Hi, my name is Rebecca and I'm one of the members here at Brunsfield.
This morning's reading is from John chapter 18, verses 28 through 40.
Jesus before Pilate.
Then the Jewish leaders took Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor.
By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness,
they did not enter the palace because they wanted to be able to eat the Passover.
So Pilate came out to them and asked, what charges are you bringing against this man?
If he were not a criminal, they replied, we would not have handed him over to you.
Pilate said, take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.
But we have no right to execute anyone, they objected.
This took place to fulfill what Jesus had said about the kind of death he was going to die.
Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him,
Are you the king of the Jews?
Is that your own idea? Jesus asked.
Or did others talk to you about me?
Am I a Jew? Pilate replied.
Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me.
What is it you have done?
Jesus said, my kingdom is not of this world.
If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders.
But now my kingdom is from another place.
You are a king then, said Pilate.
Jesus answered, you say that I am a king.
In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth.
Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.
What is truth?
Retorted Pilate.
With this, he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said,
I find no basis for a charge against him.
But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of Passover.
Do you want me to release the king of the Jews?
They shouted back, no, not him.
Give us Barabbas.
Now, Barabbas had taken part in an uprising.
Hi, my name is Jonathan.
I'm a member here at Brunsfield.
I'm going to pray as Alistair comes to preach to us.
Father, we bring before you our time together, whether it is where we can't be here physically.
Together, we are together spiritually.
I'm meeting in your name.
We pray for Alistair as he comes to speak to us,
that you would grant him wisdom and grant us the clarity to hear what he has to say
and that we listen and hear clearly in your name.
Amen.
Well, good morning, everyone.
My name is Alistair.
I have the privilege of being the assistant pastor here at Brunsfield
and the privilege of leading us through this wonderful chapter of John's Gospel
as Jesus interacts with a Roman ruler.
But before we dive into this chapter, let's pray together.
Father, we come before you this morning and ask that the words of my mouth
and that the meditations of all of our hearts would be pleasing to you.
In the name of Jesus Christ, our rock and our redeemer.
Amen.
One of the big questions that people are asking in the world is,
what is truth?
So truth can be seen by some as relative,
meaning that there's no such thing as one definite truth.
Everything is up for grabs.
You choose to believe what you want,
even if there's no evidence for it,
or even if the evidence runs contrary to what you think.
You can almost pick and choose what truth is.
A common phrase you might hear today is,
your truth.
It's become a strapline, a phrase that seems to be inclusive and loving,
but in reality, it denies facts and hard evidence for feelings and wishful thinking.
It's become a phrase that characterizes self-help sections in bookstores.
A phrase that's used to encourage those deemed different by the rest of society.
And a phrase to encourage those who feel discouraged.
You live your truth, people say.
But it isn't that easy.
Because the big question that that phrase never actually addresses is,
well, what is truth?
If truth is something that we can be flexible with,
if it is something that we can choose,
something that we decide for ourselves,
then it's not truth at all.
It's speculation.
It's a theory.
Truth becomes nothing more than an idea to be discarded.
Well, this morning in John chapter 18,
we're going to meet a Roman ruler who asks that question,
what is truth?
And he asks the question because Jesus is brought into his courtroom
and the Jewish leaders are calling him a criminal.
And Pilate sees a difference.
Some people call Jesus a criminal,
while some call him king of the Jews.
So what is the truth?
Well, we're going to walk through this passage this morning,
almost verse by verse,
and just let the narrative guide us to the main point we're going to see this morning,
which is this,
that Jesus is the true king,
the innocent,
who takes the place of the guilty.
So let's dive in together and read with me at verse 28.
Then the Jewish leaders took Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor.
By now it was early morning.
The night before the events in our verses for this morning,
Jesus was praying in the garden of Gethsemane.
And one of his disciples,
one of his followers,
one of his friends,
came in and betrayed him with a kiss
and handed him over to the Jewish leaders,
a group of people who'd wanted Jesus dead from the very beginning.
And now they have their chance.
And what follows is a botched trial.
Jesus is taken to the high priest's house
and questioned by an illegitimate court
who meet in secret
in the middle of the night
because they know that they have no case against Jesus.
He has done no wrong.
But that's not what they care about.
They don't care about justice.
They don't care about truth.
They want him dead.
And so in verse 28,
as morning breaks,
they take him to Pilate,
to the Roman governor.
But look at the detail in verse 28.
It says,
to avoid ceremonial uncleanness.
They did not enter the palace
because they wanted to be able to eat the Passover.
So the religious leaders won't enter the palace
because they want to avoid ceremonial uncleanness.
They want to be able to continue to celebrate
the festival of unleavened bread
that was happening in Jerusalem that very week
and which concluded with the Passover meal.
