Waiting for Jesus 4

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Don Filcek; John 18:33-38 Waiting for Jesus 4

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You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan. Well, good morning,
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Recast Church. Did you have a Merry Christmas? Did you? All right, excellent.
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Glad to hear that, and I'm glad that you're here this morning to worship God. I want to start off by telling you how grateful
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I am for your generous gift to me and my family. We were blessed by your kindness towards us, so just wanted to start off by saying thank you for those of you who gave towards that, and we're just very blessed to be able to serve you and just thankful for that.
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And so, wanted to start off with that. When Christmas is over, I don't know if you're anything like me, but you tend to rebound pretty quickly back into life as usual.
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I mean, you have Christmas, everything, anybody have a big run -up to that? You're trying to get presents, you're rushing, you're going around, and then it's this week.
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It's kind of like that limbo week. Anybody know what I'm talking about? It's halfway, you know, you're halfway between this, you know,
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Christmas and New Year and all that stuff. And so, all of a sudden, we're gonna be a couple weeks into January before you know it, and you're gonna just kind of be back to your regular routines.
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You know, I mean, during this time of the year, we've already, we've talked about the baby Jesus. We gave and received presents.
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We got together with family. We ate too much. So, of course, that ties in really good with the New Year and resolutions and all that stuff, trying not to make the same mistakes we've made in the last week or two and get that back in order.
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And now we just move into 2016, right? And so that can be our tendency, but I want to take one more Sunday this morning to remind us that this baby that came to us came with an agenda.
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He had something that he wanted to accomplish. He came with purpose. You can say he came on purpose.
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And in multiple ways and in multiple texts throughout the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Jesus explicitly stated that very purpose for which he was born.
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He stated that. And so this morning, we're going to look at one of those texts where Jesus outright declares one of the purposes for which he came to earth.
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Why did he come? Why was he here? And it wasn't so that we could have a celebration in the middle of winter when our spirits tend to be down, you know?
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I mean, some of you are kind of like depressed about the weather as it is. Like, I mean, some of you are glad that there hasn't been snow.
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Some of you are wishing there was snow, you know, there's all different kinds of things that filter around. And you've got this thing called seasonal affective disorder.
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Any of you ever heard of that? Where just kind of like the weather and the lack of sunshine kind of gets you down a little bit and stuff like that.
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So isn't it really great that Jesus came so we can have something to kind of break up the winter? Is that what it's about?
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Is that what Christmas is for? And so we've got to think that through and figure out, not just from our own minds, why he came.
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Because there's a lot of thoughts out there. But ultimately to figure out what does Scripture say? What does he say he came to accomplish?
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Jesus is a king. The true king. The real king over all.
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And we would be wise to take note when he tells us why he came. When he gives us the purpose for his arrival.
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So let's open up to John chapter 18 verses 33 through 38. Again, it's
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John 18, 33 through 38. And we're gonna look here and see a strange Christmas passage that talks about his birth.
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He talks about here at the end of his life. This is his final day on earth that we're going to be looking at here.
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This event happens on the very early morning on the day that he was crucified and yet he talks about the reason for his birth.
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Now that was 33 years prior to the events that we're reading about. But if you don't have a Bible on your lap or you don't have a device to navigate to Scripture, then just please raise your hand and Mike and Mark have
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Bibles back here to just give to you. I'm not just trying to call you out, but we want everybody have a copy of God's Word as we get an opportunity to read together
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John 18, 33 through 38 and recast. This is God's very word to us this morning.
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This is what he desires for you and I to hear and to take in. So let's listen in. So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called
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Jesus and said to him, Are you the king of the Jews? Jesus answered,
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Do you say this of your own accord or did others say it to you about me? Pilate answered,
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Am I a Jew? Your own nation and chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?
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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
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Jews but my kingdom is not from the world. Then Pilate said to him, So you are a king?
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Jesus answered, You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose
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I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.
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Pilate said to him, What is truth? After he had said this, he went back outside of the
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Jews and told them, I find no guilt in him. Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship this morning.
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Father, I thank you for the opportunity that we have together. Together in your name it is a privilege and an honor for us to be able to gather together with your people and to hear from your word, to sing praises together, to join together in opportunities that we're gonna have here during connection time at the end of service to interact with other believers,
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Father, and to just openly declare together that we are with you. Father, I pray that you would you would receive honor and glory as we sing songs to you now that as we move into this time in our service,
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Father, that it would just it would not be a habit that has caused us to sing, but ultimately would be because we love you and we recognize that you are worthy of our praise.
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You are worthy of honor. You are worthy of glory. And Father, as we think about what is true,
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I pray that the truth would reign here in our midst. The T in Recast stands for truth and it, Father, is something that we value and hold closely and we recognize truth in your word, but we ultimately recognize that truth is a person who came to us over 2 ,000 years ago and is your son who gave himself up for us.
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And so, Father, I pray that you'd move in our hearts with joy and delight that we have truth available to us in a world that asks the question, what is truth?
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We have the opportunity to experience and see truth in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, I want to thank
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Rob for for leading us in worship now. This is two weeks in a row and so I just want to kind of give you guys a brief update just that just to encourage you to be praying with us.
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We are in the process of walking through potential to hire Dave in a more temp,
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I mean a more permanent situation. As many of you know, he's been serving as our interim worship leader.
