Matthew 17:4-9: “Get up and do not be afraid”

Behold, a voice out of the cloud said, "This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!" When the disciples heard this, they fell face down to the ground and were terrified. And Jesus came to them and touched them and said, "Get up, and do not be afraid." Matthew 17:5-7

“As I was walking in a dark thick grove, unspeakable glory seemed to open to…my soul. I stood still, wondered and admired!...My soul rejoiced with joy unspeakable to see such a God, such a glorious Divine Being…My soul was so captivated and delighted with the excellency, loveliness, greatness and other perfections of God, that I was swallowed up in Him…I had no thought about my own salvation and scarce reflected there was such a creature as I.” (David Brainerd, Life and Diary of David Brainerd, p. 67)

“Show me Your glory!” Moses’ prayer in Exodus 33:18

Jesus took his inner core of disciples, (Peter, James and John) up a mountain where He was transfigured into His heavenly “shekhinah” glory (Matthew 17:1-3). Also appearing with Jesus in a glorified state were Moses and Elijah. It is here that Peter begins to ramble. Yet a voice belonging to God the Father overrides Peter.

This voice thundered from heaven and proclaimed of Jesus, “This is My beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased! Listen to Him!” (Matthew 17:5). When Peter, James and John heard the blessing from God the Father, they fell face down to the ground and were terrified (Matthew 17:6).

There are two patterns here worth pointing out. First, the same response the disciples had to their encounter with God the Father is repeated throughout Scripture. Whenever mere mortal man receives a glimpse of shekhinah glory, there is from man neither challenge, anger nor attitude of casual happenstance. Rather, there is fear.

When John two generations later again encounters the glorified Jesus (Revelation 1:17), John says, “When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man.” When Isaiah was given a glimpse of the throne room of God, his response was “Woe is me, for I am ruined!” (Isaiah 6:5). The shepherds, while receiving the news of the birth of Jesus, had the glory of the Lord shine around them. Luke says then “they were terribly frightened” (Luke 2:9).

The second point is that when fleshly man recoils humbly in reverence at heavenly glory, the response is always one of comfort from the heavenly agent, even Christ Himself. When the disciples fell to the ground in fear, Jesus touched them and said, “Get up and do not be afraid” (Matthew 17:7). Imagine! The God of All Comfort extending both His hand and His words of grace to humans!

When John fell like a dead man at the feet of Jesus, the Lord responded with “do not be afraid” (Revelation 1:17). Isaiah was told by a ministering angel, “your sin is forgiven” (Isaiah 6:7). The shepherds were also told, “Do not be afraid” by the angel of the Lord (Luke 2:10).

The gulf between holy, righteous Almighty God and mortal, rebellious sinful man is infinite. Man is a fool if he thinks his own efforts can bridge that gap or that the gap is irrelevant. It took an infinitely holy, loving and powerful God to bridge that gap and to proclaim to man, “Do not fear.” Because of Christ’s sacrifice, we can draw near to God’s throne of grace and call out “Abba, Father!” Without Christ, there is only the terrifying expectation of judgment. Call on the Lord now, while it is still day; for He will then reach out His hand and say, “Do not be afraid.”


Matthew 16:28-17:3: Thy Kingdom Come

“Six days later Jesus took with Him Peter, James and John his brother and led them up on a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light.”

Christ, as he is God, is infinitely great and high above all. He is higher than the kings of the earth; for he is King of kings, and Lord of lords. He is higher than the heavens, and higher than the highest angels of heaven…He is so high, that he is infinitely above any need of us; above our reach, that we cannot be profitable to him; and above our conceptions, that we cannot comprehend him. Christ is sovereign Lord of all…His knowledge is without bound. His power is infinite, and none can resist Him. His riches are immense and inexhaustible. His majesty is infinitely awful. --Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) American Puritan theologian and preacher, from his sermon, “The Admirable Conjunction of Diverse Excellencies in Christ Jesus.”

