King of Kings, Not Politicians: Where Is Your Hope?

I hope you have your Bibles with you today. If you do not, there are copies on the back table where James is, and there are also copies in the pews. You are welcome to use those. I encourage you to turn with me to Philippians chapter 2, because that is where we will be studying today.

While you are turning there, I want to encourage you to come and be part of the Holy Week readings that start tonight. If you have never participated before, you need to come and experience it. We read passages from the Gospels that walk us through the final week of Jesus’s life as recorded in Scripture—from Palm Sunday, when He rides into Jerusalem, all the way to the cross and the grave, and everything in between.

You hear the great teachings of Jesus, and we follow what we know of those days in Scripture. We add music that supports those Scriptures, and it will make your Easter far more meaningful. I encourage you to come and be a part of that.

Now, in the Gospel lesson in Matthew, we see Jesus riding into Jerusalem and we see the reaction of the people. The people are excited. They have been hearing about this man who does remarkable things. They are thinking, “This might be the king, the one who comes through the line of David.”

They are thrilled as Jesus comes, and they treat Him like royalty, throwing their coats on the ground and palm branches before Him, waving and shouting, “Hosanna!” But the problem is that they are looking at the man Jesus with great hope for what He will do here and now—to restore a kingdom, to make life better. They are living under the hardship of the Roman Empire, which has taken over their land, and under the hardship of Herod, who has been put in charge of the Jews and is not even a Jew himself.

Life is tough for them. They want the oppression broken. “Set us free.” They think, “This man is going to do it. He is going to establish a throne and a kingdom right here with us. The Romans will be gone. Our corrupt Jewish leadership will be gone, and everything will be good again.”

They do not understand that this is the Messiah who is coming—but coming to the cross. He is not coming just for them, but for the whole world.

I think about that and about the day we live in right now. If you watched the news this weekend, everyone seems to be running around protesting the idea of having a king. It is ironic when you look back in history, so let us do that briefly.
Keep your place in Philippians, because I want us to focus there later, especially on verses 9, 10, and 11 of chapter 2:

“Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

There was a time when the Israelites began as a nation under the leadership of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. As the nation grew, they came under the leadership of prophets. God spoke to the prophet, and the prophet spoke to the people: “This is what God would have you do. This is how God wants you to live.” That is called a theocracy—God’s rule over a people through His chosen servant.

If you listen to the news today, some people worry that a theocracy is trying to take shape in the United States. We are nowhere near a theocracy. We are not even close. But that early period in Israel truly was a theocracy. God spoke through one who then communicated to the rest. When things were not going right, God spoke to the prophet to warn the people and call them back into line.

Eventually, Israel reached a point of discontent. Turn with me to 1 Samuel chapter 8 and listen to what happens to the Israelites, because they find themselves in a place much like our nation today. People want change. They want something different. In our nation, it is almost like we have two extremes—two sides of a coin. One side wants to go all the way in one direction; the other side wants to go all the way in the opposite direction. When one side is in charge, they argue about the other side, saying, “You have to get these people out. You have to throw them out. You have to fix all this.”

It is terrible, and the reason is simple: we are humans leading humans. We are sinners leading sinners. We are people looking out for our own interests.

In 1 Samuel 8, when Samuel grew old, he made his sons judges over Israel. The people did not like having judges either, because the judges would look at the Word of God and tell the people, “You are living outside of God’s Word. Israel, we are living outside of God’s Word. We need to correct our course.”

Samuel’s sons, however, did not walk in his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain. They took bribes and perverted justice—exactly what human beings so often do when they are not attentive to the things of God. No matter what position you put a person in—Republican, Democrat, Independent—if they are not focused on God, they will tend to turn toward their own gain. That is what humans do.

That is part of why people are upset about “having a king.” But do they really want God’s rule—a true theocracy? We do not even have a king in the United States; we have elected officials. Yet we still complain about kings. The truth is, humans mess things up. Plain and simple. Preachers can mess things up, too, because we are human.

Back to 1 Samuel 8: the elders of Israel come to Samuel and say, “You are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.” This displeases Samuel, so he prays to the Lord. The Lord says to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you. They have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. From the day I brought them up out of Egypt, they have forsaken me and served other gods. Now they are doing the same to you. Obey their voice, but solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.”

Samuel then tells all the words of the Lord to the people who are asking for a king. He warns them: “This will be the way of the king who reigns over you. He will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots, to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots. He will appoint commanders, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest and make his weapons and equipment. He will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers. He will take the best of your fields, vineyards, and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take a tenth of your grain and your vineyards and give it to his officers and servants. He will take your male and female servants, the best of your young men, and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you will be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

God is saying to Samuel, “They have already shown that they do not want my rule over them. Look at the idols they have worshiped, the things they have done. They have not paid attention to my leadership anyway. If they think they are in trouble now, let them have a human king. Let another human guide them with human wisdom, and they will see the consequences.”

In our own country, and in many others, when someone comes into power who thinks differently than we do, we shout and complain. We fight and claw to get someone in office who thinks more like we do. But even when we finally get that person, eventually they do something that makes us say, “Wait a minute, I don’t like that at all.” We end up saying, “These politicians are no good,” no matter who they are.

But there is hope. There is hope because there is One who reigns over the heavens, the earth, and everything under the earth. He is the one who created it all, and He is the one whose coming we anticipate, the one who will set everything right again.

