The Sovereign King: Surrendering to Christ’s Reign

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:00:00] Our scripture this morning is in Luke 19. While within Luke 19 it has the triumphal entry of Jesus writing in, each story that is within this chapter proclaims how Christ is the King.
[00:00:21] Because what He says and what He does in the whole chapter, the only way He could do that is if He was King of the universe.
[00:00:28] And so I wanted us to look at the whole chapter as we consider that Jesus is our King and then how it impacts us in how we live.
[00:00:48] So here now the reading of God's Word.
[00:00:52] And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho.
[00:00:56] And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, which was the chief among the publicans or the tax collectors, and he was rich.
[00:01:07] And he sought to see Jesus, who he was, and could not for the press or for the amount of people because he was of little stature.
[00:01:18] And he ran before and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was to pass that way.
[00:01:25] And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and saw him and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must abide at thy house.
[00:01:37] And he made haste and came down and received him joyfully.
[00:01:42] And when he saw it, they all murmured, saying that he was gone to be the guest of the man that is a sinner.
[00:01:50] We praise God for that, right?
[00:01:52] because just as he came to Zacchaeus, he comes to us as sinners to save us.
[00:01:58] Verse 8, And Zacchaeus stood and said unto the Lord, Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have taken anything from that man or from any man by false accusation,
[00:02:11] I restore him fourfold.
[00:02:14] And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house for so much as he is a son of Abraham, for the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.
[00:02:29] And as he heard these things, he added and spake a parable because he was nigh to Jerusalem.
[00:02:36] He was near Jerusalem and because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear.
[00:02:43] He said, therefore, a certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return.
[00:02:49] And he called his ten servants and delivered them ten pounds and said unto them, Occupy till I come.
[00:02:58] But his citizens hated him and sent a message after him saying, We will not have this man to reign over us.
[00:03:07] And it came to pass that when he was returned, having received the kingdom, Then he commanded these servants to be called unto him to know or to whom he had given the money that he might know how much every man had gained by trading.
[00:03:27] Then came the first saying, Lord, thy pound has gained ten pounds.
[00:03:31] And he said unto him, Well, thou good servant, because thou has been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities.
[00:03:42] And the second came, saying, Lord, thy pound has gained five pounds.
[00:03:48] And he said likewise to him, Be thou also over five cities.
[00:03:55] And another came, saying, Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin.
[00:04:02] For I feared thee, because thou art an austere man.
[00:04:06] Thou takest up that thou layest not down, and reapest that thou didst not sow.
[00:04:17] And he saith unto him, Out of thy own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant.
[00:04:23] Thou knewest that I was an austere man, or a stern man, taking up that which I laid not down, and reaping that I did not sow.
[00:04:33] Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury, or with interest?
[00:04:44] Then he said unto them that stood by, Take from him the pound, and give it to him that hath ten pounds.
[00:04:50] And they said unto him, Lord, he hath ten pounds.
[00:04:56] For I say unto you, that unto every one which hath shall be given, and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him.
[00:05:08] But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither and slay them before me.
[00:05:18] And when he had thus spoken, he went before ascending up to Jerusalem.
[00:05:24] And it came to pass, when he was nigh to Bethpage and Bethany at the mount called the Mount of Olives, He sent two of His disciples, saying, And as they were loosing the colt, the owners thereof said unto him,
[00:06:07] Why loose ye the colt?
[00:06:09] And they said, The Lord hath need of him.
[00:06:11] And they brought him to Jesus, and they cast their garments upon the colt, and they set Jesus thereon.
[00:06:19] And as he went, they spread their clothes in the way.
[00:06:23] And when he was come nigh, even now to the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen,
[00:06:36] saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the highest.
[00:06:44] And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples.
[00:06:52] And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.
[00:07:02] And when he came near, he beheld the city and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou at the least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace, but are now hid from thine eyes.
[00:07:19] For the day shall come upon thee that thy enemy shall cast a trench about thee and compass thee round and keep thee in on every side and shall lay thee even with the ground and thy children within thee
[00:07:34] and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.
[00:07:42] And he went into the temple and began to cast out them that sold therein and them that bought saying unto them it is written My house is the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves.
[00:07:57] And he taught daily in the temple, but the chief priests and scribes and the chief of the people sought to destroy him and could not find what they might do, for all the people were very attentive to hear him.