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And so I just wanted you to be updated on that to kind of just be praying with us through that process of him kind of taking on that role indefinitely and so we're working through that.
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And if you have any questions about that, let me know. Last week he was sick. This week was a play on time out of town.
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And so that's kind of where we're at with that. I just didn't want any questions like well, wait a minute, has he stepped out? Because he was gone for two weeks.
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And so just to kind of catch you guys up on that. Do encourage you to keep your Bibles open to John chapter 18 verses 33 through 38.
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And just have that open on your lap as we're gonna walk through this text and you're gonna see that that's the flow of my message is just taking us right through and working our way through that.
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Remember that if you need at any time to get up and get more coffee or juice or donuts while supplies last over there, restrooms are out the door at the end of the hallway.
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Men's upstairs, women's downstairs. So we ask that you use the restrooms on this end of the building down here if you need that.
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If you need to get up and stretch out in the back at all during the message, it's not going to disrupt me. So if that chair gets uncomfortable, which
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I know they do sometimes, don't hesitate because we want our focus over the next half an hour or so to be on God's Word.
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My prayer every morning on Sunday morning is that the distractions would be minimized and that it wouldn't be the the comfort of your seat or you know how much caffeine you've had or haven't had or anything like that, but ultimately we'd be able to mine down deep.
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And so we're jumping into the middle of the trials of Jesus on the night before he was crucified and really ultimately we're on the very morning that we're looking at our text, the very morning of the day he was crucified.
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He had been arrested by the Romans in the night and the Jews had trumped up charges of sedition of some sort or another that he was opposing the
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Romans and there was some of that notion that was going on that that might be the means that they might get at him.
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So the Jews took the first crack at him and ultimately in front of the high priest they found him guilty of a simple religious infraction, but a pretty significant one.
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Right in front of the high priest and answering a question from the high priest himself in the wee hours of the morning he had claimed to be the
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Son of Man from the prophecy that we had talked about early on in the book of Daniel who would come in the clouds and would be crowned as the king over all.
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So right in front of the high priest he says I'm that guy that Daniel was talking about. Hundreds of years ago,
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I'm that guy standing here in your presence. Well, what does the high priest do? I actually if you go back and look at the law it says the high priest is to never tear his robe.
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So what does the high priest do? Tears his robe in a cry of blasphemy.
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You have now just like my robe is torn, you have torn the fabric of our faith. You have torn and it's a symbol of that and so he tears his robe and says blasphemy and then they proceed in a very unfair and judicious way like human justice goes.
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They proceed to take turns punching me in the face and abusing him before he's even found guilty by the
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Romans and then they take him to Pontius Pilate. The Jews wanted the death penalty immediately.
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They knew however that they would get into trouble for exercising capital punishment without a
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Roman trial. They have an occupying force who has every interest in trying to keep peace in that region and so because of that the
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Romans didn't let them just go around killing whoever they wanted to under their own laws so the Romans would step in.
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So that's what brings us to the door of Pontius Pilate in the early hours of the morning in John chapter 18.
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Pilate has the wonderful delightful position of being the public relations manager if you will between the
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Jews and the Romans. Now if you know anything about history, you know anything about the New Testament times, you know that he's got a hard job.
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Did you already know that? He's got a difficult job. He is trying to keep peace between two groups of people who hate each other.
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One is the occupying force, one is the occupied people who are who are basically being subjugated by Roman law and they're very religious people who have their own way of life and they're not too happy with the way that the
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Romans are ruling them and so often public relations between the
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Jews and the Romans involved swords and violence. Okay, that's kind of the way that public relations looked there during this time in this role peace wasn't common in the time of Pontius Pilate and yet peace was his designated job.
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He was going to be raided by his leaders in the Roman Empire based on how peaceful he could keep things there and so a lot of times he used violence to try to accomplish the peace in that area.
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So a knock at the door, I'm sure early in the morning sounded to Pontius Pilate a bit like trouble.
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When you understand the history you realize that this probably wasn't welcome that somebody was knocking on his door.
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Now for a variety of different reasons you probably don't like a knock on your door in the early hours in the morning.
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Does that anybody like me on that? Especially before I've had a cup of coffee at least. Okay, so be warned if you come over and knock on my door bring me coffee with it, okay?
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That's a joke, but actually that would work. That would be good. But uh, yeah, so this is probably a very unwanted knock at the door.
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And when he stepped out he was confronted by the religious leaders of the Jews with a man that they were clearly bringing to him for trial.
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Now he knows right away that this man has been accused. Now whether he's actually bound is unclear. I'm sure that because they had beat him he actually had signs of that.
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I'm sure that Pilate had a good reason why, a good understanding of why the Jews might be there early in the morning and he's able to identify that someone is there that they want to put to trial.
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That's what, that's what's, that's why they're there at the doorstep. So Pilate asked a natural question.
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What has he done? The snarky Jewish leaders say if he was innocent we wouldn't have brought him to you, duh.
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They're like, there's like a response to them like of course and all this is by the way earlier, just earlier setting up in chapter 18.
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So I'm just paraphrasing some of the stuff that's already going on to catch you up to speed with the text that we're reading and studying.
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So Pilate wants out of the situation. They're like, yeah duh, of course he did something wrong or else we wouldn't have him here, which is kind of a joke because he hasn't done anything wrong.
