Thinking Biblically About Politics: The Church

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  Thinking Biblically About Politics: The Church

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  We wrap up our series on thinking Biblically about politics. We end with the institution of the church. So turn to John 18, where we'll learn about the glorious reign of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the head of the church, who is the King of all, who has all authority in heaven and earth given to him. The first two institutions we talked about that are created by God for his glory and our good, were the institution of the family and then the institution of the state. And those were good things, we said. There was nothing wrong with them. But the church is the forever kingdom, the lasting institution into all eternity, established in eternity past, ransomed by God's King, Jesus Christ, and advancing still present day...each time a lost sinner calls upon God's Son to be saved. The great confession of the church is Jesus is Lord, and it's heralded by all who are citizens of his kingdom. It was the message you heard from John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth, declaring, repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. And from the time that the church was born, her singular message has been very clear and absolutely compelling. Jesus Christ is King. That is where we end today. In John 18, we see a clear presentation of this truth in its simplicity and authority that Jesus Christ is King of kings, Lord of lords, Son of God, Savior of the world. We see it in its simplicity as it was stated by a man, Pilate, a man of power, a man who had been around kings. A man who would have known Caesar, and he was the one who was led to eventually say, see, you are a king. And yet that wasn't anything that had authority to it. It was just another man's opinion, and he was just taking it based on the facts he was seeing around them. But what gave it authority was it was affirmed by Jesus himself. And that's why it's important for us today, as we do look ahead to the election this week, the election of an earthly power that we have the conviction we have the confidence that whatever the result is, our King is on his throne. And our loyalty is to him and to him alone, above all earthly loyalties. It's to King Jesus Christ. So follow along with me as I read John 18. We'll take this whole section 28 to 38 and see how Jesus, the head of the church, is the king over all. John 18 starts in verse 28,
  And then they. And that's talking about religious leaders who had just had Jesus on trial all night. They led Jesus from Caiaphas into the praetorium, and it was early, and they themselves did not enter into the praetorium so that they would not be defiled, but they might eat the Passover. Therefore Pilate went out to them and said, what accusation do you bring against this man? They answered and said to him, if this man were not an evildoer, we would not have delivered him to you. So Pilate said to them, take him yourselves, and judge him according to your law. The Jews said to Pilate. We're not permitted to put anyone to death. This was said to fulfill the word of Jesus, which he spoke, signifying by what kind of death he was about to die. Therefore, Pilate entered again into the praetorium and summoned Jesus and said to him, are you the King of the Jews? Jesus answered, are you saying this on your own initiative, or did others tell you about me? Pilate answered, I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests delivered you to me. What have you done? Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, and my servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not of this realm. Therefore Pilate said to him, so you are a king. Jesus answered, you say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world to testify 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 guilt in him.
  The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the Word of God and the word of our King endures forever.
  It was June 12, 1520, 3 years after the most famous date in Protestant Reformation history, which we talked about last week. October 31st, 1517 Luther putting the 95 theses on the castle church door in Wittenberg. It was three years later that the Pope caught wind, Pope Leo the 10th, and after avoiding most of the issue and letting other people deal with it, he finally issued a papal bull titled Exsurge Domine...arise, O Lord. Which said, arise, O Lord, and defend your cause a wild boar is loose in your vineyard. He was calling Luther to recant his teachings in 60 days, or be condemned, a heretic, and excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church. Well, Luther obviously took offense to being called a boar. And so he went to work with his two most trusted swords, the Word of God and a pen. And he wrote a few months later, in August of 1520, as a response to the papal bull, to the Christian nobility of the German nation, in which he doubled down on his views that Jesus Christ was head of the church, not the Pope, not Rome, and she, the church and the Pope needed to reform their heretical doctrines, not him. He laid down a gauntlet for the religious leaders in his country, once and for all, to side with him. Those leaders in Germany were leaders of the church and the leaders in society to side with the gospel, the word of God, the reign of Jesus Christ over the church, as opposed to loyalties to the heresies of the papacy, namely exalting the Pope to a position no man can possibly possess. A few lines from this letter to the Christian nobility of the German nation outlined his case, where he was very adamant that the Pope had overstepped his bounds. He wrote it is a horrible thing to see the