Deuteronomy 17 | Benjamin Kandt

Hello everyone, this is Pastor Benjamin.

You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City Orlando.

At New City, we long to see our Father answer the Lord's Prayer.

For more resources, visit our website at Newcity Orlando.com.

Please join me in this prayer of illumination.

Heavenly Father, we bow in your presence.

Let your word be our rule, your spirit our teacher, and your greater glory, our supreme concern, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Remain standing for a scripture reading from Deuteronomy chapter 17.

Deuteronomy 17 · chapter mention

When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it, and then say, I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me.

You may indeed set a king over you, whom the Lord your God will choose.

One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you.

You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.

Only he must not acquire many horses for himself, or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the Lord has said to you, You shall never return that way again.

And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold.

And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests, and it shall be with him, and he shall read it in all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children in Israel.

This is God's word.

You may be seated.

God intends for man and woman made in his image to be kings and queens on the earth.

I get that from Genesis 128.

It says this God blessed them, and God said to them, Have dominion.

That's the language of kingdom.

Nobody's helped me make this plain better than Dallas Willard.

He says, Your kingdom is the range of your effective will.

That's your kingdom.

So for kids in here, the range of your effective will, your kingdom might be your bedroom, and you might need to fire the sanitation department, to be honest.

Some of you parents came here in a minivan, that's the range of your effective will, and your subjects were revolting on your way to worship this morning, possibly.

Some of you, it's your workplace, the team you oversee is in the range of your effective will.

And so when we look at Deuteronomy 17, which is about the laws for the kings of Israel, don't think, oh yeah, way back then and there.

Think here and now.

Because even the king of Israel in Deuteronomy 17 was meant to be a model Israelite.

And so the kings in Scripture were intended to be the high mark of humanity.

This is what it looks like to be truly human.

Have dominion.

And so as we take up this text, we're going to see that as the king goes, so go the people, which means the right question to ask about any king, any queen, the true test is this: what is life like for the people under their authority?

Let me quote John Eldridge.

He says it like this Have a look at his wife.

Is she tired, stressed out, overlooked?

What about his children?

Are they flourishing?

How much energy does he spend simply getting his children to behave versus understanding their hearts and looking for ways to bless them?

Talk to the people who work for her.

Do they feel they're simply building her kingdom or that she is serving them?

Are they growing in their own talents and abilities joyfully because they are cared for and given a place in the kingdom?

End quote.

After the first service, a 70-year-old, a 79-year-old woman came up to me with tears in her eyes.

She said, When you started reading that, I elbowed my husband.

I'm thinking, uh oh.

She said, I elbowed my husband because I said, You are that kind of man.

He's a good king.

They're out there.

There's models of them in our congregation.

And that's the invitation for this text this morning.

So as we look at Deuteronomy 17, if you have a Bible or a device, go ahead and get it out in front of you.

It says, uh, I want to look at this under three points.

The king we want, the king we need, and the king God gave.

The king we want, the king we need, and the king God gave.

Get Deuteronomy 17, verse 14, out in front of you.

Deuteronomy 17:14

The king we want.

It says this, when you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it, and then say, I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me.

Pause.

Was this good or bad?

I mean, can you hear the ambivalence in the language itself?

The first part is is is fine, it seems like.

I will set a king over me, but the second part is never good, like all the nations that are around me.

And so God does not command that Israel have a king, but he does permit it.

He permits it on some conditions, though.

And when he redefines kingship, it's so thoroughly redefined that it actually looks nothing like the version that we find among the nations.

God allows a king, but there's ambivalence about kings from the start of Israel's history.

And if you look at verse 14, it says, when you come to the land and then say, give us a king, that when becomes now in 1 Samuel 8.

Again, if you have a Bible or a device, go to 1 Samuel 8.

We're going to look at this text for a moment.

Because in 1 Samuel 8, verse 5, it says this the people say to Samuel, Now, now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.

1 Samuel 8:5

But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, Give us a king to judge us.

And Samuel prayed to the Lord.

And the Lord said to Samuel, Obey the voice of the people in that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.

Got bad news.

Some of you may know that Burger King recently dethroned their mascot, the Burger King.

And they've enthroned and crowned a new king in his place.

