The Impossibility of Self Salvation | The Gospel of John | Myles Holmes

If you have your Bibles, you can take them out and open them up to John chapter 18.

John 18 · chapter mention

John chapter 18.

John 18 · chapter mention

We're gonna be in verses 12 to 40 this morning.

And if you don't have a copy of God's word, the ushers are making their way down the aisle right now.

You can flag one of them down.

They'd love to get a copy into your hands, which you can keep as our gift to you as you turn to John chapter 18.

John 18 · chapter mention

Life is hard.

I don't know if there's a sentence I could say that you would agree with more, but I found myself this week talking to person after person who felt the same, that life is hard, that the things that fill up our calendar, our schedule are heavy.

I've noticed something about myself.

I trust the same to be about you in the midst of heavy weeks.

It's something human, and so I know we all deal with it, that when the weight of life begins to pressure me to bear down on me, I start to increasingly crave exits.

It's never something dramatic.

I've never written up, you know, like my resignation letter as a pastor.

It's usually something small.

Something to disappear into at the end of the day.

A daydream to nurture.

The gym, food, my phone, anything that will sort of give me a moment of relief from the heaviness of life.

I felt something sitting before that story that I never had before.

I often read that story probably the same way that you do.

Israel had just been delivered by God in a pretty significant, miraculous way through walls of water as the chariots of Egypt chased them, and they just got to the other side.

And Moses goes up the mountain for a conversation with God, but they cannot wait.

You know what that's like, right?

Hating the waiting.

We hate waiting rooms and we hate waiting on the Lord.

And so as Moses is up on the mountain, Israel, no longer wanting to wait, takes things into their own hands and creates from gold, hanging from their ears, a golden calf that they can worship immediately.

Now I read that story and maybe for the first time in a long time, felt that the people of Israel weren't necessarily monsters, that they weren't cartoonish villains, that they were people who, in the absence of God, immediately satisfying their needs, they couldn't wait any longer.

That while Moses was up on the mountain talking with God, to them, God felt distant, and what they needed from God, waiting for it, felt too hard.

They wanted immediate relief from the hardship that they faced now as sojourners without a home.

And so they did what I believe every human being does.

They instinctively, under pressure, turned to things that they could then control.

A golden calf.

It was something silly, but it was tangible.

It was within their reach, it was something immediately immediate, something that didn't require waiting.

It didn't require trusting.

It didn't require surrendering to God's timeline, which was ultimately a timeline that was outside of their control.

After they make the golden calf, God turns to them.

He says, They have turned aside quickly from the way that I commanded them.

And that word sort of sat with me all week that this coping mechanism of the golden calf, this thing that they used to escape from the heaviness of life, the pressure of life, it wasn't just the coping mechanism, it was turning away from the Lord.

Something we all do.

We are a species of self-saviors.

The moment that life gets heavy, the moment that life feels uncertain, the moment that we start to feel things we don't necessarily want to, whether it's guilt or shame or inadequacy, we turn away, just like the Israelites, for something we can control.

For something that promises relief.

For something that doesn't require waiting.

If we're honest, we can recognize they provide just enough relief to get us to the next day.

But as I read the story of the golden calf, I came to realize this that what seems like a simple coping mechanism, the reaching to grab something that is in our control, it's not just neutral.

It's not just the way that you and I cope, it's not just our personality or our character, it is ultimately spiritual failure.

Failure not because life is hard, failure because in that moment you have turned away from the God who has just saved you and promises to save you, turning to something to try to save yourself.

God felt distant, waiting felt unbearable.

That's in some way what you and I have done this week.

And in a moment of spiritual honesty, I can look at my own life and know that I've done it too.

Turn to these things in my control to seek my own salvation, which raises a question that I want to answer this morning in God's word.

What if everything you're reaching for, everything you're depending on day by day to get you through, can't actually save you?

What if at the end of the day it's nothing more than just a modern golden calf that a hundred years from now people will look back and say, man, did they really rely on that?

