John: Reaching or Releasing Power

So throughout the book of John, what we've been seeing is we've been seeing that Jesus' words at times are incredibly relieving.

At times they're saving, also at times challenging, right?

And then there's these other times where they're just outright threatening.

This morning, perhaps I don't know where you'll fall on that, whether they're relieving or saving or threatening to you.

I think in some regard this morning it's going to be threatening because his words are going to come against something that we all do, something that I do, something you do, something no matter what age you are, something we all do that hurts ourselves, something that we do that hurts other people.

And what we're going to see in the text this morning is we're going to see this.

We're going to see that you and I are not in control of everything.

And the more we reach for control, the more we bring fear and anxiety into our lives.

So we're at the end of John 18, and so Jesus, last week we saw how Jesus was taken to the high priest and to the high priest's father-in-law.

They took Jesus there to kind of get a ruling on can basically can we kill him?

The Jews want to kill Jesus.

Jesus is making this claim that I am God, and according to the Jewish law, nobody can claim to be the Messiah except the Messiah.

And Jesus is the Messiah, but the Jews don't think he is, and so they're saying, well, he's this blasphemous.

And so according to our law, we can kill him.

Here's the problem.

The Jews legally in the situation where Rome is over the land and in control, they don't have the legal right to kill anybody.

And so now they're taking Jesus over to Pilate.

And Pilate's the governor of the region, of the area.

Pilate is the governor from sort of two-thirds of Israel, sort of from the kind of the bottom half of Israel.

Pilate is, he's the man.

He is in charge what he says goes, get out of his way, don't irritate them.

And basically, Tiberius, Caesar of all of Rome, appointed Pilate to be the governor.

And his job is this: collect the taxes and send them in.

You know what?

If you collect the taxes and you send them in, have your way.

Do what you want.

And squash any rebellion and just don't get in too much trouble.

But if you do that, Pilate, you're the man in this area.

You are the man.

You are in control.

You hold power.

And so the Jews show up to Pilate's house.

It's about 6.30 in the morning.

And the Jews show up with Jesus, and Pilate says, okay, come on in.

And the Jews say, Well, actually, we can't come in.

Passover is coming.

And see, we're different.

See, you're actually contaminated and unholy.

And we, on the other hand, though we're trying to murder an innocent man, we are holy and can't contaminate ourselves with people like you.

And you know, Pilate's got to be thinking, um, really?

We're we're that different?

But see, do the Jews are viewing themselves as that different.

And Pilate says, Oh, you know, okay, you're asking a favor of me.

You want to come into my house?

You're actually kind of offending me.

And he says, Okay, you know, uh, Jews, you'll stay outside, Jesus, you come in, you come on in.

And so Jesus comes inside, and we pick up this conversation in verse 33 of John 18.

And what we're going to see with Pilate throughout this conversation, he's in and out the whole time.

So he's out talking to the Jews, and he comes in, and he talks to Jesus, and he goes back out and talks to the Jews, he comes, and it's almost this erraticness that that's symbolic of what's going on inside of him.

Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus, and asked him, Are you the king of the Jews?

Is that your own idea?

Jesus asked, or did others talk to you about me?

Am I a Jew?

Pilate replied.

What is it that you have done?

So, I mean, he's Pilate said, Come on, Jesus, you don't end up here unless you've done something.

What have you done?

I mean, to get here, how did you end up here?

You must have done something.

Verse 33, 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.

Polly's gotta be thinking, what this is like a religious nut.

I mean, what is he talking about?

And Jesus is saying, like in this great symbolic, I mean, this could be a whole sermon series, just this one verse.

He's saying, you know what, you're operating on a certain level, and I'm operating on a different level, and I'm trying to accomplish something that you don't even understand, I'm trying to accomplish.

And so I'm not trying to get authority over this land.

I'm trying to relieve the hearts of mankind throughout all of history.

So I'm not trying to get victory over you or victory over some governmental system.

I'm trying to get victory over sin.

Verse 37.

So Pilate says, You are a king then.

And Jesus says, Well, 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, and then Pilate retorts back, what is truth?

Maybe he's being honest and wants to know, maybe he's just being skeptical.

Like, who cares?

Like, I mean, Jesus, look, like look, look who I am.

