A King Without a Crown

Well, hey, we are diving into John 18, the end of 18 and the beginning of 19, and we're looking at Jesus' trial before Pilate and the Roman uh governor and the Jewish mob that he finds himself in.

But I want to set up our text this morning first by reading a passage out of Colossians chapter 1, verse 16.

Colossians 1:16

It says this for by him, meaning Jesus, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him.

Paul is reminding the church at Colossae of the preeminence of Christ, that he has supremacy in all things.

And John had already done this in his prologue.

He talked about how all that was created was created through Christ, right?

So this isn't a new concept to us if we've been journeying along in this gospel, but this is something interesting that Paul does.

When he talks about all things created, he starts to classify what he's focusing on.

He's not talking about the beasts of the field or the birds of the air or the plants of creation.

Paul says rulers, dominions, thrones, authority.

And he wants to highlight that.

And here's what he wants us to understand about it: that they were created through Christ, but more importantly, they were created for him.

In this passage, we engage with two men of authority, of power.

The first man we engage with is a secular authority, Pilate.

He was the Roman governor of Judea at this time of Jesus' trial and sentencing.

And we're also introduced to a religious authority, a man named Caiaphas.

He was the high priest of the Jews.

Of the council of high priests, he sat in the throne or position of authority.

And here's what we discover in this story.

Both of these men were afraid.

And they feared that that power would be lost because of the person and work of Jesus.

I believe that fear does something to the heart of man.

I think two things that it does.

The first thing that it does is fear makes us work to gain control.

You see, when we're afraid, I would say the root of our fear is because control has been absent in our life.

The entering in of chaos, the entering in of uncontrol, it produces fear within us.

As we look at the world around us and the society that we live in, there is an absence of control, and in that there is a heightening of fear.

So the first thing fear does is it makes man try to gain control again.

But the second thing that fear does is it tries to get them to eliminate the threat.

And we do this in one of two ways.

We do this either through fight or flight, right?

We either run away from the threat so that it's no longer a threat to us, or we engage the threat with violence so that we can seek to eliminate it.

Maybe this has been seen most evidently in your life with like a bug.

I don't know about your house, but at my house, if there is a bug present, the women in my house turn into fight or flight mode real quick.

Most of them either run from that bug or some will engage with it with some type of shoe or other inanimate object to eliminate the threat before them so they can gain control back into our home.

That might be an oversimplified reality or analogy of what it means to be fearful, but I think that there's a grander reality to the heart of man in the face of fear.

You see, these two men are by no means friends or allies, Pilate or Caiaphas, but they're able to find unity in their resolution of how to retain the power they fear losing.

Kill Jesus.

The presence of Jesus causes them to feel the absence of control in the face of Caiaphas.

He sees that the growing following of Jesus is creating this mass, right?

It's creating this power that seems harder and harder to be able to control in its presence.

And the teachings of the kingdom threaten their notions of what Israel is supposed to be and how God engages with his people.

Pilate, he sees the growing unrest of the Roman region that he's commissioned to govern.

He's supposed to be the one that keeps the peace.

He's supposed to be the one that actually builds a healthy relationship between Roman citizens and those of Judea.

Yet both of them had no true understanding of their power.

That their power was both created through the very one they sought to kill, but also for him.

The death of Jesus would be the very means by which their power would be disarmed.

Yet the cross of Jesus would be the agency by which he would receive his crown.

As we engage with the text, we see in verses 37 through the first part of 38, truly Jesus is king.

Truly Jesus is king.

Jesus finds himself being interrogated by Pilate.

And Pilate's questioning the statement that he is a king.

And what kingdom does he rule over?

And Jesus answers him, if we look at 36 together, Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world.

If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews.

But my kingdom is not from the world.

You see, if Jesus' kingdom was of this world, then he would seek to acquire it through forceful insurrection.

He would use violence and strength to be able to take what he feels is rightly his own.

Yet his kingdom was not of this world, and it would come through the means of self-sacrifice rather than the sacrifice of others at his own hand.

And Pilate says to him, So you are a king.

Pilate's question may have simply been a part of his interrogation process, but in the grander story and narrative, Pilate's actually declaring truth more than posing a question.

And Jesus kind of exploits that reality.

Jesus answered him and said, So you say that I am a king.

For this purpose, I was born, and for this purpose I have come into the world.

What's the purpose?

To bear witness to the truth.

