← North Point Community Church
North Point Community Church
The Last Kingdom, Part 3: Beyond Pledging Allegiance // Joel Thomas
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
A
Well, I want to welcome all of our Atlanta area campuses as well as partner churches. Those of you who are joining us from across the country and around the world, thrilled to have you with us today. Special shout out to those of you down at Southside. Excited about the season that's coming up for you and it's kind of fun. With the last few weeks, we've been connecting with a lot of our churches through these vision nights. And I was up at North Point 2 weeks ago this past Wednesday night. We had our vision night here on Wednesday and thrilled to be with you guys up at Brownsbridge this coming Wednesday night for our vision night. In fact, I'll just say this, a couple of weeks ago, we had some bad weather on the Wednesday night when we had the vision night at North Point. And if some of you missed it because of that, Adam Johnson has assured me they're not going to pull a Costco on us and check membership cards. So you're welcome to join us if you want to join us for that. And for those of you at Buckhead as well, if you missed Wednesday night and you want to come, I know it's a long way otp, but pack a lunch. You'll be fine, I promise. You'll do just fine out there. Several months ago I was in a store and I was, I don't know if you've done this before. I don't do two things well at once. And I was in the store supposedly picking up some things for my wife from the store on my way home. And I was on a phone call and could not remember what I was supposed to be picking up at the store and the text message was on my phone. So I was walking, sort of pacing in an aisle, talking to somebody on the phone. And I noticed as I was walking back down one way, there was a guy around the end of the aisle that peeked around the end of the aisle and looked at me weird. And then he went away. And then, so I just kept walking and I turned back and then I turned back around, I came back down the aisle and I saw him peek around the aisle again and he looked at me like strange. We kind of caught eyes and I just kind of turned and kept walking. I was like, I don't know what's going on here. But I got off the phone call and he comes around. He goes, hey, hey, how do I know you? I know we've met before, you know, do we meet somewhere? Are we friends? And I, you know, this isn't the first time something like this has happened to me in public. But I was like, well, do you shop here often? He goes, I work here. And I was like, okay, well, do you live around here? And he's like, yeah. He's like, but that's not. I was like, do you go to church somewhere around here? He goes, that's it. That's it. You're the chalkboard guy. I was like, yep, I guess I am the chalkboard guy. I haven't been the chalkboard buyer in a few weeks, but we brought it back today, so we'll get to that in just a minute. But a couple of you applying. Thank you. I appreciate the applause for the chalkboard. Here's the interesting thing about that, is this is something I do, but it's not who I am. And maybe some of you, you've experienced this. There's things that you do in life, or there's a role you play, or you have a function in life. You know, maybe on the side, you're an Uber driver, or you were serving this morning out in the parking lot, and people know you as the parking lot guy, and you serve different functions. You serve different roles, but it's not. It's not your total identity. It's not who you are. And innocently, this is what we do. We identify people. Think about this. We often do this. We identify people by attributing an identity to them based on who they are to us or a role that they play for us in our lives, which often leads us to misidentify people. Now, this is something we've been talking about in this series because we often misidentify Christ. And in this series, the series called the Last Kingdom, we're talking about Christ's role as king. Because for many of us, our version of faith or Christianity is based on who Jesus. And maybe limited just to who Jesus was to us or what we were taught he would be for us. And for most of us, primarily, we came to learn of him first as Savior. And there's nothing wrong with this. He is our Savior. And because of him, our sin was forgiven and our debt was paid and our future was secured. And because of this, oftentimes we, in life, we relate mostly to Jesus just as Savior, because that's the function. That's the role he played in our lives. And for many of us, you know, it was a season of our lives where we chose to go our own way, and we found ourselves in a bad place. We were lost, and we were in need of a savior. Maybe somebody invited you to an environment like this. Or somebody just shared their story about how they found their way out of a mess that they were in the middle of. And they pointed to this person, Jesus as a savior. And that was a light to lead you out of the dark season that you were in. But here's the thing. For many of us, our perspective on Jesus got stuck there and he was reduced to not just a savior, but to fire insurance in our lives and a get out of jail free card. And because of he's taking care of our future someday in our eternity, our eternity someday in the future. The truth is, is in our lives oftentimes he becomes our co pilot in life. Now, now to be clear, I want you to say, cause I've heard this from a few people. We're not saying that he's not savior. He