Lord and King
A Sermon for Christ the King Sunday
I said before this service that I was amped up because it was Christ the King Sunday, and that should have been obvious to anyone worshipping with us in person. You can probably tell just from reading it too. This sermon is one of my favorites that I’ve preached in quite a while. I hope it’s a blessing to you.
Introduction
Today is a glorious day. As I mentioned last Sunday, Christ the King Sunday, with the notable exception of Easter, is my favorite Sunday on the church calendar. On this day, the Church loudly and unapologetically declares that Jesus Christ is Lord and King, and that everything else and everyone else is not.
This message—this declaration—is not secondary or tertiary. We don’t come to faith and then later come to understand that Jesus Christ is Lord. No, this message is the gospel itself. This declaration is the Good News of salvation.
The theologian’s fancy term for the doctrine of salvation is soteriology. Everything we call soteriology stems from the declaration that Jesus Christ is Lord and King, and that everything else and everyone else is not. And we can go a step further than this. Not only does all soteriology flow from this essential declaration of the Christian faith, but so does our entire doctrine of sanctification, as well as the whole of Christian eschatology.
I cannot overstate how crucial it is that you leave church today with a firm belief that Jesus, our crucified and risen Messiah, is Lord of heaven and earth, and that everything else and everyone else is not.
With that in mind, I want to consider three related questions this morning.
When did Jesus become Lord and King?
What is Jesus doing now as Lord and King?
How do we participate in his kingship?
When did Jesus become Lord and King?
A lot of bad theology starts with getting this question wrong. For example, some wrong eschatology begins with the idea that there’s a future day when Jesus will become King, since he isn’t (apparently) King now. Similarly, some faulty soteriology begins with the strange idea that someone might make Jesus Lord of their life, as if that decision were up to us.
The Bible is unambiguous on this matter. Jesus Christ is Lord and King, right now, today, forever and ever.
The Bible is also unambiguous in answering the question of when Jesus became Lord and King. For the New Testament writers, the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus are one interconnected event. For example, Paul states that he preached “Christ crucified” (1 Cor 1:23). He also tells the Corinthians that he “decided to know nothing among [them] except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2). However, it would be a mistake (given the preponderance of evidence to the contrary) to assume from those statements that Paul only talked about the crucifixion and had nothing to say about Jesus’ resurrection and ascension. For Paul and the other New Testament authors, these events—Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension—are a single divine act in which Jesus became Lord and King.
This is why the Evangelists, including Luke in our reading today, go out of their way to link kingship language to the crucifixion. From the crown of thorns to the purple robe, to the crowd who mocked him by saying to save himself if he truly was the King of the Jews, to the sign placed above his head declaring that he was the King of the Jews, the Gospel writers all want us to see Jesus’ crucifixion as something more—his coronation. Jesus became king as he died, and his resurrection proved it.
Likewise, the reason Psalm 110 is the most frequently quoted- or alluded-to Old Testament text in the New Testament is that the early church believed that, after Jesus Christ rose from the dead, he ascended to the right hand of God as Lord and King, just as the Psalm said he would.
The Psalmist wrote:
The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool” (Ps 110:1).
Jesus himself said:
But from now on the Son of Man shall be seated at the right hand of the power of God (Luke 22:69).
In Acts 2, Peter interprets Ps 110:1 and says that it couldn’t have been about David:
For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool”’ (Act 2:34-35).
In Eph 1, Paul writes about the power of God:
that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church (Eph 1:20–22).
So, when did Jesus become Lord and King? Through his death, resurrection, and ascension. There is not a single day in the future when he will become King (as if he isn’t already), and none of us makes him Lord of anything, especially not of our hearts or lives. The Gospel is not an invitation to make Jesus Lord. It is an invitation to submit to the Lordship of Jesus, who is Lord and King right now, today, and forever.
What is Jesus doing now as Lord and King?
Again, the Psalmist points us in the right direction in our search for an answer to our second question.
The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool” (Ps 110:1).
For Paul, the second Lord there is not quite so passive. He writes:
For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power (1 Cor 15:22-24).
We start to hear it there. Jesus is destroying every rule, every authority, and every power that is opposed to the kingdom of God. Then, to clarify things a bit more, Paul adds:
For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet (1 Cor 15:25).
Christ is reigning now as King and Lord, and he will continue to reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet, including humanity’s greatest enemy, namely, death.
The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet” (1 Cor 15:26–27).
What Christ is doing right now is sitting at the right hand of God and exercising his rule through his church. This is why Paul says in our reading from Colossians today that Jesus is:
And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross (Col 1:18-20).
Christ is the head of the body, the Church, and through his body, he is reconciling all things, whether on earth or in heaven, to himself. This reconciling is what happens when the church lives for the kingdom of God here on earth rather than living for the kingdoms of this world. This reconciling is what happens when Christians recognize and live out that our primary identity is in Christ and not in a political party. This reconciling is what happens when Christians stop bowing down to the idols of power, prestige, privilege, and prosperity and instead invest their time, treasure, and talents into the kingdom of God, which is the stone upon which all the kingdoms of this world will one day shatter and fall.
In case you can’t tell, his reign is our vocation. He is exercising his rule through his body. When we live for his kingdom, we are engaged with him in that world-changing project. When we live, instead, for the empires and kingdoms of this world, the world continues as it was.
How do we participate in his kingship?
