Series: John

John 18 - David Stockton

John 18. There’s a story to set up the message, that I’ve heard. It’s actually a U.S. Naval correspondent. It could be urban legend or not, I don’t know. But I’ll tell you the story because it works.

Basically, there was a ship captain of a big ship. He was headed through the night, headed through some fog. He caught on his radar that there was another ship coming toward him in the same direction. So he sends out a little correspondence and says, “Hey, this is Sgt. Whatever or Col. Whatever, in command in my ship and we noticed we’re on the same trajectory here. I encourage you to adjust your navigation 15 degrees to the south.”

The response comes back, “We are also aware that we’re headed in the same direction. We suggest you go 15 degrees to the north.”

So they go back and forth. This is military. They are all doing their job. It’s very important. The guy on the ship says, “Hey, this is the second largest ship in the Atlantic fleet of the U.S. Navy. I’ve been a Col. For this many years and we are on very important business. We don’t intend to change our direction at all. And by the way, we have three destroyers with us and we will do whatever is necessary to maintain our course and maintain the safety of our ship.”

And then the response comes back, many of you have probably heard this before, “Sir, I’m glad to know all of those things. But we’re a lighthouse. You can do what you want.”

There’s this concept of, when you’re in the fog, when you’re unsure, when no-one really knows what’s what, sometimes it’s easy for us to think that there are no absolutes. There is no truth. Post-modernism is this concept that’s eroding the reality that there isn’t any truth. Or, what they would like to say is, everyone can just kind of find their own truth, and that becomes true for you. Or, there are many, many truths. And whatever works for you could be your truth.

The challenge of that from the scripture, the challenge for that from reason is if you are to say there is no absolute truth, you’re basically trying to claim an absolute truth about that. So it doesn’t work for your own argument. But then you’re going against nature. You’re going against the word of God. You’re going against Jesus’ message. You’re going against all of that as well, who claims there is truth. There is truth.

And if you continue on your course, without adjusting to the truth, it will ruin you. Truth is very, very, very important. And it’s hard in these days to know what’s true. Maybe harder than ever with this new information age that’s got us so smart and savvy that we know the answers to everything now. Not true.

We don’t know even who’s president right now, or going to be, in some ways. We don’t know what the realities of COVID - I’ve never seen the medical profession so confused and speaking out of both sides of their mouths about something. We don’t know necessarily how to do church anymore. We’re trying to figure that out all over again. We don’t know if the Cardinals are good or not. Are they? No. Yes. No. Yes. Like, sometimes no. We don’t know if Chris Paul is going to help the Suns at all. We don’t even know if the Suns can be helped. We don’t know what’s going to happen with the stock market. We all think it’s going down, but it just keeps going up. We don’t know a lot of things. We’ve got more information at our fingertips than ever before, but it has not given us more truth. It has given us way more confusion, way more insecurity, way more isolation, way more uncertainty.

A professor at Stanford University, speaking about this information age and all the access we have to this information, says this:

“If the baseline for making a projection about the next today is the current level of benefit vs. harm of the digital life, then I’m willing to express a confident judgment that the next decade will bring a net harm to people’s well-being. The massive and undeniable benefits of digital life, access to knowledge and culture, ]which we have more than ever before] have mostly been realized. The harms have begun to come into view just over the past few years. And the trend line is moving consistently in a negative direction. I’m mainly worried about corporate and governmental power and the surveillance users, about the degraded public sphere and its new corporate owners that care not much for sustaining democratic governance. Then there are worries about artificial intelligence, and the technological displacement of labor, and finally, the addiction technologies that have captured the attention and mind space of the youngest generation. All in all, digital life is now threatening our psychological, economic and political well-being.”

And we all go, “Uh-huh. Okay. Yeah. There’s a bruise there where you’re pushing.”

We all know that. We all experience it. We’re seeing some undoing. We’re just seeing people adding more and more noise and less and less solution. And this is where we now come to the scriptures. We come to this book that has seen many, many claims at truth come and go. We’ve seen many, many different towers of Babel be built, only to bring about greater confusion.

And John is writing this book at his day and age, where in a lot of ways it makes our situation look like a cake walk. When he was dealing with Roman Empire’s truth and all the corruption there. He was dealing with the religiosity of his Jewish nation and the truth claims that they had and what that had done to him in persecution. And dealing with the populistic culture of his day, which was claiming truth because they had the most popularity.

