WEBVTT 00:00:00.910 --> 00:00:01.870 Good morning. 00:00:02.140 --> 00:00:13.720 My name is Jenny Baker, and I have the blessing this morning to open our scriptures together and read from this morning's reading, which is found in the book of Mark Chapter 12. 00:00:13.721 --> 00:00:16.839 And we're going to look at Mark Chapter 12, Verses One through 12. 00:00:24.600 --> 00:00:27.539 "Jesus then began to speak to them in parables. 00:00:27.929 --> 00:00:29.550 A man planted a vineyard. 00:00:29.910 --> 00:00:34.710 He put a wall around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a watchtower. 00:00:35.310 --> 00:00:39.509 Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. 00:00:40.020 --> 00:00:51.359 At harvest time, he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard, but they seized him, and they beat him, and they sent him away empty-handed. 00:00:52.770 --> 00:00:54.960 Then he sent another servant to them. 00:00:55.409 --> 00:00:59.130 They struck this man on the head, and they treated him shamefully. 00:00:59.850 --> 00:01:03.450 He sent still another, and that one they killed. 00:01:03.719 --> 00:01:05.129 "He sent many others. 00:01:05.159 --> 00:01:07.890 Some of them beat; others they killed. 00:01:08.760 --> 00:01:13.109 He had one left to send, whom he loved, his son. 00:01:13.829 --> 00:01:21.569 He sent him last of all, saying,'They will respect my son,' but the tenants said to one another,'This is the heir. 00:01:21.361 --> 00:01:31.019 Come and let's kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.' So they took him and killed him and threw him out in the vineyard. 00:01:31.620 --> 00:01:35.579 What then will the owner of the vineyard do? 00:01:35.879 --> 00:01:39.750 He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others. 00:01:40.049 --> 00:01:43.109 Haven't you read this passage of scripture? 00:01:43.709 --> 00:01:47.609 The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. 00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:51.689 The Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes. 00:01:52.439 --> 00:02:07.439 Then the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders looked for a way to arrest him, because they knew he had spoken the parable against them, but they were afraid of the crowd, so they left him, and they went away." 00:02:11.509 --> 00:02:18.229 Thank you Jenny, and if you haven't already opened your Bible, I invite you to open your Bible to Mark Chapter 12. 00:02:18.349 --> 00:02:24.800 While you're opening there, I want to give you a brief update on the search for the next lead teaching pastor. 00:02:25.340 --> 00:02:29.719 The search at this point seems to have focused upon three candidates. 00:02:30.020 --> 00:02:33.139 All three candidates have been through a first interview. 00:02:33.140 --> 00:02:35.960 All three candidates have had reference checks. 00:02:36.349 --> 00:02:47.000 Two of the candidates have gone through a second interview with their wives, and the third candidate and his wife will have their second interview this afternoon. 00:02:47.360 --> 00:02:51.139 So it is at a crucial time, and we covet your prayers. 00:02:51.140 --> 00:03:01.819 We pray that you-- we ask that you would pray for the search team, for discernment to discern if God is narrowing us down to one of these men. 00:03:01.461 --> 00:03:12.439 We ask that you pray for a unity of heart and mind among the pastoral search team as they consider these three men and their wives that God has put before us. 00:03:13.430 --> 00:03:18.319 We are in the first 12 verses of Mark Chapter 12. 00:03:19.879 --> 00:03:22.849 I've kind of entitled this"Rebellion in the Vineyard". 00:03:23.199 --> 00:03:28.129 It reminds me almost, you know, of, like an episode of"Law and Order". 00:03:28.131 --> 00:03:30.560 "Law and Order: Palestine" or something like that. 00:03:30.561 --> 00:03:35.509 You know, it's such a shocking story that he tells. 00:03:35.780 --> 00:03:47.659 I mean it reminds me: I read some time ago, in the Chicago Tribune, this was the headline of this article:"Brothers charged with killing landlord, hiding body in sewer". 00:03:48.080 --> 00:03:55.939 You know, two brothers who had rented an apartment from a landlord and lived there a number of months and paid rent for a number of months. 00:03:55.941 --> 00:04:00.860 At some point, they decided in their minds,"We don't want to pay rent anymore. 00:04:01.129 --> 00:04:13.550 We want to act like we own this apartment." And so, when the owner of the apartment came that next month to collect the rent, these two brothers killed him, assaulted him and killed him. 00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:29.959 And after trying to hide his body for awhile in the apartment, in finding, you know, there's some stench with that, they eventually found a sewer manhole cover, pried that off just out in front of their apartment and tried to hide the body in there. 00:04:30.199 --> 00:04:38.300 Of course, as shocking as it is to us, that's, that's the kind of shock value this story is that Jesus is telling them. 00:04:38.300 --> 00:04:40.759 He tells a story with a similar plot. 00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:42.350 Now, it is a parable. 00:04:42.649 --> 00:04:45.709 This isn't the first parable we've seen in the Gospel of Mark. 00:04:45.959 --> 00:04:48.470 You may remember, we've said it over and over again. 00:04:48.649 --> 00:04:53.689 A parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. 00:04:54.199 --> 00:05:09.680 It takes an earthly scene that maybe we can all relate to in one way or another, but it has heavenly meaning that the Lord wants you and me to see, and the story is quite clear at the very beginning. 00:05:09.680 --> 00:05:13.220 It starts out in Verse One: a man plants a vineyard. 00:05:13.490 --> 00:05:17.720 That presumes that he has purchased the land, that he owns the land. 00:05:18.050 --> 00:05:27.079 He has cleared the land of all the stones, which probably took a long time and a lot of effort, and then he plants a vineyard. 00:05:27.410 --> 00:05:36.470 He probably planted hundreds of individual grapevines, going to great expense, great effort, great time. 00:05:37.129 --> 00:05:41.990 And then, to protect that vineyard, he builds a wall around it. 00:05:42.350 --> 00:05:45.019 That wall may have been a stone wall. 00:05:45.021 --> 00:05:48.529 That wall may have been a hedge of briars. 00:05:48.680 --> 00:05:51.740 Either way, again, great expense was involved. 00:05:51.769 --> 00:05:56.629 Great time and effort was expended to build that wall, to protect the vineyard. 00:05:57.829 --> 00:06:08.089 But even more, he digs and constructs a winepress, and that's not like a little wood vat like you see in some of those pictures of people stamping on grapes. 00:06:08.091 --> 00:06:17.899 In that day, you excavated a large pit in the earth, and then you line that with stonework, and that was just one of two pits you are going to build. 00:06:17.899 --> 00:06:24.290 That was the pit that they put the grapes in, and those who crushed the grapes would crush the grapes in it. 00:06:24.290 --> 00:06:28.339 But you also had to dig out a second pit a little lower than the first pit. 00:06:28.370 --> 00:06:39.680 You had to line that with stone as well, and that was the pit that the crushed grapes, the juice from the crushed grapes would drain into where the wine would be collected. 00:06:39.949 --> 00:06:43.339 Great expense, great effort, great time. 00:06:43.699 --> 00:06:45.720 And if that wasn't enough, he built a watchtower. 00:06:46.370 --> 00:06:56.569 He went to all the trouble of building a tower, a tower for those who ran the vineyard to watch for marauders, to watch for wild animals. 00:06:56.870 --> 00:06:59.990 It was a place where they could live and find protection. 00:07:00.139 --> 00:07:05.660 Again, great expense, great effort, great time involved. 00:07:05.720 --> 00:07:08.509 After doing all of this, why does he do it? 00:07:08.660 --> 00:07:15.290 He does it because he wants to harvest crops of grapes to make wine, and so he finds tenants. 00:07:15.290 --> 00:07:16.519 He finds farmers. 00:07:16.699 --> 00:07:21.620 They don't own the vineyard; he does, but he allows them to live there. 00:07:21.649 --> 00:07:34.970 He allows them to work the land, to take advantage of all that he has provided in this vineyard in exchange for the understanding that they would provide him with a percentage of the harvest. 00:07:35.540 --> 00:07:38.269 Now you and I hear that story, and it's just a story. 00:07:38.449 --> 00:07:49.490 The Old Testament, religious leaders, the Jewish religious leaders hearing that story, familiar with the Old Testament, they would have immediately recognized where Jesus drew that story from. 00:07:50.029 --> 00:07:53.089 They would have been thinking to themselves,"That's Isaiah 5. 00:07:53.720 --> 00:07:54.860 Isaiah 5. 