Well, good morning church, man that was good in all the houses. Welcome Classic service is packed out today. 9:30 worship is all most; I mean it is almost all the people with our socially distanced seating that we can get here. Here's the thing. We've also got four different life groups that are actually dialing in to this service together to worship together not to count the hundreds and hundreds of houses literally across the world.  Man, I'm excited to be at church today. Well look, we're in a series, as you just saw on that bumper called The Mountain. And what we're doing in this series is we're really just diving in to Matthew chapter 17 and we're just picking it apart. We're looking at this event. It's only eight verses. We find it in three of the Gospels. But we're pulling out so many truths from what happened on this mountain.  Yesterday, I was doing a wedding up in the very top of North Georgia because that is what you do these days for weddings.  You find the most remote spot on the planet, and you go to it and you get married. We went from churches, then we moved into barns, now we're at vineyards if you want to know the theme of weddings right now.  And I was standing on top of this wedding venue yesterday. I mean, it was beautiful. Don't get me wrong, and I'm just looking out over this vineyard. And just in this moment, I'm just like, man, it's about to rain and it did.  It rained cuz it's an outdoor wedding and that's what happens, but we were able to move but I'm standing up there just realizing man mountains are some incredibly special places.  Now look you beach people I love you. I love the beach but it's the mountains that's God's country. All right?  That is God's country and we're about to step into fall. But here's what I just realized this yesterday. I'm standing up there supposed to be ready for the wedding, but I'm really just hiding from the bride because that's what you do when you're the pastor in a wedding. And I'm just realizing that mountains, man, they just make us almost feel a little bit of our smallness, don't they? 

You know, how in life we kind of get puffed up every now and then. But when you're in the mountains, there's just something to just being able to go man, and I get it. Those of you from Colorado, you're like those aren't mountains. I get it. It's all we got. Okay. It's as close as we can get to the Rockies. But then not only that, but they also just make us just see the bigness of God and what He's given us and what He's created for us and how He has just blessed us with just this planet to live on. There's a freshness about them. There's also a rawness about the mountains. If you've ever been in the mountains in the wintertime, there's just this, rawness of you're not in control at any moment something could happen to you.  Well something hit me about that yesterday and it was just the idea that, in the Bible, God uses the mountains. He uses these moments in the mountains and as I was driving home yesterday, I was just thinking about all of these moments through the Bible that God shows up on the mountains. Genesis chapter 8, the flood is resending Noah is driving the ark, right? He's driving, you don't really drive it. You're just along for the ride. And what happens it settles on top of Mount Ararat. And what does God do? God gives Noah the symbol of peace and His presence in his life and gives us this covenant that He'll never do that again.  He'll bless us and never do that again. What about I mean, on top of the mountain with Genesis chapter 22, with Abraham.  He takes Isaac up as a sacrifice and God does what?  He provides the ram in the thicket and He begins to speak to Abraham, about being the father of all of the nation of Israel up on top of this mountain.  

This idea of the mountain is a big one. Moses and Mount Sinai in Deuteronomy and in Exodus goes up the mountain to do what?  To meet with God, to be with the God of the universe. And what does God do? He speaks to Moses; He gives him the 10 commandments. He gives them the law.  He gives them this idea about who God is later on in Moses's life.   Mount Pisgah or maybe you call it Mountain Nebo. You can call it either one, they're interchangeable. Moses stands on top of this mountain delivering the Israelites and God shows Him the promised land. Just shows him a glimpse of where his people were going to get to go. I love Mount Carmel.  Mount Carmel in First Kings with Elijah.  Elijah is standing on top of this mountain in the Province of Baal and these guys are dancing around this pit that they have dug and put all this fire on it and he's like just pour a bunch of water on it and watch this.  And what does Elijah do?  He called down the fire of God and a whole bunch of people die, but that's not the point.  But then God is worshiped. We worship through this whole situation. Why? Because God met him on this mountain.  You say Matt, those are Old Testament. Okay, well, what about the Mount of Olives?  The Mount of Olives, where Jesus walks up the night He is betrayed, right? He's in the Garden of Gethsemane, it's on the side of the Mount of Olives and He's praying to God and He's asking God, hey, if there's any other way, but if not, I'm there. And He was taken.  What about Mount Zion? We see it all through the Old Testament. It's the temple mount right where God's temple of the Old Testament is?  The presence of God rests in this place on the mountain. And then there's the mountain that we're looking at in this series, is Mount Hermon.  Mount Hermon, and were we to see Jesus being transfigured from these people? 

