[0:00] John 18, beginning in verse 28 and going through verse 38.
[0:20] ! So Pilate went outside to them and said, They answered him, Pilate said to them, Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.
[0:50] The Jews said to him, So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, Are you the king of the Jews?
[1:08] Jesus answered, Do you say this on your own accord or did others say it to you about me? Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me.
[1:22] What have you done? Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world. 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 of this world.
[1:40] Then Pilate said to him, So you are a king. Jesus answered, You say that I am a king for this purpose I was born, and for this purpose I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth.
[1:55] Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice. Pilate said to him, What is truth? After he said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, I find no guilt in him.
[2:11] May God add a blessing to the reading of his word. Would you please be seated? In this last day of Jesus' earthly ministry, he stands before Pilate, accused by the Jewish leaders of a crime that he did not commit.
[2:31] Pilate, as Pilate begins his interrogation of Jesus, in these verses, he asks him a question about his identity.
[2:42] He begins by saying, Are you the king of the Jews? And I think that's interesting because prior to the beginning of our Lord's earthly ministry, he faced a similar question, but not by the Jewish leaders and not by Pilate.
[3:03] It was Satan who was asking a question, and it came in the form of a statement. Remember, Jesus had been led out to the wilderness by the Holy Spirit where he was fasting for 40 days, and after that time, Satan came to him and began tempting him, and he did so with a question that questioned his identity.
[3:27] Remember, Satan said to Jesus before each of those temptations, If you are the Son of God, if that's really who you are, and the things that Satan tempted Jesus with then are things that he continually tempts us with today, which cause us to question our identity as image bearers of God, and our true identity, or the true identity of his Son, Jesus Christ.
[4:01] But Jesus knew who he was. And remember, he countered each of Satan's lies, each of Satan's temptations, with the truth recorded in God's Word.
[4:13] He would say, he would begin by saying, it is written. And throughout his earthly ministry, Jesus revealed that he was the Son of God who had come in fulfillment of the Scriptures, which he often quoted.
[4:28] That he was truth, that he was the truth personified, and that his truth is truly the only truth, that there is. Truth that if believed, leads to peace with God and eternal life.
[4:45] The Jewish leaders had the Scriptures, and they knew them, but their rejection of Jesus proved that they didn't really understand them, and that they truly didn't believe them.
[4:59] Instead of humbling themselves before Jesus, they felt time and time again threatened by him. They were jealous of him, and they exchanged the truth of who Jesus truly was for a lie.
[5:13] Some of those lies we saw last week, thinking I can honor God by dishonoring his Son, that I have the ability to discern what is good and evil, that I can destroy those who disagree with me by whatever means necessary.
[5:26] Now Jesus is brought before Pilate. And in Pilate's interrogation of Jesus, we are presented with the last two of these five lies, that those who reject Jesus exchange the truth of who he is for.
[5:45] As the scene continues to unfold, we see the depths to which sinful humanity is willing to descend to deny whose image they are created in and the one who is the exact imprint and image of it.
[6:05] So the main idea from last week's sermon is the main idea for this week's sermon. You cannot deny Jesus and no truth. You cannot deny Jesus and no truth.
[6:18] Again, as I mentioned last week, Jesus' desire for you is that you know the truth, that you know the truth of who he really is and what he has done to save you from your sins, to set you free from the consequences of your sins, to bring you peace with God and eternal life.
[6:40] This was John's purpose, inspired by the Holy Spirit, to write this gospel. In John 1.14, he testifies, testifies, and the word, speaking of Jesus, became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory.
[6:54] Glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. And then in John 20.31, he says, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
[7:12] God's desire for you is that you not deny his Son. The Bible calls Satan the father of lies, and as the father of lies, he works to deceive, to snatch up the truth of the gospel before it can take root in your life.
[7:32] Like Pilate, you may be uncertain today of what truth is, of who Jesus is. Well, today, you're going to hear that truth proclaimed to you.
[7:44] And I pray that today is the day that if he hasn't already, the Lord draws you to the living truth, the freeing truth, the gospel truth that comes through faith in Jesus Christ alone.
[8:00] These verses provide sanctifying truth for you who have already been drawn to Jesus and who know him today as your Lord and Savior. See, these last two lies are lies that we today are tempted to believe as followers of Christ.
