God on Trial - Not Guilty | Luke 23:1-25

Nobody likes to be judged. Not one of us in this room likes to be judged, especially to be pre-judged.

That is to be judged before somebody gets to know you. It's called prejudice, to pre-judge someone.

And has there anybody in this room ever been

the guilty of

pre-judging someone, or have you ever been

in yourself pre-judged, prejudiced against you?

I know it's definitely happened in my life. People judged me before getting to know me.

And it's a really terrible situation to be in.

How many of you have that's ever happened to you before like it's happened to me?

Raise your hand. You've ever been, yeah, yeah, that's right.

You say, well, when did it happen to you, Josh? I mean, at what point in your life were you, you know, judged prematurely?

Well, many times, but I'll give you one example.

For example, whenever I was first the pastor of this church, I was only 24 years old.

Can you imagine going to a church where the pastor is only 24 years old?

Who would go to a church like that, right?

By the way, I'm curious, how many of you were here when Heather and I first started the church 24 years ago?

20 years ago, I should say. 20 years ago. Would you raise your hand? How many of you were here?

Okay, that's right. You were Ron and Sheila Solis.

And you came to the church with a pastor who was 24 years old. What were you thinking?

We have no idea. What's that?

Yeah. Oh, you're home. Oh, you came home. Oh, they said they felt like they came home.

Oh.

Come on, people, let's wake up. Let's go. I know it's Veterans Day.

And all your friends got to travel this weekend, but you had to stay home, right? All right.

They said they felt like they came home.

Oh.

That's really nice. That's really nice.

I do wonder sometimes who would come to a church. I do remember when we first started the church,

it was in a small building. Just a few, you know, 40 or 50 people would show up on a Sunday.

And we sat up front. I used to sit not in the front row.

I used to sit on the platform during the music time.

And instead of a worship team and a band, there was one guy. His name was Robert Miller,

and he would get up and he would lead a song or two, and then he would sit down and then I would get up and preach.

And as we did, I would used to sit on the platform just right here, watching as people would come in.

And I was always hoping that somebody would show up, still kind of hope people show up.

And as people would show up for the first time, it happened every single time, every time,

when people first came to our church, they would walk and always could tell the new people,

they would walk in, they would sit down, and they would look around, get their bearings.

Then the next thing they would do is they would notice the man leading the worship.

Then they would look up and they would look at me, the 24-year-old pastor.

And I would watch as their eyes kind of grew like this.

And if they were ever with somebody, they would lean over to their spouse friend or boyfriend,

and they would lean over and they would whisper.

I knew exactly what they were whispering.

They were whispering, there's no way that's the real pastor.

And I would look at them and I'd just kind of smile and nod.

And I know what they're thinking, there's no way this guy's going to be any good.

And then I would get up there and I would preach the best sermon they'd ever heard.

Thank you, thank you. One person over here, yeah, very good, we'll take it.

I remember what it was like feeling like you had to prove something,

because you were judged prematurely.

And nobody likes to be judged.

And nobody wants to be in a position where they have to prove anything.

In this story from the story of Jesus, you're going to see this is the moment that Jesus is judged prematurely.

This is the moment that God himself, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, is put on trial.

God on trial. Now you think about that.

What kind of a person would put God on trial?

What kind of a person would judge God?

And we're going to see three types of people today.

There's three words that will tell you the entire sermon.

It's all found in Luke chapter number 23.

If you're interested in those three words, give me an amen.

Here they are. Number one, confused.

Number two, disappointed.

And then number three, willful. Willful, willful.

Confused, disappointed, willful. Say it with me.

Confused, disappointed, willful.

Here are the types of people who end up judging God.

Those who are confused, those who are disappointed, and those who are willful against God.

And all through these groups are found right here in the passage.

We pick up with the confused.

The first kind of person who is willing to question God, who is willing to judge God,

who is willing to put God on trial.

Number one, the confused. You say, what do we see here as the confused?

Well, we're introduced to a man named Pontius Pilate.

And Pilate had a difficult time trusting Jesus because Pilate had been introduced to too many truths.

Look at the story, verses one through seven.

It says, then the whole multitude of them arose and led him to Pilate.

That is the religious Sanhedrin had risen up after condemning Jesus,

and they brought him before Pilate. Now, who is Pilate and why is Jesus being brought before him?

