This past week no doubt you were glued to the television set as many were as we witnessed the liberation of a people from a tyrannical dictator. For close to thirty years the people of Iraq were oppressed by violent means by a man who wanted to set himself up as the ultimate ruler with the ultimate power. And His means of power was through fear and force. So when the Iraqis put a noose around the statue of Saddam Hussein and it was pulled down and as they slapped the fallen statue with the soles of their shoes, we saw an example of a ill-fated king with a temporary kingdom.
But Saddam Hussein was not the first nor will he be the last to try to establish a kingdom based on fear and military conquest. Past dictators like Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Napoleon all had visions of conquering the world and establishing themselves as king. On an episode of Sienfield a while back two of the characters were playing a game of Risk, and when Jerry Seinfield was asked what it was, He said, “It’s a game of world domination played by guys who can’t even maintain their own lives.” Remember in the movie “Titanic” there is one scene where Leonardo Di Caprio stands on the front of the boat and stretches his arms back and says “I’m king of the world”. He died in that movie, just a reminder.
But Jesus said that "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” Over and over throughout scripture Jesus is referred to as the King of kings and that His kingdom that will never end. Never has there been any other like Jesus Christ. And on that first Palm Sunday, as Jesus entered Jerusalem He was given the royal treatment as He entered the town humbly on back of a donkey. For this moment, the King of kings was treated as such, if only but briefly.
Yet prior to His entering Jerusalem, Jesus spoke a parable dealing with the ten servants, and intermingled within this parable are hints about the rejection of the King and of the consequences for such rejection.
Now the first thing I want us to get from this passage is that not everybody recognizes Jesus as King. There are many who live as enemies to Jesus and to His cross. Luke 19:11-14 , “While they were listening to this, he went on to tell them a parable, because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once. He said: "A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return. So he called ten of his servants and gave them ten minas. ’Put this money to work,’ he said, ’until I come back.’ "But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, ’We don’t want this man to be our king.”
Many don’t want to see Jesus as a king because Jesus and His cross are viewed as being a threat. Paul said in Phil 3:18, “For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ.” From the very beginning of His life, there were those who sought to destroy Jesus. He was forced to flee to Egypt and later on in His life there were those who sought to have Him killed. But why? Why would anybody want Jesus dead? Why did these religious leaders despise Jesus so much? Pontius Pilate knew. Matt 27:18 says that “he knew it was out of envy that they had handed Jesus over to him.”
They were jealous of Jesus. Think about it. Prior to His arrival, the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Scribes were the respected leaders of the community. People sought their advice, their council, people paid respect to them as they walked down the streets, and then here comes this uneducated carpenter and people were flocking to Him. In addition, He was performing mighty miracles, miracles that they themselves could not do, and He taught with authority, unlike the way they simply mimicked what others said. And they were jealous, much like a three year old toddler is when the newborn arrives and she is upset because she is no longer the center of attention.
So they despised Him and they constantly were trying to find ways to knock Him down a peg or two. They tried to blast Him with accusations that He was opposed to the Law of Moses, and Jesus said, “I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it.” They tried to humiliate Him with trick questions. “Jesus, is it right to pay taxes to Cesar?” “We caught this woman in the act of adultery, the law says to stone her to death but what do you say.” And after every question Jesus would answer with such wisdom and their attempts to humiliate Him failed. In fact the reversed happened. Luke 13:17 says, “When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.”
Now they despised Him because they envied Him, much like other SEC teams envy Kentucky, but they also despised Him because He spoke the truth about their spiritual condition. Even though they were the respected religious leaders, Jesus called them hypocrites, white-washed tombs, and claimed that they were blind guides. And when Jesus spoke the truth, it caused Him to have enemies.
Now just as Jesus had enemies, we should expect that in this world we will have enemies as well. Many in our world today live as enemies of the cross. In may of 1996 the city of Edmond, Oklahoma was forced to remove a large cross that was part of a collection of items symbolizing the early pioneers which had stood for decades. And in protest of the court decision, the city has refused to replace the cross with another more politically correct symbol instead opting to have the space, the hole in the ground and all remain empty to testify to the hostility of the court’s decision. Many oppose the Cross, and the oppose those who kneel at the cross.
Now when I say that you will have enemies, I’m not referring to the ones you obtain because of mistakes you have made. If you have hit a guy’s car, he doesn’t hate you because you’re a Christian, it’s that you just can’t drive. Nor am I talking about those who hate you because you are obnoxious about your faith. Sometimes Christians can come across as brash and abrasive, against everything under the sun. We need to be tactful at times. Nor am I talking about the misconceptions some have concerning the church. Many who oppose the church couldn’t tell you the first thing about it.
But the truth is there are those who oppose you simply because of your faith. John 15:18-19 says, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.”
Many Christians have on their vehicles a little fish symbol which was a symbol of the early church, but I understand that those who believe in evolution have come up with their own symbol to mock the Christian fish and it’s a Christian fish with legs with Darwin written in it. I saw one that had that Darwin fish on its back with its feet up in the air and it said, “Now he knows!”
