Divine Portrait: The Crowd, The Christ, and the Choice | Pastor Jake Sweetman

Welcome to our latest message, where we explore the profound theme of substitution and the pivotal choice between self-salvation and accepting the life Jesus offers. In this insightful message, we delve into the Gospel narrative of Jesus' trial before Pontius Pilate and the powerful demonstration of God's grace through the choice between Jesus Barabbas and Jesus the Messiah.

Discover how Jesus became our substitute, taking our place on the cross, and learn about the transformative power of His life, death, and resurrection. This episode challenges us to reflect on our personal journeys towards salvation and to recognize the infinite life found in surrendering to Jesus.

Join us as we uncover the depth of God’s self-giving love and the path to true freedom and abundant life that only He provides. Whether you’re new to faith or seeking a deeper understanding of the Gospel, this message will inspire and equip you to make a life-changing choice.

Key Scriptures: 
- 2 Corinthians 5:21
- Matthew 27:11-26
- Acts 2:23
- Galatians 2:20
- Matthew 16:25

Tune in for an exploration of salvation, humility, and the boundless grace of God. Perfect for those ready to embrace true life in Jesus.

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Transcript

 Well, the title of my message this morning is The Crowd.

Everyone say The Crowd.

The Christ.

The Choice.

Yeah, my goal is very simple.

I want you to choose Jesus.

I want you to choose Him over absolutely everything because in choosing Jesus, you choose God.

You choose the God who gave His life for you on the cross and who rose from the grave, who defeated death so that you could share, get this, so that you could share in eternal life

 with him and with one another that you could enjoy beautiful healed flourishing relationship with the lord god of all the universe and with one another your family in christ and the reason that life is is possible is one reason it's because jesus became this is what i want to teach you today jesus became our substitute everybody say substitute yeah through his life his death and his resurrection jesus christ walked in your shoes

 Jesus endured your suffering.

Jesus stood in your place.

And Jesus paid the debt of your sin.

Jesus is our substitute.

There's a beautiful scripture in a letter in the New Testament that we call 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 21.

And it says this.

It's so profoundly beautiful.

God made him, him here being Jesus.

God made Jesus who had no sin.

That's speaking of the life of Jesus.

This is the kind of life that Jesus lived.

He had no sin.

 So you and I, like, we failed that test by like the age of one and a half, okay?

Like, you know, like when the spoon came in, like, here, eat the applesauce for mommy and daddy.

And you're like, I'm not doing it, right?

Like no one taught you to rebel.

You just figured that out on your own, right?

Jesus didn't do that.

Every time the spoon came from Mary, Jesus was like, yeah, I want that.

Give me the apples.

They didn't have applesauce.

I don't know.

Goat's milk.

Give me the goat's milk.

 That's not in the notes.

Okay, so God made him who had no sin to be sin.

Not for no reason, but for you, for us.

So like every wrong thing you've ever thought, said and done, Jesus took upon himself on the cross.

Every like passive aggressive spiteful text you've ever sent.

You got to get specific because when you talk about sin, people are like, I don't know if that's me.

It's you.

 Trust me.

Like every cold shoulder you've turned instead of choosing to forgive, every time you chose to go your way instead of God's way, Jesus took all of that rebellion, all the evil of the world, he took upon himself on the cross.

Why?

So that in him, we might become the righteousness of God.

In the resurrection of Christ, his perfect track record is given to you as a free gift.

That's substitution.

John Harper was a passenger on the Titanic.

 And he was traveling from England to America to preach in a church in Chicago, a very well-known church led by a man named D.L.

Moody.

And as the Titanic began to sink, John Harper put his six-year-old daughter on one of the lifeboats, and then he chose to stay on the ship knowing full well what that was going to mean for him.

He ran back and forth across the deck and shouted over and over again, women, children, and the unsaved in the lifeboats.

 As the ship sank, John plunged into the icy depths of the Atlantic Ocean and then survivors testify that he swam around asking people if they were saved, if they knew the Lord Jesus as their Savior.

He came upon one man who was clinging to a piece of debris and he asked the man, are you saved?

And the man said, no.

 And so John Harper began to share the gospel with him, but the man was not interested.

And so John Harper's next move was to take his life vest off, hand it to the man, and say, here, you need this more than me.

John Harper did not survive that night, but the man who he gave the life vest to did.

His name was George Henry Cavill, and he later testified that he was saved twice that night.

First from the waters.

 and then second by the gospel, the good news that John Harper shared.

That phrase here, you need this more than me, that's substitution.

Jesus living his perfect life and then getting to the cross and choosing it instead of running it, running from it, that's him saying here, you need my righteousness more than me.

Of course, Jesus' substitution is infinitely greater than John Harper's.

 Not only because his life was completely without sin and therefore he was the only one in credit available to pay all the debt.

