Palm Sunday: Who’s Your King?

Speaker 1 00:00:04 Well my name is Dean Anon and I'm the discipleship pastor here at Village Church of Bartlett. So I'll be down front afterwards. I'd love to get to meet you if we haven't met yet. Today's Palm Sunday, so happy Palm Sunday everybody. Uh, we're gonna be looking briefly back at John chapter 12 at the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. But then we're gonna come back to John chapter 18 where we were and pick up and you'll see the tie there shortly. But what we're gonna see in our John 18 today is this irony, hypocrisy, fear, all of these things. But, but only Jesus can bring light and only Jesus is the hero in this story. And only Jesus is innocent. Passion week sometimes that's what this week is called. Passion week. Maybe holy week you've heard that too. But passion week because of the passion Jesus has as he move moves towards the cross. Speaker 1 00:00:55 And so for pretty much all of this year, we've been in those chapters in John during these seven days from Palm Sunday on up through Good Friday, seeing the intense teaching of Jesus. So going back in time just a little bit to Jerusalem that day, that pa, that palm Sunday, when Jesus comes in the crowd is ecstatic. They've seen many of them this miracle work and what he's done. And he's raised his friend Lazarus from the dead who is dead in the tomb for four days and maybe they want to see more from Jesus but they're hailing him as they're king. They're welcoming him, waving palm branches, which is a sign of victory. Speaker 1 00:01:42 And they're shouting, Hosanna, which means save or save us. John chapter 12, verse 12 through 13. I'll read it on the screen also. It says the next day that Sunday the large crowd had come to the feast, they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him crying. Hosanna blessed as he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the king of Israel. Yes, they're claiming that he is their king. What they were doing is they were singing, they were quoting Psalm one 18 and Psalm one 18 is the most cited Psalm in the New Testament. What that Psalm is about and what they're proclaiming is that this is this, Jesus is the promised seed of the House of David, the Messiah, their deliver. That's what Psalm one eighteen's about. And he will save them. Speaker 1 00:02:34 And they're right. It says this, Psalm 1 18 25 says, save us, we pray. Oh Lord, oh Lord we pray, give us success. Here's those words again. Blessed it is he who comes in the name of the Lord. That's what they were saying on Palm Sunday. We bless you from the house of the Lord, but they were missing something. They didn't quite see what was happening here in context when they're saying this, what was happening in Psalm one 18 about their deliverer who was to come in the future, who's now actually a Palm Sunday coming? Here's what it says in verse 22 says, the stone that refers to Jesus, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the Lord's doing. It is marvelous in her eyes. This is just before the blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. This is where the record gets scratched. Speaker 1 00:03:22 This is that awful. Anybody know what a record player is? Come on, come few are old enough. <laugh>, you know what a record player is, right? And and if you've ever played a record, you know it has an arm, there's the grooves on the disc, but there's an arm and has a needle on the end. And and with that it can make the sound of course. But if someone were to bump that arm or bump the table with a record player on it or stereo, whatever, that thing would just go right across the grooves and make this awful gut-wrenching sound of a scratch. And you hated that to be your record cuz it just could be ruined. Verse 22 is this scratching moment cuz Jesus, even in the book of Matthew, it's recorded that this Psalm one 18 is applying to Jesus. Jesus said this about himself, he said He is the stone, he is what the builders are rejecting. Speaker 1 00:04:11 And much later in Peter's ministry in the book of it's recorded with the Apostle John and they're talking before the Jewish leaders and Peter says this, Jesus is the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone. Peter is saying here, Jesus is God's choice. He is the cornerstone that is going to be rejected, our salvation, our truth, our hope. That's Jesus, this cornerstone. So I'll come back to Palm Sunday at the end of the message, this joyous celebration. But from there we're gonna move through this passion week all the way to where this prophecy is being fulfilled. This scratchy record in John 18, that's where we're gonna pick up and we'll come back to Palm Sunday at the end. This cornerstone is being rejected by the religious leaders and we're gonna see the difference that one week will make from Palm Sunday moving to Good Friday from Sunday celebration to the rejection of the king. Speaker 1 00:05:11 So the question I have is, who is your king? And who is the king or who is the king? Who is your king? Honestly, sometimes those questions have different answers, but the theme we're gonna see over and over again is king or kingdom. And actually in our passage today up in John 18, the