Pilate was the Roman prefect, the governor of the region.

Remember, the Jewish people were under occupation of the Roman government.

And the Roman government placed somebody over them that was kind of a Roman representative.

His name was Pilate. Now, why? Why?

Because although the religious leadership of the Jewish community had condemned Jesus,

they didn't have the power to execute him, and they wanted him dead.

So the only way they could get Jesus dead was to turn Jesus over to the Romans,

and then the Romans would find him guilty, and they could put Jesus to death.

And so they bring him to Pontius Pilate to execute him.

And it says in verse two, and they began to accuse Jesus saying,

Now, the sound that this fellow is perverting the nation.

Accusation number one, he's destroying our country.

Number two, accusation number two, he's forbidding for people to pay taxes to Caesar.

Accusation number three, he calls himself the Christ, which is a king.

Here's what they say in front of the Roman official.

He's messing up the nation. He's telling people not to pay taxes.

And number three, he says he's the king. Now, all of those are going to be problematic for a Roman ruler.

The Roman ruler is to preserve the freedom of the Romans, not of the people.

He's there to represent the great emperor of Rome, Caesar Augustus.

It was his responsibility to represent at this point Caesar Tiberius.

It was his point at this point to make sure that no kind of a problem would rise up.

And Jesus may have been this problem, so now Pilate is thinking, how am I going to protect Rome?

Now, let me ask you a question.

Did Jesus claim to be the Christ, the Messiah? Yes or no? Yes, yes.

Did Jesus tell people not to pay taxes, yes or no? No.

In fact, quite the opposite.

It was only about six months before where people brought Jesus some coins and said,

should people pay taxes to Caesar or not? And Jesus said, give me a coin, let me see the picture on it.

He said it's Caesar's. Give to Caesar that which belongs to Caesar, give to God that which belongs to God.

So their accusations, some of them are true, some of them are lies.

And they are in court bearing false witness against Jesus Christ, the carpenter of Nazareth, the rabbi from Galilee,

the son of man and the son of God.

The story continues.

Verse three, then Pilate asked him a question saying, are you the king of the Jews?

It's a very simple question.

Pilate gets right down to it. Hey, look at me, look at me.

I don't know who you are, I don't care who you are.

Are you trying to start a rebellion against Rome? Do you think you're a king?

Now the Gospel of John tells us more of the story.

John's Gospel, Jesus looks at Pilate, the Roman prefect, and says, am I a king?

Are you asking for yourself or is somebody telling you about me?

Which is a very fascinating thing to say to Pilate.

Do you want to know because you're interested in following me? Is that why you're asking?

And Pilate, I can imagine with a smirk on his face, begins to be intrigued by this Jewish prisoner.

And he asks the question, am I Jewish that I care about a Jewish king?

I want to know, are you a king?

And Jesus replies again in the Gospel of John and says, for this reason came I into the world.

To bear witness of the truth and anybody who can see the truth when they see me, receives the truth.

Are you a king then?

All who see me see the truth.

And then Pilate shows his hand.

Pilate reveals himself and the confused nature that he had.

Pilate looks at Jesus and says, truth.

What is truth?

Pilate was revealing an ancient Greek philosophy that had flooded the Roman Empire for hundreds of years.

And that is there was no way to recognize true truth.

Pilate was so confused about the world that he could not recognize truth when it was staring him in the face.

Now some of you live in a society right now that has convinced you there are many truths.

There's your truth and then there's my truth and my truth is different than your truth.

But all of that is false.

And one day it won't be God who sits at your trial where you're judging him.

That's your position right now.

As a human being you've got an opportunity to try out all the theories and philosophies and decide what is true.

But one day you're going to stand before God and God is going to question you on this one question.

Did you believe the truth of Jesus Christ?

Do you know why it is that some people question?

They have a difficult time trusting Jesus because they have trust issues.

How many of you have trust issues like I do?

I do. I have trust. How many of you genuinely, honestly, how many of you have a difficult time trusting people?

You have trust issues like I do. Raise your hand.

I have trust issues. Do you know why?

Because I was raised in a family group of five siblings.

You have siblings? How many of you had one specific type of sibling who was the most, let's say, rambunctious and untrustworthy sibling?

Like there was one sibling that always got all the other siblings going.

It was that one type. How many of you had a sibling like that? Raise your hand.

