The Ascension and Coronation of the King

Acts chapter 2 and verse 22, and we're going to be reading to verse 36.!

This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge, and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.

But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. David said about him, I saw the Lord always before me, because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

Therefore, my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices. My body also will live in hope, because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay.

You have made known to me the paths of life. You will fill me with joy in your presence. Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day.

But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. Seeing what was ahead, he spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay.

God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. God has raised this Jesus to the grave, and he has raised his hand.

He has raised his hand, and he has raised his hand, and he has raised his hand, and he has poured out what you now see and hear. For David did not ascend to heaven. And yet he said, The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.

Therefore, let all Israel be assured of this. God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.

Christ. Well, believing that it is always our greatest need to know and live upon our Lord Jesus Christ, we are in these messages fixing our eyes on Jesus as the great prophet, priest, and king of his people.

And we're settling in on his kingship at present, looking at our Lord as the king of this kingdom of God that he is bringing to earth by his great salvation.

Today, we're considering the coronation of the king. Now, we don't have kings in our country, so we don't have coronations, do we?

But the Brits do, and they do it upright, don't they? The coronation of their king is done with great pomp and circumstance. It's a ceremony that formally crowns and enthrones the king into his office.

And it's done with all kind of regalia. There are the regal robes and swords and scepters, crowns. There's a ring. There's a throne. There's a glove.

There's a Bible. And when he's crowned and seated on his throne, the people shout, God save the king and do homage to him. Well, the closest thing that we have to it in our own country would probably be the inauguration of a new president.

The new president takes the oath of his office and is formally installed into that office. And though it's a big thing, it comes far short, doesn't it, of a coronation of a king.

But I want to assure you that the king of England's coronation ceremony comes far short of what Jesus Christ received when he, on his coronation day, was crowned and seated as king.

And that's what we want to look at this morning. And I want to let one of Jesus' own parables introduce our topic. If you turn over to Luke 19, we're going to come back to Acts chapter 2.

But in Luke chapter 19, we have a parable about the kingdom of God and about its king. You know, Jesus told his parables to address certain problems in his hearers.

Maybe they had ignorance or wrong ideas or wrong behavior. And so the parable was directed to correct them. And we're told here in Luke 19, 11, what the situation was that prompted Jesus to tell this parable.

He says in verse 11, while they were listening to this, he went on to tell them a parable. Because, here's the reason, because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once.

Here he is, he's just a few days from the crucifixion. The Passover feast is drawing near in Jerusalem. And soon the roads would be filled with Jewish pilgrims making their way to their capital city for the Passover.

Already there was political excitement in the air. Messianic mania that would only increase as Passover drew near. For the people thought that the kingdom of God, as they understood it, with all their earthly expectations, was going to appear at once.

Here it is. This is what we've been waiting for. For hundreds of years as a people, Jesus, the Messiah King, will come up to our capital city and suddenly with his miraculous powers, overthrow the Roman government there and restore the fallen Jewish kingdom so that it is head and king over all the other nations.

But this was not the time. And this was not the kind of kingdom that Jesus came to bring. And so he corrects their faulty ideas by telling this parable.

An earthly story with a spiritual lesson. Verse 12. A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return.

Notice the kingdom of God is not going to appear in outward splendor at once as they thought. No, he must go into a distant country to be appointed king and then return.

There will be some time before he does return from his appointment as king. And so verse 13 says, He called the ten of his servants and gave them ten minas.

Put this money to work, he said, until I come back. In other words, there's this period of time before he comes back and it is a time for his servants to faithfully serve him.

Serve the king. But not all will serve him. Verse 14 says, But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, We don't want this man to be our king.

He was made king, however, and returned home. And what follows then is the day of reckoning, wherein he rewards his servants and he punishes the rebels.

Now that's the story. And we don't have time to preach through the whole parable, but its meaning should be clear in the point that we're wanting to see. The Lord Jesus is going away to be appointed king.

