Open your Bibles to Mark 9. Look how we're moving along in the gospel of Mark. I'm gonna read the first 13 verses. Listen now to the word of the Lord. And he said to them, Jesus, truly I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come in power. And after six days, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses and they were talking with Jesus. And Peter said to Jesus, Rabbi, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah. for he did not know what to say for they were terrified. And a cloud overshadowed them and a voice came out of the cloud. This is my beloved son, listen to him. And suddenly looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them, but Jesus only. And as they were coming down the mountain, he charged them to tell no one what they had seen until the son of man had risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves questioning what this rising from the dead might mean. And they asked him, why did the scribe say that first Elijah must come? And he said to them, Elijah does come first to restore all things. And how is it written of the son of man that he should suffer many things and be treated with contempt? But I tell you that Elijah has come and they did to him whatever they pleased as it is written of him. Amen. It has been said that the passage before this, starting at verse 27 of Mark 8, and then the first 13 verses of Mark 9, together, they are the continental divide of the synoptic gospels. You know, the Matthew, Mark, and Luke follow the same progression. There's differences, of course, but they have the same outline. They're called the synoptic gospels, similar. And this is the middle of those gospels. And prior to this, Jesus is publicly declaring himself in Galilee, and he's gathering his church. He is the new Israel, and he's gathered them around himself, and his is the new Passover, and he's going to fulfill all that their religion, the Old Testament had looked for. That's the first half. The second half begins here with Jesus' march towards the cross. And so in between then is Jesus takes the disciples to Caesarea Philippi. He takes them apart. He says, who do you say that I am? Peter gives the great confession. You are the Christ, the son of the living God. Jesus immediately tells them that he and they must suffer. And he says, if anyone would follow me, let him take up his cross and come after me. If you lose your life, you will gain it. If you gain your life, you will lose it. And so the cross bearing nature, the self-denial, the death that is the cross, we die to ourselves, we die to sin. And it's a life, generally speaking, of suffering. You know, the Christian religion in its 20 centuries has been a martyr religion. We have this idea that the way to witness to Jesus is to take over. We would like that very much. I would like that very much too. That is not the way it usually works. There's a reason why the word for witness is martyr. The word for martyr and for witness are the same word. It is generally speaking a disempowered, suffering community, often being persecuted. I mean, who was the first martyr for the church, the first witness in that respect? It was Stephen. who proclaims Jesus while he's being stoned to death. That's the model normally. The cross bearing nature of the Christian life, dying to self, dying to the world, dying to the flesh, dying to sin. But Jesus couples it here with the Mount of Transfiguration because the cross is not the end. It leads to the participation in the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. In a nutshell then, what you have as the disciples are preparing the journey to Jerusalem where Jesus is going to prepare them for his leaving. Of course, he is going to make the offering for sin in his death. He is going to be raised from the dead there. But as he's been talking about suffering and preparing them for a lifetime of suffering, these disciples would suffer for Jesus. At the beginning of that journey to the cross, he gives a revelation of his divine glory. So it's a wonderful passage that sees Jesus taking the three with him, Peter, James, and John, and he led them up a high mountain by themselves. Now, for a long time, scholars would argue that the Mount of Transfiguration was Mount Tabor in Galilee. I don't think many people believe that today. For two reasons, it's not that high a mountain. It says it's a high mountain, and it's also not that close. It's quite far away from Caesarea Philippi. It's almost certain that it's Mount Hermon, which is the mountain that dominates the Sea of Galilee in that northern region. You may know that the Sea of Galilee is about 2,000 feet below sea level. Mount Hermon against it is 9,000 feet above sea level. So it's an 11,000-foot ascent. Has anybody here been to Mount Rainier? I think Mount Rainier is 14,000 feet. 14,000 feet, isn't it? So it's 14,000 feet. So this is like a big mountain. 