Promised One – King and Lord

Have you ever just looked around you and said something's wrong?

Has there ever been something or maybe even this week or you

know, something that's happening in the world around you and you

just look at it and you say something's wrong here?

Anybody just nod your head. You don't have to raise your

hand. Something's wrong this week.

I was feeling a little guilty because I had a long standing

tradition that I kind of have broken over the last few years

and I I was starting to feel bad about it.

And that tradition was that on Thanksgiving, I like to

celebrate Thanksgiving the way the Pilgrim is meant for us to

celebrate Thanksgiving, which is by stopping at White Castle on

the way home from Thanksgiving dinner.

And so, you know, the last few years I haven't done that.

And I, I thought this year I just was feeling a little bit

guilty about that. And I thought, this is the year

that I reinstate their tradition and I get things back to normal.

Now, listen, I, I, I'm going to get myself in a lot of trouble

if I don't say some things today.

The cooking at Thanksgiving is wonderful.

It's just not my favorite meal. The food was fine, just not my

favorite meal. And so I've always supplemented

the meal with delicious White Castle sliders, the best food.

By the way, South, I probably shouldn't do advertisements, but

South Lebanon, White Castle, the freshest in all the land.

You got to check it out. Anyway, So, so Thursday night

we, we had Thanksgiving dinner and, and it was good.

It was good dinner. And on the way home, I thought,

you know, I'm not really hungry, but I really do, you know, want

to get back to my roots of White Castle.

But I went home and we're hanging out at the house.

And then a couple hours later, one of the boys wanted to come

up to the gym and play some sports.

And so I thought, OK, I'll take you up to the gym, thinking this

is my opportunity. And so I drove up to the gym,

dropped the boys off, and then I headed down 42 because the

closest one now is down at 42 and 275.

So I headed down 42 on my way to White Castle.

I got down there. There were no lights on.

Since when does White Castle close closed?

9:30 We're not talking midnight, we're talking 9:30.

Maybe I was too early, maybe they open at 11 or something.

But but I got there in my hopes and dreams were just dashed and

all I could think is something is wrong with this world when

White Castle is closed. No White Castle for me.

You ever you ever thought that? You ever just thought something

is wrong? Not about White Castle.

You probably don't have the same convictions I do.

You know, I told I'm coaching basketball this year and I told

them I'm a pastor and our services end at noon and so I

will coach. But there is no way that I can

coach any game before 1:00 PM. And I got my schedule this week

and I have some games before 1 PM 10 AM on Sunday, basketball

games. A couple weeks ago we, we had a

volleyball tournament tournament down in Nashville.

And, and listen, I, I really, I don't want anyone to think that

I'm being condescending or I don't want anyone to think that

I'm speaking I'll against you. I'm not.

But I want you to say, I want you to know that I, I think

something's messed up in our world that sports have taken

over. And, and, and listen, I'm there.

I'm not, I know, I, I'm living in this place as a parent that I

have kids that are into sports and I love sports and I want

them to be able to play. But in order for them to play,

there's conflict. And, and, and so I understand

where everyone's at, but I sat there in Nashville a couple

weeks ago and it was really great watching, I love watching

my kids play. I mean, I, I made it through the

whole first service, didn't cry until the very end.

And here I am 2 minutes in. I love watching my kids play

sports. I, I was super proud.

But I sat there thinking something's wrong when we're

spending weekends and weekends and weekends and we're not even

doing all of it, but but it something's wrong when that's

taking over life, when you look at our political system, when

you look at the way we interact, when you look at a simple

Facebook post about something you know, totally arbitrary can

turn into hatred, Something's wrong, right?

You've experienced this. We have hope.

Today is the start of Advent season.

And maybe you have thought those thoughts.

Something's wrong, something's off.

Today, as we start Advent season, the season of preparing

ourselves for the coming of the King, I want you to know that

there is something wrong. There's a lot of things wrong

with our world, but the good news is the King has come and

the King is coming again. Advent is a season that we look

back, we celebrate what has happened, that Jesus came to

earth, took on flesh, became one of us and walked this earth,

ultimately gave his life so that we could have salvation and in

life. And so we celebrate in Advent

what has happened, but we also look forward.