And he’s writing this whole book of John to try and help all of us believe in Jesus, to believe that he is the way, the truth and the life; to believe that he came into the world full of grace and truth, and that, what he’s longing for is worshipers who will worship God in spirit and in truth. He’s wanting to give us a truth different than the truth the world claims to have. A truth that actually sets us free. And a truth that cannot change, and will not change. It is eternal.

And John is writing to continue to give us the truth about Jesus, so that we can put our faith and hope and trust in him. So that’s what we’ve been going through. In John 18, we pick up the latest version of what John is saying:

When he had finished praying, Jesus left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley. On the other side there was a garden, and he and his disciples went into it.
Now Judas, who betrayed him, knew the place, because Jesus had often met there with his disciples. So Judas came to the garden, guiding a detachment of soldiers and some officials from the chief priests and the Pharisees. They were carrying torches, lanterns and weapons.
Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen to him, went out and asked them, “Who is it you want?”
“Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied.
“I am he,” Jesus said. (And Judas the traitor was standing there with them.) When Jesus said, “I am he,” they drew back and fell to the ground.

Dominoes. Clanging of weapons. Torches burning people’s hair, maybe. I don’t know.

Again he asked them, “Who is it you want?”
“Jesus of Nazareth,” they said.
Jesus answered, “I told you that I am he. If you are looking for me, then let these men go.” This happened so that the words he had spoken would be fulfilled: “I have not lost one of those you gave me.”
Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant, cutting off his right ear. (The servant’s name was Malchus.)
Jesus commanded Peter, “Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?”

So we’re gong to be talking about truth. I’m going to bring up four different things that I think are important for us to remember about truth that I think John 18 is trying to help us see about truth. The first one is that truth is stronger than lies. Let me say that again. Truth is stronger than lies. Anybody happy about that? Because there are lies out there. Not one or two. There’s lots. And the lies just keep getting piled and piled upon the truth. But it doesn’t change the truth. It can never, will never change the truth. Truth is not subject to human opinion. Truth is not subject to whether we believe in it or not. Truth is and always will be marching on. Truth is stronger than lies.

Here in this story, we have the betrayer. Right? We have Judas, who we know from a few chapters earlier, the devil has entered into him. Who is the devil? The father of lies. So he’s come up with this scheme to basically trick Jesus and trick these other people into getting him some gold.

So there in that garden, Jesus, knowing the truth about what was going to happen to him, walks right into the trap that was set for him. And they say to him, these who represent lies, these who were coming to arrest the truth, to convict the truth, to do away with the truth, to deceive the truth, they look at Jesus and say, “We’re coming for you.” And he says, “Come on, then.”

And whatever happened, they’re now on the ground. And in this moment we get this little glimpse, like we get throughout the scriptures from time to time. Like when the angels burst on the scene with the shepherds. It’s like all of a sudden we get this little curtain that just opens up for a second, and reality shows up. What is real shows up. And it shows that our version of reality, what we think is real, is actually the most fake, frail thing there ever was.

And in this moment, Jesus says, “I am he.” (Yahweh is me.) And the full weight of the reality of the truth of who Jesus is comes out in a moment. And it takes all of the lies and the liars and puts them on their back. And yet, they get up and Jesus surrenders to them. And Peter pulls out the sword and goes chopping away. And Jesus is like, “Peter, you need to understand something.” Just like I want us to understand something. “Peter, the truth is stronger than the lies. You don’t need to get crazy. You don’t need to act in fear. You don’t need to pull out your sword and start chopping away. You don’t need to defend the truth or protect the truth. It’s doing just fine.”

And for us, as Christians, we need to make sure we’re not wrestling against flesh and blood. We’re not fighting in worldly ways, because we’re scared that the truth is going to be overcome. It cannot be overcome. Rest assured, Christians, everything is going to be just fine. The truth is marching on and it is stronger than lies. It doesn’t matter how many lies. Remember the filter we had? The colander? Whatever you put in, you could put a billion lies in there, but if it’s a filter that filters out all the lies, only the truth will come out. And we have that in the scriptures and we have that in the spirit.

So that’s the first thing. Truth is more powerful than lies. The second thing. Let’d keep reading:

Then the detachment of soldiers with its commander and the Jewish officials arrested Jesus. They bound him and brought him first to Annas, who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest that year. Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jewish leaders that it would be good if one man died for the people.

