What to Give a King

Sermon Transcript

Well, Carlin and Matthew, John, Stephanie, and I are really happy to be back from our Hawaiian vacation. It was, as a lot of those kinds of vacations go, just a great time of refreshment and relaxation punctuated with those occasional trips to the ABC store. You’ve been to Hawaii, right? If you miss one, by the way, don’t worry, there’s another one about five storefronts down.

Anyway, those trips to the ubiquitous ABC stores to pick out a few postcards and macadamia nuts for your family and your friends that didn’t get to come on the trip with you. And so we did that, and what I found was that that’s a little harder than I remembered it being. You go in there and you look around for a gift, and you’ve just experienced this great day, maybe on this fantastic golf course, or you’ve been snorkeling out at this reef looking at all these colorful fish, and it doesn’t seem to cut it to write a little note on a postcard or buy some cheap little hat or a T-shirt or something. You’d like to, if in a perfect world, you’d like to take that great golf course and just transport it back to Orange County and then say to your friends, here, I got something for you. You know, here’s this great golf course I would have loved for you to play. Or, you know, transport the reef from Molokini to Capo Beach. But none of that’s possible.

So you’re stuck with postcards where you’re tempted to say, you know, “Wish you were here,” the classic line, or just whatever you can stuff in your luggage or fit into a box to send off from a post office somewhere. And it feels a bit of a letdown. In other words, long-distance gift-giving is hard. Your options are limited.

I find that as Christians, we grow in the Christian life, and we get to a place where we really long deeply in our hearts to love and serve Jesus, this great Savior who walked the dusty streets of Galilee and plodded through the jeering crowds in Jerusalem so that we could be saved from the penalty of our sin. You get to the place where you really desire to give something to Him and to serve Him and to tangibly express your love to Him, but that’s really hard to do. The long distance between you and a Christ who is seated at the right hand of the Father seems to limit your gift-giving options. I mean, what do you do?

You begin to envy the Magi of Matthew chapter 2. Remember them? At least they could go and bring tangible gifts of, you know, frankincense and gold and myrrh, and they could lay these at the feet of a physical Christ, the King of kings. But we have this long-distance relationship. It’s perhaps like the Buddhists who put this room aside in their house and build this little shrine to their deity. And if you’ve ever known a Buddhist or been in their home or maybe the dry cleaner or the nail shop or whatever, often you see these gifts that are laid out in front of their shrine. Have you seen that? And they got their fruit or their flowers or whatever.

What are we to do? How do we give gifts and serve and tangibly express love in a way that seems appropriate to a king that is now separated by millions of miles? Oh, I know the Holy Spirit lives in our heart. I recognize that. But one day, you know, the dwelling, as Revelation 21 says, of God will be among men. And if you want to give Christ a gift, you’ll be able to go give Him a gift, and He’ll be able to tangibly receive it with His physical hands. Won’t that be a great day? But right now, it’s a long-distance kind of gift.

So what do we do? How do we respond? It’s a good question. I’m really glad you asked it. And I’d like you to take your Bibles and turn to Hebrews chapter 1 as we try to continue in this text that has lauded the great King of kings and Lord of lords, the great ultimate Son, who is ruling and reigning. And when we have these discussions of these powerful beings called angels that give themselves to serve this King, it certainly prompts us to say, I want to serve Him too. I’d sure like to do something that is significant and tangible for the King.

And in verses 7 and 14, that little bookshelf or bookcase, the bookend, this text that we’ll look at this morning, verses 8 through 13, you see again the reference to the angels that are serving Him and ministering to Christ. That’s what God the Father calls them to do, and they’re active about doing it. And we’re saying here now, how can we do the same? He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. We should, as His subjects, rightly respond. We should do something akin to what the angels are doing. But how do we do that?

In verses 8 through 13, we have a discussion again about the great King. And this morning I’d like to look at this text and begin to develop some thinking about how can we respond to that kingly nature of Christ? What are we to do? How do we offer Him service this week, Tuesday afternoon, Thursday night? How do we go about it?

Take a look at what he begins with there in verse number 8 in saying that about the Son. And he’s quoting now Psalm 45. He says, “Your throne, O God, will last forever and ever.” And that’s been our theme. He is the Son that rules and reigns, and He has a throne. He is the King. And the most basic response that any subject should have to the King is a confession and an acknowledgement and affirmation and a belief. The Bible calls it a faith in that lordship.

As a matter of fact, salvation is sometimes crystallized in the phrase that people step out from the ranks of the world and they say, “Jesus is Lord.” See? That’s the great confession. It is to recognize and to say, we believe it and we trust in that. And the text says His throne, it’s going to last forever and ever. And he picks up that theme in verses 10 through 12, and he says, man, it’s like the earth. It seems so solid. It seems so firm. It seems so enduring. But, you know, He made that. It’s the work of His hands. And one day, verse 11, it’s going to perish. But Christ, this great King and His great authority, it’s going to remain.

