This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to day two of our look through Matthew chapter 27. All hearts are made
clear at this moment of the cross of Christ. The pretense is stripped away and
the reality of our need for Jesus' love is clearly seen.

And the reality of our reaction to that need for Jesus' love is clearly, very
clearly seen. I want to read for you a longer section of this chapter beginning
in verse 11 and down through verse 26. And I want you to hear with me the
reaction of a number of different people.

Listen for the reaction of Pilate and of the religious leaders and of the crowd
that was there that day. And also look through this, all through this, for the
reaction, the response of Jesus beginning in verse 11. "Now Jesus was standing
before Pilate, the Roman governor.

'Are you the king of the Jews? ' the governor asked him. Jesus replied, 'You
have said it.

' But when the leading priests and the elders made their accusations against
him, Jesus remained silent. 'Don't you hear all these charges they are bringing
against you? ' Pilate demanded.

But Jesus made no response to any of the charges, much to the governor's
surprise. Now it was the governor's custom each year during the Passover
celebration to release one prisoner to the crowd, anyone they wanted. This year
there was a notorious prisoner, a man named Barabbas, as the crowds gathered
before Pilate's house that morning.

He asked them, 'Which one do you want me to release to you, Barabbas or Jesus,
who is called the Messiah? ' He knew very well that the religious leaders had
arrested Jesus out of envy. Just then, as Pilate was sitting on the judgment
seat, his wife sent him this message, 'Leave that innocent man alone.

' I suffered through a terrible nightmare about him last night. Meanwhile, the
leading priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas to be
released and for Jesus to be put to death. So the governor asked again, 'Which
of these two do you want me to release to you?

' And the crowd shouted back, 'Barabbas! ' Pilate responded, 'Then what should I
do with Jesus who is called the Messiah? ' They shouted back, 'Crucify him.

' 'Why? ' Pilate demanded. 'What crime has he committed?

' And the mob roared even louder, 'Crucify him. ' Pilate saw that he wasn't
getting anywhere and that a riot was developing. So he sent for a bowl of water
and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, 'I am innocent of this man's
blood, the responsibility is yours.

' And all the people yelled back, 'We will take responsibility for his death, we
and our children. ' So Pilate released Barabbas to them. He ordered Jesus
flogged with a lead-tip whip and then turned him over to the Roman soldiers to
be crucified.

As you watch these final moments before Jesus is sent to the cross, you see the
heart of everyone laid very clear. Pilate had a heart of fear. Pilate's
questions to Jesus are more a confession than a cross examination.

Are you the king of the Jews? If Pilate had listened, he would have discovered
that Jesus was a different kind of king. We're told elsewhere that Jesus tells
Pilate that he has a kingdom that's not of this world.

He is a king who would tell the truth. What is truth? He is a king who is
rejected by his own people.

I am a king. It's very clear that Jesus is a king. This is Pilate's crucial
moment.

Jesus is the king of kings, but he is not able to hear it because of his fears.
Pilate is a tortured, frightened man as he tries to decide what to do with
Jesus. His wife comes up and says, 'This is an innocent man.

You can't have this happen. ' Pilate still has to go ahead with the direction
the crowd is leading him. He represents so many of us.

He's a man trying to be in control rather than recognizing the one who is in
control of everything. The one who is standing right in front of him. All
through these last moments of Jesus' life, we see the contrast.

It's the Roman army that's supposed to be in power, but we saw last week as they
tried to arrest him even that we saw that Jesus is Lord. It's the Jewish court
that's supposed to be the example of righteousness, but Jesus is the innocent
one. It's Pilate that's supposed to represent the king, the Caesar, but Jesus is
the king.

So Pilate does what he does not intend to do, just because the crowd tells him
to do it. His fears cause him to follow the crowd rather than his conscience,
rather than the advice of his wife. When you compare the Gospels, they show that
Pilate pronounces Jesus guiltless seven different times.

So why didn't he release him? He would only release him if there was no cost to
it. He would only release him if it benefited him.

And we do the same. We have to admit that we have some of the same tendencies as
a Pilate. We have fears in our lives.

We want to do what is right to the point of it causing some loss in our lives.
It is frightening to see how easily all of us can slip into the weakness of
Pilate. C.

S. Lewis said, "Pilate was merciful until it became risky. " And for many of us,
we struggle with this.

We have a heart of compassion until it becomes risky. We'll proclaim our faith
until it becomes risky. We want everyone to think well of us, no one to say bad
of us.

We want it to all work out well. We don't want to cause any waves. Whatever the
fear is, it keeps us in these important moments of life from standing up for our
faith.

In these moments, these crucial moments, we need God's strength so that we're
ready, we're willing to face whatever the loss might be because we know that
there's greater loss in denying our faith in that moment, denying the one who
has given us so much. So you see in Pilate this heart of fear. You see in the
rulers, well the Bible tells us clearly, Pilate knew they had a heart of envy.

Verse 18, "He knew very well that the religious leaders had arrested Jesus out
of envy. " Their excuses were very theological, but the problem with their
hearts is that they were rotten to the core with jealousy over the popularity of
Jesus, over Jesus' teaching and ministry. They wanted what Jesus had.

And so their envy caused them to begin to talk to the crowd and say, "Ask for
Barabbas. Ask for Barabbas. " And he turned to the crowd and you see in the
crowd a heart of disappointment.

