August 2, 2026 | Jesus is Lord

This is the holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew.

Glory to you, Lord Christ.

Now, while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, What do you think about the Christ?

Whose son is he?

They said to him, The Son of David.

He said to them, How is it then that David in the Spirit calls him Lord?

saying, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.

If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?

And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.

This is the gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, Lord Christ.

Almighty God, Almighty Father, we thank you and praise you for your kindness in gathering us together today, and for the gift of your blessed Son.

Oh Lord Jesus, reign over this time together.

Preside over our lives.

Declare your Lordship in our life.

And by the grace of your Holy Spirit, open your open our eyes, open our ears to hear your word.

That our lives might be utterly changed.

This compassion, this kindness that you give so freely to us.

Be exalted, be praised in our midst, we ask.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Good morning.

It is a joy to be with you today.

I have, in my time in preparing to come be with you, I have, I have gone back to the sound that first started this journey for me.

It was my heart's desire to know.

When the apostles began their work, when they began to preach, what was that thing that they had to say?

What was that one message that was down deep in their soul that they couldn't wait to tell somebody?

You know, when an event has happened in your life, you can't wait to say it to someone, to speak it to someone.

And to me, the echo of today is did you know that three words can change the world?

Just three words can change everything.

Because out of the apostles, when they erupted out of that opening time with the Lord after Pentecost, they had three words to change the world because it changed them.

And those words are these: Jesus is Lord.

That's the story.

And so you'll hear this sound, for example, in 2 Corinthians 4, verse 5.

2 Corinthians 4:5

We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bondservants for Jesus' sake.

Our job is to come and show you Jesus and that he's Lord today.

So much so that what happened to them might happen to all of us, as you hear echoed in Romans 9, Romans 10, verses 9 and 10.

Romans 10:9

And it says this so clearly: if we confess with our mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in our heart, God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

For with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness.

With the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

With the heart resulting in righteousness, meaning that you know you've been forgiven and declared right before God.

And with your mouth confessing, resulting in salvation, and you know it.

And you know it for one reason, because Jesus is Lord, and He's Lord of your life, and because of it, everything changes.

That's what happened to me.

I want you to know that the reason that this is stated, the reason Jesus is Lord is so fundamental, is that they knew an event had happened.

An event had taken place.

And that event is really, the scriptures don't show it to us like I want them to show it to us.

I think one day in glory we're gonna see a replay of it.

I really hope we're gonna see a replay of this.

I'm telling you.

But you see, when we come to the Gospels, we see almost details of how the cross works out, the stories piece by piece of the cross.

When you come to the resurrection, you've got these details coming out piece by piece.

But that day that changed the world, we don't have eyes for.

We've got echoes of it, but we don't have eyes for.

And let me tell you what that day was: a most extraordinary day.

A day that the scriptures speak of.

Don't give us detail, but they speak of it always.

Forty days after the Lord Jesus was risen from the dead, he was taken from us in a cloud.

He went up in glory.

Two angels stood by and said, as he's left us, so he will come back in a cloud in glory.

And then we can't see anything.

But that day was like no other day.

If only we were in the heavens, if only we had seen the angels and the archangels and all the company that had been there on that day, they would have beheld the Savior and the Lord coming into the gates of glory in the heavens.

Oh, could you imagine the sound?

Look what we do in our own world when a king, we have to go to other places like England and other places to get real coronations, but this is coronation day.

The Savior's come, he's finished his work, he's entered into the glories of heaven.

And this moment, I wonder, did the trumpets blast?

Did the angels and archangels sing?

What was that day like?

What was it like when he entered?

Was there a great procession of glory when he came to his throne?

And the words that echo all through scripture are these words.

And the Lord Jesus Christ, he three words that changed the world.

He sat down.

There it is.

He sat down.

And so you'll hear the echo of this in Hebrews chapter 10, verse 12.

Hebrews 10:12

When Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sin, he sat down at the right hand of God.

He sat on his throne.

And we say from that moment on, Jesus is Lord.

To the glory of God the Father, Jesus is Lord.

You do realize that there's a day coming when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess.

Those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, in the flames of fire, they're still in the eternal fire of punishment, they're still going to bend their knee when they see and know and hear the sound.

Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Every knee is going to say this, even those who are perishing.

Because that's the story.

And it's been this way from the beginning.

The Lord has shown us from the beginning.

This is the story.

You'll hear this echoed so many times in New Testament.