You know, did they really rely on their work?

Did they really rely on their phones?

Did they really rely on the people, the people around them to save them?

What if the one who actually can save you is not asking you to reach harder to find him, he's already stepped into your place.

That is what John 18 is all about.

In John 18, which we're about to read in a moment, we find two men on the same night in completely different situations.

One man is on trial for his life, the other is standing safely by a warm fire.

And yet the one whose life is on the line is the only one in the passage who is actually free.

John braids the story of Peter and Jesus together deliberately, and he wants you to feel the tension between what we see in Jesus and what we ultimately see in ourselves in Peter.

And the heartbeat of everything that we read in this passage is this that while I fail by trying to save myself, Jesus stands in my place.

While I fail by trying to save myself, Jesus stands in my place.

Let's read this text together, John chapter 18, verses 12 to 40.

John 18:12–40

And as we do, would you stand with me?

So the band of soldiers and their captain, the officers of the Jews, arrested Jesus and bound him.

First they led him to Annas, for he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year.

It was Caiaphas who had advised the Jews that it would be expedient that one should die for the people.

Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple.

Since that disciple was known to the high priest, he entered with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest, but Peter stood outside at the door.

So the other disciple who was known to the high priest went out and spoke to the servant girl who kept watch at the door and brought Peter in.

The servant girl at the door said to Peter, You also are not one of this man's disciples, are you?

He said, I am not.

Now the servants and officers had made a charcoal fire because it was cold, and they were standing and warming themselves.

Peter also was with them, standing and warming himself.

The high priest then questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching.

Jesus answered him, I have spoken openly to the world.

I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all the Jews come together, I have said nothing in secret.

Why do you ask me?

Ask those who have heard me what I said to them.

They know what I said.

When he had said these things, one of the officers standing by struck Jesus with his hand, saying, Is that how you answer the high priest?

Jesus answered him, If what I said is wrong, bear witness about the wrong, but if what I said is right, why do you strike me?

Annas then sent him bound to Caiaphas, the high priest.

Now Simon Peter was standing forming himself, so they said to him, You also are not one of his disciples, are you?

He denied it and said, I am not.

One of the servants, who was the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, Did I not see you in the garden with him?

Peter again denied it, and at once a rooster crowed.

Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor's headquarters.

It was early morning.

They themselves did not enter the governor's headquarters so that it would not be defiled, but could eat the Passover.

So Pilate went outside to them and said, What accusation do you bring against this man?

They answered him, If this man were not doing evil, we would not have delivered him over to you.

Pilate said to him, Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.

The Jews said to him, It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death.

This was to fulfill the word that Jesus had spoken to show what by what kind of death he was going to die.

So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, Are you the king of the Jews?

Jesus answered, Do you say this of your own accord?

Or did others say it to you about me?

Jesus answered, I am am I a Jew?

Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me.

What have you done?

Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world.

If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews, but my kingdom is not from the world.

Then Pilate said to him, So you are a king.

Jesus answered, You say that I am a king.

For this purpose I was born, and for this purpose I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth.

Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.

Pilate said to him, What is truth?

After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, I find no guilt in him.

But you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover.

So do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?

They cried out again, not this man, but Barabbas.

Now Barabbas was a robber.

This is the word of the Lord.

Congratulations.

Our own attempt at self-salvation is the thread that runs through every verse of this passage, and Jesus is gonna show us three things about self-svation.

That self-salvation is something we all try, it's something that Jesus refused, and it's what Jesus came to save us from.

So I want to start with you this morning, where John starts.

He begins with Peter as he braids this story of Peter and Jesus together, and ultimately he begins with us telling us this that self-salvation is something that we all try.

Now, if you were with us last week, we left Peter in the garden with his sword, and the servant of the high priest is bleeding on the ground.

Peter was ready to fight a Roman cohort of nearly 200 soldiers if he had to for Jesus.

