Please open with me to First Samuel Chapter 10. First Samuel Chapter 10 as we continue our. Our study. In this. This book. First Samuel and we're going to pick up this morning in verse actually 17. So First Samuel. Chapter 10, verse 17. And just briefly before I pray and read, just to review, if we go back to chapter 8 of 1 Samuel, you remember there that Israel demanded a king. Chapter 8, there was a demand for a king. And then in chapters 9 and then the beginning of chapter 10, that king was chosen by God. It was Saul. And it was revealed to just Samuel at first, the prophet Samuel. So we saw that last week. And then In verses nine, which we did not cover, as Samuel anoints Saul privately to become king, he then gives Saul three signs to confirm that he's gonna become king. And what we see in verses nine through 16 is that those three signs take place, particularly the sign where the spirit comes down upon Saul and enables him to be the king who will deliver. So we see all of that happening, and he's changed into a new man, we see. And there's even those that had formerly known him saying, is Saul among the prophets? So we see all of that, okay? We pick up here in verse 17, but before I read, let's pray once more. Our great God and Father and our Lord Jesus, our King, we come to your word And we ask you, Lord Jesus, by the power of your spirit to take the truths of your word and that you would speak to us and that you would sanctify us with your word. Wash us in the word that we might be pure and clean. Forgive us our sins, heal us of our transgressions. Give us ears to hear your voice, the voice of your spirit. So we pray for illumination as we read and as we hear your word, we pray this in Christ's name, amen. Okay, 1 Samuel chapter 10, beginning of verse 17. Then Samuel called the people together to the Lord at Mizpah and said to the children of Israel, thus says the Lord God of Israel, I brought up Israel out of Egypt and delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all kingdoms and from those who oppressed you. But you have today rejected your God, who himself saved you from all your adversities and your tribulations. And you have said to him, no, set a king over us. Now therefore, present yourselves before the Lord by your tribes and by your clans. And when Samuel had caused all the tribes of Israel to come near, the tribe of Benjamin was chosen. When he had caused the tribe of Benjamin to come near, by their families, the family of Matri was chosen. And Saul, the son of Kish, was chosen. But when they sought him, he could not be found. Therefore, they inquired of the Lord further, has the man come here yet? And the Lord answered, there he is, hidden among the equipment. So they ran and brought him from there. And when he stood among the people, he was taller than any of the people from his shoulders upward. And Samuel said to all the people, do you see him whom the Lord has chosen, that there is no one like him among all the people? So all the people shouted and said, long live the king. Then Samuel explained to the people the behavior of royalty and wrote it in a book and laid it up before the Lord. And Samuel sent all the people away, every man to his house. And Saul also went home to Gibeah and valiant men went with him whose hearts God had touched. But some rebels said, how can this man save us? So they despised him and brought him no presents, but he held his peace. Then Nahash the Ammonite came up and encamped against Jabesh-Gilead. And all the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, make a covenant with us and we will serve you. And Nahash the Ammonite answered them, on this condition, I will make a covenant with you that I may put out all your right eyes and bring reproach on all Israel. Then the elders of Jabesh said to him, hold off for seven days that we may send messengers to all the territory of Israel, and then if there is no one to save us, we will come out to you. So the messengers came to Gibeah of Saul and told the news in the hearing of the people, and all the people lifted up their voices and wept. Now there was Saul coming behind the herd from the field, and Saul said, what troubles the people that they weep? And they told him the words of the men of Jabesh. Then the Spirit of God came upon Saul when he heard the news, and his anger was greatly aroused. So he took a yoke of oxen and cut them in pieces and sent them throughout all the territory of Israel by the hands of messengers, saying, whoever does not go out with Saul and Samuel to battle, so it shall be done to his oxen. And the fear of the Lord fell on the people, and they came out with one consent. When he numbered them in Bezek, the children of Israel were 300,000, and the men of Judah, 30,000. And they said to the messengers who came, thus you shall say to the men of Jabesh-Gilead, tomorrow by the time the sun is hot, you shall have help. Then the messengers came and reported to the men of Jabesh, and they were glad. Therefore, the men of Jabesh said, tomorrow we will come out to you, and you may do to us whatever seems good to you. So it was on the next day that Saul put the people in three companies, and they came into the midst of the camp in the morning watch and killed Ammonites until the heat of the day. And it happened that those who survived were scattered so that no two of them were left together. Then the people said to Samuel, who is he who said, shall Saul reign over us? Bring the men that we may put them to death. But Saul said, not a man shall be put to death this day, for today the Lord has accomplished salvation in Israel. Then Samuel said to the people, come, let us go to Gilgal