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There's all, this whole text is just thick with irony. Duh, of course he's done something wrong. He hasn't done anything wrong.
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Pilate wants out of the situation right away, and you're gonna see that theme, you see that theme all the way through Pilate's involvement in the crucifixion of Christ.
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He's constantly trying to get out of it, and he's not getting out of it because it's his role. And it is exactly where he is in this public relations role between these two that he's gonna have to be in the thick of this.
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But he wants out, and so he says just go try him according to your own laws, you Jews. Just go and try him, but then they remind him.
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We want this guy put to death, and we cannot execute him without your authority. And I'm sure at that point his eyes flew wide.
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What in the world has this guy done? We're talking about a capital offense here. Okay, I'll talk with him. That's what it takes to get
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Pilate engaged in the discussion is the mention of the death penalty and their desire to put him to death.
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They already had it. Are you noticing that they already had a sentence in mind before the trial ever started? They already had in mind what they wanted to have the end result be.
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The Jewish leaders wanted him put to death. So Pilate withdraws into his home with Jesus in order to have a private conversation with him.
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That's our text. Our point of interest is this conversation between the two of them. Ironically, the
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Jews are not able to follow him into the house because the Passover is going on, and in order for them to remain ritually clean, they thought that it would be unclean for them to enter into a
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Gentile's home. And so they don't want to be made unclean and not able to participate in all the family festivities.
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And imagine that Christmas worked this way in our culture. Imagine that if you had done something religiously wrong, you didn't get to celebrate with your family.
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You didn't get to participate in the the Christmas meal. You didn't get to be their opening presents on Christmas morning because you're declared to be ritually unclean to your culture.
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How many of you think that sounds like fun? Okay, none of us. And so that's the kind of notion that was going around Passover is all of your family, all your friends, all your community is going to be engaged in these activities.
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You're going to be in your room waiting out a period of uncleanness or needing to do certain washings regularly until you can participate.
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So that's that's not cool. So they say well, we'll we'll stay out here on the doorstep so as to not be made unclean by entering into the presence.
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So Pilate I think does this intentionally to produce some distance because he wants to talk to Jesus alone and figure out what in the world is going on.
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And so Pilate gets alone with Jesus in just a few steps, maybe in his foyer, maybe in his meeting room, who knows, it's something to do with where his residence is.
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And the answer to these three questions that Pilate is going to ask end up being a deep and rich treasure for us in our understanding and making sense of the agenda of that baby that was born 2 ,000 years ago.
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What was it that he came for and he's going to declare that to us? The baby didn't just come to show us humility.
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He didn't just come to show us sacrifice, but he actually came to be worshipped as the true king of truth, the king of truth.
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So how many of you, if you're just honest, you would like to have, you would delight in the opportunity to sit down with Jesus one -on -one and ask him some questions.
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I think probably all of us, to be honest, would like that. Now maybe you don't have all the questions formulated in your mind of what you would ask him and some of us might stumble around.
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I mean, how many of you have ever like got that opportunity to ask, maybe it was just a professor or something, but you got a chance to ask him a question and then you kind of fumbled over it because you had it formulated in your mind and then you got nervous or something like that, or you got a chance to ask a meeting in a
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Q &A with somebody that you really respect and admire and then it was a bleh and then you asked the wrong questions. Well, I'd love to give
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Pilate the benefit of the doubt and think that the questions that he asks here are just that kind of bumbling, but they're not.
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They show his heart and by the end we're gonna see three questions that eventually mine down deep into the heart of Pilate and show us what
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I believe is the spirit of our age and the spirit of the human heart in the sense of what kind of questions, what kind of weird questions we would ask if we got an opportunity to.
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Well, I would love to have that chance to ask three questions of Jesus. Pilate gets that very chance and the first question from Pilate I think is heading in the right direction.
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It's kind of a good question. It's a question of identity. Like as if to say, who are you?
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But he doesn't leave it that open -ended. It's a good question if it's asked with sincerity and it's simply this, are you the king of the
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Jews? It's really, if he really means to ask that question, if his heart really wants to know the answer to that question, then it's a fabulous question to ask.
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Are you the king of the Jews? Pilate has obviously heard that Jesus has been declared to be king of the
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Jews or maybe he's heard a rumor that Jesus himself said he was the king of the Jews and therefore
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Pilate asks this question. But in wisdom, I didn't notice, if you read through the
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Gospels, how often Jesus answers a question with a question. Have you noticed that? His tendency is to ask for more information, to really ask the person, to almost kind of mine down in the motives for asking the first question to begin with.
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And so Christ follows up Pilate's question with a follow -up question. And this is simply the question, do you ask this, did you ask me this of your own accord,
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Pilate? Or did others put you up to this question? And so in verse 34,
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Jesus cuts to the question behind the question. I think all of us have had that at time, from time to time.
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You asked your spouse one question and what you really wanted was an answer to another one. Have you ever had that happen? Have you ever felt like your spouse was asking you a question and what they really wanted was the answer to another question?
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Have you, any of you ever been there? Am I, just me and Linda do this? Okay. Three of us do this in the room.
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Okay. But that's comforting to know that I'm not alone, Ed. Thanks. But yeah, so we sometimes do that.
