I have several passages of scripture tonight that I'll read, starting with Revelation 1, 5, and 6, and then 1 John 5, 18 through 21, Revelation 5, 9 through 14, and Romans 6, 12. But first, Revelation 5, 1, and 6. And from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth, to him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and has made us kings and priests to his God and father. To him be glory and dominion forever and ever, amen. 1 John 5, 18 through 21. We know that whoever is born of God does not sin, But he who has been born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him. We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding that we may know him who is true, and we are in him who is true. In his Son, Jesus Christ, this is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen. Then Revelation 5, 9 through 14, and they sang a new song saying, you are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals for you were slain and have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation and have made us kings and priests to our God and we shall reign on the earth Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, and the elders, and the number of them was 10,000 times 10,000, and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, worthy is the Lamb who was slain. to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard saying, blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be to him who sits on the throne, and to the land forever and ever. Then the four living creatures said, amen. And the 24 elders fell down and worshiped him who lives forever and ever. One last verse, Romans 6, 12. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in its lusts. There are truths in scripture that are hard to teach with just one verse. And this is one of those. This is the truth of Christ making us kings. Part of our image of God is that we're remade to rule And I think sometimes we think, well, are we really supposed to? Or aren't we supposed to be humble? And Christ is king. And that's true. If I would have included another passage I wanted to include, but I already have enough. In Revelation 4, they're throwing their crowns before the throne. And yet we are We are made kings, and that's part of our being in the image of God. We were to rule the earth even from the beginning, and now we are being restored into being prophets, priests, and kings, as Christ is the prophet, the priest, the king, and he's restoring us in knowledge as a prophet, in righteousness as a priest, and in holiness as kings, if you remember, and some of this will be review, but Jesus is the king, and this isn't review, he's the king who makes us kings and has made us kings, Revelation 1.6. This is what's review, my first sub-point. Remember a good king in the Old Testament times was one who fought sin and got rid of idols. I have an example here. I had several examples before when I preached a similar sermon. Asa became king over Judah, and he reigned 41 years in Jerusalem. Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as did his father David, and he banished the perverted persons from the land and removed all the idols that his fathers had made. That's what made a good king. It wasn't building up the economy. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing to do, but in Israel, the king was the one who brought back morality and got rid of the idols. That was a good king. The bad kings, and you'll remember this, I hope, who are they? They're the ones that were immoral and they brought back the worship of idols. And this is part of the whole idea of what we're to be. You know, here's Asa again in another verse, 1 Kings 15, 9 and B12. Nevertheless, Asa's heart was loyal to the Lord all his days. If you remember when I preached a similar sermon, I mentioned David, how his one desire was to be with the Lord. And here Asa has that similar desire. He wants to be loyal to the Lord. We are the Lord's. We are his bride. We are his body. We are to be loyal. That's part of being sanctified is we're being taken away from the world and we're giving ourselves only to Christ. Jesus fought our sin. And he delivers us from idols and false worship like no other or like none of the others. In this he is king of kings and ruler of the earth. It says 1st Revelation 1, 5, and 6. I had the little dot dots because I skipped some of the verses. I've already read them though. And from Jesus Christ, the ruler over the kings of the earth. to him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood and has made us king. Here we see he makes us kings. He is called the ruler over the kings of the earth. And yet how does he rule? Not like any other king, the rest of them, Napoleon said this, we all were ruled by war, but Christ alone ruled by love. And he still has followers following him to that day. And that's what Napoleon said. And he still, Jesus obviously still has followers to this day, long beyond Napoleon. He is different from other kings. He rules in a different way. He rules not by killing, but dying self-sacrificially. He rules not by destroying or putting people down. He rules by love. And so here we see him as an example of a king, and he is showing us what he ultimately will make us if we're to be kings. What Jesus does as kings, is he makes, does as kings, is he makes us holy. And this obviously he does with the help of God's Holy Spirit. A Christian is, as we said many times, is a little anointed one. The word Christ means anointed one. And if you extend that to Christian, this is a person who's born again by God's Spirit. And this is part of the second passage that I have here for you. 1 John 5, 18 says, we know that whoever is born of God does not sin, but he who has been born of God keeps himself and the wicked one does not touch him. Now we know for one thing, this is certainly true of our Lord Jesus Christ. He was born of God. He's the eternal son of God. And he did not sin. Hebrews 4.15 says, for we have a high priest who, we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are yet without sin. He's the eternal son of God. He's our high priest. He never sinned. Now, 1 John 5, 18 could be speaking of Jesus in that sense, but I believe it's also speaking of us who born of God by regeneration are to be like Jesus. We are in the new birth sinless, or at least more and more overcoming sin. Obviously we're not totally sinless because we all know we have failed in many ways. But the new birth in us is something from God and that aspect of us at least is