This is the language.

There's a new king and it's you.

Burger King knows what sells.

There's something in each of our human hearts that wants to be enthroned.

There's a new king and it's you.

That's what's happening in 1 Samuel 8.

We don't want Yahweh as king anymore.

We want the king of our own choosing.

And so that's what's happening in the text.

And the problem isn't that they want a king, the problem is they don't want that king to be the Lord.

You see, why do the people want a king?

What is the king that they want?

Well, they want a king who can be controlled.

But Yahweh's not easily controlled.

And so Samuel the prophet actually warns them in verse, 1 Samuel 8, verse 11, he says, This there will be, these will be the ways of the king who will reign over you.

1 Samuel 8:11

He will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots.

And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest and to make his implements of war and to equip his chariots.

He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers.

Let me just summarize that.

Hide your kids, hide your wife.

You don't want a king.

He goes on and he says, He will take, he will take, he will take, he will take your vineyards, your orchards, your flocks, he will take.

That's what the king's gonna do.

Verse 19 But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, No, but there shall be a king over us.

And when Samuel heard all the words of the people, he repeated them in the ears of the Lord.

And the Lord said to Samuel, Obey their voice and make them a king.

In the Bible, beware when God gives you what you most want.

It's a form of judgment.

It's a form of judgment here.

Why do the people want a king?

Well, because they want a king who will represent their desires.

Psychologists call this projection.

They want a king who's like a blank screen that they can project their desires and hopes and wishes for security and significance and satisfaction onto that king.

And that's hard to do when your king is the invisible God of the universe.

So what do they do?

They go find themselves a king.

And his name is Saul.

Look at verse Samuel chapter 9.

It says this there was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish.

He was a man of wealth.

And Kish had a son whose name was Saul.

Listen to this description.

A handsome young man.

There was not a man among the people of Israel more handsome than he.

From his shoulders upward, he was taller than any of the people.

You see, Saul is exactly the king they want.

He looks good, which makes them look good.

He's a king who's going to fight for them, lead them into battle, but he's a king that's controllable.

If you know the story of Saul, it plays out.

He is beholden to the wishes and the whims of the people.

It's part of the downfall of Saul's kingdom.

Now, I like to call this this demand for a leader who's impressive and it makes you look good.

I like to call it Saul syndrome.

I think it's alive and well, by the way.

Because we read this and we're like, well, we're not Israel.

We're Americans.

We don't want a king.

I mean, there's a scene in the movie I want you to imagine for a moment where a demigod steps onto the scene and controls and compels a terrified crowd to kneel before him, and then he speaks up, he says, This is not this simpler?

Is this not your natural state?

It's the unspoken truth of humanity that you crave subjugation.

You were made to be ruled.

In the end, you will always kneel.

And in that moment, this brave old German man stands up and he says, Not to men like you, to which Loki replies, There are no men like me.

And right as Loki's about to kill the old man, Captain America comes in, whips out his shield, deflects it, and then in Steve Rogers' form and fashion says this You know, the last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing.

And then every red-blooded American runs through a wall.

Let's go, right?

Why do we eat this up?

Why do we eat this up?

Because to be American is to say down with tyrants.

To be American is to love self-rule.

We call that autonomy, but we pretend it's liberty.

To be American is to say, no king.

I mean, if you've seen the flag of Virginia, I was at a hotel in Virginia, and my son saw the flag of the state of Virginia and said, Daddy, what's up with that?

The flag of the state of Virginia has a woman with her foot on the chest of a fallen king.

And then in Latin it says this Sic Semper Tyrannis, which means thus always to tyrants.

In other words, even the fine ladies of Virginia will say, Don't tread on me.

This is what it means to be an American.

But we Americans might not like kings in big government, I get it, but we don't mind them in big business.

You see, 14.5% of men in the United States are over six feet tall.

I'm not one of them.

But 58% of Fortune 500 male CEOs are six feet or taller.

Let me remind you of what 1 Samuel 9 said about Sam about Saul.

It says this from his shoulders upward, he was taller than any of the people.

American CEOs are three inches taller than the average American male.

Now, what am I getting at here?

What I'm getting at is, hey, maybe we Americans have more Saul syndrome than we think.

