Who's Your King

Who is your King? Pastor Adrian challenges us with the question who is our King? What does it mean to be our King of Kings and what reasons do we live in a way which falls short.

Transcript

It's good to have you with us as well. If you are with us for the first time, I want to welcome you. It's so good to have you with us in church. Some people are watching online, and it's good to have you with us as well, whether live or watching afterwards. If you're with us in person, then we are privileged to have you with us today. My name's Adrian, one of the pastors here. You've come on a good day actually because we've got our new friends lunch on today. Trevor's very excited by that because he always gets a good feed. Tina and Lisa and the team put on an amazing feast for us. So at the end of the service, if you want, if you have never come to a new friend's lunch before, then I know we've got, I think we had about 70 odd people booked in because we've had a whole bunch of new people come to our church over that time. Is that good? Some of you are some of those people. So if you're here for that, if you're booked in, if you didn't book in for that, then we have some spots available because we've always got extra food. So if you're here for the first time today, we'd love to see you there. After the service, we've got morning tea here, we've got the Cafe open and all of that. Then just across over in the kids Hall, across the car park there, we're going to have that set up with a free lunch, and our pastors will be there, a whole bunch of new people. So you're very welcome to join us. If you haven't booked in, you can join us as well. That'd be great. Very good. Let me have my thank you, Alex, my stuff, the Bible, the word of the Lord. If you are new, then I think you've been given a little gift bag, and it's got some chocolate in there, and some info about the church, and also a little card you can fill out with the details you're comfortable with. Fill that in, and we'd love to let you know about the life of the church and all of that. So how's everyone going? It's good to see you all here on this fine winter. We are about to hit the last month of winter, and one month to go. So hopefully you're getting through without getting too sick, and I know some of us already faced that and come out the other side, and hopefully now you've got immunity, so you're going to be all good for the next month or so. All righty, we're going to come around the word and Alex will tell us some of the good stuff happening in the church at the end, she loves to do that, that's her favorite thing to do in the world. Is the announcements and all of that.

Luke chapter 23, Luke 23:3.

'So Pilate asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus replied, “You have said it.” ' Luke 23:3

We come to this famous scene that we normally talk about at Easter, where Jesus is put on trial. He's come into Jerusalem, they've hailed him as, you know, hosanna in the highest, and they've laid palm leaves down when he came in on the donkey. Then he's been betrayed, arrested, and now being accused of insurrection and proclaiming himself as a king of the Jews. They've brought Him before Pontius Pilate, and Pontius Pilate is the Roman governor. He is sort of over the people there, managing things on behalf of the Roman emperor in Jerusalem. So, Pilate has a discussion with Jesus, and we get to this verse in verse 3, 23:3. It says, "So Pilate asked him, 'Are you the king of the Jews?' and Jesus replied, 'You have said it.' It's an interesting answer, isn't it? 'Are you the king of the Jews?' 'You said it.' And I want to talk to you today about this concept that seems to be a theme that I think God wants to speak to us in our hearts and your life about. This concept of Jesus as King. Jesus as King. This is an important thing. This is actually the reason when you look at people, we sort of accept the fact Jesus got crucified and died. The reason given through scripture was because he was proclaiming himself as a king, and that was putting himself over the Roman Emperor and over the Pharisees who said, 'Well, we've only got one king, God is our Lord, but also we're serving under the Roman Emperor.' And so they use these things to say, 'Jesus is proclaiming himself King, he deserves to die.' And in the end, that's what put him on the cross, was this proclamation that he proclaimed himself King of the Jews. And I want to ask you this question today, who's your king? We're going to talk about some of the characters through this passage, some of the people groups, how they reacted, and who their King was and what was King in their lives. And we've got to ask ourselves the same question, who's our King? Who's your king in your life?

A couple of years ago, we were over in England in London for a conference for Alpha, and it happened to be the time when King Charles was being coronated. And so we were there, and we were going to be there on the day of his coronation. And I'm Australian, so I was like, I don't really care, but I'm there. It's a big event, and we're part of the Commonwealth, so we probably should go to see this event. But I was like, I don't need a king. Who's it be like that? Few Aussies, few. It doesn't matter whether you're Aussie or not, we're quite independent, aren't we? We don't need a king or a queen. We're like, we can be respectful, but it's like, I'm my own, especially young people. It's like, you know, you guys are all Republican-based people, probably. You're like, yeah, we want a republic. I don't know, Justin, if you thought about it, but let's not get too political. But we were there, and I was like, I don't care, but I'll just go see it anyway. And I thought, who cares about this king thing? In terms, he doesn't really have much power, but it's a massive event. And I thought, hey, we can say we were there on the day. And so we got out, and typical London, typical England, this is the England that I think about, anyway. It was raining, right? It was raining on the day, it was overcast. You guys, some of you would have watched it from home. Well, we were there, we went out, and I was like, 'Right, we're going to go, and I'm going to see the coach go down, or whatever, and all the procession. We're going to, it's going to be awesome. We'll see it, take some pictures. And I went out there and discovered that everyone else in London and England had also decided to come out and see it. And so they, early in that morning, had blocked a whole bunch of things off. And so Narelle and I started to walk towards the thing, and we discovered that we could only get to certain sections. And so we went to one section, and we were going to meet Pastor Katrina, who was also there. And we said, 'Oh, we'll meet and we'll catch up.' She was staying somewhere else, and we were going to meet together. Well, we tried to do that, and there was a block, and there was a whole bunch of police, and there was, you know, all this stuff set up. We couldn't cross the road. I said, I'll go around the other way, and I'll cross the other way. And discovered I couldn't cross the other way. And before I knew it, I discovered that we had been isolated into one little garden area that we couldn't move in or out of. We were just stuck, and we weren't going to see anything. In fact, all we saw, you guys saw more on TV. We, I was stuck watching a screen in the rain, trying to stand under a tree, watching this coronation that I didn't really get to see. We saw some horses go down at one section, and I was like, 'I don't care about King Charles being king.' But I discovered something else ruling my life. Frustration. Frustration got a hold of me, and I was like, 'I'm going to walk here.' And Narelle was like, 'Why are you walking over there?' Cause I'm going to get through somewhere. And then I hit a blockage there, and then I, I'm going to walk over this side and hit another blockage. And in the end, I just went and found a little spot under a tree with a seat there, and we just sat there and didn't see anything. And we just heard some stuff over a loudspeaker, and I was like, 'It was very frustrating.' And that night, I said, 'I will not be controlled, all right? I will not be controlled.' And so that night, at 1 in the morning, we walked into London, and I said, 'I'm going to walk down the road that they came down on their coach, right towards Buckingham Palace.' And so, 1 in the morning, when they opened all the roads up, I forced my beautiful wife, who likes to go to bed at 8 p.m., and this is 1 a.m. in the morning, we walk down what's that road called that goes down Buckingham Palace? I can't remember, but it's the famous road. We walk down that road, 1 a.m., and I said, 'I've done it.' And I was like, 'Yeah, you can't beat me.' I go, because I was a frustrated, and I realized something in my life. We might not think a king is controlling us.