bit of 19, it comes up 11 times this idea of king and who is a king. Let me start first talking about the trials. Now the book of John only has a few of these trials recorded of Jesus. There's six of 'em all together. If you take the other gospels together and John, you add 'em all up, you look at 'em, it's six of 'em. So I hope that's not confusing to people. Wanna put this slide up here just to take a quick look. So there's three religious trials or trials before the Jewish leaders. Speaker 1 00:05:57 Anis we talked about last week. Caiaphas is the second one, but Caiaphas was also at the Sanhedrin one also. But just in those religious trials on the front end of all this, I talked last week a little bit about the illegal <laugh>. I can't say the word illegalities. <laugh> of these trials. They weren't legal. So many things, and I don't expect you to get all these down, but just to hear what's happening here. This hatred and the hypocrisy from the leaders of Israel towards Jesus. First, what was wrong? This was being held these trials during feast time. That's wrong during Passover. You don't have trials during that. Second, no individual votes were taken by the Sanhedrin. They just collectively said he's guilty. That's against their law. And actually a night must pass before execution. If you know about Good Friday, you know about Easter, you know that that's not what they did. Speaker 1 00:06:46 They did not wait like they should have. Only Rome had the authority and we'll see that they eventually get there to authorize executions, but they were moving to take power themselves. Initially. The trial was held at night. That's another thing that's against their laws. No counsel or representation, just like we would expect they had the same law. You're supposed to have representation. Jesus didn't. And they asked himself incriminating evidence or uh, questions just like what we would think. Those were their laws too. This kind of hatred and hypocrisy was not just of them. This hatred was of the demonic realm. You see, working together with the Romans and with the chief priests and all those, you see Satan, how much he wants to crush this blessed one, the Messiah, the King of Israel, to extinguish the light of the world. Now there's three other trials that happen. We'll put the slide back up there again at the end. And these are the trials before P Pilot. And then Herd will mention that too. John gives a lot of details and that's where we are. So John gives a lot of details of the trial before pilot and that's where we left off last week. So that's where we'll go next. So John chapter 18, verse 28 through 32. I'll read that. It says this, verse 28. Speaker 1 00:08:11 Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor's headquarters. It was early morning. They themselves, they not enter the governor's headquarters. They're talking about the religious leaders so that they would not be defiled, but could he Passover. So Pilate went outside to them and said, what accusations do you bring against this man? Verse 30, they answered him, if this man were not doing evil, we would not have delivered him over to you. Pilate said to them, take him yourselves and judge him by your own law. The Jews said to him, it's not lawful for us to put anyone to death. Verse 32, this was fulfill fulfilled the word that Jesus had spoken to show by what kind of death he was going to die. Verse 28, to start the Jewish leaders here. They took Jesus to the Pretor. That's uh, pilot's palace. Speaker 1 00:09:03 And they stayed out in the courtyard and they wouldn't go in. Why? Why wouldn't they go in? Because they were gentiles. They were non-Jews, as the verse says. They didn't want to be defiled. They didn't wanna be ritually, unclean cause they didn't want to be missing the Passover. But there's a big problem here. And the big problem here is that God's word doesn't say they couldn't enter into a Gentiles palace or house. That wasn't what God's word said in the Mosaic law in numbers 19. Now what they, what they couldn't do was to touch a human corpse and still be clean, to perform their rituals, what they had to do. But, but for some reasons that I won't go into the details now, they didn't want to go into the Gentiles house because they believed they would then be unclean having touched a deadly corpse or a dead corpse. Speaker 1 00:09:53 But there's irony here. There's such irony. They're more concerned about being ritually unclean or being defiled than they are. The fact that they're about to kill an innocent man. Does that sound ironic to anybody at all? <laugh>, this is absolutely ridiculous. By hypocritical I mean that their, their behavior here is contradicting what they say they believe. God calls the Israel's religious leaders to be. This is in the book of Isaiah, a light to the Gentiles. So why? So that my salvation, the Lord says, may reach to the ends of the earth through whom? Through Israel, through the religious leaders. And eventually of course through their Messiah, our Messiah. Jesus is for everybody, of every tribe in every nation. So there's a few things we'll put on the screen. This first trial, hypocrites versus the hero. Jesus irony. Yeah, we talked about that. They're