Introduction:
John 12:32-33 - "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die.
The Lord on Trial (John 18:28-40):
- Who is Jesus ? (John 18:33-37)
- What is Truth ? (John 18:38a)
- Do you want Jesus or Barabbas ? (John 18:38b-40)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:00-00:05
Open up your Bibles with me please to John chapter 18.
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John chapter 18, are you there? Last week I told you a story about a foster son that we had and I coached his soccer team and there's another story about him.
00:19-00:22
We actually had his brother and sister. They were five and seven.
00:24-00:32
and we had them for what, about a year and a half or so, and at one point, their mother took us to court.
00:34-00:52
And some of you know this story, and I'm not gonna go into all of it, but it was the most surreal moment of my life, because I am in the courthouse, I got my suit on, I'm on the stand, we got the judge, we got the attorney, you got the whole scene here.
00:54-01:00
And they started throwing at us the most insane allegations I've ever heard.
01:01-01:04
Nothing like abusive or anything like that.
01:05-01:13
Literally, it was, "Did you tell the little girl that there is no Santa Claus?" That's what we were in court for.
01:14-01:32
And another one of the allegations was, They said, "Did you buy the DVD, The Passion of the Christ, for the five-year-old?" I said, "That's a very strange question, but no.
01:33-01:40
No, we did not buy The Passion of the Christ for a five-year-old." And when I said that, they seemed like in complete disbelief.
01:40-02:43
They're like, "You didn't buy that?" We need to check our notes here because they're like, "You didn't buy The Passion of the Christ for the five-year-old? Like, we know you did!" And I said, "No, I didn't." And, you know, sometimes you gotta say something and you don't mean to be smart alecky, but you know it's gonna sound like it no matter how you say it. You know what I'm talking about? But anyways, when they expressed how incredulous they were that I said no we didn't buy the Passion of the Christ for this fiver they said you didn't buy that for him and I I said I'm like I don't want this to sound smart alecky but here's it here's how it came out I said well the the movies in Aramaic and it's subtitled in English and because the five-year-old can't read and because he can't speak Aramaic we went with a different Christmas gift option.
02:47-02:57
And this is all true, and it's actually more absurd than I'm making it sound, but buy me Starbucks or Chick-fil-A sometime, I'll tell you the rest of the story.
02:57-03:12
But I will say this, as crazy and surreal as this whole scene was, I'm on trial, and we're talking about Santa Claus, and this really weird accusation about buying the passion of the Christ for this five-year-old.
03:12-03:15
It was just, there was just so many weird things.
03:15-03:17
I'm like, is this happening?
03:17-03:19
Is this trial really happening?
03:21-03:26
That's not even the craziest trial that I'm aware of.
03:27-03:33
Because when we turn to God's word today, what you're going to see is Jesus is on trial here.
03:34-03:35
And it's even crazier.
03:37-03:39
than anything Aaron and I went through.
03:41-03:45
We're at this section in John where we've seen Jesus betrayed by Judas.
03:47-03:51
And last week we saw John was telling two stories at one time.
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Jesus is before Annas and ultimately Caiaphas.
03:56-03:58
And here's Jesus being faithful.
03:58-04:03
And he saw Peter denying that he knew Jesus.
04:04-04:07
And now we're off to the civil trials.
04:07-04:11
So John 18, picking up in verse 28.
04:12-04:18
It says, "Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor's headquarters.
04:19-04:20
It was early morning.
04:22-04:31
They themselves did not enter the governor's headquarters so that they would not be defiled, but could eat the Passover." Stop right there for a second.
04:33-04:39
In this scene, the only innocent person is the one that's being accused of a crime.
04:41-04:45
So why did the Jews take Jesus to Pilate?
04:46-04:52
Well, quick history lesson, at this period of history, Roman had conquered the entire Mediterranean world.
04:53-04:57
And Israel, at this point in Israel's history, was under Roman occupation.
04:58-05:08
And the Romans allowed Israel to live in their land and sort of self-govern themselves to a limited extent, but the Israelites were ultimately under the Roman authority.
05:09-05:13
And that meant a couple of things. One, it meant that they had to pay taxes to Rome.
05:14-05:20
And another thing that's important, and it's going to come up here in the text, Israel was not allowed to execute capital punishment.
05:23-05:28
That's why the Jews had to take Jesus to the Romans.
05:29-05:31
And your Bible says it was early morning.
05:33-05:36
Roman court actually began at daybreak.
