Matthew 17:1-20

Speaker: Gary Peters

Passage: Matthew 17:1-20

A Prayer For America

I was raised in a veteran’s home. My dad fought in World War II. He received the Silver Star for bravery. He saved some lives. I asked him many times, “What was combat like?” and he would say, “Terror, boredom, a few seconds of incredible adrenaline, then terror and boredom.” He said, “Don’t ever glorify war. It is terrible.” But some people have fought and died for what we are doing today. That’s the ability to live in a country where we can worship as we want to.

What that means is we also love people that may not worship like us. That’s America. I would ask you to join me in a prayer for our country before we get started. Ask the Lord to minister to us.

Father God, we thank You that we live in a country where we have religious freedom and freedom of the press and freedom of speech, and all the other things that I think so many times we take for granted. 

Father, I don’t ask that You take us back to something we were. I ask, God, that You revive something that needs to be revived. God, I ask that You bring our hearts to brokenness. Father, we ask Your forgiveness for turning our backs to You and not our faces. 

God, we ask forgiveness for calling the holy profane, and that which is profane holy. I ask that You would forgive us for the murder of the unborn, for the shedding of innocent blood in our nation. God, I ask that You forgive us for often loving justice instead of mercy.

I ask that You would forgive us for turning time and time again — we’ve looked at Your commandments and said, “We can go our own way.” We don’t point the finger at others and say, “You must believe like we do.” We look at our hearts and say, Father, where have we walked away? Where have we not loved? Where have we not done what You’ve asked? 

Father, I have concerns. But I thank You that You are a God that moves. Where sin abounds, there is grace that much more. Raise a standard — not even a standard of what we think. Forgive us, God, for looking to a political party or an individual to bring salvation. Salvation only comes from You. 

God, we ask in Jesus’ name that You would move in our nation so that people don’t go to hell. Not so that people come to Vintage, but that people know who You are. That they would know the true and living God that loves them immensely and cares for them when they don’t even realize it. 

Father, as we’ve heard in the testimony of Dustin, You are faithful when we are faithless. Break our hearts with what breaks Yours. Father, I pray that we would live this dangerous prayer and not just have it be words on a Sunday morning. Begin to stir us and begin to do something in us. 

God, keep us from self-righteous indignation. Let us also not be afraid to stand for what is the truth of Your scripture. We thank You, Lord. We plead, beseech, and beg for mercy. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Micah 6:8, he has shown you, oh man, what is good, what the Lord requires to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly. Church, let it be our aim, not just on the Fourth of July weekend, but every day. 

The Transfiguration

I hold in my hands, two sets of notes. What I planned to share with you that hopefully we’ll get to in a couple of weeks. I also have what I feel like the Lord laid on my heart starting with a bike ride on Friday for something stirring. 

I’ve got to tell you a story. It’s storytime with Gary. I walk into the pastoral offices now and then and I say, “Storytime with Gary,” and I tell them a story. They’re like, oh no, another storytime with Gary. 

Yesterday, I’m riding my bike and I’m a couple of miles into it. I think to myself, man, these shorts do not feel comfortable. Lo and behold, I had them on backward. Yeah, I was wearing my bibs backward. So I thought, I know in about three miles, there’s a porta potty on the golf course and I’m going to swing by. I was in there, changing clothes, flipping things around, and getting back on the bike. That felt so much better. Storytime with Gary. 

Matthew chapter 17. We were there last week on the payment of the temple tax by Jesus. But I want to share the verses preceding that. Jesus is being prepared. Not only is He preparing the 12, but The Lord is also preparing Him for what’s about to take place in the next few months to a year. That He’s going to give His life for us. 

“Sixteen days later, Jesus took Peter and the two brothers, James and John, and led them up on a high mountain to be alone. And as the men watched, Jesus’ appearance was transformed so that His face shone like the sun and His clothes became white as light. Suddenly Moses and Elijah appeared and began talking with Jesus.” 

Moses and Elijah’s graves were never found. Moses was buried by God, it says, and Elijah was taken up in a chariot. A lot of people believe these are the two witnesses that will come back in the book of Revelation. If we believe in some type of rapture, wherever that takes place, I don’t know if we’ll be around. But if we are, we might get to see Moses and Elijah. But they came at that time. 

“And Peter exclaimed, ‘Lord, it is wonderful for us to be here. If you want, I’ll make three shelters as memorials, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’ But even as he spoke, a bright cloud overshadowed them and the voice from the cloud said, ‘This is My dearly beloved son. Which brings me great joy.’ The disciples were terrified and fell on their faces to the ground. And Jesus came over and touched them and said, ‘Get up. Don’t be afraid.’ And when they looked up, Moses and Elijah were gone and they only saw Jesus. And then they came back down the mountain.” 

