Sermons

The Story of God: The King of Israel
Jeremiah 23:5-6

Imagine that you were born in England hundreds of years ago, which would mean that you have a king over you who rightly has absolute authority over you.  The reality of your world would be that there is a king over you -- and there’d be nothing you could do to change it.  So you would either live in submission to this king, and receive whatever benefits he chooses to give; or you’d rebel against this king, and face the consequences.

But this morning I want to show you that each of us today has been born into a world in which we have a king over us who rightly has absolute authority over us.  This is the reality of the world we’ve been born into – and there’s nothing we can do to change it.  The universe has a king – God Himself.  God created the universe, so He’s rightful king of the universe.  And we will either live in submission to this king, and receive whatever benefits he chooses to give; or we rebel against this king, and face the consequences.

So what kind of a king is God?  That’s what I want to talk about this morning.  Let’s start by turning to 1 Samuel 8.  If you need a Bible, go ahead and raise your hand and we’ll bring one to you.  I Samuel 8 is on page 230 in the Bibles we are passing out.  1 Samuel 8 describes one of the darkest days in Israel’s history.

But before we look at this dark day – I want to set the stage by asking -- what kind of a king had God been to Israel?  God had chosen small, sinful Israel to be His people, which meant that He was their king.  So what did it mean to be a king of a nation?  What did kings do?

First, kings judged the people.  Kings made laws and gave commands and made decisions.  And when you look at God’s laws, commands, and decisions, you see that they each brought amazing good to Israel.

For example, when Israel was in Egypt, God commanded each family to kill a lamb and put the lamb’s blood on the doorposts.  We now know that this is a picture of what Jesus would do on the Cross.  But at that time, Israel would have been puzzled.  But those that obeyed this puzzling command were overjoyed the next morning when they saw how the lamb’s blood kept their first-born sons from being killed.  Every law, command, and decision made by God brought Israel amazing good.  In His judgments, God was the perfect king.

Second, kings went out before the people and fought their battles.  So how did God do in fighting Israel’s battles?  He conquered Egypt and delivered Israel.  He spoke a word and Jericho’s massive walls came crashing down.  Every battle he called Israel to fight – He won – against the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.  So in fighting their battles, God was the perfect king.

Third, kings delivered people from their problems.  So how did God do in this? No other king has ever come close.  Every time Israel cried out to God – every single time – God responded and met her need – from delivering her from Egypt, to providing food and water miraculously in the wilderness.

So in his judgments, his battles, in delivering Israel from all her distresses, God was the perfect king.  Which brings us to 1 Samuel 8.

 How did Israel respond to God as her King?  This is what we see in 1 Samuel 8.  The answer is that Israel told God they wanted a different king – a human king.  Why?  God explains why in vv.7-8 --

7              And the LORD said to Samuel, "Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.

8              According to all the deeds that they have done, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you [in asking for another king].

They wanted a human king because they didn’t want God as king.  They were rejecting God.  Then in vv.10-18 God tells Israel how wrong this is, and warns them of what human kings will do, but Israel doesn’t care: Israel doesn’t want God as king.

And this is what we’ve all done.  God is our Creator.  He is our rightful King; the perfect King; an infinitely good king.  But in our sin we haven’t wanted God as king; we’ve rejected God as king; we’ve turned from God as king.  We’ve all done what Israel did.

But what happens next is quite strange.  How did God respond to this request?  Remember, God is the rightful king over Israel.  He could have destroyed Israel and started over.  He could have just said “no,” and punished them for treason.  That’s what we would expect him to do.  But that’s not what He does.

What God does, is let Israel have their way.  He lets them reject Him.  And He raises up Saul, David, Solomon, and dozens of others to take His place as king of Israel.  But why?

Why would God let men take His place as King of Israel?  I think it’s to show Israel – and us – what happens when we turn from God as our king.  We can see what happens in the three kings God raises up for Israel.

First, God raises up Saul.  Saul starts off well by defeating Israel’s enemies the Ammonites (1Sa 11).  But then things start to go downhill.  God clearly commands Saul to wait before offering sacrifices, but Saul blatantly disobeys (1Sa 13).  Then, as Israel is fighting the Philistines, Saul gives a bizarre command that no soldiers can eat until the Philistines are defeated (1Sa 14).  Then Saul again disobeys God’s clear command to devote the Amalekites to destruction (1Sa 15).

So God rightly takes the kingdom away from Saul, and gives it to David -- and what results is utter chaos: Saul trying to kill David, David fleeing from Saul, priests killed, Israel divided.  So as a king – how did Saul compare with God?

Then God raises up David.  David is different from Saul. David has a heart for God.  And David has lots and lots of victories in battle.  So things are going well.

But then David has a season in which he turns from God.  Instead of fighting Israel’s battles himself, he gets lazy and sends his soldiers – like Uriah, to risk their lives for Israel without him.  And if that weren’t bad enough, one day David invites Uriah’s wife over, and with his authority as king, sleeps with her (2Sa 11).  Then, when it becomes known that she is pregnant, David brings Uriah back from battle, so he would sleep with her.  But Uriah is loyal to his soldiers, and refuses to enjoy comforts they would not have.  So David sent Uriah back to the front lines, and had him killed, so David could marry Bathsheba.  David does end up repenting before God, but this brought about great pain and trouble in Israel.

Then toward the end of his life David disobeys God and takes a census of Israel (2Sa 24).  And instead of letting God punish just him, he chooses to have God punish Israel, and 70,000 Israelites die because of David’s sin.  David ends repenting over all this, but it brought great cost to Israel.

So as a king, how did David compare with God?