[00:08:18] Well, first we see that Jesus in him, he's going from Jericho to Jerusalem.
[00:08:25] uh surrounding this he he heals some blind men he heals uh i think i think it is two going in and one coming out gives them sight so that so that they can see he is there showing that he
[00:08:43] is the messiah because no one has ever heard of opening the eyes of the blind and so then as he is in jericho you know because he's he's done these miracles great crowds are following him
[00:08:58] and zacchaeus wants to see him and zacchaeus was a chief tax collector so he he he had tax collectors under under under him they probably overcharged people he was jewish so you know had that stigma for he and the other tax collectors they had turned on their own people so i guess
[00:09:20] they thought well if i'm in this situation i might as well take advantage of it so zacchaeus was not a good man he had stole from a lot of people that that was why he was saying hey i'm going to give
[00:09:33] back fourfold of what i took from people i mean that's that's that's huge that shows this change that had come about in him and why did he change what brought this about is because of christ and
[00:09:49] his love for him and of of of the lord working in his heart to draw him to christ and so so even as rich as he was he he knew hey something is not right in my life i am missing something
[00:10:04] here is this man who can do things that no one can explain and people were saying this is the messiah and so he's like i have to see him and so zacchaeus runs and he climbs a sycamore
[00:10:17] tree and he's he because he wants to see Jesus and Jesus could have just walked on by right but he stopped and he looked up and he says Zacchaeus I have come for you just like he comes
[00:10:32] to us and he says I want you I want you to come and to follow me and so he goes to Zacchaeus's home and and you again you see this change that happens in in Zacchaeus because God has changed
[00:10:46] His heart has shown him his need for Christ.
[00:10:52] And Jesus says in verse 10, he says, For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.
[00:11:03] How is Jesus saying that? In what manner is he saying that?
[00:11:07] He is saying that in an authoritative way.
[00:11:11] He is saying there is no one else that can save like I do.
[00:11:16] There is no one else that is going to seek after you and after your soul the way that I will.
[00:11:25] He was saying that He is King.
[00:11:27] He is not saying, oh, well, you know, I save one way, Allah saves another, Krishna saves another, whoever else, you know, Joseph Smith or, you know, the Church of Scientology, whatever else it is or even by a person's own wisdom and intellect he's not saying that there's
[00:11:53] other ways of salvation he's not saying that you can ever be good enough on your own to merit salvation he says the son of man has come to seek and to save that which is lost he is saying
[00:12:07] salvation is in him alone and people need to come to him he can only say that if he's the king I believe Pastor Joseph had quoted C.S. Lewis, I think it was last week.
[00:12:22] He says, when it comes to Jesus, that you either think that He is Lord, He is a liar, or He is a lunatic.
[00:12:31] And the only thing that we can, the only conclusion that we can come to in seeing this is that He is Lord.
[00:12:39] And then if you fast forward to the end of the sermon, what it's going to come to is that, is He your Lord?
[00:12:46] Have you bowed to him as the king?
[00:12:50] Because if not, there's only one response.
[00:12:55] There's only one correct response.
[00:12:57] Because the wrong response is what Jesus gave to the servant in this example of him as a master and ruler who goes away to inherit a kingdom and he comes back to give account of his servants.
[00:13:12] and this man had not bowed to him, had not done anything with what Jesus gave him in this coin that he gave to him.
[00:13:23] It says in here that it's a pound.
[00:13:25] That was translated pound because of the King James, but really the word in the Greek is mina, so whatever money that you want it to be.
[00:13:33] He had given him this coin and said, go do something with it to all of his servants, representative of all people.
[00:13:41] and this man didn't want anything to do with the king.
[00:13:46] He said, I'm going to do things my way.
[00:13:48] You're not going to tell me how to live.
[00:13:50] You're not going to tell me what is right and what I should do.
[00:13:55] I'm going to decide that.
[00:13:57] And what was Jesus' response to him?
[00:14:00] He says, take his coin and give it to the one who has ten.
[00:14:03] In the parallel story with a little bit of differences that Jesus says in Matthew, the parable of the talents. Jesus says, take this servant, bind him hand and foot and throw him into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Do you know what that means? It means
[00:14:24] that he was casting that servant out into hell. Again, only the king can say this. Only the king can make this kind of judgment.
