so important for us to grapple with.

The gospel is not a call for you to improve yourself morally or intellectually or relationally or whatever it is.

The gospel is good news being proclaimed to you about what Jesus has done on your behalf.

It is finished.

Here's what Pastor Tim Keller has to say.

He says that the gospel is not primarily a way of life.

It is not something we do, but something that has been done for us and something we must respond to.

He goes on to say the gospel must primarily be understood as good news.

And the news is not as much about what we must do as about what has been done.

The gospel is preeminently a report about the work of Christ on our behalf.

Salvation has been accomplished for us.

That's how it's a gospel of grace.

That's a lengthy quote, but that has weight to it, doesn't it?

The gospel is about what's been accomplished on our behalf, what Jesus has accomplished in Jerusalem, his cross, his resurrection, has rescued us.

So, friends, if we're here this morning thinking, well, we're a gospel-centered church, and I guess I got to get my marching orders to know how to please God today, then there's good news for us.

Because God has already satisfied every requirement of the law on our behalf.

He has done for us what we could not do for ourselves, and that is the gospel.

We listen to Jesus because of the work that He has accomplished, our redemption through His cross, through His resurrection, and that's what Moses and Elijah are anticipating with Jesus here on the mountainside.

But the question is, would we ever arrive at that conclusion on our own?

I want to submit to us that we also listen to Jesus, not just because the work he's accomplished, but because apart from listening to Jesus, we are left in complete confusion about what he is about.

So how are we confused?

Let's continue on in our passage.

Here is just an infinitely relatable moment from an infinitely relatable disciple, Peter.

Let's see, verse 32.

Now Peter and those who were with him were heavy with sleep.

They hadn't had their coffee yet.

But when they became fully awake, they saw his glory, and the two men who stood with him.

And as the men were parting from him, Peter said to Jesus, Master, it's good that we're here.

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

And here's where the narrator interjects, right?

Not knowing what he said.

Have you ever had a friend be like, okay, you don't really know what you're saying there, you know?

This is the narrator sort of interjecting that into the into the um into the narrative here.

And I, you know, if you're me, you're kind of reading this going, okay, I get that what Peter's suggesting is clearly a bad idea, but what is Peter suggesting?

What's this deal?

What what three tenths?

What's this about?

And I think there's many different, there's many different possibilities or combination of things, but I think at the at the center of things it's this.

What Peter is suggesting here is a new strategy for expanding Christ's kingdom.

And the mission strategy is this.

Let's settle down, right?

Let's let's settle down right here on the mountainside.

Jesus, it's it's not just you, but it's it's Moses, it's Elijah.

You know, there's just glorious everything happening right now.

Like, like let's let's bank on this.

Like, let's settle down, let's, let's get, uh, let's let's put the tents down, you know, make this a permanent fixture, and what we'll do is we'll spread the word all around the countryside for folks to come and not just hear you teach about who you are, but hear Moses and hear Elijah, some of the most authoritative figures, point to you.

I mean, what an effective strategy that would be.

What higher credentials could you have but Moses and Elijah themselves pointing to Jesus?

Where let's do this.

I think that's what Peter's saying here.

But what Peter hasn't really reckoned with is what Jesus has just told him to be the case.

Jesus has told him, just in the verses that follow, what we saw last week, that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected and be killed and on the third day be raised.

Not optional.

It must happen.

Because redemption will only be accomplished through the cross, not going around the cross.

And whether or not Peter is aware of it, his best suggestion circumvents the cross.

We're going to have all the glory with none of the cross.

That's Peter's best suggestion for what's happening right now.

And that's why the narrator interjects, he doesn't know what he's saying.

Because if we go with Peter's strategy, then we never see redemption accomplished.

Period.

It is finished through the cross.

See, I want to submit this, and this is humbling for me to consider, and I hope you'll consider it with me.

I think, like Peter, our very best intuitions, our very best ideas about what to do with this Jesus, apart from listening to Jesus himself, will always leave us confused about the cross.

