The King is Dead

The story (Picture of dark ominous tower)

A king has conquered every bit of land. The only thing interesting is the storm.

Shipwrecked on a new land, taken in until their ship can be repaired - 3 days. Until then they were given a guide.

Servant girl trips and spills their wine… The others jump to their feet and beat her to death.

They asked their guide why!? “the emperor will not suffer failure”

over the next couple of days they saw other murders and cruelty, each time they asked...

“the emperor will not suffer failure”

The emperor resided in the tallest tower on the eastern boarder.

The king decided he would confront the emperor.

Stormed the tower.

About an hour later they return with bones covered in jewelry.

The emperor had been dead for years. Alone in a room. But everyone was too afraid to go in.

Panic struck the land and there were terrible riots! People burned down businesses, it was horrible.

So the king and his men rushed to their boat and as they were escaping back out to see their guide asked to go with them.

about the middle of the next day the king, not able to get the vision of the riots out of his head, asked the guide WHY

She said, “don’t you see… If the king is dead - and has been for all these years… the murders are not his responsibility, they are ours.”

Title of the Sermon is “The King is Dead”

The ways sin reigned

Proverb 5:21-23: Without Jesus Sin is our master

21 For your ways are in full view of the Lord, and he examines all your paths. 22 The evil deeds of the wicked ensnare them; the cords of their sins hold them fast. 23 For lack of discipline they will die, led astray by their own great folly.

Ecclesiastes 6:7-9: Our base desires were our king

7 Everyone’s toil is for their mouth, yet their appetite is never satisfied. 8 What advantage have the wise over fools? What do the poor gain by knowing how to conduct themselves before others? 9 Better what the eye sees than the roving of the appetite. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

Connecting the story

Philippians 3:15–21

15 All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. 16 Only let us live up to what we have already attained.

17 Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do. 18 For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

But the king is dead, Sin is dead

Romans 6:1-4

1 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.

6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—7 because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.

13 Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. 14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

In Christ we have no excuse, no one to blame

2 Peter 1:3–9

3 His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. 5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.

8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.

What’s the point?

Proverbs 22:13

The sluggard says, “There’s a lion outside! I’ll be killed in the public square!”

I’m here to announce, if you trust Jesus, the king is dead. Your base desires, your depression, your anxiety, whatever WE blame for our suffering and our choices is a corpse at the top of a dark tower that WE are too afraid to look inside. And the reason we don’t look is because WE don’t want to come to the sobering realization that “If the king is dead - and has been for all these years… the murders are not his responsibility, they are ours.” TAKE RESPONSIBILITY SO THAT YOU CAN BRING IT TO THE CROSS.

If you don’t know Jesus, why do you do - what you do? Is it really for some higher ideal or are you just acting from basic drive. Eat, drink, procreate, happy, sad, angry, self actualize! Do you feel out of control? Not in control of your household, yourself, your situation? The bible says that’s how you should feel.

That’s how we all felt. And if the bible is right about that, maybe it’s also right about another king. One who will climb to the top of the darkest tower and kill your king. That’s what it means to trust Jesus. Ask him to climb into your life and slay you. Because you will rise again free.