WEBVTT

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Grace mercy, and peace to you from God the father and from our Lord

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and Savior Jesus Christ.

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Section of scripture will be reflecting on today while Peter was still

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speaking a bright Cloud covered them and a voice from the cloud said

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this is my son whom I love with him,

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I am well pleased listen to him.

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Name of the Father the Son and of the Holy Spirit

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Amen. Listen to him.

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That's the way that it's typically translated into English for us God

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the Father speaks to Peter, James and John in the Mount of

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transfiguration and tells him to listen to him.

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That is he wants them and by extension he wants all of us also to

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listen to Jesus.

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The Greek however, is even more emphatic Ακουετε αυτου out to it reads.

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For those few of you who like to parse Greek verbs.

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That's the present imperative active second person plural of Ακουετε αυτου 

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the Greek verb meaning to hear.

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Which means if we want a more accurate English rendering of what the

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heavenly father is commanding here in this verse then we have to

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revert back to the old English as we found in life as we find it like

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in the in the King James version of the Bible where it more accurately

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reads like this.

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This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased hear ye him.

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Ακουετε αυτου to hear ye him.

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I learned an interesting little factoid when I was getting ready to

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preach the sermon.

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In the judeo-christian tradition, we are pretty unique.

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See in all the other ancient near Eastern religions and in Greek

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mystery religions and in Oriental gnosticism great stress has always

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laid on the fact that man understands God and man gets to know God

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and man gets closer to God by seeing what God wants to show him.

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In other words the content of God's revelation to man in all these

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false religions consists more in seeing

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rather than in hearing.

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The emphasis is quite different in the Old and New Testaments.

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To be sure God does appear to certain people at certain times

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revealing himself to them in ways that they can actually see.

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But just think about that.

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More often than not when God shows up

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it's to give someone a word or a message that they are to carry to

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others and speak to them so that everyone can hear and not so much see

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God so that everyone can hear what God is thinking and doing and

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revealing about himself.

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In biblical religion it is typically by hearing that we get God.

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It is in our hearing of his word that he reveals himself to us.

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It is the ear and not so much the eye that receives God's divine

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revelation for us

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and for our salvation.

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You just look at what's going on in our text for today.

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Yes, there's yes, there's a lot to see and to look at yes.

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There's Moses and Elijah standing on the mountain next to the

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transfigured and Sunburst.

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Bright Jesus.

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Yes.

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There's a bright Shekinah The Cloud of Glory that envelops everyone on

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the top.

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Yes, there is a lot to see.

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But what's the point of it all?

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What ultimately is the Father's message to the disciples and to us?

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Well, it's this.

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That you see my beloved Son for who he is is important.

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But that you hear what he has to say

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is even more important.

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So hear ye him.

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Present imperative active

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second person plural

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Ακουετε αυτου 

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it is a command.

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All right.

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But is often the case when the father speaks about his son, there's

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also promises connected to it.

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Promise being that Jesus really is worth listening to

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that when we hear Jesus we hear words of love and life and salvation

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that if we continue in his word, we are truly his disciples.

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And will know the truth.

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The truth will make us free.

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God the Father is promising here that as we hear his Son good things

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will happen.

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And as we share the words of his Son with others good things will

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happen to them as well.

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Because in Jesus we have the words of the prophets made more certain.

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in Jesus

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we have the Word made flesh.

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In the past God spoke to our forefathers the prophets it many times

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and in various ways.

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But in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son will be

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appointed heir of all things and through him

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he made the universe.

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The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of

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his being sustaining all things.

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How, how is Jesus sustaining all things?

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The Son is the radiance of God's glory in the exact representation of

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his being sustaining all things by his powerful word.

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In other words brothers and sisters anytime anyone hears Jesus they

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are getting God's best and final word anytime anyone hears Jesus

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they're getting plugged into the life,

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that really is life.

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Anytime anyone actually hears Jesus

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they're actually receiving what he says.

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I am the resurrection and the life he who believes in me will live

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even though he dies.

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And whoever lives and believes me

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will never die.

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That all that is what comes from listening to Jesus.

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That's what happened when we hear ye him present imperative active

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second person plural of a cool.

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It is a command to be sure but is it also an invitation that has a

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promise attached to it

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that goes way way way beyond everything that God has ever said or done

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before.

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When back in the days when I was still teaching homiletics around

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this joint.

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One aspect of preaching that I absolutely was fanatical about was my

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insistence that all our sermonizing has to be for the good of for the

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sake of and for the betterment of our hearers.

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You can share all kinds of good true pure biblically sound and

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theologically correct information from the pulpit.

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I would tell my students but if your listeners aren't getting aren't

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better off after the sermon than they were before then you may be

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speaking and you may even be teaching but you sure aren't preaching.

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Because preaching real preaching always helps our hearers real

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preaching always meet our hearers where they are and take them to where

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the biblical text wants them to be. Real preaching brings the

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crucified and risen Christ to them in vivid visual and vital ways, and

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he

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changes them for the better. And they go home knowing just knowing that

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during the sermon they were actually hearing from the Risen Christ

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himself.

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They were actually in the presence of Jesus.

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So the question before us today is this.

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What are you willing to do?

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What are you willing to say?

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What are you willing to give up?

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What are you willing to take on?

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What are we willing to sacrifice?

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What are we willing to become so that the generations that come behind

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us are actually able to hear the Gospel when we share it with them. As

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a preacher as a leader as one who will set an example for your flock

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to follow.

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What price are you willing to pay so that they hear?

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So that they actually hear the gospel.

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Saint Paul, you know,

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became all things to all people

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so that by all possible means he might save some that's what I want to

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be.

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That's what I want to do.

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That's the way I'd like to live and be remembered.

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I think you would too.

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We want that kind of love and that kind of concern and that kind of

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humility coursing through our veins.

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We want our words and our actions our lives and our Ministries to look

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and sound like that.

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We want to be the hands and feet and especially the voice of Jesus

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that the Holy Spirit uses to bring many people to faith in Jesus.

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Because our children need us to be like that right now.

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Our children's children need us to be like that right now.

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This Lost Nation.

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Needs us to be like that

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right now.

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The love of Christ compels us

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and the love of Christ empowers us

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as we hear ye

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him.

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The name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Please stand if you're able for the hymn.