Luke 23:13-25 - Jesus or Barabbas

Humans are often terrible judges of what we truly want, frequently prioritizing immediate gratification over long-term well-being. Our choices are often guided by intuition and external influences rather than rational thought. In contrast, Jesus has a fundamentally different approach to power, which isn't about control or self-promotion, but about the ability to transform people through self-emptying love. This is exemplified by his rejection by the people, who chose an insurrectionist over him, preferring a path of fighting back rather than loving enemies. Ultimately, Jesus creates a new way to be human: because Jesus took our place, we are free to live a Spirit-filled life—a life characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, and kindness, rather than being driven by selfish desires or political power.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Well, as Curtis said, I'm Jake. Good to see you all from a different angle this morning. I usually I work my uh full-time job is with crew. So um I do campus ministry in high schools. So I'm usually sitting in small groups with a bunch of teenagers. So it's a lot different for me. Um although maybe some of you would think this is less scary than sitting across from a bunch of teenagers. I don't know. Um so that's what I do. Um I'd love to tell you more about it. We have campus groups. Um we have five of them around Omaha, and so I'd love to tell you more about it if you're curious. Um but I don't have a whole lot of time, so I'm just gonna jump right into it this morning. Um I do have some pictures I'm gonna give you. Uh so is a little bit of a quiz this morning that uh that we're gonna do, and I'm gonna walk you through it. But first thing I want you to think about is choices. Why do we make the choices that we do? Um every day uh you're making lots of choices. If I were to ask you um how many decisions you think you make in a day, you would probably all guess way low, way lower than you do. The average, the average, and some people make more, some people make less, I suppose, but the average is 35,000 choices, decisions in a day. And you're not even awake for the whole day. I mean, the last decision you make is probably am I gonna fall asleep or what time am I gonna go to bed, right? But uh that's a lot of choices. There's a there's a thousand four hundred and forty minutes in the whole day. You're not awake for all of those. That's a lot of choices in a minute. Um you can do the math if you want. But we think a lot of time and a lot of times we think the choices that we're making are gonna be the choices that are gonna give us good outcomes, right? We're selfish creatures, we'll make the best choices that will uh give make us happy or that will help our bank accounts the most. Uh uh, we think that we're making these very rational choices about money and happiness and all that sort of all that sort of stuff. Um and we kind of function with the this belief. Um, but I'm gonna we're gonna go through this quiz and uh we're just gonna talk about like do we make choices, rational choices that are the best for us? Uh anyway, so here's the here's the first set of pictures. So if you just had a hard day, right? You've gone through a hard day, you need a little mood boost at the end of your day, what are you gonna do? What are the what's the thing that's really going to help you out? And for the listening only audience, here are the pictures. Picture one, uh, this is a guy on a walk outside, right, walking his dog. Um we've got somebody uh picture two is scrolling on his phone, relaxing, probably on the couch. Three is sitting down to watch a movie. There's some popcorn. Uh four is uh eating what looks like tacos with friends or family, right? So you're gonna I demand interaction. So hold up your votes. One, two, three, or four. Let's see. What do you what's gonna be the best mood booster? I'm gonna I'm waiting. I know some of you aren't voting yet. This is for real. When Jake speaks, he asks for interaction. All right. So, all right, we're kind of all over the place. Um, yeah, I think we probably know the ones that truly are going to help us out. Uh one of the best things we have is being with people we love, eating food that's delicious. That is a huge mood boost, being with the people that you love the most. Um, however, what's the thing that you probably do actually do most days after a hard day?

