Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Are Some Sins Better Than Others? | Mark | Mark 15.1-15

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to Tim Minna Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. My name is Patrick Miller. And I'm Keith Simon. If this podcast has been helping you in your walk with God, would you take five seconds to help us? Hop onto Twitter and follow our new Twitter account at TMBT Podcast. If you go there, you can see our latest episodes. You can also follow Keith and I and send us messages. We'd love to follow you back and see what's happening in your life.

Starting point is 00:00:34 Right now we're asking, who is Jesus? I've got a question for you. I may have asked you this question before, but even if I have, that's okay with me because this is the kind of question that we should wrestle with pretty frequently. If you found out several years from now that you'd taken a significant step back

Starting point is 00:00:52 in your faith in Jesus, maybe you don't even think of yourself as a Christian anymore, why do you think that would be the case? Let me ask it a little bit differently. Is there a sin that you struggle with that you think has the potential power to keep you from following Jesus. Genesis 4.7 says, If you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door.

Starting point is 00:01:15 It desires to have you, but you must master it. Sin desires to pull us away from Jesus. Sin desires to really destroy our life. But oftentimes the kind of sins that destroy us or pull us away from Jesus aren't what we might think of as big sins. sometimes they're what we might call respectable sins. Respectable sins is the title of a book by a guy named Jerry Bridges. And by calling them respectable sins, he's talking about the idea that we've come to accept certain kinds of sin in our life to not be too worried about it.

Starting point is 00:01:50 Maybe sins like anxiety or frustration or lack of thankfulness, selfishness, a lack of self-control, irritability, envy. Now, of course, everyone's list of respectable sins is going to be a little bit of. different, but the bottom line is that we all have sins that we've grown comfortable with, sins that we don't think are that big of a deal, sins that we've made peace with. We might not even call them sins anymore. As the story of Jesus' crucifixion unfolds in Mark 15, we see that the sins of the religious leaders and the political leaders, the sins that led them to kill Jesus, could be on anyone's list of respectable things.

Starting point is 00:02:32 sins. They aren't that scandalous. They're sins that everybody has grown comfortable with. The sins that led the people in power to kill Jesus are the sins of envy and people pleasing. Let's go to Mark 15. It says very early in the morning, the chief priests with the elders and the teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedron made their plans. So they bound Jesus and led him away and handed him over to Pilate. The reason all this starts very early in the morning at the break of dawn is because a Roman nobleman and a Roman official had a very short workday. By mid-morning, they took off work to pursue their life of leisure. Now, we're told here that they tied Jesus up. It all sounds a bit silly, doesn't it? Roman soldiers binding a prophet who preached nonviolence. Now, Jesus isn't surprised at all by what's

Starting point is 00:03:27 happening. He's told everyone repeatedly that this is exactly what was going to happen. Jesus knows that he will soon die. He's ready for it. Pilate asked him, are you the king of the Jews? You have said so, Jesus replied. Where did this charge that Jesus was king of the Jews come from? Well, it came from the Jewish religious leaders, the Sanhedron. They knew that Pilate wouldn't care about their religious and theological debates. So instead of saying that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, which was kind of coded language for the anointed king, God's anointed king. They told Pilate straight up, Jesus claimed to be king. Now, the Messiah was a king that was totally different than the kind of king that Pilate thought of.

Starting point is 00:04:15 Luke tells us specifically what they told Pilate. Luke 23-2, and they began to accuse him saying, we found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Messiah, a king. By calling him the king of the Jews, the religious leaders were trying to force Pilate's hand. They believe that now Pilate would have to act because while Rome was comfortable with some religious tolerance, they weren't willing to let someone walk around claiming to be king, because that threatened their political power. Mark tells us that Jesus and Pilate went back.

