Crucified King

In this Christ the King Sunday message from Luke 23:33-43, Pastor Marshall explores how Jesus’ throne is a cross and His power is self-giving love. Listen in and consider what it means to let the Crucified King reign over your own heart.

Transcript

If you would turn with me to the Gospel According to Luke, chapter 23. So, the gospel according to Luke, chapter 23. Now remember, we've been trekking along with Jesus as he's been heading to Jerusalem for weeks now, practically all summer long. And now into the fall, we've been with Jesus as he's moving through and teaching us, primarily by parables. All right?

And now we come to Holy Week. And we were there last week, and here we are once again, and we find ourselves right in the middle of all this. So the very last day of the church year plops us right into Holy Week, right during the crucifixion. Now, that's not by accident. That's not by accident.

It's meant to teach us this morning what kind of king king Jesus is. So let's all stand as we read this text here from the Gospel according to Luke, chapter 23. And we'll go down to verse 33 and pick up there. Notice this. This is the word God.

When they came to the place that is called the Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Then Jesus said, father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. And they cast lots to divide his clothing. The people stood by watching Jesus on the cross. But the leaders scoffed at him, saying, he saved others.

Let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one. The soldiers also mocked him coming up and offering himself sour wine and saying, if you are the King of the Jews, save yourself. There was also an inscription over him. This is the King of the Jews. One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, are you not the Messiah?

Save yourself and us. But the other rebuked him, saying, do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds. But this man has done nothing wrong. Then he said, jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

He replied, truly, I tell you today you will be with me in paradise.

Jesus, thank you for those spoken words from that moment, that crucial crux crucified moment. Because, Lord, they are words for us to hear and obey today. So would you empower us by your Holy Spirit to do just that? Give us ears to hear, eyes to see, and a will motivated to act. We pray in your name.

Amen. And you can be seated.

Well, when we think of a king as Americans, let's just be honest for just a minute. It's not so great, is it? I mean, after all, we sort of define our nation by shrugging off kingship. Yes. I mean, everybody knows their.

At least a little bit of American history here. And so it really has sort of filtered for us a different way to view the world. Because I don't know if you know how much of a privilege it really is to not live under a king.

No Amens there. Interesting. Okay, well, okay. If you go read history for five minutes, you'll realize that kings often don't turn out too great. If you read the Bible carefully during the time of the kings, like the book of Kings, right.

Even the rise of kingship. You remember Saul? Done. What about David the paragon, Right. The model king.

And yet he also fails, doesn't he? Not just once, but multiple times, in fact, including even counting the people, remember? And you go down the line from Solomon, it just gets worse. I mean, go read it for yourself. But it's just bad.

Bad, Somewhat good. Okay, Bad. Very bad. The worst. Right, Ahab.

And you just keep going down, right? Until finally the Lord says, what are you guys doing? Right. What made David the model king was he realized a crucial factor. And that is although he was king and had been given this power, anointed by God, he understood there was a high king.

In other words, even though king, he submitted to the king, he had been given this responsibility to steward. And you know, he does in fact show us, after all, thanks be to God, that even though we fail, even though we may misuse our power and abuse those powers that we have been given, there is forgiveness and there is transformation. Read the penitential Psalm 51 that David writes. After sinning, you don't do what Sir Saul did, which was to sin and then to try to look. Okay, that's what he tries to do.

Or like Judas tries to handle it himself. Right. Some PR stuff. Right. Public relations.

Just. I'll cover this up. You ever heard of COVID ups in politics, in government? Yeah, it's kind of. It's kind of like cheese and crackers.

They just go together.

And so we've been a bit jaded with kingship. Yes, just a little bit. Right. And yet the Bible proudly, unabashedly proclaims that Christ is not our president.

Christ is not a prime minister, but Christ is king of the universe.

In other words, we didn't vote him in. Okay? Which means we can't vote him out. You know, that's kind of the thing about a king. You know, we didn't put him in Power.

And this power comes from the divine, because this power to be king is divine. You see how this works? So for us to. For us in particular in the American experience, where we've really never lived under a king and don't really even understand, like, I mean, what am I in this whole thing? Just some servant.