And we might look at Peter and say, oh wow, what a fool that he wouldn't understand that Jesus' kingdom had to come through suffering.

But in a moment of sympathy, I think we can look at Peter and understand what Peter feels in that moment.

It's not a reckless aggression, it is a man who loves Jesus deeply and who is watching everything that he had hoped for kind of slip through his fingers.

Soldiers have come, the torches are lit, they are ready to arrest Jesus, and in the chaos of that moment, Peter does what every one of us does when what we love is under threat.

He reaches for what he can control, and what he can control is in a sheath at his side, it is a sword.

He uses force.

And if Jesus isn't going to deliver what Peter wants, what we want, then our human condition is to believe that we can still get it if we just fight hard enough.

And so you see what's in Peter's mind here.

I can fix this.

I can save this.

I can make this go the way it needs to go.

And Jesus looks at him in verse 10.

He says, Put your sword in your sheath.

Shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given to me?

What's happening there is a battle between Peter's way and God's way.

It is the sword or the cup.

Now, as we come into this passage, you'll notice that Jesus, that Peter has dropped the sword.

He's dropped the sword, he's put it in his sheath.

But what I want you to see is that he doesn't surrender.

Peter's still trying to save himself.

What he does, though, is he changes his strategy.

That's what self-salvation always does.

When force doesn't work, when we can't force it to go our way, we turn to hiding.

And so in verses 12 to 14, Jesus is arrested.

He's bound, he's taken to the uh to Anis.

Now John follows Peter out of the garden and into the courtyard of the high priest.

And again, we say, Peter, well done.

Peter loves Jesus.

And he is unwilling to let Jesus go into the lion's den alone.

But notice then what happens when a servant girl at the door asks him a simple question.

Look at it in verse 17.

You also are not one of this man's disciples, are you?

Peter says, I am not.

Three times in this passage, Peter would be asked the same question from three different people.

Peter would deny Jesus three times, and what John wants us to see is that this is not a coincidence.

Peter here is under immense pressure, and the pressure he is feeling is the sovereign hand of God.

What it's revealing is that the man who was willing to fight a Roman cohort just verses ago cannot handle a servant girl's questions by a fire.

And loved one, I wonder if the sovereign hand of God has ever done that in your life.

Has the sovereign hand of God ever removed your coping strategy for life?

Has the sovereign hand of God ever put you in a room in life where your usual moves don't work, where the things that usually satisfy no longer do?

And that all that is left exposed is the raw truth of what you actually trust in your life.

For Peter, it took a servant girl by a fire to expose it.

What was it that exposed it for you?

Now Peter, with his sword gone, his strategy of force has failed, and all he has left is hiding.

He believes this that if he can just blend in, stay anonymous, not be seen for who he is or who he really belongs to, he can survive this.

Notice then that Peter has two strategies for self-salvation.

One strategy is the sword.

It is an aggressive salvation.

It is fighting.

The other strategy is a fire.

It's hiding.

Both these strategies have one purpose.

Both these strategies are trying to do the same thing.

It's Peter trying to save himself.

A sword and a fire.

I want to suggest to you this morning that every person has two ultimate mechanisms that they can turn to to achieve this self-salvation, to deliver themselves in the absence of Jesus.

It is a sword and a fire, just like Peter.

They might look different in your life.

You likely have a sword, something that you actively fight with to bring deliverance in your life.

Maybe your sword is your career.

It's the relentless drive to prove yourself through your work, to achieve enough, to build something that is impressive enough that you finally will feel sort of secure.

Maybe your sword is the way that you dominate conversations.

Maybe it's the way that you control the relationships around you.

Maybe your sword is your anger.

It's the way that you're willing to use your wrath whenever something threatens your peace or your image or your control.

You likely have a fire as well.

Something that you turn to for a passive deliverance, a place where you can be delivered by just hiding away from the world and its darkness.

Maybe your fire is your phone.