A meal to remember how God had saved the Israelites in the past
by delivering them from slavery in Egypt.
The irony is
that they are rejecting the final Passover lamb
and scheming for the death,
for his death in such a hurry
so that they can sit and celebrate
how God saved them years ago.
They are rejecting God's ultimate means of salvation
even though he is standing right before them.
They are killing the sacrificial lamb,
the Passover lamb.
According to their own oral law,
Jews were not allowed to enter into the house of a Gentile,
someone who was not a Jew.
And if they did, they were deemed unclean
and needed to undergo a cleaning ritual
that would take a number of days.
And so they stayed outside of the palace.
But do you see the hypocrisy
in this whole episode?
They want to be clean
even though hours before this very event
they had beaten Jesus.
And even now as they are trying to have the appearance of being clean,
they are manipulating the judicial system
to get their own way.
You see the reason they take Jesus
to be tried before a Roman ruler
is they don't have the authority
to execute anyone.
Only the Roman authorities
could command that.
These men know the law of God
and they are keen to obey it.
In fact, they are so keen
that they keep adding their laws
on top of God's law
to prevent disobedience.
But the problem was
that they thought their knowledge of the law
equaled obedience.
You could say that the religious leaders
were over-educated
but untransformed by the word of God.
Rebecca Pippitt, an author from the US
sums this up well.
It is of no use to say
we believe in something
when our actions betray our beliefs.
To know is not only to verbalize
and intellectualize.
It is to submit in obedience
with our lives as well.
Now I think that there's a challenge
in there for us this morning.
It is not the main point of our passage
but it should make us reflect
on the consistency of our lives.
As Christians,
are we being transformed
by the knowledge that we have
of God and of the Bible
or are we trying to keep up
an outward appearance
of holy lives
without really being transformed?
You see, these men knew their Bibles
but they didn't understand
that the law was there
to show them their inability
to be righteous.
Their need for forgiveness from God.
Their hypocrisy
led to self-righteousness.
Beating a man one hour
and then claiming holiness
and cleanliness the next.
But that isn't too unfamiliar today,
is it?
It's so easy to have a Barney
with the family
just as you are on your way to church
but then you walk through the doors
and you put on a fake smile
and you pretend everything's okay
until you sit back in the car seat again.
Or maybe, like the religious leaders,
we're tempted to think that evil,
that sin is only something external
to ourselves
rather than something
that comes from within.
Reflect on how you are behaving
when no one's watching.
How are you engaging with God's Word
and your worship of Him
every day
but maybe even now
on a Sunday morning
when the service is online
and no one is around you?
Have you been transformed
by the Word of God?
We need to know the Word of God
but we also need to be transformed by it
and live in submission
to it and to God's will.
So the religious leaders
in an act of absolute hypocrisy
bring Jesus before Pilate
because he has a reputation
of being a harsh leader.
He doesn't really like the Jews.
He's presiding over Judea,
one of the regions
in the Roman Empire
known for its trouble,
for its religious riots
and uprisings.
And Pilate is known
for his brutality.
And so the religious leaders
think that this execution
is a done deal.
But Pilate does the unexpected
in verse 29
because he opens the court
with the proper proceedings
by asking the question,
what charges are you bringing
against this man?
Now at this point,
you can almost feel the blood drain
from the faces of the Pharisees
and religious leaders,
can't you?
You can almost hear the whispering
in the crowd
as they're wondering
how to respond
to this question
because they know
they have no case
against Jesus.
They know that he has done
no wrong.
In fact,
the only thing that he has done
is preach the truth
about God to them.
And he has called them out
on their religious acts
which glorify man,
not God.
And so they snap back
at Pilate in verse 30.
We wouldn't have brought him here
if he wasn't a criminal.
But they don't answer
the question
because they have no leg
to stand on.
And so Pilate dismisses them
and tells them to judge Jesus
by their own law.
But we see their real motives
for this perversion of justice
in verse 31
where it says,
but we have no right
to execute anyone.
They want Jesus dead
and they will stop at nothing
until it is done.
Now at this point in the story
we might be tempted to think
that Jesus is a lost cause.
That he has no more control.
That his life will be taken away
and that he will just be
another victim of injustice.
But friends,
we need to remember
that before these men
stands Jesus Christ,
the Son of God,
God in the flesh,
the one who healed the sick,
the one who taught people
about God,
the one who stilled
the waves with his words,
the one who raised people
from the dead,
and the one who knows
exactly what is happening.
Verse 32,
this took place
to fulfill
what Jesus had said
about the kind of death
he was going to die.
Jesus is in absolute control
of what is going on here.
In fact,
this has all been part
of God's plan
from the very beginning
of time.
Jesus even told
his disciples
in John chapter 12
verses 32 to 33
that he would be lifted up,
meaning that he would die
on a cross.
