Our Redeemer King
John 18:33-37

Introduction
In the planning of our weekly worship, we loosely follow the annual worship calendar as followed by most mainline denominations.  One powerful aspect of following this calendar is that it structures the rhythm of our life around the life of Jesus Christ.  This worship cycle begins next week with Advent, when we celebrate the first coming of Christ to planet earth.  Today, the last Sunday of November, marks the end of the worship year, and is called “Christ the King” Sunday.  So let’s explore together some of what it means that Christ is called a king.   


Our Redeemer King

We are going to explore three categories of Christ’s kingship.  The first truth we need to remember is that Christ became a human for the very purpose of becoming our Redeemer King.  Christ is our Redeemer King!  Now when we talk about God and Christ as king, it is important to make a distinction between the labels in the Bible used to describe God that are poetic or metaphor, and those that are actually revelations of God’s character, nature, and role.  

When God is called labels such as a shepherd, or fortress, or a mother hen, these are meant to be taken as metaphor, illustration, or human projection.  But when the Bible speaks of God as Father or King, these are meant to be taken more literally, and as a true revelation of the person and character of God.  However, the kingship of Christ is not just a metaphor to help our finite human minds understand the authority and power of Christ.  The theme of God the Father and Jesus the Christ both as King is prevalent and predominate throughout our Bible.  This is not just human authors projecting human labels onto God as a way of helping us to understand God in terms we can grasp.  

This is why it is dangerous, even heretical, when liberal theology tells us we need to move away from the “Father” or “King” language when referring to God as so many earthly fathers and earthly kings are poor examples.  Now some take issue with this concept complaining that this revels God as masculine, patriarchal, or a harsh ruler.  However, we must not take earthy models of fatherhood or kinship and project them on to God.  Fatherhood and Kingship are not structures and roles invented by the human race.  

The reasons God designed the human race to be structured with male and females coming together as father and mother, and governmental structures of authority, originally in kings and queens, are because we are made in God’s image and father- and mother- hood and king- and queen- ship reflects the very nature of God.

Why is all this important?  Because to worship, love and serve our triune God we must grasp more and evermore just who God is and what God’s plans are for us and for all creation.  I am suggesting that worshipping and serving God as Father and King are essential truths about God and God’s plans.

Here is the main point of understanding Christ as Redeemer king:  Jesus Christ came into this world as a human being for the sole purpose of becoming a king, and reclaiming a rebellious universe back under God’s kingship and kingdom.

Isaiah 9:6-7, a Bible passage that is heard often throughout the Advent/Christmas season we are about to enter attests to this purpose of Christ’s first coming:
   6  For to us a child is born,
       to us a son is given,
       and the government will be on his shoulders.
       And he will be called
       Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
       Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
  7  Of the increase of his government and peace
       there will be no end.
       He will reign on David's throne
       and over his kingdom,
       establishing and upholding it
       with justice and righteousness
       from that time on and forever.
       The zeal of the LORD Almighty
       will accomplish this.

Christ as King, ruling over governmental systems is not just a metaphor, nor just a temporary, earthy arrangement.  The eternal kingdom of God will be in the form of Christ as King, with us as co-rulers, ruling over a Kingdom that will continue to expand forever throughout a new physical Earth and new physical universe!  This is our destiny!

So how is our triune, missionary King accomplishing this grand goal?  How is the “Prince of Peace” ushering in a universal, eternal peace?  Here is where the revelation of God as King overturns and redefines all our earthy concepts of authority and power.  

In the current age we live in, between the fall in Eden to the second Coming of Christ, the inescapable reality of human sin requires that humanity pursue some degree of peace through military might.  The exercise of human force and the structures of control administrated through human authority structures are actually God-ordained as we see in passages such as Romans 13.
Yet, military might and human governments can never bring about the universal peace that God requires and we desire.  Why?  Because the source of human conflict and injustice is not corrupt or inadequate structures!   

This is why the social gospel model will always ultimately fail.  Because it is not enough just to fight against and replace corrupt structures to establish more just ones, although that should be a part of the Church’s missions.  It is not enough just to engage in social justice ministry to the poor, lonely, neglected, marginalized, sick, and imprisoned.  Although that too must be a part of the overall Church’s ministry.  

But the root source of all human conflict, injustice, and suffering is not corrupt or inadequate structures, but sin in the human heart.  To deal a fatal blow to injustice and suffering, the root cause of sin must be defeated at its root!  This is what Christ came to earth to accomplish!  

Pilate asked Christ, "Are you a king?"  And Christ responded, “Yes, that is why I came into this world.  But my kingdom will not be established through human power and authority.”  Instead, the kingdom of Christ was inaugurated as the Jewish people screamed out in hate, “Crucify Him!  Crucify Him!”  Christ’s coronation ceremony began as Roman soldiers plucked out Christ’s beard, slapped Him on the face, spit on Him, and mocked Him saying, "All Hail the King of the Jews.”  The first coronation of Christ as King was with a crown of thorns!

You see, if the problem with the human condition is pain, injustice, and suffering, than God’s plan of sending Christ failed miserably!  It has now been over 2000 years since Christ first wore this crown of thorns, and human misery has only gotten worse.  But if the real problem with humanity is that every one of us is born with a sinful nature that hates God and refuses to follow His plans, then this crown of thorns is exactly what we needed!  