[8:18] Lies that we sometimes want to believe are true, but they are lies that do not sanctify. Only believing the truth and obeying the truth will make you more like Jesus.
[8:34] And his prayer for you, his disciple, is that you be sanctified by the truth which is contained in his word, as he said in John 17, 17, as he prayed. Sanctify them in the truth.
[8:47] Your word is truth. Christians have been called to the truth. Christians have been commanded to communicate the truth. The Bible says that Satan works to keep people in the dark.
[9:02] He wants to keep them ignorant of God. So you must not only know these lies so that you don't fall for them, but you must know them so that you can expose them in the hopes that like you, others will be drawn to the truth of Jesus Christ and know their true identity as an image bearer of God and have that image marred by sin restored through faith in Jesus Christ.
[9:33] So a quick review of those first three lies. I can honor God by dishonoring Jesus, his son. I can discern what is good and evil. And I can destroy those who disagree with me by whatever means necessary.
[9:48] And now the fourth lie is Jesus is brought in to Pilate. I can make demands of God, but he can't make demands of me. I can make demands of God, but he can't make demands of me.
[10:02] Look again at verse 33 through the beginning of verse 37. So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, are you the king of the Jews?
[10:14] Jesus answered, do you say this on your own accord or did others say it about me? Pilate answered, am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me.
[10:25] What have you done? Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I may not be delivered over to the Jews, but my kingdom is not from this world.
[10:38] Then Pilate said to him, so you are a king. Considering who stood before him and the seriousness of this situation, Pilate was astonishingly dismissive of Jesus.
[10:56] The Greek text literally reads like this. You? You are the king of the Jews? Pilate can't believe it.
[11:08] Surely he's aware of this man called Jesus from Nazareth who had recently been welcomed into Jerusalem with the shouts of Hosanna and who had the Pharisees and all the people worked up in the city.
[11:23] But now Jesus is standing before Pilate and it's as if Pilate is saying here to him, you? You're the one? You're the source of all of this fuss?
[11:36] It can't be you. You're no threat. You don't look like a king to me. And from a human perspective, Jesus appeared unimposing.
[11:50] You know, in TV shows and movies and in portraits where Jesus is depicted, he's often depicted as a light-skinned, light-haired, blue-eyed GQ model.
[12:08] But the only physical description we have of Jesus comes from Isaiah in the Old Testament. Look at how Isaiah there describes him.
[12:19] For he grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or majesty that we should look at him and no beauty that we should desire him.
[12:35] Externally, Jesus did not have the appearance of royalty. But it's what he did that revealed who he truly was.
[12:45] Nature obeyed his commands. The fig tree withered when he cursed it. Storms ceased to rage at his word.
[12:57] A few fish and loaves were multiplied in his hands to feed thousands of people. Incurable diseases were healed by his touch and at his word.
[13:09] He demonstrated his authority over the supernatural by casting out demons. He brought dead people back to life. These are things that only God can do.
[13:24] Yet people continued in their unbelief. They continually denied his claim to be God and they challenged him repeatedly by making demands of him to prove who he claimed to be despite what they'd already seen him do.
[13:42] Matthew 12, there's an example of that. Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him saying, teacher, we wish to see a sign from you. They'd seen a lot of these other signs. But Jesus answered them, an evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given it except for the sign of the prophet Jonah.
[14:03] And then later in Matthew 16, verse one and verse four. And the Pharisees and the Sadducees came to test him and they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. And Jesus said, an evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but again, no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.
[14:20] So he left them and departed. In these passages, the Jewish leaders are demanding that Jesus perform a sign of their own devising.
[14:33] They were so entrenched in their denial of Jesus that they refused to believe the signs and wonders that he had already performed before their eyes. Even going so far as to suggest that, you know what, Jesus, the only reason why you're doing these things is because you're in partnership with Satan.
[14:54] And even when they were presented with the sign of Jonah, which was Christ's resurrection after he had been dead and buried for three days, they still did not believe.
[15:07] Remember, they even went back to the Roman guards and said to them, hey, you know, here's some money. If anybody asks you about what happened to the body, say it was stolen. And this was also true of many of the Jewish people who thought they could make demands of Jesus.
[15:25] After he fed the multitudes, a large crowd began to follow him. But Jesus knew their true motivation and he rebuked them for it in John 6, 26.
