John 18:28-40 (The Kingship of Christ

The Shepherd's Church

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Even though 2 Timothy 2 23 tells us to avoid useless controversies

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There is no shortage of them on the artist formerly known as Twitter And what do you do now?

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Do you tweet or do you X? I don't quite know What I've noticed about Twitter is that some controversies are absolutely

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Pointless and useless and they are people who are addicted to controversy So we need to avoid that But there's also sometimes where there are things that are important controversies that we actually should be aware of and should engage in and this week as Our brother

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Ron was telling us earlier. There is a controversy that happened. That's important I'll give you a little bit of background on this

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The Daily Wire is sort of a conservative news organization And They had a talent who was hired by them and employed on their staff whose name was

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Candace Owen Candace Owens was a conservative pundit who was recently fired by the

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Daily Wire because her views on Israel Palestine and all of that ran afoul of the

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Jewish leadership in the company namely Ben Shapiro She was terminated in that she was sort of publicly shamed by several members on Twitter To which she responded

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Christ is King Now it did not take long for accusations of anti -semitism to be leveled at Candace Owens She's only saying that because Ben Shapiro fired her.

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Oh how hateful all how intolerant and then It did not take long before Christians to be called the

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Christ as King crowd See how this is going.

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And when we say that phrase we are anti Semites Which is preposterous?

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Because at the very heart of Christianity is the kingship of Jesus if you lose that you lose the faith

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Now, I don't know Candace Owens from Adam or Eve And I don't know what her motivation was for saying it, but I don't really care because Christ is

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King and no one Will tell the believer not to say

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Christ is King. Let them punish us Let them call us all manner of evil

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Anti -semitism is this week's racism Everybody's an anti -semite as long as you don't like them

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But through all of that Christ Jesus is King and all people

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Will be confronted with his kingship There is no neutrality All people will be will come to terms with his kingship in one way or another

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They will either come to terms with his kingship being crushed under the weight of his sandal Or they will come to terms with his kingship being raised up in blessing

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Because of their election and regeneration There is no neutrality. There is no special status

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There is not a single people on earth who can come into the kingdom apart from Jesus Christ Christ is

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King and His lordship and his kingship matters immensely it is our confession and we cannot stop saying it

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Because everyone needs repentance to the Jew first and to the Gentile and this is really important and and Who knows

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I might get accused of anti -semitism for saying this a Jew who does not know

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Jesus Christ does not have a special status and they will die and go to hell just like every other Person who does not know

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Christ We must say Christ is Lord and Christ is

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King to all people Jew Gentile and everyone Whether they call us names or not.

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Amen And this is why this is so good because it's been Shapiro says I'm gonna agree with him facts.

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Don't care about your feelings The fact is Jesus is King whether it makes you happy or not.

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Amen. All right Now, why do I bring this up because it's relevant it's happening right now and I want to encourage you not to not to abrogate your confession not to be scared of what people might call you but to be

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Encouraged and to be able to say with boldness and confidence Christ is King So I say it for that reason, but also the confusion over the kingship of Jesus is not new the

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Jews of today are not the only Jews that have been confused about the kingship of Christ and The Gentiles of today are not the only people who've been confused about the kingship of Christ.

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This goes all the way back to Christ So today we're going to talk about Pilate Who was confronted by the reality that Christ is

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King and he was utterly confused And we're gonna see six different truths in this section six truths for us to believe about the kingship of Christ and six truths that Pilate was confounded about Those six truths are number one

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Christ is King number two. He brings a spiritual kingdom Number three, he brings a kingdom filled with truth number four.

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He brings a timeless kingdom number five he brings an irrational kingdom to the to the rationality of the world and he brings a transformational kingdom six truths

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That will help us today understand who Jesus is as King and it will also help us understand our place in His kingdom so if you will turn with me to John chapter 18 as we take on more verses than I feel comfortable and Let us read the

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Word of God together. We'll be in verse 28 through 40 this morning John chapter 18

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This also will close out John chapter 18 for us the text says

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Then 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 might eat the

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Passover Therefore Pilate went out to them and said what accusation do you bring against this man?

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And they answered and said to him if this man were not an evildoer, we would not have delivered him to you

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So Pilate said to them take him yourselves and judge him according to your law and the

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Jews said to him We are not permitted to put anyone to death This was to fulfill the Word of Jesus, which he spoke signifying the kind of death that he was about to die therefore

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Pilate entered again into the praetorium and Summoned Jesus and said to him. Are you the king of the

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Jews and Jesus answered are you saying this on your own initiative or did others tell you about me?

