Living a Life with Convictions

Right there.

We're gonna be at John chapter 18 this morning.

John 18 · chapter mention

John 18.

You guys ever had to make a really hard decision in your life?

Right, right, really?

Maybe it's like, should I move or should I not move?

Or maybe it's uh, should I take this job or not take this job?

Or maybe it's should I watch game seven of the World Series and watch the Dodgers win again?

Three Pete, already talking about it.

We all gotta make decisions in our life.

Some decisions are easy, some decisions are hard.

And today we're gonna see somebody that made a hard decision, and it ended up being an infamous decision.

A decision that would leave a legacy.

See, there's this individual that had a little bit of, can we just call it, people pleasing tendencies?

Have you ever met somebody that had people pleasing tendencies?

I know I'm not one of those people either, and you're not one of those people, but maybe you've met somebody like that.

All right?

I'm just kidding.

Can we be honest?

How maybe y'all got a little bit of people pleasing in you?

Raise up your hand.

Okay, that's right.

Most of us.

This person has some people-pleasing tendencies.

This person also liked power, and this decision had the potential to mess up their ability to have power and control, and they wanted that.

This person's name was Pilate.

Everybody say Pilate, ready?

Pilate made an infamous decision to have the Son of God crucified.

Now, bigger picture, we're in a series right now called 24.

We're looking at the last 24 hours of the life of Jesus.

And last week, what we saw is we saw that there was a man that betrayed Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Can somebody tell me what is the name of the man that betrayed Jesus?

It was Judas.

Let's go.

You guys remember.

After Jesus was betrayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, he was arrested.

Now I want to show you the step-by-step places Jesus went before he went in front of Pilate, and Pilate made the infamous decision.

Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, and he went to the house of Anis, the house of Anis.

Now, Annas was the high, the former high priest of all Israel.

That is the highest role, religious role in the land.

The high priest, there was one of them.

He then went to the house of Caiaphas.

Everybody say Caiaphas, ready?

It's a Caiaphas.

He was the current high priest.

He then went and stood before the Sanhedrin.

Now we don't know if the meaning of the Sanhedrin happened right in the house of Caiaphas or right outside of it, but Jesus stood before the Sanhedrin.

The Sanhedrin was the highest form of Jewish counsel and equivalent to the U.S.

Supreme Court for the Jews.

They made political decisions and they made legal decisions and all these things.

It was made up of 71 peoples.

This is a big group.

70 people and the high priest.

These people had authority, they could make decisions, but there was one decision they could not make.

There was one decision they did not have the power or the authority to make.

It was the decision to have somebody executed.

They could not determine whether this person was going to be executed or not.

They didn't have that power.

So Jesus stands with the Sanhedrin.

They accuse him of all these things, and they take Jesus to Pilate because Pilate has the ability to execute people.

Let's step back for a second.

Who's Pilate?

Pilate was the Roman governor of the entire land of Judea.

He's like the acting Caesar.

He was living large and he was in charge.

He had complete authority.

Pilate said something, it happened.

Pilate said, You guys gonna pay more taxes?

They had to pay more taxes.

Pilate had complete authority.

Pilate also had the ability to execute people.

Pilate had a role in the Roman govern in the Roman Empire.

His role was to make sure that in the region where he governed there was a law and order.

Nobody was acting too crazy.

And he also had the role of making sure that the taxes were flowing right back into Rome.

And as long as he did those things, he was good.

The Roman government said, at a boy, keep it up.

The Sanhedrin comes to Pilate, and they're the most influential group of Jews.

There's 71 of them.

They're the most influential group.

They say, We want you, Pilate, to execute this man.

You need to execute him.

We also are going to see that there was an uprising that was starting to happen, a little bit of a riot that was starting to occur because of Jesus.

And now Pilate has to make a decision.

Is he going to execute Jesus or not?

Many of us know the decision that he makes.

But I think a better question is why did he make this decision?

Because Pilate knew the right thing to do.

But Pilate lacks something that many of us do.

And he lacked something called conviction.

