Introduction:
Pilate on Trial (John 19:1-16):
- Where is Jesus From ? (John 19:7-9)
Isaiah 53:7 - He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth...
Matthew 10:14 - And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town.
- Do you understand how Authority works? (John 19:10-11)
- What should I Do with Jesus ? (John 19:12-16)
Isaiah 33:22 - the LORD is our king; he will save us.
Matthew 27:22 - Pilate said to them, "Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?"
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:00-00:03
We open up to John chapter 19.
00:04-00:07
Over the past few weeks we've seen Jesus betrayed by Judas.
00:08-00:17
And then we saw Jesus put on a religious trial before Annas, who was the power behind the scenes, a high priest.
00:18-00:24
And at the same time Jesus was standing before Annas, Peter was denying that he knew Jesus.
00:24-00:29
And then we were off to the civil trial before Pilate, the Roman governor.
00:29-00:31
and that's where we left off last week.
00:32-00:35
And many years ago, I had a man walk into my office.
00:36-00:38
His clothes were a bit tattered.
00:38-00:40
He was pretty disheveled.
00:40-00:42
He was an African man.
00:42-00:46
And you're like, "Well, don't you mean African-American?" No, hold on a second.
00:47-00:47
He was African.
00:49-00:53
And he had this canvas bag.
00:53-00:54
It was tan.
00:56-01:03
And this man was small and skinny, and this bag was almost bigger than him.
01:04-01:06
And I was sure there was a body in that bag.
01:07-01:12
He just wandered in off the street, and he said he wanted to talk.
01:12-01:24
And I said, "Okay." So we went to the conference room and sat down, and he put his enormous bag in the corner, and he sat down and he proceeded to tell me that he was the king of Africa.
01:25-01:47
"Oh, your majesty, I'm listening." And he told me that his parents, obviously the former king and queen of Africa, they were murdered by white women in our country because of their propensity for carnality.
01:48-01:50
That's not how he worded it, in case there's kids watching.
01:51-01:54
So I sat and listened to him for about an hour.
01:56-02:02
And he told me all of these stories about being the king of Africa.
02:04-02:09
And then when he was done, he just simply stood up, picked up his enormous bag, and he walked out.
02:11-02:12
He didn't ask for anything.
02:13-02:14
He didn't ask for money or food.
02:15-02:17
He didn't even ask for any pastoral counsel.
02:18-02:21
As far as I could tell, he just wanted to talk.
02:23-02:25
And I've thought about that guy a lot over the years.
02:28-02:44
And as we get to this part of John's Gospel, I have to wonder, my reaction to the king of Africa, is that how Pilate saw Jesus?
02:46-02:47
Think about that.
02:48-02:54
Obviously, there's a lot of differences between Pilate and I, And there's a whole lot of differences between the King of Africa and the King of the Jews.
02:55-03:04
But I'm just thinking, the attitude of, you have this guy standing before you, and he doesn't really look like much of anything.
03:06-03:11
But there's this claim out there that he is this grand king.
03:14-03:16
Is this how Pilate saw Jesus?
03:18-03:24
And where we left off last week, Pilate offered to release to the people Jesus or Barabbas.
03:25-03:27
And you know the story, right? They picked Barabbas.
03:29-03:30
Look at verse 1 in chapter 19.
03:32-03:38
It says, "Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged Him." Flogged Him. Flogged. One word.
03:40-03:44
A Roman flogging was a horrific beating with whips.
03:44-03:49
And often people didn't survive the flogging.
03:49-03:56
And I'm sure you've seen depictions, I'm sure you've heard a dozen sermons about how brutal this was.
03:56-04:01
But interestingly, the Bible never talks about the physical pain that Jesus went through.
04:01-04:02
It just doesn't talk about that.
04:02-04:07
It describes what He went through, but we know from history how horrific this was.
04:09-04:11
Pilate took Jesus and flogged Him.
04:11-04:12
And we're like, "For what?
04:13-04:18
What did Jesus do at this point that deserved this kind of treatment?
04:20-04:41
You're going to see here in a second, it's obvious the pilot didn't want to kill Jesus, but he thought, "Maybe this will satisfy the crowd." They're obviously bloodthirsty for this guy, "Maybe this will satisfy." Look at verse 2, it says, "And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe.
04:42-04:47
They came up to Him saying, "Hail, King of the Jews!" And struck Him with their hands.
04:49-04:52
In the Greek tense, this is repeated.
04:53-04:55
This mocking, this was happening over and over.
