Jesus Is King

He's the best. And we know that when we need hope, Jesus is our hope. And we need comfort when life hurts, he's there for us. And when we need strength and we're feeling weak, he can be that strength for us. And Jesus just simply changes every aspect of our life. And there are so many ways when we open up scripture that God has described to us, there's so many natures of God that we can learn every time we gather together. For example, we know that when we're lost, he's our shepherd. And when we're hurting, he's our healer. When we're in need, he's our provider. When we've sinned and we've messed up, we run to him as our Savior. And here's the thing, we should know him and we should worship him for all of those things. Somebody say amen to that. But there's an aspect of Christ. There's an aspect of God that I wanna cover today and our time together. And that's this, that scripture also presents Jesus as the one that reigns over us. And Jesus is actually the king. And so we're gonna just kinda unpack this a little bit, this idea of the fact that Jesus is king. And that's actually the title of this message today. But before we dive into this, can we pray together? Why don't you buy your heads across every location? And let's go to the Lord and ask his anointing over this message.

God, we thank you that you are still on the throne. And Jesus, you do reign over us. And we declare that with our mouth. And we pray that over these next few moments, God that you would do exactly what it is that you wanna accomplish. And so we are ready to change, we're ready to be moved. And God, we wanna hear your voice so clearly, so speak. We pray and ask this in the mighty name of Jesus. And the church said, amen. Well, I don't know about you, but I have had to serve on a jury before. Any jury duty people out here, you've had to do it. All right, so normally you're not too excited when you get the little card in the mail, okay? And so this happened to be around 2010. I got one of these cards in the mail and it said that you have been summoned to be a part of a potential federal grand jury. So this is like a step above just normal jury duty 'cause on the card, it said that you had to dress a certain way. It said for the guys to know jeans, you had to wear like a suit jacket and dress pants. All the guys even had to wear a tie. And I'm like, oh man, I don't know what to expect with this whole thing. So we show up and we're there with all the other potential jurors and we're kind of looking at each other like we don't know what's going on.

And I remember when they told us the term, like the length of how long we'd be serving. Now normally it'd be like a day, maybe two days max or something like that. The guy said, okay, just to let you know, this is a federal grand jury and the term is one year, all right? So when that was announced, there was a gasp in the room much like it was just here. And the lady next to me just burst out in tears and she started crying and I'm like consoling. I'm like, it's gonna be all right. We're gonna get through this together. So nobody was excited, but then they showed this video and it had like all this thematic music behind it. And it said something along the lines of like from the beginning of the foundation of our country, we relied on jurors just like you to sit on grand juries and there was like an American flag, you know, in slow motion and a bald eagle and all this stuff. And then it faded to black and I told the guys around me, I was like, listen, sign me up for five years. I'm good, I'll do this. This is the way that I can serve my country. But I remember when we showed up, we showed up to this desk and they were checking people in and all of us were dressed like we were supposed to be dressed, except this one guy walks to the doors and he doesn't have on the nice pants and the jacket and the tie, he just has on jeans and he has on a polo shirt. And he looked okay, but he just kind of came in

with this attitude like, I know that we were supposed to address a certain way, but I'm just gonna get away with it. And so he walks up to this lady and this lady is the type that kind of had the glasses and she would look up at you, but like, you know what I'm talking about? Just this little condescending thing. And so he comes up and he goes, oh, I'm here to check in for the grand jury and she looks him up and down and she goes, sir, you're gonna be in the presence of a federal judge. You need to look appropriately. And so we're all like going, I cannot believe this is real. We're waiting for the hidden cameras to come out and stuff. So she directs him to this corner closet and she says, go ahead and dress yourself right here. And inside this closet, they have a bunch of different sizes of jackets and they have suit pants and they have ties. And he's like, are you serious? You want me to get dressed right here? She goes help yourself. And so then he does, he takes, he takes dress pants, he puts on his dress pants over. And the only thing I can compare it to is you know how when your parents would have you come out of the dressing room and you felt embarrassed and you didn't really want to come out. Your shoulders are kind of struggling and you're just walking out like all embarrassed. He came out looking like that and we're all like, "No, man, you look great. You really do look great. You're going to be all right." But the point was this, "Sir, you're going to be in the presence of a federal judge. You need to look appropriately." And as I thought about that as it relates to approaching Jesus as king, I'm not talking about the fact that we need to look a certain way. Like I understand that some of you have convictions where you like to get dressed up and maybe you like to wear a suit and tie to worship Jesus. More power to you. I celebrate that. Go for it if that's your convictions. Other people like to just come in casual and there's nothing wrong with that. So I'm not talking about the way you dress. That's actually not the point. My point has nothing to do with how you dress. It has everything to do with how you approach someone when you recognize that they have authority in your life.