What comes into our mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us.
-- A.W. Tozer, the opening sentence in his book, Knowledge Of The Holy

Near downtown Atlanta there is a road called West Paces Ferry Rd. This road is lined with the largest, most grandiose mansions in all of Atlanta. And the biggest mansion of them all along West Paces Ferry Road belongs to the governor (pronounced by locals as “GUUVna”) of Georgia. Behind a high wrought-iron fence and several security check points sits what is one of the more awe-inspiring sites in all of Atlanta. When we lived in the Atlanta area in the 1990s, I drove by the governor’s mansion a couple times each month.

One time while I was driving and gawking near the governor’s mansion, I believe the Holy Spirit spoke to me. The Spirit seemed to say, “Your view of God is about the same as your view of the governor of Georgia; that is as far as your faith and imagination can take you.” This was a rebuke. For my faith and my imagination could not grasp the glory and the power of the Creator of the Universe and the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. My view of God was, and still is, too small. Yet Scripture helps me and others like me to expand our too-small view of God.

That is the beauty of the Transfiguraton of Jesus as on display in the opening verses of Matthew 17. We have a picture from this passage of Jesus that is more than “meek and mild” or some Woodstock relic dancing through a meadow playing a flute with bunny rabbits at His feet and butterflies dancing around His head. Here we have Jesus in all His glory and power and wonder; simultaneously infinitely beautiful and infinitely terrible. “His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light,” Scripture tells us in Matthew 17:2.

And this is not the only place in Scripture where we see Jesus glorified. And each picture from Scripture of Jesus glorified shares some of the same characteristics. In Mark’s description of this same Transfiguration, we read, “Jesus garments became radiant and exceedingly white” (Mark 9:3). Luke’s version says, “His face became different, and His clothing became white and gleaming” (Luke 9:29). Paul had his encounter with the glorified Jesus on the road to Damascus. Even though that encounter happened with the noonday desert sun high over head, Paul spoke of a “very bright light [which] suddenly flashed from heaven all around me” (Acts 22:6). The apostle John’s vision of the glorified Jesus (Revelation 1:13-16) reads remarkably like Daniel’s vision of the “Ancient of Days” in Daniel 7:9. In John’s vision, just like Matthew, Mark, Luke and Paul’s vision, Jesus’s face “was like the sun shining in its strength” (Revelation 1:16).

These descriptions, both in their continuity and in their terrible glory, should stretch us. Do we pray to a Jesus that in our minds that looks like a buff, young Charlton Heston? Or do we pray to the “Son of Man coming in all His glory” (Matthew 16:27)? Have we given our very souls into the care of someone in the governor’s mansion in Georgia or to the risen Savior who is preparing a place for us in His Father’s mansion (John 14:2)? Is our vision of Jesus limited to a flannel board figurine from Sunday school days or do we envision the King of Kings and Lord of Lords leading a heavenly army (Revelation 19:11-16)? For the vast majority of Christians, our God is too small. No wonder we live our lives in fear, without taking risks, content in our comfort and dreaming dreams no bigger than our retirement to a beach villa.

Yet it does not end there. God, who was Transfigured before Paul, Peter, James and John, as well as Daniel, Isaiah and Moses, this same God pursues us. The Holy Awesome Righteous Lamb Who Was Slain limited Himself to a man’s body and died for our sins. Three days later He was alive again! And He invites us into fellowship with Him. Incredible! This same God with a face that outshines the sun, who sits in judgment over the rulers of earth, beckons us to draw near to Him. He invites us into His very throne room where we can find grace and mercy in our time of need (Hebrews 4:16). Because of this we cry out, “Abba! Father!”’ (Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6)

Is there another God like our God? Why do we raise to idol status such trivial matters as politics, sports, security, even family, when the Great God of the Universe calls us to draw near? What an AWESOME God we serve! Hallelujah! He is WORTHY of our praise! He is WORTHY of all blessing, honor, glory and dominion! He is WORTHY of the praise of myriads of angels and every living thing! (Revelation 5:12-14). Hallelujah! Maranatha! Come, Son of Man in all Your glory! Come!

Matthew 16:24-27: The Joy of the Call to Take Up Our Cross

“If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” Jesus, Matthew 16:24-25.