and renew the kingdom there. So all the people went to Gilgal and there they made Saul king before the Lord in Gilgal. There they made sacrifices of peace offerings before the Lord and there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly. This is the word of the Lord. In the past number of months, we have gone through a lot of political theater, from presidential campaigning to elections, now to the upcoming inauguration. Now, as I said last week, we're not very familiar with the form of government of monarchy. We're familiar with constitutional republics and democracies, but not monarchs. But it's important for us to understand monarchs because the Bible is filled with kings and kingship, a concept of kingdoms. And one of the reasons I said last week that we need to understand something about kings is that truly in the heart of every human being, there is a desire for a king. There's a desire for a king. A king to do what? A king to rescue us. and a king that we might serve. It's true that you've got to serve somebody, just as Bob Dylan's saying. It is true that we will serve someone, and it has to be the right kind of king. So what should be our response to the king that God has given to us? What is our response to the king that God has given to us? This morning I want to take this passage that I just read for you in two parts. We'll look first of all at the king identified, the king identified, and that's chapter 10, 17 through 27. And then we'll look at the king's acts, the king acts, what he does. So first of all, the king identified. Now what we have here beginning in verse 17 is the identification process. Now again Saul has been identified by Samuel as the king. God has identified that to Samuel but not to all Israel yet and that's what we read about here the identification process. Now it's important that the prophet Samuel has the king revealed to him first because Prophets under the Old Covenant had a significant role in the life of Israel, a very important role. For the prophets were the conduits of God's word and God's will to the people, to the people and to their kings. The prophets have a significant role. As you read the Old Testament, you find the important role of the prophet to speak God's word to God's people and also God's kings. because both the people and the kings were to be there to submit themselves to the prophetic word. Now, we hear from the New Testament, from Hebrews chapter one, Hebrews 1.1, that it was God who at various times and in various ways spoke in times past to the fathers by the, prophets by the prophets. And so here we have it. We've been studying the importance of this prophet Samuel to the life of Israel, but also to the life now is going to be to the kings. In fact, he's already been commanding Saul and telling Saul what to do. We saw this back in chapter 10, verse 8, when he says, you shall go down before me to Gilgal, and surely I will come down to you to offer burnt offerings and make sacrifices of peace offerings. Seven days you shall wait till I come to you and show you what you should do. And so it's very important for the kings to listen to the prophets. for the prophets would bring them God's word and God's will. Well, now you have the prophet in verse 17, assembling all of Israel together at Mizpah, one of the cities that Samuel judged from. And so he gathers them all together. He gathered them together in chapter seven at Mizpah and he does it again now to introduce them to their first king. And so he's going to give them his, God's Word. In fact, you see that in verse 18, after he gathers them together at Mizpah, he says, Thus says the Lord God of Israel. And so Samuel is speaking for the Lord and as the Lord here in these verses. And of course, he's going to present them the first king. But before he does this, the prophet rebukes the people for their sins. We read here, I brought you up out of Egypt and delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all kingdoms and from those who oppressed you. But you have today rejected your God who himself saved you from all your adversities and tribulations because you have said, no, we will have a king over us. And so he begins by rebuking them. telling them, you have rejected God as king. The Lord has said this already to Samuel. Further on in chapter 12, verse 12, Samuel there speaks and says, and when you saw the Nahash king of the Ammonites came against you, you said to me, no, but a king shall reign over us when the Lord your God was your king. And so for them to say, we want a king was for them to say, and we do not want God. You see, God had been their king. He had rescued them from Egypt. He had delivered them from all their enemies. That's what kings do. But they had rejected God as their king. Now, despite their rejection, God had not rejected them. This is the mercy of the Lord. that though this nation had rejected him, he had not rejected them. This is the mercy of the Lord. And yet, even though the king will be a way to judge the people, there's still mercy here. There's a sense that there's mercy through the judgment, because the judgment is not meant to destroy them, it's meant to discipline them. And that's why so often even God's judgment of us is not to destroy us, but to discipline us. And so there's mercy here in the judgment of giving them a king. Now the selection process after he rebukes them for rejecting the Lord and wanting someone else to be their king rather than God, he then says at the end of verse 19, present before the Lord your tribes and your clans. And so what happens now is we're going to select the king. So let's bring all the leaders of the tribes forward and