05:36-05:40
And I think this was them wanting to be first in line, right?
05:41-05:41
Let's get there early.
05:42-05:43
Let's get there before the rush.
05:47-05:52
Interestingly enough, verse 28 tells us that they were, do you see that?
05:52-06:07
They were unwilling to go into the governor's headquarters because it was Passover and going into a Gentile place would have defiled them and made them unclean and they would have been unable to eat the Passover.
06:07-06:09
And I gotta tell you something about that.
06:11-06:13
Because you're like, where is that in the Old Testament law?
06:13-06:17
It's not, that is not in the Old Testament law at all.
06:18-06:24
That was invented by some rabbis who wanted to separate themselves from the Gentiles.
06:24-06:26
So they made up all these rules and this was one of them.
06:27-06:32
During the Passover, you can't go into a Gentile place or you're unclean.
06:35-06:46
Because you know, you wanna make sure that you keep your religious rules while you're on the way to execute a perfectly innocent man.
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Right?
06:50-06:51
Isn't that what's happening here?
06:51-06:52
And we can, you know what?
06:52-06:57
That's funny, we can laugh at that, but we all know people like that, don't we?
06:59-07:08
You know, they're like, "Pro-abortion, but I would never wash my car on a Sunday." That's exactly what's happening here.
07:11-07:13
Verse 29, that's a whole nother sermon.
07:14-07:24
But you just gotta watch out for those people that are so concerned about keeping their little religious rules, and they just live this flagrantly godless lifestyle.
07:24-07:25
Just watch out for those people.
07:26-07:27
That's what we got happening here.
07:28-07:36
Verse 29 and 30, it says, "So Pilate went outside to them and said, "What accusation do you bring against this man?
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"They answered him, "If this man were not doing evil, "we would not have delivered him over to you." Stop there.
07:48-07:49
So Pilate comes out.
07:50-08:06
Okay, so the Jews bring Jesus to Pilate and he's like, "What's the accusation here?" And their response, "We don't have one." He asked them for an accusation and they actually accused him of questioning their integrity.
08:07-08:17
Like, come on Pilate, seriously, you think we'd get up this early and come all the way here and ask you to execute an innocent man?
08:18-08:20
I mean, come on, come on, come on, Pilate.
08:20-08:21
I thought you knew us better than that.
08:24-08:32
Verse 31, "Pilate said to them, "Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.
08:33-08:41
"The Jews said to him, "It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death." See, Pilate didn't wanna kill Jesus.
08:41-08:44
You gotta try to look at this a little bit from Pilate's perspective.
08:44-08:46
They bring this guy, there's no specific crime.
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There's just a general statement.
08:48-08:49
Well, he's a bad guy.
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That's why we brought him to you.
08:51-08:53
So Pilate's like, you go judge him.
08:56-08:58
And then they quoted Roman law, we can't.
09:01-09:08
Now, if you've been with us through this journey and John, you've seen that the Jews, they've wanted Jesus dead.
09:09-09:13
And if you're familiar with the gospels in general, they've tried to kill Jesus previously.
09:14-09:18
So the question is, why are they so concerned about Roman law now.
09:18-09:28
Remember, they wanted to throw Jesus off a cliff and they wanted to execute him before, but why are they so concerned about the Roman law now?
09:29-09:30
Verse 32 tells us.
09:31-09:45
It says, "This was to fulfill the word "that Jesus had spoken to show "by what kind of death he was going to die." See, this is why the Jews didn't stone Jesus.
09:45-09:54
This is why Jesus didn't allow himself as the spotless lamb of God to be executed any other way.
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It was to fulfill his word.
09:58-10:02
John 12 is that word.
10:02-10:13
Jesus said, "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die.
10:14-10:14
And that's important.
10:16-10:27
Because under Old Testament law, was it Deuteronomy 21, a man who was hung on a tree was considered cursed by God.
10:29-10:31
And Jesus was to fulfill that.
10:31-10:37
Because He was going to take the curse of sin on Himself when He was on the cross.
10:40-11:00
Jesus promised He was going to die lifted up. That's the Roman way of execution. Not die being thrown down and stoned, which is the Jewish way of execution. So what we have now is Pilate beginning the interrogation of Jesus. So we're going to court here.
11:05-11:11
And when we go through this, it might look like Jesus is on trial.
11:12-11:14
But that's actually not what's happening here.
11:15-11:16
Actually Pilate's on trial.
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And Pilate was a horrible person.
