A King not of This World

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I’m going to ask you to join me this morning in John chapter 18. John chapter 18. And I wonder how many of you find yourselves frustrated when people miss the point of what you’re trying to tell them.

It happens to me all the time, and I don’t know if it’s just a problem with people not listening, or if maybe I’m not a great communicator. I’m not sure which of those it is. but I’ve learned, for example, even in something small, like the way I order my hamburgers at a restaurant, I have to be very clear and I have to order it in a certain order.

Otherwise, people will completely miss part of what I say to them. They’ll completely miss the point. I’ve ended up with more wrong orders than I care to count and eaten more wrong orders than I care to count.

It happens in big things too. You know, I remember back when Charla was pregnant with Charlie, her obstetrician at Ada sent us to one of the big hospitals in Oklahoma City because Charla had had an issue with a blood vessel in her brain. And so the doctor wanted to get that checked out before it came time to deliver and make sure there was no issue with that.

And so we went to the appointment at this hospital, and you would have thought they had looked at the chart to see what we were there for, but they asked us what we were here for. And one of the nurses asked about Charla’s history, and we made the mistake of mentioning at one point that Charla had experienced a miscarriage the year before. From that point on, that’s all they were focused on.

It’s like they never had any idea about the blood vessel issue. They were focused on that miscarriage. We kept trying to talk to them about the blood vessel issue.

They kept coming back to the miscarriage. And they made a second appointment. We went back for that.

But the whole while, Charla and I are saying, what are we even here for? They’re saying to each other, why are we here? I don’t know.

Charla, did they ask you about that blood vessel? No, they keep talking about the miscarriage. And she told me at one point, she said, you’re going to have to speak up.

They’re not listening to me. And we realized they had completely missed the point of what the doctor had said. They had completely missed the point of everything we had said.

They’d completely missed the point of what we were doing there. And when they were trying to schedule us for a third appointment, I finally said, why do you think we’re here? Well, why are you scheduling us a third appointment?

Well, you know, we’ve got to get you in so you can deliver, and we’re not delivering here. Well, yeah, you were sent here because of the miscarriage, a high-risk pregnancy. No, that’s not why we’re here.

Well, why are you here? Thank you for asking. We’ve only been trying to tell you for the last two visits, the last two full days we’ve spent here.

We’ve been trying to tell you, we are here for you all to check out a blood vessel mass. And finally, they did that. But all of you probably have stories like that.

Maybe something small with an order at a restaurant, maybe something big with some medical issue. But it’s so frustrating when people completely miss the point of why you’re there, what you’re telling them, and why you’re doing what you’re doing. But that’s the same thing that Jesus went through pretty much throughout his entire earthly ministry.

People completely missed the point of what it was that he had come to do. They completely missed the point of so much of what he said. They missed the point of his entire reason for being there.

And we’re going to read about it this morning in John chapter 18, as we go through another one of these I am statements from the book of John, the final one that we’re going to look at in this series. We’re going to look at one more of these I am statements and see where Jesus clarifies for them again, why he’s there. Because up to this point, they’ve missed the point.

And so Jesus makes it very clear for them in ways that they shouldn’t be able to miss why he’s there. And so we’re in John chapter 18. If we were in services in the auditorium this morning, instead of my living room here, our far north campus, Central Baptist Church, if we were in the auditorium, I would ask you to stand.

I guess I can do that this morning. So if you’re not too weak from COVID or you’re not bundled up under the covers, if you want to stand with me, you’re more than welcome as we read from God’s Word together this morning. But we’re in John chapter 18, starting in verse 28.

It says, Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas to the praetorium, and it was early morning. But they themselves did not go into the praetorium, lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover. Pilate then went out to them and said, What accusation do you bring against this man?

They answered and said to him, If he were not an evildoer, we would not have delivered him up to you. Then Pilate said to them, You take him and judge him according to your law. Therefore the Jews said to him, It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death, that the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled which he spoke, signifying by what death he would die.

Then Pilate entered the praetorium again, called Jesus, and said to him, Are you the king of the Jews? Jesus answered him, Are you speaking for yourself about this, or did others tell you this concerning me? Pilate answered, Am I a Jew?

Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you to me. What have you done? Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world.

If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight so that I should not be delivered to the Jews, but now my kingdom is not from here. Pilate therefore said to him, Are you a king then? Jesus answered, You say rightly that I am a king.

For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice. Pilate said to him, What is truth?

And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews and said to them, I find no fault in him at all. So what’s taking place in this passage is that Jesus has just stood trial before the Jewish ruling council, and they were not able to find him guilty and sentence him to death. It was not within their authority.

By the way, you can be seated if you were standing. It was not within their authority to condemn him to death because they were under the thumb of the Romans. And so they brought him to Pilate.

They accused him. Pilate said, what accusation do you bring? And they basically said, well, he’s just a bad guy.

He’s done something. If he weren’t an evildoer, we wouldn’t have brought him to you. And Pilate says, well, judge him by your own law.

They said, we can’t do that because we want to put him to death and we can’t do that. So we have to bring him to you. And so Pilate says, well, then I will, I’ll examine him.