A couple of things because this is not the real text. I’m putting it in context. Even Jesus needed to hear His dad say, “I love you, son. You’re doing a good job.” Did you hear what I said? There’s another time when Jesus is baptized. It says others heard thunder but Jesus heard the voice of God in His humanity. And by the way, Jesus didn’t jump in and out of deity where one moment He’s God on earth, one moment He isn’t. 

He emptied Himself and operated just like you and I do under the auspices of control of the Holy Spirit to do the work of God. But in His humanity, He needed to know that He was doing a good job. If the Son of God needed to know He was doing a good job, how many believe you and I do? 

Son and daughter, God loves you. Son and daughter, you’re doing a good job. Son and daughter, He’s well-pleased. Son and daughter, if you understand that, people will listen to you because you walk where you’re supposed to walk. 

The second thing I noticed in this is Peter processed verbally. When I get nervous, I talk. Sometimes I talk loud. When I teach I normally talk at a fast paced and loud. 

When I used to stand back in my suit and tie at the back of the church and shake people’s hands as they left, a five-year-old boy one time asked me, why do you always scream? His parents were embarrassed, but I said, “Dude, I know. It’s terrible. I’m sorry I scream. I try to control the emotions. I can’t.” Hopefully, it’s the anointing most of the time. 

But when I know God is saying something to me personally, I ponder. We all need to be verbal processors at times and we all need to ponder at times. Don’t tell people how to process. I always tell people that are going through grief, don’t let anybody tell you how you must grieve. As a matter of fact, grief comes in waves if you’ve lost somebody you love.

You think, I’m over that. And then another wave comes. And some people say, “Get over it.” I’m just saying this, process the way God calls you to process, but He does want to bring healing. 

Peter always opened his mouth. I love this dude. I relate to him a lot. I do. Peter opens his mouth. He says, God, this is incredible. This is awesome. I don’t know what to say. I’ve never seen anything like this. I don’t know what to do. But just let me build three tabernacles, three tents, and let’s just stay up here forever. It’s awesome. 

As he’s doing this, God just says, shut up Peter. Because this is not for you only, this is for my son. As he is speaking, God, the Father speaks and says, “This is my son in whom I’m well pleased.” 

Why did He need that? Because He’s about ready to go to the cross, and for the first time in all eternity, we don’t understand it. It’s the mystery of the incarnation. It’s the mystery that husband and wife kind of get, that mystery of being one. 

Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit were one for all eternity. They never had a beginning. And for the first time in His known existence, Jesus will be separated from God because He will take my sin, and God the Father could not look upon my sin or your sin. 

So He said, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” That’s why Jesus said, “If this cup is possible, let it pass.” He wasn’t afraid of death, I don’t believe. I’ve watched people that know Jesus die. I’ve watched people that don’t know Jesus die. There is a difference. There is a big difference. If you have ever been in a room where somebody doesn’t know the Lord, watch them cling to life. It’s terrifying. 

I’ve also watched people know they’re going in the presence of God. They raise their hands and you know they’re going in the presence of God. Jesus needed to hear His father say, “It’s going to be okay, son.” If God changed my notes, many of us in this room today need to hear, “It’s going to be okay, son or daughter. Trust me. I love you. You’re dearly loved. You’re beloved. You’re loved. You can’t hear it enough. You’re loved.” 

The Separation Of Disciples

As He’s coming down the mountain, and they’re talking, and I believe they are probably joking. One of my favorite pictures I’ve ever seen of Jesus was in a United Church when I went to school at Ontario Christian Seminary in Toronto, Ontario at a United Church. It’s called The Laughing Christ. He’s got His head back, and He’s got the hugest smile on His face. He is laughing. You can tell He’s laughing. That’s the picture. Not verily, verily, verily, verily, verily all the time. He laughed. He enjoyed life. That’s our Christ. That’s our Savior. That’s our Redeemer. 

As they’re coming down the mountain discussing this. This is the story that took place. “At the foot of the mountain, a large crowd was waiting for them.” Who’s them? The four. Jesus, James, John, and Peter. “A man came in now before Jesus and said, ‘Lord, have mercy on my son. He has seizures and suffers terribly. He often falls into the fire and into water. So I brought him to your disciples, but they couldn’t heal him.’ Jesus says, ‘You faithless, corrupt people, how long must I put up with you or be with you? Bring the boy here.’ Jesus rebuked the demon. And it left him. And from that moment, the boy was well. Afterward, the disciples asked Jesus privately, ‘Why couldn’t we cast out that demon?’ ‘You don’t have enough faith. I tell you the truth, that if you had faith as a small mustard seed, you’d be able to say to this mountain, move from here, and it would move. Nothing is impossible.'”

What I want to focus on is how would you like to be the nine and not to three? Jesus has His inner circle. He has the three. He takes them to the garden of Gethsemane and takes them to the mountain. Have you ever felt like the three?

