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So if you're watching or listening to this or and you're in one of our churches or you're gathered with somebody in a living room or somewhere, and you would say, you know what? I'm not really a Christian anymore. I grew up in church, but I'm not a Christian anymore. Or maybe you never embrace Christianity at all and you're not even interested in Jesus. And maybe somebody's making you watch or they're forced you to come to church with them today. I just want to begin by saying something to you before we jump into the content. If you're not a Jesus follower, my hunch is that the Jesus that you're not interested in based on what you know about Jesus, based on how Jesus was presented to you by friends or by the church, the Jesus that maybe you're not interested in is not the Jesus that Matthew and John knew. It's not the Jesus that Mark and Luke introduce us to. It's not the Jesus that James, the brother of Jesus, grew up with. And if the teaching of Jesus as it was presented to you did not strike you as good news, and I'm not trying to be, you know, cool, but this is. I don't know any other way to say it. If it didn't strike you as good news, it really may have been the original and ultimate fake news. So I'm so glad that you're listening, watching, that you're here in one of our churches today or you're here in the room with me, because I so want you. And we started this conversation last week. I so want you. And I want us, and I want me. And honestly, and this is kind of a big wish, but I so want our nation, and I so want the world to recognize and to appreciate and ultimately to accept Jesus for who Jesus claimed to be, for who Jesus is, and specifically for those for who he is and who those who knew him best knew him to be and who his enemies feared that he might be. And I want us to discard and abandon the versions of Jesus that reduce him, that reduce Jesus to, you know, in case of emergency, you know, call Jesus, you know, say prayers, sin, forgiver, and forget her. You know, if you sin, you just forgive your, you know, ask him to forgive. You know, you reduce him to that. The versions that reduce Jesus to, you know, heaven guarantee her. For so many of us, we were raised that Jesus is your ticket to heaven. That's kind of how he's introduced, or maybe later on he was a fellow sufferer or, you know, to be Kind of snarky, you know, hashtag besties, like my best friend. Jesus is my best friend. And are those things true? Well, maybe two and a half of those things are true. But here's the point. In our home, Sandra does all the cooking. I've never introduced her to anybody as my cook. You know, you don't do that. But one time right now, does she do all the cooking? Is she the cook in her home? Yes. Have I introduced her? I want you to meet. This is Sandra, my cook. No. And at the same time, I'm great. She's never introduced me as the snake remover. This is Andy. Whenever there's a snake in the garage or in the yard or anywhere, Andy removes the snake, you know, that's a function, but that's not. Or Andy. This is Andy, the Amazon box cutter and crusher. And make sure that, you know, 18 giant boxes can fit in the waste management, you know, recycle bin. That's what he does. Oh, yeah, he's my husband, too. Did I mention that? No. And it's kind of funny, but this is, unfortunately, what the church has done with Jesus and what Christians do with Jesus. And so consequently, it's what if you're not a Christian, it's what the world is, of course, what you do with Jesus. We reduce Jesus. And when we reduce Jesus to a function or a role, we can't help but lose sight of who he is. And we can't help but lose sight of what he's done. And we can't help but lose sight of what he came to do. Today's part two of our series, the Last Kingdom. And as I said last time we were together in part one, if you grew up in church, and I'm gonna limit it this time to church, if you grew up in church, you were taught or handed a simple faith template or faith paradigm. I was as well. And this faith paradigm or template, it served kind of as the framework, something to put everything about your Christianity in or hang everything about Christianity on. If it was sort of a template or a framework, you know, you took all your beliefs and your convictions and your traditions and your Christian expectations and how you did baptism and how you did communion and when you could get baptized and when you could take communion, what kind of Bible you read. If you read the Bible, you know which Bible you read. Your framework determines your view of God, your view of sin, your view of Jesus, the forgiveness, the afterlife, you know, all that stuff. But you were given a simple framework, and then you just hung all those things on it. And then you eventually were launched into adulthood. And once you became an adult and a sort of a thinking adult and you sort of owned your own faith and were trying to develop a faith of your own, you might have revised that template you were handed as a child or modified it or modernized it, or you may have found it, and this is so common, you may have found that framework or that template or that synopsis of what Christianity is. You may have found it to