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And Pilate answered I am NOT a Jew am I Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you to me.

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What have you done? Jesus answered my kingdom is not of this world

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If my kingdom were of this world and my servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the

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Jews But as it is my kingdom is not of this realm Therefore Pilate said to him so you are a king and Jesus said you say correctly that I am a king

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For this I have been born and for this I have come to the world to testify to the truth

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Everyone who is of the truth. Here's my voice Pilate said to him what is truth?

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And when he had said this he went out again to the Jews and said to them I find no guilt in him

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But you have a custom that I release someone for you at the Passover Do you wish then that I release for you the king of the

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Jews? So they cried out again saying not this man, but Barabbas now

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Barabbas was a robber Let's pray Lord Jesus The reality of your kingship is so clearly

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Discussed and demonstrated in this passage this morning Let us see and celebrate your kingship let us find

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Where we fit into the kingdom as citizens and slaves and Lord let us in all ways and at all times

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Have courage you say in your word that if we are ashamed of you, you will be ashamed of us

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Or let that not be true for this group Let us to have great boldness assurance and confidence and Your kingly reign and let it ever be on our lips all our days

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Christ's name. Amen So a little bit of the background that just to catch us up We've been in Good Friday and Easter and and all of that.

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So just to catch us back up We were in the Garden of Gethsemane and that's where Jesus was arrested

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By the betrayal of Judas and his disciples you remember Peter goes a little Rambo on Malchus for a second and then

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Jesus says no Peter put away your sword and he's taken to the home of Annas first and then to Caiaphas where the entire

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Sanhedrin was assembled. Now if you're not aware of what the Sanhedrin is, it is the ruling party of Jerusalem it is the cohort of Sadducees and Pharisees who together are basically the

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Congress of that particular era They were they were the ones that had the power and the prestige and they the authority to do almost whatever they wanted now

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They were Assembled at Caiaphas's home as Peter was outside in the courtyard denying

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Jesus and you'll remember that he denied Jesus three times Before the rooster crowed before sprinting out of Caiaphas's courtyard in tears

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We don't know where he went. Maybe the upper room, but he was in great shame for denying

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Jesus Now back in Caiaphas's house the Sanhedrin came to the conclusion that they wanted

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The entire kangaroo trial that they were looking for is they needed some reason to send him to Pilate Because at that particular time the

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Sanhedrin could not put someone to death They could adjudicate matters of their own regional law according to the

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Romans They could they could make decisions on food purity laws and they could make decisions on how much you could walk

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Outside of your house on the Sabbath and things like that and certainly they did they were legalist through and through but at this point if you violated a law so severely that you needed corporate punishment where you needed

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Capital punishment they could not administer that so they had to get to the point to where Jesus Needed to die they could prove that and then they needed to hand him over to Pilate to finish the job and in that sense

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The irony runs pretty deep in this passage that the Jews out of one side of their mouth

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Will say how ugly and dirty and disgusting those Romans are and yet here they're colluding with them to destroy

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Christ So They hastily moved Jesus now, you remember they punched

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Jesus in the face. They've slapped him. They've mocked him. They've spit in his face He's been in a holding cell. He got to Caiaphas his house about midnight

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So he's been in a holding cell until early in the morning now They're marching him through the streets of Jerusalem Early enough to where people are not meddling around in the city yet because they the last thing that Jews want is for the crowds

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To turn away from them and they're taking him to the home of Caiaphas I mean of to the palace of Pilate the castle of Antonia now

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You'll remember as they arrive at the praetorium that they don't go in which is another

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Amazing hypocrisy of this they want to kill Jesus. They want to murder him, but they're so sophisticated in their sensibilities

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And in the religious law that we dare not get near a Gentile near Passover because how could we eat the Passover?

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Before murdering Jesus if we get near the Gentile That would be that would be absolutely foolish.

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That would be unsophisticated of us so in route to murdering the

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Son of God They had to protect their cleanness we can understand right? So pilot goes out to them.

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I think this is also an astonishing feature of the narrative pilot is the Roman governor He could have said pound sand you come into me

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And yet he goes out to them which is a fascinating little feature of this which kind of shows the

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What is the word the codependency That is existing at this time between Judah and Rome this sort of love -hate frenemy relationship that they have

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Now if you remember in Rome Was the governing party here? They had conquered

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Judah Several decades before this but Judah was a pesky sort of little place in the

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Roman Empire The Romans loved peace and at this time there was this thing called the Pax Romana Which meant the peace of Rome where there was no war in the entire

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Empire. So the Romans wanted peace They did not like headaches Unlike the Assyrians who would fight anybody anytime anywhere and they would provoke you to fight so they could fight

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The Romans actually didn't want to fight They wanted to have a peaceful Empire where they didn't have any headaches and they could prop their feet up and enjoy their day

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So the Jews made that very difficult for the Romans The Caesars would become enraged if these types of things would happen

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So they would install prefects and governors over pesky regions who didn't like being subjugated

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It just so happens to be Pilate in this particular city now Pilate was installed as the prefect of Jerusalem as the governor of Jerusalem in ad -26.