“No one has yet heard about the realm of the resurrected, and not been homesick from that hour, waiting and looking forward joyfully to being released from bodily existence… death is hell and night and cold, if it is not transformed by our faith. But that is just what is so marvelous, that we can transform death.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, facing execution in a Nazi concentration camp during WW II, for plotting against Adolf Hitler.

The response to the Peter’s bold proclamation of Jesus as the Christ (Matthew 16:16) is anything but expected. His followers expected Jesus to come out powerfully against the Roman oppressors. However, there were no parades, no debutante balls, no speeches, no shouts of “death to God’s enemies!”, nor grandiose displays of ethereal power.

Instead, the disciples receive harsh warnings to tell no one that He is the Christ (v.20). Jesus calls Peter, “Satan” (v.23) and here He gives a call to take up our cross and die. Is this the sort of God worth following? “Jesus, we can’t sell books and sermons with this kind of defeatist talk!”

In this passage, Jesus is not promising heaven on earth; rather He is pointing His disciples to a MUCH GREATER reality, an eternal perspective of EVERLASTING joy! His call is to persevere, suffer and lay down our lives as we love, serve and bless others and give away our lives. Christ’s call is that our treasure, our hope, our joy is fixed not on this temporal world but on our eternity with Him.

The freedom and the joy in Christianity comes when we are mindful of who we serve. We serve the Christ, the Son of the Living God (v.16). We serve the Son of Man who will judge the world (v.27). And soon and very soon every human will see Christ glorified (17:2-3). For some this will lead to terror; for others, to indescribable joy.

Let us remember: we serve Christ; He does not serve us. Run from churches promising you health and wealth; by-pass authors who reduce Jesus to merely a spiritual guru, guiding you to a better life. Jesus does not beckon us to a “better” life; He beckons us to come and die; to die to this world, its expectations, its pain, and its futility.

Once again, my favorite theologian, John Piper: “Christians [need to be] committed to great causes, not great comforts. I pleaded with the saints to dream a dream bigger than themselves and their families and their churches. [Commit to] the great causes of mercy and justice in a prejudiced, pain-filled, and perishing world.” (World Magazine, February 23, 2002, p. 37)

Because eternity awaits us, because the glorified Jesus is the Master we serve, let us take great risks! Let us lay aside this world, which we will lose anyway and let us take up our cross and follow Him. What will profit us if we gain the world yet lose our souls? Lets follow His call to take the gospel to places where Christ is not known and where great danger and opposition await us. We need fewer Christians intent on living long lives and more Christians intent on dying purposeful deaths.

Charles Spurgeon, a London preacher from the 1800s said this: "It is our duty and our privilege to exhaust our lives for Jesus. We are not to be living specimens of men in fine preservation, but living sacrifices, whose lot is to be consumed." (Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, p. 157)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor during WW II who did not bend to Hitler’s reign of terror. Hitler had him arrested and deported to a concentration camp. Bonhoeffer, in spite of the conditions, would not recant his opposition to Hitler. On April 9, 1945, just three weeks before Hitler killed himself, Hitler had Bonhoeffer executed. The doctor at the concentration camp who certified Bonhoeffer’s death, said, “In the almost fifty years that I have worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.” (Bonhoeffer, by Eric Metaxes)

Matthew 16:21-23: Sin, the belief God really doesn't know what is best for us.

But Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me. You are not setting your mind on God’s interests but man’s.” Matthew 16:23

“Religious ‘flesh’ always wants to work for God (rather than humbling itself to realize God must work for it in free grace). That is why our very lives hang on not working for God. Then shall we not serve Christ? It is commanded, ‘Serve the Lord!’ (Romans 12:11) Yes, we must serve Him. But we will beware of serving in a way that implies a deficiency on His part or exalts our indispensability.”
John Piper from his book Desiring God.

This rebuke to Peter directly from Jesus in Matthew 16 must have come as quite a shock to Peter. Moments before Jesus 1) praised Peter and 2) called him a rock and 3) said his words were inspired directly from God (Matthew 16:17-18). Now Jesus reverses those three compliments and rebukes Peters, calls him a stumbling block and says his words are inspired by Satan. The color must have drained from Peter’s face and his jaw must have dropped.