find out which tribe the king will come from. And then we'll bring up each family from that tribe until we finally get down to the individual. Now, can you remember any process like this before already that had taken place? Back in the book of Joshua, this is how they found out the sin of Achan. And so they're using that same process here. And so they bring all the leaders, and it's the tribe of Benjamin that's chosen first, and then the family of Matri, all the way down until finally it's Saul. But when they look for Saul, he cannot be found. He is, what we find out here, he's hiding. Now, I don't know why he's hiding. I'm not gonna speculate why he's hiding, but he's hiding. And so it's interesting that they inquire of the Lord in verse 22, therefore they inquire to the Lord, has the man come here yet? And then look what the Lord does. The Lord answers and says, there he is hiding among the equipment. This is further confirmation that this is the Lord's choice because the Lord says he's over there. That's my king over there hiding. Okay, so. This is confirmation that, yes, Saul is God's choice for their first king. Now, here he is presented to them. After they bring him forward in verse 23 and 24, he is presented to the people. Here is the presentation of the anointed one, the one who's been anointed with oil by Samuel and anointed with the Holy Spirit by God. Now, how is he presented? In what way is he presented to the people? Well, look at this in verses 23 and 24. Of course, he comes out, he's taller than everybody else. And then in verse 24, Samuel says to all the people, do you see him? Take a look at him. Pretty impressive. Do you see him who the Lord has chosen, that there is no one like him among all the people? What does this mean? Look at him. No one is like him. In what way is nobody like him? Well, what did it say right in the verses before? His stature, his physical appearance. Remember, he's the most handsome man in all of Israel. He's taller than everybody else. He stands out. That's what he points to. When the king is presented, he says, check this one out. Look at him. The focus is external. on his physical appearance. Now, we have to be honest with ourselves. This is how so often we evaluate things, isn't it? We simply use our physical senses to look. This is how fallen men evaluate things, particularly men who lack spiritual discernment, that can look to the heart of things. You know, we so easily judge things based upon looks, or people's talents, or upon degrees, or upon budgets, and numbers, and spreadsheets. This is how we so often operate as fallen people. Look, no one like him. He's actually like nobody else in Israel. He looks like the king's of our enemies. This is not a good thing. He really is a picture of a worldly king. I guess since Israel is worldly, this is a king after their own heart. And thus they are greatly excited by this, right? They see him standing above everybody else and they begin to shout, long live the king. So how was the first king of Israel, the anointed of the Lord, presented? He was presented by his physical appearance, what he looked like. But he looked the part of a king. But you know what? When God would choose the next king of Israel, it wouldn't be this way. We see that God would choose a man not after Israel's heart, but after his own heart. Because when Saul is rejected, pretty quickly, by the way, in chapter 13, because of his great sins, we read there in 1 Samuel 13, in verse 14, that Samuel says to King Saul, but now your kingdom shall not continue. And so we already know where this is heading. Saul's kingship will not be long lasting. He says, your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought for himself a man after his own heart. And the Lord has commanded him to be commander over his people because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you. The Lord has sought a man after his own heart, not Israel's heart. And then later on, when Samuel is sent by God to Jesse's sons and he's trying to select which one of the sons is going to be the king, what does God have to say to him? In chapter 16, verse seven, the Lord said to Samuel, do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature. because I refuse him. For the Lord does not see as man sees. For man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. You see, we need to become more like the Lord, to grow in the Lord so that we have a spiritual perspective, spiritual insight, so that we are not just simply looking at externals, but we are looking to the internal, to the heart. And for Israel, they were being presented with a king who stood out to them physically. Now, in the fullness of time, you know, there's coming David, but in the fullness of time, when that eschatological king, that last days king came, that king of kings came, when he came, King Jesus, And when he was presented to Israel, how was he presented to Israel? Now, first of all, you say, stop, hold on. Jesus was presented to Israel. Yes, he was presented to Israel. You say, by who? Well, of course, by a prophet, right? Because prophets present. Samuel presented Saul. Well, who presented King Jesus to Israel? Very good. Somebody knows their Bible. I heard that. John, the forerunner. John presented Jesus to Israel. We read this in John chapter one. Listen to this. And how did he present? You know, Samuel says, look at him. There's no one like him. But what does John do? Says the next day, John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, behold, look at him. the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said, after me comes a man who is preferred before me, for he was before me. I