"The King of Truth" John 18:28-38

[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the preaching ministry of the Agopic Baptist Church in George, South Africa.

[SPEAKER_01]: Good morning church.

[SPEAKER_01]: Matthew, you want to turn it up a little bit more for me?

[SPEAKER_01]: Just a little bit more, maybe everyone can hear me.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you would, please turn with me to John chapter 18 as we continue our study through this gospel.

John 18 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_01]: John chapter 18, if you've joined us for this study, maybe halfway through or just recently, we've been working on this now for almost a year and a half, maybe right close to a year and a half, so this has been a long study, but I'm trusting that it's been a blessing to God's church.

John 18 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_01]: that maybe you're taking notes and maybe you're going to be able to walk someone else through the gospel of John one day.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's my prayer for us that we would be able to hand off to others what we have learned from the teaching of God's Word and so we continue now in John chapter 18, we're going to be looking at verses 28 through 38 this morning.

John 18 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_01]: We've come from the last supper,

[SPEAKER_01]: Recently, the last supper, this is all happening very quickly.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, John stretches this scene out, but this is all happening in 24 hours or less.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the last supper, then we cross over to the garden of Gessemony.

[SPEAKER_01]: We come to the betrayal and arrest.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then we've seen the interrogation of Jesus by Anus and Caiaphas and now they're preparing

[SPEAKER_01]: We can bring it down just a little bit.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to be this is where I'm starting.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm getting going to get higher than this.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we can bring it down just a little bit.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's perfect.

[SPEAKER_01]: Perfect.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's where we've come.

[SPEAKER_01]: And in chapters 18 at the end of chapter 18 and then going into chapter 19, we are going to see that Jesus is the king.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is where it is going to be repeated over and over again.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm not going to preach on every aspect of Jesus' kingship this morning so that we actually have something to look at in the next couple weeks in chapter 19.

[SPEAKER_01]: But one thing that is very clear.

[SPEAKER_01]: is that Jesus is the king at the end of chapter 18, and we're gonna focus on one aspect of his kingship that he is the king of truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is the other word that pops up repeatedly in these next 10 verses.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is the king and he is the king of truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: So keep that in mind now as we go to the word here and read together.

[SPEAKER_01]: Beginning in verse 28,

[SPEAKER_01]: Then they, speaking of the Jews and the leadership and the officials, they led Jesus from the House of Caiaphas to the governor's headquarters.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was early morning.

[SPEAKER_01]: They themselves did not enter the governor's headquarters, so that they would not be defiled, but he could eat the Passover.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Pilate went outside to them and said, what accusation do you bring against this man?

[SPEAKER_01]: They answered him.

[SPEAKER_01]: If this man were not doing evil, we would not have delivered him over to you."

[SPEAKER_01]: Pilate said to them, take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.

[SPEAKER_01]: That you said to him, it is not lawful for us to put anyone to death.

[SPEAKER_01]: This was to fulfill the word that Jesus had spoken, to show by what kind of death he was going to die.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him,

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus answered, do you say this of your own accord?

[SPEAKER_01]: Or did other say it to you about me?

[SPEAKER_01]: Pilot answered, am I a Jew?

[SPEAKER_01]: Your own nation, the chief priests, had delivered you over to me.

[SPEAKER_01]: What have you done?

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world.

[SPEAKER_01]: If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews, but my kingdom is not from the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: then Pilots said to him, so you are a king.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus answered, you say that I am a king.

[SPEAKER_01]: For this purpose I was born and for, and for this purpose I've come into the world to bear witness to the truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.

[SPEAKER_01]: Pilots said to him, what is truth?

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's stop there and pray.

[SPEAKER_01]: Heavenly Father, thank you for your word.

[SPEAKER_01]: and Father, I think that they are ancient words that are ever true.

[SPEAKER_01]: They are true because they are from you to us.

[SPEAKER_01]: And Lord, we believe that as we abide in these words, we are truly Jesus' disciples.

[SPEAKER_01]: As we hear His words and abide in His words, as He has revealed you, Father, then we will truly be the disciples of Jesus that inherit the kingdom of God with Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: This truth from you, as it is revealed by Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: This truth is what will set men and women free from the shackles of sin and death.

[SPEAKER_01]: And as what will set Christians free from the shackles of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, which drag us back from you.

[SPEAKER_01]: You would have us to charge into the joys of God and of heaven, yet we stay shackled to our own lusts.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Lord, please, set us free this morning.

[SPEAKER_01]: If it be just from one shackle, break something, break one shane, Father, in the hearts of the Christians in this room, and if it be or will, if someone is here, lost and sin, a slave to the devil, in the kingdom of darkness, because they have not repented of their sins and turned and followed Jesus,

[SPEAKER_01]: shatter the chains.

[SPEAKER_01]: Lord me, may someone not leave for this morning destined for hell, and would you open our hearts, Lord, to those who are dying around this?

[SPEAKER_01]: Our hearts are too often like clam shells.

[SPEAKER_01]: We love the pearl of our own life in our own joy.

[SPEAKER_01]: It Lord, we shut the shell closed, and we will not allow to be pridopened.

[SPEAKER_01]: We

[SPEAKER_01]: The hope of heaven in our own hearts, but we are so dead towards those around us, sometimes, and I am guilty of this Lord, please forgive us, and would you pry open the clam shell of our heart, that we might share the pearl of great price with others?

[SPEAKER_01]: May your will be done, Lord.

[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.

[SPEAKER_01]: Our passage opens with the Jews leading Jesus to Kyivis.

[SPEAKER_01]: They hate Him.