First, we can pray the Lord’s Prayer like we actually mean it. When Jesus’ disciples asked him how they should pray, he said, “Pray like this. … Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” The task of building the kingdom of God, of bringing all things under Christ’s rule, and of reconciling all things to him are his tasks first and foremost. They are not our task independent of him; the kingdom work is his, but he calls his disciples to join him in that task through prayer so that he can work through them.
Second, we can live and love as Jesus did.
Too many Christians today try to build the kingdom of God using the tools and mechanisms of the empires and kingdoms of this world. The kingdom of God didn’t come with hammers and spears, except for the hammer that drove the nail into Christ’s hands and feet and the spear that pierced his side.
Jesus brought the kingdom of God through self-sacrificial love for the good of others, and he expects his disciples to do the same.
So Jesus said:
For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me (Matt 25:35–36).
Feeding the hungry. Giving drink to the thirsty. Welcoming the stranger. Clothing the naked. Visiting the sick and imprisoned. These are precisely the kinds of actions King Jesus was doing in the world as he brought the kingdom of God.
If this was what it looked like when Christ the King was at work in the world around us, then do we dare imagine that he is doing something different now? Do we dare imagine that he has a different calling for us than the self-sacrificial emptying of ourselves for the good of others? Do we dare think that we can be his disciples and give him just 10% of who we are?
Jesus warns:
As you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me (Matt 25:45).
Third, we can declare with every breath we take that Jesus Christ is Lord and King, and that everything else and everyone else is not. We can tell all the politicians, tyrants, and would-be rulers of this world who put their own interests above those of others, all the billionaires hoarding their treasure like Smaug the Dragon while children starve, all the commercials that try to persuade us to spend our money on things rather than investing in the kingdom of God, all the influencers paid to promote a lifestyle that looks nothing like the life Jesus lived, all who believe that making money trumps all moral and ethical responsibility, all the sins, temptations, and little demons on our shoulders that pull us away from Christ our King, and anyone who asks or demands that we pledge allegiance to them instead of to Christ — to all of these, we can say today and every day that Jesus Christ is Lord and King, and that everything and everyone else is not.
I will accept no compromise here. I will allow no middle ground. For Paul said in Ephesians that God raised Christ from the dead and:
seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come (Eph 1:20–21).
Jesus Christ is Lord and King, now, today, and forever. He sits at God’s right hand, far above—not just slightly above—all rule, authority, power, and dominion, and far above every name that is named, both in this age and in the age to come, which means there is nothing and no one in all the world that demands your allegiance like Christ and his Kingdom.
And it’s about time the American church lived as if that were true.
Amen.
Life Group Guide
Intro Prayer
Heavenly Father, as we gather today to study your Word, we recognize that Jesus Christ is Lord and King over all creation. We ask you to open our hearts and minds to receive what you want to teach us during this time together. Help us set aside our own agendas and preconceptions, and make us open to your Spirit’s guidance. May our discussion bring us closer to you and to one another, and may we leave here changed by your truth. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
Ice Breaker
If you could have dinner with any historical king or queen, who would it be and why?
Key Verses
Psalm 110:1
Luke 23:38
Acts 2:34-35
Ephesians 1:20-22
1 Corinthians 15:22-26
Colossians 1:18-20
Matthew 25:35-36
Matthew 6:10
Questions
What does it mean practically that Jesus became Lord and King through his death, resurrection, and ascension rather than at some future date?
How does understanding Jesus as King right now change the way we approach evangelism and sharing the gospel?
Fr. Michael mentioned that some people try to ‘make Jesus Lord of their life.’ What’s wrong with this thinking, and how should we understand our relationship to Jesus’ lordship?
What are some ‘kingdoms of this world’ that compete for our allegiance today, and how do we recognize when we’re serving them instead of Christ’s kingdom?
How can we pray ‘Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven’ with more intentionality and meaning?
Fr. Michael mentions that Jesus exercises his rule through his church. What does this look like in practical terms for our church and our individual lives?
How do the works of mercy mentioned in Matthew 25 (feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, etc.) relate to participating in Christ’s kingship?
What would change in your daily life if you truly lived as though Jesus Christ is ‘far above all rule and authority and power and dominion’?
Life Application
This week, identify one part of your life where you have been showing loyalty to something or someone other than Christ the King. It could be a political belief, financial security, social standing, or personal comfort. Make a deliberate effort to surrender that part to Christ’s lordship through prayer, and take one specific action that shows your loyalty to his kingdom rather than the kingdoms of this world.
Key Takeaways
Jesus Christ is Lord and King right now, today, and forever - not at some future date.
Jesus became Lord and King through his death, resurrection, and ascension as one interconnected divine act.
Christ is currently reigning and reconciling all things to himself through his body, the church.
We participate in his kingship by praying the Lord’s Prayer meaningfully, living and loving like Jesus, and declaring his lordship over all competing allegiances.
Jesus’ lordship is not optional or something we create - it’s a present reality we must submit to with undivided allegiance.
Ending Prayer
Lord Jesus, we acknowledge you as our King and Lord over every part of our lives. Thank you for reminding us that your kingdom is not of this world, yet you call us to bring your kingdom to earth through our actions and lives. Help us to live with undivided hearts, serving you alone and not the competing kingdoms that compete for our attention and allegiance. Give us the courage to declare your lordship in words and actions, and the strength to love and serve others as you did. May your kingdom come and your will be done in our lives, families, church, and the world. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and King. Amen.