[00:14:38] So let's look maybe a little more closely at that story.
[00:14:44] There's some other things there too in what we need to see.
[00:14:51] All right, so if you look at verse 11, it says, And as they heard these things, he added and spake a parable because he was near Jerusalem and because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear.
[00:15:04] That immediately appear thing is really important.
[00:15:08] Because see, the reason that they rejected Jesus as the Messiah was because He was not a political Messiah.
[00:15:15] Was that His purpose was not to come and to defeat the Romans and cast them out and to make Israel on the level of what it was under Solomon, where the glory of Israel was for the whole, you know, overshadowed the whole earth.
[00:15:30] Because He was not that kind of Messiah.
[00:15:32] They were like, eh, you know, get Him out of here.
[00:15:35] crucify him. But he was telling them to show them that the kingdom of God was not going to appear like that. It was going to appear different. But you also have to understand, and many of you
[00:15:48] probably know, was that it was Jesus's plan to be crucified. He had to be crucified. In fact, they wanted to wait till after Passover. And Jesus is like, no, it's going to happen during Passover. So he raised Lazarus from the dead right before this time period. And so when all
[00:16:11] the people started believing in Jesus and calling him the Christ, saying, hey, this has to be the Messiah, the Jews were like, no, we have to kill him now. That's what he wanted because he had to
[00:16:24] go to the cross to die for our sin, to take the full wrath of God against sin on himself. And that is the point that everyone here needs to hear you can never be good enough for
[00:16:38] God on our own it doesn't mean that we're not to try to serve him we are very very much as hard as we can but we're never going to measure up and that's why there's the forgiveness of Christ and that's why there's the grace
[00:16:54] those these people in this story who did not want Jesus to be their king and said It says, we do not want this man to reign over us.
[00:17:05] And the one wicked servant who said how harsh he was and saying that the Lord Jesus will take things that he didn't sow, will take things that he did not do, will make it his.
[00:17:20] And all he is just, he is harsh and stern and you can't trust him.
[00:17:24] Who do you think says that?
[00:17:27] The devil says that, that you can't trust Christ.
[00:17:31] but he is full of mercy and grace he wants us to if we come to him and we confess our sins he will forgive our sins he will wash us as white as snow right i mean praise god hallelujah
[00:17:44] this is the gospel and jesus is a is the good god but yet he is the king and what do you have to do with kings. You bow down. You got to listen to them. You have to follow them. You do not want
[00:18:02] to upset a king, right? Especially the king. This is the point. There is an unending mercy that he will have if we will say that we have to do it his way and not ours. If we will confess our sins and
[00:18:20] say, Lord, show us. When you think about what the apostle James says in James 1, says, if any of you don't have wisdom or you're not sure how to do something, call out and the Lord will give you
[00:18:35] wisdom. He'll give you more than you're asking for. It says, but you need to ask in faith and trust in the King who gives it. All right. In this parable, we also see just a couple more
[00:18:50] things to point out when it says in verse 12 that Jesus said, therefore, a certain nobleman went but into a far country to receive a kingdom and to return.
[00:19:01] Do you know what this is referring to?
[00:19:04] This is Jesus dying on the cross, rising from the dead, ascending into heaven to go and receive the kingdom of God from His Father because He had paid the penalty for sin.
[00:19:18] He had done what we couldn't do.
[00:19:22] And so only He can give forgiveness of sins and give everlasting life.
[00:19:27] And so then He is going to come back.
[00:19:30] And so when he comes back the second time, which is in the future, all humanity will stand before him in judgment.
[00:19:39] That is what is pictured here.
[00:19:41] It's just pictured by ten servants, but it is all humanity.
[00:19:47] And so up to this point, we've only really talked about the evil servant, right?
[00:19:52] Well, there were two good servants, or actually two that were highlighted.
[00:19:57] We don't know about the other seven, but in the parable of talents, There was only three, and the two did what they were supposed to, and they used what the Lord had given them for Him, for His glory, to help build the kingdom.
[00:20:14] And so, brothers and sisters, the question for us is, what are you doing?
[00:20:20] What am I doing for the kingdom?
[00:20:23] Because one day God will come, Jesus will come, and will call us to account.