unknown: 3:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 3:24

Probably is not the same as the one that you know is probably the best for you. And we make excuses for us. Oh, it's hard to set it all up. I don't really want to bother them, or or it's cold outside, I don't want to go for a walk. You know, there's plenty of reasons why. All right. So we we probably know what would be best for us, but we don't always choose it. This one might be a little harder. Here's the next set of pictures. These are neighborhoods. Okay. Now I want you to think what neighborhood is gonna give you the happiest life? What will they set you up for the best outcomes? So we've got uh picture one is kind of suburbs, maybe like an a cul-de-sac, modern suburb. Picture two is like a row house, these are like the old suburbs. Uh three is this like high-rise, dense, big city apartment. Uh, four is the cabin in the woods. All right, let's see your votes. Hold them up. What do you say? Oh, okay, we've got a lot of interest. Yeah, a lot of a lot of number fours here. Not that big of a surprise. You're not gonna probably agree with me, but humans, like, we need private space. It's important to have private space. If you're over, if it's overcrowded, you're gonna feel like you need that place to retreat. However, you also need social interaction. And you get exhausted by having to always set things up, the play dates, the get togethers with friends. So the best, one of the best things, the the places that the neighborhoods that they find that have the most happy people have a blend of social connections and proximity to other people and private space. And of these, actually, the old suburbs, you might not agree with me. The old suburbs, statistically speaking, are the best place to find that. All right, Jake, that's really subjective. I don't know, I don't believe you, but it's fine. But this next one maybe is a little bit more clear. Last one. You're celebrating. What table are you gonna sit at? These are the tables. All right, table one, we've got uh ice cream, lots of ice cream. We've got table two, looks like we've got salad, pasta, bread. Table three, lots of colors on this table. We've got greens, oranges, reds, lots of vegetables, maybe some salmon there. And then uh table four, this is brown food, chips, hot dogs. This is a football party, right? There's a little nod, you can see some celery right there. That's about the only color on that table. What table would you sit at? Let's see your votes, all right? Yeah. We probably know, I probably don't have to explain to you what table you should sit at. You probably know. But what table do you sit at? That might be different. You understand where we're going here, right? We don't always make the choices that we know are gonna be good outcomes for us. We will, we will, we this is a human problem. I'm not, this isn't uh, don't feel guilt or shame about this. This is a human shared problem. We will often we will choose short-term gains uh at the expense of our long-term health, happiness, outcomes. We do that all the time. So we will we will we will choose the table where we're gonna like this is gonna taste the best. This will make me the most happy, even though like maybe an hour later you're like, I shouldn't have done that. So here's uh here's kind of our first observation. So if you're taking notes, um here's here's uh kind of the first, maybe a little bit of a hot take. Uh humans are terrible judges at what we want. What we really want, we are not that good at judging what we want. Um now uh we we might be really good at rationalizing what we want, um, but um most of the choices we make are usually about intuition. And so you've all you probably maybe you've already experienced this, maybe you will someday, but you're gonna have this moment in your life where you're gonna find out the thing I thought I always wanted um was not it. It was not it. That was not, I thought I wanted that, it wasn't, right? And it might be like it might come that news might come to you in a doctor's visit, right? A doctor will show you some numbers on a page and they'll say something like, I know what you thought you wanted was to eat your favorite food and watch your favorite shows every night, but what you actually want, doctor would say, is you want to eat vegetables and exercise, right? It might be in we hear these stories all the time about people like finally getting that gold ring or the metal, right? Or the the first billion, right, making their first billion. And they always they will often say, I thought it would last longer. I thought it would have been a little bit sweeter. This was I gave my life to this dream, and it wasn't all I thought it would be. And even in like my own personal life, I thought I always wanted a new car, right? And I finally got the it wasn't a new car, it was a five-year-old car, but it was the newest car I ever got. And when I got it, I I was driving it and you know, it got scratched in a parking lot. Or I was driving down the highway and a rock and a rock, uh, a truck kicked up a rock and chipped the