He Is Good | Transformed By Glory | Mark 9:1-13 | Coleton Segars

Uh we're in the series uh right now titled He Is Good and uh rolling through the Gospel of Mark.

Um and so in your Bibles Mark uh Mark's gospel is the uh shortest of the accounts.

Um we're just going through the entire thing kind of bit by bit.

This particular message uh I was supposed to preach last week and honestly it just was not ready.

And I was like, this is a two-week preparation message, and so buckle up.

It's gonna be we're gonna be here for two hours.

It's gonna be no.

But it did take two weeks of just like trying to hammer this down, and maybe as I read it, you will also be like, yeah, there's a lot there.

So um my goal is that one that I will preach for understanding, and then also something that applies to each of us.

But this is the series that we're in.

This is a uh a beautiful image of the transfiguration that somebody painted, and uh, that's the text for today.

And so I'll begin reading uh Mark chapter 9, verses 1 through 13.

Mark 9:1–13

Jesus said to them, Truly I tell you, some of you who are standing here will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.

After six days, Jesus took Peter, James, and John with him and led them up a high mountain where they were all alone.

There he was transfigured before them.

His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them.

And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus.

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

Let us put up three shelters, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.

He did not know what to say.

They were so frightened.

Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud.

This is my son, whom I love.

Listen to him.

And suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus.

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

And they kept the matter to themselves, discussing what rising from the dead meant.

And they asked him, Why did the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?

And Jesus replied, To be sure, Elijah does come first, and he restores all things.

Why then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected?

But I tell you, Elijah has come, and they have done to him everything they wished, just as it is written about him.

This is the word of the Lord.

When I asked Rani to marry me, uh I got this picture right here.

When I asked Randy to marry me, I had hair.

Um, but when uh 15 years ago, uh when I asked Rani to marry me, I took her to this beach, this special spot in Evanston, Illinois, that I knew that she really liked, that we had a restaurant there and a yogurt shop that we used to go to.

Took her to this beach.

Uh, I wrote her a letter that said, Will you marry me?

Um, and the reason I wrote her a letter is because our relationship kind of began with letters.

I wrote her a letter every single day while we were long distance.

Uh she was in Chicago, I was in Tennessee.

And I felt like our relationship began with a letter, and our relationship should take a new step into a new season, beginning with a letter as well.

So I wrote her a letter.

Um we had special food, things that she liked, things that I liked, food that just meant something to us to make the event special.

I uh secretly brought a friend to witness this and hid him in the trees so that he could take this photo.

Um and then with all those things, I asked her to marry me and uh it worked out.

She said yes, it went okay.

Um but I say all that because we I did a bunch of stuff like in preparation for this, for this to happen.

I did a ton of things.

But the point wasn't any of the stuff.

Like all of the food and the space and the pictures and the notes, like none of that was at any of that was the point.

All of those things were aiming at and pointing to the this ultimate reveal when I get down on one knee and I open the ring box and ask her to marry me.

Everything is aimed to set the tone and to point towards that thing.

And I say that because that's similar to what is happening in this text.

There is so much going on here.

There's clouds and Moses and Elijah and a mountain, and six days after this, like there's so many things going on in verse one and two.

You see that they're at a special place, and then after six days, they go to this high mountain where God speaks from a cloud.

And it's a reminder to like, God did this in the Old Testament as well, uh, where after six days God spoke to Moses on a high mountain from a cloud.

Um, there's other people there, Moses and Elijah are there, both who heard God speak from a uh not from a cloud, but heard God speak on a high mountain where God revealed something about himself.

And so you have two people that have had God reveal something to them on a high mountain, and now here we are again on a high mountain.

So there's a lot going on here, but none of it is supposed to be the focus.

All of it is used to try and aim at a thing and trying to aim at God revealing something.

It's just there, and it's good that it's there because it's pointing to and setting the tone for this big reveal where God is going to reveal something about himself to people, once again, from a cloud on a high mountain.

It's a new theophany.

It's this new experience where God reveals something about himself.

And so that's what's happening here.

All those things are just setting the tone for him, revealing something big.

And this time, he's not revealing something necessarily about himself, he's revealing something about Jesus as he does all of this stuff and sets this thing and just all these things in order to reveal something about Jesus.

And so, what I want to do today is just look at three things that we learn from this text.

And there's probably a ton more that you can learn.

But three things that we learn from this text for today one, that Jesus is the glory of God.

We learn that Jesus is the glory of God.

We learn two ways of encountering that glory so that it changes us.

And then I'm gonna give you some homework.

I'm gonna give you a practice to do at home.

Um, and no one's gonna check on you and see if you do it.

You don't have to turn it in.

But it's just something that I believe as we're seeking to follow the way of Jesus, one of those things means practicing what he says, because he says, those who put my word into practice have different styles of living and different lives that are built out of that.

And so those are the three things that we learn.

We're gonna take them one by one.

The first, we learn that Jesus is the glory of God.

We see this in verse three.

Verse three, it says, There he, Jesus, was transfigured before them.

His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world who could bleach them.

And the word transfigured doesn't suggest that light was shining on Jesus or anything like that and making him glow.

It's light is emanating from him.

There's something coming out of him, something internally is taking shape in his life and shining out of him, that it's making his outward appearance and making his clothes even become something else.

Something is taking place inside of him that's coming from him, that's making his outward world change.

