The Message - "Silence Speaks on Mountain Peaks...hearing God's voice"

Join Pastor Tom Helmich as he explores the transformative power of mountain-top experiences, drawing insights from the Transfiguration of Jesus. Discover how moments of divine revelation prepare us for life's challenges, and learn why finding silence in a noisy world is crucial to hearing God's voice.

Key Talking Points:

• The spiritual significance of mountain-top experiences
• Understanding the Transfiguration of Jesus
• How silence and solitude connect us with God
• Overcoming modern distractions to hear divine guidance

Memorable Quotes:

• "The mountain top isn't the destination. It's a preparation for something off the mountain."
• "What if we could start looking for peace in silence, in prayer with nothing to drown out God's voice?"
• "God came down to us so that we didn't have to try to climb a mountain."

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome and Introductions
• 0:43 Gospel: Matthew 17 (Transfiguration)
• 8:25 Understanding Mountain Top Experience
• 16:14 The Power of Silence
• 18:14 Modern Challenges to Spiritual Listening
• 19:14 God Comes to Us
• 22:00 Closing Prayer

Transcript

Tom Helmich: 0:00

Good morning neighborhood. So as you can see, Joe is indeed, thank you not here because I'm not Joe. And you tell by the energy level because I don't, I don't have that. I don't know if he's got espresso flowing through his veins or what the deal is. But a little calmer, a little bit calmer morning. So we're talking about mountain top experiences this morning, and some of us have, may have been on actual mountain tops before, or something that seems like it, and some of us may have had experiences like that somewhere else. And we're going to talk a little bit about that and what it means for us. But first, I'll start with the reading. And this is the transfiguration of Jesus. This is in Matthew, 17 verses, one through nine. Six days later, Jesus took with Him Peter and James and his brother John, and led them up behind mountain by themselves, and he was transfigured before them, and His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became bright as light. Suddenly, there appeared to them, Moses and Elijah talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish. I will set up three tents here, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah. While he was still speaking, suddenly, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, This is my son, the beloved, with him. I am well pleased listen to him. When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus, came and touched them, saying, Get up and do not be afraid. And when they raised their eyes, they saw noone except Jesus Himself alone. And as they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead. Here ends our reading. So the transfiguration of Jesus was a major experience for the for the disciples, and it shaped the church and how that is carried on to us, even still today. But to understand the transfiguration, we have to understand two other things that happened on mountain tops. Lots of things happen on mountain tops. I started looking through the Bible for mountain top experiences, and I got to, like, seven, and I'm like, This is too much. This is Father's Day. Like, we want to go home. We don't want to be here for two hours, right? So I had to simply, you know, get it cut down to the simple ones. And it's three different experiences that are all interrelated. So to understand the transfiguration, we have to understand first Mount Sinai. I've got a picture of Mount Sinai. There's Mount Sinai at the very top. Suppose I've never been there. There's a cave up there, but that's a pretty big, kind of scary looking mountain. This is the mountain that Moses had his encounter with God in. It's a mountain that Elijah had his encounter with God on. It is not the mountain of the Transfiguration. We have no idea what mountain that is. It's not named in the Bible. We know it's nowhere near this one, but we have to understand what happened on this mountain to really understand what happened at the Transfiguration. So the next slide is a picture of an artist rendering of Moses and Elijah. So there's Moses holding up the Tablets of the 10 Commandments, and then there's Elijah being fed by a raven. That's a different part of the story. I couldn't find an artist rendering of just on top of Mount Sinai. But those are the two people, and those two characters, those two people, are very important for the faith of the Jewish people and for us still today as Christians. So at the Transfiguration, Jesus's face shown bright as the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. So Moses, when he went up Mount Sinai and received the law from God, the 10 Commandments on the stone tablets, His face shone dazzling white, shown bright white as the sun, so bright that when he came down to deliver the law to the people, it freaked him out of what's going he had to wear a veil because it was scaring him. And so he'd take the veil off and go back up the mountain and then come back down and put the veil on so he wasn't scaring people because of his face glowing, because they didn't know, I wouldn't know what to make of that. I mean, I've seen sunburn before, but like, glowing bright as the sun, that'd be tough to look at, right? And they didn't have sunglasses, so, you know? So he wore a veil. Moses, on the Mount of Jesus' transfiguration represents the law of the Old Testament. And then there's Elijah. Elijah is a little less well known to a lot of Christians. You remember there's a song saying, I want to go out like Elijah. I. Uh, because in the Bible, that's maybe it's an old Christian song from dating myself a little bit. But there's a Elijah is said to have been taken up to heaven in a chariot of fire. There's never a mention of Elijah dying, just being taken up into heaven in a chariot of fire. And there's a prophecy that said that he would return before the great and dreadful day of the Lord. This is interpreted as meaning he would come to prepare a way for the Messiah. And in fact, later on in the in the Gospels, Jesus is going to say, if you are willing to accept it, talking about John the Baptist. He is the Elijah who is sent to come, who is said to come? So for the disciples, Moses and Elijah were representative of the foundation of their faith. Moses with the law, Elijah as the Prophet. And we gotta remember who Jesus is. When Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment, he said, Love the Lord your God with all your soul, all your heart, soul, strength and