The King We Need
We’re aware of the “no kings” rallies that pop up from time to time. Through these events, people claim to renounce the idea of absolute rule, insisting that no single person should hold unchecked power. But is this a good idea? Is it always undesirable and wrong for a single person to hold unchecked power?
If so, then we should remove the Gospel of Matthew from the Bible, cease observing Good Friday and Easter, and stop following Jesus altogether. You see, the Gospel of Matthew is written for the very purpose of presenting Jesus as the King we all need. Yes, that’s right, we need a King, and his name is Jesus. That’s what Matthew tells us.
Jesus is the king.
The Old Testament (OT) ends sadly with the royal line of Judah’s kings coming to an end as they are carried away into captivity in Babylon. But four hundred years and fourteen generations later, we read about child who was born into that same royal line of kings through his mother, named Mary (Mt 1:1-17).
Then in Mt 2:2, some wise, influential men from a foreign land arrive in Jerusalem and ask King Herod: “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.”
Fast forward to Mt 21:5 and Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem at Passover time. This is when he instructs his disciples to fetch a donkey for him to ride into the city. And as Matthew retells this moment, he also tells us that this event occurred to fulfill what the OT prophet Zechariah foretold and prophesied (Zech 9:9): “Tell the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your King is coming to you, lowly, and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.’”
After he arrived in the city, he taught people various things, including some important things about the future, upcoming judgment of people at the end of this age as God builds his eternal kingdom. Referring to himself in this case, he says, “When the Son of Man … the King will say to those on His right hand, Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Mt 25:31).
Later on, during Christ’s final suffering and trials leading up to his crucifixion, Pilate asked him, “Are You the King of the Jews?” (Mt 27:11). To this Jesus replied, “It is as you say” (Mt 27:11). As a result of this claim, the Romans placed a sign above his cross which stated the reason for his crucifixion. The sign said, “This is Jesus the King of the Jews” (Mt 27:27). The Roman soldiers also mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” (Mt 27:29), and the Jewish religious leaders did the same, mocking him with, “If He is king of Israel …” (Mt 27:42).
So, we see clearly from Matthew’s Gospel that the OT points to Jesus as King, the opening genealogy presents Jesus as King, foreign dignitaries recognized Jesus as King, and Jesus himself portrayed himself as King. But what kind of King was He?
Jesus is the king who confronted our sin.
We see this behavior clearly throughout Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus was not an impotent, weak king. He is not a king who accepted bribes, believed flattery, and played hypocritical political games. He is a fair, just, and courageous king who boldly confronted our sin.
He confronted the sin of people in general.
He called people to repent – to turn from their sinful lifestyles. “From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mt 4:17).
He pronounced “woe” on them (which is essentially a curse of divine judgment) because they would not repent of their sins and believe on him (Mt 11:21). He even said that they were worse than Sodom and Gomorrah.
He called people “an evil and adulterous generation” because they were more interested in seeing him perform miracles than they were in listening to and submitting to his teaching (Mt 12:39).
He called them a “faithless and perverse generation” because of their refusal to believe on him (Mt 17:17).
But Jesus didn’t only call out the sins of people in general, he directly and specifically confronted the sin religious leaders.
He confronted the religious leaders.
He said to them, “Why do you think evil in your hearts?” (Mt 9:4) over their anger at him for healing a man and forgiving his sins.
He accused them of “transgressing the commandment of God” because they created technical loopholes in their benevolent giving laws which enabled them to withhold money from their parents in need while keeping it for themselves for selfish uses (Mt 15:3). He called them “hypocrites!” for the same reason (Mt 15:7).
After his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, he called them ‘hypocrites’ again because of their not-so-clever questions designed to trap him and twist his words so they could discredit him (Mt 22:18).
He waxed eloquent and pronounced a series of seven severe woes on them in Matthew 23, accusing them of being not only hypocrites but also blind guides, stupid fools, poisonous snakes, and a den of vipers.
But Jesus didn’t only call out the sins of people in general and the sins of religious leaders.
He confronted his own family.
We don’t have as many records of him doing this, but we do have one instance. In Matthew 12:48, he said, “Who is My mother and who are My brothers?” By this, he indirectly corrected his family for distracting him from the work he had been called to do by God the Father.
And finally, we see that besides people in general, the religious leaders, and his family, Jesus also confronted his disciples.
