So Lord move me behind the cross so that the words that come forth will be pleasing unto you. Amen.
We had a week in the Lord didn't we? Yesterday, spread it all. Thank you Uxers for ushering.
Appreciate the service. Miss Marriott and the Senior Choir, thank you for your words of great song.
And thank you for all who have participated this week.
Gwen May I appreciate your service with me this morning.
And Communion stewards, though your job is forthcoming, I thank you for what you put in before,
what you put in during, and what you put in afterwards. Amen.
It's February the 6th and we're preparing for yet another great season in the Lord.
We're looking for Lent. And many of you will say, well, we know about Lent so we're so excited.
Well, a lot of times the things that come into the season, because we're not actively involved in certain things,
we don't necessarily know all the history. We don't know what comes behind the season.
And sometimes we say, well, I'll let them handle that. That's what they like to do.
But we're coming up on a great season, the season that truly, if we have to say,
creates the foundation of why we are Christians and what it means to know Jesus Christ.
That's what we're coming up upon. Amen. This is it.
And so at this time of great season we're also looking at what happened before Jesus came to the cross.
And our scripture today from the book of Matthew highlights a transfiguration experience.
And so I start this message this morning with the simple thing that says,
did you hear what I heard and did you see what I saw?
Ask your neighbor, did you? Did you hear what I heard? Did you see what I saw?
Well, you see a lot of things are going on.
And sometimes things happen and you just say, let me take my glasses off because maybe I can see it better.
And for those of us who really have worn glasses for a long time in our lives,
we know we can take off our glasses from time to time and say, I think I can hear better now.
We have decided that our hearing and our seeing are intricately connected.
I don't know whether there's a little nerve behind our ears or something.
We say, I think I can hear better now because I've taken my glasses off.
And we ought to be saying, I can see better now, but it's just we think and do these kind of things.
The disciples had an encounter on top of the mountain.
And we know about a lot of mountaintop experiences,
but it's interesting that this particular passage of Scripture begins with an action.
I want to read what it says right there in the beginning because you might have missed it when we read it.
It says, after six days, Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John, and his brother James,
and led them up the mountain after six days.
So the passage already starts in action, and I encourage you to look back and read chapter 16,
but I want to just highlight these couple verses so it can kind of help us understand what was going on
that they had waited these six days for.
So you see on verse 16, 16, Matthew 16, 16 says, Simon Peter answered God, answered Jesus,
and he says, you are the Christ, you are the Son of the living God.
And the important thing was there was a revelation that had taken place.
And it had taken place in the region of Zechariah and Philippi.
They had been traveling on their spiritual journey.
They were walking with God.
The disciples were already walking with Jesus, and all of a sudden after six days.
Do you remember anything else in the Bible that happened after six days?
Let's go back to the book of Genesis.
After six days, God rested because he had created the world.
After six days, if we look at Moses, he had spent some time waiting on Jesus,
but after six days on the seventh day, Jesus spoke to him and led him into forty days and forty nights.
So think about six days and think about mountaintop experiences.
There's a challenge that Jesus gives right to the disciples immediately on the mountaintop
because he says, I'll let you know something early.
Now I need to confirm what's going on.
So you're at the highest point at the top of a mountain with the greatest man in the world, Jesus Christ.
And then you turn around and you see there's Moses right there.
And there's Elijah right there.
And there's three of the greatest people on the mountain.
Do you remember something?
Did you see that?
And maybe if we put it in the context of African Americans,
maybe instead of being Moses, it would be Herod the Permanent.
And maybe instead of it being Elijah, it was Dr. Martin Luther King.
He was again on the mountaintop with Jesus Christ.
Do you remember doing this with that greatness of humanity?
And then there's a word that comes forth out of the clouds in the midst of it all.
Suddenly, Jesus said, this is my time.
Do my love.
Before I'm involved, please.
And I'm not saying we don't love our daughters and we don't love our children,
but I mean can you imagine being in that crowd?
That's enough to make you say, did you see that?
Did you hear that?
Did you hear that voice that said, excuse me, this is my son.
Who I love.
And I'm well pleased.
Well, if you even turn over and look at the verses in 2 Peter that were written,
the same thing comes forth because there's an important notice being sent out to the disciples.
Hey, I'm going to show you something.
And I'm going to show you it before I go to the cross.
I'm going to show you it before humanity kills me for the evil and for the sins of the world.
I'm going to show you something early.
But after you see it, you can ask each other, did you see it?
