The Bible says he transfigured himself. When you get to a certain level you see everything different. Everything looks different. It’s so amazing. It’s the same Jesus that you had down on the bottom, but appear he’s now showing them the price it pays to see the kingdom and now he reveals himself with glimpses, and he changes. He changed. Now, he changed before them before his raiment. Don’t rush to the raiment before you recognize that the changing of the raiment is a reaction to the changing of Jesus. That when you change, everything connected to you changes, too.
Yeah, yeah, you can’t have a change in raiment if you don’t have a change in Jesus. The clothes didn’t make the man, the man made the clothes. When the man changed, then the clothes changed. Everything that touched him changed because it was connected to him, and Jesus changed before their eyes. The Greek word is “metamorphoó”. It is to go through a metamorphosis. It is me, but it’s not me. I am the same, but I’m not the same. It’s gonna be familiar, but it’s gonna be different. You’re gonna recognize me, but you’re not gonna know me. Transfigured, metamorphosis, to go literally from the silkworm to the butterfly, from the caterpillar to the frog. It is a change in me. Biologically it is me, but it’s not me. Genetically it is me, but it’s not me. Same DNA but different presentation.
I am becoming, I am becoming. I have not become. I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do: I’m forgetting those things which are behind and reaching to those things which are before. You will hear no more talk about the valley now that I’m up on the mountain, because I’m wrestling with what I see before me. I’m not wrestling now with where I came from. I’m wrestling with what is before me. Jesus is not who I thought he was. He doesn’t look like I thought he look. He doesn’t feel like I thought he felt. He doesn’t care about what I thought he cared about.
I knew it was him, but it was not him. I saw him in his glory, in his essence. My juvenile eyes had finally acquiesced to more maturity. I put away childish things. I see another dimension, another facet of his glory and of his wondrous grace, and I apologize for arguing with people because the ushers didn’t have on white socks and that somebody didn’t bake a cake for Women’s Day and all of that. All of that stuff is for the valley, but now that I’m up here on the mountain I see that that was not even important compared to the glory that is set before me.
He is not who I thought he was. Far more glorious. He has transfigured before my eyes. Ooh, glory. He has transfigured, oh, before my eyes and whatever has changed him is so awesome, that it has peeked through the pores in his skin and touched the fibers of the fabric of his garment, until the fibers in the fabric of his garment has gone through a metamorphosis through and the metamorphosis is so awesome. It is so all-engulfing that the writer stumbles over how to describing it, saying there is nothing on Earth to compare it to. “It was a whiteness that I had never seen before”.
You see, in the Bible days, when they got ready to make something white they put it in the fuller soap, and they started stomping on it with their feet, but it never really became truly white because dirty feet can’t make white raiment. So, all of our earthly righteousness is as filthy rags in his sight. We made it better than it was, but we couldn’t make it not this white, not this white. I’ve never seen a white like this white. He said there has never been a white, not this kind of white. He shineth white. This white defies imagination. My linguistical ability collapses on the floor, faints. I’m paralyzed in my vocabulary to describe the dimensions of the whiteness I see. This is not a whiteness of the earth realm. This is a whiteness from heaven. This is whiter than the white on the snowcapped mountain.
His whiteness is so bright, it makes our whiteness look dark, so I almost called this message “Contrast,” because his white was so much whiter that it defied explanation, even though it is revealed on a mountain that is said to be white as snow. I’ll leave that alone, and so there they are on the tops of the mountain, and Jesus has turned white before them and all of a sudden they see Moses and Elijah having a conversation with Jesus.
Now understand the conversation is up here. It is a celestial conversation. Moses is all that God was to Israel. Elijah is all that God will be, because he represents the coming of the Messiah. It was prophesied that before the Messiah came Elijah would come, so they were looking forward to the coming of Elijah. “These are the days of Elijah,” doo-doo-doo. You know, okay, so you know, I just thought that was a good place just to throw that in, you know? It just popped in my head, and so they’re looking at eternity past and eternity future, and Jesus eternity now, and they’re having a conversation.
Now, Peter, James, and John must realize you’re not even supposed to be on this level. It is a privilege to be in the room. See, I worry about the generation we raise today, because we didn’t raise them like we were raised. We were raised that if your parents were in a conversation you shut your mouth. We didn’t raise our kids like that. They got an opinion about everything, and they will say it to anybody, but my mother would greet your lips with the back end of her right hand in the middle of a sentence, and it would be like a holy kiss that reverberated all the way down your throat.
Peter, James, and John would have never been in the room, except for their relationship with Jesus. The reason you gotta see this is important is because when your relationship with somebody brings you into a level that you would not be in, shut your mouth. Come on, baby. Come on. Come on. I want you to tweet this. I want you to tell everybody that when your relationship takes you into a level that you would not have otherwise been, shut your mouth. You do not get in grown-folk’s business.
Keep your mouth shut. You haven’t earned your stripes. You haven’t paid the price. These guys have been dead and resurrected from the dead. The other one’s been caught up in a chariot. You haven’t been through enough to have an opinion. Shut up. You are there only to catch a glimpse of where you’re going. It’s a privilege to be in the room. Stay quiet. You don’t understand the level that this conversation is on. Keep your mouth shut.
Now, Elijah and Moses are talking. I’m gonna bypass the fact that the second miracle is that Peter and them recognized ’em. I don’t even have time to deal with that. I don’t even have time to deal with the fact that Peter, James, and John had to have a certain degree of revelation to even identify who it was, seeing as they had never met them. I don’t have time to talk about that, so I bypass that and go on to the fact that there they are, and they’re privileged to overhear a conversation that they should have been in search of, that they didn’t interrupt it, and here comes… see, I gotta show it to you. I gotta show it to you. Here come Peter. The text says, “Then Peter answered Jesus”.
