Thunder and Lightning

Call to Worship

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All right, good morning. I think we're going to get our church service started here. Welcome to First Baptist Church of Artesia. We're so glad you are with us on this early morning of "spring ahead."

All right, I'm going to start us off with some reading from Psalm 19:

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the expanse proclaims the work of his hands. Day after day they pour out speech; night after night they communicate knowledge.

— Psalm 19:1-2 (CSB)

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, LORD, my rock and my redeemer.

— Psalm 19:14 (CSB)

Join us this morning if you have a hymnbook. You can turn to 234, "Crown Him With Many Crowns," and after that, we're going to sing 347, "Be Still, My Soul."

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Crown him with many crowns, The Lamb upon his throne; Hark! How the heavenly anthem drowns All music but its own. Awake, my soul, and sing Of him who died for thee, And hail him as thy matchless King Through all eternity.

Crown him the Lord of love; Behold his hands and side, Rich wounds, yet visible above, In beauty glorified. No angel in the sky Can fully bear that sight, But downward bends his wondering eye At mysteries so bright.

Crown him the Lord of life, Who triumphed o'er the grave, And rose victorious in the strife For those he came to save. His glories now we sing, Who died and rose on high, Who died eternal life to bring, And lives that death may die.

Crown him the Lord of heaven, One with the Father known, One with the Spirit through him given From yonder glorious throne. To thee be endless praise, For thou for us hast died; Be thou, O Lord, through endless days Adored and glorified. Amen.

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Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side; Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain. Leave to thy God to order and provide; In every change he faithful will remain. Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly Friend Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake To guide the future as he has the past. Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake; All now mysterious shall be bright at last. Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know His voice who ruled them while he dwelt below.

Be still, my soul: the hour is hastening on When we shall be forever with the Lord, When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone, Sorrow forgot, love's purest joys restored. Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past, All safe and blessed we shall meet at last.

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Mine are days that God has numbered; I was made to walk with him. Yet I look for worldly treasure, And forsake the King of kings. But mine is hope in my Redeemer; Though I fall, his love is sure. For Christ has paid for every failing; I am his forevermore.

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Mine are tears in times of sorrow, Darkness yet not understood. Through the valley I must travel, Where I see no earthly good. But mine is peace that flows from heaven, And the strength in times of need. I know my pain will not be wasted; Christ completes his work in me.

Mine are days here as a stranger, Pilgrim on a narrow way. One with Christ, I will encounter Harm and hatred for his name. But mine is armor for this battle, Strong enough to last the war. And he has said he will deliver Safely to the golden shore.

And mine are trials to Zion's city, Where beside the King I walk. For there my heart has found its treasure: Christ is mine forevermore.

Come rejoice now, O my soul, For his love is my reward. Fear is gone and hope is sure; Christ is mine forevermore.

Come rejoice now, O my soul, For his love is my reward. Fear is gone and hope is sure; Christ is mine forevermore.

And mine are trials to Zion's city, Where beside the King I walk. For there my heart has found its treasure: Christ is mine forevermore.

And mine are trials to Zion's city, Where beside the King I walk. For there my heart has found its treasure: Christ is mine forevermore. Christ is mine forevermore. Christ is mine forevermore.

[Music]

Amen. The troubled soul can still any anxiety that arises in our hearts, knowing that Christ doesn't waste a drop of our suffering, but he uses every single tear, every pain, every sorrow for his glory, for his eternal plan. We get to celebrate that every Sunday as we gather together.

Jesus Transfigured on the Mountain

If you have a Bible, go ahead and grab it and open it to the Book of Mark. We've been continuing to go through this book. Today we'll be looking at chapter 9. If you don't have a Bible, you can go ahead and use the Pew Bible in front of you, and you're welcome to keep that as a gift. But we'll be looking at Mark 9:2-13.

