Testify to the Truth

Intro

When Charlotte was little, she had a bit of a bad habit. I’ve shared a couple of these stories before, like her adventure pouring hair spray into a fish tank and sending all of her fish to an early grave all at once. Outside of that, there were some other instances, though not as serious, where she didn’t take responsibility for her actions with some ridiculous excuse like her fish having tangled hair, but instead she would try to misdirect or shift the blame somewhere else.

There was a time where she wrote her name on the wall. Courtney asked her who did it, and she responded first that her fish did it, then she responded that Itty Bitty, our cat, did it. We knew what was true, but Charlotte wasn’t interested in telling us that.

There was another time where she came out of her room asking for a bandaid. Charlotte had a bit of an addiction to bandaids growing up. The smallest injury would require one, and it wasn’t so much because she was being dramatic as it was she just seemed to enjoy decorating herself. She shows me her poor injured finger, and theres just this pink line that goes across it by her nail. I told her it wasn’t a real cut, so she wasn’t getting a bandaid. She insisted she needed one, but my fortitude is greater than hers, so she gave up. A couple hours later, I went into her room and found a pink marker tucked next to her mattress. I brought it out, colored on my own finger, and we compared marks, only to find that the color was identical. Another case where we already knew what was true, but Charlotte wasn’t interested in volunteering that information.

In all of those things, there are true things happening, but that doesn’t mean we’ve uncovered the truth by looking at those things that are true, or simply put those things that are facts. But facts can be true without being truth.

Pastor Matt Chandler writes that there is a difference between facts and truth. He writes, “Facts and truth aren’t the same. Facts are things we can see, touch, taste, smell, and hear. Truth is what sits beneath those things and orients us to reality. So facts may point to a specific time, place, or action, but truth is being all those facts saying, ‘This is what the universe is all about.”

Fact, someone drew on Charlotte’s wall. Truth, Charlotte drew on Charlotte’s wall. Fact, Charlotte wanted a bandaid. Truth, Charlotte didn’t need a bandaid.

We need to be cautious. A lot of things can be factual without being truthful, and the only way we will be able to tell the difference is if we seek what is true for our own understanding, we know what is true, and we proclaim what is true. Now, let’s set the scene for where our text leads us this morning.

Set the scene…

Taking place here in the rest of chapter 18 is the story we might hear every year during the Easter season. Two weeks ago we looked at Judas’ betrayal of Jesus and last week we saw Jesus before the high priest. This week, Jesus is here standing before Pilate. Pilate asked the chief priests what their accusation was, and they answered, “If this Man were not an evildoer, we would not have delivered Him to you.” Interesting how they really aren’t making an accusation here, but instead are saying something along the lines of, “trust us bro, he’s a bad dude.” So Pilate tells them to deal with it themselves, but they respond saying that their law did not permit them to put Jesus to death. Of course, if their claims of blasphemy were true, their laws did in fact permit them to do so. Perhaps even they knew that what they were claiming wasn’t true. They quite possibly said such a thing just to relay the seriousness of the issue, or at least make Pilate think it was serious. But as verse 32 says, all of this happened so that the prophecy of how Jesus might die would be fulfilled. And that lands us here in our text. We’re gonna take it two verses at a time, so let’s start with 33 and then we will move into verse 34.

Do you know Jesus, or did you just hear about Him from others? (33-34)

John 18:33 Therefore Pilate entered again into the Praetorium, and summoned Jesus and said to Him, “Are You the King of the Jews?”

Pilate opens this interview with a simple question - “are you the King of the Jews?” And it’s an interesting question. Only in the gospel according to Luke is it recorded that the Jews told Pilate that Jesus was calling Himself a king, but the context was in making Himself king above Caesar. They didn’t say that He was claiming to be their king, but claiming to be THE king. So where did this question come from? Actually, this seems to have been the question about Jesus for some time and is ultimately the bookend question of His entire life.

After Jesus was born, some wise men, a number of which we don’t actually know, came looking for Him. They arrived at the palace of King Herod. They asked Herod simply, “where is the king of the Jews?” Jesus of course would not have been calling Himself King at this point, so where did the wise men get such a question? They got it from the prophets and they connected the new star in the sky to such prophecy. They didn’t ask if He was King like Pilate is doing, but they already knew the answer to the question. So at the beginning of Jesus’ life it is assumed that He is King of the Jews, and now right towards the end it is asked if He is King of the Jews. After Pilate’s question, we get Jesus’ response in verse 34.

John 18:34 Jesus answered, “Are you saying this on your own initiative, or did others tell you about Me?”