did not know him, but that he should be revealed to Israel. Therefore, I came baptizing with water. John, the forerunner, says, look at him, the Lamb, the Lamb. You say, what does that mean? He doesn't say, look at him, look at his physical appearance, because there was nothing to draw us to his physical appearance. In that messianic prophecy of the servant of the Lord in Isaiah 53, 2, it says he had no form or comeliness. And when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. All we could see with him was he was the Lamb of God. You say, well, what does that mean, the Lamb? Jesus is presented as the Lamb. What is that? Well, we know that in the Old Testament, they gave offerings of lambs, but the lamb had to be spotless. It had to be pure. And so John says, look at the purity of his life. A life so pure and perfect that it can remove the sins of the world. A life so pure that it can purify everyone sitting in this room. A life so pure that it can clean up your life and make you pure, pure in heart. That's how our Lord was presented to Israel not his physical appearance, but his purity of life. And so we see here back in 1st Samuel chapter 10, he presents him, look at him. They're excited. Long live the king. And then Samuel takes a book in verse 25 and writes out all the behavior of the king. This is from the law. This is back from Deuteronomy 17, where Every time a king came into office, he was to be given a copy of the law of God so that he might read it and know it and live by it and lead the people by it. To know and live by the word of God. You see, the king's life in Israel was to be a life and kingship governed by the very word of God. And therefore, he needed to listen to the prophets, the prophetic word. You see, we need to be trained by the Word of God. That's why we need King Jesus in our lives. We need to be trained by the Word of God. The writer of Hebrews talks about this, that we need our spiritual senses trained by the Word of God. We can't be lazy with the Word of God. We need to let King Jesus bring to us His Word so that we can be trained in it, so we can have spiritual discernment, so we won't be worldly in our thinking. So we won't be people who look on external things. We'll be people who actually can look at the internal and begin to get the perspective of God looking at the heart of things truly. We don't want to be carnal worldly people just looking at the external. But Jesus is so pure as a king that he can purify your insight so that you begin to look and have spiritual insight as well. but we have to let King Jesus train us in the Word. We cannot expect spiritual insight if we give ourselves more time to the internet than to the Word of God. We just can't. We'll be worldly people when we give ourselves to the things of the world, but if we'll give ourselves to the Word of God and we let King Jesus govern our lives by the Word, We'll begin to be people of deep discernment and insight, and we need that desperately to live in this world. Now, notice the various reactions to the king. Now, first of all, there is the reaction of excitement, right? The crowds go crazy. Long live the king. We finally have what we want. They're excited. So that's one reaction, the excitement. But then there's two other reactions here. We see in verse 26 that as Samuel sends everybody home, Saul does not go home alone. It says in verse 26, and Saul also went home to Gibeah and valiant men went with him whose hearts God had touched. Valiant men, men who would follow Saul and defend Saul and be his army. said we will go with him and we will commit ourselves to him and commit our lives to him, valiant men. But then there were others in verse 27, rebels, worthless men, the same, actually this is the same Hebrew word used for Hophni and Phinehas, worthless men, rebels who said how can this man save us? I don't know, maybe it's because he was hiding. He can't be our king. And so they despised him and hated him. You know, and I find here similar responses to King Jesus. You know, there are those who get very excited about Jesus. Yes, I want to follow Jesus. I mean, it's really the parable of the first soil, isn't it? The rocky soil, the stony soil. They receive the word with excitement. But then troubles happen and they go away. But then there are those who actually commit themselves to Christ and His Word, and they bear fruit. They're valiant men. And of course, there's those who just reject Him. The hard soil, like these rebels here. You know, who are the valiant men for Jesus? Well, in Jesus' day, wasn't it those disciples who left John the Baptist when He said, Behold, the Lamb of God. And they left John and they followed Jesus. Where are you staying, Lord? We want to come follow you. Valiant men. So I wonder this morning, are you valiant men, valiant women, who will say, I will commit to following Jesus. I will commit to serving him as king. It's not about my excitement level for him, because that could be gone tomorrow, but it is about my commitment to him. I will serve him. I will obey him. I will listen to his word and follow him, even when it gets difficult. And so that's the first we see. And at the end of that second half of chapter 10, the king is identified. But then in chapter 11, we have the king's first official act as king. Well, what is that first act? Well, what do we find him doing in chapter 11? Well, what was he anointed for? Do you remember what they wanted? Give us a king who will. fight for us. Exactly. That's what kings did in their day. They went out and led in battle. And that's exactly what we have in Chapter 11. He's doing what the Lord's anointed is supposed to do. Fight