[SPEAKER_01]: They want Him dead.

[SPEAKER_01]: They don't just want to privately murder Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: They've done that to other people.

[SPEAKER_01]: And they have all planned to do it to Paul.

[SPEAKER_01]: Remember, there were men who made a vow saying, We will not eat until Paul is dead.

[SPEAKER_01]: They made some kind of vows, either, we will not sleep or we will not eat, there was some kind of vow that they said we will not go on with normal life until Paul is dead and they were going to murder him along the highway as high women like robbers or thieves.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the Jewish leaders had no problem murdering people in secret.

[SPEAKER_01]: because they were not given permission to murder people publicly, or to execute people publicly, Rome kept that right for themselves.

[SPEAKER_01]: So what are they decided to do?

[SPEAKER_01]: They decided to bring Jesus, to lead him to the Roman officials so that this execution could be public, not in secret.

[SPEAKER_01]: they want to show and prove to the nation that Jesus is a fake, a fraud, and that he is not the Messiah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because the Messiah wasn't supposed to die.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was supposed to be the king of Israel who would reign either himself or his descendants as lineage which reign forever over this Messianic era that they were looking for.

[SPEAKER_01]: So if Jesus dies, he's a fake.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is their plan.

[SPEAKER_01]: They want to show this publicly.

[SPEAKER_01]: But in John, points out the sad irony of the situation because he starts talking about this religious zeal that the Jews had.

[SPEAKER_01]: They thought they were doing this through love for God.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're great love for God, because Jesus is a blasphemer, but there is a great irony going on here in our passage.

[SPEAKER_01]: He says, John shows us that though these Jewish leaders have spent all morning and in fact weeks and months plotting the death of an innocent man, and many of them know he's innocent.

[SPEAKER_01]: They tried to try him, according to the Word of God, the other gospel show us, that they couldn't find a legitimate charge against him.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they were just digging for some reason that they could put him to death.

[SPEAKER_01]: They were searching for a reason.

[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't have a reason.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're searching for a religious reason to put him to death, to condemn him.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so they've been plotting for all morning and in fact weeks and months to put an innocent man to death.

[SPEAKER_01]: But then we see that they are still very concerned about ceremonial cleanliness.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus talks about this.

[SPEAKER_01]: He says the inside of the cup of your soul is filled with all kind of murderous hate and lust and envy and love of the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what's inside of these religious leaders' hearts.

[SPEAKER_01]: Wickedness fills their hearts.

[SPEAKER_01]: but they spend all day with a cloth wiping the outside of the club.

[SPEAKER_01]: What everyone else sees.

[SPEAKER_01]: Making sure that it's clean.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's not a spec, it's shiny.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what these religious leaders are like.

[SPEAKER_01]: They are so concerned about ceremonial cleanliness during the Passover week that they wouldn't even go into the governor's headquarters.

[SPEAKER_01]: As Pilots home pretty much or the headquarters, they would not go in just in case they would touch a flick of yeast because that would make them unclean and they couldn't eat the Passover meal.

[SPEAKER_01]: They are so concerned that their foot might brush against a fleck of yeast, a little piece of it, that they won't even go inside.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's the irony of this scene.

[SPEAKER_01]: Murderers hate in their hearts, but they're afraid of tuck touching even just a piece of a piece of yeast that's in pilot's home that had been cleaned out for the Passover.

[SPEAKER_01]: This sets the stage for an unusual scene.

[SPEAKER_01]: Pilot the Roman governor had to come out from his headquarters to speak with the Jews.

[SPEAKER_01]: This would be like a modern judge having to get down from his bench, you know, the bench, which is where the judge sits in this courtroom, he'd have to get down in his robes.

[SPEAKER_01]: He'd have to come outside of his courtroom and stand on the steps of the building to hear the charges laid against a criminal because the people coming with the charge think that the judge and his courtroom are too filthy for them to enter.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what's going on here.

[SPEAKER_01]: much of the Jewish requirements.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you can see throughout the gospels he despises the Jews.

[SPEAKER_01]: He has contempt for them and their religion.

[SPEAKER_01]: Many of his answers reveal his contempt for them.

[SPEAKER_01]: Even maybe his hatred for them as he has great history tells us that he has executed much violence against Jewish mobs, almost with joy as he

[SPEAKER_01]: but he comes out to them and meets them either at the balcony or the steps outside of his residence.

[SPEAKER_01]: Pile in the Jews then begin a back and forth debate about who is going to judge Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what these opening scenes are about.

[SPEAKER_01]: Pile it's outside, they're in the court yard outside of his residence and they begin a back and forth debate

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what these think about this in our day.

[SPEAKER_01]: Pilot represents the powerhouse of government of modern secular government.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what he represents.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the Jewish leaders represents the powerhouse of religion.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so worldly religion, pilot, secular government, and the worldly religion that's just, you know, religion in its terrible sense, which is just the outward show of big buildings and the bells and whistles without a love for the true God, that's what they represent.

[SPEAKER_01]: And they are arguing amongst each other who, which one of us is going to be the judge of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what the opening

[SPEAKER_01]: pilot doesn't seem interested in judging Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he tells the Jews judge him by your law.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the Jews need pilot to be the judge, they need him.

[SPEAKER_01]: They don't want him, they need him to be the judge so that they can have this public execution which will prove to the nation Jesus is a fraud.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's why they're begging him to judge.

[SPEAKER_01]: Meanwhile, John tells us in verse 32, look with me there, he tells us that these rulers debating the secular and the religious debating about who will judge, this was all to fulfill the word that Jesus had spoken, to show by what kind of death he was going to die.