11:22-11:23
You can do some homework.
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I did so much reading on Pilate, and I could spend easily an hour just telling you what a horrible person he was.
11:32-11:38
And certainly we're going to see in the text here, he was a coward, but you have to give Pilate credit for one thing.
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There was one thing that Pilate was, he excelled at this one thing.
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And that's what we're going to be talking about for the next two weeks.
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Pilate's area of expertise.
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You ready for this?
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You're like, "Yeah, I want to hear what glowing review you have, Pilate, here." Here it is.
11:58-12:00
Pilate asked the right questions.
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And if you go through your Gospels and just pull out the questions that Pilate asked, You're like, "He asked the best questions of anyone, and he asked these questions to the perfect person." But there's a problem.
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The problem was he didn't care about the answers.
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I mean, get this scene in your head.
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Here's Pilate standing before God, having an interview with the Messiah, with the King of Heaven.
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He has them and can ask him anything, and he asks him the greatest questions, and when he's done, he ultimately just doesn't care.
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And our sermon series is called "Knowing Jesus." And for the next two weeks, we're going to look at the answers to Pilate's excellent questions.
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This is like a trial way more compelling than that OJ stuff.
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This is, to me, one of the most fascinating things in all of God's word, watching this exchange.
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So on your outline, if you're taking notes, which we always encourage, knowing Jesus, the Lord on trial.
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The Lord on trial.
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First question, write this one down.
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Number one, first question is who is Jesus?
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Write that down, who is Jesus?
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We're going to look at Pilate's first three questions, but we're gonna put them all in one bucket.
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We're gonna put them all under one heading.
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And this is a logical place to start.
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It's who are you?
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Look at verses 33 and 34.
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It says, "So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, 'Are you the King of the Jews?' Jesus answered, 'Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?'" That's Pilate's first question.
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Are you the king of the Jews?
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Interestingly, in the Greek, you can tell there's different words emphasized that kind of helps you understand sort of the way the question was asked.
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And the word that has special emphasis here is the word you.
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So you get to see, and here's Jesus dragged before Pilate, standing before him.
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And what's Pilate is saying here, he's like, you, you're the king of the Jews, you.
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You're the one everybody's so fussed up about.
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You!" I love Jesus' response.
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Jesus was asking, what prompted that question?
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Is this something that you are personally curious about?
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Or are you just repeating something you heard?
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Jesus was saying, "Okay, Pilate, how sincere is your interest?" Now, Jesus wasn't being a smart aleck, because this drives to something that Pilate, and really all of us, have to wrestle with.
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I need to ask you, are you interested in personally seeking Jesus?
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Or are you just okay with basing whatever you think, your opinion about Jesus, you base it on some unverified information that you might have heard somewhere?
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Because people have all kinds of opinions about Jesus that don't come from the source material.
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But it's just what I heard.
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People say, "Well, I saw this TV preacher once and he said this." Or, "I attended this mass when I was a kid and this is what I know." Or, "Some guy at work read this article in Time Magazine and he said that this is what it says about Jesus." Do you really care who he is?
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Are you personally seeking him in his word or do you just parrot what you've heard?
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So Jesus questions the sincerity of Pilate's question.
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Look at verse 35.
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Pilate answered, "Am I a Jew?
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Your own nation and chief priests have delivered you over to me.
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What have you done?" I love this.
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Jesus is like, "How sincere is your interest in your 'are you the king of the Jews' question?" You want to know?
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Really?
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Pilate's like, "Do I look like a Jew to you?" He's like, he's saying, "This isn't for me.
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I don't care about your Jewish stuff." Pilate's like, "It was your people that handed you over to me." Pilate actually seemed to resent the idea that someone would think that he would have a personal interest in Jewish business.
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And that takes us to Pilate's second question.
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He's like, "What have you done?" Now in the Greek, that's a very blunt question.
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It's not like Pilate's taking notes and sort of asking, not really paying attention.
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Okay, what are you in for?
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What have you done?
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It's not like that.
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In the Greek, it's sort of Pilate leaning in, like, "Dude, what did you do?
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Like, all these people are so like fired up.
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Like, what is it that you did?
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Like, "Come on, bro, just tell me, what did you do?" Verse 36, look at Jesus' answer.
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Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world.
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If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews.
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But my kingdom is not from the world." Jesus answers both the Pilate's questions, right?
18:13-18:17
Are you the king of the Jews? What have you done?" This is Jesus' answer.
