He Must Reign - Christopher G. Brenyo

Ascension Presbyterian Church Longwood

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But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

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For since by man came death, by man also came the resurrection of the dead.

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For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.

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But each one in his own order, Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are

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Christ's at his coming. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the

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Father, when he puts an end to all rule and all authority and power.

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For he must reign till he has put all enemies under his feet.

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The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. For he has put all things under his feet.

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But when he says all things are put under him, it is evident that he who put all things under him is accepted.

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Now when all things are made subject to him, then the Son himself will also be subject to him who put all things under him, that God may be all in all.

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The Lord Jesus, we recognize your authority and we say hallelujah, you must reign.

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We're so thankful we have a king like you who would consider subjects like us, weak and frail though we be, that we would be the object of your affection, that you would redeem us from our sin and cause us to dwell with you forever and ever.

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In this we give great thanks, in Jesus' name, amen. Please be seated, thank you.

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I'm probably going to preach two messages on this text.

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The subject matter today is covering verses 24 through 28, and I will probably have a second installment on the same section next week or the week after.

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I'm likely going to do a Christmas message next week. But in the next couple of weeks we'll revisit the same passage in 1

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Corinthians 15. And I would encourage you as a way of introduction, sometimes

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I know what I'm going to say before I study. This week, what I mean by that is

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I have a pretty good idea of where the text is going because I've been in the text,

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I've studied it, I'm familiar with the themes. And this week I had a similar expectation but it was thrown with a little bit of a curveball because I had some differing thoughts about what

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I thought about this. This happened before as it came to the issue of head coverings and other things.

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I've seen things in the Scripture that I haven't seen before. There's nothing really revolutionary about what

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I'll be talking about in the next couple of weeks. But when you study the Word of God, your mind changes about things.

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You have a different perspective. So I would encourage you, even in those texts that you read and are familiar with, come to a familiar passage of Scripture, submit to the authority of Scripture and be instructed again in the

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Scripture, in the Word, and rely on the Holy Spirit to illumine your understanding because we are always reforming.

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We're always going back to the doctrine of Scripture, always going back to the biblical teaching on any given subject.

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So today, the message is entitled, He Must Reign. And I hope to attempt to answer the question today, what does the resurrection say about Christ's authority?

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What does the resurrection say about Christ's authority?

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Well, there's a couple of things that are very interesting in our section today. First, we're going to talk a little bit about His mediatorial kingship.

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We're going to talk about that a little bit more two weeks from now. His mediatorial kingship.

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And it's going to take us a couple weeks to get a fuller understanding of what that means. The second thing is we must recognize and appreciate

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His reign and rule over all things. Nothing is accepted.

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He must reign over all things. And in the text, the only thing that is accepted or the only person that is accepted is the

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Father, God the Father. Christ must reign over all things.

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And third, very interestingly, the kingdom, the mediatorial kingdom that Christ presides over will be handed over to the

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Father in the consummation. The mediatorial kingdom that the

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Son reigns over will be handed over to the Father in the consummation.

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It's a very interesting idea. I hope the Lord provides us some clarity on that point.

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Well, let's look at verse 24. Paul has been on this extended discussion of the resurrection, which is going to last for many more verses after this, more than 30 after this.

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But last week, we got a sense that Christ is the first fruits of the resurrection class a race, nation of people, and that those who belong to Christ also have a share in His resurrection.

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We also learned and were instructed that we are representative, representative, we're represented by either

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Adam or by Christ. In verse 22, it says that as an Adam all died, the whole of the human race was plunged into sin, and even so in Christ all shall be made alive.

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The federal headship of Christ makes it possible for us to have our sins forgiven, to have a share in His resurrection, to have resurrection for ourselves, and also to be named joint heirs with Him, to enter into the glorious adoption of sons, and to dwell with God forever.

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And then he introduces this idea of an ordering of things.

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Verse 23, Christ, the first fruits afterward, those who are Christ's at His coming in our text today, then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God, the

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Father, and he puts an end to all rule, all authority and all power.

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Now, in this section, Paul is continuing his exposition of Christ's resurrection and the consequences of that for the people of God, and our glorious standing with Him as beneficiaries and participants in the resurrection.

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I want to stop here for just a moment. We've been talking about this, but I want to kind of reinforce this point.

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Because we are in Christ, we are both beneficiaries of Christ's redeeming work and future participants.

