The King on the Cross

[Below you'll find the message shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville Ohio, earlier today. You'll also be able to view both worship services. Today is Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday of the Church Year.]

Luke 23:27-43

In today’s Gospel lesson, we read what may be the unlikeliest prayer ever. One of the criminals crucified with Jesus says to the Lord, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” (Luke 23:42)

Here, the second criminal to speak at Jesus’ crucifixion confesses his belief that Jesus is the King of all kings.

More than that, we see he believes that Jesus, beyond death, will claim His eternal kingdom.

There are two things that make this prayer so unlikely.

The first is that a dying man, like Jesus, doesn’t look like someone about to claim a crown.

The second is that at this moment, the whole world seems to be mocking Jesus. The Jewish religious authorities, the Roman soldiers, and the other criminal being crucified all mock Him, challenging Jesus to save Himself as He had saved others. Even the sign on Jesus’ cross mocks Him. “I-N-R-I,” it says, abbreviating the Latin phrase, “Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum,” “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.”

Yet, the second criminal prays to Jesus as his King, God the Son, and asks to be part of Jesus’ eternal kingdom. How does this man know that Jesus is King and that even he, who Luke describes in the Greek in which he wrote his gospel, as an “evil doer,” can be part of Jesus’ kingdom?

The second criminal knows these things for the same reason you and I–and anyone else–can know that Jesus is King and that we can be part of His kingdom. On the cross, Jesus preached the good news of new and everlasting life with God for all who repent and believe in Him. This happened when Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34)

Now, it’s obvious that this is an incredibly gracious prayer. Jesus is praying that the Father will forgive those who are killing Him! But who exactly is killing Jesus?

We find our answer in the three predictions Jesus makes of His crucifixion as recorded by Luke.

In the first, Jesus says that His fellow Jews will crucify Him. (Luke 9:22)

In the second, He says that “men,” that is, all humanity, will put Him on the cross. (Luke 9:44)

In the third, Jesus says that Gentiles, non-Jews like you and me, represented by the Romans, will crucify Him. (Luke 18:32)

Every one of us, by our sinful natures, by the sins we commit and the righteous thoughts we fail to hold and the righteous deeds we fail to do, are responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion.

So, in this prayer, Jesus prays for the forgiveness of us all, the whole human race, including you and me. Jesus prays that all of us who crucify Him will be sheltered in the grace that He, the sinless King Who died and rose for sinners, can give. Jesus prays for you!

In Jesus’ prayer, the second criminal heard both the Law that condemns sin and the Gospel that sets those who believe in Him free from our common human slavery to sin. In response to the conviction of his sins by God’s Law by confessing his sin, just as we do every time we gather to worship. “We are punished justly,” he tells the other criminal, “for we are getting what our deeds deserve.” (Luke 23:41)

But in Jesus’ prayer, this man also heard the words of the King of all creation, “the image of the invisible God,” according to our lesson from Colossians for today, the One through Whom “all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:13, 16-17)

He knew that Jesus had power over everything! In the Word of Gospel Jesus spoke in His prayer, although His body was bloodied and broken, the second criminal saw the King and Maker of all things Who would not be deterred from loving His children or dying for our salvation even as He was dying at our hands. And so, the criminal confesses faith in Jesus, asking Jesus to remember him when He claims His Kingdom, which Jesus will do on Easter Sunday morning.

To this man, an inveterate evildoer and a criminal his whole life, Jesus speaks a Word of gospel promise: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43) Notice that Jesus lays down no pre-conditions for the man to earn his salvation. The Word of God from Jesus has led the man to believe and that is all that sinners like you and me need to be assured that one day, we too will be with Jesus in paradise! 

The two criminals in our gospel lesson show us that there are really only two possible ways we can respond to Jesus on the cross. 

The first possible response is for us to hate Jesus. You see, if my sin and your sin is so serious that it requires the sinless Son of God to die for me, there’s no way I can deny that I’m a sinner. The death of the innocent Savior Jesus shows us that we all are, as the apostle Paul writes in Romans, “filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity…full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice…gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; [inventors of] evil;…[people with] no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.” (Romans 1:29-31)

I’ve read that passage to some people and heard them say, “Sounds like Congress.” But I say, we all need to look in the mirror. In truth, it sounds like every single one of us. 

You may say you don’t know anybody who hates Jesus. But, friends, have you ever heard anybody say—or, have you yourself ever said—“Jesus was a great teacher” or “Jesus was a good man” or some such nonsense? When human beings say things like this, they’re really saying they reject God’s verdict on the sinful nature into which each and every one of us was born.