04:56-05:00
They just kept slapping Him and bowing down, mocking Him.
05:02-05:08
Now, if you again study history, Roman soldiers notoriously, they like to play games.
05:08-05:15
And we kind of get that because they would have long shifts and a lot of times very little activity happening.
05:15-05:17
And they played a lot of little games.
05:18-05:23
And here, they made a game out of our Lord.
05:25-05:43
Verse 4, "Pilate went out again and said to them, 'See, I'm bringing him out to you, that you may know that I find no guilt in him.'" Pilate says, "He's not guilty." And understand that's one of many, many, many times that he said that.
05:44-05:48
Just in John's Gospel alone, he said it in chapter 18, verse 38.
05:48-05:53
He said it here, and you're going to see in a couple verses from now, he's going to say it again.
05:54-06:00
So Pilate is making it very clear, you brought him to me to judge and I'm telling you he's not guilty of anything.
06:04-06:10
It says, "So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe.
06:10-06:19
Pilate said to them, 'Behold the man!'" Pilate was saying, "Look at him! Look at him! This is your threat?
06:20-06:24
This is the guy you're so... you guys are going crazy over this guy?
06:25-06:33
This is ridiculous. Look at him!" I understand that Pilate was trying to stop this.
06:36-06:37
At least three ways.
06:37-06:39
He declared Jesus innocent, right?
06:40-06:41
He offered Barabbas instead.
06:44-06:47
And here, Pilate was trying to win Jesus' sympathy.
06:48-06:50
Like look, we beat the man half to death.
06:50-06:51
Isn't that enough?
06:53-06:54
Look at verse 6.
06:54-07:07
It says, "When the chief priest and the officers saw him, They cried out, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" Actually, in the Greek, "Him" is not in the original language.
07:08-07:27
They started a chant, "Crucify! Crucify! Crucify! Crucify!" Pilate said to them, "Take Him yourselves and crucify Him, for I find no guilt in Him." And that is the strangest verdict ever to a case.
07:28-07:38
The pilot literally just said, "Again, he's not guilty of anything, so because he's not guilty, you take him and kill him." What?
07:39-07:40
What are you talking about?
07:43-07:49
We're going to see here as we go through the text in your outline that pilot's interview with God continues.
07:50-08:00
We're going to, as we started last week, examining Pilate's questions, because Pilate asked the best questions of anybody.
08:02-08:16
The problem was, he didn't really care what the answers were, but if you just pull his questions out of the text and look at the questions that he asked God in the flesh, you're like, man, he asked the best questions.
08:16-08:18
And we're gonna look at some more of them.
08:18-08:22
We said last week, this is Jesus on trial, right?
08:22-08:26
And actually it's more like pilot on trial.
08:26-08:31
So this week on your outline, knowing Jesus, pilot on trial.
08:32-08:37
Pilot on trial, number one, first question, write this one down, where is Jesus from?
08:38-08:39
Where is Jesus from?
08:40-08:45
Look at verse seven, it says, "The Jews answered him." Okay, so pilot's like, we have, we find no guilt in him.
08:45-09:07
The Jews answered him, "We have a law, and according to that law, he ought to die, because he has made himself the Son of God." Okay, so Pilate just said, "Hey, I don't think he's guilty of anything. You go kill him." And the Jews remind Pilate that they have a law.
09:07-09:11
What law are they talking about? What's Leviticus 24, 16?
09:12-09:13
This is from the Old Testament.
09:14-09:45
It says, "Whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death." It didn't matter who, because it goes on to say, "All the congregation shall stone him, the sojourner as well as the native, whoever, when he blasphemes the name, he shall be put to death." So, the Jews said to Pilate, "Hey, hey, we have a law, and according to the law, he should die, because this man says he's the son of God." Look at verse 8, look at the reaction.
09:46-09:52
It says, "When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid." He was more afraid.
09:53-10:01
That Greek word for afraid, that's where we get the English word "phobia." That means at this point, Pilate was terrified.
10:02-10:12
When they said this, Pilate was like, "Whoa, whoa, what?" And you're like, "Pilate was more afraid of...
10:12-10:13
He was more afraid of who?
10:14-10:16
Pilate was more afraid of what?
10:17-10:19
Was he more afraid of Caesar?
10:20-10:21
Was he more afraid of the Jews?
10:23-10:30
What was Pilate more afraid of?" And you have to understand, okay, Pilate, we talked about this last week, he wasn't a Jew, he was a Roman.
