1 Peter 1, verses 16-18, page 1018 in the Church Provided Bible. 2 Peter 1, verses 16-18. Peter has been talking here about a list of characteristics that Christians need to exhibit. He's been talking about how those characteristics lead to certain behaviors, the way in which we live, and he's followed that up by talking about the need for reminders, that he himself is dedicated to reminding us, and that we also should be encouraged to embrace those reminders. And now he's grounding what he's been saying in historical events. And so that's our text here today. 2 Peter 1, verse 16, this is God's word. For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice, was born to him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. We stop here in our reading from God's holy word. Remember that this letter is about knowing Christ. It's the main thrust of the letter, knowing Christ. It's how we started and it's the theme across it. Our author Peter urged his readers to know Christ. And Peter himself is revealing how he knew Christ, and that was a special way. He knew he had a special privilege and opportunity that only three people ever got. And that is that he was an eyewitness of the transfiguration. Peter knew that his perspective is one that he needs to share, which is why he's writing this book. He's one of only three people who saw Jesus filled with heavenly glory on the day of transfiguration, and we'll talk more about that in a moment. The Apostle Peter had just written two verses previously, in verse 14, that Peter would soon die. And because of that news, we would now expect to read in these next verses what it would be like, for example, for Christians after Peter's death, and more instructions. But that's not what Peter wrote here. And there's something else that Peter did not write in these verses, and I think it's conspicuous in its absence. And when we consider the view of the Roman Catholic Church of Peter, their unbiblical idea of a perpetual line of Roman popes having the position of vicar of Christ, is the term they use, vicar of Christ on earth, it's important for us to notice what Peter did not write in these verses. This would be a perfect place for him to state that if that were in fact the case. On the occasion of his own impending death, Peter did not write one word, did not write one sentence here, setting up a line of apostles and popes following after himself. Instead, from Peter's viewpoint, from Peter's viewpoint as an apostle and as an eyewitness of the transfiguration, no one is supposed to have full, supreme, universal power over the whole church except for Jesus Christ himself and he alone. There's no person or plan described here other than Christ and his word. And what's most fascinating in these verses is what Peter did write. All I said so far is what he did not write. What he did write is really fascinating. Rather than writing about himself, Peter wrote about Christ. Peter wrote about Christ's first coming, about his transfiguration, and about his future second coming. So we're gonna draw one main point from these verses today for our faith, and that is our main point you see on your handout, Our faith in the amazing gospel is founded on the historical facts of Christ's first coming. So three points, the apostles saw his majesty, the majestic glory himself spoke, and three, the apostles heard that voice of majesty speaking. So first, the apostles saw his majesty. is a visual testimony. And Peter wrote, beginning verse 16, And what he means by the word follow is to not align with a certain line of teaching, to not obey a certain kind of teaching. And what is that? What is he defending against? He lists it here. Cleverly devised myths. Devised is, of course, invented or made up. Myths are stories or falsehoods. A myth is really a story which someone has put together to express his own ideas without reference to reality. You might think of Paul Bunyan and the big blue ox is a myth, right? A myth is not tied to historical fact. There is no big blue ox, nor is there Paul Bunyan. So he's saying we're not following cleverly devised myths, making up stories about, yeah, I saw Jesus on a mountain. He was transfigured. He was shining like an angel. He's like, that's not a myth. Here Peter's responding to an accusation that had been circulated. The accusation was that Peter and the other two apostles taught something that was made up. It didn't really happen in actual fact, they say. Some people in Peter's day and in Peter's time were calling it a fable or a myth. to believe in the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And here, Peter gave a detailed response, raising up the Bible above everything else and confirming his own personal testimony to it as an eyewitness. We don't follow made-up myths, he says. How do we follow Christ instead? By submitting ourselves not to Peter and not to cleverly devised myths from Peter, but rather we follow Christ by submitting ourselves to the authority and teaching of Christ through his apostles and now written down in the scriptures. And now he says it, continuing, verse 16, we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you This is the word for told or disclosed, revealed, declared. He was officially reporting as an apostle of Christ Jesus what had happened. He gives the information that they need to become acquainted with, to familiarize people with it. We made it known to you. And what did he make known to them? Listen, he says the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Power, of course, is simply strength or ability. And the word translated coming, power and the coming, this word coming is a very important word. It must refer to Jesus' second coming. I'll demonstrate this. It doesn't refer to Jesus first coming into the world through the womb of the Virgin Mary, the first Christmas when Jesus would be born as a baby into the