If we look at the question of the wise men and then we look at the question of Pilate, we might notice a bit of a difference. The wise men’s question had nothing to do with the lordship of Christ, they were simply looking for a location. They knew that the King had arrived, they just needed a little more help of where He was at. Pilate was pretty clueless as to what was going on. If you’ve been in Bible study, you’ve heard me say a few times, Rome was never bothered by Jewish issues. The only reason Rome would ever be bothered would be if the issues happening amongst the Jews started to impact them. Jesus was pretty much a random nobody to Rome, so Pilate wouldn’t have spent much time learning about Him. So he opens with the question, “are you King of the Jews?” because he simply doesn’t know the answer. And Jesus responds asking if he had come to that conclusion on his own, or if he had only heard it from others. The wise men followed after the star and through their own learning came to the conclusion that the King of the Jews had been born. Pilate heard from the Jewish leaders the claims that Jesus was making and came up with his question based on only the word of others.

This same scenario commonly plays out in our own day and age. Both inside and outside the church, there are people that have come to their own understanding of Jesus, and others who only know about Him through what other people have said, good or bad. So the question arises for us to consider today: do we know OUR faith, or do we know someone else’s?

For those of us who grew up in the church, you know you didn’t end up at the church learning about Scripture because you wandered in. Based on someone else’s faith, you came. But somewhere down the road, your faith had to become your own, right? Eventually, everything that your parents and other believers in your life taught you had to become things you believed with your own understanding. For some, that faith never became their own and they wandered away from the faith, many now even holding opposing views.

And then you take the people outside of the church, people who have placed their eyes on Scripture for themselves, and what do they think and say? They’re completely clueless. They may have heard some verses here and there, and maybe they’ve heard someone talk about the Bible, but they don’t know for themselves and ultimately they just plain don’t know. They go by what they’ve heard, and like Pilate here, sometimes they’re hearing from the wrong people.

For us, we need to remember the instruction that Peter gives us. We need to know OUR faith. Because when there comes a day where we face a moment to answer the question of who Jesus is, the answer that we know will mean more than the answer we heard from someone else. Peter writes this:

1 Peter 3:15 but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence;

When you speak of your faith and what is true, are you speaking on your own initiative, or did others tell you about Him?

Let’s hop into our next two verses.

A Kingdom not of this world (35-36)

John 18:35–36 Pilate answered, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests delivered You to me; what have You done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.”

Pilate answered as may be expected. He’s not a Jew, so he wouldn’t have any understanding or care about Jewish issues. It’s not Pilate making the accusations against Jesus, but the Jews. Pilate’s job is to figure out if there is anything to what the Jews are saying. His opening question of Jesus’ kingship gets the ball rolling. Jesus didn’t give him a clear answer right away, so Pilate continues, “what have You done?”

And again, Jesus doesn’t really answer the question at hand, but changes the direction of the conversation. If Jesus was a king, what kind of followers would He have if they just let Him get handed over to His enemy? Wouldn’t they be fighting for His freedom? Wouldn’t they be revolting against His captors? And why would His own nation have handed Him over, as if He was a king that betrayed His people?

The answer is not at any point that Jesus is not the King. The answer is that the kingdom that Jesus has established is not of this world, but of a greater world, a new world. The throne He sits on is not in Jerusalem, but is over the whole of the earth and the universe. His followers don’t fight against the worldly troubles because the fight isn’t physical, but spiritual. Scripture tells us that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and spiritual powers.

There is an important distinction that we need to remember as we consider what it looks like to proclaim truth. As we’ve already seen, we need to know truth for ourselves, but as we consider the kingdom of Christ, then we need to know what is really true. This world is not our home. This world is not the kingdom we were made for. And yet, we often act as if it is. We get riled up about things that are temporary as if they are eternal. And it’s not to say that we should not care for anything that happens while we are here, but it is to say that we should be most passionate about the kingdom of God and less passionate about the kingdom we think needs to be established.

Going back to Matt Chandler’s writing that there is a difference between facts and truth, let’s consider a couple briefly.

Fact: we are living in this world. Truth: we are made for another world. Fact: we live in a decreasingly Christ-centered world. Truth: All things are working together according to God’s plans and purposes. Fact: sometimes we won’t like something that’s happening and want to do something about it. Truth: All things that happen are in God’s control.

