(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Amen. So keep your place there in John chapter number 19. So tonight I'm going to preach a random characters in the Bible sermon this evening. And we're going to look at the specific individual. I've never preached a sermon on this individual, but we're looking at the trial and crucifixion of Jesus Christ. And tonight I want to preach a sermon on Pontius Pilate and what this man is all about. Now Pilate was, you know, he's featured here in John chapter 18, John chapter 19. He's a key figure in the trial and the crucifixion of Jesus. Pilate was the, who was he? He was the Roman governor or the Roman ruler in Jerusalem of Judea. So, you know, that's different than who Herod was. So Herod was a Jewish king. Remember the Jews at this time are under Roman rule. So they're, they're literally underneath the yoke of the Roman empire. So, you know, the Romans had Jews that they would put in charge of certain areas. The king of Judea is Herod, the man who, you know, killed John the Baptist and then his following, you know, children who are also called Herod in, you know, historically. But he is the Jewish leader, but the Roman prefect or Roman governor, as I guess you would know it, the Roman representative of the actual empire was this man Pontius Pilate. So he is the one with the real power. All right, he was the one who was really the representative of Caesar in Jerusalem at this time. All right, so he wasn't some figurehead. He was a man that had real actual power. So what we're going to look at this evening is, and Pontius Pilate, it's interesting if you read historical accounts of Pontius Pilate, there are historical accounts of how he met his end. And I'm not sure how accurate they are. Obviously, it's not in the Bible, the Bible doesn't talk about Pontius Pilate after the death of Jesus, really, it doesn't talk about him going back to Rome. But history, there's historians from the second century, third century and fourth century, that, you know, give accounts that Pontius Pilate, and I sort of believe this because it matches kind of the attitude of Pontius Pilate that you see in the Bible. But the historical account kind of goes like this, that Pontius Pilate, a couple of years after Jesus was crucified, he got into a mix up with some rebellious Jews, and he put down this rebellion with violence. And he was called back to Rome for, you know, trial or punishment for cruelty to the Jews. He had a disdain towards the Jews, which you can, quite frankly, see in the story of the Gospels, he didn't take their religion or the fact that they were upset over Jesus seriously at all. But the story goes that he went to trial, but Caligula was the emperor that was, that tried him finally, and then he was either ordered to commit suicide or actually did just commit suicide in shame. That's one of the stories, it's kind of like a choose your own adventure. There's one story that says he killed himself in shame, and there's another story that says he just kind of like lived out the rest of his life, you know, without having any other authority or positions. But anyway, that was his downfall, was basically being too hard on, you know, putting down the rebellion of the Jews. You can see his disdain for the Jews in the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion and the trial of Jesus. And another thing that's interesting is if you read historical accounts, this kind of shows you, you know, how much, you know, stake you can put in the Bible versus, you know, secular history. If you read historical accounts of the crucifixion of Jesus, you know, they put a lot more responsibility on Pilate, and they say that the Bible account is actually anti-Semitic, right? You can imagine how that's kind of changed throughout history, and why it's changed, right? Where the real story here is that, yes, Pontius Pilate had responsibility, we're going to talk about that. But it was really the Jews, the Jewish leaders that were running this mob that were pressuring him politically to do something that he really didn't want to do, but he did anyway, all right? So that's what we're going to look at tonight. We're going to look at Pontius Pilate. Of course, we go with the Bible account. We know that's the Word of God. That's the truth. That's what actually happened. No matter what people think is politically correct today, that's what happened in the Bible. But we're going to look at Pontius Pilate this evening, and we're going to look at, you know, leadership. I'm going to give you four leadership don'ts using the life of Pontius Pilate really in this story of the trial of Jesus. I just want to give you four points on what Pontius Pilate did as we go through this story, and show you how that's not what you should do as a leader, all right? Go back to John chapter 18, if you would, and let's look at beginning or, you know, a little bit back in our story here. Look at John chapter 18, verse number 29. So we'll get leadership don'ts, four points tonight of Pontius Pilate. John chapter 18 and verse number 29, the Bible says, Pilate then went out to them and said, what accusation bring ye against this man? And they answered, this is the Jewish leaders, they answered and said unto him, if he were not a male factor, we would not have delivered him up to thee. I mean, that's like, if he wasn't a criminal, we wouldn't have brought him in