Now, he came from heaven in great humiliation and suffering and death. But he's going back to his father, who will exalt him to his throne and glorify him with the glory that he had with the father before the world was made.

There is to be a glorious coronation in heaven. The setting of the king upon his promised throne. That crown of thorns that mocked his kingship is to be replaced with worthy crowns of glory.

And all this would happen even though his subjects hated him and made it known. So as Jesus is telling this parable, he knows that in a matter of days, their messianic mania would be disappointed.

He would not bring the Romans down and the Jews up. And when they saw that that wasn't going to happen, they would turn against Jesus and call for his crucifixion.

And everything surrounding his trial and crucifixion was man's loud protest to heaven. We do not want this man to rule over us. We don't want him to be our king.

Remember how Pilate brought him out beaten and bloodied with a crown of thorns upon his head and said, Behold your king. Jews, there's your king. And they said, Away with him.

Crucify him. And Pilate says, Shall I crucify your king? We have no king but Caesar. And so he was crucified. And the message was clear.

We don't want him to be our king. He was made king, however. Isn't that something? We don't want him to be our king, verse 14.

He was made king, however. Don't you just love the uncontested sovereignty of God? The unthreatened supremacy of God.

Nothing can derail his plan for his king and his kingdom. His coronation goes on without a hitch. His kingdom cannot fail for Jesus must reign forever and ever.

However, we don't want him to be our king. He was made king, however. Now, what I want to do this morning is to understand when was it, in the language of the parable, that Jesus went to that distant country and was appointed king.

And the Bible reveals that it was 40 days after his resurrection from the dead, when he ascended into heaven. Ascension day for Jesus was coronation day for the king.

So we turn over to Acts chapter 1. We read from chapter 2. Now, back to chapter 1. It's one of the records of his ascension.

And here we're told that 40 days after the resurrection, Jesus is meeting with his chosen apostles just outside of Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives.

And he gives them the great commission, calling on them to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth. Now, verse 9. Now, we need to be clear that we understand this was no sudden disappearing act, such as sometimes our Lord did.

He was there and he was gone. That's not what we have here in Acts 1.9. Notice verse 10 says, They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going.

That's a process, not a single immediate disappearance. So he's speaking to them and his feet leave the ground.

And he starts floating upward in the air. And now he's above the highest trees. And now he's going upward, upward, higher and higher. And now they're squinting and they're straining their eyes to see him.

And finally he disappears into a cloud so that they can see him no more. That's how it happened. That's the description of his ascension from the bottom side of the cloud that then hid him from view.

But what happened on the top side of the cloud that day? Who can take us from that point on and tell us what happened after he went up into the cloud?

Who can tell us that? Strangely enough, it will be David who lived a thousand years before Jesus' birth who will be the one to receive a revelation from God to tell us what happened that day on the top side of the cloud.

And what he tells us is that Jesus ascended all the way up into the highest heaven where God dwells.

And there he was crowned king by his father. Ascension day was coronation day for Jesus Christ. Now it's interesting that David is given to reveal this to Israel and to us.

David himself was a type, a foreshadowing of King Jesus. You remember how after David was secretly anointed king by Samuel, he had to wait a long time before he was actually formally made king over Israel.

There was a period of waiting, wasn't there? And that's the one who reveals this same ascension and coronation of Jesus Christ.

Now David wrote psalms about Jesus, the Messiah King. They're called Messianic psalms. He wrote psalms about the king's resurrection, about his ascension, about his coronation.

And Peter quotes from two of those psalms of David in the sermon that was read for us in Acts chapter 2. So Peter's preaching on this feast of Pentecost in Jerusalem.

It's just 10 days after Jesus has ascended, some 50 days since the resurrection. And he's out to convince the Jews that they had killed the Messiah King.

And so he says in verse 22, God showed you that he was his chosen Messiah, his anointed. By the way, Messiah means anointed. Christos, Christ means anointed. He has shown you that he was his anointed by working miracles through him among you, as you yourselves know.

