"The Gospel of Christmas" December 30 2018 AM

The Ever-Increasing Kingdom of Christ

Powerful way throughout his creation. Put it this way. Christ is Lord whether people like it or not. All authority has been given to him in heaven and on earth. And what was at the time a group of people small enough to stuff in an upper room has now become upper rooms all over the globe in almost every language.

That his sovereignty is increasing, his rule, his reign is increasing over time so that more and more people of every tribe, tongue and nation are coming under willing submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and are all the more eager and willing to follow him.

There's an increase in the number of people that are being saved over time. There is an increase in the variety of people being saved and coming under the Lordship of Jesus Christ over time. Also in our personal lives is it not true that when we're born again we don't have it all figured out.

And even though we may be excited and we think yes Jesus is my savior and I want to follow him and we think we're doing well, the longer we live as Christians the more we realize how sinful we are. As more and more of our life is to be brought under submission to the Lordship of Christ and Jesus shows us that by his spirit through his word.

So that there is an increase in his sovereignty in our lives as more and more of our affections, as more and more of our plans, as more and more of our way of thinking comes into agreement and submission to the king of the world.

No end to the increase of his kingdom. Christ's wholeness being right with God and others and having everything in right order in our lives is elusive as long as we reject the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

He's the only one who can put us in order. He's the only one who can put us right with each other and with God. To the degree that he reigns is the degree to which we know his peace, his rest. We learn that there is no end to this growth of the kingdom once it begins it never, which a man took and sowed in his field.

And this is smaller than all the other seeds.

But when it is full grown,.

It is larger than the garden plants, it becomes a tree, the birds of the air come and nest in its branches. Says, you know, think of the kingdom this way,.

Something. Very, very small.

But then grows and grows and grows until all the different types of birds come and they can nest in the branches. And here he's quoting Isaiah about the Gentiles coming to faith. It's an amazing thought.

Now, the mustard seed is small, is it not?

What good is this little seed?

Some seeds you can identify. This is a very small seed. And you see, small seed. And you see, big is going to grow. Don't despise small. In the kingdom, despise and think little of the reign of Christ if it appears that things are not going fast enough.

Verse 33 of Matthew 13, he spoke another parable to them. The kingdom of heaven is like leaven or yeast, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of flour.

Till it was all leaven.

And those of you who bake bread, when you put the yeast, put a little bit of yeast in the dough,.

It's ready to go, right?

No, you have to let it what? It takes time. Mother trying to make some sort of cake and it was supposed to rise. And forbidding my brother and I to come inside the house and stomp around, lest the cake fall.

It took time to grow. And if there's two things that make the kingdom of Christ be going, it's things that are our assessment. The age of 131. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and be great and will be called the son of the most high.

Fully man and fully God. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David. So the king that is promised here in Isaiah nine is the same. There will be no end to the increase of his government or of peace on the throne of David and over his kingdom.

This is Jesus Christ. The roots of his kingdom go all the way back to promise that God gave to David, the prophet Nathan in second Samuel chapter seven. Beginning in verse 11, even from the day that I commanded judges to be over my people Israel, book of Judges, rest from all your enemies, the Lord also will house.

When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descended after you who will come forth from you and I will establish his kingdom. And here the language of prophecy blurs into double vision and we're hearing about Christ.

Some of this fits Solomon of Jesus Christ. He says, when your days are complete, so I will raise up an ascended for you. Verse 13, he shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

I will be a father to him. He will be a son to me. When he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men. That can't be true of Christ. That's true of Solomon.

But my loving kindness will not depart from him as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from the throne and shattered. The origin of Emmanuel's throne can go all the way back.

At all.

It was not an overly impressive throne. In terms of world politics, it didn't really dominate the scene. I mean, Solomon certainly had his day in the sun, but it wasn't all that long a day in the sun when we think about it.

What was so important about the throne on which David sat? Well, it was Mechizidek's throne first, right? David sat on Mechizidek's throne and that's why David said such amazing things in the Psalms. Like, how did you learn that?