the first place. They're basically saying, like, just trust us. Just trust us. Like, we brought him to you, he's guilty, obviously, or we wouldn't have brought him here. So, you know, Pontius Pilate is skeptical. Look at verse number 31. The Bible says, then Pilate said unto them, take ye him and judge him according to your law. He doesn't want to have anything to do with this. The Jews, therefore, said unto him, it is not lawful for us to put any man to death, that the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled, which he spake, signifying what death he should die. So the first point I want to make tonight and the first anti point of Pontius Pilate is the fact that he shunned responsibility. All right, he shunned responsibility. In John chapter 18 and John chapter 19, you know, the Bible is very clear that Pontius Pilate was pressured by a crowd of people to do something that he did not think was right. Go back to Matthew chapter number 27, if you will. Go back to Matthew chapter number 27 in verse number 24. So the first thing that he did that we need to learn and take from, you know, something we should not do as leaders is he shunned responsibility as a leader. All right, look at Matthew chapter 27 and look at verse number 24. So it gets to the point where he does not want to do something, but he can't prevail here. So look at Matthew 27 in verse number 24. It says when Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, look, he was not able to convince them to just let Jesus go. And look, before we go further in the sermon, I get that Pontius Pilate is part of the plan and we're just looking at the man himself and the morality of what he did. God used wicked people to fulfill prophecy all the time. All right, just like Judas, Pontius Pilate is another one of these type of players. All right, look at Matthew 27 and verse number 24. When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but rather a tumult was made, he took water and washed his hands before the multitude saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person. See ye to it. So he gets this prisoner brought to him. He says, you know, what has he done? They said, he's clearly a criminal. He says, you take him, judge him yourself. He wants to have nothing to do with this situation. And they say, we can't put somebody to death. So they literally tell Pontius Pilate at that point, we want to kill him and there's nothing in our law that says we can kill him. So we want you to do it. And finally, after all this back and forth, and we're going to go through some more of that with further points, but after all this back and forth, Pontius Pilate, you know, ceremoniously or, you know, symbolically washes his hands in water as a symbol that I am not responsible for this. But here's the problem. He shunned responsibility as a leader, but going and just washing your hands in front of people underwater does not make that true. Does not mean that you are not responsible. Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter number 5. The problem is that little ceremony that he did by washing his hands, it had no effect on the outcome of other people. It was literally him shunning his leadership responsibility. He was the governor. You can't just throw that off. Alright, look, as a leader, as a leader, you are responsible. That's the whole point of being a leader. And look, the only way, look, the only way to not become responsible as a leader is to not become a leader in the first place. But once you are a leader, that's it. That responsibility is yours whether you like it or not. You cannot enter into a position of leadership and then at that point say, well, I'm not responsible for the things that happen here because you are the leader at that point. The only way to avoid that responsibility is to avoid the leadership position. If you just think about this in the simplest terms, think about, I mean, have you ever had a boss? Have you ever had a boss that you work for and he's been in some tough situation or he's had to make some difficult decision and you've either said out loud or you've had the thought, and I'm glad I don't have to make that decision. If you have ever thought that or said that out loud about your boss, that means you should never apply for his job if it comes open. Because if you do have his job, you will have to make that decision. And you will be responsible for that decision whether it's right, wrong, indifferent, whatever. You're responsible. You can't just go and wash your hands and say, I'm not responsible for the outcome of what I just did. It does not work that way. So look, if you don't want to be the boss and you don't want to be responsible for the people, the group, the company, whatever, don't walk into that position. Don't desire that position. Don't apply for that position. If you don't want to when it comes to the family, if you don't want to be responsible for a family, for a wife and children, don't get married. Because you can't get married and then have a wife and then have children and then just wash your hands of the situation. Wash your hands of responsibilities. It doesn't work that way. And this is what Pontius Pilate tried to do. You can't just throw off the responsibility like he tried to do. Are you there in 2 Corinthians 5? Can you imagine if some little ceremony like that you could just not be responsible for whatever