Matthew 17:1-21 “From the Mountaintop to Everyday”

TRANSCRIPT

There seems to be a popular way that a lot of people

like to look at Jesus's

faith like a mustard seed illustration.

It sounds like this.

Look, God, all he needs from you

is faith like a mustard seed.

Do you know what a mustard seed looks like?

All you need is faith like a mustard seed

and you can move mountains.

Can I get an amen?

Question is, is that what really Jesus is saying?

The secret, of course, is that the size of the faith

isn't important.

Tom Wright summarizes best in his commentary

when he says this.

What's important is the God in whom you believe.

If you want to see the moon,

the size of the window you're looking through

isn't important.

What matters is that it's facing in the right direction.

A tiny slit in the wall will do

if the moon is that side of the house.

A huge window facing in the wrong direction

will be no good at all.

That's what true faith is like.

The smallest prayer to one true God

will produce great things.

Even a small measure of trust in the right direction

can open a life to the work of God.

Where in your life is Jesus inviting you

to aim your trust at Him?

Where do you need to reorient your trust to Him

so that if needed, even the mountains could move?

No one's right.

Nobody's right.

Nobody's right.

Nobody's right.

I both believe that we're wrong inside of someone

and what we believe that is wrong outside of ourselves.

And what may be wrong 18 years after God

in that moment on that day.

Nobody's right, nobody's right.

Nobody's right, nobody's right.

Our belief has beenppenunya so long

that if we choose to live in that moment

It's not unusual for people to carry expectations about God.

Right? Everyone has an expectation about God.

Some people expect that if God would only show up in their life, in their circumstances,

if God would just show up whatever the good or the bad is, that everything would become clear.

Others expect that if God does not work the way that they hoped he would,

then God's probably not involved, at least not yet.

If things are happening and aren't going your way, they're like,

they'll say things like this, I'm just waiting for God to kind of show up.

That's kind of the expectation they have about God.

Some people expect that if they had faith, then faith would always feel strong,

as if though real faith doesn't ever wane from doubt to certainty.

And then there's others who even though they would never claim a life of faith would promise to be easy,

they live with the expectation that a life of faith would promise you at least, at a minimum,

like if you were going to be a person who believes in Jesus,

the exchange that God gives you for that kind of trust, at a minimum, is like a manageable life.

I'm not asking for a perfect life, but you know, is it too much to expect that if I follow Jesus,

my life will be manageable, that God wouldn't give me more than I could bear?

And for many people, the expectations they carry do not always match the reality

of what it feels to live actual everyday life, and even more so, a life of faith in this world.

When it comes to expectations, Matthew 17 is actually a really, really great challenge.

I'm not giving away the plot because it's already there for you to see.

You can look at it even while I'm speaking.

But here's a quick summary of what we'll see, and then hopefully as we dive in,

we'll take a little bit more time to maybe get a little bit more personal.

So what we have here in Matthew 17 is the disciples witness Jesus in a kind of glory

that can only be an act of God, which is why we talk about this idea of the mountaintop,

and we're going to take a look at that in just a second.

But yet, moments later, after this mountaintop experience,

they fail in a way that exposes how much they still do not understand about Jesus.

And so this passage gives space for those who are maybe not sure what to think about Jesus,

but want to maybe understand what it actually means to trust in Him.

But it also speaks directly to anyone who has chosen to live a life

of increasingly submitting all of themselves to Jesus as Master and Savior,

but yet still finds themselves surprised by how much they really do need Him.

More importantly in our text, Matthew will show us that even a small measure of trust

in the right direction, and I'll talk more about that in a second,

how a small amount of faith in the right direction can open up a life to the work of God in our lives.

And so to say it another way, through our text today,

we'll see that Jesus challenges those who wish to follow Him

to assess where their faith is aimed and to remember that what we do for God

should flow from trust in Him and not become a way to earn His favor.

If you don't get anything, that's what you should get.

You could probably close up shop, we can go home, we could have lunch with all of our family.

But you did come here today and hopefully wanted to hear a little bit from the Word,

so I'll do the best I can to preach from that.

And so what a better place to start than the Word.

Verse 1, chapter 17 says this,

After six days Jesus took Peter, James and his brother John and led them up on a high mountain by themselves.

Six days after Jesus told them about His path of suffering,

in Matthew 16 Jesus brings His closest disciples up a mountain.

And there are a lot of reasons why He may have asked these three in particular to come up to a mountain,

but what is clear is that Jesus wanted to accomplish something on the mountain

what God had often done throughout the Scripture.

