Bethany Baptist Church
SUNDAY, March 29, 2026 PALM SUNDAY
  • Always Only Jesus
  • All My Hope
  • Nothing But The Blood
  • A couple was going out for an evening. They did all the things they normally did when they left. They have been robbed before, so they are extra cautious. They turn on lights when they leave. They make sure everything is recorded. And they put their cat out for the night in the backyard. The cat liked to get into things while they were gone, so they always put it outside. Which, as you might imagine, if often easier said than done.
    This particular night, they had called an Uber. When the Uber driver arrived, they didn’t want him realizing this house was empty and unoccupied. So while the husband was delayed, the wife told the driver he was just bidding goodnight to her mother.
    Well, a few minutes later, the husband came to the car all hot and bothered. He was a bit red and he was breathing heavy. He got in, and the driver pulled away.
    Finally the husband spoke: "Sorry it took so long but the stupid wretch was hiding under the bed. I had to poke her with a coat hanger to get her to come out! She tried to take off so I grabbed her by the neck and wrapped her in a blanket so she wouldn't scratch me like she did last time. But it worked! I hauled her down the stairs and threw her into the backyard. And I tell you, she had better not go to the bathroom in the vegetable garden again."
    The silence from the Uber driver was deafening.
    I share that story to give us a humorous start this morning, but also to illustrate a concept. Truth is hard to see. Starting today and continuing next Sunday we are going to explore the concept of truth.
    What is truth? That’s the question Pilate will ask at the end of our passage this morning. There’s no “the” there.
    We are not trying to determine the truth this week. “The truth” is determine what’s true and what’s false. That’s not the question Pilate asks or we will seek to answer today.
    Pilate asks what is truth. He is wrestling with the concept of absolute truth. How can we know what is real and true and right.
    It’s a question we wrestle with and it also a question Jesus answers for us.
    READ John 18:28-38
    John 18:28–38 ESV
    Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor’s headquarters. It was early morning. They themselves did not enter the governor’s headquarters, so that they would not be defiled, but could eat the Passover. So Pilate went outside to them and said, “What accusation do you bring against this man?” They answered him, “If this man were not doing evil, we would not have delivered him over to you.” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.” The Jews said to him, “It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death.” This was to fulfill the word that Jesus had spoken to show by what kind of death he was going to die. So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you say this of 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. 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 from the world.” 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. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, “I find no guilt in him.
    As we open this passage, we find Jesus is being led to the headquarters of Pontius Pilate. Pilate is the Roman official over Jerusalem at that time.
    The Jewish leaders are bringing Jesus to Pilate because they need him to authorize capital punishment for Jesus. They simply want him to rubberstamp the decision they’ve already made.
    Prior to this, Jesus has already endured a “trial.” And please note that I’m using air quotes when I say that. Because the trial that Jesus endured was a sham of a trial. To put it bluntly, he was tried legally.
    Under Jewish law, a capital case cannot take place at night, yet this one did. In the book of Deuteronomy, you read that a conviction cannot be decided unless there are two witnesses that come into agreement. That did not happen at Jesus‘s “trial.”
    Yet, at this trial, Jesus was convicted of blasphemy. He declared himself to be the Messiah (which he is, so he’s not blaspheming). But that in and of itself is not going to attract the attention of Rome. You even see it here in our text where Pilate talks to Jesus and says “I’m not Jewish.” He’s saying, “I don’t care about Jewish rules and Jewish law.” He certainly would not care about Jesus declaring to be the Messiah, which he would not fully understand.
    Simply bringing Jesus in on religious charges is not going to get Rome to do what they want them to do. Pilate isn’t simply going to crucify a violator of Jewish religious law. To convince him, they need Pilate to see Jesus as an eminent threat to Roman authority over Israel. They need him to agree with their verdict. A verdict they had already pre-determined before his trial began.
    Now I want you to know all of this is predetermined. God pre-ordained and predetermined how Jesus was going to die. Nothing that happens here happens by accident. Nothing that happens here is by chance. This is pre-determined to happen.