That when life gets heavy, when it gets hard, you can disappear into a screen, into an algorithm, and feel the weight of the world lift off your shoulders.

Maybe the fire that you turn to for comfort is the comfort of food, or the comfort of a drink, or the comfort of a show, or the comfort of a hobby.

Maybe the fire you turn to is people pleasing.

And if you just put on a performance, a version of yourself, you can keep everyone around you happy, and nobody will ever be too close to really seeing you for who you really are.

Swords are aggressive, fires are passive.

And it's very likely that all of us have both.

I know this to be true from my own experience.

When I came to this church three and a half years ago, it was at the tail end of COVID.

And the church, like every other church, was in a fragile place at this point.

And I just thought, if I just put enough gas in the engine, if I just work hard enough, if I just preach well enough, then this thing is going to take off.

I had a plan.

I was going to make it happen.

What ended up it ended up being was a sword of pragmatism.

This belief that if I just wield the sword of pragmatism, God is going to bless not only my life, but this church.

Jesus then took it out of my hands, and what he had planned for this church was so much better than what I had ever been able to force in a thousand years.

So that I can now look back.

Over three and a half years and say that the growth that happened here was not part of my strategy.

It was all part of God's plan, but I would have it no other way.

That what God has done is truly beautiful, that all I could do was not wield a sword of pragmatism, thinking that I could force it to happen.

All that I could really do was steward what the Lord was already doing.

There's a sort of pragmatism.

I realized things in my life that are like the fire was for Peter, things that I hide behind, things that I that bring comfort to my life.

I realized this in these past few weeks.

I joined a small group.

And for the first time in a long time, I'm not the leader of this small group.

I am a member of the small group.

And I apologize to my small group members for being the preacher, because now it's all awkward for them when they're asked if they took anything away from the sermon.

And my identity really rests on that moment in the week.

However, I noticed this temptation in that small group as the pastor, as the preacher, to present sort of this carefully managed version of myself.

Well, well, maybe I'll just talk about this struggle that I have, but I won't talk about this.

It's the pastor version.

It's the version that has it mostly together.

It's the version that people look at, and I don't wonder if they're gonna say, man, is it can this guy really be a pastor?

You know, is this allowed?

It's a fire of a lack of vulnerability.

It's the comfort of a mask.

And yet to embrace that fire to put on that mask is to miss everything that God wants to deliver into my life through community.

It's to miss the promise that Paul talks about in Ephesians that speaking the truth, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up into him who is the head.

Loved ones, we all try to save ourselves.

And so at this point in John 18, the question that I trust the Holy Spirit is pressing on your heart is what are the things that you turn to for deliverance in life?

What is your sword?

What is your fire?

Now notice in this passage, there is one man who is free from the need to save himself.

It is Jesus.

It is one man who is unwilling to use the sword, unwilling to comfort himself by the warmth of the fire.

It is Jesus.

Peter's sword wouldn't save Jesus.

Peter's fire didn't save Peter.

Neither will your sword save you, nor your fire save you.

Now the thing I find incredible about the way that John tells this story is that while Peter is failing by a fire, Jesus is standing on trial.

And he knows the failure of Peter.

At the same time that Peter is failing, Jesus is standing in truth on a sovereign path to the cross.

Self-salvation is what Jesus refused.

Jesus refused self-salvation.

We see it all through the text.

Look at verse 19 with me.

Jesus is brought to the high priest, and the high priest then questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching.

Now Jesus is officially on trial.

This is a legal proceeding to determine whether he is guilty or innocent, but ultimately, as we read through the following verses, the desire is Jesus' death.

Now, as we look at this trial, I want you to understand that everything about this trial is illegal from the ground up.

This is not how a trial is supposed to happen.

According to Jewish law, you aren't to extract the details of a case from the accused person, you are to establish it through witnesses.

Annas knows this, Caiaphas knows this, Jesus knows this.

And yet here is Jesus bound, dragged in.

Notice it's at night, standing before a man with really no legal authority to try him.