But also because Jesus' substitution did not end in his death.

Jesus' substitution carries all the way on, even today, carries all the way on into his resurrection life, into his eternal life.

He shares that resurrection, that victory over sin, that victory over death.

 is now available to every single one of us.

And that's the promise of salvation, by the way.

Like we hear words like salvation, which are biblical words, and sometimes the meaning of them can kind of go over our heads.

Salvation is basically the recovery of your life.

It's the recovery of flourishing, abundant, eternal life, because it is life with God.

And that, whether you know it or not, that's the life that we all long for.

But because of sin in our hearts and in the world, what we often experience is the opposite of life.

We experience decay.

 and ultimately we experience death.

And so we try to counteract that, right?

 As a nation, we pour trillions of dollars into anti-aging regimens and into dieting plans and therapies and subscriptions and travel and experiences and education.

And all of it is an attempt to live, to experience life.

And one day, soon, somebody will offer you the opportunity to upload your brain to a computer so that you can fully and finally escape the frailty of your human body.

And some people will do it because they are desperate to live.

Yes.

 Now, not all of that stuff is bad, right?

Some of it, education, travel, all great stuff.

But none of it is an endless well of life.

True life, both soul and body, that's what we celebrate in the resurrection, the recovery of the human body, redeemed, dignified, healed, restored.

True life, body and soul is found in Jesus Christ alone who came to recover that life for you as your substitute.

That's salvation in a sentence.

And that gift of life, it is offered to every single one

 of you without regard for whether or not you are worthy to receive it.

And here's the spoiler alert.

You're not worthy to receive it.

You don't deserve it.

I don't deserve it.

The grace of God is not a reward for the worthy.

The grace of God is a gift to the unworthy.

It is fundamentally that.

Receive that this morning because you are unworthy to receive the life of God.

 But the good news is there's nothing you have to do to earn it.

It is a gift to unworthy people.

It is only that.

It is never a reward for nobody in the world, not even for Mother Teresa.

The grace of God is never a reward.

It is always a gift to the unworthy.

And yet many people spend their lives trying to earn salvation.

They try to manufacture abundant life.

However they conceptualize of that, whether that be through status achieved or stuff

 attained or self-identification or spiritual ladder climbing.

But no matter how high we've climbed, we never arrive.

No matter how many ladders we try out, we never arrive.

Some of you here, you're over your 40s and you've tried several ladders.

Well, the problem isn't that you've picked the wrong ladder.

 You can take that pressure off yourself actually.

Our problem is that we have not recognized that God climbed down the ladder to us.

See, salvation is not achieved by climbing higher.

Salvation is received at the lowly place of humility where we confess our need for Christ crucified.

God on a cross giving His life for us and to us.

And if you will meet God at the cross, you will find life in the last place you expected to find it.

 Yeah, because the cross didn't first look like that.

It was covered in blood.

And a brutally beaten man hung from it.

Crown of thorns on his head.

And it's certainly the last place that you would expect to find life.

But actually, it should be the very place where you expect to find life.

You know this from your own experience.

 Grasping for life by trying to climb higher Trying to be more that's our kids down in kids church.

Yeah, come on.

Praise God for happy kids.

We love it Grasping for life while trying to climb higher That doesn't lead to what we think trying to feel more important more accomplished bigger than better than It's just another form of pride

 It's an overestimation of ourselves and what we can produce.

And every single one of you, you have seen, you have found in your own experience that pride never produces life.

Ever.

Like when you get married people, when you get prideful in your relationship, in your marriage, does that produce life in you or life in the marriage?

Does it bring life into the home?

No.

It's chaos.

It's decay.

It's borderline death.

If that pride carries on unchecked, the marriage will die.

 When pride is your motive behind what you post on social media, does that produce life in you?

A great feeling?

No, it doesn't, does it?

It doesn't produce life in the world around you.

Pride, no matter the scenario, never leads to life.

But going low in humility, even though it's hard, even though it might not always be met with the response that you hope, in the end, humility always produces life, no matter the scenario.

That humility, that going low, that's God on the cross.

 Get it?

Jesus, the perfect, sinless, spotless, holy, majestic, beautiful, eternal Son of God, taking the place of sinners, of evil people on the cross, is the most dramatic display of humility possible in all of creation.

It is literally infinitely humble.

 Because the gap between heaven and human, holy and human, is an infinite gap.

And Jesus Christ, the Son of God, traversed that gap all the way to the cross of Calvary.

It is an infinitely humble act.

And so no wonder infinite humility has produced infinite life.

Because it's humility alone that leads to the life of mankind.

Today what I want to do is I want to ground ourselves in the actual event of that humility and get to know the God who became our substitute.

 This is not just theology that's high-flying and intangible.

No, this is an event the gospel writers want to ground us in so that we can grasp the humility of the God who took our place.