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So he was here for the entire ministry of Jesus And he was known for disregarding the

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Jews he was known for his sarcasm and he was known for his sort of looking down his nose and Saying things that would inflame them and over the course of his career, which at this point

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I think this is 80 30 Maybe it's 80 33, but he's not been the prefect for very long

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Certainly not for decades and he's already had several riots that have happened in the city just under his tenure

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Now that is a problem if you're Rome Because his job was to keep the peace his job was to keep people from peaceful protesting mostly peaceful protesting and Yet he had not done that.

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So at this point pilot could not roll the dice really strongly on a

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Galilean Messianic figure because if pilot risked it in this moment and the

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Jews who are threatening to riot everything you see in this passage from the Jews is Escalation they're pushing pilot to obey their will so that the city doesn't get out of control if he did not do that It's likely that he would not only have been fired

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But he would have been either beheaded or murdered For not doing his job and keeping the city under control because again

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The Romans don't want to have to deal with this took them a long time before they finally stormed the city in 80 70

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But when they did they did So in this way Pilot is sort of a man caught between two positions.

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He knows that freeing Jesus will Infuriate the Jews and for that reason He would want to do it

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He also is a sympathetic figure in this passage because he says I don't believe he's done anything wrong

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I don't believe he's done anything worthy of guilt So in this sense, I can't prove this but it seems like he not only wants to infuriate the

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Jews But it also seems like that he sees that there's some truthfulness here that Christ has not done what they're saying that he's done he sees their hypocrisy and yet he's caught in between a impossible situation where if he

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Acts on it. He's going to be in massive trouble His heart was moved

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It seems like maybe his wife's dream was a part of that where she said don't have anything to do with this man

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His heart was moved but his body wasn't the pressure of his job and of Rome and of the

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Situation was more than he could handle and he became a willing participant in the death of Christ But in this passage, that's the background in this passage

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We see even in the midst of that even in the midst of defeat even in the midst of them killing

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Jesus we see very clearly that His death was not defeat that his death was the beginnings of the kingship of The King of Kings and the

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Lord of Lords and we see that so brilliantly in this passage for instance verse 33 through 35

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Therefore Pilate entered again into the praetorium and he summoned Jesus and said to him. Are you king of the

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Jews? And Jesus answered and said are you saying this of your own initiative or did others tell you about me?

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Pilate answered I am NOT a Jew. Am I your own nation and chief priests have delivered you to me.

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What have you done? Pilate is aware that Jesus is a

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King or at least that's the title you remember later when Jesus is crucified Pilate Pilate twists the screws a little bit and puts above Jesus has said

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Jesus king of the Jews and then the Jews come to him and say no no No, can you put Jesus said that he was the king of the

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Jews and Pilate said what I have written I have written So Pilate found a way to still stick it to them

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Now that Jesus is kingship in this passage reveals at first It reveals the depth and the depravity of the

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Jewish people at this particular point their hopes in their dreams for the last 400 years was that a

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Messiah would come and free them from occupation They were under the reins of multiple different empires since the

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Exile They were under the reign of Babylon Persia Greece and now Rome for 400 years

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They have not been a sovereign people and that is what they wanted They said that's what our prophets have promised that we would be a nation again that we would be elevated up above all the rest of The nation's here their hopes and dreams are standing right in front of their noses and they are saying crucify him the one who

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Would make them into a people a priesthood a holy nation Was right in front of them and they said kill him

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Look at the depravity The very God who dwelled in the back room of the

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Holy of Holies was standing in front of them and they were so blind They could not recognize him

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So Jesus's kingship reveals their deep depravity it also reveals pilots utter ignorance

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It exposes him as Being ignorant of who Christ is. The first thing pilot does is he asks a question.

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Are you the king of the Jews? So he said he shows that he's got some knowledge of the situation. Are you who they say that you are?

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Are you the king and you can imagine that that question was probably dripping with mockery. Are you the king?

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Uh -huh, really? Really you want to tell Caesar that? Gotcha, okay he couldn't understand that Jesus was a king and he could not understand that Jesus was a king in Judah a

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Subjugated people of people who are under the thumb of Rome. He would have said look at us We're the ones in charge.

