Will you please turn to the book of Revelation? Revelation 1:5-6.
From Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.
Unto Him that loveth us, and loosed us from our sins by His blood;
and He made us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto His God and Father;
to Him be the glory and the dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
Revelation 5:9-10.
And they sing a new song, saying, Worthy art Thou to take the book, and to open the seals thereof:
for Thou wast slain, and didst purchase unto God with Thy blood men of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation,
and madest them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests;
and they reign upon the earth.
Go back to Revelation 3:21.
He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with Me in My throne,
as I also overcame, and sat down with My Father in His throne.
And finally, Revelation 22:3-5.
And there shall be no curse any more:
and the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be therein:
and His servants shall serve Him;
and they shall see His face;
and His name shall be on their foreheads.
And there shall be night no more;
and they need no light of lamp, neither light of sun;
for the Lord God shall give them light:
and they shall reign for ever and ever.
Let us have a word of prayer.
Dear Lord, how we praise and thank Thee for Thy wonderful Word. Thy Word is truth, and we do desire that Thy truth will set us free. So we do commit Thy Word back to Thy own hand and trust Thy Holy Spirit to enlighten us, to bring us into the reality of Thy truth, that Thy name may be glorified. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.
Last Lord’s Day, we talked about the universal priesthood of believers. Every believer is a priest unto God.
We may not be called priests. We may not be given that position by man. But our Lord Jesus, by virtue of His blood, of His redemption, has not only washed us from our sins in His blood, but He has made us a kingdom, priests unto His God and Father.
He has brought us by His blood from every tribe, every tongue, every people, and every nation unto Himself. And He has made us kings and priests unto God.
Every believer, every redeemed one, is a priest. A priest is one who is separated to serve God. That is his calling. That is his vocation. That is what he lives for. He is exclusively living for the service of God. And this is what we are.
We are to serve Him. We are to bring people to God and bring God to the people. This is the work of a priest.
Now, this morning, we would like to continue on. We would like to share together on this matter of the universal kingship of believers.
Now, you may never have heard such a term. It was not even used during the time of the Reformation. It is not in the Bible. But thank God, the truth is there. The concept is there. The thought is there.
As you read the Word of God, you do find that we, as believers, are all kings. This is our calling, our birthright. So I do hope that we may not be scared by it, but that we may really see the truth of it.
Now, you remember that our priesthood is a kingly priesthood. In 1 Peter 2:9-10, it says, “Ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood.” Our priesthood is a royal priesthood, a kingly priesthood.
Now, why is it so? Because our priesthood is according to the order of Melchizedek. You remember in Hebrews 7, Melchizedek was king of Salem, priest of the Most High God.
And the order of Melchizedek is so much higher than the order of Aaron. Our Lord is a priest according to the order of Melchizedek. Therefore, the priesthood into which we are called is after what the Lord is. It is after the order of Melchizedek.
In other words, it is a priesthood that is kingly, royal. It is a priesthood according to the power of an indissoluble life. We have received a life, and that life is a kingly life. It is the life of a king, and in that life we serve as priests.
So, brothers and sisters, we have to see that there is not only the universal priesthood of believers, but there is also the universal kingship of believers. We are kingly priests and priestly kings. Now, that is what we are.
Why is it that we do not consider ourselves as kings, just as we do not call ourselves priests? I think there are probably two reasons.
One reason is that, as we look into our lives, we feel ashamed. We feel that our lives are not kingly, are not royal, are not extraordinary. We feel that we are no different in our lives than other people. We are not better. We do not seem to show forth the kingly character in our daily living. Because of this, we feel ashamed to confess ourselves as kings.
Now, that may be one reason. But I think there is another reason why we do not see ourselves as kings. It is because we have a wrong concept of kingship.
Our concept of kings is still according to the world. When the world thinks of kings, they think of authority. They think of ruling, of lording over. They think of sitting high up. They think of giving orders. They think of being served instead of serving—a special position.
And because of that, we realize that this may not be so as kings in the kingdom of God.
Do you remember the disciples of our Lord Jesus? During their lives of following our Lord, there is one thing that came back again and again: they were always striving among themselves as to who was the greatest.
So, in Matthew 18:1-6, the disciples came to the Lord and asked Him a question: “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of the heavens?”
Now, why did they ask such a question? If they were not thinking of being the greatest, if they were not trying hard to climb to the highest place, they would not have asked such a question. It shows that this was something in their minds.