head of Christendom, who boasts he is the vicar of Christ and successor of Peter, going about in such worldly and ostentatious style that neither king nor emperor can equal or approach. He claims the title of most holy and most spiritual, and yet he is more worldly than the world itself....Those sound like fighting words...He ought to leave the crown of pride to Antichrist, as his predecessors did centuries ago. The Romanists...and those were the Pope's most loyal followers. Say he is a Lord of the earth...that is a lie. For Christ, whose vicar and vice gerent he claims to be said to Pilate, my kingdom is not of this world. So no vicars rule can go beyond that of his lord. Moreover, the Pope is not the vicar of Christ glorified, but of Christ crucified. Now the Romanists make the Pope a vicar of the glorified Christ in heaven. Some of them have allowed the devil to rule them so completely that they have maintained that the Pope is above the angels in heaven, and has them at his command. These are certainly the proper works of the real Antichrist. Like I said, Luther spared no words, pulled no punches. He had seen in the time that transpired, even from the time of 1517 to 1520, when he has issued this call to stand before the Pope, that the Pope had the wrong view of where he stood before Christ, as if he stood as his equal, as if he stood above the church. When Christ is the head of the church. And then that letter to German nobility, he showed three ways in which this happened. The Pope had put himself above the law of the land. We talked about the state, and the state has a right to bear the sword. But the Pope had put himself in a position that he ruled the natural leaders he called them. He saw himself as a spiritual leader. He was above the fray. And even an emperor or prince or anyone down the line from him. He had authority over them because he dealt in the spiritual matters. It would be as if I today, as a preacher, were to go out and speed towards lunch today, and I get pulled over by a policeman, and he comes up and I say, you know, I don't know if you know who you're dealing with. I'm a master of divinity. I deal in spiritual matters so you can put that ticket away because you have no authority over me. And the policemen say, oh, of course. Yeah, I'll just go pull your wife over. She's right driving behind you. You know, you could pay for that ticket. But that was the way in which the Pope was conducting himself. He actually thought he had authority over all matters natural. Second, Luther called him out because he thought he had authority over the Bible. As in, he had the final word. His chief right hand man, a theologian, um, in the church, basically explained it this way. He said, well, yeah, the Pope, he can be in error, but only as a man, not as the Pope. He tried to pull it apart as if there was some hypostatic union in the office of the Pope, that he was human, and he was also divine. So he said, though the Pope could be wrong as a person, he actually is infallible and inerrant as the Pope. Therefore, he has the final word on what the Word of God says. So he had put himself above the Bible, and the last one is he was above the church. That he could call a council. He could call Luther to recant. He could call Luther out for his teaching. But Luther said nobody can call him out. So he is now above the church. So if you have authority over the state, you have authority over the Bible, and you have authority over the church that makes you THE authority. So three months later, in December, he took that papal bull and other books from the papacy, and he burned them. And you might ask yourself, what gave Luther such courage? Well, he said it in the song he wrote, A Mighty Fortress is our God. That were not the right man on our side. A man of God's own choosing. Lord of Heaven, his name. And he will win every battle. He knew that he stood in Christ and he stood with Christ. And if you stand in him and for Him as King Jesus, he stands over every human authority.
  What we're going to look at today, four movements through this text show that King Jesus stands in authority over death, his very own, over all dominions of heaven and earth, over all truth, because he is the truth and over our sin, the most important part. And you put it all together in this narrative. And my prayer is that in each part we see this facet of Christ's life. We turn the diamond of his glory. That this wouldn't be like the last two sermons, in that those were principles that you need to recognize and live by, the truths about the family, truths about the state, but the truths you learn about Jesus Christ as King today and head of the church...these are truths that transform you personally. This is about a relationship to a king. This isn't about a relationship to laws. Yes, we have to have a high view of the family. God created it, intended it to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue and have dominion. And we praise God for that, and we stand on those truths. And the same with the state. We are thankful that the state, when done according to the Word of God, should be built on a throne of righteousness, and justice, should hold back evil, punish evil doers, and promote the good. But the relationship you have with Jesus Christ goes back to what you see of him in the text today...when you see him in his glory as King, king over death, king over dominion, king over the truth, and king over our sin, that transforms you from the inside. And in fact, that relationship you have with Jesus Christ that you will see in this text today, is what makes you love the institution of the family. It makes you love the institution of the state because it's his words. Not for us to mess with. Not for us to try to change no matter which way the culture is going.
