John 18: Christ the King

So today is known as Christ the King Sunday on the church calendar.

So on the church calendar, it runs a little bit different in terms of a teaching plan for churches.

The church calendar ends with Christ the King Sunday.

So that's today, and it leads us into Advent, which is the beginning of the church calendar.

Advent is the four Sundays that take us into Christmas.

So today's about Christ is the King and kingdoms, and we all live under a kingdom and who is our king.

It's this type of language for us to begin to think about where do we pull our values?

Where do we find deliverance?

Where do we find redemption?

Where do we find acceptance?

It's this type of language for us to think about it.

At Thanksgiving, my brother-in-law and I, we began to talk about this guy, this rock climber named Alex Hanauld.

Anybody heard of Alex Hanaud?

A few of you have.

Maybe you've seen this documentary that came out this year called Free Solo.

And it's about this guy.

And as we were talking about him, the language my brother-in-law, we kept using, was like, God, he's crazy.

Did you see that?

Oh my, it's crazy.

It's crazy.

Oh, he's crazy.

Like we kept using this language over and over again.

Because what he did last year, and they filmed it, was this guy, he climbed El Cap in Yosemite, a 3,000-foot rock face.

He climbed it without any ropes, without any attachment to the wall.

3,000 feet straight up, he climbed it all at one time.

Now I know you climbed Stone Mountain in one day, all right, and you're proud of yourself.

And maybe at the end where it gets steep up toward the top, there's a little steep moment there, then you have to put your hand down.

It's not what this is, okay?

This is a rock vertical phase, 3,000 feet straight up.

In 1958, people didn't even believe you could climb it at all, at all.

And then finally, three guys in 1958, three guys climb it with tons of ropes.

It took those three guys with tons of ropes 11 days.

And Alex and all last year he climbed it in three hours and 56 minutes by himself without any ropes.

That's crazy.

I mean, there's pictures of him resting thousands of feet above the tree line below, standing on just four-inch ledge, just resting, looking, and it makes your stomach, because it goes against all your norms and values, right?

Like anything normal in you, anything like a value of like safety or something like that, it goes against it, right?

Right?

I mean, like common sense would say, no, no, no, no.

Like, don't climb a rock even with rope, right?

Like maybe a normal value of yours, right?

We start there.

I mean, much less climb a rock face without rope.

Right?

Like we would say some values like, hey, hey, buddy, like live in some measure of wisdom.

Like we would say a value like, live in some measure of safety.

Like, please.

That's why our stomachs sort of churn if you see the images of him climbing this.

But this is different, right?

Like, like this guy's like kind of like otherly.

Like, here's a quote he said.

I pulled just one quote amongst many.

Here's what he said there's a certain joy in swinging around, propelling yourself upward, the fluidity of movement.

I'm like, what?

Like, I got anxious crossing Church Street earlier this week at a crosswalk, right?

And he's flying up El Cap.

He apparently lives by some set of values that come in contrast with us, right?

And this is what we're talking about.

When we talk about Christ as King, it's the same thing: a set of values in a kingdom set forth by a king, a teacher, Jesus, and it runs up in contradiction in contrast to so many of our own values.

So let's reread this text and we're going to kind of pull it apart and tease it out this morning.

John 18, 33 through 35.

So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called to Jesus and said to him, Are you the king of the Jews?

Jesus answered, Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?

Pilate answered, Am I a Jew?

Your own nation and chief priests have delivered you over to me.

What have you done?

So a lot of power dynamics going on here in this scene.

Because you have Pilate, who's kind of like the governor of this area.

And so above him is the Roman Emperor Tiberius, but he's in Rome.

And what the emperor wants is he wants Pilate to just keep things at peace, right?

Keep it at peace, suppress rebellions, keep the tax revenue coming in.

That's what he wants, and that's Pilate's job.

And so then you have this upset people group, the Jews coming forth and handing over Jesus because the Jewish people are upset with Jesus because Jesus is upsetting their power structure, and they're in charge of that, and they receive a lot of benefit from their structure of religious life.

And so they're going to Pilate.

So they go to Pilate, this guy's causing problems.

Pilate, you take care of him.

Now Pilate's put in this position.

And we almost don't even know what Pilate actually believes.

But he is definitely in this position where his job, the pressure on him, is to keep everything running smoothly.

So all these power dynamics.

Pilate's got to take care of this.

He says, Hey, are you the king of the Jews?

And Jesus says, Hey, are you asking this?

Or like is somebody else like putting you up to this, right?

Because Jesus knows, like, he's under a lot of power dynamic structure.

Pilate says, Hey, your people handed you to me.

What's going on?

What have you done?

Verse 36.

And Jesus answered, and this is where most of the teaching today is going to come from.

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.

So Jesus is saying, there's a contrasting kingdom here.

There's a kingdom of the world, and there's my kingdom.

There's a kingdom of the world, there's a kingdom of God.

There's a contrast here.

Verse 37, 38.

Pilate says to him, So you are a king, and Jesus answered, You say that I am a king for this purpose.