You see, many will oppose you because they disagree with your theology. They oppose you because you threaten their lifestyle. Lee Strobel said that the reason He tried to disprove Christianity because if it was true then it would mean he would have to change his free living ways. A while back Exodus ministries, a ministry for those who have come out of the gay lifestyle was holding a conference in our nations’ capital and the homosexual community of Washington DC protested and tried to have the conference cancelled as well as the billboards advertising it, because you see when those who were in that lifestyle have come forward and said that there is deliverance in Christ, it means that you weren’t born that way and that they could leave that lifestyle if they so choose to do so. You see many oppose Christ, because if He truly is king than they are not lord of their lives, He is…and then it means that we must obey Him and to not do so would mean that there is consequences for that.
Now the second group I want you to see here is that there are those who want to see Jesus as king, but not really. Not really. Look at Vs. 11 of our text again. Luke 19:11, “While they were listening to this, he went on to tell them a parable, because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once.” They were expecting Jesus to establish His kingdom right away. You see the people gathered around the streets and welcomed Jesus with palm branches because they thought He was going to usher in liberation from the Roman oppressors and the scene would have been similar to that which we saw in Iraq this past week.
But when Jesus didn’t meet their expectations, their cries of Hosanna quickly changed to “Crucify, Crucify!” The people wanted Him as their king, but only if it would be beneficial to them.
When I was in the 6th grade, I must say that I was the crème of the crop. I was the most popular boy in our grade at that time (it was a small private school in which we had about 50 kids) and I was running for vice president of the class. I was a shoe in. But there was a girl named Beverly who was quite attractive who just happened to be dating my twin brother at the time. When she decided to run for President of the class, she broke up with my brother and asked me to go steady with her. I accepted and began telling everybody to vote Beverly. The day after she won the election, she broke up with me and started going steady with my brother again. Women!
Well, Jesus during this passion week got dumped in many ways. When He no longer served the needs of the people they quickly turned on Him; and Jesus still gets dumped by those who want to follow in a manner of convenience yet when the demands of the Gospel get to demanding they bail out.
Many of you might remember the Flip Wilson story of the church meeting where the Pastor was giving his vision of the church. He said, “I want this church to walk!” and a deacon in the back stood up and yelled, “Let it walk, Preacher, let it walk. He then said, “I want this church to run!” and the same deacon in the back stood up and yelled, “Let it run, Preacher, let it run.” He said, “I want this church to fly!” and again the deacon in the back stood up and yelled, “Let it fly, Preacher, let it fly!” The preacher then looked at the deacon and said, “Deacon Jones, now for this church to fly it’s going to take a lot of hard work, time, and lots of money.” Deacon Jones then sat down and said, “Let it walk, let it walk!” And that’s how many approach the Christian faith.
G.K. Chesterton once said, “It isn’t that Christianity has been tried and found wanting, but it has been found difficult and so never really tried.” And the demands of the gospel of taking up one’s cross and following Jesus is just to much for those want a religion without a cross, faith without sacrifice, and a King without having to submit to His authority over their lives.
The final group are those who truly recognize Jesus Christ as King and willingly submit to His authority. These are those who seek to follow and obey, those who seek to serve their King with truth and sincerity. In this parable, those who were faithful were allowed to hear the words we all wish to hear one day, “Well done My good and faithful servant.”
Now to recognize His as king doesn’t mean that you will never be tempted. It doesn’t mean that you will be never fall into sin. What it does mean is that you recognize Jesus’ love for you and His authority over your life and you seek to live and serve Him. We bask in our recognition that He is a loving, gracious Savior…but also we at the same time live our lives in respectful fear of trembling recognizing the power He holds and that He is a righteous and jealous God.
Carl Sandburg once wrote about Abraham Lincoln calling him a man of velvet steal. Lincoln could be like velvet, soft and compassionate. But when it came time he could be as tough as nails. The Bible makes it clear that God loves us and reaches out to us. But if we continue to reject His love and authority, one day He will be a stern, wrathful judge. Rev. 19 says that when Jesus returns, He will not be riding on the donkey of peace. He will return on the white horse of conquest, to judge and make war. Rom. 2:5 says “Because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.”
This is a difficult concept for people today to grasp, that God could be loving and yet God could punish and be just. Recently a University of Kentucky basketball player was on trial. After 2 students were killed in a drunk-driving accident, UK instituted a no-tolerance policy for their athletes on scholarship. Then last year an important basketball player was arrested for drunk driving. Even though the evidence was heavy against him, his lawyer appealed for a jury trial. Many felt as much as people loved basketball in Kentucky, no jury would find him guilty. At the trial the prosecuting attorney dressed in Wildcat blue to show her support for UK basketball. But she said to the jury, “This is not about basketball. This is about justice.” And the jury in just and hour or two found him guilty, not because they didn’t love basketball or care about this player. But the law was the law. The rules were broken and the penalty was clear.
God has established a law. He said, “If you sin, you will die.” And we have all broken that law. But God has gone one step further in providing a way to escape the consequences. He says, “If you will put your trust in Me, I will forgive you.” But if we continue to exploit His offer of grace, if we refuse to acknowledge His identity and authority, if we insist on being judged on our own merits, we are doomed by our own sin. It is not that God doesn’t love us, but the law is the law. The evidence is so overwhelmingly against us that we convict ourselves. Eventually, we all will kneel before Him and acknowledge Him as King, but let me ask you this morning, have you made Him King of your life? Who is it that is on the throne of your life. We invite you to choose to acknowledge His kingship this morning.