  So let's first look at the King whose death was intentional. Verses 28 to 32. The first mark of his reign that's revealed in this interaction is that he is king over all death. It starts off the context. Jesus has just faced all night kangaroo court trials from the Jews. They've taken him before Caiaphas, then to Annas and back to Caiaphas. And he's been found innocent on all accounts. It's a total sham. They now bring him before Pilate because they know they don't have a case. But if they can make a case that he's a threat to Pilate's power locally, and to Rome's power nationally, then he could be executed as an insurrectionist. So they go to see Pilate in the early hours, maybe 6 a.m., they led Jesus from Caiaphas to the praetorium. That's another word for a governor's quarters. And it was early. And they themselves, these pious men that they are, would not enter into that Gentile territory, as they called it, so that they could not be defiled or impure, but might eat the Passover. Kind of ironic, isn't it? Hypocrisy carries this curse where they were scrupulous in this moment to strain out a gnat in order to keep the Passover, but swallow the camel, and the great injustice they were committing against the one who was the greater Passover, the one who was going to put the Passover to an end. But see, that's the way that the religious hypocrite works. They are careful to observe ceremonies and neglect the substance of the truly sacred one. Calvin wrote. In short, they observed the shadow of the Passover with a feigned and false reverence. Yet they violate the substance, and they try to as far as they can overwhelm him with an eternal ruin. So they bring Jesus to Pilate. He goes out to them because they won't come in to him, and he meets them, and he gets right down to the point. What accusation do you bring against this man? He gets to the heart of the issue. He opens the proceedings with a direct question, as he should. He's challenging them, and that has a little bit of history behind it. Uh, Pilate had been assigned to this area in 26 A.D.. So if this is around 30 or 31, he's been there about 4 to 5 years. And his time as governor over this region in Israel has been nothing but drama. He is recorded by Josephus, the Jewish historian Tacitus. All these men who recorded this time of history of the Caesars role, and even Pilate has recorded that he was a weak man. He was a petty man. Uh, each time he tried to rein in the religious zeal of the Jewish people, he tried to flex using the power of the sword they would call his bluff. If they had some type of, uh, problem with the way he was leading and they went to him, he would say, if you don't stop, I'm going to bring out the sword. And they said they would lay down their necks. It's recorded once and say, go ahead, do it. And he would back down. And then the times he didn't back down and actually led to some savagery and death...when Caesar actually would hear about it, he would come down on Pilate because he's saying, what? You can't control these people. So when Pilate comes out to them and says, what accusation do you bring against this man? There is more to the story there. He didn't want to just give them their way that easily, even though it was Passover and the crowds were there. And he might have thought, you know, I just want this week to end and whatever they want I'll give to them. Probably lurking in the back of his mind is, this could go really bad if this Jesus character who everyone on the first day of this week, Passover week seemed to be really excited for this guy's presence. If I hand him over to be killed, if I execute him. Who knows if a riot is going to break out? So he just gets down to the matter. He says, what is the accusation? If I'm the one who bears the sword, what am I going to execute him for? Verse 29, he says that. So verse 30, their answer is, well, if this man were not an evildoer, we would not have delivered him to you. They had a little bit of snark there. Uh, they're testing him. They're pushing him...that they say, oh, why would we bring a guy to you for you to cast a judgment over if he really wasn't a bad guy, if he wasn't an evildoer. If he wasn't an evildoer, we wouldn't have brought him to you. Wouldn't be wasting your time early in the morning. But the truth is that he had done no evil. There was no case against him. If you read the other three gospel accounts, they had him all night before the high priest. They couldn't find anybody that had anything to say of him, of breaking the Old Testament law, save one. If you look at chapter 19, verse 7, the Jews said, here is what he's guilty of. He made himself out to be the Son of God. They said he deserved to die because he dishonored the name of Yahweh. He broke Exodus 27, not taking the name of Yahweh in vain. You also see that carried out in Leviticus 24:11 to 16 in the Old Testament. An example of this is when there was a young man in Israel, the son of an Israelite woman, who blasphemed the name, Leviticus 24:11, and cursed God and brought him to Moses. And they put him in custody. And the Lord said to Moses, bring the one who is cursed outside the camp. Let all who heard him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him. You shall speak to the sons of Israel, saying, if anyone curses his God, then he will bear his sin. Well, here's the reality. Jesus never cursed God the Father. In fact, the Jews were never able to come to grips with the fact that though he said God was his Father and he was sent from heaven, and what he heard the Father say, he spoke. They had no case against disproving that. When he said before Abraham was, I am. All the miracles, all the teaching, all the good that he did, they couldn't prove that he broke one law. All they could come to Pilate with was the accusation of blasphemy. And they had done that throughout his life: John 5:18, John 10:33. And then John 19:7. Three times accused of it.And so Pilate realized this. He knew enough about their law to turn it back on them. He wasn't going to cow to them on this theological point. They had to jump through his political hoops. So in verse 31, what does he say? Take him yourselves and judge him according to your law. Now, I don't think Pilate is trying to be brave here or noble. He's being petty at best...self-preservation at worst, because he did not want to get in between what the crowds might have believed about Jesus and what thejealous religious leaders wanted to do with him. So he says, you know what? That's on you. You guys take care of it. What's their response in 31b?  