[SPEAKER_01]: Their law requires stoning in the vast majority of cases and in the case of blasphemy.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the Jews would have stoned to Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: Only the Romans crucified criminals.

[SPEAKER_01]: But Jesus prophesied before his death that he would be crucified.

[SPEAKER_01]: So this debate happening where the Jews are handing him over, handing Jesus over to the Romans.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus, who is the one who walked towards this death, and it was His will to give His life over to be killed by the Romans just as He said, think of Matthew 2018.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus says, See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, have already seen that, and they will condemn Him to death.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's already happened.

[SPEAKER_01]: and deliver Him over to the Gentiles, this is Rome, deliver Him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified.

[SPEAKER_01]: That was Jesus' words before is a rest.

[SPEAKER_01]: Think of Matthew 26.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus said to His disciples, you know that after two days the Passover is coming and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.

[SPEAKER_01]: John 314.

[SPEAKER_01]: And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's talking about the cross.

[SPEAKER_01]: We know this from John 12.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now is the judgment of this world, Jesus says.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now is the judgment of this world.

[SPEAKER_01]: Not Jesus is in judgment.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now as the judgment of this world, now the ruler of this world be cast out, and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.

[SPEAKER_01]: John notes, he said this to show by what kind of debt he was going to die.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's Jesus hanging on the cross that draws men to him.

[SPEAKER_01]: The cross would not represent, ultimately, think about this.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Jews and Rome thought that the cross, if they could just get Jesus hanging on the cross, that would be third judgment, their condemnation of him.

[SPEAKER_01]: But ultimately, the cross would not represent these rulers judgment of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Scriptures tell us that the cross, in fact, declares God's judgment on the wickedness of the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: The world is so wicked that the Son of God from heaven had to die because of it.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is the wickedness of his people sin.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it also, the cross also lifts up God's Son as the only one who was righteous and true.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is what is happening here.

[SPEAKER_01]: So who would judge?

[SPEAKER_01]: God is the one who would judge the world as wicked and Jesus as righteous and true.

[SPEAKER_01]: pilot realizing that he's realizes in our passage that he's going to have to get involved.

[SPEAKER_01]: He realizes that the Jews are adamant and that they want the death penalty and is so he realizes he's going to have to get involved in judging.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he retreats back into his headquarters and privately ask Jesus this question, are you the king of the Jews?

[SPEAKER_01]: Now we can't hear his inflection.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's some emphasis on the word you, so it's possible that Jesus standing there and not wealthy, a not a wealthy person's close is probably just normal every day, persons close, maybe even below, average, clothing, maybe he's standing there, he's already been struck.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's probably already bleeding, his bruises are probably turning blue and purple by now that he had received from the high priests interrogation.

[SPEAKER_01]: So here he is, probably bleeding bruised, wearing ordinary or less than ordinary clothes for a society, and maybe Pilots says, are you the king of the juice?

[SPEAKER_01]: It seems to be what's happening here.

[SPEAKER_01]: But Jesus has resisted this title throughout his ministry.

[SPEAKER_01]: Not because he isn't the king of the Jews, but because the Jews' expectation of what this king would be like and what he would do is inaccurate.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Jesus has been pushing back on this title because in that society in that day, they thought that the king of Israel, the king of the Jews was coming to conquer.

[SPEAKER_01]: pagan, Gentile empires, and bring in Israel's second glorious reign, or glorious kingdom, similar to what Solomon had all those years before.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Jesus, as resisted this title, he had not come as the king to defeat Rome with sword and shield.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is why you came the first time to defeat sin and death for us people.

[SPEAKER_01]: And on top of that, his people, Jesus' people, his kingdom, would not only be filled with Jews, the Gentiles out there defeated and squashed and they have to come crawling on hand and need to even get close to him.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what the Jews were hoping for.

[SPEAKER_01]: And unless you are of Abraham's line right now and you are a Jew, they were hoping that all of us would have to come to God crawling on hand in me, secondary citizens, if even called citizens, they probably wouldn't give us that title.

[SPEAKER_01]: They were hoping for a Jewish kingdom, where the Gentiles were outside,

[SPEAKER_01]: and they were getting their revenge on the world that had hated them for so many years and mistreated them for so many hundreds of years.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Jesus's kingdom would not only be for Jews.

[SPEAKER_01]: His people, we find out in the New Testament.

[SPEAKER_01]: His people would be people of faith.

[SPEAKER_01]: from the whole world.

[SPEAKER_01]: People of faith, from the whole world, it would be a kingdom of faith.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what we're going to see.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Jesus responds to Pilate with what sounds like an invitation to believe in verse 34.

[SPEAKER_01]: Pilate has asked him a question.

[SPEAKER_01]: Pilate is the interrogator, but Jesus knows that his father is the judge, and he now begins to ask the questions, like almost like a prosecuting attorney.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's how Jesus turns the table, because he can see the spiritual reality of this situation though no one else could.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus answered, he asks, pilot, do you say this of your own accord or did others say it to you about me?

[SPEAKER_01]: Are you calling me the King of the Jews because you believe that?

[SPEAKER_01]: Or because you think that?

[SPEAKER_01]: Or are you just repeating what other people have said?

[SPEAKER_01]: We need to think about this carefully today, this question.

[SPEAKER_01]: because today, that's what we face in George right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: We face this question, and no, it's the situation's a little different, but we should be asking this question in our minds when we meet people who say, oh, yeah, I believe in God.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yes, Jesus died on the cross.

