Christ Our King (Sharpstown)

Pastoral Prayer

Lord Jesus Christ, open our eyes to see You as You truly are— not as we would prefer You to be, but as our risen and reigning King.

By Your Spirit, give us ears to hear Your Word, hearts ready to submit to it, and faith to trust You in joy and in suffering.

Rule over us through Your truth, and receive the glory due Your name.

Amen.

Sermon

Intro

Cold Open

There’s a well-known scene in a comedy movie where a man sits down to pray at family dinner and insists, very passionately, that he only wants to pray to baby Jesus.

When his wife reminds him that Jesus grew up and that it’s a little weird to be praying to baby Jesus all the time, he responds by saying,

'Well, look, I like the Christmas Jesus best when I'm sayin' grace. When you say grace, you can say it to Grown-up Jesus, or Teenage Jesus, or Bearded Jesus, or whoever you want.’

He continues, “Dear Eight Pound, Six Ounce, Newborn Infant Jesus, don't even know a word yet, just a little infant, so cuddly, but still omnipotent...”

It is funny in a rather ridiculous way, and it has been quoted more than just about any prayer in a movie in the past 20 years.

But it’s also rather convicting because it’s honest about the way we so often talk and think about Christ.

We have a tendency to prefer the “sweet baby Jesus.”

A small Jesus is easier to handle. A baby doesn’t demand allegiance. A baby doesn’t rule over us.

A baby can be adored without being obeyed.

And there is a tension that we should feel as we focus on the birth of our King.

Series Context

For centuries, the church has confessed that Jesus fulfills three offices: Prophet, Priest, and King.

As Prophet, He speaks God’s Word to us. As Priest, He offers Himself for us. And as King, He rules over us.

Most of us are comfortable with the first two. We like a Jesus who teaches us and makes forgiveness possible. But King?

King means allegiance. King means obedience. King means authority.

And for many of us—because of bad leaders, broken systems, or spiritual abuse—authority doesn’t feel safe.

And so, when Christmas comes around, we have a tendency—quietly and politely—to press pause on that office. We keep Jesus teachable. We keep Him gentle. We keep Him manageable.

We seem to have this instinct to make this season all about the safe and unchallenging parts of Christ.

Cultural Set-up

That instinct, whether we admit it or not, shapes how many of us experience Christmas. We love the songs, the decorations, the rhythms of gathering, giving, celebrating. In a world that keeps changing, Christmas feels steady, anchored, handed down through the ages. Most of us assume it’s always been this way.

Historically, though, it hasn’t.

In the early church, for centuries, Easter—not Christmas—carried the weight. When Christmas emerged, it was theological and worship-heavy, Scripture-saturated, often paired with fasting and generosity toward the poor.

Comfort was not the focus; proclamation was: Our God and King has entered the world.

Over time, societies around the world, but especially those influenced by the ideological West, changed. The Industrial Revolution brought cities, cheaper goods, and a growing middle class. Traditions were reshaped and sold, and Christmas shifted culturally into a sentimental, family-centered holiday—warm, kind, and moral, but thinner and with less substance. Even Christian figures like Saint Nicholas became symbols of reward and consumption.

None of this happened overnight. There was no villain. Just small, layered changes until Christmas felt familiar—but hollow. And now, many of us reach the end of it tired, overspent, distracted, frustrated and hurt because of our family, and oddly underwhelmed.

And for some of you, these traditions aren’t even familiar. You didn’t grow up with them. Which actually helps you see the issue more clearly—because the problem isn’t tradition. The problem is what we expect Christmas to do for us.

The problem isn’t too much joy or beauty. The problem is that Christmas learned to function without a King, leaving us with a season that has too little joy and too little glory.

That’s why the Bible doesn’t let us choose which version of Jesus shows up at Christmas.

Biblical Set-up

And that, strangely enough, brings us to the book of Revelation.

Revelation was not written to comfortable Christians decorating trees. It was written to churches under pressure—churches facing hostility, marginalization, and in many cases, outright persecution and death.

These were believers living under the shadow of Rome.

Caesar claimed divine authority.

Imperial propaganda declared that peace, salvation, and stability flowed from the empire.

To say “Jesus is Lord” was not a religious slogan—it was a dangerous confession that put you as an enemy of Caesar and his Roman Empire.