And if you know anything about the Old Testament, if you remember in Exodus, this a similar thing happens.

God's glory comes down on Mount Sinai.

Moses experiences that glory, and it shines on him so much so that when he comes down the mountain, his face is glowing.

Uh, but it's different here with Jesus.

Jesus' face isn't reflecting God's glory.

He he actually is like expressing that it's coming from him, it's not a reflection of God's glory.

Tim Keller, um, in his book Jesus the King, he summarizes really, really well.

He does this a lot, but he summarizes what's taking shape in this particular passage really well, identifying Jesus as the glory of God.

So I want to read this real quick.

He says, centuries prior to this event, according to the book of Exodus, God came down on Mount Sinai in a cloud.

The voice of God spoke out of the cloud, and everyone was afraid.

Very similar to this situation.

Moses went to the top of the mountain and begged to see God's glory, and getting a glimpse of God's glory made Moses' face shine with the reflected glory of God.

Now, centuries later, we're on the top of another mountain, and there's that glory again, but there's a twist.

Moses had reflected the glory of God as the moon reflects the light of the sun, but Jesus produces the unsurpassable glory of God.

It emanates from him.

Jesus does not point to the glory of God as Elijah, Moses, and every other prophet had done.

Jesus is the glory of God in human form.

And so what's revealed on this mountain, all of these different things that are taking shape, all of it is pointing to this one thing.

Like, what is it pointing to?

It's pointing to this revelation, this new revealing that Jesus is the glory of God.

Hebrews 1 3 says it this way He says, the Son, Jesus, is the radiance of God's glory.

He is the exact representation of his being.

Jesus is the radiance of God's glory, the exact representation.

So Jesus is the glory of God.

That's what's revealed.

Now, you may be like, so I don't care.

Or how does that matter to me?

And I want to unpack why that actually matters, because it's actually really substantial.

The reason that Jesus being the glory of God is important for you, and follow me, is because all of us want to be transformed.

And now we wouldn't say that when no one's like having dinner parties and like, you know what, I just want to be transformed today after I eat some spaghetti, and then I'll get some wine, and then I'll be well, maybe you would be transformed after the wine.

But like nobody wants to, nobody's saying that.

What we normally say is we say something like, I want, I just want something to change in my life.

So for instance, I wish my marriage was better.

I wish something would change in my marriage.

I wish I wasn't, I wish I wasn't depressed as much as I was.

I wish there was this time when I wasn't, and now that I am, I wish I wasn't depressed anymore.

We want to change.

I wish I could be content in this particular stage of my life.

I wish I weren't so angry all the time.

I wish I had better relationships with my kids.

I wish I didn't feel jealous of what others have and feel envious.

I wish my anxiety didn't keep me from sleeping at night.

I wish I could stop getting back into debt.

I get out of debt and I get back into debt and out of debt and back into debt.

I wish that would change.

I wish something would shift.

I wish I wasn't as afraid as I am.

I wish I didn't feel trapped in these struggles, trapped in this addiction.

I wish I could forgive people and just let things go.

That's how we would communicate the desire for transformation.

We wouldn't say, like, I just can't wait to be transformed.

It's like there's just things in our world, in our relationships, and in our lives, internally and externally, we just want to see changed.

And that's how we would say it.

But at the end of the day, it's the same idea.

We long to be transformed.

We want things in our world, in our lives, and around us.

We want to see those things transformed.

And what most people do when they want to be transformed is they try and do it themselves.

And they go, like, I think I can just bootstrap this thing, I can do it.

I can conjure up some willpower, I can change it.

Or so they either try to do it themselves and like, eh, just grit, I'm gonna do it.

Or they're like, I what I need, I just need to get something, and then I will be transformed.

As soon as I get more money, that will change my situation.

As soon as I get more relationship or something, if I get a new relationship, that will change how I feel.

If I get a new look, if I get all this, if I could grow some hair, then all of a sudden my confidence would just be spiking through the roof.

Like, if I could just get some things, like a new job, new new start, new city, new car, new this, like all these different things, new friendships, um, new job, all these different things.

If we could just get that stuff, that will initiate the change that we long for.

And so we normally, when we long for it, we begin looking out into the world externally.

Where can I go and find that thing that's ultimately going to change me?

And then other people get hopeless and they're not trying to change at all.

They're just like, I'll never change.

It's hopeless, there's no reason to do that.

And so they just give up on change.

They know that they want to, they're just like, it's just impossible.

And so those normally, those are the two ways that people try and transform.

Those are the two ways that people try and change.

The issue is the scriptures actually do say that you are meant to be transformed, but they don't say that you're supposed to be transformed by yourself.

There's something about your world and your life that is supposed to be, it's meant to be transformed, but it's not meant to be transformed by you.

You are, the scriptures say, you are meant to be transformed.

You are meant to be changed by glory.

You are meant to be transformed.

If you want that, like if you're like there's things in your life that you want, you are meant to.

Just the scriptures say you're like, you're not supposed to do that yourself.

You're not supposed to conjure the willpower.

You're not supposed to try and do this yourself, like you're meant to be transformed by glory.

And so experiencing and encountering glory is supposed to be the thing that ultimately shifts and shapes your life.

Glory encounters are supposed to be the thing that, like, all of a sudden, change begins to take shape in spaces where you wanted to see it happen.

Um what I mean is um when I was in college, uh, I was a terrible college student.