We might not think things in our life, but I realized in my own life, there are things that control me. There are things that rule over me. On that day, I thought I was independent. I thought I can do what I want, but I found myself controlled by my own frustration, my own desire for independence. Who finds that things in your life are controlling your life? You want to be free. We live in a society that says, 'I'm independent. I'm my own ruler.' But other things rule over us. Fear rules over us. What other people think rules over us. Every one of us has a king or a queen, if you want to put it like that. We all have things in our life that try and control us and rule our lives. And the question for you and I is, who's your king? What's ruling over your life? I'm not just talking about a person. I'm talking about things that can get a hold of you and will determine the trajectory of the rest of your life. If you let that frustration that came over me on that one day, if I let that rule my life, then I'm going to make decisions that aren't good, and bad things are going to happen. And because I've got a king, I've got something that's ruling me. I want to ask you that, and I want to look through this story, because as we see, Jesus was there, and it's interesting to me. We know we've sung the song, all right, so the spoiler is that Jesus is King of Kings, all right? That's the spoiler. I know, Eric, that's a massive revelation. You've never heard that before in your life. We know that. But what's interesting to me is Jesus is here, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, before all of these people, and yet they had other things ruling over them that made them not see who he was. And I want to tell you, you can be in church, you can be a Christian, you can be saying, 'I'm following God,' and doing all those things, but you can have other things ruling your life instead of Jesus Christ. And I want to challenge us, and I want to encourage us, and I believe the Holy Spirit wants to do that, to say, 'Who truly is your king in your life?' And we're going to have a look at these guys, and then we're going to, at the end, we're going to pray together, and we're going to hopefully make a decision, make a determination to say, 'God, I don't want these other things ruling over me. I want you, Jesus, ruling over me.' But that's a big decision, and it's not an easy one to make.

Power

The first person we see here in this is there's four people, four groups I want to look at in this scripture that encountered Jesus, but the first didn't have him as king. The first one is Pontius Pilate himself, and Pontius Pilate encounters Jesus and asks him, 'Are you the king?' And Jesus says, 'Well, you've said it.' And he has this interaction, but Pontius Pilate did not place Jesus as king. For him, his king was power. Power was what Pontius Pilate cared about, among many things. He was the ruler over this area. He was scared of the Pharisees and the Jews uprising against him and taking his power from him. He was concerned about losing power from the Roman Emperor. We don't know what Pontius Pilate had done to get the power he had, but he enjoyed that power. And even in John, I don't have time to turn to it right now, but in John chapter 18, there's another interaction here that Jesus has with Pontius Pilate, goes into more detail, and Jesus talks to him about the power that he has, and he references this idea that Pontius Pilate loves power, but actually it's God who's given him the power he has, not Pontius Pilate. But Pontius Pilate couldn't see that. He wanted power for himself. And so we see he sees Jesus there, but he doesn't see him as king because he wanted his own power. That was king in his life. Who, whatever I need to do to have power. Don't we see this in society? You know, some people, some of us are people that like power. Some people, my wife, she doesn't like power at all. She's like, my wife, she will happily just go along with the flow. Let, in fact, she doesn't want to have the power. Say, 'Honey, what would you like to do?' She goes, 'I don't know, you decide. You decide.' And it's worked well because my natural personality. I like power, I like to be in control, and so it sort of works well most of the time, except sometimes where I don't. Well, I go, "You make the decision," she goes, "I don't want to," and then sometimes Narelle wants to make the decision, and then we have a clash. Every now and then, my beautiful, quiet, fun-loving wife will say, "I want the power," and men, husbands, we know what we should do in those circumstances, don't we? Back off, back right off, and say, "Yes, dear, you're right, dear, whatever you want, dear." That's the smart thing to do. Of course, men, we don't do that half the time, and we get ourselves in all kinds of trouble. But anyway, that power, some of us really want power, others of us don't want power, but we live in a world that cares about power, and for some of us, power can become our king. I'm talking about power in relationships, all right? Some of us, and men, we need to be careful about this. You know, your marriage is not about a power play. Your marriage is about sacrificing and about servanthood and about serving each other. When power is misused, it becomes destructive. Don't we see this in our workplace? You know, the people who are going after power to the point where we'll say and do things that are wrong, we'll lie, we'll manipulate, we'll do things because what do we want? We want power. We want the authority it gives us, we want the benefits that power gives us. Pontius Pilate had that, and I go, these are temptations that will direct your life. We live in a world where power has been placed right up the top as something that people want for themselves. It becomes their king and it wrecks lives. Power is not something when the way we're supposed to treat power is how Jesus treated power. He had power, he sacrificed it. He had power, Pontius Pilate comes to him and says, "Are you the king of the Jews?" And Jesus doesn't come and say, "You're short that 100%, yes, I am, I'm glad you've finally seen it." He looks and he says, "They're your words, you've said that." He doesn't demand power, he doesn't take it. Power had been given to Christ, to Jesus. But what does the Bible say in Philippians 2? It says he gave up his divine attributes, he gave up the power he had, and he came as a humble servant. And I want to tell you, the relationship we should have with power is that some of us have power. If you're a teacher, you've got power, right? All of us have power in some circumstance. If you're a parent, oh man, you got a lot of power, you got a lot of influence over your children. How do you use it? And if we misuse it, we will destroy lives and we'll destroy ourselves. But we should handle power the way Jesus did. It is not my king, it is not the thing I go for. If I have power, I take it as a responsibility. I take it as something that I hold with great care. And actually, it's not something that I demand or want. It's something that I know is a responsibility I hold before God. Jesus carried it with love. He didn't make it king of his life. It was something that he had that he had to serve God with. We should be humble in that. Jesus Christ had all the power and authority to win at all costs, but he didn't hold it with arrogance and demand.