You remember what the Lord did. He took a little child and set him in their midst. The Lord gave them an object lesson, and then He said:
Except ye turn, and become as little children,
ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child,
the same is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
What a surprise this must have been to the disciples. It was completely opposite to their concept. Who could think that, to enter into the kingdom of heaven, you have to be a little child? Who could ever think that, to be the greatest, you have to be so childlike?
We think that if you want to be the greatest, if you want to be in authority, you have to be more intelligent than other people, more powerful, more independent. You do not need to depend upon anybody else, but people will depend on you. Therefore, you are great. This is our idea.
But our Lord Jesus said, “No. You must be converted and become like little children. Otherwise, you will not be able to enter into the kingdom of heaven. If anyone humbles himself and becomes as this little child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of the heavens.”
The kingdom of the heavens is marked by childlikeness. It does not mean that our Lord Jesus wants us to be childish.
You know, in church history, among the Moravians, when God began to do a great work, Count Zinzendorf and other people loved the Lord so much. But unconsciously, at one time, you find in the history of the Moravians that they became so childish. They thought they were childlike, but it turned out to be very childish.
No, it is not childishness that is the character of the kingdom of the heavens. It is childlikeness. In other words, a child is simple and dependent. He does not think of himself as being somebody. He relies upon his parents.
And this is what God wants us to be. He wants us to be childlike: simple in faith, not doubting, trusting in the almightiness of our heavenly Father, relying upon Him instead of relying upon our own wisdom. This is the kind of character in the kingdom of the heavens. And he who humbles himself like a little child is the greatest in the kingdom of the heavens.
And then again, you find in Matthew 20, as our Lord Jesus was going to Jerusalem, His different disciples thought that He was going to be crowned as king. Again, you find that they began to maneuver against each other.
The two sons of Zebedee, John and James, came to the Lord with their mother. Through their mother, they asked for something. You know, as you read the Scripture, it is really very humorous.
When the mother took the two boys to our Lord Jesus, she asked the Lord for one thing. She said, “I am going to ask You something. Just promise You will give it.” But she did not say what it was. I think everybody knew in himself or herself that there was something wrong there.
But anyway, because of the strong desire of the two sons, the mother was willing to do anything for them. But our Lord never gave a blank check. He asked, “What do you want? What do you want to ask?”
She said, “In Your kingdom, let my two sons sit, one on Your right and one on Your left.”
Now, the Lord did not say it was wrong to desire to sit on His right and left. But the Lord showed them the way to it. The Lord said, “Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink? Are you able to be baptized with the baptism that I am going to be baptized with?”
And the two sons said, “We are able,” without knowing exactly what they were saying.
The Lord said, “You must indeed drink My cup, and you must be baptized with My baptism. But to sit on My right and on My left is not Mine to give; it is for My Father to give.”
And the other ten, the Bible says, were indignant, because they had been outmaneuvered. They wanted the same thing.
Brothers and sisters, what is the cup? You remember our Lord Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, how He prayed, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup be removed from Me; but not My will, Thy will be done.” He prayed three times.
And He said to Peter, “Shall I not drink the cup which the Father hath given Me?” The cup is the will of God, the will of the Father. Whether it is bitter or whether it is sweet, our Lord Jesus would drink it.
And the Lord said, we too must drink it. We must accept the Father’s will in our lives, whether it is bitter or sweet. We suffer with Him; we shall reign with Him.
What is the baptism to which He referred? It is a baptism of death. He was going to die in order to fulfill His Father’s will, in order to redeem us. And we must die with Him—die to ourselves, die to everything that is out of the will of God.
If we drink His cup and are baptized with His baptism, then we will be rewarded with the right and the left of our Lord Jesus.
At the Last Supper, this was a very serious moment. And yet the disciples, when they came to the Last Supper of our Lord, were still quarreling among themselves as to who was the greatest.
And you remember in John 13 how our Lord Jesus took off His garments, girded Himself with a towel, poured water into a basin, and washed His disciples’ feet.
After He had finished doing that, He sat down and said, “Do you understand what I have done? You call Me Lord and Master, and rightly so, for I am. But I have washed your feet. Do likewise to one another.”
Brothers and sisters, we think being king is to stretch out our feet and let others wash them. We think that, being kings, we sit higher and let people sit at our feet. That is our concept of kingship.
