KINGDOMS IN CONFLICT
Text: John 18: 33- 37
John 18:33-37 Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" (34) Jesus answered, "Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?" (35) 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?" (36) 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." (37) Pilate asked him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that 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." (NRSV).
Our text today, poses the question “How can God’s kingdom come on earth in the midst of conflict?” If Jesus is the King of all kings, and He is, then why does it appear that His never ending kingdom is in danger? All kings have a kingdom, but Jesus’s kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36)! The late Chuck Colson once said, “The kingdom of God is a rule, not a realm.” (Charles Colson. Kingdoms In Conflict. Grand Rapids, Zondervan Publishing House, 1987, p. 83). What does God’s Kingdom mean to us?
The kingdom of God exists in the world today through the fellowship of all Christians because of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. The kingdom of God is set up in the hearts of all who believe. I John 4:4 says, “Little children, you are from God and have overcome them [God’s enemies] for he [Jesus] who is in you is greater than he [the devil] who is in the world.” (ESV). Satan is behind all of the opposition to Jesus Christ, then in the days of Pontius Pilate, as now in modern day.
Our text today indirectly seems to illustrate how Satan seeks to deceive people in every age.
John 18:33- 37: In this moment when Pontius Pilate interrogates Jesus, we have to connect the dots. This is one of six attempts where Pilate tried to release Jesus. Pilate said to the Jews …
1) “You Judge Him according to your law” (John 18:31 CEB)
2)“I find no grounds for any charge against Him” (John 18:38 CEB).
3)According to a custom, the Jews substitute Barabbas for Jesus---the guilty for the innocent!
4)“Then Pilate had Jesus whipped” (John 19:1 CEB). This was not satisfactory to the Jews.
5)“Look! I’m bringing Him out to let you know that I find no grounds for a charge against Him. As He came out after He had been locked up, the soldiers who put a crown of thorns on His head and dressed Him in a purple robe (John 19:4 & 2 CEB).
6)The final exchange is where Pilate said, “Here’s your king.” the Jews replied that they had no king except Caesar (John 19:14- 16). (Mal Couch & Ed Hinson. eds. John: Believe and Live. Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2002, p. 185). So was Pilate trying to please others or earn their approval? Don’t we all have to decide where Jesus fits into our lives? Do we treat Him as a visitor or as the King of our hearts?
Let’s explore the kingdoms in conflict, God’s rule and our decision.
How many are there today who have no idea about Jesus’s kingdom? How can they understand His Kingdom if they do not know Him as their king? It has been said that “Christ the King Sunday was instituted in 1925 by Pope Pius XI in response to the tragedy of World War 1 and the growth of secularism in the world”. https://www.christgreensboro.org/news-articles/christthekingsunday What about where we are ninety six years later in 2021? How many still don’t know King Jesus or anything about His Kingdom? Did God’s creation turn the tables on God?
BEFORE THERE WERE KINGDOMS IN CONFLICT
When God created our ancestors Adam and Eve, God made our ancestors blameless and holy and placed our ancestors in the pure and undefiled Garden of Eden. God gave them free will to chose. Satan knew that sin would corrupt God’s creation which was why he targets us as he has every generation in every age since Adam and Eve.
1) Saboteur: Satan orchestrated attacking God’s kingdom from the beginning in the Garden of Eden. We know the story, the forbidden fruit, Satan’s mixing of the truth with falsehood, enticing Adam and Eve by tricking and deceiving them them to call good evil and evil good (Isaiah 5:20).
2) Worldly things: 1 John 2:16 says "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world" (KJV). The Expositor's Bible Commentary sums it up well: “If we know our own history we cannot be surprised … that one taste of evil ruined our first parents. It is so always. The one taste alters our attitude towards God and conscience and life. It is … [spellbinding]. The actual experience of sin is like the one taste of alcohol to a reclaimed drunkard, like the first taste of blood to a young tiger, it calls out the latent devil and creates a new nature within us. … it wipes out all the peace, and joy, and self-respect, and boldness of innocence, and numbers us among the transgressors, …’
3) Agenda: Satan’s agenda was to rebel against God, lead God’s first family to disobey. Satan opposed God’s kingdom and sought to establish one of his own.
GOD’S RULE
Again, we can ask the question “Has God’s creation turned on God--- our Creator? I remember a movie called 2001 Space Odyssey that came out when I was a child.
1) Mutiny: There was a poignant scene in the movie where a computer was turning the tables on its creator. Although that was a science fiction movie, intentional or not it, that one scene mimics how Satan formerly know as “Lucifer” turned on God.
2) Mutineers: Have we turned on God our Creator?
Is God’s rule limited by time or space?
1) Sovereignty: God’s rule is definitely not bound by time and space! God’s kingdom is forever! But, wait a minute how can this be true with all that we have going on in the world today?
2) Contradiction: Again, if Jesus is the King of all kings, and He is, then why does it appear that His never ending kingdom is in danger? All kings have a kingdom, but Jesus’s kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36)!
3) Restraint: Since God’s ways are higher than ours ways and our thoughts are not as high as His thoughts how can we understand how God is showing us restraint? One day and sooner than we may think Jesus is coming back! Everything good and perfect gift we have has been given to us by God the Father of lights (James 1:17) and yet many act as if they were self made men and women. Even our ancestors forgot God blessings and began to treat God like a spare tire.
