[0:00] Our text tonight is taken from Mark chapter 1 and the words of verse 14 and 15 and you can turn to that in your Bible so you can look at it up on the screen.
[0:15] These are the words with which Jesus began his ministry. Now, after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God and saying, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand.
[0:32] Repent and believe in the gospel. Now, as you know, over the past few weeks and Sunday evenings, we have been looking at a big study of how the whole Bible fits together and we've been using this diagram as our guide and we've basically been saying that if you look at the start of the Bible and if you look at the end of the Bible, you see that the same themes run all the way through.
[0:58] The same things are mentioned at the beginning and at the end and the same things run all the way through the narrative of scripture. And we've looked at the first four of these together.
[1:08] We looked at land, we looked at family, we looked at temple, we looked at law and how all of these run through the whole Bible and how the Bible fits together around these things.
[1:18] We're now coming to the last two of these and these last two in many ways are kind of like the overall themes. These are the main themes that hold the Bible together and the two themes are kingdom and covenant.
[1:33] Now, some of you may have noticed a tiny change on that diagram because all the way up to this point, I had kingdom as the last item to look at. But thinking about it, I decided to change it and to make covenant the final thing that we look at.
[1:49] In many ways, it doesn't really matter because the two are very closely related and they are both functioning as overall themes in which the Bible fits together. So tonight, we are going to focus on the fifth theme of our study, kingdom.
[2:05] As Jesus said, the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand. And a basic framework for these studies has been to ask three simple questions.
[2:15] What happens in the Old Testament? What happens in the New Testament? And what does it mean for us? And we'll look at these things together and as usual, we'll have some extra readings as we go through the study, but we will aim to reach the end at seven o'clock.
[2:31] So back to the beginning, what happened in the Old Testament? Well, if you go back to Eden, to the very start of the world, one thing is clear.
[2:42] God is king. God is king overall. He is the Creator. He is the one who is in charge. He is the one who sets the rules.
[2:53] The earth belongs to him. And many, many places in the Old Testament make it very clear that the fact that God is creator means that he is king.
[3:05] And we sang about that in Psalm 95. The Lord is a great God and a great king above all gods. In his hands are the depths of the earth, the heights of the mountain are his also.
[3:16] The sea is his for he made it and his hands formed the dry land. God made the world. God is king.
[3:26] And you can go to Psalm 29, Psalm 93, Psalm 96, Psalm 97 and Psalm 99, which we just sang and they're saying exactly the same thing. God as creator of the universe is king.
[3:39] And in Eden, if you look back at the very beginning, the fact that God was king is confirmed by the fact that he delegates authority and rule to Adam. God said, let us make man in an image after their likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
[4:01] God delegated that authority to humanity and to Adam in particular because he himself is king. And so when you look back to the perfection of the Garden of Eden, where everything began, it is all under the rule and authority of God.
[4:20] It was his kingdom. And this is one of the reasons why kingdom and covenant are in many ways a summary of everything that we've been seeing because if you go back to Eden, it was God's land and it was God's family and it was God's temple.
[4:38] It was God's law. It was God's kingdom. But all of that was ruined because of Adam's sin.
[4:50] And when Adam fell, when Adam sinned, God's rule was rejected. And if you look at what Adam did, it was basically an act of usurpation.
[5:01] Adam tried to usurp God's authority. He tried to grab for himself the authority that belonged only to God. In other words, Adam tried to make himself king.
[5:14] He wanted to take over. He wanted to be in charge. And of course, humanity has been doing the same thing ever since.
[5:24] Everywhere in the world, we see people who say, I don't need God. I don't want him to rule over me. And we must, must make sure that we are not making that mistake ourselves.
[5:40] And as a result of Adam's sin, God's law, the king's law was broken. The king's temple was lost. The king's family was fractured and the king's land was out of bounds.
[5:53] Adam was driven away. And when you go through the rest of the Old Testament, this same theme of kingdom plays an incredibly prominent part.