Look with me in Matthew chapter 27, and we'll begin in verse 11.

It says, Meanwhile, Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, Are you the king of the Jews?

Jesus replied, You have said so.

 So right here we come to the trial where Jesus stands before a Roman governor whose name is Pontius Pilate.

He also stands before the ruling group of Jewish leaders called the Sanhedrin.

And this is the trial that will lead to the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus.

Now for those of you who are curious, who like history, both Roman and Jewish sources independent of the Bible confirm that Pontius Pilate was a real historical figure.

 He really did serve as the Roman governor.

The technical term is prefect.

That's what Rome used.

The Roman prefect over the region of Judea, where Jerusalem is, where Jesus lived, from 26 AD to 36 AD.

 And of course Jesus Christ was crucified somewhere around either 30 or 33 AD right in line with Pilate's rule.

Now some critics who disbelieve the gospel records in spite of the evidence used to doubt the existence of Pilate.

Back in 1961 archaeologists uncovered a piece of limestone that was from a Roman public political building and on that piece of limestone it says Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judea.

 The stone, of course, was dated to the early first century, right when Pilate governed.

There is no doubt that a real man named Pontius Pilate was the governor over Judea during the time of Jesus' crucifixion.

And the fact that the gospel writers know this detail points to their authenticity as first century eyewitnesses and close companions of Jesus and the apostles.

Like, knowing who the governor of Judea was from 26 to 36 AD would be the equivalent of you and I knowing who the governor of North Dakota was from 2000 to 2004.

 You wouldn't know that unless you lived there and you cared to know.

These guys, these gospel writers, were genuine first century followers of Jesus.

I'm telling you this because all four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they make it a point to tell you that Jesus stood trial before Pilate.

What do they want you to know?

This really happened.

 It's not a fairy tale.

It's not made up.

To their original readers who lived in the first century, they're saying, ask around Jerusalem.

Many people were witness to this.

To us today, they're saying, hey, Christianity is based upon a historical event, a historical fact.

 Christianity is not based upon some esoteric philosophical tradition that some guy thought up in his own mind while he was sitting under a tree in the woods somewhere.

Christianity is based upon this fact that Jesus Christ died on a Roman cross, God raised Him from the dead, and He appeared to many people over 500 over the 40 days that followed before He ascended to heaven.

 And if that sounds sensational to you, then I can do no better than to quote the Apostle Paul.

As he himself stood trial decades later because of his faith in Christ.

In Acts 26 and verse 8, he simply asked this question.

Why do you people think it is unbelievable that God raises the dead?

 Yes, it's miraculous.

But if God is the creator of nature, then it is His prerogative to bend the rules of nature to accomplish His purposes.

And the laws of nature are nothing more than what God told them to do in the first place.

And nearly 2,000 years ago, on the first Easter Sunday, God told the lifeless body of Jesus lying in a tomb to live.

And breath came back into His lungs and He got up.

 And of course God did that because Jesus is not some ordinary guy.

He's the eternal son of God.

He's the king of the cosmos.

And that's what Jesus means when he responds to Pilate's question.

Are you the king of the Jews?

You've said so.

In the Greek, it's hard to translate this into English, but in the Greek it's an affirmative answer, but it's a qualified yes.

It's like he's saying, I am a king, but not the kind you think.

My kingdom isn't like yours.

 I'm not just here for Rome.

It's infinitely bigger, infinitely better, and it will have no end.

You see, the reason that the Sanhedrin, that ruling body of Jewish leaders, brought Jesus before Pilate in the first place was because Jesus had claimed to be more than a king.

He had claimed to be equal with God.

As a faithful, monotheistic, that means worshipping one God, Jewish man, you simply did not make that claim.

 Like a claim to divinity to us is kind of like, eh, that's just another Tuesday, right?

Like in our postmodern, new age spirituality society, it's not uncommon for people to claim some kind of oneness with the universe, right?

And that's some kind of false claim to divinity.

And that's not a new thing, by the way.

That's just the latest mutation upon the same lie that humans have been telling themselves ever since we sinned, that we can be our own gods.

Jesus was not making some vague spiritual claim.

 As a Jewish worshipper of the one true God of the world, his name is Yahweh, the creator and the ruler of everything.

When Jesus claimed equality with Yahweh, he was saying, I'm God.

I'm God.

In fact, he didn't just say it, he backed it up with his actions, didn't he?

Jesus went around forgiving people of their sins.

Ooh, the Jewish leaders hated that.

Only God forgives sins.

He's like, I know, watch me do it.

 Jesus said, I'm Lord of the Sabbath.

The Old Testament specifically says that God is Lord of the Sabbath.

Jesus walked on water.

Do you know that story?

That's not just a cool party trick.

That's a claim to divinity.

Look at Job chapter 9 and verse 8.

This is probably the oldest book in your Old Testament.

