So, it was just a couple of weeks ago that I’m reading in Revelation of the One who sits on a white horse . . . the One called Faithful and True . . . the One whose eyes are like fire . . . the One whose name is called The Word of God . . . the One whom the armies of heaven follow . . . out of His mouth proceeds a sharp sword, He being the One who would strike the nations . . . the One who has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS (Rev. 19:11-16). Majesty, might, power, authority . . . King of kings . . . Lord of lords . . . that’s my Jesus! But what a difference a few days make . . . start the reading plan over again . . . and the King becomes the Servant.

This morning I read in Matthew 4:1-11 of the One who was led by the Spirit into the desert . . . went 40 days without food . . . and then went one-on-one with the tempter . . . the devil . . . Satan. Clearly He was on the defensive. This Man was starving . . . literally . . . and, He had spent almost 6 weeks without shelter in the unforgiving elements of the desert . . . He must have been almost spent. And then there it was laid before Him . . . a reminder that He could, by the word of His mouth, turn stones to bread and meet the nutritional need His body was crying out for. If He wouldn’t do that, then why not force God’s hand to act . . . put an end to this test of the flesh and cause God to send angels to meet His needs. Finally, the weakened Jesus is taken to place where He sees what He knows to be His inheritance and the tempter offers Him the crown without the cross . . . the prize without the suffering . . . here’s a shortcut to His rightful glory . . . “Fall down and worship me and it’s Yours,” Satan whispers in His ear.

And far from imagining the a King on His white horse crying out victoriously, “Away with you, Satan!” . . . I instead imagine the voice of a parched throat . . . the labored speech of a man on his last legs . . . as three times He repels the enemy with the Word of God. And then the devil leaves Him . . . and angels come and minister to Him. Far from leading the host of heaven into battle, He is now being fed . . . re-hydrated . . . cared for by those very angels. What a contrast to the Revelation 19 picture of my Jesus.

And this encounter in the desert kind of set me up for a reminder of another name my Savior bore. This morning I also read in Acts 4 and noticed that twice, as the body of believers prays, they talk to God of “Your holy Servant Jesus” (Acts 4:27, 30). You don’t find that “title”, “Servant Jesus”, very often in Scripture. In fact, I think it’s just four times . . . all in the book of Acts . . . twice in chapter 3 (vv. 13, 26) . . . and twice here in chapter 4.

The King of Kings and Lord of Lords became the Man, Jesus, the holy Servant God. Although He possessed the very nature and form of God, He did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking on Himself the very nature of a servant, being made in the likeness of men (Php. 2:6-7). He Himself declared, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45)
What did it cost the King of Kings to become the holy Servant of God? The temptation in the desert was but a part . . . there would be the rejection of His people . . . the suffering at the hands of the religious elite and then Pilate . . . the agony of the cross . . . and then, the horror of being forsaken of the Father as He who knew no sin would be made sin for us . . . that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2Cor. 5:21). Praise God for His holy Servant Jesus!

He is God’s holy servant . . . and God has highly exalted Him and given Him a name above all names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus, the holy Servant Jesus, is Lord to the glory of God the Father (Php. 2:9-11). He is God’s holy Servant . . . He is my King of Kings. Amen.