So, let me just kind of tell you during this fall season, all right, during this fall season, we know you've already booked the vrbo.  I mean, we know this is what's happening when you head to the mountains. Yes, it's about the funnel cakes, hallelujah. I mean, give me some fried pie and some country cooking and some breakfast, had some yesterday, right? But here's what I want you to do. I just want you to realize that God is bigger than the mountains, but He's given us the mountains to experience Him.  To just be with Him. Last week, we jumped into this idea in Matthew chapter 17, of the Mount of Transfiguration.  And, we barely scratched the surface last week and in basically saying that this moment in Jesus's life, it didn't happen at the big feeding of the 5000. It didn't happen at the sermon on another mount, right? It didn't happen in one of these big moments. It happened at this private, personal moment that these three guys Peter, James and John, were with Jesus and went with Him to experience His fullness, and we said last week when we walked away from this place, that yes, God wants us to pray.  God, change our nation and change our world and change our situation. But where does He want to start? He wants to start with us. He wants to start in our hearts. And we said that He starts through our personal time with Him. That's what this story rests on six days later, right? 

It's after all the big events. After all the stuff that is happening, Jesus takes these guys, and He meets with them personally. And we said last week, that meeting with God personally, there's a lot of ways, but it always is just this intentional solitude mixed with a prepared heart and you add in the Word of God, and over time, God begins to change us. And when we left with a principle that the power, wisdom and revelation that we receive in private is what is going to dictate what flows from us in public. Well, this week we're going to jump back into this event. We're going to jump back right where we left off last week because we barely made it through the first three words of 8 verses last week. And I promise you, we're gonna get a lot more verses in today or we'd be in this thing for the whole fall, all right?  Matthew chapter 17, we're going to jump back into this event, and I encourage you to read this story. All week long, read it out of Luke's Gospel, read it out of Mark's Gospel, it's in all three of those.  Those three together.  Verse one, "After six days, Jesus took with Him, Peter, James, and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves". That's about as far as we made it last week, just to let you know. "There, He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun and His clothes became as white as this light.  Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish I will put up three shelters-one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah. While he was still speaking a bright cloud covered them and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my son, whom I love; with Him, I am well pleased.” Listen to Him! When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified.  Get up, He said.  Don't be afraid. “When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus." 