Like I was bad at it.

Like I liked school a little bit, but I was just, I didn't know how to do college.

And three years into college, three years in, you're supposed to have 120 credits to graduate.

You're supposed to get like 30 of those suckers a year, okay?

And then in the you know, whatever the fourth year you graduate.

Three years into college, I have 60 credit hours.

And so my current speed, I'll be in college for another uh three years.

So I have another three years.

And then something happened.

I met Rainey, um, and we started dating, and she's like obviously brilliant.

And uh she I'm like, when are you graduating?

And she's like, Oh, I graduate this year.

Uh I actually could graduate early.

I was like, Oh yeah, me too.

Um I just chose not to.

But she's like, fourth year, we're both entering our fourth year of college, and she's like, I can graduate in May.

Uh, when are you gonna graduate?

And I was like, I don't, how much time do you have?

Like, I don't um and she was like, Oh, well, I would how great would it be if we graduated at the same time and then went to grad school together in Chicago, where we didn't have to be long distance anymore, where our relationship wasn't a long distance, eight-hour relationship, but now we actually got to live in the same city and be in a relationship together and go to school together.

How amazing would that be?

And I uh people in this room saw it happen, but when I received that idea, this glorious future of not doing a relationship long distance, and this incredible experience of going like one day, we could actually be in the same city together, doing life together, dating together.

Something flipped in me like almost overnight.

And um I ended up that August, I went to school that fall, I took 30 hours, took 30 hours, and I had to like fight for it.

I had to go to like the registrar, I don't know where I had to go, but I had to go to different offices and like ask people, I want to take night classes, morning classes, weekend classes, I want to test out of classes, I want to use anything, and I want to like do the dishes in the laundry at the school to get credit.

Like, give me something.

I need 30 hours this this semester, I need 30 hours next semester.

I got 30 hours one that first semester, I got 30 hours that second semester, and I walked in May graduating.

And it was this thing, it's like I had only ever taken 12 hours per semester ever, ever.

Like, and failed some of those.

Like, it was not great.

And I spent I had two jobs during that time.

I visited Raining in Chicago, and uh I spent all of my free time at Ramblin' Joe's Coffee, which I was back then, I think it was Poplar Perkin, all of my time with a stack of books, reading, studying, and writing papers, and just just just firing away at these things.

And I walked in May.

And it wasn't because I hadn't tried to motivate myself.

Like I knew I needed to get a job.

Other people were saying, like, hey man, one of these days, you know, this costs money, like you need to go and do this thing.

And Rainey didn't threaten me.

She wasn't like, I'm gonna break up with you if you don't.

It wasn't threats, it wasn't willpower, it wasn't the knowledge that I knew that I needed to graduate.

What happened was she what was presented in my mind was this glorious future of our lives together, and it shifted me and it changed me into somebody very, very different.

And so I say all that because that's the idea that that we're given.

That's how we're meant to be transformed.

That's the way it's supposed to, versus God just berating you and telling you, or you or him going, like, just figure it out, man, we'll power up, do something.

We're supposed to encounter these pockets of glory to where something happens in our minds and in our hearts, where we experience this beautiful thing, to where change begins to take shape in us almost automatically.

And you're like, how did that even happen?

Like you just started really working hard.

It's like, no, no, no, something shifted in me.

I encountered beauty, I encountered glory, and something changed.

That's how the scriptures testify that you're supposed to be transformed.

Paul says that this way he says, and we who behold the Lord's glory, we who all behold the Lord's glory, we are being transformed out of our image into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

The idea that Paul is giving is like the more that you encounter that glory, the more that you experience that glory, the more that you're like in the presence of him and that beauty, there's something about it that's supposed to shift and change things in your relationships, in your life, in your mind, in your heart, in the world around you.

It is going to change something.

We who behold the Lord's glory are transformed out of our image into his image with ever increasing glory.

And so Jesus being the glory of God reveals that there's there's something in him and there's something about him that is the space where if you want to be transformed, he's like, I also want you to be transformed.

And so if you want to see that take shape, like I'm the glory, I'm the thing, I'm the stuff that's actually supposed to shift things in your world and shift things in your life.

And he sees things in your life, he sees things in your relationships, he sees things in your mind that he's like, I also want to transform those things.

I didn't die for you just to like one day you get to go to heaven when you die.

That's a great thing, but I died for you to give you a new life, shift something in your world now so that you live as a new person, so that other people look at you and go like, you were one way and now you're this way.

What happened?

And it's like, I've been transformed by glory.

Our lives are supposed to be a witness to what he can actually do.

And so he sees these things in our lives and he's not gonna guilt you or threaten you with hell, like you better change or else.

You better do that, he's not gonna rule follow you into doing these things.

He's like, I want me and you to I want you to experience the glory that uh that is me, that's in me, that's that that I have available to you.

I want you to experience pockets of beauty that ultimately shift things and turn things in your heart that you've been longing to see shift.

I can do that stuff, and it's a lot easier if you allow my glory to change you than you just trying to willpower up and things like that.

There's something about him that changes us, and that is the best way to change.

You are meant to be changed, and the best way that to change is to be changed by experiencing glory, and that's why it's important to know he is the glory of God, he is the way that we change.

And so it leads to the question if he is the glory of God, and that's what changes me, how do I experience that glory?

How do I experience that glory so that I can change?