[00:20:29] and if we said hey you know we had this we had that we you know we were doing this and we didn't have time to live for you and we didn't have time to tell to
[00:20:42] tell of your salvation to other people we didn't have time to help to help this person in your name and so on and so forth what do you think Jesus is going to say to you get out of my sight you wicked servant and he will he's I'll
[00:20:59] never knew you. And he will cast, he will cast the person who says that into hell. And that is what we don't want. See, even the threat of judgment is a proclamation of the gospel. Do you
[00:21:13] hear that? I want you to see that because it is this threat of judgment and the Lord gives us a way out. He says, if you will only come to me and bow to me and confess your sin, he said, I will
[00:21:28] take you in and and help you to live for me and give you my strength I will fill you with my Holy Spirit and your life will be not yours but mine and I will
[00:21:41] live through you and so we all have a choice to make are you going to live for yourselves are you going to live for Christ we have to answer that pretty much every day because even when we have submitted to Christ we still live in
[00:22:00] this body right we still have this willful spirit and it's like you know like our attitude can be and is quite often you know nobody's gonna tell me what to do I'm the boss we might not come across that strongly but that's
[00:22:18] what our spirit is and Jesus says no it is only in in you yielding yourself to me that you will find life says the man or the woman who who seeks to gain life will not find it but the man who loses his life who surrenders to Christ will
[00:22:44] find it and and let me ask you I want all eyes up here which one are you and And that is between you and the Lord.
[00:22:59] And so, in verse 14, it says, But the citizens hated him and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man reign over us.
[00:23:12] So then he calls his servants to account, and then he casts out the wicked servant.
[00:23:20] And I want you to notice, though, in verse 27, but those mine enemies which would not have that I should reign over them bring them here and slay them before me and you might be thinking how could Jesus say that because he's the king
[00:23:38] because at his word people live and people die at his word people have eternal life or they don't but Jesus is different from what they say Allah is because Allah can change his mind you have no
[00:23:55] assurance of salvation in islam but christ says he says he who believes in me has everlasting life end of story the people ask him in john 6 they said what must we do that we may do the works of
[00:24:15] god and he says believe on the one whom the father has sent and believe as in worship as in bow before him as in commit your life and your heart to him and you know that's an
[00:24:29] interesting point when we say commit your heart to Christ it means all of it it doesn't mean well I'm gonna give Jesus this little part but the rest is mine I can I can do what I want over here no he wants all of it and the only
[00:24:44] way that I can stand up here and tell you this is because I'm the same way every day there's this battle in this struggle within me am I going to truly live for God or am I going to live for Christ? And unless you're talking to yourself and saying,
[00:25:00] I'm going to live for Christ, then it's like, then your flesh will win or seem like it's winning.
[00:25:08] All right. So that's that story of Jesus showing how he is king. And so verse 28, then he is going up to Jerusalem and he is going to ride in on a donkey. Why do you think he chose
[00:25:28] donkey and not a big stallion being humble also because he was not going in as a political Messiah right he was going in as the humble king who was the king who was just and having salvation so this is quoted in in in what happens
[00:25:52] in him writing in is actually quoted from Zechariah 9 verses 9 and 10 says Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem!
[00:26:05] Behold, thy King cometh unto thee.
[00:26:09] He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding upon an ass, upon the colt, the foal of an ass, or of a donkey.
[00:26:19] And so Jesus has promised that He would come.
[00:26:23] And actually in Zechariah, we're going through it on Thursday night in men's discipleship, And it is fascinating because in this time in history, Zechariah is looking forward and Alexander the Great's about to come.
[00:26:38] And then after that, when Alexander dies, he has four generals that his kingdom is split up amongst.
[00:26:46] And one of them, a descendant of one of those, is going to be this wicked ruler who is going to bring a pig and sacrifice it on the altar in the temple to Zeus in the temple in Jerusalem.
[00:27:00] And so of all these kind of forces that are coming against God's people, here it is in Zechariah 9 saying, your king is coming to you and he is bringing salvation.
[00:27:14] That he is the one who is going to ultimately deliver you.
[00:27:21] We see in Zechariah 9 verse 10 says, and I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem and the battle bow shall be cut off.
[00:27:31] because Jesus is saying, because I will fight for you.
[00:27:34] Like you don't need to, all these are references to God's people that they will not need to fight from themselves.
