SPEAKER_01: Hello, I'm Pastor Creighton, and thank you for tuning in to New Sun Churches Podcast.
SPEAKER_01: We're a gospel centered church in Port Perry, Ontario, proclaiming the true and life-giving word of Jesus as we love and serve our neighbors.
SPEAKER_01: May God bless you today through his life-giving word.
SPEAKER_03: Our first lesson is from 2 Samuel chapter 7, beginning at verse 8.
SPEAKER_03: Now, therefore, thus you shall say to my servant David, Thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel.
SPEAKER_03: And I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you.
SPEAKER_03: And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth, and I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more.
SPEAKER_03: And violent men shall afflict them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel.
SPEAKER_03: And I will give you rest from all your enemies.
SPEAKER_03: Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house.
SPEAKER_03: When your days are fulfilled, and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.
SPEAKER_03: He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
SPEAKER_02: I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son.
SPEAKER_02: When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, and the strength of the sons of men.
SPEAKER_03: Your throne shall be established forever.
SPEAKER_03: In accordance with all these words, and in accordance with all this vision, Nathan spoke to David.
SPEAKER_03: This is the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_03: Thanks be to God.
SPEAKER_00: A reading from the book of Colossians, chapter 1, verses 13 to 20.
SPEAKER_00: He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
SPEAKER_00: He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
SPEAKER_00: For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions, or rulers or authorities.
SPEAKER_00: All things were created through him and for him.
SPEAKER_00: And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
SPEAKER_00: He is the head of the body, the church.
SPEAKER_00: He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
SPEAKER_00: For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
SPEAKER_00: This is the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Peace be to God.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, God has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: Lord Jesus Christ, high and mighty, King of Lord of Lords.
SPEAKER_01: We come to you without any.
SPEAKER_01: I know Rachel and I were tuning in.
SPEAKER_01: Of course, it's something of a modern novelty that we get to watch a coronation happen on television.
SPEAKER_01: Does anyone remember the first televised coronation?
SPEAKER_01: Elizabeth II, of course.
SPEAKER_01: You're looking at me like I'm trying to confuse you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not trying to confuse you.
SPEAKER_01: 18 to 20 million people in the UK alone tuned in for King Charles' coronation.
SPEAKER_01: 7.6 million in Canada.
SPEAKER_01: And in the United States of America, which, by the way, I love the United States of America.
SPEAKER_01: I may not love everything America gets up to.
SPEAKER_01: Frankly, I don't love everything Canada gets up to.
SPEAKER_01: But I love the United States of America.
SPEAKER_01: I went to school there.
SPEAKER_01: I worked there, got ordained when I was down there.
SPEAKER_01: I love the United States of America.
SPEAKER_01: And it's very clear when you're when you're in America, this is a country founded on a rebellion against the monarchy, against the king, right?
SPEAKER_01: Nevertheless, 12 million Americans tuned in for the coronation of this king.
SPEAKER_01: And uh worldwide estimates uh suggest that something like 2 billion people tuned in to watch this coronation.
SPEAKER_01: Two billion people worldwide.
SPEAKER_01: And I guess that, I don't know, raises a question for me.
SPEAKER_01: Why so much attention?
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Because if you know you're a little cynical, which sometimes I'm a little cynical, and I start to think, you know, a cynical person could look at this uh ceremony and think, you know, it's a bunch of old dudes in an old dusty church, you know, doing archaic rituals, you know, and and completely out of touch with, you know, the common people or something like that.
SPEAKER_01: And yet, something like one out of every four people in the world tuned in to watch that.
SPEAKER_01: And the question for me is why?
SPEAKER_01: Why would that compel because it's not like it's edge of your seat television, right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's not like who shot JR or something like that.
SPEAKER_01: It's not like, you know, it's not exactly something that might command our attention, but nevertheless, it gained so much attention.
SPEAKER_01: Why would that be?
SPEAKER_01: Here's there's many, probably many different answers to that question we could we could submit.
SPEAKER_01: Here's here's one answer that I would submit to you for your consideration.
SPEAKER_01: Could it be that there's something about this coronation service and all of its ceremonies and everything that the monarchy represents that resonates existentially with us in some way or another?
SPEAKER_01: In some way, we long for the realization of everything that a king represents, right?