18:17-18:20
Notice how both of Jesus' answers are in the negative.
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He's like, "My kingdom's not of this world.
18:25-18:34
And my servants don't fight political wars." Jesus' kingdom is spiritual.
18:36-18:38
And He didn't come to conquer Rome.
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He came to conquer sin and death.
18:42-18:44
Shame on us church when we try to make Jesus political.
18:45-18:49
Because you know Jesus is a conservative right-wing Republican, right?
18:54-18:59
And Jesus made His political position very clear here.
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He says, "My kingdom is not of this world.
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It's not of this world. My servants don't fight political wars." And that leads to Pilate's third question.
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Look at verse 37.
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"Then Pilate said to him, 'So you are a king?' Jesus answered, 'You say that I am a king.
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For this purpose I was born, and for this purpose I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth.
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Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.'" Jesus says, "I have this kingdom, it's not of this world, or my servants will be fighting." And Pilate's like, "Okay, right, right, right.
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My kingdom, okay, I got it.
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So you're a king." Jesus replied, "You said it." Notice, look at Jesus' reply here.
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He says, "For this purpose I was born," that speaks to his humanity.
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And he says, "For this purpose I have come into the world," that speaks of his deity.
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that Jesus was saying, "I am fully man and I'm fully God, and I showed up here for one purpose, and that is to bear witness to the truth of God.
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That's why I'm here." Bear witness to the truth.
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Truth about life and who is God and who is man.
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Truth about spiritual things, salvation, eternity, all of the things that matter.
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Jesus said, "That's why I'm here.
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I'm here to tell you what's true.
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There isn't anyone who knows the truth who rejects Jesus.
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But church, this is the most important question any of us are ever going to wrestle with.
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Where Pilate started, "Who is Jesus?" And if we're just going to compile Jesus' answers to Pilate, you see that Jesus gave Pilate the ultimate abbreviated theology lesson.
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In a nutshell, here's what, in just a few short verses, here's what Jesus said to Pilate about himself.
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He's fully God and fully man.
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He is the king over the spiritual realm and he is possessor of ultimate truth.
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I have to ask you again, Are you seeking to know Jesus yourself from the Word of God?
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Or like Pilate, do you just rely on what someone else said about Him because you really aren't that interested?
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There might be some people that attend this church to get my weekly dose of Jesus.
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And hey, we're glad you're here.
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We're glad you're streaming.
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We're glad you're part of us, however you're part of us.
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But this can't be a substitute for you personally seeking Jesus Christ yourself.
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Because what you see here is even though Jesus was on trial, He was making an appeal to Pilate when He makes this statement.
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Look at this last statement, because this is huge.
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And this is all inclusive here, alright?
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Jesus said, "Everyone who is of the truth listens to My voice." We talked about that earlier. What was it? John 10.
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"My sheep know My voice." It's the same concept.
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If you're tuned into the truth, if you care about the truth, if you love the truth, you're going after Jesus, because He is the truth.
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So Jesus is putting Pilate on trial here.
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He says, "Hey, everyone who is of the truth listens to Me." It's like, "All right, this is it. This is the critical moment." Pilate, the ball is in your court.
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God Himself is standing in your courtroom, And He is telling you the most important thing you will ever hear in your entire life.
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What do you say to the King of Heaven, Pilate?
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Look at verse 38.
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"Pilate said to Him, 'What is truth?'" That leads us to our second question.
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It's actually Pilate's fourth question to Jesus.
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"What is truth?" I did a lot of reading this week, trying to understand what's happening in this passage, word tenses and things like that.
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And so much of what I read, people asking, "How did he mean this? We don't really know.
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Was Pilate being sincere?" The pilot was like, "Well, what is truth?" Or was he being like cynical and sarcastic?
24:19-24:26
Like, "What is truth?" And I think it's pretty obvious, isn't it?
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He's being cynical.
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Like, how do you know that?
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Because he's indifferent.
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Because he didn't stick around for an answer.
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If he really cared, he would have pulled up a chair and said, "Explain to me what truth is." You see here in the text, he says, "What is truth?" And it's a way of dismissing Jesus.
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It's a way of, this conversation's over at this point.
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It's dismissive.
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And I mean, can you even wrap your brain around that?
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The pilot would look at Jesus and go, "What is truth?" And walk away from Him.
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Can you believe that?
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I mean, can you believe that?
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It's so easy to be appalled at pilot.
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Like, "Wow, wow, what an idiot.