mind. And another is like it that you love your neighbor as yourself. And then he said, all of the Law and the Prophets Hang On these two commandments. And Jesus, we know, came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it, and in fulfillment of prophecy, to show God's love for the world and to redeem all of us sinners, for all of us who believe him. So now on the transfiguration, the bright cloud shows up and a voice from heaven. This is my son, the beloved. Listen to him, that sounds an awful lot like Jesus's baptism from last week, doesn't it? But there's a few key differences. If you really look at the details, last week, it says he heard a voice, meaning Jesus heard a voice. We don't know that anybody else heard it. I mean, maybe they did, maybe they didn't, but also, at that point, Jesus had not called his disciples. They probably weren't there. They were fishing and mending their nets and doing these things before they were called to be Jesus's disciples. But now, on this mountain of transfiguration, God was speaking to Peter, James and John, the transfiguration on the mountain wasn't about it's about Jesus, but it wasn't for Jesus. This is a mountain top experience for Peter, James and John, like Moses and Elijah before them. The transfiguration showed them Jesus's glory and Jesus's authority. It showed them that even though throughout all of their lives and all the history of the Jewish people. They've been following the teachings of Moses and Elijah. Now they were to listen to and follow the teachings of Jesus. That's a big shift for them. It's hard to let something go that's entrenched in the very fiber of our identity, of who we think we are. We don't want to let go of it. And that was there then also. But God told them, This is my son, the beloved. Listen to him, and he was present with Moses and Elijah. When he said that, to show them that Jesus stood with among and above Moses and Elijah, they were to follow Jesus. But like Moses and Elijah, who went up the mountain, had an encounter that prepared them for something incredible. The disciples also had to leave the mountain with it. They wanted Peter wanted to build tents and just stay there. What good would it do for God to empower them for the ministry of the church if they never went out and did it? I can't imagine going to seminary and then never preaching the gospel, or somebody going to medical school and never treating the sick, or somebody going to engineering school and never building anything a teacher training to be a teacher and never entering the classroom. The mountain top isn't the point. It's the preparation for Peter, James and John the transfiguration was a revelation from God to prepare them for something off the mountain. Now, evidently they forgot about that when Jesus got arrested, because they sure seemed shaken. Maybe they didn't really realize or understand the totality of what they'd experienced until after in fact, and this is kind of in jest, but I feel like maybe I missed an opportunity for something on a on a mountain top. So I've got a picture to show you here. So this is an Meteora Greece. My wife and I went in January with a group from Wartburg seminary. And so it's pretty high up. As you can see. You can see all the fields and the river and the roads and the houses past me and below me, down below. And this rock wall I'm sitting on. Just below the wall, there are these iron bars that. Stick out about three or four feet with like a chain link mesh on top of it that assume is to keep rocks and cats from falling down the mountain and onto people below, and maybe tourists that sit on the wall like me, that that maybe fall over. It's way up high. Immediate Meteora, the Greek word Meteora, is the same word that we get the word Meteor from. It means lofty or suspended in the sky. And it sure felt like I was suspended in the sky. But now looking back, I kind of and this again. This isn't just I feel like maybe I missed an opportunity, because look at this ray of light coming down that cat. I feel like I should have heard a voice from heaven saying, This is my cat, the beloved, with whom I'm well pleased, pet her, and I'm stuck over here with this cat named Moses, petting this one. I feel like I missed an opportunity, but it was, it was an awe inspiring moment. But does this mean we're supposed to climb mountains to be able to experience God's voice. No, because it's not about our achievement. Remember what God told Peter, James and John, listen to him. We don't have to climb mountains to hear God's voice. We just have to remember the teachings of Jesus and to listen to the teachings of Jesus and to read them in the Scripture and hear them preached. But it's okay if we still crave a mountain top experience. I've got another picture, Meteora. This is taken from a neighboring point. And as you can see here, these high precipices, and you start seeing buildings in some of these high spots, there are six. You can only see three or four of them in this picture if you look really close, there are six Eastern, Orthodox monasteries built up on these high points looking over the edge, because they're one. They're easily defended when there's violence in the area, right? You're going to see the invading army coming for days, and they're going to be winded when they get there. The other side is you can just you can see forever. It's peaceful. There's something awe inspiring and serene about being up there. The sky is bluer. Things are quieter. I have to wonder, like, why is this feeling I was feeling was up there, looking out on the the world below. I start wondering, what is it about mountain tops, and it makes us crave mountain tops and those types of experiences. And I wonder if maybe we feel a sense of closeness or proximity to God, but we know that God isn't up there. God is everywhere, all places and all times, all at the same time, right? So I wonder, what is it? Because it's not an actual proximity to God. Otherwise, you'd have to be an astronaut to be a good Christian, right? But what if, maybe it's just the distance from everything else that helps us to feel close to God, because when we're up that high we are so far from all the distractions and the hustle and the bustle and the noise of life that there's nothing else to do but just sit there in awe and admire the beauty of God's creation and feel that closeness to our Creator. Some of the things you can get when you're on high places like that are perspective and peace. So perspective, you've heard of the 30,000 foot view, versus being down in the weeds, like in business, down in the weeds