not that concerned about killing an innocent man, but they are about keeping themselves what they would consider. Speaker 1 00:10:54 Not defiled, but also they look down on the non-Jews and the New Testament. There was a man named Simeon, the book of Luke records this, and you might be familiar with this. He's an old man, he's about to die and he, he wants to see the Messiah, the deliver the Christ child before he dies. And finally he does. And he has him and he's praying. And here's what he says. Simeon says this Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace. He's about to die according to your word, for my eyes. Have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel. That's in Luke chapter two. So these Jewish leaders who claimed to stand for God, who claimed to stand for the scriptures, who claimed to be the purveyor of mercy and grace, who claimed to be the shepherds, not of just Israel, but the one who would bring God's message to all people for salvation. Speaker 1 00:11:51 Frankly they're more concerned about their own ethnic superiority or whatever it is, than helping people reach a relationship with the one true God verses 29 through 32. I already read that, but let me just run a summary through what's kind of happening in this interchange, this dialogue between the two verse 29. Pilate says this, um, that he really wants to know the charges against Jesus. The religious leaders reply, oh, he's just evil by the way, that's not really an answer. <laugh>, okay, he's just evil. That's not a charge. Verse 31, Pilate says, take him yourselves and judge 'em by your own law. And the religious leaders, remember what they replied, they said, it's not lawful for us to put anyone to death. Verse 32 can seem con a little bit confusing. John is writing here. He's telling us that now in verse 32. And we're gonna have to pick that apart a little bit. Speaker 1 00:12:48 We now know that the death of Jesus, the type of death, the kind of death is Jesus is being clarified. All right, just to back up a little bit then we know we have clarity on this, that the death sentence is being sought, right? We saw that they want him dead. The leaders, again, these religious leaders are hypocrites in more than a few ways. What they're trying to do is get the Romans to execute Jesus. They're more interested in him. Um, the Romans doing it than themselves. Uh, you'll see more. They really can't anyways, but they wanna put the blame really on them. But whose idea is it to execute 'em? Is it pilots? No, it's the religious leaders. But they want Rome to take responsibility. Something else is happening here in history. And this is pretty important to know at this time, this time in history, Rome passed the law. Speaker 1 00:13:36 And what they said was that capital punishment in their ruling regions could only be carried out or I should say could only be approved by Rome. You couldn't just execute somebody even under the Jewish law. They were no longer allowed to just stone people. Because normally according to Leviticus 24, if someone was a blasphemer, they could stone someone. But now this law has just been passed. Isn't it interesting how God works in history? <laugh> has just passed. So they couldn't go forward with stoning Jesus. If they did, it would be considered mob. Ab action would be illegal before Roman law. So they plotted their evil plot to kill Jesus a different way. The hypocrisy is this, the hypo hypoxy. What's hypo hypocrisy about this? The hypocrisy is this. Uh, they still would kill people and stolen people at times regardless. They just wanted to use the Romans in this case. Speaker 1 00:14:31 Think of acts where Stephen, the martyr was stoned. There's other times to when they stone people to death. So again, they're just going to Rome when they need to to their advantage. But verse two or verse 32, it said that, uh, pilot here, I said pilot here was being, um, used to fulfill prophecy. There's a type of death that's being alluded to by the way it's talked about in John chapter three. John chapter eight in John chapter 12. And so three things are happening. This pilot trial, hypocrites versus the hero talked about the death sentence. Talk about them wanting to offload execution, blame to the Romans and follow the Roman laws with convenience, but also prophecy is being fulfilled in these few verses. Speaker 1 00:15:20 Jesus wasn't gonna be stoned. That might sound obvious to us, right? But, but realize in that day that's what they would've expected. Jesus would accept this Roman law was passed. Verse 32 said this, I'll just read it. This was to fill the word that Jesus had spoken to show what kind of death he was going to die. John is telling us here in the early church, understood it right then and there when they read this that John is telling us, oh, he's gonna be crucified. Do you remember the conversation back in John chapter three with Jesus and the Pharisees? Nicodemus, here's what Jesus said of himself. And as Moses lifted up the serpent, we'll have to talk about that. Moses lifted up the serpent and the wilderness. So must the son of man talking about himself be lifted up that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. Speaker 1 00:16:13 Now if