You are listening to a message from Southwood Presbyterian Church in Huntsville, Alabama.
Our passion is to experience and express grace.
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God, we bow before you now.
We come to adore you now.
We come to receive from you the one who owns all things.
We need you.
We worship you.
We ask your spirit would so work in our hearts now that we'd rather have Jesus.
Help us.
Help me.
Teach us from your word.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.
In John's account of Jesus' life, we are inching closer and closer.
To the cross.
A cross where we know Jesus is headed to climb in a very unusual way up on his throne.
And that's because, as we saw earlier in Jesus' conversation with Pilate, he is a king from another world.
With a kingdom entirely different from what we might expect.
Just last week, Pilate has brought Jesus out before the crowd and said, behold the man.
And though Pilate himself finds no guilt in Jesus, the crowds keep insisting that Jesus be killed.
Now we pick up the reading at verse 12 of John 19.
Pilate's last attempt to release Jesus.
Already now, remember, beaten.
The bloodied head.
The crown of thorns pressed into it.
And we hear some sobering words that we'll contemplate together about Jesus as a king.
This is God's holy word given to us to point our often forgetful and wandering hearts to find hope and life in the right place.
From then on, Pilate sought to release Jesus.
But the Jews cried out, if you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend.
Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.
So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the Stone Pavement and in Aramaic Gabbatha.
Now it was the day of preparation of the Passover.
It was about the sixth hour.
He said to the Jews, behold your king.
They cried out, away with him, away with him, crucify him.
Pilate said to them, shall I crucify your king?
The chief priests answered, we have no king but Caesar.
So he delivered him over to them to be crucified.
What a poignant scene unfolds here outside the Roman praetorium in Jerusalem during the Passover feast.
There's a lot going on.
Now it's Friday, the day before the Sabbath.
And the Jewish leaders turn up the heat on Pilate, don't they?
They're getting worried.
He's taking too long to deal with Jesus.
And they know Pilate is all too fearful of being found to have failed his boss.
His boss is a recently unpredictable and vengeful Tiberius Caesar.
And so the leaders make their closing argument against Jesus.
And Pilate finally walks out to render his verdict.
Although multiple times we've heard Pilate pronounce that he's found absolutely no guilt in Jesus.
Pilate makes a last ditch effort.
Maybe one more time he offers them Jesus as their king.
Certainly they don't want their king crucified.
They'll go for this maybe.
And the chief priests, the representatives of God's people reply,
We have no king but Caesar.
Wow.
Those are powerful words in the moment.
Get Jesus away.
Kill him.
Because we have no king but Caesar.
I want us to see how shocking those words are this morning for a few minutes.
But I want us to do that with an awareness that there are really only two types of people in this room in this regard.
There are those of us who explicitly reject Jesus as king.
And there are those of us who claim Jesus as king but still sometimes reject his kingship by bowing to another king.
All of us this morning need to consider how we say we have no king but Caesar.
And then we need to look squarely at Jesus and see him as king and know what that would mean.
We have no king but Caesar.
First consider what it means to say these words this fateful night in John 19.
Then we'll look at some background to this climactic moment in the story of God's people and their king.
We have no king but Caesar means first that God's people are rejecting him.
Rejecting Yahweh as king.
They're looking to other things.
Something else.
Someone else for life.
Caesar would represent to them worldly power.
Right?
Control.
Influence.
They're saying when they say these words that they want Caesar to give them life.
He gives them lots of things, doesn't he?
And they're saying they'll follow what he wants them to live like in order to get what he gives them.
Did you hear that?
That is a description of street-level idolatry.
Okay?
That's what it means.
That they will do what he wants them to do to get what he can give to them.
An idol is something or someone that you look to for life.
Something to shape you into its image in order to get what it promises to give you.
That's why when I was a young baseball player, it fits to say that I idolized Greg Maddox.
Wow.
I wanted to be just like him.
Although somehow I never won a Cy Young Award or a World Series.
Maddox, for those of you who don't know, was a great Braves pitcher who didn't throw 100 miles an hour like Nolan Ryan.
But he always seemed to make the ball move and end up right where he wanted it.
He was crafty, consistent, control pitcher.