Here is the word of the Lord from Mark chapter 9, verses 2 to 13:

After six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John and led them up a high mountain by themselves to be alone. He was transfigured in front of them, and his clothes became dazzling—extremely white as no launderer on earth could whiten them. Elijah appeared to them with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it’s good for us to be here. Let’s set up three shelters: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah”— because he did not know what to say, since they were terrified. A cloud appeared, overshadowing them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my beloved Son; listen to him!” Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus. As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. They kept this word to themselves, questioning what “rising from the dead” meant. Then they asked him, “Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” “Elijah does come first and restores all things,” he replied. “Why then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be treated with contempt? But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they did whatever they pleased to him, just as it is written about him.”

— Mark 9:2-13 (CSB)

Let's pray.

Lord, even when we read this passage, we see examples of people not knowing what to think as they look upon your glory and at your word. So we pray, Lord, that you would help us because we are just as helpless as the disciples. We need your leading; we need your Spirit's involvement for us to treasure your word this morning. So we pray that you would help us. In Jesus' name, amen.

Seeing the Son of God

Who would you say that Jesus is? As we've been going through the Book of Mark, Mark is trying to answer that question in terms of who Jesus is. Especially as we enter into another election season, you are going to hear lots of different people try to claim Jesus for their own team. Jesus perfectly aligns with every single political preference that they have; Jesus roots for their sports team; Jesus aligns with everything that our own heart may desire.

What we see in this passage this morning, and the same with the passage that we looked at last week, is that Jesus continually subverts expectations. He continues to flip on their head whatever expectations the disciples had, and by extension what Israel had, about who the Messiah was and what he came to do. And so, Mark this morning, and God from his word, wants us to be able to see and understand the Son.

That's going to be the main idea for us this morning: to see and understand the Son. There are two points for us this morning as we think about that: number one, to see the Son, and number two, to understand the Son. See the Son for who he is, and then understand the Son and what he came to do.

Let's start with point number one: to see the Son. Let's look at verse 2 again:

After six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John and led them up a high mountain by themselves to be alone. He was transfigured in front of them...

— Mark 9:2 (CSB)

After six days, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John. It seems like an oddly specific time there that he's talking about; it took him six days. Usually, when Mark talks about a change in time, he'll just use the word "then" or "after he did this, they went to another thing," and the idea in the story is that they're transitioning to a new idea. The wording is intentionally vague; it signifies a change in the story or the start of a new idea.

But instead, Mark here marks a specific time. This event on this mount happened six days after Jesus tells them about the crucifixion. Last week, Peter recognizes Jesus as the Messiah, the anointed king who would redeem all of Israel. Jesus responds with the unfathomable truth that he would be crucified, which shocks Peter. Peter tries to rebuke Jesus, and Jesus makes clear that his crucifixion is a necessary part of his redeeming work.

And now, what's happening is connected to this message about Jesus's death. Connected to his falling to his death at the hands of the Roman Empire, Jesus now takes a reminder to show his disciples his majesty and lordship over all of creation.

So, he takes Peter, James, and John—the core three disciples out of the twelve. Jesus picked twelve, and then from those twelve, he had three that were kind of his main guys—and he leads them up a high mountain and he gets transfigured in front of them. You could see that in verse 2. Let's look at the end of that verse again: "he was transfigured in front of them, and his clothes became dazzling—extremely white as no launderer on earth could whiten them."

Jesus is transformed, or transfigured, and his clothes become bright white—extremely white, like the way that my mom aims to wash all of our clothing. It is so white that the only way to describe this kind of white is that there's no other white that's this white. The Sun shines as bright as the sun.

In Exodus 34, after Moses leads the Israelite people out of the land of Egypt, they arrive at another mountain. It is a mountain called Mount Sinai. Moses climbs up the mountain and meets with God in a cloud and receives the law. He receives the Ten Commandments, and as he comes down from this mountain, it says that the skin of his face shone bright. It shone light, and they could see Moses's radiant face reflecting the glory of God that he had experienced at the very top of the mountain as he came down.

But what happens here is that Jesus also shines on the top of a mountain, just like Moses, except Jesus doesn't need a personal encounter with the Divine. He doesn't need to engage with God in a cloud in order to shine brightly. He doesn't need to encounter God because he himself is God. He doesn't need to encounter the Divine because he's the only person in the world that is divine.