The Jews said to him, well, we're not permitted to put anyone to death. He might have known their laws. They knew his that from the time that he was put in charge of this area, that the execution of any prisoners, the execution of any convicts had to go through Pilate. So they said, hey, we believe according to our law he is guilty of death, but we're not permitted to put him to death. That's their last ditch effort. And what John wants to show here what the action looks like is right now, Jesus's life is hanging in the balance between the two most powerful groups in Israel at this time. The political power represented by Pilate and the religious power represented by these religious Jews. And if you were reading this at face value, you would think that until John adds this, verse 32, all of this, even their own words, were to fulfill someone else's sovereign words, the word of Jesus, which he spoke, signifying by what kind of death he was about to die. It's one thing to show yourself as resilient in the face of death, to show courage, but to be able to call your own shots the whole way is a whole nother level. We've seen in our own country, in our lifetime leaders of our country who showed courage in the face of death. The assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan's life. Some of you remember that March 30, 1981. Not only showed courage in the face of death, showed that he had a good sense of humor. When Nancy came to visit him in the hospital and he said, honey, I forgot to duck. Or when he told the surgeons in the operating room, please tell me you're Republicans. Or if you've ever lived in Los Angeles, you get this joke. Send me to LA where I can see the air that I'm breathing. We had Donald Trump's defiant fist skyward and shouts of fight, fight, fight! Maybe less witty in his response afterwards, more wiry in later interviews, stating I'm not supposed to be here, I'm supposed to be dead. But by luck or by God, people say, It's by God, I'm still here. Both men resilient in the face of death. But in no case has a leader ever been not just courageous in the face of death, but led himself to it like Jesus did. This was not just about a fulfilled prophecy of Jesus' word. This was about Jesus being true to his Word. You see what was at stake in Jesus being intentional about going to his own death, and the exact way that it was going to happen goes back to what he said about himself throughout his life. If you turn back in your Bibles in John. John records these moments where that the Jews would not be able to stone him.That's not the way that he was going to die. And so when we learn in our text that he wasn't going to die the way that the Jews are saying here, that they're not permitted to put anyone to death, that would be stoning for blasphemy. But John 3:14 Jesus said, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so, the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that whoever believes will in him have eternal life. John 8:28, Jesus said, when you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and I do nothing on my own initiative. But I speak these things as the Father taught me. And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone. I do the things pleasing to him. And then finally, in John 12:32, the third time recorded in this gospel, where he says, now judgment is upon this world, now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself. And he was saying this to indicate the kind of death by which he was to die. Had the Jews taken the law into their own hands and stoned him, his word would have been broken. He would have been thrown down, not lifted up. And that would make Jesus what?...a liar. And if he's a liar, our faith is in vain. But he kept his word. And John wants you in this final hour, when it looks like there's a tragedy of injustice happening. He wants you to see that Jesus is turning this tragedy into his own triumph, and his triumph over this death is yours. No one was going to take his life from him, he says in John 10. He lays it down on his own initiative. And why does he do it? So he can draw all men to himself. Because he still had sheep that needed to hear his voice. He had you in mind. You see, that's where the institution of the church. Christ as head of the church. Christ is head of a kingdom, not of this world, is not just some idea to believe in. It's a personal issue for you. Do you take him at his word? This is the picture of all history. Every king like Pilate, every leader like these religious leaders come and go off the scene. But the whole story of redemption hangs on...will Christ be true to his word? Is he actually in control, and is he in control of going to his own death? Not subject to man's evil will. He's not a victim. He's the victor. And by you believing in life in his name, you can be victorious too. That's the first thing we learn in this section. He's intentional over his own death.