Oh, the world and the universe, it’s going to wear out like a garment, and Christ is going to roll it up like a robe, and like a garment it’s going to be changed. “But you,” the Bible says, “remain the same. Your years will never end.” There is an unending lordship, and the very first response we should have to that, and a gift that the Bible says is fundamental, and we’ll get to it later in the book of Hebrews, is that we can’t do anything in serving, loving, or giving to God unless we have faith. Remember that text in Hebrews chapter 11, we’ll get to it, verse 6? “Without faith, it is”—what?—“impossible to please God.”

Number one on your outline, let’s jot this down and explore it just a little bit. We need to be confident. That’s what faith is all about. In His unending lordship. His unending lordship. To be able to say this morning that I believe, as an Orange County resident in the middle of my life, that Jesus Christ is really the King. He has the throne, and it will endure forever.

Now, we sang about it this morning, but it’s kind of a bizarre thing that we say. He’s the only sovereign Lord, we sang. He is the great King. But, you know, I turn on TV and I think, you know what, it really doesn’t seem like it. And I bet you’d say in your neighborhood He doesn’t seem to be ruling as King. I mean, is He ruling as King in the United States Senate? Or how about the Iraqi parliament? You been reading the newspaper lately? Jesus Christ, the God who will dwell among His people one day on a throne overseeing the entire universe, doesn’t appear to be someone to which the peoples of our day give great deference to. They seem to ignore Him regularly. As a matter of fact, chaos seems to reign.

Keep your finger here in Hebrews chapter 1 and turn with me, please, to 1 Samuel. 1 Samuel chapter 22. I’ve pointed this out before, but it is so important for us to keep this in mind. Because 1 Samuel, if you’ve studied this book before, you know it’s a book of transition. What’s happening in Israel is a major transition is taking place. They’re moving from a nation that was ruled by prophets and judges, and now they’re going to be ruled by kings. And they beg for a king, and God gives them a king in response to what they want, and He puts a profile out there that’s exactly what the people are barking for, and it’s a guy named Saul, and he’s an utter failure. And by chapters 14 and 15, God says, I reject him.

And I’ve got a king now after My own heart, and his name is David, and I’m going to anoint him as king. And in chapter 15, David, this shepherd boy, the youngest of all these brothers that look very kingly, but here’s this guy that’s out in the field watching sheep, is now having a flask of oil poured over his head by the prophet Samuel, and now he is anointed as the great king of Israel.

The problem is, you’d never know it in chapter 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. Jump into chapter 22, where you have the king, the anointed king of Israel, and he’s running around in the desert, running from the people that seem to be usurping the place of authority in Israel, when really, from God’s perspective, David is king.

Verse number 1 says, “David left Gath and he”—interesting verb—“escaped to the cave of Adullam.” What are you doing? You’re the king, man. Well, I realize that, but I’ve been relegated to the cave of Adullam. “When his brothers and his father’s household heard about it, they went down to him there. Verse 2, all those who were in distress or in debt or discontented gathered around him, and he,” that is David, “became their leader. About 400 men were with him.”

That’s such a powerful passage, and it has ministered to me so many times to remember that outside this nation, on the fringes of society, in the cave of Adullam, sat the anointed king of Israel with the smell of the anointing oil on his beard. And yet he was an outcast. But there were 400 people that said, you know what, they may not be treating you as king. They may not see you as king. They may not follow you as king. But me and my friends, we see you as our king. And we are here for you. And we will do what you want us to do.

Now, if you walked around Israel day after day, week after week, month after month, from the middle of the book of 1 Samuel, chapters 14 and 15, all the way to the end of the book, you’re going to say, wow, this is a really bizarre situation, because God has picked His king and anointed him and said, he is now the authorized king of Israel, but he’s living on the fringes of society, and only a few, 400 disgruntled people, are recognizing him as king.

Question: who’s the king of Israel in 1 Samuel chapter 22? Depends on who you ask, see. But the important person, God the Father, says David is the king. And unfortunately, you’re going to have to step out from the crowd to recognize the fact that David is the king when it seems like, man, he’s really not. But he is.

Now, one day he would be inaugurated and brought into Jerusalem and sat on a throne. He’d be surrounded with jewels and he’d be surrounded with gold. He’d be surrounded with military men. And there would be thousands who would bow the knee to David and hail him as the great king of Israel. And that would be a great day of vindication for these 400 men, don’t you think? Can you imagine? I told you so, right? I told you he was the king. We followed him even in the cave of Adullam. You know that. We were there with him. Yeah, you’re right. You were.

You see, right now we live in a time where Satan has been defeated at the cross. It happened in the Gospels. The early church proclaimed the victory and said, Jesus is the anointed King. He is the King of kings, as we sang this morning, the only sovereign King. That’s who He is. And yet right now the world shines Him on. And Christ, it seems, has been relegated, increasingly so, have you noticed, to the fringes of society.

