Conquering King (Part 2)

Introduction

This morning’s lesson will build on some thoughts that I gave last Sunday morning about being attuned to the spirit realm, to spiritual things. It is the key to our salvation and our spiritual survival. As the Super Bowl played out in dramatic fashion last Sunday evening. There was a lot of buzz for a few days. It’s over now, by the way. It’s over. Football is over. Until the fall, Lord willing. But there was a lot of buzz about the big game and how close it was and the greatest comeback ever in Super Bowl history, but I think there was even more buzz about the halftime show. Lady Gaga. All of that was overhyped, in my opinion. We are sure she jumped from the roof. Okay. She jumped from the roof of the stadium.

Well. And did a medley of songs, I guess. And people were impressed. I’ll tell you, we’re impressed by far inferior things. And things that are worldly things. I want us to be impressed this morning with greater things. And that really takes me to our reading in the Gospel of Mark, the songs that Noah was leading this morning about our awesome God. Jesus is presented as a man of action, a Savior worthy of our admiration and trust. Mark keeps the story moving. Several of you noted in our study the use of the word immediately. He uses it very heavily in chapter one. He’s giving you the sense of moving from this scene to this event to the next. And what’s going on as we see all of these deeds of our Lord, again, the world could not contain the books that could be written in Mark’s is a relatively short gospel in relation to the others.

But the little snippets of Jesus’ life and ministry are designed to produce something very important in the reader. And may it be produced in us as we read from Mark each day. That far more impressive than Lady Gaga are the amazing deeds and works of Jesus of Nazareth as he demonstrated himself to be the Messiah and the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. May we peer into the spirit realm and see him reigning as King of kings and Lord of Lords, and a name that is above all names. And I want to take us to our reading of last week in particular in this regard. And I found this graphic. Actually, I’m going to talk about the entire fifth chapter, but I couldn’t find that graphic.

1. When Men Don't Have Solutions, Jesus Does

So all I have is Mark 5, 21 through 43, the last two stories, and this interesting use of the word be healed and beheld. Of course, be healed in relation to the woman who had been sick for a number of years as they were on the way, twelve years in fact, as they were on the way to help Jarus’ daughter. But in the meantime, as the healing took place and Jarus was leading him to the house where his daughter was, he gets word that his daughter has died. And Jesus heals, hears them talking.

And they say, Don’t bother the teacher anymore in verse 35. But Jesus overheard what they were saying and said, Do not be afraid any longer, only believe. And when he got to the place where Jared’s daughter was, behold, he beheld a commotion, people loudly weeping. And Jesus said, She is not died, she is but asleep. It’s interesting that throughout the New Testament, death for the righteous is often treated as simply being asleep, because that’s not our end. We have a future hope beyond death. We will rise. But this story illustrates that truth, as she is only asleep for a very little while. As he takes Peter, James, and John only to witness the raising of Jared’s daughter. But there’s a great lesson that flows from Mark chapter 5 and these two stories and the ones that precedes it, and that is that when all the efforts of men have been exhausted, Jesus has solutions in regard to the demon possessed man, and there were so many demons encompassing him, they are called legion, for we are many.

There’s not anything that men could do about legion. The woman who had been suffering for twelve years, who had spent much at the hands of physicians, could not be healed by them. And then there’s Jared’s daughter who was sick and ultimately sleeps for a little while. When all the efforts of men have been exhausted, Jesus has solutions. I want you to hold that thought. And then this in the pain and problem of the powerlessness of man, Jesus has all power. When men don’t have solutions, Jesus does. And in the midst of man’s pain and problems and powerlessness, Jesus has all power. And you have to attend, you have to focus your eyes on the spirit realm as the scripture gives us information about what is real in the spirit realm to know that this is true and that I need to rely on Jesus’ power and his solutions.

And all of this chapter could be encompassed in that one verse that we read in Mark chapter 5 and verse 36. Do not fear. Only believe. If all we have is man and his abilities and his power and this limited time in our lives, there is a lot to fear, including death. But Jesus says, Do not fear, only believe. He has power over the demons. He has power over disease, as we see in the middle part of chapter 5. And then we see at the end of chapter 5, this makes the perfect sermon. All three begin with D. He has power over death. Well, you know, we like to say this is what I want you to take from this lesson, as we said last week, this is it.