means all you can see is what's right in front of your face, like you're walking in six foot tall grass. You can't see beyond what's right in front of you. We can't see beyond the concerns of what's going to happen tomorrow or this afternoon. We can't see the big picture. We can't see past our fears. It's hard to discern much of God's creation or of a possibility of hope beyond what's happening right now, because we don't know what is beyond now 30,000 foot view is about seeing the big picture. It's about seeing the totality of everything that's out there. You can't really see much detail, though, maybe like little ants crawling around, if you can even see anything at all, but a spiritual perspective, a spiritual perspective for a mountain top moment we could get from a mountain top type moment can help us to see just how small we really are and how big and amazing and beautiful God's creation really is. Those moments quiet the distractions of the world, and she can show us that there is a hope of something beyond our immediate worries. Hope is easier to comprehend in these moments, because we can see that there's something beyond what's right in front of our face. Now, peace. Do you know what's not at the top of mountains? I. Well, yeah, not a lot on some of them. There's also not a lot of people, because, like some of these, the bus would only go so far, and then you had to walk, and we had to take breaks, and not everybody could make it to the top. There's not a lot of people, no shops, no traffic, no cell phone or internet service on most of the ones I've been on top of there are fewer distractions and noise competing for our attention. So CS Lewis and I know I mentioned this before, because this is something that just makes such great sense to me. In The Screwtape Letters Screwtape talking to a lesser demon in this novel that CS Lewis wrote, he's training him on how to torment people and pull us from God, reveals God the devil's tactic of using noise to distract us from being able to hear the voice of God in the silence and the solitude of a mountaintop, Elijah heard the voice of God in the silence. And so we've got another reading. It's in First Kings, 1911, through 13, and it says this. The voice said, go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by. Now, there was a great wind so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind, an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, a sound of sheer silence. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, What are you doing here? Elijah, he heard the voice and the sound of the sheer silence, a voice that would have been covered up by the distractions of everything else. So I got this picture of Meteora again, where they built all these monasteries. Do any of us know what the sound of sheer silence even sounds like? Something about sitting on the edge of that rock wall and looking out over everything below made it feel very quiet. Fewer distractions. Do we understand what the sound of peace sounds like? We seek peace and distractions. How many of us go home and go through YouTube shorts and Facebook shorts just to distract us so we don't think about the worries of the day. But what if we could start looking for peace, in silence, in prayer with nothing to drown out God's voice? What if we had the ability to push all of these distractions out away from us, to just be there, to listen for the voice of God, to make ourselves available, to set that time apart from everything else in the world, to just be with God and maybe hear nothing. It's not easy, because the world is actively competing for our attention. I set my cellphone up there just in case it you know, I think you need text and the light flashing through my pants, but there's so many things that distract they want to distract us for our attention. I guarantee you, I'd get a couple of texts during the service. How many of us have a smart watch, right? Text messages, phone calls, social media, messages, emails, all these things to distract us. Imagine sitting trying to spend just an hour in complete silence in prayer to listen for the voice of God. How many dings and buzzes we're going to get look at the teenagers today, if you take their phone away from them, they feel anxious because they don't have it, because it's their only sense of peace. We don't know how to just sit in the silence to listen for the voice of God anymore. I don't know that we have the ability to really do that anymore, but I think it's worth trying. But what if we do found out, find ourselves having that mountain top experience, either on a literal mountain or just in a room, praying you can't camp out there, because it's not about that experience. That's not the end. That is a preparation, a revelation, to prepare us to go do something out here with everybody else. The mountain top isn't the destination. But don't give up hope. The mountain reminds us who Jesus is, but just as the disciples followed Him back down the mountain, we can follow Him and His teachings in our daily lives here and now without being on a mountain top. And there's good news that God is down here too. We don't have to seek out a mountain top to find God or to hear God. Voice, because remember that God came to us and Jesus Christ came down to us so that we didn't have to try to climb a mountain. God has come to us, and He died for us and was resurrected for us, and no chaos can distract us or take that away from us. Thanks be to God, if you bow your heads and pray with me, please, Heavenly Father, we we thank You that You have come down to us rather than making us come up to you as a little more Lord. We know we that we can't and we know that we we don't have the willpower to fight the distractions of the world, and we know that the the world tries so hard to be able to distract us from hearing your voice. Lord, we pray that you be patient with us and empower us and help us to still seek you in the silence. Help us to to be able to desire your voice, and to be able to push the distractions away and set the noise aside, and to set time away, to just try to be still and be present for you, to turn away from everything else in the world, to listen for You. And Lord, when we do experience those things help us to be empowered by it, to go out into the world and to share that with other people around us. Lord, we pray that today and every day, you give us those moments of peace and silence so that we can hear your voice and to know what it is that you want us to do in our lives, and we pray these things in Jesus name And all God's people said, Amen. All right. I.