Advent is not just about looking back, it's about looking

forward. And so today, if we say

something's wrong, yes, but I've got good news.

The King has come and the king is coming again, and all will be

made right. Over 1000 years before Jesus

showed up, there were prophecies, there were promises

of this coming king, this coming Messiah.

We're going to be looking at those over the Advent season.

Today we're in Jeremiah 23. Jeremiah is in that the the

context of Jeremiah is exactly where what I was talking about.

The people, something's wrong. They're God's people, the

Israelites, they've followed him.

He's delivered them and then and then raised up kings.

We have David and the Lion of Kings of David.

And God had delivered them and, and God had given them a place

and God had given them an identity and a purpose.

But over the course of time, those kings and leaders and even

religious leaders had LED them astray.

And all of a sudden there were false gods.

There were false idols just like there are today that God in the

way and took the place of the one God, the true God.

And so Jeremiah in this in writing.

This is a prophet. Jeremiah is called to call out

to proclaim judgment, but also to proclaim the good news.

The promised 1 is coming. Stand with me.

We're in Jeremiah 23 and this isn't going to be on the screen.

The 1st 4 verses, verse five and six will.

But the context of this is that the, the people have been LED

astray. They, they've turned away.

They're worshipping other gods, just like in our world, people

have have turned away. And it's complicated and it's

tricky and it's messy. That's where the people were the

the leadership, the kings, the religious leaders had had LED

them had begun to to go their own path.

And so in Jeremiah 23, starting in verse, one says, woe to the

shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my

pasture, declares the Lord. Therefore, this is what the

Lord, the God of Israel says to the shepherds who tend my

people. Because you have scattered my

flock and driven them away and have not bestowed care on them,

I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done,

declares the Lord. But then in verse 3 we see a

turn. I myself will gather the remnant

of my flock out of all the countries where I've driven them

and will bring them back to their pasture, where they will

be fruitful and increase in number.

I will play shepherds over them who will tend to them, and they

will no longer be afraid or terrified, nor will any be

missing, declares the Lord. Now stay up because we still got

two more verses. But once again, something's

wrong. This is addressing political

leaders, kings, and it's addressing religious leaders.

Really toward the end of the chapter, it gets more into the

religious leaders, but but they've been LED astray and and

the people are living in this conflict and and they've messed

up. And so Jeremiah comes and and,

and the prophecy is there's going to be judgment, there's

going to be punishment, there's going to be exile.

But in verse 3 we see God will gather his people back.

God will take care of them. Verse 5 the days are coming.

Say that with me the days are coming.

Say it again, the days are coming declares the Lord, when I

will raise up for David a righteous branch, a king who

will reign wisely and will do what is just in right in the

land. In his days, Judah will be saved

and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he

will be called the Lord, our righteous Savior.

Praise Lord, you can have a seat.

So. So we have the prophecy of

judgment. Something's wrong.

You've been LED astray. We have the promise that God has

not forgotten about his people. He will gather them back.

Then we have the promise of a coming king, a savior.

The days are coming when I will raise up a righteous branch, a

king and and the people will be saved.

Advent is a time to look back. I've got good news.

The promised one has come. That's what we celebrated.

Advent, the king has come and we will celebrate it through this

next month. But we also understand the King

is coming again. God's promises are always true.

So let's work through this. The days are coming.

Stay with me one more time. The days are coming.

Now the reason I have you say that with me is because it's not

just the days have happened, but the days are coming.

If we're sitting here in our world and we're saying

something's wrong, something's off, something's messed up, yes,

but the days are coming when the king is coming again and he will

restore what's broken. The days are coming, declares

Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch.

I want to start here. God had promised to David that

that he would bring a a savior, A Messiah from his line.

And in Second Samuel Chapter 7, this is the promise to David.