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Sometimes you've had that happen with your parents or you know, you've done that with your kids or whatever. You're asking the question and you, there's really, there's really something else you're driving for here.
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And so Jesus is saying, is that, is that what you're doing? Was Pilate asking a genuine question for himself?
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Or was he asking the question because he knew that what others had said about Jesus? But I believe that this, this type of answer, this type of question after, the type of question in the answer from Jesus, is not for his own benefit.
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He wasn't asking because he had significant questions about Pilate, Pilate's motivation. But he's doing so for the benefit of Pilate.
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Jesus is here working on the heart of Pilate. I believe that what he wants to get down to is ultimately this question to Pilate.
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You asked a great question. Do you really want to know the answer? Is your heart asking for an answer?
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Or are you just going through the motions to, to appease the Jews or to just accomplish your job?
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Or is there something in your heart that has some curiosity about these things? Or is it just a job to you and you're just kind of going through the motions?
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Now, how many of you know that your Christian life can look like that at times? Do you really want to know the truth? Or did you just get up this morning and come to church because kind of like it's just the thing that you do and it's a routine and it's just what good
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Christians do? Or do you, are you hungry for the truth? Do you really want to know the answers? And I think we've all been at both different places in life, right?
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How many of you would admit to having gone through times where it's just, it's just going through the motions. It's just a, just kind of routine and rote and then, then there's times,
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I hope for all of you, where there's a genuine hunger and a genuine thirst to know more. So Jesus is saying, where are you at,
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Pilate? Where are you at? All right. Are you asking a real question here?
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Or is this just a formality of trial? Do you want to know the answer?
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And Pilate does not. He does not want to know the answer. His question has not been driven by an ounce of curiosity as we go through this text.
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It's asked in the same way that an atheist might ask about the authority of the Bible or the way that Bill Nye might ask a question about the global flood.
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It's a trap. And Jesus is rebuffed by the strong Roman Pilate.
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The PR arm of the Romans. He says this in response.
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Am I a Jew? I mean, come on, Jesus. Am I a Jew? In essence, he's saying, what do you take me for?
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He's saying it in a pejorative, derogatory way. Am I a Jew? Are you serious? Am I the kind of person?
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Do you take me for the kind of person that's interested in these petty Jewish concerns about your religion? For real?
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You think I'm concerned about who is and isn't the king over your people? Are you serious?
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As if that would be coming from my heart, like I would have a question about that.
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Pontius Pilate doesn't believe he has any skin in this game at all. He's just doing a job.
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He looks at Jesus and says, your people delivered you over to me. I'm just trying to figure out who you are because that's what
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I have to do. They brought you to me. I didn't come to you seeking information. When ultimately, if you think about it, the only place
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Pilate should have been going for advice and for concern was to Jesus. But instead he says,
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I'm just here. I'm just here because I because I have to. They brought you to me. Now, let me be clear.
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Pilate had no interest in Jesus according to this text. The king of glory and truth stood in his chamber and he lacked enough curiosity to walk through the door that Jesus has just opened for him by this question.
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Maybe I do have a little curiosity about Jesus. No, he doesn't. And one more important observation about this question of identity from Pilate lets us know that he was not impressed with Jesus in the least.
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The structure of this sentence in Greek puts the emphasis on the word you in the question. So the first question from Pilate amounts to this.
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Are you the king of the Jews? You? Are you serious? You? From the beginning,
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Pilate is condescending towards Jesus. He probably was used to, if you think about it in context, he was probably used to rabble -rousers and strong military -oriented men showing up for trial.
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What kind of people did Pilate usually see on trial? Some of the rough and tumble in society. As a matter of fact, we know at least one person that he's recently had to deal with.
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A guy named Barabbas who he's just recently locked up. So we know that Pilate had to deal with some pretty rough and unsavory characters.
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Pilate, a murderer, insurrectionist, leading a revolt against Rome, and he's just tried him and now he's now he's got
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Jesus standing in front of him. You? Oh, you're You're the king of the Jews? For real?
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Here in front of him, he finds a man who didn't look like much. We're told that in Scripture. Jesus didn't look like a man of significance.
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You? A king? Says the one in authority over Jesus. If Pilate had even an ounce of curiosity, he could have walked through the door that Jesus opened for him and have found truth.
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But instead, Pilate gets back to business at hand with his second question. First, are you the king of the
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Jews? And then where that first question was about identity, the second question is more practical and expedient.
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He says, okay, this this tact didn't work. I was just looking for you to tell me who you are, if you're declaring this openly, but let's get down to business.
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Let's get down to brass tacks. What have you done? What have you done, Jesus? This is possibly one of the most ironic questions ever posed to the
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Lord in Scripture, if you think about it. Just if it's taken in its general sense at face value, what have you done?
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Jesus could easily reply to Pilate, well, how much time do you have? I'm the Lord of the universe. How much time do you have?
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Because I got a lot to share. I've done quite a bit, like, you know, those birds and plants and fish.
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Those are all my idea. I crafted those. I mean, I've created all these things that you see. And so how much time do you have for me to answer the question?
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But obviously, Pilate isn't asking the question in those general terms, even though it's kind of funny to hear it phrased that way to Jesus.
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What have you done? A lot. Pilate is concerned right now, imminently, with getting the
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Jews off of his doorstep. And his question really amounts to, what have you done wrong?
