Luke 23, we're gonna look at verses one through 25. And that title really summarizes. This is the section where Christ comes before Pilate, the Roman leader of the time in Judea. And we'll see what happens here. Let's hear from God's word. Then the whole company of them arose and brought him before Pilate. And they began to accuse him, saying, we found this man misleading our nation, and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ the king. And Pilate asked him, are you the king of the Jews? And he answered him, you have said so. Then Pilate said to the chief priests in the crowds, I find no guilt in this man. But they were urgent, saying, he stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee even to this place. When Pilate heard this, he asked whether the man was a Galilean. And when he learned that he belonged to Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him over to Herod, who was himself in Jerusalem at the time. When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had long desired to see him. because he had heard about him, and he was hoping to see some sign done by him. And so he questioned him at some length, but Jesus made no answer. The chief priests and the scribes stood by, vehemently accusing him, and Herod with his soldiers treated him with contempt and mocked him, and then arraying him in splendid clothing, he sent him back to Pilate. And Herod and Pilate became friends with each other that very day. For before this, they had been at enmity with one another. Pilate then called together the chief priests and the rulers of the people, and the people, and said to them, you brought me this man as one who was misleading the people. And after examining him before you, behold, I did not find this man guilty of any of your charges against him. Neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us. Look, nothing deserving death has been done by him. I will therefore punish and release him. But they all cried out together, away with this man, and release to us Barabbas, a man who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the city and for murder. Pilate addressed them once more, desiring to release Jesus. But they kept shouting, crucify him, crucify him. A third time he said to them, why? What evil has he done? I have found in him no guilt deserving death. I will therefore punish and release him. But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified. And their voices prevailed. So Pilate decided that their demand should be granted. He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, for whom they asked, but he delivered Jesus over to their will. This is God's word for us from the book of Luke. God, would you bless and add your understanding to the reading and now preaching of your holy word? Well, who ultimately sent Jesus to the cross? Who ultimately sent Jesus to the cross? We see in these 25 verses a contest of wills, right? Did you sense as we read moments where it seemed like Jesus was gonna be released? You have the will of his enemies, wanting him eventually to be crucified. You have the will of Pilate, of Herod, And yet the passage ends where he gives them over to their will. Another way to ask the question is, and you'll see in your bulletin, this will frame our time together, whose will prevailed that day? There were a lot of desires and wills and outcomes. People had different goals for what was supposed to happen. You saw at that one point that Pilate even desired that Jesus would be released. There was all these wills happening, and yet at the end of the day, Jesus went to the cross. So whose will prevailed? The rulers might have said, ours did. This was our time, we had the plan, we hatched it, Jesus went to the cross and died, mission accomplished. Or Pilate, maybe, would say, somewhat reluctantly, yes, leaders have to make tough decisions, it was a bit messy, you know, someone's gotta lead, though, and in the moment, I made the best decision I could, and it was my decision that sent Jesus to the cross. whose will prevailed that day? Was it the enemy's, was it Pilate? If you can answer this question rightly, biblically, then I would argue that you can have salvation in this Jesus. If you can answer this question rightly, you can actually find comfort from these verses. You can find assurance in these verses. So let's look at that question. Whose will prevailed? Number one, was it the will of his enemies? Was it the will of his enemies? You'll see, let me read again verses one through five. The whole company of them arose and brought him before Pilate. Remember the chief priest, the elders, they've just condemned Jesus internally, now they bring him to Pilate. And they began to accuse him, saying, we found this man misleading our nation, forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a king. It's interesting, if you think of the context, their hour has come. They've been working in the shadows all along, They've had their mock trial. They've condemned him because he's affirmed that he's the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Christ. And now they bring him before the powers that be, Pilate, who would have been a governor over this area of Judea, a Roman official. We find out from the other Gospels that they bring him to him because they know they don't have authority to put Jesus to death. Plus, they don't really want to get their hands dirty because Passover is happening. And so they bring him to Pilate. And they bring charges. This is still sort of an official sense. That word charges is a very official legal term. Legal complaint against him. And you could probably answer for me, but let's look at it together. What are the charges that they bring against him? You might