There's no event that happens, there's no thunderous cloud, there's no interaction with the Lord, no incantation, no "morphing time"—he just transforms. He flips a switch, he's transfigured, and he gives Peter, James, and John a glimpse into his divinity. He shows them a little piece of his glory and his majesty as God.

You see, Jesus is completely otherworldly. He's unlike anything or anyone who's ever existed, and to see Jesus rightly is to recognize that he's not just a normal human being. He's not just a good leader. He's not just a good prophet who thinks good things. He is God made man.

John tells us in the beginning of his gospel that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. This truth that God became a man doesn't mean that God somehow set aside his divinity to become human. Jesus isn't setting aside his "godness" to take on "manness." Jesus isn't half man, half God, or a man who looks like God, or God who looks like a man. Jesus is both truly God and truly man at the same time. He is able to display his glory in front of creation anytime he'd like.

Christians have always confessed that Jesus is both God and man—unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, and inseparably. That's a really complex Christian idea. The term for it historically is called the hypostatic union. I'm sure all of you know what that phrase means, right? Hypostatic union—that Jesus is both truly God and truly man at the same time. No mixture, no confusion, no division. One person, two natures. One who, two whats. He is truly God and truly man.

And this doctrine is really important. It's really important. See, sometimes we might be tempted to change Jesus in an attempt to be able to understand him better. Sometimes we may be tempted to humanize Jesus by reducing his divinity. We may overemphasize his humanity and say things like "Jesus could have failed" or "Jesus could have sinned," or we try to make Jesus relatable to us by making him more imperfect, saying that he had the same struggles that we did. And he certainly did, but we may try to overemphasize his humanity by almost making him sinful, claiming that he could have failed.

When we do that, when we take Jesus and try to make him relatable by making him imperfect, what we do is we actually reduce who Jesus truly is. We forget that Jesus actually is God made flesh, that he is the perfect Son of God. Jesus does what you and I could never do.

Moses needed God to come and speak to him; Jesus, however, doesn't need divine intervention. Jesus is divine intervention. He is God coming to Earth.

You can see how the disciples might have begun to doubt that truth, right? They just heralded Jesus as the King of kings, and Jesus responded by saying that he would die on a Roman cross. But nothing happens to Jesus that Jesus himself doesn't allow, that he doesn't permit. He can instantly transfigure himself and display his glory. Jesus can instantly call down legions of angels to destroy the Roman Empire to dust. See, his crucifixion, his death that's about to happen in this gospel, isn't a mistake. It's God's plan. It's his master plan.

Not only does Jesus reveal his glory here, he's trying to communicate something to his disciples. And so, what Jesus does in addition to showing his blazing, blinding glory is he entertains the company of Israel's greatest, their most important. You can see that in verse 4: "Elijah appeared to them with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus."

So Elijah and Moses appear to talk with Jesus. Luke says that Elijah and Moses talk with Jesus here on this mountain about his departure, or about what Jesus is going to accomplish in Jerusalem by dying on behalf of humanity. And there's a reason why they picked these two people as opposed to, like, Abraham or Joseph. There are tons of other characters throughout the Old Testament that could have shown up here on this mountain, but there's a reason why Elijah and Moses are the two that show up.

Moses represents the Law; he represents the word of God. We know Moses led the Israelite people out of the land of Egypt, but he also takes the Ten Commandments and presents them to God's people. He establishes who the Israelite people would be. He wrote the first five books in your Bible, and it was referred to as the Law. And Elijah represents the Prophets, witnesses for the Lord amidst God's people while they disobeyed him.

So now, what happens when Moses and Elijah appear here on this mountain is a representation of the whole of the Old Testament—that the Law and the Prophets have led to this moment, culminating in what Jesus is about to do on the cross.

Sometimes reading the Old Testament can be intimidating. I mean, we're reading through a gospel right now, and if these sermons start to feel a little bit like a broken record, good. That's what Mark's trying to do. He's trying to say that you need to trust in Jesus, and he's going to beat that drum over and over and over again.

But other times, when you look at the Old Testament, it can start to get a little intimidating, right? You open to a book like Micah, and you see a bunch of different prophecies and images that go into your head, but you can't quite piece it together. Leviticus gives you weird instructions about how many cubits the Tabernacle needs to be. It's easy to get lost in the details—to see all these different details in the Old Testament books about a foreign land and a foreign time, and lose track of what the real meaning is.

