"I Don't Know What's True"

Watermark Community Church

Kylen Perry

Series: Deconstructed

February 25, 2025

"I Don't Know What's True"

John 18:33-38

Come on, Porch! Let me hear from you. How are we doing? Are we doing okay? Hey, it's great to see you. Welcome back. I'm so glad to have you in the room. Special shout-out to everybody who's tuning in online. We love that you would be in this space with us. Porch.Live Midland, Springfield, and Greater Lafayette, we love you guys. Thanks for being a part of Tuesday nights.

I'm eager for tonight. I think God has something really good for us, so I'm ready to jump into it. If you're here for the very first time, welcome. It's also fun to look across the room and see a bunch of familiar faces, so thanks for continuing to show up and be with us and be a part of what God is doing here.

Early in my young adult years, I encountered one of the most frightening moments in my life to that time and, quite possibly, one of the most frightening moments I've had since that time. You see, it was around Christmas. I still lived in College Station, Texas. What is characteristically true of a college town is, during Christmas, most people would evacuate. They would leave. They would get out of town.

I wasn't married at the time, so I still had college roommates, and all of them had done exactly that. They had all left the city. They had all gone home to be with their friends and family. I had one buddy who played for the football team, so he was away on a bowl game. So, I'm at the house, holding it down all by myself, so I'm doing what normal people do late in the evening. I'm doing laundry. I'm fixing food. I'm just trying to pass the time until I can go to sleep.

One thing I customarily did is I would start a load of laundry, and then I would wake up and transition it. So I was doing that. I was in the laundry room, putting a load in. As I'm doing that, just to my left, outside the window, I see some headlights span across the window and then stop. So, I walk over and peek through the blinds and look to see what I can find. What I see there is a truck, a really nice truck but a truck I'd never seen before, pulled up to my house.

It wasn't pulled up like you would normally see someone if they were parking to come inside. It had pulled up, and it was sitting at a diagonal. It was at a 45-degree angle. It was not parked to stay. Yet, as I was inspecting and trying to put together, "Man, what's actually happening here?" I saw two guys hop out of the truck.

They pile out and walk to the back of the pickup, and they grab out of the back a couple of big duffel bags. I'm like, "Man, this all surely has a plausible explanation," until they cross through my yard and make their way to my front door. Now, I'm not one to normally panic, but in this moment, my heart began to race a little bit.

So, I'm trying to make sense of who these guys are, because, like I said, I have four roommates, three of whom are gone. One is already out of town. He's at a bowl game. No one should be dropping by our house, especially this late in the evening. So, I'm trying to do the mental math and put it all together when I begin to not only see them approach the front door, but I actually begin to hear murmuring inside of my house.

So, I stop doing my laundry, and I start processing what it is they're saying, though I can't hear them, because, again, I'm in the garage and they're in the front entryway, yet I can track their voices as they move through my house. They go from the entry into the living area. They turn the corner and come into our dining room, and they last step foot in the kitchen, which is but a door away from where I stood.

What do you think I did in that moment? Open the door and say, "Hey, guys, what's up?" No, absolutely not. I decided to bail. I ran. I slid the garage door open and ran for my car. I turned it on immediately, I hit the ignition, and I got out of there, because this was not a situation I wanted to be a part of.

Now, as I'm driving away, I do the only sensible thing. I think to myself, "I've got to call the cops. I've got to get some help. I've got to report the fact that there are unknown strangers inside my house." So, I call up the College Station Police Department, and the rest of the experience felt like something straight out of Cops. I'm still on the phone with police dispatch, but I can also hear their correspondence with the responders who are showing up to my place.

"We can confirm we've arrived. Truck is pulled at a 45-degree angle, still running. House lights are all off, except the garage does have a light on." No kidding. I was in there. "Making our way to the front door. Okay, we're going to knock and announce." Knock! Knock! Knock! "Police! Open up!" No response. Knock! Knock! Knock! "Police! Open up!" No response. One more time. Knock! Knock! Knock! "Police! Open up or we're coming in!"