We see this in verses four through eight.

It says, And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus.

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

Let us put up three shelters, one for you, one for Moses.

He didn't know what to say, he was terrified.

Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud.

This, this is my son, whom I love.

Listen to him.

And suddenly, when they looked around, there were no longer anyone there except Jesus.

Again, there's a lot going on here, and none of it is really the point until you get to verse 8.

A lot going on here.

A lot of commentators debate about what Peter is asking and saying.

It's important to remember that Mark is writing down whatever Peter is saying to him.

Peter's there, Mark's writing down Peter's account of everything that's taking shape.

That's how Mark gets his gospel.

It's from Peter's account.

So a lot of commentators are like, is he trying to start a new religious system with three different temples and three different tabernacles?

And they're like, we don't know.

Is he uh just wanting to stay there and like, let's pitch a tent and spend the night and have a sleepover?

Is that what he wants to do?

Uh we don't know.

And the best commentator that I read on this was like, you should not pay too much attention to whatever this is, because if Peter is giving Mark what to write down, Peter then dismisses his own statement.

It's almost as if Mark goes, So you said, let me build three tents?

Like, why'd you say that?

Three shelters?

Why'd you say that?

And it's almost like Peter said, I don't know, bro, I was freaking out.

I didn't know what I was saying.

And then Mark literally goes, Great, I'm gonna write that down.

And like, and so like he didn't know what to say, he was freaking out.

And like, and so Mark just writes that down.

And so the commentator's like, Don't worry about why he wrote it.

Peter dismisses it.

Mark is like, this is dumb, anyways, let's move forward.

And so the point of all of it isn't like, what is Peter trying to get at?

The point is what God says, not what Peter says.

He has no idea what he's saying.

The point is what God says in verse eight.

And so Moses is there who represents the law of God in the Old Testament.

Elijah is there as the greatest prophet represented in the Old Testament, the greatest prophet in the Old Testament.

And the Lord, when he speaks in verse eight, notice, he didn't say anything about either of those two bros.

He says nothing about Moses.

The greatest lawgiver, the most humble, God spoke to him face to face, the whole thing, says nothing about him.

The greatest prophet in there, God says nothing about him.

God focuses all of his attention and all of the attention on everything and everybody in that space.

He focuses all of his attention on Jesus and he looks to him and he speaks only about him.

He says this in verse, I believe it's verse seven.

I've been saying verse eight, it's verse seven.

A voice came from the cloud.

This is my son.

You're looking around, should I build some shelters?

He's like, stop, look, this, that is my son whom I love.

You need to listen to him.

You need to stop talking.

You need to listen to him.

That's what you need to do.

And it's like he's saying, don't focus on anyone else.

They're not the point.

All the law and the prophets testify about this person.

This is my son.

Listen to him.

And so, this is how we encounter what God is doing.

This is how we encounter that glory that transforms us.

You look to him, this is my son whom I love, and then you listen to him.

How do we encounter the glory that transforms us?

You look to him and you listen to him.

And so I want to take those and unpack those real quickly because they could mean a bunch of different things.

But I want to do them backwards.

I want to look at listen to him first and what that means, and then I want to look at look to him and see what that looks like.

Okay.

So God says, You want to be transformed by God.

Glory, this is how it does it.

You listen to him.

Listen carries with it the idea.

Go to this next slide here.

Listen carries the idea of not just hearing.

Next slide here.

There it is.

Listen to him.

Thanks, Colin.

Not just hearing, but it's plus obeying.

So listen, every time listen is used in the scriptures, it's not like just hear me.

It's like I want you to do something with what you just heard.

So the equivalent is follow.

You have to listen in order to follow someone.

You have to listen in order to get where they're going.

And so it's hearing and obeying.

So when God says listen to him, he's saying, hear him and also do what he says.

And that is how you will be transformed.

And Jesus actually talks about this in Matthew 7.

He's like, if you will put my word, not just hear it, but if you will put it into practice, it will make your life into something different.

And so he says this in Matthew 7.

He says, Therefore, this is Jesus talking.

Everyone who hears these words of mine, he hears them, but then puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on a rock.

The rain came down, the streams rose, the winds blew and beat against a house, yet it did not fall, because the foundation was on the rock.

But then he says, But everyone who just hears, anyone who just hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house in the sand.

The rain came down, the winds blew, and that house fell with a great crash.

And so what he's saying is like if you take my words, if you hear them and do them, your life will be built stronger.

You might still deal with everything else that everybody else is walking through, but your life will be strengthened and unshakable in a way that somebody else's life who just, I know all the things, I've heard all the Bible, I know all that stuff.

And he's like, your life will look and be transformed into something substantially different than that other one.

The other one will lie flat because it's been knocked over, and the other one will stand firm.

And so he talks about this idea that the way that we are transformed is by hearing and obeying.

And anyone, if you've ever read the scriptures and you've done this and you've practiced them, you know this to be true, that it changes things in your life as you read them and you put them into your life and begin doing them and walking them.

If you've done that for any period of time, you know it shifts something in your world, it changes something in your life, it changes something in the lives of those around you.

I was saying this last night.

I was like, I'll put my marriage up against anybody's marriage as the best marriage that's ever existed.

I will, I'll do that.

Um, because, but it's not because, like, oh, we just really figured it out, we're great.