SPEAKER_01: The peace that a king offers, the protection from enemies that a king offers, right?
SPEAKER_01: The provision and prosperity, right?
SPEAKER_01: The blessing of the monarch's subjects.
SPEAKER_01: Do we long for that true king and there's something that resonates in as an archaic a ceremony as a coronation like that is?
SPEAKER_01: I wonder if this is why stories like Lord of the Rings resonate with us so uh profoundly.
SPEAKER_01: Because we long for the return of the king, right?
SPEAKER_01: Or why Lion King is easily the best Disney movie, right?
SPEAKER_01: Snow White probably being a second.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Rebecca.
SPEAKER_01: You know, or even Marvel movies like Black Panther, right, stand out to us because we long could it be that we just we long for the true king to sit on the true throne?
SPEAKER_01: Something like that.
SPEAKER_01: And we long for all of the ways that that is going to provide the peace and protection and provision that we long for.
SPEAKER_01: Do we long for that?
SPEAKER_01: Now we've been journeying through or looking through, I should say, kind of the lens of the first three quarters of the Bible called the Old Testament, everything that anticipates Jesus and points forward to him.
SPEAKER_01: And we've been looking to understand more deeply who Jesus is through this lens, through the lens of three offices that God establishes in the Old Testament to minister to his people.
SPEAKER_01: We've been looking at the offices of prophet, who reveals God to the people of God, the priest, who reconciles God's wayward, alienated, guilty people to their holy God.
SPEAKER_01: And now this week we want to come to the final office, that of king.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to submit that as the King of Kings, Jesus reigns over us and all creation.
SPEAKER_01: I want to submit to you that that's what we find in Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: That is the central affirmation of Jesus' kingship and the fulfillment of all of our longings and biblical longings for a true king.
SPEAKER_01: As the King of Kings, Jesus Christ reigns over us and over all creation.
SPEAKER_01: And that is very good news if indeed he is a good king.
SPEAKER_01: So I want us to interrogate that main idea with a few questions, the questions we've been asking for the last couple of weeks.
SPEAKER_01: I want us to ask, what is a king, right?
SPEAKER_01: How do we understand that?
SPEAKER_01: What makes Jesus the king, right?
SPEAKER_01: What's so significant about him?
SPEAKER_01: And finally, I want us to ask, well, what difference does Jesus reign, does his kingship make to me?
SPEAKER_01: Three questions to interrogate this idea that as the King of kings, Jesus reigns over us and all creation.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what I'm hoping for us as we study this third office that Christ fulfills.
SPEAKER_01: I hope that we gain a greater sense of who we pledge our allegiance to as Christians, and we have a greater, more concrete sense of hope that we carry with us into a world that still anticipates the king sitting on its throne in glory.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so Jesus, the King of Kings, reigns over us and all creation.
SPEAKER_01: Let's ask our first question.
SPEAKER_01: What is a king?
SPEAKER_01: Here's one Dr.
SPEAKER_01: Google definition.
SPEAKER_01: A king is a ruler who exercises supreme authority over a people or a territory, right?
SPEAKER_01: Traditionally understood not merely as a political administrator, right, a bureaucrat, but as a personal embodiment of rule.
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's really, really key, right?
SPEAKER_01: A king is does more than just fulfill certain responsibilities.
SPEAKER_01: A king, or, or I'm going to keep using king to you know parallel with Christ, but we could we could just as easily substitute monarch, right, of any sort.
SPEAKER_01: A king is the personal embodiment of the reign that he executes, right?
SPEAKER_01: The personal embodiment of the ideals of his realm, right?
SPEAKER_01: So a king, a monarch, reigns, right?
SPEAKER_01: A king rules, a king judges, a king, uh, a good king leads his people into war to protect his people from their enemies, right?
SPEAKER_01: And a king symbolizes the unity and identity of his realm, right?
SPEAKER_01: In ancient cultures, uh kings were often considered divine or or semi-divine, right?
SPEAKER_01: They were like the next notch up on the ladder between us and uh the rulers of heaven, so to speak.
SPEAKER_01: So in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia and Babylon, just to name a few, uh, kings were understood to be an embodiment of the divine, right?
SPEAKER_01: So when a king spoke, he the king spoke as as um as one who could give a divine mandate, right?
SPEAKER_01: What he says goes, because what higher authority could there be?