This is why eventually he'll need to be brought to Pilate, and yet by this man he's being interrogated like a criminal.

And so we are to read this passage and understand that this isn't justice, this is a setup.

But notice then how Jesus responds in verses 20 and 21.

Being questioned by the high priest, he answered him, I have spoken openly to the world.

I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple where all Jews come together.

I've said nothing in secret.

Why do you ask me?

Ask those who have heard me what I said to them.

They know what I have said.

If there is ever an example of pouring gasoline on a fire, this is it.

Jesus looks at the high priest and he says, Hey, listen, that crowd out there, now you know, Jesus is omni um omniscient.

He knows all things.

He knows that in a few moments this crowd will be calling crying out, crucify him.

Jesus knows that this crowd wants nothing.

This crowd does not want justice.

This crowd wants his death.

And what does Jesus do?

Hey, don't ask me.

Ask the crowd.

Ask the crowd what I've said.

Jesus does not dodge the answer.

He does not try to use law to maneuver himself out of it.

He tells the truth.

He tells it plainly.

He tells it publicly.

And Jesus tells it in a way that he knows will escalate the situation.

John here wants you to see the contrast.

At the same time that Jesus is telling the truth and walking headfirst into judgment, notice that Peter is lying to escape the judgment of a servant girl.

Peter is trying to get out.

Jesus is refusing to.

That's the point.

Jesus had every opportunity to be strategic.

Jesus could have softened his claims, he could have redirected the conversation.

He could have bought time.

He does none of it.

Look at then verse 22.

When he said these things, one of the officers standing by struck Jesus with his hand, saying, Is that how you answer your high priest?

In the middle of an illegal trial, in the middle of the night, Jesus is struck, and all he has done is not only tell the truth, but ask for other witnesses to bear truth about him.

And in that moment, I wonder what your instinctive response would be.

There really only is two options.

You either strike back like Peter did with the sword, or you shrink back like Peter did by a fire.

Notice those tools in the self-salvation playbook are not in Jesus'.

Those might be your instincts, those might be my instincts.

They are not Jesus's.

Instead, watch Jesus in verse 23.

If what I said is wrong, Jesus says, bear witness about the wrong.

But if what I said is right, why do you strike me?

Jesus is unwilling to retaliate.

He's unwilling to withdraw.

He simply names what happened and he stands in it.

And it is categorically different than anything you and I do when life gets heavy.

Notice, loved one, look at Jesus here.

He's not trying to get out, he's not trying to escape it.

Nor is he trying to fight it.

He is refusing to save himself.

Why?

Why would someone walk headfirst into judgment like this?

Why would someone do nothing to escape not only the fury of Rome, not only the hatred of Israel, but the very wrath of God?

You see it in verse 11.

Look back to verse 11 with me and remember Jesus' question shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given to me?

Jesus had already determined to do the opposite of saving himself.

While you and I, like Peter, are doing everything we can to escape the heaviness of life, to escape the pressure of judgment, to escape the weight that we carry, Jesus is stepping into it.

He says nothing in this chapter but yes.

Yes to the cup, yes to the suffering, yes to the cross, yes to the judgment.

And I cannot help here but to see a contrast between who Jesus is and his instinct to step headfirst into the judgment, into the fire, and our instinct to do everything to either fight against it or escape it.

Jesus and Peter and Jesus and you are not just different, they are complete opposites.

So that you and I will spend our days and spend our weeks and our months and therefore our life to escape what feels heavy.

Think about your week this week.

How much of your week was spent trying to just get relief from the stress and from the pressure?

Looking forward to the end of the day when the pressure would kind of settle and you could just sink into a show, looking forward to the end of the week when you could just get to the weekend and away from the busyness and the chaos.

How much of your hope this week was tied to a version of life where things finally calm down, where the kids are older, where work isn't so busy.

