John: What Is Truth?
Pastor Fletcher preaches from John 18:28-40 about Pontius Pilate questioning Jesus. Discussion points: Without absolute truth we are left aimless and purposeless in life, Jesus’s purpose was to reveal the truth of God to us, we can often trade our eternal truth for momentary pleasure or comfort.
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Scripture Reader: [John 18:28-40] Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor's headquarters. It was early morning. They themselves did not enter the governor's headquarters so that they would not be defiled but could eat the Passover. So Pilate went outside to them and said, what accusation do you bring against this man? They answered him, if this man were not doing evil, we would not have delivered him over to you. Pilate said to them, take him yourselves and judge him by your own law. The Jews said to him, it is not lawful for us to put anyone to death. This was to fulfill the word that Jesus had spoken to show by what kind of death he was going to die.
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? Pilate answered, am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done? Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews, but my kingdom is not from the world. Then Pilate said to him, so you are a king. Jesus answered, you say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose, I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice. Pilate said to him, what is truth?
After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them I find no guilt in him. But you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover. So do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews? They cried out again, not this man, but Barabbas. Now, Barabbas was a robber.
This is the word of the Lord.
Preacher: Well, since today is my final Sunday before I go on a two month sabbatical and we have two very capable elders. I thought I, I might apart from myself, I thought I might start with something very controversial this morning just to stir everyone up, leave it in a better place than what I found. See if there's anybody here when I get back in a couple of months. I don't know if there's anything more controversial. OK. Are you ready? All right. Does pineapple belong on a pizza? Strong opinions on this one. All right. Who says yes, who says no. Whoa We are divided, a church divided on pineapple. The, the US government recognizes that the US is divided on pineapple.
And so in 2019, they released a infographic. It, it wasn't, I'm not even kidding. Seriously. The cybersecurity and infrastructure agency of the United States of America released an infographic called the War on pineapple. And in the infographic, they illustrate how a foreign influencer might try to manipulate the US people about a controversial topic. And so they give us many of the different ways in which foreign influence might look. And they use the example of pineapple belonging on a pizza.
So for example, foreign influencers, they target divisive issues. This is all in the infographic, you can find this infographic, it's a one page document, it's still online. Ok. They're con they are constantly on the lookout for opportunities to inflame hot button issues in the United States. They don't do this to win arguments. They want to see us divided. For example, this is something that they might do, they might write an article or put something on social media that says America opinion is split. Does pineapple belong on a pizza or maybe somehow they, they get an a list celebrity, a deep fake or something? An A list celebrity to announce their dislike of pineapples on pizza, prompting a new survey on buzzfeed, no matter how you slice it. Americans disagree on the fruit topping. Then these foreign actors amplify and distort the conversation.
Foreign influencers try to pollute these, those debates with bad information and make our positions more extreme by picking fights or trolling people online. You guys have never seen any of this, have you? They might say something like being anti pineapple is anti American or millennials are ruining pizza. Keep your pineapple off my pizza. What's wrong with plain old cheese guys? This is a real infographic released by the United States of America. Then they know that they've hit the jackpot when these controversial things that they've been trying to stoke up for months or years finally hit the mainstream. And all of a sudden you, they know they've won when Joe Rogan himself has a pineapple expert on his podcast to discuss the pros and cons of the topping.
I share this with you today. Not because I want to talk to you about foreign influence on our elections. Although that is a major issue and I could talk about it. Probably not right here. I, I say it not to talk about the foreign influence on our elections, but to talk to you about truth. What is truth? I think that that's a question for us and it's a more important question than ever. It's the, the question for us today.
Gary Kasparov, I hope I said that right. Kasparov. Sorry, my, my Russian not great for former world champion. Che Gary chess is what he's known as world chess champion and Russian democracy advocate. He's living in Croatia, Cro Croatia. Currently, he once said the point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It's to exhaust your critical thinking to annihilate truth. The point of foreign manipulation isn't just to influence you. It's to get you to stop caring or to just be so angry at everything that you don't know what to do. It is not to manipulate your opinion as much as it is to make you think that truth is impossible and to give up.
And friends, this wasn't invented by the Russians. It was invented by Satan himself who has been doing this to truth since the Garden of Eden. Just planting little lies along the way to convince you that it's not even worth trying to figure out what the truth is to annihilate the idea of truth, to exhaust your critical thinking. I once knew someone who was absolutely paralyzed by that idea of religion. And I talked to this person often enough and this person, they wanted to believe in God. But when it came to selecting which God, it became completely overwhelming for this person, because they felt as though to be truly objective in the matter, they have to examine every single truth claim about who God is. They need to examine every single religion and friends. I hate to break it to you. But there's a lot of them, no one can live long enough to examine every single religion if, even if you dedicate your entire life to such causes.