I mean, I mean, what is truth?

I mean, what matters here is power and money.

And look at me, and then look at you.

Who cares about truth in this situation?

I mean, what does it matter?

I'm the man, you are a humble peasant, you're talking about truth.

This doesn't matter at all.

And now, Pilate, he's inside with Jesus, he heads back outside to the Jews, and he just goes to the Jews and says, I don't see a reason to charge this guy.

I don't get anything here.

And so he appeases kind of the Jewish people because each year at Passover he releases one of the prisoners that he's taken.

So constantly, he was just arresting Jewish leaders, kind of uh rebels who form some rebellion group and they're trying to fight against Rome.

He would just pull them in and lock them up.

And so every year at Passover, he would release one prisoner.

Now, here's the situation is he thinks Jesus is innocent.

And so uh he comes to this situation and he goes, All right, I'm the release one prisoner.

Uh I kind of want to release Jesus, um, but I can't because they're gonna rebel.

I'm gonna pick the worst guy.

Like somebody they all hate.

And then they're gonna pick to release Jesus.

And so this guy, Barabbas, he's a horrible guy.

Everybody hated Barabbas.

And so he goes out and he says, All right, who do you want me to release?

Jesus or Barabbas?

And he's thinking they're all gonna reply and they're all gonna say, Well, you know, release Jesus.

We hate that Barabbas.

And of course, they say, No, give us Barabbas, you keep Jesus, and let's let's kill him, let's persecute him.

So Pilate's back inside.

And what we learn in the book of Luke, it's not in this account in John, is Pilate then finds out Herod, who's the governor of the kind of the north part of Israel, he's in town.

And so Jesus was from that area, and so Pilate sends Jesus down to Herod and thinking maybe Herod will take care of it, or maybe Herod will learn something here, and I can figure this out, maybe it'll help.

And while he's gone, Jesus has gone over to Herod's place.

Uh Pilate's learning all this information, bad information, really, that Jesus is creating a rebellion, and um, and so he's getting all this bad information.

And what he's feeling, Pilate's feeling is all the control he thinks he has is slipping away.

And what is he going to do?

Herod just ridicules Jesus, but Jesus won't even talk to Herod.

And so Herod sends Jesus back.

And then in chapter 19, verse 1, when Jesus gets back, Pilate decides to flog Jesus.

Now, flogging was it was this leather whip.

It had a leather handle, nine strips of leather.

At the end of these strips of leather, there's tied in was these bits of stone or bits of steel, and they would bend the guy over a rock or a stump or something, and they would they would whip him.

And a centurion, a soldier, a Roman soldier who's really good at this, what he could do is he could wrap that whip around the guy's back, around the abdomen, and then pull it and just rip the flesh and the muscle and the meat from the guy down to the bone.

And most people just died because they bled to death.

And so Pilate has Jesus flogged.

Flesh is ripped off.

He's bleeding.

The soldiers get together and they get all these thorns and they make a crown just to mock them.

They push it down on his head so that his blood's flowing down his head over his eyes.

And they all come up to him and they say, Hail King of the Jews! They strike him in the face.

This innocent, peaceful man.

So Pilate comes back out to the Jews after having done this.

And remember, Pilate pretty much is thinking, this guy's innocent.

And Pilate's coming back out, kind of thinking, you know what?

They're gonna see this and they're gonna have some compassion.

Like that was enough.

And so he comes back out, verse 4.

Once more Pilate came out, said to the Jews, gathered, look, I'm bringing him out to you to let you know I find no basis for a charge against him.

Now never mind, I just had him flog, just to kind of appease you, and hopefully you're gonna have compassion on him.

Now you see what we did to him, but at least you're gonna let him live, is what Pilate's thinking.

But verse 5, when Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, Here is the man, and the whole crowd starts chanting, Crucify him.

And they say, We have a law, he has to die.

He claimed to be the Son of God, and the text says that Pilate was even more afraid.

What was he afraid of?

Was he afraid that Jesus was really God?

Was he afraid that he knew Jesus was the Son of God and he knew already what he was going to do, anyways?

Was he afraid that all the control and power he thought he had, he really didn't have it, and he was gonna have to just totally go with the whim of a crowd?