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Which is even a more ironic question than, what have you done? What have you done wrong?
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And what is the right answer? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
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Zero. The only man that could be standing on trial and ever say that.
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How many of you know that if you're on trial and somebody asks you this question, you're in trouble? You're gonna have a long litany of things.
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If they ask a general open -ended question, what have you done wrong? How many of you know you're gonna be there a while?
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An exhaustive answer to that question. I don't even, man, that's, any anybody else get like just a little sick to your stomach thinking about standing in front of somebody, declaring everything you've ever done wrong?
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Jesus, the right answer. What have you done wrong? Thinking.
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Nothing. Nothing at all. Remember that Pilate knows that the
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Jews want this guy dead. So he knows Jesus must have done something really bad.
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He just wants to get down to it. But in verse 36, Jesus offers an answer to both questions at once.
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Finally answers the question, are you a king? And what have you done? And he answers it together.
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Verses 36 and 37. Jesus mentions in verse 36 his kingdom three different times.
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He talks about his servants. Is he a king? Well, he possesses a kingdom. He calls it my kingdom, which might be a good indicator that he's a king, right?
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How many of you know that if you have a kingdom, then you're a king? And so the answer is starting to formulate there in the text.
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But Jesus is quick to define three aspects of his kingdom that would be important for Pilate to understand in this context.
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The first, it is his kingdom. It's his kingdom.
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My kingdom, my kingdom, my servants, my kingdom. The echo of this text.
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And his kingdom is not second, it is not of this world. And related to that is not from this world.
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We'll talk about that here in a second. The difference, he says it two different ways. My kingdom is not of this world at the beginning. My kingdom is not from this world in the end.
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And then the last thing is his kingdom is not violent. Something that I think is very pertinent for us to understand in our current culture, in our current day and age.
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The kingdom of Jesus Christ is not a violent kingdom. Despite what you might hear kind of going around and swirling around a lot of the debate in our culture today.
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He says, my kingdom is not violent and if it were, my followers would have amassed weapons and have fought to prevent my very arrest.
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But they haven't. Instead, Jesus rebuked even Peter for attempting to use violence or using violence to protect him in the garden.
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Remember the rebuke? Those who live by the sword will die by the sword. Put your sword away,
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Peter, says Jesus, as he proceeds to heal the injury inflicted by Peter on the servant of the high priest.
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Interestingly, Jesus says two things that at face value, says him to Pilate, that at face value sound like the same thing and I mentioned it.
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But really these two, the difference between these two have a real bearing on our understanding of what is this kingdom that we are being invited to.
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That this baby came to start. His kingdom is not of this world, nor is it from this world.
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In other words, from, meaning the origin of. The origin of his kingdom is not from among men.
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When we started this series four weeks ago, I took us back to the RSVP of the king, him telling us he was on his way in the book of Daniel and in that context we saw a bunch of kingdoms and empires and all of the kingdoms rose up from the chaos of humanity.
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Except for one kingdom. All rules, all reigns, all authority come from the chaos below, but there is one king who comes from above.
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It is King Jesus and he is the one that comes bringing a kingdom from above.
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It is not from the world. It is sanctioned and ordained by God Almighty.
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The reign of Jesus is established on the authority of God the Father himself. It is not from the world and it is not of this world either.
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In other words, the reign of Jesus is not shown in clarity in the things seen of this world.
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The stuff of his kingdom is not made of buildings and armies and big walls that protect his borders, huge budgets and economies or anything like the things that we associate with kingdoms and empires and authority and power.
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None of that is synonymous with his kingdom. Ironically, what grabs my attention and what
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Jesus has to say barely even registers to Pilate at all. In verse 37, Pilate is like yadda yadda yadda, kingdom, you got this, you got that, ho hum, so are you a king then?
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Let's get back to the question that I asked you Jesus. You're talking about this world and earthly kingdoms and all that. So you're a king?
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He's talking about a kingdom beyond this world. And I can only assume that Pilate must have heard this kind of stuff before in order to be that unmoved by it.
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Probably heard this stuff before. Oh sure, you're one of those kinds of kings. Okay, now
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I got you. Now I'm tracking with you Jesus. That's the kind of king you are. I got you. But the clarifying question from Pilate, so you are a king, is still driving toward the question of what have you done?
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Still trying to get down to the bottom of this Jesus. My point, trying to get the Jews off my doorstep.
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Can you just throw me a bone here? Can you help me? But Jesus has done this for which he is now in trouble and he declares it.
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I was born as a king and I came into the world to openly proclaim the truth. If that's wrong, then
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I'm guilty. That's what I've done. Look with me at the amazing structure of verse 37.
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Look at verse 37. It's so deep and rich and clear regarding the agenda of the baby in the manger.
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It is so laser point focused in Jesus declaring his purpose for arrival here.
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He says, I was born for the purpose of being a king, for this reason I was born.
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This referring back to what the question ultimately that has just been asked of him.
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For that reason I have been born, that I would be a king. And the structure of that sentence is passive, which is really comfortable for me.
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Okay, it's comfortable to talk about your birth in passive terms. It's a little bit, it gets more awkward when you start talking about your birth in active terms.
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Okay, so in passive terms, I was born is a passive way of saying I arrived on the scene.
