Shattering Expectations: The Transfiguration Unveiled

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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and
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Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
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Our sermon for the transfiguration of our Lord comes from our Old Testament
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reading of Exodus 34 and the 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St.
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Matthew. Please be seated.
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Jesus shatters all expectations. This is true for the church of all times and
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places, and so therefore it is also presently true for you as well.
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So the invitation for the day, knowing that, seeing it in the story, is to see the pattern,
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understand when the story takes a twist, and know that that's probably in store for you.
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In our Exodus reading, the people have come out of Egypt, God brings them to
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Mount Sinai, where he makes a covenant with them.
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They make essentially marital vows, and Yahweh will be their direct warrior king.
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In return, Israel will be trusting, will be exclusive to him.
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So this idea of Moses coming down with the two tablets, this is This is contract.
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I will be your king directly with you. So what will the warrior king do for them?
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Why is it advantageous that he will be their king and not another?
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Is it because he has better economic policies? No, it's very particular.
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He will lead them into battle to drive out the seed and offspring of the serpent,
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these nations in devotion to the rebellious spiritual forces that have betrayed their creator.
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You can think of them as fallen angels trying to themselves be God,
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just to simplify the image a bit.
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Yahweh will lead them, the people of Israel, in victorious conquest to destroy
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the devil's grip on the world and set them, the people of Israel, right,
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up as a glorious city on a hill,
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glowing brightly out to call all the peoples of the fallen and scattered world back to him.
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Israel, from the promised land, will be Yahweh's servant for rescue to the Gentiles.
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That's the plot. That's the whole thing in question.
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Okay, so if you're there with the people of Israel, Mount Sinai,
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the setup expectation is what?
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Battle, conquering, defeat enemy. Okay, with that aside, we'll just move right
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along to Psalm 2 for just a minute.
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It's the one we chanted. Well, you guys chanted.
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I was trying my best, but we chanted it. And it's one of the formative pieces
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of scripture for the worldview of the ancient Israelite people that describes
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the work of their Messiah.
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So I want you to take a listen to it again, remembering that it's about Christ,
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anointed by the Father, set up as king and in conflict with the spiritual rebels. Okay.
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The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against
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the Lord and against his anointed one.
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The Lord holds them in derision.
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Then he will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury saying,
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as for me, I have set my king, the anointed one, the son, Jesus.
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On Zion, my holy hill.
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And then he does a little bit of a pan and turns to the son whom he's anointed
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and says, you shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.
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Then he turns over to the rulers, the bad guys, the spiritual enemies and says,
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be warned, O rulers of the earth, serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling.
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So he's talking to the bad guys, spiritual forces, and the kings underneath
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them of these nations all at the same time.
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And rejoice with trembling. Kiss who? Kiss the son, the one I've anointed,
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the one I've set up as my king.
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Kiss the son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way.
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It's an interesting phrase right there.
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And you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled.
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And then he turns to all of the Gentiles across the world, all peoples that
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are under this oppression and says, blessed are all who take refuge in him.
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So once again, the setup expectation is battle, conquering, defeat enemy.
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Now, in both of these instances, what is the geographical setting before these battle declarations?
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What's the context here? The chosen by God is brought up to his holy mountain,
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coronated and anointed for the purpose of battle and rule so that all taking
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refuge may be saved and spared.
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So here we come to our gospel reading for the day at the transfiguration of Jesus.
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All of scripture sharpens to a fine point in this one moment.
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Israel, the nation, failed to kick out the snake in conquest history,
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even with God, their warrior king, leading them, doing all the work.
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They failed as the chosen one. they failed in their anointed task to call the
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lost and oppressed people back to union with their creator.
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So Jesus is here as the new Israel in her place.
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He will be the fully promised offspring warrior spoken to Eve that we read about in Psalm 2.
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He will conquer all the snake's forces and offspring.
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He will set all the captives free and call all to union with him.
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So if you understand, if we could regain our biblical literacy,
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and I don't mean can you read the words, but can you understand the story?
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When you hear the transfiguration taking place, you're actually watching Psalm
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2 unfold in history right before your eyes.
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This is my son in whom I am well pleased.
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Listen to him.
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I anoint him.
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All the nations will be his heritage. He will smash the evil spiritual rulers
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that oppress you over the whole world. He will burst them apart like clay pots
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as he smashes them with his war mace.
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I want you to take a listen to an earlier chapter in Exodus The pre-incarnate
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Christ prefigures this moment that we are looking at seeing happen now in Matthew
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So just listen and see if anything sounds the same as like Transfiguration or Psalm 2.
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Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you
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to the place that I have prepared.
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Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice.
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Do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him.
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But if you carefully obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an
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enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.
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When my angel goes before you and brings you to the Amorites and the Hittites
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and the Perizzites and the Canaanites,
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the Hivites and the Jebusites, and I blot them out, you shall not bow down to
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their gods nor serve them,
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nor do as they do, but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their pillars and pieces.