In Ephesians chapter 1, Paul says, These are in accordance with the working of the strength of his might, which he, Father, brought about when he raised Christ from the dead and had him seated at his right hand in the heavenly places.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

Far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named, he has sat his son upon the glory of his throne.

That cool, that amazing.

Do you realize that when you look back, I want to see details on that day.

I want to hear the trumpets, and one day we shall.

But do you realize that David, a thousand years before the Lord Jesus came, David saw Coronation Day.

And that's why I take you to Psalm 110.

And in Psalm 110, you hear it in the sound of this extraordinary messianic psalm, this declaring the Messiah that was to come, that is to come.

The Lord says to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.

The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter, rule in the midst of your enemies.

This psalm was proclaiming a day when the Father would seat his son upon the throne.

Now, many of the Jews could not understand the dynamic of this text.

They could see that David in the Holy Spirit, speaking this psalm, was speaking about the promised Messiah who would be the son of David, who would rule.

And they had that picture in Old Testament because David was king.

But what really troubled them about this particular psalm is it also echoes this sound in verse 4 of Psalm 110.

It says, The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind.

You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.

Now, that may be confusing to you, and we shall not exposit it this morning, but it's enough to say for the Jew, this had never been heard of before, that the one sitting upon the throne would be king and priest.

You have to understand that doesn't work in the in the story that's here.

In the story of the Old Testament, every priest, high priest, once a year would do the work of forgiveness of sins through the Day of Atonement.

He would bring the blood of the goat and come into the most holy place.

The one time of the year he'd pass through the veil, he would dip the blood upon the mercy seat, which oversees, is overseen by the cherubim, often called the throne itself.

He sits enthroned above the cherubim.

There it is.

That's the throne.

But the priest would exit immediately once the work of forgiveness was done.

For without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.

The high priest did it once a year with the blood of animals, and the veil closed back.

No priest went in there, no high priest went in there and sat down.

Until this one came, who offered his own blood and entered into the most holy place by his own blood, thus securing eternal redemption.

When he came in, he rent the veil.

When he came in, he presented the blood that would rescue all of us, the Lamb of God who has taken away the sin of the world.

He would come in to do all of it.

And when he was done, guess what happened?

Louder.

He sat down.

Because he's Lord.

Do you understand now why Jesus said, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth?

Therefore you go.

Jesus is Lord.

Three words that change the world.

Can I give you a couple more?

I think the first three words that change the world that's the hardest to hear.

Is that when the Lord Jesus and allowing the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit creating us in his image and giving us dominion, as it says in the early beginnings, he created us for perfection.

He created us in his image.

He created us for his fellowship, for his glory.

But he didn't force us to love him back.

He didn't force us to love him back and gave us choice.

And he said, if you do choose to walk away, you're going to enter into death.

If you sin, you're going to die because you're going to separate from me.

And justice must happen.

The three most difficult words in the Bible.

And the Lord said, Do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Do not eat.

Do not eat.

And the three most difficult words in the scriptures, and he ate.

The moment he did that, Romans 5.12 says, sin entered into the world, and death through sin.

It changed everything.

Three words, and he ate, changed everything.

Sin was now in the world.

Not just sin, the things we do, the nature of sin inside of us.

The nature of sin.

The Lord Jesus said, You see, it's from within that a person defiles himself because you can feel the sin just with evil thoughts.

Does anybody have evil thoughts?

Sexual immorality, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, pride, jealousy, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, all of it.

He said comes out of us because we have fallen into sin, and sin has now held us captive.

The way the scripture says in Romans 6.12 is it is that we're under the reign of sin.

We're enslaved by sin.

There's nothing we can do.

And he ate.

And sin came into the world, and death came because of it.

And that's why you've got the joy of the Old Testament.

The pulse underneath is that he's promising he's going to do something about the sin.

He's going to do something.

He's going to send a savior.

He's going to send a messiah.

He promises in every generation throughout the Old Testament, and I will be with you.

But he's sending someone to deal with the issue of sin.

In the midst of the greatest suffering known, the story of Job, all that happened to him, the loss of his children, the loss of his possessions, the loss of everything, the loss of his house.

Yet in the midst of it, he says, Yes, but I have this in my heart.

My Redeemer lives.

Already, Job is seeing the coronation day.

Already.

Job chapter 19.

Job 19 · chapter mention

You'll hear it at every funeral, actually.

I always call that the New Testament, in the midst of the Old Testament.

It's crazy.

Because there, listen to what Job says.