How much of what you reached for this week is an attempt to escape a feeling that you just are uncomfortable sitting in, a feeling of inadequacy, a feeling of shame, a feeling of guilt, a feeling of failure.

All these things you don't want to feel, and so you you manage it, you you distract yourself from it, you try to control it, you try to numb yourself to it, you keep pushing it down, all because underneath there is this belief of I can just get out of this, I'll be okay.

Now look at Jesus.

He looks at the very thing that you and I are trying to escape, and he walks straight towards it, right into it.

And the question we are left asking is this why would Jesus do that?

Why would anyone do it?

Why would he step into something that he does not deserve?

Jesus is not just slightly different than us.

He's different in every way.

Our way of living cannot get us to the eternal life that Jesus is going to deliver.

Our instinct to yield a sword, to find the comfort of a fire, it cannot produce what Jesus is doing, which means this, that if your hope is still in your ability to manage your life and your ability to control outcomes or to deal with feelings or keep things together, you are on a completely different path than Jesus.

Jesus knows.

And ultimately we know by experience that at the end of the day, these things will never deliver us.

Jesus is exposing this.

There's only one man who can do what he's doing.

Peter can't do it.

Peter is going to be the one who Jesus builds the church on.

And if the strongest apostle that Jesus can look to to build his church on cannot do it, who are you and I to stand here and think that we are any different?

Jesus stands alone.

And if there is going to be any hope for Peter, if there's going to be any hope for us, it must come from Jesus.

So that the question we are left with is who is this man?

What kind of person looks at suffering?

What kind of person looks at judgment and walks straight into it?

What kind of king does that?

That's where the text takes us next.

Notice that Jesus is handed over to Pilate, the Roman governor, the one man in Jerusalem with authority to decide his fate.

And look at verse 33 with me.

Pilate asks the question that everyone in the room needs answered.

Verse 33 Are you the king of the Jews?

Now, what follows between Pilate and Jesus is one of the most remarkable conversations in the entire Gospel of John.

Pilate is thinking about one kind of king.

It is a political king, it is a military king, it is a threatening king to the power of Rome.

It's the kind of king that Rome should be worried about.

That is not who Jesus is.

Look at verse 36.

Jesus answered Pilate, My kingdom, my kingdom is not of this world.

If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews.

But my kingdom is not of this world.

At your kingdom, at Peter's kingdom, at Pilate's kingdom, and he says, every kingdom runs on the same engine.

You are trying to save yourself.

Jesus looks at Pilate and he says, You want to know if I'm some sort of military king, to know if I if I stand opposed to the power of Rome.

You're just trying to save yourself.

Loved ones, that is what every kingdom runs on, an effort to save ourselves.

You and I have felt it this week.

We have fought to save ourselves.

You remember the time that you said yes when you meant to say no?

You had to save your reputation.

You remember the time where you left out the part of the story that made you look bad?

You had to save your image.

Remember the time that you stayed quiet at a time when you certainly should have spoken.

You had to save yourself from the risk.

Remember the time that you put on the mask on a Sunday morning so that you could then hide for the rest of the week.

You had to save yourself from truly being known.

This is your kingdom.

This is Peter's kingdom.

This is Pilate's kingdom.

Every other kingdom, Jesus says, people fight to save themselves.

They fight to save the kingdom.

But Jesus looks at all of it and he says, My kingdom doesn't run like that.

If I did, there would be swords in this room, but there are not.

Jesus says, This kingdom doesn't come through saving himself.

He says, This kingdom will come by giving himself.

The kingdom of Jesus Christ then runs on something your kingdom has never produced.

It is sacrifice, it is surrender.

And we take this moment just to step back from the text and ask ourselves this question: Do you see Jesus right now?

I mean, that is the fullness of the application of this point.

There's no do here.

There is only see.

Do you see who Jesus is?

Do you see that Jesus is a savior who stands in the face of judgment, who stands in the face of drinking the cup of God's wrath, but he is unwilling to move.

He's all the power in the world to escape it.