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Not you. We're the ones that have power. Not you. You're a king What an

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Empire Jesus responds to pilot saying are you saying this of your own initiative or did others tell you about me?

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He's exposing his ignorance. He's saying you don't really know anything. You don't know what you're talking about Pilot then retorts your own nation and your chief priests are the ones who've handed you over to me.

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What have you done? Because to pilot Jesus was just a man I I worked in a jail for seven and a half years and Before I moved up to here and I met many people who came in who were

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Charged with all kinds of different crimes. There were a few that I met along the way that I thought

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I Could I could see that that they probably didn't do that. I have no idea.

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I'm not the judge I'm not the one in charge on that but stuff's just not adding up and Do you think

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I stuck my neck out for them? Do you think I grabbed them and by the collar and said we're going no way.

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I left that jail every day and went home and I lived with my family and I thought pity for them

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But I didn't do anything to rescue them. It's kind of similar to what pilots doing here I don't think pilot thinks that Jesus is a revolutionary.

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I don't think that pilot thinks that Jesus is an Insurrectionist not that that's culturally relevant that that would be a

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Mockery term that people have thrown on other people like grandmas in Washington. But anyway, I Think he believes that Jesus has been falsely charged and For that reason

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I think he has pity and he has a certain degree of if I can help I can help if I can't I can't sort of attitude

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Now, I think the reason pilot thinks this way is because he thinks he was in charge He thinks he had the authority and what

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Jesus is going to show him is that the authority that you think you have you do not

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This is where Jesus is going to expose his ignorance Look at what Jesus says in John chapter 19.

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We'll get to this in a couple weeks John chapter 19 verse 11 You would have no authority over me unless it had been given to you from above What Jesus is saying is you think you're in control?

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You think you're gonna crucify me? You think you're doing all of this you have no authority whatsoever unless it was given to you by God and Jesus is telling us something

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Theologically very significant in that moment He's saying that pilot Caiaphas Caesar and Satan have no authority over the people of God lest it be given to them from above and Christ affirms this in John 18 for this reason

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I have been born and for this reason I have come into the world He's saying I'm the one who has authority. I'm the one who's calling the shots

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I'm the one who's setting the agenda not you Which means that the purpose of Jesus's kingdom was not to liberate

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Judah from Rome the purpose of his kingdom was to take back all of the authority on earth that had been stolen

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To take back authority that Satan stole in the garden to take back authority

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That would that would lead his people into freedom from their sins and to extend his authority

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So palpably that he would have dominion over the entire earth Where Jesus says all authority in heaven and earth belongs to me when

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Jesus rose from the dead There is no authority outside of his there's not

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That means that no King no dictator. No boss. No Caesar. No wife. No husband No child, none of us have any authority unless it is borrowed or given to us from God That means that there is no authority on earth except for derived authority

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That means our wicked government has no real authority That means that that if police officers go rogue they have no authority

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They they can wield a stolen authority at best But they will be accountable to the holiness and the wrath of Almighty God Matthew again 28 18 says all authority in heaven and earth belong to me

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That's not a technical Greek term there. That's not a convoluted passage where well, sometimes all means none

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Or sometimes it might mean some no, it means all All authority in heaven.

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So if you go to heaven, there's no authority. That's not his and on earth So look around you there is no authority.

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That's not his that's what it means and because of that Everything that Jesus came to do will be accomplished

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Unlike pilot who was confused by this I pray that you and I who are citizens of Jesus's kingdom will see this with great clarity and That we will rejoice in the fact that we don't have any authority

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We're called slaves and that's the best news ever Because if you have authority you'll screw it up Like I would too

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But because Christ has authority and he's perfect Everything that he does in your life is perfect See you actually gain freedom you gain

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Joy as you surrender your toxic control or your toxic desire to have control

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The more control you try to seize the less control you actually have the more that you try to be in authority over anything

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The more that you will be miserable and everything the only freedom the only happiness the only joy comes in knowing

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Christ and Surrendering yourself to him and if you get authority in this life, you recognize that it's not yours

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If you get elevated to a position where you have a team of people underneath you, they're not your team.

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They're his If you become the CEO of a company, I hope that's true for you. It's not your company.

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It's his If you go in your home and you say this is mine Be careful

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Don't white -knuckle that it's not yours. It's his because everything you own belongs to him

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He is King that's what he's saying and if he is King guess what we are not

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That's our confession That's what we say and that's what no one will tell us not to say we boast in our weakness

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We praise him in his in his mighty strength That's what it means to be a Christian It's the boast in the kingship of Jesus Christ and to magnify him while we are weak.