to fulfill his primary purpose. Now, the context of this battle that Saul leads the people in is that there is a king and a nation, the Ammonites, who take a town called Jabesh Gilead. It's one of Israel's towns. And the men have to give themselves up. We surrender. We'll be your servants. Make a covenant with us. And then the king says, OK, we can make a covenant, but we have to put out your right eye. Probably the right eye, because it's the most important eye for most people. And they could still do work and therefore give revenue to the king, but they wouldn't make good soldiers to rebel against the king. Well, the men of Jabesh Gilead say, well, let's see if any other people in Israel will help us and protect us. And so they send messengers out. And of course, the messenger looks like first goes to Gibeah, because that's where Saul lives. In fact, did you notice in verse four it says, so the messengers came to Gibeah of Saul. Of course, he's been anointed king. He ought to be the one who leads them. And so he's actually out in the fields farming still. He hasn't really taken over the governing of the nation yet, but he's out farming still. And so when the messengers come and say, this is what's happening to Jabesh Gilead, the people begin to weep. Now notice this, notice the different responses because as Saul comes in from the field, he has a very different reaction than everybody else. Notice the different responses to the message of the need for help. The people of Gibeah, how do they respond? They're grieved, weeping, they're acting like Jabesh Gilead. How does Saul respond? In anger. Very different responses. The people respond in grief, Saul responds in anger. Where did the anger of Saul come from? Came from the Lord. Because notice this in verse six. Then the Spirit of God came upon Saul when he heard this news and his anger was greatly aroused. It was the spirit of the Lord that produced this anger in him. It was a kind of zeal for the Lord and for the Lord's people that he would protect the Lord's people. And so the spirit of the Lord came upon him. And so he begins to lead them in battle, and he first of all, you know, has a good strategy, he takes some ox of his and he cuts them to pieces and sends them all throughout Israel and says, listen, if you don't come help fight behind me and Samuel, then this is what's gonna happen to all your oxen. And so it says the people responded with the fear of the Lord and said, we will come serve. And so we see that they come out in force and serve. Now, Saul is clearly operating as the Lord's anointed. In fact, if you go back to chapter two, back to Hannah's prayer, remember her prayer back in chapter two? This was Samuel's mother. At the very end of her prayer in 1 Samuel 2 verse 10, she ends her prayer by saying this, the adversaries of the Lord shall be broken in pieces From heaven he will thunder against them. The Lord will judge the ends of the earth. Now listen to this. He will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed. You see, the Lord will defeat his adversaries by giving strength to his king. That's what she prophesies. She says the Lord will defeat his enemies and he'll defeat them through his king, through his anointed one. And Saul fulfilling this. It's the same thing that we see in Psalm 2 that we sung this morning. That rage of the nations is against the Lord and against His anointed, His King. And yet the Lord is victorious through His King. Now you notice Israel's response to Saul Here in at the end of verse 7 it says in the fear of the Lord fell on the people isn't interesting It didn't say that the fear of Saul fell on them, but the fear of the Lord fell on them but in some sense the the anger that That Saul has is the anger of the Lord and so they are experiencing the fear of the Lord through Saul And it says they came out with one consent and they feared and they came out in force. And they said, we are with you. And they go and there's a great victory that day behind Saul. And so you see their response here to Saul was that of fear of the Lord and that they came out and served him in force and followed him. You know, this zeal of Saul that day is a great zeal. It's the zeal of the Lord. But when we consider our King, King Jesus, his zeal is unrivaled. In John 2, when we see Jesus clearing out the temple, in John 2.19, John the disciple quotes Psalm 69.9 and says, then his disciples remembered that it was written, zeal for your house has eaten me up. The zeal of the Lord eats Jesus up. Jesus the King, his zeal is unrivaled. His zeal for the Father's glory and his zeal for the church's good is unrivaled. In fact, his zeal led him all the way to the cross, where he destroyed the one who holds the power of death. That is the devil. The zeal of the Lord was upon Jesus. And when we consider Christ's great victory, we ought to come out in force to serve him. contemplating, considering that Christ has defeated death for us, the devil for us, sin for us, on the cross and through the resurrection. We ought to come out in service to him just as Israel came out in service in one consent. We ought to come out in force to follow Christ. You know, it reminds me of Psalm 110. That's a famous messianic psalm. But listen to what Psalm 110 says in the beginning three verses. And these words are probably familiar to you. It says, the Lord said to my Lord. So David is writing this and he says, the Lord, that is Yahweh, has said to my Lord, which is, of course, the Christ. the son of David, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of your strength out of Zion, rule in the midst of your enemies. Now listen to this, verse three, your