What It Means For Jesus To Be King.

Did you get the leader you wanted yesterday?

In Australia we have this great privilege of voting for those who lead our country.

Generally we vote on how we perceive things.

Whether they are true or not?

Our votes are often based on what we want.

Some times we even vote to seek some revenge, even if we don’t fully agree for the party we vote for.

And if we are enticed by the things the politicians will promise us.

Higher pensions, bigger tax cuts, a lap top, better education, cleaner environment, and the list goes on.

How many billions of dollars were promised during this election campaign?

Some of you will also be disappointed with the result.

Well there is something we need to remember.

No matter who won the election,

Jesus is king over everything.

Jesus can never lose his seat as king.

Jesus is even king of the politician who despises him.

He is king of the environment.

He is king of the financial system.

He is king over everything.

Listen again to some of the God’s word from Colossians chapter 1.

All things in heaven and on earth were created by him.

All things, whether visible or invisible, whether thrones or dominions, whether principalities or powers.

All things were created through him and for him.

He himself is before all things and all things are held together in him.

A question I want you to consider.

How seriously do you take the statement that Jesus is king of everything.

Not just in this hour or two we spend together.

But how seriously do you consider that Jesus is king over all parts of your life,

of everything that is happening in the world.

Take a moment to reflect!!

There a couple of ways to look at this

The first is,

We should Jesus first in everything!!

How often do you do that?

When you are considering anything in your life, how often do you say what is God saying about this or that.

One of the ironies about our relationship with God is that he won’t force himself to be first.

Just look at the way he reacted when he was on the cross.

He could have saved himself, but instead he chose to save me and you.

But if we aren’t putting Jesus first,

we are the ones who suffer.

We are the ones who miss out.

If we neglect worship because of another event, sport, family celebrations we are the ones who will suffer.

We are the one who will miss out hearing God,

on receiving his forgiveness

missing out on the goodness God gives.

We are the ones being distracted away from God and the eternal life he offers.

Putting God first is one way we need to look at life.

Another way is

when trouble happens,

remember God has power over it.

There is nothing God does not have power over.

Now this world has experienced some pretty terrible events.

Some widely known and some not so widely known.

But when we encounter difficulties remember that God is with you.

In a few weeks time you will hear the words as you go through shops and on the radio of many Christmas Carols.

Some of those songs will have the word Immanuel in them.

Do you know what Immanuel means?

It means God is with us!!

The King is with us.

Isn’t that great news…the king is with you!

Imagine if everywhere you went last week the Prime Minister or the Opposition Leader was with you!!

You probably would have had a few free coffees plus a few other things.

Well as Christians we have something far better, we have God.

God is always with us.

Now some of you maybe saying so why do I experience bad things in my life.

The problems in our life are not caused by God.

They are the result of sin.

Sin from others and Sin that we mingle with.

Also remember earth is not our permanent home.

We are visitors to this place.

Secondly and more importantly God’s focus is not just on pleasing us now.

His focus is on salvation.

In John chapter 3 Jesus clearly says he came into this world to save the world.

And this approach from God can be best seen in his interaction with the two thieves on the cross.

One thief was only interested in pleasing himself today.

He said something like this.

‘Come on Lord if you are really the Messiah.

Get us off these uncomfortable things.

Get us down from here.’

There is no doubt Jesus could have done that.

But it was not part of His way.

It was not part of the plan.

Imagine where we would be if Jesus had done that.