If you have your Bibles I’d invite you to turn with me to Revelation chapter 1. It’s a joy to be in the house of the Lord with you today again. And Wiley, I don’t know who came up with the idea of this series. I don’t know if it’s David Strain or David Felker or you – who came up with the Prophet, Priest and King? – that’s a great series that you’ve been doing, looking at Christ as Prophet, Priest and King. If you remember your shorter catechism, there is a little section in the catechism that speaks about the significance of Christ being our Prophet, Priest and King. It’s one of the great themes of the Reformation. And you’ve meditated already on what it is for Christ to be your Prophet and Priest, and I get to talk with you today about what it is for Christ to be your King.
I want to tell you ahead of time what my theme is going to be this morning because it’s really a one-point sermon, though we’re going to take a few points to get there. Here’s the theme – Jesus is the King promised by God to David who would build His temple, and we are that temple. That’s the sermon today. Jesus is the King who God promised to David would build His temple, and we are that temple. That’s the one-point sermon. I’ll have more than one application of that truth, but what I want to try and do in the next few minutes is get you there so you understand that that theme is not just something that I came up with. It comes right out of the Bible. And we are going to start with Revelation chapter 1, verses 4 to 7, and then we’re going to read a couple of verses in chapter 19. So let’s pray again and ask for God’s help and blessing as we read and hear His holy Word.
Heavenly Father, we do not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, so speak Lord, Your servants listen. We ask this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Revelation 1, beginning in verse 4:
“John to the seven churches that are in Asia:
Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.
To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.”
And then turn with me to Revelation 19 and we’ll look at verses 11, 12 and 13, and then verse 16. Revelation 19; we’ll look beginning at verse 11:
“Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God.”
Now to verse 16:
“On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.”
Amen, and thus ends this reading of God’s holy, inspired and inerrant Word. May He write its eternal truth upon all our hearts.
Have you thought about how often we sing about the kingship of God and the kingship of Christ? We do it all the time! Maybe when you heard the word “diadem” you thought of, “Crown Him with many crowns, the Lamb upon His throne!” There’s the kingship theme. Or, “Rejoice, the Lord is King!” Or, “Praise my soul the King of heaven!” Or, “Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King!” We sing about this all the time! And by the way, that’s a good practice, when you sing those wonderful words, would be to go back and ask, “Where is the hymn writer getting that from?” And usually the Trinity Hymnal will help you a little bit. It will often give you a Scripture verse at the top of the hymn that will give you a hint, but you can go to places online, like hymnary.org or the cyber hymnal and they will actually give you Scriptural background to every single stanza of the hymns that we sing. And it would not be a bad thing, from time to time, to go and ask ourselves, “Where’s the hymn writer getting that from?” Because the theme of the kingship of God and the kingship of Christ is everywhere in our hymnody because it’s everywhere in our Bibles! It’s not just the catechism. The catechism is getting it from the Bible.
And so this morning, what I want to do is I want to point you to this great theme. It’s a theme we find from the very first chapter of Genesis all the way to the very last chapter of Revelation. Take your hymnals just real quickly and turn with me to the back of them. Turn to the back of the hymnals to the section where the Westminster Confession of Faith is found, and look on page 862, for instance. And just look at the first phrase of chapter 23 of the Westminster Confession of Faith. “God, the supreme Lord and King of all the world” – that’s how the twenty-third chapter of the Westminster Confession begins. And then turn over to the section just a few pages forward on the Shorter Catechism and turn to page 871, 871, and Shorter Catechism Question 26. “Christ executeth the office of a King in subduing us to Himself, in ruling and defending us, and in restraining and conquering all His and our enemies.” So the confession and the catechism are just pulling those themes of the kingship of God and the kingship of Christ right out of Scripture, and our job today is to quickly survey where they’re drawing that from.
