John 12:12-15 (Expecting The King)

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day Sermon. We pray that as we declare the

Word of God that you would be encouraged, strengthened in your faith, and that you would catch a greater vision of who

Christ is. May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word, and may the Lord be with you.

If you haven't been with us for the last several weeks, we've been in John chapter 12. In John chapter 12, we get this beautiful picture of Jesus being anointed by Mary, and we've talked about that that has kingly implications, that Mary was anointing him not just for his burial, but was anointing him for the office of king.

And that's an ironic thing at this time in the in the life of Israel, because it had been more than six hundred years, 616 to be exact, since a king had sat on the throne in Jerusalem.

By the time Jesus rides into the city of Jerusalem on AD 30, the back of a donkey in fulfillment of Zechariah 9 and other passages, the people had a messianic expectation.

They had an expectation that the Messiah would soon come. 600 years they've been waiting.

616 years since a king from the line of David had sat on their throne. You think about this reign that was promised would be an eternal reign from David, who was king over Israel.

And then you have after him the notoriety where the kingship goes throughout all the world, and the world gets to see the glory of God through the reign of Solomon.

You get to see this kingdom revived under a man named Josiah, and this kingdom delivered under a man named

Hezekiah. This nation was a kingdom now without these kings, without these glorious men that they look back to in their history.

From the Jewish exile when the king was removed until Emmanuel was born, there was no king.

And for a nation that considered themselves to be a monarchy, this would have been an identity crisis. How can you consider yourself a monarchy without a monarch?

How can you consider yourself a kingdom if you don't have a king? Now that vacancy in the

Davidic throne did not breed despair, although at times it did.

Mostly the people were hopeful. By the time of the first century, people were ecstatic. They were waiting.

There was this fever pitch of excitement. In the first century, we have record in the

Dead Sea Scrolls that the people expected the Messiah to show up in their lifetime, in the first century.

They had promises in the Torah that they were leaning on. They had promises in the book of Psalms that they were resting in, and they had promises in the prophets that they were clinging to.

There was a first century expectation that the Messianic king would come in their lifetime, and he did, and they missed him.

Now, we've already preached this passage that we're going to be looking at today. During the

Easter weekend, Palm Sunday, we preached the triumphal entry of Jesus, and we could preach it again.

But what I wanted to do instead today is I wanted to go a little bit deeper into the expectations that the people had for the

Messiah. I want to go a little bit deeper than what we went last time and look at what the Old Testament hope was for a king.

Now, if you remember last time when we talked about the triumphal entry, Jesus comes into the city just like Solomon. In 1

Kings chapter 1, or in 2 Kings chapter 1, excuse me, Solomon is anointed king.

He's put on the back of a donkey. People are singing and praising as he rides into the city of Jerusalem, and he sits upon a throne.

That's exactly what Jesus did in the triumphal entry. Anointed by Mary, put on the back of a donkey, rides into the city to the praise of Israel, and he was put on a throne.

But it wasn't the kind of throne that the Jews were expecting. Instead of David's throne in a palace in Jerusalem, it was a

Roman throne called a cross. He was anointed, and he was coronated, and he inaugurated his kingdom there in Jerusalem.

We also saw how Jesus was the fulfillment of the prophecy of Zechariah and how the

Jews missed it. They missed that the prophecy of Zechariah was talking about a spiritual kingdom that would have impact to the ends of the earth.

So today I want us to look at why they missed it. Why did they miss Jesus? How could they look at him raising

Lazarus from the dead, turning water into wine, opposing the temple leadership, healing people from a distance where he commanded that the nobleman's son would be healed, and he was.

How did they miss this? Well, in order to understand that, we need to go back into their history.

We need to go back into the biblical theology. We need to go back into the language that they had for Messiah.

So today what I want us to do, so I want us to look at the Jewish expectation for a Messiah King.

The second thing is I want to understand how their expectation was flawed. That's why they missed

Jesus. Today, I also want us to understand what Jesus's expectation for his kingship is, and I want us to understand what his expectation is for us who have now become citizens of this great

King. So if you will, turn with me to John chapter 12 verses 12 through 15 as we examine this together.

It will be exciting. Verse 12 begins this way.

On the next day, this is after the wedding feast or the dinner that Lazarus and his sisters have thrown for him.

On the next day, the large crowd who had come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took the branches of the palm trees and went out to meet him.

And they began to shout, Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the

King of Israel. Jesus, finding a young donkey, sat on it as it is written,

Fear not, daughter Zion. Behold, your king is coming, seated on a donkey's colt.

Colt. You have to forgive me. I'm a southerner. I mispronounce everything.

Let's pray. Lord Jesus, I thank you for your kingship.

Thank you for the fact that you're a great and mighty King. Lord, I pray today that we would see the expectation that the

Jews had, that we would see areas where they got it right, areas where they got it wrong, and Lord, I pray that we would see how us today must have a faithful expectation of your kingship.