Now, of course, we don't want kings in government, but our kings are CEOs and celebrities, athletes and influencers, pastors and presidents.

These are our kings, and they enact a lot of influence over us, and as goes the king, so go the people.

So that's the king we want.

Strong and capable, yet still controllable.

Somebody who's attractive yet accessible to our whims and our wants.

But what about the king we need?

What's the king we need look like?

Look with me at verse 15.

Verses 15 through 20 tells us who the king must be, what he must avoid, and what he must do.

And if you look closely at the text, you'll see the king must meet two conditions, resist three temptations, and follow one daily discipline.

Look at verse 15 to see the two conditions.

You may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose.

One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you.

You may not put a foreigner over you who is not your brother.

Here's the two conditions.

He must be chosen by God, and he must be one of us.

Now, Romans 13 unpacks this and says that there is no government that is not appointed by God.

God is sovereign over every human government.

But there's a special appointment, a chosen one that is only the kind that can rule over God's people.

But not only does he need to be chosen by God, he needs to be a brother first and a ruler second.

Now, this is not ethnocentric, it's theocentric.

If you put a foreigner as king over Israel, as the king goes, so go the people.

The people will start worshiping false gods.

That's the problem here.

And so in verses 15 through 20, not only does God define the king's character, but God limits the king's appetites.

Look at the three temptations that the king must resist.

Verse 16.

Only he must not acquire many horses for himself, or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses.

Since the Lord has said to you, you shall never return that way again.

And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold.

You see, there's three limits to his power here: gold, wives, and horses.

And if you read this and you go, what's the Lord got beef with ski biscuit for?

Why are horses on the list?

Well, if you look closely, what you'll notice is this is the familiar triad of money, sex, and power.

That there and then and here and now is still a temptation for anybody in leadership.

And so what we see is human nature hasn't changed, but we put different phrases to it.

We like to kind of soften it a little bit and call it sexual misconduct, abuse of power, and financial impropriety.

It's the same things.

Look with me at verse 16, only he must not acquire many horses for himself.

You have to understand this is about military might and political power.

You see, horses were to Israelites what B-2 stealth bombers are to Americans, national security.

That's what horses were.

And God's chosen king must not trust in horses.

This is the way it puts it, it's put in Psalm 33.

The king is not saved by his great army.

A warrior is not delivered by his great strength.

The war horse is a false hope for salvation, and by its great might it cannot rescue.

Or how about Psalm 20?

Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.

Or Proverbs 21, the horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord.

Accumulate a bunch of horses for yourself, and you might forget that victory belongs to the Lord.

This is about dependence on their deity.

But it goes on.

Verse 17.

And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away.

You see, in the ancient Near East, marriage was used for diplomacy.

What you would do is if you were a king, you would marry a princess from another kingdom, and the point of that was to create an alliance by family ties, basically.

So that's what's the danger here.

And polygamy in Scripture, whether explicitly or implicitly, always ends badly.

You were made to be the husband of one wife, according to the Bible.

But the real danger here is actually found in this phrase, lest his heart turn away.

You see, few things lead people into compromise quite as easily as the man or the woman that they marry.

So if you want to squander the range of your effective will, marry somebody who doesn't know Jesus.

Some of y'all are like, listen, but I'm gonna flirt to convert.

You know, it's like that missionary dating thing.

Listen, I hear you.

I know he's cute and kind.

I know she's into you and nobody else is.

But listen, if you're sick, some of y'all are like, I'm just fired, bro.

Listen, if you're sick of being single, here's the temptation.

The temptation is to stray away, but if they don't love King Jesus, you are either marrying into misery or you might just stop loving King Jesus yourself.

Lest your heart turn away.

There's a real danger here.

There's a real danger, but it goes on.

Verse 17.

Nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold.

Now listen, last week I taught about the love of money.

So I'm just gonna say, go back and listen to that sermon if you want to hear more about the danger here.

But in summary, there are three warnings horses, wives, and wealth.

What's the one antidote?

Look at this.

The king is supposed to follow one daily discipline.

Verse 18.

And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law.

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, handwrite a copy of this law approved by the Levitical priests, and it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life.

Let me just make that plain.

That's what it's saying here.