The other week, we had board game night. A few of us came out to board game night. We're going to have another couple of board game nights in this term. A few people came out and some people who came out, we came and they were playing all different games. And Karina came out with the guys there and brought Monopoly Deal, the card game. And you're getting thrown under the bus here, Joy. The Monopoly card game Deal, they're all playing. Irene and Douglas, they're all teaching the game. And it's basically Monopoly. Have you just seen there's a Monopoly Frankston out. Monopoly Frankston is out. Djol and Kat, they've bought it at JB HiFi and we're going to bring it to a board game night coming up and you can play Monopoly and get all the streets or whatever. It's the same game, just with all Frankston through it. All right, so it's out, it's happening, we're finally on the map, we're famous, right? But this was the card version of Monopoly, right? And it's similar. You've got to gain properties and through cards and basically put hotels on those properties and whoever gets the first two lots of full sets of properties wins the game. Is that right, Karina? Three, sorry, you got to have three lots, right? You're going to correct me if I get some of these wrong, right? But you got to have three lots of properties. And so Karina's teaching us the game and I joined in the game and I thought, "Aha, this will be easy. I'm good at Monopoly, we'll be fine." All right, I just want you to know from the outset, I was the worst person. I had nothing at the end of this game. I had not a dollar to my name, not a property. They took it all and I just had to sit there and take it. That was God humbling me, right? Meanwhile, Joy's there, and Joy, you're one of the nicest people I've seen and known. Wonderful Joy, sitting here, and she's just a friendly, beautiful woman and just kind-hearted, not arrogant, just caring and soft-voiced. And it's like, Joy's not going to hurt anyone. She's just a wonderful person. Well, Joy's sitting there, and we're teaching the game, and as it came to her attention, she's like, "What should I do here? What should I do here?" And she's just acting like, "I'm not quite sure exactly what to do." And then she's, "Oh, I've got this card. What should I do with this card?" And Karina's like, "Well, that card allows you to steal people's property and make it your own." And she's like, "Oh, so should I use that one?" And we're like, "You probably should, Joy. Yes, that's the best card in the game." She's like, "Okay, all right." And so suddenly she's got a whole set of properties, and then it goes around, she gets a second whole set of properties, and we're going around. I thought Karina was going to win. She had two sets, and suddenly it gets around to Joy again. Joy's like, "I'm not sure what to do." She's like, "I've got this other card here." We look at the other card. It's like, "Joy, that card is the best card in the game again. You can steal Karina's property there and you can win the game like that." She's like, "Oh, can I? Oh, should I do that?" "Well, yes, you should do that." And so she did. She played that card. Gentle, kind Joy played that card and suddenly had three full sets of properties stolen off Karina. Right? I had nothing, and we looked and she's like, "Oh, what does that mean?" And we're like, "You've won, Joy." She's like, "Oh." And then I found out she'd won the game before as well. I'm like, "Joy, you know exactly what you're doing here. You are cleaning the floor, wiping the floor with us, and you're just kind, humble Joy. And I want to tell you, this is how Jesus, not in an underhanded way, but this is how Jesus treats power. He is the king of kings, he is the Lord of lords, but he will not demand power, and that's how he wants us to live. In your workplace, people are trying to grab power. Don't you act like them. You feel like you're underhanded in the relationships, underhanded stuff goes on. We act with integrity, and in the end, it is God who chooses who has the power and who doesn't. That's what Jesus said to Pontius Pilate. He said, "The power you have isn't given by you. It isn't grabbed a hold of because of you. It's given by God." And I want to tell you, this is how we should treat power. Treat it like Joy treats power. Treat people with love and grace and respect and kindness, and you know what? God will have his way and do what he wants to do in your life. Do we believe that? It's hard to believe, isn't it, when you're in a workplace, in family situations where power's trying to be taken. Trust Jesus. Don't let power be your king, because it will wreck your life. Hold it, humble yourself.