Now, what we're looking at in this story is this idea of Jesus being transfigured. We mentioned this word last week, but we didn't do anything with it. I kind of left you hanging in it, because I wanted to kind of focus in a little more on it this week. This word transfigured is where we get our word metamorphosis and it literally just means something that is inside of you is now showing on the outside. It really means just kind of beginning to crack open your true self. And so, what is Jesus doing? What's happening here is Jesus is removing the blinders off of these disciples and He's showing them who He is. He's showing His divinity He's showing His lordship, He's showing them who He was on the inside. Now, they were used to Jesus as a Miracle Worker. They were used to Jesus as a Wise Teacher. They were used to Jesus as just a wise person that lived perfectly, that provided for people.  Just a general good guy that spoke a lot of wise words. They were used to that.  It was part of their everyday flow, but they were not used to what is about to happen. This had never happened to them before. It was never shown to them before. But what Jesus did was that He just showed them the inside of who He was. Now, this is important. All right?  This is important. I don't want us to skip this too fast. Because what I want you to see here, and I don't want you to fall into this trap. You see there's an easy trap to fall into when you see this, to read this like this, Jesus became something else. He became something else. But you can't read it in that context. When you read this, here's the point, Jesus didn't become something else. Jesus showed them a fuller picture of who he was. You see, here's what I want you to realize. Jesus never changes. Jesus never adds to himself. Jesus never subtracts from himself. Jesus at this moment is showing them who He has been for eternity, and who he will be for eternity. So what is the saying is is that Jesus is not pulling down a new revelation from God. He's not showing them a new message from God. He didn't gain a new glory from God. It's easy almost to look at this as it God just kind of shined a little extra light on Jesus. It's easy, right? I mean, it's easy to read it like that, but we can't see it. Like, that's not the point of the story. The point of the story is that Jesus is showing these guys the validation of who He really is, who His fullness is. So, don't read this context of oh, that's cool. Jesus became something new. I mean, look at that caterpillar became a butterfly. No, that's not what happened. What happened was Jesus is just now showing them in this implied language from transfiguration His true nature. So, what happened? Jesus shows them a fuller picture of His full glory. In fact, we get this and some of the language is given. We get it but why would He need to do that? He would need to do that because He knew what was coming. And He knew what was on the horizon. He knew we as well as them needed to see this. In fact, we get some clues of what this really means in this fuller picture in verse two.

Verse two says, He's speaking of Jesus, "There He was transfigured before them." You're like Matt, what does that mean? I'm glad you asked because he's about to answer right here. "His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became white as the light. Just then there appeared before them, Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus." Now, there's a whole lot in those two verses that is just easy to press through. But I want us to sit in it for a minute because this incredible encounter validated for these three people and for us who Jesus is.  Right?  Because who Jesus is, is really the crux of everything about our lives. Right? A.W. Tozer is the one who said, "What you think about God in your mind's eyes, is the most important thing about you." So, Jesus here is about to say, hey, let me show you who I am. And I'm gonna validate it through a glimpse of me being transfigured before you and we see a couple things happen here that we just kind of read over and gloss over. The first thing is we just kind of see this fullness of Jesus through this just luminescence of Jesus. Now, we know like we just said that Jesus, He's not projecting a new glory. He's not gaining a new power. He's not gaining some image of Himself that He wasn't.  What is Jesus doing? Jesus is giving them an unmuted glimpse of His heart and His soul and His life. And what happened His face lit up. His face lit up; his clothes lit up. I love the gospel of Luke that accounted this in verse 29. Listen to what Luke says about it. He says, "As He was praying, talking about Jesus, the appearance of His face changed, and his clothes became bright as a flash of lightning.” 

I love that description cuz because it kind of brings me back to my childhood. You know, when I when I was growing up in Toms River little bit different than they are right now. I remember when my parents sent me to bed when I went to bed it wasn't like it is now. It was not like a landing strip of night lights in my room. There was no sound machine, there was no blackout curtains. I mean, in fact, the attic fan was on and it was roaring back in the day, right? That's how we grew up. It wasn't like, let me get your scented oil, so you can go to sleep. It was like No, go to bed and don't come out. All right. That's kind of how it was when I grew up. But every now and then, every now and then a every now and then a storm would come up and your room. And you know, going out of your room when you went to bed was not an option. It was like No, no, no, that's your room. Stay in it. All right. And so what did you do? You stay there you pull the covers up a little bit. And then you started hearing the thunder just roaring. And what happened at that moment that this lightning just cracked down in your room. It was all of a sudden like somebody just flashed a light on and you could see everything and you're in like a bad horror movie, right? That's exactly the description that Luke is giving right here of what happened to these disciples. Everything was dark, everything was calm, all of a sudden, like a flash of lightning. It flashed down and there was Jesus in front of them. Now it gets even better because Luke says this in verse 32. It says, "Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with Him."  In other words, these dudes were asleep. I mean, they were asleep, and the translucence of Jesus cracked down on them like lightning and then Mark says it like this in verse 3.  "He says, "His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them."  I mean, you think Mark got dirty as a kid. Yeah, he did. Why? Cuz he's bright. He's referencing bleach into the story, right? He's like, Hey, I know you got a white robe, but no, no, no, you weren't there. You weren't there. We know what happened. What is it? What is it saying? It's saying that Jesus is showing these guys that He was from another place, that He had anotherness about him. And there was a purity and a power from Jesus that nobody on this planet had seen before. That nobody had experienced before. But why did Jesus need to do this? Why did he need to?  Well, there's a lot of speculation about the whys and the what’s or whatever. But one thing that we do know is Jesus just knew that he needed to show these three guys something that was incredibly clear that showed them that he was more than just a man.

