So now we see He's revealed not just as someone who loves you intentionally, and forgives you, and will pick you up and care for you, nurture you, that gentle loving side of Him, now we see another facet of Him. It is the same person, but here's another facet of Him. He is a sovereign, all-powerful king. Now most people like to relate to Jesus as the one who died on the cross for their sins, and loves them, and is always going to be there. We love the words of comfort, but we need to grow up and understand: He is a king. Essentially around that - I'll come into opening these passages in a bit. I want to just lay several things out about Jesus being king. Firstly He is king over a kingdom, not a democracy. It's not about my ideas and what I think, I think this and I think that. Jesus is king over a kingdom, a realm of rule, and the only place in all creation that is rebelling against that rule is this planet we're on. The contention globally is about who will rule. Jesus said in Matthew 28:18: all authority in heaven and earth is given to Me. You say well I don't see it. That doesn't mean He doesn't have it. You don't see the air either - doesn't mean it's not there.
What we haven't seen is the exercise of that authority, in a global scale. We've seen it in a local scale, but not in a global scale - so Jesus came as the servant king, but now He will come as the conquering king. So the Jesus you read about that came the first time, don't think He's coming that way the second time. It's not true. It's not how the Bible reveals Him. The second thing about Him being a king is, He's established a government. There is a government in the heavens, and He's delegated government to angels. He's delegated government in the heavens and in the earth, so every time you engage, every time you encounter an authority in the earth, you are encountering the government of God. You say well I don't like some of them, they're not nice. That's irrelevant. The core issue is your heart attitude to authorities, wherever you are in life. If you understand He's the king of a kingdom, and you're in the kingdom, Romans 13 says: submit yourselves to those in authority, because God has ordained or put them in these places.
So therefore, every time you meet a person in authority, whether they act well, act badly, whether they do their job well, or don't do their job well, you are encountering the authority of God. Keep respect for that delegated authority, because you are respecting God. Think about that. Getting the idea? Okay then. The third thing about it is that in His kingdom, Jesus has established protocols, which are ways of doing things, and order. In other words Jesus' kingdom is incredibly ordered. The planet is quite ordered. It runs by laws and rules and principles, which God set in place, but His kingdom, both invisible and visible, also has order and protocols. There are ways of doing things in a kingdom. You know if you want to go visit the king, there are ways or protocols of accessing the king, and so it's the same in the kingdom of heaven.
The Bible tells us for example in Acts 4:12: neither is there salvation in any other, for there's no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. That is a protocol. That's a way. There is no other way to get saved but through faith in Jesus Christ. Now I know we would like to be tolerant of everyone, and everything, and all the other things in the world, but there is no other way a man can be saved, except through Jesus Christ. God has set His protocols in place. He's set His order in place. Here's the protocol for salvation: acknowledge Jesus Christ. There is no other way. He said: I am the way, the truth and life. No man comes to the Father except by Me, so God has set things in place, and not only that, He has set the way you can access God. There's a certain way to access the presence of God. If you don't follow God's way, you don't enjoy the access to His kingdom benefits and privileges.