The Wondrous Anticipation of King Jesus

We stand for the reading of God's Word. This Lord's Day, the

Old Testament reading is from Psalm 24. The earth is the

Lord's and the fullness thereof, and the world and those who dwell therein.

For he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers. Who shall ascend the hill of the

Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false, and does not swear deceitfully, he will receive a blessing from the

Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the

God of Jacob. Lift up your heads, O gates, and be lifted up,

O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this

King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty. The Lord, mighty in battle.

Lift up your heads, O gates, and lift them up, O ancient doors, that the

King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts.

He is the King of glory. The New Testament reading is in Matthew chapter two.

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the King, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, where is he who has been born

King of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.

When Herod the King heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the

Christ was to be born. They told him in Bethlehem of Judea, for so it was written by the prophet.

And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people,

Israel. You may be seated. Well, good morning.

Let us start in prayer before we begin to look at God's word together. Oh, Father in heaven,

I thank you for the topic today, this morning of my preaching, that being on the

King, Jesus Christ, the anticipation of Him, and Lord, even anticipating

Him now and desiring King Jesus now. Lord, I appreciate that topic for,

Lord, I am more and more aware of my weaknesses, Lord, more and more aware of just how much

I am unable even to proclaim your truth in a way that is edifying and well.

So, Lord, it is understood within my heart to at least some measure just how much

I am in need of King Jesus. And I pray, God, that through our discussion this morning, through the preaching this morning, it would be something that the people before me, they'd be aware of just how much they need

Christ, too, to anticipate Him, to be excited for Him, to bow down to Him, to serve

Him, to rely upon Him. God in heaven, may it be all our endeavor here to serve the

Lord Jesus Christ, for He is a great King, a good King, a wonderful King. God in heaven,

I pray for all of our hearts to listen well. I pray that you might use me to preach well so that Christ would be glorified and we would, as your people, give

Him worship and praise forever. We thank you, Lord, in Jesus' name, amen.

Well, I grew up in a very middle -class home. My dad worked for GM, close enough to Pontiac in Detroit where the major plants were for the car industry.

And just your typical middle -class home in Michigan, with my father working at GM. But one thing that my parents always did was celebrate

Christmas with extravagant, a lot of gifts, too much gifts. Now that I, on this side of things,

I look back, there's no way they didn't go into debt with all those gifts. Of course, my parents had nine children, and all of us always had plenty of gifts.

And how my mom would, I'm the second youngest of the nine, and so how it ended up being, how she ended up doing it was she would wrap the presents throughout the month as she shopped, and she would just put it under the tree.

And so that whole month of December, there'd just be presents accumulating under the tree.

And just more and more, and for so many kids, the presents, it was just insanity seeing all those presents under the tree.

And so for me, as a child, the anticipation was almost too much to bear. To see all those presents, to know they're there, the things that I was wanting, they're there, the anticipation would just kill me.

In fact, there's a couple, I don't think, my parents still don't know about this, but there's a couple years where we would open it a little bit and see.

I don't have the heart to tell them that right now, but the anticipation was too much. And of course, the anticipation would culminate onto Christmas morning when me and my sister, and even the brother that's older than her, when he wasn't lame, when he was young and not lame anymore, we'd get up way too early, and we would just be staring at the

Christmas lights with the glow on the presents, and we just can't wait for our parents to finally get up so we can open them.

In fact, that was the only morning where it was acceptable to try to wake up my dad. My dad was not someone you messed with.

But on Christmas morning, for some reason, we could go into the bathroom close to their bedroom and turn on all the faucets, flush the toilets, turn on the shower, trip and fall on accident, and say, oh, real loud, things like that, just to try to get them up, because the anticipation was too much.

We wanted it to come quickly, right now. And it's, of course, very, we can talk about all, obviously, we were just wanting material things and all the stuff that we could look at the sin with that, but I wanna capture that anticipation, the overwhelming feeling of anticipation for that morning in which you open up your gifts.

And I think that feeling, that topic of anticipation is appropriate. If you look at the

Old Testament, you can describe the Old Testament, the whole Old Testament, in one word, anticipation. It is anticipating the great present to come, anticipating the one to come.

So if you're reading through the Old Testament, have in mind that feeling of anticipation.