Jesus is the King We Have Been Waiting For
So here’s the first thing I want you to see as we grapple for just a few moments with this Biblical theme of Jesus as King. And here’s the first thing I want you to see – Jesus is the King that we’ve been waiting for. Jesus is the King that we’ve been waiting for. All the way back in Genesis 1 – and you may want to follow along in your Bibles; you may want to just keep them right there in your laps and I’ll tell you the Scripture passages, because again, I just want you to know I’m not making this up. This is in the Bible. This is in God’s Word. In Genesis 1:3 and 31, we know God says, “Let there be light,” and there is light. And then after the creation in verse 31, He sees that everything is good. And so in Genesis 1, God is presented as a sovereign, divine King who not only rules the world but creates the world by fiat, that is, by speaking. He speaks the world into being just like a king might say, “I decree that today is a holiday.” And by fiat, the king has declared a holiday for us all. Well God creates the world by fiat. Have you seen the images from the James Webb satellite camera of the universe? Unbelievable! Unbelievable the vastness and the majesty of this universe. And God spoke it into being. I love that little sentence in Genesis 1:1. He made the sun and the moon and He goes on for about two verses about how He made the sun and the moon and then He says, “and He made the stars also.” That’s how sovereign He is – He made the stars also! And again, we sing about this. “Praise to the Lord the Almighty the King of creation!” So He is presented to us in Genesis 1 as a King. He is the King of creation. He is sovereign over all. God is the sovereign Creator King.
Now when’s the first promise of a coming king in the Bible? I think it’s to Abraham in Genesis 17:6. In Genesis 17:6, God says to Abraham that kings are going to come from him. In Genesis 17:16, He says to Sarah that kings are going to come from her. In Genesis 35:11, He tells to Jacob that kings are going to come from him. That is, Abraham, Sarah and Jacob are promised that kings are going to come from their line. That is the first promise of a coming king in the Bible and it happens in the Abrahamic covenant when God is confirming His promises to him. Now you will know, you will perhaps remember that in Deuteronomy, in Moses’ last sermon to the people of God, that he warned them that when they got into the land they were going to look around and they were going to want to have a king like the nations around them. But he emphasized that that’s not the kind of king God wanted for them. The kind of king that God wanted for them – Deuteronomy 17 verses 14 to 20 – was going to be the kind of king that ruled in accordance with God’s Word. And what was the first thing that the king was supposed to do? Sit down in the presence of the Levites and write the Law. Not the Ten Commandments – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy – write the Law, the Torah. So his personal, his own copy of the Bible, written in his own hand in the presence of the priests. Why? Because he was to rule in accordance with God’s Word.
Well we come to the book of Judges and we know how that went. “Every man did which was right in his own eyes.” And then eventually the people come to Samuel and say – what do they say? “We want a king like the nations around us.” Have you people not been reading your Bibles? Where have you heard that before? It wasn’t commended to you. And so they choose Saul, and we know how that goes. And in the wake of the mess of King Saul, God chooses David and sets him over the people. And in 2 Samuel chapter 5, verses 2 and 12, it is emphasized that David was chosen by God to rule over His people. And David realized that God had made him the king over Israel in order to shepherd them. And in 2 Samuel chapter 7, verses 8 to 17 – look especially at verses 14 and following – David is promised a son who will be king and he will build the temple for God and God will be his Father and he will be God’s son, in 2 Samuel 7.
Now about 70 years after that promise was made, what happened? The kingdom divided – after Solomon, in the days of Rehoboam and Jeroboam – from that time on, the prophets and the students of Scripture in Israel started saying, “Okay, how are we supposed to understand these king promises? You promised that David would never lack a man on the throne in Jerusalem, now the country is divided. So how are we supposed to understand that?” And then in another 500 years, what happened? Even the Davidic monarchy came to an end in 586 BC when Nebuchadnezzar came and took Zedekiah, the last king in the Davidic line, off into exile. And from that time on – and really friends, this is over half of the Old Testament; over half of the Old Testament is wrestling with this question, “Has God’s promise for David’s son to reign on the throne, has that promise failed?” And the rest of the Old Testament is asking that question, all the way to Malachi.