What does it say?

He, that is Yahweh, alone.

Does anybody else do this?

No.

Yahweh alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea.

Only God walks on water.

Jesus is like, I know.

Watch me go.

 Jesus is God, the one true God of the universe, God in flesh and bone, which is exactly how you needed God to become, to redeem and restore everything about who you are, God visible and physical.

That's why the Jewish leaders wanted to kill him.

Which brings up a searching question.

Do you want to crown him?

Because your only other option is to try and kill him.

 The message of Easter is that Christ is the true king.

And he deserves not some, not most, but all of your loyalty and your worship.

Jesus will not be your side hustle.

He will not be your secretary.

He will not be your Sunday fix.

He's king.

 And the Jewish leaders could not accept Jesus as king so they tried to kill him.

Now obviously you and I, we can't really kill Jesus.

A, he's reigning from heaven.

B, he's already proven that he's pretty good at the whole resurrection thing.

But what we can do is we can still reject him.

Or we can pretend like we haven't rejected him and we can push him to the edges of our life.

Partly obeying.

Partly following.

Barely knowing him.

 which of course is not to know Him at all.

And none of that barely in our lives changes the fact that Christ is King and He is coming again to judge the faithful and the unfaithful, the living and the dead.

And on that day, not one of us will have the excuse, sorry, I was just too busy to devote myself to you.

You cannot say to the man who died on a cross for you, sorry, I was too busy to devote myself to you.

That excuse will ring really hollow.

So stop rejecting Him.

 Stop relegating him to the outskirts of your life.

He is worthy of infinitely more than that.

And the life that you crave.

Your life is meant to be infinitely more beautiful than a life that revolves around self.

The Jewish leaders, they would find that killing Jesus actually wouldn't be so easy.

He'd become immensely popular.

Thousands of people.

 By the time we reach our point in the story today, thousands of people have come to believe that Jesus is at least some kind of savior.

I mean, he goes around forgiving sins and healing the sick and bringing outcasts close.

Like Jesus deals with the shame problem like nobody else ever dealt with the shame problem.

He brings ashamed people into his inner circle of him and his followers.

And so for those who were aware of their sickness, their sin, their shame, Jesus was like water in the desert.

 But for those, listen to me, for those who thought they had no need for healing, for those who thought they had no need for forgiveness, no need for restoration, Jesus was a stumbling block to them.

He was an offense to their pride.

And so because of the popularity of Jesus, those who were offended by him, they found that they couldn't easily kill him because the Jews, they actually lacked authority from Rome to carry out executions.

 And there's no way that killing a man that well-known and popular would not reach Roman ears.

And so the Jewish leaders, they devise a plan.

The plan is, we're going to bring him to Pontius Pilate, and we're going to accuse Jesus of sedition.

We're going to present him as a political threat.

Hey, Pilate, this guy's claiming to be a king.

 And if Jesus is a revolutionary, then Rome must crush him.

They must.

Because Pilate's power, even more so Caesar's power, is now being undermined.

Rome did not take kindly whatsoever to the threat of sedition.

Any kind of attempt to undermine Roman power was met with one response, and that response was crucifixion.

So that's where Jesus stands.

 So as Jesus stands trial under the threat of crucifixion, the obvious question, like if you're reading along in the story, like if you've never read the Gospels before and you get to this point in the story, you're thinking, wow, this mission's really gone awry.

I thought this guy was coming to save the world.

Here he is facing death.

So the question is, is death on a cross a threat to the mission and the purpose of Jesus?

Does it bring that to an end?

Now, of course, today is Easter Sunday, the day we celebrate that Jesus Christ got up from the grave.

 So spoiler alert, the answer is no, the cross does not threaten the mission and the purpose of Jesus.

In fact, we see that the cross is actually how Jesus fulfills, please do not let this sentence go over your head, the cross, a death device, an execution device, a public display of shame.

That is how Jesus fulfills his mission to heal, to forgive, to redeem.

That's how he chose to do it.

 And that's what we're meant to see as we keep reading.

Look at verse 12, Matthew 27 and verse 12.

When Jesus was accused by the chief priests and the elders, it's the ruling governing body of Jewish leaders, he gave no answer.

They're making all these accusations, he doesn't answer.

And Pilate asked him, don't you hear the testimony that they're bringing against you?

But Jesus made no reply, not even to a single charge.

To the great amazement, the word is literally impress.

He's impressed.

The great amazement of the governor.

So like apart from affirming that he's

 a unique, different kind of king, Jesus did not respond to a single accusation.

Like literally not one word of defense.

And it's not like these are harmless charges.

Like if Jesus is judged guilty here, the result is that he's going to be dragged away to be scourged, that is brutally whipped and beaten until flesh hangs from his bones.

 then he'll be forced to carry a Roman cross upon his broken body up a hill where he'll be stripped naked, nailed to it, and publicly, shamefully displayed as an example of what Rome does to its rebels.

