The Spectacular Transfiguration of Jesus Christ

Mark 9:1-13.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, January 05, 2020.

This passage has a unique event that is more than just your average miracle (if such can be said about miracles).  The transfiguration of Jesus demonstrates that supernatural things are not only happening around Jesus, but that there is also something supernatural about him.  He is not a man who has figured out how to get God to help him all the time.  Rather, his origin is supernatural.  He is from the Father and thus he is from heaven.

Let’s look at the passage.

Jesus gives a promise

The scene begins in verse 1 where Jesus gives a promise to a gathering of his disciples and other people.  This is mentioned in Mark 8:34. The stands out as a singular statement against the event that follows it, the transfiguration of Jesus.  The disciples and the people had been kept guessing as to when Jesus might begin to bring in the Kingdom of God that they were expecting.  Yes, they are grateful for miracles and all, but they want to see Jesus get serious about taking on the greater role of Messiah by kicking out the Romans and reforming the corruption of Israel.

The basic promise is that some of those who were in attendance that day would not die before they saw the kingdom of God coming in a powerful way.  This verse is sometimes used to substantiate the claim that Jesus taught the disciples that his Second Coming would happen in the first century.  Atheists see that it failed and thus reject Christ.  Believers that do this will find events within the first century and present them as metaphorical fulfillments of such promises.

Of course, we should note that the Second Coming is not mentioned in this promise.  It is only about the Kingdom of God and how it would be coming in.  This presents a wrinkle.

The New Testament does present an odd twist on the Old Testament promise of the Kingdom of God.  In short, the apostles proclaim that the Kingdom of God has been established in the hearts of believers through the Spirit of God.  Yet, the physical reign of Jesus (Messiah) on this earth and the judgment of the nations has been put on hold, or is not yet.  So, we get this “now, but not yet” presentation of the Kingdom of God throughout the writings of the Apostles.

Does anything happen within the lifetime of those who were living at that time which reflects the Kingdom of God coming powerfully?  All three gospels that record this bold statement follow it immediately with an account that is called the Transfiguration of Jesus.  It is contextually clear that they saw this event as the fulfillment of what Jesus promised.  Modern sceptics may not like this explanation, but it is the one that the disciples themselves give to us.

For modern people to reject such an explanation, smacks of arrogance.  Who are we to tell people from a culture within which we have never lived that they didn’t actually understand what Jesus said?  Who are we to force our thinking upon the situation?  The disciples present themselves as often misunderstanding Jesus.  They really didn’t “get it” until after the resurrection.  There we have Jesus fully explaining the Scriptures, and another promise that the Holy Spirit would enable them to remember the things Jesus said along with what it meant (John 16:12-13).  The truth they came to see is that the transfiguration was exactly what Jesus was talking about in this promise.  He is not talking about the end times and his Second Coming.

Jesus is transfigured

We are told that Peter, James, and John go up on a high mountain with Jesus six days later.  These three are the “some” that Jesus was talking about in the previous promise.  We are not told what high mountain this is although they were last described as being in the area of Caesarea-Philippi.  So, it could be somewhere in the Golan Heights.  However, the importance of the high mountain is more in its symbolism than it is in its literal location.  There is a clear parallel happening here between Moses going up on the mountain to hear from God at Sinai, and the disciples going up on the mountain and hearing from God with Jesus.  Jesus is the “greater than Moses” one.  Yet, his disciples are the ones who are going to come down from the mountain, and speak to Israel and the nations about what God has told them.

So, what does transfiguration mean?  We should recognize that what is described in this passage did not happen and so they had a word for it.  In seeking to describe what they saw, the disciples take up the Greek word “metamorphosis,” which has the basic meaning of a change of form.  This should not be connected to the concept of shape-shifting, even though the word could allow for it.  Jesus clearly does not change shape, and the word is used in two other places in the New Testament to describe the believer being transformed into the image of Jesus (no literal shape-shifting there either).  Romans 12:2 tells believers that they should not be conformed to this world, but rather to be “metamorphed” by the renewing of your mind so that you might prove what the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God is.  In 2 Corinthians 3:18 the Christian experience is described as one who sees Christ in the mirror of God’s Word and is “metamorphed” into the same image from one level of glory to the next level of glory.  Thus, the change they are describing with the word “metamorphosis” is not about the shape, but rather the outward presentation of the person.  The word appearance would be a better concept here than shape. 