He won't.

My prayer is that in this moment the Holy Spirit would fill your heart with a sense of awe of who Jesus is.

That he would stand in this place.

And the question we ask is why?

Why would Jesus do it?

He was the only one who didn't need to save himself, but he refused to save himself.

And that's what I want you to see next.

Self-salvation is what Jesus came to save us from.

That's what Jesus came to save us from.

Look at verse 38.

Pilate declares Jesus innocent.

He goes through the details of the case and determines that according to his law, there is nothing that Jesus has done.

And so he, in verse 38, went back outside to the Jews and told them, I find no guilt in him.

He then offers the crowd a choice.

And if what has happened up to this point isn't enough to convince you that nothing other than the divine will of God put Jesus on the cross, this should convince you.

Verse 39, he says to the crowd, You have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover, so do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?

They cried out again.

Not this man, but Barabbas.

Now Barabbas was a robber.

The name Barabbas is insignificant.

In Aramaic, it breaks down into two words.

Bar means son, Abba means father.

All that we know about this man is that he is the son of a father, and that he is a criminal.

Told two things about him.

John is not being subtle here.

Here before the Jews stand two sons, two sons of a father.

One is innocent, one is guilty.

One deserves honor and worship.

One deserves judgment.

One has just been declared by Pilate himself to have no guilt in him.

One is described in one word, a robber, a criminal, guilty.

Notice here that Jesus makes no defense.

He submits himself to the will of the crowd.

The same crowd that has done nothing but oppose him day in and day out throughout his ministry.

Jesus submits himself to that so that the crowd now has the power.

And the crowd makes the exchange.

And in Barabbas, John is giving us a picture of the gospel.

You see, you also are a son of the father or a daughter of the father.

And you also, like Barabbas, as you stand in a crimin in a spiritual court as a criminal.

Barabbas only had one opportunity for freedom.

He couldn't negotiate his way with Pilate.

He couldn't fight his way out of Rome.

There was only one opportunity.

It had to happen at Passover.

Another person needed to stand in his place.

Barabbas would be offered freedom only if someone innocent could stand where he should have stood, and he walks out completely free.

And what John is giving us is not just an illustration, it is the gospel.

We are to see ourselves here.

The son of the father or the daughter of the father who is guilty.

And standing right where we should be standing is Jesus.

No defend.

Nowhere to hide.

The question as we see Jesus here, the question that I think John is getting us to ask is this where's Peter?

Well, Jesus stands in judgment before the crowd, and Pilate hands him over to death by crucifixion.

Where is Peter?

And where are you?

As Jesus stands in judgment for you, loved one, where are you this morning?

Are you like Peter?

Still running your strategy, still managing your image, still trying to save yourself.

Turn with me to John 21.

Verse 9.

Something in this gospel, John doesn't want you to miss.

After the resurrection, Jesus appears to the disciples.

Peter's there.

It's the same Peter who swung the sword.

It's the same Peter who warmed himself by the fire and denied Jesus three times.

Look with me at verse 9.

When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place with fish laid out on it and bread.

Jesus said to them, Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.

That the fire that Jesus meets Peter at is a charcoal fire.

It's a word that's only used twice in the whole New Testament.

This charcoal fire, it's here in John 21.

And it's back in John 18, verse 18, where Peter stood warming himself in the courtyard by a charcoal fire.

John 18:18

John wants to take you in John 21 to this charcoal fire to smell the smoke.

And he wants to meet Peter there at the same charcoal fire.

What Jesus does is he brings Peter to his moment of deepest failure.

Notice what Jesus asks him.

Having breakfast with him.

Three times.

Once for every denial.

Simon, son of John, do you love me?

Simon, son of John, do you love me?

Simon, son of John, do you love me?

I can't help but to think what Jesus will not ask us when he meets us in our moment of deepest failure.

He won't look at us and say, Do you remember what you did?

Do you remember all those times that you turn to your own golden calf?