So as a fellow pitcher with a fastball in the 80s, I idolized him as a pitcher.
Meaning I wanted to hold the ball the way he did.
I wanted to throw the ball the way he did.
I even wanted to wear my socks the way that he did.
That was the ticket to life, to pitch in his image.
Part of Israel's idolatry is preferring to find life living in Caesar's image.
That's the first part.
But part of idolatry is also looking to enthrone ourselves, isn't it?
Think about that.
Before you bow to another idol, another king, you are putting yourself on the throne.
It's really evident in this passage because part of the irony here when they say,
we have no king but Caesar, is that these Jewish leaders actually despised Caesar.
And Pilate knew it.
Caesar kept them under his thumb, the Gentile ruler of their promised land.
What are they really saying?
What they're really saying is that they have no king at all.
No king but themselves.
They're rejecting the messianic hope.
The promise of a king coming to deliver God's people.
They will bow, they've decided, to whoever or whatever gets them what they want right now.
Keeps them in control for now.
They want that king.
They're in charge.
But this moment, these fateful words where his own did not receive him have been building for centuries, for generations, haven't they?
I think that's part of why they're so often on our hearts and our lips too.
We love to be on the throne, don't we?
Don't we enjoy being in control?
Well, part of that's understandable.
All the way back in the beginning, God the king creates man and woman in his image.
And he tells us that part of that reflecting the image of the king is to rule on his behalf.
To be vice regents.
That's what he made us for.
To rule the way that Yahweh, the true king, would rule over his whole creation.
So our instinct, as a good one, is to rule.
But we can't do it right unless we're living in relationship with the true king.
Tending the garden.
Caring for the animals.
Creating beauty in the image of the king.
And listen, God's people definitely have a king.
It's not unclear.
They sing about him all the time.
Psalm 29.
The Lord Yahweh sits enthroned over the flood.
The Lord sits enthroned as king forever.
Psalm 47.
Sing praises to God.
Sing praises.
Sing praises to our king.
Sing praises.
For God is the king of all the earth.
Psalm 145.
They sing about his kingdom.
Your kingdom, God, is an everlasting kingdom.
Your dominion endures throughout all generations.
This is why the Hillel Passover prayer that would have been prayed over and over in Jerusalem this very weekend.
Says to Yahweh, we have no king but thee.
Wow.
Sound familiar?
We have no king but Caesar?
From the very first sin in Eden, men and women, boys and girls, have been rejecting the true king for our own idols.
Looking to what looks good to us, right?
What will give us life?
Adam and Eve, right?
The nation of Israel at the time of the judges.
Another great example of this.
Gideon rescued God's people.
God sent him as a judge to deliver them.
And they wanted to make this flawed man their king.
Gideon said, no way.
Gideon said to them, I will not rule over you.
My son will not rule over you.
The Lord will rule over you.
You have a king.
But the problem was they had quit acknowledging Yahweh's rule.
The whole book of Judges says over and over, in those days, there was no king in Israel.
Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
Man, we go there quickly these days, don't we?
I know who I am, how I should live, what I want.
I know that.
When the Israelites do ask God for a king like the nations, Samuel, their last judge, is distraught.
And God says to Samuel, hey, don't take it personally.
Obey the voice of the people and all they say to you.
For they have not rejected you.
You're not the king, Samuel.
They have rejected me from being king over them.
They want a king that they can see and they can follow wherever he leads.
They don't care if he leads them after Yahweh or not.
See, they were made to look like Yahweh.
But they were longing to look like the nations.
To be remade in their image.
They reject Yahweh and they get Saul.
When that doesn't go well, God says, look, if anyone's going to be king of my people,
the point will be to point them to me with your whole heart.
Point them away from the idols of the nations around them.
Remind them to rule over my world in my image.
Show them, king, what the true king looks like.
And so David and Solomon come to the throne and it's repeatedly called the throne of Yahweh.
The throne of the Lord that they will sit on.
And many, many evil kings, if you've read through those books before, follow them.
They lead the people away from God.
Even many of those kings setting up new idols for the people to worship.
That's what happens all through the history of the Old Testament.