During this chapter we have Peter’s three denials of Christ and the rooster crowing and all that. We’re going to pick that up in John 21 as Peter is getting reinstated by Jesus. So we’re just going to focus on the trials right now. Verse 19:

Meanwhile, the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching.
“I have spoken openly to the world,” Jesus replied. “I always taught in synagogues or at the temple, where all the Jews come together. I said nothing in secret. Why question me? Ask those who heard me. Surely they know what I said.”
When Jesus said this, one of the officials nearby slapped him in the face. “Is this the way you answer the high priest?” he demanded.
“If I said something wrong,” Jesus replied, “testify as to what is wrong. But if I spoke the truth, why did you strike me?” Then Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest.

Now Jesus is at the end of his rope in a lot of ways. He’s at the end of his life. He’s already done his business with his disciples. He’s knows what’s coming to him. He knows that the hour has come. He’s dealt with the Father and got his will and submitted to the Father’s will. And he knows what’s happening. And so, as he’s in this trial, and as he has this guy who’s not the high priest but kind of acting in the office of the high priest, is questioning him, is testing him, is trying to figure out what lies he can stick to him. And Jesus basically continues to stand in the truth.

Then this official slaps him. Which, by the way, I’m glad they don’t put the name of the guy in here, because this like the worst thing to ever be known for for the rest of time, right? You were the guy that slapped Jesus. That’s bad news.

Anyway, this guy slaps him because he feels like he’s being disrespectful to the authority in the room. Like the woman at the well, “If you had any idea of who it is that’s sitting next to you right now, we would be having a very different conversation.”

Yet Jesus, even with his accusers, those who are trying to pin lies to him, he pushes them and he presses and says, “You need to decide, are you on the side of the lies or are you on the side of the truth?” He’s making an appeal to the people in that courtroom. “It’s time for you to decide.”

And the truth that we need to know about truth, the second point is: Truth is upsetting to those living in lies. And we live in a world that is full of lies. And the truth is that many of us still believe lies. And when the truth comes, the first response to truth is not like, “Oh, that’s so wonderful. I’m so glad you just pointed that out in my life. You’re just awesome.”

No. We get defensive. If you’re married, and your wife doesn’t even have to say it anymore. She just has to look at you and you know what you’re doing wrong. She just looks at you and you go, “Okay, it’s really about three or four things that she’s always catching me doing. So it’s one of those.”

And our response is not, “Oh, I’m so glad you pointed that out, you know? I’m going to make that adjustment right away.”

No. We get defensive. We go, “Oh, yeah? Well what about your lies?”

Truth is always very upsetting. And John says this in the beginning. When Jesus came full of grace and truth, he came as the light and the darkness did not receive him. And what we know about this story is we’re just about to get to a place where they didn’t like the the truth that Jesus was and represented so much that they crucified and tried to bury him forever. Truth is upsetting to those living in lies.

So if you feel yourself getting defensive, you should feel yourself right after that going, “Okay, Lord. Maybe I need to spend some time with you and see what you want to set me free from.”

And we also need to know the more that we live for the truth and stand in the truth, the more we’re going to be hated in this world that loves its lies. Jesus time and time again is teaching is teaching his disciples that. We can’t be ignorant of that. It’ll never be popular in the world to live out the truth of Jesus. And when it is, you should be very suspicious. That’s what history teaches us.

So the third thing we’ll get to in verse 28:

Then the Jewish leaders took Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor.

So he stood trial first before the Sanhedrin, the Jewish religious authority, now he’s going to the Roman political authority and he’s going to stand trial there.

By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness they did not enter the palace, because they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. So Pilate came out to them and asked, “What charges are you bringing against this man?”
“If he were not a criminal,” they replied, “we would not have handed him over to you.”
Pilate said, “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.”
“But we have no right to execute anyone,” they objected. This took place to fulfill what Jesus had said about the kind of death he was going to die.
Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”
Tell me the truth.
“Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?”
“Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it you have done?”
Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”
“You are a king, then!” said Pilate.
Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
“What is truth?” retorted Pilate.

So Jesus again is bringing this back to truth. He’s now standing trial in this governmental authority. He’s having this dialogue and Pilate is saying things and Jesus is basically bringing it right to Pilate and saying, “Pilate, this is your moment of truth. Are you saying this or are you just saying what you’ve heard? Are you ready to call me king, or are you still going to submit to the kingdom of the Romans that you’re a part of and you know is so corrupt and wrong?”