Was he afraid that if he let Jesus go, word was gonna get back to Caesar and something bad would happen to him?

See, all the power he thought he had, all the control he thought he had, slipping away.

Now Pilate's back inside again.

And you get this feeling.

All the control he thought he had, it's not there, and in front of him is Jesus bloodied, beaten, exhausted.

This is the point where a normal man pleads for his life.

And Pilate knows that.

He's done this, he's been through this with other people before.

And we get verse 9 when he comes back in the palace and he asks Jesus, where do you come from?

But Jesus gave him no answer.

And Pilate's sort of amazed, and then he gets upset.

And in verse 10, do you refuse to speak to me?

Pilate said.

Look, you're bound, you're beaten.

Look at me.

I'm free.

I'm the one that holds the power.

Jesus, you're not tuned into the situation here.

And Jesus answered, You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.

Therefore, the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.

Right?

He's saying to him, Pilate, you're bound.

You think I'm bound.

No, no, no, no, no.

You are bound.

And you have no power except the power I give to you.

You are not tuned in to the situation here.

See, Pilate is living as if he has more power than he really has.

And because he's constantly reaching for that, trying to maintain that and control the power he doesn't really have, there's just so much fear and anxiety and this erratic nature.

That's where the sad news or the reality is that there's a lot of pilot in us.

Right?

A lot of pilot in me.

We think we have to be in control of all things for anything to happen, like in control of my family, in control of finances, you know, total control over career or where I'm headed or what college or who I'm gonna marry, or you know, if if I don't call the shots and I don't manage the situation fully to the utmost extent, you know, it won't happen.

There's two great points in this story.

And here's here's the first one.

I've alluded to it several times.

The more I live like I have power I don't really have, the more fear and anxiety I welcome into my life.

The more I live like I have power I don't really have, the more fear and anxiety I welcome into my life.

Here's why.

Because I'm either fighting for power I don't have, and trying to get there, or I'm trying to manage the illusion of power I never really had, both of which are exhausting and create fear.

Now, what we do have, Jesus tells us, we have the power he's given us.

So we have some limited power, but what we know is we know we have we have this limited power to sort of like control a certain amount in our lives, but there's so much that's uncontrollable, sort of like this remainder in life of the uncontrollable people and factors and circumstances in this world that we have no ability to control.

And so there's two options here, right?

Like either you keep reaching to control all that remainder, and you welcome fear and anxiety into your life, or you release that remainder to a God who is sovereign, so that means he provides and cares for you in all things.

Now, here's the thing about it is a lot of us are Christians, and if you're a Christian, you go, okay, I get that idea of releasing things I can't control to God.

Here's what we're really good at.

We release the remainder to God, but then that which we can kind of get our hands on, we just keep obsessing and we keep it to ourselves.

And so what you learn as you mature in the Christian life is even that, even that which I have limited power over, even that I have to learn to release to a sovereign God who cares for me.

So the term we might would give that is like stewardship.

Like that, I'm not even I'm not even the grand authority over that which is immediately in front of me.

I'm actually a steward of control over this.

Here's what I mean.

You have power to love your career, you have power to work hard, but you don't have the power to create all opportunities for your career.

We want that, but we don't have it.

You have power to love your children and raise them right, but you don't have the power to control all their behaviors and the world around them.

You have power to be a caring, considerate individual, but you don't have the power to control how every person thinks about you.

You have the power to love your spouse, but you don't have the power to change them.

And when we try to control all of this, all the opportunities, all the behaviors, all the people, it's more fear and stress and anxiety.

And maybe you're thinking, oh, okay, well then I'm just not gonna do anything.

I'm not gonna be responsible for anything.

I'm just, you know, go with the flow.

God's in control of everything.

So years ago, just for a few weeks, I studied this place called Libris.

The first one started in Switzerland by a theologian named Francis Schaefer, and then I was I went to the one in England, and I learned about my my few weeks there, I was studying like the will of God and what does that even mean, and what does that mean for my responsibility and God's care for me?

And uh the term Francis Schaefer had for this, and it comes into the idea of control for our lives, is active passivism.

We are actively trying to be passive when it comes to control.

So we're active, we're responsible, we want to make wise decisions, we want to be thoughtful, but at the same time, we have a passive heart to a loving, sovereign, caring God.