And as we are going to track the story of Pilate and the trial of Jesus, we're going to see what led this man to make the infamous decision of ending the life of Jesus.

So let's pick this up in John chapter 18.

John 18 · chapter mention

If you're ready for it, would you say amen?

John chapter 18.

John 18 · chapter mention

This is what it says in verse number 28.

John 18, 28 says this.

It says, Then they, that's the Sanhedrin.

Remember how many people, how many people made up the Sanhedrin?

The Sanhedrin was made up of let's go, 71 people.

They led Jesus from Caiaphas to the governor's headquarters.

Governor, what's his name again?

The governor's name is the governor's name is Pilate.

That's good.

Pilate, yeah, that's right.

We're still here.

Pilate.

It was the early morning.

They did not enter the headquarters themselves, otherwise, they would be defiled and unable to eat the Passover.

You're like, what?

Under Jewish ceremonial law, if you were Jew and you entered the residence or the business of a non-Jew a Gentile, it was considered serious you were considered ceremonial unclean.

So because of that, ritually they were unclean.

So because of that, they were like, We're not going to go in there, we're just going to bring him there.

So Pilate, verse 29, he came out to them and he said, What charge do you bring against this man?

They answered, If this man weren't a criminal, we wouldn't have handed him over to you.

Pilate told them, You take him and judge him according to your law, like the Jewish law.

Well, it's not legal for us to put anyone to death, the Jews declared.

They said this so that Jesus' words might be fulfilled, indicating what kind of death he was going to die.

Then Pilate went back into the headquarters, summoned Jesus, and said, Are you the king of the Jews?

So get this.

Pilate is talking to the Sanhedrin.

Now at this point, he tells Jesus, Let's come into the headquarters, the government headquarters, let's come into the office, and I'm gonna have a conversation with you.

In the office, away from the Sanhedrin, Pilate asked Jesus, Are you, are you the king of the Jews?

Jesus answered, Are you asking this on your own?

Or have others told you about me?

I'm not a Jew, am I?

Pilate replied.

Pilate's not a Jew.

Pilate's a Roman.

Your own nation and the chief priests handed you over to me.

What have you done?

My kingdom is not of this world, said Jesus.

If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight, so that I wouldn't be handed over to the Jews.

But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.

You are a king then, Pilate asked him.

Now, real quick, when Pilate is saying, Are you a king?

He's speaking politically.

Like, are you gonna be a king?

Are you the king that's gonna rule and reign right now in power and authority?

When the Jews said, Are you king of the Jews?

Like Jesus, uh, they got mad at him because he said he's king of the Jews, he was talking about being the Messiah.

He was spiritually gonna lead the people.

They're speaking on two different things here.

Pilate says, Are you king then?

You say that I'm a king, Jesus replied.

I was born for this, and I have come into the world for this.

Stop right here for a second.

We need to lean in here.

Jesus is about to tell us why he came into the world.

So everything you've heard about Jesus on TikTok, different places, we're about to find out from the mouth of Jesus why did Jesus come in to the world?

You ready?

What's Jesus say?

To testify to the truth.

Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.

He came to testify of the truth.

And then in verse 38, Pilate asked this question.

He says, What is truth?

After he said this, he went out to the Jews again and told them, I find no grounds for charging him.

And I want us to stop and ask a question that confuses a lot of people.

We're gonna ask two questions today, but this one that confuses a lot of people, it's this why did Jesus come into the world?

Verse 37, we just saw it a minute ago, to testify about the truth.

So Jesus didn't come into the world to heal people, although he did heal people.

He didn't come into the world to feed the poor, although he did feed the poor.

According to Jesus, he came into the world to testify to the truth.

He came in the into the world, Luke 19 says, the Son of Man is come to seek and to save the lost.

Who is the lost?

Any guesses who the lost are?

It's us.

It's us apart from Christ.

We're all lost.

So Jesus came and gave his life on the cross so we can be saved, so we can have salvation by believing in Jesus.

This is why he came.