We could go on and on. But fact is that it would simply take up too much of our time. We need to know what is true and remember that the truth trumps the facts, and the truth is that the coming kingdom is not of this world, but will be a new world. If our understanding of the truth is shaken by the things of this world, then we will struggle to rest in the truth that the kingdom we await, the kingdom that we tell people about, is not of this world at all. So once we understand the truth for ourselves, then we also need to remember what is truth. Pilate knew the facts - Jesus was here, and Jesus was a king, but he didn’t know the truth of where Jesus came from and what His kingdom would be.

Let’s hit our last two verses.

Testify to the truth (37-38)

John 18:37–38 Therefore Pilate said to Him, “So You are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?” And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews and said to them, “I find no guilt in Him.”

So now that Pilate has gotten his information from the source, he puts everything together and comes to his own conclusion that Jesus is in fact a king. And again, it is a fact that Jesus is king. But what is the truth? If you asked Pilate, he would’ve said that Caesar is king. And in his mind, he would be the only king, and particularly the only king that matter. So the facts are this: Caesar is a king, and Jesus is a king. But the truth is this: Jesus is the One true King.

Jesus let’s Pilate know that he’s right to call Jesus a king. And the whole reason that Jesus was born, the whole reason He came to the earth was to testify the truth. Pilate asks, “what is the truth?”, which Jesus has already answered, just not to Pilate.

What is the truth? When we get through all the facts, what is the truth?

John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.

Jesus is the truth. It isn’t so much that Jesus has or brings the truth, but rather is Himself the truth. He is the revelation of all that is true, and as a result everyone that hears His voice is of the truth and knows the truth.

This is the truth to which we testify. This is the truth that we must share around us. We must proclaim that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. We must proclaim that all the facts of life must always point us to the truth that is found in Jesus. It is this truth that will transform the lives of people around us.

Jesus said to His disciples back in John chapter 8 that if you continue in His Word, then you will become His disciple, and then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. Look at the world around you. Does it look like a world that is experiencing freedom? Does it look like the people around you are filled with the truth? Are they filled with hope? Are they rejoicing in the rule and reign of the true King? The world is in bondage. Don’t we want them to know what freedom is like? Don’t we want them to know what the truth can do for them? Are we transformed enough by the truth to testify to it, or are we conformed to much to the world that we remain unbothered unless something bothers us?

Romans 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

We’ve got to remember what Jesus said. That His kingdom is not of this world, and that those who are of the truth hear His voice. His voice is clear here. And yet we may often get ourselves caught up in the things of this world and we just fold in like it’s normal. We go through the day-to-day to-do list and we just fold it with the ebbs and flows of the world we are in. Like I already said, it is a fact that we exist in this world, but it is the truth that we were made for another world.

We were made to believe in a truth that transforms. We were made for what is good and acceptable and perfect. We were made to live out that truth and we were made to proclaim that truth. And that truth is Jesus. We must be transformed, we must have our minds renewed, and we must be prepared to respond when people need to know the truth.

We live in a world full of people like Pilate, and others not so much like him. Pilate didn’t assume what the truth was, but he wanted to know. He asked Jesus “what is truth” and we know the answer. But much like the world today, Pilate may not have been all that sincere in his question. It may not have been something he was seriously looking for an answer to. Maybe he wanted to trip Jesus up. Of course at this point there are no more recorded words of Jesus in this part of the story, so we don’t know how Jesus might have responded. But how might you or I respond?

If someone asks you the question, “what is truth?”, what is your answer? Do you feel confident in your ability to answer? Does it make you nervous, even the thought of having such a conversation? I guess maybe it depends on who asks you. There are skeptics out there. There are people out to prove Christianity wrong. There are people that want to see the church burn to the ground. There are people that are genuinely curious. And all of them need to know where the truth is. So what do you do when they ask? What is truth? Like Peter instructs, are you prepared to give a reason for the hope that is in you? Are you prepared to testify to the truth that is the person of Jesus Christ? If you’re not, then I hope you’ve figured out this morning where you need to start.

You’ve gotta start in the Word. Get to know Jesus for yourself. Not just the Jesus you’ve heard of, that you come to church to listen to stories about, but the Jesus that loves you and calls you to more than what you’re doing right now. There’s 66 books right here that are written about Him and He wants you to know Him through them.

Once you know the truth for yourself, then you’ve gotta be ready to know what is true and where the truth is. Separate facts from truth and fight for what is righteous, not simply for what you want to be right. Be passionate about the kingdom to come, not the world you are in now. Although be passionate about sharing the truth with the people that are in the world that you are in now.

Once you’ve gotten those two things down, then you will become increasingly ready to proclaim the hope that is in you to a world that needs to hear it. Jesus came to testify to the truth and has called each and every disciple for all time to that task as well. Let’s point people to Jesus.