The Problem of Two Kings
Transcript
Good morning. How are you doing this morning? This side's doing good. Not hitting on much over here. My name is Chet Phillips. Excited to be hanging out with y'all this morning.
We're going to be in Matthew chapter 1. So if you've got a Bible, go to Matthew chapter 1. There should be some sitting on the rows. You've got some over there if you need one. And if you don't own a Bible, grab one of the ones on the rows or grab one of the ones on the table. And that's our gift to you.
Just snatch that on your way out. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to be in Matthew chapter 1. We're going to spend the next couple of weeks talking about Jesus as King and His kingdom. And so we've got to do a little bit of background work for us today to kind of set this, frame it up in our brains so that we can think about it correctly. So what happens is if you begin reading the Gospels, which are the accounts of what Jesus did while He was on earth, they're going to usually start, a couple of them are going to start with John the Baptist.
And John the Baptist is going to come before Jesus and he's going to begin to proclaim. They're going to say that he proclaimed, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And then it's going to say that Jesus shows up and he begins to say the same thing. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And that sounds nice, but what are they talking about? Like what is the kingdom of heaven?
What do they mean by the kingdom of God? As Jesus goes through and He tells these parables, which are just confusing, illustrational stories. And so He tells parables about the kingdom and He's going to explain. Here's what the kingdom looks like. And He's going to do this over and over again. And so we're going to spend the next few weeks as we go through September and into October talking about the kingdom and unpacking what it is, how it works, how Jesus is a king, and what that means for everybody in this room and really everybody on this planet.
And so in order to do that, we've got to do a little bit of background work because we're ignorant, which just means we don't know. So it doesn't mean that you're dumb. So my dad used to, when I was growing up, he wouldn't call me dumb. He would just call me ignorant. And he said, ignorant. He'd be like, you ignorant boy.
And he was like, that's not offensive. You just need to learn things because you don't understand how stuff works. And so we're ignorant as far as how a king works. We just are. Like we base it off of maybe some books we've read, maybe some of our history classes that we had in school. So like maybe when you think of a king, you're going to think of King Arthur.
And he had like a round table. And he had some knights with him. And when you think of King Arthur, you maybe are going to think about a couple of different movies. Maybe Sean Connery is going to pop up in your head. Or you're going to think about the quest for the Holy Grail, which is a really bad understanding of who King Arthur is and what Camelot was like and all that kind of stuff. So we just, we don't get kings.
We don't. A good example of this is I was talking to Raz. He's one of our group leaders in our church. And he's from Australia. And I didn't know this. Australia still kind of fits under the Queen of England.
Did y'all know that? Like I didn't know that. The Queen of England can go to Australia and fire their elected officials. Just kick them out. Because she's the Queen of England. That's why.
That's why she gets to do that. And so I was like, wait, what? So like she actually showed up in I think the late 80s, early 90s and fired their prime minister and parliament. It was just like y'all are out. Or maybe it was just the prime minister and all the people around him. And then basically said y'all have to hold a new election.
And so immediately when he said that, like that was, that affronted my sensibilities as an American. Because it was like who on earth is going to travel over an ocean and tell us what to do with our government. So it was like immediately was like no, no sir. And so I was asking him more questions about it. I asked him. I said okay, do y'all pay taxes to Australia?
I mean to England. Does Australia pay taxes to England? And he said no, we don't pay taxes. And I said you're welcome. They learned their lesson on that one. Just when you see an American and you think about the fact that you don't pay taxes to England, just shake their hand.
Tell them thank you. But we don't get it. We don't understand how kings and kingdoms work. We just, as Americans, we don't have a place for that in our head. We don't have a place for the authority. A good example of this is how much we freak out about presidential elections.
I mean America loses it over presidential elections. We will elect a president two years from now in 2016. And they're already talking about it. They were talking about it when Obama got elected. They started talking about the next election. I heard a conversation recently.
They were talking about Hillary Clinton. And they were saying should she line herself up with Obama? Should she separate herself from Obama? And they're going into statistics of when and how the parties flop back and forth and who's going to be president. And that person is going to be president for four years in a limited government. They can't just do what they want to.
President Obama can't just walk out tomorrow and say here's how America's running from now on. No. There's Supreme Court. There's people that decide on laws. He's got to take things through Congress. Like he has a very limited position and we feel like the president has too much power sometimes.