How many of you had a... How many of you were that sibling? Raise your hand.

Okay. You were that sibling? Yeah. You were that sibling? Yeah. So was I. That was me.

I really was. I was... You ask any of my siblings. I was the sibling that was causing problems, always problematic.

I'll never forget one time. My poor sister, Charity. Say her name. Charity.

I had three sisters, Faith, Hope, and Charity. We were raised in a very religious home.

Amen. Faith, Hope, and Charity.

And Charity was probably about seven years old at the time.

I was probably about nine years old. We went outside during the summertime.

Actually, we didn't just go outside of our own free will and volition.

My mother kicked us outside. She was done with us. Go outside and play.

But it was summertime and it was in Las Vegas, which means it was 1,000 degrees outside.

And so we went outside to play and she sent us out with our lunch.

Now, our lunch typically was a peanut butter and honey sandwich.

Anybody ever have peanut butter and honey sandwich? That's a good sandwich.

You say jelly, no, honey, peanut butter and honey. Such a good sandwich.

It was peanut butter and honey sandwich and water.

Say why water? Well, because number one, there's a billion degrees outside.

Number two, because it was free.

How many of you grew up in a day and age where you drank water that came out of the tap?

You didn't need it to go through a bottle, right?

And you grab a cup of water or outside the hose, you know?

Don't you love the taste of hose water in the summer?

It is good. Some of these kids, they never understand. That's like life.

See, you have peanut butter and honey sandwich in one hand, water coming out of the hose in the other.

That was my summer. But this day was special because my mom must have been doing very well financially.

She bought us very special juice. We rarely ever got it.

I'm telling you, maybe we got it like once every couple of weeks.

It was called Juicy Juice.

Anybody remember Juicy Juice? So good. You remember Juicy Juice?

That's the stuff right there. That is some good Juicy Juice.

I don't think they have it anymore, do they? They went out of business.

All the good stuff is gone. I'm such an old man.

She gave out, my mom gave us out, each of juice box, which again rarely happened, but it was beautiful.

They were nice and chilled. And because we lived in Las Vegas, she knew how to do it.

Throw them in the freezer, you know what I mean? Then throw them in the fridge.

And when you take them outside, they're kind of half frozen, you know?

They're so yummy, man.

So we went outside and I'm eating my sandwich and I got my Juicy Juice.

She's eating her sandwich. She's got her Juicy Juice.

My sister, a very competitive person.

And for some reason, something inside of me saw that she was enjoying life too much.

What could I do to ruin this moment? And then I had an idea.

I said, hey, I'll bet I can drink my Juicy Juice faster than you can.

And she said, no, you can't. I said, oh, yes, I can.

She said, no, you can't. I said, I'll bet it. I'll bet you I can.

I said, why don't we count to the count of three? One, two, three.

And when I say three, we drink our Juicy Juice as fast as we possibly can and see who wins.

She said, fine. I said, go. One, two.

And she got ready to go. Three. And as soon as she did, she went, she took it

and smashed it on the ground, stared me right in the eye and said, ah.

And I looked at her with my absolutely full Juicy Juice.

And I slurped. You win.

And I walked over underneath a shade tree and I spent the next hour sipping on my Juicy Juice

and smiling at my sister. How many of you agree?

I was an evil little devil. Hey, man. So mad.

I have forgotten about that story until she reminded me about it like two weeks ago.

She just reminds me. She's a 41 year old bitter woman.

I'll say it right now. Do you know why?

Truly. Do you know why we have a difficult time trusting God?

It's because we think that God is the same as man.

And we've had so many men and women in our lives prove themselves to be untrustworthy.

And so when Jesus stands before us as the way, the truth, the life,

there's no other way to the Father. But through me, Jesus says, we say,

well, I don't know. Let me think about it.

Like Pilate. And you think you're intellectual. You're not. You're just confused.

So confused. Truth itself is staring you in the eye.

And you can't recognize it. So what does Pilate do?

Pilate doesn't want to damn Jesus. Doesn't want to kill Jesus.

He thinks he's just a harmless lunatic. And so look at what Pilate does.

Pilate says in verse number six and seven, when Pilate heard that Jesus was from Galilee,

he asked the man if he were a Galilean.

One of the guys in the courtroom said, this man has been causing problems from Galilee all the way to Judea.