As we saw in our intro video, mountains are often places where God reveals Himself.

Moses met God on a mountain, and then Elijah, who we're going to talk about here in a second,

heard the voice of God on a mountain.

And so Jesus takes them up this mountain because something important is about to be revealed.

And what is that? Well, let's continue on here.

Verse 2, it says this,

He was transfigured in front of them.

Transfigured is a word that literally means metamorphosis, so inside out.

It's something that is not changed, it's from the inside out.

And His face shone like the sun, His clothes became white as the light.

Now, this kind of language for us, 2025, might seem a little bit weird or unusual to us,

but you have to know that this kind of language to the people for whom Matthew was writing to

was vocabulary that they were very familiar with. Why?

Because it was vocabulary that the Old Testament Scripture used for heavenly beings all the time.

Theologian R.T. France explains it like this.

He says the description of Jesus' changed appearance recalls other biblical descriptions of heavenly beings

who appears among humans.

And he gives a couple different examples of this in the Scripture.

In other words, this is not Jesus just getting a quick makeover.

This is not Jesus going up there and going, hey, you like my hair, right?

This is actually Jesus revealing His glory. This is a glimpse, listen, of who He truly is.

Now, for anyone who thinks of Jesus as mainly a good teacher or a moral example,

Matthew is saying this because he wants you to see something more.

He's showing us why people began to believe that Jesus was not just from God, but God in the flesh.

And so he goes on to say this in verse 3.

Listen, I got an idea.

I will set up three shelters, one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah.

Huh? Right?

I mean, that's how I picture Peter saying this, and I love me some Peter.

How many of you love you some Peter? I love me some Peter.

And here's one of those classic Peter moments.

His heart is sincere. His instinct is to honor the moment.

Oh, Jesus, this is amazing.

But he's absolutely misreading the cues of what is happening in this moment.

I love how one Bible scholar explains what's going on in this moment when he wrote this.

He goes, Peter's suggestion to set up the shelters implies that he fails to understand

that Moses and Elijah, God's good servants, now worship Jesus.

In other words, he's failing to understand what's being demonstrated here was that

Jesus was not now one among of these historic figures,

but that Jesus was the focus of what all these figures were all about.

So Peter wants to build booths to commemorate this great event,

but Jesus' flesh is the booth of God's presence.

Accordingly, Jesus cannot be, as Peter wishes, confined to a location,

but rather Jesus must go to Jerusalem, and the disciples must go with him.

Peter wants to freeze this moment. He wants to freeze this moment.

He wants to stay on the mountain.

And I don't know about you, but we often feel that same way, don't we?

A powerful spiritual moment happens in our life, and we just want it to stay there.

We just want this moment to stay there.

Instead of asking God, so how is this moment preparing us?

How is this moment preparing me to ultimately join you in your mission in the world?

Because that's what any great move of God is about.

Anyways, it's not about the moment, but it's about what God is preparing us for.

It's about the mission.

In verse 5, it continues on like this.

Matthew says,

With whom I am well pleased.

Come on, listen to him.

I was kidding, right? Listen to him.

Listen to him.

When one of the disciples heard this, they fell face down and were terrified.

God interrupts Peter not to correct him sincerely, but to reorient his direction.

Peter's explaining, I'm going to set this thing up, and God's like,

All right, buddy, hold on a second.

I know you're sincere, but you're moving in the wrong direction.

And so he says this.

This is my beloved son.

Listen to him.

Not Moses, not Elijah, not your own assumptions.

Listen to who? To Jesus.

And this command is for anyone who wants to live out the definition of being a disciple of Jesus.

And maybe for those who are kicking the tires about who Jesus is.

These words serve as an invitation to consider why those who identified as disciples of Jesus were still told to reorient their focus on Jesus.

Like those who are already following him were told, hey, you need to follow him.

You need to listen.

Well, we're his followers.

Why this reminder?

If you're someone who's kicking the tires on faith and you have some assumptions about what it means to be a follower of Christ,

this is just very interesting for you to note.

Now, if you're a follower of Christ and you're not afraid of being called a hypocrite,

I think you would admit, like I would, that sometimes we need God to interrupt our holy moments and remind us of the call to daily submission

that Jesus talked about in our passage last week, right?

When he said, if you want to be my follower, you must what?

Take up your cross.

Follow me.

But more importantly, I think we need to be reminded that we are people.

