Pastor Muri's message from Sunday morning (part 2)

That’s why He’s in the Praetorium.

 

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

 

And this is the very invitation that Jesus Christ is opening to a Roman procurator in his own Praetorium, while Jesus is sitting on the dock and the judge is standing there. The Accused is inviting the judge to become His follower. Is that strange?

 

And the Word became flesh

 

God. The revealer of God

 

became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

 

(John bore witness about him, and cried out, This was he of whom I said, He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.) And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

 

Notice verse 18.

 

No one has ever seen God;

 

The full embodiment of all that God is. That’s truth. [end of track 6, 4:56] Truth is God. God is truth.

 

No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.

 

Jesus Christ came into this world as the Logos, the Word, the disclosure, the exegesis, the narrative of all that God is.

 

For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth.

 

To bear witness to God. To set out for you plainly and clearly: “This is who God is. And this is how you can be reconciled to God.”

 

Truth is God. Truth is the word Jesus preached. Truth is Jesus Christ. Truth is the Gospel.

 

Now put yourself in Pilate’s sandals for a moment. If Jesus’ kingdom is truth and if Jesus’ constituents, the constituents of Jesus’ kingdom, which is the kingdom of truth, are not sword-wielding insurrectionists, but they are truth-embracing constituents of a truth-based kingdom (which is what He said, “Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”) -- and if all this is true, then there’s something horribly malevolent about what the Sanhedrin is trying to do here -- their plot against Jesus -- is there not?

 

But there’s more. And, more critically, there is a strange and compelling invitation in these words of Jesus to Pontius Pilate. Jesus, as I said, sitting in the dock, summoning His judge to become His follower, His truth disciple.

 

And you know why I know that Pilate understood that? Do you know why we know that Pilate got it? That Pilate was cognizant of the fact that this man Who was sitting in his courtroom dock waiting for His verdict and sentence to be read by Pilate himself? Do you understand why we can come to a conclusion that Pilate understood: “I am being appealed to by somebody who is guilty of no capital crime, but is actually the king who has come, who represents a kingdom that is not of this world. It is a regal kingdom. It is a divine world. It is a world that is inhabited by God and this One before me must be God Himself. He represents truth. The constituents of His kingdom are truth-embracers, which, by the way, I am not.” Pilate would say. “But there is no question. He is inviting me to be a participant and a constituent in that kingdom.”

 

And Pilate shows that he gets it when he asks this question: “So, what is truth?” And then he walks away.

 

To ask the question is to acknowledge, “I get what you’re saying.”

 

To walk away without waiting for the answer is to reject the truth.

 

He did not say, “What is kingdom? What is this alien planet you’re speaking of? What is the political structure of this kingdom?”

 

He said, “What is truth?”

 

He realized that the critical component of everything that Jesus was saying at this moment was truth. And the truth was what He preached. And the truth was what He was. And the truth was where He came from. And truth was what He was in the process of filling out and revealing and inviting Pilate to be a part of right now. And truth was what the Jews were rejecting out of hand.

 

Jesus’ words were lost on Pilate that day. But John, I believe, was convinced that there would be others that would come along behind him and embrace that truth or believe that truth, and that’s why he records this.

 

Chapter 20 and verse 31, John concludes by saying

 

These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

 

And not be like Pilate who said, “What is truth?” and then walked away. “Because I really don’t want truth. I really don’t want to live in truth. I don’t want truth to engage my conscience. I don’t want truth to mess up my life plan. I don’t want truth to turn my values and priorities on their head. I don’t want to deal with truth.”

 

But Jesus was saying -- when He said in verse 37, “Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice” -- He was saying the very same thing that He said in John chapter 10 when He said (I’m gonna start at the beginning):

 

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens.

 

Here it is.

 

The sheep hear his voice,

 

He’s building an analogy. People of Israel, the people of Palestine in that day, they understood sheep and sheepfolds. They understood community sheepfolds where there was a hired porter who would guard them at night so the average shepherd could deposit his sheep there and go home. But on the next morning when he came back, this is where the illustration just comes alive, as you picture a shepherd standing at the door of the community sheepfold and the porter recognizes him, so the porter opens the door. But then the porter doesn’t go and grab the sheep. He lets the shepherd stand there and call his sheep by name and the sheep recognize the voice of the shepherd and they come out and they follow him. Verse 16 of John chapter 10.

 

I have other sheep that are not of this fold.

 

Gentiles. People of the twenty-first century in Minnesota.

 

I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.

 

Verse 27.

 

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one.

 

But

 

My sheep hear my voice.

 

“My sheep listen to the voice of truth.” The shepherd is truth. The message is truth. And true sheep are those who hear the voice of truth and they come. And Pilate was not one of those.

 

Pilate asked the question, “So what is truth anyway?” Which is a diversionary kind of statement. It is a question that doesn’t want an answer. It’s a question that wants to change the subject, to find an out. And he found his out by turning on his heel and walking out the door. Pilate tried six times unsuccessfully to acquit Jesus, because Pilate knew Jesus was innocent of all the charges.

 

But Pilate did not want to embrace the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And so Pilate said to Jesus, “So what is truth?” and walked away. Pilate did not listen. Pilate did not hear the voice of truth. Pilate did not listen to the Shepherd at the sheepfold. Pilate did not walk out and follow Him.

 

Have you? Are you?

 

Let’s pray.

 

Father, I thank you for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. [end of track 7, 10:01] And I thank you for the compelling message of truth. I thank you that Jesus Christ came into this world to explicate truth, to exegete all who God is in truth, to write the narrative for us so that we might understand the way to truth and the nature of truth and the merciful grace of truth that is willing to bump into evil, twisted, deceitful hearts and transform them by truth. But, O Lord, I pray, that as truth ministers to the hearts of folks here today in this room, I pray that there might be a massive response of not simply, “So what is truth?” and then exiting, stage left, but “So what is truth?” and then “Where do we come to get it?” O Lord, may we love the truth. May we follow the truth. May we hear the voice of truth. May we listen for all we are worth. May our ears be open to the truth. May we follow, as true and committed disciples, the One who is truth. May our lives be marked by truth. May we not just simply claim to be people who have done a Gospel experience at one point, but may our lives be so impregnated with truth and immersed in truth and overarched by truth that we simply live to express in our lives the One who has transformed us and birthed us into His family. Lord, I pray that there would be no Pilates in this room this morning. And if there are some who are here today who have never responded to the voice of truth, that today, they would come, they would seek us out, they would ask the question, “So what is truth? I’m here. I want to know Him.” Bless us, Lord, as we continue to bow our knees in worship and adoration before the One who is truth. Hear our praise, we ask and save our souls for the sake of Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen. [end of track 8, 2:40]