It's kind of like, yeah, actually, yes, yes, you are actually a servant of the most high, right? And yet with this king, what we're going to come to see is if you spend any time with him at all, that he calls us friends and not just servants. Isn't that fascinating? But in order to be a friend, we've got to first become a servant. We must bow the knee.

Everyone, the scripture says, will bow the knee eventually. Why not today? Why not this moment? For he is the king of kings and lord of lords.

So when we think of king, we think of power, right? And then we think of abuse of power because, well, we just know that story. We know how it runs. You don't have to be a history expert to know that, right? And we see it even today.

And we won't go pointing fingers because there's too many to point. I don't have enough fingers to point to all of the abuses of power, of people in authority. Power as domination. Think with me real quick. Power as dominating another people, dominating your will over another.

Coercion. Power as coercion. The whole idea of power struggle, right, which is literally going on in our own cultural moment right now, is ideas of victimhood and that if any hierarchy or any system is out there, it's evil because it's powerful. See how that works? In other words, just because it has power, it's evil because we've seen it before, we know it.

No, no, thanks. And then we fall into another system, right? Because that system is overthrown by another system that also is powerful and therefore also abusive. And so there's this hierarchy, as we might come to understand it, of injustice. I mean, gross injustice.

Injustice. An authority that is oppressive. So no wonder, no wonder we struggle with the idea that Christ is king. Like, yeah, how can that be, right? It's very similar to what we said a few weeks back.

Some have trouble calling God father because they're earthly father. But you see, the earthly father and the earthly kings don't define fatherhood, nor do they define kingship. Rather, it's the other way around. I think we just sang it that his power comes from above, not from underneath. It's not something that we invent as humans.

Hierarchy, it's the nature of reality. So you say. Yeah, but I just wish that we could all get along. And the Democratic Republic is kind of an experiment to see if we can do that without a king, by the way. Okay?

And that's fine. That's good. You know, we all kind of like that kind of thing. We can discuss it and whatever else, but here's the reality in.

Again, I'm losing words here a little bit, but in what is real in the world, in the universe, there is someone in charge, and we didn't put them in charge. In fact, we sort of joined the stage story as it was already ongoing, didn't we? Like, you didn't decide to exist. You know, you didn't decide to be. Okay.

That was given to you. And you find yourself in this story. You know, kind of reminds me of Lord of the Rings, right? Where Sam reminds Frodo. You remember this when they were depressed and, like, didn't know if they could go on.

He's like, Mr. Frodo, you know, we always heard about these stories of people that were doing these great things, right? And he's like, I think we might be in one of these stories, Mr. Frodo. We got to do the right thing right now, right? It reminds me of, like, this philosophical saying that I heard just the other day, is to do any act is to do every act. In other words, even the little things that you do is an explosion of what really you do all the time.

Now, thanks be to God, we're not captured in this one moment. Thankfully, God has given us time to grow into grace. From grace to grace, from glory to glory. But one instance of our actions really is indicative, isn't it, sometimes of nasty things in us. We even sometimes, I mean, all of us have had the experience of surprising ourself.

I didn't know I was going to act like that. It wasn't me. People say that all the time in courtrooms. That really wasn't me.

What we come to realize is we are kind of complicated because we are not just one thing. We're a composite body and soul, spirit and matter. And we need to be governed. We need to be governed not just by human governance, but by the divine. You see, God is not one thing in the universe like other things, but he's completely outside, so to speak, and inside of all things.

Remember all things. Paul says it. Where's my sheet of paper? I knew I was getting this for a reason. In him, all things hold together.

And I just. I love this. He is the image of the invisible God. Anybody ever seen God just go, it's okay to say no. You're not alone.

You're with every other human being who's ever existed.

Except those who saw Jesus in the flesh. But even there, they didn't know looked like looking at you. Otherwise they would have bowed down immediately. Everyone would have. But they did not.

He was veiled. The scripture says he's the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. Now, why is he first? Because he just pushes his way to the front of the line. Because he's selfish?

No, because he is the cause of all things.

It's really simple. It's simpler than that. He can't help but be first because, well, he started things, therefore they're his. And all power that issues from him is his too. We get to use it.