windshield. And you know what? I was like, I know I always wanted this, I wanted a nice car, but I kind of wouldn't mind having my old car back because I didn't care if it got dented or scratched. I didn't care. And it was actually kind of nice not having to worry about that kind of stuff. And this happens a lot in our lives. This is part of the fallen condition of living in this world is that um we we think what we'll choose wisely. We think we will make wise choices and choose the best things, but we don't often do that. And the Bible talks about this. We will often look for good things in the God in the things that God says are not really good. Right? This is uh exactly what um what we do. Like we we think we're making these decisions, like very wise decisions, but most of those those 35,000 choices you make in a day are just gut reactions, uh, habits, influences based on places where you live, people around you, who you listen to, those most of those opinions are formed from influences and in feelings, even though we don't we don't think of it that way. But where where we do become very rational is when it comes time to defend those choices. That's when our rational mind kicks in, and we would look for those rationalizations to justify the things that we already believe, or the opinions we already have, or the choices that we make. This is true in the Bible. We see it in the Garden of Eden. Eve wasn't thinking, I'm gonna disobey God and get expelled from the garden. She was thinking, you know what, that fruit does look pretty good. Not just good to eat, but it she saw that it was good to make one wise. And remember, what's the what's what is God, this is a mission God gives to Adam and Eve. They're to be fruitful and multiply and have dominion to rule the world. Well, wouldn't it be good to know the difference between good and bad if you were ruling the world? So you can see how she gets there, right? She's not, she's not, she's she begins by just looking at the fruit, right? She ends by taking the fruit, and you think, well, no, don't do that. Humans are terrible judges of what we want, right? Eventually, God's word, what God actually says, will be diminished, and we will justify what we want. So the question is, is are we going to live our lives God's way? Even though that might not be the way we would choose, right? So today in the passage, we've been going through the book of Luke. Um, we're gonna be, we've been reading these stories in Luke. This is Jesus coming up against the powers, right? This is the Paul uses the terms the powers, the rulers, the principalities, the thrones, the dominions, right? This is the idea of Jesus is coming up against the forces, the powers of this world. And we're as as we read today, we're gonna find out kind of this next part of the story. But really quick, if in case you haven't been here, is we're kind of jumping in midstream into a story. So if you don't know what's going on, I'm gonna give you a quick refresher. So Jesus has been arrested. He's been betrayed, he was arrested, he was put on trial. He we starts with his religious trial before the Sanhedrin. They had a little bit of political power. They find him guilty of blasphemy, of claiming to be God, and that is a crime worthy of death, so they want him killed. But they don't really have that kind of power to do that. So that's why they have to take him to the civil authorities. And then that's what Tim talked about last week is his political trial. And he's before Pilate, who's kind of like a Roman governor, I guess you could say, and Herod. This is there's a couple Herods, but this is Herod Antipas. He's like the king, I guess, of the area, especially up in Galilee. He's kind of a puppet king. Um, but he is those those are the powers that Jesus is is facing right now. Um so um, and basically what we can't, the conclusion we came to at the end of last week uh after his political trial is that basically they think Jesus is a joke. Like it literally says Herod mocks them, mocks Jesus. They dress him up, they they they think he's pathetic. They don't think he has political power, he's not a threat to their power. Um, and this is gonna come out in today's passage. Um, but um today we're gonna be reading in uh verse, we're gonna start still in chapter 23, verse 13. Um we're gonna read it together, but before uh before I read the passage, let me go ahead and pray one more time for us. Father in heaven, um, I pray that you have a message for us today through your word. God, that um we would be open to hearing uh through your spirit, Lord, um what you have to say to us today. Um God, I just pray that um for me, for everyone here, Lord, we would not harden our hearts. Uh, if you have something that you're prompting on us uh by your spirit, Lord, we would listen. We would listen well to what you have to say, God. And so, Lord, I just pray for this time, I pray for this message uh from your word, God, that we would be listeners and we would be doers of what you have to say. I pray this all in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. So uh here we