[00:27:42] It says, and he shall speak peace unto the heathen or into the nations and his dominion shall be from sea even to sea and from the river even to the ends of the earth.
[00:27:52] He's talking about his messianic kingdom when he comes back, that he is going to rule over everything.
[00:27:59] and so again is Jesus your King and if you say yes does your life show it are you trusting him or are we trusting in ourselves are we truly worshiping him or have we made idols out of things in our lives like money or things or
[00:28:26] relationships or our future and hey what we're going to do and we obsess over these things when jesus says depend on me come to me and i will i will bless you i will i will
[00:28:41] take care of all these things but you have to trust in me and the the list of idols can go on and on and on you know i mean um i'm sure i'm sure that that some of y'all are watching basketball
[00:28:56] right now. You know, I mean, it's kind of like when the NCAA tournament is over and, you know, in certain times of the year, you feel like when there's no sports that come on, it's like this
[00:29:08] drought and you're like, wow, what am I supposed to do now with my time? You know, Satan likes sports too. I'm not saying all sports is bad because I'm, unlike Pastor Joseph, I will watch
[00:29:23] some basketball. I love baseball and Braves fan. I am an Auburn fan. However, if things that we spend time doing take away from us giving ourselves totally to Christ, have we made an idol out of that? We have to be honest with ourselves. This is why we have to examine
[00:29:48] ourselves and to constantly come before him. All right. So as Jesus is, as he's coming to Jerusalem, he shows his omnipotence. He shows his power, but he also shows his omniscience, his wisdom in being able to see even when he's not there. And he tells his disciples, hey, go in and get
[00:30:13] this cold. I mean, Jesus didn't do this ahead of time. There are some people think, well, maybe he did. He didn't. He knew it was going to be there. And he tells them to go get this colt
[00:30:23] and says, if they ask, what are you doing? Why are you loosing the colt? The Lord needs it.
[00:30:28] And they were like, okay, sure. It could have been because there was also a wider group of disciples. So when they said the Lord needed it, could have been related to that. But the Lord in
[00:30:41] his ultimate wisdom had planned this out so he gets his donkey he rides into Jerusalem he rides in on Sunday the day after the Sabbath and people are hailing him as the king of his Israel that they are saying they are saying Hosanna
[00:31:02] blessed is is is is the one who comes in the name of the Lord the king of Israel This goes back to Psalm 118, where it is saying that this is going to happen.
[00:31:16] It was Zechariah 9, but also in Psalm 118 is where we get the word Hosanna.
[00:31:23] It means save now.
[00:31:26] Well, if Jesus is not the ultimate king, then why are we going to cry out to him, save now?
[00:31:32] But see, these people were looking again for a political Messiah.
[00:31:36] Kind of got swept up in the crowd.
[00:31:38] And Jesus knew, I mean, He is the Messiah, He is King, He took their praise.
[00:31:45] But He knew that many of these people were going to be shouting, crucify Him by the end of the week.
[00:31:55] But still Jesus went to the cross because it is only by Him dying in our place that our sins can be forgiven, that we can have eternal life.
[00:32:09] Jesus had to break the power of sin because there's this great verse Romans 6 23 for the wages of the consequences of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord so so if the consequences of sin is death
[00:32:28] when Jesus rose from the dead it showed that he had no sin right that he was perfect so therefore he was able to take our sin upon himself and to pay the penalty for it and so when it says from Zechariah that Jesus has salvation what
[00:32:50] that literally means in the Hebrew is that that we are going to be delivered we are being delivered that only Jesus can deliver us from whatever we are facing whatever you're dealing with you are going through just I want everybody
[00:33:05] to hear me on this you cannot fix it yourself whatever things are going to come. You cannot fix it yourself, but Jesus can. He is the only one who can deliver, and we have to trust him in that. It says that the king is righteous, or that he is just, meaning that he
[00:33:24] is righteous, that he will give us his righteousness. That is the only way that you can stand before God and not be condemned, because by believing and trusting in Jesus, you are taking his righteousness,
[00:33:37] his sinless perfection, and you are taking it on yourself.
[00:33:43] So just as we read Psalm 47 and the call to worship, I mean, just that alone, there are plenty of other psalms that show how Jesus is the great king over all the earth.
[00:34:02] And so Jesus rides in.
