I did choose thee, Lord, for,
Lord, that Todd's Road Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Todd
Neidert. We are located at 4137 Todd's
Road, two miles outside of Manowar Boulevard. Sunday services are
at 1030 a.m. and 6 p.m. Bible study is at
945 a.m. Wednesday services are at 7 p.m. Nursery is provided for all services.
For more information, visit our website at toddsroadgracechurch.com. Now here's our pastor, Todd Neibert. I've entitled the message for
this morning, The King of the Jews. In Luke chapter 23, beginning
in verse 36, we read, And the soldiers also mocked him, coming
to him and offering him vinegar and saying, If thou be the king
of the Jews, save thyself. And a superscription also was
written over him in letters of Greek and Latin and Hebrew. This is the king of the Jews. Now Matthew's account tells us
that this was the accusation against him. He's the king of
the Jews. Caesar's not the king. He is
the king of the Jews. That's the reason why he was
crucified. That was the accusation was laid
against him, that of being king. Pilate said, are you a king?
And he said, to this end was I born. Remember in Matthew chapter
two, Herod wanted to find him who was born king of the Jews. Now, men are okay with Him being
a great prophet or a great teacher. Men are okay with Him being a
miracle worker and healing them and feeding them and helping
them. Men are okay with that. Men are
okay even with Him being a Savior, as long as they have the last
say. Why, yes, He's Savior if I let Him save me, but I have
the last say. It's my will that will determine
my eternal destiny. Now, men have no problem with
that, but men have a problem with His absolute kingship. Now, to say He is King is to
say that He is sovereign. To say that He's sovereign says
that He is the cause of everything, and men are in His hands, and
my eternal destiny is not determined by my will. My eternal destiny
is determined by His will, because He really is King. the absolute
ruler and controller of all things. He really is sovereign. He exercises, listen to this
statement, he exercises complete sovereign control over the free
and uncoerced actions and thoughts of men. To say he's king is to
say he reigns. His will is always done. Now, the leper understood this. When he came up to the Lord and
worshiped him, he said, Lord, if you will, you can make me
clean. It's totally up to whether you're
pleased to do it. If you will, you can make me
clean. Now, growing up in the United
States of America, it's very hard to understand this concept
of kingship. We've grown up in a democracy
where our leaders are voted into office. And we have three different
branches, the legislative, the executive, and the judicial branch,
to make sure that no one group or no one individual gets too
much power because of what could take place. And we can even impeach
our elected officials and our leaders. We can get them out
of office. So we have a hard time understanding what the Bible
means by a king. Now, a king in those days, like
a Nebuchadnezzar or someone like that in the scriptures, they
had absolute authority. What happened to you was in their
hand. A king could prosper you and
make your life very happy, or a king could Command your death
or make sure you have nothing and everything you do is given
to him. He had absolute power. His will was done. If you were
under his kingship in those days, that means you were under his
thumb, under his control. He's the king. Now, no doubt
there have been benevolent kings where it's been good for them
to be king. But the point I'm making is a
king has absolute control. And his accusation written over
him was that he was king of kings, king of the Jews, now under the
king, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God. I think it's interesting in John
6, verse 15, after he had fed miraculously the 5,000, he brought
matter into existence, which was not there before, and fed
5,000 people with Five biscuits and two sardines. He increased
all of those and made food, brought matter into existence that was
not there before. The people were impressed. And
they thought, this man can help us. This man can feed us. We
won't have to worry anymore. And the scripture says they wanted
to make him king. And we read in John chapter 16,
or John chapter 6, verse 15, when Jesus therefore perceived
that they would come to take him by force. to make him king. He departed again into a mountain
alone. You see, nobody is going to make
him king. He is king. Nobody votes him into office.
He is king. No one can impeach him. He is
king of kings and lord of lords. Now remember, the king is the
one whose will is always done. That's a king. His will is always done. He's the cause of all things,
always has been and always will be. Did you know that Jesus Christ
is the king of the devil? The devil can't make a move without
his permission. He's God's devil on God's chain.