Your kingship is true, whether we believe it or not. Your kingship is real.

It is powerful. It is ruling. It is reigning right now, whether we acknowledge it or not. Lord, I pray that we would not be like the pagans who ignore it.

We would not be like the Jews who missed it. Lord, I pray by the power of your Holy Spirit, every single person in this room would see how you have become

King, and they would see that that is the greatest news in the world, and that all of us,

Lord, would live as citizens faithfully in your kingdom. It is in Christ's name we pray.

Amen. Again, the Jews had a messianic expectation, and that is clear from the

New Testament. We see immediately in John chapter 1 where John begins preaching and baptizing, and the

Pharisees send a delegation, and they say, Are you the Messiah? Because they had an expectation that the

Messiah was coming. John says, No. They say, Okay, were you the prophet that Deuteronomy said we're supposed to be looking for?

Again, he said, No. They said, Okay, are you the Elijah that we're supposed to be looking for?

Again, Moses said, No, or John the Baptist said, No. We see the

Samaritan woman saying that we know the Messiah is coming. That's fascinating, that even outside of Judah, the

Samaritans were anticipating a Messiah that would be coming in their lifetime. We see in John 6 that they try to take

Jesus by force and crown him to be king. All of these little breadcrumbs in the forest of John's gospel are meant to show us that there is a messianic expectation.

They are looking for a coming king. Now, this expectation developed because of several streams of thought.

It developed because of their language. It developed because of their history. It developed because of their biblical text in the

Torah, the Psalms, and the Prophets. For a moment, I want us to just look at these together.

First, the language. The meaning of the word Messiah in Greek is Christos. We translate it as Christ.

In Hebrew, it's Mashiach. We translate that Messiah. The word means anointed one. In the

Old Testament, if you were anointed king, you were anointed to be a messianic figure. If you're anointed as a prophet, you were anointed to be a messianic prophet.

If you're anointed to be a priest, you were anointed to be a messianic priest. These three roles were anointed ones.

Christ came as the true and perfect anointed one, but at that time they had no idea that a man was going to come and occupy all three offices.

They were looking for a king, but the kings weren't powerful enough, so they thought a perfect king would need to come and save them.

They were looking for a priest because their priests weren't holy enough to cleanse them of their sins.

They were looking for a perfect priest. They were looking for a prophet because their prophets were not compelling enough to get them to stop breaking covenant with God.

So they were looking for a perfect prophet, but they weren't looking for a man who fulfilled all three roles.

There was a debate actually going on at this time on which one it was going to be. Would the end -time prophet come?

Would the end -time priest come? Or would the end -time king come? At that time, most people believed that it was going to be the king because of their situation and their background.

If you remember, the Jews at this time were subjugated people. They were not free. They didn't have their own nation.

They were enslaved to the nation of Rome. So a lot of the people were like, we don't need the priest right now.

He can come later. We don't need the prophet right now. He can come later. We need a king who's going to lead us in rebellion against Rome.

Who's going to give us sovereignty as a nation. Who's going to lift us up high above all of the other peoples on earth so that we can be what

God has called us to be. That's what they were believing based off even the word

Messiah. Now that expectation also is more developed through the history of the

Jewish people. The history of the Jews does not go back to Moses. The history of the

Jews does not even go back to Abraham. The Jews trace their lineage all the way back to the

Garden of Eden, just like all of us. Now, the Jews saw patterns in the

Old Testament scriptures that they began noticing and they began expecting things would be the same as they always had been.

Just like when we see patterns today. There's a pattern that happens in our life.

Like, for instance, every Monday morning I go to work and Joe is angry. Well, every

Monday morning I avoid Joe. Well, in the Old Testament, they saw patterns in the text and it began to inform their expectations.

For instance, in the Garden of Eden, what happens? The first man, who's the prototypical king, and the first family, which is the prototypical nation, fall under subjugation to a tyrant named

Satan, the serpent. And in their fall, they become enslaved. And in their slavery, God comes and provides a promise that one day a serpent crushing king is going to rise up and he's going to free the people from their slavery.

So that's the first instance of this pattern. And it repeats itself all throughout the

Bible. For instance, Moses, the time of Moses, the people were enslaved to Egypt who had a serpent on his head.

Very interesting. They were in slavery for 400 years. So what does God do?

God hears their cries for help. God hears their prayers and God raises up a deliverer named Moses who leads them out of the land of Egypt.

He leads them to the promised land where they receive the law and they're back in fellowship with God. Immediately after that, you have the book of Judges.

After Moses dies and Joshua dies, you have the book of Judges, where the people are supposed to conquer the land of Israel.