2. Jesus Is the Conquering King

Mark 5 36. Do not fear, only believe. And so what is Mark telling us about Jesus? He is telling us the same thing. That the book of Revelation, which I just can’t get enough time talking about revelation. Mark is telling us the same thing that the book of Revelation is telling us about Jesus in the midst of great pain and problems, issues that are larger than any man to fix, things that confront the lives and circumstances of God’s people. And when we come to the end of the book, we can find confidence, we can find hope, we can find assurance, because Jesus is the conquering king.

And I want to read that part that we’re going to look at in more detail shortly in our study. Because this picture is, I think, one of the most important in the book. When ultimately, after all of these ferocious enemies have been described and been overthrown, now we see Jesus, who is still the king. He who sat upon the white horse of chapter 19 and verse 11 is called faithful and true. And in righteousness he judges and wages war. And his eyes are like a flame of fire. And upon his head are many diadems. Too many to count. And he has a name written upon him, which no one knows except himself. No one has the name that he has, as we’ve already said. He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God.

This is a spiritual battle. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following him on white horses. This is the ride of victory. And from his mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it he may smite the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. And he treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God the Almighty. And we’ll talk more about that on Wednesday night. And on his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. But this is not the first portrait of Jesus in this book. In fact, this book begins with a portrait of Jesus in chapter 1. And what I want you to notice about that amazing and awesome portrait in the very beginning.

We have bookend portraits of the reigning king in the book of Revelation. In chapter 1 and in chapter 19, and this important observation is made that emphasizes my point from Mark chapter 5. Jesus has solutions. Jesus has the power.

He has the solution. Jesus has the keys to death and Hades. Man’s most mortal foes. Jesus is our conquering king. I advertise to you that this was Jesus the conquering King, part two. Did you notice the two? And I’m sure you’ll think, well, he didn’t preach on this last week. In fact, he hasn’t preached on this year. Part one was back in 2009. How many of you were not here in 2009? If you were here in 2009, I know you remember like it was yesterday. Tony preaching the sermon, Jesus the Conquering King. That sermon went on the road with me 24 additional times from the time I first prepared it. I love this sermon. And so as I talked about the role Jesus plays in our lives as Savior and the conqueror against all of our adversaries, I thought about this sermon.

I love preaching this sermon. I could preach it in my sleep. I think I did a few times.

3. Courage to Overcome and Focus on Jesus

Persevering in the less than ideal moments of our lives. That pertains to this second lesson this morning. And what we need, and what the book of Revelation is admonishing us to have is courage. It’s an essential prerequisite for the fight because we have a formidable foe. And courage, as I said in that lesson, is deciding where I’m going to stand before the crisis ever comes. As we see in the book of Revelation, there’s an hour of testing that is about to come upon the whole world. And so they need to decide where it is that they’re going to stand, and that’s going to require courage, and our vision of Jesus is the key of that. And then finally, I admonished that God will deliver his people.

That’s the message of the book. But we need to understand that death may result. Be thou faithful unto death. This world is not my home. And the message that keeps getting repeated in the letters to the seven churches, and then again at the end of the book in the final picture, is that we must overcome. And that word says a lot, doesn’t it? It’s not going to be easy. There are going to be obstacles. There’s going to things we’re going to have to plow over and through to get to the finish line. And they’re going to be challenging to us. I think a lot of people want a Christianity that doesn’t have any challenges. We want it smooth and easy and pleasant all the way to the end.

And if it’s not pleasant for whatever reason, well, God has failed me in some way. We’re just not reading the Bible. If we have that kind of vision of Christianity, we’re not reading the book. And what this vision of the conquering king, Jesus riding on the white horse, is supposed to do for us. Well, I’m preaching the sermon backwards because I want to go back to the introduction of that lesson, where I talk about a great deal of our problem is our focus. That’s what we were talking about last week. And this is true of your life, it’s true of my life. There’s a lot of things in our lives that get our attention. And we focus on them. And I go through a bunch of things.

You know, perhaps you’re involved in education. Young people, you go to school, don’t you? Too many hours of the day, right? So you have to stay focused on it to some degree. And once you get past education, there’s your job for the next 75 million years that you have to focus on. And then when we’re not doing education or employment, oh, entertainment. Lady God. So many forms of entertainment that are out there, including social media, as I’ll say in a minute. We have games, we have sports, relationships, social media. You can focus on that. Hobbies. Millions of different hobbies, underwater basket weaving, whatever it is. Shopping. That seems to be a favorite pastime of one among our species. Or if you’re male, you might prefer the outdoors.