[6:04] It becomes very, very clear when you read through the first few chapters of Genesis that falling humanity does not want to live under God's rule. And in Genesis 1 to 4, you have this account of repeated rebellion against God.
[6:16] We've said this many times, but it's just a disastrous picture. People are just pushing God away, turning away from God, and the whole thing is an awful mess.
[6:27] But as we've said many times, in Genesis 12, there is a turning point and God comes to Abraham and he makes a covenant with him.
[6:38] And it's really interesting if you look at what is included in that covenant. I'm going to read a few verses from Genesis 17, and I want you to listen very carefully, particularly when I get to the end.
[6:50] When I add Abraham, who was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abraham and said to him, I am God Almighty, walk before me and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.
[7:03] Then Abraham fell on his face, God said to him, behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abraham, but your name shall be called Abraham, for I have made you a father of a multitude of nations.
[7:17] I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. And so we have been reminded and shown there that kingdom is part of God's plan, part of his great desire for Abraham and for his family, is that kings shall come from that family.
[7:46] And it's really interesting that immediately in Abraham's experience, when God enters a covenant to him, Abraham immediately faces opposition from earthly kings.
[7:56] If you read these chapters and Genesis from 12 through to 20, you see that Abraham is facing conflict among local kings around that area, and one of his relatives Lot is captured, and Abraham has to engage in conflict in order to rescue him.
[8:12] And throughout the whole of the Old Testament, God's people are in conflict with earthly kings. God's people are oppressed by the kings of the world.
[8:27] And this of course goes right back to what God said in Genesis 3.15, where he says, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between you'd offspring and her offspring, between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of evil.
[8:42] And that conflict goes right through the Old Testament. That explains why there is so much conflict in the Old Testament. In fact, it really explains why there's so much conflict in the history of the world.
[8:54] There is this great kingdom battle, the kingdom of God against the kingdom of evil. So God's plan for his people has a kingdom dimension.
[9:07] And we can actually say that it has two key emphasis in that kingdom dimension. God's people need to be rescued from an evil king, and then they need to live under the rule of a good king.
[9:23] That's putting it very simply, but that's basically how it is. This from to emphasis taken from an evil kingdom brought to a good kingdom from to.
[9:34] It's a vital principle that lies behind what goes on. And that's exactly what we see happening in the Old Testament. God's people are delivered from an evil kingdom. That's what happens at the Exodus, when God's people are rescued from the evil rule of Pharaoh in Egypt.
[9:49] Exodus 18, then Moses told his father in law, all that the Lord had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel's sake, all the hardship that had come upon them on the way, how the Lord had delivered them.
[10:01] And Jethro rejoiced for all the good that the Lord had done to Israel, and that he had delivered them out of the hand of the Egyptians. Jethro said, blessed be the Lord, who has delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of Pharaoh, and has delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians.
[10:17] The people of God were taken from an evil kingdom, and they were now able to enter the promised land. As they entered the promised land, they had to defeat all sorts of evil kings, all sorts of opposing kings, and they were delivered from that.
[10:35] God is fulfilling his purposes in freeing his people from an evil kingdom. But not only were they taken from, they were also brought to, taken from an evil kingdom and brought to a good kingdom with a good king, with God himself as their king.
[10:56] That's how it was meant to be. God was meant to be their king, meant to be their ruler, but the Israelites didn't want it. They rejected God's kingdom.
[11:08] They took the from, but they didn't want the to, if you know what I mean. They happily got taken out of Egypt, but they didn't want to then be under God's rule.
[11:18] And you see that, the consequences of that shown in the Book of Judges. If you read the Book of Judges, you'll see that it's a terrible mess. People have turned away from God.
[11:30] And the reason for that is given at the very end of the book where it says, in those days, there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
[11:44] And so it's so interesting. They came from an evil kingdom in Egypt, but they didn't want to go to, into God's kingdom.