[15:36] Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. The crowd's desire was not for who Jesus was and what Jesus said, but to have their physical appetites satisfied by him.
[15:55] Eventually, they turned away from him when they realized that he would not be their meal ticket to material prosperity. Once Jesus started teaching about how he was the bread of life, that gives spiritual life, they wanted nothing more to do with him because he would not satisfy their demands and they refused to listen to what he demanded of them.
[16:24] They wanted Jesus, but only so long as he would be their prosperity Messiah. They would coronate him as their king, but only if he gave them what their sinful hearts coveted.
[16:44] Modern day prosperity teachers proclaim and promote this lie as truth. Sunday after Sunday and millions of people have bought into the thought that they can make demands of God by naming it and claiming it and blabbing it and grabbing it.
[17:02] Treating God as a genie and the Bible as some kind of spell book to make demands or commands of him through. Years ago, I said some critical things from the pulpit about one of those prosperity teachers, Joel Osteen.
[17:21] And later that afternoon, I was cornered by a church member who was angry with me because they couldn't believe that I would say critical things of a good man who was helping people.
[17:41] And I explained that the prosperity gospel doesn't help anybody, but those who preach it, it burdens people.
[17:56] I've heard the testimonies of people who are seriously ill, people who were born with disabilities who believe that they could go to one of these prosperity teachers and be healed only to be turned away.
[18:10] And you know, if they have such power, why aren't they spending a lot more of their time in the hospitals? I've known people who have suffered unnecessarily from treatable illnesses because they had been told that seeking treatment somehow gave the illness power and was a sign of weak faith and God could do nothing about it if that was the case.
[18:39] I've known parents who have sent the last few dollars they had off to some prosperity ministry while their kids went hungry.
[18:51] The prosperity gospel doesn't help people. And if you truly know Jesus, don't you know that Jesus is truly enough?
[19:04] He lives sinlessly. He died sacrificially. He rose victoriously. That by faith in Him, you are forgiven of your sins.
[19:18] You have peace with God. You have eternal life. Isn't that enough? Jesus did not descend to earth and endure the humiliation of the cross to make every day a Friday for you.
[19:34] No, He suffered for your sins. He bore your shame. He commands that those who follow Him deny themselves in pursuit of His kingdom to advance His kingdom to be used by Him in this world to build His kingdom.
[19:54] He will not be used by you to build your kingdom. Your life belongs to Him. It is foolish to think that you who are finite have the ability to make demands of He who is infinite.
[20:18] Thinking that the sign of the cross is not enough and demanding more than that. That's no different from people that Paul encountered as he writes in 1 Corinthians 1, 21-23.
[20:31] For since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom it pleased God through the folly of what He preached to save those who believed. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom.
[20:43] But we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles. The unbelieving Jewish leaders demanded signs and they rejected the ultimate one that was given when Jesus rose from the dead.
[20:59] But Gentiles make different demands of God. Like Pilate they want proof by means of human wisdom and understanding.
[21:10] See Pilate cannot figure Jesus out. He interrogates Jesus by making demands of Him to find out who He is and who He claims to be. He's trying to use His reasoning to gauge what kind of threat Jesus might be to Rome and to Himself.
[21:30] But as Pilate questions Jesus Jesus begins to question him. He asks do you say this of your own accord or did others say it about me? And now suddenly the roles are reversed.
[21:43] Pilate is the one on trial before the judge of heaven and earth. And Jesus was demanding to know whether or not Pilate's question was his own or was being asked based on hearsay and evidence based on hearsay was inadmissible in their courts just as it is in ours.
[22:02] But Pilate deflects by making more demands of Jesus saying in effect to him I'm not a Jew. I have no desire to be caught up in this issue at all.
[22:14] But you must have done something wrong otherwise you wouldn't be here standing before me. What is it that you've done? You must have done something. Pilate was inconvenienced by Jesus.
[22:28] He knew that Jesus was innocent but he didn't know what to make of Him or what to do with Him.
[22:41] So Jesus begins to tell him who He is. that He is a King but His kingdom is not from this world. Human kings are crowned by their subjects but Jesus is a King who regenerates and crowns His subjects.
[22:57] He isn't a King who ascends the throne by force through the bloodshed of others but a King who shed His own blood and sacrificed Himself so that those who by faith in Him will ascend with Him into eternal glory.