Yes, I fear the devil, but I fear God more, Christ more, Christ
is God, and He has omnipotence, and He's in complete control
of the devil. And actually, the devil is being used by God to
do His will. Everything the devil does is
used for the furtherance of the gospel. Now, the devil doesn't
mean it that way, but it's true. Everything that he does. The
biggest example is the cross. He thought he'd defeated Christ
and he inspired all this, but that was his defeat. That was
the salvation of all of God's people. So the devil and all
of his demons, Christ is the king of them. Christ is the king
of all men, whether they know it or not. They say, well, he's
no king to me. He will not have this man reign
over us. Well, he does, whether you know it or not, and he's
in complete control of you. That's who he is. He's the king
of kings, and he's the Lord of lords. The king's heart, it says,
is in the hand of the Lord. As the rivers of water, he turneth
it whithersoever he will. All earthly kings Christ turns
their heart whether so ever He will, always accomplishing His
purposes. He's the King of Providence.
Providence is everything that happens in time. Everything that
happens in time, everything, all things, is His will being
done for the accomplishment of His purposes. All things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are the
called according to his purpose. Now, get this work together.
The events may seem tragic, may seem painful, and indeed they
are, but still it's true that all things work together for
good, not to everybody, but to them who love God, to them who
are the called according to his purpose. He's the king of everything
that happens because he's king. He's most especially the king
of saints. King to his people, they love
his kingship. He is king in salvation. Now
what do I mean by that? If you're saved, he did it all.
You didn't contribute anything. If you're saved, if you're a
child of God, if you're blood washed, if you have a perfect
righteousness, if you stand accepted before God, you are so because
he saved you. He elected you. He's the one
who chose you before time began. And He didn't do it because He
saw something good in you or He didn't foresee you would believe.
He did it simply as an act of His will. He's the King in redemption. He's the one who redeems. His
blood didn't make redemption possible, He redeemed. Everybody
He died for, He redeemed. He is the King in justification.
If you're justified, it's because He took His righteousness and
gave it to you and He took your sin and gave it to Himself and
put it away on Calvary's tree and suffered and bled and died.
He did it all. He's the King in Your new birth.
The reason you're born again is not because you decided to
be. It's because He gave you life. It's because He died for
you and He's going to give you life. If you're preserved, if
you continue all the way to the end, it's because He's king in
that. He preserves you all the way. He truly is the King of
kings and the Lord of lords. He is, as Paul said, the eternal,
immortal, invisible, only wise God. He's before all things.
It's what Paul said to the Colossians. He's before all things. Whatever
it is, he's before it. And by him, all things consist. And he was born king of the Jews. Now, he was born king when he
was that little baby in a manger. He was the king, the king of
kings and the Lord of lords. He lived as a king. He had complete
control of his body. He never sinned. He lived as a king and he died
as a king. Do you know death couldn't take
him until he gave it permission? He's the only one to truly yield
up the ghost. He yielded it up. Somebody says,
well, when somebody takes their own life, isn't that, well, no,
that wasn't like the Lord did. He said, Death, you can come
now. I'm going to allow you to take me. He died as a king. He
was raised from the dead as a mighty, conquering king, having finished
the work the father gave him to do. He ascended back into
glory as a king, and right now he is the king, ruling and reigning
in complete control of everything and everybody as the great intercessor
of his people. What a king. I want to read you
a passage of scripture from John chapter 19. And this is the same
event from John's perspective. We read in verse 19, and Pilate,
John chapter 19, verse 19, and Pilate wrote a title and put
it on the cross. And the writing was, Jesus of
Nazareth, the King of the Jews. This title then read many of
the Jews, for the place where Jesus was crucified was night
of the city. And it was written in Hebrew,
the language of the religious, in Greek, the language of the
common man, and Latin, the language of the educated and the influential. And everybody was given the same
message, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. That was the
placard over his head, Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the
Jews. Now, we know from the writings
of Josephus, the Jewish historian, that Pilate hated the Jews. He hated that he was ruling over
them. I mean, he wanted to be ruler,
but he did not like the Jews. And when he put this over Christ's
head, he did this to kind of make a slam at the Jews. Here's
your king. This helpless man you hate, here's your king. And
they didn't like that. Verse 21, Then said the chief
priests of the Jews to Pilate, Write not the king of the Jews,
