"What Shall I Do With Jesus?" - Matthew 27:22

How do you answer Pilate's most important question...what shall I do with Jesus?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, Cedar Street Baptist Church, family and friends coming from all over the place. Happy Easter. He is risen. He is risen indeed. That's right. That's right. You know, I've prayed about what the Lord would have me to share this morning, and I want to say, as we kind of round third and head for home here in these last few minutes, what I want to share with you is less of a sermon and it's more of a question for evaluation. It'll be simple. It won't be easy. But in the next few minutes, I want to share something with you. And for each of us, this is a time for us to pause and think and reflect and be honest about where we are in our life right now. I know things are going 90 to nothing. Most of you are looking at the clock and already thinking about the rest of the day. Don't lie to your preacher. But you give me these next 10 minutes. Just these next 10 minutes, because I'm going to ask you the most important question that a human being could possibly ask you. I remember years ago when I was still working at Pineland Telephone, I had a buddy of mine who was a lay preacher out in Screvin County. And we were in my office and we were talking shop. We had the Bible open, we're talking theology, we're dissecting all these difficult questions, and he finally had enough of it, and he said, Bobo. He said, Forget all that. You know what it comes down to? Who's Jesus and what are you doing with them? Who's Jesus and what are you doing with them? I did not know at the time that the question he was asking actually came off the lips of somebody inside the scriptures. And I was reminded this week in my own devotional time, towards the end of the life of Christ, when he was receiving his final sentence, Pontius Pilate himself pointed at this man and asked the same exact question. In fact, that's the title of our devotion here. As we look at Matthew 27, we're going to look at verse 22. The question is, what shall I do with Jesus? What shall I do with Jesus? So here's our big idea. I'm going to get right after it here. We got just a few more minutes. In one sentence, here's what I want us to think about, and then we'll look at the text together. Pontius Pilate poses the single most important question we all must answer. What shall I do with Jesus? I'll say it again for the note takers. Pontius Pilate poses the single most important question we all must answer. What shall I do with Jesus? Now, if you have your Bible, turn with me to the book of Matthew. If you're new to the Bible, it's the first book of the New Testament. It's after Malachi at the end of the Old Testament, it's before Mark. If you don't have a Pew Bible, or if you don't have a Bible, you can grab the Pew Bible in front of you or besides you or on page 991 in your Pew Bible. I'm going to read it real quickly. We're going to look at uh again verses 20 through 23, but I'm going to hunker down on verse 22. In the essence of time and all the people here, you can remain seated. We usually stand, but I'm going to read quickly here. Starting in verse 20, it says, Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. The governor again said to them, Which of the two do you want me to release for you? And they said, Barabbas. Now here's the key. Verse 22. Pilate said to them, Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ? They all said, Let him be crucified. And he said, Why? What evil has he done? But they shouted all the more. Let him be crucified. Lord, in the time that we have left, with all the distraction, all the excitement, all the busyness of the day, Lord, help us to come to a screeching halt here in just a few minutes. Help us to sit at your feet. I pray that your Holy Spirit would open our eyes, our minds, our hearts, and truly answer the question What are we doing with you, Lord? At the end, that's all that's going to matter. Help us to be present with you right now, I pray. In Jesus' name. Amen. So that's what Pilate says. He points right at this man and he says, What shall I do with Jesus? And how you answer that question. Trust me when I say this, it's going to be the most important question that you ever answer. One of the things that I, you know, is part of my job and is not my favorite part, it's deeply meaningful but often painful, is being bedside with many, many people in their final breath. And seeing how they've answered that question in their life. What shall I do with Jesus? Well, here's how I'm going to help us to answer this question. I want you to think about the last 24 hours of Jesus' life. And I want you to think about four different ways that people responded to Jesus in the last 24 hours before he took the cross. And I want you to ask yourself, where do you fit in one of these four categories? And don't immediately jump to one. Listen closely and ask God to show you. Here's the good news: it doesn't matter what category you're in, you don't have to stay there. God's grace is sufficient for the day. His power is made perfect in weakness. He's close to those who are repentant and crushed in spirit. And you can turn back to him if you have drifted far away. But there are four categories if you think about the last day of his life. And all of us in this room fit in one of these four categories. So let's get right after it. What's the first category? What's the first