Then immediately, the door swings open, and there, trained on three assault rifles, is my college roommate Blaine who had very unexpectedly made a return trip that day from the bowl game because the team decided to come home early. You see, I had a very limited perspective about what was happening in my roommate's life. I thought I knew one thing, but in reality, something different was happening altogether. I had a limited perspective, and that limited perspective was almost massively consequential.

Now, don't worry. Blaine was fine. It was just a misunderstanding, but while it's one thing to misunderstand the facts about your roommate's travel plans, it's another thing to misunderstand the facts around your plans for eternity. It's possible to be put in a situation where you're operating with a limited perspective on reality rather than a complete picture of reality. If that's the case, what you need is the truth.

Why do you need the truth? Because there are consequences to being wrong in life. There are repercussions to operating in error. There is a massive issue if you give the wrong kind or the wrong amount of medicine to someone. That's not helpful; that's harmful. If you book the right flight but board the wrong flight, you're not going to arrive at the right destination; you're going to arrive at some place you never intended to be.

If you choose to forget that girl's name who happens to be best friends with the one you're interested in, that's not the quickest road to making a good impression; it's the quickest way to ruining one. Not operating in the truth leads to massive issues. If, in fact, you are errored, you're going to find that you have trouble. The truth matters, because it not only gives us a correct picture of reality; it gives us a complete picture of reality.

So, a helpful illustration just to get your mind around what I'm talking about. Last week, I was sitting up and watching a show, yet somewhere along the way, the Wi-Fi was bad, and the show stopped buffering well. The resolution decreased. While I could make out some of what was happening…I could get the broad strokes; I could still see the colors; I knew there were two figures walking through the woods…I couldn't make out the details of what was happening.

I couldn't see their facial expressions. I couldn't understand what was happening in the background around them. There were certain details to the entire dynamic that were absent that I needed to know to ultimately put the whole story together. Truth brings your reality into high-definition clarity. That's what it does. Yet so many of us move through life with low resolution because we're operating on the basis of our perspective or some other error.

Tonight, I want to help you get greater clarity. I want to help you know what truth is. To do it, we're going to be in John, chapter 18. We've been in a series called Deconstructed where we've been trying to help you rebuild your reality. We acknowledge that in our modern day, there's a lot of good reason to question the faith, but there's not good reason to leave it.

Out of all of the doubts you face, all of the questions you have, and all of the concerns you feel, though they aren't inherently bad (in fact, they can be good should they motivate you to inspect further the things you believe), they can become bad if they ultimately lead you to deconstruct to a place where you remove what's weak but never put something strong in place instead.

It's kind of like this. If you walked into your home and realized you had a bad foundation, the right response in that moment is not to ignore the issue, nor is it to detonate the house. The right response is to call up a professional. It's to acknowledge the problem, to develop some solutions, and then to get to work. That's what we want you to do when it comes to your faith.

Yes, it's actually good for you to identify, "Are there areas of doubt, questions I feel, concerns I have that perhaps there are good answers for? If so, what are the answers?" As opposed to, "You know what? This thing is all a hoax. I can't believe I ever thought this was true. I'm out." That's the wrong reply.

What we're talking about tonight is probably, for many of us, the biggest, most awkward crack in our spiritual foundation. It's the idea of truth. What you need to know is Jesus was obsessed with the idea of truth. He loved processing this with his people. We're looking into a specific story where he is engaging this idea of truth more so than most. Over 80 different times, Jesus spoke the words, "I tell you the truth," because he really cared about us having a very clear understanding of reality.

While the Bible may strike you as stuck at some point in times past or antiquated even, what you need to know is what they faced in the Bible are very similar issues to what we face today. You shouldn't just write it off, because it's culturally relevant to us right now. They faced religious extremism, political corruption, institutional oppression, cross-cultural conflict, and gender inequality. You think this has something that can speak into your world? I guarantee you it does. So, we see this in John, chapter 18, starting in verse 33:

"So Pilate…" He was the governor from Rome over the Judean province. "…entered his headquarters [the Praetorium] 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?'"

