Sermon 2-3-08

Old Testament – (The Old Testament lesson sets up the transfiguration account in the Gospel lesson. Here we read about the death of Moses and the fact that God buried Moses. This took place approximately 1400 years before the Transfiguration. In the Transfiguration, we will see that Moses is not dead, his spirit is alive – life after death.) Deuteronomy 34:1-8 Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There the LORD showed him the whole land-from Gilead to Dan, all of Naphtali, the territory of Ephram and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the western sea, the Negev and the whole region from the valley of Jericho, the City of Palms, as far as Zoar. Then the LORD said to him, “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, “I will give it to your descendants. I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.” And Moses the servant of the LORD died there in Moab, as the LORD had said. He buried him in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is. Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone. The Israelites grieved for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days, until the time of weeping and mourning was over.

Epistle – (Peter wrote this account when he was an old man, years after the Transfiguration. He writes this reflecting on the Transfiguration, relating what he saw regarding Jesus Christ.) 2 Peter 1:16-18 We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.”

Gospel – (Transfiguration means change in appearance. In Matthew’s account, the disciples were permitted to see into the heavenly realms and to see Jesus as He is in all His radiant glory.) Matthew 17:1-9 After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters-one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” When the disciples heard this, they fell face down to the ground, terrified. But Jesus came and touched them: “Get up”, he said. “Don’t be afraid,” When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus. As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them, “Don’t tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.

Sermon –

We are now one month into 2008; how are you doing with keeping your New Year’s Resolutions? Have you kept them? How do you think God is doing in keeping His New Year’s Resolutions? On January 13^th we talked about God’s New Year’s Resolutions for us in 2008, things that God would be doing in our lives. God is keeping His New Year’s Resolutions perfectly and when we keep His New Year’s Resolutions in mind, life begins to make a lot more sense. In fact, when we keep His New Years Resolutions in mind, we’re not confused by the things that happen in life, we’re not asking why things happen, and we’re not having trouble understanding God because we know that God is acting just like He said He would act.

How do we know God’s New Year’s Resolutions? How do we get to know what God is thinking? How do we get to know God? Knowing God is important, in fact, knowing God is in our Mission Statement that we recently adopted. We get to know God through His Word. As He speaks, you begin to know what God is thinking and we can put together a list of His New Year’s Resolutions. God’s New Year’s Resolutions are not new for 2008; He has been doing these things in the lives of people for 6000 years, ever since the beginning of time.

Resolution #1 is “Repent”. The plan for this world, the plan for our lives, the plan that God institutes each and every day, is that repentance and forgiveness of sins would be preached in Christ’s Name. He’s either getting you to repent or He’s working through you to get someone else to repent.

Resolution #2 is “Rely”. It is based on our favorite Bible verse, Jeremiah 29:11. God says, “I have plans for you – plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Does that mean that you’re going to win the lottery this year and be financially successful? When we look at shalom, the Hebrew word for “prosper”, we see that it translates as “peace and well-being”. So Jeremiah 29:11 tells us that God’s plans are to give us a sense of peace and well-being, not to harm us, and to give us hope and a future. God is going to put you in situations where you are going to have to rely on Him. He’s going to back you into a corner so that there is absolutely no way out but to give your life and trust wholeheartedly in Jesus Christ. Jeremiah 29:11 sounds great until God starts doing it and then we ask, “Why is God backing me into this corner? I don’t understand this. I have no place to turn but God!” That’s because God is doing what He says He is going to do in Jeremiah 29:11, getting us to rely on Him.

Resolution #3 is “Drop the I”. Jesus said that John the Baptist was the greatest prophet ever. John pointed people to Christ; telling them that the “I”, the “me” must decrease and that Christ must increase (John3:30). God’s third New Year’s Resolution is to get us to drop the “I”, He wants us to realize that life isn’t about us anymore, it’s not about “I want this, I want that, I want a better deal than I’m getting, I want, I want, I want…” God wants us to see that it’s all about Christ.