But you, with the help of lawless men, have put him to death by nailing him to a cross. But God has raised him from the dead. Now if there's going to be a coronation day and Jesus is dead in the grave, something has to happen.

He must be raised from the dead. And that's what Peter is saying happened. We're witnesses of these things. But not only are we witnesses of these things, a thousand years ago, King David wrote a psalm telling us that this was God's plan, to raise his king from the dead.

And so he says in verse 26, he's quoting Psalm 16, which is Messiah himself speaking, my body also will live in hope because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay.

And Peter tells the people, brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David is dead. He died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day.

You could dig him up and see his remains. He's here. In other words, his body did see decay. He wasn't talking about his own body. These words were about someone else.

And he tells us in verse 30, he was a prophet, and he knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants upon his throne.

Now, if he's going to place him on his throne, there's got to be a resurrection. Verse 31, seeing what was ahead, he, David, spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay, God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact.

His intent is to put him on the throne that was promised to David, and we're witnesses that he has indeed raised him, just as David said. So there's got to be a resurrection if the king is going to be put on his throne.

Psalm 16, told of it. Now, David's prophecy, also another psalm, speaks of Christ's ascension into heaven and his coronation there, and it will be Psalm 110.

So here in Acts 2, verse 33, not only did God raise Jesus to life, but in verse 33, he exalted him to his right hand. He lifted him all the way up to his own right hand.

So when he ascended, he did not stop at the cloud, that's just where the disciples could see him no more, but he kept going up and up right into the presence of God to the throne.

He was exalted to the right hand of God, from which he has poured out his Holy Spirit, which you now see and hear. For David did not ascend to heaven, and yet he said, and now he quotes from David's Psalm 110, Yahweh, the Lord, said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.

David is talking about Christ's ascension into heaven. His ascension took him to his coronation, where he was formally seated on his throne.

It's an amazing psalm, Psalm 110. It takes us right into the throne room of heaven, where God the Father is. And it records his words to his son at his coronation.

As he's receiving back into heaven, his victorious son, fresh from the battle, returned from the mission, victorious, the mission that his father sent him to accomplish, to redeem a people from all nations.

And now the father speaks to his son, and never was a father more proud of a son than the heavenly father was of his son when he said to him, sit here at my right hand.

And Peter concludes, verse 36, Therefore, let all Israel be assured of this, God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ, both sovereign King and Christ.

Now let's notice two things this morning about Jesus' coronation. The first is simply that God himself has enthroned his son as king. It's God who says to his son, sit here at my right hand.

God chose him, God anointed him, and God enthroned him. Right away we see that Jesus does not need man's vote to become king.

Does he? Our vote was clear. We will not have this man to rule over us. We don't want him to be king. He was made king, however.

Man voted with the cross and crucified him. God weighed in by raising him from the dead and installing him as king over man's loud protest.

It's the same thing we find in Psalm 2, where you read of this universal conspiracy of all men, and they're rebelling against the Lord and his anointed.

They're rebelling against God and his anointed king, Jesus. They're wanting to break away from him, to break his chains, to throw off his fetters, and the one enthroned in heaven is not in the least threatened.

He laughs at their folly and terrifies them in his wrath when he says, I have installed my king on my holy hill of Zion. I have installed him.

You don't want him. You want him not to reign over you, but I have made him king. And he will reign. He will rule the nations.

He will rule them with an iron scepter, and he will dash his enemies to pieces like pottery. And blessed are all who take refuge in him. Once again, you see, it's God who installs him.

It's God who put the crown on his head, and no vote of man can take it off. So the kingdom of Christ is secure. It cannot be shaken. It's done by the Father to his Son on the day of his ascension.

And we see that witnessed, too, by the Apostle Paul in Philippians 2, where God's anointed humbled himself and was obedient even to the death of the cross.

Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place. You see, Jesus humbled himself to the lowest death of Calvary, the cross.