summarize them as these three. That he is a false teacher, misleading the people. He's a usurper of some kind. Either trying to get people to not follow Rome, Caesar, or that he's even a rival king to the throne. And number three, that he is the Christ, the Messiah, or they would say he's a false Christ, a false Messiah. Well, it's interesting, right? False teacher, he's misleading the people. Okay, that fits what we've seen already, how they think of him. But what about number two? I think they get a little bit dishonest. Because they say, look, Pilate, he's forbidding people to give tribute, to pay taxes to Caesar. But don't you remember back in Luke 20, verse 22, is it lawful for us to give tribute to Caesar or not? Jesus at that point sort of wrote a middle biblical way of saying, give to Caesar what's Caesar's. Yes, pay your taxes, but give to God what is God, which is your whole life. In a way that sort of made everybody mad, if you remember. And yet here they're just being dishonest. They're saying he's forbidden us to give tribute to Caesar. It's just simply not what he taught. But then saying he makes himself to be a king. And in John's gospel, John 19, this sort of gets drawn out. They say, the Jews cry out, if you release this man, Jesus, you are no friend of Caesar's. Because everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar. And this kind of helps prevail upon Pilate in John's accounting. And of course, Pilate even asks him, he questions him, are you the king of the Jews? And we get one of Jesus' affirmatives, but in a way that he's not gonna give sort of a straight affirmative to someone who's not ready to hear it, and yet he's not denying it. You have said so. Your words are true, Pilate, whether you believe them or not. But in John's account, he says, but my kingdom is not of this world. What about the third charge against him? Here's where they're actually the most honest. They say, he says he's the Christ. And Jesus had just affirmed that. They believe He's a false Christ, but at least here they're being honest about something that He claimed. And these are all the things that they bring before Pilate. And you'll notice, we'll look in a minute, we'll look right now, that as we go on, there's no more charges that are brought against Jesus. So it starts off very sort of tame. You know, we had our proceedings, these are the charges, Your Honor. But it goes downhill from there. From here on out, their demeanor is more and more ferocious, more and more beast-like, more and more shouting and crying out to the point where they just say, crucify, crucify, over and over again. And so we see a shift in the crowd, in the leaders and in the crowd, through these next verses. And it's interesting, we see this happen, right? Whether sports games or times of political unrest, when you get a bunch of people together in one spot, even for happy occasions, anything with heightened emotion, there's a chance that the crowd might break out into violence. And there's sort of a psychology behind this. What's going on behind this? One aspect of this is we call like a social contagion. When you see other people doing something, it sort of normalizes it, even in the moment. And crowds can do pretty wicked things that afterward they say, wait, why did I do that? That doesn't even seem like me, but I got caught up in the moment. But of course, we think that's part of what's happening here, but as we move along, we're asking whose will prevailed, and I wanna argue that you start to see that the will of the leaders was not just their own. Satan himself was at work in their hearts, and I think we see this more and more. So verse two says, they began to accuse him, as we saw, and they bring the charges. Verse five then, the first time Pilate says, I find no guilt in the man, it says, but they were urgent Right, so the heat is turning up, saying he stirs up the people everywhere from Judea to here. These rulers up till now, cold, calculating, patient, now have Jesus in their grasp and so their true nature is starting to peel back. And so we get to that section, which we won't spend much time, you know, verse seven and onward, where he's sent over to Herod, you know, Pilate, like a good leader, is like, well, let's just, you know, have Herod deal with it, right? And all the while, while Herod is mocking and doing his thing, if you look at verse 10, what are the chief priests doing? It says, they stood by vehemently accusing him. So even as Herod is mocking and arraying him and putting him in purple clothing, all of these things, the chief priests just can't stop. They're on the sidelines, just accusations and false words of Jesus are just flowing from their lips. so that we get to verse 13 through 16, we'll look at in just a moment. Pilate very clearly says that Jesus is innocent, but they get more and more irrational. Verse 18, away with this man, release to us Barabbas. And Luke helps us know how irrational this is. Luke, as an aside, it goes back to Luke's words. He says, by the way, this man was actually accused and charged and in prison for insurrection, which is what they're sort of claiming Jesus is doing, and for murder. And they want him released and they want Jesus, we see now, put to the cross. And that's where verse 21, they cry out, they kept shouting, they continually shouted, crucify, crucify. Pilate resists one more time, but it says they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified. And so their voices prevailed. Whose will prevailed? that day. If we stopped here, it kind of seems like his enemy's will prevailed. They were urgent, they were insistent. We would say Satan was working behind the scenes, and Jesus was sent to die. The most sinful