When you reject Yahweh, like we read earlier in Jeremiah chapter 2,
you look somewhere else for life.
Another idol to bow to.
Something to be shaped in its image to give you what you want.
We're always being shaped, right?
Formed into something's image all the time.
The question is, what is it?
So look at the description of a pretty good king.
There are some.
Hezekiah.
2 Kings 18.
What does a good king do?
He tears down idols.
He rules God's way.
He points the people to Yahweh.
And to hope in his promises.
Because what's clear throughout these centuries in the Psalms and the Prophets,
over and over so many examples,
is that Yahweh is going to send a king for his people.
There's someone coming.
A king who will never leave the throne.
A king who will perfectly reflect God's image.
A king who will destroy every idol and any other pretender to the throne of God
and lead God's people in life everlasting.
That is where the term Messiah, anointed one, comes from.
That was the hope of generations of Jews, right?
They needed a king like that.
The Messiah.
The king.
The faithful servant of God who will rescue us once and for all
by bringing us back into relationship with the true king.
That's what they're longing for.
That's what they're looking forward to for generations and generations.
Yet on this night,
when Jesus stands before them in a purple robe,
with a bloodied face,
topped by a crown of thorns,
they reject messianic hope as well.
He came to his own.
People who grew up hearing about him all the time.
But his own did not receive him.
We have no king but Caesar.
Really, no king at all, right?
If you don't listen carefully to their accents,
you might think that they're American patriots.
Our country has a rich history of rejecting kings,
their tea,
and their taxes.
We're proud.
And we have a rich history of enthroning ourselves as king,
don't we?
Maybe we should be less proud of that part.
But I think that you and I inherit that heart from our spiritual fathers and our cultural fathers.
Just think for a minute.
I bow to idols all the time.
Shape myself in their image.
Enthrone myself.
Just thinking of a few ways.
I do worship Jesus as king,
but I reject him as king
when as a parent,
I think my hope for my kids lies
in my controlling what they do
and where they go
and what they believe.
I reject the messianic hope
that Jesus alone rescues them
when I quit praying so much for them
and I start pressuring them to perform the way I want them to.
God, forgive me.
That's idolatry.
We reject Jesus as king by searching for life,
for a firm foundation,
for a successful life somewhere else.
You know, I'll do things Jesus' way
and prioritize my relationship with God
once I get the next promotion
and settle into my long-term career
and have financial security.
Then I can live for Jesus.
For the time being,
I'll bow to Jesus on Sundays,
but honestly, I'm living my life
formed by another king
and another kingdom most of the week.
Friends, just in case you don't recognize that,
that's idolatry at its finest, right?
Honoring God with our lips,
with hearts far from him.
Focusing on our outward appearance
while neglecting our inward formation in God's image.
Living like the firm foundation
is worldly success
while singing about God being worthy.
Spending way less time pursuing God
than pursuing success
and somehow expecting to be formed into his image.
God, forgive us.
If you're there right now,
these idolatrous habits
and patterns of life,
they're hard to break, aren't they?
And we...
We still think we're worshiping God.
We just have forgotten
how to quit bowing to the idols.
We reject Jesus as king
when we say we love and follow him
but live according to our own designs.
We read God's design for our sexuality,
for marriage,
but we're pretty sure
we've got better ideas these days.
From where we sit,
on our throne,
this makes more sense
and it feels like more life,
better life.
Maybe we think in the back of our minds,
after all,
if Jesus doesn't come through,
I better have some hope
and some life already,
somewhere else.
God, forgive us.
Y'all, I've seen all this idolatry
and much more in my own heart and life.
Do you see any idolatry like this
in your own heart and life?
Can you think of anywhere
you're silently rejecting
the kingship of Jesus,
preferring your own rule?
It's understandable, friends.
You were made to rule
just as number two,
not number one.
In the name of the king,
not in your own name,
for his glory,
not for your own success and comfort.
Do you honestly think
you're managing life fine
without him most days?
Do you feel at peace
only when you're in control
and spend most days
deeply anxious,
worried, afraid?
Do you believe you know better
what to do with the time
that he gives you,
the body he made,
the others he made
in his image?
we have no king but Caesar.