And Pilate says, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you're from Galilee?

And Jesus says, yes, I'm a Galilean. And Pilate gets very excited because Pilate doesn't want to put this guy to death.

So he wants to pass the buck. Isn't that great about bureaucracies and politicians often?

We just want to make sure we cover our own behind. And so what he does is exactly what modern day bureaucrats do.

They pass the responsibility onto somebody else. And that's exactly what takes place in this verse, verse seven.

And as soon as he knew that he belonged to Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who was in Jerusalem at that time.

So he said, wow, you actually belong to Herod, not to me. Get out of here.

And so Jesus goes from one trial to the next. First, Pilate.

Pilate did not believe in Jesus because he was too confused by all of the different options.

And Jesus just couldn't be the one truth. And that leads us to Herod.

Some people stand in judgment against God because they're too confused.

Some people stand in judgment against God because they're too disappointed.

Herod Antipas, we're about to see, was very disappointed in Jesus.

Why? Because when he finally gets to meet Jesus, Jesus did not perform the way he expected Jesus to perform.

Look at the story. Look what happens. The Bible tells us in verse number eight.

Now when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceedingly glad. Stop. Who is Herod?

Who exactly is this guy? Well, to understand who Herod is, you have to understand he was a tetrarch,

which means the ruler of one of four areas and regions.

Is there a map on your screen that might show us a little bit more of this?

This shows us Herod Antipas. He's the tetrarch of Galilee.

And you're going to see this map to the left. That's the Holy Land.

And what had taken place is that Herod's father was named Herod the Great.

And Herod the Great was in charge of this entire region.

He kind of worked for Rome as like a puppet king for the entire region.

But when he died, he divided up his empire into four different regions and left them to four different eras.

One of them was Herod Antipas, his son, who was in charge of the purple area, Galilee and Peria.

And Herod Antipas happened to be in Jerusalem during this entire Passover situation.

And so as soon as Pilate found out Herod was here, he's like, look, you're not my problem. Go to Herod.

And Herod was excited about meeting Jesus because Herod had heard all of the stories.

Jesus had been walking around Galilee, his entire region, you know, healing people and casting out demons,

walking on water, turning water into wine. Jesus was like a cool magic man.

And Herod had not yet seen the show.

And so Herod was really excited to meet Jesus. Look, that's exactly what it says.

It says, and Herod, when he saw Jesus, was exceedingly glad for he had desired for a long time to see Jesus

because he had heard the many things about him and hoped that he would do some miracle.

But unfortunately for Jesus, Jesus did not perform any miracles for the big shot king.

Look what happens. So he questioned him with many words, but Jesus answered him nothing.

Hey, welcome. Welcome. I've heard so much about you. Do your tricks.

Imagine this now. The Son of God, the descendant of Adam, the King of kings, the Lord of lords

standing in front of a puppet king, and the king says to him, do your magic tricks.

And Jesus says nothing. Do you know why? Here's why.

Because Jesus is not a circus monkey. Jesus is not a genie in the bottle.

You just rub the lamp and then all of a sudden Jesus comes out and says, what can I do to serve you?

And so Herod is really disappointed. Come on, water the wine. Come on.

I need you to walk on some water. Come on, Jesus. Do what I told you to do.

And if you don't perform, I won't believe.

We still have a lot of Herods today.

Because let's be honest. You don't really think of God as the one who created you with a very perfect plan for your life.

You view God like a genie. You rub the lamp a few times, show up to church, say a few prayers,

and if God doesn't perform exactly the way you want a circus monkey to perform, then you're out, bro. You're out.

Because the best way to hurt a God who doesn't perform for you is to say to him, I don't believe in you anyway.

Herod, have you ever been disappointed by somebody that you admired?

Have you ever met somebody you always wanted to meet and they disappointed you?

I got to tell you, I've been on both sides of that.

I've definitely disappointed some people.

Over the years as this church has grown, I've become somewhat of a very tiny public figure.

So people know me, but I don't know them.

And I've disappointed people.

Just recently, a few months ago, it was a Tuesday night Bible study and I had somebody come up to me after the service.

The week before in the Bible study, I had mentioned it's 8.15. I'm tired.

I'm going to go grab some Taco Bell and go home and go to bed.

I just mentioned it. God bless Taco Bell. Amen.