Let it boil over on the pages and in your own heart as you're anticipating the one who is foreshadowed, who is in shadowy form, we're kinda getting a glimpse of him, but yet we don't have him yet, in which it finally culminates in the

New Testament in the early chapters of the gospel. And we see the anticipation in the early chapters of the gospel really focus on this idea that the king has come.

The king is here. The anticipation kinda all centers itself on this promise of a king to come and he is finally here.

I think Samuel read Matthew 2, the early chapters of Matthew in which the wise men come and they're excited.

They're asking, where is this king that has been born? We want to worship him. We can feel the anticipation coming from even pagan wise men.

And if you look in Luke, we can see the promise of the king to come.

Gabriel telling Mary that from your womb will come the son of David.

And we see that Zechariah with the same kind of understanding that the house of the servant of David coming forth as a king that has come.

And we see the angels in Luke 2, 13 and 14 singing with the birth of the coming king, saying glory to God in the highest.

If you notice anyone, any prince that is born that is to be king, there's always a great announcement for it.

And Jesus Christ was born a king and there's this great excitement, this announcement from the angels with the shepherds crying out, glory to God in the highest and peace on earth among those whom he has pleased.

There's this feeling that you get in the opening chapters of the New Covenant, of the

New Testament in which the king has come. And so I want to kind of look thematically, very broad, big picture.

I like sermons like that. It's just, you can kind of screw them up. So I'll be careful. But I wanna look at the big picture in the

Old Testament to see, to feel this anticipation of the king to come.

The one who would come and solve all our problems, heal us, protect us, guard us, conquer our enemies for us.

And just in case you're a typical modern

American, why should I care about a king? Which I get it. I don't understand why we should care about the

English kings. We fought a war so we don't have to care about that anymore but then they always come up in the news cycle and all that kind of stuff.

So I get it. Why should I care about a king? Well, if you haven't noticed, and so I don't want your mind to go there as you're looking through the

Old Testament, this topic, being like, well, that's old stuff. We don't have kings anymore. We developed, right?

Well, if you haven't noticed, and we just came through a cycle, every campaign cycle, whenever we have the people trying to become president, they always establish themselves as more or less a king who will come and fix all your problems.

You ever notice that? It's perfectly acceptable. Every single one, I don't care if it's Trump or the other one, I can't say her name right so I'm always afraid,

I'll just say Harris. It was the same thing. It's always the same thing. Both sides, they do it, is that there's a problem.

I will fix your problems. So there's this anticipation even in the

West in which largely we've done away with kings in which we desire a king. We desire a figure, this one figure who will come and solve all our problems.

And really, honestly, although Trump's not gonna be that, I know, I know,

Cass, no one's gonna be that besides the one who truly has come to solve all our problems.

But there is this longing within the human breast, every one of ours, that there's an issue and there's one who can come and solve it.

That is a longing that is so natural in every one of us because it is meant to force us to look to the one who actually has came who has fixed our problems.

So that's what the Old Testament is doing, this anticipation of the one to come who will fix the wrong and who will protect us.

And we see that beginning, let's go, of course, we have to go to the garden. The garden, we see this theme of a king who is supposed to protect and conquer and guard.

And we see that in the garden. If you notice, Adam becomes that one figure in the garden, right, it's focused in on Adam, the man

Adam. And this Adam had a role in the garden and he had someone to protect and to fend off, to get the enemy off and to protect this bride of his.

And if you notice, when the enemy does come, Adam fails to do his kingly protection role.

And the way he fails at doing that is going to paint the picture for the rest of the Old Testament and then relieve itself in Jesus Christ.

If you notice, Adam was supposed to maintain proper worship in the garden. As that one figure with authority given by God, he was to maintain proper worship in the garden.

And what happens? The enemy comes, lies to Eve, and instead of being a faithful truth teller to his bride, to his wife, and maintain proper worship, he fails.

So as a king, he fails. The lie is told, you don't need to worship God. You can worship your desires, yourself.

And without the truth being told, the lie propagating, false worship now in the garden, and it's failed.

And so really what we see is the nucleus of what it means to be king right there. Someone to guard and protect who they're supposed to guard and protect and they're to do it through truth and proper worship.

And this is what we call in reformed world and is the three offices of Jesus Christ, king, prophet, priest.

And these things start in the garden. If you wanna know what it means for Jesus to be our king, well, he's our king.