This is, fascinatingly, the last intimate conversation Jesus likely ever had, because to give you contextual background, he is on the final day of his life. He is experiencing trials, six in specific (three religious, three Roman), that will lead to his condemnation. As he has this conversation with Pilate, he begins to help him understand what truth actually is, what truth isn't, and how he and we fit into it all.

So, in response to Pilate's question, "Hey, are you the King of the Jews?" Jesus looks at him and says, "Are you asking me this or are others asking me this?" He's trying to get to the center of Pilate's motive. He wants to know, "Are you genuinely, seriously, sincerely spiritually seeking or are you just a puppet, asking the questions of other men?"

You see, by this point Jesus has been wrongly arrested and falsely accused, and now he is ultimately condemned to death, and it has been done by the religious leaders of his day, a group of guys known as the Sanhedrin, who were threatened by him. They were threatened by Jesus because he had exposed their corruption, undermined all their authority, and endangered their political power.

So, they want to get rid of him. They don't want him around any longer, so they've brought Pilate into the scenario to ultimately bring about Roman execution, because they cannot kill one of their own. So they decide to use Pilate. Pilate asks the question, "Are you a king?" and Jesus sniffs it out. He realizes, "You're not asking me because you're really wondering. You're asking because they are trying to figure out if I will admit to being king or not."

The truth of the matter is Jesus is King. He's King of the Jews. Technically speaking, he is the Messiah. He's the Anointed One. He's the long-awaited King of Israel. Yet in this moment, he doesn't 'fess up to it immediately, because he wants to have this conversation, and he wants to accomplish a message on truth. You see, Jesus, though he is the true King, knows some people don't really want the truth. They just want to protect their way of life.

Here's the thing. The truth does not exist to serve our agenda. At least, that's what Jesus wants us to know, yet in our postmodern age, that's often what we think the truth exists for. We want a truth that accommodates our comforts, appeals to our preferences, and indulges our individuality, which leads us to treat the truth like shampoo at the grocery store. "Hey, man. What do you need? Do you have frizzy hair? Do you have oily hair? Do you have dry hair? Do you have damaged hair? Whatever kind of shampoo you need, just pull it off the shelf."

"Whatever truth you need to accommodate your way of life, just grab it for yourself. Whatever you want, it's out there. It's available." The way we see this play out in our culture is through different philosophies we should consider and worldviews we should follow. You know them. You've heard of these. So many people advocate for relativism, that there's no such thing as one truth, that we can all have our own truth…unless your truth disagrees with my relative truth. Then we're going to have a problem.

Or skepticism, another philosophy that's wildly popular, that truth isn't knowable. In fact, anything we think we can know we probably should doubt instead. We should question. We should wonder if it's actually valid. It's not knowable. Which is ironic, because the guy who came up with skepticism clearly thought there was a truth to know to develop that idea. Or postmodernism. "Truth is just an illusion. It can't actually be affirmed." Well, tell that to the people who affirm postmodernism is true.

Or pluralism. "All truths are equally valid. You can believe your truth, you can believe your truth, you can believe your truth, and I'll believe my truth. They're all legit. They're all valid." That is, unless your truth contradicts my truth. Then that doesn't make any sense. Or logical positivism. "Absolute truth does exist, but it must be scientifically verifiable," even though there are some scientific concepts that are not verifiable in and of themselves.

Our world is convinced that rather than conform our lives to the truth, we will conform the truth to our lives. We will bend it, distort it, and manipulate it to accommodate whatever sort of life we want as opposed to constructing whatever sort of life God wants instead. That's what the religious leaders are doing in this story. Rather than listen to Jesus, the voice of truth, they're indulging deceit, not only in their own lives but the lives of others, listening to the voice of deception just to protect the kind of lifestyle they want to have.

We do this ourselves. We don't like what God has to say about our sexuality, so we claim he's not loving because of it, or we don't like the fact that Christians say masturbation is wrong even though the Bible doesn't explicitly say we shouldn't do it. "So, you know what? I'm just going to make an exception for that one."