[00:34:11] The next day, he doesn't necessarily detail on Luke, but the next day he does go in and he clears the temple, but then he weeps over Jerusalem.
[00:34:25] Verse 41 says, When he had come near, he beheld the city and wept over it, saying, If thou had only known the time of your visitation, then you would have peace.
[00:34:39] What visitation was he talking about?
[00:34:42] He was talking about because of the Jews' rejection of Jesus as the Messiah, that they were going to be destroyed.
[00:34:51] The Romans were going to come in in 70 AD and destroy Jerusalem, and they did.
[00:34:58] And it was uninhabited by the Jewish people until 1948.
[00:35:04] And even then, it wasn't quite the same.
[00:35:07] They weren't able to rebuild the temple, so they weren't able to really worship how they were supposed to.
[00:35:12] And why was that?
[00:35:13] It's because Jesus was the one they were to be worshiping.
[00:35:16] he was the ultimate sacrifice for them and he said you are going to be destroyed if you do not bow to me there it was physically i mean it was it was in a physical sense for us now it is spiritual
[00:35:34] when a person is condemned to hell for not believing in and giving their heart to jesus totally it is called the second death you are alive but you are dead spiritually you're separated from God from all eternity. Brothers and sisters, this is why we share the gospel.
[00:35:54] This is why we tell people to come to Christ. This is why we proclaim the glory of Easter.
[00:36:00] And every Sunday we are able to say Christ is risen. He is alive forever and people need to come to him. But he weeps over the city because he knows that they are not going to believe in him
[00:36:18] as the Messiah, that many of them won't. And he says that they will be destroyed because people were not seeking him like Zacchaeus, because they are refusing his rule as their king. It is because
[00:36:42] that people give Jesus lip service and say, oh, I believe in Jesus. I trust in him. And we say he is our king and then our lives don't look anything like it and our hearts don't look anything like
[00:36:53] it. And then as Jesus goes in and he, in anger, in righteous anger, he turns over the tables in the temple where they are collecting money for sacrifices and they are charging exorbitant amounts. They are trading money at inflation rates. They are overcharging for these sacrifices
[00:37:19] that people have to worship, and they are filled with greed in trying to do, trying to find anything that they can to satisfy them other than Christ Himself.
[00:37:34] God calls us to worship Him, to worship Jesus and Him alone.
[00:37:40] Nobody else. Totally yield ourselves to God.
[00:37:45] And even though people don't want the salvation of Jesus, that is why he went to the cross. And he wants us, he wants to work through us to go out and to find people who will listen and who will come to Christ. I love it when you have
[00:38:09] opportunities to explain the gospel to people, whether it is one person or whether it is a bunch of people. And when people's eyes are locked on you, you know that they're listening and you know
[00:38:22] God is stirring in their heart. When people are looking away, I'm not talking about just in a sermon, okay? There's a length of time for the sermon. But when you're explaining the gospel and people are locked in, it's because you're speaking to their heart because God is dealing
[00:38:40] with them. People that are not paying attention to you are not concerned about the gospel.
[00:38:46] But God wants us to go after people, to bring them to him.
[00:38:53] And if it's not at that particular time, it might be later.
[00:38:56] We are to continually to preach and to live the gospel, to bring people to Jesus.
[00:39:04] Another thing, just so you understand, when Jesus went into the temple and turned over the tables and was telling them, says, my house, it's his house, right?
[00:39:18] He says, my house is to be a house of prayer for all people.
[00:39:21] When you look back at Isaiah 56, it says, but you have made it a den of robbers.
[00:39:25] I believe it's somewhere in Jeremiah.
[00:39:28] I want to say Jeremiah 7, but they are selling these animals in the court of the Gentiles.
[00:39:38] And if the temple is supposed to be a house of prayer for all people, and the Gentiles can only, from all the other nations who are not Jewish, can only come to this court and pray how are they supposed to pray when at the supermarket
[00:39:54] and so oh and another thing we mentioned this in sunday school you know you you all have heard of the of the day of atonement or maybe you've seen on the calendar yom kippur well yom kippur the
[00:40:08] jewish holiday or the jewish holy day really of what the day of atonement was it points to christ that only he can atone for our sins but it was that day once a year where the high priest went
[00:40:21] into the holy of holies and took the blood of a sacrifice and sprinkled it for the sins of the people and the sins of the nation and they had just done that on the saturday before and
[00:40:33] so when jesus goes into the temple on monday morning he sees this like this place is defiled because you you you you all are what you're doing with money and you're denying prayer for people
[00:40:47] You were turning them away from me.
