Christ the King Sunday 11/26/06 Title: What is the Truth? Text: John 18:33-37
Christ the King Sunday
Date: 11/26/2006
Title: What is the Truth
Text: John 18:33-37
Today our entire service focus is on Christ as our King. Those of us living in the United States, for the most part, do not have the slightest idea of what it would be like to live under the rule of a king. All we know is what we have seen in the movies, heard about in the news, or read in a magazine. We see the glamour, the wealth, the pomp and circumstance. But, other than that we have no idea what life would be like under a king or queen who had absolute authority over our lives.
To have a country without a king is a fairly recent idea. You only have to go back about 250 years at the most, to see that kings and queens were ruling most of the world. For who knows how many centuries, long before presidents and congresses, legislatures, assemblies and parliaments, there were kings and queens, and they had absolute power.
Their power was so great that people just naturally spoke of the “divine right of kings”. This meant that the people of the country believed that their king or queen’s right of kingship came from God. That belief, for the most part has fallen by the wayside, but there still is a certain mystique about the word, “King”, even in America.
Thousands of years ago, we really do not how long ago, the Israelites asked God for a king. They wanted to be like the people around them that had kings. It is hard to believe that they did not want God to be their king anymore, especially after all the things he had done for them, but they did.
God told them, they would regret the decision, but if they wanted a king, he would allow them to have a king. They got their king and from then on, for the most part they suffered under the leadership of their kings. What they thought was going to be a great thing turned into a form of slavery, since under a king they and everything they had belonged to the king.
I would submit to you this morning that nearly 2,000 years ago Jesus gave a new definition to the word, “king,” as he once more showed the world, that things would be better under God’s kingship.
Here is how it happened. Upon Jesus’ betrayal and arrest, he was brought to trial before a man known as Pontius Pilate. The gospel of Matthew tells us that Pilate was a governor of the area. His office came to him through Caesar. Like most Roman authorities, Pilate had the power of life and death.
Pilate might have been a just man, who wanted to do the right thing but he was afraid of the Jewish people, for they caused him more grief than he could stand. More than likely, he just wanted to be rid of the whole mess and get on with his life.
He tried everything he could to get rid of the problem, but he soon realized there was no escaping it. He decided before making his final decision that he wanted to talk with Jesus. Pilate asks Jesus the one question that might help him decide what to do with him. He asks, “Are you the King of Jews?” Jesus, who had already been severely beaten and brutalized, not looking very kingly, returned his question with another question, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?”
Now that question seems kind of smart-aleky, but it was not, for Jesus wanted to see if Pilate was asking the question honestly, or had he been put up to it. I can just see Pilate’s frustration building up as he answers Jesus. Pilate had hoped he would get the answer that would serve his purpose, but it did not happen. Jesus told him that he did indeed have a kingdom, but that it was “not from this world.” If it were, Jesus said, his followers would be mounting a revolt. Pilate was not about to let some philosophical discussion keep him from doing what he need to do, so he countered with, “So you are a king?”
The first words of Jesus’ reply, “You say that I am a King”, threw the ball back into Pilate’s court. It seems almost like he is playing with Pilate, but then Jesus got deadly earnest. He is not playing, for he tells Pilate, “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”
Understand what Jesus is saying here. He is declaring his purpose in being born. He was born to “testify to the truth, for he is the truth.” In saying those words, Jesus gave a whole new definition to what it means to be a king. Others might be kings of territories, of countries, of geographical areas, but Jesus’ kingdom was not of this world. His kingdom was the truth.
Jesus’ answer was more than Pilate could handle. “What is truth?” he replied. It was a defensive reply. You see Pilate was politician. There is no doubt in my mind that he had seen the truth twisted and shaped so many times in order that it would serve a particular purpose that he might not have known the truth if it had come up and stared him in the eyes.
In fact, there in lies the problem. Truth was standing before Pilate covered in blood, and Pilate could not recognize it. But before we become too scornful about Pilate, let us face the question Jesus caused him to ask, for we too must ask the question, “What is truth?” Just what do we mean when we call Jesus our Savior, our Redeemer, the Truth?
Truth concerns us, for without truth we are lost to wander aimlessly in a universe that has no purpose. The question of truth has a bearing on all sorts of things we wrestle with in life. Things like the meaning of life; the definition of justice, and the problem of evil, to name just a few of the more important ones.
The ultimate truth in our universe is the truth about God. We must know if he is truly God, and if he is; is he our sovereign king. All the other truths rest upon this truth. The kingship of God is the issue that shapes the meaning of life, the integrity of justice and almost everything else we encounter in life.
