Are you ready for a bold statement? Here goes: Our God, Jesus Christ, is the King of the World. And no—not in some spiritual, theoretical, or “far off future” sense. He is currently enthroned, ruling the world with grace and truth. That’s the truth. And that truth should change everything for us. Which brings us to a second bold statement: Most Christians don’t know or don’t live like this is the case. You see, when we realize the full weight of the fact that Jesus is King—how it happened and what it means—we will never see our faith the same way again.

The phrase “The Kingdom of God” is one of the most spoken in all of Scripture. Which makes it all the more confounding that it’s also one of the most misunderstood ideas in all of Scripture. So what is “The Kingdom of God” that Jesus initiated, and what does it mean for us?

Today, are you guys excited to be here? Awesome. Excited online as well. I'm in. I got to tell you last night I was kind of depressed I'm in a much better mood this morning last night. It was cold. It was snowy. It was ugly out last night on the way to church. I knew we were getting ready to lose an hour asleep. I was just like, just kind of grumpy, you know, but today I woke up and my alma mater the Akron zips are now the Mac champions and they're going to be going to the NCAA tournament. So I'm pumped about that. We got I don't know if you know we got artisan coffee. Now in the lobby, I'm, I kind of forgot we got artisan in this week. So I was still expecting like, you know, Maxwell House or whatever, whatever. Just the basement bargain discount we can get. And so I put it in the cup, and I took a drink. And I'm like, wow, this is all that's right. It's artisan. And I'm like, This is not normal coffee. This is really good. So if you haven't gotten any, make sure you grab some on the way out today. But I am I'm in a great mood as we are continuing this series how God became king we are in part two, what we're looking at in this series is we're kind of doing a study on what the kingdom of God is, we need to know what it is. It's one of the most often repeated phrases in the entire Scriptures, the kingdom of God. So we're learning what it is, and what it means for us as believers as followers of Jesus. So last week, we kicked off this series with a sermon titled, between the cradle and the cross. And we looked at the idea that for so many of us, Christians and non-Christians, really what we know about Jesus, what we care about Jesus, His birth, death, resurrection, and that's it. Like his whole life, His whole ministry, we kind of take it or leave it like that's almost beside the point that's filler for the Jesus story. But what we talked about last week was the idea that that is not at all how we are supposed to view Jesus's ministry. It's not an accident. It's not some little filler of the story. It's crucial. It's absolutely crucial to our faith. So we have to understand what Jesus was doing in his ministry, what he was doing, during his time here on Earth, was ushering in this new reality that Scripture calls the kingdom of God. And so last week, we ended with this idea that was going to be the exclamation point for last week, and the continuation point for this week. And that statement was that the kingdom of God isn't a place to go. It's a reality, to live. The kingdom of God isn't a place to go. It's a reality. To live. I want to start us off today by reading from the book of Matthew, we're going to be in Matthew chapter six to start off the day, verses seven through 13. This is Jesus speaking. This is during his sermon on the mount. This is what he says, When you pray Don't babble on and on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again, and again. Let me tell you, whenever I was praying today, I was making sure don't repeat your words again. And again, whenever you're about to read scripture, where Jesus is telling people don't babble and pray like those guys who just say the same thing over and over again, I really wanted to make sure I didn't do that. Verse eight, Jesus says, Don't be like them. For Your father knows exactly what you need before you even asked him. So pray like this. Our Father in heaven, May your name be kept holy. May Your kingdom come soon, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today the food we need and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. And let us yield. Don't let a seal to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one. Amen. You see what Jesus says in here, and there's so much I mean, that's the Lord's Prayer, right? That's, if you know, a prayer, that's probably the prayer that you know, but there's one specific section in here that really stands out to me, especially in light of the context of what we're talking about today. And that's where Jesus says, Father, may Your kingdom come soon, may Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

It's crucial what Jesus said there.

So often, what we do in a church what we do as Christians, is we read this and how we interpret it is Jesus. May I soon go to where your will is done.