And we sit here this morning and God is saying, do you trust Me? Do you believe that? Can you say Jesus is Lord? Do you live like that? Are you confident in your heart when the world shuns you and says, you know, that’s crazy, your belief in all of that. It’s nuts. Do you say, no, no, no, wait a minute. I am confident Jesus is Lord. As a matter of fact, you will know it in such a clear and decisive way one day when Jesus takes His authority and begins to reign. But we trust Him now. We believe Him now.

Without faith, it is impossible to please God. It is the most foundational thing that you can give God, is to wake up tomorrow morning and say, I believe that the sovereign King and Regent of the universe is Jesus Christ from Nazareth, who died in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. He is my King. He is my leader. I give Him my confident allegiance. I believe in His unending lordship. That’s the most important gift you can give Him.

And the Father stands from a distance in heaven and He sends His Spirit to invoke that response from your heart, and He receives it as the most precious gift of all. It is the gift of faith that He creates in your heart, and He wants you to reflect to Him. And He wants that to be fanned into an increasing confidence that that’s exactly where I live. I am a subject of Jesus Christ, the great King. Confidence.

Take your Bibles, please, and turn to the end of the Book. This is where it’s all headed. And sometimes we need to know that this world, it’s going to be rolled up like a garment, it’s going to be set aside, but the King will remain the same. As a matter of fact, when the old world is rolled up like a garment and set aside, and the new one, it’s called in the book of Revelation the new heaven and the new earth, is established, there will be absolutely no confusion about the great King.

There are three sets of seven in the book of Revelation. We studied it many years ago. But if you look in Revelation chapter 11, we get to the seventh trumpet. And every time these sevens unfold, the last one is this great resounding final word from heaven. And here comes the seventh trumpet being sounded in Revelation chapter 11. And it goes back and recapitulates the story of God’s consummation of His rulership.

But in verse number 15, Revelation 11:15, it says, “When that seventh trumpet was sounded, there were loud voices in heaven which said this”—I love this phrase. Check it out. It was a great line for Handel in his big thing that they sing at Christmas—“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever.”

Isn’t that a great line? “The kingdom of the world,” because those are the two kingdoms we have right now. We have the kingdom of the world, but one day it’s going to subject itself to the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. “And he will reign forever and ever.” And when that’s said, “the twenty-four elders who were seated on their thrones before God, they fell on their faces and they worshiped God, saying, ‘We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, the one who is and who was, because you have taken,’” now notice this, “‘your great power and have begun to reign.’”

Does Jesus have great power? Yes. Is He reigning? Well, kind of, yeah. But is He reigning over everything in the kingdoms of this world? Answer: no. But we anticipate it. And we can’t wait for that. And we, as the 400—or 400 rather—disgruntled malcontents of society, say, we’re followers of Jesus. You follow a lot of other things, the kingdoms of the world, and all about this wiring of living. I understand where you’re at, but we’re following Christ, the great King. We know that one day He will take that great power—look at it—and He’ll begin to reign.

“And the nations were angry, and your wrath has come,” verse 18, “for the time has come for judging the dead and for rewarding”—I love this—“the 400 malcontents in the cave of Adullam, your servants, the prophets, and your saints, and those who reverence your name, both small and great, and for destroying those who destroy the earth” in this great epic battle that unfolds in the Book of Revelation.

And I’m saying, man, I want to be a part of that. And I want right now to please God by giving the King what He deserves, and that is my allegiance and confident faith that You are the King of kings and Lord of lords. It’s the most fundamental confession that we can make.

And our spiritual forefathers in the first century lost their lives, I mean regularly, for this. Because they looked at the kingdoms of the world that kept wanting an increasing allegiance to them, and they said no. As a matter of fact, in the first century, they were required as Roman citizens to take a pinch of incense there before the governors and the officials and magistrates and throw it into the fire and have that go poof in the flame. And then they were supposed to say, as they nodded their head toward the official, they were supposed to say, “Caesar is Lord.” And that was inflammatory for first-century Christians. And they said, no, we’re not going to say that. Those are words and allegiance that are dedicated exclusively to Christ. Jesus is Lord.

And they said no. And as they stood there and were dragged in by the nape of their neck to the officials and magistrates and said, say it, say it. Say Caesar is Lord. They would say, no, we won’t. Well, great, then we’re going to bind you up and throw you to those lions in the Colosseum. Fine, then do what you got to do. But Jesus is our Lord. We are not submissive ultimately to the rules and regulations of the kingdoms of this world. God has called us out as the 400 malcontents, and He says, guys, Jesus is King.