He protects us, he protects us, he guards us, he conquers by being a proper prophet and a proper priest.

And we see the complete destruction of it in the garden.

Adam is that proto -king. He is that proto -prophet and that proto -priest and fails at that.

But yet there's this promise, right? That I will put enmity between you and the women and her offspring shall destroy you and your works.

And so right there, we have the breakdown of prophet, priest, and that king figure, but yet one is going to come who will be the perfect king, who will then be the perfect priest and the perfect prophets.

So this king motif that does these things for his people in the scripture starts there and it starts that anticipation within our breasts for this one to come.

And it continues in Abraham. You ever notice with the story of Abraham? Go to Genesis 12.

I gotta tell you to open your Bibles or that would be terrible not to tell you to open your Bibles. Go to Genesis 12.

It's that same king motif, only now instead of just Adam and Eve and the garden, it would be the offspring of Abraham in the promised land.

Let me say that again. Instead of just being Adam and Eve in the garden, it is in Abraham going to be the offspring of Abraham, that's the people, in the promised land.

So instead of Eve, it's a people. And look at Genesis 12, one through three, the promise of a people.

Now the Lord said to Abraham, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land I will show you.

And I'll make of you a great nation and I'll bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing.

I'll bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you, I will curse. And then you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

You see, God is continuing this motif of a king to come by saying to Abraham, there's going to be a kingdom.

You're going to have a people. And we see even in there, from that people is going to come the king to bless the nation.

And so there's the people promised to Abraham. And then in verse seven, there's the promised land, instead of the garden in which that's the territory, it's now the promised land.

Look at verse seven. Then the Lord appeared to Abraham and said to your offspring, there's the people, I'll give this land.

So he built there an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him. You gotta have in your mind here the motif of a coming king who's going to come and establish a kingdom and protect, conquer, help his people.

And so we see that continuing with the land promised to Abraham and the people promised to Abraham.

But then there's a catch, isn't there? In the story with Abraham, there's a catch. In Genesis 15, you remember in verses 13 and 14, there's a little bit of a catch, right?

This is all going to be, this is going to happen, Abraham. You're going to have a people, you're going to have land, but there's a catch.

What is that catch? We'll look at verse 13 of chapter 15. The Lord said to Abraham, know for certain that your offspring, which

I just promised you a couple chapters back, will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there.

They will be afflicted for 400 years, but I will bring judgment on that nation that they serve and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.

So what is he setting out? A great, the same theme, of one to come like a kingly figure who will protect, conquer for his people and bring them unto greater possessions.

And so the thematic storyline goes to Moses who becomes that pre -king figure that is creating this anticipation of the one to come.

So with the enslavement of the Hebrews to the Egyptians, which is what those verses were talking about, the development of a figure who saves is revealed in Moses.

So Moses becomes part of that anticipation. Moses becomes a first major pre -Christ figure that would,

I won't say first. He becomes a major pre -Christ figure that would grow the anticipation of the king to come.

Moses would be a king figure to rescue his people, protect them, proclaim the truth from God and institute proper worship in Israel.

Why do I say it like that? Let me say it one more time. Moses becomes a king figure who protects his people, delivers them, proclaiming the truth from God to them and instituting proper worship.

Why do I say that? Because this is the common themes of the Bible. There's a king coming who will protect and deliver you by being a proper prophet and a proper priest that will institute proper worship and be the proper mouthpiece of God, right?

That's what the king does to deliver, to help, to maintain. Does that make sense? And so Moses does all those things coming together in him to precursor the one to come.

Does that make sense? And we actually see all those three functions coming together in Exodus 5 .1.

In Exodus 5 .1, you remember when Moses goes to Pharaoh, the enemy, the great enemy, the precursor of the snake, or if you will.

After, in Exodus 5 .1 says, after Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, I'm sorry, afterward

Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, let my people go that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.

Chapter seven, verse 16, they say a similar thing. God tells them, you need to say to him, the Lord, the

God of the Hebrews sent me to you saying let my people go that they may serve me in the wilderness. Now, why do

I point that out? Do you notice all three themes coming together there? Do you see that? King, prophet, priest, do you see it in there?

Say to Pharaoh for me, mouthpiece, prophet, let my people go, deliverance, there's the king, so that they may serve and hold a feast and worship me, there's a priest.