4) Pride: Remember what happened to Satan when he fell (Isaiah 14:13) because how he and all of the fallen angles who followed him were cast out with him (Revelation 12:9)? How could our ancestors forget God? How could we forget our Creator? What happened to them? What will happen to us if we don’t change? Were they too proud? Are we too proud?
5) Amnesia: Consider this observation …
We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. A. Lincoln, Proclamation of a Day of National Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer, 1863 Galaxie Software. (2002). 10,000 Sermon Illustrations. Biblical Studies Press. Now who do you think made that observation? It was America’s sixteenth President, Abraham Lincoln. Did you notice how accurate his observation describes our time?
6) Judgement: Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:31 - 32 NRSV).
7) Prophecy of defeat: Even though Satan had his plans to build his own kingdom to rival God’s kingdom, God tells Satan that his plans will fail. In Genesis 3:15 it is God whose sovereignty sets the irrevocable limits of Satan’s power. Though Satan may strike at the heel of Eve’s descendants and cripple them and their walk with God, Jesus will strike a more powerful and weakening and defeating blow at Satan’s head (Genesis 3:15) and thereby defeats sin, death and the fear of death! This verse is known as the protevangelium, meaning "The First Gospel." (The Bible Believers’s Commentary as resourced on e-sword) . Protovangelism means two things. First, It means this is where God tells Satan that God alone has the last word! I John 3:10 tells us that “The Son of God was revealed for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil” (NRSV). Through Jesus Christ, God conquers sin, death and the fear of death for all who believe in Him (John 1:13,14). Secondly, it echoes John 3:16 meaning that God so loved the world that He wants to save the world through the witness of Jesus and His disciples to reach the lost. His kingdom stands in contrast to the world’s kingdom.
OUR DECISION ABOUT WHICH KINGDOM
Whom do we follow?
1) Choices: Do we follow the world or do we follow Jesus? At the birth of our Savior, people had to make a choice. The religious leaders ignored Him. King Herod opposed Him. The wise men chose Him. Wise men today still choose Jesus! He chose those who have responded to His call to reach the lost.
2) Negligence: Again, at the height of Jesus’s ministry to seek to save the last, the least and the lost, there were religious leaders who opposed Him. Many of them were the leaders of their day---members of the Sanhedrin--the highest Jewish Court. What will be the consequences of the leaders we have today? In the days of Jesus’ earthly ministry they wanted to charge Jesus with blasphemy. Since they could not execute Him, they turned Him over to the Romans who later charged Him with treason. Remember the six times Pilate tried to avoid having to decide what to do with Jesus. How many blind leaders (Matthew 15:14) today are blasphemous and idolatrous in their decisions today ?
What are we doing with the kingdom of Jesus inwardly in our hearts and outwardly in the world?
1) Incomplete: What happens if we fall short of completing our mission to spread the Gospel? As Dietrich Bonhoeffer once put it, “In the right confrontation with the world, the Church will become ever more like the form of its suffering Lord.” Christians are in the world but not of the world because “… they protect the world from the wrath and judgment of God”. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The Cost Of Discipleship. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995, pp. 267, 270). Romans 10:14 says "But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him?" (NRSV).
2) Salty and bright?: We are called to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Matthew 5:13 - 16). Does our presence really help to spare the lost? What would have happened if Abraham had not interceded for the people of Sodom seeking to get God spare them? Abraham started with the number of righteous being 50 and then kept exploring God’s grace until he reduced that number to 10. (See Genesis 18:26 - 33).
How do you intercede for the lost?
1) Chiseling away the marble: In 1984 there was an unequally yoked couple that was married. Jerry Levin was a journalist and his wife Sis was studying for the ministry at Near East University of Chicago Divinty School. The day came when Jerry got captured. He was an atheist, who then became an agnostic. Finally, he became a Christian. One day Jerry figured out that his captors had actually done God’s work. [It was as if God was chiseling away the metaphorical marble that surrounded his heart]. His captors were using him as a political prisoner. His capture had brought him to the realization of accepting Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. He prayed for the forgiveness of his captors. Later, behind the scenes God used unlikely people as part of a network for his rescue. He was helped by Christian, Jewish and Muslim friends. (Charles Colson. Kingdoms In Conflict. Grand Rapids, Zondervan Publishing House, 1987, p. pp. 58 - 62). God is not willing that any should perish but that all come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).
2) Grace: “How can God’s kingdom come on earth in the midst of conflict?” If Jesus is the King of all kings, and He is, then why does it appear that His never ending kingdom is in danger? The answer lies in God’s grace and mercy and longsuffering and forbearance! Again, God is not willing that nay should perish but that all should come to repentance II Peter 3:9)!. All kings have a kingdom, but Jesus’s kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36)! His kingdom continues in the world to day through how it is that we pick up our crosses and follow after Him. The way that we follow Jesus will tell others which kingdom we belong to.
God will always use His children to tear down strongholds that Satan has sought to use to distort, deceive and destroy God’s kingdom! Christ’s kingdom is forever. It was, and is and is to come! (Revelation 1:8). Christ is the Alpha and the Omega---the beginning and the end. Like Jesus we must live our lives demonstrating how the cross must always come before the crown! In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