And so at the end of the day, this person just became completely paralyzed and they would say I want to believe in God, but it is just too difficult to select which one do you want to play some video games? And that is the way that Satan works by overwhelming us with the options or the ideas of what could be true, we simply give up and we realize what we could do is just play some video games or watch some Netflix.
We live in a postmodern world where genuinely we believe what's true for. You might not be true for me. You have your facts. I have my alternative facts and we've lost this idea of truth and friends when we lose the idea of truth though. That has a disastrous results because when we lose the idea of objective truth for all people at all times, we lose the very thing that makes us tick as humans, we lose purpose. What is the meaning of life? If we cannot know the truth? What is the meaning of all of this? We are left aimless, left to find our own meaning in life, to create our own identity, to figure out who we are by ourselves.
We need truth. We need truth spoken to us from an authoritative figure, we need someone to tell us what is true, not to be left to ourselves to figure out what is truth for ourselves. People need purpose and meaning, they need truth. And today we're continuing our series in the book of John and we get faced with this exact question and we're now at the tail end of John, there's just a few weeks left. I wasn't able to schedule it all to get it all in before I left on sabbatical. But I'm leaving the crucifixion and resurrection, the easy stuff for the guys that come after me.
So with, with today's passage, we see Jesus delivered to Pontius Pilate to stand trial and we see Pontius Pilate at the end instead of examining the, the facts, he just throws up his hands and says, what is truth and walks away, he cannot be bothered, he cannot be inconvenienced, he just doesn't want to deal with it and he walks away. Let's drive through the, the passage. We're just going to walk through this if you have your Bibles, you're welcome to follow along with me.
Verse 28. Let's look at the story in detail. Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor's headquarters. It was early morning. They themselves did not enter the governor's headquarters so that they would not be defiled but could eat the passover. Ok. So the religious leaders would not go into the governor's headquarters. And the reason why they would not go into the governor's headquarters is because they were afraid that they might touch something or do something that would cause them to be defiled. And right now the, the feast of unleavened bread is going on. So Jesus and his disciples, they may have celebrated Passover a couple nights ago or just last night in this passage. But the feast of unleavened bread goes on for a whole week. So sometimes it's colloquially called Passover, even though they technically already had Passover the previous night, they're still celebrating that type of feast. It's the feast of unleavened bread.
And so they're afraid that they'll be defiled. So they actually, it's kind of funny, this whole thing goes on. There's like kind of a front stage and a backstage where Pilates walking out, he's talking to the religious leaders and then he walks back and he talks to Jesus and then he walks back and talks to the religious leaders and he's really going in between them and it's hilarious. You might not pick up on this, but it's really funny that the religious leaders will not enter his headquarters because they're afraid of being defiled while they are manipulating him to murder someone. This is like going to your barista and ordering fair trade coffee, which is a good thing. I'm glad that you drink fair trade coffee and then taking it and throwing it in your barista's face because they gave you skim milk instead of oat milk. All right. It just doesn't make sense. They're trying to remain moral while manipulating a case, a trial to murder someone doesn't make sense.
So Pilate went outside to them and said, what accusation do you bring against this man? We're introduced to the character of Pilate. In this passage, we know a good bit about Pilate from the Bible and from extra biblical materials as well. The historian Josephus writes about Pilate Pilate was probably put into place around 29 ad as the governor of this area as the Roman official over the area. They, they did have another king in the area. King Herod who was kind of the king over the Jewish Israel people, but he was really just kind of a puppet king. He, he was there as a figurehead, not as anyone with real rule in this area. Caesar was king and Pontius Pilate is his leader in the area.
So he's kind of the, he's kind of the representative of the rule of Rome for all of this region and Pilate and this, you know, every time I read this passage, I look at Pilate and I'm like, he seems like an all right dude. I don't know, he doesn't seem too bad. You look at, you look at Pilate and he kind of looks like the good guy. Does he not? But that's only because he's compared to these bloodthirsty religious leaders. Pilate, we know from extra biblical materials is himself someone who loves the death penalty. He loves it. He found a lot of joy in it. In fact, he was so brutal with the death penalty that, that's actually why he lost his job eventually. Just a few short years after this. By putting too many people to death. He's not a good guy.