And we're told to use it. We're commanded to use it. Power in itself is not evil. You say, how do you know that, Pastor? I only see power as evil.

Well, because the most powerful being. What do we even say? Like, you know the fancy word? Omni. Nipotent.

Right? Omnipotent. Potent. Potential power. Power is potential.

Power is capacity. The all powerful being is good. Only now I know this is disrupting. You know, it's like taking the red pill. It's disrupting.

I get it, right? It doesn't seem right. I actually had an experience over the weekend that was kind of unique. I wondered if I was going to share it or not, but I guess I will.

Have you ever played those games in, like, an arcade where it's the claw? Does anybody. Do you know what I'm talking about? Like, the claw, you know, it goes down and. Has anybody ever won?

Like, you know, not me. I've literally 40. This is no joke. 44 years old. I've never won once.

I just goes like this and just comes up empty. Every come. Comes up empty. Comes up. I watched a reel on Instagram of how to do it, and I was like, this is dumb.

So dumb. And you just. You shake the joystick, you get it swinging, and then you drop it. And literally it came up and dropped in there. I was like, what in the.

I did it again and again. I shared with all the kids around. I felt like Santa Claus. Literally everybody in that place was happy, weren't they? It was like this little pizza joint.

You know, people are like, bringing their kids over there. Can you do this for me? I'm like, yes. I learned a new thing, right? Like, just because something has happened for 44 years in our life and we've never won or nothing has ever changed in God's realm.

That doesn't mean anything. Now hear me on this. I'm sitting, like in your life. You say, I've been struggling with this thing. You don't understand.

I don't have to understand the full length of it. I really don't. But after 44 years, even in my own life, God is still changing things and making them what new? You see, I had a new experience I was pumped about. I was like, hey, yeah, get in there.

You know all this. Listen, some of us have gotten so jaded, just we come to church, we just expect the same. Nothing's ever changed so far. Nothing's ever changed in my husband. Nothing's ever changed in my wife.

Nothing ever changed in this. Nobody ever listen. No, no. When you're dealing with God, his power is inexhaustible, infinite. You bring it to him and he makes all things new.

You say, how? How? Think about that little lunch. That boy, you know, he just packed a little lunch. Little lunchable is what I always imagine.

You know, one of those little lunchables. I like those little lunchables. It's like. But to feed 5,000, that's a snack for me, you know, I don't know how kids get by with that for lunch, but it's a snack for me. I just throw it down and done.

Jesus says, give me that snack. Give me that lunchable. Boom. Multiplies it.

Listen, power is potential. And God, when you're dealing with him, when he's in you, the potential is infinite. Not on our end, you understand, but as we submit to his power, as we bend the knee, things begin to change in our life. We start getting oriented to the one who. Who is in charge of it all.

And, you know, we don't have to live our life as if it's just the same old thing because the scripture says he's making all things new. I believe that. I see that. But listen, if we're just eating the news and doom scrolling, we will never see it if we don't get in this word. Because hearing faith comes by what?

Hearing the word of God, not by scrolling Instagram.

And I like to scroll every once in a while. But we've got to order ourselves to what is best, what is highest, what is most good. And that is obviously God. So in this understanding of power, Listen, you see that first Advent is purple here and it shows a cross with a crown around it. Now it's jeweled Here.

But that first cross and that first crown was made of wood. It's our Lord on a tree with thorns shoved into his head as a crown. We embellish it today because why? He said we shouldn't do that. I think we should.

Why? Because he's making all things new. He transforms. He transforms a death tool into new life.

Death. The worst thing that could possibly. Why is death so bad? Because all our potential is gone. All the power's gone.

There's no more power. You're dead over. There's no more power to do anything. There's no more capacity to do anything. That's the worst thing that could happen to us.

And Paul says, yeah, that's our last enemy is death, actually. But guess what now, because of who? Firstborn of creation, firstborn from the dead, he gets first. Why? Because he's the first one through.

Through death, new life.

Now again, this sounds so backwards, doesn't it? Sounds like we're upside down. Yes. Anybody? Okay.

If you know, you know. But here's the thing. We are upside down, but he is not. He's right side up. And so what we do, what he does is take us from that cave, from the darkness, from the twisted few that we have and turns us upright.

