A King Like This - Part 1

Over the summer we looked at what the Bible had to say about false teaching and teachers in our series Testing the Spirits. This led us into a study of the person of Jesus Christ as we looked at what the Bible had to say about His preeminence and supremacy.

We looked at verses like Colossians 1:15 where Paul refers to Jesus Christ as “the image of the invisible God” and emphasizes that to created beings, Christ is the visible representation and manifestation of God.

Jesus is God in the flesh. Yet, He wasn’t always manifested in the flesh. At some point in time, Jesus, as God, had to invade time and space and take upon Himself a body.

John 1:14 says, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”

The Bible not only teaches that Jesus is God, it teaches that He is King over us and over His creation.

John 18:37 – “Therefore Pilate said to Him, "So You are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say correctly that I am a king For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice."”

Isaiah 9:6 – “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.”

John 12:15 – “Do not fear, O Daughter of Zion! Look! Your King is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!” (A fulfillment of the prophecy found in Zechariah 9:9)

1 Timothy 6:15 – He is “the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords.”

Revelation 19:16, “And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, "KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS."”

Jesus is God and He is King of kings yet He decided to become flesh and dwell among us.

In this sermon I would like to attempt to answer two very important questions: “What does this mean for Him?” and “What does this mean for us?” Chris Tomlin’s Christmas song, A King Like This answers both these questions. I’ve been listening to it on and off for the last few weeks and will lift some of the verses from it as I preach through this message.

What does this mean for Him?

My heart is still feeling the effects of the events that led up to my mother home going. Over the last several months she was declining in her health and began to lose her mobility and cognition. There would be times when she would constantly refer to me or one of my siblings as “Donald” and then correct herself. Donald was her brother that had died some 15 or 20 years ago. She knew her mind was having difficulty processing information and remembering things and she would start crying each time she had problems with thinking or communicating.

She was also losing her ability to walk, yet up until a few days before she passed, she persistently removed her hospital gown in an attempt to “get dressed” so she could leave that place. We found ourselves wrestling with our mother and pushing her legs back into the center of the bed and struggling to find a way to keep her from removing her garments.

Jesus, who had come to earth as God and King, put on a body. He was God but He restricted the independent use of His deity, His divinity, His omnipotence, His omnipresence and His omniscience so that He could put on and confine Himself to a frail human body in order to one day do His redemptive work on a cruel rugged cross.

But He didn’t put on the flesh of a fully grown and matured human being, He put on the flesh of a weak, very much dependent embryo who would grow in the womb of a woman named Mary, who would one day give birth to Him and lay Him in a farm animal feeding trough that served as a crib.

A King like this, majesty laying in a manger.

Only 400 years after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, Augustine of Hippo said, “Man’s maker was made man that He, Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother’s breast; that the Bread might hunger, the Fountain thirst, the Light sleep, the Way be tired on its journey; that Truth might be accused of false witnesses, the Teacher be beaten with whips, the Foundation be suspended on wood; that Strength might grow weak; that the Healer might be wounded; that Life might die.”