Patrick Miller, a commentator, says his one positive responsibility, as stated in the text, is to have with him at all times a copy of this law.

He is to read and study it constantly and adhere diligently to all its instructions.

If you were writing a to-do list for your kings for the foreseeable future, wouldn't you say something about the responsibilities of a king?

Like there's nothing in here about military leadership, judicial matters, religious matters.

I would assume administrative oversight over the kingdom belongs as a royal responsibility, and yet we don't find anything in here about it.

In this royal charter, one thing supersedes all others, and that is careful obedience to the Bible.

That's what it means to be a faithful king.

Now notice the king himself carefully copies the law by hand, and this is actually where the book of Deuteronomy gets its name.

Deuteronomos is this phrase, copy of this law in Greek.

That's where we get the name of the book.

It's from this text right here.

But notice that the king then submits his copy to, quote, be approved by the Levitical priests.

This is checks and balances.

The founders of the United States were reading Deuteronomy when they whipped up this whole thing we call the American experiment.

They believed that just like the king needs to be instated by the prophets and tested by the priests, that they couldn't have all of the authority isolated to one individual.

They knew checks and balances were what you do to protect a people from their rulers.

Because God gave it to the people of Israel in his law.

C.S.

Lewis has this brilliant line in one of his articles about democracy.

And he said, listen, democracy is the best form of government because it is medicine.

You couldn't possibly trust one human being with that much power.

But then Lewis knows something.

And he goes on to say, it is medicine, but monarchy is food.

Men were meant to be ruled, but only by a good king, only by a true king, only by a true human that has the right and can handle that kind of power and authority.

And so the text says that the king is to write, read, and live the law of God.

Verse 19, and it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life.

You see, what the text is saying here is there is something above the king.

There is something above the king.

Because if there is nothing above the king, then the king is God.

If there's nothing above the state, then the state is God.

We've seen this in Pharaoh and Xerxes and Nebuchadnezzar and Alexander the Great and the Roman Emperors and Stalin and Hitler and Matt.

And I promise you it's happening today.

And so, verse 19 says, And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life.

Here's why.

Here's the purpose clause.

That he may learn to fear Yahweh his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes and doing them.

The fear of the Lord is the root of right rule.

The fear of the Lord.

In his book, Shaping History Through Prayer and Fasting, Derek Prince actually develops some of this into a policy for voting.

He says, Unfortunately, Christians often allow themselves to be more influenced by party sentiments and affiliations than by divine requirements.

God does not promise blessing to a government upon the condition that it carry a particular party label.

God promises blessing to a government whose officers fulfill two great basic moral requirements.

Here they are, you ready?

He demands that they be just and God-fearing.

Prince goes on, he says, wherever possible, Christians who respect God's requirements should make it a principle not to vote for any man who is not just and God-fearing, no matter what party label he may wear.

If Christians ignore God's requirements and vote for men who are morally unworthy, they are actually inviting God to make those men, if elected, agents of God's judgment against the very people who voted them into office, end quote.

Now I know the response.

You go, yeah, okay, Ben, that's cute.

Idealism, but realpolitik is what really matters.

It's how things get done in the real world.

Idealism like this is it's a holiday from history.

You're just hiding from the facts of reality.

But listen, just imagine for me with me for a moment.

Imagine what would happen if the very large, supposedly Christian voting bloc in the United States of America insisted on their candidates only being just and God-fearing, or else they wouldn't cast a vote.

Now, again, it would take time, but imagine a few election cycles, what would happen to our nation?

That's the invitation to imagine that Derek Prince is inviting the people of God into.

We have this privilege to vote for our leaders.

Don't cast the ballot unless they're just and God-fearing, is what Derek Prince is kept telling us to do based on texts like Deuteronomy 17.

Now, listen, there's a principle in Deuteronomy 17 that's really important to kind of draw out.

There is safety in authority that submits to a higher authority.

There is safety in authority that submits to a higher authority.

In Scripture, God has established three spheres of authority.

Your parent-teacher association is not one of them.

Your HOA is not one of them.

Your business is not one of them.

Three spheres of authority, here they are: the family, the church, and what's called the civil magistrate, what we call the state.