00:07:54.860 --> 00:08:03.050 Isaiah Chapter Five starts out with what's called The Song of the Vineyard, and I'm not going to read the whole song, but let me read the first verse. 00:08:03.410 --> 00:08:06.949 "My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. 00:08:06.951 --> 00:08:12.259 He dug it and he cleared it of stones and he planted it with choice vines. 00:08:12.259 --> 00:08:25.370 "He built a watchtower in the midst of it, and he hewed out a wine vat in it, and he looked for it to yield grapes." He had an expectation that it would produce fruit, and it goes on. 00:08:25.370 --> 00:08:33.529 But in Verse Seven God makes it absolutely clear, in the words of Isaiah, what the vineyard symbolizes. 00:08:33.710 --> 00:08:49.460 Isaiah 5:7:"For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel." So the people listening to Jesus would immediately have known that he was talking about the Jewish people. 00:08:49.461 --> 00:08:52.879 He was talking about God's Old Covenant people. 00:08:52.970 --> 00:08:55.899 In other words, what does the vineyard symbolize? 00:08:56.169 --> 00:09:04.240 To the people immediately hearing this parable, it symbolized God's relationship to his chosen people. 00:09:05.080 --> 00:09:07.330 Now, who are God's chosen people today? 00:09:08.200 --> 00:09:16.870 And then we get into the whole understanding of the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, and that's a separate teaching that I don't have time for this morning. 00:09:17.561 --> 00:09:35.139 But I would say this: with the coming of Jesus Christ and his death on the cross for our sin and his resurrection and his promise of the New Kingdom, we live, those of us who know Christ as Savior and Lord, we live under the New Covenant. 00:09:35.769 --> 00:09:40.240 And so this parable doesn't just speak to the Jews who are hearing it in that day. 00:09:40.480 --> 00:09:43.149 This parable speaks to us. 00:09:43.210 --> 00:09:45.610 God's New Covenant people. 00:09:45.879 --> 00:09:49.210 It speaks first of all to our purpose. 00:09:49.629 --> 00:09:50.620 What is our purpose? 00:09:50.620 --> 00:10:01.330 Why, if you know Christ as Savior and Lord, why is he giving you this one more day, when you breathe his air, when you live in his vineyard? 00:10:01.541 --> 00:10:02.889 Why is he giving you life? 00:10:02.919 --> 00:10:05.409 Why doesn't he just immediately take you into heaven? 00:10:06.190 --> 00:10:25.029 Well, we get an indication of that as the parable goes on in Verse Two:"At harvest time, the owner of the vineyard sends a servant to the tenants to collect the from them some of the fruit of the vineyard." In other words, the owner of the vineyard, he didn't just build this for a place for the tenants to live. 00:10:25.509 --> 00:10:27.490 He expected the vineyard to be worked. 00:10:27.879 --> 00:10:35.860 He expected the tenant farmers to produce fruit from the vineyard, fruit that he would enjoy. 00:10:36.460 --> 00:10:43.570 So he had an expectation that all of this expense and all of this time and all of this effort would yield fruit. 00:10:43.571 --> 00:10:45.309 Well, what is the symbolism here? 00:10:45.460 --> 00:10:47.620 Let me just see how awake you are this morning. 00:10:47.980 --> 00:10:50.649 Who is the owner of the vineyard? 00:10:52.210 --> 00:11:00.970 God is the owner of the vineyard, and that is as true in the day that Jesus is telling this as it is true today. 00:11:01.330 --> 00:11:06.789 To them, God has made the vineyard of the nation of Israel. 00:11:06.940 --> 00:11:16.299 He made that vineyard from which he would begin his gracious work of offering salvation, the fruit of salvation to all the world. 00:11:17.440 --> 00:11:20.409 But that vineyard doesn't stop with the nation of Israel. 00:11:19.811 --> 00:11:28.389 Today, that vineyard is much larger than Israel on this side of the cross and the empty tomb. 00:11:28.929 --> 00:11:34.299 I mean, there is a sense in which, individually for you and me, there is a vineyard. 00:11:34.539 --> 00:11:39.399 Your vineyard is everything that God has blessed you with. 00:11:39.789 --> 00:11:48.549 Your vineyard, what he has entrusted to you as a tenant farmer in his vineyard, is the abilities he's given to you. 00:11:48.549 --> 00:11:51.820 It's the resources that he has entrusted to you. 00:11:52.240 --> 00:11:52.750 It is your health. 