He was more than just a good guy that he was more than just a prophet. But how many of us that's how we treat our lives? We just look back at Jesus and He had just some wise sayings. Maybe He just had some wild stuff. He's like, no, no, if you're going to make it through what's next, you're gonna need to know me. Such an incredible message to us, right? You know what Jesus had to say this, because Jesus knew that He was six months out from the cross. If you look at the history of the New Testament, what's happening right here in Matthew chapter 17, it's about six more months, until Jesus goes to the cross, which means it's under eight months to where Jesus ascends back to heaven, and He's no longer physically with us anymore on this planet. And Jesus, He knew the difficulties that were gonna be there. He knew the persecution that was coming. He knew the way that these guys were going to have on him as they move forward in their relationship. And Jesus knew that they absolutely needed to experience His power in a new way. Can I tell you something? That's exactly what He wants for you. It's exactly.

So, what happens is Jesus is revealed to these people. Let me put it in some language that maybe we can understand in today's world. It's almost as if Jesus took the mask off. I don't know about you, but I've been in some really big public situations where a whole lot of people with hats and sunglasses and mask have been talking to me. And I don't know who you are saying. I don't know what you're saying. I've realized that I feel like I read lips about half the time because when you're talking to me in a mask, I might just nod a lot, but I don't know what you're saying.

It's almost like Jesus is with His kids at the grocery stores and get this thing off cause I'm about to tell you what you're gonna do. Jesus takes the mask off, right?