The truth that Pilate's confessing.

You're a king.

Everyone who's of the truth listens to my voice.

Jesus makes Pilate wrestle with his words.

For this purpose, he says, I was born and came into the world the truth that Jesus is king, to bear witness to the truth that he is Lord over all creation.

And all who are of the truth listens to his voice.

And Pilate responds to him, Well, what is truth?

Isn't that fascinating?

The age-old question of what is truth.

It's not a new wrestling of man, it's not a new philosophical premise or idea.

The very essence of what truth is has been wrestled with by mankind for millennia.

What we have to try to understand and submit our own selves to is that Pilate's inability to hear truth testifies to his not being of the truth.

Pilate's inability to hear the truth testifies most to him not being of the truth.

It's a biblical reality that needs to do more in the church to shape and take a center stage to our worldview.

We are in darkness apart from Christ.

We may be searching for answers in truth, but we are unable to find it and we are unwilling to discover it in the place where it actually resides, in the face of Jesus the Son.

It is only by his illumination of shining light into our darkness that we're enabled to be able to see and testify to the truth he bears witness to, that he is Lord over all.

We are able to receive and know the truth because fundamentally through him we are of the truth.

Even in Pilate's inability to hear the voice of truth, truth still remained.

Truly, Jesus is King.

In verses 1838 B through 1911, we see false power is exposed by fear.

False power is exposed by fear.

But you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover.

So do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?

They cried out again, not this man, but Barabbas.

Now Barabbas was a robber.

Pilate makes his first attempt at releasing Jesus.

In his interrogation, he says that he finds no guilt in this man.

He sees no reason to crucify him.

And he alludes to a cultural tradition of releasing a prisoner during the Passover.

Now, the Passover was a feast that the Jewish people celebrated every year.

And they celebrated this feast to remind themselves of how God delivered them out of Egypt under the tyranny of Pharaoh through the Exodus story, right?

If you remember Moses and Pharaoh, this age-old tale of the Bible about how God came and rescued Israel with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.

This is what the Passover meal celebrated.

When the angel of death was sent by God to kill the firstborn of all the families of Egypt, and the Jewish people had to put the blood of a lamb on the doorpost, and they had to have this feast as the angel would pass over them once it saw the bloodstained doorpost.

Right?

This was what the Passover, the angel of death, passed over them in their celebration.

And he's alluding to this cultural tradition that we don't really see in the scriptures, but somehow they got to a place where they would release a prisoner during the Passover meal.

And he commends Jesus before them, but he commends Jesus as the king of the Jews.

And the mob is unsatisfied.

And they cry out, not this man, but Barabbas.

And John gives us this very succinct statement about who Barabbas was.

He says, now Barabbas was a robber.

But Mark, in his gospel, the evangelist, gives us a bigger portrait of who Barabbas was.

Barabbas wasn't just simply a robber, but he was a murdering insurrectionist.

You see, Barabbas was part of a mob who tried to gain power back from Rome through insurrection.

And in it, he was known to have taken the life of at least one man.

It's intriguing to reflect on Jesus' statement about the nature of his kingdom, right?

And the nature of Barabbas that they're calling to be released to them.

Jesus said, If my kingdom was of this earth, then I would have took it by violence, but it's from above.

Barabbas himself was the man trying to take the kingdom of this world by violence.

And here they stand juxtaposed to one another.

Here we see maybe the most striking illustration of the gospel that the scriptures can give to us that a guilty man who took the life of another is freed.

While a man where there could be no guilt found remains condemned.

That is the gospel in a nutshell.

That is you and I and our story in relationship to Jesus.

We, condemned of our sin, are set free, while Jesus, the sinless one, is found condemned.

It's the exchange of the guilty for him without guilt.

Verse 1 of 19, we see then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him.

It's understood that two floggings happened in Jesus' trial and sentencing.

And this one was the one that happened earlier in his sentencing, not the one that happened before his crucifixion.

We're most accustomed to the one that happened before his crucifixion, the most brutal one that uh had the cat of nine-tails, where there would be pieces of bone and metal woven into these leather straps, and that it is believed and recorded that this whip that struck Jesus in this scourging, the one that preceded his crucifixion, would open the flesh to such a nature that you would be able to see the bones and entrails of its victim.

And when you think about Jesus carrying the cross beam with his back torn open to where you could see inside of his cavity, the the horrific view and nature of that scene.