world. We know that and it's true and we believe it, but that's not what this word is referring to. It cannot be the meaning of this word coming here in verse 16. Here Peter uses the word coming in the same way he uses it in chapter 3 verse 4, which I'll read. Where is the promise of his coming? See how that's future reference? It's also the same as 2 Peter 3 verse 11, which I'll read. Again, future tense, both times the word coming in chapter 3, And it's the same word and same sense here. Coming, referring to the arrival in the future for there to be in person a presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in a particular place. And that he's coming bodily again a second time down to earth. And it's referenced especially and specifically to as the verse ends of our Lord Jesus Christ. So it's the eyewitness to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And again, he's, offsetting what false teachers were saying. The false teachers were reacting to Peter's teaching about the future second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's because false teachers don't want to be held personally accountable for their moral and ethical faithlessness. There's always false teachers willing to tell us what we're free to do, that we're free to do whatever we want, without fear of God's punishment, which is false. The false teachers tell our nation publicly today that people can live an alternate lifestyle and not faith God's wrath for it, which is false. And the false teachers tell us that we are free to do whatever we want, with whomever we want, and there are no consequences from God, which is false. And what is this teaching based on? It's based on the idea that God forgives, that God is love, and the old-fashioned teaching of the Ten Commandments is out of date, all of which are, the first two are true, that God forgives and God is love, but the fact that Ten Commandments are out of date is false. But what do false teachers like this do with the teaching about the cross to pay for sin and the resurrection to give us power over sin? They deny it. And what do people do with the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is this topic here at the end of verse 16? That Jesus is going to come again. They deny it. They deny that any moment Could be right now, could be 10 minutes from now, could be many years from now. At any moment, Lord Jesus Christ will appear again in power and great glory, and it's a very, very disconcerting notion to people who want security in living as they please, that they will not have to give an account. But if the judge is coming, if God himself is coming again, God the Son in the flesh, in his resurrected body is coming again. They will have to face him, won't they? No one living in sin wants a holy Jesus to rend the sky and appear here and take care of everything and come down and find them living in sin. Peter believed in a final judgment. Excuse me, Peter believed in it. And he says, I'm not talking about myths. I'm not talking about stories, the past, the present, or the future. In the past, he came already. And Peter's a witness of the Lord Jesus coming. In the present, he's given us his spirit, and the church is being built. And in the future, Christ is coming again. Peter believed in this, this final judgment, the second coming of Christ. And he taught there'll be a day when each of us will stand before the Lord Jesus Christ to give account of our own moral faithfulness and our ethical decisions and lifestyles. And the false teachers believe that this was all a fairy tale in the mind of Peter and the apostles. And what's the result? Well, Peter says that we have a risen Savior, so we must live lives of faith and virtue, knowledge and self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection and love. Do you remember those? Just a few verses earlier, he's been just writing these things. And what do the false teachers say over against the true teacher, Peter? Well, the false teachers say it's not necessarily part of our expectation to follow such a strict code of conduct as the apostles are suggesting. It's really not quite so tight as all that, the false teachers say. And they see Peter is not representing truth about the living God. Relax, Peter, they would say. It's not quite so demanding to live for God. And Peter's answer? Everything that Peter is taught in these two short letters, 1 Peter and 2 Peter, including the teaching of Jesus coming a second time to judge, rested not on a fairy tale he urges us to understand, but it rests on the strength of the Bible, prophesied, then fulfilled. And first of all, Peter started with a negative statement. It's not a fairy tale. What has happened and what's going to happen is real. It's coming again. It's not a story. It is our future and it's coming soon. And Peter points to the majesty of God's words as the source of truth, which he goes on to more in a moment. But Peter linked his own teaching on the second coming of Christ to what Peter saw and to what he heard. He wrote in verse 19, linking his teaching to what he's read in the prophetic writings. And thus Peter's own experience of seeing and hearing is a crucial piece of what we call empirical evidence. It means things you can see and hear. Testimony from people is submitted in court as evidence today, isn't it? That's what evidence is in court. What did you see? Were you there? Where were you the night of? And report to us what you saw, what you heard. These are evidences. And consider what Peter stated here. We were eyewitnesses of His Majesty. End of verse 16. He will stand up in court, and whatever they make him do, right, he will do, to say, yes, I'm telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. We were eyewitnesses of his glory. I'm standing right here telling you, Peter says, we were eyewitnesses of his glory. That means he was an observer, one