go. Uh we're gonna go ahead and read um verse 13 to 16. Then Pilate called together the chief priests, the leaders, and the people, and he said to them, You brought me this man as one who was misleading the people. When I examined him before you, I did not find this man guilty of anything you accused him of doing. And neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us. Look, he has done nothing deserving death. I will therefore have him flogged and release him. All right, so we're gonna pause here for just a minute. So this is kind of we've kind of had the talk about the religious trial, the political trial. I'm I'm calling this the people's trial. This is before the crowd, right? It tells us who's in the crowd. There are priests, there are leaders, probably religious leaders, and people, right? Just the average Jewish peop people of the city, right? That's who the crowd is. Um, Pilate saying there's no reason for me to kill him. They think he's a joke. And and believe me, if there was any, like these rulers, ancient political rulers in general, the ancient world was uh the political world was uh vicious, right? And so if there was even a hint that you were a threat to someone's power in any way, it it was you were dead. There was no reason for them to keep you around. If you if you it uh actually Herod's so Herod Antipas, uh his dad is actually, or grandpa, I guess, is Herod the Great. And he was the one who killed all the babies when he heard about uh this king being Jesus being born. That was Herod the Great. That's this guy's grandpa, right? There were jokes about Herod the Great's household that you, if you were in his household, there the pigs in his house had a longer lifespan than some of his family members. Because if there was a wife or kid, it didn't matter who you are, if you were any kind of a threat, you were gone. Erased. And so it's significant that these these guys do not see Jesus as any kind of a threat. Um, and so um this is this brings us to our our first point here. Jesus has a different approach to power. Um we um we see that they don't think he's a political leader. They're asking him, are you the king of the Jews? Translation for you and me, are you a political figure? Are you a threat to our political power? That's what they want to know from him, and they don't find him guilty of that. And the reason is because they look at Jesus, who's standing there quiet, um, not giving a defense for himself, um, cannot do anything, it seems like they ask Herod says, do a miracle for us, he won't do it. They think he's pathetic, and so they mock him for it, which is a very, very normal thing. And they're in honor-shamed culture. That's they think he's a joke, they think he's not worth it. And so the reason is is because I I think that they think that they have a very different definition of power. The religious leaders, they look at Jesus and they're afraid. We'll we'll talk about that in a minute. They're afraid for different reasons and they think of his power differently than the political leaders. But here I want to just take a minute to kind of look at the the human, typical human approach to political power or power in general, I guess, and what Jesus, Jesus, the Jesus approach. So we're gonna take just a few minutes to kind of talk about this. Human, the human approach to political power is really there's two, there's two main pieces of it. One, can ability to rule, right? Are you a the positive way to say it was are you a good leader or are you a leader, right? The more negative way to say it was would be can you are you can you be coercive? Can you leverage people? Can you manipulate them? Can you get them to do what you want? Can you control them? And so that is that is how humans would define power, and especially political power. That's what they're looking for, is does he have this kind of power? The other part about human um power is it's self-promoting. It is all everything is about building a reputation for yourself. Can you surge in the polls? Right? This isn't this isn't distinct to ancient world. We still operate in this today, very much today. This is true for us today. We're looking at how do you like, are you able to control people? And um, can are you self-promoting? Will you promote yourself? Can you become popular, populous enough to, in our in American case, to win the election, right? Here is to keep the peace among the people. And you'll kind of see this is exactly what Pilate is working on as he's working in this text. And so um, once again, they decide by just by looking at Jesus, by seeing what he's done, they think this guy, this guy is saying things like, Love your enemies, and he's you know telling stories about birds and seeds, and that's his kingdom. And it's like, this guy, he's not a threat to our power, at least not in human terms. So Jesus, what is Jesus' approach to power? It doesn't necessarily say in this text, but if we look at the whole of what Jesus has been saying up until this point, we can see that he has a very different approach to how he sees power and what he is actually