SPEAKER_01: This is this is God understood to be among us, right?
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is I'm I'm talking about ancient cultures here.
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, I'm not talking about our monarchy here in Canada, and I'm not talking about biblical monarchies either, but I think it's helpful to get a sense of the context.
SPEAKER_01: This is what the surrounding nations in uh the nations that surround Israel, broadly speaking, would have considered their kings to be.
SPEAKER_01: Because a king is is divinely anointed, or I should say a divine embodiment, a king therefore is authorized to rule, to judge, to legislate in whatever way he sees fit.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe that makes sense of some of our stuff if we've read about ancient cultures and the things that they got up to, right?
SPEAKER_01: The thing that often stands out to me about the Old Testament, yes, it can seem like a strange, different culture in a lot of ways, but stranger still is comparing the Old Testament to the culture of all the surrounding nations at the time, right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, as strange as the Old Testament might seem to us in our 21st century Canadian culture, the Old Testament called for God's people, the people of Israel, covenant people of Israel, to be a people who stood out from all the surrounding nations and their ideals and their principles.
SPEAKER_01: They were going to be a different sort of people who witnessed to a different sort of reign, a different sort of God making himself known to his people.
SPEAKER_01: And so Hebrew kingship was not understood that this is our, this is uh the king is the divine embodiment and therefore speaks as God and makes laws as God.
SPEAKER_01: The king himself is not divine, the king is rather appointed by God.
SPEAKER_01: And therefore, the king is under God's law.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see the difference that that makes?
SPEAKER_01: The king can't just say, you know, here's what it is.
SPEAKER_01: The king himself has to submit to the very same law that all of God's people submit to.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why the kings, uh kings of Israel, if we read through the Old Testament, are so frequently called into account by the prophets, right?
SPEAKER_01: The prophets are charged with ministering God's word to God's people, right?
SPEAKER_01: They're going to make God's will and ways known.
SPEAKER_01: And so frequently that calls them into conflict with kings who are really just self-interested, right?
SPEAKER_01: Who are using power for their own gain.
SPEAKER_01: And that is a profound difference from all the cultures and nations that surround Israel, where kings just get to call the shots, right?
SPEAKER_01: A kingship for Israel is conditional.
SPEAKER_01: It's conditional on the king's faithfulness to God's word, right?
SPEAKER_01: Faithfulness brings blessing to himself and to God's people, but disobedience brings judgment, right?
SPEAKER_01: So having established all this, and as we see the kingship kind of being woven into the narrative, the story of the Old Testament, we come to 2 Samuel chapter 7, which is our Old Testament reading this morning.
SPEAKER_01: And this is a pivotal, pivotal, pivotal text for how we understand the significance of kingship for God and for his people.
SPEAKER_01: The context of all this is David has been anointed king.
SPEAKER_01: He's succeeded Saul, who wasn't a faithful king, right?
SPEAKER_01: And Saul's been done away with.
SPEAKER_01: Now David is reigning in a splendid palace, and he looks and he sees God's people worshiping in the tabernacle, which is basically like a like a sort of well-done-up tent or something like that.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, This isn't right.
SPEAKER_01: It's not right for me to reign in a palace while God's people go and worship in what's essentially a tent.
SPEAKER_01: He wants to build a permanent temple, a house for God.
SPEAKER_01: And so he goes to the prophet Nathan and talks with the prophet Nathan, and Nathan hears from the Lord, and now he goes back to David, and he gives, he does what a prophet is supposed to do, which is to speak God's word to God's people.
SPEAKER_01: And in this case, it's David.
SPEAKER_01: And what does Nathan have to say?
SPEAKER_01: Nathan articulates God's purposes for his king and God's ultimate will for kingship.
SPEAKER_01: So in 2 Samuel chapter 7, I won't go into too much detail, but let's just sketch it out here for a minute.
SPEAKER_01: What's a king supposed to do?
SPEAKER_01: Verse 8.
SPEAKER_01: Nathan reminds David where he came from, right?
SPEAKER_01: You were a shepherd boy, and God appointed you to be the king of his people.
SPEAKER_01: And the parallel there, I think, is very, very important.
SPEAKER_01: Just as David shepherded and cared for his flock of sheep, so now as king, God has appointed him to shepherd his people, his covenant people, Israel, right?