Starting point is 00:04:52 back and forth for a few minutes. Jesus refuses to answer some of Pilate's questions. And somehow Jesus' silence convinced Pilot that he was innocent, not guilty. And Pilot decides to try to seek Jesus' release. Verse 6. Now it was the custom at the festival to release a prisoner whom the people requested. A man called Barabbas was in prison with the insurrectionist who had committed murder in the uprising. There had recently been an insurrection, against the government, and like all uprisings against Rome, this one failed and its leaders were taken into custody. They were put on trial and scheduled to die by crucifixion. One of the leaders was named Barabbas, which literally means son of the father. Now that sounds somewhat familiar to us as

Starting point is 00:05:39 readers because Jesus is called the son of God. But Matthew tells us another important detail. Barabbas's given name was Jesus. That was a very common name in that time period. As the ruler in this area, Pilate had the authority to commute or pardon any prisoner he chose. So Pilate gave the people a choice. He asked them, do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews? Pilate is asking the crowd if they want him to release Jesus Barabbas, the murderer, or Jesus the Messiah? Verse 9. Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews? asked Pilate, knowing it was out of envy. Uh-oh, there's that respectable sin, knowing it was out of envy that the chief priest had handed Jesus over to him. Envy drove the hatred of the religious leaders to oppose and kill Jesus.

Starting point is 00:06:34 What is envy? Is it in our heart? Well, envy is grief or anger caused by another person's success. envy is related to jealousy but they're a little different a jealous person wants what someone else has an envious person doesn't want another person to succeed when you have one you usually have the other envy is a sin of comparison envy looks around at others and says i deserve better i deserve a better job a better income a better spouse better kids better neighborhood better health You're envious of the blessing of others because you see them as less deserving than you are. And because you see yourself as more deserving, it's hard not to be upset that they've got what you should have gotten. Now, when we're envious, whether we realize it or not, what we're actually doing is charging God with being unjust and unfair. We're doubting God's wisdom, goodness, and justice, because we are saying he did us wrong.

Starting point is 00:07:36 envy always results in dissatisfaction envy destroys our life our soul our relationships with others but back to the story the chief priests get the crowd all stirred up and they want barabbas released instead of jesus pilot asked what do i do with the king of the jews and the people all yell crucify him pilot's like well what crime is he committed but they keep shouting the crowds do crucify him this is verse 15 of Mark 15. Wanting to satisfy the crowds, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flog and handed him over to be crucified. Why did Pilate hand Jesus over to be crucified? Well, there were a lot of factors to be sure. He had a hard time releasing a man who didn't renounce being king. Pilot wanted to keep the peace of Jerusalem and the crowds were demanding that he

Starting point is 00:08:30 released Jesus Barabbas and crucify Jesus the Messiah. But this story points, to the motive of pleasing people. He wanted to be popular with the crowd. Or as verse 15 says, he wanted to satisfy the crowd. He wanted the crowd's approval and affirmation. That's the second respectable sin, people pleasing. Being a people pleaser will hinder us greatly in trying to follow Jesus. The Apostle Paul writes this in Galatians 1. Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings or of God, or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ. Do you see what Paul is saying, that we have to choose, do we want to be people pleasers, or do we want to be a servant of Christ? You cannot serve God and money. You either lay up

Starting point is 00:09:24 treasures in heaven or on earth. You build your life on sand or a rock. You either please people or you're a servant of Christ. This is a serious sin that all of us struggle with, and therefore all of us need to turn our attention to defeating it, to fighting against the sin of trying to please other people when our audience should be an audience of one trying to please God. So going back to the respectable sins for a moment, there really aren't any respectable sins. They're only respectable from our view, not from God's. All sin is serious. Let's pray. God, we pray that you would shine the light of your Holy Spirit, the light of your truth into our heart. Expose whatever sins you want us to confront today. And we pray for grace, grace that forgives and grace that gives us the ability to fight those sins.

Starting point is 00:10:20 Amen. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps others find this podcast more easily. Also ask yourself who you could share this podcast with. Texting an episode to a friend or family member is a great way. to help them grow spiritually. If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.

Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Are Some Sins Better Than Others? | Mark | Mark 15.1-15

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