Mark tells us that the clothing of Jesus began to shine exceedingly white.  We can imagine something like a mantle in a gas or oil lamp.  In Matthew 17:2, we are told that his “face shone like the sun.”  Thus, the shining is actually coming from the person of Christ and is affecting his clothing.  Within that culture, such a description would clearly imply that Jesus is not just human.  He is a spirit being from the spirit realm.  Spiritual beings are often described as shining, and even metaphorically referred to as stars or celestial lights.  The intention is clear.  There is something heavenly about this being.  The glorious Son of God was cloaked by human flesh, but in this moment the three disciples are given a glimpse of his true glory, the glory he will have when he returns at the end of the age in order to set up the physical reign of his kingdom. 

This also connects to Moses on Mt. Sinai because there Moses was given a glimpse of the receding glory of God, whereas here, the disciples are given a limited glimpse of the glory of Christ.

It is amazing enough that Jesus is shining like the sun, but then two figures appear and begin talking with Jesus.  The disciples come to know that they are Elijah and Moses (probably through what they say).  These two men are representatives of the Law and the Prophets.  They both were remembered as operating in powerful signs and wonders.  This also underlines what Jesus taught elsewhere.  God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.  Those who have gone before us are still alive.  They are just not in earthly bodies.

So, what are they talking about?  We are not told.  Yet, it is reminiscent of the angels who appeared to Jesus in the wilderness after his 40-day fast and tempting by the devil.  They may be simply encouraging him for the road of suffering that lay ahead.

Although this scene is still happening, we are told that the disciples are very afraid.  In his fear, Peter asks Jesus if they should build three tabernacles for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah.  This glorious appearing of Jesus along with the powerful prophets of old was more like what the disciples had been wanting.  A glowing, shining Messiah should have a tabernacle in which to dwell.  The word for tabernacle is the same word used for the portable temple that Israel used in the wilderness wanderings coming out of Egypt.  It was later replaced by a permanent temple.  Perhaps Peter sees that this could be a religious site of worship, and a political site of the rule of Messiah.  Clearly, they needed to be silent and just watch.  The impulsive nature of Peter causes him to interject an idea that will not even be considered.  Peter does not understand what God is doing, and in a sense is interrupted by the Father Himself in what happens next.  We must be careful that we are not building things that are not what God is desiring, even though they sound thoughtful and worshipful.

At this point, a cloud overshadows them and a voice speaks from the cloud to them.  It says, “This is my beloved Son.  Listen to Him!”  The suffering and death that Jesus was going to experience would threaten their perseverance in listening to Jesus and following him.  This event serves to show that, no matter how inglorious the life of Jesus would look, he was the very glory of God.  The disciples could trust the one who would become the crucified Lord of Glory.  This is also God’s word to you and I.  God commands all men everywhere to repent of their sins and listen to Jesus.  This also connects back to the cloud that led Israel through the wilderness and would descend on the tabernacle when Moses would meet with God to receive His words.  The cloud was a visible sign that God’s presence was there.  No Israelite would miss the connotation of what is happening here. 

On top of this, Moses told Israel in Deuteronomy 18:15 that God would eventually raise up another prophet like him and that they should listen to him.  This is the exact same message that the father gives to the disciples.  Listen to Him!

The scene suddenly disappears.  The cloud, Moses, and Elijah are all gone.  Jesus is not glowing anymore.  At this point, Jesus instructs his disciples that they should not tell anyone about this event until after the Son of Man has risen from the dead.  They are still stupefied by these references that Jesus keeps making about the Son of Man being killed and then rising from the dead.  It just goes to show how hard it is for us to see things that are right in front of us when we are not expecting them, or they are so far outside of our frame of reference.  Later, the disciples would tell all about this event as they spoke to Israel and the nations.  Peter clearly mentions this event in 2 Peter 1:16-19 where he says, “We did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty.  For He received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’  And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.  And so, we have the word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your heart.”

The disciples question Jesus

In verses 11-13, the minds of the disciples are still spinning with the spectacular event that they have just seen.  Thus, a question surfaces in their minds to ask Jesus.  Why is it taught by the scribes that Elijah must come before Messiah?  Such teaching was no doubt based upon Malachi 4:5-6.  It basically says that before the Wrath of God comes, Elijah would appear and turn the hearts of the fathers back to their children and the hearts of the children back to their parents.  Wow, what an apt description of our problems today.  Satan ever seeks to divide us along lines that God intended for us to be unified.  Our hearts should be toward one another, instead they are often only towards ourselves, and even worse, against one another.