[11:54] They wanted to do what was right in their own eyes. And I don't even need to say how much that's so true of today.
[12:05] But eventually the people realized this and they asked for a king. And that was what we read about in 1 Samuel chapter eight. They realized we don't have a king. We need a king.
[12:15] But in 1 Samuel chapter eight, they asked for the king with the wrong motivation and they had the wrong intentions. And as we were reading through that chapter, I hope you noticed that, that they wanted a king to be like the nations that were around them.
[12:32] Now, remember, God had delivered them from these bad kingdoms. God had conquered them. And yet they're saying, we want to be like them. We want to be like these people who you've saved us from.
[12:45] And in asking for a king, they were rejecting the kingship of God. There's such a solemn verse in 1 Samuel chapter eight, verse seven, which we read, the Lord said to Samuel, obey the voice of the people and all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.
[13:09] And so the people were getting it all wrong. And God let them have what they wanted. If you read on in Samuel, you'll find that Saul became king and ultimately it was a tragic failure.
[13:24] And I just want to pause there and say an important point of application for us all and indeed for the whole world.
[13:35] Sometimes God will let us have our own way. The people of Israel were asking and asking and asking and asking for the wrong thing.
[13:47] And eventually God said, fine. Now, it's so interesting how people are so quick to blame God when things go wrong.
[13:59] You've got people in the world and they say, why do all these bad things happen? Why can there be a God of love if there's so much sort of so much difficulty? And yet at the same time, we don't want anything to do with God.
[14:11] We don't want God in our laws. We don't want God in our schools. We don't want God in our lives. But we want them on hand to blame him when really the blame lies much closer to form.
[14:25] Sometimes God just lets us have our own way. But also the point I've said and I hope I've made it clear that the Israelites wanted the from part of it, but they didn't want the to part of it.
[14:39] They wanted to be taken from an even kingdom, but not brought into a good kingdom. And we can be like that. Can't we?
[14:50] We can be saying to God when we're in trouble, Lord, help me. Lord, take me out of this. Lord, bring me through this. Lord, please help me. And he does. And then we lose interest.
[15:02] And we think, oh no, actually God, I don't need you after all. And so we must, must be careful that we don't fall into that trap. So at this point, if you, if you were to read on in Samuel chapter eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, everything is falling apart.
[15:23] But the amazing thing is that God never gives up on his people. God never gives up on his people.
[15:33] And he intervenes. And even though the people have got it wrong, God doesn't wash his hands off them. He intervenes and he appoints David as the king of Israel.
[15:44] And the difference with David is that Saul was their choice. David is God's choice. He is a man after God's own heart. And even though he made many mistakes in his life, he is still the greatest king in the Old Testament.
[15:57] And God puts him on the throne. Israel has a royal family and God's kingdom is established and everything is looking good. God takes over from David as his descendants and things are looking great.
[16:11] They've got the land and they've conquered it. Their borders are at their biggest point. Everything is looking great. They are united as a family nation. They've got the family.
[16:22] Solomon builds a permanent temple in Jerusalem and they listen to God's law. Everything is looking brilliant. And the king's job is to maintain all of these things.
[16:36] The king's job is to read and keep the law, to make sure that it's implemented in the nation. The king's job is to build and maintain the temple and to make sure that worship is done properly.
[16:47] The king's job is to serve and protect the family to make sure that God's people are all okay and getting on well. And the king's job is to rule and to defend the land.
[16:58] All of these things are like the job description of the king. And this is what David did, this is what Solomon did and everything looks great.
[17:11] But it doesn't last. And even Solomon, by the end of his life, is slipping away.
[17:21] And the downward spiral begins and God's law is abandoned. God's temple is compromised. They start building high places and other places of worship. God's family is corrupted, all sorts of foreign marriages come in and the kingdom splits in two after Solomon dies.
[17:38] And although the royal line continues and although there are some good kings like Hezekiah and Josiah on the whole, they are evil. And eventually the land is lost.