Then God raises up Solomon, David’s son by Bathsheba, as king.  Everything starts off well, as Solomon asks God for wisdom instead of wealth, and God gives Solomon great wisdom (1Ki 3).  Solomon is shown as deeply devoted to God (1Ki 8).  As a result, during the time of Solomon, Israel was completely at peace, and unbelievably prosperous; so much so that the Queen of Sheba traveled hundreds of miles to learn from Solomon (1Ki 10).

But then, like David, Solomon has a season of terrible turning from God.  He disobeys God and marries not just numerous women, but numerous women who worship Ashtoreth and Milcom (1Ki 11).  And Solomon himself bows down and worships Ashtoreth and Milcom.  As a result, idolatry becomes wide-spread in Israel, civil war erupts, the northern kingdom separates from the southern kingdom and is destroyed by Assyria in 722 BC, and the southern kingdom is destroyed by Babylon in 586 BC.

So as a king, how did Solomon compare with God?  How did Saul, David, and Solomon compare with God?  There’s no comparison – and I think that’s why God let men take his place as kings.  It’s to show how tragic Israel’s decision was – so we can all see what happens when we rebel against God’s kingship in our lives.

But that’s not where the story ends.  Throughout the Old Testament there’s a theme of hope – as God promises to give Israel a king who will restore everything.

What kind of king does God promise Israel?  Let’s look at three passages.  First, Jeremiah 23:5-6 (p.650) –

5 "Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. ⁶ In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: 'The LORD is our righteousness.'

God says that in the future He will raise up a king in the line of David who will be perfectly righteous, who will deal wisely, who will do only justice, and who will save Judah and Israel.

Then look at Zechariah 9:9-10 (p.797) –

9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. ¹⁰ I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace to the nations; his rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.

God promises a king who is humble, entering on a donkey, ending all war, bringing peace to all the nations, and being king not just over Israel, but over all the earth.

But there’s more.  Look at Isaiah 9:6-7 (p.573) --

6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. ⁷ Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.

God says this king will not only be a man – born as a baby; he will also be fully God – since he’s named “mighty God.”  It’s right there plain as day.  This king will be fully God and fully man.

So who is this king?  Picture the nation of Israel, waiting for this king and his kingdom, longing for this king and his kingdom, hoping for this king and his kingdom, waiting hundreds of years for all this to be fulfilled.  Then one day Jesus walks into the center of town and shouts: “The time is fulfilled.  The kingdom of God is at hand.  Repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mar 1:15). 

Jesus is the king promised in the Old Testament.  When asked by Pilate if he was king of the Jews, Jesus said “yes” (Luk 23:3).  But Jesus was not just king of the Jews.  Jesus is fully God – he’s existed from eternity past, and everything that exists was created through Jesus and for Jesus.  So Jesus is the king of the entire earth.  That’s why he said that his kingship must be proclaimed to every people group (Mat 24:14).  Jesus is the king of planet earth.

And he demonstrated what kind of king he is by how he lived 2,000 years ago – and what we see is unsurpassed goodness and mercy and power. 

His followers are in a boat in a terrible storm – he speaks and the storm stops.

He meets a widow who at the funeral for her only son – and raises him from the dead.

He’s questioned by the religious leaders – and time and again his answers leave them speechless.

He’s in the temple, sees how merchants have turned it into a marketplace, and in holy anger turns over their tables and drives them out with a whip.

He welcomes children to come to him – and lays his hand on them and blesses them.

But there’s a problem.  No matter how much goodness he shows – there’s something inside of us which refuses to receive him as king.  It’s called sin.  Even though He is our creator, infinitely good, astonishingly powerful, perfectly wise – we refuse to receive him as king.

But our king has made a way for us to be saved from our sins.  How?  The Cross.  To break the power of sin, and to pay for the guilt of sin – Jesus was beaten, a crown of thorns was crushed on his head, he was scourged, and he was nailed to a cross. 

And who was this on the Cross?  There was a rough, wooden sign nailed to the cross above his head with the words carved into it: “the king of the Jews.”  What the soldiers meant as mockery gives us the most powerful picture of Jesus’ kingship – a love that should send chills up and down our spines.  Our king, the rightful king of the universe, died on the Cross to save us from our own rebellion.

And after Jesus died, God raised him from the dead, showing that His death was not that of a common criminal – His death was the death of the King of Israel, the King of the Universe, who will be king forever.

Questions?

So what does this mean for us?  I’ll just mention two take-aways:

First, surrender your life to Jesus.  He is your king.  You’ve been born into a universe in which Jesus Christ is the king.  He is the rightful king.  When you see His God-hood, His power, His love, His goodness – don’t you want to completely surrender to Him?

The key is surrender.  No one can receive Jesus as Savior who doesn’t also receive him as King.  To receive Jesus as Savior we must surrender to Him as king.  This doesn’t mean every part of my life must become perfect.  We won’t be perfect until heaven.  But it means I willingly surrender every part to Him.  It means I want every part of my life to be perfectly surrendered to him.  It means there’s no part of my life I’m willingly holding back from him.

And when you surrender to Him, telling Him you are sorry for your rebellion, asking Him to forgive you, asking Him to change you, asking Him to be your King – at that moment everything will change.  You will be completely forgiven for all your rebellion.  His power will be going to work – changing you.  His presence will come into you – satisfying you.

So surrender your life to Jesus.

And then second, see what you have in Jesus.  If you are willingly surrendering every part of your life to Jesus, then you are receiving all the benefits that come from His kingdom. 

He will take care of every distress. 
He will forgive every sin. 
He will provide every need. 
He will guide every decision.
He will strengthen you in every temptation.
He will breathe hope into every discouragement.
He will rule over every circumstance.
He will satisfy every longing with Himself.
So surrender to Him, trust Him, and receive all that He has for you.