And they were supposed to cast out of Israel these people called Canaanites. And those

Canaanites worshipped a god named Baal. Did you know that Baal is often depicted as a serpent?

Ironic. So the people were supposed to cast out the serpent people from the garden land of Judah.

Sound familiar? It's the story of Eden all over again. And what happens? Instead of casting them out, they become enslaved to them and they cry out to the

Lord and the Lord provides a judge who will deliver them. And then everything is great until they get in slavery again.

And that's the book of Judges. They get in slavery, cry out to God. God delivers them.

They get into slavery. They cry out to God. God delivers. It's like a seven -cycled book where this happens over and over and over again.

You think about the people during the time of Saul after the judges. The last judge is Samuel. Saul is going against these people called the

Philistines. The Philistines have a god named Dagon who looks like a fish serpent.

Dagon calls himself in the mythology of that time the high god of heaven. Isn't it fascinating that without Israel lifting a finger against this pagan god, there's a story in the book where the

Ark of the Covenant is stolen. They bring it into the temple of Dagon and the idolatrous statue falls down and worships.

It happens twice. They get so freaked out that they send it back and they leave it in the middle of the field.

God provided a deliverer even without their own hand. The same is true during the time of David when Saul plunges the nation into chaos and they're almost getting ready to forfeit everything that God had given them.

God raises up David. Same thing happens in the time of Josiah when the people are falling headfirst into idolatry.

There's this woman named Athaliah who's ruling the kingdom. They're worshiping idols. It's depraved.

God raises up Josiah, an eight -year -old boy, puts him on the throne, cast out all of the idolaters in the nation, and God rescues them through a coming king.

Same thing happens during Hezekiah's time. The Assyrians are coming.

The Assyrians are going to crush the people. Hezekiah cries out to God and God delivers them. Over and over and over in Israel's history, whenever they fall into trouble, whenever they fall into slavery, whenever they fall into sin,

God raises up a king, a deliverer. So do you see the expectation that they have now?

Every time this happens to us, God will raise up a king. It happened even after the exile.

During the exile, our brother Lawrence last week came and he preached a sermon to us on what it means and what it looks like to live life during an exile.

Now, the reason that they got into exile was because they disobeyed God. Right before the exile, they were sacrificing their children on the altar.

It was an abomination to God. And God gives them over to their sin, gives them over to their depravity.

And this time during the exile, God doesn't rescue them immediately. He makes them wait 70 years before he rescues them.

And then he raises up an unlikely king. Now, what's so fascinating about this is that this man is called an anointed king,

Messiah king. But this man was not a Jew. This man didn't have Jewish heritage.

This man didn't have Jewish lineage. This man was not connected to the people of Israel at all. God raised up an anointed deliverer named

Cyrus, who was the king of Persia, who grants the people freedom, who lets them go back and rebuild their walls, who lets them go back and rebuild their temple.

God, again, is showing that when his people fall into depravity and sin and selfishness and slavery, he will deliver them from the most unlikely sources.

This time from Cyrus. Look at how the book of Isaiah 45 verses 1 through 7 describes this.

Thus says the Lord to Cyrus, his anointed. That means Messiah. Cyrus is not the

Messiah, but he's a messianic figure whom I have taken by my right hand to subdue nations before him and to loose the loins of kings, to open doors before him so that gates will not be shut.

I, that's God, will go before you and make one, make the rough places smooth.

I will shatter the doors of bronze and cut through their iron bars. I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden wealth of secret places so that you may know that it is

I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who calls you by name for the sake of Jacob, my servant in Israel, my chosen one.

I have also called you by your name. And I have given you a title of honor, this anointed title, though you have not known me,

I am the Lord and there is no other. Besides me, there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known me, that men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun that there is no one besides me.

I am the Lord. There is no other. The one forming light and creating darkness, causing well -being and creating calamity.

I am the Lord who does all these things. This man who did not know

God has been raised up by God so that the peoples of the earth may know who

God is. He will rescue Israel and he won't get the credit for it. God will.

And that is the story of all of our lives, that God will raise us up to do things for him that we don't need the credit for.

We give all the credit, the glory and the honor back to God. What I find so fascinating about Cyrus, just a brief aside for a moment, is that he is a

Christ figure. Not only is he called a Messiah figure, but he points to Christ.

He's the one who was raised up at just the right time, who sets the people free and calls them to go back and rebuild their city and to rebuild their temple.

Isn't that what Jesus Christ has done for the church? God raised up Jesus at just the right time and he came from a foreign land called heaven and he set the captives free.

You and I. And his mission was to call us to rebuild the city.

What is the city? The new Jerusalem, the kingdom of God. And he's called us to spread the temple out, not just in one city like Cyrus called them to spread the temple out in the city of Jerusalem.

We've been called to spread the temple out to the ends of the earth, the temple of God to the ends of the earth.