[SPEAKER_01]: But what we should, well, we should be digging down.

[SPEAKER_01]: We shouldn't just be like, okay, my responsibility to my neighbor is done.

[SPEAKER_01]: I can.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have to ever talk to them about evangelism again, or about, you know, pursue them for the kingdom again.

[SPEAKER_01]: Instead, we should be asking this kind of question.

[SPEAKER_01]: Are you confessing Jesus as Lord from your heart?

[SPEAKER_01]: Or are you just repeating what others have told you?

[SPEAKER_01]: I think there's a lot of this going on in George.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we have to know people, we have to serve people, we have to be with people to even know because so many are just repeating what others have told them, but Jesus is not the Lord of their hearts.

[SPEAKER_01]: They are not following Him in true discipleship.

[SPEAKER_01]: They are not abiding in His Word,

[SPEAKER_01]: pilot situation is a little different.

[SPEAKER_01]: He makes it very clear.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just repeating the accusation brought against you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Look with me.

[SPEAKER_01]: He says in their after verse 34, 35, he says, am I a Jew?

[SPEAKER_01]: He responds to Jesus as invitation to believe in him as the king with irritation.

[SPEAKER_01]: He says, am I a Jew?

[SPEAKER_01]: Meaning, what makes you think that your identity, whether you're a king or not, concerns me?

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not a Jew.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can't possibly think a Jewish myth about 13 could interest me.

[SPEAKER_01]: He makes it clear.

[SPEAKER_01]: Verse 35, he goes on, he says, your own nation and chief priests have delivered you over to me.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's saying, they don't even believe in you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Why are you asking me if I'm making this claim?

[SPEAKER_01]: Or if I believe this claim?

[SPEAKER_01]: Your own nation and chief priests have delivered you over to me.

[SPEAKER_01]: They don't even believe.

[SPEAKER_01]: What have you done?

[SPEAKER_01]: What have you done to make them so angry that they want to kill you?

[SPEAKER_01]: Piles tried to dig to the bottom of this.

[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't believe for one second that the Jews care about Rome's glory.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he's trying to dig and find out why do they hate one of their own so much?

[SPEAKER_01]: verse 36, Jesus is answer.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world.

[SPEAKER_01]: If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews that my kingdom is not from the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: Here Jesus answers both Pilots questions.

[SPEAKER_01]: First, yes, Jesus is a king.

[SPEAKER_01]: He says,

[SPEAKER_01]: So yes, he is a king.

[SPEAKER_01]: But second, he's not the kind of king that Jews wanted or that Rome feared.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Jews wanted a political religious figure that would come and overthrow the Romans and bring them into this Davidic Solomon-type rule over the nations.

[SPEAKER_01]: and the king in Rome fears that kind of political king.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Jesus answers both those questions.

[SPEAKER_01]: I am a king but not that kind of king.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus was not a military general come to overthrow Rome.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's part of the reason why the Jews were so angry.

[SPEAKER_01]: Much of their anger and animosity towards him begins with that because he is not doing what they want him to do or saying what they want him to say so many have rejected him for that reason alone Jesus says his kingdom is not of this world or from the world he repeats this idea three times in that statement

[SPEAKER_01]: He is telling Pilate and us, so please church hear this.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is applicable for us.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is telling us that his kingdom is different from every human kingdom that has ever existed.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is not like human worldly kingdoms.

[SPEAKER_01]: I have three examples of how it's different.

[SPEAKER_01]: We cannot identify the kingdom of Jesus, the way we like to identify other kingdoms, our human kingdoms.

[SPEAKER_01]: We cannot identify the kingdom of Jesus through borders.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, it doesn't matter where you live on earth.

[SPEAKER_01]: We can't identify the kingdom of Jesus by language.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it doesn't matter what language you speak.

[SPEAKER_01]: We cannot identify the kingdom of Jesus through ancestral ancestry.

[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't matter who your mother or father was.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think it helps.

[SPEAKER_01]: It makes a big difference.

[SPEAKER_01]: But as far as whether or not you belong to His kingdom or not, ultimately your parents or your grandparents, or what nation you belong to or what language you speak, it makes no difference ultimately, as far as to your identity of belonging to this kingdom.

[SPEAKER_01]: Second, we cannot enter into the kingdom of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: the way we enter into human kingdoms.

[SPEAKER_01]: We do not enter the kingdom of Jesus through birth.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's just because you're born into a family.

[SPEAKER_01]: Does not mean you belong to the kingdom of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: You cannot enter through birth or through immigration.

[SPEAKER_01]: Going to another country that seems religious will not change.

[SPEAKER_01]: and you cannot enter into the kingdom of Jesus by purchasing your citizenship.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's how Romans became Romans many times.

[SPEAKER_01]: They purchased with money or through good deeds, but church, you cannot purchase your way into the kingdom of heaven through how much money you give to the church or the good deeds you do in his name.

[SPEAKER_01]: You cannot purchase it.

[SPEAKER_01]: like you enter into a human kingdom.

[SPEAKER_01]: And third, Jesus, focus us on this one.

[SPEAKER_01]: We cannot fight for the kingdom of Jesus, the way we fight for human kingdoms.

[SPEAKER_01]: We cannot fight for His kingdom with swords or bullets or bombs.

[SPEAKER_01]: And over the last 2,000 years, there's been a lot.

[SPEAKER_01]: of that going on in Jesus' name that we are going to go when a pagination with the sword and horses and lances and shields.

[SPEAKER_01]: The kingdom of Jesus is the kingdom of faith.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is how we identify it by faith.