Now turn in your Bibles – if you haven’t been following along, you’ve got to turn here – turn to the first verse of the New Testament, Matthew chapter 1 verse 1. First verse of the New Testament. “This is the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ” – I think that’s Matthew’s title. First thing he says – “Son of David, son of Abraham” – this is the one that God was talking about to Abraham and talking about to David. And sure enough, what happens in Matthew chapter 2, verses 1 to 3? Magi show up from the East asking people in Jerusalem, “Where is He who is born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and we have come to worship Him.” That’s Matthew 2, right after announcing Him as son of David and son of Abraham, pagan, Gentile astrologers show up to worship Him. And in Matthew chapter 3, verses 13 to 17, Jesus is baptized by John and as He is baptized, a voice from heaven says, “This is My beloved Son. This is the one I was talking about in 2 Samuel 7. This is the one that I was talking about in Psalm 2:7.” In other words, all over the gospels and all over the New Testament is emphasized this truth – Jesus is the King that we’ve been waiting for.
Jesus is the Temple and He is Greater than the Temple
Here’s a second thing I want you to see – Jesus tells us that He is the temple and He is greater than the temple. Jesus tells us that He is the temple and He is greater than the temple. Look at John chapter 2 verse 19. You remember they are having this argument in Jerusalem with the religious leaders and Jesus says this – “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” And the Jews are absolutely baffled by this and they say, “It took forty-six years to build this temple. You will raise it up in three days?” And then John quickly says, “But He was speaking of the temple of His body.” Jesus was saying, “I am the temple.” Now the significance of that John makes clear in John 4. You remember John tells us about Jesus’ conversation with the woman at the well in Samaria and she asks Him, “Are we supposed to worship here in Samaria or at the temple down in Jerusalem?” And Jesus’ answer is, “There is coming a day when neither here in Samaria nor in the temple will you meet with God. You will meet with God in Me. That’s how you’ll come to God. You’ll meet God in Me. I am the temple. I am the place where you will come and meet God, for God is a Spirit and those who worship Him worship in spirit and truth. You will come to the Father through Me. I am the temple. You will come to the Father through Me.”
And interestingly, in Revelation 21 verse 22, when John is describing the new Jerusalem, he says this – “I saw no temple in the city.” So he sees a new Jerusalem but there’s no temple. And then he quickly explains, “For its temple is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb.” So there I want you to see Jesus, Jesus is the temple. So Jesus is the King to come; He is the temple. Now by the way, if you look back at Matthew chapter 12, they’re having this conversation with the Pharisees about whether Jesus is breaking the Sabbath. Quick answer – no, He isn’t. They are adding to the commands of God traditions of men that are not commanded in the Word of God. He is not breaking the Sabbath; they are adding to it. And in the course of that conversation, Jesus says something amazing to them in Matthew 12:6. He says, “Something greater than the temple is here.” So Jesus is the temple. In fact, He is the greater temple. He is the real temple. He is the real place where we meet and commune with God. So Jesus is the King we have been waiting for. Jesus is the temple. He is greater than the temple.
Believers are the Temple that Jesus Came to Build
Now here’s the last part. All I’m doing is I’m putting that one sentence together for you. Let me remind you of the one sentence – Jesus is the King who God promised to David would build the temple and we are that temple. So here’s the third part of that sentence. Jesus is the King come to build the temple and you are the temple He came to build. You see this, for instance, in Ephesians 2, in Ephesians 2:19-22. “So then, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone.” So he’s already using building imagery. You are a building. Jesus is the cornerstone. You are built into that building. And he goes on to say this – “in whom the whole structure,” verse 21, “being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.” You are being built into a holy temple. Jesus is the cornerstone of that holy temple. You are a living temple to God which Jesus is building. Paul says this in Ephesians 2:19-22. But Peter says it too. Peter and Paul totally agreed on this. In 1 Peter chapter 2, verses 4 and 5, Peter says, “As you come to Him, a living stone, rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves, like living stones, are being built up into a spiritual house,” or “a spiritual temple.” So He was rejected by men, He was the living stone, the cornerstone; you are being built as living stones into a spiritual temple. And the apostle Paul will say in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 16, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s spirit dwells in you?” So Jesus came to build the temple and you are the temple that He came to build.