And so in this chapter
and the next,
it is all about power.
Pilate and the religious leaders,
they think they're
the ones in control.
That they're the ones
who have power
and who are controlling
the events leading up
to Jesus' death.
But the reality is
that these people
have not realized
the truth.
That the one true king
stands before them
and he is in control.
He is fulfilling
the father's plan
and willingly
going to the cross
to die.
The innocent
for the guilty.
unsatisfied
with the religious leaders,
Pilate summons Jesus
into the palace
in verse 33
and asks
a question
that's been on his mind
this whole time.
Are you
the king
of the Jews?
Now this indicated
that the charge
the religious leaders
had brought
against Jesus
were framed
in political terms
rather than
the theological
grievance
that they had
with his works
and his words.
But Pilate
is basically
asking Jesus
are you a threat
to the power
of Rome?
See Pilate knows
that any mention
of another king
any mention
or rumour
of an uprising
must be dealt
with immediately.
And so when he
hears about Jesus
being a king
he feels this need
to defend
his power.
But Jesus
doesn't answer
Pilate's question
plainly with a yes
or with a no
because he needs
to know
the kind of kingship
Pilate is asking about.
See Pilate
could have been asking
if Jesus
was a rebel king
who would
lead
a rebellion
against the Roman Empire
try to overthrow
them and kick
them out
of Jerusalem.
Or Pilate's
asking
he could be
asking
are you the
Messiah king?
The Old Testament
king that all
of the Jews
are waiting for
the one who
would come
and save
the Lord's
people.
Pilate isn't
satisfied with
his findings
and so he
asked Jesus
in verse 35
what have you
done?
and in verse 36
we get a very
important response
that teaches us
about who Jesus
is
and about the
nature of his
kingdom.
Jesus said
my kingdom
is not of this
world if it were
my servants
would fight
to prevent
my arrest
by the religious
leaders
but now
my kingdom
is from
another place.
Jesus tells
Pilate that
he is a
king
but not
in the way
that Pilate
thinks.
Jesus'
kingdom
is not
of this
world
meaning
that it
is of
no threat
to Pilate
or to
Rome
in the
way
that
Pilate
thinks
because
the kingdom
of Jesus
did not
come about
through
violence
or force
like all
the other
kingdoms
of the
world.
the
kingdom
of God
is not
bound
to a
physical
location
or region
the kingdom
of God
is not
political
and to
prove
his point
Jesus
basically
says to
Pilate
if my
kingdom
were like
those
of this
world
do you
really
think
that the
religious
leaders
would have
so easily
arrested
me?
See
Jesus is
making it
clear that
he is
a king
but not
a king
who sits
on a
throne
in a
luxurious
palace
not a
king
who
surrounds
himself
with
armies
and
bodyguards
and not
a king
whose focus
is his
own
personal
gain
but instead
Jesus
is the
servant
king
he is
the
perfect
king
the
true
king
the
sinless
king
who
rules
and who
reigns
over a
heavenly
kingdom
that no
man
that no
army
that no
Roman
ruler
that no
religious
leader
can
defeat
the
kingdom
of God
is like
no other
kingdom
that Pilate
can
imagine
but
Jesus
isn't
saying
that his
kingdom
won't
affect
the
world
we live
approximately
2000
years
on
from the
life
death
and
resurrection
of Jesus
and we
can look
over
history
and we
can
know
for
certain
and we
can see
how God's
kingdom
has changed
the world
but the
point that
Jesus is
making is
that his
kingdom
will not
affect the
Roman Empire
like another
earthly kingdom
would
because Jesus
is king
of the
heavenly
kingdom
so you
are a
king
Pilate
says
and Jesus
answers
in verse
37
but it
doesn't
quite come
across
so well
in our
NIVs
a better
translation
would be
you're
right
I am
a king
in fact
the reason
I was
born
and came
into this
world
is to
testify
to the
truth
everyone
on the
side of
truth
listens
to me
now here
comes that
pivotal
question
what
is
truth
Pilate
asks
the answer
is
Jesus
in John
14
verses 4
to 6
Jesus
said
I am
the way
the truth
and the
life
no one
comes to
the father
except
through me
if you
really know
me
you will
know my
father as
well
from now
on you
do know
him
and have
seen
him
friends
the truth
is
that Jesus
Christ is
God in
the flesh
that Jesus
humbled himself
and took the
form of human
flesh to
reveal God
to us
to reveal
the glory
of God
to a
sinful
world
what's the
truth
well it's
that the
religious
leaders
that
Pilate
that you
and me
need our
eyes to
be opened
we need
to see
the glory
of God
we need
to understand
our sinfulness
and our
inability to
be made
right with
God
without a
sacrifice
without a
Passover
lamb
Jesus
opened the
eyes of
the blind
he taught
the truth
about God
and he
brought the
kingdom of
God
into this
world
the truth
is that the
kingdom of
God is
here