who was at a certain place at a certain time. If you weren't there, then you can't testify, but if you were there, then you can tell us what happened that night at that time. He was an eyewitness at that time and therefore has personally seen an event and can report on it to us and that is taken as evidence and thus has personal knowledge and can be expected to attest to the occurrence of such an event exactly and precisely as only he would be able to do, he alone being an eyewitness together with the other two men. Not all people can say that they were there and could report on it, but he can, and he does. And what is he an eyewitness of? Of his majesty. Of his majesty, could you be a little more specific? He's undone with what he has seen. How do you describe this vision that Peter was able to see, this true scene that Peter saw, his greatness, his mighty power, his high status and rank? How do you describe what I saw? majesty. I'm an eyewitness of his majesty. Really, in a sense, Peter should have been dead for seeing the living God. Four times in this chapter, Peter wrote about what he saw and heard, saw and heard, saw and heard. It's evidences, his personal experience of being on that mountain when Jesus took on some of his heavenly glory, what we call the transfiguration. And Jesus went up to a mountain, took with him Peter, James, and John, and there before their very eyes, Jesus was changed. Figure is the way you appear, trans is change. So change the way he appeared. He just looked nothing like he ordinarily looked. What is happening? He's looking like he's divine, which he is. But he's transfigured or changed in appearance to be brilliant in light. And the true great prophets, Moses and Elijah, stood there with Jesus and the apostles. Are you starting to see why Peter might be accused of cleverly devised myths? Come on, Peter. We're intelligent people here. You really expect us to believe that you saw Jesus and Moses and Elijah? James, you can't tell us that you're agreeing with this. You see how Peter would have to defend himself, which is what he's doing in our verse. And Peter and the other two apostles said that they heard the voice of the majestic glory. And Peter wrote about what he saw and he wrote about what he heard as evidence that Jesus' second coming will also be real. because his first coming is real and because the transfiguration is real. What would Peter's accusers do with the transfiguration event? They would say something like, Peter, we think you made it up. However, even if it's true, it's something you saw and we didn't see it, something you heard and we didn't hear it, tell you what, if you could reproduce, please, for us, right now, this whole appearance thing of a godlike figure before our eyes today, and reconfigure for us again, please, make it happen right now, again, this voice from heaven that you're claiming happens so that we can hear it and we can see with our own ears and our own eyes, then we will believe you. And point one is that the apostles saw his majesty, not that the false teachers didn't. The false teachers should be believing the apostles just like we should be. So that was point one, the apostles saw his majesty. Moving on to his next argument out of verse 17 where the majestic's glory spoke. Our faith in the amazing gospel contains some incredible things. For example, God the Son took on human flesh. We wrap our minds around that every December, if not in between, right? God the Son spoke. Jesus spoke and taught and preached. He walked on water. He did miracles. A lot of stuff in our faith that takes faith because it's incredible things. And here's something even more amazing. You ever stop to really consider this? God the Father spoke from heaven in a way that we could hear. And I want to talk about that for a moment. Can you imagine hearing a voice come out of heaven It was not thunder. It was not a very loud noise that sounded like words, no. It was a voice. It's always described as a voice. You either take that as scriptural or not. We take it as scriptural, it was a voice. And it was not just the loudness of a voice, but the words of a voice speaking and the words were clear and distinct so that the message and the words were understandable. They're so understandable that Peter can tell us exactly what was said from heaven. And what Peter's point here is, in referring to this historical fact, is that God the Son received glory from God the Father. And that's a fact. God the Father spoke from heaven in order to give glory to his Son. The majestic glory himself refers to the Father. Point two, the majestic glory spoke, make sure you understand that's the Father speaking from heaven. That's what he says in verse 17, let me read it again. When he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was born to him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved Son with whom I'm well pleased. This is the idea that when the end of the world comes, God says how He relates to us, it will be either us coming under the favor of God the Father that He has for His Son, and that we are in Christ, and so that we share that same favor that's announced here, or it will be us being cast out of God's sight because we're not found in the favor of His Son. This is quintessential for us. We're either in this favor that God the Son had from God the Father, or we're outside of the favor that God had for his Son. Our faith is that God will accept us because of the righteousness of Christ. This has everything to do with our salvation. How can we fake a voice from heaven? It's undoubted truth. No number of men conspiring together could have made that happen to deceive Peter. The way of salvation is clearly by faith in Jesus Christ, that God is able to save and Christ saves from guilt and the dirtiness of sin. How is this made known? Well, it's been a long time since God the Father