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I mean for all of us if we think about it, we may speak in terms of the purpose for which you were born. I hope you have in your mind some of the reasons that you were born.
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I need you to think on that for a minute. Do you have some of the, some of the notion of why you are here? Some of you are still formulating that, some of you are working through it, some of you have identified and clearly delineated some of those purposes.
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I was born, I can tell you one of the things I was born for. I was born for the purpose of glorifying God in the service of King Jesus.
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I know that's one of my purposes. I also can openly declare that that's one of your purposes. I know at least one of the reasons that you're sitting in a chair today.
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I know one of the reasons you're breathing air, and it is to honor the Lord Jesus Christ. I know that.
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Okay, Scripture tells me that. But more specifically, I can even identify I was born to be the husband of Linda.
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I was born to be the father of Adam, Luke, and Leah. I was born to be the pastor of Recast Church, at least for the season.
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And that is all very easy to identify. How many of you know it's very easy to understand purposes looking back?
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Like in the role that you're in now, can you understand some of the purposes for what you've been made to do by the role you find yourself in currently?
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Absolutely. But what comes next? So he talks passively. I was born for this reason.
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But what comes next should be breathtaking and really has the power to define you and I forever if we take it on and really realize what
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Jesus is saying here. Because you're going to be, this next statement of Jesus is one that requires you to make a decision.
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Either you believe it by faith, and therefore must be moved to bow your knee before this one, or you're going to be skeptical of it.
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You really don't have many choices in the matter. Either what he says next is accurate and significant, or you're going to go it's bogus and fake.
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Because Jesus claims right in the middle of verse 37 that he came into the world.
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He came into the world. That is active voice. That is straightjacket talk.
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You come to me and you say, I chose to come into this world for this purpose. I'm going, this is going to be a tight jacket, okay?
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That's, that's crazy. Where did you come from? Out past Neptune?
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Where did you come from into this world? What are you, what are you talking about? You're talking like you've got a, a will and an action in your arrival on the planet,
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Jesus? That's what he says to this Roman procurator.
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I came into the world with purpose. How many of you exercised your will in any way surrounding your birth?
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Did you orchestrate that event? Did you plan that? We began at our conception.
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And just to be clear, we were not angels. We were not pre -existing beings that were in some storage place in heaven that he sent us down into a body at our conception.
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We were created body and soul at our conception. And I kind of like to use passive words about my origin, and I didn't have anything to do with it.
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I get to say thank you, God. Thank you, Mom. Thank you, Dad. And we'll just kind of leave it at that. We don't want to get into the details. Gets awkward there.
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But you didn't have anything to do with it. You didn't have anything to do with it. You just get to say thank you to God and thank you to Mom and Dad.
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But Jesus standing in this Roman dude's foyer says, I came here to the planet to bring the truth.
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I chose to come here to bring you all, all of us, the truth.
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And everyone who is of the truth, he says, listens to my voice. Earlier in the book of John, Jesus said it this way, something similar to his disciples.
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He said, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. How do you know a sheep that belongs to a shepherd?
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They follow that shepherd. How do you know someone who is of the truth? They follow the king of truth.
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They bow their knee before him and follow him. So truth is so very important in this text because it gives the answer to why
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Jesus came. Who he is. What he has done. His kingdom, he says.
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You know, Pilate, you serve the Roman leader. You serve the emperor.
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But my kingdom is the real one. My kingdom is the kingdom of truth. And the entry point into this glorious kingdom is the gateway of truth.
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To be born of truth is to come to this true king and believe him. I fear that many of us have a disconnect between faith and salvation.
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I've met and spoken with many people who have a religion of doing because they miss this central reality, that following Christ is allegiance to him as the life -changing truth.
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That's where it starts. It starts there in allegiance to the king of truth. And that truth is that we have a king who loved us enough to die for us.
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And once we come to that place where we recognize that we have a king who loves us enough to die for us, to make our pathway, a bridge between us and God the
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Father, our allegiance then to him is lived out forward for his glory as our king. It's incredibly sad that Pilate didn't get it.
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He comes back with his final question in the presence of the Lord. And this is a question that reveals the heart of Pilate.
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In the end, this is the real question beneath the question that is really driving
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Pilate in his life. And if we're not careful, it's a question that can drive us, especially in our culture, especially in the culture and society that we live in.
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This is a question that everyone is asking at some level. And it's simply this. What is truth?
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There's different ways and different intonations to that question, but I believe this is that sarcastic.
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What is truth? You have to have the posture. You have to have the hands thrown up a little bit as you ask the question to get the spirit of Pilate here.
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What is truth? As he turns on his heels and walks out, he doesn't even wait for an answer showing that he's not even asking a real question.
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He doesn't believe there's an answer to the question he's asking. And how many of you know that a lot of our society is just like Pilate on that, that there isn't really an authenticity in the question because they don't really want to know the answers.
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And if we do an assessment of ourselves, we can find ourselves in that same place. We can go through the motions, go through the hoops, jump through, without really any curiosity in our hearts.
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Pilate lacks curiosity. He has no curiosity towards Jesus. I don't know what it was about his life that led him to this place.
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Maybe he had heard it all before. Some of us in the room, maybe we've heard it all before. Maybe he was tired of dealing with religious issues.