Jesus came as the truth to give us the truth about God. He showed us in his life that God is love, because he along is the personification of God’s love. Jesus lived and died for this truth; for “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son,” that our human race might be saved through him. This is the truth about God that the human race must know.
God as our glorious king knows that we humans are in a dreadfully needy state. And because of that he has gone to what we would consider unbelievable lengths to redeem us, and to get us out of the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into. That is how much he values us. Your life is dependent on this truth, for there is none other than Jesus the truth. That is the truth.
Jesus did not stop with telling Pilate that he had come into the world to “testify to the truth.” He continued, “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”
So where does that leave us, we, who belong to Christ’s kingdom, the faithful people of Saint John? What are we to do? Well let us see. First and foremost, we need to learn what God has done for us through the suffering, death, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, so that we can better serve our king.
Knowing his will for us, keeps us in his kingdom, and that brings us into conflict with those of the world. They tell us that the message we are to proclaim is outdated; that we need to quit using the term “king”, for it just does not work in our culture. Our culture tells us that kings are tyrants. It tells us that kings should be overthrown, for we do not belong to anyone. We are completely independent people, free to make our own choices, and should never be under the absolute authority of anyone.
That is what those of the world tell us, but we know that having God as our king, gives us a freedom that we cannot have any other way. For Jesus in his birth, life, death, and resurrection tore us away from Satan’s grasp. And in doing so he freed us from Satan’s slavery.
It is in the freedom of living under Christ the king that we are to continue the work that Jesus started almost 2000 years ago. We are to be about his mission. Now I am sure that all of you are aware that our congregation supports mission work in Africa and Panama, and that is a good thing. But our real mission is here in this community. That mission is not as easy as sending our money so that others can do the work, for when we do mission work here in our community, we will have to deal with people face to face, we will have to get our hands dirty. But there is no doubt in my mind that, that is why Christ our king established this congregation in Hattiesburg some 60 years ago. We have been called to serve our king, by taking the unchanging truth of his Word to this community.
It is my hope that each one of you will invite your neighbors, family members, friends, classmates, co-workers, and newcomers in the community to come and see what God is doing here at Saint John.
We need to be about our king’s business, the saving of people, for in the end, Christ will return as our triumphant king; for he is a king like the world has never known. Let us leave here this morning prepared for his second coming, for he is coming. That is the truth. Amen
Date: 11/26/2006
Title: What is the Truth
Text: John 18:33-37
Today our entire service focus is on Christ as our King. Those of us living in the United States, for the most part, do not have the slightest idea of what it would be like to live under the rule of a king. All we know is what we have seen in the movies, heard about in the news, or read in a magazine. We see the glamour, the wealth, the pomp and circumstance. But, other than that we have no idea what life would be like under a king or queen who had absolute authority over our lives.
To have a country without a king is a fairly recent idea. You only have to go back about 250 years at the most, to see that kings and queens were ruling most of the world. For who knows how many centuries, long before presidents and congresses, legislatures, assemblies and parliaments, there were kings and queens, and they had absolute power.
Their power was so great that people just naturally spoke of the “divine right of kings”. This meant that the people of the country believed that their king or queen’s right of kingship came from God. That belief, for the most part has fallen by the wayside, but there still is a certain mystique about the word, “King”, even in America.
Thousands of years ago, we really do not how long ago, the Israelites asked God for a king. They wanted to be like the people around them that had kings. It is hard to believe that they did not want God to be their king anymore, especially after all the things he had done for them, but they did.
God told them, they would regret the decision, but if they wanted a king, he would allow them to have a king. They got their king and from then on, for the most part they suffered under the leadership of their kings. What they thought was going to be a great thing turned into a form of slavery, since under a king they and everything they had belonged to the king.
I would submit to you this morning that nearly 2,000 years ago Jesus gave a new definition to the word, “king,” as he once more showed the world, that things would be better under God’s kingship.
Here is how it happened. Upon Jesus’ betrayal and arrest, he was brought to trial before a man known as Pontius Pilate. The gospel of Matthew tells us that Pilate was a governor of the area. His office came to him through Caesar. Like most Roman authorities, Pilate had the power of life and death.
Pilate might have been a just man, who wanted to do the right thing but he was afraid of the Jewish people, for they caused him more grief than he could stand. More than likely, he just wanted to be rid of the whole mess and get on with his life.
He tried everything he could to get rid of the problem, but he soon realized there was no escaping it. He decided before making his final decision that he wanted to talk with Jesus. Pilate asks Jesus the one question that might help him decide what to do with him. He asks, “Are you the King of Jews?” Jesus, who had already been severely beaten and brutalized, not looking very kingly, returned his question with another question, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?”
