Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
- Romans 12:1-2

Romans 12 marks a significant turning point in Paul’s letter. After laying out the gospel of grace, Paul turns to the life that flows from it. Everything hinges on one word: therefore. Christian ethics are not about earning God’s favour, but responding to God’s mercy. As someone once put it, “religion is grace; ethics is gratitude”.

And what is gratitude? Paul urges the people of the church to offer their bodies as “living sacrifices.” For his original hearers, this would have been a paradox. Sacrifices were dead bodies, bleeding out on an altar. So what could a living sacrifice be? Only your whole self and your everyday life given over to God. In other words, not just your “Sunday self,” but our work, relationships, choices, and habits.

The problem with living sacrifices is that they keep trying to crawl off the altar. We are not set up for sacrifice but self-interest, with deep patterns and instincts that shape how we work, rest, play, and what we do when things don’t go our way. If the same outcomes keep repeating, it’s probably not a coincidence—it’s a pattern.

So Paul asks listeners - and us - not to pattern our lives according to the world. It is as if to say, we must realise that many of us are already sacrificing our lives without knowing it, offering them up to careers, success, or autonomy. These things are false gods, not just because they have no right to ask for our worship, but because they haven’t done for us what Jesus has. Jesus himself offered everything—taking his hands off his own life and trusting the Father completely. When you know that grace, then offering your life back to God becomes the only reasonable thing to do.

And if you don’t yet know that grace, then what? Real transformation doesn’t begin with trying harder, but with being deeply grasped by what has already been done for you, without even knowing that you need to ask.

When the angel says Jesus will receive “the throne of His father David,” it tells us something very concrete. The coming of God’s kingdom arrives in the shape of an ideal King ruling His people.

“Son of David” draws together Israel’s best experiences of leadership—its golden age—as well as its hopes, promises, and yes, even its disappointments. It narrows the story down to one royal line, one covenant, one expectation, and finally one King.

Because David wasn’t just any king—he was the king and God’s promise to David wasn’t only for David, it was for the whole nation. A forever King means a forever people. This extends this vision of kingdom beyond the ordinary existence of this world as we now know it.

So when Mary learns her child will sit on David’s throne, she hears more than a personal blessing. She hears more than a description of what her son will be. She hears that God’s long-awaited King is finally coming, and that God’s long-awaited restoration is beginning. God’s plan is grounded and embodied and involved in our lived daily experience.

We follow:

a wise and righteous King.

a King worthy of our loyalty and obedience.

a King whose reign brings peace, healing, and transformation.

a King who expects us to live by a distinct rule.

a King whose kingdom never ends.

A king is meaningless without a people. We—the Church—are King Jesus’ people. That gives extraordinary dignity to everything we do.

This Advent, we aren’t just looking back to a baby in a manger. We’re looking forward to a King on a throne— a King who reigns even now, and whose reign will one day be gloriously obvious to all.

When we pray “Your Kingdom come” we are asking for something specific and concrete. It is a vision that first appears with King David and the kingdom of Israel. Then the son of David, when on earth as he gathered his followers, put reality to this vision. Today we pray that Jesus’ vision of the kingdom will be formed in London through us. We know that the Kingdom will some day come in completeness.

“You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him— you who have received the law that was given through angels but have not obeyed it.”

When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”

At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him.

- Acts 7:51-58

In Matthew’s account of Jesus’ trial, the high priest demands that Jesus state plainly whether he is the Messiah. Jesus first gives an ambiguous response—“That’s what you say”—as if to hint, “If you’re asking the question, perhaps you already see something.” If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck… Then Jesus goes further: “From now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” That statement pushes the high priest over the edge. He tears his robe in outrage. For him, this isn’t just a rebel speaking - it’s blasphemy. Case closed.

At Stephen’s trial, it’s the same claim that lights the fuse: “I see the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” That vision seals his fate just as it did Jesus’.

Across much of Scripture, “son of man” simply means “human.” But Daniel 7 uses the phrase in a unique way. Daniel dreams of the beast-like kingdoms of the world - violent, arrogant powers - being judged before God. Then a human figure, “one like a son of man,” is brought into God’s presence and given everlasting authority. The dream isn’t about an ordinary human king; it’s about The Human, entrusted with divine rule over all creation.

Israel longed for a Messiah as an earthly king, someone who would lead Israel to political and military renewal. But Daniel’s vision points beyond that hope. Jesus’ claim isn’t merely, “I am the Messiah.” It is, “I am the Son of Man who shares the authority of the Ancient of Days.” Stephen’s vision confirms that Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension were not the end of his mission but his enthronement—not as a symbolic ruler or “king of our hearts” but as Lord over everything.

Suffering comes to all of us. When it does, Stephen’s story reminds us what sustained him. He saw a reality more solid than the stones and curses around him: Jesus, the Son of Man, reigning. It's not politicians, populists, influencers, despots, bankers, generals, judges or tech-entrepreneurs that are in control. Jesus, the Son of Man, is on the throne.