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Part 16 of 16
Cloud Of Witnesses
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Before we dive into today's teaching, I want to share something important about why engaging with Scripture matters. There was a study conducted over eight years involving over one hundred thousand people focused on the importance of Bible reading. The findings are striking.
If you read your Bible one to three times a week, there is little to measurable difference in your life. However, those who read their Bible four or more times a week reported dramatic life change:
And there are positive behavioral changes too:
Reading your Bible is not just about growing closer to God—it changes your life for the better. Do you not want your anxiety to go down? Do you not want your loneliness to disappear? Do you not want your bitterness and anger to fade? The one simple thing we could do is start anchoring ourselves to God's Word, and if we did that, it would change our lives dramatically.
Today is Palm Sunday, an incredibly important day in Christian history. This is the moment when Jesus enters Jerusalem to celebrate Passover week. But it's significant for another reason: it marks the final five days of His life before His crucifixion.
As Jesus enters Jerusalem, He fulfills an Old Testament prophecy. The Jewish people have been eagerly awaiting the Messiah—God's savior of the world. Will they recognize Jesus and understand who He truly is?
The prophecy comes from Zechariah 9:9:
Rejoice greatly, daughter Zion. Shout, daughter Jerusalem. See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious. He will come lowly and riding on a donkey, on the colt, on the foal of a donkey.
The Jewish people expected their Messiah to be a military ruler—someone who would establish Israel as the dominant nation and rule the world. They anticipated their king riding a war horse in a victorious parade. Instead, He came on a donkey.
Let's read from John 12 the account of Jesus entering Jerusalem:
The next day, the great crowd that had come for the feast heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches, and they went out to meet him shouting, "Hosanna!" (which means "God, save us now") "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the king of Israel." Jesus found a young donkey, and he sat upon it. As it is written, "Do not be afraid, oh daughter Zion. See, your king is coming, not on a war horse, but on a donkey's colt."
At first, His disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize these things had been written about Him.
The crowd that had been with Jesus when He called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to spread the word. Many people went out to meet Him because they had heard of this miraculous sign. But the Pharisees said to one another:
See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him.
Jesus' popularity was growing, yet the religious leaders—the chief priests and Pharisees—began to plot to get rid of this "heretic" because the people were going after Him.
Five days after His triumphal entry, Jesus was arrested. The Jewish people put Him on trial and declared Him guilty, deserving of death. But there was a problem: the Jews were under Roman authority and had no power to execute anyone. Only the Romans could carry out executions. So they took Jesus to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea.
Pilate served as governor for about ten years. We know he was a historical figure not just from the Bible, but from Roman historians like Tacitus—a non-Christian, non-Jewish historian who wrote about how Pilate, the governor of Judea, put to death a man named Christ to squash a rebellion. Tacitus tells us that while the execution temporarily worked, the rebellion grew and spread throughout the entire world, even reaching Rome.
Pilate's job involved three main things:
Most importantly for our story, he alone had the authority to approve executions.
Let's read the account from Matthew 27:11-26:
Jesus stood before the governor. The governor asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?" "Yes," Jesus replied, "it is as you say." When he was accused by the chief priests and the elders, he gave no answer. Then Pilate asked him, "Don't you hear the testimony they're bringing against you?" But Jesus made no reply—not even to a single charge, to the great amazement of the governor.
Pilate then invoked a custom of the festival: to release a prisoner chosen by the crowd. At that time, there was a notorious prisoner named Barabbas. When the crowd gathered, Pilate asked them:
Which one do you want me to release to you? Barabbas or Jesus who is called Christ?
The text tells us that Pilate knew it was out of envy that they had handed Jesus over to him. While Pilate was sitting on the judge's seat, his wife sent him a message:
Don't have anything to do with that innocent man. For I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him.
But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed. When Pilate asked them which one they wanted released, they answered, "Barabbas." Then Pilate asked:
What shall I do with Jesus, who is called Christ?
And they all answered, "Crucify him!" Pilate asked, "Why? What crime has he committed?" But they shouted all louder, "Crucify him!"
When Pilate saw that this was getting nowhere and an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd, saying:
I am innocent of this man's blood. It's your responsibility.
And all the people answered, "Let his blood be on us and our children." Then he released Barabbas to them, but he had Jesus flogged and handed over to be crucified.