walking with God or should. First John 2, 6 says, he who abides in him ought himself also to walk just as he walked. And then we see 1st John 1-3 says, behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God. Therefore the world does not know us because it did not know him Beloved, now we are the children of God, and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know when he is revealed, we shall be like him. And then listen to this, for we shall see him as he is, and everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure. Just as the kings in the Old Testament, the good kings, would root the idols out of the land, we're to root sin, we're to purify ourselves, to make ourselves right for Christ. Jesus is said here, or this person is said here, to be untouched by the wicked one, verse 518, 1 John 518. And Jesus, we know, was untouched. It says in John 14 30, Jesus is speaking before he's about to go to the cross and he says, I will no longer talk much with you for the ruler of this world that Satan is coming and he has nothing in me. And when Jesus said this about Satan, Satan was coming, Satan was part of that pain or difficulty Jesus has on the cross. He's bringing the taunts from the people who say crucify him. And he's in Judas who betrayed him. He's in the rulers, the soldiers who are beating him. All of this is, Satan has his part in all this. And he would have loved to have somehow made Jesus sin or fail, but he had nothing in Jesus. It's like you're throwing a match at something that is totally inflammable and you're trying to get it lit. For us, we are like dry wood. Saint throws his match and we tend to burn easily, like Peter. He lifted him as wheat. And the devil has plenty in us. That's why in 1 John 1.8 it says, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. And yet the born again part of us, that which is from God cannot sin. That's 1 John 5, 18. We know that whoever is born of God does not sin, but he who has been born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him. And I believe when it's saying whoever is born of God, it's not limiting it just to Christ. We are all born again, and that new born part of us And it says in scripture, the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. That newborn part of us does not want to sin. It can't sin. It has to serve God. And so if we're born again, we have at least part of us, this new nature that we have from Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, this wins. And we see ourselves getting more and more victorious over whatever sin we might have. Again, James says something similar, James 1, 16 through 18. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. Of his own will, he brought us forth by the word of truth that we might be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. First roots were always the best. That's what first roots mean. It didn't mean first is in time, in order, like you're running a race and one's first before the other. First roots meant the best. And here, I'm sure it means the best morally and spiritually. That's what we are supposed to be as Christians. And that's what we're called to. That's the high calling that we have. And that's how we become kings. Not kings that rule over other people, even though that might be the case if God calls us to that, but kings who rule over our own flesh, who get rid of our own sin, who fight with the devil. In that sense, we're doing like the kings of old did. David fought Goliath. We have our own Goliath, Satan, to fight. We have our own Goliath, our own sin. This holiness, number 3.3, this holiness, this sanctification distinguishes us from an ungodly world. We know, this is 1 John 5.19, that we are of God and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. We have this powerful force working in us. We are newborn. We have new desires. We are going a new way. We are fighting against the old way in us and the whole world is going the sinful way, the opposite way. And the more they go that way and the more we go our way, the more we are distinguished from them. The entire world loves the world. It's caught up in the world, but we love God. 1 John 2, 15 through 17 says, do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life is not of the father, but it's of the world. And the world is passing away and the lust of it. But he who does the will of God abides forever. The person who does the will of God abides forever. The person who's caught up in the world dies with the world. He passes with the world. If your whole life is caught up in this world, this world is going to be one day burned up and destroyed. And we probably will go before it, but it's gone. No, under the sway of, in this passage back in, 1st John 5 19. It says the whole world is under the sway of the wicked one. Notice under the sway of is all in italics. which means what, it means those words are not even in the original Greek, under the sway of. All it says is the whole world, if we just translated it to English without the help, I believe under sway is correct in a way it says, but they had to add words to make sense of it because 1 John 5, 19 says, the whole world lies, the wicked one. And when it's saying lies, it's not, it's, you know, we have, when we talk about lies, We talk about, we have two words in English. Lies, I could lie down, or I could lie by telling you a lie. In Greek, the two words are different. so you don't confuse them. This is talking about lying down or being comfortable somewhere. So when it says, the whole world lies, the wicked one, it means something like the whole world is under the sway of the wicked one, or the whole world is like relaxing in the wicked one, comfortable with the wicked one, under the sway of the wicked one, like the wicked one is being romantic with them, and they're going along with it. This is not lies and truth, but it's true that it's untruth, but it lies in the sense that the whole world is comfortable with Satan. The ungodly are comfortable and even cozy with Satan and his ways. We are of God. the exact opposite. We're different from the world in all our ways. I love these verses in Philippians. Do you all remember what goes right before Philippians 2.12 in Philippians? What's before Philippians 2.12? Philippians 2.11. That would have been the easy way you could have said it, even if you're not thinking of it. But it's talking about Christ and his death on the cross. And because he was obedient unto death, God raised him up and put him, his name above every other name. And that's what that passage is about. And right after it speaks of Christ being obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, it goes here in verse 12, and it says he was exalted because of that. Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to do his good pleasure. Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless children of God. without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom you shine as lights in the world. I've told you before, I think at least some of you have heard, you know, when I had other churches when I was doing weddings and I would do marriage counseling, I usually told, the bride and the groom that I do Christian weddings. I don't do non-Christian weddings. So if they want that, they had to go somewhere else. And I said, I prefer the traditional Christian wedding. And I'd show them the Christian wedding and almost always, oh, that's wonderful. Yes, that's what we want, Pastor. We want that traditional Christian wedding. And then, you know, there's a part in it when it says to the woman, I will love, honor, and obey. when we read that, when we're in the counseling, I almost always got, sometimes it was the man who said that, but often it was the woman who said this. They'd say, obedience is for dogs. We don't want that. Just, we'd love the whole rest of the service, but just take that obey word out of there, okay? And that's the way the world thinks about obedience. Obedience is for dogs. We think that a person who obeys is like a dog. But if you look at this passage, And Jesus was obedient unto death to his father. You could say he's the son of God. Obedience is for God and obedience is for God's children. Obedience is the way God's people go. They do all things without complaining. They were willing to suffer like Christ was willing to suffer for the faith. And so our obedience makes us different than an ungodly world. It makes us holy according to verse 12. It's God's working in us that enables this obedience. God works in us both to work well and to do his good pleasure. And we are children of God when we do these things and we shine like stars in the dark world. And in this way, you know, we are stars And our world has Hollywood people as stars and oftentimes, not always, but oftentimes they're very immoral people, but our stars are obedient stars. It's almost the same kind of thing that's represented here, stars in that sense that we shine, we're different. We outshine those people by our obedience. Number four, we know God's son and therefore we know eternal life. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding that we may know Him who is true and we are in Him who is true in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true and eternal life. When we know God, when we know Jesus, this is true and eternal life. And I believe not just eternal life in duration, but eternal life in quality. And next Sunday morning, I think this is part of what I'll speak on, but here we see some of this in Revelation 5, 9, and 10. It says, and they sang a new song saying, you are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals for you were slain and have redeemed us to God by your blood. out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God, and we shall reign on the earth." Now, when it says you are worthy, it's talking about Jesus Christ, but it's talking about Jesus Christ as the lamb. In chapter five, he's presented as the lamb, and not just an ordinary lamb, but he's presented as, in the Greek, it's a little lamb. And so it's a tiny little lamb, an animal that people would say, how can that be victorious? It's not a big male lamb with horns. It's not anything like that. It's a little baby lamb that wins the day. And here he's saying, you are worthy. And he says, you have made us kings and priests. Why? Because he redeemed us. You have redeemed us by your blood out of every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. And so Jesus is songworthy, you could say. They're singing a song for him. He's worthy to take the scroll, meaning he is actually controlling, I believe, the scroll represents all the history of the world, either from the time of Genesis, you might say, but at least from the time of Christ dying all the way to the end. He is in control. Jesus is worthy because he died for us, because he redeemed us, and he is worthy because he remakes us into kings and priests. You know, it takes a lot to make sinful people into proper kings. An ungodly man who rules is not a godly king. He's hated by God usually. He's usually destroyed by God. But a king is somebody not necessarily who's ruling on earth like these earthly kings, but he definitely or she definitely rules him or herself. To the heavenly minded, this worth is obvious. irresistible, spontaneous, and praiseworthy. It says in the rest of this passage, verses 11 through 14, then I looked and heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, the elders, and the number of them were 10,000 times 10,000 and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. Yet every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such that are in the sea, all that are in them, I heard saying, blessing and honor and glory and power to him who sits on the throne and to the land forever and ever and the four living creatures. said amen and the 24 elders fell down and worshiped him who lives forever and ever. Again I think I've preached something like this before but the whole idea here is people are seeing differently. When we see a lamb suffering We think pitiful. We think it's dying, poor thing. Here a lamb is suffering, but they understand the lamb is Jesus. He died for our sins. He saved everybody from hell. And because they're perfectly understanding this, it's the thing that is most worthy of praise in all the universe. And so every creature, The angels, the fish in the sea, every creature is praising Christ with the utmost energy and the highest amount of praise. You know, somebody will hit a home run in the World Series. And what is that? It's somebody hitting a ball. Does it actually help anybody? Probably very few people. It'll help that person who wins the game. He'll be famous and he'll make a lot of money and stuff. But it doesn't do a lot for a lot of people. But what Jesus does saves everybody. And what is here is that these who are kings and priests They know that they've been made kings and priests by what Jesus did, and they appreciate it. They know their morality is different, that they're now righteous in God's