  Second, we learn that he's the king who's reign is infinite. The second mark of his kingly reign is he is king over all dominions. Pilate, verse 33, enters back into the praetorium. The scribes and religious leaders go away. Pilate calls Jesus back in, and he needs to get down to the issue. Are you the King of the Jews? This is the accusation. This is all that I can come up with. I need to get my facts straight. And yes, deep down, Pilate needed to know, is he dealing with a legitimate threat to Caesar and to Rome? The Jews were trying to make this case that same week. You can look back at Luke 23:1-2. The whole body of them got up and brought him before Pilate. Actually, this is not early in the week. This is the same account as Luke retells it. The whole body of them got up and brought him before Pilate. This is after his all night trials with the Jews, and they began to accuse him. So we get more information from Luke's account. Luke 23:2,and this is what they said. We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar, and saying that he Himself is Christ, a king. So this parallel account, we get the details that they were making up lies about him. They were saying that he was a threat to the power of Rome, that he was misleading the nation, that he was Lord and not Caesar, and that they didn't need to pay taxes to Caesar. The problem with that,and this is what I was thinking of, that happened earlier in the week. You have to go over to Matthew 22 to see it, that earlier in the week when Jesus arrived, he was tested by the Pharisees. They were plotting together, Matthew 22:15, how they could trap him in his words. So they sent their disciples to him, saying, teacher, we know that you are truthful and teach the way of God and defer to no one. Tell us then, what do you think? Is it lawful to give a poll tax to Caesar or not? Jesus says, why are you testing me, you hypocrites? Maybe they were remembering that sting from earlier. He perceived their malice. He knew that they had it out for him. But what we see in our text just a few days later is that their accusation that he's an evildoer, that he's an insurrectionist, that he's against Rome was an entire lie, and Pilate knew it. That's why his only question is, are you the King of the Jews? I heard earlier in the week some of these accusations, and I know they're not true. You said to pay taxes to Caesar. You didn't say to keep it. So clearly they're making up lies about you. But what about this accusation that you're making yourself out to be a king? Are you a king? Look at Jesus' reply in verse 34. Are you saying this on your own initiative, or did others tell you this about me? What's Jesus trying to get to there? He's trying to get to the heart of Pilate because Jesus knows justice and he also knows cowardice. If it's justice that Pilate's after, then maybe he is saying this on his own initiative. Maybe he's taking Pilate at his word, but he wants Pilate to reveal that about himself. So is this something in your own heart that you're truly curious about knowing about me, or are you just going off of what the crowds have been saying? Are you listening to them?...others saying this about me. Are you just trying to get out of this realizing you're in a jam, he asks this brilliant, clarifying question in verse 34 to put Pilate on the horns of a dilemma personally. Does he reveal his own ignorance of Jesus? Will he respond and say, yeah, you know, this is my own initiative. I may think I have some power here, but clearly you're of a different type. Tell me more about you. Or he's going to reveal that he just is self-centered. He doesn't really care who Jesus is. He just wants this problem to go away. So let's see by verse 35, what Pilate was feeling. He answers, I'mnot a Jew, am I. Your own nation and the chief priest delivered you to me. What have you done? So, he goes down the path of denial right away. He doesn't show the humility. He doesn't show the curiosity. He doesn't say in response, you know, that's a great question. Now that you're standing here before me with everything I've been told about you