I’ll try him. I’ll see what he has to say. And Pilate begins to question him.

So where we start off with this in this story, when he’s brought there, he’d been tried for blasphemy by the Jews, but now he’s being tried by the Romans. He stood trial for challenging Roman authority. That’s what, that’s basically the accusation that the Jews brought before Pilate, was that Jesus was leading some kind of insurrection against the Romans.

Now, they didn’t care what accusation it took to make it stick. They just wanted something to stick. They wanted some charge that they could use to destroy him.

And they despised him because of all the claims he had made. Some of the I am statements that we’ve looked at over the last several weeks, the things where he was saying, I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the son of God.

I am the bread of life. I am the resurrection and the life. Some of these claims that he had made of himself were the reason why they despised him.

They looked at him as somebody who was going to completely upend all their earthly power and challenge their system. And so they despised him. They wanted to have him executed, but as verse 31 says, it was outside of their authority.

So they brought him to Pilate, and they accused him of inciting insurrection against Rome. Now, this is a little clearer in some of the other gospel accounts, Luke chapter 23 tells us, this is what the Jewish leader said when they brought him to Pilate. They said, we found this fellow perverting the nation and forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ or the Messiah, a king.

So they said, we found this man telling people not to pay taxes to Rome, setting himself up as a king and leading the people astray. We want our people to be loyal to Rome. They’re making this great pretense of loyalty to Rome.

We want our people to be loyal to Rome, but he leads them to think that they should be independent under him. And so they bring this accusation that’s not fully spelled out in John’s account of things. And that’s why Pilate asked, are you the king of the Jews in verse 33.

Are you the king of the Jews? Are you all the things that they accuse you of saying you are? And Jesus’s accusers here, remember, he’s being tried.

He’s standing trial for supposedly challenging Rome’s authority. And this is where they missed it. All of his accusers, from the high priests to the Pharisees, the Sanhedrin, the false witnesses who were bribed into making accusations, all the way up to Pilate himself, they’ve missed the point of what Jesus taught.

And all of them, in some way, shape, or form, see him as either a threat or a potential threat to their earthly power, because they think he’s coming to overthrow their system, or at least coming with the intent of overthrowing their system and setting up a kingdom of his own there on earth. They think that it’s at least his intent, whether they think he’s going to be successful or not, they think it’s at least his intent to come as this earthly political messiah who’s going to challenge the Romans, who’s going to ideally throw the Romans out and set himself up as a king over a renewed sort of golden age kingdom of Israel, that it’s going to be like the days of David again. They still think that’s what he’s doing.

And even his disciples, up until a very late in this, thought that’s what he was doing, that he was there to set up a kingdom like that. But what we see in this passage is Jesus makes it abundantly clear that his kingdom is greater than any earthly kingdom. They were looking at him as somebody who was going to be a threat to their earthly kingdoms because they saw his earthly kingdom as a challenger.

But Jesus’ kingdom, it was no competition. Number one, because they were there to accomplish different things. His kingdom was there for a different purpose than their earthly kingdoms. But just in terms of their power, there’s no competition here.

And Jesus told Pilate this in verse 36. He says, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight so that I should not be delivered to the Jews.

But now my kingdom is not from here. We see that it’s an entirely different kingdom from what Jesus says. It is not of this world.

The things that, if he had come to set up an earthly kingdom, the things that his kingdom would be doing and that his followers would be doing are completely different from what he’s telling them to do. He says, if this were an earthly kingdom, if this were any other kind of kingdom, my followers would fight. And yet Jesus has told them to stand down.

His followers tried to fight when he was arrested when he was brought into this series of trials that he now finds himself in. His followers had tried to fight. Peter had pulled out a sword and cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant.

Jesus had told him to put his sword away, and Jesus had healed the man he’d put his ear back on. He said, this is not what we’re here to do. And so if Jesus had come to set up an earthly kingdom like they were concerned about, he would have let Peter and the others continue down that road of attack.

Instead, he said, my kingdom is not of this world. The aim of his kingdom was different. It was not political power.

It was not military power. It was not overthrowing the Romans. It was setting up something completely different.

It was a spiritual kingdom. It’s a spiritual kingdom that rules and reigns in the hearts of those who are subject to him. It’s a spiritual kingdom that changes our eternity, not our political allegiance, but our eternal standing with God.

That’s what his kingdom comes to change. Where we can be citizens of a republic or we can be subjects of a totalitarian kingdom, it doesn’t matter, ultimately, because it’s not our political reality that changes. It’s not our political immediacy that changes.

It’s our eternal reality. It’s our standing with the God who created us. And its weapons were different.

He told Peter to put his sword away. And we’re told in his word that our weapons are not carnal weapons. They’re not earthly weapons because we don’t battle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness.

Our weapons are different. You look at the book of Ephesians and it spells out the armor of God. We’ve got all these defensive spiritual weapons and we’ve got the sword of the spirit, the offensive weapon, which is the word of God.

We have prayer. We have faith. We have all of these things at our disposal. Not one of them is picking up a gun or a sword and going out and doing battle against the infidel.

