The Church's Call to Worship

Continuing through the Gospel of John, we're going to be in John chapter 18. There should be a Pew Bible in front of you. If there's not, you can tap the person in front of you to see if there's one in front of them and so on and so on until you find one. You'll want a copy of God's Word this morning. We'll be on page 904. If you're using a Pew Bible, that's John 18. If you do not have a Bible, please take that home with you as our gift to you. Last week, we saw a major transition in John's Gospel. He went from Jesus teaching his disciples and praying for his disciples to Jesus being betrayed by one of his disciples. This week, we're going to be looking at the passage where Jesus is on trial. He's being judged. He'll be condemned by men, by sinful men. Next week, we'll look to see how John describes his being beaten, mocked, and crucified. We're in the last few hours of the life of Jesus. And as I said earlier, we're looking at Jesus' trial, but more specifically, we're looking to worship the King of Truth. What we're going to see this morning is that God sends His truth to sinners, so that we might be saved from rebelling against His truth. So, one of the truths we're going to have to realize this morning is that, in our own sinful nature, by our own sinful inclinations, we do not like the truth. So, we try to destroy it. But, God gives us the grace to receive His truth. Look to page 904, John 18. And I'll begin in verse 12, because this is falling right on the heels of Jesus handing himself over to Judas and the guards. So the band of soldiers and their captain and the officers of the Jews arrested Jesus and bound him. First they led him to Annas, for he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was the high priest that year. It was Caiaphas who advised the Jews that it would be better to be expedient, that one man should die for the people. Simon Peter followed Jesus and so did another disciple. Since that disciple was known to the high priest, he entered with Jesus into the court of the high priest. But Peter stood outside at the door. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the servant girl who kept watch at the door and brought Peter in. The servant girl at the door said to Peter, You also are not one of this man's disciples, are you?" He said, I am not. Now the servants and the officers had made a charcoal fire because it was cold and they were standing and warming themselves. Peter also was with them standing and warming himself. The high priest then questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching. Jesus answered him, I have spoken openly to the world I have always told in synagogues and in the temple, where all Jews come together, I have said nothing in secret. Why do you ask me? Ask those who have heard me. What I said to them, they know what I said. When he had said these things, one of the officers standing by struck Jesus with his hand, saying, Is that how you answer the high priest? Jesus answered him. If what I said is wrong, bear witness about the wrong. But if what I said is right, why do you strike me?" Anas then sent him, bound to Caiaphas, the high priest. Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself, so they said to him, You are also not one of his disciples, are you? He denied it and said, I am not. One of the servants of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off asked, Did I not see you in the garden with him?" Peter again denied it, and at once a rooster crowed. Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor's headquarters. It was early in the 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 fault 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, not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber. Will you pray with me? Father, we praise You. We continue to praise You that You have sent Your Son. We thank You that God Almighty submitted Himself to being questioned for our salvation. He sent Himself to be betrayed. He sent Himself to be beaten and mocked and murdered. for sins He did not commit, so that we might be forgiven for the sins we have committed. Help us to see the glory of Jesus Christ, the King of Truth. Speak, O Lord. Amen. Last week we looked at the betrayals and the denials. We're going to be focused on the hearings, the trials of Jesus. There are three different known hearings. We have two recorded for us in John. The other, the trial or the hearing before Caiaphas, the other high priest, that's recorded for us in the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke. The first hearing is with Annas. Caiaphas was the acting high priest that year. Honest seems to be the head honcho of Israel's temple and the priest. He was where the authority really rested. Caiaphas, being his son-in-law, really just did his bidding for him. He served under Honest. Not technically, but practically. So here we are. Jesus is being questioned. He's questioning Jesus about his disciples and his teaching. Jesus answers him. Well, we don't know exactly what the high priest is asking. It's really great throughout all the Gospels, somebody asks Jesus a question, and he never answers that question. He answers the question they should have asked. So, we don't know the question he's asking, but he's asking about his disciples, his teaching, and Jesus answers him. Notice how he answers the question he should have been asking. I've spoken openly. Everything I've