And the best gift you can give Christ is to say, Jesus is King. He’s my King, and my faith and confidence every morning are in Him. Be confident about His unending lordship. And things that we think are so certain, like the rising of the sun and the spring follows winter, all of that is so minor. You think that’s permanent. There’s nothing more permanent than the authority of Christ. It will never end. Ten million years from now, Jesus Christ will be Lord in a more real sense than He is right now to the world. People will recognize it.

As Philippians 2 says, every knee is going to bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, and it’ll happen to the glory of God the Father. He’ll stand back and say, that’s the way it should be. Let’s give Him that allegiance now. Let’s say it’s all about that. It’s about developing that faith in my life.

I think of how Jesus just put people right on the precipice of that very issue when He went to His disciples, remember that day? And He says, “Who do people say that I am?” Remember that in Matthew chapter 16, verses 13 through 16? He said, “Who do people say that I am?” Remember that? They said, well, some people think You’re a reincarnate prophet. Some people think You’re the resurrected John the Baptist. Some people think You’re this, You’re that. And He said, no, no, no, “Who do you say that I am?” Do you really think I’m King? Does your life reflect that? And when Peter confessed it with all his zeal, he said, yeah, You’re the Son of the living God. That’s who You are. That’s the message of Hebrews chapter 1. That’s who He is.

Question is, do we live like that? Is it our heart and our faith? Is it fanned into a flame on a regular basis? If you’ve got doubts in your mind—I mean, if this is like a Sunday thing for you, and then through the week you’re like, well, gee, I don’t know that’s true or not—man, you need to go after that. As a matter of fact, even as Christians we have these periodic recurring doubts sometimes, don’t we? Let’s be honest. We have these doubts. Was this whole thing real? This all really happened?

You know, you got to attack those things. You’ve got to address them. You’ve got to pursue them. You’ve got to sort them out because there’s nothing more offensive to the King than for standing there going, I don’t really know if You’re the King or not. I don’t even really know about Your life. Did You really—I’m not sure. I don’t know. I’ll deal with that someday.

You know, in James chapter 1, for good Christian people sitting there listening to the apostles’ teaching, James says this: if you got doubts in your mind, don’t expect that you’re going to receive anything from God. Man, because you’re a double-minded person. You’re unstable in all your ways. Remember that passage? Let’s get rid of the doubt.

And that’s not just sitting there in the corner with our fingers against our temple going, don’t doubt, don’t doubt, don’t doubt. You know what that means? That means you explore your doubts. You answer your questions. Put up a website yesterday on our Compass site. If you just go to compassbooks.org and click on a link that says questions about Christianity, you’ll have a long list of books there. And I’ve listed each section from easy reading to more difficult or more challenging reading. And if you’re thinking, well, I don’t know about the resurrection. I’m not sure about Christ’s deity. I don’t even know if God exists. Man, go to that website, compassbooks.org, and just start looking through that list and say, God, I need to read about this. Because doubting to You, man, unbelief, that equivocation, it’s not good. It’s not right to stand in the cave of Adullam and go, well, I’m really not sure. I’m kind of hoping You’re the King, David.

Got to be sure. Attack the doubt. Go after it. Faith is not something where we sit in the corner and just hope that it increases on its own. It comes from study. It comes from knowing God’s Word. It comes from exploring our questions and our thoughts and coming to the place where we can stand up each morning and say, Jesus is Lord, Lord of my life, and I’m going to act like it today.

Best gift you can give the great King is your confidence that He is King, an unending lordship that will never go away.

The second half of verse 8, if you look back at Hebrews chapter 1, he says not only does He have a throne that will last forever and ever, there’s something about His leadership. There’s something about His throne that reflects His character. And man, that’s—I mean, that’s just the message of the Bible. He is a great King who is the exact representation of His nature, we saw at the beginning of Hebrews chapter 1. And it is spelled out here in the bottom of verse 8, a throne that is known by—underline the word—righteousness. “And righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom.”

Scepter was that little thing they held in their hand. And it’s like the thing that you see when you look at the King is not some fancy ornate golden stick. You know what you see? You see righteousness. You look at the King and go, man, He does what is right. He does what is good. You want to be more practical? Verse number 9. He’s quoting here Psalm 45. He says, “You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by”—here’s the kingly imagery—“anointing you with the oil of joy.”

He set You up as the great King, and it’s a joyful thing for You, and to rule and to reign as the human leader, the God-man leader of this group of human beings called Christians. You know, it’s a great joy for You. It’s natural for You because You’re good. You’re righteous, and You love what’s good, and You hate what’s evil.

You know, this is fundamental to the Christian life. I realize all three of these this morning are. But the first and fundamental thing we can give Him is our faith. The next thing we can do is we look at a great King like that that sits there in heaven and we say, man, we want to serve You. We want to do something good for You. We love You. We appreciate all that You’ve done for us. How can we give You a gift today?