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He is strong He must become greater. We must become less That's the first thing we learn in this passage is that Christ is

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King Second thing we learn is that he's bringing a spiritual kingdom Jesus says my kingdom is not of this world.

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Now, please do not be mistaken by this passage Do not misunderstand what it means. He did not say my kingdom will have no impact in this world

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He said my kingdom is not of or from this world He's saying that the origin of my kingdom is not man -made.

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It's not like Rome. It's not like America. It's not like Timbuktu The origin the power that the the fuel that is running this kingdom is not earthly It's heavenly, but be not mistaken.

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It will have an impact on this world It will transform it which we'll get to in a moment

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It is the triune God himself who fuels the kingdom of God and it is he in three persons

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Who we submit our lives to? Now the Jews misunderstood this completely they wanted an ethno national kingdom where they were elevated above all the peoples on earth

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They wanted to be the head and then what did everyone else to be the tail? They wanted to look down their nose and say We're better than you

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That's what they wanted We've said this a couple times now in the temple

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They wouldn't allow Gentiles even into the Gentile region of the temple courtyard They wouldn't they had a sign up We said this again many times they had a sign up saying that if you go past this point, mr.

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Gentile will kill you the way that they Expressed hatred towards the

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Samaritans the way that they expressed hatred towards people who are not like them was sick and It arise and it are in it arised from a sick and diseased heart

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Instead of them being elevated Christ came so that he would be Elevated above all things they wanted

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Rome to be upended Jesus wanted something far bigger than Rome to be ended He wanted

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Satan sin and death To be conquered under his majesty so much bigger than Rome so much bigger than the

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Egypt's and the Pharaohs of the world He wanted to transform everything Paul Says this as well in Ephesians 6 12

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Our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places

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He's saying that the kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom, but it has physical impact

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It's not a kingdom that is advanced through conquering and with violence It is not a kingdom where we where we pull the

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Sharia law card and we go jihad on someone It is a kingdom where the

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Savior triumphs over a world filled with hate with love It is a kingdom where a world filled with lies is overcome by a

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Savior who tells the truth It is a kingdom that is not built with f -15s and submarines and nukes and everything else

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It is a kingdom that is built on the Lord's Day every week as we gather It is a kingdom where we feast at his table

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It is a kingdom that is built in your homes when you do family worship It is a kingdom that as we worship and praise him in our lives

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He over comes the world Did you know that he overcame the

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Roman Empire with men and women who died in the Colosseum? What a crazy kingdom

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You think about kingdoms you think about Vikings who are running and overpowering people you think about soldiers with better weapons

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You think about all of no through one martyr after another Rome was toppled the greatest empire that the world ever known was conquered on the witness of the

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Saints and All the empires on earth will be conquered that way one confession one prayer one worship service one

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Lord's table feasting One reading of my Bible one family worship after another in perpetuity will end the offenses of sinful man and Will bring about the kingdom of Almighty Christ Isaiah 11 9 says the earth will be full of the knowledge of the

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Lord as the water covers the sea Do you see what brings in the kingdom? It's not tanks

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It's not it's it's not 50 caliber rifles It's the knowledge of the

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Lord It's theology. It's knowing God That's what overturns the world and that's what fills it with the glory of God.

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It's a mustard seed That starts out really small and then it grows and it fills the entire world.

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It's a little pebble That becomes a mountain that fills the entire earth. It's a little microscopic

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Molecule of leaven that eventually leavens the entire lump It is not forceful or violent, but it will take over and it will bring about his peace now again

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The Jews misunderstood this pilot misunderstood this but I hope as we consider what

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Jesus said that we would understand this Revel in this and I pray that we would be citizens who participate in this

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That's the second thing that his kingdom is a spiritual kingdom and their spiritual warfare and weapons that we can participate in to see his

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Kingdom grow. The third thing is that it's a truthful kingdom in a world filled with lies

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The kingdom of Jesus recovers truth and reality It is not a political machine like Rome or like Washington or any other hyper political swamp

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Jesus's kingdom is built on truth and Lies cannot exist in the presence of truth.

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How do you kill mold bring it into the light? How do you How do you crush the disease of sinful man the light of Christ shines on it?