Turn with me to Psalm 146. The question for today is this: In this life, who do you really trust? In whom are you placing your confidence? Who are you counting on? What are you grabbing hold of, arguing for, and fighting for?

Psalm 146 begins: “Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul! I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.” Right away, the psalmist directs all his energy and focus toward the Lord. He does not waste energy on what those on the right, the left, or the center are doing. He does not waste energy on all of that, because he knows that every politician, every person in authority who is merely human will eventually let you down.

They are going to fail you. So the psalmist puts all his hope in the One who will not let him down: “Praise the Lord, O my soul. I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish.”

That is our Republicans, our Democrats, our Independents. That is our congressmen, senators, governors, presidents. We bank on men and women who are here for only a moment, and then they are gone—and all their plans die with them.

But listen to the contrast: “Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; who keeps faith forever; who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free; the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the sojourners; he upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. The Lord will reign forever, your God, O Zion, to all generations. Praise the Lord.”

God sent Jesus to be the Messiah—the one who would sacrifice and give His life for us so that we might be forgiven and live. He was very honest with us. He said that if we follow Him, we will be part of His kingdom. But He also warned that those who follow Him will be persecuted for His name’s sake. He did not promise, like some politicians, “a chicken in every pot.” Instead, He said that those who follow Him for His name’s sake will face persecution, and some will even die.

Yet over and over again, His Word reminds us that those who endure—who hold on to their faith and follow Him to the end—belong to Him. Life is not easy. No politician can straighten it all out. But if you follow the King of kings and Lord of lords, draw near to Him, learn His will and His ways, serve Him, and follow Him, then you have an unshakable promise. You have a future that no human leader can give you. He alone is the King of kings and Lord of lords.

Let me quickly walk through three more passages as we bring this to a close. Turn to Psalm 22.

Now, do not misunderstand me—this is not a “prosperity gospel” message. The goodness of the Lord is that He meets our needs. Our first and greatest need is to be freed from sin. Our second need is that He will give us what we need to move through this life and into the next. We are not like the old Janis Joplin song, “O Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes-Benz?” That is not how God works. God gives you what you need. For some, it is enough food to live on and a modest place to stay. For others, He provides differently, according to His will and plan for their lives. But His promise is good, and He will fulfill it.

This is the Jesus—the King of kings and Lord of lords—the one the crowds worshiped on Palm Sunday while seeing only the man and not understanding what was to come. Listen to Psalm 22, starting at verse 27:

“All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you. For kingship belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations. All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, even the one who could not keep himself alive. Posterity shall serve him; it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation; they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it.”

For all generations, the Lord and His way and His will endure. Some people obey; others do not. Some seek God’s way and His will; others fight over human will and human power. The question is: where will we stand?

Turn now to Isaiah 45, verses 20–24:

“Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, you survivors of the nations! They have no knowledge who carry about their wooden idols, and keep on praying to a god that cannot save. Declare and present your case; let them take counsel together! Who told this long ago? Who declared it of old? Was it not I, the Lord? And there is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides me. Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn; from my mouth has gone out in righteousness a word that shall not return: ‘To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance.’”

“Only in the Lord,” it shall be said of me, “are righteousness and strength; to him shall come and be ashamed all who were incensed against him. In the Lord all the offspring of Israel shall be justified and shall glory.”

Finally, turn to Romans 14. You cannot go through this life alone. You cannot navigate it alone. You must depend on something or someone. Many in this world depend only on the human realm. They trust mankind to get them through. But what do you really gain from that?

Listen to what Paul writes to the church in Rome, beginning at verse 7: “For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself.” That is a big statement. Even if you were a hermit living under a bridge your whole life, you still would have needed something from other human beings—even if it was a half-eaten can of beans out of a trash can. You have had to rely on something from somewhere else.

Paul is speaking to believers and to the church. “None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord.” We should be living to the Lord. Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”

So if we live, we live to the Lord; if we die, we die to the Lord. “So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.”

I know of no earthly politician, senator, congressman, governor, president, king, prince, or queen who can give you what Jesus has come to give you. The people in Jerusalem could not see it on that first Palm Sunday. They were looking for just another man to promise good things and open doors for them. Instead, they were witnessing One whom God had ordained to come into this world, go to the cross, and carry the sin of all people on His shoulders—even the sins of Republicans and Democrats. He carried all sin on His shoulders and took the penalty for our human inadequacy so that in Him there would be hope and a sure promise, one that will never be broken.

My hope is that today you do not find yourself looking for yet another human who will eventually disappoint you. Instead, I pray that you place your hope in Jesus Christ—to bring you through this troubled world and into His kingdom, where all will be made right.

Pray with me.

Father, in this day we give you praise and thanks and honor and glory for all that you have done for us—for your Son, Jesus Christ, who gives us a hope that no human can give. We are grateful, Father.

I pray that everyone here has placed their true hope in you, in Jesus Christ. That is my desire; that is what I pray for. And Father, if there is even one here who has not placed their hope in you—if all their hope is in the people around them—then I ask that your Holy Spirit would open their eyes and show them the truth of Jesus Christ, that they may be saved and know the King of all kings and Lord of all lords, and have eternal hope.

We ask this in Jesus’ name, and everyone said, Amen.