John 19:12–16

0:00 I'm not going to lie to you, it's hard to know sometimes for a preacher exactly what to do in a time like this. And times like this come up occasionally in the life of the church where something happens in the headlines, something happens in the news, and you think, well, maybe I need to do something special. Maybe I need to do something different to address what has happened. And so you start to think about what should I do? There are other times when the hard thing that happens isn't in the news, it's not in the headlines, it's in your own church.

0:35 That's kind of where we find ourselves in these weeks. Our church has been through a difficult time, a heart-wrenching time. It continues to go through a heart-wrenching time. I'll be honest with you, it's hard to know as a preacher exactly what to do. You have a lot of thoughts that go through your head when Sunday at 11.24 or whatever it is, coming up fast and you have to stand up in front of everybody and say something a lot of things go through your head for about half a second earlier this week I thought well maybe I should just you know sort of use this time to give some thoughts and reflections of my own about the last week and a half actually that lasted a lot less than half a second because the last thing we need right now is to hear more of our own words.

1:24 We don't need any more of that. We need the Word of God. I thought, all right, we're scheduled to be in John chapter 19. We're scheduled to be finishing up the trial of Jesus, coming right up to the moment of his crucifixion. Maybe it'd be better if I change the scripture that we're going to study for the morning. Maybe it'd be better if I go find a psalm. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Something like that, something to give comfort and peace to souls that are hurt at. Could have done that, right? Would have been inspired scripture, would have been a good, fine thing to do in its own way.

2:00 But then I started to think and I realized that as providence would have it, the Lord for over a year now, since we put together the preaching schedule, has planned to have us today be staring into the face of Christ and Him crucified. And I thought, what better thing could we do than just stare into the face of our crucified Lord? So that's what we're going to do. We're going to press on, and we're going to look into the face of Jesus.

2:32 Let me invite you to take a Bible and turn to John chapter 19. We're going to be looking at just about five verses or so, four and a half, five verses, as we continue our study this morning of the book of John. It's been a few weeks since we've been in this book, So let me take just a few minutes to kind of get you up to speed, especially if you haven't been here with us. For the last few weeks, we've been studying essentially the trial of Jesus in which he was tried and condemned two different times. First by the Jewish ruling council and then by the Roman governor over Judea. The whole thing had begun very early in the morning on the Friday of Passover, probably we think in the year A.D. 30, so almost 2,000 years ago, when Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane while he was praying with his disciples.

3:15 Once he was arrested by this detachment of Roman soldiers, he was first taken to the house of the high priest Caiaphas and his father-in-law Annas. And then once the Jews had handed down their verdict on Jesus, he was taken to the Roman praetorium in the city where the Jews demanded that he be convicted and condemned to be crucified by the governor of the time, this fellow named Pontius Pilate. See, the Jews didn't have power at the time. They were a subjugated people. They didn't have power to crucify anybody, didn't have power to execute anyone. and so they had to get Pilate to hand down the sentence of crucifixion.

3:47 Well, all of this, from the arrest all the way up through Pilate's final verdict against Jesus and his condemnation of him to be crucified, happened, believe it or not, over the course of just a few hours. So that by the time we get to the point of the story we're looking at today, it was in all likelihood getting on toward noon. It was probably 11 o'clock, 11.30 by our time reckoning, something like that. The whole trial, from start to finish, from the arrest to the moment of the verdict, was, if you read the scriptures, just obviously a total farce.

4:21 It was a complete miscarriage of justice. The Jews broke almost every rule in their book about how to have a fair trial, and then Pilate himself, as it turns out, seems to be more motivated by other things, even things that we're going to talk about today, rather than by any kind of a sense of justice. Pilate seems completely out of control in his own praetorium. He really seems completely out of control in his own mind. Because as we're going to see today, for all of his outward concern for justice, even this running desire in his mind and even on his lips to acquit Jesus and release him, it turns out he's ultimately driven by anything but a concern for justice.

5:00 His politics, his fears, even his ambitions are what's really driving him. And by the end, everybody involved, the Jews, Pilate, Caiaphas, all of them are all in such a headlong rush to reject Jesus that they end up doing nothing more effectively than just condemning themselves. Well, if you remember last time, just kind of zero in on where we are in the story. If you remember last time we were in this book, Pilate had tried one last move, to basically try to get the Jews to decide on their own to let Jesus go.

