Rev 19:16, And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, "KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS." Amen.
	We continue this morning with our consideration of Jesus Christ as KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS. Today, Lord willing, we will come closer to the mark of what His Kingship entails in His intimate placement of this personal dominion. How does this reality present the full truth of the authority vested in the person of Jesus Christ in our lives? That is the question that is before each person: man, woman, or child. What purpose does His Kingship and His Lordship have in the shaping of our heart’s response to Him?
	Once again, we refer to the Psalmist as he declares the following in Ps 145:9-13. The Lord is good to all, And His mercies are over all His works. All Thy works shall give thanks to Thee, O Lord, And Thy godly ones shall bless Thee. They shall speak of the glory of Thy kingdom, And talk of Thy power; To make known to the sons of men Thy mighty acts, And the glory of the majesty of Thy kingdom. Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, And Thy dominion endures throughout all generations. 
	In this passage, we have the declaration of the goodness of the Kingdom of God. He acts in such a manner as to establish His character of Faithfulness and Mercy and Power and Glory and Majesty. His kingdom and dominion is everlasting and eternal. To thus know and pronounce the wonderful splendor of God’s rule is to acknowledge and accept and ascribe to the fact that He is the King over our hearts. We cannot know Him in this place of respect and dominion if we do not honor Him as Lord of our lives, in every sense, individually and corporately. Jesus Christ must be the personal King Who sits on the throne, not just of the nations, but of our very specific and intimate being and essence.
	The Prophet Isaiah, in a very familiar passage, foretells the King that is to rule in the hearts of His people. Isa 9:6+7, For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness From then on and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. 
	While this is a promise to the nation of God’s people, it is also an assurance to each one of us in our hearts. Where King Jesus rules, we will know the peace of God in a manner that is otherwise unattainable. His personal rule within the lives of His people establishes peace. 
He also gives us the wonderful and very intimate counsel of the Holy Spirit in how to deal with every detail of our walk on this earth. He supplies the might and the strength and the ability to face every situation and circumstance in the very power of God by our obedience to His guidance and His wisdom. 
We not only experience the very real and eternal peace that He supplies, but we know His justice and His righteousness in the fact of our very salvation and redemption and sanctification. The whole key to the reality of His Lordship is the fact that God does it in us and for us. He performs the miracle of our being called by His Name and established as sons of God. It is His zeal which accomplishes this, with no deservedness or ability of our own.
	As Isaiah later describes this relationship in Isa 33:22, For the Lord is our judge, The Lord is our lawgiver, The Lord is our king; He will save us — … The every aspect of the government of our lives is centered in the Lord. 
In our country, we have an established separation of powers. We have the Judicial Branch to explain or interpret the laws. We have the Legislative Branch to make the laws. And we have the Executive Branch to enforce the laws. The reason that we have these powers separated is because to give them all to one person or one group of people is to invite absolute tyranny and utmost abuse of power. Each of these branches of power is established to maintain a balance so that one person or group cannot control everything. This is so necessary with humanity because of our sinful nature and our looking out for our own interests above the interests of others.     
	With Jesus as Lord, we do not have that concern. We know that He does only that which is true and perfect and just. Therefore, all power and all authority is centered in Him. He is the lawgiver, setting up the laws of nature and those spiritual truths by which we are best suited to live our lives on this earth. He is the One Who enforces those laws by His very Word. He rules and overrules in our lives to bring forth only the purity and the holiness of Himself as we choose to obey and to honor Him. He is the One Who makes His Word life in us by the gift of His Holy Spirit. The Word becomes the very source of our guidance and wisdom on this earth. And finally, He is the One Who works to save us. He is our salvation. We can trust in Him to provide all that we need here and now and forever.
	As we discover through the writing of Jeremiah, Christ is our perfect King and Leader, who understands all that we go through on this earth. He knows how to save us. He is the only One Who can do so. Jer 30:21-24, 'And their leader shall be one of them, And their ruler shall come forth from their midst; And I will bring him near, and he shall approach Me; For who would dare to risk his life to approach Me?' declares the Lord. 'And you shall be My people, And I will be your God.'" Behold, the tempest of the Lord! Wrath has gone forth, A sweeping tempest; It will burst on the head of the wicked. The fierce anger of the Lord will not turn back, Until He has performed, and until He has accomplished The intent of His heart; In the latter days you will understand this. This has always been God’s eternal plan and purpose in His Son. There will be a tempest of the wrath of God that will sweep aside any who does not recognize and claim the safety and the security of the lifeblood of His Only Begotten Son. Those who do not will deserve all that is appointed unto them because of their foolish disregard of the salvation so freely offered. That eternal salvation is at the cost of everything by Christ Jesus in His love for all who would but call upon Him. 
