Who Is This King?

Introduction

At the end our worship today we are going to be sharing in the Lord’s Supper. It is a time where we can unite together to celebrate the great gift of God through His Son Jesus Christ. Our theme for our message today is: Who is this King? It is a question that a king himself asked. Listen to these words of David from the 24th Psalm:

7 Lift up your heads, you gates! Rise up, ancient doors!

Then the King of glory will come in.

8 Who is this King of glory?

The LORD, strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle.

9 Lift up your heads, you gates! Rise up, ancient doors!

Then the King of glory will come in.

10 Who is He, this King of glory?

The LORD of Hosts, He is the King of glory.

Today I want us to lift up our heads and our hearts so that the King of Glory—Jesus Christ, our Lord may come in. We are going to be looking at a passage of scripture from Paul’s first letter to Timothy, but before we do I want to focus on a powerful image of our King. Listen as I read to you these words from the Gospel writers that portray Jesus as King:

John 18:33-40

33Then Pilate went back into the headquarters, summoned Jesus, and said to Him, “Are You the King of the Jews?” 34Jesus answered, “Are you asking this on your own, or have others told you about Me?” 35“I’m not a Jew, am I?” Pilate replied. “Your own nation and the chief priests handed You over to me. What have You done?” 36“My kingdom is not of this world,” said Jesus. “If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I wouldn’t be handed over to the Jews. As it is, My kingdom does not have its origin here.” 37“You are a king then?” Pilate asked. “You say that I’m a king,” Jesus replied. “I was born for this, and I have come into the world for this: to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to My voice.” 38“What is truth?” said Pilate. After he had said this, he went out to the Jews again and told them, “I find no grounds for charging Him. 39You have a custom that I release one prisoner to you at the Passover. So, do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?” 40They shouted back, “Not this man, but Barabbas!” Now Barabbas was a revolutionary.

Matthew 27:27-30

27Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into headquarters and gathered the whole company around Him. 28They stripped Him and dressed Him in a scarlet robe 29They twisted together a crown of thorns, put it on His head, and placed a reed in His right hand. And they knelt down before Him and mocked Him: “Hail, King of the Jews!” 30Then they spit at Him, took the reed, and kept hitting Him on the head. 31When they had mocked Him, they stripped Him of the robe, put His clothes on Him, and led Him away to crucify Him.

The picture of Jesus as King was anything but glorious at the cross. He was bruised and beaten. There was no golden crown upon His head, instead crown made of thorns was cruelly forced upon Him. Victory seemed the farthest thing from that King, in fact defeat seemed inevitable, as that King died upon a cross between two common criminals.

So, who is this King? How could One who faced such obvious defeat bring overwhelming victory to all who believe? The worship team is going to share with you a song that helps us begin to answer that question.

Song—JESUS, YOU ARE MY KING

Let’s turn now to 1 Timothy 6 and let Paul’s words to his son in the faith can help us continue to try and answer the question: Who is this King?

Text: 1 Timothy 6:13-16

I. Who is this King?

1. He is Alive

Not only is Jesus alive, but He is coming back! Paul challenged Timothy to be obedient until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. That tells us that Jesus death on the cross wasn’t the “end of the story,” and neither was His return to heaven. As we heard earlier, Jesus told Pilate that His kingdom was not of this world, but that He was in fact a King!

Jesus may have appeared to be a “defeated” King when He died on the cross, but His resurrection, is proof that He is a “victorious” King. One day our victorious King is coming back to claim His followers as His Chosen Bride, and to judge the living and the dead.

Listen to this powerful promise from the book of Revelation: