1: Jesus the New Exodus: The Life He Births

John 18:28-38; 19: 5-16 (with John 6 as background text)

INTRO

This is the third and last in our mini-series inside John looking at the New Exodus Jesus offers His people. Not only has John drawn the lines from Moses to Jesus but so have those who encountered Jesus. A few thoughts as we move into the final piece.

• The more we grasp what was going on at the first Exodus, the better we can grasp the second or ultimate Exodus, asking and answering the who, what, when, where and why of it all.

• We are seeking the connection. That first Exodus was not background filler until we get to Jesus. It is a real even and a typological event that moves us to ask, what is Israel’s Exodus out of Egypt saying about God, Israel, Moses, and when contrasted and compared to the second Exodus, what is revealed about God the Father, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and us?

In both, a major theme is liberation. We spent time looking at the liberation Jesus delivers in the second Exodus. The liberation is one from slavery, from foreign powers, and from sin which has wrecked us physically, psychologically, emotionally and spiritually. Key to Israel and us is identification of our slavery; if you do not appreciate your slavery with realistic understanding of its depth, destruction and denial of God, then you will never appreciate the liberation Christ brings. If you find yourself in a lesser slavery then you will always search for a lesser savior or reduce Jesus to a lesser liberator than He really is.

In both narratives, we noted that it is God’s mercy (hesed) which motivates His liberation. This steadfast love is not sprinkled on or even merely shown to God’s people but He showers it upon us lavishly. In Jesus Christ, we see each move of revelation, care, prayer for His people, each act of deliverance and healing, feeding, curing, reinstating, reuniting—all of these are done out of His supreme hesed for His people.

And now we turn to look at the Life Jesus births in His people.

Out of His amazing hesed He liberates us from sin and death to deliver us into a new life birthed by the Spirit.

2: Yet, what is that life which Jesus offers across so many pages of Scripture? What do we make of it? How do we get it? What do we do with it?

PAUSE – Let’s stop for a second before we turn to Scripture and have a little thought experiment. What difference would it make it what we had in the Gospel(s) was only: Jesus, fully God and fully man, was born of a virgin at a definite time in history. He died on a cross for the sins of the world. He was resurrected. He ascended into Heaven .He will come back one day.

Is anything missing? If that was our complete Gospel record, would that make a difference in your worship? Would it make a difference how you live?

The Apostle’s Creed states: And in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord: Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary: Suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead and buried: He descended into hell: The third day he rose again from the dead: He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty: From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead:

I’m asking because I believe for many of us we come to Scripture, especially the Gospels and see much of it as non-critical background information, filler before we get to the cross. For many, our hearts and minds say, “I already believe Jesus went to the cross and died for my sins, so the rest is just details.” But is it? I believe we miss far too much of the life Jesus was birthing because of this. Keep this in your mind as we move forward.

I. GOD IS A GOD OF LIFE

As we come to the topic of Life we have a few questions. Like the question of liberation, the wrong starting place will end in the wrong conclusion.

What is the purpose of Life – This is metaphysical, philosophical and yet a basic question of human life. Why are you here? How did you get here? Where are you going? What is the meaning and function of life? If you haven’t asked this question you might be too young, too entertained, too busy or perhaps not too bright. It is the question of the ages – Why are we here? The overwhelming answer of our culture is to be happy. The answer that seems to

3: ring the truest is to do what I need/want to do. And anyone who stops my happiness is intruding on my life and attacking my very essence, my identity and my purpose. We even have a right to the pursuit of happiness.

We also have a question here for Christians. If you’ve answered the first question, we still have to answer how do we live in this life. When you look around at the country, particularly in Indiana right now, Christians are confronted with this question. How do we interact with government, with non-Christians, with each other?

And finally, what do we make out of the Life that Jesus offers? Is it just to whisk off to paradise in the future or is there more?

As we come to these questions we keep in mind that the God who makes Himself known through the person and ministry of Jesus is a God of Life God. He has come near in His Son by His Spirit not in anger and wrath for judgment but so that the world may have abundant life (Jn. 10:10).

