The Lord, the King. I'd like to start off with opening up to the book of Exodus, chapter 15, and we'll read verses 1 through 18 in a second. The Lord, the King. At first, when pastor asked me to speak on this, I was like, all right, well, what can I say about this? This is pretty self-explanatory. God is King. What else do we need to know about that? But I'd like to share with you some things that God brought to my attention as I was studying for this. But let's go ahead and open up in a word of prayer real fast. Heavenly Father, I thank you for this night, and Lord, for this opportunity that you've given me, a chance to get out of my comfort zone, Lord, and to speak about your word, about who you are, Lord, what you've done in the past, and what you want to do for us now. Pray, God, that you would use this challenge to be a blessing to those that are going to hear this. And Lord, I just pray that you would help me to just communicate clearly what it is that you would have me to communicate. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. Exodus 15, Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will prepare him in habitation, my Father's God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is a man of war. The Lord is his name. Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea. His chosen captains also are drowned in the Red Sea. The depth hath covered them. They sank into the bottom as a stone. Thy right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in power. Thy right hand, O Lord, hath dashed in pieces the enemy. And in the greatness of thine excellency, thou hast overthrown them that rose up against thee. has sent his forth thy wrath, which consumed them as stubble. And when the blast of thy nostrils, the waters were gathered together, the floods stood upright as in heat, and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea. The enemy said, I will pursue. I will overtake. I will divide the spoil. My lust shall be satisfied upon them. I will draw my sword. My hand shall destroy them. Thou didst blow with thy wind. The sea covered them. They sank as lead in the mighty waters. Who is like thee, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? Thou stretchest out thy right hand. the earth swallowed them. Thou in mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed. Thou hast guided them in thy strength into thy holy habitation. The people shall hear and be afraid. Sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestine. Then the Dukes of Edom shall be amazed. The mighty men of Moab, trembling, shall take hold upon them. All the inhabitants of Canaan shall melt away. Fear and dread shall fall upon them. By the greatness of thy arm, they shall be as still as a stone, till thy people pass over, O Lord, till the people pass over which thou hast purchased. Thou shalt bring them in and plant them in the mountains of thine inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, in the sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established. The Lord shall reign forever and ever. We just finished singing a song about God's greatness, How Great Thou Art. It's a song I've heard my entire life in this church. And a good friend of mine told me that was their favorite. And at first, I was like, really, that song? It's so old. Why would that be your favorite song? But just now, as we're singing about it, and especially for me, having studied this out, I'm just thinking in my mind, wow, God is good. He is so great. And when you sing a song like that with those words, really thinking about how great your God is, it changes it completely. I just read through these first 18 verses, and some of you maybe were just thinking, okay, reading through this passage, this is a great story. But put yourselves in the shoes of the Israelites. They were celebrating, because in case you didn't get the idea, they just got out of Egypt. Pharaoh finally let them go. So they're excited, they're glad to be out of Egypt. But then, things change. The matters get worse. They realize that Pharaoh changed his mind. He's after them now. And so now they're having to walk through a giant sea. And they're scared because Pharaoh has mighty men, his whole army's after them, his chariots and horses, they're all pursuing them. But now, not only has God spared them, but God has conquered their enemies. Pharaoh and his army are no more. Now, try to put yourselves in that place where your life has just been spared. You've just witnessed God destroy a whole army. Not to mention, he just split a sea and you walked on dry ground. No puddles or anything like we may see in movies, but this was dry ground. This is one of those things that if I were ever to get to heaven, or when I get to heaven and I can ask God to replay one point in history for me, this is probably one of the most popular answers that you would hear people say. Oh man, I would love to see the splitting of the Red Sea. I can't imagine to be able to see that, that must have been so cool. So feel that, think about that, the response that the Israelites would have had to that, and now they're singing about how great their God is. A different song, a song that some people believe Moses wrote, but the description there of how great our God is. And then it goes, the details that it gives, it gives you this idea that they're talking about a king here. It ends in verse 18. The Lord shall reign forever and ever. Now, although we don't find the word king in here, actually, that word reign, the Hebrew word for it is, Malak, I believe. Etai had to coach me on that one. But that word there, it basically means the same thing as king. It says, to reign inceptively, to ascend to the throne, causatively, to induct into royalty. Basically, even though they didn't call him god, they were attributing king king attributes to God. So this is the earliest that we believe that the Israelites started attributing to God attributes of being a king. Now, as we already read through the message, Israel was describing how great God's hand is, how powerful he is. And they even said, with your nostrils, you blew the water, and it came upon the Egyptians. Now, I want us to think about What does that mean to us? What is a king? We don't have a king here in the United States. Probably when you first think of king or queen, most of us would probably think of England, Great Britain. They've had kings and queens for a long time. You're always hearing of the prince and the new princess, their new baby and whatever. But what does that look like? What does that mean to us? Here in America, we're so used to, yeah, sure, we have one guy who's in charge of everything, the president. He has to answer for everything. But for the most part, it's about me. It's about what I want. The president can suggest things, and he has a good amount of power, but the power's supposed to lie among the people. We're the ones who get to choose our leaders and whatnot. Whereas, when you're dealing with a monarchy, royal family and whatnot, it's more of, okay, well, this person was born into this responsibility. It's not so much we have a say as to who we want to rule over us, but that's who we get. And so I'm trying to look around and try to find out, okay, well, how do you respond to royalty? I mean, I know with respect and whatnot, they're supposed to be held in high regard. And a couple things came to me. Well, in our response to royalty, It was pretty funny. They have these different websites where they tell you how to respond. Well, when someone approaches you, you bow to them. And there are different degrees of how you bow to them. You can either do a slight head nod and just kind of tilt a little bit, 45 degrees maybe. You