So we see these three common themes coming together in Moses as a precursor, as an anticipation of the one who will be our king, who will be our faithful priest and our faithful prophet.

Moses surely was a prophet, a faithful prophet at that.

The entire Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible is written by this Moses. He is essentially the prophet that brings the old covenant to Israel, that proclaims the old covenant to Israel.

And while the people were frightened at the base of the mountain, Moses was at the top of the mountain receiving the word of God, so he can distill it, proclaim it as the mouthpiece of God to the people.

And yet Moses says, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me, who will come, a greater covenant, a better covenant, one in which he'll proclaim it to you, anticipation of the prophet.

Moses was like a priest, now of course he wasn't the high priest, I know that, I understand that, but he was like a priestly figure, right?

Centering in him, Moses safeguarded proper worship in the wilderness, even as Adam was supposed to in the garden, right?

Adam was supposed to safeguard proper worship in the garden, obedience to God, Moses was to safeguard proper worship in the wilderness as a priestly figure.

In fact, when Aaron, the first high priest went the way of Adam and created a false God to worship, you remember what

Moses does? He flips out, he has got the two tablets, he hears of the false worship, he goes down and he smashes them, showing you have broken the covenant before I even delivered it to you, and then he smashes up the idol and makes them drink it.

That is the only proper way to deal with idolatry. He's acting as a faithful priest, safeguarding proper worship, protecting the people as a good king should do.

By the way, how Moses flips out, so to speak, he doesn't really flip out,

I think he was controlled, but that should put in your mind what Jesus does in the temple, right?

As our faithful high priest, he sees false worship going on and he flips the table and says, get out of here.

But Moses as a priest, instituting and protecting proper worship is most plainly revealed in how the covenant began and how it continued in the life of the old covenant.

What is that? With blood, with blood. You see blood everywhere in the old covenant, don't you?

You see blood everywhere. See, Adam maintained proper worship with pure obedience, that's it, but with sin came the need for blood everywhere.

In Exodus 24, eight, Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, behold, the blood of the covenant that the

Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words. The old covenant was established in blood of animal.

This is a significant difference with Adam and how he used to safeguard proper worship, right? Simple obedience now with sin turns into obedience, but blood must be applied.

And I hope you know where I'm getting at with that. The Passover was celebrated with blood, the morning and evening worship at the tabernacle and then the temple, at the tabernacle and then the temple was celebrated with blood.

The day of atonement was celebrated with blood. Leviticus 17, 11 says, for the life of the flesh is in the blood and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is a blood that makes atonement by the life.

Blood, the sacrifice of another to cover your own sin would be central to proper worship, central to the function of the priests.

And you should hear the echo of the words of the great king to come when he says, for this is a blood of my covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

So where Adam failed to be a proper king, to safeguard and guard proper worship by the proclaiming of truth from his lips,

Moses was used as a king -like figure to rescue the people and institute proper worship through blood and the word of God, he was the figure used to create an anticipation of the coming prophet, priest, king.

But of course, Moses fell short. He wasn't the promised one, was he? Moses fell short of the actual promises of the king, the anticipation of the king to come.

He was just participating in the anticipation of that king to come. In fact, the writer to the

Hebrews in chapter three, he says that Jesus is, he says in Hebrews three, verse three,

Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself.

For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. Now, Moses was faithful in all

God's house, but as a servant to testify to the things that were to be spoken later. But Christ is faithful over God's house as a son, and we are his house, and indeed, we hold fast to the confidence of our boasting in that hope.

The point being is that Moses was not the king. He was simply participating in the anticipation of the king to come.

See, the office of king in Israel as an official office, didn't come until later anyways, right?

With Saul and David and his son Solomon. That office comes to participate in the anticipation of the king to come.

And really, we see with Solomon, I'm running low on time, but with Solomon, you remember when he comes into office and he destroys his enemies, right?

Which is the enemy of Israel. And then he builds the temple, right? He builds the temple so that proper worship, priestly activity, can be established in Israel.

And then we see the prophetic word, mouthpiece of God come into play too whenever he prays when the temple is built and established.

Let's read it. Let's go, let's go. 1 Kings 8 54 -66. 1

Kings 8 54 -66. I want you to hear all these themes coming, right?

The king of Israel, him proclaiming the truth from God for worship to be had in Israel in the temple, right?