[SPEAKER_01]: We enter it and we fight for it by faith.

[SPEAKER_01]: So when you look at them, you should recognize them by their living faith, living faith.

[SPEAKER_01]: You enter into the kingdom of Jesus through living faith, faith that's alive.

[SPEAKER_01]: Not just the statement of fact, but a change of mind and life, living faith.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you fight for the kingdom of Jesus by living out your faith.

[SPEAKER_01]: by living out our faith.

[SPEAKER_01]: You might ask me faith in what?

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we throw out the word faith.

[SPEAKER_01]: What is our faith in?

[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to see in our passage that our faith must be in the king of truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we're going to look at next.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is how we identify his kingdom, enter into his kingdom and fight for his kingdom by faith in the king of truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: Pilate jumps on the words Jesus speaks my kingdom and responds as if he's an attorney and he kept his caught Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: He says so, you are a kingdom.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, I've got you.

[SPEAKER_01]: As you use the word my kingdom, if the phrase my kingdom, all four gospels record Jesus as answer.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus says, you say that I am a king or you have said so.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus' answer is most likely a partial agreement with Pilate.

[SPEAKER_01]: We might say today, Pilate, you're not wrong.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I am a king, but you're missing it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think is what Jesus' response means.

[SPEAKER_01]: Pilate, you're not wrong.

[SPEAKER_01]: But Pilate hasn't even begun to grasp the spiritual nature of Jesus's kingdom, and he certainly can't imagine the mission Jesus is on as the king of the Jews.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Jesus explains to Pilate and to all of us what His mission as king is.

[SPEAKER_01]: Look with me at verse 37, Jesus is mission as the king.

[SPEAKER_01]: He says, for this purpose, I was born and for this purpose, I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.

[SPEAKER_01]: In this statement, we have the heavenly and the human combined into one mission statement.

[SPEAKER_01]: He says, I was born as a man.

[SPEAKER_01]: having come from heaven.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what's happening in verse 37.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was born and have come into the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: Come from where?

[SPEAKER_01]: Come from heaven into the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: To what end?

[SPEAKER_01]: Why?

[SPEAKER_01]: To be the king who bears witness to the truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: The king who bears witness to the truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: John loves this word truth in the gospel in this gospel, the other Gospels record this word truth one time each.

[SPEAKER_01]: But John records this word twenty one times.

[SPEAKER_01]: He loves this word and then in his other letters which are very short he records it another seventeen times.

[SPEAKER_01]: Only Paul comes close to recording it.

[SPEAKER_01]: and that's the majority of scriptures and the New Testament's recording of the word truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: John has been so diligent to show us Jesus as the one from God who is the living testimony of the truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: But we should ask, what is truth?

[SPEAKER_01]: And even pilot is going to end this scene with this question of all questions, what is truth?

[SPEAKER_01]: What is truth?

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we should look at Scripture and how it uses the word truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it uses it in different ways.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes the Scripture says things like, speak the truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: To speak the truth can mean to speak right information.

[SPEAKER_01]: It can just be the accurate transferral of information, one plus one equals two.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not deceiving you.

[SPEAKER_01]: It also uses the word true or truth in being a true friend.

[SPEAKER_01]: When we say someone is a true friend, it means being faithful despite hardship or difficulty.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's faithful in this.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's true.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's faithful.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we have accurate right and we have faithful.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then the Scripture sometimes uses the word true to describe something like the true tabernacle is the original one in heaven.

[SPEAKER_01]: Hebrews talks about this.

[SPEAKER_01]: The true tabernacle is the original in heaven.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not the copy that was set up in the wilderness.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we have the word true meaning the original.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we have right information, we have faithfulness, and we have the original, not a copy or a fake.

[SPEAKER_01]: But then Scripture often takes all of these ideas and combines them into an ultimate definition or use of the word truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this ultimate truth, use of that word,

[SPEAKER_01]: to lead fallen mankind back to their creator, the one true creator.

[SPEAKER_01]: Think with me of the Garden of Eden, what happened in the garden?

[SPEAKER_01]: What happened in the garden?

[SPEAKER_01]: A lie was spoken and Adam and Eve believed it.

[SPEAKER_01]: They believed a lie about God.

[SPEAKER_01]: that he was withholding joy from them.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was withholding good from them.

[SPEAKER_01]: He wasn't good.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's the lie they believed.

[SPEAKER_01]: And what happened?

[SPEAKER_01]: They were cast out from God's presence.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what happens when we believe the lie about God that he isn't good or good to us.

[SPEAKER_01]: We distance ourselves from God.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we are cast out from God's presence if we believe the lies about God.

[SPEAKER_01]: We see in Scripture that when mankind believes the truth, the truth that God is right, that God is faithful, that God is the one and only original God and that all others are fake imposterous when mankind believes those things.

[SPEAKER_01]: They are brought back to God, think of Abraham.

[SPEAKER_01]: God revealed some of these things to Abraham and Abraham believed that God was right, that he would be faithful and that he was the only one and only God.

[SPEAKER_01]: In God counted his faith as righteousness and brought him in, to where Abraham was called the friend of God in the Old Testament.

[SPEAKER_01]: So believing the truth

[SPEAKER_01]: as to truth is used in that sense, and this ultimate sense is designed to lead men and women back to God.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the Old Testament God revealed his truth by showing signs and wonders, giving visions and sending his prophets.

[SPEAKER_01]: But humanity closed their eyes for God His word and killed and murdered the prophets.

[SPEAKER_01]: But when the time is right, God sent His Son into the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: to be born of a woman, with the purpose.