10:30-11:00
And in Roman theology, they had, mythology, they had a pantheon of gods and they believed that the gods were a lot like people, liars and thieves and backstabbers, but they would also procreate and the children would be the sons of the gods and these children, the Romans believed, these children of the gods would come to the earth for different purposes, you know, like you've heard of Hercules, things like that, right?
11:02-11:20
This actually shows up in the Bible a couple of times. Acts 14 11, after a healing, it says, "When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in Lyconian, 'The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!'" Freaked out. They thought it was like Hercules.
11:21-11:26
And that happens again in Acts chapter 28. Remember, we went through Acts for three years.
11:26-11:30
And when Paul was on the island of Malta, remember the snake bit him?
11:30-11:33
And they're like, "He's a curse!" And then Paul didn't die.
11:33-11:34
You remember what they said?
11:35-11:42
"He's a god!" They had this idea that the gods would come down and dwell among us.
11:43-11:44
So, okay, back to Pilate.
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When Pilate heard, "This man says he's the son of God," what he heard wasn't Jewish Messiah.
11:56-11:58
He was thinking Roman mythology.
11:58-12:05
And he thought, "The gods have come down, and now he's standing in my court, and he's going to zap me.
12:06-12:07
I don't know what I did.
12:07-12:15
Apparently I did something wrong, but the gods are after me, because now I have one right here." Pilate was completely freaked out by this.
12:15-12:20
Like, he said, "What?" Look at verse 9.
12:21-12:24
You have to understand that, because that's what prompts this question.
12:25-12:35
It says, "Pilate entered his headquarters again and said, to Jesus, "Where are you from?" Understand, this isn't a geography question.
12:36-12:37
"Well, I'm from Shakora.
12:38-12:38
You know where Shakora is?
12:38-12:42
Ten miles northeast of Butler." It wasn't that kind of a question.
12:42-12:45
Like, Pilate, he's freaked out.
12:46-12:55
He goes to Jesus, he's like, "Where are you from?" Thinking, "Are you from, what is it, like Mount Olympus kind of thing?
12:55-12:58
Is that where you're from?" Like, what are you?
12:58-13:06
Well, we know it wasn't a geography question because Luke 23, six says the pilot knew Jesus was from Galilee, okay?
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So this is a much bigger question than that.
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Like, man, where are you from?
13:13-13:17
But look at the end of verse nine, it says, but Jesus gave him no answer.
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Like, why?
13:21-13:22
Why didn't Jesus say anything?
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Why was he silent?
13:24-13:27
Well, for one, it fulfills Isaiah 53, seven.
13:30-13:34
It says he was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth.
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Like, well, why wouldn't Jesus open his mouth?
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Why wouldn't he say something?
13:41-13:46
Well, I suppose one reason you could give, honestly, is you could say he was guilty, right?
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Like, what do you say?
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He's guilty, not of his sin.
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He didn't commit any sin, but he was guilty of my sin and he was guilty of your sin.
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and that's why He went to the cross.
13:56-14:06
So maybe you could make a case for that, or maybe you could say the reason Jesus didn't say anything is because He knew it wouldn't make any difference.
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He knew that there was no way that Pilate was going to believe or understand what Jesus was going to say.
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We touched upon this last week, this, there's a time to be silent.
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And we're going to touch on it again this week, why?
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Because it's in the text.
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So we cover what's in the text.
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If God wants us to know it, know it, he has it in there, right?
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So I'm gonna talk about this for a couple minutes.
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There is a time to not cast pearls before swine.
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Now listen, church, I don't want you to misunderstand me.
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Absolutely, we want to witness to people.
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Absolutely, we want to invite people to church.
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Absolutely, we want to take every opportunity that God gives us to share the gospel 100% on board with that.
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But the question is, is there a time when you stop witnessing to a person?
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And the answer is yes.
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That's why Jesus said, "Don't cast your pearls before swine." That's why Jesus said, "Don't give to dogs what is holy." That's why Jesus told the disciples, Matthew 10, 14, "And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words," what do you do?
15:32-15:40
"Shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town." Jesus didn't say pound them into submission.
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Jesus didn't say you grab them and tell them whether they want to hear it or not.
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And he goes, "If they won't receive you or listen, "move on." And you're like, "Yeah, well, how do I know?
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"How do I know, Jeff?
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"How do I know when not to say anything?" I just wanna give you three things.
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Write this down.
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Three occasions when you stop sharing with someone.
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You stop sharing with someone when the person is, one of these three things, and I alliterated them for you.
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Stop sharing when the person is, number one, angry.