All of the amazing I AM self-declaration statements of Jesus show that God is a living God who gives life to His people. Jesus says that he is the Bread of Life, the Light of the World, the Good Shepherd of the flock, the Resurrection and the Life, the Way, Truth and Life and the Vine of the Branches. Each figurative self-description reveals that He has come to offer the very life of God to the people. God is a life-giving God.

God’s chief ambition, according to John, is to give eternal life to His people.

Jesus tells Nicodemus that God does not condemn the world but He has sent His son in to the world to save it. This divine salvation, which comes through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is not simply a reprieve from the ways and means of the world or even deliverance from the realm of the devil (depicted as darkness) but it is salvation for eternal life in God’s very presence.

For John, salvation is the personal experience of the rich, vibrant, eternal life of God Himself that is achieved through His Son’s own immeasurable sacrifice.

The signs that Jesus performs reveal God to be the Savior, Healer, Provider, and Life-Giver of His people. He who breathed into the man and made him into a living being (Gen. 2:7) is the same One who gives life to His people through His Son.

Jesus, the Life-giver, says, “Lazarus, come forth!” and the man whose body was as inert as the stone that covered the entrance of his tomb and as lifeless as the grave

4: clothes that bound him steps out of darkness into light, out of death into life because the Word of Life has spoken. Out of nothingness, the void, comes life through Jesus the Life-Giver.

Jesus gets in big trouble for the way He is working, but He turns to His critics and asks them, “Why are you surprised, I am working as my Father has always been working?” The work of God is to give people an eternal living relationship with Himself as in the beginning of creation. This is the salvation John describes. This is the eternal life Jesus births.

We also see in John that the life-transforming love of God is for all. No one is beyond receiving this life—not the wise and influential insiders like Nicodemus; not women who have been married five times; not powerless noblemen, and not lame men who despair of ever being whole; not innocent blind men or guilty adulterous women; not even dead men like Lazarus. Not Philip, Thomas or Peter either who all see a lot of Jesus’ working but understand too little of it.

But what is this Life that God is working? II. IT IS A KINGDOM LIFE:

This is what Jesus tells Nicodemus in Ch. 3. Unless you are born again you will not see or enter into God’s kingdom. Enter is a word of location, not geography here, but nonetheless of movement, of coming.

Kingdom is mentioned over 100 times in the Gospels. Matthew calls it the Kingdom of Heaven, Mark and Luke prefer Kingdom of God. John uses it much less directly but it is there.

Let’s turn to our text for today and fill in this Kingdom life: John 18:28-38; 19: 5-16

This Kingdom Life is:

1. Christ-Ruled – He is king 2. Christ-Missioned – Delivers Truth, which makes subjects 3. Christ-Now and Future – Has dimension in this world now but also a

future one to come to this world

A. Christ Ruled – There is a King and it is not you

5: Going back to the first exodus we know clearly that Israel was once completely ruled by Egypt. Then God called them out to be completely ruled by Him. This was a theocracy with Moses acting as God’s agent and ambassador and God clearly at the center, at the top. In Exodus, Israel is told you will be my people and I will be your God. God’s statutes, worship, and presence with His people are put at the center of their daily lives—their dress, actions, their relationships, even their food is all symbolic of and pouring into their relationship with God. Nothing in their life is just whatever. There is no divide between sacred and secular, between church and work or church and school, between the Godly me and the other me. Their lives are organized around God, led by God, and for the purposes of God, in relationship. I have freed you and am taking care of you, God says, so that you will know I AM the LORD your God. (Ex. 16:12)

We see in Christ this call to be completely His – His life-call on our lives is to abandon all else in order to be truly ruled by Him. We see Christ liberating in order to have the same complete relationship with His people. His desire is for His people to have Him at the center of all we do, think, and all we are—to eat and drink of Him, appropriating and absorbing Him by faith. Mary has chosen better than Martha because she has put Jesus at the center of her attention and life. The rich young ruler, on the other hand, though following the commandments, will not give up all to follow the King. Jesus puts this is such shocking language—our devotion to the King and our life in His kingdom will be so absolute, so amazingly singular, and placing Him so much higher that by comparison even those we love so dearly will actually look hated. (LK. 14:26)

Our problem – We simply don’t know kingdoms in America. We approach God far too often with democratic notions of libertarianism. We often come to Christ and say in effect, “Ok, I’ll give you that much but really don’t push it God. You can have this and this, and even that but you can’t take it all. If you do, where will there be time for me and what I really want to do?” That first step of true surrender, of giving up self-rule is a doozy for us. We see in Christ’s kingdom the same binary relationship to kingdom that Israel had with Egypt and then God. Each can have but one master. Jesus tells us again and again you are with Me or against Me. You are of My Father or you are of your father, Satan. You serve money or you serve God. You are in the Light or are in darkness. You accept God or you hate Him. You are in God’s kingdom or you are in the world.

Some questions to help you flesh out your relationship to the King and His kingdom: Honestly ponder these.

6:

• Where do you give the best of your money, energy, and talent (resources)? • What do you plan and pray for the most? • What people and things take the majority of your life? • Where do you give the best of your time (schedule)? [Note: not most but

best or in biblical language first fruits] • What if you had it would make your life complete? What if you lost it

would make your life not worth living?

It was this total commitment to Jesus that was threatening to Pilate, Pharisees and ever ruling party. This kind of commitment to Christ is undermining power structures because it questions ultimate authority and allegiance to that authority. Caesars had been called gods since Julius (post-mortem). To give ultimate allegiance to the LORD undermines the authority of the so-called sons of god.

When Jesus said give to Caesar what is Caesar but give to God what is God’s, He was cleverly avoiding the trap of the Jews but also making a profound statement about kingdom life. Once you give what is truly due to God, there is nothing left to give to Caesar. When Jesus looks at the coin He asks, “Whose image is on this?” Caesar’s image of course. So give it to Caesar then as it bears his image. Jesus is in the process asking, “Whose image do you bear?” The obvious answer is God’s. Then give yourself completely to the One’s whose image you bear, in whose image you were designed.

God’s kingdom speaks of authority and allegiance. You cannot serve two masters. You cannot be ruled by two kings. So choose today, who will rule you.

Kingdom Clash – Of course this decision is one of kingdom clash. Pilate asks Jesus, “Are you a King? What kind of Kingdom is this?”

Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world in that it doesn’t operate like the kingdoms of the world which operate on external coercion—on powerplays, manipulation, strings pulled, money siphoned, who you know, insider trades, politics. It doesn’t beat into submission with billy clubs or boycotts, it doesn’t transform by armies or strong centralized government.

It is a slow, organic, growth that takes over from the individual’s inside. Jesus likens it to yeast moving through bread. It is like a tree growing. It is gradual and eventual, it is progressing though it looks silent and still, and it is not perceptible to all.

7: What we see in Pilate confronting Jesus and the Jewish leaders attacking Jesus is nothing less than the kingdoms of man facing off against the kingdom of God. Pilate’s is political and religious, the Sanhedrin’s is religious and political. Each has social, economic, religious, and nationalistic implications—each kingdom covers every aspect of daily human life.

The Life Jesus invites you and me to is a Christ-centered, Jesus-ruled kingdom which means that our initial encounter and our on-going struggle with this Christian life is also one of kingdom clash.

Our Kingdoms

We are told to pray for His kingdom come, not ours. Yet most of us are seeking our own kingdoms to make this life worth living—something that if we can finally get it will make our life worthwhile or trying to maintain a kingdom which if lost will

8: make life unbearable.

We see this most profoundly when something threatens our kingdom or blocks us from attaining what we think will complete us. People last out in anger, become desperate, bitter, or sink into depression. This reveals our heart, our true kingdom and the real authority over our lives.