Or we don't like the fact that God says drunkenness is wrong. "But truthfully, God, what is drunk? I don't know. Is it this? Is it that? Is it getting buzzed? Is it having a few too many? Or is it just kicking some back with the boys? I'm not really sure, so you know what? I'll toe the line as opposed to staying away from it." Or we don't like the fact that God feels like a narrow-minded bigot. Like, "How are you going to tell me what to do with my body? My body is mine. I can do with it what I want."

Or maybe it's not that. Maybe, instead, it's the fact that the Bible, when you read through it, feels so patriarchal or so chauvinistic, and you don't want to follow a backwoods god who would subscribe these sorts of truths to the lives of his people. Listen to me. I'm not saying you don't have legitimate questions about some of this stuff, but I am saying there are legitimate answers to all of it. You may not know them yet, but they are available.

Recently, I saw this story of a guy who has semi made it his life mission to convince flat earthers that the world is round. So, he gathers up a crew of them and takes them down to Antarctica, because it's there that you can see the sun revolve in a circle, proving the fact that the earth is round. It doesn't rise in the east and set in the west.

So, he takes a guy and leads him to Antarctica. He is fully convinced the world is flat, yet as he stands there and watches the sun circulate over his head for 24 hours, he says these words: "Well, sometimes you're wrong in life. I was pretty sure I wasn't, but it's a fact. The sun does circle you in the south." But that's not even the best part. The best part of this story is that the guy, though he was proven to have believed something wrong, actually thanked the guy for being kind enough to lead him to the southern continent to teach him the truth.

It can feel arrogant for Christians to claim that they have the right view and everyone else is wrong. Admittedly, some Christians are extremely arrogant with the truth, but here's what I want you to know. If a follower of Jesus not only claims to know the truth but actually shares it with someone, that's not arrogance; that's kindness. It's kindness to give the truth of God to other people. That's what Jesus is advising we do here. The truth doesn't exist to serve your agenda; it exists to make sense of your reality. So then, what is that reality? Well, Jesus is going to continue on. He says in verses 35 and 36:

"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.'"

It's funny. When you read through this dialogue between Pilate and Jesus, Jesus is very specific and strategic about the things he says, yet there is some element of comedy, because he never answers Pilate's questions straight on. Like, Pilate asks him, "Are you the King of the Jews?"

"Are you asking or someone else?"

"Well, what have you done?"

"My kingdom is not of this world."

"So you are a king."

"You say I'm a king."

Jesus consistently avoids the question. But in this moment, we should connect his answer to the first question. Pilate originally asks him, "So you're a king?" Jesus looks at him and now says, "My kingdom is not of this world." He addresses to Pilate that, "Yes, I am a king, but I'm not the kind of king you expect, nor am I the kind of king you should be worried about.

I'm not a threat to Caesar. I'm not worried about Roman sovereignty. I don't have military might at my disposal. I'm not exercising political power, because I am not here to conflict as an earthly king with the religious leaders. Instead, I am here as a heavenly King to conflict with the evil spirits of this world. I have come to save my people, not just establish an earthly realm."

He answers in a way that exceeds Pilate's personal vantage point, because the truth transcends our own perspectives. We live in a really complicated cultural dynamic right now. I'm not sure if you've noticed, but our world is more globalized than ever. Through immigration, international travel, and the Internet, we are more connected to other people than we have ever been. Because of that, we're connected to a variety of religious backgrounds, cultural upbringings, and ethnic diversities that provide our world with a beautiful level of difference between people.

It's a globalized society, but it's not just a globalized society; it's a secularized society. If you look into the culture, you can see at the center of so many conversations are issues about sexual identity or gender equality or social responsibility or human rights. This is the world we live in right now. You and I, because of it, have been exposed to a broader audience of people, and as a result, a broader array of perspectives.

Here's the thing we need to understand. Perspective is not synonymous with truth. Just take my story from the beginning of the night, for example. My perspective actually aligned with truth. I could make sense of some of the stuff that was happening. Unknown figures made their way into my house. They moved through certain corridors until they arrived at a spot that terrified me. I could make sense by way of my perspective of some things, but I could not make sense of all things because of my perspective. There was a greater truth at play.