I'm like, I'm ready. Look, don't judge me. All of you are sinners too. You know, every single one of you.

You're all a sinner. We're all sinners. All right.

Well, anyway, I'm sitting there and I talk about Taco Bell next Tuesday.

Before the service began, I had this. The Bible said we can.

I had this dear, sweet, wonderful, love this woman, wonderful Mexican member of our church come up to me.

Say, why would you tell her where she's from? You'll know why in a moment.

She stood right here and she had me kneel down and she said, Pastor, take my hands.

And she took my hands like this. And she looked up at me with sincerity in her eyes.

She said, Pastor, last week you mentioned that you were going to go eat Taco Bell.

I said, yeah. I said, I like Mexican food. She said,

you could see the pain in her eyes. She held my hands. She said, Pastor,

Taco Bell is not Mexican food. I don't even think it's food.

And then she made me promise her, she said, Pastor, next time you want Taco Bell,

would you call me and I will bring you real Mexican food?

I said, yes, ma'am. Don't tell her I still go to Taco Bell.

Amen. I still do that. You ever been disappointed by somebody that you admired?

I was at a coffee shop years and years ago. This is not recent.

Years and years ago with a member of our church, and she was a sweet woman

who had become really angry with God.

And so I was trying to understand why. I was a young pastor at the time

and had not seen this very often. I asked her, I said, why are you so angry with God?

She told me this story, that story, this excuse, that excuse,

but then it came down to this moment. I could tell she was finally getting to the crux of the matter.

She said, Pastor, let me tell you what happened to me. I said, okay.

She said I was 15 years old and tears just filled her eyes.

My grandmother was dying.

She said I had never truly prayed, not like I prayed that day,

and I knelt by her bedside in the hospital and I cried out to God,

God save my grandmother, save my grandmother.

And she's telling me this and now she's shaking and tears are coming down.

And I said, what happened? She said, I'll tell you what happened.

It wasn't the next week and it wasn't the next day.

It was that very hour that God took my grandma from me.

She's weeping. Now I'm crying.

Now I know there's a rational and logical part of your brain that's engaged right now.

The rational and logical part of your brain is like what?

I mean, people live and then they grow old and then they die.

Yeah, I know that and you know that, but you're tapping into the rational, logical part of your brain,

not the emotional need that we often bring before God.

And we go to God with sincerity of heart and say, God, if you have any power, do this for me.

And then sometimes God disappoints us.

Now I know what you're thinking. Some of you are like, but maybe God has a bigger plan

and maybe God's plan was this or that or whatever.

We ought to trust God. I know all those answers and she's heard all those answers,

but it doesn't change the fact that as human beings, when we get disappointed with God,

the best thing we can do to hurt God is to say, I don't even believe you exist.

And then we walk away and say that our perspective is rational and intellectual and deep

because at some point God did not perform for us the way we demanded him to perform.

Do you know who it is that puts God on trial? Humans like us.

Some of us put God on trial because we're like pilot.

We've seen so many truths that Jesus is just one of the many.

Some of us put God on trial like Herod because we're not just confused.

We are disappointed in how God has treated us.

And then lastly, there's a third. Do you remember the third? The confused, the disappointed.

What was the third? The willful.

Where Herod is disappointed and pilot is confused, the crowd is willful.

Meaning they are willful to put Jesus to death.

The crowd is given a choice and the choice they make, they determine to eliminate Jesus.

Look what it says in verse 13.

Then Pilate when he had called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people,

said to them, you have brought this man to me as one who misleads the people.

And indeed having examined him in your presence, I found no fault in this man.

If you remember the story, Pilate is taken and takes him to Herod.

Now Jesus is taken from Herod and brought back to Pilate.

Pilate stands before the entire group of people and he says, look, I've examined the man

and I find no fault in him.

But to satisfy the bloodlust of the crowd, he says, okay, here's what I'll do.

I will chastise him. I will beat him and then I'll present him to you

and maybe you'll want him released and he'll be free to go.

There was a special tradition during that day.

Because it was a holiday, like we have Thanksgiving and Christmas,

they had a special holiday called Passover and one of the traditions was for the Roman prefect

to stand in front of the people and let one of the prisoners go,

even though they had broken Roman law.

It was like a gift from the Romans to the plebs, you see.

