This congregation had originally planned to have "church on the mountain" with our former sister church this Sabbath. But in the middle of the week we discovered that our brothers and sisters in the Vernal church had made a different arrangement, and so we are here today. But we're still going to have "church on the mountain," because we are going to look today at a time when Christ had church on the mountain. Jesus wants us to be close enough to Him to receive His life into our lives. Turn along with me now, to Matthew 17, where we find Jesus and His apostles up on the mountain, and Jesus transfigured.

But alas, although Peter understood that Jesus was indeed the Messiah, He did not yet understand that on this run, Jesus must be the suffering Messiah. And as Jesus began then to tell His disciples over and over again that He would die on a cold, hard cross, Peter was stuck. He didn't understand. He couldn't bear this idea, and he said to Christ, "Be it far from Thee, Lord. This shall not be unto Thee." (Matthew 16:22). What was happening? Satan was trying to discourage Jesus, and turn him from His mission. Peter didn't realize it, but he was putting into words the very temptation that Satan was anxious to press upon Jesus. Don't forget that in the wilderness, Satan had offered to Jesus a shortcut around the cross. If He would just bow down to Satan, Jesus was promised that Satan would give Him the whole world. He could save without dying on the cross.

But friends, that would have been a very modified kingdom. It must be a kingdom that was compromised in regard to sin. Because the wages of sin is death, and every sin must meet its punishment or the very government of God would fail, because the law would fall. Either the law is upheld, or the government of God falls. And this was the strongest temptation that Satan ever laid on Jesus. And the strength of Jesus' response is a reminder to us of the strength of this temptation. When Jesus said finally "Get thee behind Me, Satan," He was also telling us that Satan would come to us with a redesigned version of Christianity that would present a shortcut for us around the cross. Discipleship means taking up our cross; there are no go-arounds in the real thing. Look at verse 24: "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me." It is in clinging to our broken humanity and our worldly life that we lose real humanity and eternal life. If we lose our life, if we cooperate with God and let Him crucify our selfish, broken nature, we will live, and Christ will be in us. Mark this thought: Christ's kingdom is for those who are crucified with Him. (Romans 6:5-6, 11; Galatians 2:20). It is not of this world. Yes, take note: before the transfiguration, is discipleship.
 
 

God has reached down and done something for us that we couldn't do for ourselves in our fallen state. He sent His grace out in search of us, and made it possible for us to be approachable again. See, the fall was like turning off a hot water heater. Once it gets turned off, you can run water through it for hours or days or years, and no hot water will come out of it. And after the fall, our "hot water" was turned off; there was no power left in us to desire to seek God. We still were able to want good things for ourselves, and even for our children, but we had become opposites to God. And there was no way we could recover from that, no way that we ourselves could turn the hot-water heater back on. Knowing this, God reached down and turned the hot water heater back on. Now it became capable of producing hot water again. The choice to turn to God was still left with us, but now we could again choose. God did that for us without our asking. That was a freebie, as far as we were concerned, but it wasn't free to God. That bill, along with several others, was paid at the cross.

This makes it possible for God to change us, because it makes possible our having an attitude of approachability. It makes possible our acknowledgment that God can change us, and that we need to be changed.

But also available to us through the cross, is the dunamis of God (dunamis is the word from which we get the word dynamite). The power to be changed is something else that comes to us from God, from outside of ourselves. We call it miraculous, or supernatural. We ask, and God gives the power.

By combining a personal attitude of approachability (God, you can change me), and a power outside of and beyond ourselves (beyond the power of humans), our broken nature can be overcome and repaired, and we can come into harmony with heaven. We can become re-humanized although we have lived in a world that de-humanized.

Because Adventism is about becoming human; that is, becoming what humanity was meant to be: thinking, doing, loving, serving.
 
 

See, man was not an enemy of Satan after the fall. He was in harmony with the devil. There was no hope for man unless God intervened. And He did intervene. Think what this means, as it is described in Great Controversy, p. 506.

It is the grace that Christ implants in the soul which creates in man enmity against Satan. Without this converting grace and renewing power, man would continue the captive of Satan, a servant ever ready to do his bidding. But the new principle in the soul creates conflict where hitherto had been peace. The power which Christ imparts enables man to resist the tyrant and usurper. Whoever is seen to abhore sin instead of loving it, whoever resists and conquers those passions that have held sway within, displays the operation of a principle wholly from above.

Adam and Eve were created perfect, but immature. They were new so their characters were new. If God had predefined everything about their personalities, they would have been like robots, which wasn't heaven's plan. So He gave them each a special uniqueness and then put them behind the driver's seat of their lives. And then He began to guide them and teach them. They walked with their Maker in the garden in the cool of the evening, night by night, sharing, discussing, listening and enjoying their new fellowship together. They were on their way to becoming human. What is becoming human? Perhaps we could say that becoming human is described best in Ephesians 4:13-15:

Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.