you're not that familiar with the Old Testament, what was happening is Moses and the Israelites were out in the desert. This is ancient Israel and they were disobeying God dramatically. And so God sent serpents and these serpents were to discipline, were to punish the people. And some of them were bitten by serpents and some of them actually died. So God in his mercy had Moses put on a pole up high, an image of a serpent. And so that if anyone who is bitten by a serpent could look in faith or bitten by a serpent, could look in faith up on the top of the pole and not die and be saved by looking up in faith, Jesus is pointing to the fact that he will be lifted up, he will be lifted up and that all can look to him to be saved. Speaker 1 00:16:59 I wanna mention Galatians three 13. I'll have it on the screen. Apostle Paul writes this Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written curse is everyone who is hanged on a tree. Wait, I thought I was just talking about lifting up. Yeah, hanged on a tree. But how was he hanged? On a tree by the nails. By the nails on the cross. He's being hanged on the wood. A tree. It says Taking ARS sins upon himself permanently. His punishment he took, our punishment he took for us. So as I move forward though, again, we're just kind of going through the story today, John chapter 18, verse 33. Moving forward, what's happening here? I think we want to get into the mind of pilot a little bit. And we have a little bit from history that's not necessarily in the scripture and some in scripture that we know of where Pilate's mind was at. Speaker 1 00:17:53 He was a man right now at this time of fear and a man of insecurity, two things are working. Some of what we know from scripture, some of what we know from history, couple of things. First, we do know from scripture that he received a message from his wife and the message he got from his wife was about a dream she had. And so if you get a message man from your wife <laugh>, you read it right? He reads it and it says this Don't have anything to do with that innocent man. His wife's talking about Jesus. For I have suffered great a great deal today in a dream because of him. That's in Matthew 27. So there's already some fear, some doubts, some insecurity. But second, there's things in his past that he's done to the religious leaders that they just hate him for. Speaker 1 00:18:41 So their relationship is already horrible. What has he done? Well, a few times he's already set up images of Caesar and the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. The JU Jewish leaders hated that because that was idolatry in their eyes. So he is not on good terms with religious leaders at all. Second is he had offended the Jews, not only in that way, but he robbed the Jewish temple. See, pilot had a pet project and it was to build an aqueduct and he wanted to build that, but he didn't have the fun. So he robbed the Jewish temple. I don't think they liked that either. Very much <laugh>. So he was on uh, eggshells with them. Now remember when this is happening. We're in John 18, this is Friday. This is Friday morning. But if we go back to Palm Sunday, of course Sunday we heard these words just a moment ago. Speaker 1 00:19:31 I read these Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. This is the crowd saying this, the king of Israel, they're calling Jesus their king. And so during this first interrogation, we wanna remember that because during this first interrogation of P with Jesus, he asks Jesus, he says, cuz maybe pilot heard this, heard the crowd. Are you the king of the Jews? He says in verse 33, he asks them that question. Pil would rather honestly that this whole mess would go away. He really doesn't like this idea of the, this rabbi miracle worker and the Jewish authorities. He doesn't really want to be in the middle of this, but he has a responsibility. He has to understand Jesus. Are you trying to overthrow something here? Are you a political problem for Caesar or not? And Jesus answers, we have it on the screen. Speaker 1 00:20:14 John 1836. Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would've been fighting that I might be delivered over to the Jews, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But Jesus continues. My kingdom is not of this world. Then Pilate said to him, oh, so you're a king. Jesus answered. You say that I am a king for this purpose. I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who's of the truth listens to my voice. And Pilate said to him, what is truth? Speaker 1 00:20:49 So just to be clear here, Jesus did earlier say that his kingdom will be here on earth. He did say that, but it's not that time yet. That's the difference. Not yet. His kingdom will come down from heaven to earth rather than originating from earth. And that's at a second coming, that's at a second advent. So there's four things that this verse is saying for us and to us at least four I can find here quickly. His earthly reign is not. Now he's saying that his kingdom source is heavenly and not earthly. He's saying he is a king. That's clear. And my purpose is the witness is the truth. When pil hears all that, he's thinking, okay, he's not a threat to Caesar. He's pretty