Text: Luke 9:28–36
Topic: Following Christ through the valleys of life

Introduction
• Illustration: Galli tells the story of explaining heaven while at his father-in-law's visitation.
• We all ask questions about heaven, wondering what it will be like.
     -  Illustration: Galli shares examples of how culture views heaven.
• The Transfiguration is about heaven and what the journey is like to get there.
     - Luke 9:27
• Heaven is a place of community, but it is most significantly a place of glory.

Glory is about light.
• First of all, glory is about light—a cleansing light.
     -  Illustration: Archeologists use a laser light to burn off the dirt and smudge on unearthed
     artifacts.
• In God's providence and by his glory, he cleans up the dirt and smudges in our lives.

Glory is about honor.
• Glory is also about honor.
     -  Illustration: Galli once visited the home of honored quarterback Roger Staubach.
• That's the type of honor and glory we will receive in heaven.

Glory is about fulfillment.
• Glory has to do with fulfillment.
     - Illustration: Galli looks at how an extended family, captured in a photograph, shows the fulfilled "glory" of the patriarchs.    
• Illustration: These three ideas—light, honor, and fulfillment—come together in a very common social event we have in most cultures: a wedding.
• Transition: But what's the journey like on the way to that wedding—to that mountaintop and its transfiguration?

We should follow the person of Christ and not the experience. 
• There are a couple of ways people think they can get there; there's Peter's way and then there's God's way.
• Peter wants to preserve the moment, as any human being would want to do.
• God confronts Peter, however, telling him to worship the person, not the experience.  
     -  Illustration: Galli tells a story of healing and his own misdirected perspective.
• Transition: But what does "following him" look like according to our passage?

Following Jesus means choosing our valleys.
• Jesus leads his disciples into the valley of the mundane and sometimes un-miraculous.
• He leads them to the Garden of Gethsemane.
• He leads them on to the hill of Golgotha.
• Only then does he lead them to the Resurrection, inviting them into the kingdom of heaven.
• The way of the Christian life is not to move from glory to glory—although moments of glory and tastes of the kingdom of heaven come our way now and then.
• We cannot avoid the valley; I think we need to choose that valley.

Conclusion
• Illustration: Galli closes with a story of how his daughter Katie chose a valley and was richly rewarded.
• God never asks us to move from our valleys because that's where he leads people—into the valley of the mundane, through the Garden of Gethsemane, to the hill of Golgotha, and then on to the Resurrection and the glory of the kingdom of heaven.