00:11:53.240 --> 00:11:56.090 It is the relationships you have. 00:11:56.570 --> 00:12:01.340 That is all of the things that you didn't make up yourself, you didn't create. 00:12:01.879 --> 00:12:04.669 God has prepared these things for you. 00:12:04.759 --> 00:12:11.000 He has entrusted them to you as a tenant farmer in his vineyard. 00:12:12.259 --> 00:12:18.200 Now, this is not only true of us individually; there is a collective sense in which this is true. 00:12:18.500 --> 00:12:28.909 Our collective vineyard as Central Church is everything that God has entrusted to us, and that includes not just our building and our facilities. 00:12:28.910 --> 00:12:44.629 That includes our history, that includes our relationships and reputation in this community, that includes all those that he has gifted to be part of keeping the ministry going and expanding here. 00:12:44.779 --> 00:12:46.429 We didn't create this. 00:12:46.490 --> 00:12:48.679 We didn't build this church. 00:12:48.919 --> 00:12:54.889 We don't bring, you know, things like we're the one who this church hinges upon. 00:12:55.279 --> 00:13:06.409 No, God created this vineyard, and he placed every one of us in it as tenant farmers, part of working his vineyard, and what is the expectation? 00:13:06.410 --> 00:13:18.980 Whether you look at the vineyard of your personal life, your individual life, or you look at the vineyard of our collective life as Central Church, our purpose is to produce fruit. 00:13:19.610 --> 00:13:25.730 We don't exist just for our own happiness, just for our own preferences, just for our own enjoyment. 00:13:25.879 --> 00:13:27.799 We exist to produce fruit. 00:13:27.850 --> 00:13:50.090 Jesus says it this way in John 15:8:"By this, my father is glorified that you bear much fruit." This is how Jesus says,"You prove to be my disciples." We produce the fruit of bringing people to a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. 00:13:50.091 --> 00:13:54.559 We produce the fruit of making them disciples, followers of Jesus Christ. 00:13:54.561 --> 00:14:05.570 We produce the fruit of helping them, in turn, become those who make others into followers and disciples of Jesus Christ and reproducing themselves. 00:14:05.929 --> 00:14:07.549 That is our purpose. 00:14:07.610 --> 00:14:09.230 That's our purpose individually. 00:14:09.409 --> 00:14:12.139 That is our purpose of a church. 00:14:12.230 --> 00:14:22.190 It was certainly true at this time: God planted Israel to be a vineyard producing the fruit of salvation to the entire world, not just to the nation of Israel. 00:14:22.370 --> 00:14:31.820 And now, under the New Covenant, you are a vine, a grapevine in God's vineyard, expected to produce fruit. 00:14:32.360 --> 00:14:40.190 Our church is like a row of vines in God's vineyard, expected to produce fruit. 00:14:40.191 --> 00:14:43.340 Other churches are like other rows of vineyards. 00:14:43.519 --> 00:14:59.940 All of this is in God's grand vineyard, where he expects as the owner of the vineyard, the Lord of the vineyard, that there will be the fruit of salvation expanding to every nation, every tongue, every ethnicity, every tribe. 00:14:59.941 --> 00:15:01.320 That's our purpose. 00:15:01.470 --> 00:15:07.320 That's why, if you know Christ is Savior, if you know Christ is Lord, that's why you are breathing today. 00:15:07.320 --> 00:15:09.120 He wants us to produce fruit. 00:15:08.671 --> 00:15:17.129 But the parable also portrays the human problem with this, and that is our second point: our pride. 00:15:17.639 --> 00:15:20.519 And you can read how this plays out in the story. 00:15:20.639 --> 00:15:28.470 When the owner of the vineyard sends his servant to collect the fruit, to see if there's fruit that he expects of the harvest that he is owed. 00:15:28.590 --> 00:15:29.309 What happens? 00:15:29.311 --> 00:15:35.070 The tenant farmers seize the servant, they beat him, and they send him away empty-handed. 00:15:35.581 --> 00:15:36.690 That's Verse Three. 00:15:37.590 --> 00:15:41.370 And incomprehensibly, he gives them another opportunity. 00:15:41.580 --> 00:15:44.730 In Verse Four, he sends another servant to them. 00:15:44.970 --> 00:15:46.320 What happens again? 00:15:46.350 --> 00:15:49.440 These rebellious tenants, they strike this man on the head. 00:15:49.441 --> 00:15:51.000 They treat him shamefully. 00:15:51.840 --> 00:16:04.710 And at this point, although it seems pretty obvious to us that these rebellious tenant farmers are unrepentant, they're not going to change their mind in how they respond to the true owner of the vineyard, the owner sends even more servants. 