2 Samuel 7 · chapter mention

The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish

a house for you when the days when your days are over and you

rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to

succeed you and your own flesh and blood, and I will establish

his Kingdom. He is the one who will build a

house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his

Kingdom forever. I will be his Father and he will

be my Son. The promise is through David,

God will bring a Messiah, a king.

Now we Fast forward and the people have messed up the the

line of kings. Some of them were good.

David was a a good king. There were other good kings.

The current king at the time of writing this is Zedekiah.

He was not a good king. You know that sometimes we have

leaders that are good. We have leaders that are bad,

right? Hopefully you're not in one of

those bad times right now. There were good kings.

There were bad kings. There were kings that led people

toward God. There were kings that led people

away from God. There were religious leaders

that led people to God. That is my goal to point you to

Jesus. And there were kings that were

selfish and, and were self interested and were corrupt and

LED them the wrong way. And so, so the promise had come.

But at this point, if you thought of the Kingdom David's

line as a tree, it's as if the tree was withered or falling

down. Anyone have a dead tree in your

yard? Anybody.

I'm the only one. OK.

Great Waters Association is here.

Yeah. Thank you.

I appreciate you. I got this little tree in the

backyard. It's it's like nothing on it for

years. I'm like, I need to chop that

thing down. But every once in a while in the

spring, something will shoot out of it.

There's new life. You've seen that, right?

Something that appears to be dead will sprout new life and

you're reminded that it's not totally dead.

That's where the the whole line of David here.

It was like it was like the the tree was cut off.

It was like it's over in the and and they're facing the judgement

in the condemnation. But but God says the days are

coming when I will raise up for David a righteous branch out of

the seemingly dead. A new, a shoot, a branch comes

up, and that branch is Jesus. See, God had promised, and when

God promises something, it comes true.

We can mess up, we can blow it, we can get off track.

And that's what the people had done.

That's what the kings, the leaders had LED them astray and

they're facing judgement. And it's as if Jeremiah is

saying, listen, I, I hate to tell you this, but it's going to

get worse before it gets better. But the good news is it's going

to get better. The judgement is coming.

I, I love what I, I read this week.

I thought this was really good. It said the judgement was

coming, but it was just the beginning of God's ultimate plan

of restoration. See, when we face judgment or

discipline, we think it's the end.

But the truth of the gospel is God has promised us the hope of

eternal life. And when we mess up, when we

blow it, when our world is messed up and we say, hey,

something's not right here, that doesn't mean that God is gone.

He's abandoned. Yes, they blew it.

Jeremiah was there to say you've messed up, you've gone your own

way. But good news, God's promise

stands, and a righteous branch will come out of the line of

David. Jesus is from the line of David

because God's promises never fail.

That's good news. Today the king was coming.

Spoiler alert, the king has come.

That's what we celebrate at Christmas.

The king has come. The prophecy is true.

The second thing, what what is the king come to deliver?

Well, verse 5A, King who will reign wisely, who will do what

is just and do what is right in the land.

What would this king, what would this righteous branch do?

He would bring justice, he would bring wisdom, he would bring

righteousness to the land. So we look at our world and we

say something is wrong and it looks like at times that the bad

is winning over the good, right? It seems like people that are

not following God are, are prospering where at other times

the people of God aren't. But a king is coming who will

reign wisely, who will do what is just and right.

Jesus came and Jesus is the truth.

He sets things right. And so Jesus came and and he

showed up and the promise was true.

But I want to say this again, He is coming again.

And we're living in this weird in between right now where Jesus

has come and he's shown the way, but we still live under some

corruption, some difficulty, some brokenness.

And sometimes we say something's not right.

Sometimes we, I think this is probably where the people were

that, that we can be torn in the middle, like we know that

something's not right, but what do we do?

What's the path forward? And Jesus came to reign wisely,

to be just and right. Here's the good news.

The Savior has come and he's shown us the way.

We have this amazing gift, God's word, that teaches us who he is

and what he's all about. And so in the in the difficulty,

in the tough decisions, because it's tough to live in this place

where something's not right. Admittedly, guys, I'm a father,

love my kids, love sports, want my kids to do well.