That's what's on the line.

Now imagine that you were in that position.

If you were standing trial like Jesus, if you were innocent of the claims they were making, would you be silent?

No.

 No, you'd be pleading your case.

You'd be doing everything possible to discredit the lies.

In fact, even if you were guilty, you would be doing everything possible to discredit the lies.

Like the threat of Roman scourging and crucifixion is enough to turn any man into a beggar.

And yet Jesus doesn't beg.

He doesn't defend.

He doesn't even speak.

He simply lets it happen.

 Does that sound like somebody who's lost control of their mission to you?

When we go on vacation, my guilty pleasure is I like to read this series of books called Orphan X. You ever heard of Orphan X?

Of course you haven't.

Why would you read books like that?

It's about this American spy who is defected from his corrupt Roman... Wow, I'm thinking about the Bible.

Corrupt government organizations.

 And because he's defected from the government, he's constantly being hunted down.

And there's always one moment in every single one of these novels in this series where Evan Smoak, that's the name of the main character, he's faced... I know, it's great.

He's faced with this like really intimidating evil person who wants to do very, very harmful things to him.

And in that moment, he says to this person, there's one line that comes up in the book every single time.

He says, look at me closely.

 Ask yourself, do I look scared?

You can only use the line one time in the book, otherwise it gets cheesy, but every time I come across it, I smile.

That's his way of saying, hey, this isn't going to end how you think it's going to end.

This moment between Jesus and Pilate is a little like that.

Like on paper, Pilate holds all the power.

He can crucify Jesus.

He can release Jesus.

 But as all the accusations fly, Jesus' silence says it all.

Look at me closely.

Ask yourself, do I look scared?

This isn't going to end how you think.

It's astonishing.

Anybody else would be fighting for their freedom.

Like we actually deserve death for our sin.

And we would be begging for mercy.

 But Jesus, the only one who didn't deserve to be there, remained silent, humbly awaiting crucifixion.

Like no wonder Pilate was amazed.

The question is, are you?

Are you amazed?

This historical fact that a real man named Jesus stood before a real man named Pontius Pilate with his life on the line and said nothing to turn the tables in his favor.

Does that amaze you?

 It should at least compel you to see Jesus as more than any ordinary man and to at least give him your attention.

Now, at this point, Pontius Pilate believes that Jesus is actually innocent.

He's never seen somebody under trial act this way.

And so if Jesus won't defend himself, Pilate decides that he will.

He quickly comes up with a solution.

Look at verse 15.

This is where it gets good.

 So now it was the governor's custom at the festival to release a prisoner chosen by the crowd.

The crowd gets to make a choice at the Passover.

It's something that Pontius Pilate and all the kindness and goodness of his heart does every year for the Jewish people.

They get to choose a prisoner to go free.

And at that time, they had a well-known prisoner whose name was Jesus Barabbas.

So when the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, which one do you want me to release to you?

Jesus Barabbas or Jesus who was called the Messiah?

Yeah.

 Pilate knew that it was out of self-interest that the Jewish leaders had handed Jesus over to him.

So here Pilate thinks that he's doing Jesus a favor by offering this choice.

He's trying to save the Son of God.

But what he actually does without realizing it is he provides a real-time demonstration of how the Son of God is saving him and how the Son of God is saving everybody there and how the Son of God is saving everybody around the world by putting forward

 the choice between Jesus Barabbas and Jesus the Messiah, Pilate unknowingly reveals the beauty and the truth of what Jesus, the substitute for sinful humanity, came to accomplish.

I love it so much because under God's sovereignty, the trial itself preaches the gospel, that Jesus came to take your place on the cross and pay for your forgiveness.

Let me explain.

Jesus was a common name in ancient Israel.

It literally means Yahweh saves, the Lord saves.

And salvation from Roman oppression means

 is everything that the Jewish people wanted.

So, like, new little baby boy was born, we're naming him Jesus, okay?

Because we really want salvation from Rome.

So it's not at all a surprise that there's another man here in the story whose name is also Jesus.

Very, very common.

But the choice between two very different Jesuses highlights the sovereign hand of God, revealing the choice that you must make in response to the offer of God's salvations.

 Jesus Barabbas literally means Jesus, Son of the Father.

Bar, the prefix, means Son of.

Abba, Father.

Jesus Barabbas, Son of the Father.

Now Jesus claimed to be and is the eternal Son of God.

So Jesus is literally the Son of the Father.

 And here's this other Jesus, Barabbas, whose name also means son of the Father.

So it's not just two men named Jesus.

It's two paths towards the promise of restored sonship, restored relationship with the Father.

Two paths that promise salvation.

Two paths that promise abundant life.

Barabbas represents the path of self-salvation.

