Two Kingdoms

So glad that you guys could join us here today. Welcome to everybody watching on Facebook Live, everybody over in the venue service. My name's René, and I'm another one of the pastors here at Twin Lakes Church, and I want to invite you to grab the message notes that look like this out of the bulletins that you got when you came in.

As we wrap up this weekend, our series, 77, 77 days through the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, in this series, we've been trying to kind of rediscover the often lost plot line that went all through the ministry of Jesus so we can understand it a little bit better and so that the events of Good Friday at Easter don't take us by surprise as sort of non-sequiturs.

Now, before I dig into the message, I want to point out, I did give some references at the very bottom of your notes. I got so many great ideas and quotes and concepts out of work by Tim Keller, John Orpurg, Andy Stanley, and T. Wright. If you're interested in pursuing this kind of thinking about Jesus, I'd really encourage you to pick up those books that I mentioned there in the reference.

Now, as we begin this very last week in this series, I want you to be very still and imagine you're in a darkened movie theater. The screen is blank. There's no sound, but there's a sense that something important and intensely dramatic is about to be revealed and slowly something horrible fades into view. An instrument of torture—a cross. Someone died there today. Jesus.

Jesus, the one we've been kind of falling in love with all through this series, the one we've been so inspired by as we've looked at his words and his actions, the ones that the crowds were just drawn to because of his magnetism and his love and his grace. And now suddenly he's just dead. But why? Why did they kill someone like that?

You know, they didn't kill him because he was kind to children and healed a few people. They killed him because of a crime. What crime worthy of death could Jesus Christ possibly be guilty of? The body's gone now. It is buried. It's in the ground. But one clue remains. On the top of the cross, come in a little bit closer, and you start to make out the words of a sign. It's written in three different languages. In Latin it says, Rex Eudorum, King of the Jews. King. That is why he was killed. That is really a clue to understanding the whole mysterious ministry of Jesus Christ.

As we said 77 days ago when we started this series, there's a movie director named J.J. Abrams, very famous, and he often uses a screenwriting trick. He'll start his TV shows or his movies with a confusing scene. Somebody's in trouble. It looks like all hope is lost for them. How would they ever be able to escape? It doesn't look like there's no opportunities for them left. And how did they get that way in the first place? And then you see a subtitle on the screen three days earlier, and he starts to tell the story. And that's what I want to do today.

Jesus ends here on the cross under that sign, King of the Jews, three years earlier. Here's how he starts his ministry. Do you remember how we talked about it 77 days ago? He shows up in Galilee, north of Jerusalem. And here's his very first message, according to the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 1. The time, he says, promised by God has come at last. The kingdom of God is near. And this becomes his main theme by far.

The four Gospel writers record that Jesus speaks about the kingdom of God 100 times in the four Gospels that kick off the New Testament, 53 times in the Gospel of Matthew alone. Now, just think about that for a second, compare it to some of the other themes we tend to associate with Jesus. Look at this. Jesus used the word salvation or saved about 10 times. He used the word church three times. He uses kingdom 100 times. Kingdom of heaven, kingdom of God, kingdom, kingdom, kingdom, kingdom.

Now, when people are hearing him talk about kingdom, they've got a very specific view in mind. They're thinking of soldiers and banners and military victories. They've been praying for centuries for a king to kick out the foreign oppressors. And so that's what they imagine. He's going to show up with overwhelming might and raise up an army and kick out the Romans. And then Jesus tells stories like this.

What's the kingdom of God like? Well, how can I illustrate it? It's like a tiny mustard seed that a man planted in a garden. And it grows. And it becomes a tree. And the birds, they can nest in its branches. And the people are like, what? So the kingdom of God is like mustard? And he says another parable, the kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and worked into about 60 pounds of flour until it worked through all the dough. And the people are like, wait, the kingdom of heaven is like a woman baking bread? What's he getting at?

And what he's getting at in this and many other parables like it is that the kingdom doesn't come with fanfare. It starts small, but slowly grows and grows. He says things like the kingdom of God does not come in such a way as to be seen. No one will say, look, there it is. Or here it is, because the kingdom of God is within you. He's saying this kingdom doesn't have a capital or a castle or a king. It lives and grows inside humans, inside you. But it doesn't stay there. It keeps growing until it busts out. And it starts leaking out.