Therefore, God exalts him to the highest place, his own right hand. It says, sit here.

What is the highest place? It's to reign with God on his throne. Sit here with me on my throne, here at my right hand, the highest place of honor.

We talk about my right-hand man, don't we? Here is God Almighty's right-hand man, his king who will execute all his will in the whole universe. It's Jesus reigning upon the very throne of God.

And so his kingship was mocked on the earth with a crown of thorns. He is now crowned with glory and honor, Hebrews 2 and verse 9 says. He is now crowned with glory and honor.

The stone that the builders rejected has been made the capstone. The Lord has done this, and it's marvelous in our eyes. So look, you saints, the sight is glorious.

See the man of sorrows now. From the fight return victorious. Every knee to him shall bow. Crown him, crown him. Crowns become the victor's brow.

He exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow. All of things in heaven, on earth, and beneath the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, is King, to the glory of God the Father.

So friends, we've seen what God did to his crucified king. He raised him from the dead and exalted him and enthroned him as king at his own right hand.

That's what God had promised to do for David's descendant. And he does it with the Lord Jesus on the day of his ascension. That's what God did with his king.

Now what will you do with him? What have you done with him? What are you doing with him? Have you surrendered to him the throne of your heart?

Have you said, come and reign here, Lord Jesus? You deserve it. You are the rightful owner of this heart. You're king. And come and reign in my heart. Every day you go on living for yourself.

Every day you refuse to bow to him as Savior and Lord. You are saying loud and clear to heaven, I do not want this man to rule over me. I don't want him to be king.

You need to know how that parable ends. Because the king did return. Having been appointed king, he did return. And he rewarded his faithful servants and then he said, but those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them, bring them here and kill them in front of me.

And you say, well that's just a parable. Yeah, it is a parable. But the reality is no less fearsome. He must have all of his enemies under his feet.

Is that you? An enemy of Jesus? Or have you bowed your heart and life and said, king of my life, I crown thee now.

Come and reign over me. God the Father will not let you ignore his king forever. He will not let you refuse to give him glory forever.

He's decreed that every knee will bow to this king. Every tongue will confess that he is king. He is Lord. He'll not have his king go unacknowledged forever.

Every unbowed knee will bow and every stubborn tongue will confess. But you know, when you confess is everything and when you bow is everything in this business. Because if you bow now, he'll receive you into his kingdom of grace.

But if you continue to live for yourself and not bow to King Jesus, then when he returns again, he will judge you. And you will bow in that day and you will acknowledge with your own voice that he is Lord.

But it will be too late for your salvation and you will go away into everlasting punishments. Now is the accepted time. That's the language of the Bible, of the gospel.

Now is the accepted time. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, your Lord, your master, your God, your king, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead and he does reign, then you will be saved.

You know, when Peter concluded this sermon that we've had read for us in Acts chapter 2 and he proved that they had just crucified the one that God raised and crowned king, the scriptures tell us that the people were cut to their hearts.

They realized what they had done and they said, brothers, what shall we do? We're out of answers. We don't know what to do. You remember what Peter said?

Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. You had that view of Jesus? He's not worthy of your heart.

He's not worthy of your life. He's not worthy of the throne. I'm going to live my way, not his way. You need to repent of that view of Jesus. You need to change your mind about Jesus and who he is.

You need to see him as the exalted king upon the throne of God and offer yourself up to serve him and trust in him. There is forgiveness even for the murder of God's appointed king.

Isn't that grace? What grace is found in the Savior that even killing the king can be forgiven by those who repent and trust upon him?

Today, you can go from guilty enemy to a forgiven friend, a subject that hated him, didn't want him to rule over you, to a friend, a forgiven friend, a servant who loves him and serves him.

And I'm sure you would if you knew how good and kind this king was. None who ever bowed to this king ever leave him. Many have gone to be burned at the stake rather than leave this king.