This is like the image of the body – Christ is the head and you are His body. The temple – Christ is the cornerstone and you are living stones in His temple. Jesus came to build a temple and you are the temple He came to build. That’s what Revelation 1:4-7 is about. That’s what Revelation 19, verses 1 and 16 are about. Jesus is the King who God promised to David would come and build the temple and we are that temple.
So what does that mean for us? It means six things, but it’s 10:31! It means six things. It means this – How does Jesus do this? How does Jesus make you the temple? He makes you the temple by His Word, by His grace, by His discipline, by His preservation, by His protection, and by His providence. I’ll give you a little assignment this afternoon. Go look at Westminster Larger Catechism Question 45. It’s the larger version of that Question 26 from the Shorter Catechism that we read just a few minutes ago. It’s the question, “How does Christ execute the office of a king?” Westminster Larger Catechism number 45. You can even Google it and it will come up. And it says this:
“Christ executes the office of a king in calling out of the world a people to Himself and giving them officers, laws and censures, by which he visibly governs them; in bestowing saving grace upon his elect, rewarding their obedience, and correcting them for their sins, preserving and supporting them under all their temptations and sufferings, restraining and overcoming all their enemies, and powerfully ordering all things for his own glory, and their good; and also in taking vengeance on the rest, who know not God, and obey not the gospel.”
The catechism tells you there that the way that Jesus exercises His office of a King over you, the way that He makes you His kingdom, His body, His family, His temple is He governs you by the Word. So every time you come to church, it is a ministry of Jesus to you as King to govern your hearts by the Word. Every time you come to church it’s a ministry of Jesus to you as your King to govern your hearts by His Word. His Word – He visibly governs us by His Word.
What else does He do? He bestows His saving grace on us. Did we not hear Ryan beautifully sing about that just a few minutes ago? The people that are of His kingdom are rebels and sinners and vile wretches welcomed into His family. Boy do we need that. You know, if only good people can come to His kingdom, we’re all condemned. I’ve told you this before. I love the very first vow of membership at First Presbyterian Church because it says this – Good people need not apply to First Presbyterian Church – “Do you acknowledge yourself to be a sinner in the sight of God, justly deserving His displeasure?” That’s the very first thing you say when you join First Presbyterian Church – you acknowledge that you are not a good person. Only people that are welcomed into Jesus’ kingdom, into Jesus’ temple are sinners that He redeems by His saving grace. And then He disciplines us. That’s a blessing. That’s an exercise of His kingship. And He preserves us, supports us in the trials and suffering and temptation of life. And He protects us from our enemies and He orders everything – listen to this – He orders everything for His glory and for our good simultaneously. Everything. And so when you experience Jesus’ providence in your life, you are experiencing His kingship.
Anne and Jennings and I had to bury our dogs yesterday in Starkville. And earlier this week, Anne and I had to decide it was time to put them down. And I want to tell you, there is never a time in life when I less like that authority and responsibility – when it’s a beloved pet and family member that you’re having to make a decision for – they have no idea what’s going on and you have to make a decision for them; you are the authority in their life. And one thing that comes out of that for me is, I just think, “Lord God, thank You that I am not sovereign over the lives of people that I love. Thank You that I am not sovereign over people’s lives, but thank You that You are.” And I get to be the messenger of comfort about God’s sovereign providence in your life, even though I’m not sovereign over your life. And you’ve got a Sovereign who you can trust with your life because He’s got the power to make everything work for your good. “God makes all things work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.” Do you understand, that is an exercise of Jesus’ kingship and I’m getting to tell you about it today. And I’m thankful that I don’t have that kingship over you, but an infinitely wise, infinitely good, infinitely powerful King does, and He can make everything in your life work together for your good. Praise God He’s our King.
Let’s pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word and we rejoice that You are our King. And so help us, O God, to sing to Your praises the same. We ask this in Jesus’ name, amen.