Now that question seems kind of smart-aleky, but it was not, for Jesus wanted to see if Pilate was asking the question honestly, or had he been put up to it. I can just see Pilate’s frustration building up as he answers Jesus. Pilate had hoped he would get the answer that would serve his purpose, but it did not happen. Jesus told him that he did indeed have a kingdom, but that it was “not from this world.” If it were, Jesus said, his followers would be mounting a revolt. Pilate was not about to let some philosophical discussion keep him from doing what he need to do, so he countered with, “So you are a king?”
The first words of Jesus’ reply, “You say that I am a King”, threw the ball back into Pilate’s court. It seems almost like he is playing with Pilate, but then Jesus got deadly earnest. He is not playing, for he tells Pilate, “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”
Understand what Jesus is saying here. He is declaring his purpose in being born. He was born to “testify to the truth, for he is the truth.” In saying those words, Jesus gave a whole new definition to what it means to be a king. Others might be kings of territories, of countries, of geographical areas, but Jesus’ kingdom was not of this world. His kingdom was the truth.
Jesus’ answer was more than Pilate could handle. “What is truth?” he replied. It was a defensive reply. You see Pilate was politician. There is no doubt in my mind that he had seen the truth twisted and shaped so many times in order that it would serve a particular purpose that he might not have known the truth if it had come up and stared him in the eyes.
In fact, there in lies the problem. Truth was standing before Pilate covered in blood, and Pilate could not recognize it. But before we become too scornful about Pilate, let us face the question Jesus caused him to ask, for we too must ask the question, “What is truth?” Just what do we mean when we call Jesus our Savior, our Redeemer, the Truth?
Truth concerns us, for without truth we are lost to wander aimlessly in a universe that has no purpose. The question of truth has a bearing on all sorts of things we wrestle with in life. Things like the meaning of life; the definition of justice, and the problem of evil, to name just a few of the more important ones.
The ultimate truth in our universe is the truth about God. We must know if he is truly God, and if he is; is he our sovereign king. All the other truths rest upon this truth. The kingship of God is the issue that shapes the meaning of life, the integrity of justice and almost everything else we encounter in life.
Jesus came as the truth to give us the truth about God. He showed us in his life that God is love, because he along is the personification of God’s love. Jesus lived and died for this truth; for “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son,” that our human race might be saved through him. This is the truth about God that the human race must know.
God as our glorious king knows that we humans are in a dreadfully needy state. And because of that he has gone to what we would consider unbelievable lengths to redeem us, and to get us out of the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into. That is how much he values us. Your life is dependent on this truth, for there is none other than Jesus the truth. That is the truth.
Jesus did not stop with telling Pilate that he had come into the world to “testify to the truth.” He continued, “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”
So where does that leave us, we, who belong to Christ’s kingdom, the faithful people of Saint John? What are we to do? Well let us see. First and foremost, we need to learn what God has done for us through the suffering, death, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, so that we can better serve our king.
Knowing his will for us, keeps us in his kingdom, and that brings us into conflict with those of the world. They tell us that the message we are to proclaim is outdated; that we need to quit using the term “king”, for it just does not work in our culture. Our culture tells us that kings are tyrants. It tells us that kings should be overthrown, for we do not belong to anyone. We are completely independent people, free to make our own choices, and should never be under the absolute authority of anyone.
That is what those of the world tell us, but we know that having God as our king, gives us a freedom that we cannot have any other way. For Jesus in his birth, life, death, and resurrection tore us away from Satan’s grasp. And in doing so he freed us from Satan’s slavery.
It is in the freedom of living under Christ the king that we are to continue the work that Jesus started almost 2000 years ago. We are to be about his mission. Now I am sure that all of you are aware that our congregation supports mission work in Africa and Panama, and that is a good thing. But our real mission is here in this community. That mission is not as easy as sending our money so that others can do the work, for when we do mission work here in our community, we will have to deal with people face to face, we will have to get our hands dirty. But there is no doubt in my mind that, that is why Christ our king established this congregation in Hattiesburg some 60 years ago. We have been called to serve our king, by taking the unchanging truth of his Word to this community.
It is my hope that each one of you will invite your neighbors, family members, friends, classmates, co-workers, and newcomers in the community to come and see what God is doing here at Saint John.
We need to be about our king’s business, the saving of people, for in the end, Christ will return as our triumphant king; for he is a king like the world has never known. Let us leave here this morning prepared for his second coming, for he is coming. That is the truth. Amen
posted by Pastor Rhoads | 1:10 PM
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