It’s about picking up the armor of God and doing battle against the spiritual wickedness that holds the infidel hostage. His kingdom isn’t about bringing people into bondage to any political force. It’s about setting people free from the spiritual bondage of sin.

And his kingdom is different and greater than any earthly kingdom, not just because its aims are different, its weapons are different, but also its subjects are different. For us, it’s not supposed to be about power. It’s not supposed to be about wealth and influence.

It’s not supposed to be about James and John trying to figure out who’s going to be the greatest in this earthly kingdom because of their their closeness with Jesus. It’s supposed to be about us being more like him and being gentle and gracious and forgiving and bringing a message of redemption and reconciliation to people who need to hear it. They completely missed the point of why he had come because they misunderstood what his kingdom was about.

They misunderstood that his kingdom is greater than any earthly kingdom. And if his kingdom is greater than any earthly kingdom, it’s because Jesus is greater than any earthly king. Jesus is absolutely head and shoulders above any earthly king.

He’s greater than any leader, than any general, than any conqueror, any political official who has ever lived. He was born with a different purpose. That’s what he told Pilate.

I was born for this cause. And for this cause, I’ve come into the world. He was born for a different reason.

You look at kings, and especially in that day, what were they born for? They were born to sit on the throne and make decisions and boss people around and have people kiss their feet. They were born to be served.

And Jesus came to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. Jesus came to serve, which culminated in him dying on the cross to pay for the sins of those who least deserved it. Jesus said, for this cause I was born and for this cause I came into the world.

His whole reason for being here was completely different from that of any other king or any other ruler who’s ever lived. Think about the kings of earth. They send their subjects to die for them.

Jesus came to die for his subjects. There’s no other king like him. And he came here to lead others to the truth.

He said, you rightly say that I am a king. There’s his I am statement. I am a king.

And when you say that I am a king, you say rightly. He said, you are absolutely correct. For this cause I was born and for this cause I have come into the world that I should bear witness to the truth.

He came to point us to the truth, which by the way, he himself is the truth. He said that last week in the passage we studied last week. I am the way, the truth, and the life.

But he came so that we might know the truth. He came to point us to God. He came to show us the way to be reconciled to the Father who created us and who loved us, but from whom we were separated because of our sin.

So he didn’t come as a great political reformer. He came as the great reformer of the human soul. He came so that you and I could be reconciled with a holy God.

He came so that we could know him and his truth. He came so that we could experience the life that only he can bring. Jesus is greater than any earthly king.

And because he’s greater than any earthly king, his kingdom is greater than any earthly kingdom. And Jesus offers each of us citizenship in his kingdom. It’s not just open to those who walked with him for those three years.

You know, James and John thought that that time with Jesus was going to get them in a special spot in the kingdom. It’s not just open to those few who walked with him for a few years and now reap the spoils of the kingdom. It’s not open just to those of a particular ethnic group.

It’s not open just to those of a particular social class who can buy their way in. He said in verse 37, everyone who is of the truth, here’s my voice. Everyone who was willing to listen to him and believe in him and believe the claims that he made can be a citizen of this kingdom.

Not just a servant in the kingdom, not just a subject, although that would be enough. We’re able to be citizens of the kingdom. And not only that, but he brings us right into the royal family.

We are adopted as sons and daughters of the Father because of what Jesus Christ did. He is a king. He said it here.

He said it here to Pilate in verse 37. I am a king. You rightly say that I am a king.

But folks, we need to understand what that means. Don’t be like the Pharisees. Don’t be like the Sanhedrin.

Don’t be like the Romans. Don’t be even like his disciples early on who misunderstood what that means. And think it has something to do with power and influence and amassing control over people.

When Jesus said he was a king, he was talking about changing our lives and changing our eternities and bringing us into an irrevocable relationship with the Father, a peace with God that nobody can take away. And if you’ve never trusted him as your savior before this morning, you need to understand that that’s the purpose that he came for. Jesus came to be a different kind of king so that you could be a citizen of a different kind of kingdom.

Our sin separates us from a holy God. And because of our sin and because of that separation, we’re not just separated here on earth. We remain separated from the Father for eternity.

And there’s not enough good that you or I can do to undo the wrong that we’ve done. Sure, we can do good things. We can go to church once it’s open again.

Once we get past all this COVID nonsense, we can go to church. We can give money. We can do nice things.

We can take care of people. But none of that’s extra credit. That’s just what’s expected of us by a holy God.

All the times we’ve disobeyed Him do not change just based on the times that we do obey and so you and I are left separated from God and unable to do anything about it unable to change it unable to save ourselves and we remain separated from him for eternity but Jesus came not so that we could die for our king but so that our king could die for us and he took full responsibility for my sins and for yours he was nailed to the cross where he shed his blood and he died to pay for our sins in full. And today, if you simply believe that He came to be your Savior, He came to be that King who would bring you into the kingdom, that you could do nothing to save yourself, but you believe entirely that you believe with all your heart that Jesus died to pay for your sins in full and rose again to prove it. And you believe that’s the only way you’re getting into heaven is what Jesus did for you.

And this morning, you can acknowledge that to God. You can admit your sin. You can acknowledge your faith in Jesus Christ and what He did.

And you can ask God’s forgiveness and be saved.