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The resurrection that Christ experienced is going to be the model for the resurrection that you and I will experience.

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There will be a bodily resurrection of the saints. There will be a sense in which

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God will right all the wrongs, the corruption of the human nature in Christ, and He does this in such a way that we will have glorified, risen bodies that will dwell with God forever.

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And this should be a cause of great joy and thanksgiving for us. One of the things

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I have thought about recently is, I know there are, we have some friends, some

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Christian friends, there's a number of ill, sick, diseased, surgery -performed saints walking around.

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As people get older, more things go wrong with your body. My dad has been laying in his bed, or hospital bed, for eight weeks now because of an injury he suffered and complications from multiple surgeries and all these things.

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When you and I get a head cold, it's annoyance to us in our lives. When we're sick or something goes wrong with our lives, our back hurts, we twist our ankle, all these kinds of things that happen that diminish our enjoyment of life.

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All of those things are taken away in the future for the people of God. My wife has migraines.

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She won't have migraines in heaven. There are kids who have asthma and can't breathe well.

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They won't have that problem in heaven. We forget daily that all of the infirmities, all of the struggles that we have as people living in a fallen world, these will all be eradicated one day for Christians.

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We will not experience those horrible things. We have a share in the glorified resurrection of Christ.

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We will be risen with Him. In a spiritual sense, we're risen with Him. We've been raised with Him now.

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But in a future sense, already there's something that we possess. There's a future sense in which there will be greater benefits and blessings to us as the people of God.

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Christ is the firstfruits. Afterward, those that are Christ's, that is coming.

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There's a couple of texts of scripture. I'm not going to have you go there for the interest of time. I'm going to read those to you first.

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Zephaniah 3, Zephaniah 3, verses 8 and 9. Therefore, wait for me, declares the

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Lord. For the day when I rise up as a witness, indeed, my decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out on them my indignation, all my burning anger, for all the earth will be devoured by the fire of my zeal.

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For then I will give to the people's purified lips, that all of them may call on the name of the

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Lord to serve Him shoulder to shoulder. From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, my worshippers, my dispersed ones, these will bring me offerings.

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One of the things that's very central to the mediatorial kingship of Christ is

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He is the judge of the nations. And all of the nations, we look at all the nations of the world, it could be even this nation in which we live in, we continue in the course that we are.

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Could experience the great displeasure of God. But there's another component of this.

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When we think of nations, we think of these in a political sense. But in reality, in the scriptures, the nations are usually connected to the ethnos, which are the ethnic peoples of the world.

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The different nationalities, the people who speak different languages, the tribes, the tongues, the nations.

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And God is judging them either in their unbelief or He's blessing them because they're being gathered in as the people of God.

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The great missionary work of the gospel, which you are preached about, prayed about in our prayers to the people, that great work is accomplishing its divine desire, intended results.

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The gospel is going forth, people are repenting. And there are others who are rebelling and failing to repent, refusing to repent.

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They're suffering under the just wrath of God. So there's a privileged place for the church in all of this discussion.

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When we think about the kingship of Christ, a very at the top of our understanding of the kingship of Christ is the willing servants that we are that Christ has brought into His kingdom.

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The reign of Christ has brought a people together and He's calling them from every tongue and tribe and nation.

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This is a glorious work of Christ in the world today, and the power of the Holy Spirit. It should be noted that if you come to Christ, again, to remember this, that the

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Father is the one that has drawn you, says explicitly in John's gospel. So we have the three persons of the trinity actively engaged in working and bringing many sons to glory, to have a share of this glorious inheritance and family relationship with God Himself.

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There's another text I'd like you to consider, and that's found in John 17.

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You don't need to turn there, just listen. This is a desire, of course, this is the high priestly prayer of Jesus.

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This is the beginning of verse 21. His desire is that, this is Christ, that they all may be one, even as you,

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Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me.

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The glory which you have given me, I have given them, that they may be one, just as we are one,

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I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that you sent me, and love them, even as you have loved me.

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I'm going to stop here. You may remember a few weeks ago, I told you Calvin's definition of what communion was all about, and it's really connected to this passage in John 17.

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Christ in us, we in Christ. That Christ would take residency in us, that we would partake of Christ.

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This is really spiritual, this union that we have with Christ. And so, there's a lot of this future -looking, forward -looking language in the scripture.