He confronted his closest followers.
In Mt 8:26, he said, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” He said this in response to their frantic, panicked reaction to the stormy water while they were on a boat with him in the Sea of Galilee at nighttime.
In Mt 15:16, he said, “Are you also still without understanding?” He said this to correct their wrong ideas about the sinfulness of the human heart.
In Mt 16:23, he said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.” He said this to correct Peter for trying to persuade Jesus against dying on the cross.
And in Mt 26:40, he said to his disciples, “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour?” He said because they had fallen asleep when they were supposed to be staying awake to guard him while he prayed in the hours just before his trial and crucifixion.
Put yourself on the other side of these comments by Jesus – as people in the crowd, as a religious leader, as a close family member, or as a close follower of Jesus. How do these bold, direct statements of confrontation make you feel? And how do they make you feel about Jesus? Would you feel that he was being mean or courageous? Was he being rude or was he being a good leader?
We appreciate leaders – even kings – who speak the truth and call out injustice. But that changes if they are speaking about or calling out injustice of our own. But a good king, the kind we all need, calls out our sins whether we want him to or not.
As William Wilberforce once said, “You may choose to look the other way, but you can never again say you did not know.” He said this as both a British politician and government official and also an serious-minded Christian who led the way in confronting and abolishing the transatlantic slave trade.
Like Wilberforce and so much more, Jesus is a king who reveals the truth about people to people that people would much rather avoid. Such bold confrontation is an act of both courage and love.
This is the very kind of love that God calls Christian husbands to have towards their wives when he says that husbands should have a “cleansing and sanctifying” effect for their wives as Christ does for the church, and how? Through “the washing of water by the word” (Eph 5:15).
And this is true for any leaders who will be like Christ. They must be willing to speak the truth in love (Eph 4:15). The truth is not a matter of democracy. It is a matter of fact and of truth, whether it is convenient and wanted or not. In fact, speaking the truth may even cause a person to view you as an enemy – but this fact should not prevent you from speaking that truth anyway.
Thankfully, Jesus is this kind of King, unafraid to speak the truth to people in love, even when that truth is uncomfortable and hard to receive. But there is more. Jesus is not only the King who confronts our sin.
Jesus is the king who carried our sin.
Just as Jesus calls husbands to “cleanse and sanctify their wives by the washing of water by the word,” so he also calls husbands to “give themselves” for their wives as Christ “gave himself for the church” (Eph 5:25). And how did he give himself for us? Through his trials, sufferings, and death on the cross. That’s how.
You see, in Matthew’s Gospel, he not only reveals Christ as the King we all need and as the King who confronts our sin, he also reveals him to be the King who carries for us the sin that he confronts in us.
He gave his life for a ransom of many.
In Mt 20:25-28, Jesus taught his followers the right kind of leadership – the way a good king
is supposed to lead.
“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
As we acknowledged previously, a husband must be willing to lead his wife with courage, saying what needs to be said for her cleansing and sanctification. And though he must never do less than that, he must also do more than that and speak those words from a life that is also giving himself for her as Christ did for us in his trials, suffering, and death.
You see, Christ did not abandon the priority of a good King to speak the truth clearly and with courage, but in doing so, he did not speak arrogantly or boastfully (though speaking the truth was wrongly considered as such by the people he confronted). Instead, having confronted the people about their sin, he then devoted himself to suffer for their sin, as the second, necessary means to their salvation. He confidently, courageously, and compassionately “gave His life a ransom for many.”
Notice the completeness of this giving of himself. He didn’t give part of his life or some of his life. He gave all of himself so that as many as would turn from their sin to believe on him would be able to do so. And by giving his life, he devoted his daily agenda, effort, and life’s work to free us from the very sins which he confronted in us.
This is what a good husband must do. He must speak the truth and lead in the truth, but then he must set himself to give of himself for the truth – sacrificing his body, life, and reputation for the good of his wife so that she might be able to better receive and respond to the word that he gives her. And in doing this, he has the King we all need as his support, his example, and his King to which he must himself submit.
He shed his blood for remission of sins.
Then as Christ observed the last Passover with his disciples in the Upper Room, in the hours leading up to his betrayal and arrest in Gethsemane, he told them that the juice of the Passover meal and now the juice of Communion represents in vivid ways his blood which would be shed on the cross as he died for our sins. “This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Mt 26:28).
