OPEN: St. John’s University is a private religious college in the state of New York, and sometime back someone apparently wrote some graffiti on one of the walls which said this: “Jesus said unto them: ‘Who do you say that I am?’ And they replied: ‘You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our being, the kerygma in which we find the ultimate meaning of our interpersonal relationships.’ (pause) And Jesus said: ‘What?’”
Jesus asked His disciples who they said He was and Peter SAID “You are the CHRIST, the Son of the Living God.” (Matthew 16:16) And Jesus praised Peter for that statement saying that this confession (of Jesus being the Christ) would be the rock upon which the Church would be built. We read that in I Corinthians 3:11 where it says “no-one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. In fact, there’s an old Gospel hymn that echoes that truth: “On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is shifting sand.”
(Pause) Peter said to Jesus “you are the CHRIST”
ILLUS: Billy Sunday once declared that “there are 256 names in the Bible for the Lord Jesus Christ, and I suppose this was because He was infinitely beyond all that any one name could express.”
I’ll have to trust Billy Sunday on that because I’ve never counted the names of Jesus, but it is interesting that perhaps one of the most popular names for Jesus (in the Bible) is THE CHRIST. That title (the Christ) shows up 532 times in the New Testament. The CHRIST… that’s who Jesus is.
Now, what does that mean? Well my name IS Jeff STRITE - Strite is my last name. But when you read “Jesus Christ” in Scripture – Jesus’ last name is NOT CHRIST! Christ was a description of WHO Jesus was. CHRIST was the Greek word for the Hebrew name “Messiah” and Christ (or the Messiah) means “the Anointed One.”
In Jewish culture there were 3 types of people were anointed to have a specific responsibility as prophets and priests and kings. There were the Prophets… like Elisha who was anointed by EliJAH; There were the Priests … like Aaron who was anointed by his brother Moses; and lastly there were the Kings… like King David who was anointed by the prophet Samuel.
Being ANOINTED meant that that person now had authority – they were RECOGNIZED as either a prophet, or a priest, or a king.
Now, what’s interesting is that Jesus came to be anointed to do all 3 of those responsibilities. He was the CHRIST who came to be our prophet and our priest and our King.
As a PROPHET (for example) CHRIST came to declare the will of God.
In Deuteronomy, God told Moses: “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.” Deuteronomy 18:18-19
Jesus was THAT prophet mentioned in Deuteronomy. Jesus was sent to be our anointed Prophet. But in what way was Christ a Prophet?
Well, first, when Jesus Christ spoke He spoke with AUTHORITY as a prophet would.
ILLUS: If you go Christian book store, you can buy a RED-LETTER edition of Bible. A “red-letter” Bible takes all the words that Jesus said in the New Testament and high-lights them by putting them in red letters. For example – the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew is completely in Red letters… because ALL its Jesus’ words.
So, if you had a Red-letter edition of the Bible, everything in Red would be where Jesus spoke with the AUTHORITY of an anointed Prophet. In fact, at the end of the sermon on the Mount we read these words: “And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.” Matthew 7:28-29
So, as a PROPHET Jesus spoke with authority, but Jesus also made prophetic statements about future events. For example: Jesus spoke what would how Jerusalem would be destroyed in 70 A.D.. Jesus’ made such specific descriptions about what would happen in the destruction of the city that when those events happened, Christians left town… because that’s what Jesus warned them to do when they saw those events.
And Jesus spoke of what would happen at the End of the Time at His 2nd coming. In other words, Jesus prophesied like you’d expect a prophet to do - He told about FUTURE events.
But, I want to make something very clear here: EVERY WORD in the Bible (from Genesis to Revelation) ALL THE WORDS are the Words of Christ. In fact the entire Bible belongs to Jesus, because Jesus is God in the flesh. And because He was God… the entire Bible is His book, and its words (from beginning to End) are His words. The reason I stress this is because there are false teachers out there who would try to tell you that ONLY the Red-Letter section of the Bible is important because ONLY that section contains the true words of Jesus. But that’s not true. It’s ALL his words. It’s just that in a Red-Letter Bible, the Red Letters are the words of Jesus as our ANOINTED PROPHET.
So, Christ was Anointed to be our prophet, and He spoke with the authority of a prophet. But He also was anointed to be our PRIEST – OUR HIGH PRIEST.
Hebrews 9:11-14 says it this way: “But when Christ appeared as a HIGH PRIEST of the good things that have come… he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. … the blood of Christ … without blemish … will PURIFY our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”
A High Priest offered up a blood sacrifice for the sins of the people. That sacrifice purified the people and without that sacrifice … there would be NO forgiveness of sins. But when Jesus came, He didn’t offer the blood of calves and goats. He offered the final sacrifice – the sacrifice of His own blood. As I John 1:7 says “The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
How does that work? Well, only Jesus can offer us a TOTAL CLEANSING from our sins. Once you’ve applied the blood of Christ to your life your sins are all gone.