approach to answering the question, what shall I do with Jesus? Well, the first response I would say is the Judas response. This is to betray Jesus. And this perhaps is the most painful one. If you're new to the Bible, Judas was one of the original twelve disciples. He was a professing believer, but he consistently rejected the commands of Jesus. He rejected the sovereign plan of Jesus, and he thought he knew better than Jesus himself what was best. Now we know that at the end in the Garden of Gethsemane that he ran and got Roman soldiers and showed exactly where Jesus was, betraying his location, so that he was thrown into the arms of the Jewish leaders. But you know, Judas was betraying him well before that moment. All right, we know that Judas was in charge of the money bag, that he was living a life of dishonesty. The Bible says he was helping himself to the money in the money bag. We also know that when somebody, a woman did a beautiful thing for Jesus and anointed his feet with expensive ointment, Judas mocked her and said, Why was this not sold in the money given to the poor, even though he did not care about the poor? He had a major issue with control. He was a hyper-intellectual. He thought he knew better than God himself. So he was professing to be a follower of Jesus, but he lived a continual, unrepentant lifestyle that can only be summed up in the word betrayal. Now, in this room, I wish I could say maybe there are none of you in this room that would fit this category, but in a room this size, some of us maybe are. Maybe you say that you are a Christian. You profess faith. Maybe a long time ago you prayed to receive Christ and you believe that it was genuine. But if you were to look at your life today, there's no evidence that you have a relationship with him. There's no evidence of prayer, there's no evidence of Bible study, there's no evidence of serving, there's no evidence, but there are evidence that you do things contrary to what he has revealed in this book. To say one thing and live contrary is the Judas response. It's one of betrayal. I've got good news if you're in that category, but we'll come back to that. Okay? We're gonna leave today with good news. The gospel is good news. All right, the second response is what I would call the Jewish response. They reject Jesus. Now think about the Jewish leaders. They wanted to hear Jesus proclaim what he really was, the Messiah, the Son of God. They knew exactly what he was saying, they understood exactly what that meant, and they said, I hear you, I understand you, but I do not follow you, I do not believe you, I reject you as the Messiah, the Son of God, and the only way to eternal salvation. They were very clear. They weren't wishy-washy, they weren't saying they believed him and then turning away from him, they just outright rejected him. Now, in this room, I'd say that's probably the smallest group. Most of you in this room, if I asked you, I would say you probably would say, Yeah, I'm a Christian. I came up in a Christian home. I've heard the word of God, I've prayed to receive Jesus, I want to raise my kids in church. So, but in a room this size, now be honest, in the house of God, some of you are here today because you are trying to appease a neighbor, maybe a parent. You're sitting next to someone that you want to get them off your back because they will not stop inviting you. And by the way, if that's them, praise God for them. Do you know how many people were dragged to church and then when they got there, they heard the word of God, and then their life changed forever? Praise God for the ones that dragged their family, friends, and neighbors to church. They couldn't do anything better for your soul than bring you to the house of God. All right, but maybe you're in this room and you'd say, Bo, I do want to believe in God. But there's so much evil in this world, it's hard. There's so much hypocrisy. American Christians are the most arrogant people on planet earth. Why would I want to follow Jesus if following Jesus means I act like they act on social media? To that I say, I understand. I understand. A lot of us are not acting the way that we're called to act. At the same time, you need to consider the facts. You need to consider, is Jesus really fully God and fully man? Did he live perfectly and die sacrificially and rise supernaturally that we could have a relationship with God? He's either the only way to God or he's no way at all. There is no middle ground. The Jewish leaders knew exactly what he was saying, and they said, no, he's no way at all. They rejected him. That's the second response. The third response is what I would call the Roman response. And this is a response of avoiding Jesus. Now, I believe in this room there's quite a few that might fit this category. Now, if you think of the Roman leaders in the last 24 hours, okay, you have Jesus, and they're getting ready to judge Jesus, and Pilate says, wait a minute, he's a Galilean, he's not in my jurisdiction, send him to King Herod. So they send him to Herod, and Herod mocks him a little bit, but Herod doesn't want to deal with him, so he sends him back to Pilate. And Pilate says, Well, maybe I'll mock him and flog him a little bit, whip him a little bit, and then hopefully the crowds will be happy. Well, he got flogged, he got mocked, they put a crown of thords on his head and a purple robe around him, and then he comes back to Pilate, and Pilate is talking to him and recognizes