You see, Christ did not just tell us what was wrong. Though he certainly did this, he did not only do this. He also did something about what was wrong. He did something about the sin he confronted. He gave himself to resolve our sin even though we were at first in a resistant, unrepentant state. Just as a husband should devote himself to loving and serving and giving himself at any cost to his wife even when she is not responding in kind, even more so to an infinite degree did Christ give his life for us – even to the bloody, violent, painful, torturous death of the cross. It is because he died in this way for us, for our sin which he boldly confronted, are we able to be saved from our sin.
He shed his blood so that God would be able to punish him instead of us, so that God would be able to rightly and fully forgive our sins.
Consider how Isaiah the OT prophet movingly portrayed and prophesied Christ’s death for our sins.
“I gave My back to those who struck Me, and My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting.” (Isa 50:6)
He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. (Isa 53:3-6)
Today, we live in a challenging moment of time. Our society as a whole relishes the idea of “speaking truth to power,” as it were. We announce “no kings,” and we resent anyone who speaks the truth about our sin. But it is not until we accept the truth about our sin – as Jesus himself calls it out – that we can rightly understand what he was doing on that dark Good Friday night. He was carrying on himself the very sin in us which he first so boldly and courageously confronted.
The One who said, “Woe to you,” also said, “My blood is poured out for you.”
So tonight, on this Good Friday, we look back on the death of a King, not the king the world is accustomed to, the King we truly need. He is the King who did not deny our guilt, excuse our rebellion, or soften the truth about our sin. He confronted it plainly, courageously, and lovingly. And then, amazingly, he lifted that very sin onto his own shoulders and carried it to his death.
Good Friday forces a personal question on each of us: What will we do with this King? We cannot applaud him from a distance and remain unchanged. We cannot admire the cross while refusing to repent of the sin that put him there. The King who spoke “Woe to you” is the same King who now says, “My blood is poured out for you.” To reject him is to remain under our sin. To receive him and believe him is to be freed out from under our sin forever because the punishment for our sin fell on him instead.
And husbands – men – let me encourage you to give yourselves to your wives in this same way.
This is the King we need.
If so, then we should remove the Gospel of Matthew from the Bible, cease observing Good Friday and Easter, and stop following Jesus altogether. You see, the Gospel of Matthew is written for the very purpose of presenting Jesus as the King we all need. Yes, that’s right, we need a King, and his name is Jesus. That’s what Matthew tells us.
Jesus is the king.
The Old Testament (OT) ends sadly with the royal line of Judah’s kings coming to an end as they are carried away into captivity in Babylon. But four hundred years and fourteen generations later, we read about child who was born into that same royal line of kings through his mother, named Mary (Mt 1:1-17).
Then in Mt 2:2, some wise, influential men from a foreign land arrive in Jerusalem and ask King Herod: “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.”
Fast forward to Mt 21:5 and Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem at Passover time. This is when he instructs his disciples to fetch a donkey for him to ride into the city. And as Matthew retells this moment, he also tells us that this event occurred to fulfill what the OT prophet Zechariah foretold and prophesied (Zech 9:9): “Tell the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your King is coming to you, lowly, and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.’”
After he arrived in the city, he taught people various things, including some important things about the future, upcoming judgment of people at the end of this age as God builds his eternal kingdom. Referring to himself in this case, he says, “When the Son of Man … the King will say to those on His right hand, Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Mt 25:31).
Later on, during Christ’s final suffering and trials leading up to his crucifixion, Pilate asked him, “Are You the King of the Jews?” (Mt 27:11). To this Jesus replied, “It is as you say” (Mt 27:11). As a result of this claim, the Romans placed a sign above his cross which stated the reason for his crucifixion. The sign said, “This is Jesus the King of the Jews” (Mt 27:27). The Roman soldiers also mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” (Mt 27:29), and the Jewish religious leaders did the same, mocking him with, “If He is king of Israel …” (Mt 27:42).
So, we see clearly from Matthew’s Gospel that the OT points to Jesus as King, the opening genealogy presents Jesus as King, foreign dignitaries recognized Jesus as King, and Jesus himself portrayed himself as King. But what kind of King was He?
Jesus is the king who confronted our sin.
