Locations & Times

1. What would you have done if you were there in front of Pilate when Barabbas was set free and Jesus was sent to the cross? (Discuss.)
2. Why do you think Jesus volunteered to die for us? (Discuss. God loved us so he sent his perfect son Jesus to pay the price. Jesus knew it was the only way for us to be friends with God.)
3. Why do we celebrate Easter? (Discuss. Points of discussion: To celebrate God’s love for us in sending us Jesus. Jesus died for our mistakes so now we can be friends with God again. Jesus beat death so now we can live with him forever!)
4. What are you doing to celebrate Easter this weekend? (Discuss.)

Read: John 19-20, Mathew 27, Acts 9

There’s a sweet children’s book written from a child’s perspective filled with rhymes about taking all different kinds of transportation. Throughout the book, there is a repeating line “but the best is the bus, the bus is for us!” The point is that the bus is the greatest way to get anywhere because it’s for everyone.

That’s the gospel. It’s the best news. It’s for all of us. That truth makes the gospel so sweet and at the same time so scandalous. The good news of forgiveness in Jesus, the forgiveness that makes friendship with God possible again, is for every single person. Everyone. No exceptions.

In this series we will look at the gospel through the eyes of four very different people who reveal the truth that the gospel is for all of us. The broken, hurting, and desperate. The liars, cheaters, and betrayers. The criminals and the convicts. For people who think they have it all together and people who can’t find their worth. The gospel wouldn’t be good news at all if it weren’t for everyone.

But the best is the gospel, the gospel is for us.

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The gospel was for Barabbas, who was a violent, convicted criminal. Understanding that the gospel reaches even the people we judge to be the worst of the worst can be uncomfortable, especially when we’ve been the ones hurt by those people. But we’ve said it before – if the gospel isn’t for everyone, it isn’t really good news. And like we hear often, if sin is a metaphor for breaking a link in a chain, it doesn’t matter how far up or how far down the chain a link breaks. Once it breaks, we’re just as in need as anyone else. We all need the gospel. And thankfully, when Jesus hung on the cross and walked out of the grave three days later, he had no qualifiers. He died once for all. That's really good news.