There's a lot of places in my life that I feel this tension of

something's wrong. Good news is the king has come

who is right and just and you. And you know what?

When the world is full of hatred, when the world is

worshipping idols, we don't have to because the king has come, a

king who will reign wisely. See, there were kings that were

good. There were kings that were bad.

But but King David, you know, King David was a good king.

You know, he didn't always do everything perfectly.

In fact, he messed up in some pretty big ways.

But the true king has come who is right and just the one who is

perfect. It goes on in verse 6 and the

days in his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in

safety. So so the king is coming.

The righteous branch is coming up from the line of David.

He is the king that is just and righteous and is wise and and

but I want you to see this next part.

It says in his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in

safety. This is is a short term promise,

but it's also a long term promise and it's for all of us

that we can live in the safety and salvation of Jesus, the King

who has come and is coming again.

Here's the thing. He's not just a good king that's

wise. He's not just a good king that

is righteous. He's not just a good king that

brings justice. He's a king who loves his people

and wants to save his people and wants to give them life and

peace and safety and hope in the midst of brokenness.

Jesus is the King that delivers justice, righteousness, and

salvation to the people. That's us.

Somebody get excited about this guy.

Somebody say Amen. Come on.

I feel like nobody's with me here.

Come on And listen, I get it. We talk about this every year

and I feel that as a pastor. But I want you to know that the

King has come and he's coming again.

And he didn't come just to be a good king.

He came to save his people. And that's good news, because

that's the only reason that any one of us is here.

He brings justice, He brings righteousness, He brings

salvation. Jesus is the king.

And even in a broken and a corrupt world, we can live.

This is the cool thing, guys. We can sit here as the church

and we can say something's wrong and we've all done that right.

Just nod with me so I know you're with me.

We've all done that right? We've said something's wrong

here, OK? Can I tell you that?

Because Jesus has come, because the righteous and just King has

come and offers salvation and grace, we the people of God can

live right and just right now in 2025, in the brokenness, we can

be a people of peace and righteous and righteousness and

justice. All right, let me, I talked

about sports. I'm going to, I'm going to take

a detour back here for a second. I want to encourage you guys if,

if sports are an issue, which they are for my family and they

are for a lot of us, I want to encourage you that you can still

worship. You can still worship every

single day. You can still pray and, and you,

you can even still worship on the weekends.

Maybe your, maybe your games are going to be during worship time,

but I promise you, there are churches.

One of the, one of the great things about today is that we

have the opportunity to put the service out there so that you

can join us. Even if it's later, you can join

us or there are all these other churches.

This is really cool. I went to Nashville.

I got on Google Church of the Nazarene.

There were two churches of the Nazarenes within 10 miles of me

that I could go to. Praise the Lord.

I had the gift of being able to worship even though I had the

struggle. OK, political stuff, the hatred,

the division. You don't have to be a part of

that. In fact, not just you don't have

to be a part of it. You should not be a part of it.

You should be a person of grace and love and truth, not a person

of division and hatred. Good news, the King has come,

He's righteous. He's, he's bringing justice, he

is good, he loves his people, and he offers us the path today.

You're not left to your own devices to figure out how to

live a righteous life in a broken world.

You have the and you can pray and you can be guided by the

Spirit to know how to navigate this world.

It's tricky guys, please understand, I am not getting on

anybody. I'm not trying to bring

condemnation, but I do want to be true to the word of God,

judgement and that our world is corrupt and broken.

And it's tricky and it's tough. But there's a king that's come

and he reigns. And if he reigns in my heart and

my life, he shows me the way, shows me how to live in the

midst of the mess. Jesus has come.

The third part of this, This is the name by which he will be

called the Lord, our righteous Savior.

So, so the righteous branch is coming.

The promise is fulfilled, the promise is true.

A king is coming. He's a good king.

He's a righteous king. He's a just king.

He's also a king for his people, that loves his people, that

offers us justice and righteousness and all of that.