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I possess this today, but there's really a sense in which it's already not yet. I don't get to sit down on my couch with Jesus, per se, but I know that the

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Lord is with me. But there's going to be a day where I'm going to have a heightened level of communion, a more personal, more intimate, a more face -to -face, opposed -to -faith view of Christ, and what a day of glory and rejoicing that will be.

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It's in the future. So we have the sweet and precious promises today, they sustain us, but it's going to get better for us as God's people in the future.

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Let me continue. Verse 24. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, be with me where I am, so they may see my glory, which you have given me.

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For you loved me before the foundation of the world. Now let me ask you, don't answer audibly, but how are you and I going to be where Christ is?

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In the ordinary sense of this. We have to die.

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So you can see now why this resurrection doctrine is so essential to the Gospel.

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Because all of this is really about this biblical understanding, about this special class of people that have been given the privilege to have communion with God.

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That's really what the Scripture is about, communion with Christ, communion with God.

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That's really all this is about. And so what has to happen is some things have to happen.

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There's an order of things where we might experience to the full that more perfect communion with God.

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And this is mediated, in a sense, through the resurrection of Christ. Let's continue.

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There's another text of Scripture. I'm going to hold that for just a minute. Now let's go back to our text in 1

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Corinthians 15, verse 24 again. Then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God the

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Father, when he puts it into all rule and all authority and power.

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Now what does this mean? What is this text about? Well, the thing that's interesting about this mediatorial kingship of Christ is in its present form, it doesn't have to extend forever.

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Let me explain what I mean by this. You're probably thinking this sounds like heresy that he would say something like this.

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Christ, in his mediatorial kingship, is doing two things.

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First, he's making it possible for sinners to be right with God.

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And he's administering all of the details and facets of that. And he's also defeating all of his and all of our enemies.

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But after that happens, you and I will no longer need the mediating work of Christ because at the end of time, there will be a consummation.

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Sin, death, and enemies will all be gone. There will be no more death.

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There will be no more enemies resisting Christ. in his reign and his rule. There's going to be a time when all of that's gone and then we'll have perfect fellowship and communion with God without need of intercession or mediation.

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Does that make any sense at all? It's very complex. There's going to be a time in the future when all of God's enemies will be destroyed.

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When death itself, the last enemy, when death will be eradicated. And at that point, we're not going to have a need of mediation because it's going to be accomplished.

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It's desired end will be fulfilled. Christ is bringing many sons to glory.

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Christ is saving many sinners and Christ will defeat all of his and all of our enemies.

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When that happens, we don't need any more law.

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We don't need an army. We don't need any more reconciliation because all of it's been done.

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That's the consummation. Let's turn back to Matthew 25. I'll have you go back here with me.

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This doesn't diminish in any way the future kingship or perpetual kingship of Christ as we might think of it.

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But we realize that Christ is doing something in his reign and rule.

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It's accomplishing a purpose. It's accomplishing a fulfillment. And after that, all of this will be handed over to the

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Father. Matthew 25. Let me get ready in verse 31.

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Just imagine this wonderful thing. This is the parable of the

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Talbots. I'm going to start in the middle of it because of our familiarity with it. But listen to this language.

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He talks about in verse 30, he's going to cast out the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness.

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There's going to be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Now listen to this language. When the

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Son of Man comes in his glory, all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.

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All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.

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And he will set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the king will say to those on his right hand,

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Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

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I want to stop there. Can you imagine how sweet those words will sound to us?

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You and I will be standing in the throne room of God, hearing these words.

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You blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

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Then listen to this language. For I was hungry, and you gave me food. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink.

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I was a stranger, and you took me in. I was naked, and you clothed me.

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I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to me.

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What's interesting about this language here is our salvation is consequential in that it yields good fruit in our lives.

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It's not a theoretical salvation. It's a real atonement. It's a real salvation.

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It's a real transformation. The people of God live a different kind of life as a result of God's mercy in Christ.

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Verse 37 says, Then the righteous will answer him, saying,

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Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty or give you a drink? When did we see you a stranger and take you in or naked and clothe you?

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Or when did we see you sick or in prison and come to you? Now, this is absolutely astounding.

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If you'll see it or hear it, you'll be able to hold a bit. And the king will answer and say to them,

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Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these, my brethren, you did it to me.