May I make the right decision that allows me to go where you truly are king because I mean, we know you're not really King down here. After all, all this stuff doesn't really matter too much. This is filler for us until we get to where we're going until we get to heaven. That's what really matters is just getting to heaven and all this stuff is just kind of whatever. That's not what Jesus says, If God may Your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Jesus is stressing the importance of what we are doing now that God's will that God's kingdom would be done on earth as it is in heaven bringing heaven

to Earth, this is a kind of new concept. That isn't a new concept. Honestly, this is how the people who wrote the old, the New Testament, the writers of the New Testament, were not focused on where they go when they die. Don't take my word for reading scripts for yourself. And you'll see time and time again, that the main focus of the people who were living in the first-century church, their main focus was not the kingdom of God being a place to go to one day, their main focus was the kingdom of God being a reality that they live out right here. And right now.

That's what the kingdom of God is, it is a reality for us to live out. We're not can I tell you when it comes to the world that we live in, we're not just passing through a man, right? Like that's, that's what a lot of the old songs would say this, this isn't my home, I'm just passing through. This doesn't matter where I'm at right now, the earth this whole life, what really matters is the life to come. That's not biblical.

It's not biblical. Again, don't take my word for it, read your Bible. We're going to be hitting on this a little bit later, too. There's a big difference between something being in the Bible and something being biblical, big difference. Yes, there is such thing as heaven. But the kingdom of God is not what Jesus is talking about, or Heaven is not what Jesus is talking about. When he talks about the Kingdom of God, he is talking about this new reality that he has ushered in and that we are to live out, we are to announce this new reality. And to activate this new reality, we're to proclaim to people that Jesus is King and live out the fact in our own life that Jesus is King. But for us to do that, for us to actually proclaim the kingdom, we need to understand the kingdom, right? I mean, logically, right? That makes sense. Like, if we're going to talk about something, we need to know what we're talking about, we need to understand what the kingdom of God is if we're going to be the kingdom of God, ambassadors. I mean, it just makes sense. We don't want to be using terms that we actually don't know what they mean. years ago, back whenever, I think MySpace was still like the top dog at this time. So we're taking a step back in time. Step back in our history, when MySpace was still a top dog, Facebook was just starting to get out there. One of the things that it was kind of like a trend that a lot of girls would do is especially like preteen and early teen girls, is their profile pictures would be there'd be like some kind of word art on it, or like some kind of like, they put, you know, Photoshop to have some kind of catchphrase or something on there. And so my wife at the time, because she was, you know, that age, whenever Facebook was started, hit it a day.

She had one of those kinds of profile pictures where you know, she had a little catchphrase on there. And her younger cousin Nicole was like, I love that. Can you make one of those? For me? Like, can you do that? I can't do that on my computer, just because again, sure to send me a picture and all I'll add a catchphrase to it. You care what it says and she's like, No, I don't care what it says just whatever. So okay, so she sends her picture. It's a picture like Nicole, she's like, you know, doing the duck face like the like, you know, which I shouldn't because now we got cameras. And this is recorded, so people can like screen, grab that, and I shouldn't have made that face. Anyway.

Nicole's doing like this face. And so Jessica gets it and she starts editing, editing it. And she's thinking like, what phrase should I put on here? Like, I don't, I don't know. And so she's looking at pictures like, oh, I'll just put the phrase of what she's doing. So, Jessica, these like big bubbly, girly letters underneath Nicole's picture of her doing this puts dropping a deuce kids you not this is not made up or embellished in any way.

Jessica, not understanding if you don't know what dropping a deuce is. I'm sorry. It's this over your head. But the children are talking now all youth who are too much hurt. I know what dropping a deuce means.

Jessica, did that her saying she thought that's what this is like? Yeah, I'm just I'm dropping to deuce I got all this. So she makes this picture and sends it to Nicole. Nicole doesn't know what it means. She's like, hey, that's great. So she posts it. That was a profile picture until she starts getting comments flooding in and people being like, who took a picture of you on the toilet? Like what is going on? Why did you post it? So Nicole's realizing what it is she's like, Oh, my gosh, she takes it down. And, and as I was, as I was studying this week, I realized how we talk about the Kingdom of God, and we don't even really know what we're talking about. I'm like, man, we're like Nicolle. We're posting this picture thinking it means one thing and we have no idea what it actually means. But when it comes to the kingdom of God, it's not just a funny little joke. It's not like Oh, haha that yeah, that was funny. This can I tell you more than any other topic that Jesus discusses during His ministry? Bye a factor of three to one. He talks about the Kingdom of God.