You know that that's happening now? You and I have been called temples of the living God. Every single time a new

Christian is made, the temple grows larger. Another stone is added until eventually the temple will fill the entire earth.

This is what Christ has done. But again, this contributes to their expectation.

They believed every time they got in trouble, God was going to rescue them with a deliverer. And so far, it's happened every single time.

After the exile, they go back to the city under the book of Ezra. You can read about it. And they rebuild the city or the temple.

During the book of Nehemiah, they go back and they rebuild the city walls. During the book of Malachi, they kind of recommit themselves to God, although it says that they're apathetic.

And because they were apathetic, they became pathetic. They fell into all kinds of problems, all kinds of calamities that the

Bible doesn't even record. After Malachi, there's 400 years of silence where we have to look at history to find out what happens to them.

And it's awful what happens to them because they turn their back on God. After the

Persians set them free, the Greeks conquered them. After Alexander the Great died, the empire was torn into four parts.

And Israel became the ground zero for everybody wanting to fight over them.

They had a nation in the north, the Seleucids, and then a nation in the south, the Ptolemies, who were fighting to have control over Israel.

And Israel was in the crosshairs of all of it. You can imagine, I can't think of one right off the top of my head, but if there's two countries that are warring against each other and there's a country in the middle who keeps getting destroyed, that was what

Israel looked like in that time. Eventually, the Seleucids gained ascendancy and they were especially evil.

They called the sacrifices in the temple to be ceased immediately or they would kill everyone. They told the

Jews to stop practicing circumcision, which was central to their identity. They told the Jews that they had to sacrifice pigs on their altar if they were going to sacrifice anything at all.

And Antiochus Epiphanes, he was the leader at this time, erected a statue of Zeus in the middle of the holy place.

So the Jews once again cried out to God. And once again, God raises up this unbelievable figure to lead them to freedom, to lead them in an improbable victory.

I know it's not in the Bible, but if you read the book of Maccabees, there's four of them. So read one and two, especially.

That's where it talks about it. And in eight days war, the Jews, these little band of rebels, overthrew the

Seleucids. And it was clear that God was with them and causing them to to be free.

And that's where Hanukkah comes from, is this eight day war where God freed them from this massive superpower by the most improbable circumstances.

Again, this expectation happened over and over and over.

They fell into slavery. God saved them. They fell into slavery. God saved them. They fell into trial. God rescued them.

It's happened throughout their entire history. So why, when we get to the New Testament, wouldn't they think the same thing?

We're here. Jesus comes upon the scene. They're enslaved to Rome. And the people are like, hey, God's going to save us.

God always saves us. Except this time they believed that it was going to be the final king who would deliver them once and for all and would set them high above the nations.

That was their expectation, that this was going to happen. We also see this in their biblical writings.

So they didn't just get this from their history and they didn't just get this from their language. They also they read this in the Old Testament, that God was going to do this for them.

For instance, in the book of Genesis, when Israel was basically founded by a man named

Jacob, who God renamed Israel, he gives a blessing to one of his sons. And in that blessing, he says that the scepter will always be in the tribe of Judah.

This is what he says. The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet until Shiloh comes.

All the way back in Genesis chapter 49, God's been promising these Jews that a figure, that a king is going to come and he's going to deliver them.

That word Shiloh means peace. So they're not only going to have a king come out of the line of Judah, which they did.

They had David, they had Solomon, they had Hezekiah, they had all of these kings. They're going to have a future king who is not only a king of power, but he's a kingdom of peace.

And he's going to lead their nation finally to an era of peace, sort of a millennial type of peace.

This was an expectation that they had in the first century. This passage shows up in their writings in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

There's another passage in the Torah. You remember the episode of Balaam, this man who was hired to curse the people of Israel.

And yet every time he tried to curse the people of Israel, he ended up only blessing the people of Israel. You remember in one of his blessings where he says this in Numbers 24, 17.

I see him. He's talking about the messianic king here. But not now.

I look at him, but not near. A star shall appear from Jacob. A scepter shall rise from Israel and shall smash the forehead of Moab and overcome all the sons of Sheth.

This wicked pagan king who's trying to curse Israel ends up talking about the cosmic king who's going to come and set his people free.

You look up at the sky and you see the stars. The stars overlook us. He's saying that a star shall rise out of Jacob, a cosmic king.

Not a king over Judah, not a king over Israel, king over the entire cosmos is going to rise up and he's going to lead these people into everlasting freedom.

That's what they saw in the text. They saw it in the Psalms. We're going to sing some of them today.

Psalm chapter two, verses six through eight. They saw this coming king. This is what it says. But as for me, that's

God speaking. I have installed my king upon Zion, my holy mountain, and I will surely tell of the decrees of the

Lord. He said to me, you are my son. Today, I have begotten you.

Ask of me and I will surely give the nations as your inheritance and the very ends of the earth as your possession.