He takes the mask off for a minute and He shows them who He is. And they're granted us, but we don't just see His fullness through the luminescence we see this validation and fullness through who shows up with Jesus.  I mean who shows up with Jesus in the story, it's a pretty big deal, right, of who gets to encounter this? I mean, first of all, we've got Moses and the second we've got Elijah.  And, you're like why in the world would these two guys show up with Jesus at that event?  I'm glad you asked cuz I got a really good answer. Here's why Moses.  Moses, if you think about Moses, out of all the people from the Old Testament, who was Moses?   Moses was who?  He was the giver of the what? The law. He was the giver of the law. Why?  He wrote the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch, right?  All those books are accounts by Moses. But not only that, he was the giver of the 10 commandments. He was the leader of the Israelites, and it was him that God spoke to the most as to how to deliver people. So, you've got Moses right here, the giver of the law and the deliverer of God's people catch this and now he's meeting with Jesus. He's meeting with Jesus.  Who is Jesus?  He was the word made flesh. He was the one who wrote the Word.   He was the one who spoke the Word.  He was the one who gave the Word to Moses. We've got the giver of the Word meeting with the Word made flesh, Jesus, and we've got the Deliverer of the Israelites meeting with the Deliverer of the world. You see this? This is incredible.  This is incredible, that you've got Moses standing here with Jesus that was not just the giver of the law, he was the fulfillment of the law and the giver of the New Covenant, right? And then you've got Elijah. You've got Elijah.  Who was Elijah?  He was a prophet. In the Old Testament. He was a prophet that never died. In the Old Testament, he was taken up to God in the sky, which is I think, a little bit of the reason he got to experience this is like, yeah, you know, if you're good enough to get to go to God without dying, maybe this is for you as well. I don't know. That's a little bit of just my thinking, though. But who is he?  He's a prophet. Not only was he a prophet, he was one of the prophet’s prophet, and he was the voice of God. Think about Elijah, he was a voice of God to a particular group of people. But not only that, he was a savior to that people. So, who is Elijah meeting with? He's meeting with Jesus. Why? Because Jesus is God. He's not just the voice of God. He is the voice of all, God. He is God in the flesh, voice of God to all mankind. He is not just a savior to a particular group of people that is a prophet. He is the Prophet and the Savior of the world. So, you're looking at Jesus right here and Jesus, He is the fulfiller of the law. He is the fulfiller of all prophecies, meeting with the two people that represent all of time together. You got them all meeting together, and Jesus is looking at him going, Yeah, that's Me. That's Me. And He's looking back at Peter and James and John, which I mean, who is Peter? He's the voice of the disciples, right? He's kind of the leader of the disciples, and he's the foundation of the church. No, no, Jesus is really the foundation of the church. You got James. James's was the first martyr out of all of the disciples meeting with Jesus that was a martyr for our faith. You've got John.  John was the one in whom Jesus loved the most, right? He was the one who Jesus looked at and says, take care of my mother that Jesus prophesied later on and said, hey, you're gonna live a long life for me. And it was John that wrote the book of Revelation that we see another encounter with the coming back of Jesus one day that looks a lot like this one with two guys, catch this, my view we can be friends if you're somewhere else. But my view this is Elijah and Moses to come back with Jesus when He returns. 

So, what do we have? We've got this meeting of the prophets and the law and the disciples and everybody in this moment is validating the Messiah Jesus, He's more than just a good guy. And we should treat them that way. And they get their world robbed. And that much of the foundation of the worldwide expansion of the gospel comes because of these guys that are right here. Keep reading. We're never gonna get through this verse 4. Whoa, all right, here it is. Peter, I'm not kidding. Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here." It is good. These guys aren't just men. They're in a new level their relationship with Jesus. Have you ever had a friend let you in on something in their life that they don't tell anyone else? What do you feel about that relationship? You feel like that it goes to a new level, right? It goes to a new moment. 

That's exactly what's happening in these guys lives. This is exactly what Jesus did. It gives them more of who He is that He is fully God and He is fully man. And then Peter gives us this incredible principle by just saying this. Peter gives us this principle that I want us to see this when I put it in your notes. And here it is, it's that you cannot experience Jesus in a real way and not be changed and not be moved to action. You can't. What does that mean? That means that for a long season of your life it's been people like me begging you to walk out your faith, begging you to serve Jesus.  If that is the case, you need to begin to wonder what your relationship with Jesus looks like. Why? Because I want you to see when these people experienced Jesus, they were changed. They were not only changed; they were moved to take action. Peter said, a little point on the side right here.  Peter is always talking, right? I mean, it's just kind of part of his nature. He can't hold back. I love how in Luke's account of this, he's like, look, I know Peters talking, but he's just nervous. Give him some grace right now, because he just talks when he's nervous. We see it all over the Bible. But Peter knows that he's going to live out the fullness of Jesus, that these difficulties and questions of life all that's going to come from that. But Peter also realizes that, hey, I've just had this real encounter with Jesus. And as a result of that, it's not just here for me to internalize, I need to do something. Can I tell you that's a litmus test of if your encounter with Jesus was truth.

And it's that you're motivated to serve and to walk with Him. If you're not motivated to serve and to walk with Jesus to love Jesus and to be with Jesus, then listen, I'm just going to tell you, you need to question whether your experience was truth. Because what I'm seeing right here is when you experience the real Jesus, you're moved to take action. I love it. It says, Lord, it is good for us to be here.  Now stop right there. I want to leave this on the screen because here's the deal. It would have been incredible if Peter would have just stopped the conversation right there and shut up. It would have.  It would have shown us what to do when we walk into the presence of God. We just got it. It is good. It is good. It is good. It is good. And then if Peter would have followed that up with God, what can I do for you?