He doesn't say, have you learned your lesson?

Have you finally learned your lesson?

He doesn't say, are you gonna be gonna do better this time?

You better do better this time.

Jesus meets us in the moment of our deepest failure and he asks this, Do you love me?

It doesn't bring up the denial, but he asks it three times, and Peter knows the reason.

The place of Peter's greatest failure, the charcoal fire, becomes the place of his greatest restoration.

Love one, this morning, Jesus makes that same offer to you.

It's not an offer that you need to get yourself together first.

It's not an offer that you need to put down your sword before he'll come near, not an offer that you need to step away from your fire before he'll speak to you.

Jesus, the one who refused every exit, who took your place and then walked out of the tomb, is standing right now at the very place of your failure.

The very place of your failure is the place that Jesus wants to meet you when you've tried every other thing and you realize it doesn't work, and you start to feel that shame come in, that guilt come in, that as Jesus has offered you salvation, you have turned to every other thing.

There, Jesus meets you in the midst of your failure.

And what does he say?

Do you love me?

I forgive you.

Enter into fellowship with me, have breakfast with me, know me, live with me.

Jesus forgives us.

How do we change our ways?

How do we stop the exhausting effort of trying to deliver ourselves?

I believe it happens once we start believing that life won't really get better once our circumstances change.

Can we stop believing that?

I mean, our circumstances have changed a lot, and I can probably with you know prophetic nearness say that your life probably hasn't gotten that much better.

Life begins to change for the better when you change what you trust.

Self-salvation at its root, it's not just bad behavior.

It is a belief, a deep functional belief that says if I don't save myself, nobody will.

Like the Israelites standing at the bottom of the mountain wondering if Moses will ever come back, we stand in our lives wondering if God will ever deliver us.

And the only thing that can break that belief is looking at what Jesus already did.

He came to deliver us.

It means stopping in that moment this week, tomorrow morning, when you feel like God is distant, when you feel like you need something to satisfy the craving, to relieve the hopelessness, to take the burden of weight off your shoulders.

It means stopping in that moment and looking to Jesus and asking yourself this one question: is what Jesus did enough?

Or do I need to save myself?

It's the internal posture that Jesus calls us to, a posture of surrender.

Are you trying to save yourself right now?

Or can you trust Jesus?

The approval that you live for.

Can you trust Jesus with it?

That you don't need the approval of any man because you already have the approval of Jesus.

The image that you live to protect.

Can you let it go because your identity is no longer on the line?

You are declared as his.

The shame that you've been feeling, the inadequacy that constantly is on your mind, the guilt that you carry, can you bring it to the light because the verdict has already been rendered and there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ.

Our life will not become easier when our circumstances change.

Our life will not be made stronger.

There's only one thing that must happen.

We must be given someone who's already proven that he can be trusted with everything that he can save.

Jesus went to the cross.

He took the verdict.

He walked out of the tomb.

And he built a fire on a beach for the man who denied him three times.

That's who you can trust with your life.

The one who, when you are standing in your failure, he is standing in your place.

Did you pray with me?

Father, we thank you for what Jesus has done for us.

God, we read this passage, such a unique passage, that John has woven the story of Peter and Jesus together so that we can see both simultaneously.

And as we look at it, Lord, we see our lives.

We see our failure.

We see that we are just like Peter, denying Jesus, believing that something else can deliver the satisfaction we've always longed for, the comfort we've always longed for, the escape we've always longed for.

And yet at this very same time we see Jesus who does not condemn us, who is not angry with us, who is not against us, but who is standing in our place, receiving the judgment that we deserve because we have turned away.

God, I praise you for Jesus.

And I pray that what happens in our hearts right now in this moment is that a worship and praise of Jesus is elevated to you.

God, we give you all the praise for what Jesus Christ has done for us.

And we take this opportunity now to respond to you to give you that praise.

God, we pray this all in the name of your son.

Amen.

You stand with me as we respond to the Lord in worship.