SPEAKER_01: He's meant to care for them, to protect them, to provide for them in all of these ways.
SPEAKER_01: A king shepherds God's people, verse 8.
SPEAKER_01: Then verses 9 to the beginning of verse 11, God makes it clear that his desire is for David as king and for kings to administer protection and peace from their enemies, right?
SPEAKER_01: And then we come to the real uh guts of it in the second half of verse 11 through to verse 16.
SPEAKER_01: And this is where God gives a promise to David that will resonate through the rest of the biblical story, right?
SPEAKER_01: Here's what God says to David.
SPEAKER_01: Let me pull up my verses here.
SPEAKER_01: When your days are fulfilled, right, and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come for your body, and I will establish his kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: He shall build a house for my name, right, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
SPEAKER_01: I will be to him a father, he will be to me a son.
SPEAKER_01: And then God goes on to say, verse 16, Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me.
SPEAKER_01: Your throne shall be established forever.
SPEAKER_01: So here's a very interesting reversal.
SPEAKER_01: Did you catch that?
SPEAKER_01: David wants to build a house for God, and God says to David, No, no, no, no, David, it's not time for you to build me a house.
SPEAKER_01: That'll come later.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna make a house for you.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: And by house, God means dynasty.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna establish a royal dynasty that's going to come from your lineage, and that dynasty is going to last forever.
SPEAKER_01: And that dynasty, it's understood, is going to usher in all of the hopes and all of the longings that God's people have for the true king, for peace and for protection and for provision.
SPEAKER_01: This king is going to fulfill the hopes for kings forever, right?
SPEAKER_01: A king reigns.
SPEAKER_01: That's the bottom line here.
SPEAKER_01: A king provides peace, protection, provision, and God's king reigns for his people's benefit.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: He will judge according to God's law, he will protect his people from enemies, and in this case, God's promising David, the chosen king will do so for all time, for the rest of eternity, right?
SPEAKER_01: And now this promise just hangs over the biblical story as we know as we make your way through scripture.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what I just want us to pause for a moment and consider.
SPEAKER_01: I want us to consider, I want us to appreciate just how confused and desolate Israel becomes.
SPEAKER_01: Because this is a promise that comes from God, and it's understood God keeps his promises, and yet David's most immediate successor, Solomon, governs with something like a heart that's half faithful to God, but ultimately succumbs to idolatry.
SPEAKER_01: And after Solomon, the kingdom splits into two, and after that, both the northern and southern kingdoms get invaded by foreign powers, and the people get put into exile, and now no one is sitting on the promised throne.
SPEAKER_01: And so if we're among God's people and all of this is happening from one generation to the next, we've got to be asking this question: has God abandoned us?
SPEAKER_01: Has he forgotten his promise?
SPEAKER_01: I thought God promised a king that would last forever.
SPEAKER_01: And now what's happening here?
SPEAKER_01: If we've ever felt like God has not come through for us, then we know something of how the people of Israel are feeling in this biblical history.
SPEAKER_01: Will God fulfill his promise for a lasting king by way of the Son of David?
SPEAKER_01: And that phrase son of David is really important, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: That's resonant, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: Because if we know our New Testament, we know that the Son of David is one of the names that is so frequently applied to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, we understand, is the fulfillment of this promise that a king will reign forever, and a king in David's lineage.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is the anticipated king who fulfills this promise.
SPEAKER_01: But how is that the case?
SPEAKER_01: Let's ask the second question.
SPEAKER_01: What makes Jesus the king?
SPEAKER_01: Let's look at a couple key passages here.
SPEAKER_01: We didn't have an readings this morning, but I want us to look at Matthew chapter 21.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what I want us to see.
SPEAKER_01: As the son of David, Jesus is Israel's promised king.
SPEAKER_01: So Matthew 21 is the triumphal entry.
SPEAKER_01: Do we remember Palm Sunday?
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem and everything that Jerusalem means for him, the cross and resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: But here we are, it's Palm Sunday, and Jesus is making his way into Jerusalem triumphantly, right?
SPEAKER_01: Celeb uh in a celebratory way.
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, my brain just kind of stopped there for a second.
SPEAKER_01: And as you may Makes his way into Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: What's happening?
SPEAKER_01: The people are tossing their cloaks, they're waving palm branches, right?
SPEAKER_01: Symbols of kind of receiving royalty, right?