[17:53] And the story of the Old Testament is the story of a failed kingdom. And incidentally that's one of the great proofs of the truth of the Old Testament. Because if you look at secular history from that era, everything is very positive.
[18:09] It's like propaganda. The spin wasn't invented in the 20th century. Back then when they recorded history, everything was great.
[18:19] And for Israel to have their national history recorded as a total failure shows us that it's real and genuine. It's the word of God.
[18:32] And so the Old Testament is just this tragic account of how people think they can do better without God.
[18:42] That they know better than God, that they don't need Him. And I don't have to tell you that millions of people are making the same mistake.
[18:56] And I really, really hope that you're not. But in the Old Testament, like with the other themes, although there's this trajectory of failure, there's also these wonderful promises.
[19:12] And the Old Testament is the story of a promised kingdom. Remember what we said about Abraham? God came to Abraham and he says, kings will come from your descendants. And then Abraham's grandson reveals a little bit more and he tells us specifically that the kingdom is going to come from the line of Judah.
[19:28] Genesis 49.10, the sceptre, that's like royalty kingdom, the sceptre shall not depart from Judah nor the ruler's staff from between his feet until tribute comes to him and to him shall be the obedience of the people.
[19:41] So Jacob is saying that it's from this tribe of Judah. Now, of course, David was in the tribe of Judah and God comes to David with a kingdom promise. And in 2 Samuel 7 says, when your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your father, I will raise up your offspring after you.
[19:57] You shall come from your body and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
[20:08] And so that's telling us that God's king is going to be the son of David. And then in the prophecy of Daniel, we read the following. I saw in the night visions and behold with the clouds of heaven that came one like a son of man.
[20:22] And he came to the ancient of days, that's God, and was presented before him and to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him.
[20:33] His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away and his kingdom, one that shall not be destroyed. That's telling us that God's king will be called the son of man.
[20:44] Now of course, son of David, son of man are pointing us to one person, Jesus Christ.
[20:55] The Old Testament is prophesying a true king who is going to come and all of that is fulfilled in Jesus.
[21:07] And this is why it's so interesting to note what's the first thing that Jesus said when he began his ministry.
[21:19] What was his foundational message? What was the first proclamation he made? The kingdom of God has come.
[21:35] And in saying that, he is telling us that he is the fulfillment of all that the Old Testament prophesied. God himself is intervening, God has sent his king, God is establishing his kingdom.
[21:51] Something new is happening, God is putting things right, God is bringing back his creation to everything that it was meant to be. The son of David is here, the son of man is here, Jesus, the king has come.
[22:06] And that's why when you read through the gospels, they're full of what we could call kingdom evidences, evidences that show that Jesus is king. If you ask the question, why did Jesus do miracles?
[22:20] What would you say? Was it just to do good? Was it to help people? Was it to impress people? Why did Jesus do miracles?
[22:32] Jesus did miracles to show that he was the king, to show that he is king over nature. And so when he says to the waves, be still, they are still.
[22:44] And to show that he is king over all forces, that he is a more powerful king than all the forces of darkness. And all these demon possessed people stood before him, they cried out in horror because they knew that they could not stand before Jesus.
[23:01] They knew that he was in authority over them. And Jesus healed people and helped people to show that he is the one who has the power to undo the effects of the curse.
[23:14] There's a really interesting passage in Matthew 12, and I'll read it for you here, Matthew 12, 22. Then a demon possessed man who was blind and mute was brought to Jesus and he healed him so the man spoke and saw.
[23:27] And all the people were amazed and said, can this be the son of David? Remember what we said, son of David, king? When the Pharisees heard it, they said, it is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.
[23:41] So here's what's happening. Jesus has just healed this man. The Pharisees are saying he's only doing that because he's just as demon possessed as the rest of them. He's just like them. That's what they were saying. They were basically saying that Jesus was demon possessed by the prince of demons.
