Welcome The King

Did you ever wonder why you tell a man there's 400 billion stars and he'll believe you, but tell him a bench has wet paint and he has to touch it? Why?

Did you ever wonder why is it called a hamburger when it's made out of beef? Why do you put suits in garment bags and put garments in suitcases? Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle? Why isn't there mouse-flavored cat food?

Did you ever wonder why they lock gas station bathrooms – are they afraid someone is going to sneak in there and clean them? Why are there five syllables in the word monosyllabic? When two airplanes almost collide, why do they call it a near miss – it sounds like a near hit to me?

Did you ever wonder why banks charge you a non-sufficient funds fee on money they know you don't have? Why do you drive in a parkway and park in a driveway? Why are they called apartments when they're stuck together? If the black box flight recorder is never damaged during a plane crash, why isn't the whole airplane made of that stuff? (John Stumbo, “God's Sovereignty: The Ultimate Question,” Preaching Today, #202)

Did you ever wonder why good people suffer? Did you ever wonder why the world is so out of control if God is in control?

Right now, we live in a world of “why?” So how are you supposed to live in such a world? How are you supposed to live in a world where there are no satisfactory answers to the question “Why?” How are you supposed to handle all the unanswered questions life throws your way? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Psalm 24, Psalm 24, where the Bible shows us how to live in a world of “WHY?”

Psalm 24:1 The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein. (ESV).

When life is one big WHY, first and foremost…

ACKNOWLEDGE THAT JESUS IS KING!

Confess that Jesus is in charge. Recognize that Jesus owns it all. He owns the whole world!

You see, this psalm is part of a trilogy of psalms, each of which present the Lord as our Shepherd, and all of which the New Testament applies to Jesus. Psalm 22 pictures the Good Shepherd dying for the sheep. In John 10:11 Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd, [who] lays down his life for the sheep.” Psalm 23 describes the Great Shepherd caring for the sheep. In Hebrews 13:20, Jesus is described as “the great shepherd of the sheep.” And Psalm 24, as we’ll see, presents the Chief Shepherd coming for the sheep. 1 Peter 5:4 says, “When the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.” (Wiersbe, W. W., 1993, Wiersbe’s Expository Outlines on the Old Testament, Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.)

I don’t know about you, but I find great comfort in the fact that the One who died for me and the One who cares for me is also the One who is in charge of my life. I may not understand what Jesus is doing, but I can trust that He is working all things together for my good and His glory.

In his book God in a Brothel, investigator Daniel Walker recounts his attempts to infiltrate brothels and gather evidence so he could release women and children from sex trafficking. He describes how he overcome his initial fears with a deep-seated confidence in God's sovereign rule – even in a despicable brothel.

He said: “I had not been conducting investigations into sex trafficking for very long, and being inside a brothel still left me feeling vulnerable and afraid. I was afraid of my sinful nature. I was afraid of perpetrators and corrupt officials who were profiting from organized crime. And I was afraid of going into what I perceived as enemy territory.”

But as he closed his eyes and prayed, suddenly God completely changed his perspective:

Walker said, “A still, voice reminded me that ‘greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world’ (1 John 4:4 KJV)… The words of an old hymn came to mind: ‘This Is My Father's World.’ Again I saw for the first time that the brothel I was standing in was as much a part of God's creation as any beautiful mountain or crystal cathedral, and that God had in no way surrendered it to anyone.

“I knew that God was in that brothel before I arrived, suffering with [victims of sexual trafficking], witnessing [their] defilement night after night and sharing in [their] tears, and that he would remain in the brothel long after I left. Any uncertainty I previously had about walking into such a dark and ‘evil’ place vanished.