It's like we are committed to like taking what the scriptures say about how marriage is supposed to go and going, how do we, how do we put those into our marriage and make that because we believe with all of our hearts that if we can not just hear it, but shove those things into our marriage, our marriage is gonna be transformed into something that's beautiful and great and far better than anything we could have gotten to on our own.

And so we just chase that down as much as we possibly can.

And so if you're looking for somebody to marry, look for somebody that's like interested in like placing those things in their world.

But for me, I have watched this happen.

I have read God's word, placed it in my life, and done it and watched him transform things.

I have watched how coming clean about lies put our relationship back together early on.

I've watched how confessing my sin to Rainey has actually strengthened our relationship rather than tearing it apart and helped me fight against sinful things.

I've watched that happen.

Um, I've been in a conversation one time where someone was berating me and telling just horrible things.

Rainey was there for it.

Just horrible, horrible, horrible things.

And instead of responding in kind, I just began saying kind things to them.

I was trying to practice Jesus' words of like, do good to those who hurt you.

Say kind things to those who are actually being cruel to you.

And so I just did that and I told story after story about how much I loved that person.

And I'm telling you, in a moment, I watched that person turn from being so angry and so hateful into someone who is weeping on the floor, and our rec our relationship and our friendship becomes reconciled back together.

Like I watched that happen.

It was this beautiful thing of like, why should you put his word into practice?

Because it will transform things, it will actually shift.

He's not lying.

It's true.

If you put it into practice, you'll see something different take shape.

I obviously have seen what prayer and fasting can do and how it can change things.

I've sought the Lord and I've waited on him, and I've seen how he can give new strength to people who are ready to give up.

I have experienced, I'm ready to give up, but I'm gonna wait on you, I'm gonna seek you until you give me strength to continue moving forward.

I've cut off and plucked out the things in my life that cause me to sin so that I'm not dealing with shame and guilt, but I'm actually in replacing those things with something else, I'm experiencing joy and life and fullness.

I've seen how not judging someone, judging someone made me hate them.

Um, and then reading the scriptures, and I'm like, I don't ever judge anybody, I don't do that, and then realizing like the Lord's like, you are judging this person and it's making you angry.

And I was like, oh my gosh, I need to repent, I need to not do that.

And how choosing to just not judge that person all of a sudden made me love them more and made me a lot happier of a person.

It just transformed my emotions and it transformed those things.

I've experienced the overwhelming joy of sharing my faith with people who don't know Jesus and watching them come to faith.

And the the testimony of scriptures that when you do that, you experience a fullness that's available to you when you share your faith with other people.

Like I've just experienced, I've just taken, I don't do it perfectly and I don't do it all the time, but like as much as I can, it concerns me, I want to take his word, hear it, and then I want to go like, what do I do with it?

I'm like, I want to shove this into every aspect of my life.

I want to put it in my brain, my hands, my feet, my heart.

I want to shove it into my marriage, the way that I parent, the way that I do my job, the way that I pray, the way I want to put it everywhere because when you just hear it and do nothing with it, it does nothing for you.

But when you hear it and you apply it and you put it in your in your world, in your life, it transforms things.

James says, whoever looks intently into the perfect law, I'm reading James right now.

Whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it, continues doing it, not forgetting what they heard, but they do it.

Look, the promise.

They will be blessed in all they do.

That's pretty strong.

That's a good promise.

I'll be blessed in all I do.

I'd like some of that.

I want some of that.

I want to be blessed in everything that I do, not just blessed in like church on Sunday.

Like, I don't want just that.

I want all these different things.

And he's like, it's available.

You look intently into it, you don't forget it, but you do it.

You will be blessed in all you do.

He's not a liar, that is true.

And you can experience those things.

To me, there are blessings in your life, in this room, there are blessings in your life that are waiting for you on the other side of obedience.

You've heard already.

You're sitting there going, I've been praying this prayer and asking God, I don't know why He's, I don't know why He's waiting.

He's like, I'm not waiting.

Or you're not waiting on me, I'm I'm actually waiting on you.

I've I've answered that prayer.

You're longing for transformation and you're asking for transformation, you're asking for change, and I've already given it in my word.

And so, but if you choose not to do it, then you're not going to experience it.

But I've already answered the prayer by giving you the words.

And so take them, do them, and then all of a sudden, you that prayer that you've been praying that I've already answered, you will begin to experience that what I've said is true.

And I think for us, there are things that you're longing to see shift in your life that just aren't going to happen.

You're never going to experience them until you stop just hearing and not obeying, but you start hearing and going, okay, I've heard it forever.

I've been in church my entire life.

I know so much of the Bible, but I'm going to start shoving this stuff into my life.

He wants to transform you, and this is one of the ways that he wants to do it.

Taking his eternal word and shoving eternity into your hearts and spaces so that you begin to shift into a different type of person.

Doing what God says does not make him love you more.

The love is there.

He's already, he loves you.

Okay?

It's not making him love you more, but it is a space where it opens a door for him to go, like, thanks.

Now I have free reign.

Now I can do some stuff in here that you actually want to see happen too.

And so the first one, he's like, all the things that God could say from a cloud on a mountain about Jesus, he chooses, listen to him.

Why?

Like it could be anything.

Say something else.

Like, I don't give him money.

I don't know what, like you could say all kinds of stuff.

But he's like, listen to him.

Why?

