Meeting on a High Mountain
“You will be His witness to all people of what you have seen and heard” Ananias in Acts 22:15
Recurrent Thought
A witness is a very important person in a case. A witness gives personal experience of what they saw, heard, felt or tasted. Every Christ-devoted follower is a witness of Christ.
Introduction
Last Sunday the Senior Pastor preached a message from Luke 5 titled “Catching People Alive” from a series named “Rescuing The Perishing”.
In the message, among others, the Senior Pastor said:
“Jesus came to earth to die in place of human beings and reconcile them to God. However before his death, He did two things. FIRST, He taught about the Kingdom of God and everything it represented. SECOND, He raised a community of followers who believed in his teachings of the Kingdom of God and were willing to be propagators of its benefits”.
Today, I will talk more about “Being a Witness and Obeying laws”.
Background
Every person on earth belongs to a kingdom. The truth is a person is either in the Kingdom of God or in the kingdom of Satan. Every person you see is either in the Kingdom of God or belongs to the kingdom of Satan.
For people to move from the kingdom of Satan to the Kingdom of God, God uses witnesses. Acts 1:8 NIV “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
In Acts 22:15 Paul speaking to the crowd in Jerusalem after being arrested quoted Ananias who said of Paul that: “You will be His witness to all people of what you have seen and heard”
In the text we have read in Matthew 17:1-9
- Jesus takes Peter, James and John to a high mountain
- While on the mountain Jesus’ face shines line the sun and his clothes became as white as light. vs 2
- Then Moses and Elijah appear, talking with Jesus
- Peter likes what he is seeing and makes a request. His request shows that he recognised Moses and Elijah. Vs 4
- While Peter was talking, a bright cloud covers Jesus, Moses and Elijah.
- Then a voice is heard from the cloud. vs 5
- The disciples are terrified by the voice and fell facedown to the ground
- Jesus comes and touches them, telling them to get up
- When they looked up, the meeting had ended, Moses and Elijah had left
- As they came down the mountain, Jesus gives them tough instructions on when to say what they had seen. vs 9
Lessons from this Passage:
- A True Witness is one with personal experience
- Peter, James and John witnessed the event
- The disciples saw Jesus’ face shine like the sun
- They saw his clothes become as white a light
- They saw and recognised Moses and Elijah
- They heard the voice of God
- They personally experienced the event as such they were the right people to tell others about the events on the mountain as true witnesses
- Do not bear false witness. Do not give a false testimony against your neibour: Exodus 20:16
- Jesus intentionaly picked the three disciples so that they should witness the event and tell it after His resurrection.
- As Christ Devoted followers and Witnesses, God expects us to Listen and obey instructions
- Two instructions were given: Firstly, by God to the disciples while they were on the mountain; Secondly, by Jesus to the disciples as they were coming down the mountain
- God commands the disciples to listen to Jesus vs 5
- Listening is this text includes hearing and doing what He says - obedience
- In verse 9, Jesus expected them to tell others except he instructed them to keep the information until after his resurrection.
- Keeping secrets…
- Keeping such information required highest levels of discipline and self control
- Jesus instructs them that the exciting things they had seen; the hot news they were carrying is not for immediate sharing.
- Jesus trusted Peter, James and John
- You only tell secrets to people you trust.
- Do not abuse the trust – Keep the secret or you will lose the trust.
- Following instructions - Laws
- In the Kingdom of God, citizens must obey instructions, laws, commandments, precepts inorder the maintain a standard of life as designed by the Creator.
- God designed the creation to function by laws so that there is order.
- Everything that God created is built on laws.
- The key to success in life is obedience to laws
- The power to decide. King Saul was instructed to kill all the Amalekites and utterly destroy all that they had. 1 Sam 15:3&11
- Saul did not do as instructed, he lost the kingdom to David.
Alter Time