This anticipation here. Now Solomon, 1 Kings 8 54, finished offering all this prayer and plea to the

Lord. He aroused from before the altar of the Lord, where he had knelt with hands outstretched toward heaven. And he stood and blessed all the assembly of Israel with a loud voice saying,

Blessed be Yahweh who has given rest to his people, Israel, according to all that he's promised. Not one word is failed of all his good promise, which he spoke by Moses his servant.

The Lord our God be with us as he was with our fathers. May he not leave us or forsake us, that he may incline our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments, his statutes, its rules, which he commanded our fathers.

Let these words of mine in which I have pleaded before the Lord, Solomon says, be near to the Lord our

God day and night, and may he maintain the cause of his servant and the cause of his people, Israel, as each day requires.

That all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God and there is no other. Let your heart therefore be wholly true to our

Lord, walking in his statutes and keeping his commands as at this day. Then the king and all

Israel with him offered sacrifice before the Lord. Solomon offered as peace offering to the Lord, 22 ,000 oxen, 120 ,000 sheep.

So the king and all the people of Israel dedicated the house of the Lord. I want you to see there, right, the coming together, the king being faithful to proclaim the word of God and the faithful worship of God in Israel, right, an anticipation of the king.

But of course, none of this was the fulfilled king to come that would protect and guard the people as their prophet and priest.

Moses was simply a servant, as we just read, of the house, not the house itself, and he died before going to the promised land anyways because of his disobedience.

Imagine that, he's about to die and he's seeing the people go into the promised land after putting up with their nonsense for so long.

And it's a story too well known that all these major institutions, the prophet, priest, and king institutions that are created for anticipation's sake would fail in Israel because of the failure of the people.

We see the establishments of the institutions. With anticipation, one will come and fulfill it perfectly, and we see in the old covenant in Israel the failures of these institutions, almost to the point to where they're going to be destroyed all together.

See, not long after this wonderful time of the narrative of Solomon's reign of righteousness as he is acting in some way as a priest and a prophet, he falls into terrible sin.

In fact, he starts worshiping false gods, false idols, going the way of his many wives.

What follows him after Solomon is a series of bad kings and good kings, but never the king.

The priest would oftentimes lead the people into false worship or neglect their duties all together.

Remember what we read in Malachi a couple weeks ago, right? In which a prominent theme in Malachi is you priests aren't doing your job.

And false prophets, going to that role, that, I've been saying it like five times now,

I forget it, that role, I'm just gonna use role, abounded, false prophets abounded in Israel most of the time.

Even Elijah asking, are there any left? If you notice, with the calling of Isaiah, the calling of Jeremiah, it's always closely followed by the people aren't gonna listen.

So even if there is a faithful prophet in Israel, there's a failure involved, so to speak, because the people refuse to listen.

And so we have like, again, these establishments of these institutions, prophet, priest, and king, and we establish them with the anticipation one will come to fulfill them all perfectly.

And then there's like a longing because there's a constant failure on display throughout all the

Old Testament. And then what you get in the prophets, it took me a while to appreciate the prophets.

If you're a new believer, or if you're, okay, if you're a seasoned believer, yet you just have a hard time appreciating the prophets.

This is like God sending his people to say, you have messed up, right?

And so now we're at this point in the sermon where it's like, yeah, all these things are created and anticipated, you've messed up though, but there's one to come who's going to succeed.

Can you feel the anticipation? Can you sense the failure over and over again?

Oh, Israel, you stink. But then can you sense in the prophets, but there's one to come. We get that beautifully in the

Gospel of Isaiah, don't we? The Gospel of Isaiah is a thrill ride of failure, failure, but yet there's the one to come who will succeed in all of these things that God has established in the old covenant.

We see the prophetic role, the prophetic role, right? The king is to come and do his work, and part of his work is to be a proper prophet.

And we see in Isaiah two, verses one through five, this promise there's going to be one to come to do the role of a prophet well.

We see that in Isaiah, go to Isaiah, we're going to be in Isaiah for a second. Go to Isaiah if you don't mind. Honestly, I say that, but like I'm a person where I just like to watch and listen.

So if that's what you are, have at it. But if you're not paying attention, go to Isaiah two. Isaiah chapter two, verse one, right?

Here's the Gospel of Isaiah, right? In which he is saying there's going to be one who the failures were stopped with him when it comes to the role of prophet.