He was on the throne of Melchizedek. I have no idea what Mechizidek left behind, but it was some good stuff. And David writes about Melchizedek in Psalm 100. The Lord said to my Lord, and so on. But Melchizedek was a king of righteousness and he ruled on the throne in the city of Salem,.

Ereshalom, Jerusalem.

Mechizidek is handy because there was no genealogy listed for him. And so he makes a very nice comparison to not only the second Adam, but the first Adam. And let's just be honest, in all the covenants that God makes with man, in all the ways in which he moves the story of redemption forward, in every single covenant, there is something in the driver's seat and it's always the image of God.

It's always the image of God, which ultimately is Christ. I think it's important to remember that David's throne is an eternal throne and a throne that rules over all the nations because ultimately it's rooted all the way back to who humanity is supposed to be.

That's why God chose Israel and brought them out and made a covenant with them and gave them his law and said, this is how you shall live. You shall love God supremely, love each other rightly, steward the creation responsibly.

Why?

Because that's what I told Adam to do. And now you're gonna do it as a nation and you're a light to the nations. And where Israel failed and left off, Christ completes. Christ completes. So he's on the throne.

This is why the obedience of the nations is to Shiloh, the ruling descendant of Judah, Genesis 49, 10. But listen to Romans one. Listen to Romans one and to help us understand the eternity of this king, the importance of this throne, Romans one.

Paul, a bond servant of Christ Jesus, called us an apostle set apart for the gospel of God, the gospel, which he promised beforehand. So when was the gospel promised? Beforehands in the Old Testament through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures concerning his son.

The gospel promised in the Old Testament was about the son of God, who was born as a descendant of David. Oh, he's also the son of David. Son of God, son of David, fully God, fully man. Born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, who was declared to be the son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead according to the spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Don't let that word just float by.

He is Lord.

That means he reigns. That means he's king. It means he's on a throne. Through whom we have received grace and apostleship.

For what?

The gospel.

Yes, to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for his name's sake. So who does Christ reign over? On the throne of David. He's on the throne of David. He's the son of David. He's reigning now.

Who does he rule over?

Everybody.

And the good news that the angels brought to the shepherds about great joy for all peoples is that yes, indeed, Jesus the Christ is king and he is born and he is to reign over all people. The roots of his kingdom are what make it so important for him to reign eternally and over all people.

Notice the fruit of his kingdom as well. In chapter nine, verse seven of Isaiah, to establish it and uphold it with justice and righteousness. With justice and righteousness. Justice, the establishment, the writing of all that was wrong and righteousness, the continuation of all that is in agreement with the character of God.

Jesus Christ as king is the best kind of king because he is faithful to the character of God himself and he is faithful to the covenant word, the covenant promises that God has made. So that everything that he does is right and everything that he accomplishes is just.

What better king do you want? When you read in Proverbs that when the wicked man rules the people groan, don't we know it? Everyone's hanging all their hopes and such and such kind of leader and everything will be, no.

He sets everything right. Own standards, the standards of the character of God and the strength of his kingdom. There is no end to his kingdom from then on forevermore. I think it's important for us to notice that the growth of his kingdom is by the word of God.

The preaching of the word of God. The declaration that hey, Christ is king. He was born, he lived, he died, he was raised again, he is at the right hand of the father and he is soon to come again. The growth of the kingdom, the spread of the kingdom of God is according to the word of God.

It increases by the word. The roots of his kingdom are entirely based on the promises that God gave his word. This is who shall reign. The growth of the kingdom is by the word. The roots of the kingdom are based upon the word and the fruit of his kingdom is also defined and preserved forever by his word.

That's why we have the strength of his kingdom.

That's why it's forever.

That's why it's eternal because it's based upon the word of God. Caesar's gospel was temporary. Christ's gospel is forever. Caesar's gospel was based on his word. Christ's gospel is based on God's word.

Caesar is dead and Christ reigns alive forevermore and it's his eternity that means our eternity if we submit to him. And it's not just any kind of eternity. When you sit at the bedside of someone who's going to die, everyone has in their mind an eternity that they want for themselves but the only eternity that's there is Christ's and do they want his eternity?

