Illuminators thrive on truth

The following video transcript has been lightly edited

I'm sure just like me, you've had certain moments in your life in which you felt falsely accused. Maybe it's something through the rumor mill that you're thinking to yourself, that's just not true. Maybe there's some political workings that are going on at your workplace and you feel unfairly situated or targeted.

Whatever it might be, one of the challenges of being a human being is that we end up being falsely accused of a variety of things. People's view of us, perception of us, the rumors that go around. And in those moments we want to say, that's not true. Stop. Why are you saying those things? And while that's a experience, what we want to learn is how do we walk through these realities.

Because all of us will face them. And today we're going to look at a passage in which John, writes about Jesus engagement with Pilate. And Jesus has been falsely accused. And what we see is we see three things. One, we see that God's kingdom operates on truth. And that's encouraging to us.

Two, what we learn is that the way to walk through these situations is with peaceful confidence opposed to arrogance or insecurity.

And then finally, the skill we want to pick up is we want to become good at asking great questions because there's nothing like an appropriate placed and wise question to reveal the truth. So here's the story. Jesus has grown into, and has an incredible ministry going on. And the leaders of Judaism are feeling threatened and insecure by it, and so they want to end Jesus influence.

And so they decide that rather than do it themselves, it would be better if the Roman government would do it. And so they try Jesus in their religious court, find him guilty, and then take him to Pilate in hopes that Pilate will determine that Jesus needs to be crucified because he's attempting to build his own kingdom.

And the way we watch Jesus handle this situation tells us a lot. Along the way, he asks Pilate some key questions, and one of them is around this idea of kingdom. And Jesus says, listen, My kingdom is a different kind of kingdom. And as you have perceived, Pilate, I am a king. But I'm the kind of king that comes into the world to reveal truth.

And so this is the first thing that really encourages us. What we see in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is that truth will reign. It doesn't reign quite yet, but it is the ultimate reality that will reign. And so this empowers us. It allows us to be a people who push for and desire truth and be a kind of people that know that while it might not be revealed right now, it will be revealed one day.

And I can imagine that there's certain situations in your life, just like in mine, in which I look forward to the day in which a full accounting is done. The truth is revealed. And so this reality of God's kingdom, that it operates on truth, empowers us and allows us to move through this world. And this leads to the second thing.

The second thing, when we are facing these situations, these unfair situations in which we've been wrongly accused, or we're being targeted in some sort of political scene, whatever it might be, we want to move through these situations with a sense of confidence versus arrogance and insecurity. See, this is what we see out of both the Jewish leaders and Pilate.

They have this interesting mix of insecurity and arrogance. That they can somehow do this to another human being. And of course, as we move through these moments in our own life, we want to somehow control them. But we can't. And so we want to act with this confident humility- this confident peace in which while we know that we don't have control of all things, that eventually one day the truth will be revealed.

And so this allows us to be the kind of people that move through these challenging situations. And so in order to do that we want to do a couple things. One, we want to trust that what is revealed in Christ is the future. So that trust allows us to have confidence that God will one day set all things right.

Two, we want to operate with this sense of honesty is always the best policy. If we ourselves act with honesty, and we don't ever have to worry about what else needs to be said. And third, what we realize is that sometimes by operating in this way, it will personally cost us, or professionally cost us, to be the kind of people that are honest and confident about that.

Ultimately, we see it costs Jesus a lot as well. But in the end, Jesus defeats death by giving himself over to death, even though he was wrongly accused in the midst of it. And so for us, we want to trust that truth will eventually reveal itself, operate in this way in which honesty is the best policy, and so we walk through with a sense of acceptance that this world is not God's kingdom yet, but that one day all things will be set right. And so in the meantime, we're willing to serve, to serve the truth, to serve others, even if it costs us.

Now finally, what we see in the story is that along the way, Jesus asks really some interesting questions that helps Pilate reflect himself.

As Jesus is brought before Pilate, he says, and Pilate says, So you're the king of the Jews, are you? And Jesus asks him, Hey, is this something that you've come up with? Or is this something that others have told you? And it causes Pilate to pause and to reflect back. And so if we want to be the kind of people who illuminate truth, we need to learn to be great question askers.

Now, our instinct is often to declare, to passionately tell people, no, this is how it works or this is the truth or this is the reality. But what social science has told us is that when we act that way, it actually triggers people's defense mechanisms. And so the more declarative, the more passionate, the more evidence we have, it actually backs people in the corner and they shut down and they refuse to hear what you have to say.

But if you want someone to hear your perspective, you have to get at it through questions. You have to ask interesting questions that cause them to pause, cause them to reflect. And of course, this takes practice. And so we have to get good at thinking, okay, what's a good question I could ask right now?

What's, what's a wise question that might allow someone else to feel seen and heard and open this situation up so that the truth can come to the to the surface. No question. You will face a challenging situation in your life that will have a layer of injustice or corruption or improper framing to it.

And in order to persevere through it, you need to remind yourself that God's kingdom ultimately operates on truth. And so it will be revealed to don't act in arrogance. and don't act in insecurity, rather cultivate a way of peaceful confidence that truth will one day rule and discover how you might ask better questions to reveal the truth.

I hope this was helpful. Look forward to closing up this series next week. Take care.