We hadn't even begun to scratch the surface of what a king looks like. So for us to understand as we read through scripture and Jesus shows up and says he's a king and that he has a kingdom. We got to know what that means. We got to understand what he's declaring how they would have heard it because we don't hear that right. It's like, oh, you own a castle? You got a moat?
That's cool. I'd like a moat, but I don't want to have to like cut the grass around it all the time. Like we don't, it doesn't hit us right. We don't understand. So let me explain just a little bit.
We're just going to do a little bit about how kings work and how they would have understood how kings work. So a kingdom is the extent of the rule and the reign of a king. So you have a king. The king has a kingdom. So wherever his rule and reign exists, that's his kingdom.
And he can have that kingdom. You can have a kingdom as long as you can defend it and rule over it. So you can have a kingdom as long as you're able to protect it. And so throughout history, kingdoms have just swallowed up other kingdoms. So President Obama recently with this whole Russia-Ukraine thing, he said you can't, he said we know that you can't redraw borders at the edge of a gun.
So the countries that we have have pretty much been the countries that we have for quite a while. That's not how history works. In response to that, it's actually, no, actually you can. You can redraw borders at the edge of a sword or the edge of a spear or on top of a chariot or at the edge of a gun because that's how borders get redrawn throughout history. So we've been in the United States for a while and we don't have to fight with Mexico all the time about our border.
We did, but we don't anymore. And pretty much now we buy things from people. But that's not how it worked in world history, in human history. It was you had a kingdom and your kingdom was your kingdom until a bigger, badder kingdom came along. And then they just owned you. So kingdom shows up.
We have a kingdom. Kingdom shows up. We get to decide, okay, they're coming at us. Can we defend ourselves? If we fight, can we stop them? So we sit there and we talk about it.
We look and we say, no, if we fight, we will all die. Okay. We'll call that plan B. Plan A will be, let's have a convo. Let's talk to these guys.
See how they're doing, what they want. And so that's pretty much what kingdoms would do. You would fight and defend your kingdom. If you could rule over it, you could. If a new kingdom showed up and they were badder than you, you could fight and die. Or you could surrender and pay taxes and then their kingdom ruled over you.
So throughout history we see Egypt had a kingdom. That's what we showed up there a second ago. Israel goes in and kicks out a bunch of these smaller kingdoms and becomes one kingdom. And then Assyria swallows that kingdom. And then Babylon swallows that kingdom. And then Greece comes up and swallows that kingdom.
And then Rome swallows that kingdom. And it was just who was the baddest? Got to have a kingdom. So whenever we hear kingdom declared. When Jesus says, I have a kingdom. It's automatically going to hit the ears of those listening to him as a militaristic declaration.
Kingdom advances against another kingdom. That's just how they work. Let me tell you how kings work. They're in charge. Period. Throughout history, that's how kings work.
So some of you are like, I'm the king of my own castle. No, you're not. Because your wife is in charge. She may let you pretend. But kings were in charge.
They were in charge. Period. They were in charge of how everything played out. So a king could just make a declarative statement. And that's what happened. And so we see throughout scripture.
I'll just give you some examples. Okay. So there was a guy named Xerxes. He shows up in scripture in the book of Esther. Xerxes. In Esther, he's called Ahasuerus.
Which was his Aramaic name. But Xerxes is his Greek name. So that's how we know him from history. But his name was Xerxes. He had a throne that was ginormous. And he used to sit on his throne.
And his throne had a big red carpet on it. If you sat on his throne, you died. If you touched the carpet that his throne was on, you died. So it was like throne, no touching. Carpet, buffer zone for the throne, no touching. He had 10,000 soldiers called immortals that surrounded his throne.
When they went into battle, they carried his throne. He sat on it. His immortals sat around him. And then his army won. And he just got to watch. That's Xerxes.
Did what he wanted. All the time. There's a guy in the book of Kings. His name is Aboni Bezek. Or Aboni Bezek. Ann and I just found out that we're going to be having a baby.
And so I'm throwing that name in the hat. Aboni Bezek. That's a heck of a name. But anyway, this guy was in smaller kingdoms. He had captured 70 kings. In the book of Judges, he had captured 70 kings.
And he cut off their thumbs and their big toe. Which, just so you know, you need your big toe to walk around. Like, it's important. So it makes it hard to walk. So they didn't have big toes and they didn't have thumbs.