We who are followers of Jesus are people who must listen to the voice of Jesus above every voice that calls for our attention.

Jesus came up.

He touched them and said, get up.

Don't be afraid.

Verse eight.

When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus alone.

Jesus, the one who is shining in divine glory, sees their fear, reaches out, touches his disciples, and then he encourages them.

And then when they open up their eyes, they see the only thing that matters in this moment.

And really, honestly, the only thing that matters in any moment of our lives.

What do they see?

Jesus alone.

Christ alone.

And as they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, don't tell anyone about the vision until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.

Now, listen, Jesus cares about truth.

Some people read this and are like, what is Jesus doing?

Doesn't he care about truth being declared out loud?

He's the Messiah.

Why would he tell his disciples not to say what is true?

Jesus cares about truth, but he also cares about timing.

He cares about timing.

He knows people would misunderstand this moment if they shared it before his resurrection.

Jesus knows his disciples would be tempted to talk about his glory, but Jesus, Jesus had a greater, greater thing he wanted to do in their lives.

He had a greater teaching he wanted them to understand.

They were fixated on Jesus's glory, but Jesus was still wanting them to understand his cross.

And there are people today who feel that tension, people who want God to reveal himself only in ways that they feel are undeniably glorious or unmistakably divine or irrefutably righteous.

But Jesus reveals that God's plan is actually something deeper.

He points back to the message of his cross, which leads the disciples to ask this question.

Verse 10 says this.

So the disciples ask him, why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?

Jesus replies to him, well, Elijah is coming and will restore everything, he replied.

So the disciples here, they're obviously confused.

Jesus is saying all this stuff and they're like, okay, wait, hold on a minute, Jesus.

We know that the scripture says that Elijah must come back first.

They understand the Old Testament scriptures.

They know that a prophet named Elijah was supposed to come before the Messiah.

But then they just saw Elijah on the mountaintop.

So they're confused.

Like, wait a minute, we were always told that Elijah would come before, but we knew you, right?

I mean, we read in the last chapter.

Peter goes, you are the Christ, the Messiah, the son of the living God.

And so everything is coming together now and they're confused.

And what do we make of this?

Well, I love what Tom Wright, one of my favorite theologians, he says this.

The disciples are clearly puzzled.

They have just declared that Jesus is the Messiah.

And now they've seen him conversing with Moses and Elijah.

Surely if he was the Messiah, Elijah would have appeared first, not halfway through his work.

Jesus's answer shows that the timetable has moved on without them realizing it.

The timetable was correct, but what they had missed was that John the Baptist was Elijah.

Now, how is this relevant?

Like, why is this even relevant?

Like, for us to talk about?

I think that's just a fair question.

Because if the disciples, here's how I think it's relevant.

If the disciples could misunderstand the work of God while literally standing next to him,

while sitting under his teachings, while witnessing his miracles, partnering with him,

going out with him two by two to heal the sick, take care of the poor,

well, so could I.

If they could misunderstand, so could you.

And this isn't meant to shame you.

This is meant to understand just how great the grace of God is.

That your doubts or your misunderstandings of what God is up to

do not mean that you have somehow excluded yourself from God's will or God's favor.

He is not threatened by your doubt or your misunderstandings.

And what we should do when we find ourselves in these moment,

is instead of being filled with shame or trying to come up with excuses,

is actually lean in and do what God instructs his disciples to do.

Hey, listen to Jesus.

Listen to Jesus.

Listen to what he would want to say.

We go on to verse 12, it says this,

but I tell you Elijah has already come and they didn't recognize him.

On the contrary, they did whatever they pleased to him.

Some of you remember as we went through Matthew, what did they do to John the Baptist?

They made him a spectacle, they cut off his head and they put his head on a platter.

They did whatever.

Can you imagine at this point all the light bulbs were going off in all the disciples' heads?

And it did, as we'll see, in the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer in the same way.

Can you imagine what was going on in the hearts of those disciples?

Verse 13, and the disciples understood that he had spoken to them about John the Baptist.

I think it's funny that Matthew says Jesus didn't say explicitly,

oh yeah, by the way, that was my nephew.

My cousin, not nephew, cousin, that was my cousin, John the Baptist, Elijah.

Jesus makes himself clear and doesn't even have to say the name.

And I think that is kind of what Jesus usually does.

We find clarity about what God is up to, not because he finally speaks clearly,

but because we are finally asking the right questions in the right direction.