Jesus clearly affirms the teaching, but he gives them more understanding.  He does so by reminding them of the passages that teach about the suffering of Messiah.  To understand the prophecy about Elijah returning before Messiah, one needs to understand the suffering of the Messiah to whom he would point.  The prophecies concerning the Messiah had two aspects about them: the suffering of Messiah and the glorious rule of Messiah, the dealing with our sins and the destruction of the wicked.  We know that this dual aspect required two comings of Jesus, or we could say, required a pause before God completed the mission.  Thus, there would be something similar with Elijah.

In a way, Elijah had already come.  There are several other places where Jesus speaks of John the Baptist and whether or not he was Elijah who was to come.  The best way to sum up these passages is to put it this way.  John was not literally Elijah, but he did come in the power and the spirit of Elijah.  He came out of the wilderness in animal skins and called Israel to repentance.  “Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand!”  Jesus was the Messiah of Israel, but they rejected him.  Because of this rejection, Jesus would leave them and come back to them at the end of the age.  Similarly, this prophecy of Elijah would require Elijah to come before the Second Coming as well.  This may seem strange, but Revelation 11 speaks of two witnesses or prophets who would show up in the end times and powerfully call Israel and the world to repentance.  It is quite possible that these witnesses are Elijah and Moses.  In support of this conjecture, we see the fact that the two witnesses of Revelation 11 will do signs and wonders similar to that of Elijah and Moses.

As we close, it is important to understand the glory of Christ.  From his glory, he stepped down into this world and into human flesh.  He restrained his glory so that we could see, hear, and interact with him.  This moment of clarity about the true glory of Jesus is intended to give the disciples and us confidence in Jesus even after the stark reality of the cross slams into the faith we have.  Though we did not see this event, those who did are faithfully witnessing to us that they are not making up fables and stories.  Rather, they are telling us what they saw with their own eyes.  May God strengthen our faith in a day and age that seems hell-bent on rejecting the message of John the Baptist, and, more importantly, the Lord Jesus Christ.  You may not be so close to the image of Christ that you are glowing yet, but one day we will shine like the stars because we kept our faith in Jesus to the end!

Transfiguration Audio

Finding Focus after Failure

Philippians 3:7-16.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Father’s Day, June 16, 2019.

Today, we take time to celebrate fathers; a blessing for which they did not ask.  Being a father can fill you with all kinds of moments in which we feel great success and, of course, great failure.  It is one of those things that we cannot fully appreciate until we have been put in the harness ourselves.  Of course, this applies to parenting in general.

Our passage today is not about being a father.  However, it presents a problem that is common within parenting, that of getting up from failure and moving forward.  What do you do when your greatest attempts and endeavors are found out to fall short?  What do you do when that little baby who has grown up yells at you and slams the door to their room, or storms out of the house?  Sadly, many men run from such experiences.  Our society is full of missing-in-action fathers who decided to never start in the first place (often despite the children they have helped create).

Yet, for those who bravely jump into marriage and children, the challenges can mount and overwhelm a person.  We seem to be confronted with our weaknesses and shortcomings at every turn.  It is a very intimidating situation, even a crucible of sorts. 

So, I want to use this passage where the Apostle Paul is explaining his come-to-Jesus moment.  In it we will discover the proper response to those moments when you are made aware of your failures.

Confidence in the flesh does not lead to Jesus

Paul often spoke against the religious mindset that focused upon its own religious accomplishments because this does not lead anyone to Jesus.  Oh, it leads to all manner of places, but never to Jesus.  Confidence is good if it is placed in the right thing.

Paul had been raised in a religious environment in which performance was everything.  In verses 4-6 of this chapter, Paul lists his credentials among the Jewish people.  He had been circumcised when he was 8 days old.  This was the required mark that he belonged to God.  He was also from the tribe of Benjamin, a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Thus, he was a true heir to the promises of God.  He was also a Hebrew of Hebrews, which meant that he was not one of those Hellenized Jews who adopted the Greek culture and mixed it, in varying degrees, with the culture of Israel.  He was a Pharisee, who prided themselves on exact, literal conformity to the Law.  His zeal was so great that he had been persecuting the Christians and even going to Damascus in order to seize more.  Lastly, his law keeping was blameless by the standards of his day.  Everything in Paul’s life told him that he was blameless and succeeding within his society.  Yet, the day that Jesus confronted him, he was made aware of just how greatly he had been failing God. 