One of our biggest issues here is trying to do sin-management, trying to lessen or control our desires for self-rule, our own kingdom come. We often play with sin. We try to minimize it in our life. We want to sin a little less. We want to control it, keep it in check and manage it. “Not too much,” we whisper to sin. But Jesus’ kingdom life isn’t talking about a life of sin-management but where we have a whole new order. He isn’t saying add Him to the mix, add His kingdom pursuits to your list of desires, but that He becomes all. He becomes your desire—singular.

The kingdom is about citizenship so think about this in those terms. You don’t mess up and say I’ll be more American tomorrow. Or in terms of race, tomorrow I’m going to act more Chinese, I’m going to be more Chinese. Kingdom life is identity, allegiance, authority – so it is letting Christ be king. It is not trying to be better, but letting Him rule. Instead of our effort to manage sin we should we be saying I will let you rule in me. I will let you reign. Your kingdom come in my heart and in this world as it is in heaven—complete sovereignty, unquestioned allegiance, and supreme authority.

At this time in history, every man, woman and child was under a king, they belonged to one kingdom or another. The Jews were looking for a man to make king, a prophet who could deliver them and bring about a jubilee, a time when things would be right on the outside—political liberation, religious salvation, economic freedom.

We can often be smug; those Jews didn't accept Jesus because they were so simplistic and were looking for a king on a white horse. They were looking for someone to fulfill their ambitions and dreams so they could get on with their agendas. But what about us? How often are we just looking for a private Jesus to deal

9: with my future and make me happy now? How often are we praying sinner’s prayers and then managing sin but not letting Him be King over our whole life? How often are we simplistic? How often are we interested primarily in a Jesus who will help me get on with my agenda, my kingdom come? They missed the kind of King Jesus was. I wonder if we've entirely missed the king and the kingdom. How different would it be to pray for his kingdom come and to live kingdom lives? To invite our friends not to church buildings and programs but into God's kingdom and His very presence? I believe we've sold ourselves, our evangelism and God short.

A few closing thoughts here:

Kingdom life is a whole new life, not patching Christ’s agenda on to your life. Saying Jesus is the bread of life means without Him you are starving and with him you are completely full. He’s not offering a snack, He’s offering true fulfillment but that only happens if He is all and in all. Just as the people stood on the shore and Moses told them – God is in control, He will do this alone, so Jesus says, sit, rest in me, I will do it all. Likewise, transferred in the new land, God says you will have no other gods before me. Jesus says, I AM it, your all in all, and in My kingdom there is but one King. The sheep know and follow only one Shepherd.

This Christ-ruling is the ultimate freedom for it gives life. The very pictures Jesus uses (vines, fruit, food, water) again and again depict the life that flows from Jesus and which fills and overflows in us as we are connected to and remain in Christ, being ruled by the only Life-giver. Our world has pretended that life comes from an authentic, independent life spent doing whatever, however I want to pursue and erect my kingdom. Look around--this self-autonomy is the highest pursuit; self-rule is our highest virtue. This is why anything that blocks our kingdoms is a threat to our existence which must be removed at all costs. This is why when we look to Indiana or any discussion in the gay-rights and marriage equality debates, people are so upset. When you say what they are doing is wrong or that you do not approve, what they are hearing is an attack on their very identity, on the core of who they are, on their hearts where their kingdom rests and rules.

B. Christ-Missioned

10: 33 Then Pilate entered the Praetorium again, called Jesus, and said to Him, “Are You the

King of the Jews?” 34 Jesus answered him, “Are you speaking for yourself about this, or

did others tell you this concerning Me?” 35 Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own

nation and the chief priests have delivered You to me. What have You done?” 36 Jesus

answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My

kingdom is not from here.” 37 Pilate therefore said to Him, “Are You a king then?”

Jesus answered, “You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this

cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who

is of the truth hears My voice.”

Notice – Jesus didn’t say His kingdom wasn’t working in the world.

Let’s go back to that first question: Do we see the Gospel(s) as only a long

introduction to the crucifixion and resurrection or is there a purpose beyond

validating or giving some extra details to the life of Jesus?