Number two on your outline, let’s jot it down this way. Second thing we can do: we can work to emulate His righteousness. That’s what God wants. He says it throughout Scripture. Would you be holy because I’m holy? Can you reflect in that world that you live in on the fringes of Israel? And can you just try and reflect the character of the great King, the ultimate Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords? Can you start to say, man, that’s what I want to be. I want to be like Him.

If you were here Thursday night—a lot of you here Thursday night for our study—we talked about spiritual growth. And we said there’s nothing God wants more—we quoted Romans chapter 8, remember that?—than to conform in us and to make us more like Jesus Christ, His Son. That’s what He wants in our lives. And He wants you to reflect and emulate the righteousness, the love for good and the hatred for what’s evil in our hearts. And God in heaven says, you know what, you want to give Christ the King a gift, give Him a life that reflects more and more of His character.

And that’s a process. I realize that takes time. God changes our hearts. It’s called justification. He makes us right before God. But we begin from that point till the day we die a process of what we call sanctification, right? Moving more increasingly to reflect the character of the great King.

Keep your finger here in Hebrews chapter 1, and let me show you a great image of this, a great picture of this over there in 2 Corinthians chapter 3. Because when you spend time and interface with this King, you should reflect His glory. It is a natural thing, which leads to a real practical action step.

Moses would spend time—and here Paul’s drawing this analogy in 2 Corinthians 3—he would spend time at the top, at the summit here of Sinai, having this interface with God. And the more time he spent there, and as he did that, he would reflect, he would absorb, if you will, more of the glory of God. And there would be a physical illumination on Moses’ face that would take place, this bizarre event. There’s lightning and thunder. Remember the picture of all that? And he would come down and interface with the people. And when he spent time with God on Mount Sinai and then he would come and interface with people, people would see it all over his face, this glory.

And the thing was, the longer he stayed from the mountain and the more time he spent down with the people, the glory would start to fade. And so Moses said, man, I don’t want them to think I’m not reflecting God here anymore. So he would start to put this veil over his face so they wouldn’t know that the glory was fading.

Check this out in the middle of this discussion. He says in verse number 13, he says, “We’re not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away. No, instead”—I’m sorry—“but their minds were dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. But it has not been removed, because only in Christ is the veil taken away. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away, for the Lord is Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there’s freedom. And we now”—check the image out here—“who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with an ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”

In other words, the third person of the Godhead, if you will, dwells in you. And He’s constantly wanting, as He dwells in your life and draws your attention to the things that God would want you to focus on in His Word, He says, you know, you’re going to increasingly reflect more and more of Christ. You’re going to have this reflection, and the more people see you in this process of sanctification, the more they should be able to say, man, he’s more like Christ. He’s different.

And what does that mean practically? Hebrews chapter 1 says it really clearly, verse number 9. It means you love more what is good, and you hate more what is evil. And you can’t get around that. And if you notice that, it’s kind of annoying as a Christian as you’re growing. You have this increasing bitterness and frustration and disdain for things that don’t reflect the virtue of God. Have you noticed that? That get frustrating for you? Used to be able to watch that stuff and whatever. Used to watch the news, whatever. You know, the world’s kind of a mess. And now all of a sudden there’s this burning hatred and frustration.

Read the Psalms sometime and look at the way the psalmists reflect the fact that the more we grow in our relationship with God, the more we just begin to disdain what is evil. And that’s a good thing as we see it externally. But man, don’t miss the most important place to see that: internally, that we disdain the things in our lives that are contrary and conflict with God’s righteousness. I love the way 2 Corinthians chapter 7 puts it. The things that we repent from, man, we ought to learn to really hate. We ought to disdain that.

Does that mean the Christian life’s gonna be full of fun all the time? No. As a matter of fact, one of the things that colors our Christian experience is that we’re constantly dealing with our flesh and a sinful world, and there’s a lot of heartache in the Christian life, because the closer we draw to Christ and the more we reflect His glory, the more the things that don’t just start to really annoy us, even the things in our own hearts and lives.

Now, we’ve got to learn to hate what is evil and love what’s good. And as we do, we’re going to find that we really don’t fit in here anymore. As a matter of fact, when we interface on the fringes of Israel, we’re going to find out, you know, us 400 malcontents, we don’t fit in anymore. As a matter of fact, we’re going to be seen as freaks and outsiders. You notice that too? I mean, the more you grow in line with Christ and at your workplace, you try to stand up for what’s good, you try to think what’s right, you try to say what’s right, you refrain from the conversations that are wrong, all of a sudden now you’re, well, you know, we know about Fred, he’s kind of different. And the more you’re disdained.

Matter of fact, Paul didn’t shy away from that. You know this passage—we won’t look at it—but I’m sorry, Peter. Peter says this in 1 Peter 2. He says, you guys ought to just consider yourselves aliens and strangers in the world. Just get used to it. Because we’re constantly battling these sinful desires in our hearts that are waging war against us, and we’re battling those things, and the rest of the world isn’t. They’re just indulging in it and doing whatever they can get away with. And the more you’re going to be seen as an outsider.