action in human history, putting to death the author of life. But we don't stop there. But we need to consider another character. So we first ask, whose will prevailed? Was it his enemies? Number two, was it the will of Pilate? Pilate looms large in this passage. And it's fitting that in the Apostles' Creed, which we'll read in just a few moments, highlights that Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate. Both to say that we have a historical faith. Jesus came at such a time under certain leadership. But Pilate does loom large, and he is such an interesting figure, is he not? If you put the gospel accounts together, especially the gospel of John, chapters 18 and 19, perhaps one of these Easter's we'll spend some time there, because just a character study of Pilate is very interesting. But even Luke gives us enough to sort of see the enigmatic nature of his heart and what's going on in his mind as he has these Judean leaders come and bring Jesus before him. You saw in verses 23 through 20, he was desiring to release Jesus. He doesn't want to put Jesus to death. And there's different aspects like that that make you think, especially when you read the Gospel of John, you're like, he almost sees it. He's seeing things about Jesus that the rulers can't see, and yet you have that juxtaposition with, you know, verse 12, and Herod and Pilate became friends with each other that day, after they mocked Jesus and put him in robes as sort of a false king. And so you see that Pilate truly wrestles with his decision, but yet he's known for two things here. One, he declares Christ to be innocent in a legal, official way. And number two, he condemns Christ to death. And so first he declares Christ innocent. He declares Christ innocent. If you looked back, it's amazing. Just as the crowds are increasing in their intensity against Jesus, Pilate increases in his intensity in how he's willing to say, this is an innocent man. He does not deserve the punishment that you want for him. So verses three and four, he says, I find no guilt in this man, and that's an official legal term. There's no ground for complaint. You bring charges against him, I see no charges that are willing to bring against him. Or verses 13 through 16, after examining him before you, again, that's a legal term, behold, this is, he's like making a legal statement, behold, I did not find this man guilty of any of your charges against him. And neither did Herod, by the way. He sent him back to us. Look, again, same word as behold. Like when Jesus says, behold, let me tell you something. Look, nothing deserving death has been done by him. Can you see how Pilate is getting something so right with false motives? And then verse 22, a third time he said to them, why, what evil has he done? I have found in him no guilt deserving death. Pilate declares Christ to be innocent, and Luke wants you to see this. If you took nothing else from this sermon, Luke would want you to see Jesus is innocent. Jesus goes to the cross not for his own sin, but bearing the sins of his people as we see in Isaiah. He wants you to have no tinge of thought that on some level Jesus was weak or sinful. No, Jesus was the innocent one. We're asking whose will prevailed, but it was not his guilt, he had none, that sent him to the cross. And yet, Pilate, as much as if it stopped there, we would have hailed Pilate, right? But yet, their voices prevailed, and we could wrestle with why, you know, if he was afraid of insurrection, et cetera, but one way or another, Pilate condemns an innocent man to death. An innocent man to death. So whose will prevailed? Was it his enemies? Here, was it Pilate? He seems to think so. In John's gospel, he pulls Jesus aside and says, do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you? And he's not wrong on one sense. He has that authority. The Jews couldn't just have Jesus crucified. It had to go through Pilate. But what does Jesus say to him? He says, you would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given to you from above. Therefore, he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin. A whole other study could be how guilty was Pilate. But at the end of the day, he was guilty. One day, Pilate will have to stand before the throne, the true king, and And that king will say, Pilate, you looked me in the eyes, declared me innocent, and yet you allowed me to be taken to the cross. What do you have to say? So Pilate's actions were real. He made them, he's responsible for them. The rulers in the same way. Rulers, you should have known. You should have seen me as the Christ and loved me and stirred up the people to do the same. but you did the opposite, you sent me to my death out of fear and envy. What do you have to say for all those rulers that had not repented by the time of their death? And so it wasn't the will of the rulers, it wasn't the will of Pilate. Those were real and at work, but they were not ultimate. Point number three gives us the answer to our question, whose will prevailed that day? It was the will of God. was the will of God. As we think of this passage, and a few verses before in the garden just loom large in our minds, when Jesus prays, Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. That's the prayer that Jesus prayed that prepared him for this moment. Or Philippians 2a, being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Or remember in John's gospel, he says, I have authority to lay down my life. Oh, and by the way, I have authority to take my life up again. I give it willingly. Scott last week in the Sunday evening helped us think about Christ's Humiliation every step of it from his birth to his death to his time in the grave And he and he helped bring out