Jesus is pressing him. He’s saying, “I have come to testify to the truth about a kingdom that tis not of this world. And I am the King of that world.”

And the third point we need to know is Truth is only known by those who receive Jesus because he says, “Those who are on the side of truth believe me.”

And Pilate, who so often represents all of us, in the face of the truth claims of Jesus that are so upsetting to our convenience, and all the beautiful lies that are being told us that we can receive and feel much better about ourselves. When we’re faced with all those options, we just throw up our hands and say, “I guess there’s no way to know.”

That was Pilate’s response as he stood and sat before the Maker of his soul. The Maker of the world. The One who knows the truth better than anyone else. The One who actually has all authority. And he basically just said, “Phh. Whatever. Whatever.”

And Jesus and John both want us to understand the word truth. The word truth here is actually a really big deal in the book of John. It’s a big deal in my life too. Such a big deal I named my daughter Truth. Not in the Paul Pierce way. But I named her Alethea, which is the Greek word for truth. We named her Alethea Reese Stockton. Reese means strong or ardent. We named her Strong and The Truth because we knew that she was going to need to navigate the world that she was going to be living in. And she’s doing an awesome job, by the way. And I won’t embarrass her anymore. I won’t even look over there.

Strong and the Truth. But this is such an important thing. Truth is so important to the book of John. It’s so important that Jesus was coming full of grace truth, that we worship in spirit and truth. And when John was writing the book of Revelation, he actually calls Jesus the Truth. The word Alethea again.

And Jesus is pointing everything back to the truth. “You need to make a choice, Pilate. Do you want to be one who can receive me and hear the truth? Or are you just going to throw up your hands in agnostic frustration?”

I get that people hate that Jesus did this. And I sometimes hate it, too. That he claimed that he is the only way, the only truth, the only life. No one comes to the Father but through him. I would love it if there were many ways to God. Because then everybody could just be happier. But if there’s only one way, I’m really glad Jesus told us.

There’s this quote I want to read to you real quick from a guy named Garrett Best. He says,

John sees alethea as an absolute concept incompatible with relativism and pluralism.

These two words are so important. Relativism is this idea that there’s no absolute truth. Whatever I just kind of feel good about, then that’s truth. That’s this post-modern mindset that is so stupid and is going to lead everyone to hell.

Then there’s this other idea that it’s pluralistic. Well, maybe there’s multiple truths. Maybe there is absolute truth, but actually there’s a multiplicity to it.

And this is where Jesus’ claim says, “Absolutely not. I’m here to tell you there is only one way to the Father. And if you go those other ways, you will not end up in the right spot.”

This progressive Christianity, this kind of cultural revolution that we’re having eroding all of the structures and institutions that’s going on, it’s seeping its way into the church and we have to stop it. There is absolute truth. There is right and wrong. There is heaven and hell. We are not the first people to try to get rid of all of those ideas. We are not so enlightened that we don’t need the scriptures, we don’t need the Spirit anymore. We’ve got to quit acting like it.

The only people who can know the truth, the truth that really matters, are those who receive Jesus Christ. And you will never hear anything else taught from this place. And we have to be careful we don’t get caught up in all of the changes that are happening in the mindset of Americans. Because we become liars if we do.

The last point, it’s a little more happy. The last point comes in this last little part with Pilate’s uttering of, “What is truth”:

With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him. But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release ‘the king of the Jews’?”
They shouted back, “No, not him! Give us Barabbas!” Now Barabbas had taken part in an uprising.

So here, just to catch John’s amazing eloquence as he’s writing this book… This is in part thanks to other people. You know, everything that I teach, I stole from somebody. Just to reiterate that. And Dan Riccio is one of them and he’s actually sitting next to my daughter so it’s really embarrassing over there right now.

But there’s the idea that Pilate is bringing up Jesus, who is claiming to be the Son of God, right? And then he’s bringing up this guy, Barabbas. Bar Abbas. In the Hebrew, Bar means “son of” and Abba means “father.” So basically you’ve got Pilate presenting to this people, the same people that in John chapter 8 wanted to make Jesus king by force, those same people, he’s now presenting, “Do you want the true Son of God, Son of the Father, or do you want a counterfeit son of the father?”