Peer Pressure

The second group that we see here, we go on a little bit, and we get to this whole interaction where Pilate asks the crowd that had gathered, "What should I do with Jesus?" And he has Barabbas there as another prisoner. And Pilate says, "I'm going to release one of these two people to you, because that's a custom that we have at this time of year, at the Passover. I'm going to release one of them to be free." And so it says in verse 18, or goes on, he says, "What do you want me to do?" And it says in verse 18,

'Then a mighty roar rose from the crowd, and with one voice they shouted, “Kill him, and release Barabbas to us!” (Barabbas was in prison for taking part in an insurrection in Jerusalem against the government, and for murder.) Pilate argued with them, because he wanted to release Jesus. But they kept shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” For the third time he demanded, “Why? What crime has he committed? I have found no reason to sentence him to death. So I will have him flogged, and then I will release him.” But the mob shouted louder and louder, demanding that Jesus be crucified, and their voices prevailed. ' Luke 23:18-23 (NLT)

The second group is the crowd, and for them, their king was a number of, among other things, their king was peer pressure, this peer pressure that had been placed upon them. A few days earlier, Jesus had entered Jerusalem, and he had been highlighted as this great figure, this great king, "Hosanna in the highest, isn't this wonderful?" And then a few days later, this crowd, who maybe some of them were in the same group, had been manipulated and grown at this point where they're demanding the crucifixion, the torture, and death of Jesus, who they didn't even really know. How does a crowd see? We just accept that because we've heard the story. How does a group of people get to that point demanding the death of someone they don't know? It was through manipulation and this peer pressure. This is what can happen in our lives. The Pharisees had gone in, people of authority, and said, "He's evil, he's wrong," and a few people start talking it up, and then those people go, "Well, if they're doing it, then I'll do it," and suddenly you've got this mob forming. And we've seen this, haven't we, when we see riots? It's like people, it's like, "Well, they're doing it, so I'll do it. They're doing it, so I'll do it." And I want to tell you, we think and I want to tell you we think peer pressure just affects kids and teenagers. Why are you doing this, oh peer pressure affects all of us? Some of the things you're doing in your life, you're doing just because others have done it. Some of our standards, our moral standards, we know are wrong, but you know why we say it's okay because others are doing it. It's this pressure in society.

Pastor Fua and Alex went to a conference earlier this year, a young adult pastor's conference for UNIS and all this up in Queensland because we go, we need some training and we want to get ideas and get inspiration. And so they went up there and I said, "How was it?" Fua goes, "Yeah, it was good." You know, he was telling me about it. He goes, "Adrian, he goes, I noticed something about all these male young adult pastors. They all dress and look exactly the same. Same hairstyles, same tops, same shoes. They're like, 'We're all individuals that all look and dress the same in church.' This is the hairstyle. I go, 'It's true, isn't it? We all do that in certain things. It's like, 'Well, this is how I need to look.' It's like, 'Yeah, God's made you unique just as long as you have that hairstyle, right?' I go, 'This is peer pressure.' And I'll tell you that the issue with peer pressure and sometimes it's all right. Like, I don't want that's all coming to church in our pajamas, right? There's a bit of pressure to not rock up in your dressing gown. All right, that's good peer pressure, right?

But peer pressure that is your king wrecks your life because you don't become the person you're meant to be. You don't do the things, you don't say the things, you don't live the standard. In fact, you do things that you know you shouldn't. Why am I going out to the pub with all the mates to have a drink? 'Cause all of the rest of them are and to fit in, that's what I'm going to do. And I know that it's not healthy. How many of us have done things in our lives that we regret and wish we hadn't, but we didn't because others were doing it? All of us.

Because when peer pressure is king of your life, you end up like this crowd. Notice no one gets a name in that crowd. They just were the crowd. 'Cause that's not who God's called us to be. God hasn't called to be part of a crowd. He hasn't called you to just go along with what everyone else is doing and be affected by it and just go, 'Well, they're doing it, so this is the way.' He's called you to be who he wants you. He's called you to be a man or woman of God with a unique calling. And I'm not just talking about how you dress or how all your hair. My wife, she hasn't been affected by peer pressure with her hair. She goes and gets whatever she wants, okay? But it's far deeper than that. It's uniqueness in here. It's going, 'I'm going to be a person of integrity. I'm going to stay true to my values when no one else is at work. They're all gossiping, but I'm not going to.' Oh, but it's hard, Adrian. You don't understand. My school friends, my uni friends, oh, they all start gossiping and carrying on. It's hard to. That's where you got to stand your ground and say, 'Is peer pressure my king? Peer pressure will wreck our lives. Peer pressure will make you make decisions.

This mob ended up being part of the cause of crucifying Jesus Christ. Look at our society. Do you know one of the reasons why there's stuff that isn't going well in our society and we look at and go, 'Oh, it's hard and look at it's many young people.' It's because of peer pressure. Why do kids go out on the street and they're stealing cars? Teenagers breaking into houses, stealing cars. And I'll go, 'The we want to. I want to pull those kids aside and say, 'Hey, you don't have to do that. You're wrecking your life.' Why are they doing that? Because some and so did it. Oh, that kid's one year older than me and they're leading the way and I just followed him.

Guys, don't let peer pressure be your king. Not just young people, but all of us. Parents, well, they're doing it. Why are you? How are you raising your children? Are you letting your children peer pressure you into letting them do stuff that you don't want them to do? Because I go, 'I love my daughter, but she's tried to use that on me. So and so's parents let him do it. So and so who's had that parents. We all have. I go, 'I've said to my daughter many times, I said, 'I don't care what so and so's parents are doing. In this house, we're going to do it like this. In this house, this is how we're going to behave.' It's hard because I want my daughter to love me and be happy with me, not tell me, 'Oh, that's not fair.

Peer pressure will not be my king and it shouldn't be yours either.'

Profanity

The third person we get to is we get to the criminal on the cross. We've had Pontius Pilate obsessed with power. We've had the crowd caught up with peer pressure. And then we get to the criminal on the cross. And in verse 37, there were two criminals on the cross.