This flogging, though, that uh John is alluding to here is one of a lighter means.

One that, and it's believed that Romans would actually have three different types of flogging.

This was the first and lightest type.

It was meant to send a signal.

It was meant to kind of satisfy certain individuals and teach a lesson to the one who was getting scourged.

In verses 2 through 3, they show us what happened in this moment that the soldiers took Jesus and they mocked him and beat him.

Not only did they scourge him, but they put upon him a crown of thorns.

Potentially these were thorns from this plant called the date palm, whose thorns can reach 12 inches in length.

The robe that draped his shoulders was one commonly worn by military officers.

It was purple and reflected a symbol of royalty.

And then they would cry out, Hail, King of the Jews, and strike his face.

Their mockery wasn't necessarily toward Jesus as an individual on an acute level, but as a nation of Israel as a whole.

The Romans despised the Jews.

They could not stand them.

The fact that they had to occupy the same space was completely unsettling to them.

And so I'm sure that these soldiers found great satisfactory in their job at hand.

Verse 4 we read, Pilate went out again and said to them, I see, I am bringing him out to you, that you may know that I find no guilt in him.

So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe.

Pilate said to them, Behold the man.

Again, Pilate tries to release Jesus before the Jews on the basis that he can find no guilt in him.

But this time, if we look throughout all the other times, Pilate introduces Jesus or presents Jesus to the mob in front of him.

He says something to the nature of your king or the king of the Jews.

After this scourging, he comes out and he says, Behold the man.

That literal translation is, Cast your eyes on the poor creature.

The chief priests and officers were unsatisfied in their bloodlust, and they rally the mob to cry, Crucify him.

Pilate tries to put the responsibility onto the crowd.

He says, If you want this man crucified, then do it yourself.

Knowing full well that the Jewish people had no ability to actually carry out such a task.

So Pilate tries to release Jesus once again.

But the Jews answered him, We have a law.

And according to that law, he ought to die.

He has made himself the Son of God.

Verse 8, when Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid.

So it's fascinating that these Jewish people wanted something carried out.

They wanted this death of Jesus carried out, but they wanted it carried out based upon a law that they hold and they claim he broke.

Now, what's interesting about this is that they don't want to have the blood on their own hands.

If we read the law and we're going to in just a minute, Leviticus 24, 16.

Let's put it up.

It says this.

Here's the law that they're referring to.

Whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death.

All the congregation, look at the responsibility of the death, it lies on the people of Israel, shall stone him.

The sojourner as well as the native.

So they actually call out for Rome to satisfy their demands, but they want to do it through their own law.

Now, Jews had their own law and they had their own governance even under Roman rule.

They had their own councils, judicial systems of which they were able to operate in their own law and under the law of Rome.

But they're asking Rome to be the hand that actually sacrifies or commute or crucifies Jesus, but based upon a breaking of their own law.

Jesus either violated this law or he didn't.

He either was the Son of God or he wasn't.

If he was not, then full well he deserved to be put to death according to the law.

And Pilate hears this statement.

He hears this accusation.

It says that he is even more afraid.

But Pilate's fear, we have to realize here, Pilate's fear was probably more derived from superstition than conviction.

We're not led to believe that Pilate started to believe, in some sense, that Jesus was the Son of God, the Christ, the anointed one, the Messiah.

But more importantly, inside of Roman culture, there was a place that divine beings could live among man, that they were supernatural in their essence.

And so there was probably this superstition that rooted in Pilate's life that led him to be afraid.

Maybe this is a divine man, maybe this is a supernatural being in front of me.

He may have attributed Jesus to some divineness, but not to the true Son of God.

Verse 9, he entered his headquarters again, being Pilate, and said to Jesus, Where are you from?

You can see his intrigue growing.

First he says, Oh, you say that you're a king.

Where's your kingdom?

Jesus says, Well, my kingdom's not of this world, it's from above.

Now he hears them say, Well, he just said he was the son of God.

And this fear, and so he's gonna be more intriguing, he's gonna pry more.

Okay, so where are you from?

But Jesus remains silent.

In the final engagement between Pilate and Jesus, we see him desiring to dig deeper into the perceived diviness of Jesus, but Jesus stays silent.

And here, in this moment, Pilate's false sense of power is completely exposed.

His fear is growing.

I think it's fascinating that the Bible says, and Pilate became very afraid, and then right here he tries to gain control.