We see this behavior clearly throughout Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus was not an impotent, weak king. He is not a king who accepted bribes, believed flattery, and played hypocritical political games. He is a fair, just, and courageous king who boldly confronted our sin.
He confronted the sin of people in general.
He called people to repent – to turn from their sinful lifestyles. “From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mt 4:17).
He pronounced “woe” on them (which is essentially a curse of divine judgment) because they would not repent of their sins and believe on him (Mt 11:21). He even said that they were worse than Sodom and Gomorrah.
He called people “an evil and adulterous generation” because they were more interested in seeing him perform miracles than they were in listening to and submitting to his teaching (Mt 12:39).
He called them a “faithless and perverse generation” because of their refusal to believe on him (Mt 17:17).
But Jesus didn’t only call out the sins of people in general, he directly and specifically confronted the sin religious leaders.
He confronted the religious leaders.
He said to them, “Why do you think evil in your hearts?” (Mt 9:4) over their anger at him for healing a man and forgiving his sins.
He accused them of “transgressing the commandment of God” because they created technical loopholes in their benevolent giving laws which enabled them to withhold money from their parents in need while keeping it for themselves for selfish uses (Mt 15:3). He called them “hypocrites!” for the same reason (Mt 15:7).
After his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, he called them ‘hypocrites’ again because of their not-so-clever questions designed to trap him and twist his words so they could discredit him (Mt 22:18).
He waxed eloquent and pronounced a series of seven severe woes on them in Matthew 23, accusing them of being not only hypocrites but also blind guides, stupid fools, poisonous snakes, and a den of vipers.
But Jesus didn’t only call out the sins of people in general and the sins of religious leaders.
He confronted his own family.
We don’t have as many records of him doing this, but we do have one instance. In Matthew 12:48, he said, “Who is My mother and who are My brothers?” By this, he indirectly corrected his family for distracting him from the work he had been called to do by God the Father.
And finally, we see that besides people in general, the religious leaders, and his family, Jesus also confronted his disciples.
He confronted his closest followers.
In Mt 8:26, he said, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” He said this in response to their frantic, panicked reaction to the stormy water while they were on a boat with him in the Sea of Galilee at nighttime.
In Mt 15:16, he said, “Are you also still without understanding?” He said this to correct their wrong ideas about the sinfulness of the human heart.
In Mt 16:23, he said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.” He said this to correct Peter for trying to persuade Jesus against dying on the cross.
And in Mt 26:40, he said to his disciples, “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour?” He said because they had fallen asleep when they were supposed to be staying awake to guard him while he prayed in the hours just before his trial and crucifixion.
Put yourself on the other side of these comments by Jesus – as people in the crowd, as a religious leader, as a close family member, or as a close follower of Jesus. How do these bold, direct statements of confrontation make you feel? And how do they make you feel about Jesus? Would you feel that he was being mean or courageous? Was he being rude or was he being a good leader?
We appreciate leaders – even kings – who speak the truth and call out injustice. But that changes if they are speaking about or calling out injustice of our own. But a good king, the kind we all need, calls out our sins whether we want him to or not.
As William Wilberforce once said, “You may choose to look the other way, but you can never again say you did not know.” He said this as both a British politician and government official and also an serious-minded Christian who led the way in confronting and abolishing the transatlantic slave trade.
Like Wilberforce and so much more, Jesus is a king who reveals the truth about people to people that people would much rather avoid. Such bold confrontation is an act of both courage and love.
This is the very kind of love that God calls Christian husbands to have towards their wives when he says that husbands should have a “cleansing and sanctifying” effect for their wives as Christ does for the church, and how? Through “the washing of water by the word” (Eph 5:15).
And this is true for any leaders who will be like Christ. They must be willing to speak the truth in love (Eph 4:15). The truth is not a matter of democracy. It is a matter of fact and of truth, whether it is convenient and wanted or not. In fact, speaking the truth may even cause a person to view you as an enemy – but this fact should not prevent you from speaking that truth anyway.
Thankfully, Jesus is this kind of King, unafraid to speak the truth to people in love, even when that truth is uncomfortable and hard to receive. But there is more. Jesus is not only the King who confronts our sin.
Jesus is the king who carried our sin.
Just as Jesus calls husbands to “cleanse and sanctify their wives by the washing of water by the word,” so he also calls husbands to “give themselves” for their wives as Christ “gave himself for the church” (Eph 5:25). And how did he give himself for us? Through his trials, sufferings, and death on the cross. That’s how.