Into that world, John writes his letter and he doesn’t begin with a baby in a manger. He begins with a throne.

Revelation opens by reminding the church who actually rules history. Before John tells them anything about suffering, endurance, or the future, he shows them Jesus as He truly is—not fragile, symbolic, or as a seasonal mascot—but as the glorious, reigning, and unstoppable King.

In other words, Revelation was written to Christians who needed courage. And courage comes from seeing your King clearly.

Scripture Reading and Transition

Listen to how Christ is introduced in Revelation chapter 1, verses 5 and 6:

Revelation 1:5–6 ESV

5 and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood 6 and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

John shows us a Jesus who cannot be domesticated or marketed. He doesn’t exist to complete our traditions. He doesn’t come to make December a little warmer. He rules. He conquers. He reigns. And He does it not by force, but by faithfulness, by resurrection, by blood.

The baby born in Bethlehem did not come to become a decoration we preserve. He came to become a King we belong to.

So this morning, we’re not asking whether we love Christmas because most of us do.

The question before us is whether we recognize the Christ who stands at the center of it—the ruler of the kings of the earth, who loved us, shed His blood for us, and made us His people.

And if that’s who He is, then the Christmas in Scripture stands in stark contrast to the Christmas of American culture.

It isn’t about what we consume. It’s about who reigns—and whether we bow to him in faith.

Let’s begin where John begins, with our faithful king.

I. The Faithful King

“Jesus Christ, the faithful witness”

John begins here for a reason. Before he tells us that Jesus reigns, before he shows us glory or power or dominion, he tells us that Jesus is faithful. That word matters more than we usually realize.

A king who is not faithful cannot be trusted. Authority without truth is tyranny. Power without faithfulness is dangerous. So the first thing John wants the church to know is this: the One who rules them is utterly reliable.

Jesus is the faithful witness. He tells the truth about God—perfectly, completely, without distortion.

Hebrews tells us that in former days God spoke through the prophets in many times and in many ways, but now He has spoken finally and fully in His Son.

And it is here that we see Jesus’ fulfillment of the prophetic office. Jesus does not merely deliver God’s Word. He is God’s Word in the flesh. To hear Him is to hear God. To reject Him is to reject God.

That’s exactly what Jesus tells Pilate in John 18. Standing before the most powerful political authority of His day, Jesus says that He came into the world to bear witness to the truth. And then He adds this: everyone who is of the truth listens to My voice. In other words, allegiance to Christ begins not with feelings, but with submission to truth.

That’s where Christ’s kingship confronts us first—not at our behavior, but at our beliefs. In a world flooded with narratives, newsroom spin from all sides, half-truths, and convenient lies, Jesus does not compete as one voice among many. He speaks as the faithful witness.

He tells us the truth about God, the truth about sin, the truth about judgment, and the truth about grace. His authority presses in on how we think, what we trust, and who we believe.

And Advent reminds us how this faithful witness entered the world.

He did not arrive with a press release or an army. He arrived quietly. The eternal Word took on flesh.

The King who tells the truth about God first did so as a child—born under the Law, growing in wisdom, living in obscurity, submitting perfectly where Adam failed and where Israel failed.

Isaiah 42 describes the Servant of the Lord as gentle, faithful, and unwavering—one who would not break a bruised reed or snuff out a smoldering wick, yet who would faithfully bring justice to the nations.

That is a kingship, that isn’t softened, but rightly ordered.

Jesus was faithful in His obedience. Faithful in His teaching. Faithful in His suffering. Faithful even unto death.

When every voice around Him twisted the truth—religious leaders, political authorities, the crowd—Jesus did not bend. He remained faithful to the Father and faithful to His mission.

And that brings this uncomfortably close to us.

To receive Christ as King does not begin with grand gestures.

It begins with submission—submission of our minds, our loves, our loyalties to His Word. We don’t crown Jesus King by singing louder. We acknowledge Him as King by believing what He says and ordering our lives accordingly.

Faithfulness comes before triumph. Always.

Advent does not invite us merely to admire a faithful child in a manger. It calls us to listen to the faithful King who speaks the truth of God—and to decide whether we will hear His voice.