And what you're going to notice in these verses, we're going to go to king and priest, you're going to see a mixing together, right?

These roles are going to come beautifully together in one person. Isaiah two, verse one, the word that Isaiah, the son of Amos, saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

Here it is, it shall come to pass, he says, in the latter days, it's coming, that the mountain of the house of the

Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains and shall be lifted up above the hills and all the nations shall flow to it.

And many people shall come and say, come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.

Surely there were faithful prophets, but the thing that happened with them all is that the people said, eh, don't want it.

But here's coming a time in which a faithful prophet, the hill is so high, the mountain's so high, the word is so much proclaimed, and people want to hear it.

For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, and he shall judge between the nations and shall decide disputes for many people.

See, now we have a mixing of the king. And they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.

Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore because they're learning the law of God instead.

And you see the prophet being revealed, right? There's gonna be a coming, a time in which he will be a faithful prophet, proclaim the word of the

Lord perfectly well, and the people will respond. And we see even his kingly office going on in there, too.

But let's look at his kingly office, the promise of that to come more clearly in Isaiah 9. Look at Isaiah 9, few pages over.

Look at Isaiah 9, verses two through seven. And in this set, we're gonna see the king displayed, but we also are gonna see the prophet displayed as well, too.

The people who walked in darkness, right? No word of God, they've seen a great light.

Those who dwell in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. You have multiplied the nations, you have increased its joy.

They rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest as they are glad when they divide the spoil.

For the yoke of his burden and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor you have broken as on the day of Midian, right?

Those days, that was just an anticipation for what this coming king is going to do. For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle, tumult, and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given. The government shall be on his shoulders and his name shall be called

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government, of his kingdom, and of peace there will be no end.

And on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from the time forth and forevermore, the zeal of Yahweh will do this.

And so again, we have the failures, right? But then there's this coming, there's one, and he's not going to fail.

His government will not fail. He will be a successful king, a son of David who will come and succeed darkness, light for darkness.

And then we get the priestly. We get the priestly work of this coming king who will protect and conquer his people.

We get the priestly work coming out of Isaiah 2. And look at Isaiah 53 for that priestly work.

But again, even in this chapter, which is heavily on what this priest coming, what he's going to do, we're gonna see his king role and his prophet role coming out too, because it's all coming, coalescing on one person.

Look at Isaiah 53. The prophet says, Who has believed what he has heard from us?

And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of the dry ground.

He had no form of majesty that we should look at him. Sounds like a prophet. And no beauty that we should even desire him.

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our griefs. He's taken them. And he carried our sorrows. He's taken them. Yet we esteemed him stricken and smitten by God and afflicted.

Now remember what proper worship meant. Before I read more, what does proper worship mean?

It means blood. It means you need to be right before God. It means that you cannot just walk up to God willy nilly like as if, well, he's gonna accept me just for who

I am. You need blood to cover you in order for you to act and worship properly moving forward.

And so this king who comes, who conquers and protects and undoes the work of the enemy, he does it by his priestly offer of sacrifice, of blood to conquer your enemy and make you right before God.

And this is what we get. In verse five he says, but he was pierced for our transgressions.

This king to come was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities.

Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray.

We've turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, like a sheep that's before his shears.

He was silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment, he was taken away. And as for his generation who considered that he was cut off from the land of the living, they stricken for the transgression of my people and they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth.

And it was the Lord's will to crush him. He put him to grief. When his soul made an offering for guilt, he shall, and now here, pause right here.

We can think how in the world is this guy here supposed to be a king? I don't know too many reigning kings who get killed and slaughtered, right?

So it can be hard like when you're reading the Old Testament to see all these things coming together in one person, but yet here we see this one who would come to do the priestly work that we need to conquer our enemies, conquer our sin, yet on him, it falls on the king.

He shall see through his work of a priest. He shall see his offspring. He shall prolong his days.

The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous and he shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the many. He shall divide the spoil with the strong.

You see that kind of king talk, right? The king gathers the spoil, wins the spoil because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors, yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors.

So here we see this figure who would give up himself as a faithful priest to establish proper worship for our good and it's a king figure who has a spoil that is his people that he does this for and to.

This king will gain his spoil, his people through his blood. He'll be a prophet that will conquer his people with his blood.

He'll bring them to himself and protect them with his words of truth. He'll be the promised king who is a prophet and priest for his people.