5:32 He had him whipped out in the courtyard. He had his soldiers dress Jesus in a purple robe and a crown of thorns. And then, in a kind of surprise move, he had Jesus brought out to the Pharisees and said to them, Look, behold your king. This is the guy that you are so afraid of. Probably the idea was to mostly humiliate them, right? Into seeing how ridiculous their fear of this fellow really was. The Jews were trying to accuse Jesus of sedition and treason. In other words, they were trying to accuse him of claiming to be a king, a threat to the emperor's authority.

6:03 And so Pilate was probably trying to say, this guy right here, this whipped, broken mess, is the guy you're afraid of? I mean, look at this beaten dog of a man. This is who you want me to kill because you're afraid he's a threat to the emperor? That's what he was trying to do. It didn't work, though. They cried out to Pilate to crucify him. So Pilate went back in, questioned Jesus one last time, and that's where we pick it up. So look with me at chapter 19, verse 12. Chapter 19, verse 12.

6:35 From then on, Pilate sought to release Jesus. But the Jews cried out, if you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar. So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the Stone Pavement, and in Aramaic, Gabbatha. Now it was the day of preparation of the Passover, and it was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, behold your king. They cried out, away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate said to them, shall I crucify your king?

7:09 The chief priest answered, we have no king but Caesar. And so he delivered him over to them to be crucified. Well, so there it is. That's the moment that the Jews have been driving at for weeks now. Really, ever since Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead back in chapter 11. They want him dead, and they want him dead by crucifixion. And this is the moment, finally, when Pilate gives them what they want. But you can tell right from the very beginning that he doesn't really want to.

7:40 He's not that interested in condemning Jesus to death. He just kind of gets forced into it. You see that at the very beginning of it in verse 12? From that moment on, Pilate sought to release him. If you look at the story carefully, you see he's been looking for a way to do that since Jesus showed up in the praetorium. But something about the interaction with Jesus in those last few verses, like ending in verse 11, kind of sealed it. In verse 12, he really, really, really wants to let Jesus go. So the question then becomes, all right, if Pilate from the beginning has wanted to let Jesus go, and if somehow verse 11 sealed it for him so that in verse 12 he really, really wants to let him go, how do you go from verse 12 to verse 16 that fast?

8:27 How do you go from Pilate wants to let him go to verse 16, handing him over to be crucified? What is it? Well, the answer is that the Jews finally figured out exactly the point in Pilate's mind and heart at which to apply pressure. And they made him cave. Whatever sense of justice he had, whatever conviction he had that Jesus was innocent of the crimes they were accusing him of, whatever, even maybe sense that he had. that perhaps Jesus was more than it first appeared, all that crumbled when the Jews pushed on his fear and his ambition.

9:06 Because ultimately it turned out that Pilate feared and loved something else more than he feared and loved justice, more than he feared and loved righteousness, and certainly more than he feared and loved Jesus. So here's the main idea, I think, the thing that we can walk away with, the thing that I kind of want to convince you of this morning. You can look Jesus square in the face and even know deep in your heart that he really is who he says he is. You can look him deep in the face and even know deep in your heart who he really is. And still be pulled away by the wrong fears and the wrong loves.

9:41 Now I know some of you are going to write that down so I'll say it again. You can look Jesus square in the face and even know who he really is. and still be pulled away by the wrong fears and the wrong loves. So three points to the sermon, not really dividing it up in any way, but just kind of looking at this whole little paragraph. And we're going to be looking at three ways that Pilate and the Pharisees went wrong. Three ways that their hearts were dragged away finally from Jesus.

10:12 Here's number one. Pilate was driven by the wrong fear. Pilate was driven by the wrong fear. Number two, he also embraced the wrong friend. He embraced the wrong friend. And then number three, the Jews, for their part, declared allegiance to the wrong king. So Pilate was driven by the wrong fear. He also embraced the wrong friend. And the Jews, for their part, declared allegiance to the wrong king. Friends, my prayer for this morning is that as we study this passage today, that you'll start to see that those kinds of things, To be driven by the wrong fear, to embrace the wrong friend, to declare allegiance to the wrong king.

10:53 Those things are not unique to these people in the Bible. That's not just a dead 2,000-year-old problem that doesn't afflict us today. No, in a thousand different ways, you and I let the same things happen to us. We're driven by the wrong fears. We embrace the wrong friends. We give our allegiance to the wrong kings. And all of that drives us away from Jesus. So my prayer is that as we look at the mistakes of Pilate and the mistakes of the Jews, that our hearts will be pried off of whatever of those things we are doing this morning.