Do you not know that I have authority?

Do you not know that I have power?

And Jesus' response is spectacular.

Of course I do.

I gave it to you.

Pilate is afraid.

In many ways, he's afraid of doing the wrong thing that would jeopardize his power.

Whether that would be to take the life of a divine man or to not satisfy the bloodlust of the mob, he is caught between a rock and a hard place here.

In the midst of escalating fear, he tries to regain control, but in a failing effort, he bolsters his power to the very one who gave it to him.

His false power was exposed by his fear.

In verses 12 through 16, we see devotion is abandoned for self-gain.

Devotion is abandoned for self gain.

Verse 12 From then on, Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend.

Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.

So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out, sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the stone pavement in an Aramaic.

Gabbatha.

Pilate was adamant about trying to discover a way to release Jesus.

But the Jews had other plans.

The crowd played into a greater fear of Pilate.

Not just one that Jesus may be divine, but that Pilate himself may be found as an enemy of Caesar.

And he knows what the outcome of that looks like.

He had to make a move.

He had to contemplate.

And so, in the most saturated irony, we can discover, with Jesus by his side, he sits down on a judgment seat.

Upon that judgment seat, Jesus would be condemned.

But upon another judgment seat, Pilate would stand before the judge of all eternity.

Verse 14 says, Now it was the day of preparation of the Passover.

It was about the sixth hour.

He said to the Jews, Behold your king.

They cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him.

Pilate said to them, Shall I crucify your king?

The chief priest answered, We have no king but Caesar.

So he delivered them over to them to be crucified.

Pilate's obviously at the end of his robe.

There is no outcome where Jesus goes free and he retains his power.

The mob is relentless in calling for Jesus to be condemned, to be sentenced, and to be crucified.

And there's one final exchange in the text that we have to pause and observe together.

Shall I crucify your king?

And they come back with, We have no king but Caesar.

Here comes Caiaphas into our story.

He's the high priest, and he's leading the charge of the mob.

And here's what's fascinating about Caiaphas.

In his statement, we have no king but Caesar, he's committing the very blasphemy that he is trying to condemn Jesus with.

For a Jew to dismiss and abandon the only kingship of Yahweh their God is blasphemy.

To denounce the name of Yahweh, to pledge your devotion to an earthly corrupt throne.

What more blasphemous could you be?

We have no king but Caesar.

Caiaphas was a man of authority and power like Pilate.

And like Pilate, he was fearful of how Jesus threatened that power.

In John 11, we're introduced to a story with Caiaphas.

Jesus had just resurrected Lazarus from the dead.

And there are people who are following Jesus, and some of them are breaking off and reporting to the religious leaders of the day.

We're going to pick up in verse 45 of chapter 11 and go through 50.

It says, Many of the Jews, therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, being Jesus, resurrect Lazarus from the dead, believed in him.

But, verse 46, some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.

So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, What are we to do?

For this man performs many signs.

If we let him go on like this, everyone believed in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.

If we look at 48, what are they afraid of?

They're afraid that if we let Jesus go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and it'll take away our place.

What is our place?

Our throne, our dominion, our authority.

That's what they're referring to.

And our nation.

Their idolatrous beliefs about what the nation of Israel was supposed to be as the chosen people of God.

But then here comes Caiaphas in verse 49.

But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, You know nothing at all.

Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.

What's Caiaphas putting forward?

Look, I understand we're afraid that this man, Jesus, is going to jeopardize what we have.

But I'm letting you know that it's better if he dies than if we allow him to destroy all that we have worked for.

Caiaphas saw that it was better for Jesus to die than for the nation and the religious structure that he held authority in to be unraveled.

And now at the sentencing before Pilate, he had his chance to retain power.

But at what cost?

To deny Yahweh as their king and pledge devotion to an earthly, godless throne.

Rooted in the fear of a loss of power for power, Caiaphas vows his devotion for self-gain.

And here's what I want us to see this morning.

In all of this passage of scripture, I want us to see that the fear of losing power led to the crowning of the eternal king.

The fear of losing power led to the crowning of the eternal king.

If we go back to Colossians, all things were created through him and for him.

This was all of history culminating into this one moment in time that God would use even the corruptness of mankind to crucify his son, that he might fulfill his perfect plan of redemption for us.

But not just redemption for us, but for the glory of his son.

This was for Jesus.

The judgment seat that Pilate sat upon was for Jesus.

