1.  The Coming of the King

     a.  Scripture Reading

     b.  Israel's Political Return

     c.  The Birthday of the King 1

 

2.  The Promises of Our King

     a.  Righteousness 2

     b.  Justice 3

     c.  Peace 4

 

3.  And Many, Many Blessings

1 Jeremiah 23:1-8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . David's Righteous Branch

 

1.  The Coming of the King

     a.  Scripture Reading

          i.   ¹ “Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of My pasture!” declares the Lord. ² Therefore thus says the Lord God of Israel concerning the shepherds who are tending My people: “You have scattered My flock and driven them away, and have not attended to them; behold, I am about to attend to you for the evil of your deeds,” declares the Lord.

          ii.   ³ “Then I Myself shall gather the remnant of My flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and shall bring them back to their pasture; and they will be fruitful and multiply. ⁴ I shall also raise up shepherds over them and they will tend them; and they will not be afraid any longer, nor be terrified, nor will any be missing,” declares the Lord.

          iii.  ⁵ “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “When I shall raise up for David a righteous Branch; And He will reign as king and act wisely And do justice and righteousness in the land. ⁶ In His days Judah will be saved, And Israel will dwell securely; And this is His name by which He will be called, ‘The Lord our righteousness.’”

          iv. ⁷ Therefore behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when they will no longer say, ‘As the Lord lives, who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt,’ ⁸ but, ‘As the Lord lives, who brought up and led back the descendants of the household of Israel from the north land and from all the countries where I had driven them.’ Then they will live on their own soil.”

          v.  now in the period in which this passage was written, there rose up in turn four men who were branches of David; three sons of Josiah and one grandson: not one of them could in any way be called righteous – but this promised descendant of David, a Branch in the family tree, will indeed be righteous – called indeed “Yahweh Tsidkenu” or “The Lord our Righteousness”

 

     b.  Israel's Political Return

          i.   now it is tempting to take this passage and see in it a fulfilment by the return of Jews to the land of Israel which they occupy in part today

          ii.  and that, indeed, may be a foreshadowing of what is spoken of here, but there are some problems with it, as Pastor John Piper explains in one of his messages

          iii.  If we were to say Jeremiah, “Your prophecy is being fulfilled. A nation has been created for Israel. The people are turning from all countries just as you said. They dwell in prosperity and have not been routed by their enemies,” he would say, “Yes, yes, and the King? The Righteous Branch? The Son of David? What of Him?” And we would have to say, “Well, most of them don’t believe in him. The liberal ones have sort of demythologized the idea of Messiah into an ethic of love and others rejected him when he came and still wait for another.” You know what Jeremiah would say? He would say, “You mean they have come back without their King? They presume to dwell in prosperity and enjoy security without the Christ? They are seeking to vindicate themselves? Maintain their own right. They live in the land in rebellion against the Righteous Branch, the Son of David, the King of Israel? You call that fulfilment of my prophecy? It’s blasphemy! It’s idolatry! We’re back where we started!” 2

          iv. but we are coming again at this time of the year when we celebrate

 

     c.  The Birthday of the King

          i.   some might claim then that because Israel, 2000 years ago, as a nation rejected Jesus as the Christ means that He is not today a King, and will only be so at some future day

                (1) the kingdom and His Kingship is all on hold

                (2) we have to yet wait forward to it

                (3) the fulfilment is all still yet in the future

          ii.  could that really be the case?

          iii.  no, listen to the sermon of the apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost proclaimed, “Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ — this Jesus whom you crucified.” (Acts 2:36)

                (1) Jesus has been made Lord; sovereign ruler

                (2) Jesus has been made Christ; Messiah; the One anointed as King

          iv. the case, then, is this;

                (1) the current Nation of Israel has not received Him as King

                (2) nor have the nations of this world done so

          v.  there was a time when on that first Palm Sunday, for a short while that Jerusalem provided a lip service to the king as foretold in Zechariah 9:9 “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, Humble, and mounted on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey” – but by the end of the week the cries had turned instead to “Crucify Him!”

          vi. but, there is a nation which has accepted Jesus as their King

                (1) they are described in Philippians 3:20-21, “²⁰ For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ; ²¹ who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.”

                (2) and their King and kingdom in Ephesians 1:20-23, “²⁰ which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, ²¹ far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. ²² And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, ²³ which is His body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all.”

          vii. so that even today, there is this King at work ruling in the children of God, in His people, the church fulfilling …

 

2.  The Promises of the King

     a.  Righteousness

          i.   our Lord Jesus is “Yahweh Tsidkenu”, the Lord our Righteousness

          ii.  He is the life-altering Saviour

                (1) in that passage we read to open our service, the angel of the Lord announced to Joseph, “you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21)

                (2) and those who receive Him as Saviour, becoming part of His kingdom, are forgiven, cleansed from sin: from its guilt, from its stain, from its power

                (3) for our King Himself bore our sin in His own body on the cross

          iii.  on another day we may look at Jeremiah 31, which describes in other words this work of our Jesus for us, when God's law is written in our hearts; fulfilled by the indwelling Holy Spirit

 

     b.  Justice

          i.   if righteousness be the inward change that our King has worked in us then justice should be the outward mark of His kingdom

                (1) it does not take a great amount of examination to discover that justice – fairness, equity – is a rare commodity in the nations of mankind

                (2) war and warfare is the terrible proof that this is the case

          ii.  but it should not be so in the church of Jesus Christ where love is to abound and justice should too – listen to the promises

          iii.  verse 5 of our passage, “ He will reign as king and act wisely And do justice and righteousness in the land”

                (1) this theme is repeated from Isaiah 32:1 “Behold, a king will reign righteously, And princes will rule justly.”

                (2) and again, “⁶ 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 Counsellor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. ⁷ 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.” (Isaiah 9:6-7)

                (3) this is the Child, the celebration of Whose birth, we are again anticipating at this time of year

 

     c.  Peace

          i.   the nations of this world are frequently at war with one another, as we have only beheld to sadly in these now far too many months

          ii.  but even worse the peoples of this earth are at war with God, and there exists enmity between man and God

          iii.  but the promises concerning this our king is that he will bring peace of which we just read in that last passage from Isaiah 9

          iv. and being Messiah, anointed as Priest as well as King our risen Jesus can bring peace between God and man; that is intrinsic in the words of Zechariah 6:12-13 “Then say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts,” Behold, a man whose name is Branch, for He will branch out from where He is; and He will build the temple of the Lord. Yes, it is He who will build the temple of the Lord, and He who will bear the honour and sit and rule on His throne. Thus, He will be a priest on His throne, and the counsel of peace will be between the two offices.”'

                (1) which applies to us as individuals, “Or do you not know that your body (singular) is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19)

                (2) just as much as a church, “Do you not know that you (plural) are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? (plural)” (1 Corinthians 3:16)

          v.  “¹ Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ² through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God.” (Romans 5:1-2 NAS)

 

3.  Conclusion

     a.  And So Much More

          i.   in reciting the heroes of the faith in Hebrews 11:32, the writer has to stop, saying “For time will fail me if I tell of …” and then goes on with several more verses

          ii.  and I could wind up doing so

          iii.  but instead let us just rejoice in our Lord Jesus Christ at these blessings of righteousness, justice and peace that David's greater Son is providing for us every day and to which we look forward to their perfection when He returns to take us home to Himself.

Outline Notes