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This speaks entirely to our vital union with Christ. How much does

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Christ love His people, the church, that He says when they do these good works, the people

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He's talking to here, when they've done them to His children in the church, they've done them to Him.

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How close is that connection that the people of God have in union with Christ?

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It's the highest level of intimacy, the highest level of love and affection.

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And that's what the king has for us. Christ went to the cross.

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He bore the just wrath of God, not only to be the propitiation for sin, so that He could take us to be

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His product. So now we have a really grand story here.

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We have the king subduing all of his enemies.

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We have the king dying and reconciling in victorious triumph in the cross and the resurrection and the ascension, a gigantic victory over all of sin and its consequences and even the promise of one day the eradication of death.

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It seems that He's done all this for the love of His people. In His kingship, when

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I think about kingship, I think about authority, I think about law, I think about a warrior,

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I think about military, and I think about this in this way. Christ is going to slay all of His and our enemies because that's an obstacle and a barrier to the fellowship that we can have with Him perfectly in glory.

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He's going to defeat all of His enemies. We are on the side of victory.

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All of the enemies will be vanquished, so there won't be a need for us to worry about sin anymore because all that will be conquered and the consummation and the future stay.

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This is something I feel maybe it's a product of our time. It seems to be something that's happened through the ages.

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We have no sense or longing for the future, for heaven, or for the things that happen leading up to heaven in the future, the conquering of the nations, the righteous conquering of the nations with the gospel and all of the good fruits that will come from that.

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How is He going to do this? I don't know, but His reign and rule is over all things, and He's going to defeat all of His enemies.

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I'm going to skip down here to verse 41 of chapter 25 of Matthew because we have both of the segments of His kingship illustrated here in this great parable.

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We have this relationship and communion with His people on the one hand, and then we have verse 41.

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Then He will say to those on the left hand, Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and the angels.

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For I was hungry and you gave Me no food. I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink. I was a stranger and you did not take

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Me in naked, and you did not clothe Me sick and in prison, and you did not visit Me. Of course, the reverse here, they didn't respond to the need of the people of God because they were unbelievers, rank pagan unbelievers.

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It says in verse 46, And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

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So I want to pause here. If you're a child of God today, you're a believer in Christ, you have no conception of the privilege of your status as a child of God today.

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You have no earthly idea how privileged you are to be a child of God.

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Nor do you understand the calamity or terror that's coming to the wicked.

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They are going to be crushed. Their sins will hang on their head for eternity.

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That should cause us to respond to this news with great hallelujahs and praises and thanksgivings toward our

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God. We deserve that, and we don't get it. We deserve to be goats.

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We deserve to be cast into outer darkness. We deserve to weep and gnash our teeth.

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And instead, we're made princes, princesses in this kingdom.

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But Star Wars came out this weekend, so it's not very exciting. Let's continue in our section.

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There's another element here that's important. Then comes the end, verse 24, when he delivers the kingdom to God the

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Father, when he puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. And that language is very strong because there's going to be a time when

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Satan and his minions, as Michael prayed about, will not be running about causing trouble.

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Because they're going to be crushed. They're going to be defeated. And we should long for that day.

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And the way I would like to describe it is imagine a great war. I read an account many years ago of the

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Civil War. Of course, I used to be very interested in that subject. I read a lot of books about it. And the thing that was very striking to me is there was a day at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia when two generals sat down and signed a peace accord.

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But the word didn't get back to the soldiers for quite a long time.

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There were many places, and many men actually died because they were still fighting.

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And I think there's some sense in which that's true today. All that we see, we look around us, we find it so terrifying.

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These are little skirmishes in a war that's already been won. They're little nothing battles in a war that has already been won by Christ.

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The people of God are going to march into eternity victoriously because of this mediatorial kingship of Christ.

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We are brought in, and the enemies of Him are vanquished.

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Let's look at verse 25. It says, answering the question of our sermon today, what does the resurrection say about Christ's authority?

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He must reign. He must reign until He has put all enemies under His feet.

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One of the most quoted sections of Scripture, the most quoted Psalm in Scripture is

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Psalm 110. In Psalm 110, one says, The Lord said unto my

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Lord, Sit down at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.

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Now, children, I don't know if you know this, but in the ancient world, to really humiliate someone, you would, you may have seen this, you remember when the issues happened with the fall of Saddam Hussein, they took off their shoes, and they went up and slapped the face of Saddam Hussein with their shoes, the bottom of their feet.