And verse 6 tells us he's the Messiah.

He is the Lord, our righteous Savior.

Now this is kind of cool. At this time King Zedekiah, the

king of the people, was a messed up bad king that led them

astray. The the name Zedekiah actually

means God is righteous. It's it's his name proclaims

that God is righteous and good, but his leadership in his life

LED people away from God's goodness and righteousness.

You see the problem there? But this righteous branch, this

king, well, his name is the Lord, our righteous Savior,

Jehovah Sidkanu, the Lord, our righteousness.

Not just a name, but in function, Jesus, the one that

has come, the one that we look back and we celebrate, and the

one that we look forward to, his coming again is our

righteousness. 2nd Corinthians 5 says God made him who had no sin

to be sin for us so that in him we might become the

righteousness of God. This is so cool, guys.

We can look around and we can say the world's messed up, but

if I'm being really honest, I can stand before you today and

say I failed. I've messed up, I've fallen

short. And there's not a person in here

that can sit, can stand up here and not say the same thing.

Every single one of us has fallen short, but a savior has

come, the Lord of Righteousness. He's not just a prophecy.

He's not just a king. He's not just a good king.

He's not just a king that's for his people.

He is our savior and our righteousness.

Here's the beautiful thing. I don't care what you've done.

I don't care how far you've missed the mark.

If you accept Him as your Lord and your Savior, when you stand

before God, it won't be a laundry list of all of your sins

and all of your shortcomings. What the Father will see is the

righteousness of Christ. That's good news, guys.

The King has come, the promised one has come.

He showed up. God made him who had no sin to

be sin. That doesn't mean that Jesus

sinned. It means that that he took on

the sin of all of us and gave his life as a sacrifice so that

we could be saved, that that he took our place.

And now he is the Lord, our righteous Savior.

Praise the Lord, guys. Something's wrong with our

world, to be honest. Something's wrong in the church

sometimes something's wrong with leaders.

We're not perfect. And sometimes kings and

political leaders and, you know, bosses and all of those things,

sometimes something's wrong. I've got good news.

The king has come and he's righteous and he's just, and he

is the Lord, our righteous savior worship team.

Come on up, stand with me. Today as we start Advent, we

look back. We're talking about hope today

for the people in Jeremiah, for the people of Israel that

Jeremiah is prophesying to. His message is a message of

judgment, but his message is ultimately a message of hope and

a message of a coming Messiah and Savior.

And the message is the same today.

Something's wrong. There will be judgment.

Here's the beautiful thing. Jesus has come.

He gave his life so that we could be forgiven, so that we

could be saved. So as we start the Advent

season, I want to call you to worship.

And, and here's the thing, all you have to do to to have the

righteousness of Christ is accept him as your Lord and

Savior to say, forgive me for my sins.

I want you to be my Lord. I want you to be my king.

Sure, we're going to live under presidents and we're going to

live under bosses and we're going to live under, you know,

crazy things that are messed up. But today there is one true

King, and He is our first authority, and he lives.

As we talked about earlier, He lives.

And today all you have to do is believe, surrender, repent, and

turn to Him. And you are made clean.

You are given righteousness. And yeah, something's messed up

in our world, but we don't have to be.

We can live in his righteousness.

As we sing this last song, I want to encourage you to

respond. If you've never made that

commitment, today you can make that commitment.

It's simple. It's just to say, hey, I've

messed up. But Lord, I want to follow you.

If you've already done that, then this should be a time of

celebration and praise and recommitting ourself.

Let's make sure that every single one of us is there.

Jesus came. The promised one showed up and

he offers us life and salvation today.

Don't miss it. Father, speak to us, help us to

respond to you today. We give you everything.

We worship you. If there's anyone here that's

been maybe missing the mark, if there's anyone here that's been

messed up, if there's anyone here that's maybe been

worshipping the wrong gods, Lord, today I pray we would

surrender everything to you, that you would be our savior,

You would be our king. I thank you Lord, that you're

here for moving our hearts in Jesus name.