11:24 And that our eyes will be set fully and firmly on Jesus. So point number one, first thing I want you to notice here is that Pilate was driven by the wrong fear. He was driven by the wrong fear. By the time we get to verse 12, Pilate is quite obviously completely spooked. He's spooked, he's scared, it even says it in the paragraph right above, that he was even more afraid after Jesus told him who he really was. Throughout the trial, he'd always seem to be unconvinced, really, that Jesus was guilty of anything worthy of death.

11:56 He just doesn't seem to buy the sedition argument. He doesn't seem to buy the treason argument. He certainly doesn't really buy the blasphemy argument that the Jews are making. He just doesn't seem to think that Jesus is guilty of anything that's worthy of death. The Jews were trying to nail him with sedition, treason. But Pilate could basically tell by looking that Jesus was not a threat to the empire. And besides, when Pilate had asked him straight up, are you a king? Jesus had explained that, yes, in fact, I am a king, just like you've said. But my kingdom isn't of this world.

12:27 It's not like the kingdoms of this world that operate in advance with swords and spears and armies and flags. That's not me, and that's not my kingdom. Jesus had told him straight up. So in Pilate's mind, he was just dealing here with this, you know, some kind of religious guru who goes out in the wilderness and talks in metaphors about kingdoms. But he wasn't dealing with any kind of threat to the empire. But then in verse 7, if you look back up, everything changed for Pilate. And he got very interested in the whole thing because the Jews finally were honest with him and told him their real problem with Jesus.

13:03 The real problem with Jesus wasn't so much that he was claiming to be a king, but that he was claiming to be the son of God. And that set Pilate back on his heels. See, the Romans were just famously superstitious. They believed in omens. They believed in dreams. If you were going to battle, you would have the augers cut animals into pieces and stir it up, and you would see what the augers would tell you about the coming battle. You would look at the crows in the sky, the ravens, and you would find omens in the sky. They were very deeply superstitious.

13:36 And in just these few minutes that Pilate had been around Jesus questioning him, he had come to understand that there was something about this guy. He wasn't just your typical nutcase claiming to be the Messiah. To make it even worse, his wife had sent word to him earlier in the morning saying that she'd had a dream about this man and that he should have nothing to do with this man because the man is innocent. So he had all that in his mind already. And now for the Jews to say, oh, the reason we really are upset with this guy is because he's claiming to be God, scared him, rightly so.

14:12 So he went back in, and he questioned Jesus again. Where are you from? And Jesus didn't answer, because he'd already told him, my kingdom is not of this world, it's from somewhere else. Well, that enraged Pilate, and he hits him with this question in those verses just prior to our text. Don't you know that I have the power to crucify you or release you? And that's when Jesus answered, look, you would have no authority over me at all if this whole thing hadn't been dropped into your lap from heaven. So by verse 12, Pilate is completely spooked.

14:47 And he desperately wants to get out of this situation. So you can see there in verse 12, he sought to release him. Which, given the efforts he's already made to do that, probably means something more like he really really sought to release him but the jews have got one more card to play they they they see the writing on the wall they see pilot's mind changing on jesus they see that pilot is about to do something to release him and they've got one more card to play and it turns out it's a heavy hitter so look at 12 second half of 12 there the jews cried out to him if you release this man you are not caesar's friend everyone who makes himself a king, opposes Caesar. And that thought, those words land like a nuclear bomb in Pilate's mind. And you can see the result in the fallout of it if you look on into 13. Immediately upon hearing those words, his desire to release Jesus fades and falls and disappears. And he immediately goes to the judgment seat to hand down his verdict that Jesus should be crucified. But why?

15:52 Why does he do that? I mean, why do those words from the Jews have such an effect on Pilate's mind and heart? I mean, what happens from 12 to 13 in the split seconds between the Jews quitting their little speech and Pilate making the decision to condemn Jesus? What happens in his mind? Well, what happens is that the Jews found the one thing that could take whatever fear, whatever respect that Pilate had for Jesus and displace it all.

16:23 They made him fear something else more than he feared and respected Jesus. Basically, they made him fear Tiberius Caesar, sitting on his throne in Rome. And if you think about it, it really was a masterful punch by the Jews. Because the Jews knew that Pilate had lots of reasons to be fearful of Tiberius Caesar sitting on his throne in Rome. So over the last few years since he had been made governor of Judea, Pilate had already shown himself to be a pretty ham-handed and ineffective governor.