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In the world in which Jesus lived, the streets were covered in animal dung and waste from the people.

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All that they produced, they just threw it out into the streets. And so the dirtiest, filthy place to be would be to be in the streets.

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That's why they would wash their feet, take off their shoes, wash their feet, so they wouldn't have any remains or remnants of that being brought into the house.

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So this language is of absolute humiliation and devastation and destruction of the enemies.

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Imagine you've beaten your opponent so bad that he becomes your ottoman. He's laying under your feet.

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The Father says to the Son, The Lord said to my

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Lord, Sit down at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.

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Let me ask you a question. In the Ascension, where is Christ sitting?

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So it appears now that the activity that God is engaged in through the mediatorial kingship of Christ is, at least a large part of it, is the destruction of his enemies.

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But the skirmish still rages on. You and I might get clipped by a strange stray bullet.

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We might get a little trench foot. We might catch the smallpox. But in the end,

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Christ has the victory. And if Christ has the victory, you and I have 100 % of the victory because we belong to Christ.

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There's another important psalm in this connection. It's probably the most obvious psalm in this discussion of the kingship of Christ.

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The authority that he has, Paul's connecting to his power because of the resurrection.

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Of course, it's Psalm 2. Why do the nations rage?

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And the people plot a vain thing. The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the

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Lord and against his anointed, saying, let us break their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from us.

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I absolutely love this language. I love to think about, I know this is an anthropomorphic expression in some ways, but I love the idea of God's laughter that some would rebel against him and try to take down his authority.

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Verse four. He who sits in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall hold them in derision.

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Then he shall speak to them in his wrath and distress them in his deep displeasure.

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Listen, think about what we're talking about here. Yet I have set my king on my holy hill of Zion.

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Children, who is he referring to? He's talking about Christ. I will declare the decree.

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The Lord has said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will give the nations for you your inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession.

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I think about this. There's another amazing

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Trinitarian thought, another thought about our status as the people of God. And if you think about the covenant of redemption, which happens before the creation of the world, discussion, inter -Trinitarian discussion, it seems at some point the father asked the son, what do you want?

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And he said, I want those people, the people that we're going to create.

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I want that class of people. I want them to be my bride.

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And the father says to him, well, son, I'm happy to give you that people to be your bride, but they are a dirty, filthy bunch.

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You're going to go and have to go to the cross to secure that bride that you like.

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And Jesus says in response, of course, this is fictional.

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But imagine he says, I love them so much, I will even go to the cross to secure their redemption.

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And I will defeat all of their enemies. That's the

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Lord that loves us. That's the Lord that we serve. Ask of me, and I will give the nations for your inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession.

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Again, Christ's divinely appointed ownership of all things.

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There's no area. And you have to ask you today, is there some compartment in your life personally, as a family, your business, any part of the spheres of this world?

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Is there any part of it you think that Christ is unconcerned with? Do you think he doesn't care about your drunkenness?

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Do you think he doesn't care about your unholy thoughts? Do you think there's some area or some compartment of your life that he's unconcerned about?

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Absolutely impossible. What about your family? You're a big

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Christian family. But what about that one area that's not as important to you, that's worldly?

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Is God disinterested? Is Christ disinterested in that? It's impossible that he could be disinterested.

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Do you think he's disinterested that the richest nation in the world kills millions of babies every year and has taught the pagans to do it in Africa?

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We fund the killing of babies all over the world. Do you think that is lost on the king's eyes or thinking?

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Do you think he doesn't care about something like that? You're wrong.

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He cares a lot about all of that. Remember, there's two sides to this.

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The parable, the mediatorial kingship in 1 Corinthians. There's two sides. There's this positive side about his kingship.

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There's a very hard side, the negative side, the judging side. This is here in Psalm 2, verse 9.

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You shall break them with a rod of iron. You shall dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel.

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Now therefore be wise, O kings. Be instructed, you judges of the earth.

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Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the son lest he be angry and you perish in the way when his wrath is kindled but a little.

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Christ must get all the honor. Christ must get all the worship. In all things he must have the preeminence.

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Is it true for you? Is it true for your family? Is it true for our church?

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Is it true for the nations? Does Christ have the preeminence?

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Well, there's two classes of people. There's a class that recognizes that preeminence over all things and they live accordingly.

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And then there's another group of people who says he doesn't have preeminence. He's not really the king.