Because I want to see your life altered and shifted and changed and transformed in ways, and you want this too.

You have fears that you don't want to have, anxieties you don't want to have, just stuff that's going on in your life that you don't want.

I don't want those things either.

I don't want your life defined by brokenness.

So listen to him.

Hear and obey.

And I promise you, as you do those things, your life will ultimately be encounter the glory of his word working its way into your life to where it shifts and changes things.

Listen to him.

And then the second one is to look to him.

Look to him.

Look to him as the idea of beholding, contemplating, fixing your eyes to look and think about Jesus, to think on his word, to think on his works, to think on his character.

And the longer that we do this, the longer we contemplate Jesus, the more consistently we do that, the more changed we will be over time, slowly, periodically over time, the more change that will take shape in our lives.

Again, Paul says this.

We who behold, we who look to him and behold his glory, we are being transformed into his image.

There's a shift that takes place.

We are being transformed into his image from glory to glory with ever-increasing glory.

How am I changed?

By just placing things in front of your eyes and in your mind and meditating and pondering and contemplating what he has done somehow that shifts and changes things in our lives, changes things in our world, changes things in our hearts.

And if you don't believe me and you think that's just the Bible, there is scientific proof that is finally caught up with the scriptures that actually says this exact same thing.

So I have a little bit of science for you.

So if you're a science person and you got glasses, buckle up.

In the 1990s, uh a good good age, good age, 1990s, uh Italian scientists discovered what they call mirror neurons.

Maybe you've heard of these, but next slide here.

Mirror neurons, these exist in your brain.

It's a key mechanism in learning by observing.

Okay, we actually have there's there's something in our brain that does this.

Mirror neurons let us simulate other people's actions and the intentions and emotions behind those actions.

So when you see someone smile, for example, your mirror neurons in your in your brain fire up and they create a sensation in your own mind of the feeling associated with smiling.

And you don't have to do the work of figuring out why the other person is smiling or what they intend by it.

You just experience the sensation of the feeling associated with smiling immediately and effortlessly.

And so the idea is the way that our biology is set up, you are biologically created to become what you behold.

And so whatever you place in front of yourself the most, your brain fires up with something, and it's like, whatever I'm seeing will shift and shape and change me into its image.

And so if you're constantly looking at social media, you will become someone who is social, or you'll become more envious of the person that you look at on social media.

There's a reason, if you look at um commercials, why when they're doing like a burger commercial, it's not just burger sitting on a plate somewhere.

Normally it's someone going like this, because they know about mirror neurons, and they're like, if I just show you a burger sitting on a plate, it's not gonna fire up your I your ability to salivate and to bite into a burger.

We want those to be something that fire up in you so that you're not just watching someone eat a burger, but that you come here and you start eating a burger and then we get money.

And so they do that, they're playing on this idea, they're trying to place something in front of your mind that makes you want to become what you see.

And so it's biologically true.

You become whatever you behold.

And so this is the way our body works.

And again, this is why the writer of Hebrews, this is all throughout the scriptures.

The writer of Hebrews says this though.

He's like, he's like, so fix your eyes.

Fix your eyes on Jesus, the pioneer, perfecter of your faith.

Because it was the joy that set before him that he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and then he sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

And then he says this consider him, ponder him, meditate on him who endured such opposition, so that, but then notice what he says: like, if you will consider him and the opposition he dealt with, then you will not grow weary and lose heart in the opposition that you're dealing with.

And that's the implication of like, if you will look to what he's endured, it will help you to endure.

You will see what he's done, thinking about what he's done, and it will turn you into someone who can endure the same way he did.

Your life will mirror him.

The way that a mirror ultimately reflects whatever it's in front of it, your life will become a mirror of the thing that you behold.

And what scripture is saying is like you should behold him, you should think on him.

He will transform you into his image, the more that you behold him.

Your mirror neurons, even though you're not even seeing him in real time, the more that you're able to simulate what he has done for you, the more it will actually shift and change things in you.

So I want to show you what this could look like really fast, to behold Jesus.

Uh, because um, and I want to focus on like Jesus on the cross.

I have this, we'll get to it in just a second, this image, but I want us to just practice like like what does it look like?

What am I saying to behold Jesus?

And then how should that shape us?

And I want to look at him on the cross because verses nine through thirteen, that's what Jesus is trying to get his disciples to do.

Verses nine to thirteen, go to the next slide here.

Nope, we don't have it.

Okay, verses nine to thirteen, um, Jesus is walking down this mountain and uh he says, Hey, don't say anything about this until I rise from the dead, which freaks them out because dead means that you're gonna die.

And so they don't know what that means.

Uh and then Peter, instead of rebuking Jesus this time like he did last time, he uses the scriptures and he's like, Well, you know, the scribes say that Elijah is supposed to come first, and then if he comes, he's gonna restore all things, so you don't really have to die, I don't think, if he's gonna restore all things.

And then Jesus just points them back to, yes, and the scriptures also say, though, that the Son of Man must suffer many things.

And so Jesus is constantly in his disciples trying to place in front of them his coming suffering.

He wants them to behold it, he wants them to contemplate it, he wants them to think about it, he wants that.

I know y'all are trying to dodge it, but I want you to constantly have this in front of your minds.

Jesus is placing that in front of them.

So I want us to do that as well.

If we fixed our eyes and considered for a while Jesus' suffering on the cross, go to that slide there.