In the Psalms, God is promising that his son is going to become king over all the earth.

Now, I just want to stop for a second and just say, if you have a view of the kingdom of God where we lose, you have to reckon with Psalm two, because Psalm two says he's going to be king over all of the earth.

The entire earth is in the possession of Christ and he's going to be victorious to the ends of the earth.

That is the kind of king that God is bringing through Jesus. That's in the

Psalms. That's not in the New Testament that contributed to their expectation. You wonder why the

Jews thought that they were going to be the nation that was bigger and more powerful than all the nations, because they read passages like this where their king is going to crush all of the enemies and he's going to elevate them to this high position.

They were reading the text just like we are. They were missing its implications, but they were reading it nonetheless.

Look at Psalm 110. The Lord says to my Lord, that's

Yahweh says to David's Lord. Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.

New Testament says this was accomplished in Jesus Christ when he ascended to heaven and sat at the right hand of God.

Then it says the Lord will stretch forth your strong scepter from Zion. It means Zion is the starting point of Jesus's kingdom.

Saying rule in the midst of your enemies and your people will volunteer freely in the day of your power and holy array from the womb of the dawn.

Your youth are to you as the do. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind.

You are a priest forever. According to the order of Melchizedek, the Lord is at your right hand and he will shatter the kings in the day of his wrath.

He will judge among the nations. So now the kingdom has moved outside of Judah to the entire world. And he will fill them with corpses.

That's those who oppose him. He will shatter the chief men over a broad country. He will drink from the brook by the wayside.

Therefore, he will lift up his head. Do you see how this image of the king is now being filled in with lots of theology?

He's going to be a divine king, the son of God. He's going to be a priest king after the order of Melchizedek.

He's going to lead his people to righteousness. He's going to lead his people to victory. He's going to lead his people to worldwide dominion.

This is what the Messiah is going to do. And that's what the Jews were expecting, a messianic king who would lead them to worldwide victory.

Their expectation was built on scripture, although faulty interpretation.

They also had expectations from the prophets. I'm going to read, or sorry, from the covenant of David.

This is a fascinating passage. You can't explain this other than Jesus. This is what it says to David.

This is God's promise to David. When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, it means you die.

I will raise up your descendant after you who will come forth from you. That's Solomon. And I will establish his kingdom.

And he shall build a house for my name. And I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

And I will be a father to him and he will be a son to me. When he commits iniquity,

I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the son of men. But my loving kindness shall not depart from him as I took it away from Saul, whom

I removed from before you. This is where it gets interesting. Your house and your kingdom shall endure before me forever.

The throne, your throne shall be established forever. In accordance with all of these words and all of the vision that Nathan spoke to David.

So we see that it applies to Solomon. Solomon's going to build the temple. Solomon's going to have a kingdom. But God promises that this

Davidic line is going to have an eternal kingdom, a forever kingdom.

He's promising that David is going to have a lineage that will never end. He's going to have a kingdom that will never perish.

And when you understand this, you understand why the Jews were so broken at the time of the

New Testament, because they had seen 600 years without David reigning on the throne, without a son of David reigning on the throne.

They read this promise, this covenant from God, and they saw that is God going to make it true?

This God who promised us, has God lied to us? That was the thing they were asking. At the time of Jesus, they were wondering, is

David's kingdom really going to last forever? Is it really going to be an eternal kingdom?

And they missed the king that it was pointing to the whole time, which is

Jesus. The Shiloh, as Genesis says, the star, as Numbers says, the priest -king after the order of Melchizedek in Psalm 110.

The Lord, the son of God in Psalm 2. They missed him. They saw their expectation for a king in the prophets.

After the exile, the prophets looked forward to a time period when God would restore the fortunes of Israel and he would bring them a new king.

I want to read you some passages. These are beautiful. I'm not going to give any commentary whatsoever.

I'm just going to read the passages. They are astounding. Listen to this. This is promises. But as for you,

Bethlehem, Ephrathah, you're too little to be among the clans of Judah, but from you, one will go forth for me to be ruler in Israel.

That's king. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity.

Therefore, he, that's the Messiah, will give them up until the time when, oh, that's God, sorry, when she who is in labor has borne a child and the remainder of his brethren will return to the sons of Israel.

And he will raise up and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the

Lord, his God, and they will remain. But at that time, he will be great. Where? To the ends of the earth.

When Jesus was born, he was born global king who was going to conquer the earth. It happened in their lifetime,

Isaiah 7, 13 through 14. And then he said, listen, oh, house of David. Is it too small a thing for you to try the patience of men?

You will try the patience of God as well. Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call his name

Emmanuel. We learn about the son in Isaiah 9, verse 6 through 7. For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, and the government will rest on his shoulders.