said is public. Tell me what you have heard or go and ask them what they have heard and tell me where the error is. He's not leading a private rebellion. It's been very public. The light has come down to shine in the darkness. That's the whole purpose and mission of Jesus Christ. He has spoken publicly. Now one of the guards is offended on behalf of Anas and he slaps Jesus and he asks him, do you know who you're talking to? The Gospel of John is full of tragic irony. This guard is asking the question, do you know who you are talking to? He just slapped God in the face. It's a sad presentation of the hearts of those who are supposed to be leading Israel in worship. Clearly, the priests that are being warned against in Ezekiel 34. These men are coming and they're asking, Jesus, do you know who you're talking to? They have no idea who God is. He's standing there before them. And he decides to slap him. Jesus answers that question. If what I said is wrong, bear witness. Now, here Jesus is asking simply for a fair trial. Show me what I have said. Tell me what is wrong with what I have said. Show me the error in what I have been teaching. He's putting the burden of proof on them. He knows they want to murder Him. He knows they have to have Him dead. Because the anger in their hearts and how Jesus has been threatening their kingdom has consumed them. He has to die. Another one of those tragic ironies is Caiaphas, who has no idea what he says in verse... well, what the allusion to in verse 14. It's expedient that one man should die for the people. He's saying, where's the burden of proof? You have the burden of proof to prove I deserve to be arrested like a monster. You have the burden of proof to prove that I am worthy of being slapped and murdered. Notice, they don't answer. There's silence. So, they then decide to move him on to the next hearing. The hearing that isn't recorded in the Gospel of John, but we could go to Matthew 26. He tells us that the next hearing, the next trial, it's under Caiaphas. And I'll just summarize very briefly that here they seem to have figured out a way of getting somebody to come and bear a false witness who says, this man said he would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. That's not exactly what Jesus said, is it? He said this temple will be destroyed and it will be back in three days. It will be rebuilt in three days. He was referring to his body. He wasn't referring to the temple of Israel. He wasn't saying, I will tear down that temple. He was saying, you're going to kill me and I will rise again in three days. So, even the witness they have brought to try to prove some error, it's actually a lie. It's not what Jesus said at all. They then say, are you the Son of God? In Matthew 26, they ask, are you the Son of God? Jesus says, yes, it is as you say. They then charge him with blasphemy. Now, they're right at some level in that they say, if you are guilty of blasphemy, you're worthy of death. That is a true statement. If you say you are God and you're not God, you deserve death. The question is, is he God? Now, our problem is that we're all blasphemers. We all pretend to be God when we're not God. So, we all deserve death. But Jesus, He is God. He came to declare, I am God. I am God who has come to save you. If you believe in me, I will die for your blasphemy. But here, He's telling the truth. He is God. He is not guilty. Let's move on to our third hearing with Pilate, where we'll spend most of our time. The Jews then lead Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor's headquarters. John gives us the most information we have on this particular hearing. The other Gospels, they do tell us other parts of the information. We have to remember John wrote later than the other Gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke. He fills in some blanks. He gives a different presentation. The Gospels give us the one truth of God, but they tell different parts of the story to make sure they're emphasizing different aspects of it. Now, the central character in verses 28 through 40 is Jesus. But He is not in every scene. Notice there are three scenes. There's Caiaphas outside with the Jews. There's Caiaphas... I'm sorry, that's not true. There's Pilate outside with the Jews. There's Pilate inside with Jesus. Then there's Pilate outside with the Jews again. Pilate is in every scene, but Jesus is the central character. And the focus is about Jesus, the King, and His authority as King. Big picture. The king of creation is on trial by his creatures who are rebellious. That's what's taking place here. We can't miss that big picture of what's really taking place. The king of creation has submitted himself to be judged by his creatures. This hearing is different. Notice it happens early in the morning. If we go to verse 27, the cock just crowed. It's early in the morning, the rooster has crowed to mark Peter's third denial, but also tells us it's in the morning. And this is only significant because the Jewish law says they can't put anybody to death, they can't have a capital, they can't have a death hearing, a trial regarding putting someone to death in the evening after the sun goes down. They're expedient. They want to get this over with so they go to Pilate early in the morning. And notice this as well, another tragic irony. They themselves did not enter into Pilate's home. They took Jesus and handed him over to go into Pilate's home or headquarters. They