The ancient saints knew this.

David, called out for adultery and murder, knew that while he was made a saint by God’s grace through faith in God, he was nonetheless a sinner. “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” (Psalm 51:5)

And Job, despite his faith in God, knew that he had inherited sinful impulses from a fallen human race: “Who can bring what is pure from the impure?” he asks, then answers, “No one!” (Job 14:4)

You see, we like to delude ourselves that we’re just good enough to earn God’s forgiveness, just righteous enough to earn a place in His kingdom. The King of all kings blows that foolishness to bits. You and I, folks, by our sinful nature and the sins we commit because of it are what drove the nails into Jesus’ hands and feet!

But, there is a second response we can have to Jesus hanging on the cross: We can hate our sins.

This was the response of the second evildoer. He knew that he deserved to die for his sins. He was horrified that his sins required Jesus to suffer so much. He was overwhelmed with gratitude that God would stoop all the way down to a cross because of His love for us. The man hated what he, by the decisions he’d made, the wrongs he’d done, and the good he’d failed to do, all of which had brought Jesus to this place of torment, mockery, and death.

When, by the power of God’s Word, we hate our sins enough to see the King on the cross as our God and Savior, we know to pray, “Jesus, remember me in Your Kingdom.”

And we can know that Jesus will remember us and does remember us even now!

God’s Word is clear: “…the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)

Dear friends in Christ, this gospel word is for you too.

Christ the King has died for you.

He offered Himself up as the perfect sacrifice for your sin.

He prayed and still prays that you might know God’s forgiveness.

And to those who turn to Him in repentant faith, He offers life with God that never ends.

Elsewhere, Jesus says, “The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15)

May we daily listen to God’s Word that leads us to hate our sin and to love our King, Jesus, and so be assured of our place in His kingdom always. Amen

Is This the King?

[This message was shared earlier today during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Luke 23:27-43
Two things seem, more than others, to show us a lot about who we are and what we believe: how we live and how we die. 

Some people live and die with arrogance or resentment or fear being the prevailing themes of their living and dying. 

A few live and die with the faith, humility, love, and hope they have been given by Jesus Christ. 

Jesus Himself lived and died with faith, humility, love, and hope, of course. But, on this Christ the King Sunday, we also remember that He lived, died, rose, and lives still as the King and Lord, the Savior and God of the universe.

Kings and other power-holders of the world, you know, like to advertise their power, their supposed strength. They have symbols of their power: homes and offices, jets and helicopters, official seals and aides at their constant beck-and-call.

Jesus, in fact, divested Himself of the power and authority that has belonged to Him from all eternity, in order to reclaim His fallen subjects--you and me--so that all who repent and believe in Him will live in His kingdom forever. He didn't look like a king to most of the people who came in contact with Him.

As Luke tells it in today’s Gospel lesson, Luke 23:27-43, on the day of Jesus' crucifixion only one person--a κακοῦργος in Luke’s manuscript: a doer of bad or of evil, a criminal--saw that even as He died on a cross, Jesus was and is the King. Only this one man saw that Jesus holds life, death, and eternity in His hands. 

When we look to Jesus on the cross, do we see our King? 

And should we? 

Let’s follow Jesus to His cross today to find the answers to these questions.

Our lesson begins by telling us about the grim procession that followed Jesus to a spot called the Skull, apparently a common site for criminal executions outside Jerusalem’s walls. Women, following after Jesus along with the crowds out to see the spectacle of Jesus’ death, weep. Jesus tells them that one day if Jerusalem and the rest of God’s people continue to reject God and His Messiah, destruction will come. Jesus says that the destruction will be so horrible--and that destruction did come to Jerusalem, Israel’s pretensions to nationhood, and the temple in 70 AD--that Jewish women, who always aspired to motherhood, will be considered blessed for not having brought their children into a world of such pain. Jesus says: “...if people do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?” (verse 31). 

In other words, “If the Romans do this to one they pronounce innocent, what will they do to a rebellious city.” Or, “...if God [hasn’t] spared His innocent Son, how much worse will it be when the Romans inflict [God’s] judgment on the city?”*

Even on the brink of the agonies of the cross, Jesus isn’t thinking of Himself, but of others. This is a characteristic of a true King, One Who understands that power is never to be used selfishly, but only for the benefit of others.

Beginning in verse 32, we see Jesus being taken to His cross, suspended between two criminals, evildoers.

In ancient times, those who were thought to be righteous or blameless spent their dying breaths cursing those who wronged them or killed them. 

Not Christ the King. 