But our Lord said it is just the opposite. It is the one who does the meanest job. It is the one who humbles himself at the feet of others and washes their feet. He is the greatest. He is king. He demonstrates His kingly character.
Now, brothers and sisters, it is because of our wrong concept of kingship that we feel we cannot call ourselves kings. We are not kings—why? Because we are not being served by everybody, because we are no higher, because we are not greater in intelligence and position than others, because we are not able to command others to do what we want them to do for us.
And yet the Lord said He has made us kings and priests unto God, and they shall reign over the earth.
Brothers and sisters, do you have any doubt as to your calling? Do you have any doubt as to your birthright? Do you have any doubt that God has made you kings?
You are king. At your new birth, the life in you is not an ordinary life. It is a kingly life. It is the life of the King. That is what you are.
But why is it that we do not live like kings? Not in the worldly sense—in a palace, enjoying all the pleasures of the world, and being served by others. No, just the opposite. The kingdom of the heavens is different from the kingdoms of the earth.
As kings in that kingdom, brothers and sisters, where are we? How can we develop our kingly character? How can we demonstrate to the world that today we are kings in the kingdom of the heavens? I think this is something that we really need to consider.
First of all, kings are to reign, to rule. There is no doubt about it. But in order to rule and to reign, there is something that needs to be done in us first.
Now remember, we are to reign with Christ. In other words, to reign in the same manner as Christ reigns.
I believe that in order to really know how to rule and how to reign unto God, first of all, we must know how to rule over ourselves.
Now, you remember Proverbs 25:28:
He whose spirit is without restraint
is a city that is broken down and without walls.
He that cannot rule over his own spirit is like a city with a wall broken down, without a wall. Now, in the old days, the cities all had walls for protection. If a city has no wall, in other words, it is open to the enemies. It cannot stand.
Now, unless we are able to rule over our own spirit, how can we rule for God over other people? If we cannot control ourselves, how can we be given the authority to control other people?
You remember one day, as our Lord Jesus, knowing that He was to die, set His face toward Jerusalem. A prophet cannot die outside of Jerusalem. He walked toward Jerusalem with the thought of offering Himself as the Lamb of God for the sin of the world. That was His spirit.
But He had to pass through Samaria, and the Samaritans had nothing to do with the Jews. When He sent His disciples to prepare His way, the Samaritans refused to receive Him because He was going to Jerusalem.
So you remember the two sons of thunder, John and James. They came back to the Lord and said, “This village of Samaritans has refused to receive You. Do You want us to call fire down from heaven to burn them up, as Elijah did?”
And you remember what the Lord said. The Lord said, “Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.”
The Lord was going to Jerusalem with the spirit of a lamb, ready to be sacrificed. But the spirit of these disciples was a spirit of vengeance, of pride, of jealousy. It was just the opposite of the spirit of our Lord. They could not rule over their own spirit.
Brothers and sisters, I think the first important thing for us to really be able to fulfill our calling, to inherit our birthright, to really be kings in the kingdom of the heavens, is this: the life of kingship within us demands that we first learn to rule over ourselves.
We need to rule over our body. Do not allow our body to get above us. Have you ever thought of that?
Young brothers and sisters, did you ever learn to rule over your bodies? A small thing: rise up early in the morning to have a time with the Lord.
Do you exercise discipline over your body and not allow your body to drag you in bed, but rise up and commune with your Lord?
The apostle Paul said he put his body under him, beating it black and blue. He would not allow his body to rule over him. He wanted his body to be a servant and not a master to him—a body given to the Lord to be used.
Brothers and sisters, do you have rule over your body? Do you have rule over your soul—your thought life, your emotional life, your volitional life? And do you have control over your spirit deep down within you?
Now, unless we learn to have rule over ourselves—by the grace of God, of course, by the power of the Holy Spirit, by the cross working in our lives—if we have no control over ourselves, how can God give us rule and reign in His kingdom?
Secondly, if we really want to develop our kingly character, we have to put ourselves under the kingship of Christ. He is the King of kings, the Lord of lords. He is our model.
We have to put ourselves under His apprenticeship. That is discipleship: to learn of Him. You remember, He said:
Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me;
for I am meek and lowly in heart:
and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
Brothers and sisters, unless we put ourselves under the rulership of Christ and develop a kingly character in our lives, we are not fit to reign and to rule for God.