SPEAKER_01: Tossing your cloak down would be a sign of submission.
SPEAKER_01: Waving palm branches is a sign of victory.
SPEAKER_01: And Matthew, the narrator of his gospel, interjects that all of this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet as Jesus is riding in on a donkey.
SPEAKER_01: It says, Behold, your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the full of a beast of burden.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Zechariah chapter 9 says.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is fulfilling the promise that he is the coming king, coming to reign forever.
SPEAKER_01: And he's coming not as a warlord, he's not coming in military might, he's coming on the humble beast of burden, a donkey, right?
SPEAKER_01: A colt.
SPEAKER_01: His arrival is not overthrowing the Roman Empire, which rules Jerusalem at this time.
SPEAKER_01: Rather, he's coming to provide peace, protection, and provision through for his people, but not by way of military might or violence.
SPEAKER_01: This is the king we anticipated, but it is not the king we expected.
SPEAKER_01: Your king is coming to you humble, mounted on a donkey.
SPEAKER_01: And so we have Jesus before Pilate on Good Friday, or I suppose the evening of Maudi Thursday, whatever the timeline is.
SPEAKER_01: But here's Jesus before Pilate, on trial, preparing for the cross.
SPEAKER_01: And Pilate says to him, So you are a king, right?
SPEAKER_01: They're tossing Jesus' words back at him.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus answers John 18, You say that I am a king.
SPEAKER_01: For this purpose I was born, and for this purpose I've come into the world to bear witness to the truth.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice, right?
SPEAKER_01: My kingdom is not of this world.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I'm a king, but I'm not a king like the kings that you know.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not a king who is going to crush his enemies.
SPEAKER_01: I am a king who is going to conquer by way of self-sacrifice, right?
SPEAKER_01: Because let's bear in mind Jesus is the king, yes.
SPEAKER_01: He is a priest also.
SPEAKER_01: And he is the priest who is endeavoring to reconcile us to God by way of his own sacrifice on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: He is the priestly king, the kingly priest.
SPEAKER_01: And thus his kingdom is going to look different than the kingdoms of this world.
SPEAKER_01: It is not a kingdom to be measured in might or power in the way that we understand it.
SPEAKER_01: It's a kingdom whose strength is in sacrifice, in submission to God's will.
SPEAKER_01: This is not a king who conquers in the way that we expect.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, the Son of David, is Israel's promised king.
SPEAKER_01: He fulfills the promise of 2 Samuel 7, but he fulfills it in a way we don't expect by way of the cross and by way of his resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: And it's because of the resurrection, and it's because of his ascension into heaven that the Apostle Paul can say that Jesus doesn't just reign as Israel's promised king, he's certainly that.
SPEAKER_01: He's also king of the whole cosmos.
SPEAKER_01: Did you catch that in Colossians chapter 1?
SPEAKER_01: Just open up to me if you can for a second in Colossians chapter 1, because holy smokes, this is just an amazing, amazing passage, right?
SPEAKER_01: Why is Paul writing this letter to this church in Colossae?
SPEAKER_01: Paul is writing to correct an error of understanding.
SPEAKER_01: Many of the Colossian Christians have this idea that Jesus was just one of many kind of divine spirit beings who bridged the gap between God and humankind.
SPEAKER_01: But you know, he's just kind of one spiritual person among many, right?
SPEAKER_01: Spiritual beings among many who can do that.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul is writing to make clear the preeminence and the uniqueness of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Christ stands alone as mediator between God and humankind.
SPEAKER_01: And so Paul writes this.
SPEAKER_01: What has Christ done for us?
SPEAKER_01: He's delivered us into the kingdom, pardon me, he's delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: In Christ, we Christians have a new citizenship.
SPEAKER_01: We are citizens of a heavenly kingdom, of God's kingdom, where Christ reigns and rules as God's beloved Son.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul wants to make clear how Christ's reign and rule relates to God, relates to creation, and relates to us, the church.
SPEAKER_01: First, Christ is the image of the invisible God, he writes in verse 15.
SPEAKER_01: Christ is the image.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it brings to mind our reading from Hebrews chapter 1 all the way back at our prophet sermon, right?
SPEAKER_01: Christ is the exact imprint of God's nature.
SPEAKER_01: When Jesus speaks, he speaks as truly God and truly man.
SPEAKER_01: And therefore, as a human being, he reveals the life of God to human beings.
SPEAKER_01: When we look in the face of Jesus, we are looking into the face of God, not just someone who tells us about God, someone who reveals the very life of God as a human being.
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus, we read, is the image of the invisible God.
SPEAKER_01: When we look at Jesus, we see who God is and his heart towards us.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: He is God incarnate.
SPEAKER_01: That's how God, Christ relates to God his Father.
SPEAKER_01: And then we ask, well, how does Christ and Christ's kingship relate to all creation?
SPEAKER_01: And Paul is an answer for that too.
SPEAKER_01: He is the firstborn of all creation, for by him all things were created in heaven and on earth.
SPEAKER_01: And he goes on to describe all of the various principalities and powers that follow, right?
SPEAKER_01: With relation to creation, Jesus is the firstborn, which we shouldn't understand to mean that Christ is the first created thing among other created things.
SPEAKER_01: We should understand firstborn rather suggests an heir, right?
SPEAKER_01: Or someone who is supreme or preeminent.
SPEAKER_01: He's the heir apparent of all creation because all things that were created were created through him and for him.
SPEAKER_01: He's the very purpose for creation.
SPEAKER_01: And with relation to the church, we read, he is the head of the body, the church.
SPEAKER_01: And that's a very vivid metaphor, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: That both suggests biology, because we know how important our head is, right?
SPEAKER_01: Even when my head sometimes feels kind of empty.
SPEAKER_01: It's an important part of the body and it directs the rest of the body.
SPEAKER_01: But we can also think of a political metaphor here, right?
SPEAKER_01: We can think of the body politic and the head, the head of state, and the role that the head of state plays.
SPEAKER_01: It's almost this idea that the church represents the kingdom of God on earth as it's breaking into all creation.
SPEAKER_01: And Christ is our head.
SPEAKER_01: He is the one who gives us direction.
SPEAKER_01: He is the one who reigns and who rules and gives us life.
SPEAKER_01: So Paul concludes, verses 19 and 20, that Christ is the fullness of God.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe another way of putting it would be that Christ reveals God to us.
SPEAKER_01: He does so as the prophet, right?
SPEAKER_01: And he reconciles all things to himself.
SPEAKER_01: That's his priestly role, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: Whether that's on heaven or whether it's in earth, right?
SPEAKER_01: All creation, he's the firstborn, he's preeminent, he reigns as king.
SPEAKER_01: In verses 19 and 20, we have prophet, priest, and king all listed out for us, right?
SPEAKER_01: In their significance.
SPEAKER_01: What an amazing passage this is.
SPEAKER_01: What an amazing glimpse of how glorious Jesus is.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus reigns as Israel's promised Messiah and King.
SPEAKER_01: He fulfills the promise of 2 Samuel 7, but he also reigns on all the cosmos.
SPEAKER_01: Church reformer John Calvin writes this about the nature of Christ's kingship.
SPEAKER_01: He says Christ's kingship is spiritual in nature, and from this spiritual nature we infer its efficacy and benefit for us, as well as its whole force and eternity.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus presently reigns as king in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: This is why we can describe God's kingdom on earth in this age as something like a mustard seed, as something like leaven and bread.
SPEAKER_01: It works its way into the fibers of creation in sometimes an easy-to-overlook way.
SPEAKER_01: We're called to be salt and light in that way, aren't we?
SPEAKER_01: And that's why we often talk about Christ's kingdom as having this already and not yet dynamic, right?
SPEAKER_01: Christ's kingdom has been inaugurated.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why we pray, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Because while Christ's will is fully accomplished in the glory of heaven, earth has a way of lagging behind, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01: And we long for that day when things on earth will be made as they are in heaven, as heaven and earth reunite under the reign and rule of the glorious Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So it's not our job, saints, to usher in the kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: It's not our job to do the hard work to make Jesus' kingdoms happen.
SPEAKER_01: He's already king.
SPEAKER_01: We ask him, what can we do to make that kingship known?
SPEAKER_01: And we anticipate that day where he will return in glory.
SPEAKER_01: So what difference does all this make to me?
SPEAKER_01: Let's ask that.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is the king, reigns, and rules over everything.
SPEAKER_01: What difference does his reign make to me?