The bloodlust of the mob was for Jesus.

Caiaphas working to retain the authority and power he had in the nation of Israel was for Jesus.

There was nothing that was going to thwart or stop God's sovereign plan to redeem a people unto himself and to crown his son in glory, ruling and reigning over the cosmos.

Nothing.

Isaiah 53, the suffering servant chapter of Isaiah, gives us a portrait of all that Jesus suffered and went through in his crucifixion.

But listen to this in verse 10.

Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him.

He has put him to grief.

When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring.

He shall prolong his days.

The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

It was the will of the Lord to crush him.

And the sin of man and the sovereignty of God clashed on the cross.

Nothing can thwart the will and plan of God.

And we have to wrestle with the harmony that exists between the responsibility we hold for our sin and the sovereignty that God has to accomplish his will.

We killed God in our sin.

And God was going to see to it that that happened.

For his perfect will, for his divine wisdom to fulfill all that he set forth for the redemption of his people and the glory of his son.

What is the divine wisdom of God?

That God can take all things and work them to their best end.

That's the divine wisdom of God.

And that all things is the hardened heart of the mob.

That all things is the fear of Pilate and Caiaphas.

That all things is the judgment seat he sat upon.

That all things were for him.

Peter says in Acts chapter 2, as he's standing up on the day of Pentecost to preach the gospel, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Do you see those two things standing there?

The culpability of man and the sovereignty of God?

It was according to the definite plan, not the possible, not the probably, not the maybe, the definite plan of God and the foreknowledge of him.

But you crucified him.

It says in Revelation 18 that he is the Lamb who was crucified before the foundations of the earth.

This was always the plan and purpose of God, that his son might be glorified in his crucifixion at the hand of wicked men.

John 12, Jesus brings us into this reality, that his glory is not in his miracles and signs, his glory is not alone in his resurrection, but his glory is most seen in his death.

John 12, 23 through 24 states this, and Jesus answered them, The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and it dies, it remains alone.

But if it dies, it bears much fruit.

The Son was going to receive his glory.

The church of God, the people of God was going to be redeemed.

And it was all going to be done through his sovereignty in our sin.

God would orchestrate the hearts of sinful man to accomplish his plan of redemption through the glory of a crucified son.

You see, like Pilate and Caiaphas, we are prone to be people who fear losing power in our lives.

I think this fear causes us to try and retain power often through sinful means.

And while there's a plethora of sinful means, we work to retain control and power in our lives.

I believe that one of the things we see in this text is that both of these men sought to retain control through the sin of compromise.

We try to retain power through compromise.

Some of us we compromise in what we say out loud.

We're like Caiaphas crying out, We have no king but Caesar.

We pledge our devotion to what we believe will actually save us, that will keep us, that will retain us.

You see, our fear causes us to grasp onto what we believe might actually save us.

Our hearts wrestle with the notion that Jesus is able to save and that he's a good king that will come for our rescue.

And so what do we do?

Our hearts lead us in propensity to cry out, we have no king but money.

We have no king but political figures.

We have no king but secular worldviews.

We have no king but relationships in our lives.

We have no king but career positions we aspire for.

And the reason that we do that is because we actually believe that they might be a better savior than Jesus is.

We pledge our devotion to alleviate our fear.

And we do it to retain control in our lives.

But some of us, we don't compromise on what we say out loud, we compromise on what we don't say at all.

Caiaphas may have led the charge of the mob yelling out, we have no king but Caesar, but Pilate was the one who allowed the mob to make him quiet.

You see, like Pilate, we allow the pressures of the world to silence us.

We fail to speak to the things we believe to be true, and we allow the noise of the world to drown us out.

If we're honest with ourselves, as we look at society and culture around us, it is loud.

And it's a lot like the bloodlust mob set before Pilate in this text.

Unless you give us our way, we aren't backing down.

We're gonna keep crying out and keep crying out.

Give us what we want.

And what is that causing the church to do?

Lose our voice.

We've been berated and berated and berated.

And though we have this conviction, though we have the words of life in us, the noise of the world is causing us to pull back and pull back and pull back until we're silent.

And we're compromising.

We're compromising to satisfy the mob.

The world around us appears to be completely out of control.

I don't think any of us would look at our world and say, oh, yeah, there's a bunch of order, control.

Like this is good.

Fear rises up in our hearts, and it becomes more and more difficult to trust and believe in the kingship and sovereignty of our Lord.