Most of the time we feel like the nine. Does anybody here ever feel like the nine? I feel like the nine. As a matter of fact, I don’t feel like just the nine. I feel like the bottom three. I’m not even in the upper echelon. Sometimes I feel like the lower three. It never struck me before till I read it just recently. How do you think the nine felt? 

Not only were the nine left and didn’t experience the mountaintop. They couldn’t do what they were left to do. I want to encourage you today, sometimes you’re the nine and you fail. Be encouraged. Sometimes you’re going to be part of the nine and you’re going to fail. Sometimes you’ll be part of the three and open your mouth when you’re not supposed to. 

We always want to be the three. But I want to tell you something, from these three that went to the mountain with Jesus, one of them in about a decade is going to have his head chopped off by a king. Be careful what you want. I’m serious. We need to understand this also. We don’t know the pressure of those over us that make decisions. That’s why I believe in a sabbatical for Pastor Greg. 

We Don’t Understand The Pressure Of Other

We don’t understand the pressure he may be under. You could say, “Well, he’s just being a pastor.” Do know what it’s like to try to hear from God for a congregation of 1000 people? He told me when he first started pastoring, “I finally understand the weight.” I’m not saying poor Greg, poor pastor Gary, I’m saying this — we don’t know what your boss is under. We don’t know what our president’s under. I don’t care what you think of him. We don’t know what our president’s under. We don’t know what our governor’s under. We don’t know what our senators are under. We don’t know what our policemen are under. We don’t know what our teachers are under. We don’t know what those in authority over us are under. We don’t know the pressure, the burden, the carrying of the weight. 

My mom was always the one that ate last. Because if there wasn’t enough, Mom got the last. Moms, you know what it’s like. You understand the pressure. Everybody’s an expert when they’re not one. Everybody’s an expert at being married when they’re not married. Everybody’s an expert at raising kids when you’re not asked to raise those kids. I’m serious. 

I had a lady one time when we first started the church trying to tell Karen and me how to raise our firstborn. I looked at her and said, “Thank you very much. God told me to raise him, not you. You can leave.” You think I jest. I’m just saying we all have our opinions. But as Pastor Greg has told us time and time again, through the Roman series, our opinions sometimes don’t matter. They’re just opinions. 

Have you ever met opinionated people? How do you like to be around opinionated people? People that are constantly opinionated, I just get weary around them.

Have you ever met people that always have to tell you the right way? I remember teaching one time, years ago. I know Moses was not on the ark. I probably know that. It was Noah. In one sentence of a 30-minute teaching, I said, “Moses and the ark,” and this person walked up to me immediately as I stepped off the stage and said, “Pastor, I want you to know it was Noah, not Moses.” I didn’t know what they were talking about. I just kind of smiled and nodded. After I listened to the teaching back, I realized and said, “Moses and the ark. I get it now.”

I think it’s so interesting that Jesus made no apologies for dividing the three from the nine. Some of you are living in a situation where you have been bypassed for a promotion at work, and you can’t get over the fact that you know you’re more qualified and better suited for that job. But somebody over you bypassed you and took the other people to the mountain and left you to fend for yourself, and you failed. 

If you have a problem with what somebody over you in authority has spoken and the decisions they made, maybe the issue is not the person in authority. Just a thought. Maybe it’s us. There have been times when I’ve been in churches, large churches, where I’ve wanted to say, “Please let me have the mic. What you’re saying is nonsense, just give me the mic.” 

God says, calm down, Gary. I don’t verbalize that to anybody but my wife. I’ve had people look over me, bypass me. I’ve always felt average. This is confession time with Gary. I don’t care who you are. There are times in our lives when we feel small, bypassed, and insignificant. I want to tell you something, there’s one person that you’re not insignificant to. That’s God. 

Growing In The Kingdom

I love the fact that at the end of the story, they don’t seem to be hurt that they were left. They want to know why they couldn’t get the job done. People that grow in the kingdom are those that are saying, Lord, why didn’t that work out for us? What could we have done better? How many of you like people like that? Show me where I can be better. Show me how I can do the job differently. How can I be more effective? That’s what God wants in the kingdom.

Be diligent with what your hand has been given to do. In the Scripture it says to be faithful in the little things and He’ll make you ruler over much. Often when we’ve only done it for a month or a year, we say to God, “I’ve been faithful in the small thing. Now I need to be exalted.” What we don’t realize is somebody else has been on the job for 30 years. They know a lot more than us.  

If you have that attitude, you’re going to learn the small thing. I love where it says in Zaccheriah, “Don’t despise the day of small beginnings.” Don’t despise the small thing because God is wanting us to see how faithful we’re going to be in the small thing before He can entrust us with something else. It’s a principle in the Kingdom. It’s a principle in families. It’s a principle in life. 