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Withers it dries it up and it will either crush it or it will bring it into his kingdom Jesus continues his answer to pilot talking about this for this

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I've been born For this I've come into the world to testify to the truth everyone who is of the truth

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Hears my voice if you hear his voice you are of the truth There is no such thing as a

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Christian who lives in lies There is no such thing as a Christian who panders to pagan society and says well,

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I think a man can become a woman There is no such thing Jesus came to reestablish reality

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Which makes his kingdom different than every other kingdom on earth Man's kingdom fundamentally at its heart if you want to understand what connects every kingdom of man

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I don't care what nation it is I don't care what people it is what connects them all together the similitude that makes them the same is that they are suppressing the truth of the knowledge of God and what makes us different one of the fundamental aspects of what makes a

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Christian different is That we no longer hate the truth of God But because Christ was despised on our behalf we now love the truth we're people of the truth

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Instead of embracing lies we embrace reality we embrace truth Jesus came to revive knowledge

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This is why Christians ought to be at the forefront of every discipline This is why Christians ought to be the forefront of science.

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Why is it that Christians have abandoned? knowledge fields When our

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God is God of all knowledge, why have we not come up with the cure for cancer Why did we have the heights of music and art and now we've totally squandered that legacy

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He's a God of truth who brings a kingdom of truth and we ought to be the people who bring that truth in every field to the nations

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He set us free from the father of lies So that we could now be ambassadors of righteousness and truth

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Jesus is restoring truth about our origins He's restoring truth about our nature. He's restoring truth about salvation and how man can know

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God He's restoring truth about the purpose that we were all created for instead of the nihilistic vision that the left and that the world clings to I Was watching this week.

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I don't know if you saw this What's his name Dawkins Richard Dawkins the famous atheist

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He said I want to live in a world where Christianity is is believed even though I know that it's not real

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What's happened to him because he used to say ten years ago that Christianity was a plague upon the world

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Now he's seeing that as people abandon truth. The world becomes a squalor. I Don't know if Richard Dawkins will ever become saved

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But he realizes that there's something about the gospel and there's something about the kingdom of God That brings truth to the nations

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And if you leave that you don't give it you don't get into a different hue of light you go into darkness

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There is either light or there's darkness and he's realizing that in Europe and in Britain His country is descending into darkness because the abandonment of Christ We must as Christians be children of the truth and we must

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Hold fast to the truth. That's why we can never affirm that abortion is health care It's not we can

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I don't even think that we can see the argument that that's a fetus. That's a human That word fetus is euphemism to try to degrade what's going on in that womb

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That is a special creation of Almighty God and I don't care what you call it. It is a human abortion another euphemism

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Murder is what it is We must be men and women of truth we must be men and women who say that nope you cannot participate in women's sports if You were not a biological woman

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We must be the ones who say that no one not Jew nor Greek can find ultimate purpose and happiness apart from a relationship with Almighty God We must reject the lie that the people that we interact with on a daily basis are good people

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Who have a good moral framework who if we could just add a little Jesus to their life

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Then maybe their life would be a little bit more meaningful They are people that we are interacting with who are dying and going to hell and they need

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Christ There is no one good but him Brothers and sisters, we must be men and women of the truth, you know,

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Jesus never cowered Jesus never capitulated. There was never a time where he said

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Never a time when he compromised, you know that if Christ's Spirit lives inside of us that he wants to produce his character in us so that we would not be

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Sanctified wusses in society, but we would be people who would never cower never compromise and never capitulate And we can do that with joy and we can do that with love.

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We don't have to have a bad attitude about it But the courage that Christ had

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He's given to us by his spirit so that we would be men and women of truth so that we would not compromise

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That is that is a disease that has a infected the Christian Church down to its roots drive

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Anywhere in this state and you will see nine out of ten churches that are absolutely compromised

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With their rainbow flag their trans flag or whatever else We must take captive thoughts and we must remember that that is not just an individual work

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Christians, we don't just take thought our thoughts captive. We're commanded to take the nation's captive by the truth of Christ Jesus didn't say go into all the world and disciple some people

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He's it going all the world disciple the nation's We live in one. Let's disciple it

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And Let's show them who Christ is and who his truth is so that the world will either have to scream and shriek like demons

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Or they will have to bow down and worship Christ Let them not have a neutral experience with the church

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Let them either hate us for our confession or let them say God must be true.

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God must be alive because of these people Pilot was confused.

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He didn't understand these words and you know pilot didn't have a small vocabulary. He was an educated man So it wasn't like he didn't understand what truth is when pilot said, what is truth?

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It's not like you saying I don't know what that means You know, I mean you're speaking Aramaic pilot would have known

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Aramaic He would have known the word for truth in Aramaic. He would have known the word for truth in Greek He would have known the word for truth

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Veritas in Latin. He would have known what it meant Pilate would have been classically educated.