[SPEAKER_01]: And here's his purpose.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, he's the descendant of David.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, he is the king.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is the Messiah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And here is his purpose to be the living, breathing, embodied, truth of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is who he is.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is the truth of God, living, breathing, embodied, walking among us.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is who he is.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he is the one who leads men and women back to God.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is the truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's why everyone who is of the truth of God listens to Jesus' voice.

[SPEAKER_01]: They recognize it when they hear Jesus when someone who is of God hears Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're like, that's my Lord and my God speaking.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's why looking at Jesus on the cross and believing in Him brings you back into a right relationship with your Creator, because Jesus is the truth of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's why Jesus says, I am the way and the truth and the life.

[SPEAKER_01]: No one comes to the Father except through me.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you had known me, you would have known my father also.

[SPEAKER_01]: Think about that.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you had known me, you would have known my father also.

[SPEAKER_01]: From now on, you do know him and have seen him.

[SPEAKER_01]: He goes on to explain because you have known me and seen me.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what Jesus claims.

[SPEAKER_01]: I am the truth of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: what is truth?

[SPEAKER_01]: I imagine he said it with the origin and doubt.

[SPEAKER_01]: But without a smile, think about that.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's saying it as he walks away.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think he says it with the origin, who can know truth, that kind of thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: And with doubt, because he has doubts about truth and

[SPEAKER_01]: Because all natural men, all men without Jesus Christ, fear truth, think about that for a second.

[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone you meet, who is not united in abiding in Christ Jesus and his truth, they fear the truth in their soul.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's the condition of fallen man, they fear the truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: People fear not knowing the truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: because deep down they fear and they realize and they sense that their ignorance of the truth is going to hurt them one day down the road.

[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a fear of not knowing, but people also fear finding out.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they fear their ignorance, but then they also fear to become educated on the truth, to be informed.

[SPEAKER_01]: They fear finding out the truth because they might not like what it reveals and what it requires of them.

[SPEAKER_01]: Natural men without Christ, all men and women, children, all fear the truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: Notice, Pilate doesn't stick around to hear Jesus' answer.

[SPEAKER_01]: He says, what is truth and then leaves?

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus may have simply answered him by saying, I am, I am the truth that leads men back to God.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's my imagination.

[SPEAKER_01]: Instead, Pilate walks away in fear, fear of Rome, fear of the Jewish mob outside, fear that Jesus may be more than a peasant.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's starting to get a feel that feeling, we'll see.

[SPEAKER_01]: This story continues and we will see that Pilate fears Jesus may be more than just a peasant.

[SPEAKER_01]: Pilate's fear of the truth and his belief in the lie of the devil that this world will satisfy him.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what Pilate's believing.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's believing the lie that Adam and Eve believed.

[SPEAKER_01]: That if you just reach out and grab the world with your own strength, you will satisfy yourself with this world.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what Adam and Eve believed.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what Pilates hanging on to, is what he's believing, the lie of the devil, and he fears the truth, which might rock his world, flip his world upside down.

[SPEAKER_01]: These two things, the fear of the truth and the belief of the lie of the devil, are spiritual chains, which keep Pilates shackled as a slave, a slave of the devil, driven to sin, destined for eternal death.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that is your condition this morning, my friend.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you are not believing in Jesus with living faith, if you are not abiding in His words and you are not one of His true disciples, and you are afraid of the truth and what it reveals and requires of you.

[SPEAKER_01]: and you're believing the lie of the devil that if you just reach out and grab this world with your strength, if that is your hope, that that will bring you joy.

[SPEAKER_01]: My friend, you are still in chains.

[SPEAKER_01]: A slave of the devil driven to sin by him.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is a harsh task master and in the in the world's pleasures will taste like

[SPEAKER_01]: It will be empty, and vanity, and will leave you sorrowful beyond all sorrow.

[SPEAKER_01]: But Jesus promises, here's the good news.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus promises in places like John 831, that if you abide in His word, meaning you're saying, I believe the lie, but Jesus is true.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is the truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: He has the words of eternal life.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you turn from the world and believe in the devil's lie and come to the truth, and you abide in His Word, then you will truly be His disciples.

[SPEAKER_01]: and you will know the truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: You will not have to fear any more Christians.

[SPEAKER_01]: We should not be people who fear the truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: We should love the truth, rejoice in the truth, and be living in the truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then it will cast out all fear because the truth of God draws our hearts to love Him.

[SPEAKER_01]: And love drives out fear.

[SPEAKER_01]: We will not fear God in a ungodly way or in a sinful way that would make us run and hide anymore.

[SPEAKER_01]: No.

[SPEAKER_01]: The truth will set us free from fear and from sin.

[SPEAKER_01]: The truth will set us free Jesus as in John 8.

[SPEAKER_01]: So set free.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you listen to Jesus, believe in Jesus and abide in Jesus, then you have come to know the truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this truth will set you free from the shackles of sin.

[SPEAKER_01]: because Jesus is the conquering king of truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: He conquers with the truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is truth for whether or not you're sitting here as a slave to the devil, or if you've been set free from Christ, this is still truth for you, cling to this, that Jesus wants to set you free Christian from the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life

[SPEAKER_01]: Will you maybe enter into heaven?

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, if you've confessed your sins and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: But can Christians still be shackled to sin, dragging it behind them, slowing them down from experiencing the joys of God that God has for you?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: The truth is all of us, to some degree, are being held back.

[SPEAKER_01]: to the extent that we love our sins.

[SPEAKER_01]: Church, we are still sinners.