Whenever we read Scripture, it helps to ask questions. As you read, consider: Is there something about God I'm learning? Is there a promise or truth I need to cling to? Is there something God wants me to start or stop doing? And importantly: Is there an example in this text of something I need to avoid? Is there someone who has gone before me and paid a price that I could avoid if I pay close attention?
With Pilate, that's exactly what we need to explore.
If you read all four Gospels, it's clear that Pilate was convinced that Jesus had done nothing deserving of crucifixion. He knew Jesus was annoying to the Jewish people. He knew He had probably offended them. But as far as anything against Rome—any worthy cause for execution, any riot or insurrection—Jesus had done none of that. Pilate was certain: this man does not deserve crucifixion.
Yet Pilate felt the pressure of the crowd. He felt the pleasure of man pressing down on him, and he just wanted to please man in every way. So he tried different approaches. In Luke's Gospel, Pilate actually sent Jesus to Herod, thinking he could pass the problem off. But Herod sent Jesus right back, essentially saying, "Your job is to execute people, not mine. You don't get out of this."
Then Pilate tried to appeal to the people: "You're right, this guy's terrible. Let's just beat him up really badly, flog him, and then let him go." But they demanded, "No. We want him to be executed."
Here's where Pilate did something we often do: When we're faced with something that's pretty black and white, but internally our desires, emotions, and relationships want us to make a different decision, we like to blur the lines. We make it fuzzy and gray. Once we convince ourselves it's gray, we give ourselves permission to make a decision we know isn't quite right.
In John 18:37, this is exactly what happens. Pilate starts to blur the lines:
"You are a king then?" said Pilate. Jesus answered, "You say that I'm a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into this world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me." Then Pilate asked this question: "Well, what is truth?"
That question—"What is truth?"—is profoundly relevant to our culture today. We live in a world shaped by self-help gurus, famous personalities, and social media influencers all saying the same thing: "You need to live your truth."
We see it on coffee mugs: "Just living my truth."
Here's the problem with "my truth": Where does that truth come from? It starts with a belief that my emotions, my feelings, my desires should define what I do. What I do then defines what I value or what's true. When I see the world, I take my experience first as the chief and ultimate aim. Based on that, I determine what I do in that situation, and that really defines truth.
If my truth and your truth aren't the same, we're enemies. We agree to disagree: "I'm living my truth. You live yours. We don't agree. Just stay away from me." If my truth hurts your truth, that's okay because I don't need to be part of you. We can separate.
This kind of thinking is what we'd call earthly wisdom. But there's a different kind of wisdom—God's wisdom.
There was a time when we built our lives on the way God established them. God is the orchestrator of government. God established family. God set the way we deal with relationships. God established the church. There was a time when Judeo-Christian values became the baseline for how we understood truth.
Instead of starting with our experience and feelings, we started with God's Word. God's Word establishes truth and defines our values. That then sets our priorities in life, which allows us to live out the actions we portray. It's like looking at the world and saying, "If this is how I could see the world, I'd start here at this starting point."
That starting point is understanding: There is a God. That God is the author and perfector. He's the creator, the designer. The world exists because God made it exist. Therefore, if God created it, does God know how it's supposed to run? Yes. So I start by asking, "What does God say about truth? What does God say about relationships? What does God say about culture and values?" I start there because He's the one who knows how to make it run.
Remember that study from the beginning—how reading your Bible four or more times a week makes your life better? Why? Because you're anchoring yourself to a new set of values. God's Word drives and sets truth in your life, which then makes you better at your priorities and makes your actions toward yourself and others better. When we actually establish and live on truth, it sets the way things go.
But wisdom in our world has gone crazy, hasn't it? There once was a time when those considered teachers in our culture had to earn their platform. To teach, they had to establish credibility through lifelong lived experience and be given authority by someone before them. A professor teaching at the university level had to have a degree above the people they were teaching.
When building your life, you must start by asking, "What does God say about truth? What does God say about relationships? What does God say about culture and values?" Start there because God is the one who knows how to make it run. Remember the study from earlier—reading your Bible four or more times a week makes your life better. Why? Because you're anchoring yourself to a new set of values. God's Word drives and sets truth in your life, which then makes you better at your priorities and makes your actions toward yourself and others better. When we actually establish and live on truth, it sets the way things go.