'They called out to him, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” A sign was fastened above him with these words: “This is the King of the Jews.” One of the criminals hanging beside him scoffed, “So you’re the Messiah, are you? Prove it by saving yourself—and us, too, while you’re at it!” ' Luke 23:37-39 (NLT)

This criminal and I could say many things about this criminal, but he was his king was profanity. Profanity is not just swearing, that being caught up in the profane, that which is not holy, the profane. These things, this criminal had embraced the profane. Unholy things, selfishness, arrogance, hurting others. They were accused of all kinds of that's why they were being crucified. The other criminal who was next to him had been partners together. He said, 'We deserve this punishment.' So what they' done was wrong. They had been in the profane treating things holy things good things as unholy. And he has the nerve then to look at Jesus and scoff at him and join with others who were cursing him and treating him like rubbish. Profanity in your life if it's your king will destroy you, will it not? And doesn't it try to get all of us? It's the serving of that which is not good for you. It's unholy, it's hurtful treating things as unholy that should be holy. The way we speak, speak the I've got a right to do it. I've got a right getting angry at others and and hurting others living for our own selfish means.

Can I put to us that even in our own relationships and in our sexuality we can be caught up in the profane? And what it means is to treat yourself and others as unholy, to treat others as objects for our gratification. Isn't this a struggle throughout in our society, men? Isn't this a struggle we see? And it's like our sexuality and and women being treated as things really for your pleasure. And if you do that, you're caught up with profanity as your king, unholiness as your king. And it will wreck your life and it will wreck others around you. The there's scriptures in the Bible that are tough ones to read in our day and age, but it says it says in there sexual sin is a sin against your own body. It actually hurts you. And I've had discussions when we talk with our young people, my daughter about all these things. Why can't I do this? Why can't I do this? Why? The truth is you can do what you want to do legally in our society. You can live how you want to live. God's not there going, 'You must. You can't.' He's trying to help us see that these things when we treat our bodies like that, when we treat others' bodies like that, we're actually treating ourselves as an unholy object that we're hurting. And we don't even realize the pain. Do you know people in the world who don't understand this? They're hurting themselves that they don't realize. You know people have had many sexual partners, right? I don't know, maybe you talk to them. I my understanding of it is that there's a lot of pain and hurt that comes from that that they've just accepted, 'Oh, that's just the way it is. That's just the way it is.' I got hurt by this and I got hurt by but you carry those relationships especially when they've become sexual, you carry them on in your life to the next party, the next party, and there's deep hurts in there. And I go, 'It's allowing this idea of pleasure, the profane, to be our king, to rule over us.'

The substance abuse, all I'm talking about anything that we know is unholy, it controls us. And this is what happened to this criminal and it killed him in the end. It killed him in the end. And God doesn't want us to go. See, we can get caught up in this in church going, 'Well, we don't want to talk about that because I want people to be accepted and loved.' And we do, of course. God loves you, he accepts you just as you are. Anyone who's gone through anything at all, come into the house of God and let God love you and cleanse you and accept you and embrace you and forgive you. This is the beautiful truth. But before we can even come to know Jesus as king, we need to see that these things, the profanity being our king, will destroy our lives. This is the idea of repentance, to realize, have a revelation that that way of living is the wrong way. It's wrecking you, it's hurting you, it's not pleasing to God, it's hurting others around you and say, 'I want to change or repent from that.' And I change, we have to say, 'God, all of us at some stage have let that be our king.' But God says, 'I want to save you from it.' We know this, don't we?

We want to PR protect our children from it, but we need to realize in our own lives if we're not careful, this world will try and convince you that that which is unholy, treating your body as unholy, treating your attitudes as unholy, all of these things, they say it's all fine as long as you're okay with it. They don't tell you and that can wreck your life. They don't tell you the pain and the hurt that those things are going to cause in you, do they? They let it go.

We look at you think about that alcohol and you've got these, I'm using obvious ones, but there's far deeper ones, but alcohol, we've got bottle shops on every corner, putting them everywhere and go, 'Oh, yeah, it's all okay, it's all okay, it's all wonderful,' without talking as much about the damage that that can do in families and lives when it's taken to extreme. I go, we've got to realize that when these things are king of our lives, they wreck us.

Romans 6:11 is pretty heavy, isn't it? Romans 6:11 says:

'So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus. Do not let sin control the way you live; do not give in to sinful desires. Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God. Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace. 'Romans 6:11-14 (NLT)

"So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Jesus Christ. Do not let sin control the way you live. Do not give in to your sinful desires. Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God. Sin is no longer your master.

What's it saying? King sin no longer has a place in your life. Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God's grace.

Don't let sin be your master. Don't let profanity be your king, because it will wreck your life. And I know that's true. We know that to be true. But Christians, it's so easy to let these things control us. My mom's Italian Church growing up, you know, one of the things that controlled some of those churches, not all of them, but some of the Italian churches in Pentecostalism and others, gossip. Gossip ruled the roost, and people were scared. That's sin ruling. That's the profane ruling in situations. Don't let it rule your household. Don't let it rule your life. Don't let it be your king.

And for all of us, the truth is that it has been before we met Christ. It has been, but he comes to set us free from that. Amen. This is why we serve Jesus, to set us free from this.