Think about how we come from different subcultures within the greater USA culture.  Even Christians grow up within a subculture of the overall world-wide Christian community.  Each subculture has its own variation of what it means to be good, right, and successful.  However, those cultural trappings, whether religious or not, can blind us to our mounting failures.

Paul should have had his confidence centered upon God, but he had been taught to center it upon himself inadvertently.  On the road to Damascus, when Paul finally saw the light, he began to know just how far away from God he was, and yet also, that God still loved him.  I pray that today you may know that no matter whether you were a failure or a great success story, in regard to the subculture in which you were raised, God loves you too much to leave you alone.  He calls you to Himself through Jesus and says, “Put your trust in me.” 

Perhaps the greatest problem within Christianity throughout history has been the many men who were more confident in their ideas about Scripture than they were in the God who gave them.  On top of this is a similar problem.  Christians are often looking back to smart Christian men of the past and put more confidence in their great ideas about Scripture than in the Word itself.  Whether a group points to Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, or for Pentecostals, men like Charles Parham or William Seymour, or for the Assemblies of God, men like E. N. Bell and J. Roswell Flowers, it matters not what men your subculture points to and holds up as the great light to this generation.  What matters is if our confidence is truly placed upon Jesus instead of the reason of brilliant men.

Knowing Jesus is more important than the things we lose

Paul recognized that everything for which he had been working fell short of God.  He would rather know Jesus than have the greatest Jewish resume among his people.  Thus, he had to let go of certain things in order to know Jesus.  He had come to that moment of realization (my great works have fallen short), and chose to go after Christ rather than doubling down on his life’s work.  He let go of his standing and reputation within the religious community.  He let go of his potential within the leadership of Israel.  However, verse 9 also points out that he had let go of the righteousness of his own attempts to satisfy the Law of Moses, in order to obtain a righteousness that is from God through faith in Jesus.  The righteousness of faith in Jesus is diametrically opposed to the self-righteousness obtained by keeping the law.  Paul points to this as the great problem for Israel in Romans 10:2-3 where he says, “I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.  For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.”

To know Jesus is more than to know information about him.  Yes, we want to learn about who Jesus was, what he did, and what he taught.  However, the words used for “knowledge,” and “know,” in this passage, include a knowledge that comes through a relationship with someone.  Paul doesn’t just want to go to school and learn about Jesus.  He wants to do life with Jesus.  His life would now be about learning who Jesus is through a personal relationship with him.

So, how do you have a relationship with Jesus?  You do so by faith.  You pray, you believe, you trust, you succeed, you fail, you repent, you keep your eyes upon Jesus.  I pray that today you will be struck with this desire to know Christ and not settle for anything less.

However, to really know Jesus, you must also get to know those major aspects of his life.  Paul wanted to experience and to learn about that same power that raised Christ from the dead.  He wanted that power operating in his life.  He also wanted to experience and to learn about the sufferings that Christ submitted himself to go through, even to the point of laying his life down for others.  Paul wanted his death to conform to that kind of death that Jesus had, which was a noble and godly one.  Ultimately Paul wanted to experience the Resurrection from the Dead himself, which is promised by Jesus to all believers.  There is coming a day when he will give the command and all the righteous saints of history will receive glorified, immortal bodies.

What do I do when I haven’t arrived yet

Fatherhood is a constant reminder that we haven’t arrived yet, and I’m not talking about the kids in the back seat droning, “Are we there yet?”  It is easy to get the wind knocked out of your sails when you are faced with your own failures.  In fact, it is easy to get angry, even filled with rage, as life constantly reminds us of how short we fall.  Yet, just as Christ was calling Paul to a different life that was not filled with hatred, anger, and rage, so Christ is calling us to let go of our failures and follow him.

Paul clearly says in verse 12 that he had not attained the list of the facets of knowing Jesus.  In fact, because the Resurrection is on the list, he still hasn’t attained that whole list even today.  Unless Jesus returns in our lifetime, all of us will close our eyes in death, realizing that we hadn’t attained it all yet.  But, God will not fail us.  He has set a time in which all of these things will be attained by all of the saints of all time together.  All of us will simultaneously enter into our full inheritance on the Day of Resurrection.  Wow!  What a day that will be.