16:57 There are at least four occasions where historians like Josephus write about things that Pilate did that were sort of designed, it seems, not to keep the peace in Jerusalem, which was his main job, but actually to incite a riot. One of them is mentioned in the Bible even where Jesus talks about him mingling the blood of some Jews into the sacrifices, right? He just did things over and over again to incite the Jews and cause a riot. And so it would be bad for him in a big way if word got back to Caesar that this guy is not keeping the peace in Jerusalem.

17:30 He's actually inciting a riot. And worse, the historical timing is a little bit uncertain. But it's possible, if you read Josephus, some of the other historians, it's possible that Pilate's most important ally in Rome, like in the court of the emperor, the guy who probably got him the job that he had as procurator of Judea is this dude named Alias Sejanus. It's possible that Sejanus, his friend, had just been executed by Tiberius Caesar for something like sedition, and that therefore Pilate knew that his own life was also in danger now.

18:07 So given all that, the Jews' threat that you are no friend of Caesar was hugely powerful. And whatever fear he might have been feeling of Jesus, whatever inclination he might have had to release Jesus, was dissolved immediately by the fear of Tiberius. It's an interesting thing to think about, isn't it? And I think like Pontius Pilate, most of us generally like to think of ourselves as these noble creatures.

18:42 Driven by noble things. Driven by virtue. Driven by what's right. Driven by what we love. But I think if we're honest, if we look into our hearts and we're honest with ourselves, most of us are really probably more like Pilate than we really care to admit. We tend as human beings to be driven by fear just as much as we are driven by virtue. We tend to be driven by dread of this or that thing happening to us as much as we are by hope that something good might come. You ever notice that in yourself, in your own actions, in your own heart?

19:17 Maybe even when it comes to your faithfulness to Jesus out there in the world. You ever notice those times when you make the little decision, just for example, you make the little decision not to stand for what's right in your workplace. Or not to speak to that person about your faith, but just keep it quiet this one time. Have you ever stopped to notice what's driving you in those little moments of unfaithfulness to Jesus? We tell ourselves all kinds of noble things. It just wasn't the time to have that fight.

19:49 You've got to pick your battles. You've got to build up relational capital before you can use it. We tell ourselves all kinds of things. But if you're much like me at all, then you probably could look into your heart and see that it's probably not some noble hope of collecting capital or picking your battles rightly. It's just fear. It's just fear of being rejected. It's fear of being mocked. It's fear of being ignored or backhanded or worst of all, it's fear of being pitied by those we want to see us as respectable.

20:25 I think the same thing is true when we look to the future. And sometimes we look out into the future and it can seem cloudy, it can seem dark, it can seem uncertain. And even a strong faith in Jesus, a strong faith in God's providence can be swallowed up in the fear of what is coming. And it's true. Fear of bad things happening to us is a very normal human thing. A lot of times it's even a good thing about us humans.

20:56 We don't stick our hands in the stove because we fear what's going to happen when we touch a hot thing. Fear can be a good thing. But when it comes to faithfulness to Jesus, when it comes to trust in him that he's working all things together for good, fear is not what should drive our hearts as Christians. The thing about the gospel of Jesus Christ, the thing about trusting in a king who has died for you so that you have the hope of eternity.

21:27 The thing about trusting in a God who has promised that he's working all things together for good. Is that knowing that we are perfectly loved by that king and that God drives out fear of the future. It drives out fear of bad things. This is why Paul would write to Titus, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of love and of power and of self-discipline. Friends, listen, listen, there are always, always in your life, whether personally or in your church or in your nation, there are always going to be scary days.

22:07 There's always going to be uncertainty about the future. But you are a Christian. Don't be driven by fear. Instead, be pulled along, be motivated by love. And be steeled by faith in your sovereign God, who is always in control. I want you to see another thing about this, about this fear that Pilate had of Tiberius Caesar that trumped his fear of Jesus.

22:40 I want you to think over the last few weeks, as we've studied this trial, I want you to think about just how close Pilate got to really embracing Jesus. Not just releasing him. He actually got close to embracing him. I mean, it's hard to say how close. But you read back, especially in the paragraph just prior to this one, There does seem to be a moment where he really looked like he was recognizing Jesus to be something more than just a man.

23:12 And he just wished that he had taken the time to ask a few more questions. Just ask him some more things. Let him talk, Pilate, because you're this close to embracing him. And that question, from the last time we looked at this, where are you from? It's not just a geographic question. He doesn't want an answer just like Nazareth or Bethlehem. That's an identity question. Where do you come from? Who are you? Because you're unlike anybody else I've ever met in my life.

