Chapter 18 Verses 25 – 27

• So the scene opens back with Peter.  As Jesus was being led out of the inner court of Annas, bound in chains, no doubt approaching Peter…here again we find Peter where?  Where he shouldn’t be.  In a position, in a place, around particular people that create a temptation, an opportunity for the Lord to be denied.  We talked at length last week about that idea of opportunity and how we must be on guard, be awake in our own lives to avoid even the opportunities, the temptations offered by this world to become the joke of evil…
• You see these men challenged Peter…but why?  Because they hated Jesus?  Not particularly.  Because they hated Peter?  Not likely.  Because they expected Peter to cower and lie?  Certainly not…I believe they wanted the truth.  There was a great stir that night as 600+ men led One Man, this Jesus into see Annas…and so why did they challenge him?  Check this out…because he was standing with them! 
• He was there with them, as one of them, no doubt the fire lighting up his face which caused him to be recognized.  No doubt they were already talking about Jesus…how He was going to really get it and how He was in big trouble with the High Priest you know.  Blasphemies…yet Peter, simply warmed himself.  Something didn’t fit.  The fire revealing him, his actions denying him…and so they challenge…
• First the servant girl, then some folks around a fire and now a servant of the high priest and each time, Peter readily denied the Lord.  What an interesting progression.  What a profound truth as to how sin decays you from the inside out.  A little sitcom, a moment of ungodly conversation, even getting wrapped up in the routine of a regular week…a work week…and your desire for prayer…dull…and then maybe you find yourself days without speaking to God.  Weeks without meeting with the family of the Father to worship…and without repentance, you slip into a life apart from God in open denial of Him. 
• Repentance from what?  Missing church?  Nope, that’s just a symptom.  Missing prayer…missing time in the Word?  Nope, just symptoms.  Repentance…from faithlessness man…from following Jesus from a distance…the very weakness that plopped you down at the fire of the world to warm yourself! 
• I mean, if you go to the Doctor for a cough and you are diagnosed with Strep Throat, if all you’re given is a cough suppressant, you’re doomed!  Doomed to repeat your current circumstance!
• No!  You need penicillin or whatever antibiotic they give now a-days for Strep so that you can be cured of the problem, not comforted in your sickness!  And just like that man we need to turn not from prayerlessness or missing church but from not being real man!  From being disinginuine in our walks.  From being loosy goosy in our discipleship…from folding in to this fallen world and its sinfulness…lest we find ourselves in a circumstantial cycle of turmoil, frustration, restlessness and endless hardship…man that cycle is always…and this is the truth…always associated with following Jesus from a distance.
• Even those in the worst of pain and circumstance, when following Jesus closely, pressing in on Jesus, being real about eternity…even when faced with raging tragedy…they are clothed in peace, and grace, and love, and patience, and kindness, and character!
• Now this is interesting because we know John is still close to Jesus and so how does John know to write this?  Well church history tells us that this story was quite famous.  It was used as often as Peter preached to remind him of his denial of Jesus.  Everywhere he went this story would be used by the enemy to discount his witness…and that is true for us today also.  The world is always watching us who say we are His disciples for something to discredit our witness also.
• This crowing of the rooster would have been a penetrating sound for Peter.  It was Peter who said, “Lord even if this whole world denies you, it will be I…I will be the one left standing.”  How revealing as he stood alone and denied him.  You see man alone, apart from the presence of God…certain to fall.  What is man?  What is our boasted strength but utter weakness when we are left to ourselves…how our most solemn resolutions…just like Peter’s…melt like snow before the heat of the world’s fires… when we are following Jesus from a distance. 
• But even as devastating as this story is…even as penetrating this sound of Peter’s open denial…I see a very bright side to this story…what does the rooster’s crow signify?  The dawn of a new day…and its like God used the rooster specifically to tell Peter and to tell us yes Peter, you’ve blown it…you’ve cursed and sworn (the other Gospels add those details, as well as the fact that as he denied Jesus the third time, Jesus and he caught eyes), you’ve cursed and sworn and denied Me not once but three times.  But a new day is dawning.
• “I’m not through with you, not by a long shot!”  You see following the resurrection, Jesus sought Peter out individually!  Jesus prepared a meal for Peter…not the other way around…signifying a coming together that day on the beach which we’ll see in John 21.  Jesus restored Peter and then commissioned him into the ministry!  And powerful was Peter’s life even after this! 
• Wherever Peter went…yes the world would crow reminding him of his failure because that’s what the world does!  Not what God does and as His church, not what we should do either.  Paul would write to the Galatians, “brothers, if any of you be overtaken in a fault, you who are spiritual, restore!”  Notice Paul didn’t say remind, rebuke, or reveal…He said RESTORE!  Jesus is in the very business of restoration you see and as a Christian we ought to always be looking for opportunities to see men and women continue on, to be restored, to not be held back because of some failure or circumstance!  After all, that’s what the Lord did for us, right?
• And so we leave the account of Peter’s denial, not to return to it again but to see Peter restored, renewed and remarkably powerful in his ministry unto the Lord!  You also!  If there is anything that is weighing you down, some past denial, some previous failure man repent and let’s go!  There’s work to be done and it isn’t God holding a grudge against you that’s weighing you down…its pride man!  Resist the devil…and he will flee > get up and get in the battle!