spoke from the heavens. Raise your hand if you're around when that happened most recently. Anybody? It's been a long time since God the Father broke His silence and just went ahead and spoke from the heavens. Just realize how rare this is, what's being told to us in these verses. That's why we pause and just take a couple verses. We gotta soak this in. Make sure we understand this. We say it so often in our creeds and our hymns that we don't let the surprise and power of it impact us. God the Father speaks from heaven about His Son. He now speaks, instead of through the heavens audibly, he speaks through his apostles and through the scriptures by the Holy Spirit through men who preach. God the Father speaks through the word of God and the spirit of God and the minister of God to the church of God. God the Father, of course, still speaks to us every Sunday. But how do we know all this historical stuff is true? We have the visible glory of Christ and with the audible voice of God the Father. That's how we know it's true. It's the recognition of someone who's attained a position through his work and achievements. He was honored. He received honor and glory from God the Father. Honor is unknown until it's revealed. Did you know that he's worthy of this honor? Glory is a quality of God, it's external and even visible. From God the Father, the voice was born to him. This is my beloved son with whom I'm well pleased. Well pleased is to be delighted and to be glad and take pleasure and consider good, seem good to and consent to, to prefer, to approve of or to like. Let me just read the transfiguration, it's a short passage, Matthew 17, one to eight. After six days, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them. And his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah talking with him. And Peter said to Jesus, Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah. He was still speaking when behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them. And a voice from the cloud said, this is my beloved son, with whom I'm well pleased, listen to him. When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified. But Jesus came and touched them saying, rise and have no fear. And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only. Why did God the Father speak at all? Why would God the Father break his silence and speak audible words from heaven? We got Jesus, right? We have the Spirit, could work. We have other prophets, we have rabbis, but God himself spoke from heaven. Peter tells us exactly why. Verse 17. To give honor and glory to the Son. Listen to it. When he received honor and glory from God the Father, That's why, it's to honor God the Son. Who is the person that God delights to honor? God the Son. Let's not make light ever anywhere of God the Son. Let's honor Him as God the Father broke His silence to do. Third point, moving on, the apostles heard the voice. How do we know that this even happened? Because there were people there to hear it. Verse 18, They understood it. They gave heed to it. They received news of it. The voice was an audible voice, a language that they could understand. And Peter calls it a holy mountain for the same reason that the ground where God is is called holy ground, where God appeared to Moses in the Old Testament. Wherever the Lord comes, it's holy. Because he's the fountain of all holiness. He makes ground holy when he's on it. He makes the mountain holy when he's on it. And God makes all things holy by his presence. So, we, he says, in verse 18, we ourselves heard this voice. Who's we? It's the three that I just read to you about, right? Peter, James, and John. Only three people got to be with Jesus on the mount when he was transfigured. Three witnesses are sufficient for us. Because we're not like the false teachers. The false teachers, well, I won't believe it until you show me. Right? Like Thomas, I won't believe it until you show me your side and your wounds. No, we believe it. Three witnesses are sufficient for us. Consider the words of John 1.14, we have seen his glory. The glory of the one and only who came from the Father full of grace and truth. All the apostles saw his glory, just three of them saw his transfiguration glory. But they saw his glory all the time. The miracles and his speech and the way he carried himself. Perfect humanity and filled with glory. We also have the internal testimony of God, the Holy Spirit. John 10, sheep follow the shepherd because they know his voice. Just because you didn't hear God the Father audibly, you still know the voice of your Savior, the voice of your God. Also in John 10, Jesus said, I know my sheep, and my sheep know me, just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. He also says in John 10 that he's the one who laid down his life for the sheep. We know the voice of the one who laid down his life for us, our Savior himself. What have we seen today? Our faith is the amazing gospel is founded on the historical facts of his first coming, his transfiguration, and then also the prophecy of his second coming. The apostle saw his majesty and reported to us. We need to believe that. The majestic glory spoke from heaven, God the Father. We need to hold that precious. And third, the apostles heard the voice and reported to us. So three conclusions for you today. Number one, let Peter be your eyewitness that seals the case for you. Let Peter be your eyewitness that seals the case for you. And Peter's reporting about Christ. That's enough. Is that not enough? Why would that be not enough for you? Be enough for you to fully embrace apostolic Christianity. The whole ball of wax. Peter says it. That's enough for me. The Transfiguration is not on YouTube. Nobody recorded it. No one tweeted it. And Peter wrote an old-fashioned letter about it. That's what we have. We have an old-fashioned letter. It's right in front of you. And