I used to go hunting with my dad for pheasant because that was the only way you could shoot in Illinois at the time. He would give me a BB gun because his 12 gauge was as big as I was. I begged him and begged him and begged him and begged him, “Let me shoot your 12 gauge let me shoot your 12 gauge.” He finally said, “You want to shoot the 12 gauge? Prop up on that post son. Put it up against your shoulder.” Before I knew what was happening I was on the ground. My shoulder was shaky. My dad said, “See why I didn’t let you shoot the 12 gauge?” 

Sometimes lessons are learned by us charging forward. Peter was crucified upside down, tradition has it. James lost his head. John supposedly was boiled in oil and they couldn’t kill him. So they exiled him to Patmos. He’s the only one of the 12 that lived out a full life — if you call it a full life. Judas hung himself. The other 11 were martyrs. We want to be part of the 12. 

I’m just saying sometimes we don’t know. One of my favorite quotes is by F.B. Meyer, the famous English preacher. “None of us know what God is educating us for.” Hindsight is always 20-20. I believe God will give us insight and speak to us and say, “Son or daughter hold on, this is coming. This is coming. Watch out for that.” But I want to tell you, our life is never mapped out for us in all of its pitfalls, all of its mountaintops, all of its valleys, and all the river crossings. 

Yet we get mad at God because we compare our lives with somebody else that we don’t know their story. Learn to trust God. Easily said. You know how you learn to trust God? By trusting God. You know how you learn to walk through problems? By walking through problems. You know how you learn to trust? When your faith is tested. 

The beauty of it is this, the more you walk with Him and the more your faith is tested, Romans 12 says that He then gives us proven character and proven character has hope because hope believes that He can do it again because His character has been proved when He did it once before. 

That’s the beauty of Scripture. That’s the beauty of the Christian life. It’s not, “Come to Jesus and never have another problem.” It’s come to Jesus so that you know who can solve them. That’s the trust. I do believe. 

This morning at the beginning of the gathering, I felt the Lord speaking to me out of 1 John chapter one during the prayer time. First, John 1:1. This guy that was boiled alive, exiled to an island, saw the revelation, wrote a gospel, three epistles, and the book of Revelation under the inspiration Holy Spirit. That John. “We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning whom we have heard and seen. We saw Him with our own eyes and touched Him with our own hands. He is the word of life. This is the one whose life itself was revealed to us. We have seen Him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that He is the one who has eternal life. He was with the Father and He was revealed to us. We proclaim to you that we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with the Son, Jesus Christ. We are writing all of these things to you so that your joy may be fulfilled.” 

What I felt like the Lord spoke to me is to, “tell the people what I am doing in their lives right now is so that they can say to people ‘that which we have experienced, that which we know in our heart.'” You may not have seen Him with your naked eye but you’ve seen Him in the spirit. You’ve handled Him in the sense that you know God’s tangible presence is real. 

When we have that type of relationship, we can’t help but affect the people that we rub shoulders with. It’s when we read something and try to instantly live it then we try to share with somebody, we fall flat. Or when we read some pet doctrine that we have no understanding of the theology behind it and we try to share that with somebody, then we fall flat on our faces. 

John is saying, “I’m proclaiming to you that which I know to be true.” Maybe you’re part of the nine because He’s building that in your life. Maybe you will never be part of the three. And frankly, I don’t know if I want to be if I have to be crucified upside down, boiled in oil, and lose my head.

Psalm 75, verses six and seven say, “Not from the east, nor from the west, nor from the desert comes up exultation or promotion.” God is the judge. He puts one down and raises another. There are some incredible stories in the Old Testament. Haman builds gallows for Mordecai only to be hung on them himself. Nebuchadnezzar builds the statue that they have to bow to, only to be led by God to eat grass and act like an animal. Some of those things can happen in a moment. None of us know what God is educating us for. 

Benediction And Closing Prayer

God, give us eyes to see through faith, hearts to believe through faith, and to take the steps that we need to take through faith, knowing that I’m your beloved son. I’m your beloved daughter. And you’re pleased with me. You are working in my life. Even if you’re the 12th of 12. 

You may be the kid on the playground that’s picked last. You’re not picked last by God. Those parents out there that have more than one child understand this. I remember when my wife became pregnant with our second child, I thought to myself, how can I love this child that’s coming as much as the one who is here? I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I’ve told new dads the minute you see that child, you’re going to go, “How do I love something I just met so much?”

God has the capability of giving us the ability to love each child differently but the same. You know what I’m talking about, moms and dads. God the Father has the ability to love each one of us differently. Because we have DNA that’s different. We have a retina that’s different. We have a fingerprint that’s different. But God loves us all the same. He doesn’t play favorites. Different callings, different abilities, and different grace. Don’t ever forget it. God bless. Have a great Fourth of July.