Chapter 18 Verse 28

• Man how crazy and warped their minds!  Here they are about to kill the Son of God, a righteous man…the Messiah and yet they are worried about defiling themselves by stepping into Gentile territory!  Jesus said “its crazy how people will strain at gnats but swallow camels” and yet even still today this is prevalent within religious circles.  So careful about certain issues like women wearing makeup or kids dancing at a slumber party or people celebrating even Christmas yet they live their lives hard and unkind, ungentle…backbiting and despising others…so backwards…and just like these Jews, they risk missing the big picture altogether.  And what is the big picture…LOVE!

Chapter 18 Verses 29 – 31

• Now this statement of the Jews is significant.  Very.  They say here to Pilate, “It is not lawful for us to put any man to death.”  Understand that in the year 30AD, just a few years prior to where we find ourselves this morning in the text, the Romans had stripped the Jews of the right of Capital Punishment.  Now in response, the rabbis ripped their clothes, put on sackcloth, threw dirt and ash on their heads, and said, “God has failed us!  God has failed us!” as they marched through the streets of Jerusalem…
• Now that’s major.  Why would they do that?  Why would they cry out that God had failed them?  Because all the way back in the Book of Genesis, Chapter 49 Verse 10, the promise was given that the scepter would not depart from Judah until Messiah came….and the basic foundation of self governance was the ability to deal with lawbreakers, so the scepter had indeed departed and the Jews recognized this…yet their problem…the Messiah was seemingly nowhere in sight!  Oh but Messiah was there, right in their midst…they just didn’t recognize Him.  They denied Him…
• The truth of the matter…Just like Stone Cold Steve Austin used to say, the fact of the matter and the bottom line…is God NEVER fails.  His word…always triumphs yet just like the Jews, sometimes we ourselves walk through the streets of our own lives, “God where are you, why God…why?” and we feel dejected by God, abandoned…like God has failed us…not so.  I wonder if you can recognize the Messiah…

Chapter 18 Verse 32

• Three times Jesus had said that He would be “lifted up.”  Just as Moses lifted the serpent on the staff in the wilderness…lifted up so that the Jews may realize that He is the Messiah…lifted up so that all men might be drawn to Him…John 3:14, John 8:28 and John 12:32.
• Also, notice, Psalm 22, hundreds of years before crucifixion had even been invented…David writes, “they pierced My hands and My feet…they stare at Me and divide my clothing among them…” And so the Messiah would have to be handed over to the Romans…just as they are doing now…so that He may endure death upon a gentile cross…the Roman specialty…

Chapter 18 Verses 33 – 34

• This is so cool because check this out…Jesus was in front of Annas…what did He try to do?  Save Him!  Now John leaves the account of Jesus before Caiaphas out but we know from Matthew’s Gospel that Jesus openly revealed to them that He sure enough was the Messiah…and even now…here He is, trying to reach Pilate…I wonder if that is your heart?  These are major enemies in an earthly sense of Jesus yet each one He seeks to serve.  He seeks to give a future and a hope.  I wonder if that is your heart for even your closest of friends. 
• Do you seek to serve them or do you demand to be served yourself?  Jesus has been up all night.  Stressed out.  No doubt He’s exhausted, starving, thirsty, weary and yet notice…”Pontius, do you really want to know?  Because if you do then buckle your seat belt…the truth is going to rock you bro.”
• Why?  Why would Pontius accepting Jesus as who He was and is, the Lord of Lords, why would that be so hard for Pontius?  Because you see, Pontius was a puppet, wrapped in the control of fear…you see he was an ex-slave from Rome who through marriage and political maneuvering, became a Procurator or overseer.  He was sent out to Jerusalem because Herod the Great’s sons were horrible and this Roman province Jerusalem was a continual mess and headache for the emperor.
• But the first time Pilate came to Jerusalem he had made a huge mistake because he brought with him soldiers carrying busts of the emperor and as they approached the temple, simply to pass by, the Jews rioted and some were killed.  Rome then sent a warning to Pilate, “man you just got there, get it together!”
• So Pilate, thinking that he could win the people over began building them an aqueduct however he needed money to do so and so he began to tax the temple treasury in order to finance his gift to the people.  The Jews were infuriated at this and again began to publically outcry.  Rome got wind of it and sent yet another warning to Pilate, “strike two slave…one more and you’re out.”  So I want you to see this…Pilate…as he asked this question, asked it dishonestly… 
• What do you mean dishonestly?  He didn’t care about the answer!!  And so Jesus doesn’t entertain the dishonest question but rather He reaches out directly to Pilate and addresses the real matter.  “Are you under their control son?  Do you really want to know?”  Man He speaks right to Pilate’s heart!!
• And I’ll tell you, dishonest questions are a waste of time.  Because answers aren’t really wanted…what’s wanted are arguments…And as you encounter folks in your life, I want to encourage you to learn, watch them, study them, listen to their lives more than their voices and determine whether they are asking for answers or asking to argue.  If they’re asking to argue, don’t cast your pearls before swine or you may find yourself in an endless, circular, going nowhere argument that lasts for hours or weeks or months which will cost you!  Cost me?  Yes!  Because every second you spend with a sucker, you miss a second with a seeker!