Two times Pilate says to them, "Don't you want to choose Jesus, the Messiah, the
promised one, the one you've been waiting for for hundreds and hundreds of
years? Don't you want to set him free? " But they say no because he has
disappointed them.

He is not the Messiah that they expected. The chief priests stirred up the
crowd. Pilate wanted to satisfy the crowd.

The chief priests stirred up the crowd. They're all using the crowd. The crowd
is being used because of their disappointment.

When you live in disappointment, others will start to use you. They will use
your disappointment to try to get what they want. Many times it's been asked,
"How did this crowd turn so quickly from worshiping Jesus one week earlier as
they came in in the triumphal entry, Hosanna, Hosanna Jesus, throwing the palm
branches down, to here asking for Barabbas?

How did this happen? " Partly it was a different crowd. All of Jesus' followers
have fled.

They're not in this crowd, but there were some in common. And the reason was
their motivation. Jesus had not done what they expected him to do, and so they
rejected him.

They rejected him. They expected him to come in and usher in a new kingdom, to
come against the ruling authorities and to become the authority, not to be being
condemned by Pilate. They wanted him chasing Pilate out of town.

And so they rejected him because he didn't meet their expectations. Now before
we judge this crowd too harshly, has Jesus ever not done what you expected him
to do? How did you react?

We all have to face these moments, and through these moments realize we need a
different kind of faith. A faith that's not based on what I expected Jesus to
do, but a faith that's based on what I know, what I know, and that is I can
trust him, even if he doesn't meet my expectations. This crowd says, "His death,
his blood be upon us and our children.

" They didn't know what they were saying. Pilate said, "I'm innocent of this
man's blood. " What he really needed was innocence through this man's blood,
Jesus' blood.

What the crowd needed was not to say, "His death be upon us and our children,"
but they needed to say, "The power of his blood be upon us and our children. "
Even as the cross is approaching, the meaning of it is getting clearer and
clearer. Everyone's heart is made clear in these last moments.

Barabbas' heart, we don't hear much about him. Books and movies have been
written about how he might have responded, but the Bible doesn't tell us. We do
know that he lived and Jesus died.

Because Jesus died, he was given the opportunity to live forever. We don't know
the end of the story of Barabbas, but we do know the heart of Jesus in this. All
through this, you see the heart of Jesus.

The Bible says again and again that Jesus was mostly silent. He was silent
before his accusers, silent before Pilate. Pilate knew the charges against Jesus
were from envy, and Pilate knew that he wanted somehow to release Jesus.

Jesus could have said just the right thing. He'd done it before. He could have
used just the right phrase and walked away from this situation as well, but he
chose to be silent because he was choosing to go to the cross.

When you and I are accused sometimes, do we choose to be silent or do we choose
to defend ourselves? It depends on the situation. The reason that Jesus chose to
be silent in this situation was to do the will of God.

There was something more important than defending himself, and that was doing
the will of God. Jesus begins his journey towards the cross. Even as he starts
this journey, you see the sharp contrast between those who ridiculed him and
those who served him, those who loved him.

You see the soldiers ridicule in verses 27 to 31, some of the most heart-rending
verses in all scripture to me. Some of the governor's soldiers took Jesus into
their headquarters and called out the entire regiment, and they stripped him,
and they put a scarlet robe on him, and they wove thorn branches into a crown,
and they put it on his head, and they placed a reed stick in his right hand as a
scepter, and they knelt before him in mockery, and they taunted, "Hail King of
the Jews," and they spit on him and grabbed the stick and struck him on the head
with it. When they were finally tired of mocking him, they took off the robe and
put his own clothes on him again, and they led him away to be crucified.

Even in this moment of ultimate love, the soldiers can't see it. They just see
what they've always seen, a man who's about to be crucified, someone to have fun
with, some game that they played with many, many of their criminals that seemed
to make their day happier. They missed the reality of life.

They missed God in human flesh right in front of them because they were so
caught up in themselves. But alongside of this scene, there's verse 32.
Alongside of those who scorned Jesus, there's a man named Simon.

Along the way, they came across a man named Simon who was from Cyrene, and the
soldiers forced him to carry Jesus' cross. We know from the book of Romans that
this story didn't end here. Simon's family were told of his sons in the book of
Romans that came to Christ.

I expect from that that Simon himself came to Christ. That's what Christian
history tells us. Simon's family became leaders in the early church.

For Simon, the reality of the cross was pressed upon him. He did not want it to
be that day, but he came to accept the truth of what it meant for his
forgiveness. That may be happening to you, the reality of the cross being
pressed upon you.

It's not a truth that you want to accept that you need that kind of forgiveness.
It's not a truth that you want to accept that God would have to go to that kind
of extent to give you forgiveness. It's not easy.

It wasn't easy for Simon to carry the cross that day, but there's truth in it,
and you see the truth in it. So whether it's the first time you've accepted this
truth, or maybe you've come to a place where you've begun to take this truth
lightly, our opportunity today is from the heart of Simon instead of ridiculing
or ignoring that our hearts would turn to him in a new way. And so Lord, we pray
that as we see the reality of the cross, what you did for us, we want our hearts
to turn to you.

We turn to you for forgiveness. We see in the cross the ugliness of our own sin,
and because of that, even as Isaiah says, there's something in us that wants to
turn away from that. But Lord, instead we turn toward it, even if it's pressed
upon us, and we see the beauty of your love.

We see the beauty of your forgiveness, and we tell you how grateful we are.
Maybe for the first time, maybe for the thousandth time, we are grateful for
your forgiveness. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.