Have you seen God working those resolutions over the past month in your life? When you see it happening, all of a sudden life makes sense, all of a sudden those things that would disappoint don’t disappoint any more, all of a sudden those things that would confuse, don’t confuse any more, all of a sudden unhappiness and grumbling and complaining disappear because we’re awestruck by the fact that God is doing something in our lives. God’s New Year’s Resolutions for us in 2008 can be summed up as “Repent, Rely, Drop the I”.

God’s New Year’s Resolutions are at work in Deuteronomy Chapter 34, the account of the death of Moses. Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of the Israelites. Moses had been their leader for a long time; he had brought them out of slavery in Egypt and had been with them through all the wanderings in the wilderness. But Moses made a mistake. The Israelites didn’t have any water and they prayed to God for water. God told Moses (read Numbers Chapter 20) to speak to the rock and water would come out. But Moses was frustrated, he was thinking about himself, he was angry at the Israelites for grumbling and complaining and, instead of relying on God’s way of doing it, the “I”, the “me”, the “my way of doing things” came up in Moses’ brain and he struck the rock instead of speaking to it. Water came out, but Moses had disobeyed God. Consequently God told Moses that he would not be able to enter the Promised Land but God would permit him to see it.

After God permitted him to view the Promised Land, Moses died. The Israelites great leader wasn’t around any more. The Israelites found security in having Moses as their leader, they knew him, he had always been there. That’s why having a new leader as President of the United States shakes us up, we don’t know what to expect. At least with the old one, we knew what to expect! The Israelites knew what to expect with Moses. They must have thought, “What is God doing? Where’s God’s love? Where’s God’s forgiveness? So Moses made a mistake – we all make mistakes! Get over it, God!” And you could say that Moses died young. Granted he was 120 years old, but his strength was not gone, he hadn’t lost his marbles, his eyesight was still good; he was still a strong, vibrant, vital leader. But God said “No, he has to die.” Imagine yourself in the shoes of the Israelites; you would be saying, “I don’t understand, I’m confused, where is God’s love, what’s gong on?”

But this makes perfectly good sense when you plug in God’s New Year’s Resolutions. God is getting people to repent. Not even Moses was sinless. What an illustration. We need to repent; we need to turn toward the Savior, Jesus Christ. And, looking at the Transfiguration account, we see that Moses looked to Jesus as his Savior – and Elijah also – that’s why the Transfiguration account is so important to us. Moses needed to turn and trust in the Savior. What a great illustration for the Israelites. They too needed to turn toward God, confess their sins and trust in the Savior to come. In this account, New Year’s Resolution #1, “Repent”, is accomplished; it was right before the people’s eyes. New Year’s Resolution #2, “Rely”, is accomplished; without Moses around, the people had to rely on God. And New Year’s Resolution #3, “Drop the I”, is accomplished. God was working on those people telling them to stop their complaining. The more you complain, the more you focus on yourself and you’re going to get yourself into trouble. It got Moses into trouble. God was telling people to “Drop the I”, let God increase in your life.

God wants you to be more like Jesus! You and I are to be imitators of Christ. God works to diminish you, your way of looking at things, your pride, your ego. He does a great thing. He says, “I’m going to make you more like Jesus, you’re going to be imitators of Him.” Now all of a sudden this Deuteronomy account is making sense and we see exactly what God is doing. He’s not confused, He’s not unloving; it all makes sense when you plug in God’s New Year’s Resolutions.

And God is doing the same thing in Matthew Chapter 17, our Gospel lesson. By seeing Jesus in all His radiant glory, the disciples understood that Jesus really was God, really was Savior of the world. They understood that they needed to turn to Him and that they needed to repent. In fact the very voice of God said, “This is my beloved Son, Listen to Him!” God said, “Hang on His every word!” So New Year’s Resolution #1, “Repent”, was accomplished. New Year’s Resolution #2, “Rely” was accomplished when the cloud came up and enveloped them. When that happened the disciples were terrified and the only solution was to look to Jesus and to rely on Him because He was their only source of peace and well-being. New Year’s Resolution #3, “Drop the I”, was accomplished; Jesus was working to help the disciples become more like Him. Peter’s big problem was the “I”. The night Jesus was betrayed, Peter said “Lord, everyone else may run away but I won’t. Other people may betray you but I won’t.” So God was working on Peter to get him to “Drop the I” and trust in Him. That was a long, painful process because Peter did not want to “Drop the I”. God said to him, “Peter, it’s not about you, it’s not about building those three shelters, it’s not about making this moment go on because you like it, it’s about the mission and ministry of Jesus Christ.”