The reason humans are in control of the world is because we have big brains and opposable thumbs. These are important. If you've ever had, like, a hurt thumb, it makes it really difficult to do anything. He had 70 kings that he'd cut off their thumbs and their big toes. And their job was to sit around his table and pick up crumbs with these two fingers. So they walked.
And when he was done eating, 70 kings picked up crumbs around his table to show his dominance. Because he's a king and he does what he wants. And the truth is, like, 70 of them, but they're not holding an uprising. Because it would be like this awkward standing slap fight that they would lose really quickly. You slap them and they just push you down. They'd be like, now pick up the crumbs.
They'd be like, okay. Somebody help me up. There's a King Nebuchadnezzar. I love this story. There's a King Nebuchadnezzar. This is in the book of Daniel.
He's a Babylonian king. He has a dream that freaks him out. And when you're a king and you have a dream that freaks you out, you get to call on people to help you with your dream. When you're you and you have a dream that freaks you out, you get to tell your co-worker and they get to think you're weird. But when you're a king...
Man, I dreamed I was a clown last night. Dude, I don't want to talk about your dreams. Like, we're at work. When you're a king, though, he said he has this dream and he calls all of his advisors and wise men in to answer questions and his sorcerers and stuff. And he says, I had a dream. It freaked me out.
I want you to tell me what the interpretation is. And so they say, okay. Tell us the dream. We'll tell you what the interpretation is. And he says, no. If I tell you the dream, you'll make up an interpretation.
And I won't know if you're telling the truth. You tell me the dream and then tell me its interpretation. And they say, we can't do that. And he says, cool. Kill all of them. Because he's a king.
And kings do what they want. There are no re-elections. There are no runoffs. There is no impeachment. The way you get rid of a king is to kill him or to have a bigger kingdom that takes over his. That's it.
Otherwise, they're king forever. So we're freaking out that we're going to have a president for four years. And he's going to have a limited amount of power in our government. This king was king because he was born a lot of times. Or because he got an army and was really powerful. That's pretty much how it works.
So when Jesus declares that he's a king and when the Bible declares that he has a kingdom, it means something that we wouldn't hear. It means something to the people who were first listening that we don't get. It's like, okay, complete authority. Power. The ability to say, and it happens. It goes.
What you say is law and rule and final. And that your kingdom advances in a militaristic way. So that's how kingdoms work. So if you have a good king, you have a good kingdom. A generous king. A gracious king.
A king that fights on behalf of his people. A king that loves justice and peace. That's really good for the kingdom. If you have a ruthless, angry, bitter, psychotic king, that's a problem. Because a king rules over his kingdom with absolute authority. Okay.
That's just so that we get what a king and a kingdom is. Matthew chapter 1. I'm going to pray. We're going to hop into Matthew chapter 1. If you've got one of the Bibles on the rows, it should be page 523. So let's pray and then we'll look at Matthew chapter 1.
God, we thank you for this time that we get to gather as church family and open your word and learn about you. Pray that you would teach us. That your Holy Spirit would come and reveal to us truth about yourself. That you would draw us closer to you. We praise you. We thank you in Jesus' name.
Amen. Matthew chapter 1. The book of the genealogy is Matthew chapter 1 verse 1. This is Matthew writing a gospel about Jesus, writing a story about Jesus, telling us what he did when he was on earth. This is how he starts. The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ.
Genealogy just means his lineage, his family history, his granddaddy and that guy's daddy and his granddaddy's daddy, that kind of thing. In the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, we're going to come back to that, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the first Jewish person. And so what he has immediately declared is that David was the first, like, legitimate good king. Saul was there for a while and then David was, like, the king after Saul. What he just started off with was Abraham, the first Jewish guy, David.
And he's saying that his lineage, he comes straight from Abraham through David to Jesus. That's what he's telling us here. Let me just pause for just a second and tell you this because I think it's helpful, although it doesn't really apply to what we're talking about today. But I just think it's helpful for us to know as people who live in the United States. Jesus was Jewish. Super, super Jewish.
There's some discussion in the United States about whether he was white or black. He was Jewish. Abraham to David, Jewish. Like, recently, like, we get in this discussion about Santa Claus. Jesus isn't up for debate. He was a real person.
He had, like, he was Jewish. Like, you don't get to come to me and be like, hey, I just want to let you know we're transferring you. You're Italian now. Like, that's not how that works. Like, that wasn't chosen for me. I'm going to be, like, pasty Scottish Iris my entire life.