11,000. The shadow of Mount Hermon is 70 miles long. And this, it seems, is the mountain. Now, it took a while to get up there. They went on a trek. And you can see the disciples, Jesus takes them to the top of the mountain. And in fact, Matthew's gospel tells us they were so tired, they laid down and fell asleep when they got to the top. But he was taking them to the top of the mountain because he intended to reveal himself. And we are told that actually Matthew's gospel tells us that this is what woke them up. that Jesus was transfigured before them, his clothes became radiant, intently white as no one on earth could bleach them. Now the Greek word here for transfigured is metamorphosis. It's the verb form of that. Now that technically means a change of nature. The Roman emperor Caligula showed up one time at the Roman Senate and declared that he had become a God. And one of the senators foolishly asked, how did that happen? I have been metamorphosed. Well, it's not that with Jesus at all. He actually didn't change on the mountain. It was rather a revelation of what he truly was. It was a display of his glory. It's, of course, when you read Revelation chapter one, this is essentially what the Apostle John saw. They are getting a preview of the resurrection, maybe even more so a preview of the second coming. Jesus is present before them in His divine glory, in His royal exaltation and majesty as the enthroned Son of God. And so He is shown to them. Now, I think the import of this is very clear. As I said, that the whole point is before, what a blessing is, what a ministry is, what a comfort and encouragement it is for us. knowing that we might have to die for Jesus. In fact, we are spiritually certain to have to die for Jesus. We should never advertise the Christian life by saying, oh, it's the way to have a happy earthly life. Often it's the way not to have a happy earthly life, is to become a Christian. You don't become a Christian to have your best life now, to quote Joel Osteen, and that whole Americana prosperity gospel. Actually, you'll probably have a better time. Now, yes and no. In some senses, you'll have a more fun now if you're not a Christian. You won't have to fight with sin. You're at war with God, but you're at peace with your flesh. You don't have to repent. Now, the bad news of that is it doesn't even work now and life's a mess. I don't deny that's the case. My point though is that Christian life is cross-bearing and it's difficult and it's going to be sacrificial. One evangelical writer wrote a book called Disappointed with God a few years ago. And he did interviews with evangelicals who all talked about how disappointed they were with God and usually because they'd suffered. They'd prayed for a parent not to die, the parent did die. A teenager prayed the parents would not get divorced, parents did get divorced. She'd prayed for a spouse, she never had a spouse. And they all said, this is Philip Yancey who wrote this, and they all said, well, at the end of the day, God's disappointed us. And Yancey, looking through it, it's actually quite a good book, he goes, I wonder if these people realize that God never promised them any of these things. In fact, what God did promise in this life is suffering. that we would bear our crosses. If we're going to follow him, we're going to die. Whoever would gain his life must lose it. Whoever loses his life for my sake will gain it. And yet, what a difference it makes. What a difference it would make to these disciples who would go to Jerusalem with Jesus, to see him in his glory. Isn't it great to know how the story ends? You know, in movies, it's not great. There's a certain kind of person who cheats and reads the end of the mystery novel before they get there, or watches the end of the movie to remove the drama. That's not good in literature. But when it comes to a cross-bearing life, isn't it wonderful to know what a help it is for you? You know, all the, whatever trials you're going to have, and you're going to have them. Some of you are going through them right now. What a blessing it is to know that those trials lead to the reign of this Jesus. It's not just His glory, but His kingdom and the glory that we will share with Him. All of your trials in Christ are going to lead you to an eternal weight of glory. Now, this is why Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4, therefore, we count them not to be so great. They are in and of themselves more than we can bear. but these light and momentary afflictions, Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 4, how they are when we see Christ in his glory. Now, interestingly, the same verb, the verb form of metamorphosis also appears in 2 Corinthians 2, 3, 18. I want you to just turn there. It's a great verse. It's a great chapter. This is the culmination of Jesus' chapter about the Holy Spirit, his work among us. And he says, where the Spirit of the Lord, there is freedom. And we with unveiled faces, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. This comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. The same word is being used. And so what we see in Jesus, his transformation was an unveiling of his true nature. But for us, the Holy Spirit's work in our life, what we see, what the disciples saw in him on the Mount of Transfiguration is that into which we are being transformed now. We