We could hear it, but we can't tell anybody until the Son of Man rises yet again.
There are good news, that's the challenge.
Again, imagine yourself on the top of a mountain with the greatest of grace,
Moses, Elijah, and Jesus Christ.
And God reveals to you right at that moment.
Don't worry about the conversation with Moses.
Don't worry about what he's talking to Elijah and Moses about,
because I've got something to tell you that's going to affirm what you already heard, Peter, back on Matthew 16.
Yeah, you know this is the Son of Man.
This is the Son of the Living God.
But yet, you still, I need you to hear me.
This is my son, whom I love.
And I'm well pleased.
Listen to me.
This passage evolves in a variety of different ways.
There's a mountain experience, they go up on the top of the mountain.
Then there's a conversation and a revelation.
And then they come back down the mountain and Jesus says, shh.
I know what you saw, but I need to give you a little teachable moment here.
Don't tell anybody what you see.
Don't tell anybody what you just saw with your boy or nine until the Son of Man has been raised.
On Transfiguration Sunday, on Black History Month Sunday, on the beginning of this journey of life, why is this important?
I'm glad you're here.
I mean, some of you are just sitting there with expectations.
It wouldn't mean to me.
I've already turned on WIFM and I'm trying to figure it out.
It's my station. What's doing it for me?
Why is it such a big hoo-ha-ha?
Well, it's a big hoo-ha-ha because Jesus has shown us all. Exactly what's going to happen.
Exactly what is going to be happening through His life.
He shows the disciples and we are His disciples.
Lord knows we've seen the prophetic announcement.
We've seen it inside out.
God has shown me something that you need to turn around and say, did you see that?
I better believe it.
He told us. He showed us. He has told us. And He has shown us.
It's a great moment where the experience is embraced in a crowd.
And a voice comes from on high.
I'm speaking right now to my teenagers and my young people.
Can you hear that voice come from the second floor in your house?
You know you should have taken care of something.
And they give you a heads up and they say, I'm giving you one more chance to take care of that stuff.
But some of us who work on tenuous jobs where every time we have a supervisor that changes their mind,
you can hear that voice from another home that says, handle that.
Be accountable because what's getting ready to come down, I don't want you to take the blame.
And maybe you've been in an organization and God has revealed to you a new plan and a new direction and a new vision
and you're not sure what it means. You want to turn around and ask somebody.
The God says, I've already told you. I've already shown you.
I'm giving you the heads up.
Where I want to focus this message is not that the revelation didn't take place.
Not that transfiguration wasn't important.
And not that Moses and Elijah didn't play a critical piece.
But I want you to look with me right there between verses six and eight.
Jesus gave some instructions.
When Jesus gives instructions, when God has a voice on high and tells you something that's really important,
I want to say to you, did you hear what he said?
Did you see what you saw?
Can you acknowledge by faith that that's the truth?
And then when he reaches down and says, get up, don't be afraid.
He's giving you a proclamation and a declaration to step out by faith.
He's asking us to walk with him and to talk with him and to go up the mountainside
and to journey with him on our faithfulness and then come back down the mountainside.
And even though we've had a glorious experience on the top of the hill, he says, come down off of the hill.
But the point is, get up.
Have any of you known, talked to him out of fear and not been able to move?
And it's not a point to hear.
Get up.
Just get up.
You know who I am.
You know my voice.
You know what I've done for you.
Get up.
Don't get hung up on the clock.
Don't get hung up on Moses and Elijah.
Get up.
Because the Lord has already spoken and said, this is my son.
I've already identified who he is.
I've already shown you he's both the son of God and the son of man.
He is a living, divine being like none other.
Believe me when I say, get up.
So the question I asked you this morning,
when you climb up the mountain, walking hand in hand with Jesus Christ,
where he leads you, where you go.
We have great ancestors.
And I've got to believe that some of them spent some time on the mountain.
Because in order for us to be living today, look around the room.
We are beautiful people.
We are intelligent people.
We are an awesome and peculiar people.
But it's because of the grace and the anointing and the belief that we can climb the mountain.
Will you get up?
Will you climb the mountain because Jesus said climb?
Or will you lay prostrate on the ground, fearful of what God is going to bring forth?
Will you be so inclined not to do that you miss your blessing?
Will you get high rock in what we have in Christ?
Our feast.
So I ask this morning, not only will you climb the mountain,
but will you get to the top of the mountain with Jesus Christ?
Will you believe?
Not only will you believe, but will you believe with excitement?
Will you believe with enthusiasm?