doing. According to Jesus, real power isn't in your ability to control people, it's in the power to change people. And this is probably why Jesus is actually telling stories. He's not trying to give them a list of rules and control them, he's trying to change you. He's trying to change the people who are listening to him. He's not holding it, he's not uh telling people, get what's yours. He's telling people to turn the other cheek. Think the Sermon on the Mount. I'm gonna talk, I'm gonna use that a lot. The Sermon on the Mount. If you don't know what that is, um, if you if you read Matthew, the longest account of it is in Matthew 5-7. Um Matthew writes down a whole bunch of it. He calls it the Sermon on the Mount. Luke, similar sermon, and he Jesus probably gave this talk lots of times. Uh it's called Luke calls it the Sermon on the Plain. Shorter version, um, lots of the same teachings. But Jesus is saying in that in that sermon, he's laying out his ethic, right? His kingdom ethic. And it's he's saying things like, Love your enemies. He's saying things like the meek will inherit the earth. He's saying he's um calling people to become peacemakers, he's telling them to turn the other cheek. Um, when someone hits you, turn the other cheek, right? If they ask you to walk with them a mile, go walk with them two miles. This is Jesus' ethic. That is not controlling people. You see how this is a different? This is where Jesus uh is not coercive, it is a very different approach to power. Um the second point is we said human power is self-promoting. Jesus' definition of power is self-emptying. This is literally what Jesus does. He steps down out of his place of power, out of glory, into human form to dwell among us. This is what Jesus is doing. He's not uh having, he is not cornering the market on healing power, he's giving it out to his disciples. He's sending them out to heal, to cast out demons. That's not very self-promoting. Um, he's allowing people to reject and mock him, even though in an instant he could stop it. He's a very different definition of power. And he's calling people, I've already mentioned, love your enemies. Believe me, there is nothing, nothing you can do that is more self-emptying than loving people who hate you. And Jesus isn't just saying these things, he is right now before our eyes in this text living them out. He is working on this power to change people. He is emptying himself for the sake of others. This is what Jesus is doing. It's an utterly different definition of power that the human political powers j don't, it's not even they're just they don't see it as a threat. This is not on their radar at all. They are like, yeah, just get rid of this guy. So Jesus has a very different approach to power. Let's keep reading. Um as we uh go on to verse 18. Uh but they all shouted together, Take this man away, release Barabbas for us. This was a man who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the city and for murder. Pilate addressed them once again because he wanted to release Jesus, but they kept on shouting, Crucify him, crucify him. A third time he said to them, Why? What wrong has he done? I found no guilt I found him guilty of no crime deserving death. I will therefore flog him and release him. All right, now we get to the main point. Jesus is rejected by the people. These are people who should be recognizing him. The Old Testament is full of prophecies of this coming king, this Messiah. Old Testament is full of them. These are the people who should know, the priests, the religious leaders, the Jewish people who have been studying these verses for their life, right? They they should know and they're rejecting him. Even though just a few days ago, a few days earlier before this, crowds were singing a very different song as he rode into the city. They were saying, Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. That's what they were shouting when Jesus rides into town. And some leaders were like, Tell them to be quiet. They shouldn't be saying that to you. Because they're saying, Here comes the king. They're quoting Psalm uh from the Psalms. I think it's like 118 or something. Um, they're quoting from a psalm, a prophecy of this coming king. And they and that when these at when they ask him to tell the people to stop, Jesus says, if they do, the rocks will just shout it. Jesus seems to be wearing this term of like king. So wait a minute, time out, Jake. I thought you just said he wasn't a political leader, that he has he's not he's not a political threat, he doesn't have political power, but now it sounds a little bit different, right? It does so the question is is Jesus a political figure or a political leader or not? And it's it's not an easy, it's not an easy answer. Um but when remember when he talks to Pilate last week, um he says he Pilate asked him, Are you the king of the Jews? Jesus' response is just it literally is in just you say. And so we it doesn't translate really well in English, so sometimes we have to try to make it say like that's what you say, or it's as you say, but really it's more vague than