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You shall serve the Lord your God, and he, this one, will bless your bread and
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your water, and I will take sickness away from among you.
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Once again, this one, the Son, my angel, the one I anoint who has my name in him, listen to him.
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He will lead you in the way.
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Going back to Matthew, Jesus is on the mountain.
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He is being anointed, coronated for divine cosmic rule and warfare.
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It's not happening on Sinai this time. It's a little different. We're on Mount Hermon.
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This is the Baal Mountain, the evil headquarters of the evil most high God of the fallen world.
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This is Satan's holy mountain, where his war tents are set up.
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Jesus goes there intentionally planting the flag of his kingdom on the top of
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the symbol of the serpent's power.
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I mean, the expectations here on the stage of salvation history are at an absolute boiling point.
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Peter sees Jesus now talking to Moses and Elijah.
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Their wait is over Moses
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didn't get to go into the land that was promised And participate
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in the fulfillment of the covenant He died for
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his transgressions against God Still out in exile
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Elijah had to watch all of Israel And the visible church Turn away from God
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and die in front of him But now Jesus brings them forth From beyond their earthly
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lives as witnesses to the promises fulfilled,
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this angel of the Lord in the Old Testament spoke directly with these men in
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their own contexts and assured them of his continuing work for their salvation
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even past their deaths and their failures.
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Jesus did, right? Not nebulous God concept, Christ.
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The pre-incarnate Christ made these promises to his people and to these two
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men, and now the incarnate Christ brings them forth as witnesses of its fulfillment.
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They, these two men, will be consoled by the promise come to fruition in God
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becoming man, in Jesus, righting all of their wrongs.
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Now it's Jesus' turn to take a crack at Exodus.
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To Matthew, Matthew, to Peter, excuse me, James and John, they are seeing the
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whole of the Old Testament surging out of the past and smashing into their present right there.
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The one on the mountain of Sinai with cloud and thunder that wrote the law of
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the covenant for Moses with his finger is this Jesus.
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That's him. So when that all gets revealed to them, of course,
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what do they do? They fall down terrified.
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Do not be afraid. The veil of his humanity is lifted for a moment,
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and Yahweh's glory shines from this one in whom God is well pleased, for he is himself God,
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made man, come to do all that was promised and could never be done by us.
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And what is the expectation there then at the transfiguration.
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What is the next expected thing to happen in the story?
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Once again, battle, conquering, defeat enemy.
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And so Peter very rightly asks, shall we set up tents for you?
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The idea we're not culturally privy to here is, shall I set up staging war tents
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for you before your exodus to battle, in which you will kick out the Romans,
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the people in service to the snake.
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Shall we set up war tents for you, for Moses, and for Elijah?
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It's time for all three of you to finally go into the promised land and finally
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fulfill the victorious battle.
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Isn't that what we should do? Glowing God Messiah as you launch your campaign
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to fulfill all of the Old Testament promises?
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These are the expectations and they're all exactly on track.
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But again, Jesus shatters all expectation.
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No. Jesus says, tell no one until the Son of Man is raised from the dead. No.
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Later, the Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill him.
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In Mark's account of these moments, the disciples don't even have the ability
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to comprehend what he's saying because their expectations are so obliterated. They don't get it.
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They're even afraid to ask him what he means when he says this.
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All of the story was pointing to this moment going one particular way,
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battle, conquering, defeat, enemy.
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But now there is like this massive left turn.
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The ultimate battle of the Messiah looks very different than what had come before.
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In his living out of all salvation, he wages war on himself.
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He becomes sin. He becomes the enemy to be defeated, and then defeats himself.
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He became the sinner and lived for them the perfect life.
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And so the battle doesn't look like what was expected. It looks like this.
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And so now for us, post the cross, post the resurrection, we know what the true
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battle, the true conquering, and the true enemies being defeated looks like
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in all of his works, in all of his warfare.
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Sin, death, and the power of the devil
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are all dealt with in military victory
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by Jesus in turning his own
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sword upon himself He didn't
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go to wage war on the Romans Remember the plot So you can gather the nations
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to me The Romans he goes to rescue He came to call the Romans to himself as
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the light of the Gentiles setting the captives free from the empire of Satan.
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The cross is his sword of warfare, and he wields it against himself to destroy
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the power of the devil over the whole of the fallen world.
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He also deals with the wrath accrued by all of us sinners, all of existence, right?
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Sorry, all of the sinners of existence. That's a better way to say that.
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And on top of that, in his perfect life of obedience and the fulfilling of the
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law, he earns all merit and righteousness that he now gives to us.
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So again, not just to rescue the Romans from stuff, but to elevate them in status,
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his status, his, all the things that he does, this well-pleased one,
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listen, all of that status is then given to the Romans, to all the sinners, to you, to me.
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And if that wasn't enough, he then rises from the dead and opens the path to
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eternal life for all who are taking refuge in him and in his works.