One of my vacations years ago, I took Carla and we packed up our car and we went up to Canada. I’d never been to Canada before. And no offense here to our Canadian friends, but when I went up into Canada, I didn’t have all that great of an experience, just to be honest with you. I mean, I was doing fine at first. I was going to the restaurants. I was spending time buying stuff in their shops and all of that. And then all of a sudden we realized—I mean, we weren’t trying to flaunt that we were American. Certainly we weren’t, but they could tell we weren’t saying “mum” and “eh” or whatever. And they said, well, these guys are foreigners, you know.

And there was a group of teenagers—and my wife can remember this—who started saying stuff to us. As a matter of fact, when we walked through the lobby of this hotel, they started saying, “Americans, go home. Americans, get out. Go back where you came from.” And I’m like, you know, this is really weird. And you know what that made me want to do? Leave. I don’t want to be there anymore. It’s like, fine, man, I wasn’t really digging this place anyway. I’m out of here, right?

Seriously, people, teenagers were yelling, “Americans, go home.” It was really unsettling. And I’ll tell you what, in this world it’s the same way. Thankfully on that trip I only had a few—that was the last day there, we were heading out, it was done, we had a few hours and we were gone. But most of us have 5, 10, 15, 25 years left here. And the more that we stand up for the fact that we don’t really belong here, that our King is not the system of this world, the more people are going to go, wow, you’re weird. And we’re going to say, you know what, that’s fine. We are aliens and strangers. We’re just passing through. We recognize the fact that we won’t fit in too well here. And we can’t wait to be where God wants us to be.

Because one day in that place it will be different. And the 400 malcontents will surround the King, and everyone on the fringes will bow the knee to Christ. And we’ll say, man, isn’t it good, finally? Everyone recognizes the fact that Jesus Christ is King. But you want to give Him something in the meantime, keep standing up for what’s right. Don’t flaunt it, but be really clear about it. I’m going to live by a whole different standard, and I’m trying to reflect the character of Jesus Christ.

Give Him your faith. Secondly, give Him your obedience. Emulate His righteousness. That’s what we’re talking about. Learn to disdain the things that don’t match, and learn more to love the things that He loves.

One more text back in Hebrews chapter 1. There’s one more quotation. It comes from Psalm 110, quoted a few times in the New Testament. And here in verse number 13, in one of his very last comparisons to angels, he says, “By the way, to which of the angels,” this is Hebrews 1:13, “did God ever say, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet’?” God doesn’t say that to angels, but He says that to the Son, “Sit at my right hand.”

Now, we’ve already established that imagery in the beginning of Hebrews, that Jesus purifies sin, takes away sin. That’s His work on the cross. He’s resurrected and now He’s seated at the right hand of God. And now He’s in heaven and He sits there. And then the text says, and brings in Psalm 110, you know, God says, I’m gonna make all Your enemies subjected to You, and they’re all gonna be under Your feet. And so You just sit here and I’m gonna take care of all of that. Which, by the way, when He does, He will then stand up and inaugurate the great King, and He will rule over all the peoples with a scepter of righteousness. That’s what’s going to happen.

But in the meantime, you know what? You just hang out. That’s fine. All the enemies, all the people in Jerusalem walking around thinking that Saul’s the king, don’t worry. One day they’re going to recognize You. All Your enemies, everything’s going to be subjected to You.

Scripture’s really clear that one day all the enemies, everything that stands in opposition to the enduring eternal lordship of Christ, will all be put away. As a matter of fact, a few things in the New Testament that are referred to. One is the ultimate usurper, Saul, right? Who’s the ultimate usurper in the new covenant? You got Satan out there prancing around in this world, 2 Corinthians 4:4, as the prince of the power of this world. And he goes around giving things and organizing things so that they all reflect these anti-God values. And the Bible says one day he’s going to be chained up and taken out of the way. And he’ll be cast ultimately into the lake of fire.

Okay, what’s another one? How about 1 Corinthians chapter 15? I taught on that about a year ago when we were talking about the fact that death itself and dying is one of the enemies of Christ in His kingdom. It’s got to be put under Christ’s feet. It’s got to be taken away. Satan’s got to be taken away. Death and dying have to be taken away. I mean, if we’re going to get to the place finally where the lordship of Christ is going to rule and reign the way it’s supposed to, got to get those things out of the way.

And there’s one other thing we got to get out of the way. Those things are wholly, by the way, reliant on God. I can’t do anything about that, right? But there is one other thing. We got to get all the people out of the way that don’t recognize that Jesus is Lord. And here’s the good news. There’s a lot of people that don’t recognize that Jesus is Lord that one day will. And God says, oh, by the way, I’m going to commission you to help Me in that task.