He's actually a very egotistical guy from what we can tell he's really about Pilate. Pilate loves Pilate. OK. And so when you read this, you gotta read it within, within the lens of this is not a man trying to get to the heart of the truth. This is a man who's trying to embarrass the religious leaders. He does not care about their religion. He is a egotistical man. And so verse 30 they answered him. Well, he might even be just kind of miffed that they're asking the question whatsoever because if you remember, Roman officials escorted the Jewish leaders to arrest Jesus. So we would assume that these religious leaders have already made their case before Pilate. So that Pilate would send some Roman officials, some Roman soldiers to go and and arrest Jesus.
But now he's wanting them to try Jesus in front of him once again. OK. So it wasn't enough. He's like what accusations do you make? And the religious leaders they respond with if this man were not doing evil. We wouldn't have delivered him to you. What a prosecution, he wouldn't be arrested if he wasn't guilty. Pilate said to them, well, take them yourselves and judge them by your own law. But the Jews said to him and when it says the Jews, it's talking about the Jewish leaders. The Jews said to him it's not lawful for us to put anyone to death. The Jews are treating Pilate like HR right. They're like, we can't fire them but you can't. So they're gonna, I'm gonna report them and you gotta do the dirty work. OK? There but there but Pilate's not putting up with it. He wants them to lay out their whole case.
Verse 32 this was to fulfill the word that Jesus had spoken to show by what kind of death he was going to die. Now, what that means is earlier in John. Jesus actually predicted that he would die by crucifixion. You see if the Jews were to put Jesus to death, they would have done so by stoning, they would have stoned Jesus which is placing large rocks on top of Jesus slowly and systematically until his body is crushed. Instead, Jesus predicts in John chapter 12 and I, when I'm lifted up from the earth will draw all people to myself. And then John says, he said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die. And so Jesus predicted that he would not be stoned, but that he would be crucified and who crucified people in this region. But Rome and so the Jewish leaders could not be the ones that killed Jesus. Jesus predicted that he would be dying by crucifixion.
So verse 33 Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, are you the king of the Jews? Now, this question is recorded in all four gospels. And so whenever a question or something is recorded in all four gospels, we usually pay attention to it because it's got some importance to it. They, they rarely all record the same thing. And Pilate asked this question and we would assume that the charge against Jesus therefore would be that he is claiming to be the king of the Jews. Now, what is wrong with being the king of the Jews? Why would he be persecuted or, or prosecuted because he's the king of the Jews.
Well, it's because in this day, only Caesar is king or they can have their puppet kings, the ones that they have under their thumb and under their control. And so if Jesus is indeed claiming to be king of the Jews, maybe he poses a threat to Roman rule because maybe he will lead an insurrection against Rome and lead the, the nation of Israel away from Roman rule, which is exactly what his followers wanted him to do. It's exactly what Peter and Paul and not Paul, but Peter and John and James and all of his apostles, his disciples wanted him to do that. They wanted him to lead a revolt against Rome and to be the king of the Jews in the same way that David was the king. But that's not what Jesus was here for.
So, Pilate is investigating is this Jesus a threat to Roman rule. That's what he wants to know. And Jesus answered him and Jesus says in classic Jesus, Jesus never answers a question straight up. He always answers it with a question, right? He says, do you say this of your own accord or did others say it to you about me? The prisoner becomes the interrogator. And Jesus looks at Pilate and you can almost hear the invitation in, in jesus' words. He he s do you want to know who I am Pilate or are you just repeating what you've heard? Because if you want to know who I am, I'll tell you who I am. But if you're just repeating and trying to get this thing over with, then we're not going to get anywhere. But if you want to know I'll show you who I am.
And so Pilate answered him, am I a Jew? Why do I care? Your own nation and your chief priests have delivered you over to me? What have you done? He just wants to get down to it. What have you done? And Jesus answered my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not of this world. And Jesus responds in this way because he wants to communicate very clearly to Pilate. I am a king, but I'm not a threat to Roman rule. I'm not that kind of king. I'm not here to lead a revolt against you, Pilate. I'm a different kind of king, not of this world but of the heavenly world.
In verse 37 Pilate said to him. So you are a king. And Jesus said, you say that I'm a king for this purpose. I was born and for this purpose, I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice. And so Jesus is basically saying king is your word. That's not my word, but that's your word. But here's the reason why I was born. Here's the purpose for my existence. How many of us can say that? So clearly, Jesus has a very clear idea of why he exists. And he says, I came to bear witness to the truth. I just want to bear witness to the truth.