Wisdom in our world has gone crazy, hasn't it? There once was a time when teachers in our culture had to earn their platform. To teach, they had to establish credibility through lifelong lived experience and be given authority by someone before them. A professor teaching at the university level had to have a degree above the people they were teaching. They needed the stamp of approval of the university to ensure the curriculum was worthy.
In the business world, consultants had to work at every level of an industry and be successful at every level before they had the credibility to consult others. Pastors had to study and go to seminary—it was like being a doctor. Four years of undergrad, four years of seminary, residency—so we could then present and teach the world.
But now, with social media, everything has changed. Facebook, TikTok, Instagram—every single person in the world has a platform, whether they earned it or not. The platforms that many people stand on are thousands of times bigger than ever before. People with hundreds of thousands of followers are teaching us. It's in our pocket. And maybe more scary, it's in our kids' pockets.
When you learned something in the past, you had to willingly show up to learn. Today, you walked into a Northview church location or tuned in online with the purpose of saying, "I want to come learn." You gave permission because you chose to be here. You might ask if a pastor has the credibility to teach you. I would say not really—but Pastor CJ extended his credibility to me today to allow me to teach to you. Pastor CJ was appointed here by God and by the elders and voted in by this congregation. However, if anything I say today doesn't align with Scripture, throw it away.
But here's what's different with social media: an algorithm profiles who you are and says, "Here's what you ought to hear. Here's what you probably want to hear." That algorithm creates an echo chamber where you only hear what it thinks your ears want to hear. You don't get counter-points, counter-arguments, or moral values that teach you anything different.
What you're learning is different from what others are learning because you've been profiled differently. And this is where we're gaining our wisdom and learning. This is a massive shift from how we used to access truth.
Paul, in Second Timothy, writes a charge about the importance of preaching God's Word. Listen to how prophetic this is:
In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge. Preach the word. Be prepared in season and out of season to correct, rebuke, and encourage—with patience and careful instruction.
For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
He's saying there is a truth that you need to be anchored to, but there will come a time when truth will be watered down. Are you really diving into God's Word?
There are lots of great ways to dive into God's Word and learn about it. At Northview, we believe God has called us to help disciple the congregation through the Northview app. If you log in, at the very top you'll find daily devotions—a five-day reading plan available for every day, leading up to the sermon.
Here's my challenge for you: As we enter into Holy Week, what if as a church we were all in Scripture every day? When you click on the day, it takes you through a simple process:
It's so important that we as believers start reading Scripture. Here's why.
A 2025 study called "The State of Theology in the United States" asked questions about evangelical beliefs. It said if you answer yes to these four questions, you would be considered an evangelical Christian—and as a church, these are fundamental truths we believe:
We believe those things. However, of the people who answered yes to those four questions and claimed to be evangelical Christians, there's still so much confusion about what is true. One of the most scary findings was this: one in four people that answered yes to those four questions said, "Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God."
When Pilate has Jesus in front of him, he asks, "What is truth?" Well, here's the truth: Jesus Christ was fully man and fully God. Jesus Christ is God's Son, sent to save the world.
At the beginning, God created the world and placed humans in it above every other part of His creation. His desire was to have a personal, intimate relationship with us. But He gave us free will, and we turned our back on God. That turning away was a separation between us and God.
The Bible says it wasn't just Adam and Eve who sinned—every single one of us has sinned. All of us have sinned and fall short of God's glory. The Bible says the wages of sin is death. That means you and I deserve to die for the sin in our lives.
But the Bible also says: "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
Jesus Christ came and lived on this earth. He was a sinless man, but He was also God. He never sinned. Yet He willingly went to the cross and died for you and me. He did not deserve to die, but He died for us and took the penalty that we deserved. He didn't just die—three days later He rose from the dead. When He rose from the dead, He overcame the power of sin, death, and the curse. In doing so, we now can have an eternal relationship with God ourselves.
The Bible tells us that the way we receive eternal life is to confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that he was raised from the dead, and we'll be saved.
I wonder: are there some of you here at our locations or watching online who have never made that declaration that Jesus is Lord? Today at the end of this service, I'm going to challenge you. If you've never made that decision, today should be and could be your day.
There is truth in the world. That truth is that Jesus is God, and He came and died for you and for me so that we could have an eternal relationship with Him.
But look at Pilate. He tries a tactic knowing all along he's faced with somebody totally different who doesn't deserve to die. So he tries something else. He says, "All right, fine. You want him dead, that's fine, but I'm going to wash my hands of it. I'm going to absolve myself from this. It's not my fault anymore, it's yours."