[SPEAKER_01]: We are saved sinners, but we are still sinners, and Christ's truth through His truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: Once to break you free, he wants to break the chains, so that you can run freely towards God.

[SPEAKER_01]: He wants to lead you to God in triumphal, procession, Paul tells us in Corinthians.

[SPEAKER_01]: It had Christ's leads as we are like this celebratory

[SPEAKER_01]: Parade that's on our way down the highway to heaven on this parade to God.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus at the front and he is saying, come, sinner, follow me, cast off your filthy rags in the muck of the gutter and follow me and come.

[SPEAKER_01]: I will lead you into joyful procession.

[SPEAKER_01]: But often we leave the gutter but we come dragging

[SPEAKER_01]: a couple of respectable sins with us.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sins of the mind.

[SPEAKER_01]: As long as no one's hurt by it, I can continue in my sin of the mind.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes we drag along sins of the eyes as long as they don't actually do anything.

[SPEAKER_01]: I just experience this.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I didn't actually do anything, friends, be set free, believe that as you follow Christ and abide in His word, He has joy for you now and forever.

[SPEAKER_01]: And once free, as a Christian, Christ turns to each one of us, as those whom He has

[SPEAKER_01]: He turns to each one of us and he calls us to pick up his kind of weapons and fight for him.

[SPEAKER_01]: His kingdom is not a bunch of people sitting on lawn shares at the beach.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is not what Jesus is saying there.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's not why he's let the Romans take him because he's a pacifist who doesn't ever fight in any way.

[SPEAKER_01]: No!

[SPEAKER_01]: We've already seen that he is going to the cross as the lion of the tribe of Judah to conquer, and he calls each one of us to pick up his kinds of weapons and to charge into his fight for his kingdom.

[SPEAKER_01]: He calls you to fight for his glory which is your good.

[SPEAKER_01]: Church, we cannot ever separate those two things.

[SPEAKER_01]: The glory of God and our good are linked together with the chain that is unbreakable.

[SPEAKER_01]: The chain of Jesus Christ crucified for us and purchased.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we have been taken from the kingdom of darkness and to the kingdom of light.

[SPEAKER_01]: So as God's glory and His kingdom and the kingdom of Jesus is exalted and expanded

[SPEAKER_01]: are His glory and are good.

[SPEAKER_01]: You night those two together and separately in your mind and the Christian faith will begin to make a lot more sense.

[SPEAKER_01]: His glory and are good, inseparably.

[SPEAKER_01]: How do we do this?

[SPEAKER_01]: How do we fight for the glory of His kingdom?

[SPEAKER_01]: Of God's kingdom of Jesus's kingship?

[SPEAKER_01]: Well first we saw, we've already talked about putting to death, put to death, the lust of the body and mind because they are in you to knee against the spirit that's within us, put those things to death, because they are mutinies going on every week in our hearts.

[SPEAKER_01]: They would ruin our peace, but if you put the death, the lust of the flesh, lust of the mind, lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and the pride of a life, if you put those type of things to death daily, God will grant you heavenly peace in your soul.

[SPEAKER_01]: Another way, please, friends, as James commands us in his letter,

[SPEAKER_01]: do not permit your tongue to stampede through your family or your church.

[SPEAKER_01]: Do not let your tongue stampede like mad horses let loose into the camp of Christ Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what gossip is.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's like stampeding mad horses that trample others.

[SPEAKER_01]: In Christ's camp

[SPEAKER_01]: don't permit your tongue to do this, then take every thought and attitude captive.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Bible says, take captive.

[SPEAKER_01]: These assassins of your soul and mind take them captive, put them to death before you allow them space and time to sneak in and poison your mind

[SPEAKER_01]: take captive every thought, every evil thought, and add it to you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Parents, we must train up our children in spiritual warfare, while they are young.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when I'm saying young, I mean three and four and five and six

[SPEAKER_01]: If you have not trained them up in spiritual warfare, imagine watching your 12-year-old through television and books and friends and school and every other use that the devil uses to

[SPEAKER_01]: for training up your children in spiritual warfare.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when you see mutiny's going on in their heart, discipline them in love, drive out the foolishness that is trying to grow in your child's heart.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what the Bible commands us to do.

[SPEAKER_01]: God commands it of you.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he says, if you do not drive out the foolishness in your child's heart when they are little, then you hate your child.

[SPEAKER_01]: you're like a parent that is going that knows there is demonic enemies coming to take captive your children when they hit 10 11 12 13 by 18 my friends if you wait till then they are gone they belong to another but if you if you do not discipline them it's like a parent

[SPEAKER_01]: He's not put anything in their mind or in their heart or in their hand, and defend themselves when the truth comes.

[SPEAKER_01]: When the lies come, please, my brothers and sisters, do not believe the lie of the devil that you can just be a gentle, loving, affirming parent that just lets the child raise themselves.

[SPEAKER_01]: It will not be the child raising themselves.

[SPEAKER_01]: It will be the devil in his means, raising him.

[SPEAKER_01]: and the child's heart will be inflamed with lust and desire for those things.

[SPEAKER_01]: Please, train up your children, in spiritual warfare and wounds and thones and omos and opos.

[SPEAKER_01]: Please pray and help us and keep us accountable with loving encouragement.

[SPEAKER_01]: Please.

[SPEAKER_01]: Finally,

[SPEAKER_01]: and you have had some victory in your own soul of the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, and you're just beginning to experience joy in fighting in your own soul, and in your own home, four gods kingdom, when that happens, then join in the attack against the demonic strongholds all around you, which are the hearts of men and women, your neighbors.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're unsafe family members.