That means he's a king. Governments don't rest on the shoulders of peasants. They rest on the shoulders of kings.

And his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.

And there will be no end to the increase of his government or of his peace on the throne of David and over his kingdom.

To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore, the zeal of the

Lord of hosts will accomplish this. God is promising that he will most certainly bring about a king whose government will not end, whose duration will not end, whose expanse will not be limited.

Isaiah 11, 1 through 9. Then a shoot will spring forth from the stem of Jesse, that's

David's father, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit. And the spirit of the

Lord will rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and of strength, the spirit of knowledge, and the fear of the

Lord, and he will delight in the fear of the Lord. This is talking about Jesus. Hundreds of years before he came and he will not judge by what his eyes see, nor make a decision by what his ears hear.

But with righteousness, he will judge the poor and decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth.

And he will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth. And with the breath of his lips, he will slay the wicked.

Also, righteousness will be the belt about his loins and faithfulness, the belt about his waist, and the wolf will dwell with the lamb.

I said I wasn't going to add a lot of commentary. This is a fun fact. You can win Chipotle over this.

Bet a Christian that the lion and the lamb don't lay down together in the

Bible and then point to this verse. It's the wolf and the lamb. And you will win

Chipotle and you will thank me. And the leopard will lie down with the young goat.

And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together and a little boy will lead them.

Also, the cow and the bear will graze. The young will lie down to lie down together and the lion will eat straw with the ox.

The nursing child will play by the whole of the cobra and the weaned child will put his hand on the viper's den.

They will not hurt or destroy in my holy mountain for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the water covers the sea.

Jeremiah 23, five through six. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch and he will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land.

In his days, Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell securely. And this is his name by which he will be called the

Lord, our righteousness. One more, Ezekiel 37, 22 through 26.

And I will make them one nation, that's Judah and Israel. In the land, on the mountains of Israel, and one king will be king over them.

And they will no longer be two nations and no longer be divided into two kingdoms, and they will no longer defile themselves with their idols or with their detestable things or with any of their transgressions.

But I will deliver them from all their dwelling places in which they have sinned and I will cleanse them and they will be my people and I will be their

God. My servant, David, will be king over them and they will all have one shepherd and they will walk in my ordinances and keep my statutes and observe them.

And they will live on the land that I gave to Jacob, my servant, in which your fathers lived, and they will live on it.

They and their sons and their sons' sons forever. And David, my servant, will be prince forever.

And I will make a covenant of peace with them. It will be an everlasting covenant with them and I will place them and multiply them and will set my sanctuary in their midst forever.

This came true with the coming of Jesus Christ. The Jews were expecting the right things.

They were expecting a king. They were expecting a king who would have a forever reign. They got that from their linguistic studies of the word

Mashiach. They got that from their historical expectations. They got that from the Torah, the Psalms, the

Proverbs, their entire Bible. They were looking for an idyllic king who would set them high above the nations, a reinvigorated

David, a king of peace to them and a king of wrath to their enemies. A cosmic king who would rule over the entire earth, an eternal king whose reign would never end.

They were looking for the true anointed king. They were looking for the right things, except they missed one aspect of it.

They thought that this reign would be physical. Jesus was coming to bring a spiritual kingdom.

You see, Bible interpretation is really important. We can all read the same passage and come to different conclusions, but there is one meaning of every text and it's the meaning that God intended.

There's not your meaning and there's not my meaning and there's not Sister Susie's meaning and there's not all of these.

What does it mean to you? I don't care what it means to you. I want to know what it means to God because that's the meaning of the text.

The Jews missed it because they had one aspect wrong. They thought this was a physical empire.

They thought that they were going to have a physical king who ruled in the physical city of Jerusalem, who made them a physically dominant people, who made them the envy of all the nations.

And instead, Jesus was bringing a different kind of kingdom altogether. When we see in Psalm 110 that he's going to be a priest after the order of Melchizedek, we learn there that it's a spiritual kingdom.

It's not a physical kingdom because a priest is bringing a kingdom that is filled with the spirit.

Jesus comes bringing spirit and truth worship. This is the kingdom that he brought, but they missed it. Jesus is not going to sit on a throne in Jerusalem.

Jesus is sitting on a throne in heaven, the new Jerusalem, reigning now. Jesus didn't come to make them special.

He came to show us that he's the one who's powerful. He's the one who's special. He's the one who's infinite. He's the one who's great.

The Jews wanted themselves to be special and they wanted to use their Messiah to get there.

They wanted to be like Rome so that all the nations of the world would envy them. They wanted to be the world's superpower.

They wanted to be the ones sitting on the biggest stockpile of nuclear weapons. They wanted to be the ones in control and they were looking forward to a

Messiah who would give them that. And he's the one who came and says, you don't have any control. I'm the one who's going to be lifted up.