“Father” Jesus prays, “forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (verse 34) 

And, lest we think that this is the prayer of a defeated idealist, we learn in the book of Acts that Jesus, once crucified and now risen, shares His kingly power over sin, death, and darkness to those who believe in Him. The first martyr of the Christian faith was a Greek-cutured Jew named Stephen. Filled with the Holy Spirit sent by Jesus to His disciples, Stephen prayed for his murderers, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” (Acts 7:60) 

I don’t know about you, but I am sure that in my own power, I am incapable of forgiving others as Jesus forgives me. 

This  is why Jesus tells Christians to pray for His power in our living and dying: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Alexander Pope famously said, “To err is human; to forgive, divine.” Only King Jesus, God the Son, Who lives in those who have been baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, can help us to forgive those who have wounded us the way He has forgiven us for the wounds we have inflicted on Him by our sin.

Do you remember that when, at the beginning of Jesus' ministry when He was tempted by the devil, the devil left Jesus vowing to tempt Him again at a more opportune time? Clearly, Satan regarded Jesus' crucifixion as that more opportune time, a time to try to prevent Jesus from fulfilling His mission of dying on the cross for you and me.

At the cross, Jesus is taunted several times at the cross. Each taunt represents a temptation to sin for Jesus, to depart from the will of God the Father. 

Taunt number one: Referring to Jesus’ many miracles, the crowds and the rulers of Jewish religious life say, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.” (verse 35) But Christ the King didn’t come to save Himself. He had already been safe and sound in His heavenly Kingdom. Instead, He stripped Himself of His advantages as our King to live as one one of us, although He never sinned, to become the perfect sacrifice for our sins. 

Taunt number two: The soldiers mocked Jesus and, playing the part of a king’s cup-bearer, they offered Jesus wine. Only this wine was bitter, like that drunk by the poorest and weakest. “If you are the king of the Jews,” the soldiers tell Jesus, “save yourself.” (verse 37) “Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?” Jesus had asked His disciples at the garden of Gethsemane. “But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?" (Matthew 26:53-54) Jesus kept His eyes on the prize, saving us from sin and death by dying on the cross on our behalf. He wanted to save you and me for His kingdom. 

Taunt number three: Verse 38: “There was a written notice above him, which read: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.” Pilate had said Jesus was innocent. Yet He had so little regard for Jesus’ life that He sent Him to the cross anyway. In those days, the crimes of the executed were posted on signs above their heads. Pilate mocked both Jesus and God’s people by labeling Jesus the King of the Jews. Yet, Jesus Who could have escaped all the taunting and death itself, chose to remain on His cross.

Taunt number four: Verse 39: “One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: ‘Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’” Be honest: When you’re shown pictures of yourself with family members or friends, who do you look for first? We are born prisoners of self, sinners. There’s no one that we trust more than ourselves. Yet, dead and dying people, we can’t save ourselves from ourselves. Only the King with the love and self-discipline to forget about Himself can save us. Jesus is that King. Jesus says of Himself that “...the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost." (Luke 19:10)

Amid this scene in which the whole world--Jewish and Gentile, religious and secular, rulers and common people--rejects Jesus, one person sees what no one else, not even Jesus’ closest followers, sees. 

He sees how Jesus lives and dies. 

He hears the gentle, powerful Word and witness of Jesus and by it, the Holy Spirit creates within him faith in Jesus. He sees that Christ is the King, the King, Lord of heaven and earth. 

That one person who sees and hears is one of the evil-doers, one of the criminals. 

He confesses his sin as he tells the other criminal, “Don’t you fear God...since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” (Luke 23:40-41) You can’t have Jesus as your Lord and King if you refuse to first own your need of being saved from your sin. 

And then, this man convicted of a capital crime, turns to Jesus and confesses faith: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” (verse 42)

Jesus is bloodied, beaten, battered, pierced, on the brink of death. He doesn't look like someone who could save anyone. He doesn't look like the kings or power-holders of this world. 