And so what Pilate thought was, I'll beat him with some whips

and then I'll present Jesus as the one who could be freed.

That was his idea. So they did. They beat Jesus.

When the Bible says they chastised him, the other Gospels give us more indication

of what that actually looked like.

They took a whip, not a long Indiana Jones type whip that you might be thinking of,

but a whip with multiple leather strands.

And they would take the prisoner, the Romans would,

and they would tie them around a post, shackle them there.

And the whip that they took, that multiple strands,

some of you might call it a cat of nine-tels, which historically is inaccurate.

A cat of nine-tels was a British invention of the 17th century.

This was called a Roman flagrum.

And they would take this wooden handle with six, five or six leather straps.

And at the end of each leather strap, they would embed into the leather

a bone from a sheep's knuckle that sharpenly had a hook at the end.

Then they would put actual metal hooks alongside of the bone fragments

so that when a Roman soldier would whip a prisoner,

the whip would go around like a claw and latch into the side of the prisoner.

And instead of falling out, it would lodge.

And then what the Roman soldier would do is with great strength and precision

would then rip him out of his side.

And in doing so, lacerate the side of the individual, flagrum.

It's the same Latin word in which we get the concept of filet to filet,

ripping open the side of the prisoner.

They didn't do it once or twice.

They would do it dozens and dozens of time.

According to Jewish law, they could only whip a prisoner 39 times, not a 40th.

Romans had no such qualms.

The goal was not to whip somebody a certain number of times.

The goal was to whip a prisoner to the point of death, but not kill them.

They would not have just one Roman soldier do this.

They would have two.

Because it took so much strength to whip and then to pull.

You could only do it so many times before you were out of breath yourself.

And so then the second would come in and whip the other side.

And so there Jesus was wounded.

For our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities.

The chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes.

We were healed.

It was during the same time that Jesus was taken.

And the Roman soldiers thought it was funny because whenever he was before Herod,

they had given Jesus a big purple robe to wear.

Why? Because he was the king.

And the Roman soldiers thought, that's hilarious.

We can do that too.

And so it was during this time they crafted a special crown for the king out of thorns.

And they placed that crown of thorns upon his brow.

And they put that purple robe from Herod around his back.

The back that now was bloodied and ripped apart bleeding.

As his body began to bleed into the actual fabric and fused as it dried.

And then they took a reed and they said, give the king a staff.

And so they grabbed the staff.

And according to the Gospel of John, they took the reed and they smote him on the head.

Driving the crown of thorns deep into his brow.

And they gave him the reed and there Jesus stood as the mock king of the Jews.

The son of man here to claim Adam's throne.

The son of God and king of kings.

And Pilate thought the bloodlust of the people would be slacked.

And so he brought the people.

Brought Jesus before the people.

And Pilate at this point who did not want Jesus to die looked and said, okay, okay.

I beat, are you okay?

Here he is.

Are you satisfied?

Because today there's a tradition to release to you one of prisoners.

And I want to present to you Jesus of Nazareth or.

And then we're introduced to a tiley different person, a strange character that throws himself

into the midst of the narrative.

A man called Barabbas.

Say it with me.

Barabbas.

Verse 18 and they cried out once saying away with this man and release unto us.

Barabbas, Barabbas, Barabbah.

Barabbah.

The name Barabbas is interesting.

The character himself is fascinating.

Jesus is referred to as the son of God and the son of man.

Is he not?

What is the name Barabbas?

Bar, son, son of, bar, son of, Abba.

Father, the son of a father.

So here there is now a prisoner coming out of prison called the, by name, the son of some father.

Standing next to Jesus Christ, the son of God, the son of man.

Now why was he in prison?

Well, he had been thrown in prison for a certain rebellion that was made in the city and for murder.

He was a murderer.

He was probably part of that political community called the zealots.

Those who were willing to use terrorism to get Rome out.

And now he was standing on the dais, on the judgment seat at the petroleum with Jesus on one side,

Barabbas on the other, Pilate in the middle and the crowd standing there.

And Pilate says, which one do you want?

Barabbas the murderer or Jesus the carpenter.

And Pilate thinks there's no way the crowd is going to choose the murderer.

And the crowd is so willful.

They call out, give us Barabbas.

What do I do with Jesus?

Crucify him.

Here's the thing about humans.

We make our choices.