[23:10] Jesus is not a King who resembles earthly kings but He is a King. He is the King of Kings. As we've sung He's a good and gracious King.
[23:22] A King who gives life by giving His own life. So then Pilate asks Him so you are a King. And you know and here I wonder if there isn't maybe a hidden implication in Pilate's question.
[23:41] When Pilate asks Jesus so you are a King I wonder if He's not also wondering am I supposed to believe that you are my King too?
[23:55] Is that what you're saying? Is that what I'm supposed to believe? Pilate was troubled by Jesus and we see this in all four of the Gospels how Pilate made multiple attempts to try to avoid having to deal with Jesus.
[24:19] To avoid passing sentence on Him because he knew that he hadn't really done anything wrong. There's nothing that Pilate has to convict Jesus of.
[24:30] But there's no escape for Pilate. He's put in this spot. He must settle the issue. He must face this inconvenient truth. The Bible says that everyone everyone deep down knows that there is a God.
[24:46] That there is a higher power. That there is a King if you will. But like Pilate in their wisdom they attempt to escape and avoid that inconvenient truth of His existence.
[24:59] But the evidence is unavoidable and it demands a verdict. Romans 1 19-20 says for what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them.
[25:11] For His invisible attributes namely His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made so they are without excuse.
[25:23] you might think that you can like Pilate avoid answering this question honestly truthfully who is Jesus?
[25:38] You might even think that you know Him. You might think that you're in position to make demands of Him. That's what you've been taught.
[25:49] like the Jewish leaders and like Pilate you might think that that you can make demands of Jesus or you don't really know who He is and that that's something that you can avoid or just put away for another time to make a decision to think about it.
[26:08] but a day is coming when you and I and everyone will stand before Jesus in unavoidable judgment.
[26:22] Listen to Jesus' words in Matthew 25 31 through 46 about this coming unavoidable day when the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the angels with Him then He will sit on His glorious throne the King of Kings the Lord of Lords before Him will be gathered all the nations and He will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats and He will place the sheep on His right but the goats on His left then the King will say to those on His right come you who are blessed by my Father inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world for I was hungry and you gave me food I was thirsty and you gave me drink I was a stranger and you welcomed me I was naked and you clothed me I was sick you visited me I was in prison you came to me then the righteous will answer him saying in humility
[27:27] Lord when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you drink and when did we see you a stranger and welcome you or naked and clothe you and when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you and the king will answer them truly I say to you as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers you did it to me then he will say to those on his left depart from me you cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels for I was hungry and you gave me no food I was thirsty and you gave me no drink I was a stranger and you did not welcome me naked and you did not clothe me sick and in prison and you did not visit me then they will answer him and I feel like there's some demands here still more Lord when did we see you were hungry thirsty!
[28:26] or a stranger naked or sick or in prison and did not minister to you then he answered them saying truly I say to you as you did not do it to one of the least of these you did not do it to me and these will go away into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life God has been gracious to give you the opportunity to receive Jesus as your king to listen to his words of truth to trust in him to receive his grace to receive his life to receive his kingdom as we've read one day a day will come when everyone will acknowledge Jesus as king and lord but it's those who know him as savior who will do so with joy don't be fooled into believing that
[29:29] Jesus is someone who he isn't he's a king who suffered as a servant to die for sins your sins to give you eternal life through faith in him and such a king deserves your obedience doesn't he and the thing he demands of you the things he demands of you are not burdensome but life giving he said in 1st john 5 3-4 says for this is the love of god that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not burdensome for everyone who has been born of god overcomes the world and this is the victory that has overcome the world our faith you know what is burdensome is to be in the position that the jewish leaders and pilot were in the jewish leaders had placed unnecessary burdens on themselves and on others by ordering strict observance to laws that they could not keep and rejected the one who came in fulfillment of them pilot was burdened by not knowing what to do with jesus finding no guilt in him but not trusting his words either and feeling the pressure from the popular opinion of his day to order his execution pilot was unwilling to see the truth even when he stood face to face with it now the fifth lie i can determine my own truth i can determine my own truth looking back again at verse 37 jesus answered you say that i am a king for this purpose i was born and for this purpose i have come into the world to bear witness to the truth everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice now there are two things in jesus's statement right there that he says first he says for this reason i was born