much settled on that. But when c, when uh, Pilate says What is truth? He's not saying what is truth? Speaker 1 00:21:43 No, he's saying what is truth? He's in this context. You can see he's more cynical than that. He's more cynical. He's more flippant or scornful. He's more post-modern. He doesn't really think there is a truth or a way to know truth. And yet the way the truth and the life is standing right in front of him and his name is Jesus. And it's interesting how this human judge is judging the very righteous judge of the world. That's irony. I remember I said before, we're gonna see some irony. That's irony. And so in the last part of verse 38, Pilate does this. PIL finds him not guilty. Of course he's not guilty because he's not guilty six times. If you look at the gospels, you'll see six times Pilate has declared Jesus is not guilty during these two trials before him. Uh, that means he's not guilty. I dunno if I said that enough. So any judge who finds a defendant not guilty should release the prisoner, right? Isn't that kind of what you, but not, not this pretender. Pilot's a pretender. He looks at political angles to play all of them, to protect his power. That's who Pilate is. He's protecting himself. Speaker 1 00:23:02 The second trial we move into the second trial now is hypocrites versus the hero. Jesus. Now, and the front end of this beginning, the second trial, there's a couple things happening. Remember this word scheming that really describes Pilate very well. He is scheming. He's playing the fence. He's far from uh, a real just judge here. Remember that Jesus has been found innocent, but what he's trying to do is find ways to get the responsibility. Pilot is off of himself for letting Jesus go onto somebody else. So in the book of John, we don't see what happens right here, but he actually sends them off to Herod. Why does he send them to Herod? He sends them to Herod because Herod was the ruler. Herod Anus was a ruler of Galilee who happens to be in Jerusalem at the time of the Passover. He sends him over to Herod thinking maybe Herod will deal with it. Speaker 1 00:23:51 But Herod just mocks him. He's actually looking for Jesus to perform miracles, but he just mocks 'em and he sends 'em back to pilot. So now we're back to pilot verse 39 and verse 40. That's where we're at for the second trial before pilot again. He's scheming, what do I mean by scheming? He's going to try to use the crowd to his favor, his advantage, what he wants to do is there's Barabbas who's a convicted murderer. Um, actually we know from the other gospels that Barabbas was convicted of murder and Jesus. And it seems he wants to pit them against each other and try to, well, it would be obvious, right? If your pilot, if you just go to the general crowds and say, who would you rather have released that was their custom to have one prisoner released to pass over Barabbas or Jesus? Speaker 1 00:24:36 Well of course they're gonna say, Jesus, that's what he thinks. And then great pilot responsibility for letting Jesus go won't offend the religious leaders. May be as much gain popularity with the crowds. He tries that. But it all backfires. John chapter 1839 B says this, so do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews? He's thinking, of course they're gonna say yes. Obviously he's innocent. And if you know the story, they cried out again, not this man but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber. And as we know he was a convicted murderer too. They chose to set a convicted murderer free over Jesus. That's shocking. But this scheming man isn't done yet. Pilot. He's still trying to find other ways to get other ways around it, to not make the Jewish leaders more mad at him. He's trying to manipulate people, the crowd again. Speaker 1 00:25:28 And here's what he does. Now, what he's doing is he's trying to humiliate. If he just humiliates and hurts, hurts is a better word. If he just hurts Jesus enough, then they'll let pity on him and then they'll let him go. Right? So he hasn't whipped, he hasn't beat and he hasn't humiliated the beginning of verse uh, chapter 19, excuse me. Chapter 19, one through three says this. Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him and the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and itrate him in a purple robe. They came up to him saying, hail king of the Jews and struck him with their hands. And this flogging in verse one, you might be familiar with that. That's the Roman scourge. What that is is it's a, it's a whip, has a metal sharp metal on the end of three leather strands. Speaker 1 00:26:17 And it had one design really it was designed for one thing, that is to whip the back of the prisoner to rip the flesh off of the back. That's the point. So that's what they did. So with that and with the crown of thorns and with the beating you had, he was bloody, he was disfigured and pilot. In doing this unknowingly was fulfilling multiple messianic prophecies. One is, I'll have it on there on the screen. Isaiah 56 says this, I gave, this is a messianic. This is about Jesus prophecy. Hundreds of years before Jesus was born, I gave my back to those who strike and my cheeks to those who pull my out. The beard I hid, not