And so when we see in the first few chapters of the gospel an excited group of wise men looking for the king, we know why.

An angel Gabriel telling frightened Mary that she will birth the king of Israel and the excitement that comes forth from that.

The king is here. The godly priest Zechariah proclaiming the horn of salvation from the house of David is coming.

And the angel choir announcing the birth of a king is the most beautiful choir you'll ever hear.

This comes on the heels of the established offices of prophet, priest, and king that failed misery and failed miserably in Israel, but now the one has come to fulfill it all perfectly in Jesus Christ the

Lord. And the anticipation of this king continues today. This is why it's so fun to celebrate

Christmas and the anticipation that comes with it because there is still such anticipation. We need a king to conquer our enemies, to solve our problems.

If you ever get depressed with the news, now there's drones on the East Coast terrorizing us, be satisfied in the fact that it's all meant to draw you.

We need someone to protect us, to help us, to conquer our enemies. It's this anticipation of there's something wrong here, but there's been a king prepared for us.

You know, across the world, it is a universal feeling that lies are told more than truth. The media is not trusted anymore.

The government isn't trusted. It is understood that there are many lies around us.

There's one thing that a liberal and a conservative at Thanksgiving meal can get right and agree with one another is that we are being lied to.

And this creates a holy anticipation of the prophet to come who will tell us truth.

Across the world is a universal feeling that people are trapped under guilty consciences, miserable under a secular world philosophy that does not work, that states all things are physical, nothing spiritual, so do what makes you happy.

And then we come up with all these things of mental health issues and we label them all.

We wonder where's all this mental health issues coming from? It's because people try to make their own way to God, even if that means to ignore him altogether.

There is guilty consciences, there is guiltiness, and we need a priest to cover us, to make us right before God.

And the answer is always something else. Across the world, there is a longing for a figure to come to conquer our problems and bring us all into a better state.

There is a longing for it, an anticipation for it, a desire for it. There's a longing for King Jesus.

Are you as an individual, you as an individual, aren't you tired of telling yourself lies, being a false prophet to your own soul?

Don't you long for the King to come to protect you, to guard you, to conquer your enemies, to tell you truth?

Aren't you tired of being your own false priest, trying to cope with your guilty conscience and your shame in a false way?

If I can just get more moral, if I shed copious tears upon the altar, maybe God will accept it.

It's all meant to drive you to the King that came to take care of you.

He says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, proper worship, except through me.

He is the truth. He is our prophet. No one can come to the Father with proper worship except for him as our priest.

He's everything we need. He's King Jesus. He came and declared himself to be the longing of Adam, Abraham, of Moses.

It all comes to him. He says, Abraham longed to see my day. And he could have said all of the

Old Testament prophets, all of the Old Testament figures, all of the anticipation. It all longed for me, for Jesus.

The King has come, has came. I don't know which one to use. And he does not tell you what you necessarily want to hear.

He tells you the truth. And he comes to give you what you need, not necessarily what you want.

And so I encourage you, this time of Christmas season, to look to King Jesus who gives you everything you need.

To turn away from your sins, turn away from preconceived notions, to turn away from anything that would deter from what he has told you that you need.

And may your anticipation flower into the Lord Jesus Christ. He is kind, he's faithful, he's our

King. He conquers our enemies. He gives us everything that was promise of old and culminates in him now.

Let us anticipate him with joy and reverent awe. Oh God in heaven, we thank you for Jesus Christ.

We thank you Lord for all the things that he provides for his people. Lord, we know that there's a people who have no taste for him, not because there's something wrong with him as a

King, but because they don't want what he has to offer. Oh God in heaven, may the people in this room be a people in which they see.

My only hope is to turn away from my own wants and to rather give myself to the King.

He is King whether we want him to be or not. And he's provided all things for life and godliness.

So may those who are deceived under sin, thinking that's what's better for them, may they see that no, there's a priest before me who can take care of my sins and take care of my false desires, take care of my wicked desires and implant new desires within me.

There is a King who speaks truth in a world filled with lies, in a world filled with deception.

This is the one who at all costs spoke truth even to the cost of his own life.

This is the King that you have provided for us, oh God, that was told of old, anticipated highly and culminates in Jesus Christ our

Lord. May we be a people who worship him with thanksgiving in our hearts. In Jesus name, amen.