And as 2 Corinthians 5 says, you’re going to be My ambassadors. You’re going to be My representatives as though I was making My plea and entreaty through you. I want you to beg people on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. And as a matter of fact, I’m going to give you that commission. And in so doing, you know what we do? We continually make things the way they’re supposed to be so that the inauguration of the great King of kings can take place. Are you tracking with all that?

Let me help you with a passage. 2 Peter chapter 3. Here’s a passage that may help. Here’s another great text about the anticipation that we should have for the great coming day of the Lord, when everything in Christ’s lordship will be established. And as Peter looks forward to this, and the changing of the old and the inauguration of the new, he says something very, very interesting in verse number 12. 2 Peter chapter 3, verse number 12. Are you with me? Great discussion. People thinking, where’s the day of the Lord? It’s not coming. Look up there, chapter 3, verses 1 and 2, and people are mocking it. Well, I don’t think He’s really coming. Well, He is coming. Peter says His day is coming. Christ will reign.

Now, verse 12, it says, “As you look forward”—check this out—“to the day of God and”—notice this—what’s that? “speed its coming.” Do you see that? That’s an interesting phrase. Hasten His coming. Speed His coming. Help His coming come faster. That’s weird. How does that work?

Number three, let’s jot it down and explore it mentally here and try and draw some application. What we need to do is we need to, I put it this way, we need to thoughtfully hasten His coming kingdom, which, by the way, is an underlining virtue of the New Testament, right? We’re supposed to pray. When Jesus taught people to pray, what did He say? After “Hallowed be thy name,” right? “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” What’s the next line? “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth.”

In other words, Jesus taught you to pray with an anticipation and a desire and a prayer that His kingdom would come. Oh, we want the kingdom to come. As a matter of fact, we want Your will to be done on earth, which it’s not, but we want it to be, and we want to get it to be on earth as it already is in heaven. You think He’s ruling perfectly in heaven? Oh, you bet. And we want that rulership to be here.

See now, I can’t do anything about Satan. One day he’s going to have to be chained up by the great King and thrown to the lake of fire. I can’t do anything about death and dying. Jesus had to pay for that. He’s going to have to wrap it up in His time. But there is one other thing. There’s a lot of people out there that don’t recognize that Jesus is Lord. So instead of my exclusive little fringe group of 400 malcontents on the edge of Israel saying, well, we’re just going to see this as our own little king, and it’s just us 400. It’s the holy huddle. We recognize who the real King is. God says, you know, would you speed the inauguration of My King?

Now, there are a lot of people that will never get it. But God says, you need to recognize one reason I’m waiting. Look back up in the text, if you will, in verse number 9, if you’re still in 2 Peter 3. “God isn’t slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” Do you see the connection here? He’s not slow, but He wants people to come to repentance. He’d love for everybody to come to repentance, but there’s some that need to come to repentance and say Jesus is Lord that aren’t saying it yet.

So I’m looking through the whole of Scripture saying, how can I speed His coming? One specific thing I can do thoughtfully is not only pray that it would come quickly, but then get off my knees and go into my workplace and do things like we’re trying to do and attempting to do through Compass Bible Church, planting more and more Bible-teaching churches all over the country. What can we do? We can get more people to say, Jesus is Lord. And every Sunday morning begin to sing songs like we sung this morning. Jesus is the only sovereign King. We live for Him. Jesus is our Lord.

We need to increase this little band of malcontents on the fringes of society and say, it isn’t just us 400. It needs to be expanded to 4,000, 4 million. We want as many people as possible to come to repentance. And therefore, I go out in my workplace. I go out in my neighborhood and I say, you know what, Jesus is my Lord, and He will be established as the ultimate Lord in the entire world. And I’m telling you what, that is so important, not just for me, but it’s important for you. I not only need to go out there and try and fight the doubts in my own mind. You know what I need to be commissioned to do? I need to fight the doubts in your mind.

My next-door neighbor, who’s really not sure whether it’s about Islam, Mohammed, Buddha, or Jesus, he’s not sure. But you know what? I ought to see myself as someone who’s saying, that’s what I’m fighting to see happen. I’m out there trying to see if I can help the umbrella of God’s lordship expand over more and more people. And you know, as I do that, He’s waiting for people to come to repent. The way I can hasten the day of His coming—are you connecting all these dots?—is to get out there and make this happen. Because one day the last person’s going to join up with this band, you realize. And Jesus is going to go, that’s it. That was all I was waiting for. Can you imagine that?

Wouldn’t you love to lead the last person left who needs to join the team? Wouldn’t you love to be the—you just right there, and then you explain it. God is working through you, and his heart is broken, and he’s repented, and he says yes, and it’s all over. Wow, that’d be great. I don’t know how many are left, but He’s got a number, and it’s a finite number, and He wants more people to come to repentance, and maybe it’s your neighbor. Maybe he’s a part of the band. Maybe it’s that gal you work with. Maybe you need to go and share Christ with her. Maybe you need to start attacking the doubts in other people’s minds that are out there going, I’m really not sure.