And so this woman understood something. She's like, "Sir, you're about to come into contact with somebody pretty important. Recognize who you're about to stand before." And it's hard for us to grasp this because we don't live in a monarchy where we have a king that we report to and most of us would never have to stand in the presence of a king. But man, throughout history and throughout scripture, when somebody would stand in the presence of a king, it was a big deal. I mean, there was an immense amount of honor and there was so much reverence and there was so much awe. And I believe this with all my heart. When you truly see Jesus as king, it changes the way you live for him and it also changes the way that you worship him. When we see Jesus as not just somebody that we come into contact with out of religious ritual or routine, no, but we're coming to the very presence of God. And how many of you know this that Jesus isn't just a king. Jesus is the king. He's the king of kings and he's the Lord of Lords. And so today what I want to do is I want to open up the book of Revelation just a couple chapters. And I want to look at what John of Patmos writes and gives us a glimpse of what heaven is like. And we can kind of understand what the throne is like and what this kingdom of God is like as it's described. He's trying his best to articulate everything that he sees in this vision and he writes it down. So this is Revelation chapter 4 verses 2 and 3. It says this, "At once I was in the Spirit and there before me was a throne and heaven was someone sitting on it." And the one who sat there had the appearance of Jasper and Ruby, a rainbow that shone like an emerald encircled the throne. So he describes the throne that we sing about and we worship about and we read in the Scripture. Verse 8, let's jump down to that. "Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings." And I would just encourage you don't think about that too much because it may give you nightmares tonight, all right? That's a little strange, but he's writing down everything he saw and he says, "Day and night they never stopped saying this." Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is the commons. So all of heaven is speaking to the holiness of God. And then in verse 10 the 24 elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives forever. And they lay their crowns before the throne and they say this, "You are worthy our Lord and God to receive glory and honor and power for you created all things. And by your will they were created and have their being." So they're speaking to his authority. And then in Revelation chapter 5 verse 6 I love this part, this is my favorite. Then I saw a lamb looking as if it had been slain standing at the center of the throne and circled by the four living creatures and the elders. And we know who is the lamb, it's Jesus Christ, right? The pure and spotless lamb. Then I looked and I heard the voice of many angels numbering thousands upon thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders and a loud voice they were saying this, "Worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise." And then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea and all that is in them saying this to him who sits on the throne and unto the lamb. So, here we get a picture of God being on the throne and Jesus at the right end.

The Father's kingship does not compete with the Son's kingship. They're reigning together. What a picture that is of heaven right now that there are angels and there are elders, man, and there are living creatures and there are thousands upon thousands crying out, but none of them are at the center. Who is at the very center? It is God Almighty. Aren't you glad that you serve a God that is greater than you? Right? That there is somebody who still sits on the throne as sovereign and as holy. And the throne is at the center. We know that Jesus is at the right hand and all of heaven responds in worship. And so let me just ask you this question. What happens when we begin to worship Jesus as king? If you take a note, you can write this down. But number one, I would say this that worshipping him as king affects our posture. Chapter four verse 10 says, the 24 elders, they fall down before him who sits on the throne. And that's what the posture is. It's like they're just using their bodies to worship. And so this bowing down, and we sang songs about that moments ago, this bowing down outwardly represents this reverence and this honor and this humility. And throughout scripture, when people encountered the majesty of God, when people encountered the presence of God, they would just bow down and they would often kneel