One of our big obstacles to kingdom life comes when we reduce Jesus’ mission and salvation about “my relationship with God” in the present and about “going home to God and finding peace” in the future.

There has been a movement to be mission-focused church or missional. But there has still been a large divide between those who see this as evangelism to save souls for eternity and those who interpret mission as social justice, working for earthly peace and hope in the present world. But this split-level world has nothing to do with Jesus and the New Testament and instead shows our culture’s enslavement to the Platonic ideology of the Enlightenment.

NT Wright said, “If we want a mission-shaped church, what we need is a hope-shaped mission” We get the mission straight when we get resurrection and kingdom straight.

When most Western Christians hear “salvation” they assume this means only you are going to heaven when you die. Salvation means rescue. But ultimately what are we rescued from and to? (Keeping that original Exodus in mind is helpful)

We are rescued from sin and death. But if it is true that we die (bodily) and live only spiritually at some time in the future, then we haven’t really been rescued from death—we have died.

11:

N.T. Wright is helpful here, “If God’s good creation—all of it – the world, life as we

know it, our glorious and remarkable bodies, brains and bloodstreams—if they are

really good and if God wants to reaffirm that goodness in a wonderful act of new

creation at the last, then to see the death of the body and the escape of the soul from

matter, this sad dark world, as salvation then we’ve missed the narrative of the Bible

from Genesis to Revelation.”

The people of Israel were saved out of Egypt so as to one day turn around and save

Egypt. In God’s steadfast mercy they were given a new life, liberated to a new

allegiance to God alone, and given a new mission: you will be my priesthood God

declares, that will show My light and life to the world. God called Israel to be the

hope in the dark world, to work through them to take over the world in His steadfast

love. Faced with His beautiful, powerful, and lost creation in rebellion, God longed

to set it right, to rescure it from continuing corruption and chaos and to bring it back

into order and fruitfulness.

God longed, in other words, to reestablish His wise sovereignty over the whole

creation as it was in the beginning—which would mean an act of healing and rescue.

God does not want to rescue humans out from creation any more than He wanted to

rescue Israel from the Gentiles—He wanted to rescue Israel in order that Israel

would be Israel, be a light to the Gentiles, and He desires to rescue humans now in order that humans might be His rescuing stewards over creation. That is the inner dynamic mission of the kingdom of God.

In Jesus, we don’t see God saying that His original plan—that creation is ruled by

humans—was a mistake. We also don’t see in Jesus God saying that His covenant—

that Israel would be the means of saving the nations—is a failure. No, no. We see in

Jesus the fulfillment of these plans.

In Jesus’ signs we see His kingdom breaking through the kingdoms of this world to

heal, restore, reunite, reconcile, feed, empower, set free and build up His people—

not to prepare them to leave this world—but to heal this world.

N.T. Wright adds, “The whole point of what Jesus was up to was that he was doing, close up, in the present, what he was promising long-term, in the future. And what He was promising for that future and doing in that present, was not saving souls for a disembodied eternity but rescuing people from the corruption and decay of the way the world presently is so they could enjoy, already in the present, that renewal of

12: creation which is God’s ultimate purpose—and so they could thus become colleagues and partners in that larger project.”

When we miss this we embrace a Western-Gnosticism when we think of this world as evil and the only solution is to escape it and go to heaven. This life is not some phase we have to go through, but as kingdom people eternity has started for us now—God’s kingdom has broken into our hearts, reconstructed them and set them on fire to heal His world—to be about His kingdom building business today and tomorrow.

This is why Jesus’ kingdom was and is dangerous for the kingdoms of the world—not because we aren’t scared of death and actually look forward to dying as a way to escape this awful world and arrive in a happier future (like a suicide bomber, for example). Rather we are like Mary who in her magnificent saw God pulling down the mighty from thrones and exalting the humble and meek, seeing God changing the world in the present and the future.