be incompatible with the real world and incompatible with your life experience. And people kept trying to, you know, make your life experience fit within this frame or within this box, and you're finally like, I'm out. Okay? And you, you just left it, you walked away from it. But this is why one of the reasons we're doing this series is one of the reasons we do church the way we do the it. The it that oftentimes people leave or walk away from the it as it represents Christianity, the faith they were, you know, handed or taught as a child. The it that they walk away from is a version of the it, but it's not the original it. It's not the it that Jesus followers. This is amazing. Risked their lives to export to the world. Say that again. It couldn't possibly. In other words, if it was that easy for you to walk away from, if it, if it was that easy for you to dismiss, if it couldn't stand up under the pressures of adulthood, clearly it wasn't the it that Jesus. First century disciples risk their lives to export to the world. Because an it that crumbles under the pressures of life isn't an it that's worth exporting. It doesn't hold up. And it's certainly not, as Jesus kept saying over and over, and as the Gospel writer said over and over, that certainly isn't good news. And as we said last time, and I'm gonna dig back into this a little bit, maybe a little bit boring, but I told you last week, I'm gonna repeat and rinse and repeat because I just so want you to get this to the point where it's like, okay, we got it, we got it, we got it. Okay. The primary reason for the confusion over the roles of Jesus and Jesus being reduced, the primary reason, in my opinion, maybe the primary reason for the confusion is that something was lost, as we did last time, something was lost in translation. In fact, actually it was a lack of translation. Beginning all the way back with the original Latin translation of the Gospels. The Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were written in Greek. As time went on, the language of merchants, the language of the west, the language of culture. And the first and second and third centuries began to drift away from Greek and toward Latin. So eventually somebody sat down and translated the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John into Latin so the common people could understand. And then after a while, that was replaced in the 4th century by the Vulgate. Perhaps you're familiar with this term, around 382. And this is an important date because this is really just a few years, historically speaking, after Rome authorized Christianity and after Rome embraced Christianity as this sort of the official religion. They didn't call it religion back then, religion of the Roman Empire. And St. Jerome decided, hey, we've got to have a translation of the Bible that Latin speaking people can understand. And so they translated, with some help, translated the entire Bible, but the New Testament in particular is what we're talking about. And the Vulgate became the official. This is important. The Vulgate became the official Bible of the church from the 4th century all the way through the 17th century and beyond. So for over a thousand years, Mass was done in Latin. You know this even after a time when people in regions of the world, people didn't even speak Latin, Mass was not in Latin. The Bible was in Latin. So for over a thousand years, the Greek term that we find in the Greek New Testament, Christos that we talked about last time, which is. Has a meaning, it means anointed one, referring to somebody who's been anointed as a king. That Greek term was transliterated rather than translated. That is, you take the letters of one language and you find the corresponding letters in another language and you create a new word. And so Jerome, Jerome, back in the 4th century, like his predecessors, took the Latin equivalent of Greek letters and simply created a new Latin term, Christus. And this is what appeared in the Vulgate in the Latin scripture, the Latin Bible. That was the official Bible of the Church for over a thousand years. And by the time the Reformers came along in the 15th century, Christus was standard church terminology, which means, and this is kind of negative, but just to make the point, which means the Church was stuck with it and we're still stuck with it, and it's never going to change. And that's okay. The goal of the series isn't to change what we find in our English New Testament, but the transliterated Christus in Latin made its way into our English text, as we said last time, as Christ. And because of this, the meaning of this term, the meaning of this term was lost. The significance of this term was lost in translation or in transliteration. And Christ, the word Christ became instead of a title, it became a name. In fact, most people in the church today think somehow the term Christ is a name, or it's like Jesus last name, or it's just another name for Jesus. In fact, people use it interchangeably with the name Jesus. And so for the most, for most people, Jesus identity as a king and his purpose for coming was reduced to a list of roles he played. So who Jesus became the teacher and the comforter and the defender of the poor. And Jesus, it was reduced