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He doesn't really reign today. Maybe that's a millennial issue in the future. Maybe he'll reign then.

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Christ reigns now. The whole earth, the whole creation belongs to him.

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He's the rightful owner. It says that you would perish if his wrath is kindled but a little.

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And then the psalm ends like it always seems to for the people of God.

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All the calamities happening, at the end it always says, blessed are all those who put their trust in him.

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Let's go back to our text and we'll conclude here. 1

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Corinthians 15. I want you to think about what

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Christ has done. What he is doing in the world and what the future looks like.

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While you're turning there, I'm going to read a short passage from Philippians 2. This is what

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Christ did. It's a great tie to this incarnation season. The lesson that we heard this morning from Jacob on Christ's mediation and the future.

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All of these things tie together. They go together. He made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.

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And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

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Therefore, God also has highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name.

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This is the authority granted to Christ by the Father post -resurrection at the heart of our message here in 1

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Corinthians. The name above every name.

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That the name of Jesus every knee should bow, those in heaven and of those on earth, and of those under the earth.

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And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the

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Father, that Jesus Christ is

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Lord. I have an image in my mind. It's not an image I usually associate with the divine.

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I have an image in my mind. I used to, when I was very little, I used to see images from the end of the

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Vietnam War. It's kind of etched in my mind. It's on the news all the time. And I have an image in my mind.

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I don't know where it came from. But I have an image of a person standing up in rebellion to the military forces.

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And I see the soldier grab the butt of his gun and hit the person on the back of the head and the person drops to their knees.

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The Christian bends down on his knees and he recognizes that the king, the one with all authority and power and the sword, is his divine husband, is her husband, the one whom she loves.

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But the wicked, those who hate Christ, they're going to realize that he's the righteous judge.

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And the butt of his divine gun is going to humble them and make them submit.

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Everybody's going to be in that posture of kneeling. The people of God, they kneel and they recognize who he is, the unbeliever, they're going to be beaten down into submission because of their unbelief and hatred of God and his authority.

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Now, what would be a travesty in all of this? It would be for the blood -bought people of God who know who he is, who share this love and communion to live and act as if he wasn't the authority.

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That would be a pretty big travesty. Let's conclude here.

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Verse 15, chapter 15, verse 26. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death.

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For he has put all things under his feet. He says, all things that are put under him is evident, that he who put all things under him is accepted.

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So, here's the last thing. How do we know when the end has come? Well, it seems that there are three things required.

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The first is the bringing and gathering in of all the saints. And apparently in Revelation, maybe some shedding of blood of the martyrs will be a part of that and bringing many sons to glory.

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And then, there's going to be a defeat of all of his enemies.

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But the last thing to be defeated is death.

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When people stop dying, when people stop expelling, we'll know that the end has come.

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The consummation has been ushered in. It's an amazing thing to think about.

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And this isn't really about eschatology in this section. It's always talked about in that way.

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But it's about the present reign and rule of Christ and it has eschatological implications.

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It's really talking about who Christ is, what his power is, what authority he has.

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There's another thing to be excited about. The present reign of Christ gets us to the new heavens and new earth.

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In some mysterious way, when you think about it, when all of the skirmishes and all the fires are put out and all the people of God are gathered in and all the enemies are defeated, that's going to be when

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God comes down. The triune God comes down. And what I talked about in the beginning, which was maybe a little bit confusing, we need a mediator today because of our sinfulness.

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We need a mediator today because of our lack of righteousness. Because of the faithful work of this mediator, there's going to be a day when we will no longer need mediation.

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We're going to enjoy the fullness, the perfection of communion with God without a red face, without shame, without the ongoing struggle against sin.

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It's a pretty remarkable thing to consider. Today, Christ reigns.

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All of his enemies are being subdued and even death will be eradicated.

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Friends, the people of God have all the victory. We never lose.

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Put us in concentration camps in America. We won't be losing because our

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God reigns. Our Lord reigns. And Paul continues this thought later in the chapter about this last enemy being destroyed is death.

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I'm going to read that to you really quickly. We'll talk about it more in the future. For this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality.

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How do I have perfect communion with God? I've got to die.

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R .C. Sproul, for all his wisdom and knowledge, he was deficient in some things to his own self -description.

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Today, R .C. Sproul has perfect fellowship and communion with God because of what

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Christ has done. There's no tears. He's not worried about Vesta.