23:46 He was so close to embracing Jesus, to really seeing Jesus for who he is and trusting in him. He was so close. But when push came to shove, when the moment of decision came, his fear of Tiberius Caesar short-circuited his interest in Jesus. Whatever sense he had that Jesus was someone he needed to get to know was overwhelmed by fear of somebody else. Is it at all possible that that has happened to you?

24:25 That at some point along the way, maybe even this morning, this sense of interest that you've got in Jesus, this sense of wanting to ask more questions of Jesus, to ask him, who are you and where are you from, just gets short-circuited by your fear of somebody or something else. Maybe you've been staring at Jesus for a long time now. Maybe you've been coming here to Third Avenue for months and months and months and listening to us talk about Jesus and about the gospel of Jesus. And maybe you're right up at the edge of saying, yes, I believe in him.

24:57 Maybe you're right at the edge of saying, I'm a sinner, I know it, and I can't save myself, but I know he can. I know that he can stand in my place. I know that he can live the life that I should have lived, and he can die in my place so that I don't have to die. And I know that he rose from the dead so that if I'll embrace him, I'm going to rise too. Maybe you're right at the line of saying that. But every time it just keeps getting short-circuited. By fear of something else. What's turning you away? What's short-circuiting your interest in Jesus?

25:33 Is it the prospect that you might lose friends if you become a Christian? Is it the fact that you're really going to have to admit some things to yourself in order to become a Christian? Is it that you're going to have to admit some things about yourself that you don't want to admit? Well, listen, friend, here's my advice. If you think there's something back there, if you find your interest in Jesus going up, going up, going up, and then short-circuiting over and over again, here's my advice to you. Whatever that thing is, whatever that fear is that's short-circuiting your interest in Jesus, don't let it hide in the shadows of your mind.

26:12 That's my advice. Whatever that thing is, don't let it hide in the shadows of your mind. Drag that thing out and stare it full in the face. Identify it. Pull it out. You, my fear of losing friends, my fear of having to admit this, my fear of having to repent of this, you are what's stopping me from coming to Jesus in faith. And I just want to be straight up with you about that. It's you. It's the only way you'll ever be honest with it. It's the only way you'll ever come to an honest decision.

26:44 You know, you may stare that thing in the face and come to the decision that, yeah, I really am afraid of that, and I really do value that, and so I'm rejecting Jesus for that. You may come to that conclusion. My prayer and my hope, though, is that when you stare the thing in the face, the things of this world will grow strangely dim and dissolve in your hand as you look at it straight up. My prayer and my hope is that whatever it is that's causing your interest to short-circuit will ultimately dissolve as you see the beauty of Christ.

27:20 My prayer is that when you look at it, you'll realize that those things you're afraid of, those things you don't want to lose by becoming a Christian, that you'll realize those things aren't worth it at all. And you'll drop them and run to Jesus. Friend, don't be driven by the wrong fear. And especially, don't be driven away from Jesus by the wrong fear. Here's the second thing. Pilate was not only driven by the wrong fear, he also embraced the wrong friend.

27:54 He embraced the wrong friend. Let's look a little more closely at exactly what the Jews say to Pilate in the second half of verse 12. Let's look at it again. Second half of verse 12. If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar. Now, it's not 100% certain, actually, that this thing that I'm about to say happened by this time when Jesus was crucified. But at least in the very near future, if it hadn't happened already, the sort of phrase friend of Caesar was going to become a sort of official title for a very select few people who were especially close to Caesar and especially treasured by him as close advisors.

28:39 But whether or not it was a full-on official title yet or not, to be considered a friend of Caesar was something every single Roman official in the empire would have wanted. I mean, at the very least, you certainly wouldn't have wanted to be known as an enemy of Caesar. You would not live very long if you got that title. So that's what the Jews threatened him with. Pilate, if you let Caesar go, if word gets back to Rome that Pilate has let this pretender to the throne go and we will make sure that word gets back to Rome, then you're going to be declared, Pilate, not to be a friend of Caesar.

29:17 Any hope you ever had, Pilate, of becoming a friend of Caesar or even staying a friend of Caesar would be gone. That's what they threatened him with. And he caves immediately. Imagine, though, just pause your mind and imagine for just a second, imagine if Pilate had decided that he treasured a different friendship, even more than he treasured the friendship of Caesar. Imagine if he'd pressed into his interest in Jesus.