Kind of important kind of like we need to know what we're talking about when we talk about the Kingdom of God, if it's what Jesus, our King talked about more than anything else, we need to know what we're talking about. We can't just Well, yeah, kingdom of God, it's like heaven. And it's where we go when we die. And that's what Jesus is talking about, that's good enough for me, that can't be good enough for you. We need to know what he's talking about. Because we are to be Kingdom ambassadors. Now, I want to tell you, please, please don't feel like I'm talking down to you, or I'm preaching at you. Because it's understanding that this is confusing to a lot of us. This was confusing to me for a long time, the whole kingdom of God and what it means and how it applies to me. It can be confusing. It confused Jesus's own disciples. We see in scripture where Jesus is talking about the Kingdom of God. And they're like, what, like, what now? Rewind that do that one more time? What are you talking about? How does that work? His own disciples and understand it, the Jewish people didn't understand it. The Jewish leaders didn't understand it. The Roman people certainly didn't understand it. So it was going over everybody's head. So I want to let you know, this is not a condemnation today, like how you don't understand what's going on here. It's a call for us all to get a better understanding. Because we need it. Because how we view the kingdom of God changes everything about our faith, and how our faith is lived out. So today's sermon title you saw on the pre we had a few people trying to pronounce this bad boy, today's sermon title is a mock mob, Nick Roy?

God bless you. Yeah, there's even tie.

For real, it's confusing. Does anyone know what it is? Can you?

Your kingdom come? Absolutely. It's, it's backward, right? It's your kingdom come. That's what the sermon title is for today. Now that was on purpose. The whole reason we had all jumbled up and turned backward, is because the Kingdom of God is exactly that. It's a backward kingdom.

It's backward in almost every way you can imagine. It's backward in logic when you understand what scripture really says about the Kingdom of God, that it's this new reality, and you start to understand that reality. Everything about it is backward. Everything doesn't really make sense on its first look. But as we dive in, as we gain a better understanding of what Jesus is talking about, in this new kingdom, that he has ushered into fruition, we realize that it's not, it's not so much confusing anymore. It's beautiful. It's all inspiring, and it's challenging. It's challenging. So let's dive in. And let's see what the kingdom of God is for the rest of our time. Today, we're going to be looking at the book of John chapter 18, verses 28 through 37. Let me just give you a little bit of background before we hop into this particular piece of scripture. So last week, we read from John chapter 13. So just five chapters earlier, where Jesus and his disciples, they've gathered together for the Passover meal, and Jesus does this beautiful act, he washes his disciple's feet. And as he's doing it, he finishes and he sums it up. And he's like, Guys, do you understand what I'm doing for you?

Do you understand how this moment Me washing your feet is symbolic of everything I've been doing for you throughout my entire ministry? I've been loving you. I've been sacrificing for you. I've been laying down my rights and my privilege and my preference to stoop down and to serve you.

So in these moments, Jesus issues a command, he issues a challenge his disciples for them to go and do the exact same to everybody that they meet to everybody that they encounter, they finish their meal, they leave the room, they go to the Garden of Gethsemane for Jesus to pray, and while they're there, Jesus is arrested. So that's where we left off last week. Now this week, we're jumping just a few chapters ahead, which is only a few hours ahead. Jesus is arrested, he's brought to the Jewish leaders, they then take Jesus to the Roman leader of the area, a man by the name of Pontius Pilate, and that's where we pick up in verse 28, of John 18. This is what Scripture tells us. Jesus's trial before Caiaphas ended in the early morning hours of the morning. Then he was taken to the headquarters of the Roman governor. His accusers didn't go inside because it would defile them and they wouldn't be allowed to celebrate the Passover. So Pilate, the governor, went out to them and asked, What is your charge against this man? We wouldn't have handed him over to you. If you weren't a criminal, they retorted. Then take him away, judge him by your own law. Pilate told them, only the Romans are permitted to execute someone that you Jewish leaders replied to, This fulfilled Jesus's prediction about the way he would die. See, that's the whole reason they even brought Jesus to the Roman governor. Their law forbade them from having someone executed like this. So they needed the Romans to do their dirty work. Verse 33. Then Pilate went back into his headquarters and called for Jesus to be brought to him