Chapter 18 Verses 35 – 36

• Ah, Jesus revealed…He says, “My kingdom…”  Pilate just said “are you the King of the Jews?”  Jesus now answers, “yes I’m a King, but not of the Jews only…My Kingdom is beyond this world even, it’s eternal!” 

Chapter 18 Verse 37

• Notice Jesus says “everyone” here.  No matter where they live, no matter when they live, every person who wants to know the truth will hear God’s voice.  Everyone gets a fair shot to hear His voice and be set free.  
• Now where do we hear Him?  In His word!  Therefore if we are of the truth, then our lives will be conformed, transformed…our lives will be reformed as we hear, read, study and keep the Word of God…truth as Jesus says here…

Chapter 18 Verse 38

• The Truth is staring him in the face…yet the question…”what is truth?”  The real statement…what is he really saying here?  Jesus, you I do not accept.  Jesus has been so clear with Him.  So gentle.  “For this I was born Pontius, to give mankind, each and everyone a choice…give everybody an equal opportunity to choose Me or to choose death.”  “For this cause I have come into the world, that I should display, show, reveal the truth.”  Yet Pilate denies Him. 
• Oh how we do the same.  We read the Bible and God’s precepts are clear…His direction and commands and promises are uncomplicated…all together simple…”if you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.  And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” 
• It’s all right here folks.  The answers to your freedom, the keys to your personal prison…all right here.  But what do we do?  We throw our hands up and say, “I just don’t know what to do!  What am I supposed to do now?”  Finish the sentence!  We stop short and miss the root of the issue.  Don’t say or think “I just don’t know what to do!”  Finish it!  “I just don’t know what to do to be made free!”  Don’t say or think, “What am I supposed to do now?”  Finish it!  “What am I supposed to do now TO BE MADE FREE.”  Finish the sentence to finish the problem…ABIDE in My Word…do you?  What is truth?  Jesus said it, He has revealed it, He has testified of it…Jesus is truth.  And if there is truth, then everything else is a lie…
• But Pilate has no strength to hear.  He is wrapped in fear and the control of man…which is the control of evil…I wonder are you?  You know you have in you a demand…that demand is “I will not be controlled!”  Do you know who put that in there?  GOD did!  Dad did!  Because look He does not want to control you, He wants to LOVE YOU!  He wants you to be free and in that to have the capacity and ability and blessing to KNOW Him relationally! 
• But we get it all backwards and the world says that the Bible is just a bunch of rules!  Wrong!  This world is a bunch of rules!  Wear this, say that, buy this, eat that, watch this, think that and we’ll take good care of you!  No!  I will not be controlled man!  Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is LIBERTY! 
• But Pilate here misses his chance to truly be made free and he leaves Jesus…which is always the pattern…and goes out to the Jews…

Chapter 18 Verses 39 – 40

• The world chooses death over life.  Your flesh and the enemy, the ruler of this age dupe you into accepting death as satisfying…as your path…but Jesus came that you might be made free…that you might choose life…choose Him…not Barabbas…not the thief…and in that choice for life…that you might have it and have it abundantly! 
• Your flesh will fight you…your worldly reason and logic may even condemn you, but open your heart to something greater…something eternal…something spiritual and be led by the Spirit into real, everlasting, true life!
• Don’t follow from a distance…steer clear of the world’s fires…abide in Him and find yourself joyful…gentle…powerful and loving…free and alive > no matter who they shackle you and drag you in front of…who was in control here…Jesus was…the shackles, the real ones…were not on Jesus…and they won’t be on you either!