It's a rejection of God.
It's idolatry.
It's a rejection of hope
in the Messiah.
All of us are guilty at times.
We need to repent.
We need to quit bowing
to worthless idols.
We need to turn back
to King Jesus.
How do you do that?
Pilate,
whether he knows it or not,
is offering us
the path
to true life.
Behold
your
king.
It's the only way
that I know
to dethrone
the idols
of your heart,
to kick yourself
off the throne,
to behold
your king,
to bow
to Jesus.
What I mean
when I
say that
is instead of
the eyes
of your heart
looking to
other things
for life,
looking to
enthrone
yourself,
instead
look to
Jesus
desperately
as the
only one
in control.
Not him
with a little bit
of you.
As the only
king you can
trust
to rule
over all
things.
The one
without whom
you must
give up
hope
of peace
and joy
and life.
You've bowed
to other idols.
Only
King Jesus
can restore
you to God
and enable
you to live
the life
that you
were made
for.
That's
looking to
him
desperately.
Jesus,
I need
you.
And
look to
him
daily.
Not just
bow the
knee once.
Many of us
have done
that,
have acknowledged
Jesus as
king,
but actually
realize that
he is ruling
for you
in every
moment,
in every
situation,
even the ones
you can't
see it.
He's not
cheering you
on in hopes
that you
can win
the battle
yourself.
He's not
a cosmic
cheerleader.
He's coming
in to conquer
you,
to actually
to let you
off the
throne
and give
you rest.
So that
when you do
stand up to
fight,
it is in
his already
accomplished
victory.
That's the
kind of king
that he is.
When King
Simba comes
back to
Pride Rock,
there are
many lions
and other
good animals.
They've
been fighting
but mostly
cowering in
fear and
losing.
And he
doesn't just
provide inspiration
for their
fight so they
do better.
What happens?
They fall
back and
stand behind
him and
he steps
forward to
defeat their
greatest enemies
and then at
the end they
rush forward
and clean up
the scattering
hyenas.
just as David
defeated Goliath
on behalf of
God's fearful
people and
they then
rushed forward
to plunder
the fleeing
Philistines.
So Jesus,
our champion,
defeats all
his and our
enemies and
in so doing
this king
invites us
to rest,
to rejoice
in his victory
and then
in his train
to plunder
the fleeing
darkness
in the battle
that he's
already won.
Bowing to
King Jesus,
it actually
means really
truly looking
to him,
doesn't it?
Remembering
often that
he is on
the throne,
applying that
reality,
that truth
that we say
we believe
to the
relationships,
the decisions,
the situations
of my life
that seem out
of control.
Or they
seem harmful
to me.
I mean,
honestly,
ask yourself,
if you're not
at any point
in your day
remembering
that Jesus
is on the
throne of
your life,
how would
you expect
to be formed
in his
image?
What happens
when you do
behold him?
What happens
when your eyes
are fixed,
when you see
who's really
on the throne,
who the true
king is?
Then idols
are displaced.
self is
dethroned,
the true
king is
crowned,
and his
image starts
to be formed
in us
more and
more.
Behold
your
king.
That's what
I'd like us
to spend
the last few
minutes doing
together.
If you've
never seen
Jesus
as king,
I'd like to
encourage you
just to imagine
what it would
be like
to have a
king like
this,
to bow to
him.
I assure
you that he
is quite
unique in
ways that you
might not even
believe,
but if you'll
look at him
and just
imagine,
wouldn't it
be wonderful
to follow a
king like
this?
If you know
him but you've
started bowing
elsewhere,
I want you to
just take a
deep breath
and gaze on
his beauty
and his
majesty for a
few minutes
with me
and so rest
and find
hope and
find life
in Jesus
our king.
I'm grateful
for the
inspiration
and some
words from
Pastor Shadrach
Meshach
Lockridge.
What a great
name.
Shadrach and
Meshach in the
same.
He ministered in
California in the
last century and
he once preached
an Easter themed
sermon titled
That's My
King.
I'll say
that's our
king.
Just behold
him for a few
minutes.
He's the king
of creation.
He's the king
of righteousness.
He's the king
of promise.
