Sermon Tone Analysis

The King and His Kingdom

Ron Dunn

John 18:36

 

 

Open your Bibles to the Gospel of John once again.

We are going to begin reading with verse 28 of chapter 18 and read through verse 40.

We really need to read the entire chapter.

I wish that you would read chapters 18 and 19 together.

They are some of the most powerful words that have ever been written as they concern our Lord as he is arrested, brought to trial, and then to the cross.

You see great conflict between individuals and a great conflict between their goals.

It is a wonderful psychological study, seeing the interplay between all those characters in these chapters.

Then they took Jesus from Caiaphas to Pilate's headquarters.

It was early in the morning.

They themselves did not enter the headquarters so as to avoid ritual defilement and to be able to eat the Passover.

(I underlined that as I thought there was great hypocrisy.

They didn't have scruple one about crucifying an innocent man, but they were certainly not going to defile themselves ceremonially.

The sad fact is that some people wouldn't smoke a cigarette or take a drink of wine if you put a gun to their heads, but they do not mind murdering someone with gossip and innuendo.

I have found in my own ministry that sometimes those who are the most particular and the most precise about maintaining the ritual cleanness they are the worst at the massacre of the reputations of others.)

So Pilate went out to them, and said, what accusation do you bring against this Man?

They answered, if this man were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you.

Pilate said to him, take him yourselves, and judge Him according to your law.

The Jews replied, we are not permitted to put anyone to death.

This was to fulfill what Jesus had said when he indicated the kind of death He was to die.

Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, are you the King of the Jews?

Jesus answered, Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about Me?  Pilate replied, I am not a Jew, am I?  Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me; what have you done?

Jesus answered, my kingdom is not from this world.

If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews; but as it is, my kingdom is not from here.

Pilate asked him, so you are a king?

Jesus answered, You say that (ought to put a period there) I am a king.

(In our vernacular, it would be something like, you said it; I am a king.)

For this I was born, and for this I came into the world to testify to the truth.

Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.

Pilate asked him, what is truth?

(Not waiting for an answer because he really wasn't serious; he was a practical man, a cynical man.

He turned after he said this and went out.)

He said, I find no case against him.

But you have a custom that I release someone for you at the Passover; do you want me to release for you the king of the Jews.

They shouted in reply, not this man, but Barabbas.

Now Barabbas was a bandit, a thief, an anarchist.

If you hate someone, and you want to get rid of them, one excuse is as good as another.

If you want to get rid of someone so badly, you don't need to resort to the truth, especially if there is no truth that will help you in your case.

So you pounce upon any part of a statement they have made and you bring up charges that cannot be enforced.

Anything—it doesn't matter.

If somebody doesn't like you, it doesn't matter what you do; they are going to find some way to find fault with what you do.

The chief priests were this way.

They were so absorbed by their hatred of Jesus that any old reason would do.

They brought him to Pilate and Pilate asked  what he was charged with.

They didn't really have a stand-up, legal charge or accusation, so, they said he was obviously a criminal or they would not have brought him to you in the first place.

Somewhere along the line, someone had mentioned to Pilate that he claimed to be a king.

This caught Pilate's attention because if there was another king floating around, he was a threat to the empire, and a threat to Caesar.

He brings Jesus into his headquarters and asks if he is king of the Jews.

And Jesus said, are you asking for your own sake or do you perceive something in me, or has somebody else put this notion in your head.

Pilot said, I'm not a Jew.

I don't know about that stuff.

Your own people have brought you here.

So there has to be something wrong.

Where there's smoke, there's fire.

If there is an accusation, then there has to be something to it.

After all, we are guilty until we are proved innocent.

Are you a king?

Jesus said, you said that.

.I am a king.

And then come what I believe are the key words in these chapters.

In verse 36, Jesus answered, my kingdom is not from this world.

Literally, it is not out of this world.

Literally, it is not laid aside this world as for comparison.

It is not like this world.

If my kingdom were like this world, and from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews.

As it is, my kingdom is not from here.

Then Jesus defines his kingdom.

He says,  I am a king, and for this cause I was born, and for this I came into the world (and here it is) to testify to the truth.

Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.

Now, I want us to focus on those words as we think about the king and his kingdom.

Let me just point out five things about the kingdom of our Lord.

1)     This kingdom is not of this world.

This is not a worldly kingdom.

If my kingdom was like this world, and of this world, then my followers would fight.

In the garden, when they came to take Jesus, Peter did pull out a sword and fight.

He went to Malchus and cut off his ear.

Peter wasn't afraid to fight, but he was a poor shot.

He didn't mean to cut off his ear; he meant to slice him down the middle—Mal on one side, and Chus on the other.

Jesus said, put away your sword.

And he restored the ear.

You would think right then and there, that would be enough to say this man is a good man.

This man must be a godly man, but that makes no difference.

He said, if my kingdom were of this world, then my people would act like that and they would use worldly methods to obtain their goal.

One of the problems that Christianity has always had is that there has always been the temptation to make his kingdom a kingdom of this world.

Even the Jews thought when the Messiah would come that he would establish an earthly kingdom right here and now, and throw off the Roman yoke of bondage.

They did not accept him because he did not appear as they expected him to appea, and his goals were not their goals.

Even the disciples didn't understand.

After the resurrection in Acts 1, they said, Lord, will you at this time now restore the kingdom to Israel?  Pagan writers like Tacitus ?? and Setonia ?? said, there were legends and tales that out of Judah would come a deliverer.

Everybody was thinking in terms of an earthly kingdom, an earthly power, an earthly reign.

But Jesus said, my kingdom is not of this world.

In about 320 A.D. Constantine did the worst harm that has ever been done to the Christian church.

He made it a kingdom of this world.

Jesus said, if my kingdom was of this world, I would use worldly methods to build it.

Of course, the implication is to build my kingdom I do not use worldly methods.

The church throughout the centuries has often forgotten those words.

There is that constant temptation for us to revert to the methods of the world to build the kingdom.

You see, this is the kind of Messiah the disciples started to follow.

When they started to follow Jesus, they had a different Jesus in mind.