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Can we just get on to the business at hand? I think it can be that way in our workplace, right?
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If we're not careful. If we can be that pest, we can badger people to the point where that's what their response would be to us, right?
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Can you picture that? Being so over -impressing and oppressive to our co -workers.
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I don't know that you struggle with that. I don't think that's a common American problem. I think it's probably the other way around that we don't bring it up.
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Maybe it was that he was so used to violence that he was just grateful for a quick and easy trial that really didn't have much violence in it, and he was just able to dismiss it out of hand.
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But whatever was going on, Pilate is startlingly unmoved by this interaction. He doesn't get hot under the collar that Jesus called himself a king, or the bearer of truth.
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Instead, his response sounds like a cynical, sure, you brought the truth. What's truth? And truth came to Pilate's door, and he didn't recognize him.
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Consider what questions you might have for someone who came to you and told you that they arrived to bring the truth.
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That he's the king over a kingdom that's not of this world. What if he told you that his kingdom didn't grow through violence? Would you have some questions?
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To my eyes, Pilate looks really tired. He looks really tired.
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And he just wants to be done with this interruption to his morning. I think ultimately, he probably just wants to get on to his cup of coffee, move on with his day.
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He takes Jesus back to the Jews and says, I don't find any guilt in him. And he thinks he's done with that issue.
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Those of you who are familiar with Easter, know that that's not the end of the story. But in this short interaction that we focus in on this morning, with Pontius Pilate, Jesus openly declared that he came to be the king of truth.
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To bring a kingdom of truth. And all who now live in this truth are his followers.
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So what is this truth? What is this real state of affairs that Jesus came to bring to us?
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I believe it's, what he came to bring is more real than any earthly rule. More than what all of those candidates are searching for as the head of our country.
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Potentially what is likely the strongest person on the planet. Truth is that the king of truth has come.
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And his arrival is calling out for anyone on the side of truth to bow before this king and give their allegiance to him.
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The truth is that this one loves his followers enough to lay down his life, to reconcile them with his heavenly father.
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The truth is that his kingdom is eternal and without end. And those who come under his umbrella of protection will be protected when the final wrath of God rains down in judgment.
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The truth is that any who are found outside of his protective reign on that final day will indeed be brought to punishment in everlasting fire.
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The truth is that the birth of Christ was the birth of hope. The birth of truth.
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The birth of our king, our savior, and an eternal kingdom that will go on without end. The truth is that his kingdom is not of this world.
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It is not synonymous with a denomination, a country, a race or ethnicity, a set of laws and rules, a specific church or a specific country.
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The truth is made up of other things like the redeemed people of truth from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation who all worship and bow their knee before this king of truth.
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People that the kingdom of God cannot be seen with our eyes. But it is a beautiful, glorious thing that spans across the globe and across chronology back through the ages.
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It's a glorious and beautiful thing that we can't fully behold. We will one day when he returns for us.
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The truth is that this kingdom is not violent. It is a kingdom that doesn't go to war with others.
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The church of Christ has no earthly armies. The church of Christ doesn't arm itself for battle except to take up the sword of the spirit, the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the belt of truth, the boots of preparation to proclaim the gospel, the shield of faith as lined out for us in Ephesians.
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I think we live in a culture where we are increasingly polarized between religious people who are mixing nationalism with Christianity on the one hand and those who are mixing secularism with nationalism on the other.
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The church does neither. Our allegiance is first to our king.
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We are not a people armed and looking for a fight. We know our battle is not against flesh and blood.
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So three quick thoughts as we close. First, a question.
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Do you believe that Jesus is the king? Pilate asked the question, are you a king?
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And Jesus was happy to talk about his kingdom. Yes, I am. Are you in that kingdom through allegiance to King Jesus?
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If so, then I'd encourage you to come to the tables during communion and take the juice to remember his blood that was shed for you and take the cracker to remember his body that was broken for you.
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Our king died for us and yet he rose again as the victor over sin and death three days later.
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And we do well to remember his sacrifice for us each week. It's a great start to my week.
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I hope it is to yours as well that we take communion as a reminder, as an anchor point, as a place to come back to and remember the point of it all is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for us.
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Do you believe that Jesus is king? Second, if Jesus is your king, are you trusting in his truth?
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Do you study his word to know him deeper? I'd recommend that maybe you consider a plan for reading scripture in 2016.
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Maybe that's reading through the Bible in a year. Maybe it's just studying a portion of scripture. But set forward a plan.
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We have Bible reading plans that I can make available. I plan to make available to you through the e -cast. If you're interested,
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I'll send the email out and get you a link to some Bible reading plans. It takes about 10 minutes of reading each day to get through the
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Bible in a year. It's not as much as you think. And I think you'd be richer for it. If you read it to understand the king of truth,
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I truly believe that you will find rich treasure there and find that your year— by the way, not so that you have a better year, but so that you respond better to the year.
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I want to make sure that that's abundantly clear to you. Committing to read the Bible this year doesn't mean that it's going to be an easier year, that you're going to be wealthier at the end of the year, you're going to have less trouble, less tragedy, less difficulty.
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But you're going to be stronger as you face what 2016 brings to you. You hear me? It's a big difference.
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The prosperity message is a prosperity of the heart, not a prosperity of the wallet. Okay, I believe in prosperity.