 Jesus represents the path of God's salvation.

You see, Barabbas, he had been arrested for leading a violent revolt against Rome.

He had tried to take salvation into his own hands.

That's self-salvation.

And it's what most people spend their lives chasing.

It is the default path for humanity.

The text says that Barabbas was well known.

He was a kind of local hero.

He was a freedom fighter.

 Right?

It's no surprise that the crowd ends up choosing Barabbas because they hate being under Roman oppression.

And at least Barabbas went down with a fight.

At least he went down swinging.

Jesus taught people to love their enemies and to turn the other cheek.

He won't do for this crowd.

 But what they could not see is that Rome was not their deepest problem.

Self was their deepest problem.

Their hearts were hard.

They actually needed to love their enemies.

They actually needed to learn to turn the other cheek, to really fulfill following the law of God.

And they could not see how far they drifted from the heart of God.

And the freedom that they longed for would never come by simply getting rid of Rome.

 They needed something much deeper.

And the same goes for us.

The freedom, the flourishing that we long for, the life that our very blood cries out for, will never come by simply improving our circumstances.

It will not come by more money.

It will not come by more sex.

It will not come by another relationship.

It will not come because of a better job.

That is all self-salvation.

 And when you look to these things or any other thing to fulfill your deepest longing for life, by definition, that thing has to become first on your list of loves, which means it is an idol.

And idolatry never leads to life.

It leads to disappointment.

It often leads to despair.

And idolatry ultimately leads to death.

That's what idolatry is.

Listen to me.

It is a slow, disappointing road to death.

 Barabbas failed in his mission and now he faced crucifixion.

That was the punishment for his crime.

Crucifixion was a slow, agonizing death.

But if Barabbas had succeeded in his mission, a slower death still awaited him.

Had he achieved self-salvation that he longed for, he'd have died of spiritual malnourishment, chasing a freedom that this world offers, but cannot supply himself.

 You see, getting to things that you idolize, if you don't learn from it, is the worst thing that could ever happen to you.

Because you will reach the top of whatever mountain you were trying to climb, only to find that it did not bring you any closer to heaven.

Jesus said exactly that.

He warned you of this.

Look at Matthew 16, 25.

For whoever wants to save their life, that's self-salvation.

It doesn't matter how you do it.

 It doesn't matter what your strategy is, what your approach is, what path you choose, what ladder you climb.

However you want to try and save your life, you're going to lose it.

But whoever loses their life for me, whoever meets me at the cross, they're going to find life.

Self-salvation never delivers what we hope.

And just when we think we've grasped it, it slips through our fingers like sand.

Jim Carrey

 You know Jim Carrey, famous actor?

You got to check sometimes because the age gap now is... He once said, I think that everybody should get rich and famous and get everything they ever dreamed of so that they could find out that it's not the answer.

Recently I was watching an interview with him or a speech by him

 He's moved on from trying to find life in material things and worldly success to now trying to find life in spiritual experiences.

And he has this one mystical kind of experience.

And he literally confessed in this speech, I'm spending the rest of my life trying to recreate that feeling.

He's gone from one mountain to another.

Self-salvation never produces the life.

 And the reason is actually pretty obvious.

Because every form of self-salvation, whether that be self-importance, self-promotion, self-help, that category in the bookstore is still doing pretty well, I think.

Self-centeredness and ultimately self-rule, which is the literal definition of autonomy.

You prizing your autonomy above all else.

Self-rule.

All of that puts self at the center.

And therefore it is all driven by the love of self.

 which cannot lead to flourishing.

It only leads to slavery.

Because when your self is at the center, guess who you're now subservient to?

Your self.

Your cravings.

Your appetites.

And let's be honest, if you had a dollar, for every time your appetite got you in trouble, you'd be doing pretty well.

A life centered on self does not lead to freedom, it leads to bondage.

You become like Caesar.

 You become like the own oppressor in your own life.

You have to serve yourself.

And that is a subservience that you cannot break free from on your own.

That's what the Bible calls being under the power of sin.

Our first sin was the rejection of God's rule in favor of self-rule.

And we've been dealing with the consequences ever since.

You've all experienced this in some form.

Some of you here, you've gotten everything you ever wanted.

But you still can't sleep at night.

 Or you still self-medicate to try and numb the disappointment that you have.

Others of you, you're actually pretty frustrated with your life.

And so you try to escape through pornography.

Or you try to escape through alcohol.

We could go down the list.

The vice doesn't matter.

There's a thousand and one of them.

And a lot of them go undetected.

If I can't

 Find life through success.

Maybe I can find it through self-medication.

Maybe I can find it through escapism.

All of it is just self-salvation.

Trying to save yourself to produce the life that your blood cries out for.

There is an answer.

Because what do we know about God?

God, opposite to us, get this, God is self-giving love.

