OUR GOOD KING by Pastor Shah, Clearview Church, Henderson
Introduction: It’s rare that our whole family gets together but last Thursday we were able to do that. Nicole had bought some tickets for “Aladdin and his Winter Wish” at the Raleigh Memorial Auditorium. Again, if you are a nineties kid, you’ve seen Disney’s Aladdinabout a hundred times. I actually read it when I was a little boy in the 1001 Arabian Nights. It was dark. Trust me, the Disney version is far better. Aladdin is a story of a street kid becoming a prince. It’s a typical rag to riches story. Sometimes people tend to think the same about Jesus. They think that he came as a poor carpenter’s son and then worked his way up to become the King of Kings. That’s just not true. Jesus was destined to be king even before he was born. In fact, unlike all the previous kings, his kingdom has no end because he alone is a good king. When we enter his kingdom, he doesn’t take advantage of us or bind us. Instead, he sets us free forever.
Luke 1 26Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, 27to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s namewasMary. . .30Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS. 32He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. 33And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.”
Question: Who is sitting on the throne of your life? Do you obey him completely or selectively? Is he your Savior and King?
Context: We’re in our new Christmas series called “ROYAL.” As I mentioned last week, we who grew up in the twentieth or the twenty-first century, we have a very limited understanding of what it means to be ruled by a king. We vote our leaders into office. If we don’t like the job they’re doing, we have the option in the next election to vote them out of office. Back in those days, you could not vote kings in and out of office. What would happen if you had a bad king or a tyrant. You were stuck with him. You would try to stay out of sight and do whatever you could to appease him. Sometimes, even the good ones turned bad. Then you would wait for them either to die or get assassinated. Then the challenger would become the next king and you would hope that he would be good. So, when the angel said to Mary –32“He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. 33And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end,” it had a much deeper meaning! In this message we will learn what it means to have Jesus as our good king whose kingdom has no end. 3 things:
I. BAD KINGS
Background:Back in the days of Samuel, the people of Israel wanted a king just like their neighbors to represent them, judge them, and fight for them. They didn’t realize how this would come with a cost. The Egyptians considered their king (Pharaoh) to be the divine embodiment of the god Horus. The Mesopotamians, from whom came the Assyrians and the Babylonian kings, considered kingship to be a divine gift. Obeying the king was equivalent to obeying god. The Hittites believed that their “great king” would become a god after his death. You can just imagine how this would be abused by the kings. God told them that this was a mistake.Listen to 1 Samuel 8 11And he said, “This will be the behavior of the king who will reign over you: He will take your sons and appointthemfor his own chariots and to behis horsemen, and somewill run before his chariots. 12He will appoint captains over his thousands and captains over his fifties, will set someto plow his ground and reap his harvest, and someto make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13He will take your daughtersto beperfumers, cooks, and bakers. 14And he will take the best of your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves, and givethemto his servants. 15He will take a tenth of your grain and your vintage, and give it to his officers and servants. 16And he will take your male servants, your female servants, your finest young men, and your donkeys, and putthemto his work. 17He will take a tenth of your sheep. And you will be his servants. 18And you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, and the LORD will not hear you in that day.” The chief word in all this is take.
Keep in mind that God was planning on appointing a king but it was going to be in his timing and it would be a man according to his own heart.Instead of waiting on God’s timing and God’s choice, the people demanded a king. God answered and gave them a king after their own heart – foolish, selfish, insecure, impatient, cowardly, dishonorable, and a tyrant. Instead of David, they got Saul. Sometimes when we demand things from God, he gives them to us. Instead of being a blessing, they turn out to be a curse.
Application:Who is controlling your life? To whom have you given the sovereignty of your heart?
II. GOOD KING GONE BAD
Background:As prophesied, Saul turned out to be a colossal failure but God’s plan never fails. Listen carefully: Sometimes what you’re asking for is not wrong but your heart is in the wrong place. You will get what’s coming to you but God’s will and purpose will go on. God sends Samuel to find David. Listen to the criteria after the oldest Eliab passed by Samuel: 1 Samuel 16:7“But the LORD said to Samuel, ‘Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the LORDdoes notseeas man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.’” Six more brothers passed by until David is brought and then God said “this is the one.” David turned out to be the “man after God’s own heart.” He killed Goliath with just a few stones and a slingshot. He refused to lift his hand against Saul, the Lord’s anointed. He wouldn’t build a house for himself until God’s house was built. He was patient with his critics like Shimei. He even pardoned his enemies who joined his son in rebelling against him. How people treat others is a reflection of how they treat themselves. If they are easy on themselves, they are easy on others. If they are hard on others, they are hard on themselves. David was easy on others but hard on his own sin.
Then something happened which permanently destroyed David’s testimony. 2 Samuel 11:1“It happened in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go outto battle,that David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.” Instead of doing what a king was supposed to do, David was being an idle hand. Satan will always find work for idle hands. You know what happened. He saw a woman bathing and upon asking, he finds out that she is “Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” This should have been clue enough for David to put the brakes on. Eliam was one of David’s mighty men/bodyguards/elite fighting team. So also, Uriah was in the group.(II Samuel 23)You might say, “How can you keep track of who is who?” There were only 37 of these navy seals meet SAS meet Mossad. Nonetheless, he slept with her. She didn’t have a choice. Then, he tried to get her husband Uriah to claim the baby. When he didn’t, he sent him to the front line to get killed and made him carry his own death sentence. Even the best of the kings of Israel turned out to be bad.
Application:Have people disappointed you? Every human being is a sinner and every Christian is simply a sinner saved by grace. Don’t place your faith in a person, no matter how good they are at the moment.
III. THE ONLY TRUE GOOD KING
Background:God had warned his people that the earthly kings would only take from them. To the contrary, Jesus, the only true good king, came to give.
Matthew 10:1He gavethem poweroverunclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease.
Matt. 14:19And He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke and gavethe loaves to the disciples; and the disciplesgave to the multitudes.
Matt. 20:28just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to giveHis life a ransom for many.”
John 4:14but whoever drinks of the water that I shall givehim will never thirst. But the water that I shall givehim will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”
John 6:51I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall giveis My flesh, which I shall givefor the life of the world.”
John 10:11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherdgivesHis life for the sheep.
John 14:16And I will pray the Father, and He will giveyou another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—
Matt. 26 26And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and brokeit,andgaveitto the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.” 27Then He took the cup, andgavethanks, and gave itto them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you.
John 1:12But as many as received Him, to them He gavethe right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:
John 14:27Peace I leave with you, My peace I giveto you; not as the worldgivesdo I giveto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
John 16:23 “And in that day you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will giveyou.
Do you have the good king in your life? Is he sitting on the throne of your heart?
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