Look up here.

Look, I don't know who you are, but I will tell you something about yourself.

God loves you and God wants you, but he gives you the choice to want him and choose him.

Say, but I don't want Jesus as my king.

Fair, do your thing.

Pick Barabbas, pick yourself, pick another God.

It is totally up to you.

But you have to live with your choice.

And so did these people.

They willfully chose the poor option.

You don't believe me?

Look at the text goes on, but they shout and crucify him, crucified him.

And he said unto them a third time, why?

What evil is he done?

I have found no reason of death in him.

I will therefore chastise him and let him go.

But they were insistent.

Notice how insistent the human rebellious heart can be.

I don't want God.

I'll take anything else.

Demanding with loud voices that he could be crucified.

And the voices of these men and the chief priests prevailed.

So Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they requested.

And he released unto them the one they requested, Barabbas.

Who for rebellion and murder had been thrown into prison.

And notice the haunting last words of verse number 25.

But he delivered Jesus to their will.

God gave them exactly what they asked for.

I believe that God is going to give you exactly what you asked for.

I believe God is giving America exactly what it asks for.

I believe God is going to give Las Vegas exactly what it asks for.

God is not here.

Listen, listen.

Some of you are feeling forced by God.

Be very clear.

God is not in the business of forcing himself on anyone.

He freely offers himself to you.

And if you choose to reject him, that's you.

That's your choice.

You say, man, I cannot believe they did that with Jesus.

The question is not what did they do with Jesus.

The question is what will you do with Jesus?

I don't want to be Pilate in the story.

I don't want to be Herod in the story.

I don't want to be the crowd in the story.

So who am I in the story?

I'll tell you who I empathize with.

I relate with.

I relate with Barabbas.

I'm just the son of a father.

Can we think about Barabbas before we go?

And then we'll be done.

Think about Barabbas.

He's just a...

He's just a gangster.

Did he commit murder?

Yes or no?

Yes.

Was he guilty of hurting people?

Yes or no?

Did he deserve to be in prison?

Yes or no?

Now think about it from his perspective.

There he is in prison.

The night before he had been told this is his final meal.

He ate his final meal.

Imagine what that's like.

Maybe some torturous Roman soldier brought him out of the prison cell

and walked him over to where the cross was.

And he pointed and said,

There it is, Barabbas.

There's your cross.

Tomorrow morning you're going to pick it up

and we're going to take you down and we're going to kill you.

Barabbas knew this was the end for him.

And there he is in his prison cell knowing this is his last moment.

And he was getting exactly what he deserved.

Was Barabbas guilty or not guilty?

Now picture Barabbas at the judgment seat.

What the Bible historians refer to as the Praetorium.

Jesus on one side, Barabbas on the other, the judge in the middle.

He doesn't know who Jesus is.

He'd never even heard of this guy.

But suddenly he's getting an opportunity at a last minute freedom.

And he says to the crowd, the crowd itself,

you have a choice between this guy and me.

He knows there's no way they're going to pick him.

And all of a sudden the crowd is shouting out,

Barabbas, Barabbas, Barabbas.

And he's thinking, this is it.

This is my chance.

This guy is going to die on my cross.

In this moment, is Barabbas guilty or not guilty?

Guilty.

Now I want you to picture Barabbas.

As the Bible says, Jesus is now taken.

And he has walked down the Via della Rosa to pick up his cross

and walk the way to Calvary.

And Barabbas is standing here.

As his shackles are taken off of his hands

and they're placed on Jesus.

And Barabbas is told, you're free to go.

Jesus is going to die in your place.

And he walks away justified, declared righteous by the judge,

free and forgiven.

And friend, in the story, you don't have to be pilot, hered

or the crowd.

You can be Barabbas.

Understanding that you are absolutely guilty

and deserve the death of the cross,

but that Jesus Christ came and took your place

so that you don't have to die.

There are no grand records of what take place

for the rest of Barabbas' life.

We don't know.

There are rumors.

Some traditions say he became a great apostle

and follower of Jesus, a disciple who preached the gospel.

Others say he went into obscurity.

I don't know what's going to happen to Barabbas,

but I do wonder what's going to happen to you.

When you finally come to the realization that Jesus Christ

took your place upon the cross,

the question is, will you give the rest of your life to him

for doing for you what you could not do for yourself?