Stereotypes, I know it goes both ways. And if you’re really bored, you can do politics. If you have nothing better to do in one through nine, you can focus on the politics or what’s going on in the economy, what Trump’s doing now. This is not an exhaustive list, but these are the kinds of things that encompass our time, our focus, and our attention. But we need to realize, in the midst of those pursuits, that it’s all temporary. That’s what we sometimes, you know, we exalt these things to a place of importance in our lives that doesn’t believe the fact that they’re temporary in nature, and that we have a mission in the pursuit of all those things to be light in the world. And we must not allow these things like Gideon’s ephod to become a snare to our souls.

We must realize that in the midst of these pursuits, that spiritual aims and spiritual investment is superior to all of these other things that we tend to focus on and make the total and circumference of our lives. Spiritual aims are superior, and in the midst of all of these things, what we must not lose focus on is Jesus, who is indeed the conquering king in Revelation 19. Now that’s the two-minute version of one of my favorite sermons that I probably preach more than any other.

4. Jesus Can Equip Us for Victory Over Temptation

Jesus can equip us for victory and aid us in victory over temptation. We don’t have to lose all the skirmishes and all the battles.

And too often our greatest problem is that we want to defeat it by ourselves. Or we try to defeat it by ourselves. We’re not alone in this struggle. Jesus comes to the aid, not just of the hurting and the suffering and the sorrowful. He comes to the aid of the tempted. Hebrews 2 and verse 18. I’m going to tell you, if you try it alone, you’re going to fail. So how do we depend upon him? Well, how about the model prayer? That has to mean something. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. If we’re struggling, succumbing to temptation, maybe we need to start reciting that prayer. Oh, I know it can be empty repetition, but maybe we need to start saying it. Guard us against temptation.

Deliver us from evil. Apparently that prayer is important because Jesus admonished his disciples to pray it. And secondly, Jesus demonstrated how to win. In Matthew chapter 4, in that series of temptations, as he quotes the Deuteronomic covenant, there were answers in Deuteronomy for a success over temptation. He showed how to do it. And when he comes to the last one where the devil says, I can give you all the kingdoms of the world. Bow down and worship me. We debate whether he could have done that or not. I say he could have. He’s the ruler of this world. He could have given him the whole enchilada like he did to Nebuchadnezzar. The devil’s offer, the devil’s offer to us is sometimes extremely tempting. Extremely alluring. It offers the world.

5. Jesus Also Provides Victory Over Trial

But Jesus saw through his offer. But sometimes we think that if we don’t take what the devil is offering us, that we are surrendering something good for our lives. We fear. Do not fear, only believe. We fear that if I don’t take this offer, I’m going to miss something good. Jesus saw through that, even though he was offered all power in the world. You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. Serve Him only. Whatever it is the devil offers. Serve Him only. Look to Jesus, your conquering king. Jesus also provides victory over trial. That is precisely the point Paul is making in Romans chapter 8. You know this passage. Romans 8, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? In all these things we are more than conquerors.

For I’m convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And we look at Romans chapter 8. Nothing can separate us from Christ. But look at the things on the list, would you? In Romans 8 and verse 35, but wait a minute. I don’t want any of these things. Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness. I mean, your financial wherewithal is completely removed. Okay, you don’t even have clothes on your body. That’s an extreme, right? Or peril or sword. And I quoted verse 38. Not even the spirit realm, angels nor principalities, not the past, not the present, not the future. We have worries about those things and concerns about all of that.

And notice that’s a marism, by the way. Remember that sermon I did on merisms? No. The tree of knowledge, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, it’s both ends of the spectrum represents the whole thing and everything in between. Good and evil and everything in between. The same thing is true here. Height, debt, whatever it is, and everything in between. It doesn’t matter what it is. It doesn’t matter what trial means in your life. What that looks like in your circumstances.

We can do God’s bidding and stay in a right relationship with the Lord and go to heaven. That’s what Romans 8 is telling us, though our circumstances could well be rocked. And the reason why I say that is because people act like it’s the most foreign thing when it happens. It’s like, wow, where did this come from? Oh, this is terrible. The Lord doesn’t love me anymore. My circumstances have gone to rack and ruin. There’s all kinds of warnings about it. These things could well come. Instead of focusing on your loss and on your pain and blaming God. We must focus upon our calling. And how we may benefit others. We fear that, oh no, my life will never be the same again. And it might not.

