Did you know you're a King?
And your little corner of the world needs to be cared for.
I would be remiss if I didn’t introduce you to THIS’L.
T = This
H = House
I = I
S = Shall
L = Live
(Based on Psalm 27:4)
One thing have I asked of the Lord,
that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
and to inquire in his temple.
—Psalm 27:4
THIS’L has one of my all time favorite songs, “King Without A Crown.” In each verse he and the people featured on the song tell stories of young men causing enormous destruction in their neighborhoods in an attempt to earn a “Crown.”
A very worldly crown.
A crown that proves they’re a “man” among their peers.
But the entire premise of the song is that these young men don’t realize that they’ve already been crowned with glory and honor by the Lord. (Psalm 8)
They don’t realize that they already have a crown—they’ve already been made kings.
But they’re broken kings. Broken kings, with broken glory. Broken kings with broken crowns breaking society.
This is all of our stories when we live outside of Christ.
Broken Kings. Broken Crowns. Breaking Society.
How often do minor decisions have a much more significant impact than you imagined? That’s because you have royalty in your veins. Your choices and actions are supposed to ripple into other people’s lives.
You may have never realized it, but did you know you’re made to be a King or Queen?
Have you realized you were made to rule over the world alongside Jesus?
Have you realized that as a Christ follower, you’re a co-heir to the Kingdom of God?
When the Holy Spirit descended upon you, you were Anointed to be a King/Queen, and when God returns, He’s going to call into account everything.
It runs deep in your DNA to rule and reign over the world. How do I know that? Because it’s part of God’s intention for you.
As we move forward we’ll look at these three things:
Why God made people
What it means for us today
How we move forward exercising our authority as Kings and Queens
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Have you ever considered why God made people?
It’s a very philosophical question but it actually has a simple answer. God tells us why He made people:
“Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.””
—Genesis 1:26
Genesis 1:26 isn’t God talking to Adam and Eve—that comes later. This verse is God talking to Himself. Wait, is God a crazy person who talks to himself in public? No, it’s the Trinity. The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit. They are looking out at everything they’ve created thus far, and they say, “Let’s make humans to have dominion over all of this.”
Aka—let’s make humans to be earthly Kings and rule over what we’ve made.
God’s earliest recorded statements about humans were declarations of stewardship, responsibility, and dominion.
This was the responsibility of Adam and Eve, and it was also the responsibility of all God’s people after them. To care for what God gave them, have dominion, and be fruitful and multiply.
So what does this mean for you and I today?
Much like Adam and Eve you and I have been given a corner of the world to take care of—our own garden of Eden, per se. Yes, our world isn’t perfect like the garden was, but it’s our responsibility to steward our place in such a way that we allow the Kingdom to come and God’s Will to be done. Our little corner has the potential to become God’s little corner—and, that’s what He’s shooting for.
He’s made us Kings and Queens to submit to His Kingship—to rule under His authority in His Kingdom. This means we can’t go rogue and think of our own methods and strategies for our own little kingdoms. Remember, we’re broken kings and if we go our own way, we’ll break our little society.
Our responsibility is to submit to the One who isn’t broken—who masters in redemption—and lead our little societies in His ways, methods, and strategies.
So, how do we move forward as Kings & Queens?
Humble ourselves before God.
When God visited Solomon and said, “Ask for whatever you want.” Solomon asked for wisdom. Why wisdom? Because he had no idea what he was doing. He had a leadership role too significant for his own skillset and he knew he needed wisdom from God. God gave him wisdom and more.
You and I may not have an assignment like Solomon, but we probably have a little more than we know how to handle. We need wisdom from God.
Take inventory of our responsibilities.
What do you think Adam and Eve spent their first few days doing? I don’t know the exact timeline of when they sinned, but I assume they were in the garden at least a few days before they ate from the wrong tree.
I assume they spent the first few days roaming the garden, trying to get a feel for this new area they had dominion over.
You and I probably need to do the same.
Family
Job
Ministry
Skills
Money
Etc.
We need to know what our responsibilities are before we can steward those responsibilities like the Kings & Queens we are.
Develop a plan.
Invite God into this. How does God want you—as King or Queen—to steward the specific responsibilities He’s given you at this specific time? You can’t just look at other people and their success and assume that’s how you need to do it. You can learn some things from them but ultimately you need to go to God and ask Him for guidance.
Submit your ways to His ways.
After the Exodus, the people of God numbered around 2 million people. These 2 million people would have to trek across the wilderness and into the Promised Land. Then, when they got to the Promised Land, they were going to have to be organized as they went into battle with the Kings of the land of Canaan.
So what did they do? Moses spent time with God and God instructed Moses on how to organize the Israelites in the best way (the book of Numbers.)
God can do the same for you.
Lean in & execute.
God promises a few things:
He’s given us everything we need for life and Godliness (2 Peter 1:3-4)
He’s always with us (Matthew 28:20)
He’s working through us to accomplish his tasks (Colossians 1:29)
We can trust that the same God who gave us the responsibilities in the first place will provide us with the strength and wisdom to steward those responsibilities well.
The most crucial component in this step: don’t quit.
It’s easy to quit when we don’t see results. Or we get a little pushback. Or something doesn’t go the way we imagined.
But God never asks us to focus on immediate results. He expects us to be faithful and leave the results to Him.
As we finish, consider this parable from Jesus.
“For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money.
—Matthew 25:14-18
The parable goes on, and the master returns to collect his money. How does he respond?
He says to the first two who traded and multiplied, “Well done my good and faithful servant.”
To the last one who hid the money and did nothing with it, he says, “You wicked and slothful servant!”
Our lives are not unlike those of the men in the parable. God has left us on earth and entrusted us with much. He has given us dominion over our little corner of the world.
The question is simple: will we be found a faithful servant?
—Brandon
Encouraging and challenging