It would have been even better, but he didn't. He keeps talking. Look at it. If you wish. I will put up three shelters. One for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.  All right, what is he doing? He's beginning to talk. He's like, I gotta do something. I gotta do something. I know what I'll do. I'll build something for all of you and we'll establish a ministry outpost on top of this mountain.  We'll memorialize all of you guys and then watch what happens right in the middle of Peters little speech right here. Look at what happened. God interrupts him. Listen, if you're talking and God steps in and interrupts you audibly, you might want to stop. Alright, look, first of all, I love this. "While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them. A voice from the cloud said, this is My Son whom I love. And with him, I am well pleased. Listen to him." Can I just say, this is me? Can I just have a little self-confession moment just for a minute right here and say that I have a tendency to always be the one talking.

Do you get a feeling that happens sometimes in my life?

But here's what I know about all of us. We all fall into that. We all feel like a lot of times, we just need to be talking. We just need to be sharing. We just need to be speaking. There are so many times in the moment where God just wants us to experience Him. God is just going, just be quiet and just listen to me.  Man, can I just be honest with you?   God has to interrupt me like this all the time. All the time. Now look, they're not like audible voices from God from the Shekinah glory of God, I get it, all right? That's not what's happening. But God has to interrupt me all the time because I just talk all the time. And I know you do too. All right, I'm not generalizing. I'm not judging. I just know we all talk a lot. We do. And sometimes, in the middle of God's presence, God just has to go, wait a minute, and interrupt us. Do you know God interrupts us in a lot of different ways? 

I want to give you a couple this morning cuz I think it's a key to the story, that God is still in the business of interrupting.  Most of the time it's not through a bright luminescence Jesus with Peter and Elijah, although that would be incredible. But most of the time, let me give you five ways that God interrupts us. Number 1, he interrupts our lives just through His Word. He interrupts us through his words, Matt, how does that work? It works like this. Have you ever just been reading the Word of God and asking God to speak to you and all of a sudden you read a verse in His Word, and it seems like God didn't write it for anyone else on this planet except for you like he was all up in your business.  That's how he does it. He interrupts the flow of our life.  He interrupts the flow of our day.  He brings us back.  Here's one thing about memorizing scripture. Sometimes God interrupts us through His Word when he brings a scripture to memory that we had memorized even as a kid. And he's like, Hey, Matt, you slow your roll right now, because my lamp is aligned to your feet, and a light unto your path, not what you got. He interrupts us through His Word. That's why every week at some point during the message, I'm like, you got to get into the Word, you got to study the Word, you got to know the Word, you got to read the Word.  Why?  Because He interrupts us through His Word. But number two, he interrupts us through worship experience. He just interrupts us through these worship moments. Sometimes their public ones like we just had in all of our venues today. Those are moments where God is just pressing into us a little bit reminding us that He is God, that He does love us, that He wants what's best for us. But sometimes they're just in those moments in the truck, where it's you and the Holy Spirit.  Or it's you in the Honda Accord, right? I mean, it's just you driving down the road and you don't even know you might even miss a road sometimes, like, I don't even know, I'm just with you right here for a minute. What does He do? He interrupts us for something in a set in one of those songs.   He interrupts you.  Number 3, He interrupts us through difficulties. He just does. You ever felt like there's these moments in your life where you're trying so hard? You're moving so hard. You're doing so much, you're trying with every ounce of being that you got, but it's just not working out? Sometimes, that's God going, hey, this is just not right. But what are we taught? You just got to keep going because we're Americans. Keep going.