That's what displays at the cross.

 the one who is holy and transcendent, the God who is totally complete in himself, needing nothing.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, he's just a joyous, loving, beautiful community unto himself, needs nothing.

Exists in all eternity.

He's the reality behind all reality.

He's the big behind the big bang.

Somebody had to do it.

 It was Him.

That God, that God took on flesh and bone for the purpose of being rejected and crucified by the very people who were supposed to know Him and love Him.

Now, to our human ears, that sounds like folly.

But again, that is the humility that brought miraculous life and freedom, freedom from sin and brokenness and addictions.

 Listen to me.

Your addiction, your brokenness.

Don't just leave this up in the sky as some intangible thing.

No, Jesus Christ, the God of the universe, becoming a man and going to the cross is a display, an act of humility powerful enough to free you from every single bondage in your life.

The self-giving love of God on the cross has saved billions of lives.

It has rewritten countless stories and redeemed entire family lines.

Why?

Because you do not get life by keeping it.

You get life by giving it away.

 And the life of God given to humanity is the life of God for humanity.

And all we have to do is recognize the futility of self-salvation and receive the gift.

What do you actually have to lose?

Both self-salvation and God-salvation claim to love you.

Who do you think is better at giving you what you desire?

Who do you think is better at loving you?

The God who created you?

Who knows you?

Inward and outward?

Or you...

 who on any given Tuesday can hardly tell the difference between whether you're angry or just hungry.

Who knows you better?

Clearly, the self-giving love of God is the path to salvation, not the life that is oriented around serving yourself.

But when you can't see that, the most appealing option looks like Barabbas.

 Jewish leaders, they were guilty of that too.

The text says that they handed Jesus over out of self-interest.

 Jesus was a threat to their delicate balance of power with Rome.

Jesus was a threat to their credibility with the common people.

So they handed Jesus over out of self-interest and self-preservation.

And then Pilate, because he was afraid of social upheaval, which would get him in trouble with Caesar, he ends up handing Jesus over to the soldiers out of self-protection.

And before all of that, Judas, who wanted to make a buck, hands Jesus over to the Jewish leaders out of self-guilt.

 And all of it are just different names for the same thing.

It's all just self-salvation.

And every single one of us have worn that very same path.

Very thin.

And it does not lead to life.

Judas ends up taking his life.

Pilate, historically speaking, ends up taking his life.

The Jewish leaders, not 40 years later, would watch their temple crumble as Rome brought it to the ground.

Because self-salvation only leads to one path.

And that path is death.

 Only Christians would clap for that like, yeah, good word.

But God was sovereignly at work through all of it.

Just as he's been sovereignly at work in your own life to bring you here today.

Because get this, although Judas handed Jesus over to the Jewish leaders...

 And although those leaders handed Jesus over to Pilate, and although Pilate handed Jesus over to the soldiers to be crucified, ultimately after the resurrection, the apostle Peter stood up and he said to many of these very same people, look at Acts 2 and verse 23.

 This man, Jesus, was handed over to you, same Greek word as what's in the Gospels, handed over to you by God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge.

And you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.

Listen, you may have planned it, but God purposed it.

 God was at work in the mix of all of that.

And don't think that Jesus was just a passive participant in the whole thing.

Look at Galatians 2.20, the apostle Paul, his revelation of Jesus.

I've been crucified with Christ.

The old me died with Christ and that me no longer lives.

But Christ lives in me.

The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and same Greek word, gave himself, handed himself over for me.

 While we labored to save and to secure and to satisfy by our own pride, Jesus came to love us and to save us through his own humility.

We built towers trying to reach heaven and God has torn heaven open to reach us.

And that's the choice that Pilate unknowingly puts before the people.

Either keep climbing or let yourself fall at the feet of Jesus hanging on a cross for you.

You have to

 Choose.

You have to.

Christ will not let you stay indifferent.

And I cannot figure out why for the life of me, anybody would reject the king who turned a cross into his throne.

Who turned thorns into his crown.

Because he loves those who are in the process of rejecting him.

 Verse 20, but the chief priests and the elders.

 They persuaded the crowd to ask Barabbas and to have Jesus executed.

Which of the two do you want me to release to you?

asked Pilate.

Barabbas, they answered.

What shall I do then with Jesus who is called the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One, this Savior?

Pilate asked.

They all answered, crucify Him.

Why?

What crime has He committed?

asked Pilate.

But they just shouted all the louder, crucify Him.

At this point, they're in a frenzy.

They want Barabbas.

They want salvation on their own terms.

No way else.

 And Barabbas, the crown, the priests, the elders, they all represent the same choice.

They all represent every single one of us and our choice of self-salvation and self-rule.

But shockingly, and this is what the gospel writers want you to see, as they are busy rejecting Jesus.

 Jesus is busy saving them by becoming their substitute on the cross.