Oh, I can now. It takes a minute, doesn't it, to really get yourself acclimated to this new kingdom. But let me tell you, his kingdom is without end. His reign is from the cross, primarily.

In other words, any old earthly king would have come down the crawl. I mean, we've all watched the movies where we were rooting for the king to show up, right? I wish. Where's the king? He went on a trip.

We should get back. Because these people, we need to wipe them out, right? It's like most movies are oriented some version of that, even cartoons. Not this king. No.

He rules and reigns, is coronated as king right here in this moment. Like, that's why the church says, look at this text. On Christ the King Sunday. We would imagine some long train and, you know, pump and prestige, but instead we have stripped suffering, death, and yet dignity, honor, glory, self giving, love.

The throne is a cross. And that's why the cross became the symbol for Christianity around the world. You see a cross, you know, it's Christian. And that's why Islam despises it, by the way. Absolutely despises the cross because it's weakness.

And yet God says, listen, my weakness is stronger than anybody else's strong.

And it can be that way for you. He says, join me in my Weakness. What does he say? If you want to be my disciple. What?

Become very powerful. Push your way to the front. Climb, climb, climb. No, deny yourself. Take up your cross and follow me.

I'll do it first. You follow.

Jesus rules, you see, by self giving love. That's how. By giving up his life for ours. And so much more we could say about that, but I got to move on. Jesus refuses to save himself, even though everybody that's mocking him, right?

You even notice everybody around the scene, the leaders, the soldiers, the people, they're like, why don't you just save yourself? It'll prove to everybody that you're powerful. No, that's earthly power. And you mistake it. It's not by force, it's by grace.

Not by force, but by grace. In other words, how were you drawn to Christ? Twisted your arm? Oh, okay, all right, I'll submit. No, it was his love that drew you.

It was his goodness that drew you.

Notice, drew us to him. When we see him for who he is. There's no way not to be drawn. There's no way not to see beautiful.

If we see something else shaking our fist at God, what kind of God are you? We're seeing wrongly. We're upside down, we're twisted, we're corrupted, we're darkened in our reason, and we need his help to see. That's the lie of the enemy, isn't it? He's holding out on you.

He wants to be first, not you. God is somehow pushing himself. He's not even in line. That's the point. He's not in line.

No, in his weakness, he displays the strongest power potential in all the world. That is to save the whole world. He saves the whole world from a cross, from an execution tool, and completely change. Like, we don't even. It's hard for us to even think of the cross like that.

You know, like people in the first and second century. It wasn't the first Christian symbol because they were too scared to use, was still in operation. Once crucifixion passes out, then they're okay, like, yeah, I guess it really is that dramatic. No one wanted to end up on a cross. Jesus went to the cross for us, willingly.

So this is why somebody like Aquinas can say, this kingship is actually the best government. Why? Because Christ is king. That's why. Now, we might disagree with that as Americans.

I get it. I'm with you. You know, we can go against that, but we cannot go against his kingship. The government of the world, the universe is governed by 1, 1. It's kind of like a, you know, we call it a composer.

Right. I always wished I could do something like that. Just because I like to write like the deep. I don't even know what you call them, those big things, you know, that make the big noise. It's like bring them up, right?

And then you over here, you know, the flute or whatever. I don't know, but I just always wanted to like get up there because they look sweating and so. Yeah, right. Feels, feels great. But all these, think about it.

All these different parts, all these different instruments, and yet comes into unity with the composer. He brings this, this group in, this group that's God's providence. He's governing the world. The world is not blindly moving forward. Things are not happening by accident.

No, we're underneath his rulership. And for those who are in his kingdom, what that means is just we know he's reigning. We know he is reigning in self giving, grace filled, merciful love.

We've entered his kingdom. When we have submitted to him. He gives the marks of a true king, seeks the good of his people, sacrifices for them, cultivates their flourishing. Wouldn't that be nice if you had somebody looking out for you like that? We do.

We absolutely do. Nobody really looks out for me. Never get a job, never get this or never. That is wrong. There is someone looking.

You're not listening, you're not submitting, you're not seeing. And we need God's help to do that. We can't do that on our own. We've got to have His Holy Spirit to see, right, to be right.