I'm the one who's going to be special. I'm the one who's going to get all the glory. You are my servants. You are my slaves.

They wanted him to serve them. That's why they tried to grab him in John 6 and foist him upon their throne because they wanted him to give them what they wanted and what they wanted was not

God. That's why they cheered when he rode into the city of Jerusalem.

You ever wondered why they offered him palm branches? They offered him leaves. They were a city that was supposed to bear fruit.

They didn't bear fruit. This is why they misread Zechariah. Zechariah says in verse 10 after verse 9 where it says that your king is coming to your city riding on the fold of a donkey.

Zechariah says that he's going to put away the weapons, that he's going to put away the war horses, that Jews he's not going to lead you into a massive military campaign where you have the greatest nation on earth.

He's going to put those things away and he's going to establish a kingdom of true peace, a kingdom where it advances not with weapons and with swords, but with prayer, but with the gospel, with preaching the word, singing the word, hearing the word, doing the word.

This is how the kingdom of Christ advances to the ends of the earth is through that. Their expectation was perverted.

It was all about them instead of all about him. How many times have we done that as well?

He wanted them to build their kingdom. How often do we want Jesus to build our kingdom? How often do we want him to give us the things that we want instead of our wants being him?

How often do we want him to to make us special, to elevate our name?

And we can do this really, really, really sophisticatedly as Christians. For instance,

I can tell you ways that I struggle and lest you judge me. You struggle, too. Maybe you just wouldn't admit it.

Write a blog. I was telling my brother Matthew about this yesterday. Write a blog. You write it for Jesus.

You write it for his glory, write it for his honor, and then you send it out and you're like, I hope a lot of people read it.

Why don't I, why don't I worry about that God is glorified when I send it out, when I post it on the web?

When that happens, my joy should be complete because I gave it my best. Christ is honored.

Who cares who reads it? Let him worry about that. I've had to repent of that. I've had to,

I've had to come. I came off of Facebook because Facebook is this great echo chamber where we all post things and we can't wait to see if someone hearts it.

I don't want that for me. I don't want that for my soul. It's not our kingdom that we're building.

It's his. He's the one who gets the glory. He's the one who gets the honor. He's the one who gets the renown.

This is also, we see this happening in the Christian church today and it's wicked. How often do we see

Christianity conflated with Americanism in our country today?

You know, if God would just give us the right president, then we'd really do something. Really?

If God would just bring Trump back, then he would lead us to all these great, really? A man who's slept with prostitutes and done all kinds of wickedness and we really believe that if he comes back, then

God's going to use him. Maybe God uses him, but God's not dependent on Trump. He's not dependent on Biden.

He's not dependent on elections. He's not dependent on our nationalism. It doesn't matter who's in the Supreme Court. God rules over the nations.

America will rise and fall. There will come a day where our great grandchildren or great, great, great, great grandchildren or somebody down the line live in a different country, even though they're in the same geography that we're standing in today.

Nations rise and fall. We do not put our hope in that. We don't put our hope in chariots and horses.

We put our hope in the living God because his track record's better.

Two thousand years have passed. We have a lot of evidence. Rome, gone. The Ottoman Empire, gone.

The English Empire, gone. There's still a little nation where you can get fish and chips, but the big empire, gone.

There's one kingdom that has lasted for two thousand years and it's not the kingdom of man. It's the kingdom of God and his kingdom will last forever.

Put your hope in that. Put your hope in him as king, not in who sits in what. 1600

Pennsylvania Avenue. If they had any sense about them, they would bow down and worship this king too.

He has brought us into a spiritual kingdom where we can honestly, authentically, passionately make everything about him.

That is what our life is about now. That all of Christ for all of the world, my job, my life, everything about who

I am now bows to the lordship of Jesus Christ. And the same is true for you. It's all about him.

It's not about us. That's the error of the Jews. This is why

Jesus told them that it's a spiritual kingdom. He even reveals this to them and they missed it. He says in Matthew 13, 11, to you, it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.

That's to the disciples. But to them, it has not been granted. He says in John 18, 36, my kingdom is not of this world.

When he says of this world, he means it's not worldly. If my kingdom were of this world, then my servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the

Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not of this realm. If Jesus, his kingdom was of this world, then we would be we would be just like the just like Islam.

We would have to jihad. We would have to take it to the ends of the world by force, cut off people's head. All of Jesus's kingdom is not of this world.

His kingdom is a spiritual kingdom. His kingdom is a kingdom of righteousness. A kingdom of loving God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength and loving your neighbor as yourself.

That is, isn't that a beautiful thing? Rome, this great superpower, was defeated by the love of the disciples that they had for God and for their neighbor.

Nations of earth have been brought to ruin because of meek, humble, quiet people who love

Jesus. What a beautiful testimony. The wisdom of the world is foolishness to God, right?