happens? But look, here's the thing. People do this all the time. People throw off their responsibility as leaders all the time. Look, here's the thing. No one's saying you're going to be a perfect leader as a husband, as a father, or as even a mother raising children. No one's saying that you're going to make the right decision every single day, every single hour, raising your children, ruling your home, ruling your children. No one is saying that everything is going to be perfect. But what I am saying is that you are responsible. You are responsible. You can't be one of these people that goes and maybe you mess up your children for years and years and years. And I'm also not saying that as a leader you don't have the ability to damage things beyond repair in your family, whatever the leadership position is, you can literally do damage beyond repair, damage that cannot be fixed. But what you don't have the... And look, I'm not saying that your life is over after that. I'm not saying if you've been a bad father for 35 years and none of your kids will even talk to you, then all of a sudden you get things right. Look, there's probably damage there that you just can't fix. There's damage that's just done. I'm not saying your life is over and there's nothing for you going forward from there, but what I am saying is you cannot just wipe your hands of that responsibility. You have to own what you've done. You have to own the decisions that you make and have made as a leader, always. I mean just think about, I mean how many people do you know that, you know, hopefully not a lot, but I mean people that are divorced do this all the time. People that are divorced, they just completely just wash their hands of any responsibility. You ever met a divorced person where it was just like 100% the other person's fault? Like all the time. What are they doing? And especially, especially, like I'm harder on the men here because literally in a marriage, the man is leading that institution. He's the leader of it. So there is no such thing as no fault divorce in the eyes of God, especially from the perspective of the man, because he's in charge. The ship sank. Captain, there is no, oh, I don't have any responsibility for that. No, you are responsible. You are the leader. You're responsible. Even if there's damage done around a pair, you're still responsible. You still need to own it. So you can't shirk your responsibilities is the first lesson that we need to learn here. Look, failed leadership fails people. That is going to resonate with people for many times the rest of people's lives. Things that failed leaders do will affect people. That's exactly what is happening with Pontius Pilate. And look, it also doesn't mean, look, you are responsible. Ultimately, you are held responsible in the eyes of God, and that's the important thing. Look at 2 Corinthians 5. Look, just like the pastor, just like the Bible says, the pastor of this church will be held responsible one day for the things that were done here. You also will be held responsible for the things that you do here, out there in your life. Look at 2 Corinthians 5, verse 10. The Bible says, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that everyone, this is talking about saved people. Saved people are going to appear before Jesus Christ. And they are going to give account, they are going to be responsible. Look at this, that everyone may receive the things done in his body according to that he had done, whether it be good or bad. This is talking about the rewards that you're going to get in heaven, and it also says that you will suffer loss for the rewards that you don't get. You're not going to be thrown in hell, but you will suffer loss for the things that you failed at. You will suffer loss of those rewards. The point is, you are responsible for what you do, and what you don't do, as we see with Pontius Pilate. There's no, oh, I wash my hands of that. There's no parent that should ever have a child that went off the rails, and it's a sad thing to see. A child that has gone to the world, and is maybe even unsaved, is just a train wreck. There's no parent that should be able to just wash their hands of that, and say, yeah, well I just couldn't control what they did. Because it's your fault. It's your fault. You are the one that didn't raise them according to the Bible. You are the one that didn't protect them. You are the one that did not keep them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. You are. And look, even if it's damage done beyond repair, that's a sad thing. You can't wash your hands of it, though. So shunning responsibility is something that is not in, that's not in the resume of a good leader. And that's exactly what Pontius Pilate is doing here. He just washes his hands and says, he can't win. He's just, I'm not responsible for this. Wrong. You bear responsibility for the decisions that you make as a leader. All right? Look, there's consequences. There's consequences here on this earth for the decisions that you make as a leader. And 2 Corinthians chapter 5 says, you know, you will answer for the good things that you did, and the bad things that you did. All right? And nothing's gonna change that. No little ceremony, nothing you say is gonna change that. These positions of leadership, they're ordained by God, the Bible says. All right? Let's go back to John chapter 18. So the first point is this. The first lesson that we learned from Pontius Pilate is that as a leader, you cannot shun responsibility. As a leader, the responsibility is yours. That's an easy one. Look at John chapter 18, verse number 33. The Bible says, Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again and called Jesus and said unto him, Are thou the king of the Jews? Jesus answered him saying, Sayest thou a thing this of yourself, or did others tell thee of me? Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Here you see that disdain here. Thy own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me. What hast thou done? Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews. But now is my kingdom not from hence. Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end I was born, and for this cause I came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Pilate said unto him, What is truth? When he had said this, he went out again to the Jews and said unto them, I find in him no fault at all. So here Jesus is literally saying, I am of the truth. Jesus is the truth. Pilate's saying, What is truth? Which is ironic in itself because the truth is standing right in front of him. Jesus is the word of God. Jesus is the definition of truth. But Pilate in verse number 38, this brings me to my second point, says unto him, What is truth? So what he is saying is, Are you a king or not? Is what you're saying true or not? And Jesus says, It is true. I am not of this world. My kingdom is not of this world. Otherwise I'd have an army and my men would fight and all these things. And Pilate says, What is truth? And what he means by that is that there is no truth. What he means by that it is his belief as a leader, as a person, as the governor, that there's no truth. What he's saying is the same thing people say today. Your truth, my truth, his truth. What's the difference? That's what he's saying. So he's looking at these Jewish leaders and saying, They're saying this and you're saying this. He's like, What is truth? He's like, None of this is true. There is no truth. So the second point is this. He had no absolute standard as a leader. This is a huge problem as a leader. He had no principles as a leader. If you are a leader, look, I don't care. I mean, we obviously know what our principles and our absolute truth is. But if you are a leader anywhere in life, if you're listening to this sermon and you're not even saved, you should get saved. But if you are a leader and you don't have any principles, you will fail as a leader. Guaranteed. A leader must have a standard that they follow in order to be credible to the people that they're leading. And Pilate is literally saying, There is no standard. He's saying, There's no standard. You're sitting here talking about truth. What is truth? This is why he's a failed leader. He has no absolute standard. John Adams said this, I always like this quote, Always stand on principle, even if you stand alone. What he's saying is a leader, he's saying a leader must stand on principle. Like, look, obviously, I mean, even this is a problem with politicians today. Politicians, they have no standards. They have no principles. And any politician that comes along, and I don't think we've seen one for a while, maybe there is one, I don't know, but the point is any principled leader that comes along, people think they're crazy. I'll just give you a secular example. Ron Paul. People just thought he was nuts. But he had a principle at least he was following, which was the Constitution. And so he'd get up there and he'd rail on the Federal Reserve. He'd get up there and he would rail on, you know, Congress just spending all this money. Basically, if you listen to what he said, he's basically saying all this stuff is illegal. He's saying it's against the law of the land, which is what? The Constitution. He'd get up there and he would rail against the imperialism and all the foreign wars. And he would say, hey, this is illegal. This is against the principle. And everyone's like, you're crazy, and he's crazy. But he sounded crazy because he was principled. Look, I'm not saying the Constitution is the Bible, but I'm saying at least he had principles. At least he had principles that he stood on. That's what made him weird to people, is that he was a principled person. He would just put everything up against the law and be like, this is illegal. We can't do this. But today, people have no standards. The standards today are who am I talking to? Who's my audience right now? That's the standards. The standards are who's paying the bills? The standards are who am I going to work for when I'm done being a congressman? The standards are how do I enrich myself and my friends and the people that are going to support getting me reelected next time? That's not principles. That's corruption. That's the opposite of principles. So, look, lesson number two from Pontius Pilate is true leadership is principled leadership. And, of course, our ultimate standard, of course, is the Bible. That is our ultimate absolute truth. And, look, let me tell you something, folks. If you're in any kind of leadership position, whether it be your family, whether it be your job, whether it be your kids, whatever it is, you need to turn the doctrines of the Bible into principled standards, and then you need to be a principled leader that follows those standards. And then what will happen? You know