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He would have been he would have grown up reading Socrates and Plato and Virgil and all of these different ancient sources of truth

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He would have had more of an understanding of philosophy than anyone else in the Judean country

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And yet here he is exposed for his ignorance. What is truth? Because in the face of the

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God of truth everything that he knew now became a lie And in this he stands as an example of the fallen man

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Everyone who does not know God no matter how intelligent they are no matter how many degrees they have no matter how many letters they have before their name

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They are ignorant of the only truth that matters and that is knowing God men will fashion their own versions of truth and They will die in their blindness if they are not confronted with the

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God of truth That's the third thing that we learn is that he is bringing a kingdom of truth and he has made us citizens of truth

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And as citizens of truth, we must bring his truth to the nations And what is the fundamental truth that everyone needs to hear?

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That you are dead in your trespasses and the only way that you can be saved is through faith in Jesus Christ May we declare that every day of our life to everyone who needs to hear it

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The fourth thing that we learned is that he's bringing a timeless kingdom He's bringing a kingdom that is eternal

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Though Pilate dismissed Jesus as a revolutionary the Lord revealed to him that he was an eternal King said for this reason

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I was born the word for means that there was a purpose means his kingdom existed before his birth and we know that because God Is infinite in all of his understanding and omniscient that that kingdom existed before the world was even created

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Before Adam sinned God had a plan to send Jesus Christ to die on the cross and to ransom us into his kingdom

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That that was all worked out before The first Adam and the first electron circled the first nucleus

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His reign was foreshadowed in Eden Adam was created to be a leader in the world

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And in his fall we see that we need a better King His King was typified in the

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Exodus That we need a better Savior His kingship was was shown in the kingship of Judah how they fell and how they were broken and how they bowed their knee at every

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Idol and how he would be the king who would rescue his people from their sin before the finite was ever created

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His kingdom was infinite and that is what you and I have been swept up into the infinite timeless eternal

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Kingdom of God, what does that mean? that means when you leave here today and you're not a good citizen and you do things that invoke evoke the fury of a king and Let's say you go home and you

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Fight with your husband or your wife like cats and dogs you yell at your children you do all manner of evil and If you are truly his and you truly belong to him

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Then though you be a wretch You are caught up in his eternal kingdom

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If you were ever his you are always his like we read in John 10 now

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That doesn't mean that you can go and just live any old way you want You can't live like hell and then try to think that you're gonna have any confidence to go to heaven

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That's not what I mean. But what I mean is on your worst day You cannot undo

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What an eternal God has done So have confidence in your Savior and not in your performance

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That's the fourth thing. The fifth thing is that this kingdom appears irrational to the world and It also exposes the world's irrationality

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You see here pilot was exposed the man who had a doctorate degree of his time the man We're the most educated man in Judah is exposed saying what is truth

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That'd be like going up to Richard Dawkins and asking him about something in and His field whatever it is or going up to Stephen Hawking when he was still alive and saying tell me about Tell me about cosmology.

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Well, I don't know. What is it? Pilot was exposed He was exposed as having the rationality of a wild animal before the

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King of Kings and the Lord of truth Jesus exposed the

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Jews As not being about the things of God but being about the things of man that they wanted to crucify him

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Did you know that when they asked for Barabbas? It's actually really telling what they were doing the word there is not robber or thief

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That's an English translation that I actually don't think is super helpful to understand what it means The word means insurrectionist

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The word is often used of messianic figures So when they traded in Jesus for Barabbas, they were trading in the

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Messiah that they didn't want for the Messiah that they did They didn't want Jesus the king of peace

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They wanted Barabbas the king of war They didn't want Jesus the king of humility and righteousness

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They wanted Barabbas the king of violence because their salvation that they had sketched out was we need to be free of Rome Whereas Jesus is saying

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I'm gonna free you from Satan sin and death and I'm gonna make you truly free Christ in his life death burial resurrection exposed the irrationality of the pagan heart and of the reprobate

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They exchanged their Creator For creation and before we get too prideful

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We would have done the same exact thing. Do not think that you would have been any different.

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There's an old There's an old spiritual song in the early Americas that says

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Where were you when they crucified my lord and the refrain is I was there.

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I was there if You assume that you would have been better You assume you have some spiritual pedigree other than your fallenness that would have made you any different than anyone else who was there

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No one stood beside Jesus Everyone turned on him for some reason or another and that is the default mode of the unbelieving heart

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Is that we will turn on the God of truth and live in lies if it's not for salvation and regeneration without the gift of the

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Holy Spirit without the gift of salvation you and I are Hopeless and we will shriek right alongside of them like thoroughgoing demons and we will yell crucify him crucify him

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And we will say what is truth if it's not for the God of truth Rescuing us and catching us in up into his gospel.