Are you the king of the Jews? He asked him, Jesus replied, is this your own question? or did others tell you about me? Am I a Jew? Pilate retorted, your own people and their leading priests brought you to me for trial? Why? What have you done? Jesus answered, My kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. If it were my followers would fight, to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. But my kingdom is not of this world. I think that verse is right, there is where so many of us get caught up, we hear what Jesus says about his kingdom not being a kingdom of this world. And we instantly go, that's right because it's a heavenly kingdom. It's a kingdom that exists out there, Jesus's Kingdom is a place to go to. And so of course, Jesus isn't a king of this world, his kingdom isn't of this world, it's, it's that kingdom, it's a place to go. That's not what Jesus is saying here. That's not what Jesus is implying here. What Jesus is saying, what he's implying is that his kingdom is not of this world, in the sense that it's not like this world,

the kind of stuff that this world values, the kind of stuff that this world looks to procure into sees is not what the Jesus Kingdom looks to gain. It's a completely different kingdom. Jesus is not saying his kingdom is not an earthly one, it's not down here, it's this place you go to when you die. And that's it is so vital that we understand that because if we get this messed up if we think that the kingdom of God is a place that we go to when we die, it completely changes our faith. I'm going to make a bold statement here, I would say, what we're about to discuss is probably a top-three major concern for the church nowadays for the modern church, this is a huge, huge issue that we have got to deal with. For so much of the modern church, we believe the kingdom of God is a place to go. And if the kingdom of God is a place to go, and that's it.

Then it's all about this one-time decision I make. Are you tracking with me?

If that's what we believe when Jesus is talking about his kingdom, the kingdom of God that the kingdom of God is this place, we go to one day, we're just passing through down here. And once we get there, then it's all great. And we know we don't really care about this too much. If that's what we think the kingdom of God is, then everything about our faith all hinges on just this one-time decision we make. And that's it. That's it. That's all it matters. No, I asked Jesus to be my savior a while back. Yep, I'm good. I'm good. I got my fire insurance on good because after all, isn't that what the Christian faith is about? It's about getting somewhere leaving this world behind and going there, the Christian faith is I'm just passing through to get there isn't that what it's about, if you believe the kingdom of God is a place to go to, it changes everything about your faith.

But if you understand the truth that Jesus points to, that the kingdom of God is not a place to go, it's a reality to live out, then then your faith isn't about a one-time decision. Your faith is about following your king. Everything changes then because suddenly, it's not about leaving here. It's not making this one-time decision. Now I'm good. Now I can live my life whatever way I want to because I'm good. I made that one-time choice. Now I can be mean to people, if I want to, I can talk bad to people, I can not have patience, because that doesn't really matter. All this down here doesn't really matter. We just make a one-time choice. And then we're good. We get to, we get to go there. But if it's a reality live out then how I talk matters, my words, matter. My actions matter. My choices matter.

Because I've got a king to follow. I've got marching orders that I've been given the kingdom of God is not a place to go, it is a reality. To live. It's a reality to live. This is what happens. Can I just give you a picture of what happens to our faith? Whenever we believe that it's all about just this one-time decision? This is what our face starts to look like. I want us to read again from John 18:28. Look at what it says Jesus is trial before Caiaphas ended in the early hours of the morning. Then he was taken to the headquarters of the Roman governor. Now listen to this. Jesus, His accusers didn't go inside the house because it would defile them and they wouldn't be allowed to celebrate the Passover.

Can you even believe the hypocrisy of the statement?

These men who are looking to have Jesus executed these men who scripture and just a few earlier verses told us we're looking for false witnesses to testify against Jesus. These people, these people who are bringing this innocent man to be executed, wouldn't go into a Roman governor's house because while their law says that if we associate with a Gentile if we associate with a non-Jew, then we become ceremonially unclean.

don't want that to happen, don't want to upset God.

Don't want to upset God, in our attempt to have Jesus killed.

That is what faith looks like. When we make our faith a one-time decision about where we go. We become legalistic. We start proof-texting the tar out of Scripture, we just find certain verses here and there that were like see, Bible says, Bible says, Let me tell you as we said earlier, there's a big difference between something being in the Bible and something being biblical.

Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth is in the Bible. But when you read the whole scripture, it's not biblical. Its a big difference is a big difference in what happens to our faith. Whenever we believe our faith is just a one-time decision to go to this far-off kingdom of God, we become just like these people who do things to try to look good, but we don't really actually change our hearts at all. Because we're not following a king. We just made this one-time decision. And we're just passing through until we get to where we're really supposed to go. But whenever we understand the truth, let me tell you, I'm sure there's a lot of there. There are probably a lot of people in this room who you're not in a relationship with Jesus right now. And chances are, it's because you've run into a few Christians like this.

Right? Online, there are probably a few people who the whole reason you're not in a relationship with Jesus is because you've seen so many people whose relationship with Jesus is nothing more than a one-time decision to leave here.

And they're not actually following and King, they're not actually modeling the life that Jesus lived. But when you see the opposite, when you see someone, when you are lucky enough to get around a Christian who understands that the kingdom of God is not a place that you go to. But it's a new reality that you live out. When you've been around those kinds of people, you remember it, it changes everything about you. Those are the kind of people that you want to be around that you look for ways to get around them that you look for, for ways to put yourself close beside them. Because those kinds of people are self-sacrificing. Those kinds of people are constantly laying down their rights and their preferences for you.

It's attractive. It's all inspiring, and it's challenging.

I say all this again, to reiterate the point how we view the kingdom of God matters. Is it a place we go if that's what you believe? Does it matter? If it's a reality, to live out, it matters, it changes everything. It changes everything, we have got to understand what Jesus was talking about. And what he was talking about was a new reality to live a reality of sacrificial love. You want to know the best picture if I could give you a picture of what the kingdom of God looks like if you want to try to illustrate the kingdom of God, what the kingdom of God looks like. It looks like a cross. That's what it looks like. There was one symbol that could just sum up what the kingdom of God is. It's across the kingdom of God that looks like a cross that is the power of the kingdom of God. And we're going to discuss this more in the coming weeks. But I want us to real quick look at verse 30 of chapter 18 that we just read. Whenever the Jewish leaders bring Jesus before Pilate, this is what they say. They say we wouldn't have handed him over to you if he weren't a criminal. Like that's the whole reason we brought him before you. Pontius Pilate, we brought him here, we've handed Jesus over to you because he's a criminal.

As I read this, it makes me wonder I wonder if Jesus might have under his breath just kind of chuckled to himself at this moment, thinking, Oh, you, you guys thought you handed me over?

How adorable. How cute that you think you have that power over me that what we're doing right now is because you want it to happen. And not because this is a plan that's been in the making. Since the foundations of the earth. Like you there's so much more at play here. Do you think that you have power in this situation? No, no, I have I haven't been captured. Like I'm not being handed over. Jesus was never handed over his life was laid down willingly sacrificially, not out of compulsion, not out of force. Jesus tells us in John 1010 No one takes my life from me. I alone lay down my life. I have the power to lay it down. And I have the power to raise it up again. Jesus's life was sacrificially and willingly laid down. And that's because the Kingdom of God looks like a cross. That's what it looks like. Jesus had been modeling this His entire ministry. He summed it up with the foot-washing of his disciples, and then he's saying hey, look in tonight, what you're gonna see tonight, where you're gonna see tomorrow when I go on the cross, it's going to be a rubber stamp. No one is going to be able to have any

confusion about what my kingdom looks like. It looks like a cross. It looks like self-sacrifice, not because you were coerced into it, but because out of your love for God, your self sacrificially gives to those around you. That's what the kingdom of God looks like. It looks like a cross meant Jesus wasn't handed over. It was willing. He chose to do it. Jesus was handed over in the same way that I and Jessica almost lost to our kids in charades the other night.