Here is how God’s defines fatherhood, kingship, power, and authority.  God’s power is demonstrated through self-offering.  God’s authority is demonstrated through humble service.  
God’s plan to remove all human injustice and suffering was to take all such horror onto to his beaten, bloody, pierced, whipped body so Christ could deal a fatal blow to the very root of all darkness an evil!  God’s plan to overcome the powers of demonic and human evil was to allow those powers to nail His only begotten, beloved Son to a cross of death!  

Christ is our Redeemer King!

But glory be to God, Christ did not stay in the grave.  What good is a dead king!  God the Father reached down into the depths of the underworld and brought His Son back to life!  So Christ is also our Resurrected King!


Our Resurrected King

God the Father declared that through His death and resurrection Christ became the victor over all darkness, evil, and sin, and the ruling authority over all the powers in the universe!  

Ephesians 1:21 says it this way, that “when Father God raised Christ from the dead and He seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.”  

In Colossians 2:15 we read that through His life, death, and resurrection Christ “disarmed all the powers of the kingdom of darkness" that were granted authority over the human race and planet earth when the first humans rebelled.  Jesus Christ is the resurrected king and his authority over everything and all is total!  Ephesians 1 again reveals the central activity of God right now.  God is bringing all things under the headship of Christ!  The sin, injustice, and suffering that we still see and experience in this world only where Christ has not yet been declared King!   

Now here is where we come in.  Christ tells us in Matthew 28, after His resurrection, “All authority has been given to Him.”  And what did Christ do with this authority?  He shares it with us for the specific purpose of “going into all the world and making disciples!”  We are the ones responsible and granted the authority to reclaim human hearts and human structures of authority back under the Kingship of Christ!

Our Resurrected King is right now exercising His authority through us, God’s people.  It is up to us to overcome evil with good!  It is up to us to tell the good news of Christ’s gospel to the captives.  Christ’s kingship is a shared kingship with His Church, and if we don’t fight against injustice, and prejudice, and poverty, and exploitation, and drug abuse, and any evil that we see right before us, than that area will stay unclaimed by Christ!  

Here this key truth:  The almighty, creator God placed this planet under our Stewardship, and we will be held accountable for how we care for it.  Our God operates through delegated authority and He takes very seriously this delegation.  He won’t override it.  God operates the universe in this manner:  God grants free will and delegated authority, and then he holds those accountable to whom it was granted!  

Christ has delegated to us His authority to reclaim this world and reclaim and restore all those taken captive by the Evil One.  When each us stands before the Judgment Seat of Christ to give an account of how we used the power and gifts granted us, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords will hold us accountable for how well we fulfilled this responsibility!

Do you want to live a life worth living, a life connected to a grand, high purpose with eternal significance, than rise up to your calling as a co-heir with Christ and extend the Kingship of Christ one heart and one cause at a time?  Every child of God should have at least one area, one cause, that he or she is fighting to bring under the kingship of Christ.

Now we are called and empowered to overcome evil with good, to reclaim this rebellious world one cause and one heart at a time back under Christ’s Kingship.  But no matter how much evil we bring under the Kingship of Christ, we will never usher in the kingdom of God to the degree that all evil is eradicated.  Why?   Because the complete removal of all evil and injustice will only occur when our Redeemer, Resurrected King, also becomes our Retuning King!


Our Returning King

In Revelation 11:15 we discover the future of this planet and universe: “The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever."  Not only does Christ reign forever over the kingdoms of this world, but here this amazing passage from the book of Daniel that reveals our destiny as well.  In Daniel 7:27, Daniel is prophesying about the return of Christ and declares this, “Then the sovereignty, power and greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be handed over to the saints, the people of the Most High.  His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him.”

Our Redeemer, Resurrected King will soon be our Returning King!  This is not just a wishful, escapist vain hope.  This should not be an irrelevant, powerless hope!  Nor should it be a hope that only matters at funerals!  The reality and hope of Christ’s return and our co-ruling with Him over the universe for eternity should be an unquenchable longing in our hearts, and the foundational priority of how we live our lives.  

As we live out our calling to engage this world with the power and authority delegated to us in Christ, we will no doubt become tired, weary, overwhelmed with the seeming impossibility of the tasks as this world is so saturated with evil.  We touch one person’s life with the gospel, only to look up see thousands of still caught in darkness!  We overcome the darkness in one area through an act of goodness, only to look up and see a world still so defined by horrific evil!  

Yet our hearts should not despair.  Christ is the Redeemer, Resurrected, and Soon-Returning King, and so our hearts should cry out in sustaining hope, “Maranatha, maranatha, Christ come back now, come back today!”

2 Peter 3:10-13 encourages and admonishes us with this warning, calling and hope:
 “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief.  The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.  Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be?  You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.  That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat.  But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new universe and a new earth, the home of righteousness.”  

The hope of Christ’s return and our destiny as co-rulers over the New Universe and New Earth has the most practical of all applications.  As you make your plans about which career to pursue, or live out the career you are in, as you decide how to budget your money, talents, and time, as you determine what values will drive your priorities and ethics, how you raise your kids, every area of your life and every decision you make should be made from the perspective of Christ’s return and your eternal destiny.  Weak hope fosters cynicism, greed, selfishness, and addictive sin.  The stronger the felt hope you hold in your heart for Christ’s return the deeper your faith, and the more sacrificial your love.  

It is the hope for our Returning King and of our reward in the eternal kingdom of God that gives us the power to say no to sinful, counterfeits of pleasure and reward, to live well below the standard of living we could afford in order to give lavishly to the spread of the gospel now, to live holy and godly lives!  

Christ is our Redeemer, Resurrected, and Returning King.