[00:40:50] And so he just goes ballistic.
[00:40:55] But brothers and sisters, you have to understand that is how much Jesus cares about your soul.
[00:41:02] That is what drove him to the cross so that our sins would be forgiven, so that we would have salvation.
[00:41:13] So in all these things, it shows us that only the king would do these things.
[00:41:21] And Jesus is our king.
[00:41:23] and He wants us to come and to bow before Him.
[00:41:32] And so, dialing it in just a little bit more, what does that mean our lives are to look like?
[00:41:40] Well, this is just a sampling.
[00:41:43] I mean, we could be here for another couple hours.
[00:41:46] Not that I'm going to, but we could be here for another couple hours if we were to deal with it totally.
[00:41:51] But some of the things that it means in what our lives look like in Christ as our King means that He is the absolute Lord of your life.
[00:42:04] It means that you are not in control of your life.
[00:42:07] That's how we need to see it.
[00:42:09] He is, and we need to go to Him.
[00:42:12] It means that we are to obey Him totally and to follow His Word.
[00:42:19] How often do you get a chance to read your Bible?
[00:42:25] Maybe a few times a week, maybe once a week, maybe once a month.
[00:42:31] How long do you read?
[00:42:34] Now, this is not to make you feel guilty, but just to say if God has in His Word, in the Scriptures, how we are, what we are to believe about Him, how we are to live, how we are to obey Him.
[00:42:48] If He shows us how we are His Savior, why are we not in the Word more?
[00:42:54] Joshua says that we are to meditate on His Law or on the Word day and night, every day.
[00:43:03] I mean, maybe we need to stop watching as much basketball.
[00:43:09] Maybe we need to stop making plans for all the other things that we're going to do and focus more on Christ.
[00:43:17] I'm not saying you're not supposed to enjoy life.
[00:43:19] I'm not saying you don't have responsibilities.
[00:43:22] But in all these things, are we truly putting Christ first?
[00:43:27] And only you know the answer to that.
[00:43:30] And you know the answer and I know the answer for areas that we need to improve in.
[00:43:35] But we do have a promise from Jesus that if we come to Him and confess these things and say, Lord, I want to do better, help me to do better, He will be like, man, I'm so glad that you asked me that.
[00:43:46] I've been waiting for you to ask me that.
[00:43:49] And He will help us.
[00:43:52] Knowing that Jesus is our King means that you want to serve Him only, that you want to please Him.
[00:43:59] it means that you feel badly when you don't do you have this conviction and it means that we want to worship him every single week kind of a rhetorical question or just kind of asking this
[00:44:18] between you and god how do you view coming to church do you see it as that we have to be in church every week as a duty like it's a it is a have to thing i i have to be there i'm not sure
[00:44:34] why God says, but, you know, that people say we're supposed to be there. But, you know, sometimes I have other things going on. But God says we are to worship him and he is our king. And so the thing
[00:44:48] I'm trying to is not to make you feel guilty, but that we should want to worship him. We should want to make that time. I mean, he says that we are to keep the Sabbath day holy. That is not a
[00:45:01] recommendation. That is a commandment. Now, when you break it, will he forgive you? Yes. But sometimes we have that sin in our heart. Like if I didn't have to go to church, I could go do this,
[00:45:15] this, and this. I could get this, this, and this done. And, you know, we either say to our husband, to our wife, to our parents, to anybody else, well, you know, I'd love to come with you and
[00:45:28] do that, but I can't because I got to go to church. And we are sinning in our hearts.
[00:45:33] And we have to repent of that.
[00:45:37] He is the King.
[00:45:40] And when He demands our worship, it's not because He has to have it.
[00:45:44] It's not because Jesus has to feel good about Himself.
[00:45:47] But He knows that it's only when we come and yield ourselves to Him that He can work in us, that He can draw us close to Himself.
[00:45:58] He can give us clarity and peace and joy that we didn't even think was possible.