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all A words.
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Stop sharing when the person is angry.
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And listen, please learn from my mistakes because I've made this mistake over and over.
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You're trying to share with somebody and they're getting hostile about it.
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And I'm like, oh, you wanna throw down?
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Bring it.
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And I'm going to out-argue and I'm going to get more persistent and I'm going to get more bold and I'm going to get hostile myself.
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Like I'm about to go John the Baptist on you.
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I've done that so many times, and I would say wrongly, listen, I know this seems so counterintuitive, but this is biblical.
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If they don't wanna hear it, stop talking.
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All you need to do is say, hey, if you change your mind and would like to discuss this sometime, give me a holler.
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I would love to talk to you about this.
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Done.
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But when somebody's angry, stop talking, okay?
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Number two, assaulting with questions.
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Assaulting with questions.
17:20-17:21
Boy, I've made this mistake too.
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When you try to answer every question they throw at you.
17:25-17:31
You know, here's somebody that seems like they wanna have a spiritual conversation, and you're like, all right, I'm gonna share the gospel.
17:31-17:32
And they're like, you wanna talk about Jesus?
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And they're like, hang on a second.
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Before we talk about Jesus and the cross and sin and heaven and hell and all that, hang on.
17:39-17:40
Where did the dinosaurs come from?
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You're like, well, I believe that If you read the Bible straightforwardly, God would have created the dinosaurs, but he created the other animals.
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Oh, hang on a second, Jeff.
17:48-17:51
And how did he get them dinosaurs, Noah get them dinosaurs on that ark, huh?
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How did Noah get them dinosaurs on the ark?
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And stupid me, I'm like, well, no, I'm gonna answer this question.
17:57-18:00
Well, actually, Noah probably didn't go out and find the biggest representation of each of the animals.
18:00-18:02
He probably got babies.
18:02-18:04
And I'm starting to answer that one.
18:05-18:07
And they say, well, what about evolution?
18:07-18:12
You know, science tells us the earth is 4.5 billion years old and the Bible doesn't say that.
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how do you reconcile the two?
18:14-18:16
Now I'm done talking about the dinosaurs, I guess we're talking about this stuff.
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And I'm trying to answer this question.
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And I'm like, well, actually, if you read the Bible straightforwardly, there's history and then you look, and they're like, well, what about aliens?
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What about UFOs?
18:25-18:26
You think there's life on other planet?
18:27-18:28
Well, let me answer that question.
18:29-18:35
And I'm just like, I have so wrongly done this.
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And I got to the point one time, in one of these scenarios with someone where I actually stopped and I said, "You don't want answers, do you?" That was a realization to me.
18:54-18:58
I'm like, I'm jumping through this guy's hoops and he's not listening to a word I say.
18:58-19:02
He's thinking about the next stumper that he's gonna give me.
19:03-19:29
And at that point, again, stop talking and say, "If you change your mind and wanna know, "give me a call, I'd love to tell you." But when somebody just gives you the assault with questions, they're not looking for answers, they're wanting to make you look dumb as they made me look dumb many times.
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And then the third one, okay, so if they're angry, assaulting with questions, third one, amusing themselves.
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amusing themselves, making fun of God's Word, condescending, making it all...
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Oh, it's a big joke!
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Listen, pigs do not appreciate pearls.
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So stop talking.
19:55-20:03
When they are making it a joke, when they're making fun of God, when they're making fun of God's Word, they're making fun of you for trying to share God's Word, stop.
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don't appreciate pearls.
20:09-20:11
The bottom line is this.
20:11-20:14
If they want to hear it, give it to them.
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If they don't want to hear it, stop talking.
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Whether that's social media, you don't need to argue everything on there.
20:28-20:32
Whether it's email, text, phone, in person, whatever.
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share if they don't want to hear it.
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Because as Jesus showed us, sometimes the right thing is to not say anything.
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That's a lesson I'm still learning.
20:49-20:51
Pilot on trial number two, let's look at this next question.
20:52-20:54
You understand how authority works?
20:55-20:56
So pilots is where you from?
20:57-20:58
Jesus gave him no answer.
20:58-20:59
Look at verse 10.
20:59-21:02
So pilot said to him, you will not speak to me.
21:03-21:08
Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?
21:09-21:11
Pilate didn't have the authority and he knew it.
21:13-21:16
Like, well how can you say that, Jeff? Have you been following?
21:17-21:20
All Pilate did throughout this whole thing was react.
21:20-21:21
Do you notice that? He just reacted.