I know that my Redeemer lives.

At the last he will take his stand on the earth, even after my skin is destroyed.

Yet from my flesh I shall see God, whom I myself shall behold, my eyes shall see, and not another.

Oh, yes, bury my bones, but one day I shall rise because my Redeemer lives.

That's the faith inside of Job.

He already knew.

He didn't know his name yet, but he knew he is Lord.

This Messiah, he is Lord.

Already?

Oh, I could go on for so long because there's so many stories like that.

And there's so many moments in the New Testament gospel when all of a sudden people begin to see who Jesus is.

They see it.

They suddenly see it.

That He, the Son of David, has arrived.

Do you know the children on Palm Sunday are singing Hosanna to the Son of David?

The children knew the Messiah had come already.

Okay, back to the sermon.

Three words that changed the world.

And he ate.

Can I tell you three more that changed the world?

This is it.

This is this is the real big one.

This is the sound we wanted to hear.

The Savior has come.

And he's done his work.

And he says on the cross the thing we wanted to hear most.

I heard it.

Say it again.

You know, we're praying for um Jonathan and Rachel as they're having their last Sunday in Plano today, and they're going to be closing on a house, I think, this week in Greenville.

And I don't know if you've ever experienced the promise of a closing, but so um what you learn when you find out that um that when you come to closing, that the people who are buying the house aren't there and that they've actually taken a trip to Europe and and they'll get back to you when they get back to you.

There was no closing on the day of the closing.

And what you learn is actually what closing means is signed, notarized, money transferred.

Then it's done.

It's not a promise, it's done.

It is finished.

The payment for your sin has been paid.

It's over.

Oh, this is the greatest news.

It is finished.

This is the greatest.

This is why we preach Jesus Christ and his cross, because on that cross, it's all done.

It's all done.

All of our sins, he took it upon himself.

The way it says it in Peter, he himself bore our sin in his body on the tree.

It is finished, it is done.

You say, How do you know that?

I can do you know how I know it.

Guess.

Three words that can change the world.

What are they?

He is risen.

What does that mean?

The wages of sin is death.

If sin has been paid for, then death is abolished.

This one came to abolish death for us.

He came to take away the sting of death, the power of sin, the victory of death.

And that's why he's going to declare, I am the resurrection, I am the life.

Anyone believes in me, even if he dies, yet shall he live.

Why?

Because he did his work.

He conquered sin, he conquered death, he conquered the grave.

He's sitting today as Lord over all.

And one day he will come and take his throne.

He will separate the sheep and the goats.

It's all, but we will see that moment when he comes and he sits down and we can behold him and say with all of our heart, Jesus is Lord.

For God has exalted his son and bestowed upon him the name that is above every name.

That the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

This has changed my life.

It changes my life every day.

Because if Jesus is Lord of my life, then nothing else has the right to claim my heart.

And so it changes how we pray.

Lord Jesus, I give myself to you.

Would you would you help me in this life?

Would you show me what I'm to do with my gifts?

What I'm to do with my time.

Would you be Lord of my life in every aspect?

Would you show me, would you show me how I can how I can actually yield my life to you?

Would you govern every step of my life?

I want to just put under your lordship the finances of my home.

I want to put under your lordship my health.

I want to put under your lordship my marriage.

One of the things I I help pastors with.

Do you pray with your wife?

Do you pray blessing over her and blessing over the children?

Because Jesus is Lord of this home.

Would you protect?

Would you bless?

I'm called into a lot of circumstances where there's conflict.

How many love conflict?

Yeah, I mean, and so and and and they're both right at whatever the presenting issue is, there is conflict.

And the first thing I do, really disturbing them, I want to pray.

Can we just stop for a moment and look our eyes to the Lord?

I want his Lordship in this conversation.

I want him to breathe peace over our conversation.

I want to put the presenting issue aside and put him in front, center.

Not the issue.

Stop with the issue.

Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.

Because every passion is whatever it is you've got your mind set upon.

Stop it.

Get your eyes upon the Lord.

Is he reigning over this?

Is he Lord over this?

Yeah, it changes how we pray.

Oh, Lord Jesus, today with Jonathan and Rachel and the four kids in Plano, they're having their last Sunday.

They're saying goodbye to people.

They're doing their June 28th T Brown, Libby Brown act today.

It's hard to do that, you know, for everybody.

So, Jesus, Lord, would you just bless them today?

Would you bless the carnage?

Would you preside over them today?