[SPEAKER_01]: There are hearts if they do not belong to Jesus are like demonic, strongholds of the devil.

[SPEAKER_01]: We need to envision this and feel this church.

[SPEAKER_01]: We must go on the attack.

[SPEAKER_01]: We must wake up.

[SPEAKER_01]: from our peacetime mentality.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's kind of, that's the temptation of our age because we are not suffering as Christians right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry, I don't think we should take that term.

[SPEAKER_01]: Suffering as Christians right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: We might have tasted suffering that as of yet in our community, that is rare to suffer as a Christian

[SPEAKER_01]: into a peace-time mentality, but my friends, we must keep a wartime mentality in mind at all times because the devil has not gone to sleep.

[SPEAKER_01]: He has just changed his tactics.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is making us in our westernized society think that there really isn't a spiritual realm at all.

[SPEAKER_01]: He just leaves us to our own devices and lets the church grow weak and fat and lazy.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what happens in peace time.

[SPEAKER_01]: My friends, please, with me, with one another, let's become a wartime church because

[SPEAKER_01]: even though we might be laying in lawn chairs and just relaxing at the beach in our soul, we're doing that with warfare going on all around us.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what that would be like.

[SPEAKER_01]: So if you need some imagery to help you, which always helps me, my friends, let's release the

[SPEAKER_01]: release the trebuchet of love.

[SPEAKER_01]: Watch the rock of love go and shatter walls.

[SPEAKER_01]: The demon's defenses.

[SPEAKER_01]: Push forward the battering ram of the truth of Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's get together and let's push this thing forward into places we know our demonic strongholds.

[SPEAKER_01]: We know someone is not

[SPEAKER_01]: A believer in Christ, let's push that battering ram forward.

[SPEAKER_01]: Out of love for them, with humility and gentleness.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know those picture seems upside down, while Christianity is an upside-down kind of religion.

[SPEAKER_01]: Christ came to flip the world upside down.

[SPEAKER_01]: Kings became servants.

[SPEAKER_01]: The greatest was the least.

[SPEAKER_01]: We push forward the battering ram of truth to crush through pagan walls.

[SPEAKER_01]: and gentleness and respect.

[SPEAKER_01]: Those are the word scripture uses.

[SPEAKER_01]: And always, church, let's be firing the arrows of prayer for salvation.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's light up the night sky with the prayers for salvation without ceasing.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know many of you are doing that already.

[SPEAKER_01]: So thank you.

[SPEAKER_01]: And as we do this, I truly believe we will experience the joy of witnessing the king of truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: Remember, we are not the ones who plunder the enemies camp.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is Jesus through his spirit.

[SPEAKER_01]: We are part of his forces, but ultimately, if there is going to be a plundering that happens, it will be by the spirit blowing in.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he's called us to go,

[SPEAKER_01]: and to speak the truth, ram away at those gates of unbelief and watch the Spirit blow in.

[SPEAKER_01]: I truly believe as we do this, we will experience the joy, as Christians, the joy of witnessing the king of truth, plundering hell, and bringing many sons and daughters to glory.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is what we should be having in our mind, my friends.

[SPEAKER_01]: We are not loving our neighbors, but I just letting them have a respectful, peaceful life, and letting them think whatever they want to think, and believe whatever they think.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's a lie of the devil, but that's a love.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is not love.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is self-love, where I can just let them be who they want to be.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let them believe whatever they want to believe.

[SPEAKER_01]: Christ calls us to love our neighbors as ourself.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you were destined for hell, what would you want a Christian to do for you?

[SPEAKER_01]: If you're gonna suffer and help forever, what would you want them to do for you as they pass you by in the street as you bribe with them?

[SPEAKER_01]: As you play at the playground with them, as you work next to them day in day out, what would you want a Christian to do for you?

[SPEAKER_01]: Let you burn for eternity.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't believe so.

[SPEAKER_01]: Christ commands love your neighbor as yourself.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we, as Christians, love to bring the truth with humility and respect, hoping always that the King of Truth will plunder hell and bring many sons to glory.

[SPEAKER_01]: So this is what the King of Truth has set you free for.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're a joy.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're a joy in him.

[SPEAKER_01]: and to join in this attack that we might fight to see others join him and search this is one way that we experience joy.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you get to walk a sinner to Jesus and you see Jesus setting free, my friends that is an eternal joy that is never taken away from you in one that you will taste and drink from in eternity

[SPEAKER_01]: Paul speaks much about that, but seeing the Lord Jesus with all those he brought to him and who were saved.

[SPEAKER_01]: Please, let's fight for this kind of joy for the glory of Jesus's kingdom and our joy.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's breath.

[SPEAKER_01]: Heavenly Father, we love you and we love your Son.

[SPEAKER_01]: I thank you, Lord, that the vast majority of people in this room have been said free and now I pray, Father, that you would convict us and make us miserable if we are living for this world as kingdom saints.

[SPEAKER_01]: Please, Lord, I ask that you would bring such a misery in our soul, and you would put make the worlds delights that are false, tastes like sodas in our mouths.

[SPEAKER_01]: Lord, please, that would be such a gift.

[SPEAKER_01]: Make the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, taste like sodas in our mouth.

[SPEAKER_01]: Please, Lord, through your truth, and us believing it, which you make it taste like sodas, and may we go out seeking for true eternal types of delight and joy.

[SPEAKER_01]: by fighting for your kingdom, delighting in the Father and the Son and the Spirit, longing for the return of Christ's Lord Jesus, completely.

[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.