And if you're confused, you're not alone. Because people start to get confused in Jesus' day too. OK, you're talking about a kingdom. OK, good. But where's the army? Where's the battle? When's the war start? Where's the revolution? Even John the Baptist gets confused. Remember, he was the guy who at the very start of all this saw Jesus coming and said, basically, ladies and gentlemen, your next king.

But a few months later, John's in prison, and the revolution hasn't started. And he sends a couple of his disciples to say, Jesus, are you the Messiah, the king? And by the way, words like Messiah, Son of Man, Christ, the anointed one. These are other words Jesus used. And they are also kingdom words. Because that basically means the next king, the next anointed king. And he says, are you the Messiah we've been expecting? Or should we keep looking?

And Jesus answered, go back to John and tell him what you've seen and heard, the blind see. And the lame walk, lepers are cured, the death hear, the dead are raised to life. And good news is being preached to the poor. What he's saying is, here's the signs of this kingdom, not blood in the streets and beheaded rulers, but healed sick people, and hopeful poor people, and resurrected dead people.

And all through his ministry, he contrasts these two things. You could call it the kingdoms of this world are like this, and the kingdoms of heaven—the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God is like this. There's a little chart at the bottom of page one of your notes. The kingdoms of this world, well, they're all about pride, right? And how do people stay at the top in the kingdoms of this world? Well, threats and bluster, they're all about self-protection guarding your position.

But as you'll see in the chart at the bottom of page one of your notes, Jesus says, well, the kingdom of heaven isn't like that. The kingdom of heaven is more like this. Instead of pride, humility is prized. And instead of threats, we overcome our enemies with blessing. Jesus said, bless those who curse you. Pray for those who persecute you. And instead of self-protection, the kingdom of heaven is all about self-sacrifice.

Now, before you flip the page to page two, keep looking at the bottom of page one. Look at that chart. And I want you to think of this. Sometimes people say, well, I don't like Christianity, because Christians have been power-mad, and abusive, and authoritarian, and dictatorial, and all that, sadly, is true at times throughout history. But what they're really longing for is not less of Christianity, but more of Christianity, right? More of Jesus Christ's followers acting like the kingdom that he came to start.

And so all through Jesus—and for three years, he's been setting this up. That's the kingdom of men, the kingdom of humans, the kingdom of this world. And here's the kingdom of God. This is how I operate. And then page two, suddenly, dramatically, these two systems, these two realities, these two ways of ruling, these two kingdoms collide. The day of Christ's death, when Jesus faces the ultimate example of that first kind of kingdom, the kingdoms of this world, Rome.

The world had never seen anything like it. It had the strongest and most muscular politicians and generals. It had the most weapons and the most wealth. And Jesus would have to face a fearsome representative of this kingdom. And it starts with scene one, his arrest. And I'm going to spend most of the rest of my time on this first scene. Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane praying. And it says, "Judas, one of the 12—that means one of his 12 disciples, one of his closest friends—appeared, and with him was a crowd armed with swords and clubs."

Now, first notice it was Judas, Judas, who portrayed Jesus. Does that—do you ever kind of scratch your head and go, how did that happen? One of his own disciples. What could possibly have been his motivations? Well, I think his name is a huge clue. Judas was the most popular name for boys in first century Judea. If you had a bunch of kids, and at least one of them was a boy, you would have named him Judas.

Why? Judas was the name of the national hero of the Israelites. A man named Judas Maccabeus had led a rebellion about 200 years before Christ, and had successfully kicked out the foreign oppressors, the Syrians back then, rededicated the temple, freed the people. Now, Jerusalem became oppressed again. But the story of Judas Maccabeus gave people hope that it could happen again, so that by the time of Jesus, every family named one of their sons Judas, because they hoped their boy would be the next Judas, the next great national hero.

And in fact, it had almost happened one time when Jesus was a boy, a man named Judas the Galilean arose and said he was the Messiah. He was going to kick the Romans out, and he gathered thousands of followers. And the Romans heard about it and killed him and 2,000 of his followers. And here's how they killed him. They took Judas Maccabeus, they rounded up literally 2,000 of his followers, and they crucified them on crosses separated by about a tenth of a mile all the way from Galilee to Jerusalem.

So you Galileans want to revolt against us? Let us line the road with our victims. That happened when Jesus was about 12 years old. Maybe he even saw those victims on one of his parents' pilgrimages from Galilee down to Jerusalem. But still the name Judas brought national hope to the people of Israel. Judas Iscariot was probably raised on stories about his namesake. He was primed for another rebellion.