there's something different about Jesus. In fact, Pilate's wife said, Don't you have anything to do with that righteous man? I've had nightmares all night because of him. Don't mess with him. But Pilate had a crowd that would not be quieted. So as Herod said, I don't want to do anything about this Jesus. Pilate did the same thing. Pilate, in one of the gospels, says, I wash my hands of this man, his blood be on you. They avoided him. They knew there was something special. They knew there was something different. Pilate said, I see no fault in this man whatsoever. But they never took a stand. They never made a final statement. They just pawned it off on somebody else. For us today, you know what that looks like? It looks like this. Yeah, I believed Jesus. That name's been important in my family a long time. And I'll get back to church one day. When things slow down, when I finally get everything under wraps, you know, I'll finally start reading my Bible again. You know, maybe, maybe I need an accountability partner. Maybe I'll finally make a big decision. I just, I, it's just not the right time. We'll get after it eventually. I know Jesus is special, but I just don't have time for him right now. That's the Roman response. Now here's the fourth. This is the disciples' response, and that's trust Jesus. The disciples, with the exception of Judas, as they walk with him for three years, did they make a lot of mistakes? You better believe it. Did they fully understand everything? No, they did not. Jesus over and over and over had to explain simple things because they were a little slow in the uptake, and if we were there, we'd have been the same thing. However, the pattern of their life was one of growing in trust of Christ. They trusted that they needed a Savior. They trusted the claims of Jesus. And even on the night of his betrayal and the next day of his crucifixion, even though they had great weakness, even though Peter denied knowing him three times, they also ran after God's grace when they fell because they trusted that his grace was sufficient to cover all their sins. That's good news for us because if you're in this room and you've really messed up, you may still be in the discipleship response. You may still be a disciple because the pattern of your life says you trust him, even though you have fallen, even though you've made mistakes, your life is not consistent, intentional, unrepentant sin. You're failing forward. And that's what disciples do. So let me sum it up here, and I have a word of application for each response in one sentence. As you consider the gospel facts, pause now and answer this question for yourself. What shall I do with Jesus? What shall I do with Jesus? Alright, let's go back to the first category. You say, Bo, what if I'm a Judas? What if I say I'm a Christian, but right now I am having a marital affair, I've been cheating on my taxes, I've been living a criminal lifestyle, I'm not doing anything that would reflect a Christian life. Well, I say to you, grace is still available. Run after it today. Today is the day of salvation. Today is the day of repentance. If you know what God has called you to do and you don't do it, a week from now it's going to get harder and not easier because our hearts get harder. When you hear in the Psalms, it says, if today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts. If you hear the voice of God calling you to make a change in your life, to turn away from something that you know is contrary to the word of God, do it today. You'll put it off, and you get to next week, it'll be well-wishes that never turn into genuine faith. You can turn back to God today. The second the Jewish response, you say, Bo, I'm not convinced. There's just too many friends I have of other faiths. There can't be one way to God. I don't know if I can trust the scriptures. I see a lot on YouTube. It talks about contradictions in the Bible. I don't know how to answer all those questions. My response to you is this make it a front burner issue to investigate the facts for yourself. I love people who want to know that they know that they know. That was me at 27. At 27 years old, when I sat in churches and I heard pastors give altar calls, I'm like, I'm not just getting up and walking to the altar after one message. I need to know that I know that I know. And it was a whole year of my life studying what the scriptures teach, studying to see if I could trust the scriptures. I wanted to know how the Bible was put together and why some books were in there and some books were not, and why the four gospels looked different, yet they were the perfect harmony. And it was over a year of praying and studying that I came to the conclusion that the Bible is the infallible, inerrant, fully authoritative word of God, and that Jesus Christ is the only way to God because of what he did for our salvation. But it didn't come quickly. For me, I made it a front burner issue in my life. So if you doubt him, research him. Seek him. Say, God, I don't believe, but I want to. Will you show me? Oh, God loves to answer a question like that. He does. What about the third response? This is the one that scares me the most. The Roman response. I do believe in Jesus, and I'll get serious about him later. You know, I'll never forget this. Years ago in the late 90s, when I was at college at Georgia Southern, I had a friend, and I'll never forget what he said. He talked a lot about Jesus. Uh, he came up in a Christian