You're not transferring that. Jesus was Jewish. Like, around Christmas, they were talking about Santa Claus, and then one of the ladies on Fox News said, she said, Santa Claus was white and Jesus was white. Get over it. No, no. He's Jewish.
Like, look, just so you know, for all the people in this room, in this book, no white people. They're not here, guys. They don't show up. So if you're always picturing, like, curly-haired blonde people, they're not here. No white people here. No blue eyes.
Wasn't here. There are some Africans in this book, but finding a white person in first-century Palestine would have been like, I heard a guy say it was like, it'd be like watching Bigfoot ride a unicorn through the middle of New York. It's just not happening. Amen. So just wanted to help you out with that.
Abraham was the father of Isaac. So it's the book of genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. That had nothing to do with what we're talking about. That was just free for y'all. Abraham was the father of Isaac. And Isaac, the father of Jacob.
And Jacob, the father of Judah and his brothers. And Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar. And Perez, the father of Hezron. And Hezron, the father of Ram. And Ram, the father of Amminadab. And Amminadab, the father of Nashon.
And Nashon, the father of Sam. And Sam, the father of Boaz by Rahab. And Boaz, the father of Obed by Ruth. And Obed, the father of Jesse. And Jesse, the father of David, the king. Whew.
Matthew coming out swinging with this names on names on names on names. Just so you know, if you take a creative writing class, they're not going to tell you to do that. That's not how you start a story. Really hook people. Give a list of names for your main character's genealogy. That's what people like.
Nobody was reading that going, oh my goodness. This is a high quality literature. This is almost as good as my other favorite book, the phone book. Like nobody was doing that. Because we don't get what Matthew is saying. Jewish people, which is who Matthew is writing to, just freaked out.
Now, when a Jewish person reads this, they said, oh, Matthew came out swinging. And he's not playing around with what he's just about to tell us about Jesus. Matthew starts off and says, let me tell you about Jesus, the son of David, the son of Abraham. And then he goes through his list and he says, he's the son of David, the king. And Jewish people just said, oh, no. This has gotten serious really quickly.
And here's why. Old Testament, God comes to David and promises David. The God of the universe comes to the king of Israel, David, who's David the king. That's why he's listed that way. King of Israel had a bunch of kings. Judah had a bunch of kings.
David is the king. When you were a little kid in Israel and you were swinging a stick at a tree, you were being David. Everybody had the David action figure. Every time you threw a rock at a bully, you were being David. Like little kids were David. He's the king.
And here's why. God shows up to David and promises him that you will have a king that comes from your lineage that will be a king forever. That will never fail to be a son of David on the throne. And it will be an eternal worldwide dominion. That's the promise made to David. So that happens in 2 Samuel.
I'm going to go through and tell you just a little bit about this king that is over and over and over again prophesied in the Old Testament. 2 Samuel 7. There's going to be a king who comes from, this is God talking to David, comes from your body. I will establish his kingdom. I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me.
Your throne shall be established forever. Jeremiah 33. Prophets are declaring about this king. A righteous branch will come out of David. And he will never lack a man on the throne. Isaiah 9.
Another prophet throughout Israel's history who's declaring that a government will be on this guy's shoulders. He will be called God. He will be called Prince of Peace. He will reign on David's throne establishing justice and peace and righteousness. Isaiah 11. The Spirit of God will dwell on him.
And he will judge on behalf of the needy and the poor. Isaiah 42. He will judge the nations giving sight to the blind and setting captives free. Isaiah 49. Says he will be despised. But kings and princes will rise up and bow down to him.
Daniel 7. Daniel 7. Says that he sees a son of man. Which is Jesus' favorite name for himself. Says that he sees a son of man who's given authority, glory, sovereign power over all people's nations. Men of every language will worship him.
And he will have dominion forever. And a kingdom that will never be destroyed. Zechariah 14. Says he'll destroy his enemies and be king over the whole earth. Malachi 3. Says that God will send someone ahead of this guy to declare that he's coming.
And then he says who will be able to stand when he shows up. But throughout the Old Testament, over and over again, after this promise made to David, it's promised over and over. This king's coming. He's coming. He's going to have an eternal dominion. All other kings are going to bow down to him.
He's going to last forever. He's going to reign with righteousness and justice and power. And he's going to be sovereign over everything. And so when Matthew starts off and says Jesus came in the line of David the king, everybody's ears perked up and said, what are you trying to get at? Where are you taking this? I know you're not about to say that he's the king.