We were playing charades with Eden and Evelyn, they wanted to play charades. So It was either that or hide and go seek. And they're getting too good at that game. I'm not playing that with them. Like I'm not. I'm not tearing our house apart for 30 minutes trying to find these kids. So we're like, well, we'll play charades. So we're playing charades and you know, it's, it was a close game. Like, there, it'd be certain words and you're like, I'm trying to guess. But really, what I'm trying to do is lead the kids to get it like, oh, it looks like a you know, cutting the grass with one of those machines that you kind of grass with the kids or lawnmower. Oh, man, they got it before I did. Right? You're like trying to lead them to it. And we were there was part of me. And we didn't even talk about this before the game. But there was a part of us that was kind of like, oh, let's let them win. But then as we got closer to the end, and it was seven, seven, Eden, my oldest daughter started rubbing it in a little bit too much like yeah, we're gonna beat you suck. And I'm like, alright, well, time to turn it on. Let's go. Let's end this thing. And we scored three straight to end it like we're just There we go. And it's done. Like sitting, sitting, you know, mess with the bull, you get the horns, I don't know.

But that game, it was close. In the same way that Jesus was handed over. Man, he wasn't handed over. It was his choice. We're seeing this in the Russia Ukraine situation, the war going on over there. I was just hearing on the news the other day them saying, you know, Russia's sent in more reinforcements from the west, from the south through Crimea through the north through Bella ruse that they've tried to do a flanking maneuver to get on the east side to get Kiev, the capital city of Ukraine completely surrounded. And they were saying on the news like Man, if the if they do that, President Solinsky of Ukraine he's gonna be stuck, it's gonna be stuck, you won't be able to get out.

I just kind of laughed, I'm like, he's, he's not stuck. He stayed. The massive difference. Stuck would imply he had a getaway plan. And he was just kind of dipping his toe in to look courageous for a little bit, but he was gonna bounce at the first chance. That's not he may he got stuck, he made a decision, I will go down with the ship if that's what it means. I'm not leaving my people, I'm not leaving my country, I'm going to sacrifice for them. And in such a greater way. That's exactly what Jesus has done for us. Don't think for a second that his life was taken from him. He willingly gave it up. And that is our model. And that is our example that we are to follow that we will sacrifice and willingly give our lives up. The kingdom of God looks like a cross.

Now, that's you know, it's not a very fun thing to talk about. Like Whoo, self-sacrifice, all right, just constantly and like just, you know, bending the knee and No, you go first. No, you like I'm just constantly doing that, like, Man, how? How is that? a fulfilling life? Like we talked about helping people find the father of family and a fulfilling future here at Cornerstone? How is that leading to a fulfilling future? If I'm constantly never taking care of myself? I'd be hashtag self-care. Shouldn't I like worry about myself? If I don't worry about myself? Who's going to worry about me? What did I say earlier, the kingdom of God is a backward kingdom. It doesn't work the way that you think it's going to work. Everything about it is not of this world. Everything about it is not like this world. So in the kingdom of God, the things that from all earthly accounts, would would would lead to a loss of self-loss of life and just you know, everything is being on this isn't good man, I hate my life. Everything that looks that way. On the surface, there's something deeper when we look at it through the lens of the kingdom of God. That's what we talked about. In Scripture, when God has a revelation, what Revelation is Revelation is seeing something just below the surface that you only see with the help of God, you only see with the help of the Holy Spirit. And when we look at sacrifice, when we look at self-sacrificing love through the lens of the kingdom of God, when we look at it through the power of the Holy Spirit, just below that surface of self-sacrifice, what we see is that in the kingdom of God, every single occupied cross always leads to an empty tomb. Every time every single time I'm going to say that again, in the kingdom of God, every occupied cross, every sacrifice we make leads to an empty tomb. Every single one. Every single one we can take to the bank.

It's not what it looks like, at first. Everything works backward. Even the sacrifices we make we come to find out they are always more than worth it. I'm going to show you how this plays out and what this looks like this is a real-life example we get from scripture, verse 34, and 35. of John 18. Say this, Jesus is talking with Pilate, and Jesus replies to him, is this your own question? or did others tell you about me? Am I a Jew, Pilate retorted, your own people, and they're leading priests brought you to me for trial.

