Jump Start # 2495

Matthew 26:66 “”What do you think?’ They answered, ‘He deserves death!’”

Note: There will be no Jump Start tomorrow.

Tomorrow is Christmas. Among the young people, they will be saying to each other, “What did you get?” It’s a time of bragging and a bit of envy and jealousy. To be honest, we get more than we deserve. And, that leads us to our passage and a thought for today. Just what do we deserve?

Our verse comes from the trial of Jesus. It’s spoken by the high priest. Jesus was being grilled. He didn’t say much. They wanted to know if He thought He was the Messiah, the Son of God. Jesus affirms that. And, that’s all that the assembly needed to hear. The high priest tore his robes. He asked the crowd, “what do you think?” The response, He deserves death! The crowd was the judge, jury and executioner. The next verse states that they spit on Jesus, slapped Him and beat Him with their fists. The innocent was being abused. There was no one there to protect Him, enforce the laws or do what was right.

He deserves death. Under the law, the penalty for blasphemy was execution. In their twisted minds that had clouded their vision, Jesus was guilty. He deserved death.

Sometimes what a person wants and what they deserve are often mixed up together. Young people believe that they deserve a college degree. And, often by deserve, they mean someone needs to give it to them. Others say, I deserve a job. Rights, freedoms and what we deserve makes for many political speeches and the cause for policy changes. I deserve to be happy, many believe. And, because I deserve that, anything that is necessary to accomplish that is right, fair and non-negotiable. So, as the thinking goes, if I feel trapped in a marriage and unhappy, I deserve to be happy. So I can walk away from that marriage without any regrets, guilt or remorse because I deserve to be happy. If I find someone else who makes me happy, and even though they may be married to someone else, I have a right to be with them, because I deserve to be happy. If worship seems boring and plain to me, I deserve to be happy. So, bring in the clowns, bring in the food, bring in the laser show, bring in the fun. Why should church be like this? Because, I deserve to be happy.

Now, let’s open that door for a moment. Just what do we really deserve? You might be surprised. Here’s some things to consider:

• We deserve God to be angry with us. We’ve broken His commands. We have ignored Him. We have been selfish and have not honored Him. We’ve taken His name in vain. We have trashed His rules and stepped on His heart.

• We deserve Hell. Boy, that’s blunt. The wages of sin is death. Sin always comes with a paycheck and that paycheck isn’t pretty. And, we’ve spent a long time working in coal mine of Satan. And, when payday comes, it’s not Heaven, but Hell that we deserve.

• We don’t deserve to have God’s holy word, the Bible in our hands. He’s so holy and we are not. He’s so right and we are not. Yet, by His love and grace He allows us to know His will and His promises.

• We don’t deserve to even say the name “God,” in worship. We don’t deserve to talk to God, let alone have Him listen to us and even answer our prayers.

• We don’t deserve to named among His people, or to have our names in His book of life.

• We don’t deserve to call our selves “Christian,” which means ‘belongs to Christ.’ We don’t deserve that yet He allows that.

• We certainly do not deserve to stand in His presence, see His face and spend forever with Him. There is nothing about us that deserves that, yet His grace, forgiveness and love will allow that.

The crowd at the trial of Jesus said that the Lord deserved to die. They were wrong. Jesus was innocent. He didn’t deserve to die. The crowd did. They were the ones who deserved to die.

So, when we look at what we really deserve, and we see what we are allowed to have, we recognize how blessed we are from God. We need to remember this and see this. When we get this in our hearts, we stop asking, “Do we have to go to church on Wednesday?” Really? One stops arguing with the Bible and trying to find ways to wiggle around things. We are so blessed. If we got what we really deserve, it wouldn’t be a pretty picture.

God is so good…He is so good to me.

Roger