But we don't get to just wash our hands of Jesus. Every single one of us has to make a decision for ourselves. The Bible is very clear:
For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities have been on display so that we are without excuse.
We have to answer for Jesus.
What's ironic is that the people say, "Let his blood be on us and on our children." Why are they in Jerusalem? They're there to celebrate the Passover.
The Passover comes from the book of Exodus—a yearly tradition celebrating God's faithfulness to the Israelites. The Israelites were slaves in Egypt. God freed them by sending Moses to Pharaoh. When Pharaoh refused, God sent plagues until finally Pharaoh relented. The final plague was the angel of death. God said, "I'm going to kill the firstborn child in all of Egypt. But you, Israelites, you are to kill the lamb, rub its blood above your doorposts. When the angel of death comes and sees the blood on the doorpost, he will pass over and spare you. You will be freed and able to live your life."
The Israelites were freed from slavery. The irony? They say, "Let Jesus' blood be on us and our children." That's the only way for you and for me and for them to be freed from the sin that we deserve, from the slavery that we exist in, and to live eternal life with Jesus. They were asking for the very thing they needed, not realizing: I need the blood of Jesus on me.
Think about this: five days earlier, that same crowd was saying, "God save us." Now they're yelling, "Crucify him!" I wonder, for those of us who are believers in the room, are you at times turning your back on Jesus? We can hear this as a gospel message for somebody who doesn't know who Jesus is, but I would ask you: are you, at times, turning your back on Jesus?
Pilate says, "Hey, I'm going to release to you a prisoner. Do you want me to release a guy named Barabbas or Jesus?" Barabbas was in jail because he caused an insurrection and was a murderer. He had started a riot against Rome.
Remember Pilate's main responsibility? To help protect Rome. To stop insurrections. To punish those who did it. So who should Pilate have executed? Barabbas. But the praise of the people, his desire to get their approval, caused him to turn his back on his own duty. He chose to please man over what was right.
Where is my fear of man surpassing the fear of the Lord?
Pilate was so afraid of the people and so wanted to please them that he was willing to turn his back on the one thing he was placed in position to do, just to please the people.
But the Bible tells us:
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
What does that mean? When you realize there is a God and you're not Him, you begin to get a lot smarter. This isn't about being in fear and trembling all the time that God will hurt you. No, this is about being in such awe of who God is—to know God so well and to see His bigness—that you're like, "Oh, you are amazing. I am nothing. I will submit to your ways above mine." In doing so, you become wise because you no longer trust in this fallen human person. You're trusting in God.
The remedy to the fear of man is the fear of the Lord.
So I would ask you to contemplate this Holy Week: Where am I allowing the fear of man to surpass my fear of the Lord?
I'm going to pray for two different groups. First, that group who has never declared Jesus as Lord. The Bible says if we confess with our mouth and believe in our heart that Jesus is Lord, we'll be saved. I want you to know for sure today that you are on your way to heaven, that you will have an eternal relationship with God.
Second, I want to pray for those of us who might say, "You know what? I need a renewed focus right now. I need to renew my focus back on the Lord as we enter into Holy Week and get deeper back into my love for Him."
If today is your day—if you've never accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, and today is the day you want to declare Him as God—I'm going to ask you to raise your hand. It takes an act of courage. On the count of three, if that's you, just raise your hand.
For those who raised your hand, pray this to God:
Dear God, thank you for loving me. Thank you for being such a big God, yet you choose to have a relationship with me. God, I admit today that I have sinned, that I have fallen short. I ask that you would forgive me. Thank you, God, for being a God who forgives every one of those sins. And today I'm putting my faith and I'm putting my trust in Jesus Christ as my Lord and my Savior. Thank you, God, for saving me. God, I will do my best to put you first. In Jesus' name. Amen.
For those of us who have done that before but know you have turned your back on the King, and you've feared man at times and need to recommit to putting Him first, on the count of three, raise your hand as well.
God, we admit that you are God and we are not. Yet our selfishness and our pride and our desires to do things on our own lead us away from you, and I'm sorry for that. God, the pressure we face to please other people leads us away from you, and I'm sorry for that. And God, today we're recommitting in this moment to say, "God, we're going to put you first. We're going to anchor ourselves to you and your values to drive us." God, help us this week and into the future to anchor our lives to the one who matters. In Jesus' name. Amen.