So sweet is his grace, so good is his love. Taste and see just how good he is and give yourself up to him today. But that's the most important thing for you today and every day is to surrender to this king.

So the Lord Jesus is king. That's the point we're making. Whether you bow and acknowledge that or not, he is because God has made him king. God the Father told him, sit here at my right hand.

And Jesus did just that. He sat down. Hebrews 1.3 After he had provided purification for sins on Calvary, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven.

Hebrews 2.12.2 He endured the cross scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Now, we need to be careful here to not draw the wrong conclusion.

The fact that he's sitting does not point to inactivity as if he's resting and doing nothing and just waiting for something. No, it's not like you sitting in your easy chair after a hard day's work and you come to just veg and just sit and do nothing.

No, some of you work sitting all day, don't you? That doesn't mean you're inactive. You work, but you work as you sit.

You know, it's that way for a judge, isn't it? When the judge comes into the courtroom and sits down, it means the court is in session. He's now doing his judging work.

When does that start? When he sits down and he judges from his judge's seat. So when King Jesus was seated upon his throne, when the father said, sit down, son, and he sat down, Jesus' session, Jesus' reign is in action.

He is formally installed in his office. He's not waiting to become king someday at his second coming.

Get rid of that idea. He has been crowned. The father has installed him. He seated him at his throne as he had promised David.

He is now crowned with glory and honor, Hebrews 2.9 says. Right now, the king is actively reigning from his throne. And that's good for us that he is.

And that leads us to the second point this morning. And it's that Christ rules over everything for the good of his church. If you turn over to Ephesians chapter 1, we'll see this point made very clearly by the apostle Paul.

Christ, yes, right now is ruling. And we learn in Ephesians 1, 19 and following that he rules over everything and he rules over everything for the good of his church.

Halfway through verse 19, we begin the thought where he speaks of the power of Christ, the power of God. That power is like the working of his mighty strength which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms.

Far above, all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

Notice once again it's God who raised Jesus and seated him at his right hand. But what is Jesus reigning over? Verse 22 says, God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything, all things, everything.

That pretty well sums up all that there is. And he lists some of the highest authorities and titles that are given people and even evil spirits and angelic spirits that rule and bear authority, whatever they're called, whether angelic powers and dominion, Satan and his host, all human powers, whether they be presidents, prime ministers, judges, kings, governors, Jesus reigns over them all.

Jesus is truly king of all the kings, lord of all the lords. So what does that mean for you, dear brothers and sisters?

That Christ rules over everything. That means that everything that bothers me, everything that keeps me up at night thinking, everything that sends me to my knees praying, and everything that comes into my life, my king rules over.

that's the bottom line, that's the anchor of this text. He rules over it, and he reigns over it even when it appears to be chaos and disorder, and even when it appears as if evil is winning out.

He reigns, and we need to give him the glory of that. But even better, notice why he rules over all things. verse 22 says that God placed all things under his feet and appointed to be head over everything for the church.

You know the church is not this building. You know that the church is the redeemed ones of the Lord Jesus, whose sins have been paid for in full by Jesus' suffering and death, and whose obedience and righteousness has been given to them.

Jesus now reigns on his throne over everything and all things for the good, the advantage, the benefit of his redeemed bride.

And it's this sovereign power of our reigning king then that guarantees Romans 8.28. Why is Romans 8.28 such a popular verse among the people of God?

Well it doesn't just tell us that everything that happens in my life must work together for good to those who love God and are the called according to his purpose.

That it all must work out together for good for those that are the church, the blood-bought bride of Christ. But how does that happen?

How does everything that happens to you work together for your good? It doesn't just fall out that way. No, you have a king upon a throne who is reigning over what?

All things for the good of his people. Therefore, all things are made to work together for good to his people.

You see, we owe the outworkings of Romans 8.28 and every other promise to our reigning king. He's controlling every aspect of your situation and he will not let anything come into your life but what he promises with his kingly power to work it all together for your ultimate good.