or they'd fall on their faces, they would even lift their hands and it wasn't because it was some formula to get God's attention. It was because they were just simply responding to the awe and the majesty of a great God. I love that line in the song that we sung moments ago that it says, man, never lose the awe and the wonder of who God is. And when we come into the presence of God, it does something to us. So yes, bowing is a posture. And maybe sometimes that's appropriate or kneeling is a posture. And we do that from time to time. Lifting our hands as a part of our posture and all those things are appropriate. But how many of you know, pride can also be a posture. There's sometimes when it's like, we don't want to enter in and there's a part of our life that we don't want to surrender to the Lord. And so rather than being all in with our hands lifted up, it's like we retreat a little bit back and we kind of have our arms folded. And even if they're not physically folded in that moment, like that's what our heart represents and we're not engaged. And it's like all these other people can sing, but I'm not gonna sing. All these other people can worship God, but I'm just gonna stay reserved right back here

because I'm too proud to let anybody see me worship Jesus. You know, I remember when I was in a youth ministry and we'd go away for these retreats, a fall retreat or a camp or something like that. And students would come in and maybe there were students that were a part of the youth ministry that were on fire for Jesus, but there was a new group of kids that would come in and they weren't used to this yet. And so they'd come into like this environment and they didn't know quite how to act because we're seeing everybody else like go crazy for God. And then they're just like, I'm too cool for that kind of thing. You know what I'm talking about? They just had this attitude like, I'm gonna stand in the back. All the churchy people can do their churchy stuff up here, but I'm gonna stay way back here and let them do their thing. That would be true until they encountered the presence of Jesus. Until they encountered the very real presence of Jesus and then how many of you know what would happen is all things would change. And the posture of their heart would change and rather than being proud, rather than them being like distant, they would just enter in and before long, their hands are lifted and they're using their voices to cry out to God and they're using their body

to express worship to God. How many of you know that's a good thing, right? What they realized was this, that bowing down to Jesus is not a sign of weakness. Humbling yourself in the presence of God is not a sign of weakness. And I'm gonna ask all the guys in this room, how many of you know, real men worship Jesus? Somebody say amen to that. So dads worship Jesus, let your kids see you cry out. Grandpas, let your grandkids see you cry out to Jesus. There's nothing more strong than that when you use your voice and use your life to humble yourself before God. Hebrews says this, let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence. I love these two truths hanging there in this scripture. Let us then approach God's throne of grace. It's a throne, but it's a throne of grace. And the Bible says, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us. So yes, it's a throne, and he is king, and he has authority, and he is holy, and he reigns, all that is still true, but it's a throne of grace, which means he invites us in to this throne room. We find mercy and we find help, and we find the forgiveness and the favor that we need. In other words, we don't approach his throne carelessly because it's still the throne of God,

and we need to have this respect and honor for the presence of God, but we don't have to approach it fearfully because it's the throne of grace, and he invites us in. There's a cool illustration of this on the southern steps in Jerusalem, and you can go there now and you can see this in real life, but see the pictures here, as you step up into the temple, the steps that lead to the temple, this place of worship, they were designed in an interesting way. The steps were not designed to be even, so like all the architects this wouldn't pass code today, all right? But it caused people to look down, it wasn't meant to trip people up necessarily, but it was part of the design, and the thought process behind it was to slow people down so that you couldn't just rush into worship. It would cause you just to pause a little bit and think about whose presence you're about to enter into, and so I love that visual because you couldn't just rush in and mindlessly race up the stairs. No, you had to consider who we're approaching. I wonder sometimes if we've gotten comfortable in the presence of God, and sometimes we lose that awe that I was talking about, where it's like, man, we've just rushed in and we're distracted and I get it

because you check in your kids and you find a parking spot and you do all the different things and you get in and sometimes just like you got to take a deep breath and go, okay, right now I have come to worship the Lord, so my sites are gonna not be on all of my problems and all of my duties and all the things that I have to get done right now in this moment. I choose to push all that aside and focus on the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Come on, is anybody with me today? That's what worship is. In this moment I realize whose presence I'm entering into, it changes our posture. The media team has had some fun with this little mannequin dummy type thing, all right? So, put the first picture on the screen, if you don't mind. This is, I think they named him Reverend Duane or something like, I don't know, he's just, he's appeared in different places throughout our campus and so here, there's a picture of him in the sanctuary and then he's on cameras, so he's volunteering. He's running the sound board and stuff like that. I don't know if there's another one. Oh yeah, he's also like in our productions, apparently. So, but here he is. So this guy, right, one afternoon I was going in, I was grabbing something out of one of these side offices