But even at this moment, the criminal sees that Jesus is His King: The Word, powered by the Holy Spirit, gives him saving faith in Jesus. He welcomes that Word that tells us--no matter how crazy or painful our lives get--that Jesus is “the Messiah [the Christ, the Anointed King], the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:16)

Some who heard the exchange between the criminal and Jesus may have thought, “Everyone else is against Jesus and the only one who believes in Him is this thug. Some king!” But Jesus, the Word of God, had done His life-saving work in the criminal. The criminal clung to the truth that Saint Paul would later experience and write about, “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.’” (Romans 10:9)

The criminal’s faith in Jesus is rewarded instantly. After his confession of faith, Jesus tells Him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” (verse 43) In Jewish thought, Paradise was a garden, like Eden, where God’s people, the subjects of Christ the King, went before their resurrections. And even now, in this moment and in all the moments of this life, as we receive Jesus in faith, we are part of His eternal kingdom. As we confess our faith in Him, Jesus says as He did that day in the house of the repentant sinner Zacchaeus, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man [this woman, this child], too, is a son [is a daughter] of Abraham,” a child of God’s promise that “the righteous shall live by faith.” (Romans 1:17)

In John 3:31, the apostle writes: “The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all.” Jesus, the One Who comes from heaven is above all. He is Christ the King, the One Who destroys the power of sin, death, and the devil over our lives. 

We can see this is true in how He lived, how He died, how He rose, and how, even today, He comes to us in Word and Sacrament and the life of His Church. 

Turn to Him when He calls you to repentance. Turn to Him when He calls you to faith. Each time you turn to Him, you will live as His subject, His child, His chosen, His friend, now and forever. Amen

*The Lutheran Study Bible

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Christ: The King We Need

Luke 23:27-43
We Americans evidently can’t get enough of royalty. The British royals--the queen, William and Kate and their kids, Harry, Prince Charles and wife Camilla--can be seen on magazine covers whenever you’re checking out at the grocery story, for example. The Crown is the latest Netflix sensation. Recent popular movies include The Queen and The King’s Speech. We seem to love royalty, even though the royals are little more than government-subsidized celebrities, walking photo-ops who, like Kim Kardashian, are only famous for being famous.

We even apply our love for royalty to our politics. Every four years, we elect presidents who, voters hope, will act like imperious kings or queens, waving their magic wands and veto pens to enact everything we want from them. We want kings and queens...as long as they give us exactly what we want and tell us exactly what we want to hear.

And if a king isn’t willing to be that sort of king, choosing instead to provide people with what they need rather than what they want, we human beings can be brutal to kings who disappoint us.

That, friends, is why we killed the King of kings, God in human flesh, Jesus.

In Jesus’ dying, portrayed in today’s Gospel lesson, we see that while Jesus isn’t the the king the human race wants, He is precisely the King we need.

He is our daily bread, our living water, the way, the truth, and the life, all that we need.

Jesus didn’t come into the world to make promises like those of Pedro when he ran for class president in Napoleon Dynamite.




Jesus instead, came to save us from ourselves. He came to give forgiveness and new life and a reason for living to those daring enough to confess their sin and their need of a Savior.

Our Gospel lesson for this Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday of the Church Year, finds Jesus processing on the first Good Friday to the only throne this world has yet offered Him: the cross. Yet even there on the cross, the eyes of faith see that Christ is our King!

Look at our lesson, Luke 23:27-43, please. “A large number of people followed [Jesus as He bore His cross to the place of crucifixion], including women who mourned and wailed for him. Jesus turned and said to them, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. For the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the childless women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ Then [quoting prophecy from Hosea 10:8, Jesus said:] ‘they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!”and to the hills, “Cover us!’”

“Look,” Jesus is saying, “My cross is all part of the plan. I came into the world to go to the cross, to erase the power of sin and death over those who repent and believe in Me, offering Myself as the sinless sacrifice for your sins. I’ve warned you of the fate that awaits those who reject Me. They will stand naked in their sin and be condemned to life without God when judgment day comes. They’ll wish they were never born. They’ll wish they'd never had children as they, following their parents’ lead, also turn from Me and turn from life, and experience eternal destruction.

"Those who endure in following Me live eternally with God, have God’s loving presence in their lives here. So, don’t cry for Me; I’m doing My Father’s will and will be with Him eternally.

"Cry for yourselves and your hardness of heart, your stubborn desire to be like God, your stubborn insistence on having God only be the King you want.

"Cry for yourselves because your rebellion and indifference toward God are the way of death!”

Jesus' words to the grieving, weeping women are remarkably fearless and loving, especially coming from a man marching to His execution to say. As always, Jesus thoughts were not for Himself, but for us. That can’t be said of any other king, president, emperor, or prime minister in the history of the world, no matter how good they may have been by earthly standards.

Verse 32: “Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’ And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.”

In Jesus, everything is turned upside down. We honor our earthly kings. We give them parades and honor guards, parades and limousines.  But Jesus is subjected to humiliation in many ways.

In the original Greek in which Luke wrote his gospel, the word translated as criminals is κακοῦργοι, (kakourgoi) literally, evil workers. These two guys are notorious public enemies and Jesus, treated with contempt despite doing no wrong, is crucified between them!

