Morning Message Text: 2 Peter 1: 16-21
16 For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
17 He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
18 We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.
19 We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.
20 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things.
21 For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
Morning Message:
Today in the church we celebrate transfiguration. We pause for just a moment, before we enter into another season of Lent, to remember a very meaningful event in the life of Jesus, and a very meaningful example for our Christian lives. What is the purpose behind this event that seemingly took place out of nowhere. One of the main purposes was for the three disciples to see the glory of God and to know the true nature of this Jesus on whom they had believed and followed thus far. Peter, James, and John had an eyewitness experience of the Son of God and received something that most of us will never get, physical proof that Jesus is the Messiah. We are called to believe by faith; faith is believing in something that we have not seen, but God, knowing the condition of our human hearts, gave us eyewitnesses to the truth of who Jesus really is.
Transfiguration is something that only God can accomplish. When we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior we are transformed into new creatures, and it is God who accomplishes this, not us. This is an important point for us to understand. We cannot save ourselves, and we cannot transform our own lives. That is the work of God through the Holy Spirit. We can be willing participants, but God is the one who transforms us and restores us to fellowship with him. Unfortunately, in today’s society, the emphasis is not on allowing God to transfigure us but instead to attempt to change who God made us to be by disfiguration. Oh boy, I’m going to upset the world with the truth. We are living in a time, in my humble opinion we are living in the end of times, but we are seeing things that no civilization has ever experienced. I am shocked and dismayed at the extent of our human depravity and the nerve of mankind to shake their fist in the face of their Creator. We are at a crossroads in this country and even the other nations look at us with disgust at what we are teaching our children in school. You know what? The world can get upset with me. I truly don’t care. The church can get upset with me and call me unloving; I know better. This government can come down on me if they want to, but I am going to preach the truth from this pulpit until I am either told to leave, or I am dragged away. Not accepting the beauty of what God has made you and telling children that it’s ok to surgically change their sex and hiding it from their parents. Do you know what you are saying to God? God, you didn’t know what you were doing when you made me so I, being greater than you and knowing better than you, am going to change what you made me. And God must simply shake his mighty head and point to scripture, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb, my frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” But yes, of course, man knows what’s best.
In Psalm 2 we here this, “Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, let us break their chains and throw off their shackles.” Why do I bring this up today? Because if we are to celebrate transfiguration and God’s power to transform us into the new creatures that we are called to be, then we must recognize what we are up against today. The nations, this nation,have turned away from the things of God, so in order for us to live transformed lives for God we have to know that we will be in direct conflict with the world around us. You won’t hear this message in most other churches. Unfortunately, most churches today don’t want the truth.
The truth is what Peter is talking about today. Not some made up feel-good story, but the truth, the eyewitness account of seeing Jesus the Savior of the world, in the glorious form of God, transfigured before his very eyes. He heard God say, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” Peter is simply pointing us to the facts and calling us to believe what he had seen and what the prophets wrote about Jesus. I could spend days, even weeks, pointing out to you all of the prophecies that were fulfilled in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. Peter is very simply saying that these things did not come from the minds of the prophets who wrote them down but straight from the mouth of God, and the proof is, they have all been fulfilled.
Transfiguration is a sign of things to come. If all of the prophecies thus far have proven true then we can be assured that the prophecies that remain which declare our future in Christ will also be fulfilled. Prophecy is never given to simply satisfy our curiosity about what the future holds. It is meant to motivate us to holy living in the present by building up God’s people, by exhorting them to stay committed to Christ and the truth, and by comforting those who are suffering trials. Here is the one prophecy that thrills my soul, and the one that we should all be holding on to and looking forward to: the Rapture of the church. The Rapture—when Christ comes to gather deceased and living Christians to Himself “in the clouds” (1Thessalonians 4: 13-18)—is imminent; it could happen at any moment. All prophecies leading up to the Rapture have been fulfilled, so prophetically speaking, nothing else has to happen before Christ appears in the clouds to remove His church from earth. When he appears in the clouds, in his transfigured body, we will be changed in the twinkling of an eye, and we will join him forever.
In Christ’s Love and Peace,
Pastor Bob
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