I don't think we'll ever really make sense of the cross apart from Jesus telling us the significance of what he has accomplished there.

Because apart from what Jesus explains to us, we can speculate.

You know, we can say maybe Jesus is offering us a moral example, but we kind of think, well, what moral example is there in another innocent victim of Roman brutality?

Or maybe Jesus is, this is an exercise in solidarity with the suffering, and we suffer, so Jesus suffers like us, and we might think, well, maybe there's solidarity there, but there's not a lot of hope for my suffering.

It doesn't really relieve my suffering to know that someone else suffered as well.

Or we might think, well, this is just a big religious symbol of the importance of self-sacrifice, and we might think, well, that might be a symbol there, but unless the symbol has substance, unless it's done something, then it's not really meaningful to me, is it?

I mean, apart from Jesus telling us the significance of the cross himself, we're at a loss.

We want the glory, but we can't make sense of the cross.

And so our best suggestions of what to do with Jesus only lead to greater confusion, like Peter.

We need Jesus to tell us his purpose, like he does in chapter 19.

The Son of Man, speaking of himself, has come to seek and save the lost.

And if we ask how, then we hear Jesus' answer.

In our la in last week's passage, Jesus says the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected and be killed, and on the third day raised to life.

And whoever wants to be my disciples must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

See, it's only in listening to Jesus, it's only in listening to Jesus' own witness about his cross and his resurrection that we begin to make sense of who he is, of the reconciliation he has accomplished between God and a wayward humanity on our behalf.

Apart from listening to Jesus, we are left confused in the shadow of the cross.

We don't know what to do with it.

But Jesus doesn't want to leave us in confusion.

He calls us to listen to him.

So we listen to Jesus because of what he has accomplished, because the gospel has been accomplished on our behalf.

We're called to listen to Jesus lest we miss it and we're left in confusion.

Finally, we listen to Jesus, I think Luke would say, because of his unique person, who he is uniquely.

We want to ask what makes Jesus unique?

Let's look at verse 34 to 36.

As Jesus was saying these things, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud.

A voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my son, my chosen one.

Listen to him.

When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone, they kept silent and told no one in those days about what they had seen.

What's going on here signals in every way what happened in our Old Testament passage in Exodus 34.

Here's where Moses meets with God on the mountaintop, sees him in his glorious self-revelation, sees him blazing with glory, as it were.

And Moses walks away, what?

With his face shining bright, reflecting the glory of God that he's encountered on the mountainside.

But here we see Jesus, whose face has been altered, whose clothes are dazzling white.

Jesus isn't just reflecting the glory of God like Moses on the mountaintop.

Jesus is radiating God's glory from within.

God's glory is not something reflected from without, but something that's radiating from within who He is uniquely, His very person.

And so a cloud overshadowed them just like a cloud overshadowed this mountain.

Here a veil is being lifted into God's glory, and we're starting to glimpse something to be true of who Jesus is.

He is the transcendent Son of God.

And that's why the heavenly voice, the voice of God the Father speaking from the cloud, says, This is my Son.

A nod to Psalm chapter 2.

Psalms 2 · chapter mention

We're not supposed to take this, I think, in a sense of, you know, this is my subordinate, or this is someone I've, you know, this is my subordinate, or someone who's just entirely separated and removed from who I am.

What we're supposed to take from this is that Jesus has been sent by the Father to be that perfect image of the Father to us.

We just confessed in our creed that he is God from God, light from light.

He's the only begotten Son of the Father.

And the mystery we're trying to articulate with this word begotten is the mystery that he is of one being with the Father.

Jesus is fully God, just as the Father is fully God.

Jesus isn't the Father, but this is the fullness of our triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

This is my Son.

This is a revelation of who I am, my very being.

He is my chosen one, which is undoubtedly a nod to Isaiah 42.

Surely the first audience would have caught it.

This is a text about the Messiah, the rescuer and the redeemer who will come, who will save God's people, who will do for them what they can't do for themselves, the one who's been chosen by God on the behalf of God's people.

And hear the voices saying, This is Jesus.