And he said he came to testify about the truth, and the reality is Jesus actually was the truth.

This is what it says in John 14.

Jesus says, I am the way, the, what's that next word?

The and the life.

So think about this.

Pilate asked, What is truth to the face of truth?

Now you think about truth.

Here's what truth is it's a standard for everything else.

Let's think about this.

Consider this.

Give you a little example.

How many of you guys played the game where you went swimming or you were at the river or the ocean or something, and you played the game to see how long you can hold your breath underwater?

Guys ever play that one?

Okay, here we go.

Unofficial church survey.

I won't test you later on this.

Don't worry.

Who would say they can hold their breath for at least 30 seconds underwater?

Raise it.

Okay, alright.

Who thinks they can hold their breath for over a minute?

Okay.

Who thinks they can hold their breath more than two minutes?

Okay, we got a couple people.

Okay, alright, all right.

What about more than three minutes?

Three minutes?

Three no somebody at the first service said like their personal record for holding their breath was six minutes and 38 seconds.

We do have liars in the room.

You know what I mean?

I'm just kidding.

I'm just kidding.

I'm just kidding.

I only thought it.

Now let's say you can hold your breath for a long time.

Or you're like me and you can hold your breath for about 25 seconds and then you're dying.

What eventually do you have to do?

Breathe.

Come back up to the surface and breathe because we all need oxygen.

That is truth.

Now, what I can say and what you can say is, I don't like the fact that I need oxygen.

I want to live a life where I don't need oxygen.

In fact, I'm just gonna rebel against the fact that I need oxygen.

See how that's gonna work for you, bro.

You ain't gonna be around for much longer.

Because you need oxygen, so our lives, whether consciously, really subconsciously, are built around that reality.

Like nobody's planning a vacation that I'm just gonna go to the bottom of the ocean for the next seven days and just hang out there.

Why?

Because there's a standard, there's truth.

Now watch this.

You build your life around truth.

This is what Jesus says.

Jesus says, I am the truth.

I am the ultimate standard.

And you can say, Man, I don't like that standard.

That I don't like all the stuff Jesus talks about.

Like I'm cool with this over here, but I'm not cool with that over here.

Can I be honest?

It doesn't really matter what we think.

Because he's the standard.

And you say, Man, that doesn't really make me fully comfortable.

Okay, let's talk about this for a second.

If you can predict your own death and resurrection and actually pull it off, you get to call the shots.

You just do.

Like Jesus predicted his own death and resurrection, so he calls the shots.

And you might be like, man, man, okay, Jesus and the whole, Jesus is standing for truth.

Uh I like the grace, Jesus.

Like, I like the grace and like the mercy and the love.

That's like my favorite thing about Jesus.

The truth stuff over here, I'm kind of wrestling with this over here.

And it's almost like, do we have grace, Jesus, or truth, Jesus?

What's going on?

And it's almost like these compete with each other, we feel like.

But here's the reality: truth and grace don't compete with each other, they complete each other.

Truth and grace don't compete with each other, they complete each other.

Some of y'all need to write that one down.

Now, now we know this.

And we know that truth and grace are both important.

Let's consider this.

Let's say, let's say you go to the doctor, and you have a great doctor.

And your doctor has a great bedside manner, and they they talk to you kindly, and they're very considerate of you, and they listen to you.

And you don't feel like you're one of the 38 people they have to see that day.

You feel like they actually talk to you.

Or you can be like me, and I don't even know if I even have a doctor because I never go, but that's another conversation.

And you got this great doctor, and and you get your yearly checkup.

So you do all the blood tests, and if you know, if you're like me, I'm like a needle, a blood test, like stay away from me.

The lady giving me blood has to give me a pep talk just to, you know, give me and do the blood test and all that, and then the tests come back.

And let's say you have an aggressive form of cancer.

If you have an aggressive form of cancer, what do you want your doctor to do?

You want your doctor to tell you because if your doctor is filled with grace and kindness and empathy, what they're gonna do?