Listen, this is a story about what happens when man's ultimate rejection of God and God's ultimate pursuit of man collide.

At the cross, man rejects God.

 because He thinks the answer to His longing is self-rule and self-salvation.

And at the cross, God pursues man, because He knows the answer to your longing is His own self-sacrifice.

The cross is the intersection where the furthest extent of God's devotion and the furthest extent of man's rebellion intersects and meets, and God wins the day!

 So it had to happen this way.

And so verse 26, Pilate released Barabbas to them.

But he had Jesus flogged and he handed him over to be crucified.

As I said earlier, the crime that Barabbas had committed had one response from Rome.

And that response was crucifixion.

Friends, get this.

This is so important.

When Barabbas was released...

 and Jesus was sentenced, Jesus wasn't just being crucified instead of Barabbas.

Jesus was being crucified in place of Barabbas.

The two guys crucified on the right and left of Jesus, the Gospels say that they are guilty of the same crimes that Barabbas himself had committed.

 They very likely are accomplices with Barabbas in the same revolt.

Barabbas is supposed to be on the middle cross.

The rebellious son and daughter of the father who chose his own way instead of God's way.

 found himself at the only destination that way leads.

It leads to death.

That's what Barabbas was facing.

He was facing a cross.

But Jesus literally takes his place.

I am Barabbas.

You are Barabbas.

We've all chosen self-salvation.

We've all tried to secure a life apart from God.

We've all chosen pride.

 And in doing so, we have experienced what naturally follows from that choice.

Pride leads to death.

Jesus, not reluctantly, willingly stepped in.

And while his people were rejecting him, he was rescuing them.

When they handed him over, he was offering himself up for you.

 For Chris.

For David.

For Allison.

For Michael.

For Jazz.

For Everett.

For Amara.

For Nick.

For Josh.

For Malachi.

Throw some Jewish names in.

Handing himself over.

For you.

And then three days later...

 God raised him from the dead.

The resurrection declares that Jesus has vindicated, Jesus is innocent, Jesus is justified.

He is exactly who he said he was.

The spotless son of God, the true king, the savior of the world.

And hear me, before Jesus died, all of the gospels record this, before Jesus died, he predicted, let's use that word, he predicted exactly how he was going to die.

So going to Jerusalem, this is how it's going to happen.

His disciples could barely fathom it.

 predicted exactly how he was going to die and that he would ascend to heaven and that he would come again listen all of the biblical prophecies they've happened so far if jesus says he's coming again he's coming again the king is returning for his kingdom he's coming back and he will judge the living and the dead faithful and the unfaithful this is the invitation to all of humanity keep trying to save yourself

 Keep running on the treadmill of achievement, identity, spirituality.

Keep reaching for life, watching it slip through your fingers like sand.

Or you can stop running.

You can fall at the feet of the crucified and risen king.

You can receive the life that he gives you.

And it is for you.

Jesus became your substitute.

He stood in your place.

 The life He gives, the life that you and I ache for, is not found in climbing higher.

You've figured this out by now.

Social media nowadays, you don't need to be older than 13 years old to figure out it's not enough.

No matter what level of attention, accolades, likes, celebration, it's not enough.

Life is only found by surrendering to the One who climbed down to you.

 You have a choice.

We're obvious.

We're Jesus.

Self-salvation.

We're God.

Climbing another ladder.

We're embracing the fact that God humbly came down the ladder to you.

 So here's what we'll do.

Number one, recognize your need for forgiveness.

Don't be the person who stumbles over Jesus because you refuse to recognize the evil in your own life.

Sin, your thoughts, your words, your actions.

 Recognize the reality of the harm you've done in this life, both to others and to yourself.

You need forgiveness.

Number two, recognize your need for shame to be removed.

Recognize it.

Recognize all the reasons why you should be ostracized.

If we took the fullness of your life and we put it on an Instagram carousel, would you be canceled or celebrated?

 The cancellation that comes to all of us, that is the concept of shame.

Our culture knows shame backwards and forwards.

We live with it.

Jesus comes to take shame off.

Jesus cancels your cancellation.

And he brings you close.

 He doesn't push you away.

He knows all the stuff.

It doesn't have to be posted on Instagram.

Jesus knows it all.

And he doesn't just invite you close.

He comes close first.

Recognize your sin.

Recognize your shame.

Recognize that Jesus is the perfect sacrifice on the cross for you.

His very last words hanging on my cross, it is finished.

 It's all done.

The work is over.

Every mountain brought down.

Every valley, every place of despair, disappointment, discouragement, failure, lifted up.

 A clear path for the coming King to meet His creation, to show you His love, His redemption, His grace.

Recognize He's alive.

Number four, recognize that He rose from the dead.

You long for eternal life.

Recognize that He got up for you.

And that gift, victory, is your destiny.