and what I've seen of you, I really want to know more. He doesn't say that. He goes, I'm not a Jew, am I? Why should I care? It's your nation. It's your chief priest delivering you to me. I just want to know what you are here for. If you're actually a king, then tell me what charges are against you. What have you done? He goes down this path rather than his responsibility and the role that he has as Jesus is being wrongfully charged. He does a classic pivot. He deflects. He puts it back on Jesus. He puts it back on the Jews. He wants to put it on everybody else but himself here, because he doesn't want this to be on his conscience. Is this man more than just a king? That a whole nation and these chief priests would be either for him or against him to be that divisive? And you know what?...the truth is, that's everyone in history. History all divides out between those two categories. And John is having you, the reader, put yourselves in Pilate's sandals of interrogation and you're asked, are you seriously interested in Jesus Christ as your King? Or are you just satisfied with second hand information today? Are you okay to just level with whatever I'm going to say about him? Whatever people have told you about Jesus? Or are you here this morning truly looking into the Word of God right now and amazed by Jesus Christ the King. Seriously interested in everything about this Son of God, son of Man in his life on earth. And now what he's going to say in verse 36...His life in heaven, his kingly reign. Jesus answers his question, what have you done? And he says, okay, if you want to know my origins, here's this verse 36. My kingdom is not of this world. It's out of this world. It's not of this realm. It's not like anything you've ever seen. Pilate. And here's what's at the heart of it. If I was of this world, then my servants would be fighting that I would not be handed over to the Jews. You're a pretty smart guy. You can figure this out. If I was a king of this world, and I actually had some power that you should feel threatened by, why would I let myself get arrested and be standing before you here right now? So clearly, I'm not operating in the same realm that everyone else is. The answer he gives in verse 36 echoes through all history guides our understanding of church and state, rule of force, rule of grace, kingdoms of men, and the kingdom of God. He says, my throne, verse 36, is not found in any earthly kingdom or explained away by any earthly power. I'm not appointed by anyone. I'm sent by God. I don't come with a sword to conquer. I'm different. Matthew 26:47-56 perfectly captures this contrast in kingdoms, when Jesus is arrested by the leaders that were brought by Judas the betrayer. Matthew 26:47, It says, Judas, one of the 12, came up accompanied by a large crowd, hundreds with swords and clubs from the chief priests and elders of the people. Well, this is a picture of a clash of kingdoms. Here comes the religious and political powers to arrest a rabbi, a teacher, a miracle worker. And they come to lay hands on Jesus and seize him. And when they did that, verse 51, one of those who was with Jesus, we know it's Peter, reached and drew out his sword and probably just wildly swung a sword and struck the slave of the high priest and cut his ear. Probably was aiming for anything. I mean, it was the dark of night. I doubt Peter was that precise in his swordsmanship. He's a fisherman. But either way, Jesus says to Peter, put your sword back into its place. For those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword. That's a statement of kingdoms. The kingdom of man, the sword of the state. Yeah, they have a right to bear it. And, Peter, if you want to go down that path right now, you will die by it. Going all the way back to Genesis 9:6 we talked about last week. If you shed blood, your blood will be shed. But Peter is thinking, well, Jesus, if the sword is not the chief force for the church to prosper, how will your kingdom advance...if we get taken out here? Peter doesn't know a more powerful force for Jesus than the sword is what's going to come next.