didn't want to go into the Gentile home because they didn't want to be declared ceremonially unclean. Now, here's all the high priests. If they, according to their own customs and thoughts, went into a Gentile's home, they couldn't participate in the Passover. Really, there wouldn't be a Passover because all the high priests would be considered ceremonial unclean. But let's think about the big picture, what's really taking place. Here are these so-called high priests, the false shepherds of Israel. They won't go into the home, but they just sent the Lamb of God into the home. The sacrifice that was going to take away the sins of the world, the true Lamb, they just said, He will be handed over to the Gentiles. He will have to go into this home. The priests won't go in, but they decide to hand over the most sacred person to the secular court. The super-religious priests, they won't enter. The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, He goes into the home. Pilate, outside still, he's outside with the Jews. What charge do you bring against this man? This question begins the hearing. Now, remember that when Judas goes to betray Jesus, he has Roman guards with him. In order to get these Roman guards, he had to have already brought charges. The priest had to have already brought charges against Jesus. The Romans just don't send guards to anybody who wants to go capture somebody. Some form of charges had to already be made known. And so I'm curious, especially because of the way the Jews respond, we would not have brought him if he were not evil. I think they're surprised Pilate is bringing this up. Asking the question with charges because they've already brought charges. But Pilate, he must recognize there's something unusual going on here. He must wonder what is really going on. And the Jews say, if this man were not doing evil, we would not have delivered him over to you. Pilate probably knows these guys well enough to know they've made the temple a den of thieves. That's who the priests were? Jesus has already condemned them for making the place of worship, the place of prayer, a den of robbers? Well, we have not brought him, if he were not evil. Pilate says to them, take him yourself and judge him by your own law. He's trying to remove himself. He obviously feels uncomfortable. He has them bound, and they need to answer, well we can't do what we want to do to him. We need you. Notice how John breaks the narrative in verse 32. This was to fulfill the word that Jesus had spoken to show by what kind of death he was going to die. John the evangelist, John the disciple who is present for much of the high priest hearings, we think. We think he's that other disciple. He's the evangelist. He's a disciple of Christ. He's our author here. He stops and gives a little narrative background. He wants to make an observation. This was said to fulfill. What God promises, He fulfills. This was said to demonstrate the absolute authority of God and control of how Jesus would die. He's focusing on that Jesus would die on the cross. Now, we have to ask the question, did Jesus have to die specifically on a cross to accomplish what God wanted him to accomplish? No. The Jews stone to death. The Romans crucify. Jesus could have fulfilled the substitutionary death that God needed, or we needed, by being stoned. But the reason it's important that this be fulfilled is that Jesus said, I will be lifted up. You can go to John 12, 32. Jesus declares that He must be lifted up and all men will be drawn to Him. We're referring there that He will be lifted up on a cross. Even more specifically, John 3, 14. As Moses lifted up the serpent, so must Jesus be lifted up and believed upon. The serpent, the bronze serpent was put on a pole and because of a curse God had put on Israel, serpents had come out and started biting the Israelites and they were dying. So the serpent had to be put on a pole so that everyone who looked up at the serpent, they would be healed. Jesus was put up on a cross as if the curse, He was the one who was accursed for us and our disobedience so that we might live. Galatians 3 makes this very clear. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, curse is everyone who is hanged on a tree so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that he might receive the promised spirit through faith. Jesus died on a cross. Jesus died on a tree. He was lifted up Not because that's exactly the way He had to die, but to show us and help us see He took the curse we deserve. We have to look up to Him to be saved. And more importantly, it shows God is in absolute control of everything taking place. Jesus took Himself out to the place He'd be betrayed. Jesus approached those who were betraying Him. Jesus is in absolute control, submitting Himself and guiding every part of His death. Now let's change scenes. Pilate entered the headquarters. He goes from asking the Jews about the accusations, he enters to talk to Jesus. Are you the King of the Jews? It kind of makes you wonder, where did he get that from? It kind of has to be assumed that that's what the priest said to Pilate. As we assume that's what they were saying about him. Now, remember that they just came from Caiaphas' house where they were declaring, you're blaspheming by saying you're the son of God. Notice that the Jews really wouldn't be able to make a strong case and easy murder by saying he's the son of God. The Romans believed in lots