So we stop speaking.

We compromise to stay safe.

But ultimately, this speaks to a false belief that we have to save ourselves, then Jesus being the one who truly saves.

Here's what I believe fear really, really roots itself in.

Yes, it is in the absence of control.

Yes, it is in the midst of chaos.

Fear is fully rooted, though, on this question.

Is God good?

That's it.

And your soul's answer to that question is going to determine how fear has a hold of your life.

We might be able to say Jesus is king, but with full confidence, can we say Jesus is a good king?

You see, we like Pilate and Caiaphas have our own notions of false power.

Our fears are rooted in the belief that we actually have control and power in the first place, and we try to retain something that we don't actually have.

The reason that we exert right control is because we believe that we have power, but more so, we don't believe that he is a good king.

And so if I'm gonna be cared for, if I'm gonna be looked after, if I'm gonna be saved, if somebody's gonna have my back, it's going to be me.

And that terrifying reality causes us to scrape and claw in sinful ways so that we're protected, so that we're safe.

And all of that is discovered in the reality we don't believe he is a good king.

You see, Jesus is a good king.

And here's the reality of his kingship.

Unlike Pilate and Caiaphas, who would use their position of power to exploit you and gain for themselves, Christ uses all of the riches of heaven for your good.

We are co-heirs with him in all the inheritance that he has acquired in his faithful obedience, substitutionary death, and glorious resurrection.

And he comes at us with an open hand, inviting us into life and life more abundantly, inviting us into a reality that we couldn't even think or imagine or create in our own strength, inviting us into the riches of the cosmos that we share with him.

He uses all of his dominion and power and throne and authority for our good and his glory.

Look at the way that he shares that with us, that we are seated with him at the right hand of the Father.

That's a good king.

The hope of the gospel for us church is this that Christ the King disarms all powers.

Christ the King disarms all powers.

Our gospel hope is that the powers of this world that cause us to be so fearful at times are completely disarmed in Christ.

But it's not just that, it's the power that you think you have has been disarmed in Christ also.

It actually says this in Colossians 2.15.

He being Jesus disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him.

All of the authorities of this world, all the powers that could be discovered by man's thrones, have been disarmed in the death of Christ.

He put them to open shame.

But he disarmed your power also.

And he disarmed your power so that you could rest in his kingdom.

Is it exhausting to try to retain control in your life?

Is your soul fatigued by trying to keep some sense of power that you don't even have in the first place because the cross fully disarms it?

You're living in a false reality.

You and I continually live in the lies of this world.

And it's straining us and it's exhausting to us.

Christ has disarmed even your power so that you might rest in his kingdom.

And that's my hope for us, church, that we would be a people without fear because we rest in his kingdom.

Man, I don't have to be afraid anymore.

Fear doesn't have to put me into fight or flight.

Fear doesn't even have to be present in my life.

And I'm a fearful person.

Like if I can just be honest with you, I talk all the time at Sacred Mission about how I come up here and preach to myself first.

I've lived a life of fear.

Fear that people would abandon me.

Fear that I would never make it or live up to anything.

Fear that I would just keep screwing up.

Fear that if people knew me, I'd be exposed for who I was and they wouldn't want a relationship with me anymore.

Fear, fear, fear.

I drench in it.

And everything that I do seems to be some sense of weak, useless attempt at eliminating that fear.

To get control.

Control of how people view me.

Control of the way that my life is climbing up towards some notion of success.

Fear is causing me to try and grasp for something that's not even there.

And I'm tired.

Man, I wish I could rest.

All of it comes down to I need a deeper belief in the gospel.

You and I need convinced daily Jesus is a good king.

Romans 14, 9 says, for to this end, and he's going to help us understand this end in just a moment, but the means were Christ died and lived again.

And what was the end?

That he might be Lord, both of the dead and the living.

Christ died and lived again that he might be king.

But this time a king with a crown.

Not one made by the hands of man of thorns, but one placed upon him by the hand of his father of eternal glory.

You see, I think we can be a people who can rest under his kingship.

I think we can be a people who open our hands and drop our guard because we're not afraid anymore.

Because he's a good king.

And he uses his kingship.

He uses his power.

He uses his authority for the glory of his name and the good of his people.

Church, just rest in that.

His lordship should lead us to our rest, resting in the comfort and peace of his kingdom.

Let's pray.