  The third aspect of his kingly reign. He doesn't understand that the force that the church operates with is the power of truth, the power of the gospel, the power of the words of Christ. The third facet we see in verses 37 to 38 is the King whose word is infallible, inerrant, unbreakable, the most powerful force there is. He's the King over all truth. Verse 37, Pilate says back to Jesus, so you are a king. Again, he doesn't try to pick apart Jesus' statement about like, tell me more about this kingdom, not of this world. I would have wanted to know that. You're in a kingdom not of this realm, not of this world. Sounds prettyamazing. You want to tell me about it? Maybe I'm serving the wrong guy. He just moves right past it. He just gets the information he needs to what?...clear himself. So you are a king. So these accusations about being a king and having some power, they could be true. Okay, Jesus answer is, you say correctly that I am a king. And here's my kingly orders. This is why I've been born. Because, you know, every king has got a back story. How they came into power, what's their pedigree, why they were chosen and not everybody else. To conquer kingdoms, acquire lands, put people under them. So what's Jesus' mission on earth? He says it... For this I've been born Pilate. This I've come into the world for...brace yourself...to testify to the truth. That's the sphere of authority I have. That's the power I operate out of. I have the corner of the market on truth. That's my force. It's not the force of a sword. It's not the force of an army. In fact, my force of truth will get around the world much faster than any army ever could. The truth about God, the truth about man, the truth about sin, the truth about heaven, and the truth about hell.I've come to tell the truth about all of that.  And anyone who is of the truth hears my voice. If there was a message that John has been trying to get across throughout this entire gospel, so that John 20:31, all these things have been written, all the details I've been giving you, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. And by believing in him, believing the truth about him, you may have life in his name. So all the details John records in his gospel is so that he could convince a reader, a listener, a hearer, that Jesus Christ is King. From the beginning John 1:9, it was always about the truth. There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. It has to start with that. That those who walked in darkness would see a glorious light. Who was the light of the world? It was Jesus. And right out of the gates in John in verse 9, he says, this light that comes to the world gives enlightenment. What other king that's ever existed could say that. If I went around the room right now and said, hey, there's some pretty impressive kings. Conquered a lot of lands. Uh, tell me about Genghis Khan. What are some of his famous quotes that enlightened man. Tell me about Cyrus the Great. Tell me about Alexander the Great. Probably wouldn't have much. They may have come for power, but they didn't have the truth. John 1:14, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. Christ came to reveal the true glory and true grace of God, never seen or heard before. John 8:32 he says to the religious leaders, you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. He's saying that I am the king that sets prisoners free, not locks them up, locked up in Satan's lies. I free them from those lies. John 14:6, I am the way, I am the truth. I am the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. So in this section we see the King trying to tell Pilate, here's my mission on earth, here's what I came for. I'm here for the truth. I'm here with the truth. I am the truth. And if you're of the truth, you hear my voice. How does that land on us here this morning? This is how it lands. There's not any person in this room. There's not any person on planet Earth. There's not any person that's ever existed who can make the claim that they've come to know the truth and yet reject Jesus Christ. Do you understand that? It doesn't matter your background, your education, your influence, your pedigree, whatever it might be, if you reject Jesus Christ, you do not know the truth. And if you do accept Jesus Christ, if you do believe in Jesus Christ, if you believe His Word, if you have followed him, what does he say then? You have heard the words of eternal life, and you know me, and you know God, my Father. So if you're sitting there today, if you're hearing his voice, his voice that says, everyone who is of the truth hears my voice. If you haven't accepted this fundamental reality about him, that he is the truth and everything he says about himself and everything that the Bible says he did...his perfect life, his sacrificial death, his resurrection from the grave, his ascension to the Father, his coming back again to rule and reign forever. And we all will bow our knee one day before him. You have to believe that truth, you have to understand that concept, or all the other truth that you may fill your head with doesn't mean a thing. That's what's at stake. Pilate's response. Maybe it's a response some of you are wrestling with what is truth? And maybe you say that because in the day and age we're in, we're lied to. I mean, we live in a day and age. It's a sad commentary on our society that the two people running for the highest office in our land need fact checked constantly. The headlines constantly read how many times we have to fact check a president. The person that we're supposed to follow. The person we're supposed to trust to lead our country. And we've come to a point that we can't trust them. Trust ought to be the most indispensable quality a leader can instill in his or her followers. And yet we've grown accustomed to not trusting the words of our leader. That's pitiful. Imagine a leader, though, who would speak with such clarity and authority that never once was an accusation of obfuscation there...twisting a narrative, dodging a question that even if you disagreed with that person, you had to respect what they said because they told the truth and they not just told the truth, but they also backed it up with a good life...that they weren't a hypocrite. I was reading an article in Harvest Business Review that said, in the last decade or so, there was all these workplaces that wanted to keep their employees. So they made them very employee centric workplaces with gourmet lunch offerings, nerf wars, bring your dog to work day. And then they did some surveys, Harvest Business Review. And they said, you know, the most important quality that employees of that organization that want to stay with them and keep with them, it isn't because of these fads. It's because of one thing. They trust the people they work for. Compared with people at low trust companies, people at high trust companies report 74% less stress. 106% more energy at work. That's an amazing statistic. 50% higher productivity, 13% fewer sick days, 76% more engagement, 29% more satisfaction with their lives, 40% less burnout. You know what that tells us? That the average person, the average follower, just wants to trust that the person they're following won't lie. Because trust is built on the truth. If we're followers of Christ, then our example should match that. If you own a business, if you're a boss, if you manage a team, if you manage a classroom, if you manage a home, if you manage children, are you building trust with the people that follow you because you are of the truth? If you don't have that, you've lost everything. If a person can't trust your word, what can they trust?  