will never be, there's always be differences between us and Jesus. He is God the Son, we are not divine. But what does John say in 1 John 3, 1? We will be like him for we will see him as he is. I'm looking forward to my resurrection body. It'll be great not to have weakness and infirmity. There'll be no death. And we will be what we were designed to be in the image bearing of our heavenly father. And if you go, what's the resurrection body gonna be like? Well, we only know one example of it. And it's the resurrected body of the Lord Jesus. And so it is this into which he is also, it's a picture. It's the reality of which we will be the picture when we are transformed. Well, in all your struggles, what Jesus did for the disciples, he wants to do for you. As you prepare to suffer, as you realize following me means carrying a cross, it is going to lead you into the sharing of my glory. Now, as usual, Peter is going to provide some comic relief. The story gets very interesting because in verse four, there appeared with Jesus, Elijah and Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. Now that's a fascinating event there. One thing it shows you is it shows you the spirits of those who have died. Well, Elijah was one of the two people transported into heaven. Moses certainly died. You know, some people, one of the questions when I do conferences and their Qs and As, one of the questions kind of frequently asked is, will we know each other in heaven? Well, of course we'll know each other in heaven. Moses and Elijah knew each other and they knew Jesus and they're conversing with Jesus. Now the good question is, what are they talking about? Well, Luke's version of the transfiguration says that they were talking about the exodus that he must soon suffer. And so here is Jesus beginning so that the first phase, the first major phase of his ministry is over. He's gathered his disciples. He's now turning his face. Luke's gospel says he set his face towards Jerusalem, towards the cross. And before he does that, Moses and Elijah appear and they're talking about Jesus' crucifixion. Isn't it interesting that the word used there for his crucifixion is his exodus. It shows the way that the Exodus model, the Exodus view of salvation is fulfilled in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. He is the Passover lamb. It is our passageway through his body and blood into the promised land. Now, why Moses and Elijah? Well, I think most commentaries are probably right in saying that Moses represents the law. Elijah is the chief of the prophets, the greatest of the prophets. And Jesus would often say, the law and the prophets testify concerning me. And here are Moses and Elijah testifying concerning the Lord Jesus. Now, imagine being there. And Peter says, Rabbi, it is good that we are here. But he was overwhelmed. Let us make three tents, he said, one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah. I love verse six. For he did not know what to say, for they were terrified. You know, Peter's the kind of person who when he doesn't know what to say, he says something. And that's always his role in the situation. Now there's two views about what Peter seems to be doing. He sees Jesus revealed in this white glory. And then he has Moses and Elijah with him. Interestingly, they identify them. And there's two views, I think both are right. One is he wants to settle there. You know, who wants to go back down the valley? You know, we wanna have you go on that retreat, that college retreat, where you have that special spiritual moment, or maybe it's some other high point in your life, and you say, I want this weekend never to end, but it is designed by God to end. We do not live the Christian life through spiritual highs. We live our lives in the valley and they're going to live. And that's where the suffering is. That's where the hardship is. I've always loved when Paul says in Galatians 2.20, I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live the life I live in the flesh. but flesh has the connotation of fallenness. It's not just, he doesn't mean it just in my body, but in my sinful condition, in all the daily struggle of being a Christian, that's where I live my life, not in the heights, but in the valley, in the flesh, but I live my faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. But Peter wants the mountaintop experience. But I think probably, I mean, what happens next suggests as well that, It's hard to blame him that he sees three objects. The Roman Catholics, if they were here, they would parse it out and say, he was going to worship Jesus, but venerate Moses and Elijah. Now for the life of me, I cannot tell the difference between Roman Catholic worship and veneration. It has all the same activities. It has all the same attitudes. Worship and veneration are essentially synonyms. So when the Roman Catholics say, well, we don't worship the saints, we venerate them. That's a synonym for worshiping and it seems that he's overwhelmed and he wants to worship. He's going to make little temples for them. That's his instinct. In verse seven, a cloud overshadowed them and a voice