and I'm just going down really quickly. I unlocked the door and I see this figure in the out of the corner of my eye. Now, the lights are off and all I can see is this dummy thing like softly illuminated by the computer screen and let me just tell you, I'm so glad that there are not any surveillance cameras or like security cameras because our team would have had a lot of fun with that because I looked absolutely ridiculous. I think I was like, you know, trying to punch and defend myself and the whole time, it's just a dummy and I was like, okay, but it scared me so bad. And as I thought about worship today, I wonder if sometimes our worship looks similar to that. And here's what I mean by that. Where the posture is there, like the hands are lifted or the song is being sung or kneeling is taking place but the heart is not connected. And I'm telling you that the power in worship, listen to me, the power in your praise, the power in your worship is not the religious routines of going through the motions. It's when you connect your heart to what is happening on the outside. That's when worship gets power and really blesses the name of the Lord. So I can stand and I can raise my hands and I can close my eyes and that doesn't necessarily mean I'm worshiping. I can even kneel down and outward,

everything can look like worship. But again, God isn't simply looking at the position of my body. What is he looking for? He's looking at the posture and the position of my heart. Jesus says it this way in John chapter four, yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in what? And in truth. So there was this debate, like, is it worship? go to this temple and he's saying oh there's a time that has now come where true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth that's when your heart is connected that's when it blesses the name of the Lord so I'm not saying everybody has to kneel I'm not saying everybody has to raise their hand the question is this is something happening on the inside that corresponds with what's happening on the outside you're saying Jesus I recognize who you are and you are king it affects my posture and secondly I would say this that it also affects our position I love in verse 10 they lay their crowns before the throne and their position is one of surrender like I realized who is on the throne and they realize that they are not on the throne and so these 24 elders and they have their own thrones and they have their own crowns but they get off their own thrones and they lay down their own crowns and they laid at the feet of Jesus at this at this throne so they change positions and they they take the crowns off their heads and they lay them at his feet so they move from ruler to ruled and here's what I mean by that they understand their their position in relationship to his position and that's this he's on the throne and guess what I'm not that's that's something that somebody needs to be reminded of today that he is on the throne and guess what you are not so that means when you're trying to figure everything out in your own life and you're trying to trying to make all these decisions and you're feeling the weight of every decision yes steward well and use wisdom but sometimes you just have to remind yourself that he's on the throne and I'm not he's in control of all of this and he's going to make a way where there seems to be no way he is in control and so we approach God the same way I mean I realize

that we have all kinds of people in our church that have different titles we have CEOs and CFOs and business owners and and and probably some judges that attended our church and people with real authority law enforcement and so people have different types of of authority but we all approach it the same way so if we have authority or accomplishments or maybe even people answer to us when it comes to the throne of God everyone takes off their crown so me as a pastor I take off my crown and I submit to his authority right the CEO takes off his or her crown and submits to the authority of God the successful or the influential there's only one king in the room and we have to take off our crown and say God you are on the throne Jesus you are king and that's what that's what this throne represents what what that's what this crown represents why would we say a crown what does that mean it represents authority it represents reward achievement and rule and all those things are going to exist in heaven but when we look and set our eyes on the throne that's when we say all honor power and glory goes to him not me and so I was thinking about this because I don't know if you're like me but sometimes when I pull on to a property and there's people in the orange vest and they have the little cones and the directing traffic does anybody have this thought sometimes like I know you're telling me to go this particular way but I don't want to go that way anybody be honest okay so you're like I want to go my way and I don't care if you got your fancy cone and got your little vest I want to go here because I see empty spots and you don't know where I want to go and you're probably thinking this person has only been on the job for like five seconds so they didn't even know what they're talking about and you have all these reasons I we don't even need reasons just because we're human we don't like to be told what to do that's just the flesh part of us or maybe it's just me no I know you're like that too all right we don't like to be told what to do and so when we say that Jesus you are Lord we're not just saying Jesus I worship you Jesus I lift your name up when you say Jesus you are Lord what you're really saying is you have the permission and you have the right to direct my life you like like if Jesus is there with the cone you're saying which what spot do you want me to go to you want me to stop then I'll stop you want me to go then I'll go when you say Jesus is Lord you're saying you are the director of my life you have the the authority to tell me what to do and what not to do and I will respond to that when we call Jesus Lord you're saying Jesus you have the right to lead me you have the the right to correct me nobody likes that sometimes but he's the Lord he has the right to correct you and that's why these elders lay down