    We get squirrely when we use the word predestination or that things were predestined to happen, but this was predestined to happen.
    As we talked over the last few weeks, at the beginning of creation, God made humans knowing that in the end he was going to have to send Jesus to die for our sins.
    And he wasn’t going to die by stoning. He wasn’t going to die from an illness. He wasn’t going to die by a mob rush or a stabbing or anyone other way. Jesus was always going to die on a cross. There’s reasons for that.
    READ Deuteronomy 21:22–23
    Deuteronomy 21:22–23 ESV
    “And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.
    Do you know what a cross is made out of? It’s made of wood. Jesus will hang on a tree because he has cursed by God. He who knew no sin will become sin so that we might become the righteousness of God.
    On the tree, he will take on all of our sin. Jesus will be cursed with our sin. God the Father will turn his face away from him, and he will die in our place. He will take our curse and our punishment and God’s wrath.
    This is laid out throughout the Old Testament. In Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53, we see prophecy about Jesus dying on a cross.
    In fact, we’re here on Palm Sunday. It’s the Sunday that we celebrate the Triumphal Entry of Jesus, when he enters into Jerusalem just five days ahead of his crucifixion. That was laid out in Old Testament prophecy, and everything that takes place at the cross was all laid out in Old Testament prophecy. All of this is by God‘s design. All of it.
    So when the Jewish religious leaders bring Jesus to Pilate, the outcome has already been predetermined, not because the Jewish leaders wanted Jesus to be executed and not because Pilate has a say, but because it needs to happen so that Jesus Christ can die for our sins on a cross in a very public way.
    That doesn’t mean the people in this story don’t bear personal responsibility for what they do. Two things can equally be true. God ordained this to happen, and the people here have responsibility for the actions that they take. We see that on full display.
    The Jewish religious leaders bring Jesus before Pilate, hoping he’ll just agree with their decision. Pilate has other plans. What we see in this passage is first a conversation between Pilate and the religious leaders, followed by a conversation between Pilate and Jesus Christ himself. These two conversations result lead Pilate to question what he knows.
    Let’s look first at the conversation between Pilate and the Jewish religious leaders. First he questions the chief priests and religious leaders. He asks what accusation they are making? What are they charging him with.
    And note how they dodge the question. They don’t really answer it. They just say, “well, why would we bring you someone if he wasn’t guilty of something.” That doesn’t really answer the question. They are evading his question.
    As Pilate begins to probe further, we get this idea that he is not exactly trusting of the Jewish religious leaders. This is political theater at its finest.
    The Jewish leaders know that Pilate cannot risk a riot in the city during a Jewish religious festival. They know it will look bad to his superiors and may cost him his job. And Pilate knows he simply can’t just give in to the whims of the Jewish leaders.
    So the first argument they makes is that as Jewish people under Roman authority they are not allowed to execute people for their crimes.
    That statement isn’t 100% accurate. There is lots of evidence that the Jewish people have some autonomy from Rome to be able to deal out punishment according to their religious laws and customs. They threatened to stone Jesus multiple occasions before this. We will see in the book of Acts for instance that they stone Stephen to death. And we see in verse 31, that Pilate tells them to punish Jesus themselves.
    So that’s not exactly an accurate statement from the Jewish leaders. But they don’t want to simply stone Jesus to death. He has embarrassed them and challenged them and they are afraid of him. So they want to make a public example of him. They want a very public, very brutal execution. For that, they need Rome.
    No one knows how to make an example of someone like Rome. It’s what they do. They are known for violently executing criminals as a deterrent to crime against Rome. So they tell Pilate he is deserving of capital punishment.
    Now, Pilate’s job is not to simply appease the Jewish religious leaders. And to his credit, and he shouldn’t get a whole lot, but to his credit he does try to seek justice in this case. He takes his role as judge here very seriously.
    And so since he doubts the sincerity of the Jewish leaders in what they’re doing, he brings Jesus back and questions him himself and that’s when we get a great conversation between Jesus and Pilate.
    This conversation borders on two different concepts. And it’s here that I want us to explore things deeper. We’re going to ask two questions. One what is Jesus’s kingdom? And two what is truth?