We think if I could just grab a few AK -47s, then we would be secure. No, you wouldn't. Because there's always someone who has more weapons.

There's always someone who has more power. There's always a nation that has more momentum than yours. If you don't have

Christ, you will end up in the dust. But with Christ, you'll be a part of a never ending kingdom that can not end.

Jesus tells us how this kingdom even advances. I'm going to be frank. Wherever a Christian is, is where the kingdom of God is advancing.

Wherever you take a breath, wherever you sit down and eat a meal, wherever you work, wherever you sleep, wherever you live, wherever you play.

That's where the kingdom of God is. How do I know that? Because Jesus tells us in Luke 17, 20 through 21. He says,

Now, having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, nor will they say, look, here it is or there it is.

For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst. Why was the kingdom of God in their midst?

Because the king of the kingdom was in their midst. Jesus was present in front of them. That's why he could say that the kingdom of God has come.

So now how can I say that you and I, wherever we are, the kingdom of God has come?

Because who lives inside of you, dear saint? Jesus, the king. Everywhere you go on earth, you bear his name.

Everywhere you go on earth, you bear his presence. The world, which is prophesied in the prophets, will be filled with the knowledge of God and the presence of God as the water covers the seas.

How will that happen? By the church, by the church making disciples, by the church preaching the gospel, by the nations coming to the church and asking us what our hope is.

And we tell them that it's in Jesus Christ and Christ alone. And when they're converted, they go out and they tell the gospel to others.

And then they tell the gospel to others until the entire world is filled with Christians.

That's the biblical vision. I know that we live in a time period where we're talking about recession, where we're talking about big, scary

Fed meetings, where they're going to raise the basis points, 100 points or whatever. I don't care. The word of God promises that his kingdom will prevail.

The word of God promises that it will reach the ends of the earth. The word of God promises that every generation or every century that this kingdom will advance and the gates of hell won't stand against it.

We have an optimistic gospel. And we have been called by Christ to participate.

He's the one 2 ,000 years ago who went to the cross joyfully for you, who died on the cross joyfully for you.

He's the one who became sin so that you who are sin would never be called sin again, but you would be called the righteousness of God.

He's the one who clothes you if you're in Christ with the royal robes of Jesus. He's the one who made you an heir of the kingdom.

He's the one who made you citizens of the kingdom. He's the one who empowered you, equipped you.

He's the one who is giving fruit to you. He is the one who's doing work in you. He is the one who is king.

And he's the one who's calling you no matter what you do, whether you eat or whether you drink, do everything to the glory of this great king.

That is how the kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven.

When the church takes seriously her role as ambassadors of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our soul has already been unlocked by Jesus, and now we've been empowered to go to the ends of the earth for him.

The Jews believe that the kingdom was all about them. Don't repeat that error.

There's a lot of people who are here today. There's Christians, there's unbelievers, maybe, and then there's there's

Sinos, Christian in name only. That's a funny joke. Thank you for mercy laughing for me.

We can't just claim Christ and not do what he says. We can't.

If we break the laws of this nation, then they will ticket us, punish us or arrest us.

Why do we presume upon the mercies of Christ? He is a great and mighty king. He's called us to obey him.

He's called us to love him. He's called us to worship him. He's called us to go to the ends of the earth, telling everyone about him.

So my charge to us this morning is in everything that you do and everything that you say and everything that you think and in everything that you feel and in everything that you will and in everything that you own and in everything that you buy and in everything that you watch and in everything that you eat and in everything that you sow and in everything that you reap and in everything that you do, do it to the glory of God.

And do it so that the nations may hear this gospel of peace. Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, you are king over all the earth. Your reign has defeated sin,

Satan, and death that accosted us. We're like the Israelites. We fell into a greater enemy than they, a greater enemy than Pharaoh, a greater enemy than Rome, a greater enemy than any of the enemies that they faced in their existence.

We were under the tyranny of Satan, sin, and death. And by your power, you have set us free. And you brought us into a kingdom.

And you have made us true Israel. You have made us a people after your own name.

You have caused us to be your people. You have given us a commission, Lord, I pray, that we would learn by the power of the

Holy Spirit to love you, adore you, worship you. And Lord, I pray that that love would lead us to obey you.

Lord, I pray that there's some here who would start businesses that would make much of your gospel.

Lord, I pray that there's relationships in this room that will lead from here and we'll be able to share the hope of Christ.

Lord, I pray that there's family members who will get to hear that in their sins, they are dead, and they must turn to Jesus if they will ever have a life.

Lord, I pray that there's someone in this room who would feel the awesome burden of their sins and that they would cry out to Jesus, who's the only one who can offer them hope.

Lord, as your servants wrote over 500 years ago, what is our only hope in life and in death?

It is that we belong to Christ. Lord, let us cling to that hope. And let us tell the world of that great hope.