And if that's you, if you've ever gone through your Bible reading plan—I don't know how many of you have kept up, it's March now—and you're feeling discouraged, I just want to encourage you. It's worth your time and your attention to dig in, to study hard things, to go through the Old Testament, even things that you don't understand, and see what God's word intends to say there.

In a few weeks, we'll be starting to study Biblical Theology on Wednesday nights, or how the whole Bible fits together. In the meantime, one rule that you can take away right now, even from a passage like this one in Mark chapter 9, is that all of the Old Testament—whether it's the Law, or the Prophets, or the Writings—they all point to Jesus. That's the point.

If you want to know the ultimate purpose of why Leviticus is in the Bible, it's to witness to Jesus. If you want to know why Malachi, or Isaiah, or Ezekiel is in the Bible, all of it exists to witness to what Jesus would do, to point forward to Christ. See, Moses and Elijah here are bearing witness not just to what would happen to the people of Israel, but what would happen with Jesus on the cross. Everything written in the Old Testament is like a giant neon arrow pointing straight at Jesus and what he would do on the cross. It's supposed to be fulfilled in Jesus.

And if you are confused by that, or if you disagree with me on that, Jesus himself says that in Luke 24:44. He says everything written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled, and then he opened the disciples' minds to understand the Scriptures. See, to see the truth in the Old Testament, you need to dig in through whatever thing confuses you and see how it leads to Christ. When you open your Bible, all roads lead to Jesus.

Peter, however, doesn't see that. Instead, he's hit with starstruck delirium. You can see that in verse 5:

Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it’s good for us to be here. Let’s set up three shelters: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah”— because he did not know what to say, since they were terrified.

— Mark 9:5-6 (CSB)

Have you ever been so nervous that you just start talking? I can remember meeting one of my pastoral heroes even just last year, and I was so excited to meet him, I just started blabbering. I mentioned like five or six different things I loved from his books; I just kept talking and talking and talking. It was like a nervous thing. I blacked out for a couple of seconds, and a pastor friend of mine that was there witnessing the whole thing proceeded to rag on me for the whole night, making fun of me for my panicked blabbermouth.

What's happening here is Peter loses his mind. I mean, he is standing there on the mountain, Jesus is shining, and Moses and Elijah show up. So, it's not that Peter is necessarily intending to do something evil here. There's no magic thing that's happening with this idea of Tabernacles; it's just Peter has no idea what to say. He has no idea what to say. He's terrified. Peter, James, and John are filled with fear because of what they see, and they're about to be even more terrified.

The Voice from the Cloud

You can see that in verse 7:

A cloud appeared, overshadowing them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my beloved Son; listen to him!” Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus.

— Mark 9:7-8 (CSB)

A cloud appears over their heads, and God speaks. Just like in Exodus at Mount Sinai, a cloud descends on the mountain. Exodus 20 says that the people were so freaked out and terrified, they were bolting away from the mountain and telling Moses, "You go there, because if we go there, we're going to die."

And now, God descends again. He appears on this mountain, and Peter, James, and John look up. They can see God's glorious presence shadowing over them, and then a voice thunders from the cloud: "This is my beloved Son; listen to him!"

God the Father identifies Jesus as his Son. That's really important. But he doesn't just say that Jesus is his Son. Notice what he says before the word "Son" there. He says that Jesus is his beloved Son.

Did you know that the persons of the Trinity love each other? The Father loves the Son, the Son loves the Father; the persons of the godhead have loved each other for eternity past. That's a complicated, necessary truth. See, we talk all the time about how God is love, and we believe that. But in order to love someone, you need someone else to love, right? And if God is just one person, if he's just one being with no multiple persons like we believe in the Trinity, then God would need something else outside of himself in order to truly be loving. He would need someone to love; he would be saying, "Find me somebody to love."

But God is Trinity. He's one God and three persons. He's one what with three whos. And because of that, the Father is able to love the Son, the Son is able to love the Father, and because of that, God can love within the godhead for eternity past. God doesn't need creation in order to express his love. With Christianity, the Father has loved the Son with an unchanging, eternal love. This is his beloved Son, and that is some of the best news that you can ever hear. I'll touch back on that in a second.