He's the king
of redemption.
He's the king
of heaven.
He's the king
of glory.
That's our
king.
The king of
kings.
The lord of
lords.
Look at him
there for just a
moment in this
passage we just
read.
There he is.
He's bloody.
Yet he doesn't
fight back.
He's misunderstood.
He's accused
falsely.
He's mocked
unjustly.
He sits silent
when he knows
he's being led
to the slaughter.
Y'all he is
absolutely committed
to seeing this
through.
To the death
in our
place.
When betrayal
is rearing
its ugly
head.
When the
awful cross
looms
nearer and
nearer.
when the
terrors of
bearing sin
torment his
soul.
Our king
stands
firm.
So listen
nothing in
heaven or on
earth will keep
him from
loving you.
From rescuing
you.
From holding
you.
He is
enduringly
strong.
He's entirely
sincere.
He's eternally
steadfast.
He's immortally
graceful.
He's
imperially
powerful.
He is
impartially
merciful.
He's our
king.
His promise
is sure.
His goodness
is limitless.
His mercy
is everlasting.
His love
is unfailing.
His word
is eternal.
His grace
is sufficient.
His reign
is righteous.
His mission
is accomplished.
And his
yoke is easy.
And his
burden is
light.
That's our
king.
Marvel at
him for a
minute.
Close your
eyes if you
need to.
Y'all he
dignifies his
followers with
high callings
and forgives us
when we fall
short.
He is
condemned
right here
at the
judgment
seat so
that there
will be
no
condemnation
at the
judgment
day for
those who
are in
Christ
Jesus.
Amen.
He conquers
all of
his and
our
enemies
except for
those that
he picks up
off the
ground long
enough to
hang him on
a cross
where he
conquers our
greatest
enemies once
and for
all.
And he
lifts us up
then from the
ash heap to
seat us with
him in the
heavenly places
far above all
other rule or
power or
dominion that
ever existed or
ever will
exist.
that's our
king and
we're seated
with him.
He's the
visible image
of the
invisible God.
He shows
us what
God is like
in the flesh
standing there
as you
look up at
him.
He shows us
God's heart.
He shows us
God's commitment
to us
as he
restores us
to God
and to the
very image
that we
were created
to reflect.
Religious
leaders couldn't
stand him
but they found
out they
couldn't stop
him.
Pilate
couldn't find
any fault
in him.
The people
couldn't decide
about him.
The witnesses
couldn't agree
about him.
Herod couldn't
kill him.
Death
couldn't handle
him and the
grave couldn't
hold him.
That's our
king.
He's risen
and reigning.
Listen,
he's never
out of control.
Never.
He's never
out of love.
He's never
out of patience.
He's never
out of grace.
Our good
and gracious
king,
you need to
see him and
know he's
never out
of control.
Nowhere in
your life
never is he
out of control.
He strengthens
the weak.
He helps
the tempted.
He sympathizes
with the
downcast.
He draws
near to the
brokenhearted.
He forgives
sinners.
He heals
the sick.
He discharges
debtors.
He sets
captives free.
He defends
the feeble.
He blesses
the young.
He regards
the aged.
He beautifies
the meek.
He's the
son of God.
He's the
savior of
sinners.
He's the
friend of
failures.
He's the
shepherd of
the sheep.
He's the
light of
the world.
He's the
hope of
the nations.
And he's
our king.
He's the
alpha
and the
omega.
The beginning
and the
end.
He always
has been
and always
will be.
He had no
predecessor
and he will
have no
successor.
He's not up
for re-election
and he will
never resign.
He is
unparalleled.
He's supreme.
He is
pre-eminent.
that's our
king.
He wants
you to see
him.
He wants
you to see
him like
that.
He invites
you to rest
in him.
He calls
you to
worship him.
He enables
you to find
life in
him.
He offers
you to have
hope in
him.
He urges
you to
trust him.
That's our
king.
O king
Jesus,
give us
eyes to
see.
Give us
knees to
bow.
Give us
hearts to
worship
and to
light in
and rest
in you.
our
king.
We ask
it in
your
name.
Amen.
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information,
visit us
online at
southwood.org.