You see, in Matthew’s Gospel, he not only reveals Christ as the King we all need and as the King who confronts our sin, he also reveals him to be the King who carries for us the sin that he confronts in us.
He gave his life for a ransom of many.
In Mt 20:25-28, Jesus taught his followers the right kind of leadership – the way a good king
is supposed to lead.
“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
As we acknowledged previously, a husband must be willing to lead his wife with courage, saying what needs to be said for her cleansing and sanctification. And though he must never do less than that, he must also do more than that and speak those words from a life that is also giving himself for her as Christ did for us in his trials, suffering, and death.
You see, Christ did not abandon the priority of a good King to speak the truth clearly and with courage, but in doing so, he did not speak arrogantly or boastfully (though speaking the truth was wrongly considered as such by the people he confronted). Instead, having confronted the people about their sin, he then devoted himself to suffer for their sin, as the second, necessary means to their salvation. He confidently, courageously, and compassionately “gave His life a ransom for many.”
Notice the completeness of this giving of himself. He didn’t give part of his life or some of his life. He gave all of himself so that as many as would turn from their sin to believe on him would be able to do so. And by giving his life, he devoted his daily agenda, effort, and life’s work to free us from the very sins which he confronted in us.
This is what a good husband must do. He must speak the truth and lead in the truth, but then he must set himself to give of himself for the truth – sacrificing his body, life, and reputation for the good of his wife so that she might be able to better receive and respond to the word that he gives her. And in doing this, he has the King we all need as his support, his example, and his King to which he must himself submit.
He shed his blood for remission of sins.
Then as Christ observed the last Passover with his disciples in the Upper Room, in the hours leading up to his betrayal and arrest in Gethsemane, he told them that the juice of the Passover meal and now the juice of Communion represents in vivid ways his blood which would be shed on the cross as he died for our sins. “This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Mt 26:28).
You see, Christ did not just tell us what was wrong. Though he certainly did this, he did not only do this. He also did something about what was wrong. He did something about the sin he confronted. He gave himself to resolve our sin even though we were at first in a resistant, unrepentant state. Just as a husband should devote himself to loving and serving and giving himself at any cost to his wife even when she is not responding in kind, even more so to an infinite degree did Christ give his life for us – even to the bloody, violent, painful, torturous death of the cross. It is because he died in this way for us, for our sin which he boldly confronted, are we able to be saved from our sin.
He shed his blood so that God would be able to punish him instead of us, so that God would be able to rightly and fully forgive our sins.
Consider how Isaiah the OT prophet movingly portrayed and prophesied Christ’s death for our sins.
“I gave My back to those who struck Me, and My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting.” (Isa 50:6)
He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. (Isa 53:3-6)
Today, we live in a challenging moment of time. Our society as a whole relishes the idea of “speaking truth to power,” as it were. We announce “no kings,” and we resent anyone who speaks the truth about our sin. But it is not until we accept the truth about our sin – as Jesus himself calls it out – that we can rightly understand what he was doing on that dark Good Friday night. He was carrying on himself the very sin in us which he first so boldly and courageously confronted.
The One who said, “Woe to you,” also said, “My blood is poured out for you.”
So tonight, on this Good Friday, we look back on the death of a King, not the king the world is accustomed to, the King we truly need. He is the King who did not deny our guilt, excuse our rebellion, or soften the truth about our sin. He confronted it plainly, courageously, and lovingly. And then, amazingly, he lifted that very sin onto his own shoulders and carried it to his death.
Good Friday forces a personal question on each of us: What will we do with this King? We cannot applaud him from a distance and remain unchanged. We cannot admire the cross while refusing to repent of the sin that put him there. The King who spoke “Woe to you” is the same King who now says, “My blood is poured out for you.” To reject him is to remain under our sin. To receive him and believe him is to be freed out from under our sin forever because the punishment for our sin fell on him instead.
And husbands – men – let me encourage you to give yourselves to your wives in this same way.
This is the King we need.
Posted in Easter
Posted in Good Friday, Easter, Gospel of Matthew, Crucifixion, Suffering, Husband, Marriage
Posted in Good Friday, Easter, Gospel of Matthew, Crucifixion, Suffering, Husband, Marriage
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