Scripture: Rev 1:5; John 18:37; Heb 1:1–3; Isa 42:1–4

John continues his introduction of Christ by moving from faithfulness to resurrection with quiet force: Jesus Christ is the firstborn of the dead.

II. The Death-Defeating King

“The firstborn of the dead”

Kings are usually measured by how they wield power over the living. Jesus is measured by what He has done with death itself.

The glory of Christ is not diminished by the cross. It is revealed through it. Death did not interrupt His kingship; it bowed before him and became the stage on which His authority was displayed.

The resurrection is God’s public vindication of His Son. Acts 2 tells us that God raised Him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for death to hold Him. Death reached for Jesus—and found itself overmatched.

But notice how John describes the resurrection. Jesus is not merely raised. He is the firstborn of the dead. That language matters. In Scripture, the firstborn is the representative head—the one who goes before and secures an inheritance for those who follow. Jesus does not rise for his own sake. He rises as the beginning of a new creation.

Paul makes this explicit in 1 Corinthians 15. Christ is the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. His resurrection is not an isolated miracle; it is the guarantee of what is coming.

Because He lives, death is no longer the final word. Because He reigns, the last enemy is already marked for destruction.

Colossians presses the point even further: Jesus is the head of the body, the church, the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent. His authority does not rest on charisma or coercion. It rests on victory—real, historical, bodily victory over the grave.

And this is why Advent cannot be separated from Easter.

The child in the manger is not a sentimental symbol of hope. He is the conqueror of death in swaddling cloths.

The incarnation is not God getting closer so we feel better about ourselves. It’s God entering enemy territory to destroy the final enemy from the inside out.

We often rush to the resurrection so quickly that we miss how shocking it really is.

The grave has always been the great equalizer. It silences kings and peasants alike.

Yet Jesus walks out of it as Lord and speaks again.

He emerges not merely alive, but enthroned. Peter says in Acts 2 that God made Him both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom they crucified. The Resurrection is the coronation of the King.

And that matters deeply for suffering believers.

When Christmas becomes mainly about being holly and jolly, suffering Christians are left with nowhere to stand.

When Christmas is framed as a season of cheer, togetherness, and sentimental happiness, what are believers supposed to do when their lives don’t match the script? What about the Christian who has lost a spouse? The one whose family is fractured? The one who is alone—not by choice, but by providence? The one who has lost relationships because they follow Christ?

Are they supposed to fake it? Smile through the pain? Act like joy means pretending everything is fine?

That kind of Christmas doesn’t comfort the suffering. It isolates them. It leaves them feeling like outsiders in their own church.

The church must not make suffering believers feel out of place. In fact, those who suffer for the sake of Christ are the most belonging people in the church.

But when Christmas is about the victory of God achieved through suffering, everything changes.

When Christmas is about a King who enters weakness… a Savior who comes through pain… a Lord who conquers not by avoiding death but by passing through it…

then Christmas becomes something even the grieving can celebrate.

Because now joy is not shallow happiness. It is defiant hope.

Now celebration is not pretending the pain isn’t real. It is confessing that pain does not get the final word.

When Christmas proclaims that Christ became man so that we might be brought into a family far bigger and more enduring than anything we have lost… when it declares that the last enemy—death itself—has been defeated… then even the believer in deep despair has something to sing in stubborn, rebellious hope.

They may sing through tears. They may sing with trembling voices. But they can sing with truth.

Because their God is King. And he reigns.

This reign of Christ is not theoretical.

It is not symbolic. It is not postponed until the end of time. It is secured by a King who has already passed through death and come out the other side victorious. When believers suffer, when they grieve, when they bury their dead, they do so under the reign of a King who has defeated the very thing they fear most.

Christmas tells us that God kept His promise to come. Resurrection tells us that God kept His promise to conquer.

And because Christ is the firstborn of the dead, His people do not cling to hope as wishful thinking. They rest in a kingdom that death itself could not stop.

The manger points forward to the cross. The empty tomb points forward to the Second Advent. And together they tell us this: the King who came in humility now reigns in indestructible life.

Scripture: Rev 1:5; Acts 2:24–36; 1 Cor 15:20–26; Col 1:18

III. The Reigning King

“The ruler of kings on earth”

John’s final title does not describe something Jesus will become one day. It describes who He already is. Jesus Christ is the ruler of kings on earth. That single phrase reorders reality.