If we contemplated Jesus' suffering on the cross, this is uh by Matthias Grunwald, it's a beautiful painting.

It's actually humongous.

If you stood before it, it's like really, really big in front of you.

And so it's almost like you're standing right where uh he was actually crucified, the way that it was painted and built up.

It's really, really beautiful.

Um but if we fixed our eyes on Jesus and considered for a while Jesus' suffering on the cross, how could that shape us or change us?

And I want to give you a handful.

I believe that if we actually contemplated what Jesus is doing and what he did on the cross, one of the things it should do is that it should give us confidence that God really, really, really loves you.

Like anybody to deal with that much pain, it's like, why do you do that?

And it's like, oh, I he did that for me.

And he did it for you because of your sin, not because of your righteousness.

And so many times people fall into this idea, like, God can't love me, I'm so screwed up.

And it's like, this is what he did for screwed up people.

This is his act.

What do you how do you treat sinners?

Oh, I lay down my life for them.

And it's like, man, then how do you treat righteous people?

Because that's incredible.

Like, if you do this for the people that hate your guts, like this is amazing.

What do you do for people who love you?

And it's like, oh, far, far more.

But like, this is incredible.

And so it should make us, we should look at this and be like, when we're in the midst of our sin, God, how could you possibly love me?

It's like, that is how he's loved you when you were in the midst of your sin.

That is how he's like, and so your sin doesn't push him away from you.

Your sin led him to draw nearer to you.

And so in the midst of it, when you're like, I can't, I don't really does he love me?

Yes, it should testify over and over.

It should constantly be this thing before our eyes to give us confidence.

Like, I don't feel loved.

It's like you should feel loved.

Look at what he was willing to do.

He loves you.

If we behold Jesus on the cross, it should change the way that we treat our enemies.

It should change the way that you treat people who disagree with you and think differently than you.

Because the cross reveals who do you do this for?

He did this for his enemies.

How does he love his enemies?

Like, how did he love you?

You are his enemy, how does he love his enemies?

Oh, he lays down his life for them.

So he doesn't crush them underfoot, doesn't berate them and yell at them and talk about them bad online.

No, he doesn't do any of that.

He lays down his life for them, he gives up his power and he gives it to his enemies and he lets them beat him and crucify him.

And then by doing that, he turns his enemies into friends.

So you were once his enemy, and you are now, if you are a believer in him, you are now his friend.

How did he turn and get rid of his enemies?

We want to crush them and to get rid of them.

And he's like, How did he get rid of them?

He loved them into friends.

That's what he did.

So, what should we do?

How should we treat our friends or our enemies?

The way that we should treat our enemies is to love them.

If you want to get rid of them, love them until they're your friend.

The cross should give us hope and peace and trust and the suffering and the hardship that we go through.

We would ask, like, why is God allowing me to go through so many hard times?

Why is God allowing this to go?

And what many people do is when they're going through suffering and going through a hard time, it's either like God doesn't care, God doesn't love me, that's why I'm going through this, or God's just not powerful enough to do anything about it, or God is just punishing me for something that I did wrong.

But here, you have God on the cross dying.

And this isn't a space where he's sitting there, where he's where he's not there.

Like it's not, this isn't a space where God is out of control.

This is maybe the most pointed time in history where he's in the most control.

I'm choosing to do this.

And so if you're walking through suffering, it seems like, God, don't you have power to stop it?

He had power to stop it, but he chose not to.

And so it should lead us to go, like, I'm walking through these hardships and I'm doing these things.

God, do you even have a plan in the midst of this?

And he's like, Yes.

My suffering testifies to the fact that I had a plan.

And it was through suffering that I was going to bring many sons and daughters into glory.

I have a purpose for the things that you're walking through.

And you don't have to sit there and go, like, you must have abandoned me.

It's like, no, I actually abandoned him.

I abandoned Jesus on the cross.

I'll never have to abandon you.

And so, even though you walk through suffering, you can trust me that I'm in full control, even though it feels like life is out of control.

Jesus on the cross should give us a healthy fear of what sin can do in our lives.

What would this small sin do?

It's like, it leads here.

What does sin do?

It kills, it steals, it destroys, it unmakes a person.

That's what it does.

Jesus was being unmade on the cross.

And his before the crucifixion, he's being beaten.

He doesn't even look like a human anymore.

What does sin do?

It unmakes you, it turns you into something else.

And so, where does sin lead?

To death.

Sin leads to death.

Not just death in eternal life or something like that, but like death now.

It will crush things in you, it will kill things in you.

It should give us a healthy fear of like, what will this sin do?

It will lead to death.

It should give us a freedom of the punishment of sin.

Every now and then people sin and they're like, I'm just nervous that God's gonna hurt my business or my family or my kids or my money or my something.

Or I'm I got in that wreck because God, I've sinned earlier and like God's keeping a track record.

It's like, oh, that was a lustful thought.

Okay, I'm gonna crush you later with that.

Like we think that he's like nickel and diamond in us, and it's like, no, no, no.

One punishment for sin happened, and it happened here.

Is God gonna punish you?

Now you might experience consequences for making bad decisions, I'm not saying that.

But like, is he gonna slap you from heaven with like bad karma?

No, that's a fake thing.

Because punishment was poured out on sin, but it was poured out on Jesus.

And so that's where it happened.

Is he gonna punish you over your sin?

