The Crowd Doesn’t Count When it Comes to Christ
Matthew 21:6-11; 27:15-26
April 1, 2007
I’ve mentioned before that when I was younger, I made a number of foolish decisions, some of which could have cost me my life or at least land me in jail.
As I was working on this message, it occurred to me that I had a lot more hair back then. I’m wondering if that’s just a coincidence or if there’s a connection somewhere.
Some of the decisions I have made since then have been much better.
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned over the years is this: to get the most accurate information, you need to go to the primary source.
What I mean by that is that some of the mistakes were when I made decisions based on inaccurate or incomplete information.
Maybe I believed a rumor about someone, and it caused me to think about them wrongly, so I did something stupid, based on that information.
When I actually took the time to go to the primary source, I usually found out that my initial impressions were wrong, and I could have saved myself a whole lotta grief.
Sometimes it was the crowd I was with. Whatever they said, that was it – and I went with it, whether it was the right thing to do or not.
That was usually a mistake.
We all like to think that we’re independent people who make our own decisions.
That our opinions are based on fact, not just hearsay. Especially when it concerns the things of God.
But how often are we really influenced by others – influenced by the crowd when it comes to the things that are of eternal importance – the things of God.
If we’re wrong about the things of God – of we’re wrong about Jesus, then it affects where we’ll spend eternity.
So where do you get your information about Jesus? Is it from the crowd?
In the Scriptures, we find a couple examples where it wasn’t the individual opinions of Jesus that carried the day.
Matthew 21:6-11 (p. 697) –
6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them. 8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,
"Hosanna to the Son of David!"
"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"
"Hosanna in the highest!"
10 When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, "Who is this?"
11 The crowds answered, "This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee."
I can almost imagine the scene. The crowd is pushing and shoving to get close to Jesus and the disciples are all of a sudden wishing they had those black T-shirts that say “Security” on them as they try to protect Jesus from these adoring people.
They’re proclaiming Jesus to be the Messiah – the Son of David who was prophesied to save Israel.
They’re hootin’ and hollerin’ with everything they’ve got. It’s a great moment.
“Hey Martha! See if you can get a picture of me and Jesus! Hey Jesus! Jesus! Got a sec? I just want to get a quick snapshot, okay? Martha! You ready? Okay, go! Can’t you draw any faster than that (they didn’t have cameras back then…)?”
I can imagine that there were plenty of people who had a genuine love for Jesus, shouting their praises and hoping that this would usher in the Kingdom of God on earth that they had been waiting for for many generations.
It’s possible, if not probable, that there were people in the crowd hoping for a chance to plead to Jesus for some healing – for themselves or a loved one.
And I would also imagine that there were some in the crowd who didn’t have much of an opinion of Jesus one way or the other. But they got caught up in the excitement of the crowd around Jesus that day.
There is no question that the Jesus of the people was very popular, at least for the moment.
This crowd couldn’t get enough of Jesus. They had seen him do miracles, they had heard Him speak, and they had seen Him silence the religious leaders who were more concerned with their religious tradition than with the truth.
This was the Jesus that was popular, who everyone could rally around. They loved Him.
This was the Jesus everyone wanted to be around and be seen with. This was the Jesus that was everything they wanted in a Messiah.
But now we turn to another crowd, just a few days later.
Matthew 27:15-26 (p. 705) –
15 Now it was the governor’s custom at the Feast to release a prisoner chosen by the crowd. 16 At that time they had a notorious prisoner, called Barabbas. 17 So when the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, "Which one do you want me to release to you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?" 18 For he knew it was out of envy that they had handed Jesus over to him.
19 While Pilate was sitting on the judge’s seat, his wife sent him this message: "Don’t have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him."
20 But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed.
21 "Which of the two do you want me to release to you?" asked the governor.
"Barabbas," they answered.
22 "What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called Christ?" Pilate asked.
They all answered, "Crucify him!"
23 "Why? What crime has he committed?" asked Pilate.
But they shouted all the louder, "Crucify him!"
24 When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. "I am innocent of this man’s blood," he said. "It is your responsibility!"
25 All the people answered, "Let his blood be on us and on our children!"
26 Then he released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.
Isn’t it amazing what a difference a few days can make?
The crowd in the first passage adored Him. The second crowd hated Him.
I wonder how many people in the second crowd were there in the first crowd. Probably a bunch.
Only this time they were screaming for His blood.
This Jesus wasn’t popular at all. This Jesus was a criminal in the eyes of the religious establishment and a nuisance I the eyes of the government.
And it was this Jesus who was condemned, with the screams of the crowd ringing in His ears.
But their opinion of Jesus isn’t important. Why? Because…
The crowd doesn’t count when it comes to Christ.
Just because a bunch of people think something is right and true doesn’t make it so.
I’ve said a number of times – truth is not determined by majority opinion.
The majority of the people in the second crowd thought Jesus was worthy of death. And they were mistaken.