21:23-21:27
At any point did he look like a man in control of the situation? No.
21:28-21:29
He just reacted.
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He knew he's not going to get past the Jews.
21:35-21:42
So what Pilate does here in verse 10, he does what a lot of very insecure leaders do, right?
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And that's posturing.
21:46-21:47
That's what he's doing here.
21:49-21:52
Pilate's like, "Hey, you need to speak to me.
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Don't you know who I am?
21:57-21:59
I'm the one that's in charge here.
21:59-22:02
And can we just stop for a minute and appreciate the delicious irony?
22:05-22:12
That Pilate is asking Jesus, if Jesus is aware of Pilate's authority.
22:14-22:16
And then Pilate's going to break it down for him.
22:16-22:20
You're going to explain authority to the ultimate authority of the universe.
22:22-22:30
You're going to explain authority to the same person who said, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
22:30-22:32
You're going to explain authority to that man?
22:33-22:35
Pop the popcorn. I'd like to see this.
22:36-22:39
What happens is Jesus explains authority to him.
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Jesus answered, verse 11, "Jesus answered him, 'You would have no authority over Me at all, unless it had been given you from above.
22:50-22:57
Therefore, he who delivered Me over to you has the greater sin.'" Jesus says, "God is the source of all authority.
22:57-23:16
Anyone who practices authority in any position does so only by the permission of God." Even though Pilate was clueless to this truth, obviously, nonetheless, the truth is any authority that he had was given to him by God.
23:18-23:19
And you're like, "Hang on a second, Jeff.
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Are you saying that even corrupt leaders, like really bad leaders who constantly lie to their people or someone like Pilate who would do such a thing to our Lord, you're telling me, Jeff, that even such corrupt leaders have their authority given to them by God?
23:45-23:48
And I would say, yeah, according to Jesus, that's true.
23:49-23:54
But even the corrupt leaders in our day are ultimately going to accomplish God's purposes.
23:55-23:56
Like, how do you know that?
23:57-23:58
Look at Pilate.
23:59-24:08
He was corrupt to the bone, and God used him to accomplish God's purposes.
24:10-24:17
Jesus says, "Therefore he who delivered me over to you has committed the greater sin." Like, who's he talking about here?
24:18-24:20
He's talking about Caiaphas, right?
24:20-24:27
Because Pilate, let's be honest, I mean, he was relatively ignorant, but Caiaphas knew better.
24:29-24:31
I mean, Caiaphas knew the scriptures.
24:32-24:33
He knew how God worked.
24:33-24:39
He knew what God wanted were things like justice and peace and mercy.
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And that's what Jesus is pointing out.
24:41-24:44
Like he committed the greater sin because he knew better.
24:45-24:47
And he still did what he did.
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We just gotta take a second and remind ourselves this truth that Jesus is pointing out here, that you are accountable for what you know.
24:57-24:58
You know that, right?
24:58-25:02
The more you know, the more you're accountable for.
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And hell is going to be worse for some people than for others according to Jesus, Matthew 11, 22.
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And I have to give a word of caution, if you sit here week after week, Or you stream this or download this week after week.
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And you hear all this information about Jesus and salvation and you refuse to receive Him?
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Hell is going to be worse for you than it will be for the person who never went to church.
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Because you're accountable for what you know.
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and Caiaphas were both guilty.
25:49-25:51
Caiaphas had the greater sin.
25:52-25:56
And there are churches coast to coast in this country that are full of Caiaphases.
25:58-26:02
They know the Bible better than me and haven't done anything with it.
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So I'm pleading with you today, don't be a Caiaphas.
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listen to all this gospel information, never do anything with it, always putting it off.
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Maybe someday I'm going to get serious about my walk with God.
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Maybe someday when this is over or I'm done with this or this relationship's over, then I'm going to get serious.
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That's Caiaphas talk, man.
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Don't do that.
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It takes us to our third question.
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What should I do with Jesus?
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What should I do with Jesus?
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Look at verse 12, it says, "From then on Pilate sought to release him." There was something about Jesus' answer that made Pilate have, okay, I'm going to make one last push here, and he intensified his efforts.
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Now we obviously don't know the specifics of that, we just know that Pilate's effort intensification was a result of what Jesus just said.
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Look at verse 12, it says, "But the Jews cried out, If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend.
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Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.
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Now, as we talked about last week, Pilate was a horrible person.
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And he had a sketchy career.
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And history tells us, I'm not going to give you all the details, you can look this up or buy me Chick-fil-A and I'll sit down and tell it all to you.