For now, notice what the Father tells them. He says, "Listen to him." God's declaration of his Son is followed up with a decree for all of humanity: you are to listen to Jesus. To listen to Jesus.

The last time God's cloud descends on a mountain, Moses receives two tablets, the Ten Commandments—rules for the Israelites to obey and establish their nation. And this time, when God's cloud descends on this mountain, he doesn't give them any manual. He doesn't give them any rules. He gives them one command: "Listen to my Son." And when the disciples look around after they hear this voice, Moses and Elijah are gone, and there's only Jesus.

Because you are to see Christ alone. It's not about Christ and Moses and Elijah as though they're three equal voices. Jesus is the main idea. He alone is our hope for salvation. We are to trust in Christ alone.

That's the good news of the gospel—that if you try to justify yourselves by listening to the law of Moses, if you hear the Ten Commandments and you think that that's a model for how to be good enough that God would somehow forgive you, then you will utterly fail every time. You will fail before you go to bed today.

The good news of the gospel isn't that you can be forgiven by God by your own obedience, because none of us can meet God's standard for holiness. All of us are imperfect, incapable of being good enough to earn entrance into heaven, to obtain forgiveness of sin. If you find yourself standing before a holy God, you will find yourself panicked and blabbering away without any justification to save yourself. You will not have a single excuse to be able to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

But the good news of the gospel isn't that you have a second chance or a new opportunity to try again, but that Jesus does what you and I can never do—that we are imperfect, but that he is perfect. He obeyed his Father perfectly, even to the point of death on the cross. And on the cross, God poured out the wrath that you and I deserved on him, on his shoulders, and he rose from the dead, victorious over sin and death.

So the good news for you and me is that if you hear this gospel call, if you turn from your sin and you trust in Jesus, if you go to him alone for your salvation, you will find forgiveness for every single sin. And more than that, you'll be covered by Christ's blood so that when the holy God sees you in his majesty, you won't need to fear his judgment. Because when he sees you, he sees his Son, and he will love you with that eternal, unchanging covenant love.

You see, the reason why we know that God loves us, the reason why we know that the Father's love for you will never change, isn't because you're awesome. Have you ever gone throughout the week and you think about your own sin and you start to doubt whether or not God really loves you? And so, you're like the kid who broke a vase in the house, and suddenly you're cleaning up your room, you're acting politely with your mom and asking her how her day went, hoping that somehow that can make up for the wrongdoings that you did.

God's love for you isn't dependent on the track record of your obedience. It isn't based on your own holiness or ability. The reason why you can know that God the Father loves you with an unchanging, eternal, covenant love this morning is because you are in Christ. Because if you're in Jesus and his blood covers you and covers your sin, then that means that the love that the Father has for the Son then extends to you. That eternal, unchanging covenant love will be there for you, and it will never go away. That's the good news of the gospel. When you look at Jesus, when you see the Son, you can see God's unchanging, eternal love.

But it's easy to stop seeing that, isn't it? To listen to contrary voices that may cause us to doubt God's goodness, and start to listen to ourselves instead of talking to ourselves, as Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones would say. That's why we need to remember our loving Father's exhortation to us: listen to Jesus. Listen to him. See the Son.

The Prophetic Word Confirmed

Hebrews 1 says that long ago God spoke to our ancestors by the prophets at different times and in different ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.

Sometimes we look at the Old Testament and we just think that a lot of cool stuff happened back then, but not anymore, right now. We think about pillars of fire and clouds; we think about prophets standing up and being able to definitively declare what God is saying to us right now in this moment. What God's word tells us is that when Jesus comes, we don't need anything else. Jesus says everything that we need. We can trust the words of Christ, and we can trust this faithful testimony that God's word gives us.