Paul could have run away from his failures and away from Jesus.  Instead, he ran towards Christ.  Jesus is the “author and finisher of our faith.”  Yes, we are to cooperate with the Holy Spirit and work hard for our Lord, but we always remember that he will bring us through and finish us.  Yes, I haven’t arrived yet, but Jesus will get me there, just as he will get you there too.

Paul points out that he had to forget those things that were behind him.  We can learn lessons from our past, but we must not allow ourselves to become stuck in our past and frozen.  Paul had much guilt and shame behind him.  Yet, Jesus had forgiven him.  Have you ever noticed that we can still hold failures over our own head, even though Jesus says that he forgives us?  Faith is letting go and trusting Jesus.  Yes, you fell short.  Leave it behind you and move towards Jesus who promises to forgive you.

In fact, Paul was pressing forward to the things that Christ had set before him and us.  We first press towards those things that Jesus has for each of us in this life.  We don’t know what that will involve and everybody’s story is unique.  Yet, as we approach the end of our life, we must again press forward to those things that lie in our resurrected future.  Our greatest prize is that which we enter into at the Resurrection of the Dead.  All of us have to learn to get up and go to work.  This is what Paul is expressing.  He had to get up and get to work finding out just who this Jesus was.  Jesus is calling to each of us today.  “Come and get to know me!”

Paul ends this section with a reminder of our thinking, which he had been addressing back in chapter 2.  The mind of a person who keeps doubling down on their own accomplishments is not the mind of Christ.  Christ trusted the Father instead of trusting what he could do in the flesh.  He submitted to the cross and was rewarded with the highest honor of the entire universe.  The mind that is never too great to simply do what the Father asks us to do.  Failure is part of who we are as humans, but in Jesus it is not the final word.  If we will humble ourselves and press forward towards him, then Jesus will bring us to victory!

Finding Focus audio

Lessons of Christmas- The Mystery of It All

1 Peter 1:10-13.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on December 5, 2015.

As we enter the Christmas season, we have been looking at lessons that it teaches us.  Last week we talked about the Goodness of God displayed at the birth of Jesus.  Today we are going to look at the Mystery of God.  It has been said that God works in mysterious ways.  Although this is true, there is much more to it than that.  Whether you are a person who likes mysteries or not, there is something about mystery that engages our mind.  Our natural curiosity wants to try and solve it.  One thing about a good mystery is that it usually has a surprise twist that provides the hidden information to solve the mystery.  We see these same elements in the plan of God, which has some parts that are very clear and others that are not.  At the birth of Jesus there was the mystery of who the messiah would be and how salvation would be accomplished.  A big part of the mystery was the timing.  When would all this happen?  Lastly, I would point out the mystery of God’s dealings with Israel and the nations of the world.  All of these mysterious things come together at Christmas in an even greater mystery: the incarnation.  In Jesus was united God and man in one being.  He is the one who is both fully God and yet fully man.  This is a mystery. 

In 1 Peter 1:10-13, Peter points out these things to the believers of his day.

Salvation Was A Mystery

Through the years prophets in Israel had spoke on behalf of God.  They explained past, present, and sometimes future things.  Of course God himself gives the first prophecy in the Garden of Eden when he explains that the “seed of the woman” would crush the serpents head.  This first word of hope to mankind let us have a glimpse that God was doing something about our situation.  Over the centuries a large body of prophecies had been accumulated.  These words were not a complete picture, and in fact they left many questions in the hearts and minds of those who pondered them.

The prophets themselves were in the same boat as those to whom they spoke.  They did not understand everything they were being told.  Yes, Adam and Eve knew that God would help one of their seed to give them victory over the serpent, but they didn’t know how and when.  Peter reminds us that there has always been mystery in what God is doing.