Why did Jesus live friends? If you ask many people, why did Jesus live? Their response would be a wide assortment of different things. But many people here today would say something like to die for my sins. May I be as bold to say that that's not the sole reason why Jesus left why he was born? But Jesus was born to bear witness to the truth, to reveal the truth about who God is. That God is the creator of the universe that he has sent his one and only son to bear witness to this truth that God loves us and he cares for us and he wants to have a relationship with us.
So yes, Jesus did die for our sins, but that's not the whole story. Jesus came to tell us there is a truth and in fact, he is the truth so that we might know God and understand who he is to understand the mysteries of the world. Verse 38 Pilate said to him, what is truth? And the assumption since Jesus doesn't give a response here is that Pilate poses the question and then he walks away. That is not a heartfelt question from a religious, earnest religious seeker. Instead, this is a, a rhetorical question, a defiant denial that such a thing even exists. What is truth, throwing up his arms, his hands, walking away, he's standing face to face with truth incarnate.
And Pilate cannot be bothered to even consider the fact that there is a truth. If Pilate were to believe the claims that Jesus was making, that would be really inconvenient. You see, Pilate is not really willing to be inconvenient. If he was to be, to believe that Jesus is who he actually says he is. What would that mean for Pilate? Well, it would mean that he has a big problem with these religious leaders over on the other side of his house that he might have an angry mob coming after him. That actually the threat to Roman rule is not standing inside but outside.
You see, if he were to believe who Jesus is, that would probably cost him his job and maybe even his life, they're not gonna be happy with him, but at least he would know the truth. This is very much a red pill, blue pill situation. Ok? And Pilate very much remains plugged into the matrix and ignores the truth. And sometimes when we're talking to friends about our faith or when we're considering faith ourselves, it is simply more convenient to ignore the truth. Is it not? And there's this thing called cognitive dissonance where it's like, I'll believe what I want to believe. Basically.
I studied psychology in college and there was this study that sticks with me where they put people in a room and they said in 10 minutes, you're going to have to eat a worm like that's what it is to it. And then they came back 10 minutes later. And over 50% of the people had decided that eating a worm would be an enjoyable experience. And that's because they had told themselves, I know I'm going to have to do this. So I'm going to change my mind about how I feel about this. And we do that all the time. We do that all the time. There's this cognitive dissonance that says I will believe what's true. Only when it's inconvenient, I will be what's true to me is what's least convenient is what's most convenient to me. That's what's true to me.
And so Pilate, he cannot be bothered and he doesn't. But friends think about more than that what it actually cost Pilate. So it would cost Pilate a lot if he believed Jesus, think about what it cost Pilate to not believe Jesus. So this is not what he was considering. It's not what he knew, but we know from the extra biblical materials that Pilate did not remain in power much longer. In fact, Pilate is shipped out very soon. He loses his position and he actually dies not long after that. And so Pilate traded in eternal truth for just a few more years of power and how many of us are willing to trade our eternal truths for a few moments of comfort. A few moments of pleasure, a few moments of material possession, a few moments of tickling the dopamine in our brain, whatever it might be, many of us are willing to do the same trading our eternal truths for God for just a few moments of temporary satisfaction.
And so as we wrap up things here today, I just want to leave you with two basic ideas, two basic ideas. First, there is truth. This is what we as Christians are here to declare that there is truth de despite what our postmodern society teaches us, there is truth. Walter Truitt Anderson is an observer of postmodern society. And he, he writes this about what postmodern does for truth. He says, postmodern challenges the view that truth is one and undecided that the same for all men, that it's the same for all men everywhere at all times.
The newer view regards any truth is socially constructed, contingent, inseparable from the peculiar needs and preferences of certain people in a certain time and place. This notion has many implications. It leaves no value, custom belief or eternal verity, totally untouched. And as Christians, we reject this and we say there is a such thing as truth, we can know what is right, what is wrong, we can know objectively that there is truth.
On his sermon on the passage, John Piper says this by and large people don't think about absolute truth anymore. They're not looking for the truth that can give meaning and purpose to all of life and history. And I agree with everything that Dr Piper has to say here except for one word and that word is any more. It reminds me of that old Mitch Hedberg joke when he said I used to do drugs. I still do but I used to too. People don't believe in truth anymore. They didn't used to either but they don't anymore because you go back here and what's Pontius Pilate doing? Throwing up his hands. What is truth and walking away?