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Shame on him. How wicked. How foolish he is.
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I would say first of all, don't pronounce foolish that way.
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But secondly, I would say, look church, even people who call themselves followers of Jesus do the same thing.
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Because when our sin is confronted with the truth of God's Word, Listen, we can be just as dismissive as Pilate was here.
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You know, we can hear what the Bible says about money, everything belongs to God, I'm a steward, I'm to give and God will give to me.
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We can hear all these sermons about money and go to Financial Peace University and get all these factoids and biblical truths and verses and we dismiss it and say, "I'm going to spend, it's my money.
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Nobody tells me how to spend my money.
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And I would ask you, if you do that, how are you any different than Pilate?
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Truly.
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To be staring at truth and walk away from it?
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How are you different than Pilate?
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Or you can hear sermons about what the Bible says about sexuality, this is designed to be between a man and a woman in the context of marriage.
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And you can hear all of that and say, "Yeah, I know, but I'm doing things differently, my situation's different." And I have to ask you, when the truth stares you in the face and you just dismiss it, again, how are you any different than Pilate?
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When Pilate just said, "What is truth?" Or you know when the Bible says, "We are saved to be a part of a body." We are members of one another.
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We have a Holy Spirit gift that we are to use for the edification of the church.
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And we need to find our primary relationships and ministry and life in the context of the body of Christ.
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And you hear that truth and you know that truth and you have justified the reason why You can't get involved in a small group.
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You can't get involved in serving Christ.
27:59-28:03
You just want to be a church attender, but not involved.
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Let me ask you again, how can you stare at the truth of God and walk away from that and think that you're any different than Pilate here?
28:17-28:24
Face to face with the truth, confronted with the truth, We can be just as dismissive as Pilate.
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What is truth?
28:31-28:41
Maybe you're more familiar with the way Satan asked that question in the Garden of Eden, when he said, "Did God really say?" It's the same question.
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Because truth, listen to me, Truth is when we let God's word shape our thinking.
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And this is gonna be a newsflash, a cold dose of reality for some people, but here we go.
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When God's word contradicts the way you think, either you're wrong or God's wrong.
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And I have a pretty good guess which one it is.
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You're like, "Well, how did Jesus reply to that?" Pilate's like, "What is truth?" Now I would want to think Jesus would just like grab him by the arm, be like, "Look, pal, let me tell you what the truth is.
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You're looking at him, and hell's too long to be wrong, and look at me, I'm going to set you straight." And that's not what we see.
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You know how Jesus replied to this question?
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He didn't say anything.
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You're like, "Why not?
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Jesus, this is...
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I thought you were about evangelism and this is the greatest opportunity.
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Why didn't Jesus say anything?" Do you know why Jesus didn't say anything?
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Because nothing can be said.
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If you aren't willing to come to Jesus for the truth, There's nothing else to say.
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And finally for today, last question.
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Do you want Jesus or Barabbas?
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Okay, so Pilate famously says, "What is truth?" Look at the rest of verse 38.
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It says, "After he had said this, went back outside to the Jews and told them, "I find no guilt in him." That's the first of many times he's going to say that.
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Now a man of truth would have just let Jesus go.
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The pilot you see was a politician.
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Verse 39, we see some like master class political maneuvers here.
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All right, verse 39, Pilate says, "But you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover.
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So do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?" Now this was Pilate's last ditch effort here.
31:28-31:31
We gotta get rid of, look, we can release him.
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We don't, Pilate's like, obviously this guy's not a threat.
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Obviously, obviously.
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So Pilate's like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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I know a way where I can have the best of both worlds.
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You want a criminal released.
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And according to this tradition, we release to you one on Passover.
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So if I release Jesus to you, then we're all acknowledging that he's a criminal.
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It isn't that what you want, right?
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And then I don't got to kill an innocent man and we all get what we want.
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Verse 40 says, "They cried out again, 'Not this man, but Barabbas!'" He says, "Now Barabbas was a robber.
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Barabbas was a robber.
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You know, John's mom must have really taught him some manners because he is really being nice here.
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Barabbas was a robber.
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Barabbas wasn't just like a robber.
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If you study your Bibles, like go back to Luke 23:19-25, Barabbas was an insurrectionist.
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Barabbas was a murderer.
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But John, he's being nice.
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Technically you could translate it, Brabus was an outlaw, but still kind of softens the blow.
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He was a murderer.
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He was a violent revolutionary.
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And can you just see the irony here?