God has said what kind of authority can be in those three spheres of authority.

And here's the thing: all of them are submitting themselves, are to submit themselves to a higher authority.

This, let me just make that plain.

A husband who submits himself to the Lord is safe for a wife to submit to.

Parents who submit themselves to the Lord, and definitely not the whims of their children, are safe for children to submit to.

Elders who submit themselves to the Lord are safe for members of their churches to submit to.

Kings, queens, princes, presidents who submit themselves to the Lord are safe for their citizens to submit to.

Do you see what the Lord is doing here?

There's something higher than the king.

It's the scriptures, it's the Bible, it's God Himself, which frees us up.

Because each of those environments has different responsibilities, but they all stand under God's authority.

No pastor, no parent, no president is above God's rule.

Verse 20 goes on.

It says, here's the other reason why.

It's that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left.

This language of his heart not being lifted up is the language of humility.

Oh, what it would be like to have more humble leaders in the family, in the church, and in the state.

What a gift it is when leaders are humble.

There's this scene in C.

S.

Lewis's Prince Caspian, where Aslan says to Caspian, Welcome, Prince.

Do you feel yourself sufficient to take up the kingship of Narnia?

To which Caspian replies, I don't think so.

I don't think I do, sir.

I'm only a kid, to which Aslan says, Good.

If you had felt yourself sufficient, it would have been proof that you were not.

Humility is a prerequisite for leadership in God's kingdom.

And the only way this comes is through daily meditation on scripture.

It reorients your relationship with God.

You fear God towards your neighbor, you have a humility before your neighbor, and to yourself, you live such a life that is self-directed by the word of God.

So you don't go to the right or to the left.

That's what the text is saying here.

Now, this is the king we need.

This is the king we need.

Articulated right here in verses 15 through 20.

God defines his character, God limits his appetites, God is directing his life.

How did that go for Israel?

Like Israel's history of kings is basically a proving the point that contrasts the mother of clarity.

If you look at the stories, you see that the first king, Saul, was a failure.

The second king, David, is kind of a mixed bag.

The third king, Solomon, is a bit of a conundrum.

And even Solomon's story, I think, is told, styled after Deuteronomy 17.

Look with me at 1 Kings 10 if you've got your Bible.

1 Kings 10, verse 26 says this: And Solomon gathered together chariots and horsemen.

1 Kings 10:26

He had 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horsemen, and Solomon imported those horses from Egypt.

Sounds like Solomon caused the people to return to Egypt to acquire many horses for himself.

It goes on, verse 27.

And King Solomon made silver as common in Jerusalem as stone.

Looks like Solomon acquired for himself excessive silver.

First Kings 11.

Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh.

Solomon clung to these women in love.

He had 700 wives, that's a lot, who were princesses and 300 concubines, and his wives turned away his heart.

For when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God.

It's almost like Solomon acquired many wives for himself.

As the king goes, so go his people.

That's why after Solomon goes from bad to worse, Rehaboam in 2 Chronicles 12 abandoned the law of the Lord and all Israel with him.

Manasseh, 2 Kings 21, led them astray to do more evil than the nations had done.

Israel needs a better king.

We need a better king.

Verse 20 has a promise in it.

It says, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children in Israel.

You see, there's a dynastic hope in the text here.

But if you look, you see Saul failed, David failed, Solomon failed.

And as this happens, you have to go, and I failed as the ruler of my own life.

And it begins to produce a longing in you for a good king, a true king, the kind of king that will actually rule over those people with whom he has authority and do it in a way that brings flourishing to their lives.

And that's the final thing we see here is the king God gave.

Onto the scene steps.

King David's greater son, King Jesus.

And King Jesus meets these two conditions.

He's chosen by God.

In Luke 9:35, a voice came out of the cloud saying, This, this is my son, my chosen one.

Luke 9:35

Listen to him.

Chosen by God.

But he's chosen by God from among his brothers.

Hebrews 2 says, Jesus is not ashamed to call us his brothers and sisters, because he himself partook of our flesh and blood.

See, he meets the two conditions, and King Jesus resists the three temptations.

Notice for a moment why Jesus, as he's being shouted, Hosanna, son of David, come into Jerusalem as our king, riding on a donkey, not a war horse.