but that he said, I am the king of the Jews. Pilate answered,
What I've written, I've written. It stays written, Jesus of Nazareth,
the king of the Jews. He's God's king. God said in Psalm 2, Yet have
I set my king on my holy hill of Zion. God said to the Son,
Thy throne, O God, is forever. A scepter of righteousness is
the scepter of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness
and hated iniquity. Therefore God, even thy God,
hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. He's your king. Whether you know
it or not, whether you like it or not, he's your king because
he is the king. And him being the king makes
him everybody's king. He's Lord of Lords and King of
Kings with a scepter of sovereignty, the robe of righteousness and
the crown of glory. But you know who he is most especially
king to? He's everybody's king. He's God's
king. He's king over the creation, but he is most especially the
king of the Jews. Jesus of Nazareth, the king of
the Jews. Now, did you know that all the
world is divided into two groups, Jew or Gentile? lost or saved, sheep or goats,
Jew or Gentile. You're either a Jew or you are
a Gentile. Now the Jews, you say the Jews
crucified Christ. Well, I know the physical Jews
did, but the Jew, the spiritual Jew is the one who loves his
kingship. They love His reign. Now, who
is the Jew to whom Christ is King? Romans 2, verse 28, Paul
says, For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly, Now, if you
can trace your pedigree back to Abraham himself, and if you've
lived in Israel all your life, that does not make you a Jew. He is not a Jew, which is one
outwardly that was born with the Jewish heritage. That doesn't
make you a real Jew. Then he says next, neither is
that circumcision which is outward in the flesh. Now circumcision,
I want to say this reverently, but if you don't understand the
gospel, it's a very strange religious rite. Why in the world would
God want you to have the foreskin cut off to prove that you're
one of his people. What is that all about? It's
a strange religious ritual and a very painful one indeed. So
Paul tells us, neither is that circumcision which is outward
in the flesh. If you have the physical circumcision
of the Jew, that doesn't mean you have true circumcision. That's
not a true Jew. Verse 29, but he is a Jew which
is one inwardly. The work of God is on the inside. He is a Jew, which is one inwardly. And his circumcision is that
of the heart in the spirit, not in the letter. The spirit gives life and the
letter kills. It's what Paul said in 2 Corinthians
3, verse 6. The letter says, circumcise him. The letter says,
keep these commandments and you'll live. The letter says, do and
live. The spirit of the law, the spirit
of circumcision is the new heart that God gives whose praise is
not of men but of God, the circumcised heart. The spirit of the law
is not do and live. The law exposes you that you
cannot do and the only place you have to look is Christ Jesus
the Lord. That's what the law does. That's what the spirit
of the law is. It's to drive you. It's to drive me to the
Lord Jesus Christ. It's to show me that I can't
keep it. Somebody says we ought to keep the law. Yeah, we ought
to keep the law, but do you keep it? No, that's the answer. You
haven't kept and I haven't kept one commandment one time, not
in our heart. If we think we have, all we do is show we don't
understand the spirituality and the depth of God's holy law.
The law is spiritual, Paul said, but I am carnal. sold under sin. The law showed me that I was
exceeding sinful. That's the spirit of the law.
It's not to make you try to keep it and try to earn God's favor.
It's to show you you can't keep it and lead you to the Lord Jesus
Christ to find in Him all of your salvation. In Philippians chapter 3, I want
to read a scripture that tells who the true Jew is. Who is this
Jew over whom the Lord Jesus Christ is King? Paul says in
Philippians chapter 3, beginning in verse 1, Finally, my brethren,
rejoice in the Lord. You see, He's in control of everything,
and therefore I can rejoice. Finally, my brethren, rejoice
in the Lord. We don't rejoice in circumstances
that are terrible and difficult and painful and burdensome. That's
life, isn't it? There's so many troubles and
so many burdens and so many disappointments, and we don't so much rejoice
in those disappointments and burdens, but we do rejoice in
the fact that Christ is in control and that He's using everything
for the good of His people and for His own glory. Finally, my
brethren, rejoice in the Lord." And then he says, to write the
same things to you, to me, indeed, is not grievous. It's not irksome.
It's not tiresome. You know, if you hear me preach,
you're probably going to say, you know, he preaches the same
thing every time you hear him preach. It's nothing but Christ
Jesus being everything and salvation. It's nothing but salvation being
all of grace. It's nothing but man being dead
in sins and unable to save himself. If you hear him once, You heard
everything he's going to say. Well, that's what Paul said.
And he said, to write the same things to you, to me indeed is
not irksome and toilsome, but for you it's safe. I need to
hear the gospel over and over again. And then he says in verse
two, beware of dogs. He's not talking about the canines.