  Now, in the case of Jesus, he fills it out not just with the words he said, but our last point, verse 38b, he fills it up with a life that backed it up, proven by six words that separate Jesus from every flawed leader in history. When Pilate says in verse 38b, I find no guilt in him. He was a king whose life was impeccable. No valid accusation from the Jews led to a no guilty conviction from Pilate. After all of this, this whole night of trials, standing before Pilate this morning, Jesus is declared innocent on all accounts. John makes sure you, the reader, know this about him. He includes the other two times it was said of him. Look at John 19:4, Pilate had taken Jesus in the beginning of chapter 19 and had him beat. Soldiers, put a crown of thorns on him, beat him up, brought him back out, mocked him, hail, King of the Jews! And Pilate says in verse 4 of chapter 19, behold, I am bringing him out to you, so that you may know that I find no guilt in him. John wants you to know that second time, not guilty. Third time, verse 6, when the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, saying, crucify, crucify. Pilate says to them, take him yourselves and crucify him. I find no guilt in him. And it wasn't that he was innocent only in Pilate's eyes. Much more important, the scriptures tell us he was innocent before God the Father. Hebrews 5:9 says he lived in perfect obedience to the law of God. 1 Peter 1:19 says, we have not been redeemed by perishable things, but we have been redeemed by what?...the perfect and spotless blood of an innocent lamb. He's the perfect king...the king of truth, the king of eternity, the king of glory, the king of grace. And what you saw in this chapter is evidence of his matchless perfection...greatest king ever. And what emerges in this story for us to walk away from is this...in this account, tragic yet triumphant we see the greatness of our guilt as sinners, and the glory of his perfection is our Savior. Do you see it? Have you seen the stark contrast in every way. He's king over our life and death. Not just his own. So that we can have confidence that our living and our dying are in his nail pierced hands. He's king of over time and space, his realm, not of this world. He gives us the confidence that there is nothing seen or unseen today, or to come for all eternity that should make us afraid. He's the king of all truth, giving us courage that what he has said, what he has spoken, will never change. He's King of our sin. Because to have those first three things, but to not have this leaves us dead in our sins and trespasses. He could be the king of death and life. He could be the king of time and space and the King of truth. But if he wasn't sinless, if we didn't have the assurance that he was perfect, that he was guiltless, that he was faultless, that he was flawless, then we would have the fear that we wouldn't be found perfect in him before God. But this morning, as we're going to celebrate the Lord's Supper in a few minutes, what we celebrate is we are absolutely sure that his body and his blood, broken and poured out for us, was satisfactory for the Father. We stand in him complete. And when he comes back to take his throne one day to be the judge of every nation to crush every kingdom of wicked men like an iron scepter shattering a clay pot. Psalm 2, turning every sword and spear into a shovel, every knee bowed, and every tongue confess Jesus is Lord. The question I have for you today is will you be found in him? Kiss the son, Psalm 2 says, lest he be angry with you, and you perish in his way. How blessed is the man or the woman who takes refuge in him. How can you know that you've taken refuge in Christ today? You don't look to yourself. You look to him. You look to him in his death. And you say, do I believe that his death was sufficient for my life? You look to him in his kingly reign. Do you live for his kingdom and not your own? Is he Lord of your life? Do you believe he is absolute truth? And any word that ever stands against him is a lie, and you take him at his word every time. Do you believe that it was his sinless life that merits your account to the full? If you do, then you do have a mandate to leave here with...you're mandated to proclaim his Kingdom till he comes back. Not to promote your own, but to tell others about his.
  Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, our King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We thank you now that as we turn our attention to the Lord's table, that in it we would find a meal that satisfies us today. Whatever is heavy on our hearts, whatever is weighing us down, that we could look to you, Christ, this morning and see satisfaction that only you could provide. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.