After all, Peter was only defending his beloved Master. For Jesus had just told Peter and the other disciples that the time had come to go to Jerusalem where Jesus must suffer, be killed and rise again on the third day (Matthew 16:21). Peter was selective in his hearing and only heard the words about suffering and dying, not about His resurrection. So Peter, perhaps cocky from the blessing of Jesus, leaped up and exclaimed, “God forbid it, Lord!” That is when Jesus brought the hammer down.

God’s will is set; Jesus’ decision to go to Jerusalem was not an “open” one. The Word of God says Jesus MUST go to Jerusalem and be killed (v. 19). However Jesus’ crucifixion is neither sadistic punishment nor because things spiraled out of God’s control. On the contrary. It is the Father’s loving will that Jesus is crucified and raised. It is no wonder Jesus rebuked Peter so forcefully.

Jesus’ rebuke serves as a warning at several levels. First, this warning speaks to those of us in Christian service. Second, this warning speaks to all people everywhere.

I think those of us in any sort of Christian service can learn from Jesus’ rebuke of Peter. Just as Peter was blessed by Jesus (Matthew 16:17), often times in our ministries we see the hand of His blessing. Then, if not checked, our pride can grow and we begin to think we know better than God what God’s will should be! To varying degrees, we are all guilty of this. But in its extreme, our ministry can become a cult of personality; a ministry or church becomes more about making an individual, a ministry or a church look good rather than making the Lord Jesus Christ look good.

Perhaps even more important is that Jesus’ rebuke of Peter is a warning to all men, everywhere. Peter, probably without realizing the full weight of his comment, was attempting to usurp the very will of God. Sin is the belief that God really doesn’t know what is best for us. We are all guilty of sin (Romans 3:23) and the penalty of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Our sin is the reason Jesus went to Jerusalem.

God’s will will be done. Will we futility fight against it? Or will we join Him in the battle? Evil’s best effort was to crucify Jesus. Yet what was meant for evil, God meant for good (Genesis 50:20). For by the crucifixion of Jesus, our sins were paid for! And three days later, just as Jesus promised, He was raised! Because Jesus went to Jerusalem, died on a cross and was raised, all of mankind has hope – hope that is stronger than death! And, most importantly, God receives the glory due Him! Hallelujah! Praise God!

Don’t fight against His will; rather trust in Him, rest in Him, glory in Him.

Matthew 16:16-18: "Upon this rock I will build My church."

Peter says to Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!” To which Jesus responds, “Blessed are you, Peter…and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades shall not overcome it.” Matthew 16:16-18

John Piper is one of my favorite authors. He opens his book, God is the Gospel, with this compelling question:

If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ were not there?

I wish this question was merely rhetorical. But the sad fact is, many people alive today envision a Christ-less heaven, whether by accident or purposely. There was even a best-selling book by Mitch Albom, Five People You Will Meet in Heaven where God is regulated to a very small insignificant role, if even present at all, in His heaven.

Yet Jesus Himself gives us a different picture, from His reign in heaven (Revelation chapter 4 and 5) to His church on earth (Matthew 16:18). The Christian church is His church and not man’s church. The Christian church is the church where Jesus Christ is central. It is the church where Jesus Christ is honored, worshiped, adored, studied and proclaimed. The sad thing is that ironically many churches today, like Albom’s heaven, give very little credence to God.

It has always baffled me why churches exist where Christ is not proclaimed, or perhaps not even believed. Christ may exist in these churches as more of a water-downed self-help guru; certainly not as “the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” These churches are nothing more than man-centered, feel-good, houses of self worship. Jesus is regulated to a role akin to a cosmic "ShamWow!" salesman. These kinds of churches settle for much less than best because they fail to proclaim a Person much more beautiful, much more just, much more powerful, much more worthy than mere man. And that Person is Jesus Christ Himself.

Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, who emptied Himself in the greatest act of humility our world has ever seen. He took on a human body, lived on planet earth, was delivered up to Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried for our sins. Yet 3 days later Jesus came back to life with a new resurrected body and by it proved that He was God! He invites wayward man into completeness through fellowship with the Father through Him. There is no other like Him; He alone is worthy of our worship and adoration.

If your church is not centered on the teachings of the Bible and on the person of Jesus Christ, then you are not in the church of the Living God; rather you are in a dead church. Leave that “church.” And find one where Jesus Christ is exalted. And it is Christ’s church that the gates of hell shall not overcome!

Throughout history, there have been those who have tried to destroy the Christian church. From Nero to the Communists, enemies of God have risen up, and will continue to rise up, in a futile attempt to exterminate the church.

In an interview I saw recently with Timothy Keller, he said that the “New Atheists” have declared that religion is “the worst thing that has happened to humankind” and these atheists have declared that religion “must be wiped out.” However, they will fail in their goals, just like Nero and just like the Communists. Because a church built upon the Rock, even when the mighty storms come and slam against it, WILL NOT FALL (Matthew 7:25) and the very gates of hell shall not overcome Christ’s church.

Worship, adore, proclaim and enjoy Jesus Christ. For that is His purpose for His church, which is His bride. Christ is central to the universe; from His church on earth to His eternal heaven, the universe exists for the glory of God. To be central on anything else except the Christ, the Son of the Living God is foolish. Hallelujah! Come Lord Jesus, come!

Matthew 16:15: "Who do you say I am?"

"A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher...You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher."

C.S. Lewis, from his book, “Mere Christianity”

Matthew 16:13-17

Jesus is with His disciples in a place called Caesarea Philippi, about 120 miles (195 km) north of Jerusalem. He turns to His disciples and asks them (v.13), “Who do people say that I am?” “John the Baptist”, “Elijah”, “Jeremiah”, “one of the prophets.” The answers pop forth like kernels of popcorn heating over a stove. Then Jesus makes the question personal (v.15): “Who do you say that I am?” It is no longer about what other people think; now it is personal. Every man must decide for himself.

Every man, not only present then with Jesus, but everyman who has ever lived on earth must also decide for himself. In fact, THIS IS the most important question anyone will ever face: “who do you think Jesus is?”

Jesus picked an interesting place to ask this penetrating, all-encompassing, question. Caesarea Philippi was a city known for its worship of pagan gods, particularly a god named Baal. It would be today’s equivalent to Jesus standing outside the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake or an extravagant Buddhist temple in Southeast Asia and asking, “Who do you say that I am?”

Peter’s response to Jesus’ personal inquiry was quick and unhesitating (v.16): “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!” “Christ” as used in those days was the Greek form of the Hebrew word, “Messiah.” “Son of the living God” implies a nature superior to that of human; it implies deity, God. Peter throws in an interesting adjective when he says, living God. Jesus is not a dead god like those worshiped in Caesarea Philippi; rather Peter states that Jesus is the living God, the real God, the God Who Is.

How does Jesus respond? Note that Jesus does not rebuke Peter and say, “I am not God; I am merely a prophet.” Rather, Jesus receives Peter’s statement of worship and even blesses Peter for his proclamation.

At the trial of Jesus (Matthew 26:63), the Jewish high priest asks Jesus point blank, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Living God?” Curiously, this is the same title given by Peter in Matthew 16. Again, Jesus does not flinch; Jesus does not deny it. Jesus affirms His own status as Messiah, His own title as Son of God, His own deity, even though it will result in His crucifixion.

We cannot merely say Jesus was just a good teacher or a religious prophet. Jesus never gave us that option. Jesus claimed to be God in a human body, the 2nd person of the Godhead. As C.S. Lewis frames it, Jesus is either Lord, a liar or a lunatic. Personally, I believe He proved Himself as Lord by rising from the dead. We must either accept Jesus on His terms as God or we must reject Jesus completely. One option leads to the forgiveness of sins, friendship with God and eternal life; the other option leads to eternal separation from God.

Who do YOU say Jesus is?