of gods. Who cares if this one also says he's a god? So they make the accusation very specific in a way that would be threatening for the Romans. He's a king. He's a threat to Rome. The appeal is to Rome and to Pilate's concerns that wanted to make sure that all the rebellions would be put down. Jesus responds, do you say this of your own accord and did others say it about me? He can't really say yes or no to this question as it's asked. He wants to know Pilot, why are you asking? What's motivating your question? Are you saying this because it's been an accusation against me? Are you saying it because you know you need me to be your king? He needs to know, are you asking this out of pure inquiry to see if this trial is going to go on a certain way? Or are you asking the question you should be asking? Will you be my king? Will you be my king? If Pilate asks the right question, are you my king? Jesus needs to confirm and affirm who he is. However, that's not what is taking place. Pilate, the one Jesus gave authority to in this position, is asking the one who's given him authority, are you a king? As part of the trial. Now, notice what just happened right there. As Jesus changes that on him. He turns on him. Pilate, the authority of Rome over the Jews, he's asking Jesus questions as if he has authority. God is on trial, but here Jesus has just put him back on trial. He's turned the questions towards him. The prisoner is probing the heart of the captor by trying to get him to recognize, no, I'm not your prisoner. I'm actually your king. Pilate answers, am I a Jew? He clearly does not recognize what Jesus is trying to get him to recognize, that he needs a king. He says, am I a Jew? Your own nation and chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done? He realizes Jesus is not the threat that they're trying to make him out to be. I think here by asking, what have you done? Alright, what's really going on? All of us who have parents, which are all of us, we know what that is. What have you done, sounds like. What did you do as your other siblings are crying? There's evidence that demands, what have you done? How is nobody wanting to know? What have you possibly done to cause this much ruckus right before Passover to make these people so angry? Because you're obviously not the threat they are trying to make you out to be. Jesus answered him, 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 this world. Notice Jesus says, I am a king. He has a kingdom. He's a king. What he's first done is define what his kingdom is not. He is a king, but his kingdom is not like the kingdom of Rome. He's not the threat of territory. He's not a king who uses violence and power to overthrow their kingdoms and to stretch his boundaries. It's not a physical kingdom like the kingdoms of the world. It's a different kind of kingdom. While he's saying it's not a kingdom that uses violence and has territory and has boundaries, he certainly is saying that his kingdom is active. It's a different kind of activity. You see, the kingdom of Jesus Christ, the King, is the most powerful kingdom this world has ever seen or known of. It's a kingdom that changes people. It's spiritual. It's everywhere. It's God bringing order back to the chaos we've created in His good creation. His kingdom is reordering, is reconciling, redeeming, renewing, and regenerating. Notice Pilate gets it. So you are a king! Now Jesus will answer in the affirmative of what his kingdom is like. You say that I'm a king. He's wanting to make sure you can't have the wrong idea of king. Because those kings abuse their authority and their power for their own selfish ends. Jesus is not that kind of king. 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. Jesus is the King of Truth. Jesus is the Word of God who has come to shine light in the darkness. Jesus is the one who has come to tell the people who God is, who He says they are, and how they need to live for Him. That's what His Kingdom is about. It's reordering God's people to be worshipers once again. The problem is, the people did not recognize the truth. They were too busy loving the darkness so they did not see the light. There's an amazing emphasis on Jesus being the truth. He asks honest. Show me the error in what I've said. Is what I said, is it not true? Now, before Pilate, he's declared, my kingdom, it is about the truth. That's something very important. At the very end, everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice. What did God say at Jesus' baptism? This is my beloved Son. In Him I am well pleased. Listen to Him. Those who are of the truth, listen and obey and submit to Jesus. Pilate reveals his status. What is truth? He's dismissive of Jesus' answer and ends the hearing. After Pilate said this, he goes back outside to the Jews. He told them, I find no guilt in him. You've trumped up some real charges here, guys. It's not going to fly. but he fills the pressure, he fills the binding. Especially we go to Matthew 26 and the high priests say, we have no king but Caesar. Do you want us to go tell Caesar what you're doing? You're allowing other kings? And so Pilate is pressed on to make the verdict guilty. We pick up here in verse 39. I'll tell you what, he wants a way out. We have a custom, 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? Here they have the one who's always been speaking truth. Here the one who has been doing a public declaration of God's life. Do you want