In fact, Peter, the one who looks at what just happened and starts babbling away without any idea of what's going on, spoke clearly about this event later in his life in 2 Peter 1:16-19. Listen to this. This is what Peter says, he exhorts us:

For we did not follow cleverly contrived myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ; instead, we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased!” We ourselves heard this voice when it came from heaven while we were with him on the holy mountain. We also have the prophetic word strongly confirmed, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

— 2 Peter 1:16-19 (CSB)

You know what Peter is saying there in 2 Peter chapter 1? He's saying the same thing that God commanded him in Mark chapter 9. He's saying listen to Jesus. Listen to him. And you can know for certain that God can speak to us through this book.

You see, the reason why we trust this book is because we believe that God's word is a faithful witness to Jesus Christ—that when we look at this book, we're not just reading the words of smart people, but that we believe that God actually speaks to us through his word. Jesus is saying truth for us to know right now in this moment. When Peter talks, he's being clear. He's not just making up new ideas; he's writing about something that he saw, that he believes.

If you want to see the Son, you need to look at the Word. You need to look at the Word. That's why my job as a preacher is to herald God's word. My job isn't to come up here and tell fun stories or entertain the masses, or start spinning plates and walking on a little balance ball. The job of the preacher is to teach the word so that the content and the intent of the word determines the content and the intent of the sermon.

Let me say that one more time. The job of the preacher is to teach the word so that the content and the intent of the word determines the content and the intent of the sermon. If I ever go off course from that, if I ever start to point to anything other than Christ, if I start to obscure or blur your vision of Jesus, I'm not doing my job.

Expect your pastors to teach God's word clearly. In order to make sure that I faithfully teach the word of God, you need to make sure that you know the word of God, that you understand it. See, a Christian who believes in Christ sees Christ, and a Christian who sees Christ sees him in his word. You can read the Bible today and find truth that you can understand for faith and godliness. If you bury yourself in God's word this week, you can arise in the presence of a living God.

Peter, James, and John get a spectacular vision of who Jesus is. They see the Son, and yet they still miss an essential part of his mission. They may see with their eyes, but they don't understand him clearly, which leads us to point number two: understand the Son.

Understanding the Son's Mission

Let's look at verse 9:

As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. They kept this word to themselves, questioning what “rising from the dead” meant.

— Mark 9:9-10 (CSB)

They descend from the mountain. Jesus tells them, "Keep all the things that you just saw to yourself until after I rise from the dead." And the disciples do that; they keep it to themselves, but they ask themselves what Jesus could possibly mean when he says "rise from the dead." See, their bright sight still didn't fix their dim wits.

It's not that the disciples don't understand what resurrection is in theory. They get it. The Sadducees, some of the religious leaders of the day, made a point in their own religious philosophy to deny the possibility of resurrection at all, and there were other people that believed in resurrection. Even when Jesus's reports of what he was doing spread and King Herod hears of it in Mark chapter 6, Herod thinks that John the Baptist must have risen from the dead. So, it's not like rising from the dead is a new concept to them.

What confuses the disciples isn't the concept of resurrection, but the concept of the Son of Man, the King of kings, dying at all, and then rising at all. The thought of this almighty King falling to his death doesn't compute with their minds, and the thought of him coming back from the dead is even more absurd.

You might not be a believer, or you might be a skeptic, and you're here this morning questioning the possibility of Christ's resurrection. If that's you, you're not alone; the disciples did the same thing. Not only do the disciples question the validity of a resurrection, they abandon Jesus upon his arrest. They leave him. Peter even denies Jesus three times, and yet, within months of Jesus's crucifixion, these cowardly disciples are willing to claim that Jesus rose from the dead, to the point of their own death.

Peter goes from cursing Jesus three times and fleeing from the authorities to being willing to be crucified upside down because of his own belief in Christ's resurrection. This transition from cowardice to conviction is utterly staggering. It rarely happens in the point of human history. If you want to develop religious mythology, it usually takes at least seventy years, multiple generations of people telling the same story over and over again, and it becomes more and more fanciful and unrealistic as time goes on.

And yet, these disciples are willing to give up their lives on the claim that Jesus rose from the dead within months, within weeks. Because what caused the disciples to die for their testimony wasn't myth, but truth. They actually saw it. They saw their Savior Jesus risen from the dead. Jesus himself showed up in front of five hundred people at the same time, and that witness gave them confidence to trust him to the point of their own death.