that's his humanity then he says for this purpose i have come into the world that's his deity and why did he come to bear witness to reveal reveal the truth the truth of god the truth of man the truth of sin of salvation of heaven of hell truth that sets you free from sin and saves you from the consequences of it truth that grants entrance into his eternal kingdom it's truth contained in the gospel concerning life concerning death forgiveness and eternity in john 8 31 through 32 so jesus said to the jews who had believed him if you abide in my words you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth he says and the truth will set you free knowing jesus truly sets you free from the search for truth jesus says that he is the source of all truth but if you remove him as the source of truth then eventually truth will lose its meaning people think they can determine their own truth but but as i mentioned last week it's inevitable that those different versions of the truth those different definitions of the truth will come in conflict with one another and cause a lot of pain and heartache in their wake you were created to live and thrive in god's truth as revealed through his son jesus christ as revealed in his word his truth gives life and his truth protects your life imagine uh imagine after our service is over
[33:29] this morning and uh and and we go into our cars and we and we exit the parking lot and all of this the traffic lights and all of the stop signs and all of the the painted markings on the road and the guardrails imagine all of those things were just gone could you imagine what would ensue from that and imagine we said you know what driving is fun it can't be fun anybody can drive forget about being 16 or 17 whatever it is now uh you know hand the keys over to your son your 10 year old son or your your 6 year old daughter if they can reach the pedals and and just let them go at it what would happen chaos confusion wrecks fatalities this is what happens to a society that denies
[34:30] God and who rejects him as the source of truth as Romans 1 says when a people reject God they face his judgment which is the removal of his constraints the removal of his grace as he gives them over to what their hearts desire in John 3 19 through 20 Jesus revealed the true reason why people deny him as the source of truth and this is the judgment he says the light has come into the world and people love the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil for everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light lest his work should be exposed you recall Jesus talking about what it meant to follow him he said to enter through the narrow gate that leads to the narrow way and he said that it's hard but it leads to life entering through the narrow gate in the narrow way requires humility it requires your acknowledging your sinfulness it requires your acknowledging your inability to determine your own truth your inability to make peace with
[35:51] God through your good works it requires humble confession and repentance and turning to Jesus and acknowledgement that Lord it's only by you and through you and because of you and you alone that I can be saved from the sins that I've committed from you and it's knowing that it was for your sins that he died and it's trusting humbly in his work on the cross and in his resurrection to give you peace with God and the truth that your version of the truth cannot provide the joy that following your truth can't sustain or satisfy Pilate was face to face with the personification of truth he heard
[36:54] Jesus say these things and verse 38 records his response Pilate said to him what is truth you know like Pilate then uncertainty is the truth of our day isn't it the belief that you must determine your own truth because no one really knows what truth is that there's no ultimate source of truth so you be the ultimate source of your own truth see we need to understand Pilate so that we better understand ourselves I don't think Pilate's question here was sincere when he asked it I think it was rhetorical I think this is what Pilate was meaning to say who knows what is truth no one knows what is truth today having strong convictions about any form of absolute truth sounds arrogant and naive and stupid to our culture and
[38:14] Pilate's question then characterizes the attitude of this age though he couldn't find fault in Jesus we continue on verse 38 says after he said this he went back outside to the Jews and said to them I find no guilt in him I don't believe him but I don't see what he's done wrong he was not convinced he would not listen to Jesus voice his words he was unconvicted and determined to pursue the uncertainty of not knowing the truth choosing to forfeit eternal life to save himself from the potential consequences of releasing Jesus thus Pilate chose to follow his own truth and chose to convict him instead much like
[39:19] King Herod Pilate felt threatened by Jesus and needed to preserve his place the Bible says that each of us is born with a sin nature nobody tells us how to sin it comes instinctively and with that sin nature I think also comes a desire to be our own king to rule our own lives to determine our own truth and if that's you today I ask you this question sincerely how has that gone for you how has that gone for you I know how it went for me and I ask you this question as well for us as a society the more we pushed out the thought that there is an absolute truth and that
[40:21] God is the source of that absolute truth how has that gone for us in our nation mass shootings people who are upset and protesting that they no longer have the right from the federal government to murder babies we have increased rates of suicide and the rates are increasing in our young people who we're feeding this garbage to overcrowded prisons those attempts to reform aren't working war rumors of war every day you turn on the news and it's just filled with bloodshed and evil and bad news our attempts to form our own truth and push