that. He's just he just says, you say. Um so he's not really taking, he Jesus isn't even answering the question either. And when we look even in the next chapter, there's this idea, like the the disciples on the road to Emmaus. We'll get to that, I don't know, couple weeks maybe. But after Jesus dies on the road to Emmaus, there's these people who are really sad because Jesus has just been crucified and they're sorry, it's spoiler alert, that's what happens at the end of the story. It's a 2,000-year-old story. If you haven't read it, it should have gotten read by now. Um so he is he's on the they're on the road to the Mayus, and they're sad because they thought he would had come to redeem Israel. Now that is a really we don't have time to really dig into this idea, but they thought that he was coming. They thought he was the one, the king, who was going to come to buy back. Redeem literally means to buy back out of slavery. Think Boaz and Ruth. He buys her out of her slavery and her poverty and re-establishes her into her land and into her family. And um this is this idea of a redeemer. And this is what they were, they thought Jesus was coming to do. They thought he was coming to be the king, to be the political ruler. And it's tough because um, so this is why the the the political leaders don't think he think he's not political, the religious leaders think he is. And it's kind of hard to separate because we kind of have a different idea of like we think religious, political, those are different things. For the Jews, they're not. They're really not. They're not two different things, they're the same as far as they're concerned. And so the reason why, one of the main reasons why they do not want Jesus to be can be wearing the name King, they do not want him to be their king, is because they don't like his politics. He's saying things in the Sermon on the Mount, he's saying things like, love your enemies. He's saying things like the meek are gonna inherit the earth. He's telling them to turn their cheek when someone slaps them. Right? He's saying all these things. And they're imagining this king in their lived context, in their imagination, this king is gonna rise up and what's he gonna do? Out with Rome. He's gonna kick Rome out, and he's going to rule the world from Jerusalem. And Jesus, from everything they've seen and heard from him, they don't think he's gonna get the job done. He's doing things that really that what that uh attack their authority, he's uh teaching things they don't like, he's cleansing the temple, right? He's which is an attack on their economic situation, right? He's healing people on the Sabbath. He is he's basically asking that, telling them to pay Roman taxes, he's calling them out on their basically on their racism that they feel towards Samaritans. He's doing all these things, he's calling, he's challenging their authority in public, he's calling them hypocrites. They don't want him to be their leader, they think he's not fit for the job, and he's so popular, this is where their fear is coming from and why they're saying crucify him, because they're afraid if they put prop him up as king in Israel, that Rome is going to come and Rome is going to destroy them utterly. Because there's no way this Jesus is gonna be fit for the job. Not when he's talking about seeds and gardens and birds and loving your enemies. It's like this guy is not gonna get it done. So that's one of the reasons why they're so afraid and why they're choosing uh this other guy instead of Jesus. Uh let's keep reading, let's finish off um the passage here. Uh in verse 23. But they were insistent, demanding with loud shouts that he be crucified, and their shouts prevailed. So Pilate decided that their demand should be granted. He released the man they asked for, who had been thrown in prison for insurrection and murder, but he handed Jesus over to their will. You can see Pilate, this is the this is he's just really just wanting to keep the peace. He does not, he doesn't want to riot on his hands. Uh so and he's not gonna stick his neck out for Jesus. Uh the crowd clear clearly wants him dead, so he's okay with releasing Barabbas and condemning Jesus. So Jesus is gonna face a criminal's death because um, really, because he's not going to use power the way people want him to. They look at the Jesus Manifesto and like the Sermon on the Mount and all the things he he's teaching, they're like, they make the choice. Hard pass. Don't want that. So why does this story matter? Why are we, why are we, why are we spending so much time? Why is Jacob here talking about this for so long? It is a very political story in a lot of ways. I keep using that word over and over again. That can be a very dangerous topic today to to address, but you know, this is their politics, so maybe it's a little Easier for us to pallet. But there's I really have two thoughts on why this matters, why this story is important. See, in the story, the crowd has two options. They have a choice between two different ways. Before the crowd is Jesus, the Jesus way, and everything that he stands for, and