to the services he performed. Well, Jesus is the, you know, the sin forgiver. He paid for our sin, he explained. All of which is true. But the result for many people, in fact the result for most people in the church, and the result for, unfortunately for most modern Christians, and maybe for you, when it comes right down to it, practically speaking, is Jesus became and became a means to an end, a means to our end. But as we saw last time, and we're going to see further today, the men and women who knew Jesus personally knew better. For them, they make it so clear. He was in fact the Christ. Not a nickname, not a surname, it was a title, it was a royal title. He was in fact a king. He was God's final king who came to establish a kingdom, who came to establish God's final kingdom on earth. And what does that have to do with you? What does it have to do with me? And what does that have to do with us? Don't leave early. As king, Jesus did not come primarily to die. Jesus came to do what kings do. He came to reign, to establish a kingdom, a kingdom that would last forever. Again, the last. And here's what I would bet. If you had no faith tradition, if you had no knowledge of Christianity, if you were a blank slate when it comes to religion, and you were to pick up a New Testament, and you understood as you begin to read the New Testament that the term Christ refers to a king, an anointed one, God's final king. If you knew that going in the reality of who Jesus is and who the people who knew him best knew him to be, that reality leaps off the pages at you. From Matthew all the way through revelation, there's 27 books in the New Testament. The term Christ shows up 496 times because the authors of the New Testament did not want us to miss the point. He was not simply a rabbi, a miracle worker, or a sin forgiver. He was a king. He was born a king in Matthew and Luke. He was crucified as a king in Mark and John. He's acknowledged as a king through Acts and all the epistles, and he returns as a king in the book of Revelation. In other words, put it this way. And again, if this kind of rattles you, I'm so glad. I just hope it just rattles you enough to pick up your New Testament and start reading, because it's everywhere. Put it this way, if the life of Jesus was a puzzle, the box top would not be three crosses on a hill. Jesus death isn't the story a resurrected king. And it is the story the New Testament authors are begging for us to see. So for the next few minutes, I'm going to do a quick flyover of the New Testament. Not the entire New Testament, but some of it, a lot of it. And the point is, I want you to see it to the point that you can never for the rest of your life unsee it. And I want the significance of this. And we're going to pick up on the significance of this in the next three weeks as we continue the series. But I want, you're smart people, you don't even need anybody to tell you if this is true. I want the significance of this to seep into your lives because that was the point that the apostles and the writer, authors of the New Testament were trying to make. So let's begin with the first book of the New Testament. Matthew. This is repeat if you were here around Christmas time. Yes, I'm repeating on purpose. Matthew, chapter one, verse one, the first verse in the New Testament. Here it is. Nobody buries the lead. This is the genealogy of Jesus Christ. Jesus King Jesus, the anointed one doesn't bury the lead 17 verses later just to make sure we don't miss it. Now, this is the birth of Jesus Christ Jesus, the anointed one. This is the story of the birth of a king. Moving on to Mark, Matthew, Mark. Mark, Chapter one, verse one. Mark doesn't want to bury the lead either. Mark got his information from Peter, who is an eyewitness of the life of Jesus. He begins the beginning of the good news about Jesus Christ, the son of God. So what are you writing about? I'm writing about good news. If you read my gospel, Mark would say, and it doesn't strike you as anything but good news, you haven't read it correctly. So let me make it clear. This is a story about really good news for everybody. It's the story of Jesus God's anointed king. Thirteen verses later, we're not even out of the first chapter of Mark. Listen to this. He says that Jesus went into Galilee proclaiming the good news of God. Now here's the thing. If you were to ask most Christians, and if I were to ask you, hey, what is the good news of God? Our Sunday school answer is, the good news of God is that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. That is not what Jesus was teaching. He hadn't died. He's still around. And he's going around Galilee and eventually Judea, and he's preaching and teaching the good news of God. Well, what in the world is he talking about? It's not about his death and resurrection. And for three and a half years he preaches and teaches and preaches and teaches. What was he proclaiming before that? So, fortunately for us, Mark tells us, here's Jesus message. The time has come. My brothers and sisters of Abraham, you've been waiting. You were told that God was going to send a final prophet, a final king. Sometimes I've been referred to as the Son of man, the Son of God, the Son of the Blessed One. And the time