Do you see the irony here? And what comes out of the people’s hearts? What do they start shouting? “We want Barabbas! We want Barabbas!”

And if you go into chapter 19, which we don’t have time to, he says, “Well, what do you want me to do with the Son of the Father over here?”

And they say, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

And they did. They took the true Son of the Father and exchanged him for the counterfeit. And they took that true Son of the Father and they whipped him and they beat him and they mocked him and they pinned him to a tree and they killed him. And then they buried him in a tomb so that they would never have to deal with that voice, with that truth again.

But here’s the deal about truth. Here’s the deal about the truth of God. It is divine. It is creative. It is immovable. It is incorruptible. It is unstoppable. And on the third day, uh-oh. Truth rose again. Truth got up from the ground, ascended to the right hand of the Father, where he sits and he’s waiting for the day his Father says he’s going to come back and judge the world according to the truth that he presented to them. And everyone will be accountable to it.

What did you do with Jesus? Did you choose all the counterfeits that this world has to offer? Or did you receive the true Son of God and make him the Lord of your life?

So there are two things here to close. One is, if you have not received Jesus, this is actually good news for you. It’s bad news that you’re living a lie, and you’re on your way to hell. I get that. That’s not fun to hear on a Sunday morning—or any morning. But it’s the truth that Jesus came to preach and proclaim. But the good news is that Jesus came to preach and proclaim that, though that is true, he’s making a way for you so that you can now be on the side of truth, so that you can hear his voice and know his heart, so that you can all of a sudden become part of the truth that will live on forevermore. That’s the good news.

And for you and I, Christians that believe that truth, have received the truth and have seen it show up from time to time in our life, it’s really encouraging for us. Because, no matter how many lies they add to our minds, no matter how many more lies are perpetrated in society, no matter how more sophisticated they get at these lies, truth is never going to stop. Truth will always keep marching on. If you don’t believe me, believe this guy. We’re going to play a little quote from a guy who also faced some pretty challenging, confusing times. But he had such an ease on the last day that he preached a sermon. Such a hope in his heart because of the truth that he knew, that he spoke these words.

Martin Luther King:

I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because truth crushed to earth will rise again. How long? Not long. Because No lie can live forever. How long? Not long. Because you shall reap what you sow. How long? Not long. Because truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne. Yet that scaffold sways the future and behind the dim unknown standeth God within the shadow keeping watch upon his own. How long? Not long. Because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. How long? Not long. Because mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. He has loosed the fateful lighting of his terrible swift sword. His truth is marching on. He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat. He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat. O, be swift, my soul, to answer him. Be jubilant my feet. Our God is marching on. Glory, hallelujah! Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah! His truth is marching on.

His truth is marching on. It cannot and never will be stopped, We can rejoice. We can let our fear, let our worry, let our uncertainty go because his truth is forever. And it is so important for us to quiet ourselves before him. It is so important for us to limit the intake we get of all the noise that’s going around these days. And seek his face for truth. He said that, “My sheep know my voice.” And if you will surrender your life to Jesus and you will spend time at his feet, he’ll talk to you.

He’ll talk to you about what’s what. He’ll talk to you about what he thinks is important for you. And it’s really important we get this right, you guys. Because if we can live out the truth in our world, not only will it set us free, but it will give other people access to the truth, that are so confused right now. And then they can be set free as well.

Let’s pray. And when I say, “Let’s pray,” that doesn’t mean let’s end the service. It’s doesn’t mean, “Let’s check our phones and check out.” It doesn’t mean, if you’re at home, you, I don’t know what happens there. It means, “Let’s take advantage of this moment to sit at his feet and allow him to bring to mind any lies that he might want to talk to us about. Any counterfeits that we’re allowing in our lives, whether we know it or not. And also, what truths about who you are and what he’s calling you to do.

Holy Spirit, please speak to us.

In the area of finances, I think we need to be real careful that we don’t allow fear or greed to be a part of our decisions. In our relationships with others, I think we really need to do a better job of listening to what people are trying to say, even if they don’t say it in the right way.

Lord I do pray that you would help us to be really good purveyors of truth in our world. I pray, if we’ve been perpetrating lies or spreading things that are not true or helpful, I pray that you would just stop our mouths, Lord. That you would convict us deep and hard every time we’re about to do that again. And instead, help us to speak truth, Lord. Amen.

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