To those of you who have been like, please forgive me for my sin, I want all of, I want all the forgiveness that's available.

No, there is no punishment for sin left.

It happened on him.

It should give us trust and joy in God's plan that even though it's different than what we think it should be.

God, your plan for my life is different than what I thought it would be.

This is a very different style of plan, y'all.

This is like, God, I'm gonna go and die.

Most people, all the disciples are furious, but they're like, this doesn't make any sense.

This plan makes no sense.

And it's like, I know it makes no sense to you, but I'm doing a thing.

Give me a second.

I'll show you that this plan actually makes sense.

And in our lives, when we're dealing with plans that don't make sense, God, how could you possibly be working something good in the midst of this?

He's like, I promise you, even though it might look horrible and it might feel hard, wait.

I have something, I'm building something, I'm doing something.

And the cross testifies to that.

It should make, I don't have time to continue these, but it should make us a content people because we know that he would give us everything that we need because he was willing to give us what we actually needed.

Should make us a grateful people, should change how we treat rebellious kids, rebellious friends, rebellious family.

How did God treat rebellious people?

He laid down his life for them.

It should give us fearlessness from the worries of the world.

I'm worried about the government.

The Roman government did this to Jesus.

Don't worry about the government, he's got it.

Like, even the Roman government, he's like, you're not, I could, I'm doing this myself, and I'm allowing the government to actually do it.

Well, I'm worried about this thing.

It's like I understand that those things are true, and some things can look scary or whatever, but like he is still in control and now he rules and reigns over all of it.

And she gave us a fearlessness.

Beholding Jesus, beholding the gospel.

The gospel of Jesus goes against our instincts.

It makes sense for good people to get good things, it makes sense for bad people to get punished.

And the reason that makes sense is because it's human-made.

Karma makes sense in the Hindu religion because it's human-made.

Of course it makes sense.

We made it.

People made it.

The gospel goes against the other way.

We're good people are there is no good person except this person, and the good person got terrible things, and the bad people get wonderful things.

It goes against our instincts, and the more that we behold something that is God's idea that goes against our instincts, the more that we're transformed out of the way that we think into the way that he thinks, the more we're transformed out of our image and into his image.

This is why he wants us to behold the glory of God in Jesus on the cross.

He wants to change us and shape us.

And that is just one example of like, what could this teach us if we just sat there and stared at it?

It should teach us a ton of things.

So, this is what he wants for us.

He wants us to be transformed.

And we all want it.

There are things in your life that you want to see changed, and he wants that for you as well.

He wants to do it not by yelling at you, berating you, guilting you, shaming you, threatening you.

He wants to do it by you experiencing glory, experiencing a beauty that ultimately shifts things in your heart.

And that happens by fixing our eyes on him, beholding him, because you become what you behold, and it happens by listening to him, hearing and obeying and allowing him to actually do those things.

And so, two practices for you at home.

The first is to listen to him.

Um, go to this next slide here.

I'm not gonna read through all these because there's a bunch of them, but here are 30 things that Jesus says to do.

And what I want you to do, I'll send it in the email tomorrow, but I want you to do, I just want you to pick one that you're not doing.

You know it, you could probably quote it, but you're like, I don't do, I do this one the least.

Like, great.

Take that one and listen to him.

Don't just hear it, but go and do it.

It's not gonna make him love you more, but this is the way that he transforms people, places, things.

This is how he does that.

And so pick one, pick two, and honestly, just read the scriptures.

They're stacked full.

If you don't have a Bible plan, talk to Larry, talk to Amy, talk to me.

We got Bible plans for you.

We got so many Bible plans.

You need to read the scriptures and to hear those things and put them in your life.

Again, I'll say it.

I believe there are prayers that you're asking God to do and he's going, I've already answered that prayer.

But it's actually, you're not waiting on me.

I'm actually waiting on you to do that thing.

I've already told you where to experience that transformation you're longing for.

But it's in hearing and obeying what I've asked you to do.

And so pick one and do it.

And then secondly, I would practice beholding him.

Behold Jesus on the cross.

Go to the next slide here.

Next slide.

There it is.

Look to him.

And then ask this question how should this and how should this, Jesus doing this, how should this inform my current circumstance?

Like what I'm walking through, the pain that I'm dealing with, the issues that I'm having, how should Jesus on the cross, what does it say to me, and how should it inform what I'm actually walking through?

Our lives are meant to be transformed.

He wants that for you.

And that happens in two ways primarily.

It is by listening to him, doing what he says, and it is by looking to him and beholding him.

He wants that, you want it.

We just don't call it transformation.

But the way that it's available to you is this, and he wants your lives to be transformed by experiencing glory from one glory to the next.

And so I want that for you, and so my encouragement to be to you would be to let him actually transform you because he wants you to do that for you, and you want it as well.

Let me pray.

Lord Jesus, thank you for your word.

I do pray that you would uh set in our hearts just the beauty of this idea that there are things that we want to shift and change in our lives.

There are people that we uh would love to see change.

There are relationships and things and mindsets and stuff that we're stuck in that you want to see shift and change.

And we want those things too.

And so, Father, I just pray that you would give us faith to look and see where you're calling us to be ob to actually hear you and obey, to behold you, to meditate on you, so that we are actually transformed by what we behold and we become this new thing that we look at.

God, would you help us to do that in Jesus' name?

Amen.