What happened is it led me to think I was being robbed, it ultimately almost arrested my roommate, and it put us in a position where none of the above should have happened. Your perspective is not synonymous with truth. The truth always transcends our own perspective, which, when you think about it, can be a pretty hard thing to come to grips with since, really, all you and I have is our perspective.

Your perspective is informed by way of the story you have, the people you know, the family that has formed you, the pain of your past, the things you've endured. Your perspective is yours. It has been cultivated over the course of time, and it has led you to a spot where you look at the world in a very specific way. So, to learn that my perspective is insufficient to make sense of true reality means I need to draw on something outside of myself to make better sense of what's happening in the world.

Now, you can draw on a variety of different things, admittedly. There are some things that are better than others. Like, if you're expecting that guy to make sense of your reality, he is going to sorely disappoint you. Have you watched him? It's like food and video games. You think that's going to solve all of the truth questions you have in life? No.

It's not going to be your job. Your employer has not brought you on because they want to help you solve the big questions in life. No, they have brought you on because they care about the bottom line, and the bottom line only. Those are not places to look to make sense of what's happening in the world and what should be true as you survey it.

This is actually why religion matters. Religion offers a truth claim about reality. I'm not even just talking about Christianity right now. I'm just saying religion in general. That's what it does. That's what it serves the purpose for. It provides us some semblance of understanding what's happening in the world. It gives us a truth claim to consider.

Jesus says it like this in John 8: "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." Jesus is making a claim that it's not going to be his disciples' perspective alone that leads them to truth, but it's going to be his teaching, something outside of themselves, that's going to help them find the real truth, the truth that will ultimately set them free.

So, it begs the question for us…What teaching do you choose? What path do you follow? Don't all religions lead to heaven? Don't they all teach the same thing? Aren't there multiple routes up the mountain? No, there are not, despite how compelling that idea is. Listen. I get it. The thought of standing here and telling you that religion is not inclusive in nature is a hard thing to say, because I would love for us to all just link arms, sing "Kumbaya," get along, and no one be judgmental; everybody is welcomed here. Yet the reality is that's just not how truth works.

Religions don't even claim that is the case. They're not interested in social harmony at the expense of their individual theology. So, while it might be convenient for us to say that all religious paths lead to heaven, that they provide eternal life, that some method of morality, whatever it is you prefer, will ultimately get you to the pearly gates, it's just not true.

I remember reading a story that Abraham Lincoln once had an interaction with a group of people on the topic of truth. They were highly interested and enthusiastic, so he looked at them and posed them a famous question. He said, "How many legs would a sheep have if you called its tail a leg?" They very quickly answered, "Five." Then the president looked at them and said, "No. It would only have four legs. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one."

Just because you think it's true doesn't mean it is, and just because you think all religions get to heaven doesn't mean they do. The reality of the matter is any orthodox religion will look at you and say, "We don't believe that either." Jon Tyson said all religions make general claims about reality but very specific claims about salvation. Why does salvation matter? Because salvation leads to eternal life. All religions have differing positions on what it looks like to get to eternal life, and those specific claims not only differ; they matter.

Muslims identify good deeds as the goal. That's what will achieve everlasting life. Buddhists focus on self-actualization. Christian Scientists see salvation as a mental process of overcoming material beliefs. Hindus achieve salvation by way of one of three things: way of works, way of knowledge, or way of devotion. New Agers believe in becoming one with the universe, whether through psychedelics or reincarnation. Christians believe salvation is found in Christ alone.

To say you believe all of these things lead to eternal life is to actually claim you don't believe any one of them leads to eternal life, because if you know them as they are put forward, none of them agree with the others. They take offense to the fact that you think all of them could work in harmony, because they don't. Truth is narrow. Truth is a door that unlocks according to one key and one key only.

That's what Jesus said. He said in Matthew 7, "Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few." There's only one path that leads to everlasting life. There's only one key that unlocks that door. So then, what is it? That should be the question boiling up inside.