29:47 Imagine if he'd asked him a few more questions. Imagine if he'd opened his mind to the answers that Jesus might give to him. And imagine if he had become a friend of Jesus. Everything might have been different. for him. And what about you? What would it mean for you to be a friend of Jesus? What does it mean for you as a Christian that you are a friend of Jesus?

30:19 Because that's exactly what he says you are. If you believe in him, he said it back up in chapter 15 you are my friends not just my servants not just my slaves not just my subjects you are my friends it's an extraordinary thing that he says and so enormously comforting so often in our songs and in our prayers and our scripture readings all the rest we think of Jesus as king, as Lord, as the one with the blazing eyes and the stark white hair who sits on the throne and walks among the lampstands and rules the universe. That's how we think of him. And it's absolutely right to think of him that way. But friends, sometimes it's so good to just stop and relax and remember that this great king who rules the universe has also said that we are his friends.

31:20 And he loves us and he cares for us. Back a few weeks ago when all of the pomp and circumstance was happening around the death and ultimately the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, I was voracious in my reading about stories of Her Majesty the Queen. I just read anything that I could find about who she was and what she did and all the rest of it. And I ran across this one story that I think was the best of all the ones that I read.

31:50 It was actually told by Robert Cunningham, who until just recently was the pastor of our friends over at Tate's Creek Presbyterian in Lexington. So we know this fellow well. Anyway, he tweeted out during those days. And I'm just going to read it to you because it's so good. He says, a lot of stories are being shared about Her Majesty the Queen, but I've got one that tops them all. I once had the honor of touring the UK Parliament with a man who knew its history better than anyone. I asked for the craziest story he could share, and he did not disappoint.

32:24 Every legislative session begins with a visit from the Queen, and it's a very regal tradition. She wears her crown and robe and processes down a hallway, lined with the Queen's guards who literally strike the stone walls with their swords to make sparks fly as she walks by. The hallway ends at the House of Lords, where the queen enters to take her seat on the throne and essentially commissions the legislators to enact the will of the people. Well, several years ago, they were forced to break tradition a bit to accommodate the queen in her older age. There was a grand staircase leading to the hallway, and it just became too much for her to climb.

32:58 So they decided to start using the elevator to get her up. Well, the first year they did this, a mistake was made. The lift operator accidentally pushed the button for the wrong floor. So rather than the entrance to Parliament, he presses the button for the maintenance floor. The lift goes up, the doors open, and Alice, from the cleaning crew, with her head down, pushes her cleaning cart into the elevator as she has done countless times.

33:29 Only this time, she has pinned the Queen of England to the wall. The doors close behind her. Alice is stuck in the lift with the queen and her guard, and she lets out an expletive not fitting the presence of royalty. Then there's an awkward silence, no one knowing what to do. The silence was finally broken by the queen's uncontrollable laughter, and then the most remarkable invitation. Rather than opening the doors to let Alice off, the queen asks the lift operator to take them down to the proper floor.

34:03 The doors open, and to everyone's shock, out walks Her Majesty the Queen and Alice the maintenance worker. Then the Queen and her regalia, along with Alice in her maintenance uniform, process side by side down the royal hallway. But it gets even better. Once a year, for the rest of Alice's life, she was invited to Buckingham Palace for high tea with her newfound friend, Queen Elizabeth. The end. I know, you want to clap, and I do too.

34:38 Robert puts a little note at the end of this. He says, by the way, preachers, if you don't steal this as a gospel illustration for your sermon on Sunday, you are not doing your job. So there it is. Look, friends, there's no way to avoid it. There's no way to not talk about it. Our church is in some rough waters right now. We're going through some incredibly hard things that have hit many of you. i know very very hard and we've all done a lot of talking about it we've all done a lot of thinking and considering we've all done a lot of coming to conclusions about all of this and i also know that for a lot of us there's fear and worry about the future what's going to happen how are we going to navigate this what's what's this or that person going to do and those are those are all fine and good questions those are those are questions that we're going to be asking over the next weeks and months and we're going to be acting on those questions but friends what i want you to encourage What I want to encourage you to do, like right now, for just a moment, for just a little moment, is to stop thinking, stop considering, stop drawing conclusions.

35:41 You can get back to that in a little while. But for just a moment, I want to encourage you and ask you to stop and remember that the king of this church has also called us his friends. We're not just friends of Caesar. We are friends of Christ who loves us and gave himself for us. And that's with all the other friends in the world. Friends, today the king that we worship every single Sunday here, the king to whom we sing, the king to whom we pray, today the king we worship stoops from his throne to care for us and to remind us that he is working all things together for good.