this aspect that Jesus was willing From start to finish from before time. He was willing to come and empty himself. He was willing to live and A life of poverty He was willing to live, a life of suffering and obedience. And here He was willing to sit under mock trial. He was willing to be arrayed with purple robes. He was willing to sit under Pilate's vacillating and thinking much of Himself. And He was willing to be contemned to the cross. It was Christ's will that he went to the cross, and Christ truly was God. It was the Father's will. We see in Isaiah 53, 10. Again, Isaiah 53 looms large over this whole passage. Verse 10 says, yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. It was the will of the Lord to crush him. Or in Acts 4, verses 27 through 28, they're praying. They're in the midst of persecution. They say, for truly in this city, they were gathered together against your holy servant, Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. Herod's will, Pontius Pilate's will, the rulers, the crowds, their will was real. They are responsible for what they did, and unless they repented, they will answer for it. But their wills were not ultimate. God's will was ultimate. We are reading in chapter 23, plan A from before the foundation of the world was that Jesus would suffer under Pontius Pilate, that he would go to the cross to die for the sins of his people. And those who love Jesus see him as the innocent one, the lamb of God. We read this and we worship. And I pray that that's true of you today. That what Pilate seemed to almost see that you would see with eyes of faith, this Jesus dying on the cross for the sins of his people. Now, this leads to challenging things. When we think of God's sovereignty, and we think of the suffering that we experience or the evil that we see in the world, there's tension here. We wrestle with this, I think rightly, and Scripture wrestles with it as well. The psalmists, the prophets, they wrestle with this. And yet it's, to put it another way, what if the enemies were the ultimate ones. That would relieve some of the tension. It would say they're evil, they did evil things, God had nothing to do with it. But then we'd say, what, evil human beings can do things that God says, I can't put my hands on that, or pilot. Maybe it's just a might makes right. There's certain people in power and they do good things, unrighteous things, but that's sort of outside of God's realm. I remember all those years ago when the planes hit the towers on 9-11, you probably heard sermons like this that said, God had nothing to do with 9-11. And there's tinges of truth. What they're getting at is God is not pleased. God is weeping with those who weep. Amen. But what they didn't realize is that they were, it's like they were taking an anchor and just cutting it away from God's people. It relieves some of the tension initially, but then you still have to answer, then who was in charge? Who has ultimate authority? Is it man? Is it Satan? So there's challenges that remain for us, but I will take those challenges because I can only trust my life and my suffering and my questions with God. He can handle it. He can handle even honest wrestling and prayer And if we believe that, if we believe that God was sovereign even here, I want to end just three thoughts of what that means for our lives. If it was the, number one, if it was the Father's will, faithfully carried out by Jesus Christ, to send Jesus to the cross, even using the sinful actions of sinful men, if that's true, then I can know that I am truly forgiven. Then I can know that I'm saved in Jesus Christ because he actually came. It was plan A. He accomplished it. He wasn't just working with what he had and put it together. No, he came to seek and to save the lost. and he triumphed even over Satan, who in one sense gloried in the cross. Satan knew that he was defeating himself in the very same moment. Number two, if God sinlessly used the sinful motives and actions of even powerful men, like Pilate or Herod, then I can trust him now in the midst of political and social uncertainty and anxiety. God used even the powers that be in Jesus' day to bring about Plan A to bring about the mission of Christ to come and to die for the sins of his people. If he did that, right, argument from the greater to the lesser, if he did that, if he was willing to use even sinful men in power, then surely he's at work now in much smaller ways. Number three, if God used the cross, the lowest point in human history, The most sinful action ever carried out by the hands of men, killing the very author of life, if he did that, then I know with certainty that he will use the suffering, the trials, the complexities of my life for his glory and for my good. Truly, not hypothetically. We read Romans 8.28 that he works all things for good. And I think early in our Christian life it sounded good and hypothetical and sort of vague. But as we go through the Christian life and we suffer and we see real evil, in one sense the Christian life is being convinced more and more of Romans 8, 28, that he truly uses all things for good. If he used the cross, the greatest evil, for the greatest good, then certainly he's using whatever is going on in your life. Whose will prevailed that fateful day? God's will was accomplished and would be at the cross. And so, Christian, have this hope. Have this as a steadfast anchor for your soul. Take hold of him and never let go, regardless of what's happening in your life. In a moment, we'll get to celebrate in the supper, reminding us of all these things. God worked all things for his glory. He moved all of human history to this climax at the cross, and that's what we get to celebrate in a few moments.