And I think by this point, Judas had had it with Jesus and his kingdom of weakness. I mean, Jesus was using all this kingdom language, he had a lot of popularity, and yet all Jesus does is feed some people and heal some people. And then remember what had happened on Palm Sunday, how Jesus entered Jerusalem. The crowds just go bananas. They shout, "Hosanna!" Which does not, by the way, just mean something like, "Hallelujah!" or "Praise the Lord." You know what "Hosanna" means? It means save now from the Romans, from the corrupt chief priests. Here we go. It's a rebel yell.

And I'm sure Jesus saw this and he thought, "Here we go." And Jesus goes into Jerusalem, and sure enough, he cleanses the temple. And the crowds are all for him and they're cheering him. And in that moment, Jesus could have swarmed the temple and the Roman fortress that was right next to it and taken over with pure people power. And instead, he leaves town. And when he comes back on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday, he spends all his time debating religion, not starting the revolution.

And I suspect that the Judas must have thought, "The moment has passed." And now, instead of taking them by surprise, our enemies have regrouped. This is a disaster because they're going to kill us all again. They're going to line the road from Jerusalem to Galilee with another couple of thousand crosses. And I'm going to be up there. And all my other friends and co-conspirators are going to be up there. As they have in the past, they will do again, or the only option to avoid that is we give them Jesus and we survive to fight another day. And so he gives them Jesus. And he gets a crowd together armed with swords and clubs.

And what happens next? Well, Mark 14:47 says, "Then one of those standing near drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear." Cuts off his ear. In the Gospel of John, we discover it was Peter who drew his sword, which is kind of typical of the way Peter operated. This guy has heard Jesus talk about his kingdom of peace for three years. But when push comes to shove, he goes for the sword hilt.

And by the way, do you think he was aiming for the ear? Do you think he was going, "I will teach you a lesson. Off with your ear." Nobody does that. If he kind of cut off his ear, you know, the servant must have gone like this. What was Peter aiming for? His head. He wasn't trying to teach this guy a lesson and injure him. He was trying to kill him. And I look at this and I think, aren't we all a lot like Peter?

We all say we're all about forgiveness and love and peace and Jesus, right? We talk about it every single week in church. But just a little provocation and we go for the sword. I want to pause Jesus' story for just a minute, read you another one. Eugene Peterson, one of the great, great Christian writers. He's the guy who wrote the paraphrase of the Bible that's very popular called The Message, if you're familiar with that. So he's a great writer. But he writes about how he grew up in a very fundamentalist Christian home.

And he hadn't met any non-Christians until he started first grade in public school. And a second grader named Garrison Johns, a bully, picked Eugene out to be his victim. I mean, with a name like Eugene, you're kind of destined to be picked on. But this is what Eugene writes, said René. But this is what Eugene writes. Eugene says, I had been prepared for the wider world of neighborhood and school by memorizing, bless those who persecute you, and turn the other cheek. But Garrison Johns, through some sixth sense bullies have, somehow found out I was a Christian and would punch me and taunt me with Jesus sissy.

I arrived home most days bruised and humiliated. My mother told me this had always been the way of Christians in the world and I had better get used to it. She also said I was supposed to pray for Garrison Johns. Well, one day when I was with seven or eight friends and Garrison caught up with us in the afternoon as usual and started jabbing me and then it happened. Something snapped. And for a moment, all those Bible verses disappeared from my consciousness and I grabbed Garrison and to my surprise and to his, I was stronger than he was. And I wrestled him to the ground, sat on his chest, pinned his arms to the ground with my knees. He was helpless at my mercy.

I hit him in the face with my fists. It felt good. I hit him again, blood spurted from his nose, forming a lovely crimson circle around his head in the snow. This is Eugene Peterson, the message Bible guy writing this. And then my Christian training reasserted itself. And I said to Garrison, say I believe in Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and savior. He wouldn't say it. So I hit him again, more blood. And I tried again, say I believe in Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior and he said it. And he writes, and that's how Garrison Johns became my first Christian convert.

And you know, I can't be just like that. Maybe not with this, but with words and with anger and with sarcasm, with plots, can't you? Especially when a crowd is coming from my Jesus, my faith. We can feel attacked and we get defensive and we move into attack mode and exactly like Peter, usually our attempts at defending Jesus are about as useful as cutting off the ear of a servant. We make ourselves annoying but not particularly effective. And Jesus commanded Peter, put your sword away. And I think that's what he's saying to you and me and a lot of Christians today, put the sword away. My revolution does not come with a sword.