6. He Can Lead Us to Victory Over Our Foes

That’s what Romans 8 is saying. Oh no. This life that I’ve known has been pretty good. I mean, we live in a fluent America. My life’s never going to be the same again. It may not. But you have Jesus’ assurance that it is only temporary. Oh, but it seems so eternal. It’s every day. It’s every day for the rest of my life. It’s only temporary. Jesus can bring us to victory through the most horrific of trials. And finally, he can lead us to victory over our foes. And I’m going very generic with this. Who are our foes? I said foes, it’s just people. A lot of people get sidetracked by people. People happen in your life. They happen in the workplace. They happen in your home, in your family relationships.

They happen in here. They happen in your community. People happen. And perhaps it could be even some brother or sister in Christ that is impeding my walk as a Christian or how I should behave. Surely not. Surely we’re talking about only the wicked people of this world. No, sometimes it’s the people you rub elbows with the most. Who become the foes to your doing right? I want to give you a brief little snippet here about people. People in Christ, the people of the Lord. Would you take these thoughts with you this morning? Number one, don’t expect perfection. Because they’re not, first of all, we all are people who struggle with sin, as I mentioned in Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 1. People will disappoint. Don’t expect perfection.

First of all, you probably don’t expect perfection from yourself. So don’t expect perfection. And a lot of when I say perfection, I’m not even talking about sinless perfection. I mean people living up to what I expect of them.

Do you hold yourself to the same? Big rule number two. Big rule. Don’t expect of anyone else what you don’t expect of yourself. Well, they’ve never had me over. Well, you’ve never had them over.

What kind of rules are you playing by here?

They’ve never come talk to me. Well, you’ve never gone talk to them. I mean, seriously. This is this is relationship 101 stuff here. Christians should be above this. I jumped with that. Did you notice that? Don’t expect of others what you don’t demand of yourself. And hey. Understand people have limitations. They have lives too. Did you know that? You know, a lot of times people don’t meet our expectations because we’re just so focused on me. How everything’s relating to me. They have lives too. And you know, if they’re trying to serve the Lord’s people, look around. There’s a lot of them to serve. And as much as I would like, I cannot serve everybody the same, and nor can you. We’re limited. That’s why we’re all supposed to be about this business.

Not just a few of us, not just the elders, not just the deacons, not just those who are the most talented in the group. We’re all to bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. Listen to me, understand limitations. And then we saw this last Sunday night, didn’t we? The disappointed. They’ve disappointed me. The disappointed. May well be in fellowship with God while you surrender yours because of your attitude toward them. Were you not here last Sunday night? The story? Recall it. I know seven days ago you slept seven times since then. David and Ithophel, right? Ahithophel had it in for the Lord’s anointed day. Here’s David in a right relationship with God. Yeah, I know he stumbled about Bathsheba, and that seems to have been Ahithophel’s granddaughter.

I know he was upset about that. But now he’s opposed God’s anointed. He is disappointed. David is the disappointed who is now in a right relationship with God. What a tragedy. To get all sideways over some perceived foe who is in a right relationship with God. What a tragedy that is.

Conclusion

Who will not give heed to your concerns, who care only for themselves. But what can man do to us? Why be afraid? That’s what Jesus says in Hebrews 13. He says, I will never desert you. I will never desert you, nor will I forsake you, so that we can confidently say, The Lord is my helper. I will not be afraid. What shall man do to me? Do not fear. Only believe. And what we’re going to notice when we get to Mark chapter 16, that’s where Mark’s story ends. Do not fear. Only believe. He who believes and is baptized shall be saved. He who does not believe shall be condemned. That is the ultimate decision. It’s an ongoing decision of faith or not? Faith in our lives.

But you know a lot of people don’t get here, it occurs to me, because of fear. When they consider the ultimate decision, and it is the ultimate, there’s no decision greater than this. They start thinking about the fact, well, if I make this decision to serve the Lord, what if I what if I can’t do it? I don’t know if I have the ability to do to sign on to belief in Jesus and all that he requires, the holiness and all the whole enchilada, but what do we just say? The Lord is there to help you. He wants to assist.

So if you’re looking for 100% approval of everybody that knows you, oh, but I’m by this decision, they’re going to think, I don’t think that their religion is correct. Well, teach them. Because it’s the truth that sets free, and if you love them and care about them so much, then you’re going to need to teach them. Don’t fear about what their response is going to be. Oh, but I’m but I’m concerned about the cost. Things that I have to surrender, things that I have to give up. I’m really concerned. I’m fearful about that. Well, you better be more fearful about the cost of not making this decision. But what is this change going to mean in my life? I don’t think you know completely when you sign on to serve the Lord.

But whatever it means, I will guarantee you this. You will have chosen what is infinitely better for your life and for eternity. Do not fear. Only believe. Respond if you need to while we stand and say.