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Going right back to Psalm 2.
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Know this, but they couldn't see it as it was unfolding.
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Their expectations wouldn't allow them to see it.
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So to go all the way back to the beginning of the sermon, let this be the pattern for you to adopt.
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Whatever the expectations are of Christ for you, know that they will be shattered.
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It's incredible jesus gives us the spoilers to the story and then we're still
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shocked the spoiler is you will be shocked.
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Let that be your reality so to kind of bring us home here the question is what are our expectations,
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and then how does jesus shatter them we'll just go through a few how about this
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one i love god God and I'm a Christian,
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shouldn't my life go well?
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Shouldn't things be getting better for me?
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No. You are united to Christ.
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You will suffer and you will die. You will not be given the theology of glory.
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You will be given the theology of the cross.
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You don't get to go around the pit. you will go through it.
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Christ suffered, and now he invites you to participate with him in the suffering
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as he builds the new creation and is actively recreating you in the suffering.
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This one. Don't I need to make God happy so that I can achieve some existence of some form?
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I'll just be happy to be breathing after I die.
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And then I guess I just won't suffer anymore. That's pretty good. I'll take what I can get.
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No, expectations shattered. Jesus redoes it all, all of it.
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The things you did, the things you really wanted to do that you didn't do,
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everything. Done. He did it.
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He is telling Moses and Elijah the completion of the story that he will make it all right.
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So he's saying to them, you know, in your times, boys, it all failed.
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Now I will succeed. I will march into the land and into Jerusalem,
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kick out the bad guys forever.
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I will fulfill the whole will and law of God for you.
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So that means all of your works,
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he accomplishes them in your place you
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are declared in the cosmic temple perfectly worthy
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we heard it in our collect for the day make us co-rulers with you so this idea
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of like what happens to the one who is communing with god with christ moses
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comes down from the mountain and he's glowing.
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He's reflecting the glory of God. Well, guess what? At the resurrection,
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your face will glow in glory, like Moses, but not just for a fleeting moment, but eternally so.
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You are given the status of Jesus, the one who spoke to Moses,
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the one who consoled Elijah, and the one who brought them to Mount Hermon to
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discuss his military exodus, conquest, victory against the devil,
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one on the cross and declared in the resurrection.
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That guy's status, that's you.
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Now, you are co-rulers and conquerors with Jesus.
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Shattered expectation in the best possible way. I'm not just going to rise you
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from the dead and make it so that you don't suffer.
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You're going to be a king with me ruling over it all.
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And so here is the sharpest shattered expectation for today.
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All of that stuff everything you've just heard all of this glory and this eternal
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destiny comes to you in a way that you could never expect,
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the terror angel of Yahweh the son
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comes to you not to destroy you but to impute to you all of his merit and righteousness
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and wipe away your sins not with some breaking open of the clouds and bright
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beams of light and really awesome guys up here dressed in a very particular way. No. In this place.
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All of it comes to you in bread, in wine, in water, and in words.
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The expectations of our inevitable death are shattered in the anointed Christ.
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For while the atheist in all of us fears and expects that death will be the
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end no matter how many times I've heard it preached, no matter how many times
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I've sung out the truth in church, in the liturgy, there's always that inner doubt.
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That will probably be my end.
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The reality is, is that we will be ripped from the grave and set up as cosmic royalty with Jesus.
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So you can have all the doubting expectations you want. It doesn't change the reality.
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So have this expectation as you go back out into the land of exile,
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through those doors, back into the world and away from this place where heaven meets earth.
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This expectation, the glorious in Christ will live in the fallen world and suffer.
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You will wonder how any of the good promises of Yahweh can be real at all as
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you tread through the muck and
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tediousness of your many vocations where nothing ever seems to go right.
00:22:36.466 --> 00:22:42.246
Moses was glowing in Jesus' presence, but the people rebelled.
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Moses himself rebelled and never got to go into the promised land.
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Elijah was the strong and faithful prophet when all else turned away,
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acting as the hero, and yet he whimpered alone in despondency because the visible
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church had fallen, and he never saw that turn around in his earthly life.
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And Jesus himself, the one in whom God the Father is well-pleased,
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who emanates out with divine glory on the top of the mountain as he plants his
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flag of superiority on top of the devil's symbol of power,
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that one had to go into suffering and death and be rejected and spat upon.
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All of existence is concealed and then revealed in Jesus.
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All things are transfigured by his actions, so maybe our expectations should
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be in line with the story of Christ, aka all the scriptures.
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The sinful human expectation is that we must do something for God and we will get what we deserve.
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Maybe in having our minds renewed by the story of Christ, we should cling with
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all ferocity onto this expectation instead.
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That Christ did it all in our place, and by the mercy and grace of God,
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we do not get what we deserve.
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That is the expectation that will stand unmovable. Always expect and count on that.
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So now the peace of God that surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts
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and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.