They're gonna have grace, but they're also gonna tell you the truth.

Because if somebody only shares grace without truth, they aren't telling the truth.

Consider this.

If somebody only shares grace without truth, they aren't telling the truth.

If we can get the next slide up there.

So this is what Jesus does.

Yes, Jesus shares grace, but Jesus also communicates truth because he is the standard of truth.

And Pilate, looking in the face of Jesus, says, Hey, what is truth?

But Pilate doesn't stick around for the answer because verse 38 says, Immediately after he asked that question, he went right back to the Jews and starts talking to them.

In fact, verse 39, he says, You have a custom that I release one prisoner to you, uh, one prisoner to you at the Passover.

So do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?

They shouted back, Not this man, but Barabbas.

Now Barabbas was a revolutionary.

We know that he was a part of a murderer.

In chapter 19, verse 6, a few verses later, it says the chief priests and the temple servants saw him, that's Jesus, they shouted, Crucify! Crucify! Pilate responded, Take him and crucify him yourself, since I find no grounds for charging him.

We have a law, the Jews replied to him, and according to that law he ought to die because he made himself the Son of God.

When Pilate heard this statement, he was more afraid than ever.

He went back into the headquarters and asked Jesus, Where are you from?

But Jesus didn't give him an answer.

So Pilate said to him, Do you refuse to speak to me?

Don't you know that I have the authority to release you and the authority to crucify you?

Look at the response of Jesus in verse 11.

I love it.

You would have no authority over me at all if it had not been given you from above.

This is why the one who handed me over to you has the greater sin.

From that moment, Pilate kept trying to release him.

But the Jews shouted, If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend.

Anyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.

When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus outside.

He sat down on the judge's seat in a place called the stone pavement, but in Aramaic, Gabbatha.

It was the preparation day for the Passover, and it was about noon.

Then he told the Jews, Here is your king.

And they shouted, Take him away! Take him away, crucify him.

Pilate said to them, Should I crucify your king?

We have no king but Caesar, the chief priest answered.

Then he handed him over to be crucified.

And this brings up our second question this morning.

Is why did Jesus, why did Pilate sentence Jesus to death?

When you look at the four gospel accounts, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John of this passage, we see different parts of what happened in Pilate's trial.

There were two times where Pilate says, I find no reason, no grounds to execute him.

Another part of this trial is Pilate had sent Jesus to Herod.

He said, Hey, Herod was the Jewish acting king at that time.

He says, Hey, I want you to see if there's anything wrong with Jesus.

Like, can I execute him?

Herod says, Nope, he ain't done anything.

Pilate's own wife had a crazy, terrible dream.

And she told Pilate, she said, Have nothing to do with that man.

There's something about Jesus, have nothing to do with him.

But what does Pilate do?

Hands him over to be crucified.

Pilate feels the pressure of the people.

Matthew's account, it says that there was a riot that was uprising.

Pilate possibly feels, I don't know.

I'm just, I think it's safe to say, Pilate knows that if there's if there's complete unrest, if there's a riot that's happening, he's gonna lose power because he has to keep law and order in the land.

So now Pilate could lose power, he could lose his position, he could lose his resources, he could lose his authority, he could lose all of that.

And Pilate knows though that Jesus is an innocent man.

But Pilate isn't willing to lose all those things because Pilate lacked something that a lot of people lack.

And a lot of Jesus followers lack, and it's that right there.

Pilate lacked conviction.

Conviction.

Can we all say that word together?

Ready?

Conviction.

What is a conviction?

I want to put the cookies on the bottom shelf this morning and I want to talk about this for a second.

Here's what a conviction is a conviction is a deeply held belief shaped by scripture that determines how you live.

Now, a conviction isn't just an opinion.

I have opinions.

In fact, I got a lot of opinions about a lot of stuff.

I'm gonna share an opinion with you.

My opinion's right, by the way.

Here's my opinion.

Coke is better than Pepsi.

How many of you would say yes?

Right?

Come on.

Okay, how many of you would say, Pastor Nate, you are very wrong.