is and it's important. But don't miss this. To just say that Jesus was a savior is actually incomplete. The last two weeks we've been unpacking from the scriptures several places. Prominent roles in the scriptures. But not just prominent, we can't cover all of them because there's so many. But the role of Jesus as king, which is by far the most prominent and most frequent title associated with Jesus in the New Testament. As a matter of fact, Jesus is identified as Christos some 500 times, almost 500 times in the New Testament. And Christos, this, this Greek word for us got transliterated in your New Testament. In the Gospels and in the other New Testament writers transliterate this as Christians, which is, is a made up word. Actually the Christ or the Christ that's, it's just a transliteration of Chrysos. And, and we just took the letters and made them an English word out of this. But if we were actually to translate this word Chrysos, it means anointed one or it means king. Now you take those some 500 references to Jesus as the anointed one, or Jesus as God's anointed king or his final king. And then you add to that the number of times he's associated with a kingdom or a new kingdom, which is roughly 150. It's a little over 150 times in the New Testament. And the idea of this new kingdom and this new king that came was, is the most prominent theme in the New Testament. But many of us have missed that. That's not been on the forefront. It wasn't emphasized to us. Some of that is because we don't live in a society that has kings. But more it's because we've related to Jesus in the way that he. That we first experienced him, we were introduced to him and what he was to us. But Jesus launched his public ministry with a declaration. We looked at this last week. The declaration was this. The time has come. He said the kingdom of God has come near. So Jesus at the very beginning of his ministry. I want to highlight there's three things that, that he said over and over. If you look in the Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The four accounts of Jesus life. Two written by eyewitnesses. One, Mark getting his information from Peter, who was an eyewitness. Luke, who thoroughly investigate all these things. These three things come up over and over at the beginning of Jesus ministry. And the first thing he says when he's teaching, which again, a lot of this was written down in scrolls. And so it was documented. And these New Testament writers, they documented these things meticulously. They were copied meticulously. But these scrolls contain the most important information and the most important information gets repeated. And throughout the Gospels, this idea that the time has come. There's a. There was a new time, a new season that Jesus was inaugurating or initiating in the world. And the new season was a new reign, a new reign or a new rule of God and in the world. And again, this is at the very beginning. This is Mark, chapter one, verse 15. Fifteen verses in. And Mark says, here's something, you know, Jesus said at the beginning. The time has come and the kingdom of God is near. It's here and it's here in the form of a king, of a savior. So he says, repent. Repent and believe the good news. The good news of what? The good news of a new kingdom and a king that's going to bring and restore what is good. God has sent his final kingdom. And this good news, this is what we celebrate at Christmas. He brought good news. It would be of great joy for all the people. So the second message is the time has come to repent, which is a word we most often associate with sin. But actually this word repent in the New Testament, it comes from two Greek words. And the two Greek words are this, meta and noeo. Meta. Noeo and meta just means with or after. And noeo means understanding. So you put this together with or after you having this new understanding. Or another way to say that is after thoughtful consideration. Here's the way you may have heard it translated. It means change your mind. Change your mind after thoughtful consideration of who this king is and this, this kingdom that's come. And so Jesus is not saying, hey, I'm. I'm not asking you to just, to just jump or to jump to some, you know, something that's not trustworthy or the new fad of the day. Here's what I want you to do. With thoughtful consideration after understanding who I am in this kingdom that's come, this kingdom that's come near, I want you to change your mind about who and what you're going to pledge allegiance to. This was dangerous and it was divisive in their world because at that time, the people were forced to pledge allegiance to Rome and to the emperor of Rome. But the Hebrew people were a ruled people and they were not a priority to their ruler. They were not the Roman citizens. And yes, they came. The emperor declared peace for all of the land. Pax Romana. And we're going to create a way for, for everyone in the kingdom to thrive. But the truth was, is the Hebrew people were not only not prioritized, they didn't have much hope in the rulers authorities to meet their needs because they often went with their needs not being met. And so they had to fend for themselves. So one of the first things Jesus has said as he begins to teach this, and Matthew captures this right at the beginning of Jesus most famous sermon. Here's what he says. He says, therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, about your body or what you will wear. Which this is language that a king would say, I'm going to take care of you. You don't have to worry about that stuff. Besides, is life more? Is. Is. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothes? Which is another way of saying, look, you know this, but don't you have more to live for than just what you're going to wear and what you're going to eat? And you're like, I hope people aren't paying too much attention to how much time I spend thinking about what I'm gonna wear and what I'm gonna eat. But that's actually not what was going on with them. They were going without. This represents the most basic needs of their lives. They didn't have the luxury of not worrying about these things. But Jesus shows up as a king. He says, if you were to read on, he says, look God the Father. Look how he's created the world and he feeds the birds of the air and he clothes the flowers. Aren't you more valuable to him than they are? So he says it again. He says, don't worry. You don't have to worry saying, what shall we eat and what shall we drink? And what shall we wear? 4. The Pagans, which, this isn't a derogatory term, seems like one, but it's just basically saying the people that don't trust in God, the people that don't believe in Yahweh, the pagans run after all these things. They prioritize all these things they're trying to get for themselves. But your Heavenly Father, he knows that you need them and he will supply your needs. So instead, instead of worrying about all this stuff, here's what I want you to make priority. I want you to seek first the salvation of your souls. Right? No, it's not actually what he says. And some of you know that that's not what the scripture says. But you would think from the way we've been taught and, and oftentimes the traditions that many of us come from, that it's like this is what it's all about is the saving of your soul, the securing of your eternity, which is part of it. But the reality is that's not what Jesus said. That wasn't his lead message. The very beginning of his teachings, at the very beginning of his ministry, he said, look, the time has come and you need to repent. You need to, with careful understanding, think about who you're gonna pledge your allegiance to. And if you're going to pledge your allegiance to me, I'm going to ask you to seek first the kingdom of God, his righteousness, and all that other stuff that you're worried about. That'll be taken care of. That'll be added to you. I'll take care of those things. And while many of us knew that that's what came next. Come on. Isn't it true that it's rarely what we seek first? You knew it came next. But Jesus said, look, you need to seek first the kingdom of God in all things that you do. This is to be the priority of your life. And what I want you to seek first is the kingdom. Value what the kingdom values. I want you to value what the kingdom values. So in all things, in all circumstances, in all situations, I want you to value what the kingdom values. Here's the problem. The problem is Jesus came not only announcing, but modeling the way of a kingdom. That, that was strange. It was backwards. It was an upside down kingdom. It's not what they were used to. And honestly, if we're honest, it's not attractive to us either. Jesus, and you see this throughout the New Testament. He announces a kingdom. And as he announces this kingdom, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Heaven, it's referred to both ways. And by the way, when you see that in the Scriptures, it's interchangeable, he announces this kingdom and declares himself as God's final king in this kingdom. And he begins to talk about the way of this kingdom and how it's different. And he uses several different metaphors for doing this. But Jesus declares the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven. And when he declares the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven, he says this. He says the kingdom of God is led by a king who's come to serve, not to be served, which is something they had never heard of. That's not what you do. You serve the vision, you serve the, the, the. The wishes of the ruler. That's what happens with the king. The king is to be served. He's not there to serve. And this king not only came to serve, he came to sacrifice his life as a ransom for many people. He came to give his life and to sacrifice his life. And he challenged his. His followers to do the same thing. To lay down their lives for their friends to die to themselves and to their own will and to their own way. And instead to put others first. That, that is, that was the way of the kingdom, is to put others ahead of yourselves, to elevate them, to not. To not elevate yourself as the ruler, but to elevate others. And this is what the king came to do. And Jesus says, this is what I want you to seek first. I want you to seek service. I want you to seek sacrifice. I want you to seek putting others first in your life. Here's the problem. The problem and the primary criticism of Christianity. And this isn't gonna be newsflash to you, but it's something we all need to look at. Cause it's like looking in the mirror. Here's the primary criticism of Christianity is that many who call themselves Christians, which is just by definition, means somebody who associates themselves or claims to be a follower of Jesus the Christ. Many who call themselves Christians swear allegiance to a king. They live in defiance of people who associate themselves with King Jesus as his, as their ruler and as their leader, as their God. They swear allegiance to a king, that they live