He's talking about false prophets, and he calls them dogs. Most
preachers would go under this Description. They don't preach
the gospel. They're called in the Old Testament
dumb dogs and greedy dogs, and Paul calls them dogs. He said
in Galatians 1, if any man preach any other gospel than that which
I preach to you, let him be accursed. Let him be damned. Now that's
what he's talking about, somebody who preaches a false gospel,
who preaches salvation dependent upon man in some way. Beware
of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision. Now
Paul makes up a word here. He's saying beware of the circumcision,
and that's generally what the Jewish people were called, but
he calls them the mutilators. He uses a play on words, beware
of the concision, and then he makes this statement in verse
three, and this is the word, this is what I want to dwell
on. Who are the Jews? He says, for we are the circumcision. We are the true circumcision. We are those who are truly Jews,
not just an outward appearance, not just in ritual, but those
who have had circumcised hearts, those who are true Jews, those
who love the kingship of Christ and the reign of Christ. We are
the circumcision and he gets three marks. Very simple. Number one, We are the circumcision
which worship God in the Spirit. We worship God for who He is. We worship Him as He's revealed
Himself in His Word. We worship Him in all of His
wonderful attributes. We love Him for who He is. Every
attribute of God, talk about His sovereignty, His immutability,
His power, His knowledge, His justice, His holiness, whatever
attribute we're speaking of, we worship Him, and we do so
only in spirit. We know that the flesh can't
worship God. There's nothing clean or okay
about the flesh. It's nothing but sin. And we
know the only way we can worship God is by God the Holy Spirit
enabling us to, Him giving us a new man and a new heart that
actually worships God for who He is. We understand that worship
is a supernatural thing. You know, I'm not going to say
to a group of people that are mixed believers and unbelievers,
come worship. Come worship with us. You can't worship unless
you have the Spirit of God. I say, come and hear the gospel,
and I hope God gives me and you grace to worship Him in spirit
and truth. The Lord said, God is spirit,
and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in
truth. So the true Jew is the person
who worships God for who he is, and you'll only worship a sovereign.
If you can manipulate him, if you can get him to respond to
this or get him to do it, you won't worship him. You'll only
worship a sovereign, one in whose hands you are. We are the circumcision,
which worship God in the spirit. And here's the second thing,
don't miss this. We rejoice in Christ Jesus. Now there the word rejoice is
a different word in the original than the word rejoice in verse
one of it says finally brethren rejoice in the Lord. That means
be happy, be glad, rejoice. Here the word rejoice means to
glory in, to boast in, to have confidence in. There's one thing
I have confidence in. Christ Jesus. I glory in Christ. Paul put it this way in Galatians
chapter 6 verse 14, God forbid that I should glory. Now remember
who's speaking. This is Paul. He was used by
God to write the scriptures. He was the chief apostle. He
was the man God used more than anybody else to expound the gospel.
And what did he say? God forbid that I should glory.
Well, he was taken up into the third heavens and taught the
gospel directly by Christ himself. He says, I'm not going to glory
in that. God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our
Lord Jesus Christ. What Christ accomplished on the
cross, who he is and what he did. He's the son of God. He's
the God man. And on Calvary's tree, when he
said it is finished, the salvation of everybody that he died for
was finished, signed, sealed, delivered, and accomplished.
I'm only going to glory in what he did. Now that's who the true
circumcision is. That's the true Jew. They don't
glory in their works. They don't glory in their religious
accomplishments. They don't glory in anything
that they've done. They glory only in Christ Jesus. Paul put it this way in Philippians
3, verse 9. Oh, that I may win Christ and
be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of
the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness
which is of God by faith. When God comes looking for me,
all I want him to see is Christ Jesus and me being in him. That's what a true Jew does.
And here's the third mark. For we are the circumcision,
which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus and
have no confidence in the flesh." Now, by flesh, he's not talking
about our skin and the bones and organs and veins and so on,
the things that make up the human body. He's talking about our
nature. the way we're born into this
world. The carnal mind is enmity against God. It's not subject
to the law of God. Neither indeed can be. So then
they that are in the flesh cannot please God. By flesh, he's talking
about the works of the flesh. If you know who God is, you're
going to know that your righteousnesses are as filthy rags. You're going
to see that I have no confidence in my flesh. I don't have any
confidence in my will. I don't have any confidence in
my understanding. I have confidence in Christ, but no confidence
in flesh. I don't have any confidence in your flesh. I have no confidence
in the flesh. I have no confidence in anything
I've ever done or intend to do. I look to Christ only. Now, that's the true Jew who
worships God in the Spirit, rejoices in Christ Jesus, and has no confidence
in the flesh, and how he glories that Jesus Christ is his King. Truly, Jesus Christ is the King
of the Jews. This is Todd Kniper praying that
God will be pleased to make Himself known to you. To request a copy
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