Sermon Tone Analysis

What is holiness?

Socrates asked Euthyphro.

You see Euthyphro, was a passionate young man and was prosecuting his very own father for impiety, which carried the death penalty.

When Socrates asked Euthyphro what is holiness, Euthyphro responded with: well what I am doing is holiness prosecuting my father for impiety.

And Socrates was like, no wait you did not understand what I asked, I asked more generally what is holiness.

Oh Euthyphro said, well that is simple, holiness is what the gods love, and Socrates was like oh that is a better answer.

Now before you go, and prosecute your father you would want to make sure you are confident you are right in doing so, how do you know what is holy if the gods disagree, because it seems, in my humble estimation, that the gods seem to always be at war with one another and do not always love the same thing.

After going around and around like this Euthyphro then says well everything that all the Gods love in common common.

And again and again they go around with Socroties asking questions poking holes in Euthyphro’s way of thinking , until Euthyphro in a frustratingly ends the conversation, by saying well if you prefer to think about things that way.

Euthyphro then says well,

And Socrates response I prefer nothing unless it is true.

Pilate would have read and studied this conversation as a boy under his tutor.

And while Socrates my have still been seeking to prefer nothing unless it is true, Pilate who may have eagerly sought truth in his younger years had a much looser hold on the truth in his later years finding himself more in Euthyphro’s shoes instead of Socroties.

This may have been especially true after seeing the brutality of politics and power.

For Pilate truth probably seemed more like a pipe dream.

Today many times we too find the truth hard to grasp, and it too can feel like truth is a matter of simply preference.

One reason is there are so so many people out there saying they have the truth, and it seems hard to know.

FCF:

Or else we are just a little more cynical about truth because it seems any truth claim is simply a power play.

It is hard for us to know what is true and real.

One reason is there are so so many people out there saying they have the truth, and it seems hard to know.

Or else we are just a little more cynical about truth seeing that there does not seem to be truth or reality only different perspectives and the one who has the most power defines what is true and real.

We live in a post relativist culture.

About 20-30 years ago relativism was culturally in style, that is that truth is relative and there is no real absolute truth out there, only something we create.

So the thought was there there is no right or wrong, no one had the right to say what was right or wrong for another person only for themselves.

Well it seems that things have matured and now we experence

Our circumstances seem more real, than the reality that we see in the Bible.

It looks like it is the powerful who define reality.

And here we are this morning we stand with Pilate standing face to face with Jesus and maybe we sympathize a little with Pilate and his question “what is truth.”

I mean we ask it.

Maybe you are more vocal in your question or maybe it is just something that quietly rolls around in your head that you have not voiced.

What is truth?

What is truly real?

The only way to get the truth is from the barrel of a gun

And so this morning what we see is that

Jesus is the ultimate reality upon which this world holds together,

Because Jesus bears witness to the truth we should listen to his voice

First we see that Jesus bears witness to the truth that

He is the ultimate authority

In verse 33 Pilate asks Jesus if he is the king of the Jews, and as Jesus usually does when asked a question he responds with a question that invites Pilate into a different way of seeing what it means to be king.

In verse 33 Pilate asks Jesus if he is the king of the Jews, and as Jesus usually does when asked a question he responds with a question that invites Pilate into a different way of seeing what it means to be king.

Then Pilate continues to try to get to some truth about who he Jesus is and in verse 37 we read

Jesus confirms that he is in fact king.

And to be king, as Pilate or anyone at that time knows the reality kings, a king is someone who has authority and power to do what they please.

Sub point 1: Jesus is king

Jesus kingdom is not from here

Sub point 2: But Jesus kingdom is not from here

But Jesus kingdom of a different kind than what Pilate or anyone else knows.

In verse 36 we see Jesus say

Jesus has authority and power to tell his followers to fight, but that is not the way his kingdom works, his kingdom is one of truth, his authority and power do not come from political sources, and his power and authority don't come from the barrel of a gun.

There is a reality,a truth that is deeper and truer than what is seen.

His kingdom is not from this world, but it is for this world.

There is a hiddenness to Jesus kingdom.

it is not from this world with its schemes, and and power plays, and manipulation, his kingdom is not from this world, but it is for this world.

Illustration:

Every Sunday during Christ kids we have someone who narrates a story from the Bible, and wonders aloud with the kids as to what God has done and is doing.

Here is what it might sound like.

There was once a man, who did such amazing things, and said such wonderful things that people began to follow him, and as they followed him, he told them about a kingdom, but they did not understand, they had never been to such a place, and they did not know anyone who had, so they just had to ask him, what is the kingdom of heaven like?

And he said the kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a person took and hid the leaven in three measures of flower and as the person waited, it grew and grew and grew until it was all leavened.

I wonder if you could take the loaf and put it back to the way it was before it was leavened?

I wonder what the leaven really is?

Jesus kingdom is not from this world.

In fact it is a lot like leaven that is hidden.

You can’t always see it working, but you know it does.

To Pilate, Cesar was king, he was the one with the power and authority, He defined what was true, he could make things happen.

But Jesus says despite what it looks like on the outside the truth is, the reality is I am king.

Jesus kingdom is not from this world.

In fact it is a lot like leaven that is hidden.

You can’t always see it working, but you know it does.

To Pilate Cesar was king, he was the one with the power and authority, he could make things happen.

But Jesus says despise what it looks like on the outside the truth is, the reality is I am king.

And as we go about loving God and people for the renewal of all things at Christ the Redeemer, we must listen to the voice of king Jesus, even, and here is where it can be hard for us because we are Americans, even when it seems like the most practical, straightforward thing is to use the worlds ways of power, the worlds strategies, the worlds ingenuity.

Sure we may do some things, but all the world will see is human ingenuity, not the power of the Spirit.

Jesus said the meek inherit the earth, heirs in his kingdom.

I am not sure if you noticed but meekness does not move you up the ladder of success.

As Francis Schaeffer said the greatest danger

There is a hiddenness to his kingdom.

His is not from this world, but it is for this world, it is true reality.

But Jesus is the ultimate authority and because he

And we must trust Jesus way of doing things even when Jesus ways seems so impractical, or inefficient.

Why?

Because his kingdom is like leaven you may not see it working, and it may look like someone else like Cesar is really in charge,

we should listen to his voice even when it looks like others are in charge

but the true reality is that Jesus is king eventually the whole world will be leavened with his kingdom of peace.

Jesus bears witness to the truth that he has ultimate authority, and the truth that he himself is

The ultimate truth

Jesus says in verse 37

And then Pilate responds with a vague longing, remembering Socrotes conversation with Euthyphro, or maybe there is cynicism in his voice from a life spent in the corruption of politics: what is truth?

Pilate’s job here is to determine what is true, he like Euthyphro is in the prosecution seat.

Is Jesus guilty or is he innocent.

But, instead of preferring truth, Pilate doubts that truth is something that can be attained.

And here in front of him stands the man who says he comes to bear witness to the truth.

Pilate does not trust that what Jesus says is true.

And the truth that Jesus bears witness to here is not mere facts or ideas, but reality.

The fundamental reality upon which everything exists.

God and his reigning through his son king Jesus.

Jesus came to bear witness about the truth and as he said earlier in John, he is the truth.

Truth truth, real ultimate truth is personal.

It cannot be known from a distance.

It can only be known in relationship.