What will You Do With Jesus

We’re faced with choices every day, most of which are fairly trivial – which clothes to wear, what to have for lunch, what to watch on TV. Yogi Berra, the great New York Yankees catcher, expressed a bit of wisdom when he said, “If you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

Once in a while there are other decisions to make which are quite important – what job to take, who to marry, how to handle your money.

There is one decision, however, which every person must make, which is the most important one of all. What will you do with Jesus?

Jesus has been brought to trial before Pilate and Pilate had to make a decision about Jesus. Was He innocent or guilty, should he let Him go, just have Him beaten or have Him crucified?

Matthew 27:22 NIV84

“What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called Christ?” Pilate asked. They all answered, “Crucify him!”

Pilate

He wants to let Jesus go but is afraid of the crowd and the Roman government. He tried to avoid the responsibility by sending Jesus to Herod, but Herod sent Him back. Pilate knows that Jesus is innocent, but the Jewish leaders want Him crucified and threaten to bring charges of reason to Caesar. So Pilate washes his hands and then let the crowds decide for him, but as they say, not to decide is to decide, and Pilate is the one remembered as having Jesus crucified.

The crowd

The crowd has two options:

Release Jesus

The crowds are offered the choice to release Jesus or Barabbas, and they choose Barabbas.

Crucify

Then Pilate asks them what to do with Jesus. Most of this crowd are probably not the Galileans who followed Jesus and cheered Him as entered Jerusalem but the residents of Jerusalem. They were likely not as familiar with Jesus and influenced by the judgment of the religious leaders who led the cry to have Him crucified. After having Jesus beaten Pilate put s robe and crown on Him and brings Him out to stand before the crowd – Behold the Man,

Us

Now Jesus stands before us. We know what He did and what He taught. Now the decisions are ours. Our first choice is not between Jesus and Barabbas but between the Jesus of the Bible and the Jesus of other religions. Islam has one version, Mormons have one, Dan Brown has another understanding of Jesus in his book “The DaVinci Code”, the New Age movement presents yet another. There are many different understandings of who Jesus is. We might ask, as Pilate did, what is truth. To be a Christian is to believe in and follow the Jesus Christ presented in the Bible.

Once we’ve made this decision we also have to decide what we will do with Jesus. Our options aren’t the same ones that Pilate had, but it is still a responsibility with eternal meaning.

Choose to reject – I don’t like the Jesus of the New Testament.

Choose to ignore/downplay – He was a good teacher or prophet, but He’s not relevant to us today. We might give lip service to Him but not allow Him to make a difference in our daily lives.

Choose to wait – I’m not ready to make a decision, I’ll think about Him later.

Choose to follow/serve

Like Pilate, some people are afraid of public opinion, of going against their peers of those in authority over them.

History is full of poor decisions:

The city of Aachen had been surrounded by the American forces. Hitler had sent orders to the Nazi commander to stand and die in the city’s defense. But the American commander gave the city an opportunity to surrender before destroying it.

Lt. General Courtney H. Hodges sent an ultimatum to the Nazi commander and to the mayor of this city of 165,000 souls. Then thousands of leaflets were dropped to the troops and citizens of Aachen urging them to surrender and thus prevent needless bloodshed.

“Aachen is encircled,” read the leaflets, “American troops surround the city. The German command cannot relieve you.

“People of Aachen! The time has come for honorable surrender. We Americans do not wage war on innocent civilians. But if the leaders insist on further sacrifice, we have no course but to destroy your city.

“There is no time to lose. On our airfields, bombers are waiting for final orders to take off. Our artillery surrounding the city is ready to fire. People of Aachen, act quickly. Tomorrow may be too late. There is only one choice, immediate surrender or complete destruction.”

But the Germans did not surrender. Great destruction ensued!

Each of us must choose to surrender to Jesus Christ or to resist to our own destruction. Like Pilate, we cannot avoid the responsibility. Unlike Pilate, it is not Jesus who is now on trial but us, not His life which is on the line but our own. In the end, there are only two choices. If you do not choose to trust in Jesus as Savior and follow Him as Lord, you have rejected Him.

Luke 16:13 NIV84

“No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.”

In some ways this is a decision we must make at a point in time, but in other ways we must choose each day what we will do. It’s not an insurance policy.

Jeremiah 29:13 NIV84

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.