Sermon Tone Analysis

I truly do praise the Lord that each and every one of you chose to be in God’s house this morning.

To think that God has allowed us to live in a land that allows us to worship Him freely.

God has been so good to us, Amen?

This morning, as we continue our journey through the life, death, and life of Jesus of Nazareth, we come to a high point in His ministry on earth.

If you recall, we have seen some pretty low points in Jesus’ time on earth.

About a month ago we saw how the devil harassed Him in the wilderness, tempting Jesus to sin against God the Father.

And, as I’m sure you are well aware, we are going to see another very low point in the life of Christ in about three weeks.

But this morning, we are going to see a true mountain-top experience in Jesus’ life on earth.

Jesus, who clothed Himself with flesh just like mine and yours, decided at one point in His life to show His disciples what He was really like.

As I’m sure you gathered from Justin’s Scripture reading, this morning we are going to look at the Transfiguration of our Lord, as recorded in Matthew seventeen.

So please turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter seventeen, and we are going to be reading verses one through nine.

Again, Matthew seventeen, starting in verse one.

“And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them: and His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light.

And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with Him.

Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here: if Thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for Thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias.’

While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, ‘This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him.’

And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid.

And Jesus came and touched them, and said, ‘Arise, and be not afraid.’

And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only.

And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying, ‘Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of Man be risen again from the dead.’”

Let’s pray together.

This morning the title of my sermon is Jesus: The Glorified Lord.

We are going to study this text verse by verse this morning, and through the text we are going to learn five lessons about the identity of Jesus Christ, and about how His identity affects every aspect of our lives.

So let’s study God’s word.

Lesson #1: Jesus Christ is no Ordinary Human Being

While obviously this is a lesson that all of you probably learned a long time ago, let’s discover it anew from our text this morning.

Let’s read verses one and two of our chapter again.

“And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them: and His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light.”

So in the introduction of today’s story, we see that Jesus has chosen three of His twelve disciples to go up onto the mountain with Him.

We do not know why He chose these specific three, but there are several times in the gospels when Peter, James, and John were given special access into Jesus’ ministry.

So Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up onto a mountaintop.

And up there on that mountain, Matthew records that Jesus was transfigured.

While our English Bibles say “transfigured,” the Greek word literally means “metamorphic.”

The closest natural parallel is of a caterpillar that turns into a butterfly.

But while that process takes weeks, Jesus is transformed in an instant.

And sometimes when we think about something changing forms, we think of it becoming something that it was not before.

But that’s not what we have here.

Jesus is not changing into something new.

No, He is being revealed for what He already was before the world began.

Look at how the text describes our Lord.

It was that His face shone like the sun, and His clothes were as white as the light.

Hopefully this will ring a bell with some of you in our Wednesday night crowd.

This is the same sort of language that John uses in the book of Revelation to describe Jesus when He comes to him in a vision.

And in Matthew, Jesus turns into this absolutely radiant being, and the disciples are blown away by the appearance of their friend and teacher.

And so what does this truth tell us about the carpenter from Nazareth?

There are many, many scholars, scientists, and religious leaders out there that would love to convince you that Jesus was nothing more than a good moral teacher.

Even Thomas Jefferson, the writer of the Declaration of Independence, believed that Jesus was merely a good moral teacher.

Mahatma Gandhi believed that Jesus was perhaps the best teacher that ever lived, yet He was just a teacher, not the Son of God.

But what do we in the church say to that claim?

While we could toss up many examples from the gospels about Jesus doing miracles, perhaps none is a better example than verse two of Matthew chapter seventeen.

Our Savior, who no doubt was the best teacher to ever live, reveals Himself as so much more than just a good teacher.

And so lesson number one, Jesus Christ is no ordinary human being.

Lesson #2: Jesus is the Summation of the Law and the Prophets

To understand this point of our text, we need to read verses three and four again.

“And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with Him.

Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here: if Thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for Thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias.’”

So Jesus, who is now shown with a small glimpse of His true glorious form, is joined by Moses and Elijah.

You will notice if you are reading from the King James Version that it literally says Elias.

This is because, over time, names changed.

And in the seven or eight hundred years since the prophet Elijah had died, his name had undergone some slight variations.

So the King James actually records the literal way it was said in Jesus’ day, but most other translations will say Elijah, since that is who the text is referring to.

So all of that to say that Jesus was joined by Moses and Elijah.

So the question becomes, “Why was Jesus joined by these two men?”

Why didn’t Noah or Abraham or Enoch show up?

Samuel, Adam, David, all of those men could have been there; but instead, Jesus is joined by Moses and Elijah.

Commentators have thrown out several good reasons why Jesus chose these two men to meet Him.

For one, these two men are the two principal miracle workers of the Old Testament.

God did the Ten Plagues through Moses, as well as parting the Red Sea.

And in the wilderness, God provided food and water for the children of Israel through His servant Moses.

And Elijah worked many miracles as well during his time as a prophet.

And so the text could be pointing out that Jesus is a miracle worker just like Moses and Elijah.

But there is also the point that Moses and Elijah were both prophets.

And just like those two were prophets, Jesus is the chief of the prophets.

But I don’t think that either of those two by themselves grasps the full implication of why Jesus was joined by these two men.

Because in the Old Testament, Moses was treated as the figurehead for all of the laws of God.

God spoke the law through Moses, and so since that time, Moses has been the representative of the law.

And in the same way, Elijah is the figurehead for all of the prophets.

And so when Jesus was joined by Moses and Elijah, He was joined by the representatives of the law and the prophets.

So what does that show us about who Jesus really is?

When Jesus was joined by Moses and Elijah, it was God’s way of saying that Jesus has the full support of the law and the prophets.

In fact, Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of the law and the prophets.

With absolutely no exaggeration, you can say that the entire Old Testament revolves around the future reality of Jesus Christ.

And you may say, Brother Josh, what on earth do Adam and Eve have to do with Jesus?

Well, I would say that Adam and Eve sinned against God, and set God’s plan into action to one day redeem mankind through who…Jesus!

So when we read about our Lord on this mountain being joined by Moses and Elijah, there can be no doubt in our minds the importance that God is placing upon Christ.

Because notice that the disciples were not blown away by the appearance of Moses and Elijah.

They immediately noticed that Jesus’ face shone like the sun and His garments were as white as light, but they didn’t notice that about Moses and Elijah.

There can be no doubt that Jesus was not just a great man like Moses and Elijah.

Oh no, Jesus is far superior to these two men of old.

So these two verses show us that Jesus is not only an extraordinary person, He is also the entire fulfillment of everything that happened in the Old Testament.

I don’t know about you, but that fact simply blows my mind!

Let’s move on to lesson number three.

Lesson #3: Jesus is Entirely Deserving of Our Obedience

Look now at verse five of our text.

“While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, ‘This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him.’”

And just when the disciples thought that this experience could not get any more amazing, God the Father makes an appearance in verse five.

While Peter was still talking, a bright cloud appeared overhead, and God spoke from the cloud.

And look what God says: “This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him.”

And you may remember that this is not the first time that God has spoken through a cloud about Jesus.

Right after Jesus’ baptism, God spoke out of a cloud saying “This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.”