And so the disciples immediately understood that John the Baptist,

who was a relative of Jesus, was the one who filled the role of Elijah, as told by the scriptures.

Not because Jesus was super clear about it,

but because they finally asked the right questions to the right person.

God did keep his promise, but the disciples missed it

because they were expecting someone or something different.

And that really isn't anything different than what happens today, right?

We miss the work of God not because he's absent,

but because he's simply working in ways that we did not anticipate.

But just as Matthew begins to paint a picture where it seems like the disciples were starting to understand,

they're starting to get this picture, oh, we get this.

Okay, I mean, you are, we thought we were the Messiah,

but then we saw this thing on the mountaintop and like, okay, you are definitely the Messiah.

And then you tell us like, oh, Elijah did come.

Of course it was John the Baptist.

Of course, a voice, Carliam, it makes sense now.

We get it.

Matthew begins to paint a dramatically different story.

Look at this starting in verse 14.

He says this.

When they reached the crowds, a man approached and knelt down before him.

Lord, he said, have mercy on my son because he has seizures and suffers terribly.

He often falls into the fire and often into water.

I brought him to your disciples, but they couldn't heal him.

And so from the mountaintops to the realities of the everyday life,

we see a desperate father with a desperate request for his son.

He has tried to find help from the disciples and nothing they could do helped.

And it seems like this that strengthened my confidence in the reliability of Matthew's gospel.

I never know if you think about it in this way.

If someone were inventing a story to make about Jesus to look impressive and his followers to look competent,

this is not how you would write it, by the way.

No one trying to build a polished religious system would put the glory of Jesus on a mountaintop

right next to the public failure of those who were said to be following this man.

Yet Matthew includes it.

He puts these scenes side by side because he's not trying to write this heroic legend of Jesus Christ from Nazareth.

He's reporting what happened.

He's just telling you, look, this is what happened.

And listen, that kind of honesty is the mark of someone who's committed to telling the truth,

not just what makes the movement look good.

Because when he admits that the disciples totally messed up, remember, he's one of those guys.

He's one of those guys who couldn't help, who couldn't do anything.

And so the gospels, I believe, tell the whole story of Jesus.

The glory on the mountains and the struggle on the ground.

Verse 17 tells us, if he does, it goes on like this.

Jesus replied, you unbelieving and perverse generation, how long will I be with you?

How long must I put up with you?

Bring him here to me.

And then Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him.

And from that moment, the boy was healed.

When Jesus responds to this father's report that the disciples could not help his son,

his words are strong, we can admit that.

We couldn't perverse generation.

But notice who he's speaking about.

He's not condemning the father, and he's not shaming the boy.

R.T. France and other commentators point out that Jesus is actually speaking about this generation around him.

Which, by the way, not only includes the scribes and the Pharisees, those who would think that Jesus really is a blasphemer,

but it also includes his own disciples who are standing there.

Their failure was not because they tried something difficult and fell short.

No, they tried. They tried.

Their failure came, listen, from the direction of their trust.

They acted as if they had power within themselves.

In other words, they attempted to act with borrowed authority while disconnected from the one who gave it to them.

You remember the story. Jesus sent them out.

You go two by two, and you're going to do this.

And so they borrowed on this thing that they knew Jesus had sent them to do.

And they're like, well, Jesus did this in the past through us.

We laid hands on the sick, and they recovered.

So here's another sick person.

Well, we can just, there's something special about these hands now.

I got the power. Right? Right?

That's probably why I'm probably overdoing it.

But we can imagine.

What we do know is that their trust was misguided somehow because Jesus needed to reorient it.

And then the very next breath, Jesus says this, bring him to me.

Bring him to me.

Jesus doesn't step back. He doesn't hesitate.

He doesn't shame the Father for asking this request.

He simply steps in where his disciples could not.

And Matthew wants us to see that Jesus succeeds immediately where his disciples failed completely.

Let's not forget, Matthew is admitting he's part of that failure.

The question is, why would he admit this? Right?

Why would he admit this?

Because the failure, here's the reason why.

At least I think so.

Because the failure of the disciples highlights the sufficiency of Jesus.

That their weakness actually exposes his strength.

That their inability actually reveals God's authority.

And this is one of the central lessons of this moment.

That spiritual work cannot be done apart from dependence on Jesus.

Like if you want anything of spiritual value to happen in your life, it will not, cannot happen without Jesus.

And the second one is like it.

There is no situation beyond his reach when he is the one who acts.