Like, "Okay, Kylen. If everything you're saying is true, if everything you're saying makes sense, if this line of logic actually is plausible, then what is the truth?" Well, you are asking the same question Pilate himself did, and Jesus gives the answer. To Pilate's question, "So you're a king?" he says, "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." Then Pilate asks, "What is truth?"

Just try to think through what Jesus actually said. It could be easy to casually move through it and kind of continue on. "That's another claim of Christ. No big deal." What did Jesus actually just say? It's really radical in nature. Jesus just made this extravagant claim, yet it's also an extraordinary claim. He is saying his voice is the voice that equates to truth, that if you're looking for truth, it is found in him. That's not the only radical claim Jesus makes. That voice, which speaks truth, is a voice that makes consistently climactic claims over the course of his ministry.

He claimed to be equal with God. He claimed to be the Messiah sent from God. He claimed to be the Son of Man. He claimed to give eternal life. He claimed to save the world. He claimed to forgive sins. He claimed to know the Father. He claimed to fulfill the law. He claimed to give rest to the weary and the wandering soul. He claimed to have the words of eternal life. Those were the words that fell from his lips.

He claimed to be the future Judge, the one we would one day stand before, and he claimed to be the Great I Am. Most importantly for this talk, he claimed to be the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through him. He goes on to say in John 14:7, right after that statement, "If you had known me, you would have known my Father also." Why? "Because from now on you do know him, and you've seen him, because you've seen me."

Now, it's possible to read these claims and think, "Okay, man. It's just more religious jargon. It's just more claims from Christ." Yet, when we hear things as audacious and ridiculous as this, it should cause us to stop, because people don't speak this way, and when people speak this way, we should judge them.

Kanye West said, "God chose me. He made a path for me. I am God's vessel. But my greatest pain in life is that I will never be able to see myself perform live." That is a ridiculous claim, and it deserves to be judged. Cristiano Ronaldo said, "People whistle me because I am good-looking, rich, and a great footballer. They are jealous of me."

Zlatan Ibrahimovic, when asked what he got his ex-fiancée for an engagement gift, said, "What do you mean 'present'? She got Zlatan." Infamously, Drake said, "Last name 'Ever,' first name 'Greatest.'" That deserves to be judged. I didn't particularly pick out hip-hop artists and footballers for that demonstration. Just make whatever conclusions you want of it. They seem to be the most arrogant of us.

When we hear lofty, audacious, ridiculous claims like that, we should lean in and investigate, "What are you saying, and is it true?" Jesus is making an even greater claim, and the reality of it is he's not stroking his own ego. He's not beating his chest. He's not trying to acquire followers. Jesus is not someone who is interested in popularity at all. He's interested in the truth. That's what Jesus wants.

He wants it so badly he would say things that are wild, but they're wonderful because they accord with truth. He is addressing himself as the answer to life's biggest questions. He tells us that he is the source of purpose. If you're here, and you're wanting for purpose, if you're looking for meaning, if you want fulfillment in life, he's like, "Hey, it's me. I'm the source of your purpose. It's not found anywhere else; it's found in me."

It's not just that he's giving you the answer to "Where do I find purpose in life?" He's also looking at you and saying, "I actually have the solution for your problem in life." Maybe you don't know. Your biggest issue is not at work. It's not your relationship status. Your biggest problem is not the fact that your family has some disagreement, though those things are legitimate. Your biggest problem is that you are lost in sin.

Jesus is saying, "I have the solution. Yeah, source of your purpose, but I'm also the solution for your problem. I'm the one who can step in the gap between you and God, and I can take the hit. I can absorb the wrath. I can die your death. That way, you don't have to. But I'm not only that. I'm the substitute you need, because the reality is if you reject me, you're not enough on your own.

The truth is you're going to have to pay the penalty for your wrong, and you're not going to want to pay it, because it's not just today, it's not just tomorrow; it's forever and always. But I can be the substitute. Your today, your tomorrow, and your forever and always can be different. It's not a life of eternal condemnation; it's a life of everlasting bliss.