Matthew chapter 28 verse 18 says this, "Jesus says this, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.'" Because of the work that was done on the cross, Jesus can boldly declare this as truth, and it is true, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me." So as a father, I have certain responsibilities, right? I'm a leader in my home, and I have to live up to that. And as God helps me, I want to live well and lead well in that area of my life. So yes, I'm a father, but Jesus is still the king. Maybe I'm a leader, but Jesus is still king. I might run a business or lead a ministry or have things going on in my life, and all that might be true, but Jesus is still king, and he is the Lord of my life. Not just Lord help me, not just Lord bless me, not just Lord provide for me, but Lord as master, Lord as ruler, Lord as the one who has the right to lead my life. Romans 10 says, "If you declare with your mouth that Jesus is what is Lord, you're not just giving him accolades, you're saying if you declare that Jesus is my director, Jesus is my master, Jesus is the ruler of my life, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, then you'll be saved." So he's not just an advisor, he's not just a consultant, like you'd have consultations with your friends, "Hey, let me run this by and get your opinion." When Jesus says something is right or wrong, that's just the bottom line, he has the authority to say it like that, and we've got to respond in the presence of the Lord, saying, "God, you are Lord. Jesus, you are Lord. You can't truly call him Lord if you're unwilling to let him lead." And then finally, I'm going to close with this, worshiping him as king affects our praise. In verse 11 of chapter 4, "You are worthy, O Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power." He's the one that's worthy, so this praise is they're declaring his worth, that he is worthy. That's what the word worthy means. He's worth this type of praise. He's worthy of it, and I had some fun, and I went on YouTube, and I looked at some concert footage of Elvis Presley, who's known as the king of rock and roll, and I watched some of the footage, and watched how you'd walk the streets after his concerts, and how many people would mob him, or I had some fun, and I looked up Michael Jackson, who's the king of pop, and I looked up how millions of people would gather, and they would sing, and people would literally be passing out, and they'd

get in their car trying to get away from the concert, and all these people would just completely bombard them, and they couldn't even go away, because everybody's affection and attention was focused on them. You know what? Instead of like envying that, when I saw those pictures and I saw those videos, I had pity on those guys, because no one is designed to carry that type of worship. The weight of worship like that, no human being is built to carry that kind of praise. Thousands upon thousands of people screaming and crying and reaching out, "Oh, if I can just touch, that's not what human beings are built for. We're built to just be a vessel that if God uses us, then great, but all glory goes to Him." So I don't care how talented you are, I don't care how famous you are, I don't care how successful you are, how gifted you are, we are not designed to carry the weight of worship, no human being is. That's part of the problem when we put people on pedestals. Eventually they're going to disappoint us, and it's not because they're bad people or they mean to be hurtful, it's just because they're human. And we put them in a place that they were never designed to occupy. But I love Revelation 5, hear me on this, John sees someone who can carry the weight of worship. Listen to this, thousands upon thousands surround the throne, and they're crying out in loud voices, they're falling down and declaring honor and glory and praise, and not once in heaven. No one in heaven is saying, "Hey, guys, that's enough. We've reached our praise threshold, we've reached our worship threshold." I don't think Jesus deserves any more honor. It never happens. It's never said that it's too much. Why? Because you cannot over praise Jesus. You cannot put him on too high of a pedestal. You cannot give him too much glory, too much honor. Revelation five says worthy is the lamb. That's the difference, he's worthy. And he alone, people can be appreciated and people can be honored and we should celebrate them and all that's great, but only Jesus can carry the weight of our worship. Philippians two nine says, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is what?

It's above every name. Aren't you thankful for that? Gave him the name that is above every name and we're never gonna put people where only the king belongs.