Pepsi is better than Coke.

Raise up your hand, raise up, okay.

We have a couple people.

Okay, we know who to pray for.

We know who to pray for.

Um I have another opinion.

This one, I might get in trouble for this one.

Some of y'all are gonna get upset with me about this one.

It's a big deal to some of you guys.

It's an opinion about superheroes.

The greatest superhero of all time.

Not Spider-Man.

Is that your Spider-Man?

Batman.

Batman, I gotta clap.

Let's go.

I gotta okay, think about this, guys.

Batman.

Batman doesn't need superheroes to beat up the bad guys.

Like he's just like, he's a he can do it.

Like he's just a stud.

Like he's built, he's you know what I mean?

He's great, he's got the cool Batmobile, you know?

He's Batman.

I want to be like Batman when I grow up.

It's an opinion.

It could change.

Maybe.

It's not a conviction.

Here's what a conviction is for a follower of Jesus.

For a follower of Jesus, a conviction is based on what this word says.

So my opinion about Batman is not based, well, actually, no, I'm just kidding, it's not.

A conviction is based on this.

And really, what a conviction is, it's a predetermined choice about how you're going to live your life.

So a conviction is it's a predetermined choice how I'm gonna live my life.

Because if I have convictions, then that means that I've already decided how I'm going to live based on scripture, not based on what everything is going on in the world or based on how I feel.

It's kind of like this biblically.

There was a guy in the Old Testament, his name was Daniel.

Guys remember Daniel?

His name was Daniel.

Some of you didn't.

Let me just tell you a little thing about Daniel.

Some of you are new, we love it.

Daniel, he was a guy that was he was um cast into a lion's den.

And the reason he was cast into a lion's den is because he was told not to pray.

That he couldn't pray.

It was no longer culturally popular to pray.

It was it was outlawed to pray.

And you know what Daniel did?

He was told not to pray.

You know what he still did?

He prayed.

In fact, he kind of stuck it to him.

This is what he did.

He went to his window, he opened up the blinds, and he prayed right in front of the window so everybody could see it.

This is equivalent to us pulling out our cell phone and us taking a video of us doing something and posting it on social media and say, Everybody gonna see this.

Because, because Daniel had a conviction about what he was gonna do.

And here's why convictions are important.

Because convictions will keep you doing right when you don't feel like doing right.

If I were to say, how many of you feel like doing right 24 hours a day, seven days a week?

Whoever feels like doing right, you feel like doing right all the time.

If I were to say, raise up your hand, none of y'all are raising your hand.

I wouldn't raise my hand either.

If you did, I'd say, you're lying, bro.

None of us always feel like doing right because sometimes we're tired, we're stressed, we're overwhelmed, we feel pressure, and sometimes we have entire seasons of life where we're tired, we're overwhelmed, and we're stressed, and we feel pressure.

And what Christian convictions do is they keep us anchored in those times.

So here's what I want to end with.

I want to give us four non-negotiable convictions that every follower of Jesus needs to make.

And I don't say this lightly, non-negotiable convictions.

Here's the first one.

If you're a follower of Jesus, you need a conviction about truth.

A conviction that scripture is absolute truth.

It's not just good advice.

That scripture is what we will base our lives on, not our feelings, not the trends, not what feels right in the moment, but that we will have a conviction that we will live our lives by truth, and that truth is found in God's word.

Conviction number two: we need a conviction about dependence on God.

I had a friend that was diagnosed with cancer in his early 40s, and he had a wife, he had kids, this was completely unexpected.

Cancer didn't run in his family.

He was diagnosed with cancer, and it was a few days before he was finding out the prognosis of it, and he didn't know what it was gonna be.

And he sat down with his wife and his kids, and they had a family meeting in the living room.

The hardest family meeting they ever had.

And they just talked about this diagnosis.

And with tear-stained cheeks, he sat there and told his three kids and his wife this that no matter what happens, we are going to depend on God in this season.