Yet, this drove the prophets to search and inquire into it carefully.  Up to Moses, the Words of God were handed down orally.  Thus to search and inquire into the matter could only be done by finding an elder who was faithful to the old ways and would explain what God had done and said in the past.  Such wise men like Noah had held onto the promises and prophecies of God despite the fact that the rest of mankind had cast them aside.  With Moses God began directing the prophets and others to write these things down.  Once that was done the writings themselves could be searched and compared.  Ultimately we see the prophets exemplified in Daniel who was searching the scroll of Jeremiah and came to understand that the exile into Babylon would only last 70 years.  Thus he knew that God was going to help his people return to Israel.  He also received many visions and prophecies regarding the future.  Yet, Daniel had many questions.  In chapter 12 of the book of Daniel, we see him asking God for more understanding and yet the Lord tells him, “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.”  Even though he was the holy prophet of God, he had to trust God in the midst of many mysterious, unknowns regarding the plan of God.  We live in days where it is easy to connect with faithful, godly elders.  We can also search the Scriptures with the help of powerful computers.  Along with this, God is as close as He has ever been when we pray.  So have we grown weary of the mystery?  Have we come to the place where we quit hoping for the resolution of God’s plan?  There are even some in the Church today that teach that prophecy and searching it out for understanding is a problem.  The problem is not trying to understand prophecies.  This has been the impulse of godly people from the beginning.

Peter points out that these prophets wanted to know who the messiah would be and when he would come.  Over time God gave further clarification.  First we find that the messiah would come from Abraham, then Isaac, and then Jacob.  Later we are told that he would be of the lineage of David.  In regards to time, they are eventually given some inkling in Daniel.  In fact chapter 9 of Daniel is a prophecy that lays out how much time was left.  He also reveals that it would happen during the reign of the 4^th Beast Empire.  Notice how similar their questions are to ours today.  Our waiting for Jesus to come back is very similar to what they waited for.

Peter points out that that, by the Spirit, they saw the sufferings and subsequent glory of the messiah.  These two incongruous ideas created a lot of questions and mystery concerning the plan of God.  The suffering and victory of the messiah may seem to be a contradiction, but it is more a contradiction of implausibility rather than impossibility.  God had promised a savior.  But when he came he would suffer.  Why?  He would be glorious on one hand and yet there would be nothing about him physically that would draw men to him.  They mystery was in how all these puzzle pieces fit together.  At Christmas God solved part of this puzzle for us.  Christ came first to save us from our own sin (the true enemy).  To do this he had to make himself vulnerable and let himself be tortured, even put to death, for our sake.  But how could he do all that and yet remain the King who would raise up the righteous and put down the wicked?

Why All The Mystery

There is a part of us, whether as an atheist or a frustrated believer, that wished God would make things clearer.  Yet, he has a penchant for mystery and long waits in between times of revelation.  Peter points out in verse 12 that it has to do with the fact that prophecy is not just for us.  We are serving others.  Either God has to make a clear explanation to every single person who ever existed within their time, or we have to put up with a bit of mystery.  There is no way around this.  Prophecy was never given to elite men for their benefit alone.  It was given to them in order to serve others.  First they served the people of their time by sharing the prophecies.  However, Peter points out that they also served the generation that would be alive when the messiah finally came.  Those who would see the resolution of prophecy needed served in this way.  Because of the words that were shared and written down, they would be able to see the connections between what was happening and what God promised.  It would help them to navigate especially difficult times with the understanding that God desired them to have.  Thus early Jews who were heard the good news of Jesus could either ignore the Scriptures and reinterpret the events, or they could embrace them and rejoice in Jesus.  Of course, Peter is talking about the mystery of salvation.  Through Jesus it became far less mysterious.  Of course we also recognize that Jesus and his Apostles prophesied about a future 2^nd coming.  Thus, as I said before, we are in the same boat.  We have been served by Jesus and the Apostles in order to understand what God desires of us in these last days.  God was not interested in giving each generation full understanding.  No, that would come after the events occurred.  Rather, was giving each generation enough information that they would be encouraged and pass down the prophecies until that generation in which they would occur.  We are not just waiting for Jesus to come back.  We are also serving the next generation for him.

We are not just passing on information about God’s plans for the future.  We are also passing on an inner response of faith toward God himself and toward His promises regardless of how much we understand.  Some reject the prophecies because they are not clear.  However, the mystery also ensures that someone somewhere will still be interested in these things.  The intellectual puzzle laid alongside of the spiritual battle helps to keep faith alive until the event itself is revealed.  We think we need full disclosure.  But what we really need is trust and faith in God.  Peter points out that the prophecies were explained to the believers of his day by the Holy Spirit.  If we do not hand down the Word of God to the next generation in the power of the Holy Spirit, then our stream of influence is doomed.  Faith is kept alive by the help of the Holy Spirit.  Prophecy must never be a matter of intellectual curiosity and fleshly pride.  It must be a matter of a soul who has placed its hope in the hands of God.  There is one last aspect here that Peter doesn’t point out, but is shown in Ephesians 3:4-10.