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He's not concerned about the future of Ligonier. He's with Christ. And you and I, we've spent all of our life to be afraid of dying and it's the entry point into that blessing.

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The corruptible must put on incorruption. This mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption and this immortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory.

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Oh, death, where is your sting? Oh, Hades, where is your victory? The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the law, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our

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Lord Jesus Christ. Now, that's a great indicative.

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It's a great truth. But we leave out the imperatives.

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We're content to let it remain in a theoretical way. Does anybody remember what verse 58 says?

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Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the

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Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. Why? Because he has the victory.

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Well, the question now has to be asked, how shall we respond to this declarative, this great statement that Christ must reign?

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First, you must give him unreserved total allegiance. And without exception in this room, each one of us has failed to give our full allegiance to Christ in some area.

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It's not a cause of our despairing, but a cause of us to be sober -minded and to repent.

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Second, we need to submit to his law. If anything can be said about Psalm 2, is there are two classes of people, and it seems there are those who want to do as the king commands and instructs, and those who don't.

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You and I must be on the side of those who obey the king. Third, there are many acts of submission that must happen for the

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Christian in your life. In all of them, every sphere of your life has to be submitted to the authority of Christ and to be under his rule.

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Fourth, we need to call the nations to repent and to kiss the sun.

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The way the kingdoms are won is through the proclamation of the gospel.

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Military machine guns won't work for this. It's the preaching of the gospel. And what's amazing to consider about this is pagan,

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God -hating people can be reconciled to him in faith.

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Michael, Jacob, Savannah, Caleb, Dana, and I have all been to Myanmar, to Burma.

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And we are friends with people who are members of tribes who have their own religions.

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And those tribes now are vastly dominated by people who submit to the kingship of Christ because somebody walked up to their hut and preached

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Christ to them. And so one thing about this and this victory of Christ, you have to remember that Christ can reach and save all of those undesirable people in our eyes.

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He can make them desirable to him. So we need to be eager and about the business of taking the gospel out to them and proclaiming

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Christ that they might be reconciled to God. We want them to kiss the sun.

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We want them to bow down and worship him. We don't want them to suffer his justice going to a royal wedding at Westminster in London.

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Maybe you guys saw a video of the most recent wedding. There'll be another one. It won't be quite as fancy, a little bit less the next time.

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But there's something amazing about the environment. What a privilege to be a person who's invited into the sanctuary.

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And they are dressed in finery. The ladies are wearing a hundred grand worth of diamonds on their ears and their necks.

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Their clothes cost tens of thousands of dollars. And they are privileged to sit in the pews, to be in the room of the royal wedding.

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Today, I want you to be thankful that you are one of those who is a privileged noble in his kingdom.

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But I want you to take it a step further. You're not a person sitting in a pew.

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You're the person who walks down the aisle and who's the object of affection whom the king wants to draw close to.

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There's no army, there's no military force that can come in and disrupt the wedding.

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It's 100 % secure. You and I are the bride and Christ and we're walking down the aisle.

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It's settled. It's finished. We're not going to drop dead on the way down. We're going to get all the way there and one day there will be a consummation of that marriage.

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We will have perfect communion with God forever. This is our line.

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Our text asks a question in a way. It asks, what does the resurrection say about Christ's authority?

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And the answer is, he must reign. And in that reigning, he is defeating all of his and our enemies.

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He is saving us from our sin, giving us his righteousness. But better still, he said that he wants us to be his people and that we would be his

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God. He would be our God. That he wants to take us to be his people. That should be at the forefront of our thinking as we approach the table.

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Please pray with me. Lord Jesus, we submit to your kingship.

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Lord, forgive us for those frequent times where we live and act as if you are not the king.

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Lord, we know that there are future events that are very exciting to us, but we acknowledge and say today we recognize your reign and rule in this moment.

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We're not waiting for a future of your reign. We know that you reign and rule now.

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Thank you for making that clear in your word. Lord, I pray that we would highly esteem, treasure, prize, value this relationship that you have secured for us.

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That we might be called children of God. That our guilt might be taken away.

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That we might have a share in your inheritance, a share in the resurrection. That we will dwell with you forever.

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Oh, Lord, saturate our hearts and minds with this great truth. Let it energize everything that we do in our lives.

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That we would respond with thanksgiving and we'd be filled with hope and with joy.