Can you think about events in your life since the first of the year? How has God been working to get you to turn to Him? Or, how has God been working to use you so that somebody else repents and turns to Christ as Savior? How is He getting you to rely on Him? What has occurred in your life where you have had to totally rely on Christ? That’s God working His New Year’s Resolutions. Or maybe, somebody else is backed up against the wall and has no idea of which way to turn. He could be using you to bring them the message that they need to rely wholeheartedly on Christ. He’s doing His New Year’s Resolutions of “Repent, Rely, Drop the I”.

This is how God did it for me, and it involves Super Bowl Sunday. It is not so much about football as it is about God working in our lives. As you know, I am a big Green Bay Packers fan and I am especially excited this year because they had a miracle season. Last year and the year before they didn’t do well and they were so bad that no one even knew they existed in the NFL. All of a sudden this year they have a tremendous record, they’re in the playoffs, and they had a shot at the Super Bowl. But they blew it! Their quarterback, Brett Favre threw an interception in overtime that lost the game and ended the miracle season. I must admit that Sunday night I was disappointed. It had been so long since the Packers had a shot at the Super Bowl – it could have been the Packers and the Patriots in the Super Bowl – what fun we would have had with that!

But now – nothing! I was so disappointed until the next morning in the shower; as you know, all great inspirations come in the shower. It hit me “Wait a second! God is working His New Year’s Resolutions in this. I just talked about it, how could I have missed it?” God is working His New Year’s Resolutions because this miracle season wasn’t about the Packers, it wasn’t about Brett Favre doing well, it was about Brett’s wife, Deanna. Her life is far from perfect; you would not want to have her life. Through a series of not good events God has gotten her to turn and believe in Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior; she is now a professing Christian. Over the past couple of years her brother was killed in an accident, her father-in-law died, their home was destroyed in Katrina, she’s had to deal with Brett’s problems, and she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her life was devastated. She says “Talk about God humbling you and getting you to drop the I.” All of a sudden her illness, which she would have liked to remain a private thing, was plastered all over the country. She said, “Through that whole thing, I had to turn to Christ, believe in Him as Savior (New Year’s Resolution #1 accomplished); rely on Christ (New Year’s Resolution #2 accomplished) and realize that it wasn’t about me at all. (New Year’s Resolution #3 accomplished). It wasn’t about her, it wasn’t about the Packers, it wasn’t about Brett, it was about God doing His work. When these realizations hit, she did something that was very important. She said, “OK God, all these events are happening, how can you use them for your purpose.” What she did was write a book about her experiences; the book is a testimony to Jesus Christ as Savior, it’s not so much about football, it’s not so much about her life, it’s about Christ stepping in to her life and helping her.

This football season wasn’t about the Packers, it wasn’t about Brett Favre, it wasn’t about the Packers coach; it was all about God working His New Year’s Resolutions. If the Packers hadn’t had such a great season, no one would care about Deanna Favre’s book; she would be just the wife of an old quarterback on the worst team in the NFL! But because the Packers had this miracle season, everyone is talking about and reading Deanna’s book. Her book is a testimony, repent, turn to Jesus Christ, rely on Him, and get the “I” out of your life.

In the shower that morning when I realized that the Packers loss was all about God working His New Year’s Resolutions, all of a sudden the disappointment and the dissatisfaction went down the drain. I said, “What a great year this has been, this is the year that God used the Green Bay Packers to do His New Year’s Resolutions in the lives of people!” So as you go through your life, remember that God is working His plan; He’s going to get you or someone else through you to “Repent, Rely, and Drop the I”. That’s what it’s all about. And when you understand that, you will have a sense of peace and a sense of well being.

Prayer -

Heavenly Father, thank you for your word which instructs us in your New Year’s Resolutions. Help us to remember those Resolutions. Help us to get ourselves out of the way so you can use us to help other people not to focus on themselves, but to focus on Christ and “Repent, Rely, and Drop the I”. Heavenly Father, we pray this in Jesus’ Name. Amen

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