And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart.

And [Jesus] was transfigured before them: and His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light.

Because Jesus knew what was coming. He knew that His death upon a cross was fast approaching, and that the faith of the disciples would be tested to its very limits. He longed for them to witness a manifestation of His divinity. He wanted them to see something, not so that they would believe, but so that they would be strengthened. Let's keep this clear in our mind: Jesus didn't build their belief on Him through miracles, but He was willing that miracles would strengthen their faith once they had believed. I can't describe the scene better than this, from Desire of Ages, pg. 421.

While He is bowed in lowliness upon the stony ground, suddenly the heavens open, the golden gates of the city of God are thrown wide, and holy radiance descends upon the mount, enshrouding the Saviour's form. Divinity from within flashes through humanity, and meets the glory coming from above. Arising from His prostrate position, Christ stands in godlike majesty. The soul agony is gone. His countenance now shines "as the sun," and His garments are "white as the light."

And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with Him.

We are tempted to think that Jesus walked through this life according to a script and that no temptations ever really got close to Him; that because He was God, He was really somehow exempt. But here we find Jesus, not up on a mountain with unfallen angels talking about the good old days before Satan's rebellion and the beginning of the great controversy, but two humans, two fallen human beings, two human beings born into this world with broken natures, who, through the grace of God have overcome. And they bring comfort to Jesus. What an amazing thought!

Moses had had church up on the mountain. In Exodus 33 and 34 we read of Him up in the mount with God, conversing. And He asks God the desire that fills his heart: "I beseech Thee, shew me thy glory." Exodus 33:18. And God says he will, but Moses must come up into the mount (Exodus 34:1-8). And do not forget that Moses pleaded for God's people. When God told him that he was ready to destroy them, Moses insisted that they were His people. He even threw his lot in with theirs, urging that if God blot them out of existence that He blot Moses out of existence too. Exodus 32:32. True, only God and Moses were specifically present on that mountain, but Moses identified himself with God's people, and linked himself with them. In a sense, they were there too.

Elijah had had church up on the mountain. When all Israel stood undecided on Mount Carmel, he had called for decision. 1 Kings 18. He had risked all on God's command. He had forced a confrontation with the prophets of Baal and in answer to His prayer God had demonstrated who was in charge. When Israel's faith had waxed so low, he had stood for God on the mountain.

Have you ever been tempted to think that Jesus didn't really know your experience? That since He was (and is) God, He cannot relate to you? Well, think about this: He traveled this dusty earth alone. He experienced the weakness of humanity in His own form. None of His miracles were done by tapping His own divine power, but in every case He called upon the Father for power and strength.

Just as we must do.

"But pastor, you're telling us that on one hand, Jesus was God, and has life within Himself, and that we must draw closer to Him to receive the life more fully. And on the other hand, you are telling us that He was as human as we are, and that He lived the way He lived in the same way that we have to do it. How can you reconcile that?"

Friends, Jesus is in the heavenly sanctuary now. He was on earth then. He is glorified now. His divinity was clothed with humanity then. In Him is life, original, unborrowed, and underived. But throughout His time on earth, He lived as we must live. Satan tried to provoke Him to work miracles by His own power. "Here," he said, "Prove to me that You are the Son of God. Make these rocks into bread." But Jesus didn't bite. While on earth as a man, he lived as a man. He didn't sneak around the cross as Satan offered Him to, and He didn't sneak around the experience that we face either. He is not only our substitute, but our example. And I'm awfully glad that in this situation, we see Him having church on the mountain with Moses and elijah-humans like us. Because it is important that we draw ever closer so that we can have church on the mountain with Him.

Yes. Jesus had church up on the mountain, with Peter, James, and John, and Moses and Elijah. Quite a group. How sad that of the 12 disciples, only three are able to bear the bright revelation. A full nine of Jesus 12 disciples are not called to be there. They are incapable to receiving the revelation He would have given them (Desire of Ages, p. 420), and thus, they are a warning to us.
 

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

If we are willing.

We can draw close. We can read of His life; we can avoid conformity to this world. We must let Jesus be our pattern. We must push for it, we must purpose it, that it will be so. It isn't just going to happen by chance. We need to take time to be with Him. Morning by morning and evening by evening, let us be Christians. Let us pray and read from our Bibles and thus stand ready, so that when the Spirit is ready to take us up into the mountain, we can receive what He knows we need and is ready to give to us. I tell you, we can be changed, and we will be, when we come close enough to receive more of the life of Jesus.

Last Modified 23 March 2000