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I believe in the prospering of a heart through connectedness with the king over all. Your heart prospering.
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Even if cancer is 2016 for you. Even if the loss of a child is 2016 for you.
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Whatever 2016 might bring to you, you can— you have the strength to face it in the power and might of Christ.
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That got heavy, didn't it? And yet, we don't know. We don't have to enter 2016 with fear because we know who's going there with us.
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And so we enter 2016 with joy and delight and enthusiasm saying, Christ, you're my all.
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And you're faithful to be with me in this next year. Just as I can look back— how many of you can look back and say, 2015,
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I can trace the hand of God's faithfulness to me in 2015. And I see some hands up that I know it wasn't an easy year for you.
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I know it hasn't been easy. And what a testimony that you can raise your hand and say, it has been a year that I can see
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Christ in it. And I believe that 2016 will be no different. But it can be stronger.
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How many of you admit that there's places that you've got room to grow in the truth? Got some room to grow. We've all got some room to grow.
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Whether that's in our prayer lives, whether that is in fellowship. Some of us have this tendency to pull back.
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And we have a tendency, whether it's just that you're more introverted in relationship, or you just have this sense from your upbringing that you're not worth it, and you have a tendency to withdraw from people.
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God forbid that 2016 is a year of withdrawal. Let it be a year of investment in others and a year of sharing yourself with us.
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You're here because you have something to offer. Those of you who call this your church, when you're missing, it's like the hand is missing from a body.
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Can you survive? Will the church go on without you? Absolutely. But we're going to suffer in the loss of you.
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Be engaged and be involved in this next year. All of this centered on the truth. And lastly,
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Pilate's jaded question, what is truth? Is a question that I believe is slowly bleeding from our culture into the church.
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What is truth? I would guess that most of us in the room have wondered at some point within the last couple of years, yeah, what is true?
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What is true on that issue? Now, some of us have the training and the knowledge and the wisdom to go back to God's word and go here to find out what is true on that issue.
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But it can be a wrestling match. I mean, you feel like you're bombarded at times by our culture telling you other things.
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Things that are not consistent with the word. And so I think it's natural. Maybe you're here and you can't help it, but you just find yourself growing a bit jaded.
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You find yourself growing cynical or maybe even apathetic towards these things. We live in a culture that speaks of various truths.
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Like this common phrase, that's true for you, may or may not be true for me.
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Which I think is a significant abuse of the word true, right? Does that abuse the word true?
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Does that give a new definition to true? That it might be true for you, but not true for me? Then it's, then it's, is it true or not?
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True is that which faces up to reality. That which is the way that it really is. So either Jesus came and brought in a kingdom with his own purpose and with his own intention or he didn't.
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One of those, one of those two is true. And the spirit of Pilate asking, what is truth?
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That's the spirit. If you find yourself sliding down that slope of doubt regarding the king of truth, my goal isn't to make you ashamed.
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The fact of the matter is our culture is presenting a strong message against the king of truth. The worst thing you could do in your struggle is to try to go it alone.
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Try to hide that, that sense. One of our, one of our core values here is authenticity. But on this subject,
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I can understand why somebody would want to pull back and not be authentic. Would not want to share with somebody else in the church that I'm struggling with doubt.
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I'm trying to work through this and I just don't have it figured out yet. And I'm, I'm actually find myself waffling and wavering on the king and where he is at.
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Where I'm at in relationship to him. Our culture is presenting a strong message against the king of truth.
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So I'd love to walk with anyone through doubts about the truth of the claims of Jesus Christ. I've gone through seasons of doubt myself.
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You say, Don is a pastor? Absolutely. I've gone through significant doubts in my past and I've worked through them.
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And I've wrestled with them. I will not judge you if you come up to me this morning and say, listen,
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Don, I'm one of those people. I'm struggling. I'm wrestling. I'm trying to figure it out and I don't have the answers. And I'm, I'm actually beginning to question whether there really are even answers.
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If you've ever been there, you know exactly what I'm talking about. There's a cynicism that sets in. Being jaded.
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If that's you, I'm not going to judge you. But I'd love to walk with you. I'd love to walk with you.
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To show you what scripture says and to work through that with you. Jesus is the king of truth.
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Of that I am confident. He was born to bring a new kingdom that is not from this world.
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And he is asking for our allegiance now. Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you so much for sending us that, sending us your son. We, we think of him all throughout this season as a baby in a manger and yet he grew up to be a king.
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It tells us directly. He was born to be a king. And he chose to come into this world to bear witness and to bring the truth.
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That which is real. We recognize it takes faith to believe that. The stuff around us.
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The things, the power of our government. The power of the things in our faces that show authority.
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And Father, there's so many things. Just even our technology that, that, that can get in the way of you.
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And relationships that can get in the way of you. Father, so much that's tangible here that wars for our affection.
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And then you come in and say that we are to believe that the most real thing, the most true thing is your kingdom.
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Father, I pray that this next year would be an investment year here at Recast in your kingdom.
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And Father, for those that are visiting with us this morning, they may go to other churches. They may be involved in other communities elsewhere.
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Father, I pray that you would give them an impulse and a drive and a desire to engage in the kingdom work that you're doing in their community as well.
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Father, that we would be kingdom people in 2016. As we move into this next year, give us delight and joy in you.