Will you believe with the spirit of a living Savior?
Or will you be held hostage by somebody else's news?
Will you be hostage by what they shared on Channel 4?
Will you be hostage by the bickering at the Port Arthur City Hall?
Will you be hostage by your own uncertainty?
Or will you get up?
St. Paul is a great church.
St. Paul is a church with great lineage.
St. Paul is a church that has lived through a million change.
I was doing some research on the method of the Episcopal Church and I looked up and I said to myself,
a lot of things went on here.
A lot of great meetings, a lot of great events, a lot of great people.
But the greatest thing was there was always a spirit of openness.
A willingness for our bodies to be utilized to share with our community.
Not only the gifts that we have, but willingness to say,
what I hear, you can hear it, you can vote here, you can have a voter registration lobby,
you can be active here.
So St. Paul is a body who has already answered the question that we're going to walk with John, with Jesus.
We have already answered that question.
Collectively we have committed to going to the next phase of the 21st century,
doing a new thing, putting behind us the past,
acknowledging the great things about who Jesus Christ is,
but picking up the walk.
We're not laying on the floor, stretched out in fear.
We have decided to walk this journey.
A lot of people have had great mountaintop experiences,
but they haven't been able to live day to day.
Because they have failed to answer the question, will they believe the truth?
And then after they fail to look at that question,
they refuse to hear what Peter said.
They refuse to move on to spiritual maturity.
They refuse to acknowledge that the gift of walking down the mountain is not letting go of God's hand,
but the gift of walking down the mountain is believing what they saw, accepting what they heard,
and be willing to take off.
Singing for Jesus Christ.
We all know Peter denied Jesus,
but the church was built on a rock.
We all know about human frailty, and disappointment, and challenges, and sadness,
but what about the joy of the Lord?
What about the worry that God is about that knowing Jesus Christ for ourselves?
My grandmother used to say, if you know that you know that you know that you know, you don't have to worry about it.
So I'm just asking you to know and believe what went on on the mountaintop.
Take it with you everywhere you go.
When you get down in your spirit, you go, oh, I don't think I can do that.
Go to the Scriptures. See what it's worth.
And then the last thing I'll say to you, Jesus gave his people a great vision.
And it was a vision that had challenges in it.
Nobody wants to see the Savior killed.
Nobody wants to believe at that point that he will be crucified.
Nobody!
That's not what we want to know, Jesus.
But he is crucified for our sin.
He is the Son of the Living God.
He rises on the third day.
He becomes all that he says he would be and what we see on the top of the mountain.
It becomes more than just a revelation. It becomes a reality.
It becomes a thought of life. It becomes what we understand.
But more than that, our faith is crystallized.
Our faith becomes a true understanding that Jesus is Lord.
That he is the Saviour, Messiah, and great one in our lives.
And what is that songwriter saying?
He walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me that I'm with God.
I share this last tidbit.
Everybody deserves a mountain experience with Jesus Christ.
I invite you the next time Jesus says, come up and go to the mountain with me.
You don't know who you're going to see on the top of the mountain.
You might experience your mama or your grandmama or your cousin or great mother that has gone over the face.
You don't know who's going to fuck you up there on the mountain.
But I highly recommend you get a moment with Jesus.
Come on up to the mountain. Bring Jesus in.
Who are you?
Ask yourself, did you see what you saw and did you hear what you heard?
Take your glasses off if you have to.
Check when we went up to the mountain with you.
But be obedient when you see the vision.
Don't look to your left. Don't look to your left.
Don't get fearful. Don't get thoughtful.
Just have a walk with Jesus all the way.
I think that will touch me where it needs to touch.
I will be all across the mountain.
I have a thought, a world that he thought he was a pissing monster.
For who I am pleased and grateful of.
All hallelujah.
I can talk about Jesus.
He walked with me, baby. All hallelujah.
All hallelujah.
And you don't know him yet.
Here's your opportunity.
Touch the vision.
See the experience.
Let the Lord show you something.
But when you see it, ask yourself, did I see what I saw?
Did I hear what I heard?
I accept. I believe.
I know and I cannot doubt.
Because he is both the Son of God and the Son of God.
Praise be to God.
For he is a risen Savior and an awesome wonder.
He's your Father. He's my Father.
He is the great I am.
In the name of Jesus, hallelujah.
I will shout it over him.
Amen. Amen.
Let us stand and say in our heaven preparation,
I want Jesus to walk with me.
Thank you.
All hallelujah.