His citizens had sent a message after him, saying, ‘We will not have this man to reign over us’, and you send a message to Christ by your life. ‘We are unpersuadable, we will not have this man.’ What an insult to our Lord, to our God! Who rules over you if it isn't Christ? The one who rules you is your sin. You are also ruled by your peer group: you do what they do. You are ruled by your ambitions, and by your pride. That is what drives you, if Christ is not your Lord. ‘I will not be ruled by God’, says a youngster. Yes, but sadly, what rules that youngster is his mobile phone or his social network, the things that he wants to possess or experience just for pleasure. If you will not be ruled by God, you are ruled by a host of other things, and any ruler that drives your life apart from Christ will ultimately be cruel to you. So for a double reason the most foolish and tragic thing we can do is to say, we will not have Christ to reign over us. The alternative is too tragic even to think about. We need the Lord, we need his love, we need his forgiveness, and we need his wonderful rule. Christ the Lord is the ultimately faithful ruler, the lover of souls, who gives us forgiveness and life and eternity and will never fail those who turn to him.