[41:29] God out of the way exchanging his truth for a lie has resulted in disaster after disaster after disaster and we can go all the way back through the history of the world and see that can't we we're to believe that we've pushed God out of the way and that uncertainty of the truth of the time and that we've made progress have we made progress and in this passage we've just seen five of the lies that people exchange the truth of God with and there's countless many but you know what we also see in this passage Jesus the one who is true the one who is righteous the one who is good the one who is gracious the one who is falsely accused the one who is hated the one who is mistreated the one who will eventually be executed and as I said last week
[42:47] I love verse 32 in this passage I thank God for it because we see that in all these things who is in control God's in control the Lord is in control he willingly endured it because he knew the truth he knew that going to the cross he would die that he would endure the wrath of God for the sins of his people that he would bear the shame of their guilt in love this king gave his life to set you free from your sins and give you life that's the truth truth what will you do with that truth that's the question that's the question I leave you with this morning as an unbeliever what will you do with that truth that unavoidable day is coming you will stand before the
[43:55] Lord and if you have denied him in search of your own truth you may remember June 26 2022 when by divine appointment you heard God's truth declared to you but you chose to reject it and at that time it will be too late and so my prayer for you and my hope for you is that today is the day that the Lord draws you to the truth and you as a believer you have peace with God you have been drawn to the truth you have accepted that truth you hopefully are trying to live by that truth but understand that you are an ambassador of Christ an ambassador of his kingdom and it's your responsibility and he gives you the opportunity to advance his kingdom by exposing these lies and so the word of
[45:00] God must live richly in you so that the words you speak are words full of life that he uses to draw people to the truth and so the main point of application is this everyone who is of the truth is drawn to it by Jesus has he drawn you to it our job as Christians is to proclaim and to go and to share the gospel and the results are up to God right now in a world that is desperate to exchange the truth that we know that's been revealed to us through Christ through his word that continually exchange that truth for a lie what our culture needs is not for us to come into this building and complain about how horrible they are but to have our hearts broken for them and a desire like
[46:01] Isaiah to say here I am God send me I have the truth you have given it to me I'm going to share that truth the world needs to hear it will you share it one application question for you I encourage you to just go back later there's a lot of things that could have been mentioned in the sermon that weren't the time for I encourage you to do some study on your own though read 2nd Corinthians 10 3 through 5 Colossians 2 8 Jude 22 and 23 and what do these verses teach about a Christian's responsibility to expose lies and reveal truth in your home in your neighborhood in your workplace you are to be the light of truth seek opportunities for the Lord to use you to share the truth of who he is in the hopes that they will be drawn to
[47:03] Christ and be saved I'm going to pray we'll have our invitation hymn that's a time for you to respond however the Lord is calling you to respond maybe you're here today and you haven't known the truth but you've heard God's word and he's drawn you to Jesus we want to know that and I want to pray for you we would want to rejoice in what God's doing in your life so come and find me I'll be right here I'll talk with you we'll pray maybe it's just to realize that you are the light source in your community in your home in your workplace and you've you've not let your light shine and so the response is for you to just take time with the Lord and pray right now that he would embolden you to let your light shine that people would see the hope that is in Jesus Christ right now let's bow our heads and pray Lord God thank you that you have been gracious and good to send us your son to reveal the truth to us
[48:06] God thank you for your word that you've given us that serves as a lamp into our feet and a light into our path God we are bombarded every day by the lies of the adversary by the lies of this world under his influence and God we're tempted to to either believe them or to allow them to have such an influence over us that we are afraid to share the truth that you have given us and commanded us to share Lord I pray that you would draw us deeper into your word into yourself that Lord we would make as much of the time that you have given us in this life to make as much of you as we possibly can before we enter into your kingdom and spend our eternity with you
[49:08] God where we see lies may we be emboldened by your spirit to speak the truth in grace and in love with a broken heart that that pleads for that person to be reconciled with you through your son and God may we be like Jesus as we are persecuted or called names maybe even lose jobs or promotions because of our identity in you Lord may we like Jesus stand courageously and boldly unmoving continuing to testify to the truth no matter what may come because we know that you are in control and you're sovereign and you're good God use our lives to reveal and to declare your truth be glorified by what results we pray in
[50:10] Jesus name amen