People who believe in this kind of kingdom life , in this resurrection life, see God bringing about the true Exodus today, the real return from exile and the great liberation from oppression and slavery, the liberation which Israel longed for and creation groans for. People who see God’s mission as making a whole new world here in which everything will be set right at last are dangerous because we are unstoppably motivated to work for that change in the present.

We are not social-justice people trying to build the kingdom ourselves.

We are not defeatist who think nothing can be done until Jesus comes back.

We are Christ-missioned people empowered by His Spirit to do His will now, which is setting the world to rights by living and praying for His kingdom come in the lives and hearts of those around us.

To live kingdom life means we are in on Christ’s mission. Through us the Spirit is working to convict the world of sin and bring the life of Christ to the world.

Everything we do, every kingdom action, is important – it is building to the future.

The amazing and hard truth is that in this kingdom life of mission, the frontline is everywhere. The battles don’t always look obvious—but all we do is working in mission under the surface, not to win God, but God’s kingdom taking over my heart and now my prayer and daily devotion is making His kingdom come, to letting Him rule in me so His kingdom builds in grows in my heart, in my family, in my church,

13: and spreading further out and out to my community, and this world. Every chance to not lust, to turn the other cheek, to return violence with love, to truly love my neighbor as myself, to lift up the least of these among us, to champion His causes, to heal, restore, cure, reunite, reestablish, to show true kingdom equality, to fight racism and bigotry, to overthrow corrupt power structures, to pray, to turn in dependence on God alone, to forgive as you have been forgiven, to show mercy, to walk humbly, to worship Christ Jesus—all of these are kingdom mission. Each impacts every square inch of reality. Nothing then in our Christian life is mundane or whatever. There is no divide between sacred and secular. There is no me, no mission, no desire that is not Christ’s.

C. Christ-Present and Future Kingdom

“Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.” John the Baptist and Jesus proclaimed the nearness of God’s kingdom (Matthew 3:2; 4:17; Mark 1:15). A literal translation is the Kingdom “has come near.” The long-awaited rule of God was near. This message was called the gospel, the good news. Thousands of people were glad to hear this, and many responded to this message of John and Jesus.

After casting out demons, Jesus said, “If I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of heaven has come to you” (Matt. 12:28; Luke 11:20). The kingdom is here, He said, and the proof is in the exorcisms. The power of God is invading the domain of evil, expelling the powers of evil.

Jesus tells Pilate that He is a king now, meaning He has a kingdom now. Wherever the King is the kingdom is—in time and space.

We have already been brought into God’s kingdom (Colossians 1:13). We are already receiving a kingdom, and our proper response is reverence and awe (Hebrews 12:28). Christ “has made us [past tense] to be a kingdom” (Revelation 1:6). We are a holy nation (1 Peter 2:9) now—already and currently a holy kingdom—but it does not yet appear what we shall fully one day become. God has rescued us from the dominion of sin and transferred us into his kingdom, under his ruling authority which is operating now and will one day be even more fully realized. The kingdom of God is here, Jesus said. His audience did not need to wait for a conquering Messiah—God is already ruling, and we should be living his way now. We don’t possess a territory, but we do come under the reign of God. CONCLUSION “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the

14: Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:30-31).

John’s presentation of the gospel revolves around that most startling phrase, “that by believing you may have life.” John’s central theme is eternal life as a present possession. This life is not waiting to leave this mortal coil but God to come back and fully redeem His good earth, filling each corner of darkness with His light and overturning each shade of death with His life eternal.

Each day now counts. Each moment in His kingdom, under His reign, is kingdom building in your hearts and the world where you walk, work, live and love. Do you know that singular rule of the one true King? Are you still working primarily for your kingdom to come are surrendering to His? Are you worried about managing sin or having Christ the King rule in all of who you are?

Nothing can overcome the kingdom we belong to – Christ has won on Easter and will wrap up His reign in the future. Until then, even though we live on a strangely long Saturday that seems hard and makes us wonder if it’s all real, if He really won we remember:

10 Then Pilate said to Him, “Are You not speaking to me? Do You not know that I have power to crucify You, and power to release You?”11 Jesus answered, “You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above…”