people shall be volunteers in the day of your power. This is what I'm saying is that if Christ has truly died for us, if Christ is truly victorious over all of our enemies, then our only proper response is to volunteer ourselves to say, I'm fully in. You are king, that we come out in force and say, you are our king and we will serve you with all our hearts. that we volunteer ourselves to Christ. We belong to you. Now, notice the response of this victory. What was Israel's response to that victory that day? I mean, our response ought to be, yes, I'll serve you, King Jesus, above all else. Well, what was the people's response to this great victory that day? back in chapter 11. Well, it says right after they had defeated the Ammonites in verse 12, it says this, then the people said to Samuel, they turned to Samuel the prophet and said, who is he who said, shall Saul reign over us? Bring the men that we may put them to death. They get done with his great victory led by Saul. And they're like, bring out those men who didn't want Saul to be king. We're going to kill him. These men are full of justice. They might be men that think they know the truth, but they're wrong. They have zeal without knowledge. Oh, they're zealous. Let's kill those men. That's the just thing to do. But it was without knowledge. They saw themselves as the judges. But notice Saul's focus here in verse 13. He says, not a man shall be put to death this day for today the Lord has accomplished salvation in Israel. Notice what Saul just did there. Saul's focus is not on the evil men, but on the goodness of God. You see, when we stand at the foot of the cross and realize what Jesus has done, there is no judgmentalness there. There's no, well, we need justice. We need things to be fixed. It is rather to look at the goodness of God and be overwhelmed by the goodness of God and say, this is the day of salvation. That should be our response to the victory of Christ. The day of salvation. This is the goodness of God. You see, the heart that has been affected by the King's salvation is a heart that's ready to extend mercy. Because they stand before a salvation that has given them so much mercy that they become the most merciful of people. They truly become like Christ. You know, we have a little glimpse of the goodness of Saul here. You know, say goodbye to it. It's going to get bad from this point on. But at least at this point, there's this glimpse of goodness, of the mercy that we see in Christ. You know, our true King taught the same thing as Saul did that day. In the Beatitudes, one of the Beatitudes, what does he say? He says, blessed are the merciful Because they will obtain mercy. Would you like to have mercy of the Lord? Then you be the most merciful person to others. Overlook the faults, the sins that they do against you. And be merciful. I mean, we could pile up verses about mercy. What an example Saul is that day. And of course, resembling a bit of our Lord. when he calls us to have the mercy that he has. And so after Saul says, no, but he's gonna be put to death, we're gonna look at the goodness of God today, the salvation he has wrought. Then it says in verse 14, Sama said to the people, come, let's go to Gilgal and let's renew the kingdom there. Let's renew the kingdom. Well, I say that's what we need to do. We ought to renew the kingdom. We ought to be praying, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Oh, we want your kingdom, Lord Jesus, not our kingdom, your kingdom. And as Jesus taught us in the Sermon on the Mount, we ought to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these other things of earth will be added to us. Let us put our focus upon his kingdom and his righteousness. You see, God has presented us a king. And our king has acted. What is your response? He's been presented to us. He's acted on our behalf. What is our response? I would say beware of temporary excitement that wanes. It's here and gone. Kind of like that stony soil. Don't just get excited about this king for a moment. But rather, with fear and with rejoicing, mixed with rejoicing, rejoicing mixed with fear, as Psalm 2 speaks of, let us offer ourselves exclusively to Christ. I don't belong to the world any longer. I belong to you, Christ. You bought me at a price. You defeated my enemies on my behalf. I'm yours. And I would say dwell on that salvation daily. And let Christ govern you by His word. Because it's His word that sanctifies you. It makes you holy. He transforms you into His image. So that we'll begin to reflect His purity of life. Because remember, He's the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Remember this. And look to the King who's not a worldly king in stature, but He is the Lamb of God who does, in fact, take away the sins of the world. Look to Him. Let's pray. Our Father in Heaven, we thank You for Your Word this morning. We thank You that You give us in Your Word, particularly in the Old Testament, preparation for the coming of the true King of Jesus, who's perfect, the King that we all need. Oh, Father, I pray that we would not reject Him, that we would not simply receive Him just for a moment, but rather we would stand before the cross and realize, and the empty tomb, and realize with fear and trembling and rejoicing that our King has overcome. so that we might offer ourselves exclusively to him, dwelling on his goodness and therefore being transformed by his goodness. Oh Lord, we need to be transformed by Christ. He is the King of glory who overcame by being a lamb on our behalf. We thank you for Jesus. We thank you for his kingship. Oh, give us grace so we might follow him as king. We pray this in his name. Amen.