Because King Jesus won't acquire many horses for himself.

Think about King Jesus when he is in his life followed by many women.

And I want to submit to you, I think it's because Jesus was the safest man they'd ever met.

In Luke 8, it says, with Jesus were some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities.

And then it lists them Mary and Joanna and Herod's household manager and Susanna and many others.

You see, I think that some of these women we know have been used and abused, and in King Jesus, they found a man for the first time who is not lustful, who's not lecherous, who would not use them, who would love them.

And they were attracted to that in King Jesus.

He resisted the temptation to acquire for himself many wives.

We know in the wilderness the evil one tempts Jesus with all of the wealth of the nations to which Jesus knew is rightfully his, but he would not take the crown without the cross.

And so what we see in King Jesus is that he follows one daily discipline.

He came as the perfect embodiment of the Torah, of the law.

Christ Himself is the end of the law, the telos, the goal that the law is pointing towards.

Jesus says in Matthew 5, in his most iconic sermon, do not think that I've come to abolish the law and the prophets.

I've come to fulfill the law and the prophets.

You see, this man had that one daily discipline of meditating on the law of the Lord day and night.

But King Jesus, some of you may know, may not, was enthroned on the cross.

There's this line in John 19, it says this.

Something interesting happens here.

Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city.

Jesus was crucified in public for everybody to see.

And this language, King of the Jews, was written in Aramaic, the language of the Jews, but also in Latin, the language of the Romans, and in Greek, the language of the Greeks.

The chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, Do not write the king of the Jews, but rather this man said, I am the king of the Jews, to which Pilate was like, What I've written, I've written.

What's going on here?

Why write it in three languages?

Well, because the king of the Jews was enthroned on the cross as the king of the nations.

That's what's happening in this moment.

He was crucified, and as he was raised up on the cross, he was the king on the cross with a crown of thorns, remember, and a purple robe.

This is enthronement language, and it's all decked in the language of irony.

They have no idea what's actually happening in that moment.

King Jesus was buried, but then he rose again from the dead.

And the greatest portrait I think of King Jesus in Scripture is in Philippians 2.

This is what it says.

King Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant.

Here's the humility, being born in the likeness of men, one from among his brothers, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of King Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

You see, this is the King we have because this is the King God gave.

Every knee will bow, every tongue will confess.

Let's just beat that to the punch.

With fresh faith, I want to invite you to bow anew, to confess afresh for the first time or the thousandth time to King Jesus, the rightful ruler of your existence.

Sign up again.

This is the invitation of this text.

Now, I want you to hear, every tongue will confess, every knee will bow, either by faith here and now or by force there and then.

And when I say by force, I mean it more like gravity.

The way that the picture of Jesus returning in the scriptures is he's so glorious in his resurrected and ascended body, he's so glorious that people face plant before him.

He comes in with kavod, the Hebrew word for glory, and the heaviness of his presence makes them, makes mountains bow down.

You think your knees are gonna hold you up?

And so what we see here is in Jesus not only resurrected and ascended and is seated on the throne, the dust of earth is seated right now on the throne of heaven, but that king is coming back.

How many of you know King Jesus is coming back with a tat?

Revelation 19 says it like this Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse.

The one sitting on it is called faithful and true, and in righteousness he judges and makes war.

His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself.

He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is the word of God.

And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses.

From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron.

He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.

And here it is, on his robe and on his thigh he has written, King of kings and Lord of Lords.

He's coming back.

He's coming back as king.

And as the king goes, so go his people.

And so let me just ask that test of King Jesus: what is it life like for those people who are under his authority?

We call those people the church.

Isaiah 9, a verse that we kind of only dust off around Christmas, says it like this.

And the government shall be upon his shoulder of the increase of his government and of peace.

There will be no end on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it.

Here it is, with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.

That's what it's like to live under the rule of King Jesus.

Let's pray.

King Jesus.

Born in the likeness of men, crucified, buried, risen, ascended, and coming again.

Would you even now subdue us to yourself?

Would you rule over us?

Would you defend us?

Would you restrain and conquer all of your enemies and our enemies, starting with our self rule, starting with the autonomy that still lives in each and every one of us?

We pray these things in your name.

Amen.