everything that he teaches, and there's Barabbas. And we don't know a whole lot about Barabbas other than he is willing to use force and violence to get the job done. So Jesus, the Jesus way is resist your enemies by loving them, like Sermon on the Mount type of way. And the Barabbas way is resist your enemies by fighting back. And this is literally all of human history. Today, this is this is the Barab. We still believe this is the best way, even today. And so we can judge the crowd pretty harshly, and we can, from our perspective, here today, we can look at the crowd and be like, ah, you idiots, you had the king right in front of you. He's right there, and you you couldn't see him. But remember what we said at the beginning of like the thing we kind of will acknowledge, but we rarely believe? Humans are terrible judges at what they want. And even though they have him right there, they have the guy, the king, the messiah, right there in front of them, they reject him. And they choose a different way. They choose the Barabbas way. And in about 40 years after this, after this is going to happen, after this is happening, in 70 AD, there is an uprising. There is an insurrection. And you know what happens? If you know history, you know. Rome comes. Rome comes with all their armies, they surround the city, they lay siege to it. There's all this infighting inside the city. They're fighting, the factions are fighting amongst themselves, they're killing each other, they're destroying each other's food. And eventually Rome comes up over the wall, they destroy the temple, they slaughter hundreds of thousands of Jews, everyone in the city, and is utter destruction. Because they actually, in this moment, they actually get what they that what they wanted. They chose an insurrectionist over Jesus. They chose the way of Barabbas. And so we can judge them really harshly. It can be tempting to do that, but we have to humbly admit that we don't choose the way of Jesus either. Each day we have choices, some of those, those 35,000 choices that we make in a day, we're not always choosing those those ways either. We will choose to get revenge on the people that we don't like. The people who cut us off in traffic, the people who say who who talk trash about us at work, right? We will choose to get them back. We'll point out their hypocrisy, we'll we'll we'll take jabs. Um we'll put our hope in in human political powers. Right? You don't believe me? How do you feel when someone when someone attacks your political preference? Do you get really angry? Do you want to fight back? Do you feel threatened? How do you how do you feel when someone cuts you off in traffic, right? These are the things, these are the choices that we make, right? We'll we'll sit down at the table full of ice cream, even though we know, yeah, that's not the best choice. We do this all the time. So the second reason why this story matters is um is that this is a a super clear picture of the gospel and what the gospel means. All the gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, all include this. They all mention this, this story, the Jesus and Barabbas. And it's remember that idea we talked about redeem, redeeming, redemption. This is actually um the most clear picture of that. Because what's happening is there was there was already a cross ready to go, right? When Jesus is is uh appointed to die. But it's it's not Jesus' cross, it's Barabbas's. And so the nails that Jesus gets in his hands and in his feet, those are Barabbas' nails. The cross that he's bearing, that's Barabbas' cross. And so here in this story, we see that the guilty or that the innocent is taking the place literally of the guilty. But it's not only that, there's a there's another part. The the freedom that Barabbas gets, the air that he's breathing, the time that he gets with his family, what the the freedom that he gets, that's Jesus' freedom. Barabbas goes off to live the life that Jesus deserved. You see what's going on here? This is a powerful picture of exactly what the gospel is all about. Um but it's an upside-down redemption from what the people would have chosen for themselves. Nobody would choose this type of redemption. It's easy for us to fit the categories of the king coming in and being powerful and controlling. And it's not as easy to think of the Sermon on the Mount type of way. So this is our this is uh one of our last points before the passageway applied. What Jesus is doing here, Jesus creates a new way to be human. Jesus is starting a new work. In the Bible, this is a this is this idea of a new creation, right? Think about the first creation, right? The original creation, right? This is a new project, a new thing, and Jesus is starting it. He's a new Adam who's starting a new project. You no longer have to live the way of Barabbas. The world doesn't have to go that way anymore. There's a new way, a new way to be human, and it's starting with Jesus. Remember, we even sang it in the song. Jesus tells his disciples in the book of John, he's telling them, it's good that I'm leaving.

unknown: 35:46

What?