You know, the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5-7, teaches us how, in our daily life, we learn to put ourselves under the kingship of Christ. And by doing so, we develop a kingly character.
You know, the Beatitudes really show the kingly character:
Blessed are the poor in spirit:
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
It is developing a kingly spirit, to be conformed to the image of Christ, to be like Him.
You know, the kingdom of the heavens simply means kingdom. In the original, the emphasis is on kingship. In other words, the emphasis is on the King. As the King is, so is the kingdom.
We must allow His character to be fully developed in us. Our righteousness must surpass the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, because their righteousness is according to the letter of the law. It is outward, man-made, legalistic.
But our righteousness must exceed it. It has to be something within, out of life.
The Lord expects us to live extraordinary lives, not ordinary lives, because we are kings. The Lord expects us to live victoriously, because we are kings. And we need to develop the kingly character by putting ourselves under the kingship of Christ.
And then thirdly, I think the way to develop that kingly life is to learn to serve instead of being served.
You remember our Lord Jesus in Mark 10:45. The Lord said:
For verily the Son of man came not to be ministered unto,
but to minister,
and to give His life a ransom for many.
In other words, our Lord Jesus is the Servant-King. He is King. He was born King. That is the reason why He came into this world. But look at His life on earth: He was a servant. He served. He is the Servant-King.
Because he who serves most is he that reigns. Not the one who gives orders, not the one who is being served, but the one who serves. This is authority. This is power. This is kingship.
Brothers and sisters, we who have the life of the King in us, what does that life demand within us? I believe, if you listen to the voice of that inner life, it says to you, “Serve.” Service is reigning.
Do you think that one day, when we reign with Christ, it means that today you learn to serve, but in the kingdom of heaven, when it shall come and you are given rule over five cities or ten cities, you can revert to the worldly sense of kings and reign by lording over, by being served, and so forth?
Remember, you reign with Christ. You are kings unto God. And to reign with Christ and to serve unto God is to be servants in eternity.
You know, in Revelation 22, that is the scene of eternity. In eternity, the Bible says, “The throne of God and of the Lamb shall be therein: and His servants shall serve Him. They shall see His face, and they shall reign for ever and ever.”
You see, the idea of servant and reigning is never separated. Reigning for Christ, reigning for God, is serving the purpose of God—trying to help people to know God.
Now, finally, this is our kingdom. Just like the priests, they do not serve independently. They serve under the High Priest. They serve together as priests. And the same thing is true with kings.
We are not kings, each in his or her own domain, doing whatever pleases ourselves. That is not the way. We are a kingdom of kings.
That is why you find in Revelation 1 that it is a kingdom, priests unto God; but in Revelation 5 it is kings and priests unto God, and they shall reign upon the earth.
This kingdom of the heavens is to be all kings; all citizens are kings, just as all citizens are priests. It is a kingdom of kings.
And they shall rule over the earth for God, not for themselves.
Brothers and sisters, today our service is a preparation. Our real service begins at the coming of our Lord Jesus.
Because at the coming of our Lord Jesus, those who manifest their kingly character, and those who serve as servant-kings today, shall reign with Christ for a thousand years.
In Revelation 3, the Lord said:
He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with Me in My throne,
as I also overcame, and sat down with My Father in His throne.
Remember, brothers and sisters, it is in history that you do not have a throne entirely separated from the throne of Christ. You do not reign as a separate king. You reign with Christ. You reign according to Christ. You reign for Christ.
And, brothers and sisters, how much more service we will be doing than today. So do not think of kings in that earthly concept. Think of kings in the heavenly concept.
And if you do that, then, brothers and sisters, this truth of the universal kingship of believers will become a reality.
So, dear brothers and sisters, I just want to lay this before you. May the Lord really enable us to meditate upon it. Do not just go away and forget it, but meditate upon it and really see your calling, what you are, and learn to be what you should be.
Now, if we fulfill our calling today, at the coming of our Lord Jesus, he that overcomes will sit in His throne, as He overcame and sat in His Father’s throne. So may the Lord help us. Let us pray.
Dear Lord, we believe we are touching something that Thou hast given to us, but we have failed greatly. Dear Lord, we are so weak. Open our understanding. Allow us to see what kingship is, that today we may serve Thee as kings, so one day we may be called to a greater service. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.