my face from disgrace and spitting all of this, all of this happened, but none of this changed. The crowd's minds not at all. Pil brings out in verse five, he brings out Jesus to the crowds, mocked him. And he said, behold the man, remember he's disfigured, he's bloody, he's ripped apart, beat up, could probably not even recognize his face. Crown of thorns bleeding down. And the crowds say, crucify him. Verse six, crucify him. And just to keep adding to this hypocrisy of pilot than a third item is that he whipped, he beat and humiliated an innocent man under Roman law. His job was to release a prisoner. The Romans actually cared about justice, usually <laugh>. That was something they were known for, but not here. He was too worried about his power. Toured about self-preservation to worried about his position. All of that. Speaker 1 00:28:10 Finally, pressure begins to get too much as if this wasn't enough pressure for one man already. But the pressures building and building and building pilots fear escalates. We see in verse seven, PIL keeps insisting. Remember I said six times, he said he's not guilty, not guilty, not guilty. He keeps insisting he's not guilty. But when the chief priest and officers said Jesus made himself the son of God, I'll have that up on the screen in a moment. John is telling us finally what the actual charge was of the religious leaders against Jesus. And that's blasphemy. That's insulting to God to say that he's God. That's the charge they're gonna lay on him. Look how he becomes even more afraid in light of this, John 9 7 19, 7 through eight says this, the Jews answered him, we have a law. And according to that law, he ought to die because he has made himself the son of God. Speaker 1 00:29:06 Verse eight, when Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid. Why? Why would he be more afraid? What in there? Well, because he was a Roman and Romans were superstitious and they had multiple pagan gods and they believed at times that the gods would come down. And when they came down it was never good because they were fickle and they were mean. And it was never good to be around them. Sometimes it was even deadly they thought. And so he wanted to clarify, okay Jesus, are you a God of some sort or a son of God? Of some, some sort. And Jesus didn't answer. Why? Because there are times when Jesus doesn't answer and there are times when he does answer, he doesn't answer when people don't want to know when their heart isn't right, when they're not humble. But it irritated Pilate that he wouldn't answer. So here's what he said. Pilate said this to Jesus in verse 10, pilot said, I have authority to release you Jesus. And he said, I have authority to crucify you Jesus. That's absolutely as we know, ridiculous. John chapter 19, verse 11. There are some things Jesus wants to clarify. Speaker 1 00:30:21 He's in control. Speaker 1 00:30:23 He says, Jesus answered him meaning pilot, you would've no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Pilate is not in control. Jesus is, I made that point last week. I wanna make it again this week. Jesus is a control of all of these events. But now the final blow comes. And you know, pilot has a lot of fear. I already mentioned that he had this um, idea that Jesus might be a a son of a God and he's afraid of him to a degree. And of course his wife's warning in that dream. That's a big one. So just one more thing at this point, one more thing might just tip his verdict from innocent to guilty. All he really needs is maybe just one more thing. Look at John 1912. We'll have it on the screen. It says this, from then on, PIL sought to release him. Okay? So he still wants to release him. That's great. But the Jews, meaning the religious leaders of the day said this two pilot, if you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposed a Caesar. Remember earlier Speaker 1 00:31:31 Jesus had said he was a king. Yet we know he's not a threat to Caesar's power on the throne at this time. But regardless of any of that, if the Jews were to tell Caesar Pilate knows this, if the Jews were to go tell Caesar that Pilate didn't take action and crucify someone who claimed to be king again, he might lose his power, his position. This was pilot's melting point. So pilot this judge and I say that with great difficulty. This hypocrite of a judge motivated by fear and self-preservation changed his verdict from innocent to guilty. Speaker 1 00:32:18 There's more in the text you can read about what happens there. But he's passing judgment on the son of God to be crucified in doing so. Though he wants to antagonize the Jewish leaders a few more times cuz he can't stand them. Frankly none. They can't stand each other. So what does he do in John 1914? It says, this pilot says this to the, to the Jews. Remember what Jesus looks like? Bloody disfigured, probably gross crown of thorns back ripped open, very bloody, probably dripping down. He says this to the Jews, behold your king. And then he says, uh, first they say away with him, away with him. Crucify him again. They say to crucify him. But Pilate had to say one last thing, just jab them one more time. And he says, shall I crucify your king? Is it an interesting how God uses