What Pilate is doing right here is he's setting up a very clear power dynamic, a Jesus, it's real, real funny that you're asking me questions. Let's not forget, you're the one who is bound here. Alright, I know you're coming in here. You're talking about asking me questions like I'm on trial? No, no, no, your people have brought you to me. I'm the one with the power. I'm the one in charge. In case you haven't realized that your people, the Jewish people have been under the Roman thumb for centuries at this point. So don't talk to me like you are in charge here. You're not. I'm in charge, I have the power. And I'm sure that everybody in the crowd saw this too. Jesus is the bound King of the Jews. He's powerless. Pilate, on the other hand, has all the power has all the authority. Jesus is the 100 trial, not pilot. That's what we see. On the surface. That's what we see when we look through worldly power. That's what we see when we look at this through the kingdom of this world is the man Jesus is in trouble because Pilate has all the power but through the power of the Holy Spirit, when we see the revelation of God here, what we see at play is something that Jesus called from early on in his ministry, the early days of Jesus's ministry, He told His followers, he told anyone who would listen. He said, hey, look, I want to let you know, I know how it's been done. I know what the kingdoms of this world will tell you. And I know what they will promise you and what they tell you. What they promise you is if you look out for yourself, if you look to maintain your own power, your own preference, preference, your own privilege, if you look to take care of yourself, then you'll be okay. Hold on to power hold on to self. But I want to tell you,

we're about to see the kingdom of God unleashed in this world. And when it is unleashed, what you will see to be true is that those who try to save their life, those who tried to save their power, and their preference will lose it. But those who willingly lay down their life, we'll find it.

Jesus said that early days of his ministry, and I'm sure people laughed at him. We take that stuff for granted nowadays, we've been living in the kingdom of God since Jesus ushered in so self-sacrifice sounds good nowadays. It's like, oh, yeah, that's what good people do. In his day. That was not a noble thing. People probably laughed at Jesus by like, listen to this guy's talking about self-sacrifice. And don't try to save your life. Don't try to save your power. willingly give it up. What is this guy talking about? This dude is nuts. He has no idea what's really at play here.

And I'm sure the same people who scoffed at Jesus in this moment, we're like, see what we tell you? How does that work for you, Jesus? Look at you. You're about to be crucified die the most humiliating death most excruciating death you can imagine. Imagine. How did this backward Kingdom work for you?

does anyone know what happened to Pilate after he disappears off the pages of Scripture? Does anyone know? Pastor Brenda knows, anybody else?

I didn't think so. Right? He was a real person. He really did live like scripture actually contains real history without Pilate live the. There's a Jewish historian named Josephus. He wrote volumes of history for the Jewish people called the Annals of the Jews. And he wrote about Pontius Pilate, he wrote about what happened about four to five years after the trial of Jesus. Pilate was still the prefect he was still the governor of this area and Judah, of Judea. And while he was still in charge there, there was a Samaritan group, a Samaritan sect that had a rose up a little bit of a rebellion, little bit of an uprising, they had a messiah-like figure who was leading them, and Pilate, wanting to maintain his power, just as He did with Jesus. You see, one of the biggest reasons he let Jesus be crucified was because he's like, you know, what, if I don't crucify him, and they start a rebellion here, they start an uprising, where it gets back to the Emperor, I'm going to be in trouble. So fine, I'll give these people what they want. I believe he's innocent. I don't think he really did anything wrong. But I'll give these people what they want. He did it to maintain his power. And now here we are about four to five years after the trial of Jesus and he's confronted with another challenge to his power. If

This gets too out of hand than Cesar will find out and be like, Man, you can't control your own area, I got to get someone new in here. So what pilot did was he had that uprising squashed. He had it put out he had it extinguished. The problem was, he did it a little too violently.

He was a little too indiscriminate in the way that he had his men carry out his orders to take out this uprising. So word got back to Caesar. Tiberius heard what Pilate had done, and he brought him to Rome to essentially face war crimes for what he did. On his way to Rome Tiberius died, a new emperor came to power curricula. And what we are told from different historical sources is that Caligula found Pilate guilty of war crimes, and sent him into exile, he lost his power, he lost his privilege, he lost his title, he lost his prestige, and he was sent off to live out the rest of his days alone. And from what we know from history, he ended up killing himself committing suicide.

So let me ask you, again.

When we look at Scripture through this light, when we look at Scripture through 2022 lens and were able to look back and see how things played out, who was truly the bound King, and who was truly the unbound King,

did Pilate really have the power he thought he had?

Jesus called it

he called it, if you try to preserve your life, if you try to do everything you can to preserve your power and prestige, I promise you, you will lose it. But if you willingly sacrificially choose to lay your life down for me, you will find it.