Christ does not merely reign over hearts and private spirituality. He reigns over rulers, nations, economies, armies, cultures, and histories.

The Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper rightly said "There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’”

Psalm 2 makes this plain: the nations rage, the peoples plot in vain, kings set themselves against the Lord—and heaven responds, not with panic, but with laughter. God is not impressed by earthly power, because He knows exactly how temporary it is.

Revelation speaks this truth to churches with no cultural leverage and no political protection. These believers are not shaping policy. They are not holding office. And they are not being represented in office.

Many of them will lose their property, their freedom, and in some cases their lives. And John does not comfort them by promising influence.

He comforts them by proclaiming reality: Jesus already rules.

Daniel saw this long before John did. He saw one like a Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven, receiving dominion, glory, and a kingdom that shall not pass away.

That vision was not deferred to the end of time. Jesus applies it to Himself. After His resurrection, He says without qualification: All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Not some. Not eventually. All.

Christmas exposes the lie that power belongs to those who look strong.

Herod trembled at a child because earthly power always knows its limits. He had soldiers, palaces, and decrees—but he could not stop the purposes of God. The throne of heaven is not threatened by the chaos of earth. Empires rise and fall. Elections swing. Borders shift. Headlines churn. Christ remains seated.

The Advent of Christ our King also exposes the lie that you have to have a cultural power to be strong.

This matters because we are tempted to read history backwards—interpreting Christ’s reign through the lens of current events instead of interpreting current events through the reign of Christ.

Ephesians 1 corrects us. God raised Jesus from the dead and seated Him at His right hand, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and put all things under His feet.

That is not a poetic exaggeration. That is theological fact.

So when the church waits, it does not wait in uncertainty.

Waiting in Advent is not anxious suspense, wondering whether the King will show up. It is faithful endurance, knowing that the King has already been enthroned and will make His rule visible in full. The waiting church is not weak. It is anchored in a cosmic reality.

The same Jesus who lay in a feeding trough now governs the course of history. The same hands that were wrapped in cloth now hold the scepter of the universe. And the same King who rules over the nations has pledged His love to His people.

Advent teaches us to stop confusing appearances with authority. The world looks chaotic. Christ remains sovereign. The world rewards strength. God enthrones faithfulness. The world fears loss of control. Heaven has never been threatened.

The King has come. The King is reigning. And the King will be revealed.

That is not a blithe seasonal encouragement to come around once a year. That is the truth by which the church lives and moves and acts.

John then continues introducing Christ by doing something almost unbelievable here.

IV. The Redeeming King

“To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood”

He moves from Christ’s cosmic authority straight into His love.

The ruler of kings on earth is not distant, cold, indifferent. He loves us. And that love is not sentimental or abstract—it acts. It bleeds. It frees.

This is the core of the glory of Christ: the reigning King is also the redeeming Lamb.

He does not rule by exploiting His subjects, but by liberating them. The crown He wears is inseparable from the cross He bore.

Isaiah saw this coming long before Bethlehem. He spoke of a servant who would bear our griefs, carry our sorrows, be pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities.

This was not an interruption of God’s plan. This was the plan all along.

The King would redeem His people by giving Himself in their place!

Jesus says it plainly in Mark 10. He did not come to be served, but to serve—and to give His life as a ransom for many.

Kings of the earth take. The King of all heaven and earth gives.

Kings demand loyalty by threat. This King wins allegiance by love.

Christmas shows us the beginning of this redemption.

The King comes near. He takes on flesh. He enters our condition—not as a visitor passing through, but as one who fully shares in our weakness, our limitations, our vulnerability.

He does not shout commands from heaven. He cries in a manger.

He grows. He obeys. He suffers.

And He does all of it with a terrible destination in mind: the shedding of His blood and the torture of a cross.

Colossians tells us what that blood accomplishes.

We are delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

His blood does not merely cancel guilt. It relocates us. We are moved from captivity to citizenship.

Hebrews presses it further.

Christ enters once for all into the holy places—not by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood—securing an eternal redemption. His sacrifice is not provisional. It does not need supplementing. It does not expire. The King’s work is finished, and His reign rests on accomplished redemption.

This is what guards us from fearing Christ’s authority.

We are not ruled by a tyrant who tolerates us.