Number 4, He interrupts us through failure. You know, sometimes God just lets us fall on our face. Why? Because He doesn't love us. No. Because He wants what's best for us not what's good. You see, sometimes God just goes okay. Keep going. Just gonna let you, just gonna let you. And then I'll pick you back up. But the number 5, God interrupts us through people. The interruptions through wise counsel and look, these come in a couple different forms. The first way is through people that you have just intentionally allowed into your life. I don't know about you, but there needs to be people in your life that you just give permission to go, hey, if you see something, man just speak into me. Just speak into me. But number 2, sometimes it's just totally random and is out of right field? You ever got one of those phone calls those weird phone calls, like, hey, I don't know why I need to say this. And then you're like, oh, no, here it comes. Sometimes God just does. He interrupts us.

He just speaks and sometimes it's like, hey, I need to just check up for a minute. You see our problem and the interruptions. Peter didn't have this problem, all right?  He's seeing the Shekinah glory of God, all right?  He's about to respond. But our problem is a lot of times we just don't see God interrupting us. We just don't see it. So what do we do?  We chalk it up to happenstance or we chalked it up to coincidence or we chalk it up to accident? Can I just lay a challenge down for us for this week? And this is a major part of the story. And I put it in your notes. Here's the challenge. I want us just to stop this week, stop and ask God how He's interrupting you. And can you just put that into your life this week? Can you put a reminder in your phone at some point this week? Can you put something in your journal this week? Stop and just ask God, how are You trying to interrupt me this week? I guarantee you; I can guarantee you if you'll do this God, Jesus will begin to speak into those moments in your life. And He'll show you. So why was Peter interrupted? This is an interesting point right here. Peter was interrupted because Jesus just wanted Peter in this moment to see who He was, above all else. He wanted to see who he was because Jesus one of these people just to experience the moment and experience Him more deeply. Jesus knew there was more time for serving and building and doing and moving in a direction for God, but he knew Jesus knew that if they did not have a sure foundation of knowing Jesus and the overshadowing presence of God, that they would never make it through the next days of their lives. And I love this in verse five, because verse five says, and when he was still speaking, a bright cloud, overshadowed them as if the radiant Jesus was not enough, right? As if Moses and Elijah showing up on the scene was not enough. Now this bright cloud overshadows them, and God begins to speak, the father begins to speak now, it's really serious when Jesus does something. But you know, when God and Jesus at the same time are talking to you, you better get your act together. All right? So what's happening in Peter's life? And you see, when you go to the mountain with God, what happens is Jesus, He leads you there, you experience God's glory, you get excited about the presence of Jesus as you begin to praise him. They were moved to take action God, what does He do? He meets us there and then He, God overshadows us.

He overshadows us, now this is important. Because here's the problem. Most of us go about the process of God overshadowing us in life and desiring that for our lives in the opposite order of that. Here's where most of our lives is. We tend to say, God, I want you to move in my life.  God, I want you to overshadow me.   God, I want you to give me your power and God then I will agree to meet with you. Then I will agree to follow you, then I will agree to walk with you. That's where most of our lives come.  You're like no, it isn't Matt. Yes, it is. Because we pray prayers like this God, if you'll just get me out of this situation, I worship you with the rest of my life. God if you'll just put a little more money in my bank account.   God, if you'll just get my kid out of jail one more time, God, not my kid, maybe somebody else’s, then God, I will keep going.   God, if you will, show me your power. You'll get me through this. If you bless my family, God, then I live for you. You've said this before. Here's the principle. Our obedience is what leads us to a position for God's presence to overshadow us.