Perceive

And then we've got the fourth person. This is the one we love, that we see what God truly wants to do, because these other kings will try. Maybe it's power, maybe it's peer pressure, maybe it's the profane, maybe it's something else in your life that's trying to be king of your life. But this man, the second criminal on the cross, he saw something. In verse 40, it says this, Luke 23:40, "But the other criminal protested against his mate, 'Don't you fear God, even when you have been sentenced to die? We deserve to die for our crimes, but this man hasn't done anything wrong.' And then he said, 'Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.' And Jesus replied, 'I assure you, today you will be with me in Paradise.' Remember me when you come into my kingdom. What was he saying? You're a King, Jesus. You're a king. And he said, 'Can you be my king? I've lived a life of profanity. I've lived a life where maybe power was my God, maybe I got peer pressured into it, maybe there were other things that this criminal who's being crucified in his final moments had let every other king control his life. Anger, frustration, hurt, unforgiveness, whatever it is, he'd let all these things in. And then on the cross, he saw something.

I want to tell you the fourth thing you've got to do. This is what needs to happen to you if you're going to make Jesus king of kings and Lord of lords. You have to perceive him. You have to see him. This criminal on the cross, everyone else, Pontius Pilate, the crowd, this other criminal, the soldiers hanging around, there, people walking past, do you know that they were spitting on Jesus? They were cursing him, the king of kings and Lord of Lords, and they didn't see him. And somehow this criminal, in agony and pain, about to die, he saw something none of the others did. Jesus, you're King. I want to tell you this if Jesus is going to be king of kings, if you're going to have a king of your life, something will be your king. But if Jesus is going to set you free of that then you need to see him differently. You can't see him as a religious figure. You can't see him as someone that's just good man. You can't see him as someone who's the rule keeper that's making you do certain things. You got to see him for who he truly is.

In John Jesus has this encounter with Pontious Pilot. I said in John 18 we see a little be more of Jesus discussion with Pontious Pilot and in verse 37 of John 18 Pilot asked Jesus again so you're a king and this time Jesus responds and we see a little bit more of the detail. He says 'You say I am a king. Actually, I was born and came into the world to testify to the truth. All who love the truth recognize that what I say is true.'

'Pilate said, “So you are a king?” Jesus responded, “You say I am a king. Actually, I was born and came into the world to testify to the truth. All who love the truth recognize that what I say is true.” ' John 18:37 (NLT)

They recognize that's the word. It means to hear, so you understand, to see, so you can perceive what is real and true. And if Jesus is going to be king of kings and Lord of lords to you, you've got to perceive him differently to the world. You've got to perceive him differently from just the rule keeper. You got to see him the way this criminal saw him. And you know, the beautiful message of Christianity, doesn't matter where you are on that journey. It doesn't matter whether you've grown up in church. It doesn't matter whether you're the worst person. If you think you're the worst person in this room, it doesn't mean that's true. You might just think that. And maybe you have done some stuff and you go, "Oh, Adrian, if you knew, if you knew, you'd agree with me." You know the beauty of Jesus Christ? He doesn't care whether you're the Mother Teresa or whether you're the criminal on the cross. He says, "If you can see the truth, if you can perceive who I am, I can be your king. I can forgive every sin. I can cleanse you. I can wipe the slate clean so you don't want to power and you're not going to be driven by peer pressure. And I'm going to turn you into a different person." Isn't this the message of the gospel? And I don't want to be in a religious goody two-shoes church. Friends, I want to be in a church that sees Jesus for who he is.

I remember many years ago now when I first saw my now wife as my future wife rather than just my friend. Narelle and I had been friends, and it was nice and it was cool, and we have conversations. And I remember the time we were talking in the car park at Bible college, and it was the end of term, good friends hanging out. And I said goodbye to her, and I said, "I'll see you in like a week or so, a couple of weeks because having a break from college." I walked to my car, and I suddenly realized something had changed. I saw her differently, and I went, "Fallen for it. I'm really going to miss her." She's gone from being a friend to being this young woman that I go, "Oh, my heart beats faster when I'm around her." Then I saw her young adults one time, and she was just walking down the thing, and I'm like, "Oh, I stopped talking to someone 'cause I was distracted by there's Narelle. I perceived her differently. I saw her, something in my heart jumped within me, and I went, "She's not just a friend. She's the person I am falling in love with." You know that when that happens, don't you, in different relationships? You know in school, friend, and it's like they go from a friend, and suddenly it's like, "Oh," and then, and then, then you get nervous around them, and then it's like something happens. You perceive them differently, don't you? Well, Jesus isn't a girlfriend or boyfriend to us, but I'm telling you, if he's going to be king of kings, you have to see him different. He has to go from what others have seen him as, what these guys saw him as. He has to go to the one you look at and go, "Oh, I see. I love you. You are King, you're king of kings, and you're the one."

This criminal, what I love about him, see, we're so used to reading it, but what I love about this criminal is that something changed in his heart. I don't know when it happened, do you? Wouldn't that be interesting to find out and talk to him? When did it happen? Were you watching him carry his cross, and then someone else have to carry? Were you being moved as you saw him? Did you hear his trial, or was it when you heard his words on the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do"? Was that the moment that this man went from just another figure crucified with you to seeing him as the Son of God, the true king, the Lord of lords? But it happened to him. He perceived differently, and he said, "Remember me when you come into your kingdom."

I want to tell you, once you see Jesus for who he truly is, I don't care how old you are, how young you are. When you see him, you will be changed by him. And if you don't see him as king of kings, you will be ruled by something else. And you can be a Christian, you can come into church, you can do all the stuff, but I'm telling you, God sees deeper, and you should see deeper in your own heart. What's ruling you? It has to be. If you want to live, if you want to be free, it has to be Jesus Christ. And you got to see him. You got to see him. You got to see him as king of kings. He is not just a king. Do you realize this? This is, I love the Lord. I met him when I was young, and as a progressive revelation gets better and better, but I've seen him when I was young, and he is the king. He is not just a king. He is the king over every King and Lord over every Lord.