If you don't believe in the resurrection and you're here this morning, I want to encourage you to investigate it. Don't just take my word for it. Do your own research; look into the validity of the resurrection. If you do, I think you'll find, like so many millions of people before you, I think you'll find that the testimony of Jesus's resurrection is a historically reliable reality. If Jesus actually rose from the dead, then that means that what he said is probably true. If what he said is true, that is the best news that you could ever hear.

But the disciples aren't there yet. They're not in AD 70 yet; they still don't understand what's happening. And so, they try to reconcile what Jesus told them would happen with what they grew up hearing would happen. You can see that in verse 11:

Then they asked him, “Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” “Elijah does come first and restores all things,” he replied. “Why then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be treated with contempt? But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they did whatever they pleased to him, just as it is written about him.”

— Mark 9:11-13 (CSB)

The disciples were good, faithful Jews, which means that they were taught in the synagogue regarding God's word. Imagine going to elementary school, and they're memorizing the Bible, and they're teaching you different things about the Bible. And so, they likely heard about the prophecy in Malachi 4 that says, "Look, I'm going to send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes."

So when they hear that Jesus is the Messiah, that he's the Son of Man who's going to approach the Ancient of Days and receive a throne and a dominion that's going to last forever, they're thinking, "Well, isn't Elijah supposed to show up first? Where's Elijah at? If we're supposed to usher in world domination, isn't this box supposed to get checked before we usher in the new Kingdom?"

And Jesus responds with the idea that Elijah does come first, and he did, and look what happened to him.

So, if Elijah showed up first, who is Elijah? You might think that Elijah just showed up at the Mount of Transfiguration—he's like, "Guys, Elijah, you just saw him!"—but it's actually John the Baptist. We know that Elijah here is referring to John the Baptist, and the reason why we know that is because in Matthew 17:13, in the same story, Matthew writes, "Then the disciples understood that he had spoken to them about John the Baptist." So we have that little answer key in another book of the Bible for you.

Jesus is saying Elijah did show up, and his head ended up on a platter. If that happened to him, what do you think is going to happen to the Son of Man? Here is a mystery of the gospel revealed: the Son of Man would indeed usher in a new Kingdom, but the way that he would usher in that Kingdom wouldn't be by overthrowing Rome, but by overthrowing sin and darkness on the cross. That's why he suffers, is treated with contempt.

And the same thing is true for us today. Just like John the Baptist, Jesus's ministry would be marked by suffering and rejection. The disciples aren't thinking about that because that's not what they signed up for, but Jesus is clear: he came to suffer, he came to suffer and to die.

If you follow Jesus, you are signing up to do the same. You're signing up to do the same. 2 Timothy 3:12 is clear that all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. That's a guarantee. If you seek the world's approval, you picked the wrong religion. Our Lord was despised and rejected by men, and we should expect the same.

See, Christians do not conquer by taking over lands, by dominating countries and enforcing our will onto others. We conquer by suffering, by witnessing to a Savior who suffered on behalf of humanity, who promised he will return on the great and terrible day of the Lord to judge the living and the dead.

And all of us can forget that. We can all forget, and we can start to forget or struggle to understand, and that's why you and I come every single Sunday. When you walk through these doors and you come and you sit in these pews, you are being welcomed to a Christian doomsday bunker every single week. Every Sunday, we remind each other to hang on and to look at the Son together in his word.

And when you look at him, you'll see him at the same time: a glorious Lord who also gives up himself on behalf of humanity, who goes willingly from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows so he could reach down and grab you and take you up to heaven with him. And when you see this Jesus transfigured on this mountain, when you see him on the hill of Calvary and what he's done for you, 2 Corinthians 3:18 says that we, looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord, are being—and they use the same word here—transfigured or transformed into the same glorious, shining image of the Son, from glory to glory.

When you understand who Jesus is, and then you connect it with what Jesus does, you see his glory shine like the sun. Not in his majesty, not in his robes and splendor on a throne, but in his bloody, battered body on a cross, poured out for you, broken for you.