00:16:04.769 --> 00:16:12.480 In Verse Five:"He sent still another, and that one they killed. 00:16:13.110 --> 00:16:22.259 And he sent many others, and some of them they beat, and others they killed." The people hearing this parable, they would have known who these servants are. 00:16:22.860 --> 00:16:24.539 These servants are the prophets. 00:16:24.541 --> 00:16:38.159 The Old Testament is a history of God sending his prophets, speaking his word to rebellious Israel and Israel abusing and mistreating and even killing his prophets. 00:16:39.149 --> 00:16:43.139 But it's not just Israel that rejects God's messengers. 00:16:43.529 --> 00:16:55.289 Think of all the servants of God around the world, throughout history, who have been sent away, rejected, who have been treated shamefully, who've been beaten, who've even been killed. 00:16:55.320 --> 00:16:55.980 Why? 00:16:56.009 --> 00:17:00.870 Because they're sharing the Gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ. 00:17:01.409 --> 00:17:15.839 And even this morning, even today in different places of the world, even in places in our country, this is happening to men and women who try to faithfully present the message of salvation through Jesus Christ, the true Gospel. 00:17:15.930 --> 00:17:22.200 There are many who reject that, who abuse the messengers, who kill the messengers. 00:17:22.380 --> 00:17:33.869 Think even of how you may have behaved, perhaps prior to coming to faith in Jesus Christ, when someone was sent to you as a messenger with the Gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ. 00:17:34.170 --> 00:17:38.940 Think of the many times that you may have rejected that message. 00:17:39.240 --> 00:17:52.319 Think of how you may not have actually killed the messenger, but think of how you maligned the messenger or slandered the messenger or scoffed at the messenger, in a way, killing the messenger. 00:17:52.500 --> 00:17:54.299 This is not just Israel. 00:17:54.300 --> 00:17:56.490 This is all of us. 00:17:57.240 --> 00:18:03.210 Finally, in Verse Six, the owner sends his own son, his son whom he loved. 00:18:03.390 --> 00:18:07.559 He sent him last of all, saying,"They will respect my son." Why? 00:18:08.160 --> 00:18:10.230 Because the son is the heir. 00:18:10.710 --> 00:18:15.660 The servants didn't own the vineyard, but the son, the son is the air. 00:18:15.661 --> 00:18:23.279 The son is the ultimate owner of the vineyard, and the owner sends the son. 00:18:23.279 --> 00:18:27.750 But Verse Seven: the tenants say to one another they know this is the heir. 00:18:27.869 --> 00:18:34.349 "If we kill him, then the vineyard will pass without ownership. 00:18:34.589 --> 00:18:37.559 We can take ownership of it. 00:18:37.619 --> 00:18:52.230 We can take control of it." They foolishly believe that by killing the son, they could gain ownership and control of the vineyard, and that's what they do in Verse Eight: they take him, and they kill him, and they throw him out of the vineyard. 00:18:53.549 --> 00:18:58.500 What is the heavenly symbolism of this earthly story? 00:18:58.650 --> 00:18:59.670 Who is the son? 00:18:59.671 --> 00:19:10.619 The son is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Savior, the Lord, the ultimate heir of the vineyard, and what happened to Jesus? 00:19:10.621 --> 00:19:14.279 It hadn't happened at the point he's telling this parable, but it was about to. 00:19:14.700 --> 00:19:16.109 They threw him out of the vineyard. 00:19:16.111 --> 00:19:18.660 They took him outside the city walls, the Gospel writers say. 00:19:18.779 --> 00:19:31.230 The writer of Hebrews says, Hebrews 13:12, that Jesus suffered and died outside the city gates at Golgotha for our sins. 00:19:31.349 --> 00:19:36.900 They were about to do to Jesus exactly what he was saying in the story. 00:19:37.980 --> 00:19:47.670 But this isn't just a picture of how the Jews killed Jesus; it's a picture of how the entire human race behaves toward Jesus, including us. 00:19:48.509 --> 00:20:15.960 David Garland says it this way:"Just as the tenants foolishly believe that by killing the son, they could become owners of the vineyard, so humans(and that includes you and me), so humans think that by erasing God from their lives, they can take control of their earthly and eternal destinies." You want to know why Romans tells us why people want to deny the existence of God? 00:20:15.961 --> 00:20:23.759 Because if you deny that there is an owner of the vineyard of your life, then then you can pretend you're the owner. 