came out of the cloud. This is my beloved son, listen to him. Suddenly look, well, let me stop there. The, you know, when the cloud descends, that is the Shekinah glory of the Lord, which has not been seen by an Israelite in 600 years. And you think of when, during the Exodus, when Moses would enter the tent of meeting and the Shekinah glory. I've been doing my devotions in numbers right now. That's where I am right now. And when God wants their attention, the Shekinah glory falls upon the camp and boy does that get people's, it's the glory cloud, the radiant white glory cloud. And that gets their attention. And when Moses would go in to speak with the Lord, the Shekinah glory would be there. And if you remember, Moses' face would be shining because of the glory of the Lord. And then when Solomon dedicated the temple in first Kings six and to nine, When he finished his prayer, the Shekinah glory filled the temple and the priest had to leave because the glory of the Lord filled the temple. Now, here's Peter saying, let's build shrines. We'll make a temple here and Jesus and Moses and Elijah can each have their own booth and God was bringing the Shekinah glory. He's saying, no, no, Jesus is the temple. We have seen his glory. He is God with us. The glory of the only begotten son of God. He is who tabernacled among us, John said in 1 John 1 14. And so Peter was not to build a tabernacle for Jesus. Jesus is the tabernacle by whom God dwells among us. And then a voice came out saying, this is my beloved son, listen to me. And suddenly looking around, they saw, they no longer saw anyone with them, but Jesus only. Now that's a great moment. What is that teaching? Well, there you have Moses and Elijah representing the law and the prophets. We might even say representing the Bible. And then the glory cloud falls upon them and God says, listen to Jesus. You know, one thing that reminds us is that the kind of Christianity we need to have, in fact, it's the only kind of Christianity there is, is one that's about Jesus. One that's about Him, that's exalting Him, that's trusting Him, that's relying on His works, that's a discipleship with Him. If you and I are really studying our Bibles rightly, if we're really believing, if the Holy Spirit's working in our lives, we will see Jesus. It will be Jesus that is the object of our faith. No, there's always a danger, particularly when there's strife among Christians to make Calvinism versus Arminianism or something else. And one of those is right, one of them is wrong. I don't deny that. But our Christianity is not about being more reformed than the next guy. Our Christianity is not about traditional worship. versus contemporary worship. There's good reasons why we do traditional worship here. I prefer to call it historic reformed worship, but that's not what our identity is. These things are all meant to lead us. They're vehicles to lead us to see Jesus. And we should not get sidetracked by, I like to say that a second Presbyterian church is not about reformed theology. We definitely believe in reformed theology and we teach it because the Bible does. We're not about that. We're not about a certain style of worship. We have views on worship. They come from the Bible. We think they're wise. That's not what our identity is. We are not a creationist church. We are probably the most famously militant six-day creationist church in the PCA. Ah, that is not what our identity is. Let's not keep that. Let's keep the products and the byproducts right. We're about the person and work of the Lord Jesus at the center of what we believe, what we proclaim, where our passion is. What does God the Father say? This is my beloved son. Listen to him. And they, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with him but Jesus only. What a great, what a great didactic episode that was. To the extent that we are animated by an interest in and a living communion with and a trust in Jesus himself, in his person and his work. To that extent, our theology is sound and our spirituality is biblical. This is my beloved son. Listen to him and they could no longer see them, but Jesus only. That wasn't a put down for Elijah and Moses. That was the fulfillment of their highest aspirations. Well, very briefly on the way down the mountain, it does seem clear that the broader context for this, I gotta wrap this up quickly, but the broader context is, remember earlier when Jesus said, the son of man must die and suffer and Peter rebuked him and said, surely not you. And Jesus said, get thee behind me, Satan. And that led Jesus to say, if anyone would follow me, let him take his cross daily and follow me. If you lose your life, what good is it to gain the whole world and lose your very self, or whoever loses his life for me will gain it, so on and so forth. His Christ-centered life, Peter's struggling with that. And he doesn't want to come down the mountain. And he asks a question that seems odd. Well, first of all, Jesus told them not to tell anyone. Again, the reason for that is, you know, he's not trying to display his resurrection glory now. That comes after the cross. He doesn't want