They're making their move across country.

They're moving, transition.

Would you bless all the kids and the grief they're going through?

Would you please bless the closing?

I know I had to say that.

We're in Europe.

Would you just bless their transition?

Would you bless us at St.

Paul's?

Because here at St.

Paul's, we just recognize Jesus, your Lord of us.

Jesus, be Lord of our vestry, be Lord over our staff, be Lord over our children.

Be Lord over our parents.

Be Lord over all the things that we do.

Would you govern us?

Would you show us the way?

Would you declare yourself among us?

And would you show us how we might give as you've given to us?

Lord, we want to surrender all things to you.

Everything changes when we say Jesus is Lord.

I'm a student of the past.

I'm a student especially of the awakenings of the past.

And what's amazing to me is how these preachers who preached Jesus everywhere they went and the revival, the Spirit of God moving upon those generations.

I watched and saw how the character of these preachers, they just moved me.

One of the greatest preachers of America was a man named Jonathan Edwards.

Have you heard that name before?

You should hear it at some point.

What a great man of God he was.

At the age of 54, he was elected president of Princeton Seminary to preach the gospel to a new generation of seminarians.

He got there in January, it was installed in February.

Seven days after he was installed as the new president of Princeton Seminary, he was inoculated with a smallpox vaccination because smallpox was everywhere.

Within two weeks, he knew he wouldn't survive the inoculation.

At the age of 54.

And so he began to gather his family.

I'm taking my leave.

He began to began to see Jesus being Lord over the dying, as he's Lord over the living.

I watched this happen.

William Grimshaw, you don't know that name, but in 1763, five years after Jonathan Edwards died, this man, this man was just, he was traveling by foot, four congregations every Sunday, visiting the sick.

He had thousands in his church.

He's an extraordinary man.

At the age of 54, a typhoid fever broke out.

And so what did he do?

What do you think he did?

He went out and ministered to the sick in his congregation with typhoid.

What do you think he got?

And he didn't survive it.

And so at the age of 54, also, John from Edwards' age, he simply began to prepare.

He said, you know, my life versus this.

For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.

He said, Write it on my casket.

And he said, because the Church of England in those days, he said, he said, I need a Methodist preacher to preach my final sermon.

In those days, the Methodists had some fire in their bellies.

And the text tell everybody, Christ himself, he's my life.

To me to live is Christ.

For me to live is gain.

I'm going to be with my Savior.

This miserable sinner, he said, saved by the precious blood of the Lamb.

And so because some of you think this sermon's gonna go past lunch, I'm gonna just simply say this to you.

The heart speech of the apostles was this.

If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, if you believe in your heart, God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.

With a heart, man believes, resulting in salvation.

With a mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

Heart to righteousness, sorry, mouth to salvation.

That's how it's written in the text.

And what does it mean?

It means that my faith is not just lodged in my head.

We're about to say the creed, and I bet many of you, all of you, will say, I believe this.

But I don't want your mind just to believe it.

If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart, have you experienced this new life in Christ?

That's the key.

Who is Lord of your life?

Who is?

Who is?

Ask for me in my house.

Jesus is Lord.

And I beg, if you've got idols in your life, get rid of them and give your life to Jesus.

If there are things that cling to you, as I often deal with so many people, things that have captured, especially in a culture of such sensuality, promiscuity that attracts our attention, seduces even our own people.

If you've got idols in your heart, let them go.

And say, Lord Jesus, would you be Lord of my heart?

Would you be Lord of my mind?

Would you be Lord of everything in my life?

Would you be Lord of my marriage?

Would you be Lord of my children?

Would you be Lord of my family?

Would you be Lord of my job?

Would you be Lord of all of the days you've given me?

And would you give me a longing to know you better?

Lord Jesus, take my heart.

Is that you?

Because that's my prayer.

That we can say from the bottom of our heart, knowing that we've been forgiven by that great word, it is finished.

Knowing that we've got new born-again life in that great word, He has risen.

Knowing that He has sat down and reigns over our life.

Can you say it?

Jesus Christ is Lord of my life.

And as for me, I'm living my life for him.

May it be so.

To your Lordship, Jesus.

Whether it's our family, our children, our job, our idea of success.

Something that's been like a chain wrapped around our legs.

We ask you, Lord Jesus, to bring about your good and benevolent, life-giving, liberating rule in our lives.

And we thank you for this awesome, wonderful news.

You are Lord and you are alive.

It's in your precious name we pray.

Amen.