Here's what I know.

Uh, we're not good at this.

I'm not good at this, you're not good at this.

I I I try to control Christy all the time around her house, and you need to do this, and we need to do this, and I don't like how you're doing this, and then she tells me where to go, and that all gets worked out.

I mean, literally the other yesterday we're coming back from a soccer game, um, and you know, and the kids had so much fun.

They're running around in the fields, and we get in the car, and they're still having fun, and they're in the back, and they're they're having fun, they're not being obnoxious, they're having fun, and and I we're Christian and I are up front, we're talking.

I literally reach down to the stair knob to turn it subconsciously and turn the volume down.

The radio's not on.

I'm trying to turn them down.

And I'm like, what's I'm literally trying to control them, and I'm I didn't even, it wasn't a joke.

I wasn't like, you know, it's not like you know, Christians think this is funny.

No, I literally am driving, talking to Christian, it's loud in here, you know, and turn it down, and you know, I can't control them.

I'm trying, I'm literally trying to, and I can't control them.

You know, I mean, I want to control so I want to control the future of our church.

When do we move to the lower school?

When is this full enough to move?

I don't know.

I want to control that.

What are we gonna look like in three years and five years?

I want to control finances, I want to control retirement, and what are we gonna do?

And what year is that gonna be?

How old are we gonna be?

And some of y'all aren't future-oriented, so you control a whole other set of things.

I don't even know about what you control.

But you do it.

Because we love control.

Let's get jump back into the story of chapter 19, verse 12.

From then on.

So Pilate's convinced here that Jesus is innocent.

It says Pilate tried to set Jesus free.

But the Jewish leaders kept shouting, if you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar.

Oh, they they hit something.

They threatened his status, they threatened his career, they threatened his life.

Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar.

They went right at his idol.

When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge's seat at a place known as the stone pavement.

And shortly after they crucified Jesus.

Here's what's interesting about Pilate.

Two years later, this group of Samaritans, they rebelled.

Pilate goes and slaughters all of them.

Rome finds out about it, and Caesar says, Pilate, you've got to come in.

We've got to talk about this.

We're going to try you.

And so while Pilate's on his way back to Rome, Caesar dies.

Pilate gets back to Rome, and the guys there said, Well, Caesar died, and he was going to call you out and figure that out.

We're just going to exile you to Gaul.

He gets to Gaul and he commits suicide.

He's reaching and reaching and reaching and reaching.

More fear, more anxiety.

All right, this brings us to point number two, the good news.

Here's the good news.

Point number two, and what we see here in this story Jesus comes into our poverty.

This sort of poverty we have, Jesus sees it.

And in the mid-1800s, there's this painter, this Russian painter, Nikolai God.

So it's on the back of the bulletin, you'll see this painting that's entitled, What is Truth?

He painted this based on this text.

And what we see here is we see this wealthy, groomed, elite Pilate in front of this broken, poor Jesus.

See, this is always God's plan, to come into our poverty, humble himself into our sin.

And what we see here is we see Pilate standing there as he thinks he is.

All put together, everything's under control.

Elite, well dressed, groomed, and we see Jesus as a projection of how we really are.

Poor and broken and in need.

See, in Jesus, God humbled himself into our world and into our hearts to take this poverty of sin upon himself and to give to us the wealth of his righteousness.

So maybe you're here, and when it comes to control, you can feel it.

You can feel how you reach for control more and more and more control of friends and your future and this and that and everything, anything.

Listen, you don't have to spend the rest of your life trying to control everything.

God really cares for you.

He cares about your career and your children, your marriage and your future, your difficulties.

He cares about the people around you and the factors you can't control.

He listen, he loves you whether you're reaching for control or even when you're doing the right thing and releasing control.

He loves you either way.

And here's why.

Because in Jesus, we know, we know, He already decided to constantly, always, forever be reaching toward you.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you that though sometimes we're really good at uh releasing control to you, and at other moments we are so horrible and we just want to control everything.

We thank you that you you already decided to reach us.

And that you came down into our poverty and into all these control issues we have.

And that you took it upon yourself.

And while we're busy projecting who we think we are, you became and you showed us who we really are.

And you took it upon yourself that we might know and live in your righteousness.

Amen.