In the first century things were revealed by God that had been kept a mystery from the beginning of creation.  The people of God as His Church are a message from God to both mankind and the Spiritual rulers that have abused their positions.  Those angels who were put in charge of the nations and were leading mankind away from God through the teachings of demons, are just as important in this as we are.  The wisdom of God is being displayed and explained in the mere existence of the Church, much more what it has to say.  There are still mysterious things that are yet to be revealed.  But to those who put their faith in God and trust Him, there is a joy of bearing the revelation of God’s wisdom as it has been revealed.  Part of God’s plan is to raise mankind to a position greater than those angels that ruled.  All authority is being stripped from them and given to Christ and His Church.  We are being raised up to reign with Christ in their place.  The elites of the world may scoff at such thoughts and the powers of darkness may bristle at such thoughts.  However, God has pledged himself to destroy the wisdom of the wise men of this world and the power of the powerful of this world.  Thus we see the present mystery of God’s choice of the lowly over the top of the great and proud.

The first Christmas reminds us that there is ahead of us a great day of rejoicing.  No matter what it may look like in the now, a great day of revelation is coming in which the wicked and powerful of this world will have no say in the matter.  God will do what He is going to do.  Blessed are those who put their faith in Him!  Maranatha!

Lessons from Christmas

Fire Upon The Earth

Today we will be looking at Luke 12:49-53.

It has often been the dream of man to have a place where everything was peaceful and people coexisted in perfect harmony.  In the 1970’s there was a famous Coke commercial that had a group of young people singing about such things.  It was a bit cheesy however, with a line about buying the world a Coke.  Regardless, even the politics of the day differ not because we can’t agree that a world in perfect harmony would be good.  Rather they differ due to disagreements about how that can be done, and whether it can be done at all.  This brings us to Jesus.

Today, many see Christ as the perfect picture of world peace.  It is true that he is the Prince of Peace and at his birth the angels proclaimed, “peace on earth and good will toward men.”  Yet, our passage today makes it clear that the message of God to mankind through Jesus was more complex than a simple slogan like, “make love not war!”  In this chapter Jesus has been warning his disciples that he would go away and the condition of their hearts would be tested.  How they respond to these tests will affect how Jesus treats them when he does come back.  It is the misconceptions we have about Jesus and the “Messiah” or Savior, that cause us to miss what Christ is actually doing.

His First Coming Brought Fire Upon The Earth

Jesus starts out with a statement of purpose.  “I have come to bring fire upon the earth.”  If this doesn’t sound very much like Jesus to you then it is probably because you have fallen into a common misconception about him.  It is the view that at the first coming Jesus had come to fix everything wrong with the world.  That is, he would remove all the bad guys and put all the good guys in charge.  Of course the people of Israel were wrong about Jesus removing all the bad guys.  Yet, the misconception only changes.  Now we say that Jesus took out the real enemy (Satan and sin’s guilt).  Thus now we can fix it all and the world is on an ever progressing trek towards Utopia because of what Jesus did.  This passage along with many others stands as a roadblock to such thinking.  The statements of Jesus here stand much of modern Christianity on its head, at least in the West.  We tend to labor under the misguided principle that Understanding and Compromise will unarm every warrior and solve every dispute.  It tends to think that people are basically good and the real problem is miscommunication, or perhaps better, malcommunication.  Jesus lets his disciples know that they are not headed into a peaceful situation, nor would it develop down the road.  In fact Jesus is going to make it much worse, i.e. he is bringing fire upon the earth.

The symbol of fire is connected to judgment in general.  However, more properly think of it as making a distinction.  It always burns up the bad and leaves behind the good.  Thus when the Bible uses the image of purifying metals, it is the fire which breaks down the metal so that the bad impurities can be brought out and removed.  The good metal is then poured into a cast and tempered.  So fire is only bad to that which is impure and bad.  However, it is good to that which is pure and good.  Similarly, Paul uses the image between wood, hay, stubble and metal.  Things that are done for our flesh and the purposes of this world are considered wood, hay and stubble. But the things we do for Christ and his eternal purposes are like precious metals and precious stones.  The fire of Christ’s judgment will distinguish which works are worthless and are burned from those works which are valuable and still remain.  Thus the test of fire reveals Truth and Eternal worth.  So what is this fire that Jesus is going to ignite?  The fire could be connected with the Holy Spirit poured out upon believers.  This is true and the picture is given in Acts 2.  However, the context does not point towards the Holy Spirit.  This fire is going to cause division.  I believe that Jesus is the fire (His works and His Teachings).  It is he himself who is the polarizing fire and in fact he is also an accelerant to the underlying divisions that already existed in the hearts of people.  When the truth of Jesus is taught and the life of Jesus is lived out, it is like fire in the midst of a culture that consumes the bad and purifies the good.  It is easy to accept that there is a God.  But, once Jesus says that this is what God looks like and what His nature is like, you are going to have those who disagree.  When Jesus gives commands to his disciples, you will immediately have people who are going to disagree with such narrow commands.  When Jesus says that the cross is the path to salvation (i.e. Utopia), even now we can feel our flesh shrinking back from such a thing.