[00:46:05] and so I wanted to close with passage from Isaiah 55 because even though this king has demands on us the verse and the thought that came to mind it's like well how can we show how positive Christ is
[00:46:30] and how loving he is and the verse that jumped in my mind is that he will abundantly pardon and you know I'm a pastor I should know where that is and I had to Google that
[00:46:40] all right so now Isaiah 55 all right but so let's look let's let's look at that because this describes our God and our King that calls us to worship Him it's like when when I read this this should make you want to worship Him all the
[00:46:59] time to not forsake the gathering of the saints to not forsake his word to want to do it his way rather than ours because of how good he is he says ho everyone that thirsteth come ye to the waters he that has no money come ye buy
[00:47:18] and eat ye come buy wine and milk without money and without price and see even there he's saying you all who are concerned about money that you either have to get more you don't have enough he's like I'm giving it to you for free
[00:47:31] free and i'm going to to provide for you so you don't have to worry about money says wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which satisfieth not it's like
[00:47:44] we do all these things to fulfill us and make us satisfied he's like you're missing it because it is only in me hearken diligently unto me and ye and eat ye that which is good and let your soul
[00:47:58] delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear and come unto me. Here and your soul shall live.
[00:48:07] And I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David, by Jesus's death and resurrection. And you believing that and trusting in that, he has made a covenant with you that is everlasting, that cannot be broken. But we have to receive it and we have to pledge
[00:48:27] ourselves to him. Verse four, behold, I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people. Behold, thou shall call a nation that thou knowest not and nations that
[00:48:40] knew not thee shall run unto thee because of the Lord thy God and for the Holy One of Israel, for he hath glorified thee. And so that in looking to David and then looking to Christ
[00:48:53] and is saying that we are the nations that knew not God, right?
[00:48:57] That we're not the Jews.
[00:48:58] And He has saved us and brought us in.
[00:49:03] Seek ye the Lord while He may be found.
[00:49:06] Call ye upon Him while He is near.
[00:49:09] And this is verse 7.
[00:49:10] This is kind of one of the key verses.
[00:49:13] Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts.
[00:49:18] let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon that sounds like a king that I want to serve that I want to love because of his great love for me
[00:49:35] and what Christ did for us and the Lord says for my thoughts are not your thoughts neither are my ways your ways my ways saith the Lord and he's not saying there's a put down to us.
[00:49:49] He is saying that I love you and will provide for you and take care of you as your king, even when you are wayward, even when our hearts betray him.
[00:50:03] He says, because my thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are not your ways.
[00:50:10] For as high as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
[00:50:17] for as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven and returneth not hither but watereth the earth and make it bring forth and bud that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater
[00:50:28] so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth it shall not return unto me void but it shall accomplish that which I please and it shall prosper in the thing where I send it to.
[00:50:43] God's word and his love for us that was Christ he has sent it out to us he wants for us to follow him to pledge ourselves to him and for him to work in us
[00:50:56] but we have to submit and bow ourselves to him as our king and to not go back to look for him to him for total fulfillment and you will know the joy and the power of Christ's resurrection
[00:51:13] the one who triumphed over death for us So hallelujah and praise the Lord.
[00:51:21] Let's look to him in prayer.
[00:51:25] Oh Lord Jesus, Lord, we do thank you and praise you.
[00:51:33] Lord, for there is no one like you.
[00:51:36] You are the one who took on, who became human for us.
[00:51:43] You took on our nature so that you could die for our sins.
[00:51:48] we thank you that you are perfect that there is no one greater than you and lord that you have paid for our sins that you have risen from the dead lord that you are our great king and lord
[00:52:02] maybe we haven't emphasized this enough but you will be coming back for us lord help us to be ready lord what what do we want to be doing when you come back if you came back on a sunday what
[00:52:20] would you find us doing? Would you find us worshiping you? Would you find us in your word?
[00:52:29] Would you find us, not just on Sunday, but any day, would you find us seeking you? Would you find us helping and serving others? Lord, you will come back and you tell us that we are to be ready.
[00:52:46] So Lord, please help us. Please work in us. Please want you more than anything else, for You are our King.
[00:52:56] And we praise You.
[00:52:57] And we ask all of these things in Your great name, Lord Jesus.
[00:53:01] Amen.
[00:53:03] Our final hymn is At the Cross, number 95, if we can stand and sing that together.
[00:53:10] And John, we're starting at verse 1, right?