Now, every other religion maintains, you can’t do that. You CAN’T remove your sins. They’ll always be there. The best you can hope to do (according to other religions) is to try to cover up your bad stuff with good stuff. Thus, if you do enough good deeds (they say) you can COVER UP the your past, with all its shame and guilt. All you have to do is do enough. And if you do enough good, all the bad can be covered up.
But what happens if you don’t do… ENOUGH? What if some of your past peeks out from underneath?
ILLUS: If you ask someone if they’re going to heaven, they’ll often say “I hope so.” What they mean is: “I hope I’ve done enough to bury my past. I hope what I’m ashamed of doesn’t peek out so God can see it.”
But God says – with Jesus you don’t have to worry about that, because the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son cleanses us from ALL sin.” And it doesn’t matter what you’ve done, or where you’ve been, or what others may think of you - when Christ’s blood touches your life, you are justified, you’re sanctified, you’re washed clean.
In I Corinthians 6, Paul say that certain people won’t make it to heaven - and he lists the sexually immoral, the idolaters, and adulterers, men who practice homosexuality, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, the revelers, and the swindlers. And Paul says NONE OF THOSE will inherit kingdom of God.
But then Paul tells the Christians in Corinth: “That is what some of you were.”
You were sexually immoral, the idolaters, and adulterers, men who practice homosexuality, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, the revelers, and the swindlers. You deserved to go to hell – “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” 1 Corinthians 6:11
In other words… they shouldn’t have had a prayer of getting in to heaven. BUT, all their sins had been removed.
As one of my favorite singers (Don Francisco) once put it: “It doesn’t matter what you’ve been, it matters what you’ll be. There is no condemnation when the Son has set you free.”
So Jesus (THE CHRIST) was anointed to our prophet and our priest. But He was also anointed to be our King
Philippians 2:9-11 says “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Sooner or later… every knee will bow to Jesus Christ. But right now, there are lots of folks who reject that notion - who rebel at the very idea that Jesus Christ deserves that kind of honor.
ILLUS: Charles Colson was one of the men involved in the Watergate scandal… and he went to prison for that. But while in prison, he decided he didn’t want to be that kind of man anymore. He turned his life over to Jesus and began a prison ministry, and would often speak about his faith in news interviews. But the reporters weren’t buying it. He said that he would deliberately explain that he had “accepted Jesus Christ” but those words were invariable translated into “Colson’s professed religious experience.” He also noted he “discovered that one major U.S. daily (newspaper), as a matter of policy, will not print the two words Jesus Christ together; when combined, the editor says, it represents an editorial judgement.” (“Kingdoms in Conflict”)
Isn’t that interesting? That newspaper acknowledged that when you said “Jesus CHRIST” you were declaring that Jesus had the authority to be our King. But because they rejected Jesus’ claim, they refused to put those 2 words together in a sentence. But (of course) that doesn’t matter - because one day, every editor and every reporter, and every politician, and every person you meet on the street, will bow and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord… and at the end of time, they’ll wish they’d done it sooner.
But now, what does that mean, that CHRIST is MY King? Principally, it means I intend to do things HIS way. A King has authority to tell us what to do. If Jesus Is Your King it means you’ve Surrendered Your Life To Him; that everything You Own Is His; that you intend to seek for ways to serve Him; that you will want to talk about Him because you love Him; that you will avoid embarrassing him with your words, your actions, and your attitudes; and that you will try to love others… including your enemies.
Now, you could probably come up with few extra items to add to that list. Those are ways you would expect a Christian to honor their King. But the fact that Jesus IS our King goes beyond what WE should do for Him. It goes to the heart of what He has offered to us.
Jesus said: “The Son of Man came NOT to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:28) In other words: a good king protects and supplies for his people. And Jesus came to be the right kind of King for us. That’s why Jesus said things like this:
• Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28
• “Seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Matthew 6:33
• Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. Luke 11:9
• I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. John 10:10-11
• “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33
• "Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you. But I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” John 14:1-3
Jesus came to do ALL THAT for you … and more. But there is a catch. In order to receive those blessings, you have to belong to Him. You have to become a CHRISTian. I Christian.
o You have to believe that Jesus is the CHRIST the Son of the Living God.
o You have to REPENT (or surrender your sins) so Jesus blood can cleanse you.
o You have to CONFESS that He will now be your Lord and Master (King)
o And you have to allow yourself to be baptized into Christ.
There’s an interesting verse on baptism I ran across as I was researching this message. In Galatians 3:26-27 we’re told “In CHRIST Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into CHRIST
have put on CHRIST.”
So, as our King there are things we should to honor Jesus. But we must also realize that Jesus CHRIST came to be ANOINTED… so that He could serve you. He came as your prophet so that you’d know God’s will for your life; He came as your priest so His blood could cleanse you of all your sins; and He came as your King so that He could LEAD you into a life filled with love, joy and peace.
INVITATION