Both of the crowds were driven by inaccurate information about Jesus. And their zeal and excitement didn’t change that fact.
But let’s bring this into the everyday world, okay?
In the Scriptures we looked at today, we have the “loved by the world” Jesus and the “hated by the world” Jesus.
And it’s probably no surprise that this is still the case today.
The “loved by the world” Jesus is the one we come across when people describe Jesus in all sorts of glowing terms.
Great teacher, holy man, guru, enlightened master, simple carpenter who changed the world, etc.
This is the Jesus of the pacifists, environmentalists, socialists, and those who see Jesus as a non-judgmental rabbi who wanted only to show people a way to God.
Have you noticed how popular Jesus is in popular music today? I hear His name a lot on the radio at my other job.
People love the Jesus of popular music. And what’s not to love about that Jesus? He’s everything we want Him to be – holy, but not so much that He invades our personal comfort zones with harsh words about sin and stuff.
The only problem with that is this Jesus isn’t the Biblical Jesus.
In the same way, the “hated by the world” Jesus has a lot of support.
These people don’t love Jesus – they hate Him. Usually they hate Him not because of anything He did or said, but because of the words, actions, and attitudes of those who claim to follow Him.
So they reject Jesus and anything having to do with Him.
Obviously, the atheists don’t like Jesus, especially since He not only claimed to be the only way to the Father, He claimed to be God in the flesh.
Those who hate Jesus see Him and His followers as dangerous and fanatical, needing to be reined in for the sake of the common good.
They have no use for Jesus, and find Him threatening to their ideas of what is right and what is wrong.
In both of these cases, we find that Jesus has been made in the image of those who seek to define Him by their own terms rather than the terms He Himself set in the Bible.
Both of these camps have untold numbers of followers.
I would go so far to say that I think that the vast majority of people in the world who have heard about Jesus hold one of these two opinions or variations of them.
And there are people in these crowds who are zealous and excited about their opinions of Jesus. But that doesn’t change the fact that their opinions of Jesus are based on inaccurate information about Him.
They have not gone to the primary source – the eyewitness testimony of Scripture.
Just because those who believe what the Bible says about Jesus are in the minority, that doesn’t mean we’re wrong.
For awhile, it was only a few dozen people who understood, and some of those died because they held the minority opinion about Jesus.
Don’t be fooled by numbers, folks. Truth is truth, no matter how many people accept or reject it.
And so here’s where you need to make a choice.
Will you follow the crowds and their opinions of Jesus or will you follow Jesus’ opinions of Jesus?
Will you allow the changing winds of society to determine the “truth” of Jesus for you, or will you allow the unchanging, God-breathed Word of Scripture determine the truth for you.
I hope it’s the second choice. Because…
The crowd doesn’t count when it comes to Christ.
Let the eyewitness testimony of Scripture give you the truth about Jesus. Let the words of Jesus Himself be your guide, not the opinions of people who think they know something about Jesus but refuse to read the primary source of information.
Let me offer you a suggestion, if you’re brave enough for it.
Take the next four months and read one gospel per month. And allow yourself to be challenged in your perceptions of Jesus as you read about His actions and His words.
See if your ideas and opinions of Jesus actually match the Scriptures.
You have to be brave to do that, because it may turn out that you’ve been operating under an inaccurate idea of Jesus.
And if that’s the case, then you need to conform your thinking around the Scriptures – because the Scriptures will not conform to your thinking.
That’s where a lot of people, and a lot of Christians, truth be told, go wrong.
Instead of allowing their ideas to be formed by Scripture, they try to make Scripture fit their personal mold.
But God won’t allow that to work real well. God gets to make the rules, and He gets to set the standard.
So we need to let God’s Word be the standard for our thinking and our opinions about Jesus.
Folks, when allow ourselves to be a people who are committed to going to the primary source about Jesus instead of relying on crowds in society to inform us about Jesus, God can do something.
As I look at the early church, I see something that I think can revolutionize any church, including our own.
First, they were informed by the truth of the eyewitnesses of Jesus. They heard from the horse’s mouth what they had seen and heard.
They didn’t let rumor rule the day. They let truth rule the day. They were informed with the truth of Jesus.
Second, they were transformed by the truth of Jesus. They allowed the truth they had to work in them, so that not only would they know about Jesus, they would be transformed and changed by the truth.
Unfortunately, many people, including many Christians, won’t go to the primary source of information about Jesus. So they get incomplete and inaccurate information about Him.
They let popular culture inform them, and as I’ve already mentioned, that’s not a smart move, since they don’t have the truth about Him – at least, not the complete truth we find in Scripture.
But folks, if we would allow ourselves to be both informed of the truth and transformed by it, we’ll be more than a group. We’ll be more than a crowd.
We’ll be the church. They way Jesus wants to build it. The kind He can use to bring people to Himself and advance His kingdom.
My hope is that you will want to be that kind of person – informed with truth and transformed by it.
Let’s pray.