home. One day he looked at me and he said, I know what it what is required of me to surrender my life to Jesus, and I'm just not ready to do it yet. I'm not ready to give my life to him because I know what I'm gonna have to set aside, and I'm just not ready to do that. Now, he was 20 or 21 at the time. I don't know where he is right now in his walk. But I think some of us in this room in our 40s, 50s, and 60s have the same attitude. I know, I know I need to be walking with him. I know I need to have a relationship with him. I know I need a church family to help me grow. I know I need to be in the word. I know I need to be in prayer. These are all things that are good for me. But Bo, I just don't have time. It's just not my priority. When things slow down, I will say this, and I say this in love, but after 16 years of ministry, I can say this in truth. If you will not slow down to make Jesus a priority in your life out of love, he's gonna reach into your life and force you to slow down. It may be trial and it even may be tragedy. And he won't do it because he doesn't love you. He will do it precisely because he does, because there's something about pain that gets our attention more than anything else. C.S. Lewis says it's a megaphone to wake up a deaf world. But you don't have to wait until you're suffering to turn to Jesus. You don't have to wait until you have a testimony of being at rock bottom. You don't have to wait till then. You can say today's the day, and then you can go seek the help of others to help you in your walk because you can't do this alone. The church is God's idea. There's no Lone Ranger Christians. We need each other. But then, number four, the disciples' response trust in Jesus. They recognized the identity of Jesus, they surrendered to him, and they grew in total trust of him. Now, again, good news. If you're in this room and you've made some really big mistakes, God is not looking at each individual moment. He's looking at the totality of your life and he's looking at the truth of your heart. Peter was a genuine disciple. And in his darkest moment, he denied that even knowing Jesus three times. So if you're in this room and you have royally messed it up, you're in good company because so have I, and so is the person to your left, and so is the person to your right. It doesn't mean you're not a disciple, but it means that you need to grow, to trust him. You know, faith comes down to that word trust. Faith is not just believing a fact. Satan believes better than you do that Jesus is the Son of God. It means that you trust him with your life, it means you have a relationship with him, you talk to him, you share your struggles with him, you ask for him to provide. You you need his strength to get from one day to the next, and you grow every day in that. That's the disciples' response. So as we draw to a close here and enter into a time of invitation, that's the question I leave you with today. Again, take a page out of the script of my buddy from Scraven County. Bobo, it all comes down to this who's Jesus and what are you doing with him? However, you answer that question when you take your final breath, that is what is going to matter more than anything else in your life. You know, there's so many things right now at this moment that seem so important. There are strong leaders in this room who are CEOs, executives, and business owners, and you are thinking right now about customers, bottom lines, all kinds of things that when you're laying in your deathbed, you're not even gonna think about. It's not even gonna be a thought in your mind. I'm not saying it's unimportant, I'm saying it's not most important. Call out to him. Call out to Jesus and ask for his help. He's waiting for that prayer. Now I want to pray and then I'm gonna hand it over to Jim and Shelly because as we pray about our own walk with Jesus, we also recognize there are others that do not know his name. There are others that do not know his love. There are others that are not in the house of God today, hearing the gospel through song and through preaching. And we don't want anybody to not know about our Lord and Savior. We've been praying, all of us have been praying this month about one person we can reach out to, and they're gonna give you some instruction on how we can finish that invitation out. But let me pray over us and then I'll I'll hand it to Jim and Shelley. Lord, I thank you for the privilege of being in your house today. Oh Lord, if we could just fast forward to the last breath that we take, our life will answer the question for us. Who is Jesus and what are we doing with him? Lord, I pray for all the Judases in this room that claim to know him but live a life that is contrary to what he proclaims. Let today be a day of repentance and faith and trust. For those that reject him like the Jewish leaders, let today be a day of making, investigating the claims of Jesus a front burner priority. For those that are like the Roman leaders that want to avoid Jesus and recommit to him another day, let today be the day. Today is the day of salvation. And for the genuine disciples in this room, that maybe they have fallen, maybe they've had moments of great weakness and darkness, even like the original 12, Lord. 11 of the 12 turn back and receive the grace that you offer. And I pray that for all of us in this room that we wouldn't try to do anything apart from your grace. Help us to be disciples who make disciples. In Jesus' name. Amen.