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Remember brothers and sisters what repentance is Salvation is not that I was smart enough to recognize that I needed

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Jesus. It's not like buying insurance Salvation is

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I was dead in a coffin and I had no heartbeat and the Savior of the world came and Brought me back to life.

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And when I opened my eyes, I was thoroughly confused on what was going on But I saw his face and I loved him

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Because he's the only reason I'm alive Without that we're doomed to slavery

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We're doomed to damnation We're doomed to chaos We're doomed to death

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Don't forget who you are and Knowing who you are actually encourages your heart towards gratitude because if you know how thoroughgoing bad you are

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Against the darkness of your soul You'll see the beauty of Christ and he will shine all the brighter to you because you'll realize that you have nothing.

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I remember I Remember like it was yesterday when I realized that I could do nothing to save myself.

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I remember I Remember feeling the panic in my heart That if Christ did not choose me,

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I would be lost. There was nothing that I could do It's not like it's not like swimming to shore and all good.

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I made it even though I had a stomach cramp It's not like climbing a really tall mountain when you're out of shape and being like I'm glad that's over You're thrown into the middle of an endless ocean and without someone with a strong hand reaching down and yanking you out you are dead his kingdom

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Overcomes our irrationality by his grace and I will say this

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We don't we don't want to be purposefully offensive in the truth of the gospel. We don't want to be blowhards and and and men and women who are aggressively just Awful to be around we don't we don't want to scream at people and be angry at them

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But we also don't want to avoid the offense of the gospel either. I Would much rather inflame the sinner's heart today than have them die in the flames of hell forever

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We can say the gospel with joy we can say the gospel with with deliberate

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Care, but we must speak it We can't be silent We cannot allow anybody to say do not say that because it will hurt someone's feelings

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Better to hurt their feelings than for them to fall headlong into hell Better to tell them what they need to hear today than for it to be too late and for them to die apart from God I know

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God's sovereign over salvation But I also know that he uses means and the means that he uses to bring people into his kingdom is us declaring his gospel

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That's the fifth thing. The sixth thing is that it's a transformational kingdom The elites of Jerusalem thought that they had smothered him pilot thought that he had

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Found a way to get out of a tough situation at best and yet the gospel is that he was not smothered

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Even though they put him in a tomb and they sealed it they put a Roman guard out front big deal on The third day he burst out of the tomb and conquered

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Satan sin and death in his ascension He was coronated as king in his mission He has made us his citizens and the church has expanded for the last 2 ,000 years and as we said before 12 men

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Eventually overturned the Roman Empire and then for the last 16 centuries

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That number has continued to grow the Church of Jesus has quadrupled in the last hundred years.

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Did you know that? The Church of Jesus has quadrupled in the last 100 years.

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Why are we so pessimistic? Why do we believe the lie that everything is going to come crashing down in a moment?

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Brothers and sisters let that ignite your heart That you're on the winning team

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That Christ will have dominion When you look around at all of the defeat, I want you to look at it with two different lenses

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I want you to look at it with pity Because it is to be pitied and I want you to look at it with hope

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Because Christ will have dominion over these things before it's all said and done But do not look at the world that you live in with defeat do not refuse it refuse it

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Because Christ will not lead us into defeat He is our Good Shepherd. He will not lead us to wolves.

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He will not lead us over cliffs edges He will not lead us into potholes where we break our limbs There will be trials there will be struggles, but he will lead us

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To see his kingdom advance to the ends of the earth It will be advanced by preaching the

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Word of God It will be advanced by the Word and the sacraments It will be advanced by taking over everything that is broken and it will be advanced by bringing truth to a world filled with lies

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That is the kingdom that Jesus tells us about today he's King and His kingdom will reign and you and I are citizens and now brothers and sisters live accordingly

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Let's pray Lord we thank you that you're a king And Lord we thank you that your kingship now changes our status

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No longer we slaves in the mines of hell and no longer are we servants of iniquity

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Lord Your kingship has changed our status Now we are slaves of righteousness. We're slaves of Christ and With that that means behavior modification has come through the

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Spirit of God Lord. Let us not live as Children of the world any longer, but let us live unlike Pilate unlike the

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Jews or let us live With Christ our King let us let that ever be our confession and Lord let us declare it here on Sundays Let us declare it in our living rooms

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Let us declare it in our jobs let us announce it to those who don't want to hear it and Let us continue to have the anthem of his kingship

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Reverberate all over planet earth until his kingdom comes on earth as it already has in heaven