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But he was on notice from Rome at this point in his career.
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Like, if you screw up again, you're done.
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Because he caused all these problems among the Jews and the Romans with some of the boneheaded leadership decisions that he made, that Rome was like, "Pilot, short leash pal, no more trouble." Are you looking at end of career? Possibly end of life, actually.
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No more trouble.
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And see, why is that important? Because the Jews knew this, And they were like, "Oh, maybe blasphemy won't move you, but perhaps blackmail will.
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Do you really want Caesar finding out that you have this guy running around saying he's a king, and he was right here in your court, and you let him go?
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Is that what you want Caesar to find out?
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That doesn't sound like a friend of Caesar to me, Letting all these wannabe revolutionary kings running around.
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Huh, be a shame if Caesar heard that, wouldn't it?
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Blackmail.
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Look at verse 13.
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It says, "So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the Stone Pavement in an Aramaic gabbatha." Now it was the day of preparation of the Passover.
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It was about the sixth hour.
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And he said to the Jews, "Behold your king!" So here we have it. It's about noon.
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Pilate is at his wits' end.
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And all of this language here is just basically saying Pilate was officially setting up court.
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Like, "All right, you want a verdict? You want something official?
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Fine! Let's make it official then." He sets up court. More mocking.
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"There's your king!" It's actually the people that render the verdict.
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Look at verse 15.
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It says, "They cried out, 'Away with him!
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"Away with him!
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"Crucify him!' Pilate said to them, 'Shall I crucify your king?' The chief priest answered, 'We have no king but Caesar!'" No king but Caesar.
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You ready for some more irony?
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There's been nothing but irony in this whole exchange here.
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Here's some more irony.
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That, what they just said, "We have no king but Caesar," that is blasphemy.
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Because Isaiah 33, 22, among many other passages in the Old Testament, says the Lord is our King.
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Israel was to always have this understanding that they were under the kingship of Jehovah God.
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And now you have the religious elite of Israel standing before the pagans saying, "We don't have any king, but you're king." What?
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They're like, "Well, how did that happen?" God was so far gone from their minds.
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So far gone.
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No King but Caesar, really.
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That's what we're going with, is it?
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So what's Pilate to do?
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Verse 16 tells us what happened.
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It says, "So he delivered him over to them to be crucified." Pilate gave up.
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He says, "Look, I'm not risking career suicide for some controversial Jewish guy." And like last week, remember Pilate's question, Jesus or Barabbas, last week's question was directed at the crowd.
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And so is the last question here.
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It's directed at the crowd and it's directed at us.
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"Shall I crucify your king?" I like how it's worded in Matthew, Matthew 27, 22.
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Pilate said to them, and remember I said Pilate had good questions?
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This is the most important question that's ever been spoken right here.
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What shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?
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Every one of us have to answer that question.
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What am I gonna do with Him?
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What do I do with Jesus?
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You see, Pilate very clearly wanted to release Jesus, but only if it didn't cost him anything.
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And there's nothing new here, because many people will stand up for Jesus so long as there's no personal cost.
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But I have to ask us, church, what are we going to do when we find ourselves in Pilate's position?
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Are we going to discard Jesus and our strong biblical convictions if it means saving our job?
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What are you going to do?
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Are you going to discard Jesus and your strong biblical convictions if it means saving a romantic relationship?
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Are we going to discard Jesus and our strong biblical convictions if it means that we think that we're going to protect our church from the government.
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We have an opportunity to make a different choice than the one the pilot made.
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We have the opportunity to say, "Hey, I believe that Jesus is the King.
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I believe that Jesus is the truth.
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And I don't care what it costs me." like Jesus, even when doing the right thing is going to hurt me.
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I'm going to entrust myself to my father in heaven.
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What shall I do with Jesus?
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For those of us who received him.
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We worship him.
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For those of us who received him, we we follow him.
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And for those of us who received Jesus Christ, we remember Him.
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By remembering the sacrifice that He made on the cross when Pilate handed Him over to be crucified.
Small Group Discussion
Read John 19:1-16
What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
Why didn't Jesus answer Pilate (John 19:9)? How do WE know when to be silent and “not cast pearls before swine”? Have you ever been in a situation where, looking back, maybe you should have just stopped talking?
In what ways did Pilate try to stop the crucifixion of Jesus? Why did Pilate ultimately give in? Have you ever been in a situation where standing up for Jesus would be costly?
Breakout
Pray for one another to be prepared to make a better decision than the one Pilate made (John 19:16).