[23:55] He's doing it. Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said to them, every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste and no city or house divided itself against itself will stand.
[24:08] And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then were his kingdoms stand? Jesus basically saying, you're talking absolute nonsense. If it's by Satan that I'm casting out Satan, then that's just civil war in the kingdom of evil and the whole thing will collapse.
[24:25] If I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But then Jesus says this, if it is by the spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
[24:42] Jesus is saying, I am king and I'm proving it by my actions. And there's so many things that Jesus did. Jesus chose 12 disciples. Why was it 12?
[24:53] Why not 10? Why not 14? Why not 20? Why not seven? It was the perfect number was why 12? Because Jesus is establishing a new Israel.
[25:05] And in the oldest real, they were 12 tribes. And in the newest real, there are 12 apostles because Jesus is establishing his kingdom. Jesus is replacing the old kingdom.
[25:15] He is fulfilling all the Old Testament promises. The new Israel is being established. And Jesus shows his kingship by all his conduct.
[25:26] We see that beautifully at the triumphal entry. Jesus comes into Jerusalem. Everybody lays out their palm branches and they praise him and they say, blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.
[25:38] Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. As king, Jesus makes a triumphal entry, but as king at the very same time, he weeps over the city because as a true and proper king, he cares deeply for his subjects.
[25:56] He drew near the city and he wept over it. Luke 1941. And so the gospels are telling us very clearly that Jesus is king.
[26:08] But at the same time, there was a huge amount of misunderstanding about the sort of king that Jesus was. And the problem was that the people had a very narrow view of what kind of king Jesus was going to be.
[26:23] They wanted Jesus to restore their land. In other words, the area of Palestine that they lived in. They wanted to have their temple back, the building in Jerusalem that had all that glory and had been destroyed and rebuilt, but wasn't as good as it was before.
[26:38] They wanted their temple back to what it was. They wanted to have control of their laws. So they wanted to get rid of the Romans. They wanted Jesus to be this political freedom fighter who would mean that they would have their own autonomy.
[26:52] And they wanted help for their family, for the Jews and the Jews alone. They had this narrow view of God's kingdom.
[27:02] But thanks be to God. God's plans, God's kingdom plans were much, much, much bigger than that.
[27:14] They wanted Jesus to be an earthly political king of Palestine. Jesus's mission was far bigger than that.
[27:24] And that's why Jesus's role as king does not take him to a palace. It takes him to the cross. Now, have you ever noticed, I've never noticed this before, but if you noticed, on the way to the cross, Jesus went to all sorts of rulers.
[27:46] He goes to the house of the high priest to where a ruler lived. He's taken to Herod, to the king of that area. He's taken to Pilate's headquarters, to all of these places where rulers are.
[28:02] He goes to the residence of these earthly rulers, but he does not stay at any of them. Because as he says to Pilate, my kingdom is not of this world.
[28:14] If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.
[28:25] Jesus goes past the palaces and he goes to the cross. And the reason he does that is because on the cross, Jesus does everything that God's king is meant to do.
[28:44] Remember what we said about the Old Testament king? They were supposed to defend the land. They were supposed to protect the family. They were supposed to build and maintain the temple. They were supposed to uphold God's law.
[28:55] That's what the king was meant to do. And on the cross, Jesus does all of these things. The king is meant to keep God's law.
[29:06] And Jesus does that. He becomes obedient to God's law all the way to the point of death. And on the cross, he bears the curse of the law instead of all of us.
[29:19] God's king is supposed to maintain the temple. Jesus goes to the cross and he offers himself as the perfect temple sacrifice, securing eternal redemption.
[29:34] And by him now, we have access in one spirit to the Father and he is building his temple in all of us as his people.
[29:45] God's king is supposed to protect the family. And that's what Jesus does on the cross because there he was not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters.
[29:56] And through his death, we are adopted into his family. And we, if we believe, are given the right to become children of God.
[30:07] God's king is supposed to rule and defend the land. And that's exactly what Jesus does on the cross because there he destroys the enemy in our land.