and the
only way
to enter
into that
glorious
kingdom
is because
of the
events that
unfold that
very day
in Jerusalem
as Jesus
the perfect
the true
king is
nailed to
a cruel
cross
bearing all
the weight
and punishment
for our
sin
or the
just and
righteous
wrath of
God
against a
rebellious
sinful
humanity
the truth
is
that the
true king
was nailed
to a cruel
cross
the innocent
died
so that the
guilty
can live
and that
is why
Jesus says
in verse
37
everyone on
the side
of truth
listens to
me
this is a
call for
Pilate
and this is a
call for you
this morning
if you are not
a Christian
to open your
eyes and see
the majesty
of this king
who willingly
died so that
you can live
it's a call
for you to
put your
trust in
Jesus
to come
into his
kingdom
to see
the truth
it's an
invitation
to see
Jesus
for who
he is
the true
king
the innocent
one
who takes
the place
of the
guilty
and for
the Christian
the challenge
is do we
really listen
to
and submit
to Jesus
we can't
treat our
salvation
like a
get into
heaven
free card
we are
called to
follow Jesus
to submit
to him
to hold
heartedly
live our
lives out
of service
and devotion
to him
are we
listening to
and acting
on the
words of
Jesus
Christ
Pilate
says in
verse 38
that he
finds no
basis
for a
charge
against
Jesus
and he
says it
twice more
in chapter
19
and yet
the religious
leaders still
cry out
crucify him
why
because they
don't want to
see the
truth
they don't
want to
recognize that
Jesus is the
king of
kings and
lord of
lords
they don't
want to
recognize that
Jesus is
innocent because
they are
content to
think that they
have all the
power that
they have all
the control
the truth is
that Jesus was
in control
this whole
time
that he is
the true
king who
willingly
was nailed
to a cross
to make
forgiveness
possible and
rose three
days later
triumphant
from the grave
defeating sin
defeating death
and calling
people to
repent
to believe
in him
and to
enter into
his kingdom
Christian
look at
these wonderful
truths before
us in this
passage and
make them
move you
to whole
hearted
worship of
who Jesus
is
marvel at
the wonderful
grace that
this perfect
innocent king
died in
your place
meaning that
you can have
the privilege
of being in
the kingdom
of God
and that
truth should
blow our
minds every
single time
we think
about it
and we
should give
all the
honor and
all the
glory to
God and
it should
lead us to
praise him
with everything
we are and
everything we
have we
should sing
endless praises
of our
great God
never cease
giving thanks
for our
wonderful
savior
and for
the true
gospel
but don't
stop there
because our
world is
searching for
truth and
we have it
we can open
our bibles and
see Jesus
truth personified
God in the
flesh who
calls people to
enter into his
kingdom
kingdom and we
are to be
ambassadors of
that kingdom
we are to
proclaim it to
the ends of
the earth
to proclaim it
to the
distant shores
to go to the
distant shores
but also to go to
the neighbor
next door
because everybody
needs to hear
about Jesus
in Jesus we
find the hope
the satisfaction
that this world
is longing
for and we
have a future
that is secured
through the death
and resurrection
of Jesus Christ
so go
take the gospel
to the world
and plead for
people to enter
into the kingdom
of God
we know the
truth
and the world
needs to know
him too
and if you're
not a Christian
I would ask you
please investigate
the life of
Jesus Christ
the evidence
is overwhelming
look and see
that his claims
are true
he is the
true king
the only
innocent one
who took the
place of the
guilty
he died
so that sinners
like you
and like me
can live
will you put
your trust
in Jesus
this morning
and find
truth
one of the
biggest questions
that people
need to ask
in our world
is that question
what is
truth
and the answer
that we can
boldly
and with
confidence
proclaimed
to the
world
is that
Jesus
is the
way
the truth
and the
life
let's pray
together
heavenly father
we thank you
so much
that from
the very
beginning
of time
you had
your plan
of salvation
in place
whereby
you
would take
on flesh
you would
become one
of us
step into
our sinful
broken
sin
stained
world
and die
on a cross
so that
people can
be forgiven
and enter
into a
relationship
with you
father
thank you
that you
have revealed
the truth
to us
by your
spirit
through the
person
of Jesus
Christ
would you
help us
live out
that truth
would you
help us
live in
obedience
and submission
to your
word
and would you
help us
glorify you
with everything
that we do
and say
we ask this
for the
upbuilding
of your
kingdom
and in the
name of our
precious
saviour
Jesus
Christ
amen
as
how to
know
as
Actually
at reminded
the
of the
people
and
they
have
escaped
and they
were
here
and they
could they
join us
and they
use
that