You see, it's our obedience that leads us to place ourselves in a position for God to overshadow our lives.  Now, don't hear me wrong, you don't position yourself for salvation. That's all God, it's not on you don't hear me wrong. You don't obey, to be saved, but we submit out of our salvation, for God to begin to move into our life. We don't pray for God to move into our life when we're not willing to submit to God moving our lives. You see what I'm saying right here. See, until this happens, what we always do is we always press our own agenda. We always press our own story; we always rise other things to the level of Jesus when we're not pressing his agenda. This is exactly what Peter did. Right? What did he do? He rose Moses and he rose Elijah up onto the same level of Jesus and Jesus is just like, you're not getting the point. And then God has to step in and talk.  The Father over them. Verse 5, "While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them and a voice from the cloud said, “this is my son. And I hope you hear the power in that. "Whom I love; with Him, I am well pleased.  Listen to Him."  You know what's so cool about this?  They all heard the audible voice of God in this moment, because of Peter.  Speaking out of turn.  You know, when the voice of God speaks audibly, we should probably listen. Just a general rule of life. And to kind of wrap the morning up, wants to see what God says because what God does right here,  is He gives us a game plan of how we can experience Jesus to the fullest and how we cannot raise other people up to the level of who Jesus is.  He gives us three things on how to do that. 

Number 1, He just says you need to recognize Jesus. You need to recognize Him. What did He say? A voice from the cloud said, this is my Son. Now why did He need to do that?  To take all ambiguity out of who Jesus was. That He was not just a prophet, that He was not just a sage, that He was not just a miracle worker. That He was not just another person that walked.  What is He doing? He's validating God, the Father's is validating God the Son and saying recognize this guy. Let me ask you a question this morning. Have you hit this moment in your life, where you've recognized Jesus for who he is?  Where you've turned from your sinful ways, and have invited Christ to come into your life? Has there been a moment in your life where you've realized that Jesus is Lord and He wants to give you new life? That's the gospel, right? It's not anything you can do. It's something you need to say, Jesus, I need you to do this. Why? Because he's the Messiah. He's the luminescent voice of God. Recognize Jesus. God says it right here. But number 2, He says, love Jesus, above all else. Love Him. It's not my words. Look at it. This is my son, whom I love. As a general rule in life as a Christian, if God loves something, I should love something.

If God says that we should love it, we should love it. I love Him. Jesus says, have you hit a point in your life where you have turned to Jesus and confess Jesus, I love you above all the rest of the stuff. It's me and you on this mountain. What do we do? We recognize Him. We love Him. And then number 3, I love it. It's just so clear. We listen to Jesus. Listen to Him. It's not my words. Look, this is my son. Who am I love; with Him I amd well pleased. Give you the last three words. Listen to him. Look, I get it. I get it. I get it. You're like Matt, I'm not at the Mount of Transfiguration, how's he gonna speak to me? We talked about it right through the interruptions. Same thing speaks to us through His Word.  Speaks to us through our worship experiences.  Speaks to us through circumstances.  Speaks to us through other people stepping into our lives and speaking the word over us. And He speaks to us through those still small voices inside of us, if we've given our lives to Him.

Here's the question. None of that happens until we in our lives validate who Jesus really is as the Messiah, the giver of the law, the fulfiller of the New Covenant, the Messiah, the Savior. And here's what He wants to do with you today. To step into your lives, some of us for the first time.  Some of you've never hit a point in your life, you've done church, you've gone to stuff, but there's never been a moment that you've turned from your sins and turn towards Jesus. Can I just say, I can't think of another day better than right now to recognize Jesus? That's what they're doing right? Recognize Him. In just a minute, we're going to have a time of decision. And during that time, there's going to be a, picture on the screen that tells you how you can talk to somebody about what that looks like to give your life to Christ today. In this weird socially distanced moment, if you'll just text that word, next, it'll walk you through some steps. Somebody will follow up with you this week to show you what it looks like to turn your life to Jesus. But here, some of you. You've given your life to Jesus, but it's been a long time since you've been on the mountain with Him. Been a long time since you've experienced His presence. Would you let Him step into your life?   Because He wants to speak.  

Lord Jesus, God you're calling us to a new level of a relationship with You. And God I just pray that today that God you would step in as you did on this mountain and show us who Jesus is. It's in Your name we pray. Amen. 

Let's stand and worship together this morning.