Yeah. An earthly king would have come down, avoided suffering and saved himself. But what does Jesus do? What does Jesus do? He endures suffering for love.

He gives us mercy. And instead of saving himself, he saves others in the process.

You know, that principle is all throughout scripture, by the way. You get Noah, right? And if you associate with Noah, in other words, you get in his boat, you're saved. You're saved from a disaster, Right? Abraham, God creates a family, says, you want to be saved, become part of that family.

Right? This principle is all throughout. Why? Because it's the principle of the universe. If you associate with Christ, get in his body, his church, you're saved.

That's the point. It's the same sort of saving that's going on. He is saving the world through Jesus Christ. God is. And he does it in almost the exact opposite way that Adam did.

You remember Adam, they sin at a tree, they try to get what they want. By grasping from a tree. Yes. And that leads to death. But now a new tree, on a new tree, there's no grasping.

You're grasping for power. He already has all power. He doesn't have to take it, he already has it. And through this tree, this cross, new life comes. Not only are we going back to Eden, but to a restored, a renewed city garden.

That's the way revelation ends. You remember, there's the city, and it, the city comes down into the garden. God's like, yes, that's our new home. That's the home I've been building for you. Where his kingdom and creation come together.

Where heaven and earth become one. Where we become one with God in a glorified body.

Adam lost it, Jesus recovered it. And he pushes us on to new things. He not only gives us justice on the cross, but mercy. And in the order of things, mercy is higher than justice. Justice is giving someone what they deserve.

We oftentimes act like we want that until it turns around to us, right?

Mercy. No, it's going beyond that, not against justice. Notice what's happening on the cross is just. Justice says, sin must be paid for. And mercy says, I'll pay it.

Jesus says, I'll pay it. I got you now. I like it when somebody says, I got you. Know what I mean? If I'm out at a restaurant eating or something like that, I got you, man.

Don't worry about it. I'm like, thank you, Jesus. Because I know where all good things come from, right?

Could you hear Jesus today saying to you in your situation, like, we all have different. Trust me, I know. We all got different situations. I got you. I got you.

How does that change this week? How does that change this day? We can live a little freer, right? Why? Because not.

Because we're having to struggle. Oh, man, I gotta whip up the power to do this and I gotta try to manipulate a couple people to try to get into that group. No, you don't. No, you don't. That's the way of the world.

Manipulation. Way of the world. Lying your way into good things. Way of the world. And it leads to hell.

And some of us are in this old mindset, got this. Can never just keep grabbing for things like I did with that claw for 44 years. There's a new way. There's a new way because there's a new humanity. Because Christ made it possible.

He wants us to join him. He wants us to join him in this new humanity. He wants us to come into his kingdom. Alright, man, so I'm skipping over like 20 things here. Okay, but here's where we need to land.

You are a king and queen in your own right now. I don't just mean positively. I mean responsibly. So in other words, you're king of your own soul. That's the way this works.

And like I said, we're complicated people. Yes. You don't believe that. Just try to go run five miles right now in that suit. You'll argue with yourself.

You say, how is that possible? I don't know, but you do. You know, like we even. Surprise. I should know my myself better than anybody.

And yet I go to one of those clothing places, they got like the five, six mirrors or whatever. I'm like, I had no idea back in my head looked like that. You know, it's terrible. I didn't know I had a wrinkle in it. You know, it's like something's wrong.

I didn't know that everybody else knew that, but I didn't. We don't really know ourself as well as we think we do. And we don't govern ourself well, do we? But you know what being king, really the highest king, means? He's up high, he can see every.

Nothing obstructs his view. That's the view we need. We'll never get there. He's there. Let's rely on him.

Let's lean on him and let him come in and rightly govern all that makes us who we are. The way we eat, the way we talk, the way we treat our spouses, the. The way we work, the way we treat our kids and raise them. The way our commitments to one another here at this church. Let's let it filter everything because it's connected to everything.

So let him be king of your heart. He is king of the universe. He is. Let him be king of your heart today.

So surrender to this throne where he reigns from the cross and welcomes us in to new resurrected life. And here's the good words that we'll hear today. If we do so, you will be with me in paradise. May it be so. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.