36:26 Pilate thought he was a friend of Caesar. And he feared losing that. What an enormous comfort it is for us to know that if our faith is in Jesus, if we've come to him in faith, if we've repented of our sins, if we've trusted in him to save us, then he is our friend. And he will never leave us nor forsake us. Praise God for that. Here's the third thing. The Jews declared allegiance to the wrong king.

37:02 Pilate was driven by the wrong fear. And Pilate embraced the wrong friend. And the Jews declared allegiance to the wrong king. Beginning in verse 13, Pilate's made his decision. He's driven by fear of Caesar. He's driven by desire not to lose his status with Caesar. And so he decides that in defense of all of that, Jesus is expendable. If I can keep my friendship with Caesar, if I can not have these Jews go to Rome and tell Caesar that I'm allowing riots in Jerusalem, if I can just avoid all of that, then Jesus is completely expendable.

37:40 So in verse 13, he brings Jesus out to the judgment seat. Notice there in 13 and 14, John is careful to note the exact place where this happened. And in 14, he notes the exact day and hour that it happened. Why does he do that? I mean, he's got a good thing going here. It's a good story, right? But he stops right in the middle of it to note the time and the place and the date that this happened. Why does he do it? He does it because he knows that this is a world historical moment.

38:14 When Jesus, the Son of God, is about to be sentenced by the Roman procurator to death. And so he essentially, seeing the greatness of the moment, he essentially time stamps it and geolocates it. You'll see the biblical writers doing this all the time. Why do they do that? I mean, why is Luke so careful to say under whose reign all of these events happened and in what part of the empire and who was the procurator at this time, etc.? Why does he note all those historical details? He does it because Christianity is not just a religion of ideas or feelings or philosophies.

38:51 It's not just an ethical system where it doesn't really matter what happened so long as the ideas are there. No, really alone among all the religions of the world, Christianity is 100% about historical events that happened in a time and place. And if those events didn't happen really, historically, in the real world, then Christianity is empty and dead. As why Paul says, if Jesus didn't really get up from the dead, then we are of all men in the world most to be pitied.

39:25 So it doesn't make any sense to me at all when some people who call themselves Christians can say things like, well, I don't really think it matters whether Jesus got up bodily from the dead. He had some good teachings and I'm doing my best to follow them. It doesn't make any sense in the world. Because if Jesus didn't get up from the dead, then he was just a man who was saying some wise things. But he's not to be worshipped. But if he did get up from the dead, everything's different. I mean, look, if you could actually prove to me that Jesus didn't get up from the dead, then I will stop being a Christian right now.

40:03 Because Christianity is not finally about the ethics or the ideas or the philosophies or beautiful spiritual metaphors of newness of life. It's about Jesus and what he did. And if he didn't do those things, then friends, I'm out. This is too much trouble. So that's why they do things like that. They're putting a stake in the ground. They're saying this happened, and it happened at a specific time and a specific place in this specific real world.

40:33 That's what they're saying, and that's what we say. Pilate is there, obviously, even as he brings his judgment seat out to condemn Jesus, he's obviously incensed that they've caught him and they've forced his hand. So he brings Jesus out and humiliates them. Jesus is beaten. He's wearing the crown of thorns. He's wearing the purple robe. The soldiers are mocking him. The other Gospels tell us that he's even holding a reed in his hand. Probably something like a, what are those little things called?

41:06 Catanine tails or something? No. What is it? Cat tail. Yeah, probably something like a cat tail. Just very slender, very thin, not a scepter at all. And yet they've given him this reed to hold as if it is a scepter. They're mocking him. And Pilate points to this man who's beaten and he says, Hey, you Jews, behold your king. You're a bunch of ridiculous people, and this is the best you'll ever have as a king, because your real king, he's saying, is Caesar in Rome. Behold your king. They respond. They're away with him, away with him.

41:38 Crucify him, and he digs the knife in deeper. What, do you want me to crucify your king? Do you want me to take this man who is the ruler of the Jewish nation and humiliate him like a slave in front of the whole nation? Shall I crucify your king? And then look how the Jews answer him then in verse 15. We have no king but Caesar. We have no king but Caesar. Now you guys see a couple of levels working that are at play there of meaning in that statement.