SPEAKER_01: Let me just name two things very quickly.
SPEAKER_01: First off, if Jesus is the king who reigns over everything, then first and foremost, we owe him our allegiance as his subject.
SPEAKER_01: And what does that mean?
SPEAKER_01: I suspect he speaks to at least something of what that means in John chapter 18.
SPEAKER_01: He says to Pilate, You say that I'm a king, for this purpose I was born, for this purpose I've come into the world to bear witness to the truth.
SPEAKER_01: And what do we do about that?
SPEAKER_01: Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.
SPEAKER_01: Subjects listen to their king.
SPEAKER_01: And if he is the king of all creation, the king from whom all creation comes, and the king for whom the very purpose of creation is bound, then when we listen to Christ, we listen to the voice of truth.
SPEAKER_01: And we hand ourselves over to that truth.
SPEAKER_01: And we lay down whatever false truths or substitute truths we might pick up for ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: I love the way that C.S.
SPEAKER_01: Lewis describes this.
SPEAKER_01: He says, fallen humanity is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement.
SPEAKER_01: He is a rebel who must lay down his arms.
SPEAKER_01: This process of surrender, this movement of full speed astern is what Christians call repentance.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the spiritual movement that moves us from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of the beloved Son.
SPEAKER_01: We turn away from all substitutes and we turn towards the truth in our King Jesus, and we do that again and again, and it's why we confess our sins together as the church every single Sunday, and we do as Christians, I hope, every single day, because our hearts so frequently wander, and yet our citizenship is bound up with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And so we run to him again and again as the King who gladly invites us back.
SPEAKER_01: We owe him our allegiance as his subjects, therefore we listen to his voice, but we also have great hope for the future in our King Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We confess Sunday for Sunday that the King will return in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom shall have no end.
SPEAKER_01: The peace and protection and provision that we long for will be provided for us in Christ for all eternity.
SPEAKER_01: And we look forward to that day when things on earth will be as they are in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And this means that the justice we long for will finally be realized.
SPEAKER_01: Because, friends, we know how powerful kings can be, and we know that it's not just kings who are powerful in our world, and we know that powerful people often use their power for awful things.
SPEAKER_01: And we think, will anyone ever call them into account?
SPEAKER_01: And the answer is yes.
SPEAKER_01: Because if Jesus reigns as King over everything, then we know that justice will one day be fully realized, that all evil and suffering will be answered for.
SPEAKER_01: And that heartens us.
SPEAKER_01: And we long to see that day where that's where that arrives.
SPEAKER_01: And then we look forward to that day where Christ reigns on his throne, and we are promised, will reign with him.
SPEAKER_01: We will make his kingship known.
SPEAKER_01: Paul writes to Timothy, if we endure, that is the church, we will reign with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And then to the church in Ephesus, Paul writes, God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him, which is enthronement language, in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages we might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We saints are called to reign with Christ as a royal priesthood in him, to make his kingship known, to make his peace and protection and provision known to all creation that longs for their king, and we will do so for all eternity.
SPEAKER_01: So do we do we desire to know God?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus reveals God to us as the prophet, the word become flesh.
SPEAKER_01: Do we need assurance of how God regards us and how we relate ourselves to God rightly?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus reconciles us as the great high priest.
SPEAKER_01: And do we long for peace?
SPEAKER_01: Do we long for protection?
SPEAKER_01: Do we long for the eternal provision that only the true King can provide?
SPEAKER_01: There's good news.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus Christ reigns over us and all creation as the King of Kings.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, we submit to him as the king to whom our allegiance is owed, and we find in our returning king hope for our future.
SPEAKER_01: He has transferred us from the Dominion of Darkness into the kingdom of his beloved Son.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: We hope that you've been blessed by God's word today.
SPEAKER_01: If you live in the Port Perry area, we hope that you'll come and worship with us in person on Sunday at 10 a.m.
SPEAKER_01: If you'd like to learn more about Newsong Church, we'd love to connect with you.
SPEAKER_01: Please find our contact information at newsongportperry.ca and reach out to us.
SPEAKER_01: Newsong's ministry is entirely funded by the generous giving of those who worship and journey with us.
SPEAKER_01: If you feel called to support our ministry with a financial gift, please go to newsongportperry.ca slash giving to make your contribution.
SPEAKER_01: Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.