And so it's well for us that Jesus reigns. Thomas Watson says, though Jesus is so highly exalted in glory yet he's not forgetful of us here on earth.

Someone raised to places of honor forget their friends as the chief butler when restored to his place at court forgot poor Joseph down in prison.

But it is not so with Christ. Though exalted to such glory in heaven he is not unmindful of his saints on earth.

Rather Hebrews 4 says that when he ascended and went through the heavens to the highest dwelling place of God he sits upon his throne as the God man.

There's a real man on the throne at the right hand of God and he has a sympathy with all of his people in all of their troubles. There's a fellow feeling in his heart with the one that's in your heart this morning.

So go to him and pour out your heart to him. He hasn't forgotten you. Though raised high in glory he still cares for you and is able to help you and send you grace to help in time of need.

And so we say in our catechism how is Christ a king? Well he rules over us and defends us. And why do you need a king?

Because I am weak and helpless. Do we understand those words? Why do I need Jesus to be my king today?

Because I'm weak and helpless today. Who are my enemies that he rules over and defends me from? Well there's the world with all of its alluring temptations.

There's the devil who's ever at my heels. There is my own flesh. How can I stand against my enemy? Because my king rules over me and defends me.

I am weak and helpless but I have a great king. The almighty Lord Jesus. And if we had no king to defend us how long would we last? How long would the church last?

Psalm 124 says well if the Lord had not been on our side let Israel say if the Lord had not been on our side when men attacked us when their anger flared up against us they would have swallowed us alive.

You see the fact is that none of us would ever make it to heaven if it were not for our reigning king who is right now defending us from all of our enemies.

if Christ were not constantly exercising his power over our enemies we would all be swallowed up at once. The church would not survive a moment longer.

We owe our preservation either as individuals or as the whole church of Christ. We owe our preservation to the moment by moment defense of our omnipotent king.

it is well for us that he reigns. So what difference does it make that Jesus has been raised, our king has been raised and ascended and seated on the throne?

Well it makes all the difference in the world for us. Nothing is the same because Jesus reigns. So we must fix our eyes on him. How do you think of Jesus Christ? Be sure you don't just think of his past works.

You must think of him right now. As exalted. Yes he endured the cross. Yes he scorned its shame. Yes he purchased our salvation at Calvary. But he went and sat down at the right hand of God.

So fix your eyes on him as seated today at the right hand of God for you dear Christian to turn all that's happening in your life to good. Trust him.

Here's your security. Here's your peace. Here is your joy. That Jesus reigns. for your good. So let the children of Zion be glad in their king.

Let them rejoice in this honor that the Lord takes great delight in his people and he crowns the humble with salvation. Lord willing in weeks ahead we'll look and see what difference does it make that Jesus reigns today and how does that affect my battle with sin and how does that affect my prayer life and what other aspects of life are altogether reordered if I get this that Jesus is right now reigning because God has enthroned him as king and he now reigns over everything for the good of his church.

church. You can't have Jesus to be your priest to die for your sins unless you take him as your king to rule over you as well.

We take him as he's offered to us in the gospel. Prophet, priest, and king. Prophet to teach you everything that you need to know about life and how to get to heaven.

Priest to die for your sins and to pray for you and the king to rule over you and to defend you. Take him today. All that he is for all that you need.

Let's pray. Our father in heaven, these texts this morning have reminded us that you have a plan and no plan of man and no rebellion of man can thwart that plan.

That even when men could get their hands upon God in the flesh and crucified him, you still raised your king from the dead and exalted him at your own right hand.

We worship you today. We praise you, Lord Jesus, that you would reign for the good, for the salvation, for the ultimate blessing of your people.

And we confess that all that we have, you have accomplished for us. All that we have done has been due to your great work on our behalf. Bring others today to submit to your reign and so to live.

And fill us with joy that you are reigning. Joy that children of the king ought to have. We ask in your own precious name. Amen.