Yet Jesus responds differently than what the world would expect. In those days, it was routine for people about to be executed to invoke curses on their enemies. But Jesus invokes no curse. Instead, He prays that His Father will forgive them--will forgive us--for ignorantly rejecting Him.

I confess, folks, that there are many times during my quiet times that God speaks to me through His Word and I realize a sin that I’ve been perpetrating ignorantly and habitually. Knowing that Jesus prayed this prayer for ignorant sinners like me allows me to offer my repentance in His name with greater confidence in God’s grace than I would otherwise have.

Jesus is no vengeful royal. He never once said, "Off with their heads." Jesus is a servant King Who loves us enough to confront us for our sins and then give us grace when we honestly own our sins and take Him as our King each day.

Luke 23:35: “The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, ‘He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.’ The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar [this was the drink of poor people, not of kings] and said, ‘If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.’ There was a written notice above him, which read: this is the king of the Jews. One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: ‘Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’”

“If Jesus were really a king,” the people, the rulers, and one of the criminals were saying, “He would save Himself. He’d have the ego, panache, presence, guts, and power to look out for number one.”

Their taunts echo the temptations the devil put before Jesus in the wilderness at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread,” the devil told Jesus [Luke 4:3]. “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from [the pinnacle of temple],” the devil told Jesus [Luke 4:9].

But, listen: Jesus didn’t come into this world to save Himself; He came to save us.

And He had no reason to prove Himself; He knew precisely Who He was: the great I AM, "God in flesh appearing"; He didn’t and doesn’t need to prove Himself to anyone.

And folks, when we belong to this God we meet in Jesus, we have nothing to prove either. When we’re tempted to sin or when we’re tested by life, we can say with confidence, “I belong to the King of kings! No temptation is too great that God won’t bear it for me. No sin is so egregious that God won’t destroy its power over me with His grace. No situation is so horrible, no grief so hard, that Christ, the King Who died on the cross, can’t help me bear and overcome. Bad, inexplicable things may come to us in this life; but the Savior Who bore all of the world’s bad and inexplicable things on the cross has given me victory, life, peace, and hope."

God has already proven the Christian’s eternal value on the cross and at the empty tomb.

And He keeps proving our eternal value at the baptismal font, in His Word, and in the bread and wine--the body and blood--He gives to all repent and believe in Him.

Jesus is a King Who doesn’t care about His standing in the polls; He loves us and does the right thing by us always, whatever we may think. As our African-American Christian sisters and brothers have taught us to say, “God is good. All the time. All the time. God is good.” In Jesus, we belong to that good, loving, relentlessly gracious God!

If on that first Good Friday, the disciples and the whole world had given up on Jesus being King, one man knew by faith that Jesus was and always would be King. Verse 40: “But the other criminal rebuked him. ‘Don’t you fear God,’ he said, ‘since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.’ Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ Jesus answered him, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.’”

The second criminal came to be a citizen and subject of Christ’s kingdom in the way all of us must. He acknowledged that He was a sinner in need of saving and by faith in Christ, appealed for forgiveness and new life.

This second criminal saw that Jesus was sinless, wasn’t acting on His own behalf, that He bore the pain and humiliation of this execution, not with bitterness or recrimination, but with love for world that scorned Him.

And so this criminal, enlightened by the good news of God’s love for unworthy humanity and filled with the Holy Spirit, asks Jesus to let him be in His Kingdom.

Jesus doesn’t hesitate in His response. He doesn’t give the man a set of religious rules to accept. He doesn’t lay down conditions. He doesn’t say that eventually the man might be able to earn his way into Christ’s kingdom.

Jesus says, “Today you will be with me.” Today!

And that’s Christ’s promise to us right now as well.

We don’t have to wait to die in order to enjoy the presence and help of Christ the King in our lives.

He can forgive us today.

He can give us new life today.

He can get us through life’s hardest times and be our good shepherd today.

He can make us part of His kingdom today and always.

When we recognize our sin and Christ’s sinlessness...when we see our need and Christ’s ability to be all that we need, Christ is our King.

Jesus won’t make our wildest dreams come true. He will give us new dreams--dreams of forgiven sin, fellowship with God, purposeful living, resurrected life with God and all the saints--and make every one of them come true!

Psalm 37:4 promises: “Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” May our only delight come from worshiping, serving, and living under the rule of the only Royal worthy of praise, glory, honor, applause, worship, or a place on the covers of all those grocery store magazines: Christ the King! Amen

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This was the message shared during both worship services there this morning.]