in defiance of his rulership. And the truth is, we confess the authority of Jesus as king, yet we refuse to surrender to his will and his way. We sing songs like Our God reigns and King of Kings. And by the way, if you're here and you're not a Jesus follower. Look, these are things that are necessary for us to talk about. And you may have thought this about Christians, and just so you know, we're just like you. We're not perfect and we're learning to do this. But one of the things that many of us need to learn is that Jesus didn't just come to save us. He came to lead us and to guide us and to direct us. And we sing songs like Our God Reigns and King of My Heart. And there's very little evidence of where he is ruling or in which part of our heart he is reigning. Many are quick to proclaim Jesus as the ruler of the world, just not ready to surrender or submit to him as the ruler of their world. In reality, we resist him as the ruler or authority over our finances, over our sexuality, over how well we treat other people, over our business practices, over our priorities, our thoughts, things that we do in private. Are we okay, by the way? Are we doing okay? Like, I, I, I want you to like me. I really do. I promise. But I want you to trust me, too. I'm not just gonna tell you what you wanna hear. Like, come on, this is important. This is what's good for you, is what Jesus said is to align yourself and surrender yourself to the king. Is it okay if we keep going? That wasn't totally encouraging, but the front row, they, they, they want us to keep going, so I. Too late. You're too late. Sorry. Here's my question, and I'll keep it broad for a second so it's not, it's not too intrusive if someone was investigating our seeking first. Let's just go with our collection of churches, our network of churches. If someone's investigating our seeking first his kingdom, would there be enough evidence of us seeking first his kingdom that it would reflect his kingdom accurately? Would there be enough evidence to convict us as followers and subjects of King Jesus? Now, I'm not excluding myself. I've recently spent a lot of time reflecting on this personally and thinking through this. And listen, I, I'm like you. I have a lot of good reasons to resist being ruled over, submitting my lives, my life to things that are written in this ancient book. After all, this was written a long time ago. And like, I mean, how much of this is kind of cultural? This was a different time, was a different day. People lived differently. It was a simpler life. Things are more complicated now. Listen, I get it. Like you, I understand not only that the rulers of our world are not great in Fact, the scripture talks a lot about different types of rulers. And it's clear that there are kingdom rulers of this world. And it pits oftentimes in the New Testament. You can, you can look this up there, there are several places where the kingdom of God is compared to certain things. There's, there's metaphors that are used for that. And then it is also there. There's the kingdom kings of this world are compared and contrasted to the kingdoms of God. And so there are, there are lots of things we know to be true about the kingdoms of this world, not the least of which that most of the kingdoms of this world, most of the rulers in our world, most of the authorities in our world, most of those throughout history that have been kings or emperors or czars or dictators have consistently acted in ways that are not to serve others, but that are self serving. And they choose to elevate themselves. They choose to accumulate power. Cumul. Cum. Listen. It's tough to talk and write at the same time. People. I do my best, but it's not easy. Cumulate. Accumulate power and wealth and territory and more subjects and more and more for themselves because they have the ability to do so. And they put themselves in the position to do so. Not only that, most often our experience with rulers or authorities in this world, it goes much better for the ruler than it does for the ruled. Is that not true? I mean, and so here's the thing. I get it. I get why we resist that. And we've experienced this, you've experienced this personally in your life in some ways, maybe even some really some painful ways. Maybe it was in your home growing up. Maybe it was a parent or a guardian. Maybe you had somebody else who abused their authority and misused it and it cost you. Maybe it was a boss. Maybe you've seen this in elected officials. There are no shortage of examples of where this has gone wrong in our world. And we don't want to submit or surrender control because of all of this. Right? But there's something beneath that. It's not just what's out there. In my most honest moments, the reason I don't want to submit or surrender control is because I trust me for what's best for me. I trust me for what's best for my life and my future. Over and above trusting anybody else, Including God. Come on. It's easy to clap for, but come on. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. I don't want you to miss this. This is not new and it's not Something that's going away. As a matter of fact, it's what's beneath the first and every subsequent act of disobedience and defiance to God, who gave us the free will to choose, is the fact that I want to be the king of my kingdom. I want to be the ruler of my own kingdom. I trust me and what's best for me over and above trusting God for what's best for me. This is what happened in Genesis 3 with the first humans. They chose to trust themselves over God's instructions. And, and he had only given them one rule. There was only one, thou shalt not. To that point. And the truth was, is they chose to trust themselves, not even the serpent. The temptation was that God's holding out on you. And the desire was to go, you know what? I want to control my own destiny. I want to control my own circumstances. And I'm not going to release control of this area to my life. I'm not going to release control of this decision. There was only one tree that they couldn't eat from, and it was at the center of the garden. They had to travel all the way from the edge of the garden, past a whole bunch of trees they could eat from, to get to the one that was in the center of the garden that they could not eat from. And they still couldn't resist because they thought God was holding out on them. The 16th century theologian Ignatius of Loyola, he described sin this way in the context of the Garden of Eden. He describes sin this way. He said that sin is the unwillingness to trust that what God wants from me is only my deepest happiness. See, oftentimes when we think of being ruled over or of rulers, it's what they can get for us or what they want from us, not what they want for us and our disobedience or our sin. It ultimately stems from a distrust in God. Jesus knew this and he addressed it in the same sermon in Matthew chapter 6. When he started talking about how we should talk to God and relate to God, that was the question he was posed with, how do we approach this God? How should we pray and talk to God the Father? How should we do that if he knows everything we need, how should we pray? And Jesus was very upfront. He's like, look, don't do it. Like you see people in the religious leaders of this day, they're trying to manipulate God. They're trying to use sacrifices to get God to get on their page. They're reciting these prayers, they're trying to look good in front of God. Here's the thing. God knows what you need. Instead of starting with your request, here's how you pray, here's how you approach God. You start with, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. This is a declaration of his authority. There's two couplets in this, this first part of this prayer. I know some of you memorized this whole prayer, but we skipped past this. This is a declaration of his authority as a father in heaven, as a patriarch of the family, this kingdom, family of God. He's the king, he's the authorities, the ruler. And the second part is about submission to his rulership. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Now, most of my adult life, I've read these verses as something we ask God to do, for him to intervene and accomplish this in our world, that we're asking God, would you do this? Would you send your kingdom and may your will be done in our world? Because I know that's what's best. So, God, I'm going to leave it up to you. However, if you carefully examine the grammar, that's not what's going on here. As I said, there's two couplets. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your names. The first, your kingdom come, your will be done, is the second, and there's two petitions in the second, but they're really one and the same. The second reveals how the first is accomplished. The truth is, his kingdom comes as the will of the kingdom is done in our lives. And you and I have been entrusted with free will to align our lives to the kingdom. William Barclay said it this way. He said, the kingdom of God is a society on earth where God's will is as perfectly done as it is in heaven. That's how we bring the goodness of the kingdom of heaven to earth. In fact, that's what we all want. I mean, here's the thing. There's no debate about what we're all after. We all want what is good. The reason you want what is good for your life is because that's what you were created for. In the beginning, when God created, had everything the way he wanted it, when it was perfect, when, when it was as it is in heaven, he called it good. There was that one moment when man was alone and he needed a wife and he needed a significant helper in his life, which we all say amen to. And that was not good. He said that was not good. But once he fixed that, it was good. And he had everything the way he wanted. It was good. Here's the thing. The first lie and the root of all other lies is that God. God can't be trusted to supply you what you really desire. And it's the goodness that you were created for in your life. And that's why Jesus instructs us in the beginning to address him as Father, our Father in Heaven. And he says hallowed, because this Father is a different Father. Now, if you struggle with the metaphor, is Father either cause you had an abusive father or you didn't have a great father. Here's what I want you to know, that there is a. There is that tender idea of Abba Father in the scriptures, that you can relate to God in that way. That's not this word. This word is a different word. It's the word pater. And here's the thing. This points to God as originator, as creator, the cosmic Father, the upholder, the protector of all things. This is a title of honor, hence the word hallowed that it's connected to. This is our Father, the One who supplied everything to us. The reason we have life and breath. And we woke up today to opportunity and freedom that we have. This is a. This is a title that's ascribed with honor in reality. Here's what I want you to know and don't get too hung up on this, but this is going to ruffle some