We are ruled by a Savior who purchased us. His commands do not flow from insecurity in his position. They flow from love.

His reign does not crush us. It frees us from sin’s dominion, from guilt’s accusation, from death’s claim.

The same voice that says, “All authority is Mine,” also says, “Come to Me.”

The same hands that hold the scepter still bear the scars of crucifixion.

Friends, the glory of Christ is not that He stayed high above us—but that He came all the way down. From the throne to the tree. From the coronation to the curse. From worship to wrath—for us.

And that descent was not weakness. It was authority in action. Because we could not ascend to Him, the King descended to us.

That is why John ends where he does. If that is the King… if that is how He uses power… then worship is not optional. It is the only sane response.

And that is how John ends his introduction of Christ in this letter.

V. The Worthy King

“To him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

John cannot talk about Christ without ending in worship.

Theology, the knowledge of God, that does not end in doxology, the worship of God, is an incomplete theology.

(And the inverse is also true, a worship that is minimally informed by theology is incomplete as well. But that’s a completely different sermon.)

But when Christ is seen clearly, neutrality is no longer an option.

Seeing the King rightly will not produce mild admiration. It will not produce someone who is only willing to let a little bit of their life be changed. It produces allegiance. It produces praise.

Glory belongs to Him. That means weight. Honor. Ultimate worth. He is not one interest among many competing for our attention. He must be the center around which everything else orbits.

Dominion belongs to Him. Not temporarily. Not symbolically. Not until the next election cycle or the next empire rises and falls. Forever and ever.

His authority does not erode with time. It does not expire. It does not depend on recognition. It simply is.

This is where Advent sharpens our vision.

Because it reminds us that we are living between unveiling and acknowledgment. Christ is already enthroned, but His reign is not yet universally confessed.

We wait—not because the throne is empty, or because our King is weak, but because the world has not yet caught up to reality.

Philippians tells us where history is headed. A day is coming when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

That is the trajectory of the universe, of all time and space.

Worship is not something creation may or may not decide to do. It is the inevitable conclusion of history.

Romans 11 presses it even deeper. From Him, through Him, and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen. Everything begins with Christ. Everything is sustained by Christ. Everything is moving toward Christ. That means there is no corner of life where His kingship does not apply.

And then Revelation pulls back the curtain just a little more.

In chapter 5, heaven erupts. The Lamb who was slain is declared worthy—worthy to take the scroll, worthy to rule history, worthy to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.

The praise grows with Angels and all Creation joining in. Everything that has breath praises the King!

And notice why He is worthy:

because He was slain, and by His blood He ransomed a people for God. Redemption leads to worship. Sacrifice leads to dominion. The cross is not a detour from glory—it is the road to it.

So Advent does not ask whether Christ is King. That question has already been answered.

The real question is whether we are living as His subjects.

Are our lives arranged around His glory or our comfort? Are our loyalties shaped by His Word or by the spirit of the age? Are we waiting for His return with faithful obedience or distracted indifference?

Advent trains the church to live now in light of what will one day be unmistakable. We bow now to the King whom the world will bow to later. We worship now what the universe will soon confess.

The question that is forced upon us by the reality of Christmas is not whether Christ is King.

It’s whether you will recognize Him as your faithful, conquering, reigning, redeeming, and worthy King who is worth following and worshipping even in the midst of suffering?

or will you decide that he is not worth is and set up yourself and your desires as a rival king?

Because the baby laid in the manger is not going to become King. He is King. He always has been, from before the beginning of the world.

And he has no rival. But he does have a Body, a Bride, a People, a church, that he has bought with his own life.

And he will lead His people home. Bow to your King in joyful, faithful repentance and He will welcome you in too.

To Him belongs glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Confession and Repentance

O Christ our King, we confess that we have often wanted a smaller Savior— one who comforts us without commanding us and fits into our traditions without ruling our lives.

We confess that we have measured joy by ease rather than faithfulness, and have bowed to lesser kings of comfort, control, and distraction.

Forgive us for domesticating Your glory and sidelining Your authority.

We thank You that You are a King who loves us and has freed us from our sins by Your blood. Our hope rests not in our obedience, but in Your finished work.

Teach us to live as citizens of Your kingdom— faithful in suffering, joyful in hope, and obedient in love.

To You be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.