don't want to go from the waist. You don't want to face down because then you're demeaning yourself more than you have to. All these different things on how to approach royalty. Basically, out of reverence, you bow to them, to show respect to them. You're acknowledging the position they hold. And then, more than likely, if they ask you to do something, you would obey them. Back in our ancient history, you read of so many dictators that kind of let the power go to their head and were corrupted to the point where they asked you to do something. You didn't do it. You were executed or you were exiled something. But basically the Kings started abusing their power and this is what I want. This is what's going to get done. You have to do it. We've never had to deal with that yet here with a dictator like that. And then finally, another emotion or another response would be overjoyed emotions. Either people to the point where they're crying because they can't believe they saw the Queen of England or fangirls or whatever, just super excited that they got to see the prince or what have you. I know if I saw the queen, I did get to go to England, to London, I didn't get to see the royal family. But I know even for myself, if I would have, I would have been pretty pumped about that. Just the fact that I'm seeing such a giant icon, not that they mean anything to me, but I mean, this is a somebody over here, and you get to be in the same place with them. So all these different responses is what one person may feel or may want to react with. But all these people aren't who the Israelites are talking about. Sure, they may have the same title as the Israelites gave to their God, to our God. We call him our king. And yeah, sure, these people hold the same title as king. But in comparison to God, they're nothing. We have records of people who've just been corrupted with power. People who are just so focused with themselves and wanting to please themselves rather than doing their duties, which is to keep the peace and to serve the people. We do have examples of good rulers, but it's so easy to become corrupted with that. At the same time, they can't guarantee us everything that God guarantees us. In keeping peace, they can only do so much for you, these earthly rulers that we have, whereas God, he offers more than just safety. He offers you peace in the sense that even when things aren't going right, when you don't see the final answer, the ending of your problem, he gives you peace. in resting in the fact that you know that God will take care of you. He will work this all out for good according to his will. We have these promises in his word. So, I mean, we know there's a difference between our earthly rulers and our king of kings, the king that the Israelites were singing about. there should be a difference in how we respond. There may be some similarities, but ultimately, there are differences. I believe that my response to the King of Kings should be these three things here. I should honor him and humble myself. We have many examples of people in the Bible that humble themselves to the point of Like what I said earlier, when you're addressing a royal person, they said, don't face the ground, because then you're just demeaning yourself. We have people, countless examples in the Bible, of people who laid flat out on their faces out of respect for God. Were they demeaning themselves? Of course, definitely. Yes, they were. Because they understood the difference between them and God in position. People that we would call heroes of the faith. Abraham fell on his face before God. Aaron and Moses did. Joshua, King David, and then the disciples, and even Jesus himself. When he prayed to his father, he laid on his face out of respect to God. The son of God himself, when referring to his father, laid on his face. We should not think we're... We're any better than them to do that. I'm not saying every time we go to prayer now, or tonight even, that I'm expecting to see everyone on their face. I'm not saying that, but the principle is acknowledge who you are and where you are in comparison to God. It's so easy to forget that, especially in our world where everyone's so materialistic, especially in our city, where we have everything at our fingertips. We need to remember who we are in comparison to God. So honor Him and humble yourself. Secondly, obey Him and devote yourself. When royalty tells you to do something, you ought to obey it. But I want us to take that a step further. Yes, we know where we are to obey God. He makes that crystal clear in his word. But devote yourself in respect that when we have a great ruler and when he leads by a great example, our natural response should be to want to follow him. And that's what I'm saying by devoting yourselves. Don't just obey God right now at the moment. but why not continue to follow him? This great king that Israel was just talking about, singing about rather, this great God that we were just singing about and how great thou art, follow him. We know how good he is, we know his promises. In these verses over here, I'll just read the first two real fast. In Deuteronomy 11.1, where Moses is saying to us, Deuteronomy 28.1, he says, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth. I forgot to mention this, but I love how in that passage right there, Deuteronomy 28.1, and even in going back earlier, 1 Peter 5.6, we're told that if we humble ourselves, God will exalt us in his time. It's not that we know that we're so much lower than God and we have to lay our faces on the dirt and God knows that we're worms and he just steps on us and whatnot. No. He wants to exalt us. But in order for him to raise us up, we need to humble ourselves first. Which brings me to the last part. We ought to rejoice in him. This should ultimately be our response. And this is in a specific order. I honestly believe rejoicing could be done at all times. We can rejoice in him because in Romans 8, 17, we're told that we are children of God. It says, and if children, then heirs. heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. And so God wants to, that's the exalting that he's gonna give us. He gave us this equal inheritance that we can share with him. Our great high king, the one that provides these jobs, that provides these witnessing opportunities, that provides this opportunity to speak, even though it may not be exactly my first choice, but he knows it's good for us. All these different circumstances, he wants to bring us up even even higher or more than where we're at right now. He's offering us a chance to live with him. Those of us that are accepting that, we know we have that future to look forward to. We have that inheritance that he's promised us. John 5, 24 says, Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life." That's the promise that God has given us. Everlasting life. So God is our King. Not just our King, but the King of Kings, the Bible says. It takes it even a step further. So tonight, as we pray, I think those are three very appropriate responses that we can take to prayer with us. Honor Him. Humble yourself. Obey Him. See what it is that God may be asking you to do. For me, tonight, sharing this challenge with you guys was a step of obedience I needed to take. It's not always the most comfortable, but I know it's a great opportunity. It gives me a chance to get into the Word, to share what it is that God's teaching me. So obey Him, devote yourselves to Him, continue following Him, continue to obey Him, be progressively obeying Him, and then finally and ultimately rejoice in Him. We have a future and a hope, a peace that no one else has unless they know Christ as their Savior. So rejoice in that.