What Do You Want Your King to Do for You?

Last Sunday of End Time, Christ the King, 11/24/19
Jeremiah 23:2-6


What Do You Want Your King to Do for You?
I. Rule for you perfectly
II. Cover you righteously


Expectations vs. reality. You deal with that competition every day of your life, probably more often than you realize.

You expect to leave this coming Wednesday morning to spend Thanksgiving with your relatives. The reality is you don’t leave the house until mid-afternoon because it took that long for you to get ready. You expect to get that home project done before you begin decorating for Christmas. The reality is that it’s now nearly Christmas and you’ve only just begun. You expect your co-workers will assist you. The reality is that they don’t carry their weight. You expect to get some relief from the pain you’ve been experiencing. The reality is that it’s chronic and won’t go away.

I could go on and on and on. It might sound a little pessimistic, but we come to expect that our expectations won’t be met. How’s that for a little irony! And the longer we live, the more we realize how true that is.

But then you come to worship this morning and our focus is on the glorious, eternal rule of Jesus as our King. As our King he promises that everything is under his control, that he’s always watching over us for our good, that he has accomplished his highest will for us in bringing us to faith in him as our Savior and making us heirs of his eternal kingdom. It all sounds so rosy!

But have you ever felt disappointed as a Christian, thinking that somehow Jesus has let you down? Have you ever been disillusioned about your life as a Christian? Have you ever concluded: “Something’s wrong! This isn’t what I thought my life with Jesus would be like”?

Expectations vs. reality. As a Christian, are they matching up for you? Maybe not. Probably not.

But rather than being filled with despair and pessimism, let’s take another look at your expectations. This Sunday on which we celebrate Christ as our King gives us an excellent opportunity to do just that. So, take a few minutes and ask the question, “What do you want your King to do for you?” and then let’s see what we can expect as we focus on his promises to us here in Jeremiah 23.

Part I.

The quadrennial barrage is about to begin. I’m referring to campaign promises. Just months from now we’re going to be force-fed a daily diet of what this candidate promises to do if he or she is elected as the next leader of the greatest country on the face of the earth. Are you ready for it? If only we didn’t have to be subjected to them!

The people of Jeremiah’s day didn’t. It’s likely they never heard a campaign promise and that’s because their kings didn’t make them. They simply assumed the rule and they conducted themselves as they thought best, which too often was simply for their own advantage.

But that’s not the way things were supposed to be among God’s Old Testament people. At this time, the church and the state were not separate. God expected the kings of his people to rule justly and to lead his people spiritually. That’s because God had the highest purpose in mind for his people—to use this nation to bring about the fulfilment of his promise to send the world a Savior from sin. Therefore, he wanted the kings of his people to be a spiritual and physical blessing to his people.

But the opposite had occurred. The heading of the previous chapter in Jeremiah—chapter 22—is: Judgment Against Evil Kings. During Jeremiah’s day, three successive kings were everything but a blessing to God’s people. They allowed the oppression of the poor to go unchecked. They looked the other way as murders were committed. They lined their pockets with bribes and lived in posh palaces while the people suffered. Worst of all, they supported the worship of vile idols. Broken campaign promises are nothing compared with the evil intentions and actions of these kings.

So, what was the God of Israel going to do about it? Listen once again to these words of our text: “Therefore this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says to the shepherds who tend my people: ‘Because you have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not bestowed care on them, I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done,’ declares the LORD. ‘I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and will bring them back to their pasture, where they will be fruitful and increase in number. I will place shepherds over them who will tend them, and they will no longer be afraid or terrified, nor will any be missing,’ God promised to step into their world.

Enter Jesus the King! In these words, God promises that Jesus is the one who will gather his people. He’s not speaking about the Jews any longer; he’s speaking about the Church, the gathering of all those who trust in Jesus as their Savior from sin. That’s an eternal gathering in which God eternally blesses his people himself.

What’s more, instead of these evil kings who fleeced the flock, Jesus would feed it and care for it. Jeremiah’s words surely call to mind Psalm 23 which comforts us with the truth that our King Jesus is also our Good Shepherd who leads us to quiet pastures and the still waters of his word. He promises and provides what is eternally best for us—a perfect life with him.

So, what do you want your King to do for you? How about this? Rule for you perfectly.

And he does. Your almighty, holy, eternal King rules perfectly for you. The problem is, misconceptions about that rule abound, even in Christianity. Jesus never promised that life in his kingdom would bring earthly success, happiness in your relationships, a dreamy life, or painless days on end. But how often hasn’t one or more of those been your expectation, at least for the moment? Which of us hasn’t wondered, “Why isn’t Jesus blessing me the way I want him to?” What we need to hear is that he never promised to. And what we don’t want to hear is that he knows what’s best for us.

How do I know that he only wants what’s best for us? Because he sacrificed his own life to make it happen. He emptied himself of the eternal glory he possessed as true God and took on your human flesh and blood. He lived your life. He stood in your place. He even suffered hell for your sins so that he could give you what is eternally good for you—life forever with him. In order to make sure that happens, he gathers you into his Church and feeds your faith through his word and sacrament. Here’s what he wants for you. Here’s what is best for you. Receive it with joy! He rules for you perfectly.

Part II.

I’d like you to fill in the blank. What we need our government to do for us most of all is _______________. If I handed out that question on slips of paper and asked you to reply, I’m guessing I’d get about as many different replies as the number of people I asked. We all have our opinion on what we need most of all. And that opinion changes depending on the day or circumstances in which we find ourselves.

But think about it for a moment. What is our greatest need? Well, if sin is our greatest problem (and I don’t think there’s any debate about that), then our greatest need is forgiveness for our sins. We need to be assured that we aren’t going to receive the punishment that our sins deserve. And since there’s nothing we can do about that ourselves, we need our God to take care of that greatest need for us.

Enter Jesus our King! Listen to God’s solution to our greatest problem, “The days are coming…when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The LORD Our Righteousness.”

The opposite of sin is righteousness or holiness. We need to be what we aren’t by nature and can’t become on our own, if we hope to have life with our King in his kingdom. And that’s exactly what he promises with these words.

In contrast to the wicked kings who had been ruling the Jews, God promises to send a righteous Branch from King David’s line. For 500 years the royal tree of King David appeared to be dead, cut off at the surface, nothing but a dry stump. But then, at just the right time, God sent his Son as a descendant of King David. That Son possessed the holiness of God because he was true God.

And that made him uniquely qualified and equipped to give us what we need the most—the holiness that God demands to live in his kingdom with him forever. In these words of our text our God calls our Savior, “The Lord Our Righteousness.” Jesus is our righteousness or holiness before God. What we aren’t by nature and can’t give to God no matter how hard we try, God in his grace and mercy and love for us gives to us by faith in Jesus.

So, what do you want your King to do for you? Well, what do you need more than anything else? That’s what your King provides for you. He covers you righteously.

We’re heading into 39 days of high expectations. In a little more than a month’s time we’ll celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s. Each of us has our own expectation of what they should be. Come January 2, as you sit and ponder how things went for you, will your expectations have been met or unrealized? If your focus is on earthly, physical things, I can guarantee it won’t be everything you want. But if your focus is where it should be—on what your God has promised you and provides for you—then you can bank on it. Your Savior and King wants to give you what you need most of all—and that’s the assurance that you are righteous or holy in his sight. Trust him. Trust his perfect life lived for you. Trust his innocent death died for you. Trust in his glorious resurrection from the dead for you. He did all that to give you what you need most of all—forgiveness of sins and eternal life with him. That’s what makes Jesus your King.

And if that’s what you expect from him, then your expectations will always be your reality. Amen.