00:20:23.759 --> 00:20:37.920 You can pretend that you're in control, but if you have to acknowledge that there is an owner of the vineyard, that all that you have and all you've been entrusted with, you didn't create, it's been put on loan to you. 00:20:37.921 --> 00:20:43.710 You are a steward of it, and you have to bow to the owner of the vineyard. 00:20:44.400 --> 00:20:47.950 And that's really what it all comes down to for all of us. 00:20:47.951 --> 00:21:02.170 Just like these tenants, we don't naturally want to acknowledge that the vineyard of our lives belongs to the God who made it, even when we come into the kingdom, and we are believers, and we become part of the Church. 00:21:02.259 --> 00:21:14.049 When we think about, well, the preferences that we wrestle with, it's again, it's a similar type of, we're not really acknowledging the owner of the vineyard. 00:21:14.050 --> 00:21:18.190 We're still behaving like rebellious tenants. 00:21:18.490 --> 00:21:28.839 We all have this strain of sinful pride in us that wants to establish that we control the vineyard, the vineyard of our lives, the vineyard of our church. 00:21:28.900 --> 00:21:37.809 We want to seize control of everything in our lives, even if that means that we have to push God out of the picture to do it. 00:21:38.859 --> 00:21:44.500 And what we should all be amazed by is God's patience, the third point today. 00:21:45.160 --> 00:21:46.809 Think of God's patience here. 00:21:47.259 --> 00:21:55.329 When the servants return to the owner empty-handed and even abused, beaten up, what does the owner do? 00:21:55.990 --> 00:21:58.690 He doesn't immediately fly off the handle in anger. 00:21:58.691 --> 00:22:04.390 He doesn't call up his army to come in and wipe out these rebellious tenants, does he? 00:22:04.391 --> 00:22:07.329 No, he sends messenger after messenger. 00:22:09.220 --> 00:22:15.910 Finally, he even sends his beloved son, and this to us looks humanly foolish. 00:22:15.911 --> 00:22:16.990 Why would he do that? 00:22:16.990 --> 00:22:19.750 Why would he said servant after servant? 00:22:19.750 --> 00:22:23.140 Why would he put his son in danger like that? 00:22:23.829 --> 00:22:30.220 It's the same kind of confusion, I think, sometimes we experience when we look at all that is happening in the world around us. 00:22:30.221 --> 00:22:38.710 People in our world today seem to be just like these tenants: getting away with injustice and abuse and even murder. 00:22:38.980 --> 00:22:50.950 And God's servants continue to be rejected and mocked and abused and even killed, and there seems to be no accountability for all this rebellion in our world today. 00:22:52.029 --> 00:23:02.349 But Jesus is saying here,"Actually, this reflects the patient and loving character of God." God is holy. 00:23:02.351 --> 00:23:03.609 God is righteous. 00:23:03.611 --> 00:23:17.470 God is just, but God is also the God that the Apostle Peter describes as"the one who is patient with you not wanting you to perish, but for everyone to come to repentance". 00:23:18.099 --> 00:23:35.890 This is why Paul says in Romans 2,"Do you think lightly of the riches of God's kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God is meant to lead you to repentance?" You know, I think about this in my own life. 00:23:35.891 --> 00:23:50.119 Although I turned to Christ at a relatively young age, I still had many years, and I think back sometimes with regret over those many years when I lived my life like those tenants. 00:23:50.299 --> 00:23:52.519 What I had, I claimed as mine. 00:23:52.970 --> 00:23:56.539 My abilities, I claimed pridefully as my own. 00:23:56.211 --> 00:24:05.480 My choices, my decisions, what I thought I got to do in life, I operated as if I owned the vineyard. 00:24:06.349 --> 00:24:08.119 And maybe you're that way, too. 00:24:08.150 --> 00:24:14.119 Maybe that was your past coming to Christ, or maybe you're still there this morning. 00:24:14.269 --> 00:24:16.519 So I ask you, how about you? 00:24:16.520 --> 00:24:38.720 Has God's patience with you, the fact that he's allowed you to live another day, has his patience and kindness led you to repentance, led you to the place where you acknowledged him as lord of the vineyard, as the one who was created everything, as the one who gives you life, gives you all you have, all you've been entrusted with? 00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:42.890 Or are you still living in the mindset of these tenants? 