In fact, it's really the true revolution. Flip back over to that chart on the bottom of page one again. To quote Tim Keller, what happens in the kingdoms of this world is that revolutions basically just keep the same old things at the top of the list. They're not real revolutions because power and pride and threats and self-protection and so on, they always stay on the top. The new revolution brings in a new set of people and to power and then the next revolution brings a new set of people and to power and it might be good for you because maybe they're your people but it's the same exact values.

But Jesus isn't just bringing a new set of people into power. He's bringing a totally new way of ordering reality, the kingdom of heaven. But Judas doesn't get it and Peter still doesn't get it and the crowds don't get it. And so often his followers still just don't get it. So what happens next is scene two, the trial. And Jesus ends up in front of the ultimate example of the kingdoms of this world, Pontius Pilate.

Who was Pilate? Well, not a very nice guy. We actually know a lot about Pilate's personality from some other ancient writers like Philo who describes Pilate as, quote, "a man of vindictiveness and furious temper, inflexible, a blend of self-will and relentlessness." He says Pilate's rule was full of bribery, insults, robberies, outrages, executions without trial, constantly repeated and supremely grievous cruelty. There's a lot more but he says it got to the point where Caesar Tiberius himself personally wrote to Pilate saying basically, dude, you're stepping over the line even for a Roman.

And he specifically tells Pilate two things, no more provoking the Jews and no more hasty executions. So imagine being Pilate. Don't provoke the locals. No more hasty executions. And now some of the leading locals are asking you for a hasty execution. And this is why Pilate always seems so ambivalent and keeps waffling about Jesus. He doesn't care about Jesus. He cares about Pilate. And he feels stuck. No matter what decision I make, it's going to come back to haunt me.

And Christ's opponents see this indecision and then they tell Pilate, we have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar. He claims to be Christ. And then they drop the magic word, a king. And Pilate goes, what? What? And he goes back and he asks Jesus the question, are you the king of the Jews? And this is the moment. It's just so intensely dramatic. Because all Jesus has to say is no. And he probably is going to be imprisoned or maybe beaten up but not killed. What's he going to say? Yes, it is as you say.

Jesus replied, yep, that's me. I'm the one that they've been waiting for. But even to Pilate, Jesus wants to make something clear. And here's the distinction again. But my kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest. They started doing that, but I stopped them. Because my kingdom is from another place. Jesus says, Pilate, there is something that matters more than all this Roman palatial finery. There's a force stronger than hate. There is a power even stronger than Rome.

And so Jesus stands before Pilate with absolutely no fear, with the confidence that a monarch would have, standing before a commoner. He says, I'm a king, but not a king of this world. And this calm assurance unnerves Pilate. He's not used to it. Everybody gets on their knees and begs for their life before him. Who is this guy? John Orpurg uses a metaphor that I love. He said it's like a mouse standing up to a cat.

And it reminded me of a cat we used to have, not our current cat who's just fat and lazy, but our previous cat was a good mouser. And she would bring in—maybe you've had a cat like this—she would bring in mice into the house and kind of spit them out of the ground, like look what I can do. And then she would play with them, and then she'd eat them, right? Well, one time a little mouse stood up to her. And this little mouse, she spits the little mouse, and the mouse stands up on its hind legs like this, like T-Rex mouse, and it bears its teeth like this. And she didn't know what to do. She kind of reared up and fell over, backward, because this never happens. This mouse stood up to her. And then she ate it.

And this is what Jesus is having in Pilate's eyes. It's the mouse standing up to the cat, and the chief priests see his hesitation. And they say, if you let this man go, you're no friend to Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king, let us just reiterate his claim, Pilate. Opposes Caesar. We have no king but Caesar. And so Pilate eats the mouse. Scene three, the death. Pilate crucifies Jesus. And we will talk more about this on Good Friday. This Friday, I hope you can join us. This is one of my favorite services of the year, a meditation on the cross.

But for now, this brings us back to Pilate's last ironic touch. Executed criminals typically had their crimes posted above their head as a deterrent, you know, thief or rebel. And Pilate tells his guys, you know what? Guys, guys, guys. On Jesus' sign, I want you to write these words, King of the Jews, because that was his crime. And so even in his death, the kingdom message just kind of keeps being pushed forward. This man from day one to the last day, apparently, claimed to be king.