SPEAKER_00: 35:46

Why would that be good, right? Jesus doesn't understand the human political, like human power, like that wouldn't be good in human power terms, right? It's not good that you die and go away, right? But Jesus says it's good because when I go, I will what? I will send the helper. I will send the counselor and he will teach you all things. This is what uh this is what Jesus um was accomplishing, what he was doing. The Holy Spirit is the helper. God is pouring out his spirit in a new way in humans, and he's starting a new project, creating new creatures to live life a different way. Um we're gonna jump ahead, we're gonna jump out of Luke for a second. This is in Galatians. Paul picks up on this in Galatians. Um he's talking, you can hear the language of free and and um condemned and things. So here we go. You, my brothers and sisters, uh, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge in the flesh. Rather serve one another humbly in love, for the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command. Love your neighbor as yourself. If you bite and devour each other, watch out, or you will be destroyed by each other. We see here Paul spelling out the Jesus way of living. And you can see in 15, the Barabbas way. You can choose to live that way. You can go back to the old way. You weren't, but that's not why you were freed. That's not why he took the cross for you. That's not the kind of freedom we don't know what Barabbas does with his freedom. We have no idea. I have no idea if he goes right back to his uh insurrectionist ways or not. We just don't know. But this is not what you were saved for. You were saved to be to be living a new kind of life, the Jesus life. That's the life he bought for you. Um this is a uh so the it raises the question, then how are we supposed to live? How do we live this life? So this is our passage way applied. Because Jesus took our place, we are free to live to live a spirit-filled life, to live the spirit-filled life. This is what Jesus was accomplishing on the cross when he took your place and gave you his freedom, the freedom that he deserved, the life that he deserved, the righteousness that he has, he is giving it to you. He's crediting it to your account and he is taking on your debt. This is the gospel. This is what it means. And this is freeing us to live a new kind of life. If you're confused, we talked about how this is Jesus subverting the powers. If you're confused about how he is subverting the powers by doing this, what Jesus, it wouldn't have accomplished anything for Jesus to do what the people wanted him to do, to take up the throne. We wouldn't be gathering here to talk about it today. But because Jesus did something new, he approached power a different way. We are here. He didn't come to create a Christian nation. He came to create Christians of all nations. So that all peoples, all ethnicities, every person in the world can live, be part of this new kingdom. He's going, it's a dimension beyond the human dimension of power. He's going somewhere else entirely. He's not doing this, Jesus isn't accomplishing this by passing good policies or laws. He is doing this by making good neighbors. He's accomplishing this kingdom by making you and me into good neighbors who will love our neighbors as ourselves. And this is the last thing that Paul has to say in Galatians 5. This is his big conclusion. So I say to you, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. This is how you live the Christian life. This is how you live out the Sermon on the Mount. You're not going to be able to do it by getting up enough willpower to love your enemies. You will not choose that. You will not make that choice. This is why Jesus gives us the Spirit, and we submit to God. And when we hear Him guiding us and when we hear Him leading us, we need to listen. Paul is going to go on to talk about the fruit of the Spirit, right? This is what the this is what this kind of life produces: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness. This is the fruit of living the Jesus way. So I'm going to pray and we're going to wrap it up. Father, I admit that I will not choose. I will choose to gratify my own desires if I'm given the option. I will choose to get revenge. I will choose to stand up for my own rights. I will choose to fight. I will choose to bite and devour. And so will each one of us here. We will all make those choices if we do not have you changing us. God, you're not calling us to a life of control, a life of power. We will get deceived by those by those choices, by that fruit. But God, we pray that by your Spirit, you will be leading us into a new way of life, that we can be new humans in your new kingdom. God, it is so much farther beyond the things that we think are great. Our definitions of power, you're calling us to something better. And it's not just someday out there. It is right now. You said your kingdom is at hand. You are entering helping us enter into a new kind of life. The life that you bought for us is not just to escape from hell, it's to be free to live right now. So, God, I pray that we will embrace that identity, a new identity, a new human kind of life through the purchase of your Son, God. By the will of the Father and through the power of your Spirit. Pray this all in Jesus' name. Amen.