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They release the man guilty of what Jesus was wrongly being accused of, which is being a revolutionary.
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And there's another layer of irony here, the name Barabbas.
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Bar, Abbas, Bar is son of, Abba is father.
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Barabbas' name literally means son of a father.
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And you see the irony that they release the Son of the Father, to crucify the true Son of the Father.
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And that leads us as we close Pilate's fifth question.
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Oh, this one wasn't directed at Jesus, obviously.
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It was directed at the Jews.
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When he says, "Do you want me to release the King of the Jews?" We face the same question.
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Do you want Barabbas or Jesus?
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Well, you're like, well, duh, that's an easy one.
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I would rather have Jesus than Barabbas.
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Let me ask the exact same question a different way.
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Would you rather have lawlessness or righteousness?
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Which one would you rather have?
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Because if we're being honest, most of us would rather have lawlessness.
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Most of us would rather say, "I wanna live life on my terms.
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"Nobody tells me what to do.
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"I am El Capitan of this ship." Versus righteousness, versus seeking God and trying to always do the right thing, even if I don't feel like it.
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It is amazing what people would rather have than Jesus Christ.
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It's astounding.
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Would you rather have forgiveness of sin, or would you rather walk around with the guilt of your sin?
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Which would you rather have?
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And you know, for a lot of people, it's I'll take the guilt, thank you.
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And when you do that, you're with this crowd saying, we'll take Barabbas, please.
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Would you rather live life your way on your terms or would you rather live life God's way?
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And for a lot of people, again, we sing that horrible Bon Jovi song, right?
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♪ It's my life ♪ And when we sing that, we're singing the song of Barabbas.
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Which would you rather have?
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The world?
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or heaven.
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They made their choice.
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Now it's time for you to make yours.
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I'd like you to bow your heads as the worship team comes out.
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Bow your heads with me please.
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Whether you're visiting with us today, or you've been coming here for ten years, us all to bow our heads. And this is a question that you have to ask yourself right now. If we're going to be honest before the Lord, let me ask you again. Do you want lawlessness or righteousness? Do you want everything that the world offers, or everything Jesus offers?
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Because this scene that we're witnessing here in God's Word is being replayed on a global scale right now, people.
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Because the world right now is shouting, "Give us anything but Jesus." And for some of you, you're going to need to make that decision today.
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Say no, I'm shouting louder than that.
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I'm going to say, "Give me Jesus!
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I see what the world offers.
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I see the fruit of living lawlessly.
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And I see the glorious promises of Jesus Christ.
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I see the love that He showed.
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Every promise of heaven.
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His presence, His perfect provision, forgiveness of sin, eternal life adopted into the family of God, co-heirs with Christ, reigning with Him.
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and I'm done dismissing Him.
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Being so foolish like Pilate, where I just say, "What is truth?" and I shrug Him off.
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Let's pray together, church.
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That there might be somebody here today that's like, "Yeah, what you're describing has been my life." Even though that's where you've been, That's not where you have to stay.
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Father, we come before you today, and really Jesus puts us all on trial here.
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When He made the statement, everyone who is of the truth listens to His voice.
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God, I pray if there's anyone here today who doesn't know You and realizes, Maybe they've been as dismissive towards Jesus in their life as Pilate was here.
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I pray, Father, today's the day of salvation for them.
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Right now, Father, that person would cry out to You.
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And Father, for those of us who know You, it's easy for us to go back to some old ways of thinking.
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It's easy for us to go back to saying, maybe Barabbas, a little Barabbas wouldn't be too bad.
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Father, as we're seeing things like persecution and supply chain breakage and shortages at the stores and COVID and all these things, Father, the things that government's doing right now, Father, not just in this country, but all over the world, Father.
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I pray that these circumstances drive us to You like never before.
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We thank You, Father, that Jesus was born and came into this world to bear witness to the truth.
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Let His truth reign in our lives, Father, in our homes and in this church.
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We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read John 18:28-40
What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
How can people be so committed to religious ritual while being blind to blatant sin (John 18:28)? Have you seen examples of this?
When Pilate asked Jesus if He was the “king of the Jews” - why didn't Jesus just say “YES” (John 18:33-34)?
When Pilate asked “what is truth?”, do you think he sincerely wanted an answer, or was he being cynical? Why didn't Jesus answer this question?
Is there any area of your life where God's truth isn't directing your thinking? Any area where the truth is clear but you have dismissed it?
Breakout
Pray for one another.