How many of our friends think about religion like this? How many of us think about the truths of Christianity like this? What is truth? The second thing I want you to see first, there is a truth. Second, I want you to see what is the truth that Jesus is proclaiming. Let's look at it. Well, what is the truth that He's all about? He's saying this, this is what he's come to give testimony to. He's saying there is a God, there is a creator of the universe and this creator of the universe. He is a personal God. He is a king, but yet he is a person and he created humanity to have relationship with himself that he desires to have relationship with us. But because of our sin and rebellion, that relationship has been broken.
But God sent his very own son, Jesus Christ to bear the penalty for our son to die, the death that we deserve to die. And that this is something that actually happened in history that the person of Jesus Christ was a real person who really walked the earth, who really was the son of God who lived a perfect sinless life and who died, the death that we deserve, taken the cosmic penalty for sin so that we might have relationship with God. Jesus was resurrected from the dead. He appeared to over 500 witnesses and ascended into heaven where he is currently reigning and ruling with God the Father.
And if you're not a Christian here today and you came this morning, we're so glad to have you this morning. I, I just want you to appreciate this for just a moment. I'm telling you something that is true. I'm not just here to give you platitudes or give you something to make you feel better about yourself or just to, to like have an enjoyable Sunday. It, I know it's confrontational in some ways because I'm saying that this is true. Other things are not true that there are lies in the world and that you might be believing one of those. But isn't it refreshing for someone to tell you this is the truth and what could be more soul satisfying than the truth, the truth incarnate, Jesus Christ. He's revealed himself. If God really is real, he really is. And he wants to really know you. And that's what Jesus is about.
Today, we, we get to celebrate baptisms. We get to hear three stories of people who found this truth who have owned this truth for themselves and friends. This is far too serious of an issue for you to s simply throw up your hands and say, what is truth. This is too significant for anyone to give up, give up so easily. There is a God, everyone on this earth is accountable to this God and every and one day, every person will stand in judgment before Him like Jesus standing in trial. Here there is a God who you will stand in front of. And for those of us who are united with Christ, the condemnation that's presented by Pilate is also our condemnation. We are crucified with Christ. What's said in this courtroom is our courtroom. When we get to that moment with God, we will point back and be like you remember Pontius, Pilate and Jesus being condemned, that was mine. He took my book, that was me. I'm united with him.
And so today, we have the choice, accept the truth of Jesus or deny him like Pilate verse 38. After he said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them I find no guilt in him. But you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover. So do you want me to release the king of the Jews? And they cried out again, not this man but Barabbas. Now, Barabbas was a robber. Despite the memes that your uncle may have shared on Facebook. Jesus was not convicted falsely. He was found innocent but sentenced to death anyways. Pilate, afraid of the personal costs, he would not allow justice. Instead, he decided to play a game. And that game is let the people decide. And so we went out and the people chose instead of the innocent, peaceful king of the Jews quote unquote, they chose the violent robber insurrectionist, Barabbas and as the people cried, release to us, Barabbas, an innocent man was condemned and a guilty man was let off the hook.
And today we also are in the place of Barabas as the guilty people who are being let off the hook as an innocent man is condemned on our behalf. And as we conclude, let me just say that some of you may have known this truth about Jesus for some time, but it's been far too inconvenient to reorder your life. Jesus demands that you push through the inconvenience that you, that you don't wait until it's too late, but you reorder your life and you trust him to be better than what you have because he is and for others, we must bear witness to the truth.
We have to be people of the truth. We have to be used by him. We we bear witness to the same truth that Jesus bore witness to. We have to be people who reflect Jesus in word and indeed to live and share the same truth that he died for. We are people of the truth. And if we want people to know the truth, how are they going to hear it if we are not his representatives?
On the night that he was betrayed, Jesus took a loaf of bread and he broke it and he said, this is my body broken for you, do this in remembrance of me and he took a cup and he said, this is my blood shed for you. And each week we participate in the sacred meals. We're reminded that jesus' body was broken for us, that his blood was shed for us. And so we, we participate in the sacred meal. If you are a believer here this morning, if you're someone who's calling on Christ as your savior, we would encourage you and invite you to come. I invite you to enjoy this meal and be reminded of what Christ has done for you as people who follow after Christ. So would we stand as we prepare our hearts to sing and to receive this meal? Pray with me.
Father as we come to your table, we pray that you would be delighted by our response to you. Would you help us to take this meal in remembrance of you, God? Thank you for sending your son to die, for us to live for us and to unite us with you and God, we rejoice in the resurrection that we've experienced with him. And so as we take this meal, would you help us to enjoy your presence and your power. In Christ's name we pray, amen.