And ironically, it is a servant of Caesar who is the first person in the Gospel of Mark to see Jesus for who he really is. When Jesus dies, remember it says, "The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom." And as we saw a couple of weeks ago, that was the huge curtain separating the holy of holies where the presence of God is from the rest of the world, God saying, "Now anyone can come right into my presence and look who the first person is to walk in." The Gospel of Mark says, "When the centurion who stood there in front of Jesus heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, 'Surely this man was the Son of God.'

Now up to this point in the Gospel of Mark, not one human being has figured this out yet. And here's a centurion, a servant of the kingdom of this world, who's the first one to get it. And this is even more ironic because every single Roman coin at the time was inscribed, "Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus." Ask any Roman who's the son of God, they would have said without hesitation, "Caesar, it's on all our money." But this man says, "No, no. If God had a son, that man right there, that man, that would be what a son of God is like." Because that's totally different than the son of men.

Now why did the centurion say this? The verse says, "When he saw how he died." This guy's job was supervising the crucifixions of people. He had seen more people die than you and I can imagine. But this one died differently. I mean, you're the centurion. You've seen your own soldiers mock Jesus and beat him up and force him to carry the cross and then nail him hand and feet to the cross. You've heard his agony. You've seen your soldiers jab a spear into his side. And I imagine the centurion's mouth just dropping open in awe as he hears Jesus say things like, "Father, forgive them." What?

And the centurion realizes he is standing on holy ground. And he actually becomes the first person to confess the deity of Christ, the first person after Christ's death to actually choose to step over from the kingdoms of this world to the kingdom of heaven. He says, "I want to follow that man. I want to live like that. I want to die like that." Now the best is yet to come, Christ's triumph over death. But for now, stay at the cross. And here's what I want you to do.

77 days ago, we started this series with John the Baptist's proclamation, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And as we conclude, I want you to behold the Lamb of God. Don't you want to follow him too? Don't you long to turn away from the kingdoms of this world and all of this steam search for power and all this violence. And don't you long to act like and to walk like and to value the values of the kingdom of heaven.

The gospels really keep implying two questions, both related to this theme of kingdom. So you've got to grapple with Jesus on the terms he himself defined himself as. And so what you've got to ask yourself is two things. Number one, who is my king? For real, who do you serve? Not just who's my savior. That word has lost a lot of its power. But who's your king? Savior is a great word. I love that word. But it sounds like it's only about are you going to go to heaven when you die and are your sins forgiven? Those are important. But who's your king? Who do you take direction from? Who do you take your orders from?

Now some of you hear this and you go, how I need some theology thing about the kingship of Jesus. I need help with my anxiety. I need help with my addictions. I need help with my marriage. I need help raising my teenager. I need help with my worries, with my anger. Well, of course, when you make Jesus your king, your highest power, it helps with all the rest of life. You seek first the kingdom. And all these things are added unto you. Because when you go, he's my king. And he is the sovereign over the universe. And that's my king.

What happens is your confidence soars, and your anxiety goes down, and your inspirational level just skyrockets. You get purpose. You get a sense of destiny. You get clarity when he is your king. So that's question one. Who's my king? And question two is, what's my kingdom? Am I really spreading the values of the kingdom of heaven, like the youth choir sang about, or the kingdoms of this world? And how do I know I'm doing it?

Well, what did Jesus say to John the Baptist? Are the signs of the kingdom of heaven feeding hungry and welcoming outcasts and healing people and spreading good news? Now, don't get me wrong. We talk about this a lot. The gospel is not about trying harder to do all that stuff more. The gospel is about, like that centurion, seeing the cross and letting that change you. When I look at that and I go, my king, my king, the king of kings loved me so much, he died for me on the cross. That's how he served me, me, me. While I was yet a sinner.

And something happens. A little seed gets planted in your soul when you begin to see that. And then it keeps growing. And it keeps growing until it fills you up. And it starts to leak out. And that's how the kingdom of heaven spreads. That's how the real revolution starts. Let's pray together to our king.

Lord, we really don't want to be just like the kingdoms of this world. We're in a battle. We're in a war. But help us to wage war not with the weapons of this world, not with sword, not with anger, not with force. But like Jesus did. The gospel preached to the poor, the hungry fed, the dead raised, dead hearts given new life in Jesus, dead marriages, dead hopes. And God help this church to be that kind of army.

And God, I believe that some people today may want to say for maybe the first time, Jesus, you are my king. I want to follow you. I receive you today as my king. Change me like yeast in bread, like a seed in soil, one day at a time. And let my life be a doorway through which the kingdom of heaven comes to the world. And I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.