It is easy to see the fire that is raging throughout the Middle East due to the promotion and rejection of Jesus.  However, we should recognize the same thing is being played out here in the West and especially here in America.

Notice that Jesus first has to go through a baptism.  He had already been water baptized and Spirit baptized at the same time.  So the imagery here is pointing forward to a baptism of suffering culminating in the cross.  Another image Jesus uses is that of a poisonous cup of suffering.  On the night of his betrayal he asks the Father, “if possible may this cup be taken from me.  Nevertheless Your will be done.”  The cross and the death of Jesus were a critical part of this fire that Jesus was igniting.  After he suffered these things, he is resurrected and spends many weeks explaining to his disciples what he wants them to do.  Like a small fire being kicked, the disciples become many different embers catching flame in dry tinder.  This necessity of the cross in the life of Jesus and his followers becomes a stumbling block that our flesh hates and rejects.  “I will not be a doormat!”  “Forget being crucified!  I am going to do the crucifying!”  These harsh rejections of the way of Christ make the fire all the hotter.  As long as God’s people entertain the delusion that God’s path would not involve suffering, we would continue to resist His plan and stand in the way.  Thus Jesus brings fire that polarizes not just the world, but even his own people Israel.  “Who’s on the Lord’s side?  Come on over here to the Messiah who died.”   It doesn’t sound like a winning proposition does it.  A true follower of Jesus is one who has crucified the objections of their mind, heart and soul and cling to Jesus no matter what suffering comes their way.  Why?  They do so because they are convinced that it truly is the path to salvation and Utopia.  However, much of the world today is not enamored with such a vision.  Why do we need God and such a horrible plan of salvation?  We will build Utopia ourselves!  Whether it is radical Muslims hacking heads off of Westerners, or scientists manipulating DNA in a laboratory, in many different ways mankind is seeking a way of its own making.

In verse 51, Jesus comes back to this.  Rather than peace, he would bring division to the earth.  He goes straight to the one institution that is the most resilient against division and that is the family.  Now don’t get Jesus wrong.  He definitely is the Prince of Peace and God really does desire peace for any who will come to Him to receive it.  But the reality is that many would reject his terms of peace.  The work and teaching of Jesus would bring in a good harvest and yet, it would be hated and ignite a war even among family members.  The point here is not that it is inevitable.  Clearly a whole family can serve Christ and live in peace together.  But if they do, it will not be because of the familial tie.  It will be because they have all embraced Jesus and his peace reigns in their hearts.  Believers have peace with God in that we are no longer His enemies.  We are also given the internal peace of God that passes all understanding.  This gives us the ability to live in peace with each other.

However, no Utopian society would be brought to the world through the First Coming of Jesus.  How we deal with this concept of Utopia is at the heart of who Jesus is.  We have two choices before us: the path of the cross, which is submission to God’s way, or the path chosen at the Fall, which is rebellion and rejection of God’s way.  Essentially it is, “We can do it.”  We will do what we want.

The world has many divisions (race, gender, religion, and politics to name a few).  However, Jesus points to the most basic of all biology.  Even families will split over the reality of who Jesus is and what he calls us to be and do.  Remember, “There is a way that seems right in the eyes of a man, but in the end it leads to death.”  Which way will you choose?  The path that looks like death leads to life and the path that looks like life leads to death.  The fire throughout our land is only going to burn hotter.  Israel’s greatest fire was ignited right before its judgment.  We as a nation are at a crossroads and many are in the valley of decision today.  Make sure you don’t allow misconceptions about who Jesus is cause you to choose the wrong path.

Fire Upon the Earth audio