[30:17] And it's there for the children, share in flesh and blood. Hebrews 2 14 tells us he himself likewise partook of the same things that through death, he might destroy the one who has the power of death.
[30:28] That is the devil and deliver and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. And this is what it means when the Bible says that on the cross, Jesus is exalted and crowned as king over all.
[30:48] And this is where we see this incredible irony at the cross because at the cross, Jesus' status as king was used as a means of mocking him. The soldier mocked him. If you're the king, save yourself.
[31:02] And it's so ironic because at the cross, the king of the Jews becomes the king of the universe.
[31:13] Being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth.
[31:30] And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. And this is where we see that God's plans are so much bigger than what the people expected.
[31:41] The people there had a narrow view of what God was going to do, but his plans were big. It wasn't that they were to return to the Old Testament law, it was that the Old Testament law was being fulfilled and we are freed from the burdens of it and we now have liberty to live in obedience to it.
[31:58] God's plan was not that the temple in Jerusalem would be rebuilt and that things would be back to the way they were. God's plan would be that his temple would be in the heart of every single believer.
[32:09] God's family was not just to be the Jewish nation. It's for all people, Jew and Gentile alike. And the land is not just Jew dads, not just Palestine, it's not just the Middle East, it's the whole of creation.
[32:27] Everything is being brought back to what it was meant to be. And all of that is accomplished on the cross. And that's why in the Book of Revelation it tells us that it is the Lamb who is on the throne.
[32:41] It is the sacrificial death of Jesus that makes him king. The Lamb who was slain is on the throne.
[32:54] And we worship Him as the one who reigns. The cross makes Jesus king overall.
[33:08] So what does that mean for us just for a moment or two? Well the key point of application for us is that Jesus is king.
[33:20] Now that's one of these things that's so easy to say, but Jesus is king. And that is not just a theological truth. That should be a reality that shapes every single aspect of our lives.
[33:36] It should shape every single aspect of your life. Jesus is king. Jesus is king of the law. He is king of His law.
[33:48] And as our king we should obey Him. Jesus demands and deserves our obedience.
[34:01] And that's what we mean when we talk about lordship. We're talking about the fact that Jesus is ruler and that we are to obey Him. Now it is so easy to say the phrase Lord Jesus.
[34:14] But do we really mean it when we say Lord? Because we're saying you are the ruler, you are the king, you are the one that we are to obey.
[34:32] And this is where as Christians we can stand out from the rest of the world. We obey God's law, we obey the king's law and that makes us different.
[34:47] And that makes us stand out because God's law is perfect and if we obey His law then it makes us beautifully and wonderfully different from the rest of the world.
[34:59] Now I may have said this to you before because I've said it to quite a lot of people over the recent days because it's all to do with the big debate they've had about Sundays. There's been a big discussion about Sundays recently in our local locality where, well I don't need to say, you all know what's happening.
[35:15] And while this was going on I saw an article on the Telegraph website which said that the Office of National Statistics had done a survey and discovered that the happiest place in Britain to live is here in the outer Hebrides.
[35:31] And why is that? Is it because we're the same as everywhere else or is it because we're different? But the answer is obvious, it's because we're different.
[35:47] And it's things like Sundays that make us different where we have this wonderful day where we have time to be together, time to slow down, time to enjoy life.
[35:59] Obeying God's law doesn't make you a Philistine, it doesn't make you a narrow minded, it makes you beautifully different. Jesus is the King of the law and we are to obey Him.
[36:11] Jesus is also King of the temple. Now that raises a number of important points I'm just going to mention too. Firstly, Jesus is to be worshipped.
[36:24] He is King of the temple, He is the one that we are to worship. And as we think of the cross, as we think of everything that Jesus has done, we cannot but help but fall down before Him and worship Him.
[36:37] But we also have to remember that Jesus is head of the temple, Jesus is head of the church. He is King of the church.