people like Caiaphas last week and pilot this week? Pilot is being used by God for an unconscious truth claim. Jesus really is the king. They should behold the king, the one king of the universe, the master of the universe. Who is this king? It is their king. That is a truth claim. Actually. You know, hatred, hypocrisy and fear are contagious and can lead to people doing shocking things. We see that right now, right? We saw that in Germany, the Nazi ideology, hatred, hypocrisy, fear, all of that leads people to do crazy and believe crazy things. Speaker 1 00:33:53 But verses 15 through 16, it gets to some degree even worse, the chief pres priest answered and they say this when, when Pilate says, shall I crucify your king? What do the chief priests say? They say this, we have no king but Caesar in verse 16, they delivered him over Jesus to be crucified. That's coming good Friday. But right now, just before we get to that, let's focus on, we have no king but Caesar. What they're doing in this moment, what the religious leaders are doing, who are to represent Yahweh, God, our God, their God to the people, is to say we're done with our God as king. We're supplanting him with Caesar. This is the greatest hypocrisy you could think of here and the ultimate blasphemy that's insulting to God. They're saying we're removing God from his kingship. It's amazing what fear will do today. Speaker 1 00:35:01 We've been through this, uh, spiritual darkness, hypocrisy, fear, all of that. But only Jesus is the hero. And only Jesus brings light. And only Jesus is innocent. And only Jesus is the king as he moves willingly to the cross. And so on our calendars, we all know that we're getting to good Friday, right? That's coming. But right now, today it's Palm Sunday. So we ask ourselves, will we accept this king and agree with this king, the one who is the king, the one that the crowds are saying, Hosanna, save us. Are we worshiping that king today? Speaker 1 00:35:39 Or are there other voices of physician power, self-preservation, whatever it is that's our king. I have three. So whats first of all, just very practically, what runs your life? That's an interesting word. I didn't find that in the theological book anywhere. But what runs your life? I mean, practically, think of it that way just for a moment before we move forward. What runs your life? What, what? What's in charge practically like to follow Jesus. We need to identify what runs our life. Is there compromise or are we compromising our values? Any of that? Are we seeking something else besides Jesus? Power, position, whatever it is, self-preservation over Jesus because that is our king. And frankly that's our king. So the question remains from the beginning is who is your king? So what runs your life? Second is this, and I mentioned this one last week a lot. Who do you fear? Fear. Speaker 1 00:36:41 Do you fear God? Now in scripture, and when I say that right now, do you fear God? Of course. What I mean is, are you motivated by his awesomeness, his sheer awesomeness and sovereignty and power and love to worship him? Do you fear God who is holy? Or are you more afraid of man, it's really it's one or the others, you know, pilot. That's pretty much what kept him from doing what is right and seeing the truth right in front of him was his choice here on to move into, lean into and let the fear take root in his life. So naming our fear friends, that's the first step towards health and moving out of fear towards God. We need to name it. What runs our life? What do we fear? Name it, bring it to God. That's our first step. Third. So what? Well, today's Palm Sunday, right? Speaker 1 00:37:35 That's where we started back at Palm Sunday. So bow two and rejoice in this humble king Zechariah nine, nine. That's the prophet Zechariah way back in the Hebrew scriptures. The Old Testament is talking about this day, Jesus coming into Jerusalem and the prophet says, rejoice under the inspiration of God. He says, behold, your king is coming to you righteous and having salvation. Is he humble and mounted on a donkey. Donkey, the sign of of peace church, behold your king church, behold your humble king because only a humble heart can receive the humble king. And only he is the one who brings salvation. So come to him today, this palm Sunday. Now I'm gonna pray for us here in a moment, but I'd like to also invite the village kids in and to come up because in a moment, this is amazing. They're gonna be leading us in our last song today. And I'm really excited about that. And I see some of you going, oh yeah, me too. <laugh>. Our last song today is they come in, uh, with their palm branches. Come on in. I'm going to be closing us in prayer as we get to see them coming in. So come on in. Kids just come right on in here and I'm going to pray for us. Speaker 1 00:38:54 Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for today. We thank you for your love. We thank you for worshiping here this morning. We pray, God, that you would be glorified. We pray God that you'd receive this offering of worship, time and music, um, as an offering of our heart, as we turn to you and we bow to you our humble king who is majestic. We thank you and pray in Jesus' name. Amen.