Now, here is the problem: Jesus ain’t asked you nothing. Jesus didn’t ask you nothing. What? You ain’t got, excuse me. I’m teasing. I’m sorry. Don’t even write me. It ain’t gonna do no good. How come Peter got his mouth in this conversation, saying something in grown-folks’ business? Jesus hadn’t asked him nothing and here come Peter answering him. He is out of his element. He is out of his element, and he is out of order, and yet he, “Oh, it’s good for us..”.. Shut up! Peter come talking about, “It’s good for us to be here, Lord. Let’s build three tabernacles: one for you and one for you and..”. Shut up!
Here Peter has brought all of this stinking thinking up on the mountain with him, and he’s trying to be important on a level that he has not arrived yet and make a contribution beyond his own intellect to build something that God has rejected, on a level that God hasn’t accepted. Are you trying to bring something old into something new? That’s what I wanna ask you. Are you trying to bring something outdated just so that you could make a contribution? Sometimes you ought to just shut your mouth. And what I love about it… I got it. I’m okay. They think I’m older than I am, but I’m good. What I like about it is Peter is up here trying to shine on the mountain like he did in the valley.
Now, let me show you how he shined in the valley. I’ll show you this one thing, and I’m gonna quit. If you go back a chapter Peter was a star. Just one chapter back Jesus was asking them down in the valley, “Who do men say that I am”? And they said, “Some say that thou are Elias and some say that thou are Jeremiah and some say that thou are a prophet come back from the dead”. Then he says, “Who do you say that I am”? The 11 of ’em said nothing. Peter says, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the true and living God,” and he was right. Jesus says to Peter, “Flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto you, but my Father which is in heaven. And upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”.
I’m just fast tracking it a little bit. You must understand that in the valley Peter is a star because he has revealed who Jesus was on his level in a way that is way beyond his peers. He has accessed divine information before the cross. What makes what Peter said powerful is that Peter knew who Jesus was before Jesus went to the cross. Jesus said, “Flesh and blood have not revealed this unto you, but my Father which is in heaven”.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. First of all, you do not put Jesus on the same level with anybody. Jesus is in a class all by himself. That’s number one. Number two, look at the arrogance of you suggesting that Jesus enter into a building project with you. Who are you that you’re gonna tell Jesus what we ought to build together? And then, the Father speaks from a cloud. The cloud comes down and engulfs them. I guess God said, “Let’s get some privacy over this, ’cause I don’t wanna make a fool outta you in front of everybody, so I’m gonna send a cloud down to cover you up and tell you how stupid you are. This is my beloved Son,” not Moses, not Elijah. “This one right here is my Son. Hear ye him. Don’t talk. Shut up. Hear him. I am not talking to you. I’m talking to him. Shut your mouth”!
This is only the second time in the New Testament that we hear the Father speak from heaven. He rolled back the clouds to say, the clouds rolled back for this. “Shut up. This is my beloved Son. You hear him. You don’t talk to him. You hear him. You don’t tell him what ought to be done. You hear him. You don’t assign a project for him to do. You hear him. I did not send him to fulfill your vision. I sent you to fulfill his vision. Shut your mouth”!
And so, I called it, “A Lesson in Humility,” because in the valley Peter looks big, but on the mountain he looks small. There are levels where you must humble yourself and become like a little child and be still and know that God is God. There are levels where you do not interject your opinion or tell God what ought to be done, but you hold your peace and be still and know that God is God. This is a moment of worship, this is a moment of humility and, besides, the Bible said that Peter did not know what he was talking about. It comes right out in the text and Peter, said this, he wished not what he was saying, which was a way of saying he don’t know what he talking about. He’s stupid. Shut up.
The truth of the matter is, you have come to a level where you don’t know what ought to be done. You don’t know what ought to be said. You don’t know what ought to be built. You knew down here, but you don’t know up here. You should shut your mouth and be still and let God accomplish what he wants to do. He did not show it to you for you to build anything. He showed it to you for you to catch a glimpse, just a glimpse, a glimpse. God is a flasher and every now and then he flashes his glory before you, and he’ll let you catch a glimpse of where you shall be and send you back down where you are, just a foreshadowing of your destiny. You’re not supposed to make it happen. You’re not supposed to force anything. You’re not supposed to build anything. The battle is not yours. It belongs to God.
Whatever God showed you, hey, whatever God showed you, he will bring it to pass. You don’t start laying block. You don’t start building footers. Shut up and let God just flash his glory before. I don’t know who I’m preaching to today, but I’m talking to somebody who is trying to carry the load of building something on another level. You don’t have to build nothing on that level. This is God’s doing. He’s gonna be your Alpha, he’s gonna be your Omega, he’s gonna be your beginning, he’s gonna be your ending, and all you have to do is be still and know that he is God, because he has finally brought you to a place where you are not smart.
He has finally brought you to a place where you are not smart. He’s brought you to a place where you don’t know what to do. He’s brought you to a place of humility. He’s brought you to a place of submission. He’s brought you to a place where you begin to recognize that your thoughts are not his thoughts. Your ways are not his ways. Your ideas are not his ideas. You don’t have a contribution to make. Shut up. And when the cloud lifted, they saw Jesus only. When the cloud moves, you will see Jesus only. Everything you saw around him will move and worship begins when you see Jesus only.