He's going to accomplish what's being promised by my prophets.

See, Jesus is utterly unique because of who he is, his very person.

He is God the Son, the Messiah who fulfills the Old Testament's promises, who rescues and redeems us, God's people, because only God can bring about reconciliation between himself and a wayward humanity.

See, I think, friends, we have to reckon with this.

Because it might push against a very uh, Matt's been using the phrase Canadian, and I kind of like that phrase.

So I'm gonna use the phrase maybe a very Canadian impulse, which is to say every religion or belief system is another path up the same mountain.

Have you ever heard that image being used before?

Every religion is a phrase up the or a path up the same mountain.

Now I don't want to sound uncharitable to other uh members of other faiths, because I think we ought in every way be charitable neighbors towards those of other faiths.

But we ought to also reckon with what we're really saying there.

We're saying that every path is equally legitimate, that you know, whatever is distinct or whatever is unique from one belief system to another, it all works out in the wash.

So we might say, well, Christianity and the way of Jesus is just one path among, you know, other legitimate options.

But here's the question I think that the transfiguration is asking us.

I think it's the question that we have to reckon with, and I think it's a uniquely Christian question.

The question is not, is the path I'm following equally as legitimate as any other.

The question is, who is this Jesus?

Because here I am walking the path, and suddenly Jesus smack in front of me.

And he's telling me to listen to him.

And he's telling me that he's accomplished salvation on my behalf.

He's telling me that his person is utterly unique, a revelation of an incarnation of who God is.

What do I do with this Jesus?

That's the uniquely Christian question to ask wherever we are at, on whatever mountain we're climbing.

See, every religion and belief system says that through your hard work, through your effort, you can ascend this mountain.

But our Christian faith is the only one that says God Himself descended to us.

Our Christian faith is the only one that says God descended the mountain to come to us, to find us on the path exactly where we're at, to effect that reconciliation, that re-establishing of relationship between him and his estranged people, who are otherwise left confused and not sure what we're saying, apart from God speaking to us.

God is speaking to us exactly where we're at, wherever we're at on this mountainside.

What's he saying?

I think this is where we need to look a little bit further.

This next passage that follows, if you've got your Bibles, you can see with me here.

Jesus heals a boy with an unclean spirit.

But in light of this work of deliverance and rescue, Jesus wants something, Jesus wants his disciples not to miss the very heart of his ministry and purpose.

He says this to his disciples in verses 44-45.

Let these words sink into your ears.

Ooh, that's really important to hear.

Especially when the imperative is listen to him.

What's Jesus saying?

Let these words sink into your ears.

The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men.

In other words, I am going to Jerusalem to accomplish for you what you can't do for yourself through my cross and through my resurrection.

I am going to redeem you from sin and death, and I'm going to offer you eternal life for all of those who will put their trust and faith in me, having accomplished for you what you couldn't for yourself.

This is what Jesus is about.

But the disciples, verse 45, don't understand this saying.

Apart from listening to Jesus, we are left in confusion, aren't we?

Jesus is saying he's accomplished our redemption.

So we listen to Jesus because our confusion gives way in the glorious light of his self-revelation, of his accomplished work on the cross, of his unique person revealing who God is.

We listen to this Jesus.

And when we listen to this Jesus, we rest assured of the gospel.

There is nothing left unsatisfied.

We in every way can come to God as our loving Heavenly Father through Christ.

And when we come to listen to Jesus, we can put into practice obedience to his word, not as those who are confined or limited by obedience to God's word, but by those who are liberated by it.

Because if Jesus is our rescuer, then following his word is the way of freedom and not oppression.

Jesus wants to free us through what he's accomplished and through his word.

So to follow Jesus means we take up our cross with the hope of the resurrection, and we give the cross the preeminent voice over our whole life.

We listen to him.

Here's the testimony of the Father.

This is my son, my chosen one.

Listen to him.

New song, would we be a church that listens to what Jesus is saying to us?

Come, let us adore him.

Amen.

Thank you for listening today.

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May God bless you and keep you today and every day.