what will happen? You will gain the trust of the people that you are leading. You just look at this at somebody at a job that leads people at a job. Somebody that's principled. And let's just say my principles are safety, servitude, honesty, integrity, hard work. These are principles. They're all biblical principles. But put those principles into those standards and follow those consistently, and you will gain the trust of the people you're leading. But if you're like, if you have integrity, like two days a week, or you care about the safety of the people that you work with, like every other Monday, or something like that, look, that's not principled leadership. And you will fail as a leader, because no one will trust you as a leader. True leadership is principled leadership. And somebody like Pontius Pilate, he's just like, yeah, well, there is no, there is no truth, your truth, my truth, whatever, you know, I'm going to do what he's basically saying is, he believes this philosophy that people believe today, which is what I think is good for me is good. What you think is good for you is good. The problem is it doesn't work. It doesn't work. It will never work. There must be an absolute truth. And of course, that absolute truth is the Bible. Go back to John chapter 19. So point number one is he shunned leadership, you cannot do that. Point number two is true leadership is principled leadership, which he did not have. He did not have principles. Point number three is this. He ignored counsel. He ignored counsel. As a leader, you should not ignore counsel. Look at John chapter 19. Look at verse number 13. When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the pavement, but in the Hebrew, gabitha. Turn to Matthew chapter 27. Again, if you will turn to Matthew chapter number 27. An interesting detail is brought up in Matthew chapter 27. So he sat down in the judgment seat, but Matthew 27 gives us another detail of something else that happened here in this situation. Look at verse number 19. Verse number 19 of Matthew chapter number 27. The Bible says when he was sat down in the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man. For I have suffered many things this day in a dream, because of him. So she's saying she's warning him against going down the road that he is going down, which kind of makes sense when you look at the secular history of how things end badly for Pontius Pilate. That seems to make sense to me, even though the Bible doesn't give us that detail. But she's basically saying have nothing to do with that just man. So she thinks she knows he's innocent. Just man, she knows that he does not deserve to be put to death. And she is giving him the counsel to not be part of what the Jews are trying to do here. And she's warning him, and he does not listen to her at all. And I guess you could say, well, he's the governor. He's the Roman governor. He's super powerful. Like, why should he listen to anyone? But this is a mistake that leaders make. Go to Proverbs chapter 11 and verse number 14. Look, I'll just put a blanket statement out there and say this. Anytime that I have seen a leader make an incredibly foolish decision, it was against the counsel of multiple people. I mean, a leader that just makes a completely wrong decision. Look, there's decisions. I get it. There's a lot of day-to-day decisions where, hey, we should, you know, maybe we should do this, and you could make arguments for both ways, whatever it is. But any time that I have seen someone drop a seriously foolish decision, whether it be in life, in work, or whatever, it has been against multiple sources of counsel. And they went out on their own, and they made the decision anyway. Look at Proverbs chapter 11 and verse number 14. The Bible warns of this. The Bible says where no counsel is, the people fall. But in the multitude of counselors, there is safety. I mean, I've said this many times, but I've said this quote many times. I don't know where it came from, but it's just a great quote. A leader who doesn't listen will soon be surrounded by people who have nothing to say. And look, there's a lot of leaders that want that. There are people that want those type of people around them, that want people around them that just don't say anything and just go along with whatever they do. There's too many, but the Bible says, the Bible's teaching us in Proverbs chapter 11 and verse number 14, you should not be that type of leader. You should not be that type of leader in your job. You should not be that type of leader in church. You should not be that type of leader in your family. Because there's no safety there, the Bible is telling us. Where there's a multitude of counselors, there is safety. Look, there's no safety. What that means is there's gonna be bad decisions in your future. If you just surround yourself with people that say nothing, that will never go against you, all you have to do, all you have to do is the first time a couple people at the job or whatever disagree with you, just bark them down. And you're gonna end up with a group of those types of people that have nothing to say. But the Bible says there's no safety there, and that's a problem. But the pastor, counsel from his wife though? I mean, from his wife? I mean, shouldn't she just listen to him all the time? Look, I get counsel from my wife all the time. All the time. He's like, what, you go to your