[36:48] Now this is a point in which we disagree with the Roman Catholic Church and in which we disagree even with the Church of England because the Roman Catholic Church would say that the Pope is the head of the church and the Church of England would say that the sovereign is head or governor or something.
[37:06] I can't remember the exact phrase, I should have checked that. But basically they describe a headship to someone other than Jesus. We can't accept that because Jesus alone is the head.
[37:19] But it doesn't just apply to an ecclesiastical level, it applies to a personal level. You as a believer are God's temple and Jesus is King of your heart and that's why we should keep our heart away from the things that the King does not want.
[37:37] Jesus is King of the temple, Jesus is also King of the family. Back in the Old Testament there was a royal family and they were very special and exactly the same is true today.
[37:50] Our royal family is very special, we saw Prince Charles visited last week, that was amazing that he came, a member of the royal family here in Lewis, brilliant.
[38:01] But in God's kingdom there's also a royal family and everyone who believes is a member of it.
[38:12] If you are a Christian you are the King's brother or the King's sister.
[38:22] That's how special you are and the King loves his family. The King will protect his family, the King will defend his family, the King will never ever let a member of his family be snatched away.
[38:36] The King will keep his family safe because to him you are royalty, you are part of his family.
[38:49] And Jesus is also King of the land. As we said the Jews wanted the Messiah to be the King of their little land but God's plans were far, far bigger.
[39:02] God's purposes for his kingdom encompass the whole universe and King Jesus does not reign over Palestine, he does not reign over Scotland, he reigns over the universe.
[39:14] And the Promised Land is no longer this area in the east of the Mediterranean, it is now the new heavens and the new earth and this must be the way that we view the world.
[39:26] And in many ways of all the things I've said tonight, this is the thing I perhaps want us to grasp more than anything else. If you look at the world of 2016, there is one thing that is absolutely certain.
[39:43] Jesus is King. Jesus is King. It does not matter what is going on in the world, Jesus is King.
[39:57] That was the great message of the Book of Revelation. There was an Emperor in Rome who was desperately persecuting the Christian church.
[40:07] They were facing a horrendous time and the message of Revelation was Jesus is King. And that means that no matter what is going on in the world, you are safe if you are a Christian.
[40:25] You are secure. You are part of the King's family. You are more than a conqueror and nothing, nothing can separate you from your King.
[40:40] And I want that to be your worldview. I want that to be how you look at the world. When you wake up every day, remember that Jesus is King. When you look at the news and you see all of these things that are warning us, you think about Brexit, what's going to happen with that?
[40:54] You look at Russia, you look at the American presidential elections, you look at Syria, you think what is going to happen in all of these things? When you look at the news, remember Jesus is King.
[41:10] When you face trouble, when you face difficulty, when you face health problems, if you get an awful diagnosis, when you face work problems, when you are stressed and pressured and worn out, when you face family problems and things bother you and things have gone wrong and things are incredibly difficult for you, remember that Jesus is King.
[41:32] He is in control. And when you face death, remember that Jesus is King.
[41:44] If you are a believer, death is powerless over you because your King reads.
[41:58] Jesus is King and that gives us so much security, so much comfort. This is where we find that the words that we read at the very beginning are so personal to us.
[42:11] I'm going to read again from Jude. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, authority, before all time and now and forever.
[42:35] God is able to keep you and God will present you before the presence of his glory all because Jesus is King.
[42:49] And I hope that that is how you all view the world and I hope that you know Jesus as King in your life because remember what we said.
[43:00] There are two dimensions to God's kingdom plan. We need to be taken from an evil kingdom and we need to be brought to a good kingdom. That's exactly what Jesus said when he said repent, that means turn away and believe.
[43:18] Repent because there's an evil kingdom that we must run away from. Believe because there's a perfect kingdom and we are all being called into it.
[43:30] You put your trust in Jesus and you will have the perfect King in your life.
[43:40] Amen. Thank you.