We're gonna trust God in this season, and his faith in God and it was serious cancer, and his faith in God allowed him to get through that season and writing a book that has influenced thousands of people about how to walk through a trial and how to get through it on the other side.

And this is where it began.

It began when somebody said, I'm going to have a conviction that I'm going to depend on God no matter what happens.

And can I just say we need families filled with people that say, I'm gonna depend on God.

We need moms and dads and husbands and wives and grandmas and grandpas that say, I have a conviction that I'm gonna depend on God in the job loss, in the diagnosis, in the hard times, in the good times.

We have a conviction as a family that I'm gonna depend on God no matter what.

Conviction number three, a conviction about the local church.

I remember when I was late in my high school years, I'm getting serious about my faith, and I'm studying the scripture and I'm studying the book of Acts, and I'm learning about the local church.

And as I'm reading scripture in the New Testament, I'm learning about how the local church, God has designed it to be a primary means for our spiritual growth and development.

It's in the local church where we're taught the word of God.

It's in the local church where we can serve other believers.

It's in the local church where we can practice the one-another of scripture.

It's in a local church where we can be challenged and we can challenge others.

It's in the local church where God's work goes forward.

Like the local church is God's plan A for the world and there's no plan B.

The gospel goes forward through the local church.

And friend, you have to in your life, if you're a follower of Jesus, you're gonna be serious about this.

You gotta have a conviction about the local church.

You gotta have a conviction that you're gonna be a part of what God's doing.

You're gonna have a conviction that if it's important to God, it's important to me.

And God's people need a conviction about the local church.

Conviction number four.

Conviction about holy living.

So in Christ, positionally, we are holy before God.

This is who we are.

And when we live a holy life outwardly, what's happening is we are living a life that reflects our identity of being holy in Christ.

Here's what the word holy means.

The word holy means set apart.

It means set apart.

So, like God is holy, God is set apart from everything else.

We are to be, His as His people, we are to be set apart from some things.

So there should be some things in your life as a follower of Jesus that you would say, I am not going to be a part of this because I'm a follower of Jesus.

Not that I think I'm better than somebody, not that I'm like anything like that.

It's I'm not gonna be a part of this.

I'm not gonna do this in my life because I have a conviction about holy living.

I have a conviction about what God says I should do.

So because of that, I'm not gonna partake in things like that.

And what God's people need to have is they need to say, I'm gonna develop some convictions in my life that allows me to do right when I don't feel like doing right.

That allows me to live for Christ and follow Him when it's difficult to live for Christ and follow Him.

That allow me to say, I'm gonna be a light to the world when, man, sometimes I feel a drawing to go back to the darkness.

And what convictions will do, convictions will keep us doing right, even when we don't feel like doing right.

So here's my questions for us this morning, and we're done.

And I want you to think about these.

What Christian convictions do you have in your life?

You may say, I don't have any.

That's okay, that's what today's about.

Today's about us saying, I'm gonna develop some Christian convictions based on scripture.

And then my second question is this What convictions do you need to have based on Scripture?

What is it in your life that you need to say, Man, I need to get a conviction about this.

I need to get a conviction about truth, I need to get a conviction about depending on God no matter what.

Some of you right now, you're thinking about tapping out, no longer depending on God.

Guys, it's gotta be a conviction.

A conviction about the local church, a conviction about holiness.

And if you have convictions, this is what's gonna happen.

When you are in a situation like Pilate and the pressure's mounting, and all the voices are being loud, and you feel this, and you feel that, and your feelings are telling you this, you're gonna say, Man, I don't feel like this.

Gosh, I've been I've been here, family.

But I have a conviction, and I know my Redeemer lives, and I know his word is true.

And come hell or high water, I'm gonna live my life by conviction.

And those are the Jesus followers that make a difference in the world.

Those are the Jesus followers that move mountains, those are the Jesus followers that take the gospel forward to the nations, those are the Jesus followers that make an impact, and those are the types of people that will change the world.

So, family, let's be those types of people.

Let's all bow our heads and close our eyes.