me to give you the King of the Jews? And they say, no. We want the one who we know is a real rebel. We want the one who's a robber. We want the one who is clearly guilty to be set free Barabbas. We need to focus back on the Kingdom. Who is King Jesus? There's many ways we can answer that question. He's the King of Mercy, the King of Wisdom, the King of Love, the King of Power, the King of Provision, the King of Protection. Of course, this morning we're looking at the King of Truth. If you go back to Deuteronomy 17, and I encourage you to study this later, there are rules for who the King of Israel should be. There are rules for what kind of King they should look for. He can't be a foreigner. He can't be like the other nation's king, someone who's mighty in battle, someone who's tall and strong to trust the sword. No, he must be the king God chooses, a king after God's own heart, which is what that means. The king after God's own heart is the one God chooses. Verse 18 of chapter 17 of Deuteronomy, let me say that a little clearer, Deuteronomy 17, 18. The king is commanded to make his own copy of God's Word. It must be with him. He must read it. He must learn from it and keep it. The king of Israel was always meant to be the king of truth. The problem that you see from Deuteronomy 17, all the way through the Old Testament, is that the king was never a king of truth. Even the best king was always a king of selfish ambition, a sinner. The king was meant to be one who looked to God's Word, who studied God's Word, who trusted God's Word, and taught God's people to trust God's Word. Jesus is the King, and He has a Kingdom, and that Kingdom is breaking through into this world. Now, many people talk about the Kingdom of God. They like to make the Kingdom work something like social justice or mercy ministry, as if the Kingdom of God, the truth of God, it's about making this world a better place. And, of course, it's true. When the Kingdom of God breaks through this world, He reorders it, He renews it, and it is a better place. But if the Kingdom work of God is separated from the King who died for sinners, it's not real Kingdom work. The world would be a better place when Kingdom work is really taking place because people are being renewed, made alive again, born again, because the King died for them. brought them into His kingdom and now they're servants of the kingdom bringing order back. Mercy ministry, the void of the proclamation that we need the mercy of God to save us is not real kingdom work. Jesus is the King who came to shine light in the darkness. Jesus is the King who came to declare the truth of God because we are so all easily deceived in love lies. We have to recognize that. Let me pause right here. He's the King of Truth because we are so easily deceived. Don't look around and say, yeah, he's really easily deceived. Jesus came to be the King of Truth because we all were a sheep going astray and need, need did, and need correction. He came to be the truth of God, so we look up to Him and know His truth. Very briefly, let me just simply go through the Gospel of John. Truth is a major theme. John 118, Jesus isn't like Moses. He is full of grace and truth. John 14, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to my Father except through me. John 8.34, one of the best-known passages. Jesus declares that if we abide in His Word, we are His disciples. If we follow Him and His Word, that will make us His disciples. We will know the truth, and the truth will set us free. It's important to see right after that. He says, if we choose sin, we are a slave to sin. We need to be freed from how we choose sin and allow it to enslave us. We can't save ourselves from our sin. The King has come and in His truth we can be free. Jesus is the King of truth. He came to make God known as we learn from the Bible study on prayer Wednesday night. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. What could that be saying other than the truth of God is coming down as the church follows Christ and proclaims Him. This is what we are seeking to do as Christians, to see the Word of God and see how it corrects us and see how it makes us new people. We must have the truth. and love it, rather than living the lie. Because let me tell you, if Christ is our King, this is His Word. It's really that simple. Christ is our King. This is His Word to us. This is how we know what He says, what He believes, what He says about us. God's Word is faithful. It's rich. It's clear. We must submit to God's Word. If you're a visitor with us and you're interested in membership, you need to go to the class still, but let me tell you the most basic, simple thing. We all come together, being purchased by the blood of Christ, to submit together to His Word. If you're a member of the church, put your Bible over your head. This is what we're doing. It's that simple. You can hold it up there for a little longer. It's what it looks like. Obviously a lot harder than that. Because this heart here, we look at the high priests and we see their anger and their desire to murder Jesus. But do we not all want to avoid those truths that really shine light into our darkest aspects of our heart? We have to be honest with ourselves. That's why we all come together to do this. Mutually submitting together to God's Word. Because we're all coming together to say, Jesus, You're our King. That's the beauty of the church. This isn't my word, it's our