The promised king we all know about. Matthew chapter 2. That's what Matthew's saying. Matthew chapter 2. We'll see how this works. Now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king.
Okay, so Herod is the king of Israel. It's really interesting that he's called king because they're ruled over by the Roman Empire. He's one of the only people in the Roman Empire who's ever allowed to be called king. So it just kind of points to his ruthlessness and political savvy that he's underneath another kingdom and still gets to be called king. So he says that Jesus was born in the line of David the king, and now he's telling us about another king.
In Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem saying. So wise men, this is why at Christmas you'll hear the song. We three kings of Orient are. Just thinking about these wise men. They weren't kings. They were wise men.
But they're from the east, and that's the Orient. In that song. That was also free, just so you know what you're singing about. Wise men came to the east from Jerusalem saying, Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose. So a new star shows up.
That's why in all the nativity scenes you see there's a little star at the top. This is over top of where Jesus was. A new star shows up. We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled. And all Jerusalem with him.
Yeah. Of course Herod the king is troubled. He's the king. And these wise men from the east said, Hey, we study the stars. We study astrology. And the king has been born.
So they come and say, We want to see the king. And Herod's like, I'm here. And they're like, No, no. The king. The one that's been born king. The capital K king.
The one who's been prophesied king. The one that creation bends to king. We came to ask you because we thought you might be able to help us find him. But you're not who we're looking for. Appreciate the autograph. You can put it back.
We want to see the real one. And so Herod's troubled because he's a king. And there's another king born. Just for the record, You don't have two kings. Kings don't coexist. They don't have tandem thrones.
It wasn't like a cute thing they used to do back in the day. One king. That's how he got to be king. No other kings. So Herod's troubled.
And that makes sense because they just said, Hey, we want to see the king, The prophesied king. The one that's going to rule over you king. The one that princes are going to rise up and bow down to king. The guy who's in charge of you, Even though he's an infant. Herod's troubled. And assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people, He inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.
He did not misunderstand what they were saying. He knew the prophecies. That's why he gets the people who study the Old Testament and says, Where is he going to be? Because they just said that he was born. That a star showed up for him. And he's here.
Where does it say he's going to be born? Because he knew exactly who they were talking about. The person we just read about. And assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people, He inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. And they told him, In Bethlehem of Judea. For so it is written by the prophet, And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah.
This is Micah the prophet says this. Still talking about this king. And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, Are by no means least among the rulers of Judah. For from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared.
And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, Go and search diligently for the child. And when you have found him, bring me word that I too may come and worship him. After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them, Until it came to rest over the place where the child was. The child's Jesus. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.
Then going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, And they fell down and worshipped him. Then opening their treasures, they offered him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, They departed to their own country by another way. Okay. So they come.
They say, We saw this star. We're wise men. We study these things. We saw this star. We know what's happening. We know the old text.
Where is he? And he says, I don't know, but we'll find him. And he says, When you find him, let me know, because I want to worship him too. Now Herod's lying, and we'll get to see that in a second. And so that's what they told. They were warned in a dream not to tell Herod.
And they just to leave. And so wise men show up. And what they say is, We've seen signs that this is the king. We've seen signs that this is who we're supposed to worship. And their response is to an infant worship. And they open up their treasures, and they give to him, and they worship him as king.
13 Through 15, we're not going to read it, but it just says that in a dream, Joseph is warned that Herod's going to try to kill Jesus. And so they go to Egypt. So Herod does what kings do. He defends his throne with absolute authority. He just declares, Go in there, round up all males, two years older, younger, kill them. And they do.
But Joseph's family had been warned, and so they had left. Herod was a bad dude. He was kind of psychotic. He killed a lot of people. He killed a lot of his wives. He had more than one because he kept killing them.
He killed a lot of his wives and a lot of his sons. And one of the emperors actually said that it's better to be Herod's pig than his son, which is a Greek joke because pig and son sound similar. And so he made a little pun about, a little joke about, because he's Jewish, so Jewish people don't eat pigs. So he's like, if you want to be safe and live in Herod's house, be his pig, not his son, because he's going to kill you if you're his son. Because every time Herod started noticing anybody around him getting a little bit of power, he got rid of them, forcibly. So these wise men show up and say, we're here to worship the king, the capital K king, the prophesied king.
And Herod says, yeah, me too. Oh, that'd be great. Tell me where he is. And then when they trick him, he just kills all the infants he can find. Wise men want to worship, want to bow down, want to give everything in submission to Jesus. And Herod, because he has some authority, wants to defend it.