of your feathers and some of. Some of these categories need to be adjust it a bit. In reality, God is not your actual father. Now, as somebody who lost his dad, I've related to God as father and that's a significant role. I've experienced him as father. He invites me to see him in that way. But he's not your actual father, and nor is he a shepherd, which is a weird thing to us anyway because we're not sheep. But God plays that role in our lives and he guides us towards things and he goes, and sometimes he collects us and brings us back, back to safety when we wander off. But the New Testament writers, when they use these metaphors, they're trying to point to pictures of someone worthy of trusting deeply and unconditionally in our lives. That's why we get the metaphors. Someone worthy of being your king, somebody you willingly surrender to. Someone whose advice and instruction you completely trust, even when it doesn't make sense. But it's because of who they are and what they've done that you choose to surrender to them. Years ago, and I've told some of you Parts of this story. But my wife and I followed an assignment that we were given. I really believe that by the Lord. And we went. We moved across the country. And I stepped into a situation that was very difficult. The church had been through some trauma, and it was a very. It was a large church, Very difficult leadership assignment. And I did not know what I was doing. I've been public about that, honest. I was in the middle of a mess. I'd never turned anything around. We were in the middle of a massive decline. And I remember one Sunday, probably in the deepest part of the mess, I was doing everything I knew to. To. To lead us the best I could. I was getting the best advice I could get. And. And I was. I was trying to stay the course. And. And honestly, I was just trying to be obedient to the things that God was. Was leading us to do and doing that in community, using wise counsel. And one Sunday after the service, grandpa type of guy, he comes walking down the aisle at the end of the service. Big old gentleman, he's got an oversized shirt on, a pair of shorts and flip flops. And he walks up to me and says, hey, pastor, if you ever want to go to breakfast with somebody who thinks you're doing a great job, give me a call. I'd love to buy you breakfast. I didn't know anybody who thought I was doing a good job. So you think I took him to breakfast? You bet I did. So I call him and I said, hey, I'd love to go to breakfast. Let's go to breakfast. So I meet up with him, and I'm in the midst of the mess at this time, and I'm not expecting to learn anything from this guy. I'm just expecting to be loved on by somebody. I could use, like, a grandpa type figure in my life at this point. And I got to breakfast, and I wasn't expecting to learn anything from him until I got to know him. And I'll tell you what, when I got to hear his story, I. I started asking him questions about how he got to Arizona. And he said he retired and his kids were there and his grandkids were there. He had amazing family, and he wanted to be near them and wanted to spend his latter years just loving on his family and leading his family and guiding his family and serving his family. And I said, so. So where. Where are you from? He said. I said, are you from the West Coast? He's like, no, no. I grew up in rural Tennessee. And I said, whereabouts? And he told me the name of the town. I'd never heard of it. He says, rural east Tennessee. And I said, well, what was that like? I don't, you know, I don't know that I've ever been to rural east Tennessee. He said, I actually grew up in a house that didn't have indoor plumbing. And he said we were poor, we didn't have anything. He said, I went to church and school in the same one room schoolhouse growing up. He said, but I'll tell you, I'm proud because I was the first one in my family to graduate from high school. And I was the first one in my family to go to college. And actually I was the first one in my family to graduate from college. I started getting curious. I was like, this guy's overcome a lot of odds. Like, okay, so then what, What'd you do next? He began to tell me about some successes that he had in business and success after success and getting promoted and then getting recruited to other people. And I kept thinking, and he would give God credit. He kept giving God credit for all this stuff. I'm like, Dennis, you're, you're a bright guy, you're, you're a smart guy. And, and so he, he kept talking about, you know, the success he was having. And, and he, I said, so, so when you retired, what were you doing? What's, what was your most recent role? He said, oh, I was, I was, I was working for FedEx. And I said, really? I said, what, what did you do for FedEx? He said, I was responsible for all the transportation. I said, dennis, what else does FedEx do besides transportation? He said, oh, that's a big job. He was over all the transportation operations for all of FedEx. Multi billion dollar budget. You never know it. Meeting this guy, the car he drove in, the clothes he wore, so unassuming. And he had a multi billion dollar budget. Bought and sold planes, led all the service stations, led a huge staff team of people. And at that moment I pulled out my iPad and started taking notes. He started to tell me why he thought I was doing a good job. He told me some things I could do that might be helpful. Do you think I listened to him? Oh, yeah. I wrote down every word and I followed it. And I would take him out