    What is Jesus’s kingdom?

    So Pilate brings in Jesus and he questions him himself. He asks Jesus, “Are you the king of the Jews?”
    And Jesus, because he’s Jesus, answers Pilate’s question with a question. He does that a lot, by the way. He says, are you declaring me a king or did someone else tell you that?”
    Of course, Jesus knows the answer. But he wants to get to the heart of the matter with Pilate. As much as Pilate does bear blame in the crucifixion of Jesus – he may wash his hands but he signs the death warrant – Jesus still loves him as one of his creation. Despite being a pagan, vile man, Jesus still seeks after him.
    Pilate reiterates his own pagan-ness. He is not a Jew. He’s not concerned with their faith or their religious practices. He has one job here: to determine justice. So he asks the same question he asked the Jewish leaders. “What have you done?”
    You get the sense that Pilate doesn’t exactly trust the Jewish religious leaders. In fact, as the narrative goes on, we see that he trusts Jesus far more than he trusts the priests lobbing the accusations against Jesus.
    He asked them. They didn’t answer. He asked Jesus, and his answers don’t lead to any hard proof of a conspiracy or a take over of any kind. So he asks Jesus, “what have you done?”
    Then Jesus lays out his kingdom. Yes he is a king, but not an earthly king. Pilate and Caesar for that matter, have nothing to fear from Jesus. If we wanted a revolution or a coup, he’d be leading his followers in armed conflict. He didn’t. He surrendered. He submitted to their sham trial and their beatings and their mockery. And now he has even submitted to this integration from a Roman official.
    Jesus clarifies the nature of his kingdom. He’s not seeking to rule Jerusalem or Israel. This is not a kingdom that will take up arms against Rome. It doesn’t need to. Jesus is already Lord over Rome and Israel and everywhere else on earth. He rules everything as God.
    So we see the answer to the question.

    Jesus’s kingdom is a heavenly one.

    He, as God, has authority over everything and everyone.
    Jesus was born to be a king. He was born as THE KING. He came to the world to die for our sins and conquer sin and death once and for all. That is why Jesus came. He didn’t come to teach good messages. He did, but that’s not why he came. He didn’t come to start a religion. He didn’t come to overthrow Rome. He came to die for my sins and your sins.
    READ Matthew 20:28
    Matthew 20:28 ESV
    even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
    In fact, Jesus gives an important statement. Jesus was born to bear witness of the truth. He is the son of God. He has come to forgive sins. He has come to die for us. Everyone who knows this knows the truth.
    Pilate at least understands part of this. Because when he asks Jesus, “So you are a king?” Jesus says yes and Pilate is not alarmed by this answer. He doesn’t immediately call the guard or declare him guilty.
    Instead Pilate responds with a question. It’s the second question we’ll explore today.

    What is Truth?

    That’s a great question to ask. We live in a world where we have to ask that question a whole lot. Is this real? Did that really happen? Is this unbiased? What is truth?
    Now, I want to clarify, Pilate isn’t seeking THE Truth. It’s pretty obvious from this passage that Pilate does not believe Jesus is guilty and worthy of the death penalty. He says that at the end of verse 38.
    Pilate is seeking an answer to what is truth?
    The skeptics of Pilates times taught that truth was unknowable and just a matter of opinion. Truth was relative. It’s not.
    And the more things change, the more they stay the same. Because in our modern culture, we still wrestle with this concept. There are many who teach and practice and live with the idea that truth is unknowable or a matter of opinion. But it’s not.
    I want you to know this:

    Personal truth does not exist.