word. It's not your word, it's our word. It's us coming together to say, we want to worship the King together. Church, we must strive towards unity with a united submission to Christ and His word. So we sing that prayer, speak O Lord. I'm not clever enough to convince you of God's word, it has to be the Holy Spirit. We need to pray for hearts that are submissive to the Word of God so we learn to walk in it together. Let me just challenge you all, if you're a member of Jefferson Park, there's a prayer time happening between 8.30 and 9.30. Charles Spurgeon would take people down to a prayer time like this and say, this is the furnace room of the church. Friends, that's the furnace room of the church. We believe we're doing everything we need to do in our worship service. The ordinances, singing, preaching, hearing. But we need your praying. We need your praying. Please come and join Pastor Ben as he leads that time of prayer where we're all coming together and saying what we know we want God to do, we're completely dependent upon you to do it. Jesus, speak every Sunday morning. Let me make it simple yet again. We must be a people of the Word or we will be a worldly people. We must be a people of the Word or we will be a worldly people. This is hard to hold up here physically. It's so much harder to keep our hearts submissive to it. We will be a worldly people if we are not submitting to His Word. Before we end, one last aspect of our application. We have to ask ourselves, who do we identify with in the story? Since I just spent 15 minutes explaining that Jesus is the King of Truth and we're all a bunch of liars who love lies, we're not going to even think about the fact that we might identify with Jesus because we don't. He gives us two other options, two other parties. We are either people who pretend to stand over Jesus and judge Him, or we are people who are set free because He was judged for us. We either are people who pretend to stand over Jesus and judge Him or we are people who are set free because He was judged for us. You're either Barabbas or you're the priest in Pilate. There's really two different ways we could think about those who stand over Jesus in the story. The priests hate the truth. They despise Jesus. They want Him murdered. The anger against the truth leads them to murder. If you're here this morning and what you're hearing makes you angry, you're not hating me. You can. You're hating God. The one who has shone light into the darkness. That anger is going to lead you to be judged because you've hated God. You will stand before God one day and your hate for Him will be obvious. You'll be judged. I think most likely we might have more of a pilot among us. Notice pilot seems to be entertained by Jesus. He's interested in Jesus. He really likes Jesus. He doesn't want Him to die. He finds Him entertaining, interesting. But at the end he throws up his hands, what is truth? And he dismisses him. Pilate has been asking who Jesus is, but he's been asking all the wrong questions for the wrong purposes. When he asks what is truth, we can discuss truth at many levels. There's one way in which truth is discovered. We discover certain things that are true. The kind of truth Jesus is talking about is only revealed. This is truth revealed. This is truth given to you. It's not something we go out and find. It's truth that comes down and is given to you. Friends, quit thinking that Jesus is merely a good guy to study. Quit thinking that he's going to be helpful for you to know how to live a better life. No, Jesus is not here for your entertainment. Jesus is the King of Truth who deserves to be worshipped, and if we're not worshipping Him, we will be judged by Him. Which leads us to the last character, Barabbas. That's who he has to be. The guilty robber who should have been put on the cross, but was set free. Picture it. Picture if you're Barabbas and you're in the crowd and you see Jesus carrying the cross that was yours. You see Jesus getting nailed to the cross that was yours. You see Jesus lifted up high on the cross that was yours. And you have to ask, why? If you believe in Jesus, you know why. It's because I have sinned against God. I've hated Him. I've rejected Him. He had to come down and be the Lamb of God to take away my sins. He had to die in my place. We can only identify with Barabbas. If you're not a Christian this morning, please stop hating the Word of Truth. Please stop being interested in the Word of Truth. Please look and see that your only hope is to see that Jesus Christ died in your place. We have all sinned. We all deserve the wrath of God. But Jesus died on behalf of everyone who believes in Him and calls upon His name. Will you pray with me? Father, thank You that we can look to that symbol of the cross. And we can know that our sins We're nailed to Your Son on that cross. We are no longer counted guilty. We're declared forgiven in Him. We're declared delivered and redeemed and renewed in Him. We're given new life in Him. Lord, if someone here does not know You, does not know that truth, does not know who You are, may they be convicted and turned and changed to You. May we as a church gather together to look up to Jesus, our King who was crucified, and may that be what unifies us. Who He is, what He has done for us, and how He has instructed us. Thank you for your Word, and your Spirit guide us to be united under it. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.