I was born, and for this purpose I've come into the world to bear witness to the truth.

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

Pilate said to him, What is truth?

And there's almost a sad moment right here.

Where Pilate, you almost wonder.

Now I'm wondering about the text.

You almost wonder, like he wanted to know, but it's almost like the pressures in his life, he couldn't really wait to get the answer.

After he said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, I find no guilt in him.

And that's really interesting because then the story goes on in the next few verses, and he says to the Jews, hey, I'll release one of these two guys, either Jesus or this other prisoner, and all the Jews yell out, hey, release the other guy, they release the other guy, and then Pilate turns around and has Jesus flogged, beaten, and crucified.

So what does all this mean to you?

What's it mean to you?

What does it mean to you in Marietta 2018?

Point number one: the kingdom of this world is natural, but it is oppressive.

It will be as natural as the values that are just as natural.

We think of Alex Canal climbing the cliff, and we go, oh, that's crazy.

Like this is such contrast to some of my values.

Well, the kingdom of this world is just natural to think in ways of the kingdom of the world.

When I was a boy, a developer began to develop some woods behind our houses in our neighborhood.

So across from my street, Todd lived behind Todd's house, were all these woods, and we thought they were our woods.

They weren't our woods, apparently somebody else owned them, because eventually they began to be developed into a neighborhood.

And a huge dirt hill developed, right?

As they were plowing these roads and the dirt piled up, massive dirt hill.

To us at the time, we thought it was a mountain.

And so at first, it was just all about running up the hill, getting to the top, then it was about throwing rocks off the top.

And then eventually, you know what developed on a hill like this?

We began to play King of the Hill, right?

You knew it.

Of course, a bunch of boys, King of the Hill, and you know how the game works, right?

Like, like just whoever gets to the top and can stay at the top is king.

And everybody else, you're just trying to get to the top.

We had a few rules, you know, no punch in the face, no rocks to the face.

Yeah, we had just a couple, but anything else goes.

Get to the top, stay at the top.

And Alan always got to the top.

It was always Alan.

Because Alan was the most powerful, he was the strongest.

He got to the top.

Nobody had a shot against Alan unless we built an alliance, and then possibly we could get Alan off, right?

He was king, he reigned.

And we simply we simply looked up at him, and we had to work harder and harder and harder to try to get up there.

But even for Alan, it was quite difficult if you think about it.

You're at the top, but you're never really at the top because he had to keep working to stay at the top.

And just by signing on to this game, right, and this is the kingdom of the world, by the way.

Just by signing on to this game, this way of life, you slowly over time, you're more and more exhausted, and you're more and more oppressed.

Just by beginning the game.

And that's the kingdom of the world.

By willpower and force, we think, we think we can get to the top, and if we get to the top, we'll be okay.

But we never really get there.

In Luke chapter 6, Jesus breaks all this down for us.

Luke 6 · chapter mention

In Luke chapter 6, he teaches about woe to the person who lives right side up in the world.

Luke 6 · chapter mention

Right?

Driven in living by values of this world.

In the text, you can go and you can study it later.

Luke 6, verse 24, woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.

Luke 6:24

Meaning, woe to you who live by the value of using power at the expense of the powerless to become wealthy.

Woe to you if you do that.

Verse 25, Jesus says, Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry.

So he's saying, hey, if you're well fed, if you're comforted, right?

You are if you're hoping in clothes and restaurants and beautiful homes, if they are your hope, you'll never be free.

At the end of verse 25, he says, Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and you will meet weep.

And that word laugh is actually a negative word.

It's not like when we think about laugh and having a great time.

It's a negative word.

It means the gloat, like I have won and you have lost.

We have won and you lost.

Verse 26 Woe to you when all people speak well of you.

For so their fathers did to the false prophets.

So if living for recognition and reputation are the way in which you're gonna find value in this world or redemption of the self, be careful.

You may be going up a mountain that never ends.

I get to the end of this list and I go, well, forget it.

Right?

I mean, just reading it, all of a sudden you're like, oh my gosh.

Like, forget, like, what can I do?

I mean, I would prefer to have a little too much money than too little.

I love going to a nice restaurant.

I seem to not be able to have enough Patagonia pullovers.

I don't want to walk around crying all the time.

And recognition and reputation, that's the currency of my occupation.

So it's easy to get to the end of a list like this and you're just exposed.

And yet Jesus is saying, hey, hey, be careful with this stuff.

Because this is the kingdom of the world that if you're putting your hope in it, woe to you.

That can be your functional king, and it will oppress you.

In 2015, the Atlantic published an article, the Atlantic magazine published an article about the high amount of suicides and Palo Alto, right?

The suburb, the affluent suburb of San Francisco, Silicon Valley, so much money, so much brilliance and wealth.

And these kids at one of the top STEM schools in the country, top five high schools in the country.

These researchers go in because there was such a high rate of suicide in this school.

And here's what the article said the kids are showing unusually high rates of dysfunction.

On the surface, the rich kids seem to be thriving.

They have cars, nice clothes, good grades, easy access to health care, and on paper, excellent prospects.