It's a whole lot of people who want to go to heaven and book that flight to heaven but they've got all their idols in the overhead compartment. Now we need to finish the verse, the intensity of the Lord, verse seven.

Notice what accomplishes all of this. What accomplishes the eternal reign of Jesus Christ? The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. The zeal of the Lord of hosts. The word in the Hebrew is kana, kana.

You've heard the name in the Old Testament, Elkanah and this is the zealous God and probably more accurately, the jealous.

Pardon me.

The jealousy of the Lord of hosts is what occurs of Christ. What is he jealous about? What is he zealous for? Isaiah 46 and verse 10, zealous about. Well, I love Isaiah 46, 10, but let's look at 48, 10.

They're all good, right?

48, 11.

Listen to what the Lord says.

For my, how can my name be, for, is his own name and his own glory. And it is the intensity of the Lord, his own jealousy for his glory that accomplishes the eternal reign of Jesus Christ.

The gospel, dying in our place,.

Everlasting life, intercessor to bring us to God and he's soon to return. It is the intensity of the Lord, the jealousy of our creator who accomplishes. He made us in his own image. He made us in his own image.

And then what did man do? Defame the image of God. And for his own jealousy, he will act as a zealous conqueror, as a zealous conqueror. Having made us in his image, God is jealous for his glory and he will act against all rebels.

God's zeal accomplishes the gospel and thus securely defines the gospel. I wanna talk to you about jealousy. I wanna talk to you about jealousy. There are a lot of gospels competing with the gospel of Christ today.

A lot of variants on the good news, often spoken in the name of Christ and yet they are not the gospel of Jesus Christ. If it is not Caesar then, it's not Caesar now. And we ought not make the gospel social and we ought not privatize the gospel to mean it whatever we want.

And we ought not make the gospel humanist where God is all about you and us, all about man. He is zealous and he is jealous for his own glory. I wanna talk to you about jealousy for a moment. God made us in his image and thus he made us jealous.

And I'm not talking about insecure offended pride. I'm not talking about pettiness. I'm talking about holy jealousy. He made us in his image and he made us jealous. Husbands, are you jealous for your wife?

Husband, are you jealous for your wife? Wife, are you jealous for your husband? You would not suffer a rival and you would get awfully upset if you found out to the contrary. And now let's put it something even more basic.

Husband and wife love one another. They are solid and secure, unafraid in their relationship. They still suffer no rivals. Someone comes in from the outside, begins to say things and do things in an inappropriate way.

The spouse isn't scared of losing their spouse. They're secure, but they still act to protect, don't they?

Right?

How many times are parents jealous for their children? No government teacher's gonna teach my children about how to change their gender, right? I'm not sending my kid to that school with these certain types of bathrooms.

I'm not sending my kids to go learn about how they're mistaken. We're jealous about our spouse teams for no good reason. We ought to be, we ought to get work, the gospel of Jesus Christ. We ought not be in a place where the disciples deal.

It's okay to be jealous of the zeal of Jesus Christ. Undeniably, and we have thanks about which God is jealous because it's about his son, Jesus Christ, with whom he is well pleased. He's at the right hand, who has all the glory and all the name, all the fame.

God is jealous about the gospel. We ought to be as well. A lot of gospels today, a lot of gospels today. A strengthening of our faith, more and more fruit in our own lives. When we're jealous about the gospel that God is, when we're jealous about the gospel that God is, kingdom grows in us, increases, advances in our own lives as more and more of our lives are brought into submission to Jesus Christ.

Closing Prayer

Well, let's close in a word of prayer. Father, I thank you for your word and I thank you that you are a jealous God for your own glory, for our good, you are jealous about your own glory. That you're specific about what it means that your son, Jesus Christ, was sent to earth to live and to die and to be raised.

Why he reigns at your right hand and why you will soon send him to gather your people. Father, help us to care about the things you care about, to be zealous about the things that you're zealous about.

That as we experience and know your passion, that we would be formed and fashioned into your image, renewed in our persons as we walk with Christ. We pray these things for his sake.