And Jesus has been proven right time and time again because that's how it works in the kingdom of God, we are living in that reality. The reality of self-sacrificing love is the ultimate power in the universe. And because that is the case, self-sacrificing love is what the kingdom of God is all about. That means the kingdom of God is a constant race to the bottom.

That's how it should be in our churches. That's what the Christian faith should be known for. We should be people that every situation we find ourselves in people like Man, that guy, he will not stop out serving me, like, like they make the best employees, they make the best husbands and wives, they make the best parents, they make the best, the bosses, they're incredible. I don't really agree with what they believe. But my goodness, I'm so happy they believe it because they are so different. We need people like that. People who understand the kingdom of God as a reality to live out. So it's a race to the bottom a race to serve others, Jesus, He constantly is using the illustration of marriage. In his teachings. He's constantly using this illustration. And I, I get why he does because marriage, this institution is all about giving of ourselves to the other. It's the whole point of it. Each spouse trying to outserve the other one, there's a joke that you know, when you have kids, the second you have a kid, that's the last day your life is about you. It's about your kids now, which is true to a degree but let me tell you if you're doing marriage the right way. Marriage is the last day your life is about you. Because from that moment on, it's nope, no, I'm not I'm not here fighting for what I need, and what I want. And what I expect, and what I deserve. No, no, I am here to love you to out serve you to sacrificially give of myself to you without expectation. That's what it's about. So it's no wonder that Jesus is constantly referring to marriage when he talks about the Kingdom of God and what it's gonna be like because that's what it is. It's a race to the bottom. It's a race to sacrifice and to give of ourselves, that's how it should be, and my God, what would our world look like if we got that?

We honestly, can't even imagine it. We really can't like, if there was a switch, and we were able to say okay, we know not all Christians have thought this but a lot of Christians have right now the switches flip to the idea that the kingdom of God is a place we go to one day. So it's all about this one-time decision we make. We're just passing through down here, whatever happens here, and but one of these days we go on to glory. And that's all that matters. If we were able to just be like you know what, we're gonna flip the switch. We're gonna flip the switch. And tomorrow whenever we all wake up every single person who professes that they are a follower of King Jesus will suddenly realize that the kingdom of God is not a one-time decision to make it's it's a reality to live out. If we would flip that switch. Let me tell you, our nation would be different overnight.

Our marriages would be different, our schools would be different. Our politicians would be different. Everything would be different. Everything would change.

So why don't we start it

Why don't we start? Why not in your marriage, you start living out the reality that the kingdom of God is a reality to live out? Why not your workplace start living like that in your friendships start living like that. Just start living like that where you're at? And I promise you, it will affect everything about your faith. There's no way it can't. There's no way it can't.

The last thing I'll say is, I know some of this stuff. It might be the first time you've heard this. The first time you've heard the kingdom of God explained like this, that it's not a place to go. It's a reality to live out. And it might be kind of like, wow, I don't know about that. I don't know. Let me tell you don't take my word for it read Scripture.

It's Jesus's kingdom, we're just living in it. We don't get to define the terms. I'm sorry, self-sacrifice name may not be your cup of tea. Too bad.

Too bad. It ain't about what you talked about last week. The gospels are not about you, but they are for you in the kingdom of God. That's just the facts on the ground. The facts on the ground, are self-sacrifice, and love. That's what we are commanded to do. Jesus set the terms. We don't get to redefine them. So let's be about his business. And let's follow the king. I want to pray for you. Let's bow our heads and pray together. Father, God, thank you for ushering in this new kingdom God I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like to not live under your rule. To live in a world where self-sacrifice is looked down upon. To live in a world where it's just only about power grabs and seizing more privileges and preferences for yourself.

God, we want no part of that. Today, we rebuke that idea. We rebuke the idea that the world tries to sell us about the kingdoms of this world and God instead we embrace the reality that you have ushered in through the lordship of King Jesus that we are to sacrifice of ourselves, just like he did for us. And as we do that we will realize and we will live out the truth that every occupied cross leads to an empty tomb that as we sacrifice you, yourself, will sustain us and lead us and guide us. Thank you for that truth. Thank you for that promise. God, we believe your word and we take you at your word. Help us as we apply your word to our life this week. We love you, Father, we pray all this in your name, amen.