But I'm not only that. I'm also your salvation forever. I'm the one who doesn't just lead you to heaven, who doesn't just give you everlasting life. I'm the one who gives you God. Do you want him? Do you want a connection to your Creator, a relationship to your Maker? It's available, and it's available through me." That's what Jesus' claim to you is. He is the truth. He wants us to know there is an objective truth, and its name is Jesus.

Here's the thing. Declarations like that demand a decision from us. You cannot hear those things and just indifferently pass by. It's confronting. It's conflicting. It is a moment of consequence. C.S. Lewis said it like this in his book Mere Christianity: "I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him: I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say.

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."

This is the sort of man Pilate is facing in this passage. I don't think he knew it when he first began the conversation, but by the end of it, when he asks the question, "What is truth?" staring back at him is the face of it himself. Yet, what we see is Pilate, in the subsequent chapters, chooses not to accord his life with objective truth. Instead, he bends it to accommodate his preferences and appeal to the approval of others. Pilate sacrifices truth on the altar of momentary satisfaction.

The reality is here, tonight, we are still face to face with that same man, because that man, though condemned to die and buried for three days, rose forth from the grave. He looks at you this evening the way he looked at Pilate, and he asks, "Do you want to know what truth is? It's me. You're looking at it. Yes, you can move through this world and accommodate your comforts. You can appeal to your preferences. You can choose to indulge whatever desire you have and whatever truth allows for, but there is really only one truth, and it's the truth I come to give. It's the truth I offer to all. Do you want to believe in me?"

Now, you may hear something like that and think to yourself, "Why should I listen to you? Christianity is such an exclusive religion. It's such a restrictive philosophy. It's such an impossible path to believe. Why would I choose to follow this?" Here's what I would tell you. Although Christianity may seem exclusive, Jesus is wildly inclusive.

He does not exclude anyone on the basis of their social status, their intelligence, their gender, their race, their nationality, or anything else. He invites all people to be a part of his family, to follow him where he's going. The only thing Jesus excludes is on the basis of sin, which he has come to take away forever if only you would repent and believe.

You might look at Christianity and say, "It's so restrictive," yet Jesus has come to set us free. He does not seek to restrict us with outward rules and regulations. He only restricts us from vainly reconciling ourselves to God according to whatever works we can muster up. He's like, "You're not enough. You can't do it. I will give you liberty and life, abundant joy, and great forgiveness by living the life you can't and dying the death you deserve." Although Christianity may seem impossible to believe, Jesus has made it possible to believe.

Yes, these are impossible claims. Like, "Never-ending life? Abounding joy? Unfailing purposes? Forgiving grace? You're telling me that stuff is available? That seems too wild. That seems too crazy. That doesn't seem possible." Jesus is looking at you and saying, "Oh, it's possible, because that's what I come to give. That's the truth I seek to speak. That's the kind of life I'm willing to offer if you will take it up and follow me." They are only impossible to believe for those who do not believe in him.

Porch, this world is filled with alternative truths that will fail you in this life, but there is one objective truth, the person of Jesus, that will never fail you. If you're looking for truth, why look any longer? He's standing here in front of you tonight, and he's calling you to believe. Let me pray for us.

God, thanks for tonight. Thanks for these people. Thanks for your Word and the sufficiency therein. I'm grateful, God, that you have given us truth. I just think, Lord, "What would my life be like if I didn't know truth?" There was a time when I didn't, and what I know, God, is in those days, as I look back in reflection, I was so very lost, so very alone, and desperately trying to find my hope and home in things that promised yet never delivered, but when I met you, Christ, I found all of that and more. I pray you would come and give that tonight. I pray that friends here in the room would receive it.

I don't know, God. I have no doubt that people have been through so much when it comes to their religious past, their experiences in spirituality, the impact of Christians in their life that would lead them to be hesitant to embrace the claims of Christ and accept his truth, the truth, for themselves, yet, God, I pray you would soften them here. Gently warm their hearts. Quickly attune their ears to hear your voice, which calls them out of death and into life. What is truth? The truth is you, Jesus, that only by your blood are all men saved. We love you, and we sing to you now. In Christ's name we pray, amen.