Matthew, Mark, and Luke wrote the old-fashioned records, the gospel accounts of the Transfiguration. We have that. We can't go back and see it ourselves. It's not going to be reenacted. We have no video recording or audio recording of it. We have to take Peter's word for it. That's our access. And God has given us that and that alone because that is sufficient for us. It's called faith. We have to take the word of the Holy Spirit as written down in the scriptures and let that be enough for us to fully believe. It's like landing a plane. onto a ship. Considering Christianity is like landing a plane onto a ship. People say, I don't have enough light to land the ship of Christianity. They don't want to land with the instruments. They don't want to believe that the ship is where the instruments say that the ship is. I don't know if I want to bank my whole future on this whole thing being true. I really wish I could have seen it for myself, says the modern American mind. Until they see something with their own eyes or hear something in their own ears, they are hesitant to believe. In response, Peter is saying to us, I know you didn't get to see the transfiguration with your own eyes. But I saw it with my own eyes, and I'm telling you best I can, this amazing experience. That's enough evidence for you. You call me a liar? Says Peter. Right, the Lord says it's enough light for you. I'm writing you the truth. Land your plane. You can land safely on the Christianity ship with your airplane. We worship and serve the Lord with certainty regarding our eternal destiny because of Peter's testimony. Let Peter your eyewitness. be enough and seal the case for you. Number two, second application, let the words of God's love be heard by your soul. There's love here. What God the Father says to God the Son is the message that we also receive. This is my beloved Son, whom I love, in whom I'm well pleased. Pleased with Christ, His Son, the God the Father is pleased with us in Christ. Because of His death and resurrection, He's pleased with us. That's His love for us. We don't have to chase for acceptance and love in the family of God. We have it. We have to wait for our parents to accept us in the family of God. God the Father accepts us. People wait whole lifetimes for earthly parents to express love. We don't have to wait with that miserable experience of some sad people. We have the warmth and affection of our Heavenly Father now. Hear this and let the truth of it sink in. Let it console you. Let it fill you with the love that you need. All the authority of God the Father speaking from heaven with Christ from earth and God the Holy Spirit through the pen of the Apostle Peter take it on the best and highest authority that there is that God, the Father in heaven, who's well pleased with us through faith in Jesus Christ. Yes, you've done wrong. Yes, you've said evil things with evil intent. Yes, you've been greedy and selfish. You've ruined many beautiful moments and beautiful things. You've squandered what should have been used with good stewardship. Yes, God knows. He knows all that, of course. He saw all that. Despite all that, here's how God views you. He broke his silence from heaven to say to us as people in Christ, you are my beloved children and I love you. well delighted and pleased in you. I like you, I love you, I approve of you just as you are. I'm satisfied with your performance and character because it's colored by the performance and character of the Lord Jesus Christ, and I'm pleased to call you my own child. The gospel's here for comfort. Let the words of God's love be heard by your soul. That was two, and the last one, honor the Son of God. honor the Son of God. Since God the Father spoke from heaven specifically so that God the Son would receive glory and honor that was due to his name, then God the Father is deeply committed to honoring God the Son, and we also, as God's children, must be deeply committed to honoring God the Son. In fact, we're required to honor. God the Son. Jesus taught us why in John 10, 17, the reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life only to take it up again. It's the cross. It's the resurrection. It's the salvation work the Lord Jesus did that has the Father loving and honoring him. The Father loves the Son for laying down his life for us. And since God the Father loves God the Son for laying down His life for us, how much more should we, the ones for whom He laid down His life, love Him? How do we honor God the Son? By joining with your heart and soul, your strength and your mind, when you're in the presence of God in worship, and when you're singing to Him, and when you're reading His scripture, and when you're giving. The worship service of the Lord Jesus Christ is the first place that we learn to honor God the Son. By leaving the worship today, determine to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and to add to your faith virtue, to add to your virtue knowledge, to add to your knowledge self-control, to add steadfastness and godliness and brotherly affection and love, because it starts with faith. and we go from there. We honor Christ by possessing these qualities in increasing measure and we add to them. We honor Jesus Christ by eagerly anticipating our rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Remember, Peter only saw a glimpse on the Mount of Transfiguration. Do you know what's waiting for you? You're gonna see the Lord Jesus Christ in all of his heavenly glory. And first he has to equip your eyes to be able to see it. Imagine what we're going to see on Mount Zion when we see him face to face. Now is when we start to honor the Son of God. Let's pray. Lord, let Peter's ears be our ears. Let Peter's eyes be our eyes. Be enough for us. We thank you for your love. And we honor you as the majestic God of glory. In the name of Jesus, the risen one, we pray. Amen.