J.L. Reynolds, a famous Baptist theologian, wrote these words as he reflected on the glory of Christ on the cross, and I'll end with this:

When Christ uttered the words in the judgment hall of Pilate, "I am a king," he pronounced a sentiment fraught with unspeakable dignity and power. His enemies might deride his pretensions, and express their mockery of his claim by presenting him with a crown of thorns, a reed, and a purple robe, and nailing him to the cross; but in the eyes of unfallen intelligences, he was a king. A higher power presided over that derisive ceremony, and converted it into a real coronation. That crown of thorns was indeed the diadem of empire; that purple robe was a badge of royalty; that fragile reed was a symbol of unbounded power; and that cross, the throne of dominion which shall never end.

Look up at the cross and see the Son reigning and saving all of us. Let's pray together.

Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you that you have done beyond anything we could possibly ask for or think in giving us grace in Christ. We pray, Lord, that you would help us to remember, to understand all that you're doing as we continue to look and hang on until the day that you come back. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.

Announcements & Benediction

I want to thank you for coming this morning. A couple of announcements for us before we depart.

First, if you'd like to give to our church, you may do so online or in the offering plate in the back. If you're visiting us and you're here this morning, we're glad that you're here. Don't feel any obligation to give; this is something that God calls Christians to do with a grateful heart and out of obedience to Christ in membership of their church. So let's go ahead and pray now together and give thanks to God for the offering.

Lord, we thank you for all of your provision for us. We pray, Lord, that you would use every cent for the advancement of your Kingdom and your glory. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

Some other gatherings:

Pastor Steve is currently wrapping up our Wednesday night Bible study on the commands of Jesus. So if you're eager to hear more about that, we have two weeks left, I believe, on all that Jesus commanded. Two weeks, is that correct? So that'll be on Wednesday night at 7:00 p.m.

We also have Sunday Schools that go on every Sunday morning. Irwin teaches through a class on the Book of Mark at 8:40 in the library. If you're interested more in knowing what a church is and what it looks like to join a church, I teach a class called "Church Matters" every Sunday morning at 9:00 a.m. So if you're interested in that, you could just come in—there's one hallway that wraps around to the back and we meet back in the Bible study room at 9:00 a.m.

We also have our Sunday morning gatherings at 10:00, and we have our Sunday evening prayer service at 5:00 tonight. Tonight we'll be looking at Psalm 77 and looking at prayers of lament. When tragedy strikes, when heartbreak comes, what do we say to God? What do we do? Often, it seems like the Lord abandons us, so we'll look at Psalm 77 as we see David process what it looks like to lament and grieve before the Lord. So if you're interested in that, come join us as we pray together tonight at 5:00 p.m.

Again, if I come up to you with my phone pointed at you, it's because I'm trying to get your face for our membership directory. So I'm not trying to be creepy, I promise—just for a photo directory so we can pass it out later to our members so you can see who the members of the church are and be praying for them throughout the week.

And now for our benediction from 2 Corinthians chapter 13, verse 14:

And now, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.

Let's stand, and if you have a bulletin, you can grab it as we sing "In Christ Alone."

[Music]

In Christ alone my hope is found; He is my light, my strength, my song; This cornerstone, this solid ground, Firm through the fiercest drought and storm. What heights of love, what depths of peace, When fears are stilled, when strivings cease! My comforter, my all in all— Here in the love of Christ I stand.

[Music]

In Christ alone, who took on flesh, Fullness of God in helpless babe! This gift of love and righteousness, Scorned by the ones he came to save. Till on the cross as Jesus died, The wrath of God was satisfied; For every sin on him was laid— Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground his body lay, Light of the world in darkness slain; Then bursting forth in glorious day, Up from the grave he rose again! And as he stands in victory, Sin's curse has lost its grip on me; For I am his and he is mine— Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

[Applause]

[Music]

No guilt in life, no fear in death— This is the power of Christ in me; From life's first cry to final breath, Jesus commands my destiny. No power of hell, no scheme of man, Can ever pluck me from his hand; Till he returns or calls me home— Here in the power of Christ I stand.

No power of hell, no scheme of man, Can ever pluck me from his hand; Till he returns or calls me home— Here in the power of Christ...