42:09 For one thing, they're finally setting the trap on Pilate. And after they say that, there's no way he's getting out of it. Because what they're doing there is even claiming that their loyalty to Caesar is higher than Pilate's loyalty. You can read it with that kind of emphasis. Pilate, we have no king but Caesar. What about you? That's what they're doing. They're setting the trap on him and there's no way now that he's getting out of it. But secondly, and more importantly, and more deeply, for all the Jews had been saying about Jesus being a blasphemer, these words that they utter right here are finally and fully absolute blasphemy.

42:59 Why? Well, because over and over again in the Old Testament, The lawgivers and the prophets insist again and again and again that the only true king of Israel is God himself. The only true king of Israel is God himself. Even when they get kings, right? Even when Saul is king and then David and then Solomon and all the rest of them. The only reason those kings are legitimate in any way whatsoever is because they understood themselves to be low kings under the authority of the high king, God.

43:41 They didn't see themselves as being in the place of God. They didn't see themselves as taking the crown of God for themselves. They saw themselves as taking a vassal's crown for themselves that was given by God. And all their allegiance they owed to him. And yet the Jews here insist, we have no king. but Caesar and when they do that they're not only rejecting Jesus' messianic claims they're not just rejecting Jesus as Messiah they are abandoning Israel's entire hope for a Messiah we have no king but Caesar and we will have no king but Caesar we will have no Messiah we will not have God reign over us Once and for all, they're disowning the kingship of God himself over them.

44:35 See the point? You see what's going on there? The Jews declare allegiance to the wrong king. They declare allegiance to Caesar rather than to God. And in doing so, they miss their own Messiah. Friend, what kings are you declaring allegiance to this morning instead of Jesus? Because there's a king, there's a great king, there's a king of kings and lord of lords who asks for your allegiance, who demands your allegiance, who holds his hand out and says, if you'll give me your allegiance and acknowledge me as Savior and Lord, I'll give you mercy, I'll give you salvation, I'll give you the world and eternity.

45:18 There's a king who offers you that. My friend, if you're not a Christian, especially if you've heard the gospel of Jesus Christ over and over again and you're still not a Christian, then there is some king that you are still swearing allegiance to instead of Jesus. Who is it? What is it? Is it your friends? Is it your job? Is it your reputation among coworkers, among family, among neighbors? Is it the things of this world?

45:50 Is it a political agenda? Is it a sin that you love? They swore allegiance to the wrong king and they missed salvation. My friend, don't let that happen to you. I want you to notice just one more detail here. Look at verse 13. so when pilot heard these words he brought jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the stone pavement and an aramaic gabbatha christians have noticed forever that john does a little play on words here in the way he writes that sentence because you you can read the greek words that underlie this exactly like your esv has it and it's it's likely that The ESV is sort of correct in describing the historical scene.

46:48 But in the Greek itself, like in the way the word is actually formed, you can actually read it like this. Read along with me because you don't want to miss it. Verse 13. So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat him down on the judgment seat at a place called the stone pavement. You see the picture there? I mean, historically, it doesn't work. It didn't happen like that. It's not how it happened. There's no Roman procurator in the world who would take a bloody criminal and sit him down on his own throne, the seat of the representative of the emperor in Rome.

47:25 That didn't happen historically. But that's not to say that John isn't playing with the word. John is playing with the word. And what he wants is this flash of an image in your mind where the bloodied, thorn-crowned Jesus is the one who is actually sitting on the judgment seat. He wants that in your head. Why? Because John's whole point through this whole thing is that Jesus is absolutely and completely sovereign over all this.

47:58 They don't take his life from him. He lays down his life for the sheep. And on the third day, he'll take it up again and reign forever and ever. Friends, Jesus, for Pilate, for the Jews, for Caiaphas, for Annas, for all of them, Jesus was right there in their faces. He was right in front of them. But they got distracted and turned away.

48:33 There are right now so many distractions. But, friend, don't get so sidetracked by those. that you miss looking into the face of your king and your friend. Let's pray. Our Lord Jesus, we honor you and we praise you this morning. As king of kings, lord of lords, as friend of sinners. Our Lord Jesus, you did so much good for us.

49:08 When you became a man and lived the life we ought to have lived and died the death we ought to have died and then rose again to take your crown, to ascend into heaven and to reign forever and ever. And to promise those who would believe in you, all those who would ever believe in you, eternal life with you forever and ever. Our Lord, we pray that you would help us to keep these things at the forefront of our minds, to continue to trust you as the great King who rules over the universe. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.