I like to barrack for the winner. I like to follow the winner. It's not going well in my AFL team at the moment with the crows, but our day will come. I like to follow the winner. Well, I discovered in Jesus, I found the greatest winner, the greatest victor over everything, and he doesn't always portray himself like that in this world. He comes as a servant, but he is the king, and one day he will show the universe who he truly is. Listen to these scriptures 'cause I love them. You would have heard them before 1 Timothy 4. Let's go to verse 13, 1 Timothy 6:13:

'And I charge you before God, who gives life to all, and before Christ Jesus, who gave a good testimony before Pontius Pilate, that you obey this command without wavering. Then no one can find fault with you from now until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. For, At just the right time Christ will be revealed from heaven by the blessed and only almighty God, the King of all kings and Lord of all lords. He alone can never die, and he lives in light so brilliant that no human can approach him. No human eye has ever seen him, nor ever will. All honor and power to him forever! Amen. ' 1 Timothy 6:13-16

And I charge you before God, who gives life to all, and before Christ Jesus, who gave a good testimony before Pontius Pilate, says Paul talking to Timothy, that you obey this command without wavering. Then no one can find fault with you from now until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. For at just the right time, Christ will be revealed from Heaven by the blessed and only almighty God, the king of all kings and the Lord of all lords. He alone can never die, and he lives in light so brilliant that no human can approach him. No human eye has ever seen him, nor ever will. All honor and power to him forever. Amen.

'Now he is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else—not only in this world but also in the world to come. God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made him head over all things for the benefit of the church. And the church is his body; it is made full and complete by Christ, who fills all things everywhere with himself.' Ephesians 1:21-23 (NLT)

Now he is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else, not only in this world but also in the world to come. God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made him head over all things for the benefit of the church. And the church is his body. It is made full and complete by Christ, who fills all things everywhere with himself. Jesus Christ, king of kings and Lord of lords. Who's your king? Who's your king? There is only one true king. Everyone else is a pretender. Everything else is a pretender. And I don't want pretenders ruling my life. I don't want to get to the end of my life and discover that I followed a pretender, that I wasted my life. I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I went for power and it was all for nothing and got burnt up. That I followed the crowd and let peer pressure rule my life and society dictate to me what my values were and discover it was all messed up. I don't want to let sin and profanity wreck my life and my family's and those around me. I've got to find the truth. I've got to follow the truth. And I want to promise you, Jesus Christ is the truth.

And what that really means is that we surrender everything to him. What that really means is you lay yourself down at his feet and say, "Lord, I surrender my life. I surrender my future. I surrender my heart. Lord, you are king of kings and Lord of lords." So many of us are following Jesus as if we're a little supporter of his. We're a supporter. I'll go to the game sometimes. God, I'm like a casual supporter of Jesus. Yeah, I'm running my life. I've got my own priorities, and sometimes I'll support you. And if I get into trouble, I'll call out. And I tell everyone, if they ask, I say, "Yeah, I'm a Christian. I filled out the survey form. There's a lot of Christians in Australia." How many is Jesus truly king for? That's the question. Only you and I, only you can answer. Only I can answer. I can stand up here and preach, and I can be serving my own gods. I can have other kings. Only you know the answer. And my prayer for you, the Holy Spirit's desire for you, is that you would choose him.

I said to my daughter, I keep saying to her, "You can do what you want with your life. Pursue the career you want. Do what you want. Marry who you want, within reason. She's going to anyway." I said, "My one key prayer for you, as I said, please, Ella, I want you to follow the Lord Jesus Christ. Please love Jesus. Please serve Jesus. Please make him king. That is my heart and prayer for my daughter, and it is my heart and prayer for you.

Do what you will with your life, but make Jesus king, truly king. And then you'll make the right decisions. Then you'll live the way that God wants. Then whatever happens to you, you're going to be okay, because Jesus Christ is king. So who's your king? Who's your king?

Can we bow our heads and close our eyes for a minute, because we're going to pray. I know I'm preaching to the converted here, but I also know this, that God's challenging people. And you can take a message like this and put it on the "Thanks, Adrian, that's nice," or you can let the Holy Spirit speak to you and say, "You can ask God right now, and you can say, 'Lord, some of you know some things that have been king over your life, and the Holy Spirit's challenging you to surrender them to him and say, 'Make me king. Make Jesus king. I want to. Lord, help me see you. Help me see you. I want to see you like the criminal on the cross saw you. I want to make you Lord of my life. I want to overcome power, peer pressure, the other things in my life, sin that's trying to entangle me. I want to overcome. Help me, Jesus. Be king of my life.'

Maybe there's some people in this place, and you haven't made Jesus king. Maybe you never have. Maybe you've gone far away from God. And we're going to say a prayer right now, because you need to make Jesus king in your life. Maybe you need to do it again as Lord and savior of your life, or maybe you've never truly done it. And there's no pressure. You're not going to be embarrassed. But this is the moment. If God's speaking to you and you want to do it, we're going to say this prayer, and I want you to repeat it with all of us, to make Jesus king. Maybe you've been a Christian for many years as well, and you say this other stuff, but I'm proclaiming this afresh, Lord of lords, King of Kings over my life. Come on, we're going to pray together. Dear Lord Jesus, I'm sorry for not making you king. I've let other things rule my life. But today, I want to hand my life over to you. I believe you're the Son of God. You died on the cross for my sin. You rose again from the dead. So forgive me, Jesus. I receive you as my Lord, my savior, and my king, king of kings and Lord of lords. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Praise God. Hey, if you said that prayer, it's a new day. If you've come back to the Lord, it's a new day.