But many of them are not navigating adolescence successfully.

The rich middle and high school kids show higher rates of alcohol and drug abuse on average than poor kids, and much higher rates than the national norm.

The article goes on to basically say, hey, the kids are creating unhealthy links between performance and self-worth.

And that's the kingdom of the world.

The kingdom of the world is trying to get you to create that link.

That your self-worth, your redemption of yourself, your ability to absolve your guilt of your sin, that all of that could be handled by the world.

It could be handled by your performance.

And what it ends up causing is dysfunction.

And exhaustion, oppression, and it kills slowly.

It literally kills at times.

If we jump back to Luke 6, verses 27 through 49, Jesus lays out a set of values quite in contrast to this kingdom of the world.

Luke 6:27–49

Then he says, hey, love your enemies.

Do good to all people, not just those who can give back to you, do good to anybody.

Be a person of mercy, not a person of judgment.

Forgive.

See your own sin.

Not preoccupied by the mistakes of others.

And then verse 45 says, hey, deal with your heart.

And then from there, Jesus goes in, he says, Hey, build your house on the rock that stands.

And he's talking about himself.

So he's saying, hey, build your self, your salvation, your righteousness with God, your absolution, your acceptance of yourself.

Build that self on me and my kingdom and my values.

Here are a few questions that help me, just help me determine the kingdom I'm living in at a given moment.

Am I finding myself more exhausted or more inspired?

Am I more concerned about performing or am I concerned about resting?

Is there addiction?

That's my functional king.

Am I consumed with people's approval or getting something or getting somewhere?

Do I hear the inner voice of condemnation?

Or do I hear the Spirit's voice of love?

Point number two.

The kingdom we receive is upside down to the world.

So the kingdom we receive, the kingdom of God is upside down to the world.

So that's what we saw in Jesus' teaching in Luke 6.

We saw one set of values, and he turns around and contrasts the set of values of the kingdom.

And the kingdom of God uses because language, right?

Like this.

Because I'm not perfect, and because God loves me, and because my sin is put upon the cross, and because his righteousness is put upon me, and because I'm forever his beloved.

Because of that, I am moving forward and growing in the freedom and a set of values that I am under a different kingdom and a different king.

Because we are loved, we can love anyone.

Because we have a wealth of identity, we don't have to long for riches.

Because we are comforted in our hearts, we don't have to rely on material goods.

Because we know a divine healer, we can face grief rather than ignore it.

Because we know we are already approved, we are free from giving our lives for people's approval.

Last point.

This kingdom frees you from performance and sets you in grateful, free, obedient living.

Tim Keller in his article on Luke chapter 6, he has this great paragraph.

Luke 6 · chapter mention

I could have just read the paragraph and skipped the whole sermon to tell you the truth.

It's that good.

Listen, the pattern of the upside-down kingdom is a reversal of values with regard to the world.

In other words, Christians are no longer controlled by the things that the world thinks are so critical.

We're not controlled by power, success, comfort, or recognition.

Even if you can't stand the world's values, you run away from them.

And you have no idea what to do with recognition.

You are still controlled by them.

You're scared of them.

It probably means that deep down you're intimidated by them and you still really want them.

But a person who is a Christian who is living in the upside down kingdom isn't controlled by these things.

You don't need them, which means you don't want them.

They don't drive you, they don't control you.

You can take them or leave them.

That is the first mark of somebody who is living in the upside down kingdom.

It's the pattern of your life.

So it's even easy to get to the end of a great quote like that and go, well, even then I don't live by these values.

I mean, even at that point, I'm still kind of coming up short.

Like, I get it.

Like, I get the contrast of the values, I get the contrast of the kingdom, I'm with you, Russ, I get it, but I still don't do that.

I know.

And and he knows.

That's why it's a kingdom of grace and acceptance and absolution based on his work for you, not your work for him.

And that's why he's not just our example, but he is our savior king.

So we don't have to build kingdoms.

You don't have to build kingdoms.

You don't have to give your life to building your kingdom.

And you don't have to live in an oppressive kingdom.

We are free from that.

We get to receive a kingdom that grants to us our identities and our righteousness, forgiveness, acceptance, and absolution.

My brothers and sisters, may you receive a kingdom that is ever, forever giving and forgiving and redeeming you in Christ Jesus.

Let's pray together.

God, we come before you this morning to take a moment of confession.

To say there are kingdoms that we have put ourselves under.

There are kings that we have accepted that are that are tyranny.

And they are enslaving.

And they are oppressive.

And it could be something as dark as an addiction, or something that seems so innocent, like just always needing the next thing, but it's still oppressive.

And God, we pray that we wouldn't run from these things, but we would confess.

Holy Spirit, we ask that you work and convict our hearts for the ways that we are not living free in your spirit and free in your gospel and free in the acceptance and absolution that you give.

Receiving a kingdom that leads us unto free, grateful, obedient living.

During our time of contemplation, would you do great work in our hearts of conviction and then immediately comfort?

And would you lead us to places that know and receive your kingdom and your reign as Christ the King?

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.