wife? You go to your wife and ask counsel on things? Yes, I do. Also, here's another one. My wife also comes to me unsolicited at times with counsel. My wife will come to me unsolicited. I don't ask for advice. My wife will come to me and just be like, hey, you know this one thing that you were gonna do here, just wanted to give you this perspective on it? I mean, in a nice, respectful way. I mean, Pontius Pilate's wife wasn't like barking him down here, she was just saying you're in danger. Who would want a wife where they're in danger or they're about to do something incredibly stupid and says nothing? I would never want, I think there are husbands that want wives like that. That is not me. I want a smart wife that sees danger and warns me. That's what I want. Well, that's what I wanted and that's what I got. But the point is, the point is this. The point is this. She's a helpmeet for me. She's a help that is worthy. She's there to help me. If I'm about to step off a cliff, I'd like somebody to say like, hey, there's a hole there. And look, there are times, you say so, your wife comes to you with unsolicited advice and you're like, what do you do then? Well, first of all, there's two roads. Many times she'll come to me and she'll say, I'm not gonna give any percentages here because I don't even know if I could put a percentage on it, but it goes one of two ways. It's either like, oh, I didn't think of that angle. I didn't know that that would, she's very good at understanding how people will feel about things and I'm less good at that. And I'm like, okay, well, I didn't know that that would go over like a lead balloon, so I'll just word that differently or maybe we'll handle that issue in a different way. But there are also times when I say, yeah, I understand where you're coming from there, but here's another perspective that I'm seeing with this whole thing and we need to go this way. I get that that's a negative and we talk it out and then she's like, oh, yeah, okay, well, I just wanted you to make sure that, I mean, sometimes I take the counsel, sometimes I don't. It just depends on the perspective of the situation. But look, many times I go to her for counsel. Many times I run ideas past her on a daily basis, folks. A leader that doesn't listen will soon be surrounded by people that have nothing to say, even your wife. If your wife can't come to you and bring anything to you, bring any concerns to you in your marriage without you just flying off the handle and just completely shutting her down, she's gonna stop coming to you. And then you're not gonna have that safety. You're not gonna have that counselor that literally lives in the same house as you. It's a perfect thing that God provides for us. He should have listened to the counsel of his wife. Turn to 2 Kings, there's a crazy story in the Bible here, 1 Kings chapter 12. There's a story of Rehoboam right here where he just shunned wise counsel and it literally caused him to lose the entire kingdom. Look at 1 Kings chapter 12, this is Solomon's son. Solomon, I think about this, think about the situation and just the foolish decision that he made here. We're talking about the counselors that counseled his father. His father, I mean Solomon, are you kidding me? Solomon was the wisest person that ever lived. Besides Jesus, God gave him wisdom that was beyond any man and he had counselors. And this kid doesn't listen to them, the counselors to the wisest man that ever lived. Look at verse number six. And King Rehoboam consulted with the old men that stood before Solomon, his father, while he yet lived and said, how do you advise that I may answer these people? And if you look down at verse number 13, the Bible says, and the king answered the people roughly and forsook the old men's counsel that they gave him. He decided that he was gonna go with his buddies and just go with what he wanted to do and he forsook counsel, but guess what? There's no safety there. All right, so the multitude of counsel, the third lesson here is listen to counsel. You don't have to take every single counsel that you get but you should know the Bible well enough to know wise counsel when you see it. And you can't be one of these people that, you know, I've met these people too, they make a decision and that's it. They make a decision, they decide this is where I'm going, I'm getting on this boat right here, they get out on the water and the boat's full of holes and they're just like, I'm just riding this thing all the way to the bottom. Don't be that guy. That's what prideful people do. Prideful people can't let go. And I've said this many times, I think I've preached entire sermons on this, but the minute, the second that you know that an idea is no good, you gotta let it go. Because the longer you hang on to a bad idea, the worse, the more work, the more damage it's gonna do, the more work it's gonna take to get out of that situation, the sooner you can let go of it, of that losing idea, the better things are for everybody. And look, I mean, how do you know it's a bad idea? Because people will come and tell you if you have counselors in your life. Counselors are super valuable, not just your wife, good friends, godly people, this is why you surround yourself with people that know the Bible. You surround yourself with people who have a spiritual life, because if they see something and you ask them, they'll give you wise