Text: John 18:40 "No, not him! We want Barabbas!"
Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable to You, O Lord. Grant us Your Holy Spirit, to truly receive Your message tonight, in Jesus' Name, Amen.
"No, not him! we want Barabbas!"
They did not want Jesus. This was foretold in Isaiah 53, our first reading tonight. "He was despised and rejected."
How about us? I want to ask you tonight, where is your heart? Do you want Jesus? Or is there a way in which you too are saying, "No, not him! I want Barabbas."
'Barabbas' can stand for someone or anything else, it doesn't matter, the point is we don't want Jesus. Instead, we want this other thing.
It may be that this other thing, is sin.
I want to tell you, very seriously, that we cannot want Jesus and sin.
It doesn't make sense - because Jesus is the light, and he dispels darkness. He is the truth, and He gets rid of error and delusion. God came to bring us release from sin, and so it doesn't make sense to have this release, to have him set us free from bondage, but to stay in our prisons?!
Maybe we have pet sins. But this is like having a pet poisonous snake, and no cage. It roams free in our house. It may look very nice, but sooner or later, it will bite us. If we let sin roam free in our lives, it will kill us.
What do you want?
When we want others things, instead of Jesus, when we want to pursue our sins, we are rejecting Him. We too are saying, "Not him, we want Barabbas (or whatever)!" The devil is keen to keep us rejecting God, and tries to do this by feeding us the lie, that God rejects us. That God does not want us.
It may be that we have experienced rejection in our lives. We may have experienced rejection from others, and we may think that God is rejecting us.
But this is not true. It is we who have rejected Him - not He, us. From the start back in Eden, Adam and Eve rejected God, and ever since, every generation has rejected God. The devil feeds us the lies that God does not love, that he is not interested in us, that he has rejected us, so therefore we are justified in rejecting him, and might as well go on sinning.
Where is your heart tonight? Do you want God, or do you want your sin?
Our sins may be pleasant, to a point. The bait on a fish hook would seem pleasant to a fish, but the aim isn't to feed it, but to catch it, and this is what the devil does. He baits us, and hooks us, and drags us down. He drags us through the muck, and aims to drag us to hell.
But God has not rejected us! He loves us, even while we were still sinners, even while we were rejecting Him, and that is why He came down from heaven. It wasn't a tourist trip, it wasn't a pleasant long weekend - it was because He wants us so much. He wants to free us from those nasty hooks of the devil. He wants to take them out of our mouths, and then wash us, and heal us, and clothe us afresh. Yes, He wants us so much, he shed His blood for us. Why else did he come, why else did he go to that cross, it was because He wants us, He loves us!
We may not want God, dear friends, but we NEED Him.
Without Him, we are doomed, we have no hope.
We need His forgiveness, and His cleansing. We need Him to set us free from our sins, so they won't drag us down any more.
We need Him to change our hearts.
This happens as His Word comes through to us, as the Spirit of God works in our hearts, and brings through the message He wants us to hear tonight: God loves you! God wants you! God has not rejected you!
As we hear this amazing news, maybe we sense some stirrings in our hearts... the Holy Spirit is working to bring this through to us, that God loves us, and He wants us... As this comes through to us, is it calling forth a new desire within us... a desire for God, and no longer for sin? This is what the Lord wants to do in us tonight.
We have not wanted Him. But we sure need Him. The amazing good news is that He loves us, and He wants us, and by His Spirit, He can change us, so that we, too, want Him.
Shortly we have the opportunity to receive Holy Communion. We will hear the words, "this is given and shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins." There once again, God assures us that He so dearly loves us, and He wants us. Tonight I invite you to come to Him, and want Him. As you come, tell Him that you want all that He has for you tonight - forgiveness, cleansing, healing, a new heart, a fresh desire.
Today is the day of salvation - we don't know how long we've got here. Receive His Word tonight. Receive His blessing. And let this service mark a new beginning in your life. It may be that you have been wholehearted in walking with God for years, fine, continue this! It may be that you have been wanting other things, sins, but now is a time to turn from everything else, and want God. Ask Him to give you a heart that is completely His.
We need Him to do this, we can't do it ourselves - it is all of grace. But He wants to do this tonight. He wants to secure us in His love, and claim our hearts, forever. How great is His love!
Amen.