has come. God has finally done what you prayed for centuries he would do. The kingdom of God has come near Jesus. What do you mean, the kingdom of God? Everywhere in the New Testament, you see the phrase the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven. Think the reign and the rule of God. The reign and the rule of God. Specifically, as we discover the reign and the rule of God through Christ the King. That's what the phrase the kingdom of God means. It means the reign and the rule of God. And Jesus says, the kingdom is near because the king is here. The kingdom is near because the king is in town. The kingdom is near because the king has touched down. This was not. He was not predicting a future event. This is fulfillment language. He says, the king is here. The kingdom of God is near. And here's what I want you to do. I want you to repent and believe this good news. When we see the word repent, we think about repent from sin. And it's certainly used that way. But the Greek word repent simply means to change your mind and in changing your mind, choose a different course of action. And Jesus is saying, I want you to repent from some wrong thinking. And I want you to begin to see different and think different. And the king has arrived to help you do just that. Jesus invites his audience and he invites all of us to turn toward and embrace Something good, something that would impact the way we view the world, something that would impact the way that we see ourselves. Something that would impact the way that we see the people around us. And then he expands on this idea in his most famous proclamation or his most famous sermon that we call the Sermon on the Mount. And as you read the Sermon on Mount, these statements, they just begin to pop up everywhere once you have this paradigm or this filter through which to read the New Testament. But listen to this statement that you have quoted before. You've heard it so many times before. But within this new framework, the king is speaking. And listen to what he says to this audience as they're just beginning to grasp whose presence they're in. He says, here's what I want you to do. I want you to seek first, pursue first, make it a priority. First is in ahead of everything else that you seek. And we all have multiple things we feel like we need to seek. He says, I understand that, but what I want you to seek first is his kingdom and his righteousness. Righteousness. Righteousness. He's referring to the king's take, the king's take on what is right, the king's take on what is just. He says, I want you to put on, and I want you to embrace my view of justice and my view of rightness and my view of how the world should work. Because God our Father, created the world to work in such a way, and he created you to live in such a way. And Jesus says, the king has arrived. The kingdom is being established, and you are all invited to participate in it. But in order to understand it, you've got to make it the priority. You have to seek first the kingdom of God. Then in the same sermon, and again, we can quote this, he tells us how to pray. He told them how to pray because they weren't praying correctly. He tells us how to pray because we don't pray correctly. We ask God for many, many, many things. And Jesus was very specific. When you pray, when you pray about the things that break your heart and burden you and the things that need to happen in your family and in your work and at school, he says, don't forget to pray this. Always pray your kingdom come, your will be done. At school, at work, in my marriage, in our home, in our neighborhood, in our world, in our nation, do we pray that? Do we? When we see the word kingdom, what comes to mind? Generally, the wrong things. But the king had shown up, and he's trying to reorient his audience toward what he had come to do to establish a kingdom on earth and invite everyone to participate in it. In fact. In fact, this will challenge you to go back and read the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew starts in Matthew 5, the Sermon on the Mount. Do you know what it is? It is a crash course. It is a crash course on how kingdom people act, react, how they pray and how they prioritize and how they treat other people. In fact, his message that we call the Sermon on the Mount was repeated over and over and over and over. This was his standard message. Matthew, a tax collector, a wealthy man who had scribes working for him. He knocked it out. He got all the significant parts and laid it out for us. This was the message that Jesus taught over and over and over and over. The king is here. The kingdom has come and you are invited to participate in it. And this is what it looks like to participate in the kingdom of God. Matthew, Mark onto Luke. Last week we looked at the first chapter of Luke. I'm going to read it again. The angel appears to Mary. The king isn't even in town yet. The king is being predicted. And the angel says to Mary, the king will be great. He will be called the Son of the Most High and the Lord God. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. Within the context of this Jewish society, this meant so much to them, but they had no idea it was going to be so much bigger. The throne of his father David. And he will reign and his kingdom will never end. Matthew, Mark, Luke. On to John. John. Chapter one. This is amazing. Now John again is an eyewitness of what we know happened in the life of Jesus. He was with Jesus from the beginning. He's one of the original disciples. Peter, Andrew, James and John. You've heard these names when Andrew, Peter, Andrew, James and John. Andrew. Andrew was a group of was of young men who were disciples of John the Baptist. And when John the Baptist baptizes Jesus and says, guys, I'm not the guy, he's the guy. You've been following me. You would do well to follow him. Many of John's disciples, the scripture tells us, went and began to follow Jesus. And Andrew is one of those men, those young boys. And he heard Jesus teach. And when he heard Jesus teach, it's like, John the Baptist was not kidding. This is the guy. And he goes to find his brother who will become the most famous disciple, Peter. Listen to what John tells us in John chapter one. The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon, Simon Peter, and tell him this is so significant. Don't miss this. And to tell him, we have found the Messiah. Now John is documenting. John is probably dictating this or writing this, but probably dictating this. He wrote this when he was a very old man. And he stops and he thinks, wait a minute. He uses the Greek term for Messiah. But then he remembers, most of my audience, they don't know what a Messiah is. And he actually pauses. There are no parentheses, there's no punctuation in the Greek text. This is for English readers. He pauses and he wants us to know with such clarity. He repeats himself and uses a Greek term to make sure his non Greek readers know exactly what he's talking about. Messiah means anointed one, but non Jewish people don't know that. So he uses the other term as well, Christ that all of his Greek readers would understand as anointed one. That's how clear he wanted to make it in this Gospel. Isn't that amazing? Then story goes on still in John chapter one, after encountering Jesus, Nathaniel, who would then become one of Jesus famous disciples. When Jesus, when Nathanael meets Jesus, Jesus says something about him that there's no way that Jesus could have known unless Jesus was special. And Nathaniel is like taken aback. And Nathaniel responds. Text says, he answered Jesus. He said, rabbi, whoa, you're the Son of God. You are the king of Israel. You are the one we were told was coming and we'd all given up hope. And I'll let you read it for yourself. Jesus response to this. Basically he says to Nathaniel, nathaniel, you think that was cool? You ain't seen nothing yet. And then just in case we miss it and we read the entire Gospel of John and we get to the end and we still haven't picked up on the plot line because we've been so confused by the language. And we're still thinking just in terms of the framework of the things Jesus came to do rather than who Jesus is. At the very end of the Gospel of John, John's like, okay, I want to make sure my readers don't miss this. And he ends his gospel with a purpose statement. Now, do you remember in English class we wrote papers in high school or college or graduate school, you kind of had to have like, what's the purpose? You had a purpose statement. Or the big idea they would call it. And so John leaves off, or he ends his gospel with the big idea and he tells us why he wrote this particular account of the life of Jesus. Here's what he says at the end of his Gospel, he Says Jesus. And this is so important. He said, Jesus performed many other signs. He doesn't use the word miracle. He uses the word sign. Because the entire book of John is outlined around seven. Some people say eight, but seven or eight, we would call them miracles. John says, they're not just random miracles. They're not random acts of kindness. They are signs. What's the point of a sign? What's the purpose of a sign? A sign points to something. He says, don't you understand? These miraculous things Jesus did, they weren't just random acts of kindness. He was pointing to the fact of who he is and the title he claimed for himself. Jesus performed many other signs as well in the presence of his disciples. There were eyewitnesses for all of this which are not recorded in this book. He said, I didn't put them all in here, I just picked a few. He said, but I picked these few on purpose. But these signs or these miracles that I included are written with a purpose. It's a henna clause in Greek with the purpose that you would believe something. Now, this is the same John that brings us John 3:16. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that if you believe in him, you won't be lost to God, you won't perish Apollumi. You won't be lost to God. Believe what John's like. Oh, you mean you got to the end of my entire gospel. You still don't know what to believe? Let me tell you what's critical for you to believe. I wrote this so that you would believe that Jesus is ha. Christos. This is so important. He includes the definite article. It appears all over the New Testament. We miss this as well. Jesus Christos, or Christ is not a definition, is not a name. It's the title that Jesus is the. Or the anointed one, the King, God's final king. I wrote this entire Gospel of John to convince my readers of who Jesus is and why he came. And then he doubles down Jesus that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. And that by believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, you might have life in his name. Again, going back to Mark, let me repeat that. Mark got his information from Peter. Peter was illiterate. We know that from the Book of Acts. Peter, Andrew, James and John, they were fishermen. They were hard workers. They were probably successful. They were going to inherit their father's business. But there were illiterate men that Acts tells us they were uneducated men. So when Peter sat down to tell the story of the. His. His story with his life with Jesus, his experiences with Jesus. He dictates these to Mark, who is Greek. And Mark documents what happened after Jesus was arrested, because again, Peter was there. He was hanging back. Worst day of his life, worst mistake of his life. But they knew what was happening. And they had people inside the homes of the Pharisees and Caiaphas, servants who within information leaked out. We know that from the book of Acts as well. When Jesus was arrested, he was beaten, he was mocked, he was spun around in circles, and he was questioned by the high priest. And in that conversation, we can't imagine the terror and the fear. You're alone. It's late at night, it's early in the morning, actually, but it's dark outside. And all of your closest friends have run away and abandoned you. And they're questioning him over and over and over, trying to get him to say something that they could use to say that he blasphemed and he deserved the death sentence. So finally they get down to it. Okay, just tell us now. Ready? This is important. The church may have misunderstood who Jesus is. His enemies did not. They understood exactly what he was claiming. So just tell us, are you or are you not? Definite article. The Christ, the one sent from God, the anointed one, God's final king. And then they double down, but they can't use the name God because they wouldn't allow themselves to do that because they were so holy, even though they have. Even though they are in the presence of God's Son. So tell us, are you the Christ? Are you the Son of the Blessed One? And Jesus answer will condemn him or potentially set him free. Who would lie in a moment like that? And Jesus said, I am a king. If this is all we had, this is all we need. And the text says, and they condemned him to be deserving of death. Look up here. Not because of what he taught, because of who he claimed to be the Christ, God's final king. And I could go on and on and on and on and round and round and round. New Testament book after New Testament book after book after New Testament book. It is everywhere. And it is so important. It's important for so many reasons. And we're gonna explore some of those in the next three weeks. But let me just kind of be negative for a moment about us, me included. One of the reasons this is so important, recognizing who Jesus is a king, is that it reveals, it surfaces, it pulls back the veil from shallow, immature, and in some Ways arrogant. What has he done for me lately? Christianity, don't answer out loud if you know the answer to this, but do you remember, for those of you that read the Bible, do you remember the last thing Jesus decided Jesus disciples did before Jesus left them? This is. This is amazing. Matthew is there. He records it for us. This is, in fact, this says it all. They've all gathered as Jesus has risen from the dead. He sends them to Galilee because Galilee is safe. Back in Judea, in the city of Jerusalem, panic. It's pandemonium. It's like, wait, wait. We killed. We killed the head. You know, we cut off the head of the snake, and now there's more of them than ever. What in the world has happened? They are in this. You know, this is. This is crazy talk that he rose from the dead and know that there's the tomb thing and there's pandemonium and there. And we got to. If we can't find the body, let's find Peter, let's find Andrew, let's find the other guy. So they all. Jesus says, meet me in Galilee. So they go north to Galilee. And Matthew, who's there. This is amazing picture of this. Matthew says that when Jesus came to us or when we came to where he was waiting, that when we saw him, we worshiped him. Now, these are Jewish young men. You can't even have an image of God. You can't even have representations. You can't even have art that represents God. You're not going to worship a person. I mean, that's what Caesar has been trying to get us to do, you know, since Rome. You know, since Pompey came and took the temples in 63 B.C. rome has been trying to get us to worship a person. We're not ever worshiping a person. We're worshiping the invisible God. And in this moment, these young men worship their rabbi. If that's all we had, that's all we need. And Matthew's so honest. He says, but some doubted. But of course they did. They saw him crucified, and there he stands. Of course, there would be some who doubted, but those who recognized him, they worshiped him. And his response? Well, first of all, he acknowledged and received and accepted their worship. He didn't be like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, guys, no, get up. Come on. I'm just me. Jesus. No, he accepted it. And his response, this is a statement. I know I've said it before. I'll keep saying it. This is a statement that doesn't get the airplay it deserves, it is large ignored. This would change so much. I don't want to say it would change everything. It would change so much if the church, especially if evangelicals and fundamentalists and conservative Christians, if everybody would pause and strip away all the preconceived ideas and let this one statement punch through and take hold of our conscience and become the filter through which we experience life and treat people and read the Bible. Jesus stands there and he makes this extraordinarily large claim. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Who would say such a thing? Within the context of the first century world, there was only one person who could claim authority over a piece of real estate or over a kingdom. And that's the king. This is king language. And he says to these, he says to this ragtag group of people who are fearing for their lives now, they're outlaws. They're gonna be hunted down. Several of them will be martyred soon, the rest probably later. And he says to them, I have authority over heaven. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Who would say such a thing? Not somebody who's just a sin forgiver or a rabbi or a teacher or a comforter or a good example. Only a king. God's final king who owes us nothing and gave us everything. He's the king who can be trusted with everything because he's the good king who can be trusted with everything without fear. Because he's the king who came not to ask us to give our lives for him, but came to give his life for us and turned everything upside down. He's the king who came to reverse the order of things. And he didn't come to die. He came to reign. And he established his kingdom on earth. And you are invited, and I am invited to participate in it. And when men and women embrace the values of the king, that piece of real estate gets better and those families get better and those communities get better and those nations get better because he's the king. So, gotta wrap this up if you aren't already a follower of Jesus. And I know I don't have any right to tell you what to do, but you should at least consider accepting his invitation to follow. Because his kingdom has come and in the end, his will will be done. And here's what we know. Happy. That's the, the New Testament word is blessed, but it means happy. Happy or blessed are those who choose to participate in his kingdom. And the other reason you should consider it is the apostles tell us, and I'll just choose one piece of text. But they all say this. Jesus said this. The reason you should at least consider this is because that someday, someday at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow. This is astounding. Paul said, see, one day, look up here, everyone is going to have that moment like the disciples did, when they're like, oh, you are who you claim to be. And in that moment, we won't ask all of our stupid questions. We will worship the king. And we have been invited to jump in and do it ahead of time as a commercial announcement to the rest of the world that the king has come and the king is coming. Listen to the rest of this. That at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow. Those who are in heaven, those who are on earth, and everyone who died previously, and not only every knee. And every tongue will confess, every tongue will recognize, everyone will get it, everyone will see it. That Jesus, God's anointed king, is the boss, is the Lord, has the right to rule to the glory of God the Father. This is what Matthew wanted us to understand, what Peter wanted us to understand. Why Luke wrote his orderly account, why John wrote his account, why Luke wrote the book of Acts. To say, look at how this played out in this part of the world and look at how this played out in the world. And who would have imagined that by the early 4th century, Rome would recognize what we miss? Jesus is a king. And we will pick it up right there next time in part three of the Last Kingdom. Pray together. Father, we're so limited. We all have a template. We all have pain. We all have unanswered questions. Have mercy on us. Have mercy on us. Have mercy on us and give us eyes to see what maybe we've never seen before. Not just in an academic sense, not just in, oh, I learned something new sense. I pray that it would seep down out of our minds and into our hearts and into our emotions, that it would become the filter through which we see the world and the people in the world and the people in our world. It would be the filter through which we see ourselves and our children and our husbands and our wives and our friends and our enemies. Help us to be kingdom people who live this out in such a way that people are amazed even if they never believe what we believe. They're just amazed at how we treat them and how we treat, treat each other, how we act, and most importantly, react. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth, here and now, as it is in heaven. We pray in Jesus the King's name. Amen.