This is what we're going to do. We're going to sing the word "Show Me Your Face, God" 'cause they're playing it. And before Alex gets up, I'm going to invite us to stand to our feet, and I'm going to invite us to surrender again to the Lord and say, "Lord, can we do that?" And say, "God, I want you to be king of kings of my life. What do you need to surrender to God? What's been trying to be king of your life? God's not here to condemn you. He's here to free you. And you don't have to go telling everyone and go between you and God right now. Lord, be my king. Show me your face. Here I am for you.

[Music]

God, I thank you. We just thank you for your presence, God. We thank you that you are here. We thank you that we have the opportunity just to seek your face, seek your face before we seek your hand, seek who you are before we seek what you can do. God, we thank you that you're our king, that you're our Lord, that you're our savior. And we thank you for this service this morning. We thank you for the challenging word that you've spoken into our hearts and into our lives. And God, today, we will not leave the same, but we will leave changed, and will put the words that we heard this morning into action in our lives, because you are our king, you're our Lord, you're our savior, and you have already won the victory. And everybody said, amen. Amen. Amen.

What a beautiful time of worship. Hey, you may take your seats real quick. Got a couple of things to get through before we head out and have morning tea and some time of fellowship. We've just come to our time of giving, so if you could please have the buckets ready. If you need an envelope, please raise your hand. If you're new with us, you can let those buckets pass you by, but we have the ways to give are on the screen. You can also text the word "give" as well if that's easier for you. You know, we give to the Lord to show that we trust him, that we have faith in him and who he is. In Proverbs 3:9, it says, "Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the best part of everything that you produce. Then he will fill your barns with grain, and vats will overflow with good wine." You know, I can honestly say that our God makes good on his promise. His word is truth. That is his character. If he says something, he means it. God says that he will fill your barns with grain, and your vats will overflow with good wine. In him, we can find all that we need. He provides everything that we need. When you give your best to Him, it shows that you have a heart that chases after him, that you have a heart that loves him, that wants to bless him for who he is. So today, will you put your trust and faith into our God, who is our provider and that will provide all your needs, just as he says in his word? Come on, we're going to pray and then we're going to pass the buckets. This morning, God, we just thank you. We thank you for who you are, we thank you that you are our provider, God, that your word is truth and it is promise. Then what you say is yes and amen. So God, we put our faith and our trust in you as we give this morning, as we give our best, as we give our first fruits. We know that you will provide all that we need. God, we thank you for that. In Jesus' name, amen.

Let's pass the buckets, Church. And as we do that, we've got a few announcements this morning, a few things to get through. We've always got exciting things happening in the life of our church.

What's on this week? Tonight, we have our encounter night at Casey. Pastor Deeps is bringing the word and we have pizza today right after the service. We also have our new friends lunch that Pastor Adrian mentioned earlier. So if you're new here, if you signed up, amazing, head on over at 12:00. If you're new here today, we would love to bless you with the meal and we would love to get to know you. So head on over to the kids' Hall at 12:00. That will be amazing. There's always an amazing spread. Honestly, you will not leave hungry.

This Wednesday, our discipleship courses continue as well. It's not too late to sign up. There's still some flyers on our chairs. If you're interested, have a look at all the courses that we're offering. You can fill it out and hand it in at the info desk. If you want some more info about that as well, you can head to our info desk and we can have a chat about that.

Also, Thursday, we have our traditional service. Pastor Adrian is speaking and youth, we have Olympic Tribal wars and burgers. Come on, that sounds awesome. If you have any kids here between the ages of 12 and 18, grade 6 to year 12, please get them along. They have an amazing time. They built like a snow slide on Friday, which is insane. I mean, they went to the effort to going to get snow, right? So kids can just slide down this snow slide. I mean, they have so much fun. And not only do they have fun and build relationships, they get to know Jesus as well. They're encouraged, they're supported by our amazing leaders and our very passionate youth pastor who's going to share in just a minute. But get them along, yeah, they'll have an amazing time.

What's on this month? We have a few things happening. Our gathering, which is our young adult service on the 6th. More info for follow in the next coming weeks and water baptism. So if you haven't been water baptized, we would love to support you in that. We would love to encourage you to take the next step in your faith journey and say, "I'm all in, God. I'm washing away my old life and I'm going to live as you've called me to live, a new creation in Christ." And so we're doing that on the weekend of the 10th and the 11th of August. If you're wanting some more information about that or if you just have any questions like what is it about, what's involved, come and see one of the pastors or go to the info desk as well and we would love to chat with you about that.

We have our connect women's high tea on the 24th. You can scan the QR code to register. It's going to be amazing. Lisa McInness-Smith, who is an amazing speaker, is coming to share with us. We have a great spread and it's a great day for just women to get together, build relationships and have a day out as well without the kids, without the husbands. We need that, right? Sometimes we just need a break. So come and have fun, enjoy a morning tea together.

We also have our Men's breakfast on the 31st as well here, 8:30 a.m. at Frankston. Who's excited for that, men? I know you are going to have a great feast of a breakfast. We have Pastor Ian Kruitoff sharing, which is our founding pastor of Connect Christian Church. You guys are going to have an amazing time.

Just before we finish, Pastor Michael is going to come and share real quick about our youth alive main event.

Hey church, how you doing? Hey, who's excited about Connect Youth in this place? Yeah, the screen was rubbish before, so we got there. We've got a Youth Alive Main Event coming up on August 17th. It's going to be one of our biggest youth events for the whole year. So we're going to be meeting here at 3:00 at Frankston. We've got some buses and some cars to get everybody over there. So if you want to come between the ages of grade 6 to year 12, we've got some flyers out on the info desk with a QR code for tickets. But you don't want to miss out. It's going to be an amazing event. So if you know anyone that might want to come out, please grab a flyer for them, give it to them, because it's going to be great. Yeah, awesome. Thanks, Church. Awesome. Thanks, Michael.