the timetable to be messed up. And he mentions, so they kept the matter to themselves, verse 10, questioning what this rising from the dead might be. And they asked him, why do the scribes say that first Elijah must come? Now, why'd they ask that? Well, here's what Peter's saying. Wow, like we've arrived. To them, the first coming was the second coming. I mean, we've seen the glory of the Lord. The hope of our whole faith is fulfilled. There it was. I thought Elijah was supposed to come before that. We're quoting the end of the book of Malachi. And Jesus says, Elijah has come. Now, this is the text that shows us that John the Baptist, who took up the ministry of Elijah, was the fulfillment of Malachi's prophecy that Elijah would come. Jesus says so right here. I tell you, Elijah has come, but notice what he emphasizes. Elijah does come first to restore all things and how is it written of the son of man that he should suffer many things and be treated with contempt. But I tell you that Elijah has come and they did to him whatever they pleased as is written of him. He says John the Baptist is the fulfillment of Elijah and he suffered. So what Jesus is combating is a theology of triumph in the absence of the cross. Oh, there is triumph. He was revealing it. but it was not then. It was not until he had died for sin. There is triumph for us after this life, but that triumph is not right now. Now is a time of struggle, maybe a time of defeat culturally. It happens all the time. I was in Philadelphia last week and I had a meal with a brother in China who's a Chinese missionary and wow, I didn't know how tough it was over there. They've used the internet, which was being used by the church to infiltrate information, has now been mastered by the Chinese. Basically, they've got 1984 going over in China. He says they've got facial recognition cameras on every street corner. You cannot escape. They have cameras everywhere. Everything is recorded. And he says, the oppression may be greater now than it has been in decades in China. And he says, we could be in trouble and Christians can be in trouble. Jesus says, you know, John the Baptist was beheaded. No, Elijah has come. The son of man has come and we still must take up the cross. Well, let me conclude by saying two things. One is what they saw. We are literally going to see. We are literally going to see it. This whole image of the Son of Man being displayed in glory with the Shekinah glory cloud, I talked about what it reminds us of, but what are we told? Surely He is coming on the clouds. I'm looking forward to seeing the Shekinah glory about which I've been reading all these years in scripture. and we are going to see whether we are raised or whether we are still living, we are going to see, as Job said, with these eyes, the coming of the Lord in glory. But let me conclude by going to Peter's own record of this, because it's not only true that we will see the glory of the Lord in the future, but let me conclude with these remarks. They come from 2 Peter. There'll be our scripture reading, I think, this coming week. He says, for we did not, this is 1st 2nd Peter 1 16, we did not follow cleverly devised myth when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. He's talking about the amount of transfiguration. I'm not talking about something I don't know about. I was on the Mount of Transfiguration. I have seen with my eyes the display of the glory of the Lord. For when we received honor and glory from God the Father, the voice was born to him by the majestic glory. This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven for we were with him on the mountain. And then he says this, And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed to which you would do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your heart. He actually says the word of God is a better display. So he says more fully confirmed, a better display of the glory of Jesus Christ is found by reading your Bibles than if you had been standing on the Mount of Transfiguration. So what an encouragement it is to know for all the struggles, defeats, crucifixions we may suffer in this life, there is glory at the end. We will see him with our own eyes. My friends, we see him with our spirits now. In the Word of God, it is the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's be encouraged and let's be in our Bibles. Let's be gazing upon the beauty and the majesty and the kingship and the victory and the deity of the Savior we're trusting for our souls. It's a lamp shining in a dark place. The Word of God shows us the majesty of Christ. Father in heaven, we pray your blessing on these reflections. Thank you for our time tonight. Thank you for the prayers we prayed earlier. Father, we thank you for the Lord Jesus. Help us to see him. Help us to have more and more a sense of a present personal discipleship with him who lives and reigns. Help us to have a clearer, more biblically informed trust in the work He has done for us and all that He will do even forever and ever. What a Savior He is, we give Him all the glory. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.