	Daniel understood this matter of the Hand of God in operation through the Lordship of His Christ. He saw the visions that would prove to establish the mighty work of God for the very sake of humankind. It is God Who rules in all the governmental systems of this earth and that by His Son. Dan 2:20-22, Daniel answered and said, "Let the name of God be blessed forever and ever, For wisdom and power belong to Him. "And it is He who changes the times and the epochs; He removes kings and establishes kings; He gives wisdom to wise men, And knowledge to men of understanding. "It is He who reveals the profound and hidden things; He knows what is in the darkness, And the light dwells with Him. Daniel, although serving the three most powerful human kings of his day, lived his life knowing and worshipping and proclaiming the true and eternal King of all creation.
Then in Dan 7:27, he writes, 'Then the sovereignty, the dominion, and the greatness of all the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be given to the people of the saints of the Highest One; His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all the dominions will serve and obey Him.' Daniel was able to proclaim the universal and eternal Lordship of God’s Christ because he knew God intimately. He relied upon God for his everyday survival and guidance. The dreams that he had to interpret were beyond every scope of mankind. It was only by the seeking after the mind of God, that Daniel was enabled to declare the Word of the Lord to three succeeding kings of this earth. 
Micah, as well, was given the view of the sovereignty and the Lordship and the Kingship and the duty of the Christ. Mic 5:2-5a, "But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Too little to be among the clans of Judah, From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, From the days of eternity." Therefore, He will give them up until the time When she who is in labor has borne a child. Then the remainder of His brethren Will return to the sons of Israel. And He will arise and shepherd His flock In the strength of the Lord, In the majesty of the name of the Lord His God. And they will remain, Because at that time He will be great To the ends of the earth. And this One will be our peace. 
Micah saw what the Lord had ordained from before time began. There was evidence of the handiwork of God in the birth of Jesus, evidence of His eternal placement as the Lord of lords and King of kings. He reigns in the full strength of the Lord God and in the majesty of the name of the Lord because Jesus Christ is the Lord. As Lord, He is our peace, no matter what!
We hear a similar declaration from the Prophet Zephaniah. Zeph 3:14-17, Shout for joy, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away His judgments against you, He has cleared away your enemies. The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; You will fear disaster no more. In that day it will be said to Jerusalem: "Do not be afraid, O Zion; Do not let your hands fall limp. "The Lord your God is in your midst, A victorious warrior. He will exult over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy. 
In the prior passage, we read of Christ, And this One will be our peace. In this passage we are told that He will exult over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy. What a wonderful depiction of Our Lord Jesus Christ as He sits on the throne of ultimate authority and power and dominion. He comes from the midst of humanity in His earthly birth, God incarnate. He rules with an understanding heart as to all that we undergo in this realm. He not only is our peace but He loves us unto Himself, fully and jubilantly rejoicing over us as His own.  
	This becomes all the more important and emphatic as Christ, Himself, declares in Matt 25:31-34. "But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. "And all the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left. "Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 
	He tells us that on the Day of Judgment, there will be a separation of those who have chosen to believe on Him and receive their salvation in Him from those who deny Him. He, as the recognized King of all creation, will be the One to separate those who on His right from those who on His left. Those on His left, who refused to seek Him, will be doomed to an eternity of damnation, while those on His right will be the inheritors of His Kingdom. If we believe Him, if we accept Him as Our personal Lord and Savior, we will be blessed with His declaration of belonging to Him and fully partakers of His Kingdom. We will know the honor of His joy in us as His brothers and sisters, members of His very Body, His Beloved Bride. 
	We will not see Him as Our Judge of doom, but as our loving Lord, Savior, and Husband. He will be our head and we will do all that He directs, knowing that everything that He requires of us will only be more and more to the praise and the glory and the adoration of Our God. We will delight in serving Him and in doing all that He instructs us to do. 
	Please take to heart and understand that we are not to wait until we physically see Him in that place of authority. We are called to give Him that obedience and that honor and that joy of service even this very day in the manner in which we conduct ourselves on this earth. We are to serve Him in the joy of our salvation in such honest comportment that others will see and wonder and marvel at the way we operate in this realm. There should be an inherent difference in the life that we live, showcasing, so to speak, the very person of Jesus Christ and His Lordship right now. This is in order that others will be drawn to inquire and to seek out how it is that we can live those godly lives despite all the turmoil and the circumstances and the seemingly hopeless situations that surround us. 
	They are to see Christ in us, our hope of glory as we evidence the fact that we live truly under His Almighty influence. We are to demonstrate the reality of what He proclaimed in Matt 28:18, And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. We honor Him in the way in which His power and His Lordship is proven in our daily lives. Always and forever He reigns. The active role that God has given us on this earth is to be the living and joyous proclamation and testimony that Jesus Christ is the only Sovereign One in Whom we put our complete trust and hope and desire today and always! So be it!
And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, "KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS. Amen.

This morning’s benediction is John 17:1-3. These things Jesus spoke; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify Thy Son, that the Son may glorify Thee, even as Thou gavest Him authority over all mankind, that to all whom Thou hast given Him, He may give eternal life. "And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. Amen.