Now here's what's true. Jesus is the king in the line of David, the king, who is an eternal king. Which means that his rule and his reign comes to us through history because he is eternal. See, Jesus died, but he didn't stay dead. Everyone in this room is going to die. I saw a statistic recently that death rate in America is hovering right around 100%.
It's like 10 out of 10 people. It's really sad. Everyone in this room is going to die, and I can tell you something about you. You're going to stay dead. We won't have your funeral and then eat with you a week later. That's what they did with Jesus.
That's irregular. It is. And then he ascended into heaven, and he exists still and rules and reigns. And he is the eternal king who has eternal dominion. And one day he will return, conquer all of his enemies. Scripture tells us this.
And then he will have his kingdom forever. We have the same options that we hear in this story. We can, like the wise men, submit, worship. Or we can, like Herod, fight and defend our kingdom. Those are the options we have. Everyone in this room, you're going to make that decision.
If you decide to not do anything with Jesus, you've made that decision. I'll be king, thanks. I'll be in charge, thanks. That's how it works. Let me tell you something that's very true. You love being king.
It's your favorite. You don't think about it a whole lot, but you really love being in charge of what you do. I love being in charge of what I do. That's why I love being an American. That's why I own, like, 12 guns. Because I get to be in charge of what I do.
And if someone tries to keep me from being in charge of what I do, up until a point, let's go. It's go time. We love it. Let me tell you something else that's true about you. You're a terrible king. You're the worst at it.
You love it, but you're bad at it. You make horrible decisions. You give yourself the benefit of the doubt a lot, but you're terrible. Most of us are like, no, I'm a good king. I know I did eighth grade twice, and I'm in debt because I can't manage a budget. But I'm a great king.
And that's just not how it works. So the question becomes for us, is Jesus a good king? Because he declares that he's king. When a king shows up and declares that he's king, you have to do something with that. He is the eternal king. And so the question becomes, is he a good king?
Good king, good kingdom. Bad king, bad kingdom. Is he a hero? Is he a tyrant? And the second question that fits underneath that is, is he a better king than I am? Is he willing to do things for me that I'm not willing to do?
Is he willing to step in on my behalf when I can't fix situations? Is he a good king? Is he a hero? Matthew 1, verse 21 should be on the same page or a page back, depending on what your Bible looks like. Matthew 1, verse 21 says this. This is an angel talking to Joseph.
Jesus' adopted father. And he's talking about Mary. He says, Good kings defend their territory, ride in, and are heroes. You see, when you're in a place that's being ransacked, that has enemies, that's being torn down, you don't have walls, you don't have a defense, everything. A king rides up and says, I will fight for you. You say, thank you so much.
This place is a hot mess. We need some rules. We need some help here. Thank you. And when you feel like you have some control and some authority and things are going pretty well, you don't do that when a king shows up. But here's what it's saying.
It says that Jesus will save his people from their sins, which means that we have an enemy that we're losing to. That ultimately our problem is sin. That's what has marred us as humans. That's what's caused pain and destruction and rebellion. That's what's broken up our relationships. That's what's hurt us.
And that Jesus will save us from our sins. And what he did was he lived on earth a perfect, sinless life and died for us. That's why Jesus went to the cross. He died for us to pay for our sin. And then he rose again, rescuing us. And so I can tell you very definitively that Jesus is a good king.
And for every person in this room, he's a better king than you are. But ultimately, we've got the same two options. Follow, worship, love Jesus as king, or do everything we can to defend our own kingdom. With logical arguments. With excuses. With just, I don't want to get into that.
I don't want to think about it. I just want to do me. See, it's the choices. That's how it works. We're going to spend the next several weeks as we walk through this series. Just looking at what kind of kingdom does Jesus have?
What kind of king is he? We know that he's a hero that saves his people from their sins. But we're going to investigate a little more about what his kingdom looks like. But I just want everybody to know that Jesus is an eternal king. He does rule and he does reign. He is a good king.
And we all have the same options that they have. The band's going to come back up. We're going to sing some more. We're going to praise Jesus as king. Father, we thank you for your grace. We thank you that you are a good king.
That you did die on our behalf. God, we pray that through your Holy Spirit you would lead us. To like the wise men bow and worship you as a good king. Even though we seek to do everything we can to defend our own kingdom, our own sovereignty. Thank you, Jesus. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.