again and I would spend as much time as I could because of who he was and what he had done. I was willing to trust him. Let me ask you a question. Where do you resist submitting to King Jesus most in your life? What is that area? Or put another way, what are you holding on to that you refuse to let go of? What are you fearful to surrender control of, to trust God with? What are you holding onto for security because you're afraid of what will happen if you surrender it to Him? Is it a relationship? Is it finances? Is it your career? Is it the level of influence he's trusted you with that he's asking you to leverage in a certain way? Way? Is it how you use your eyes and the things that you look at? Is it the things that you listen to and you allow to influence your life? Is it how you spend your time? Is it what you do in secret on your own time? What's that thing that you're holding onto that you resist submitting to him most? You resist surrendering to the instructions that he's given you? And you've got good reasons. You've got all these reasons, but you've also got a bunch of other reasons because of why you know better. And I do too. You see, the reason I think our relating to Jesus often gets limited to limited to Savior is because that way we only have to surrender to him in an area we have no control over anyway. I'll surrender my eternity because I don't know, I don't have any control over that. But my marriage, money, career, things that seem like they're getting ahead even though they're not the right way or not the way of the Kingdom. Here's the thing that will allow us to experience the goodness of of the Kingdom of God one day. But the invitation is to join the King in bringing the kingdom goodness today. Not just one day, here and now, on Earth, in this life as it exists in heaven. When his kingdom comes, his goodness comes. But his kingdom comes when his will is done on Earth as it is in heaven. Ms. This. This is so important. Whatever that thing is that you're holding onto, it really has a hold of you. It's the thing holding you back from the goodness of God in your life. Don't forget our failure as the ruler of our lives is the reason we needed a savior in our lives. Isn't it true? The things that we've messed up in our lives, the things that as we've done our own will and gone our own way, that's when we needed a savior. To only experience Jesus as a savior is to miss out on the goodness he can and will provide in your life as your King. His living and his dying and his saving paved the way for his ruling. It proved he could be trustworthy. Let me ask you who Else is more trustworthy than a ruler who was willing to serve and to sacrifice and to put others first. This is what King Jesus did. And he said, here's the thing. I want to come and I want to save you, but I want to lead you and guide you towards my goodness. That's what I want to supply in your life. And here's what we do. We fight him. And we can say all day long that this is about other rulers, but we operate the same way. Left to our own devices, we fight for rulership of our own lives. Here's the message of Jesus. This is his lead message as he begins his ministry. When he starts out, he doesn't tell anybody about the cross. He says, the time's come. The time's come. That thing you're holding onto. There's a new reign and there's a new rule. So repent with careful consideration, with careful understanding of who the king is and the type of kingdom he's come to bring in your life and the kingdom values that he's presented to you. Change your mind about who your allegiance is to, about what success looks like in this life, about what thriving looks like in this life and the path to it. And then change your mind and seek first his kingdom values. Seek first his way and his will. That's what it means not to just know Jesus as savior, but to surrender to him as your king. Let me pray for you. Maybe as I was standing here with my fists clenched, this isn't me. This was. The Lord brought something to mind. You know exactly what that thing is. I want to invite you to do something. I want to you you to clench your fist and just set it on your lap. I want you to visualize you holding that thing in your hand. It's tough for you to surrender. I want to pray for you, God. Sometimes a physical posture helps us with what's going on on the inside. I pray for anyone within the sound of my voice right now who's got their hand clenched. And that thing that they're holding onto on the inside of their hand and the control it represents, the fear that it represents, the struggle that it represents. Gotta pray supernaturally in this moment, maybe make a breakthrough. And while they have won't have done anything different, maybe you give them the courage, just. Maybe just in this moment to just open their hand just for a second to see how that feels, to begin to visualize what would it look like if I were to surrender to my king? Not just trust him with my someday, but trust him today with my whole life to surrender to him as my King Jesus. Father, I pray that you would in this moment remind people of your nearness, of your love and your care, that you see them and that you will guide and direct them in their life toward the goodness that you want to restore. The goodness you created in the beginning, the goodness that was lost, and the goodness that you designed for us to experience, not just someday in heaven, but in this life by bringing your kingdom of goodness into our lives. And I pray it in Jesus name, amen.