    In our world today, there is a movement toward “your truth” or “personal truth.” You’ll hear phrases like “my truth” or “Find your truth.” That is an oxymoron. Truth is not subjective to you and your experiences. Truth is objective. It’s not a matter of perspective.
    Personal truth can’t be real because as human beings our perspective is limited. I don’t see the culture of Africa or even California. I don’t have centuries of experience. I live for a short period of time and usually in a small amount of space. I can’t know everything and I certainly can’t experience everything.
    At the same time, as a human being I am not perfect. I sin and mess up. And I live in a messed-up world. So that limits my perspective on what is real and right and true.
    Truth is absolute. If it’s true, it’s true everywhere. Not just in Ohio or America or Europe or Asia or in your family or in your school or job. It’s true for the young and the old. For white and black and Asian. For rich and poor. It’s true no matter where you are or who you are.
    Trevin Wax writes this: “We hear a lot these days about “speaking your truth” or “living your truth,” as if the word truth is now just a synonym for “perspective” or “experience.” Surely, we should make room for sharing our perspectives and recounting our experiences. But if our tendency is to adorn truth with adjectives like my and your and never the, we are fundamentally violating the very definition of truth to begin with.”
    Think of the weather. The weather is the weather. You may like snow or you may like 75 degrees and sunny. You may even be a weirdo like me who loves storms. But none of that is your weather.
    We may call it Ohio weather, where we have two 80 degree days sandwich sub-freezing temperatures, but it’s still just the weather. It’s not your weather because you are not in control of the weather. You can’t make the sun shine or cause it rain and push away severe weather.
    Weather is something that’s there. It happens. You have no say in it. It’s true whether you like it or not.
    There is no personal truth. There is only absolute truth. Something that is true all the time no matter what.
    I can’t state my view and understanding as absolute truth. I need a perspective greater than my own. God is all powerful. He is all knowing. He is all seeing. He is ever present. He has been around a really long time. He can determine truths that I cannot even fathom.
    I’m reminded of the words of God to Job near the end of that book.
    READ Job 38:4
    Job 38:4 ESV
    “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.
    So when we ask what is truth, we do so by asking the one who knows everything. We seek scripture. We don’t have to go far, because Jesus deals with this a lot, especially in the Gospel of John.

    Jesus is the truth.

    How did Jesus define truth?
    READ John 14:6
    John 14:6 ESV
    Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
    Aristotle taught that truth describes declarative and factual statements. For instance, Wayne watches a lot of Reds game. That is both factual and accurate. If the statement says something that is true, then the statement is true. Rocket science I know.
    When Jesus claims to be the truth he is saying he is the only reliable path to a relationship with God. Jesus is the only way to God if and only if Jesus is the truth. He must be the one and only Son of God who provides salvation in order for that to be true.
    And it is. Jesus is the real deal.
    Jesus isn’t saying what I say is true. He’s saying I am the truth. He is the embodiment of truth. Jesus is the truth. His kingdom is truth. There is no distinction between the two.
    Truth isn’t just knowledge. It’s the understanding that Jesus is the one and only Son of God. Period. End of sentence.
    To know Jesus is to know truth. Those who know truth hear him and follow him.

    Seeking truth means seeking Jesus.

    READ John 8:31-32
    John 8:31–32 ESV
    So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
    Declaring that truth, and living it out, was Jesus’s mission on earth. He carried out that mission by going to a cross and dying for our sins. Nothing Pilate does will stop that or prevent that. In fact, Pilate will aid in that coming to pass. He will help Jesus fulfill his mission.
    What Jesus is doing is inviting Pilate to accept the truth and follow him. The prisoner seeks to convert the judge.
    But Pilate turns away and asks “what is truth.” Either he has no real answer or he doesn’t want to hear any more about it. The answer to Pilate’s question stood right in front of him.
    It’s Jesus. He’s the way, the TRUTH, and the life. He is the one who forgives your sins. He is the one you can trust in. He is the truth.
    Don’t be deceived by imitations. Don’t get confused over pretenders to the throne. Jesus is the king of the universe. He is the savior of the world. He is the way the truth and the life.
    He is seeking you, just as sough Pilate. He’s right in front of you. He wants you to know the truth.
    Will you receive him?
    Let’s Pray

      • John 18:28–38NLT

      • Deuteronomy 21:22–23NLT

      • Matthew 20:28NLT

      • Job 38:4NLT

      • John 14:6NLT

      • John 8:31–32NLT

  • Oh But God
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