sight. And as the song says, to know no one is to love him. Here, kings recognize and honor the king with praise. I did mention it before. Revelation 4 9 through 11 in verse 10 it says, they cast their crowns before the throne. That's what we do. We may be kings, but we know who the king of kings is, and we are humble before him. And this is eternal life. This is the true God and eternal life. That's what 1 John 5, 20 says. True God and eternal life is this morally righteous life. It's this godly life that we are connected to God in it. This is eternal life, not just in duration, but in quality. It's a life lived in relationship with God, enjoying the blessings of God. As it says in John 1, blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. He avoids all those things that the world says, this is what living is. But his delight is in the law of the Lord. And in his law, he meditates day and night. This is where we find life. And this, he says, he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water. That's a living thing. A tree that brings forth fruit that's planted. It's a planted tree. When we are Christians, we are planted by God in that perfect place for us to grow, for us to get stronger, for us to bear fruit. And those who are not, he says, they're like the chaff which the wind drives away. The chaff is the lifeless part, the chaff is blown away. And we see, here is the contrast again, between the believer who is a king, between the believer who is a shining star, between the believer who is the tree planted, and the ungodly are like chaff. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. This is a life under God's rule and keeping God's commandments. And Jesus says, if you love me, keep my commandments. If we love him, we will keep his commandments. This is a life eternal. In quality and not only eternal in duration, as I said, Psalm 1611 says, you will show me the path of life in your presence is fullness of joy, at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. a path we'd never find on our own, a narrow path, a difficult one, a path Christ did show us. He took up his cross. He became obedient unto death. and he calls us to the same. Then he said to them all, if anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. It's a different way to become a king. It's a different way to fulfill, but it's God's way. A life separate from sin because sin causes death, a life reigning over sin, which leads to my next and my last point. Those who are kings in Christ resist sin. They keep themselves from idols. The last verse in 1 John verse 21 says, little children, keep yourself from idols. And it may seem that it doesn't go with the rest of those verses, but it does, in that the Christian, the godly person, is holding close to Christ. He's loving God. He's trying to stay strong in this way, but he's avoiding the idols of the world. That's why it says in Romans 6, 12, therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lust. When sin reigns, you're making an idol out of it, you're worshiping it. And just like the Old Testament kings punished sin and got rid of the land, and led the land of idols, we need to keep ourselves from them. There are literal idols, It says in Psalm 115, 4-8, their idols are silver and gold. the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they do not speak. Eyes they have, but they do not hear or do not see. They have ears, but they do not hear. Noses they have, but they do not smell. They have hands, but they do not handle. Feet they have, but they do not walk, nor do they mutter through their throat. Those who make them are like them. So is everyone who trusts in them. Now, you might say, well, we don't really worship idols like that anymore, but we do. It still is happening, even today. The church that I was in at the first time as a pastor, a full-time pastor, the Christian Church Disciples of Christ, they had a ladies' meeting. And the lady that was leading the meeting of the women passed a idol around, a little statue. And she said to the women, this is my idol. And she made them all take it in their hands and look at it. And she said, when I have trouble praying, I pray to my idol. That was happening. Well, right now I'm getting older. That's almost 30 years ago, I think. And if that was happening 30 years ago in that kind of church, I'm sure it's still happening today. Idols are being worshipped. They're prayed to. Now other things can be idols, money and things. No one can serve two masters, Jesus said, for either he will hate the one or love the other, or else he'll be loyal to the one and despise the other. He says you cannot serve God and man. Matthew 6, 24, if we're serving these things, whatever they are, they can become idols to us. Even people and family can be idols sometimes. This is difficult because we're called to love our family, but we're also called to hate them in comparison to Christ. Jesus says, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and his brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Sometimes there are circumstances where the closest family You have to make a choice because maybe they're not believers and maybe they're trying to get you to go the wrong way and You in a sense have to hate them not that you hate them because we're commanded to love even our enemies but if we are choosing between Christ and somebody else we have to obey and follow Christ And so we see these are the kind of things that we're called to. And as kings, we are loyal to Christ. Our sanctity, our holiness is that separateness to him. And that separates us from all idols. It makes him the one that we follow, the one who is ours. Well, let's pray. Father, we thank you for your goodness to us. We thank you that you sent your son into this world to die for our sins, that we might have life, even eternal life. And Father, we pray that you'd help us to understand these things better, help me to understand them better, and help us to be able to communicate them. and draw near to you. Father, part of our image is being in your image, is that we would rule, that we would be kings, that we would especially first rule over ourselves and then in any other way we are called to rule, we pray you'd help us to do that. And Father, we are not rulers over Christ, that's for sure, but we throw him our crowns and we thank you for what he did. he shows us the way to rule on earth and that is by obedience to you and for us obedience to him and father help us to be that way we pray these things in jesus name amen