One last passage. Would you turn to one more with me? 2 Corinthians chapter 10. I want you to see that this is really our mission in life. I mean, there are people out there right now not sure, people out there saying, no, He’s not. As a matter of fact, people like Saul, who would later be called Paul in the New Testament, are the kinds of people we often ignore, which are really the people we ought to say, wait a minute, maybe those are people that God’s working on the hardest, and they’re rebelling the hardest, and they’re kicking against the goads. Man, don’t give up. Get out there and say, yeah, I got to talk to you. I mean, you’re saying Jesus is not Lord. I want to tell you He is. Let’s talk about it. What are your objections here?

Are you in 2 Corinthians 10? Look at verse number 4, where he says, “The weapons,” Paul speaking, “that we fight with are not weapons of the world. On the contrary, the weapons we have have divine power to demolish strongholds.” The imagery here is warfare. “We demolish arguments.” That’s what we’re doing. “And every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. And we’re out there trying to take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ.”

And the context of this is not our own thoughts. I mean, the assumption here is my thoughts are already obedient to Christ in that I believe that He is Lord. The assumption is that we’re out there in the world trying to do what we can to tear down all these speculations and lofty arguments that raise themselves up against God. And I’m saying, no, no, no, no, no, wait a minute. Let’s talk about it. Let’s defeat that argument. That’s a wrong thinking there. And by God’s grace, for those that He’s called, have the Spirit work through us to have them brought to the place of repentance. What an amazing job that we have.

We need to thoughtfully hasten His coming kingdom because it could be next month, and it could be that the work of Compass Bible Church and all the other Bible-teaching churches in the world just need to do a little bit more work this week, and by Friday it’s over. Wouldn’t that be good?

It was great to watch my boys on this vacation. They’re at the age where, through hopefully some good teaching and a little modeling, we hope, they’re getting to the place where their little pagan hard hearts are starting to recognize the importance of giving. And, you know, they get their allowance, and they got their allowance on vacation. It was great to watch them try and buy a few things for people. Just reflect mom and dad. What’s most touching, I think, for dad is the times when they go and they buy some little 30-cent thing from some cheap little rack of things at the ABC store. And then they bring it over and say, “Dad, this is for you. I bought this for you.”

Now, it’s amazing when we get back home, I look in our bedroom. It’s amazing when it gets taped to the mirror, you know, and gets set up, you know, little 30-cent plastic things we have set up on our dressers and nightstands. And it’s not because my wife and I go, wow, that’s the neatest plastic thing I’ve ever seen. This would decorate our bedroom perfectly. You know why? We cherish them because they’re gifts from our children to us.

And, you know, we sit here and say, well, my faith isn’t all that good. My obedience, man, it’s rocky. It’s hit and miss sometimes. And man, not my evangelism. I don’t know. I’m not very good at convincing people Jesus is Lord. You know what? I know we can envision something so lofty that, wow, I don’t think I can do that. And so we sit on our hands.

But I’m so glad that my kids didn’t wait until they could paint like some great artist to hand me a drawing and say, “Dad, I made this for you.” And I’d hope that this week, as you go on to your work week, you’d say, you know what, my faith may not be perfect, but I want to give Christ more of my faith. My obedience may not be perfect, but I want to work harder to love what’s right and hate what’s evil. And my evangelism, wow, I’m not even—you know, I’m trying. It’s not all that convincing, but I’m going to go out there and try and just represent Christ this week.

And if you offer those things to the King, I guarantee you they’re going to be pinned up on the mirror. And they’ll be set up on the nightstand. And the great King is going to go, I love it. I love it when My children give Me gifts like that.

Could we all this week just say we just want to give a gift to the great King? The angels are serving Him. We ought to be serving Him too. Let’s pray.

God, we do want to serve You. I think the more we grow in our faith as You work in our hearts, the more we want to serve You. And it frustrates us that we can’t give You a gift and You can grab it with Your hands. One day You will. We look forward to that. We’ll actually be able to give You something in a box or hand You a flower or give You a hug and to physically be with You. But right now, God, through Your Spirit, what we want to offer to You is a heart that is filled with more and increasing confident faith.

We want this week to attack the sinful desires that wage war against our soul, and we’d like to reflect more of our King’s character. And then, God, we just want to get out there and see if in our sphere of influence there might be some more people that, because God uses us, they might get to the place where they bow their knee and say, Jesus Christ is Lord. God, we’d love to be used to do that.

God, our gifts are imperfect. We recognize that, but we don’t want to fail to give them. We want to offer them. We want to make them as good as we can make them. So God, prompt us this week to be giving more and more good gifts to You. I pray this, please, in Jesus’ name. Amen.