counsel, hopefully, if they have a spiritual life as well and they know what the Bible says as well. So the third one is, listen to counsel. Number four is the big one, all right? Go back to John chapter 18. Number four is the big one, and I kind of skipped over some verses and we're gonna go back to some middle verses here to make this last point, but this is the big one. So far, he's shown responsibility, he did not listen to counsel, and the fourth one is this, he had beliefs without action. He had beliefs without action. What do I mean by that? Look at John chapter 18, verse number 39. John chapter 18, verse number 39. The Bible says, but you have a custom that I should release unto you one at the Passover. Will ye therefore that I release unto you the king of the Jews? Then they cried again, saying, not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber. Look at John chapter 19 and verse number one. So from the beginning, he's trying to get himself out of this situation. Why is he trying to get himself out of this situation? Because he knows Jesus didn't do anything wrong. He knows Jesus is innocent, and he says it again and again. Look at verse number one. The Bible says, the pilot therefore took Jesus and scourged him. He whipped him, he beat him, and the soldiers planted a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe, and said, hail, king of the Jews, and they smote him with their hands. So the soldiers are torturing him. Pilot therefore went forth again and saith unto them, behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him. So this kinda shows you the conviction of his morals right here. He finds no fault in him, yet he's already tortured him and beat him. Yet he finds no fault in him. So the point that, you know, the fourth and biggest point is, morals or beliefs without backbone are worthless as a leader. Again, look at verse number five. Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, and Pilot saith unto them, behold the man. When the chief priests, therefore an officer saw him, they cried out, saying, crucify him, crucify him. Pilot saith unto them, take ye him and crucify him, for I find no fault in him. He says it again. The Jews answered, we have a law, and that by our law he ought to die because he made himself the son of God. When Pilot therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid. And he went again into the judgment hall and saith unto Jesus, whence art thou? Meaning, where did you come from? But Jesus gave him no answer. Then saith Pilot unto him, speaketh thou not unto me? Knowest thou that I have the power to crucify thee and have the power to release thee? So he did have the power to release Jesus. Again, I get that he's playing a prophecy role here. We're talking about his leadership. Look at verse 11. Jesus answered, thou could have no power at all against me except it were given to thee from above. Therefore he that delivereth me unto thee hath the greater sin. Jesus literally saying that the Jews have the greater sin. I mean, look at verse number 12. And from thenceforth Pilot sought to release him. But the Jews cried out saying, if thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend. Whosoever makest himself a king, speaketh against Caesar. And that ultimately becomes the coup de grace against Pilot because he's a politician at the end of the day. He's somebody that just wants to, he has no principles, he has no truth. He simply wants to remain in power. And he knows that not doing this will cost him, will cost him his position as a confrontation in a couple years is gonna cost him his position. Anyway, but Pilot knew it was wrong. He knew that Jesus was innocent. But at the end of the day, that literally meant nothing. It didn't matter what he knew. It didn't matter what he felt convicted about because he did nothing. Knowing something means nothing. Doing something means everything. Turn to James chapter two. Turn to James chapter number two. This is the whole point of James chapter number two. Is that knowing something, yeah, okay, that's good for you but doing something is what matters to other people. At the end of the day, Pilot knew he was innocent but all he cared about was his position, what was good for him. That is such a valuable lesson as a leader. If you take nothing from this sermon, you take this last one with you tonight. Look at James chapter two and verse number 14. What doth it profit my brethren though a man say he have faith and have not works? Can faith save him? Look at this example in the next two verses. If a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food and one of you say unto them depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled, notwithstanding, ye give them not those things which are needful to the body, what doth it profit? What doth it profit who? What doth it profit the other person, not you? What good is your faith? Look, your faith, whether it be dead, weak, semi-weak, whatever it is, whatever end of that spectrum, your faith is with you. Your faith is taking you to heaven if you're saved. The Bible in James chapter two is talking about what good your faith be to someone else. And it would be of no value to someone else if you have that faith, you say you have that faith, and you do nothing. That is the application. That is what Pilate did. Pilate believed something. He believed that this man was innocent. Look, he held