There is nothing God can't do when God is the one we're trusting to do.

Verse 19 says this.

Then Jesus rebuked the demon, that's 18, and it came out of him.

And from that moment the boy was healed.

Then the disciples approached Jesus privately and said,

So, Jesus, congratulations.

Very good.

I have a question for you.

Why couldn't we do this?

Or as they say, why couldn't we drive it out?

Now I don't know about you, but I can feel the honest desperation in their question.

They know they failed.

They know Jesus succeeded.

But they want to understand what the difference was.

And they're probably expecting Jesus to give them a method, a step to follow, maybe a technique to be repeated.

Well, here's how you do it.

What you got to do is you got to put your right foot out, put your right foot in.

Got to put your right foot out, shake it all right.

They're expecting something.

But listen, what does he do?

Actually, Jesus doesn't give them a method.

Instead, he redirects them.

Look at this in verse 20.

Because of your little faith, he told them.

For I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will tell this mountain, move from here to there.

And it will move.

Nothing will be impossible for you.

A while back, I think it was last year, maybe a couple years ago, I was heading to Emily's soccer game.

And it was, I asked where the game was.

And I was told it was at SLP High School.

I was like, we've already established, I cannot get anywhere.

So what do I do?

Hey Siri, give me directions to SLP High School.

So I get on the highway, I start following directions.

Turn right in 500 feet, take 169 South.

Now, if you're thinking of the SLP High School that my daughter was at,

you already know that 169 South from my house is not the way that you get to the SLP that my daughter was at.

Because the directions were taking me to St. Louis Park High School.

And my daughter was at, guess where?

Spring Lake Park High School, 17 miles in the opposite direction.

Okay, right?

And so the problem was not my effort.

I was committed to getting to my, I was, in fact, it was so funny.

I was so early, because she was always like, why are you always getting there late?

I'm like, okay, I'm not going to be late.

I left early.

I was like, I'm going to be here early.

I'm going to be here on time.

I was actually driving like on the right lane.

That's how confident I was about heading to this game.

I was in the right lane during rush hour on 169.

Does that tell you how much ahead of time I was on?

So I was, and then all of a sudden, honestly, I don't remember how I figured out I was going the right, wrong direction.

I think actually my wife, she's like looking on the fine means.

Like, why are you, why are you like going towards the mall?

Like, I'm like, I'm going to SLP.

She goes, Spring Lake Park, not St. Louis Park.

I'm like, oh.

The problem was not my phone, right?

It was definitely headed in the direction that I asked it to go.

The problem was the direction I aimed my trust in.

And there seems to be a popular way that a lot of people like to look at Jesus's faith like a mustard seed illustration.

You've probably heard this.

It sounds like this.

Look, God, all he needs from you is faith like a mustard seed.

Do you know what a mustard seed looks like?

Family.

Right?

Okay.

I'm just, I make for like, right?

There's these people who are like, all you need is just a faith, faith like a mustard seed, and you can move mountains.

Can I get an amen?

Okay.

I didn't really expect that, but that was pretty good.

Right?

We hear people say things like that.

The question is, is that what really Jesus is saying?

Maybe to some prosperity gospel teachers, but not according to the collective scholarship of Bible scholars and theologians over centuries.

If you actually look into this passage of scripture, what you will find is something that I think Tom Wright summarizes best in his commentary when he says this.

The secret, of course, is that the size of the faith isn't important.

Really?

Oh, I've got to talk to that last pastor.

That's between you and that last pastor.

What's important is the God in whom you believe.

If you want to see the moon, the size of the window you're looking through isn't important.

What matters is that it's facing in the right direction.

A tiny slit in the wall will do if the moon is that side of the house.

A huge window facing in the wrong direction will be no good at all.

That's what true faith is like.

The smallest prayer to one true God will produce great things.

And the most elaborate devotions to a God of your own making or indeed someone else's will be useless or worse.

On the mountain, we see the glory of Jesus.

And in the everyday world below, we see the weakness of his disciples.

Both scenes lead us to the same truth.

What is that?

Even a small measure of trust in the right direction can open a life to the work of God.

So the question, I think, when we read a passage like this, like where are the three points?

I don't have three points.

That was for the baby dedication.

This is just one.

Where in your life is Jesus inviting you to aim your trust at him?

Like what circumstance are you in that you're trying to navigate and you think you're asking Jesus, but you're really not?

Where do you need to reorient your trust to him so that if needed, even the mountains could move?