that belief, I'm sure, until the day he died, whatever that was, by whatever means that was. I'm sure he held the belief that Jesus did not deserve to be killed, to be executed, until the day he died. But what good did it do Jesus? What good did it do to the innocent man that he sent to his death? It didn't do any good because belief without action profits no one. And that's what we have to remember as leaders. Having morals and having beliefs, hey, that's great. Like, I know I'm saved, and I know I'm never gonna not be saved, but if I have no action, that does nothing for my children. That does nothing for my wife. That does nothing for the future generations of my family. I recently, a couple months ago, I just finished a book. And I'm not even gonna mention the name of the book because it'll be controversial and all that. I'll tell you after the service if you wanna know what the book was called. But it was an in-depth, it was a real-life story. And it was an in-depth examination of the damage that a leader can do. And the interesting thing about it was there was men that witnessed, men in this group that witnessed, and I'm not even gonna say corruption, that witnessed very bad things. It was a very real story, and I wouldn't even recommend it to really a church member. But it was a real story, it really happened, and these men witnessed crimes, bad things. And they were put in a position they knew. They knew that doing something about it would hurt them. They knew that standing up and doing something about the bad things, the crimes that they saw, they knew their reputations would suffer. They knew that people would come after them and attack them. But at the end of the day, you know what they said? You know what they said? What about the next generation? How am I gonna look my children in the face? At the end of the day, that's what mattered. You know what? They did it. They did what was right. They did the right thing, and don't miss this, they lost. In the world's eyes, they were destroyed. In the world's eyes, they were run over. In the world's eyes, they were cowards. In the world's eyes, they were rats. But at the end of the day, they can go home and they can look their children in the face. You see, they were put in a decision, they were put in a place, and they were put in a decision where they thought they were doing something good with their lives, and the minute they got underneath this authority that was doing all these bad, horrible things, they were put, they were very angry about it, and they should have been angry about it because here they were, what they thought was a good thing they were doing, now they were put in this position where I either have to go destroy my own reputation or not be able to face my children and my family. That's a tough decision. And they made the right one. But guess what? It wasn't the best for them. You know what the best thing for them would have been? Go along to get along. That's what a lot of people do. You could argue that's what many people do. See somebody getting hurt, they see some horrible thing happening, and they're just like, go along to get along. That's the easy way. That's what Pilate did. He went along to get along. He looked the other way because it was the best thing for him. That's a terrible thing. To be as a leader. Look, being a leader many times is not going to be the best thing for you if you want to do it the right way. Going along and just getting along while others are being hurt is never the right thing. And it certainly isn't biblical leadership. And look, many times the right thing is not going to get you ahead. This is why many times you see people that are really far ahead are not the best kind of people. And that's a tough one to make a blanket statement on, but I've seen that scenario many, many times. Because they'll let people get hurt. They don't want to rock the boat. Whatever's best for me, they play that politician. They'll look the other way while things happen because many times doing the right thing is going to cost you. But that's biblical leadership. So look, as a leader, as a leader you are responsible, number one. That's number one. Number two, you must have principles that you lead with. That's number two. You must be a principled leader. You can't be some leader that just has a feeling one day and then you feel differently the next day. You will lose credibility quickly as a leader and people will not want, you will be a failed leader. Number three, listen to counsel in your life. You know, God gave you pastors and teachers. Listen to counsel. It's there for your safety, literally. And then the third one is morals mean nothing without action. And that's the big one. It doesn't matter what you know is right if you refuse to do what is right. You know something's right, you must follow through on that if it's going to make a difference to the people around you. James chapter two. So look, Pontius Pilate, he's a necessary figure in the story of the gospel. I get that. I'm not beating up on the guy because I think he shouldn't have been in the Bible. But there is valuable lessons here in leadership don'ts. And that's how deep the Bible is when you can look at these people and just be like, all right, we'll just do everything the opposite of what this guy did. We'll be a pretty good leader. All right, let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.