00:24:43.220 --> 00:24:49.130 Are you still living like these rebellious tenants, saying,"I don't want anybody telling me what to do. 00:24:49.460 --> 00:24:52.670 I want to control the shots in my life"? 00:24:53.660 --> 00:24:55.670 Well, now that leads into our fourth point. 00:24:55.671 --> 00:25:07.519 Although God's forbearance and patience go beyond what we can humanly understand, there does come a time when his patience comes to an end, and he will wait no longer. 00:25:07.520 --> 00:25:10.279 The fourth point is God's punishment. 00:25:11.329 --> 00:25:20.599 God has shown incomprehensible patience, as it's symbolized in this parable, not just with Israel, but with all of the human race. 00:25:20.601 --> 00:25:25.910 But the conclusion of this parable shows his patience will come to an end. 00:25:25.911 --> 00:25:30.049 Verse Nine: what will the owner of the vineyard do? 00:25:30.470 --> 00:25:34.009 He will come and destroy the tenants. 00:25:35.029 --> 00:25:47.420 Maybe the tenants thought at this point,"He's an absentee landlord." Maybe they thought of him as impotent or or powerless, you know, unwilling to do what it takes to enforce what is just. 00:25:47.421 --> 00:25:58.579 But all of a sudden, this owner who has seemed so impotent and so distant becomes lord of the vineyard, and he crushes all the rebellion. 00:25:59.720 --> 00:26:26.390 And by the way, as Jesus is speaking this to the Jewish religious leaders who are functioning like these rebellious tenants, he knows in just 40 years there will be a partial fulfillment of that, when in 70 A.D., God allows the Roman armies to surround rebellious Jerusalem, to break down its walls, to destroy its temple, and to eradicate the nation of Israel. 00:26:26.391 --> 00:26:30.920 The nation of Israel came to an end for almost 1900 years. 00:26:31.519 --> 00:26:37.759 But this is also a warning of what will happen to all who persist in rebellion against the Lord of the vineyard. 00:26:38.599 --> 00:26:53.910 And whether you live openly rebellious, raising your fist in the air, or whether you have a really good surface appearance, and you look like a proper man or woman to everybody around you, but inwardly, you're in control of your life. 00:26:54.059 --> 00:27:04.589 Either way, if you persist in your rebellion, God will bring to the point where he brings about judgment and condemnation and punishment. 00:27:05.579 --> 00:27:12.480 The patient God is patient only for so long, but I'm so glad the Gospel doesn't end there. 00:27:13.049 --> 00:27:17.849 The Gospel actually ends with our fifth point: God's provision. 00:27:18.450 --> 00:27:20.759 And Jesus includes this in this episode. 00:27:20.760 --> 00:27:25.170 Jesus says that God will not only destroy the rebellious tenants. 00:27:25.171 --> 00:27:34.559 In other words, he will ultimately condemn and punish all who reject him, but at the same time, he will give the vineyard to others. 00:27:34.829 --> 00:27:36.720 He will give the vineyard to others. 00:27:36.721 --> 00:27:44.910 God's saving work, in other words, it's not stymied by the fact that that there is hardness of heart among these Jews. 00:27:50.130 --> 00:27:54.089 In place of these old covenant people that rejected their Messiah, God establishes his New Covenant people. 00:27:54.660 --> 00:28:08.789 God establishes the Church of Jesus Christ that is made up of everyone who embraces the true heir of the vineyard, the son of the owner of the vineyard, Jesus Christ as savior and Lord. 00:28:08.790 --> 00:28:13.529 And so now under the New Covenant, doesn't matter if you're Jewish. 00:28:13.530 --> 00:28:19.500 In fact, Paul says in Galatians 3:28 it no longer matters whether you're Jewish or gentile. 00:28:19.500 --> 00:28:29.730 It no longer matters whether you are slave or free or economic status, and it no longer even matters whether you are male or female. 00:28:29.730 --> 00:28:45.299 The only thing that matters is whether you are in Christ Jesus, whether you recognize that Christ is the Messiah, that he is the heir of the vineyard, that he is Lord and that he is king. 00:28:45.359 --> 00:28:59.309 It doesn't matter what nationality you come from, what ethnicity, what gender you are: if you believe in Jesus as Savior and Lord, as the Lord of the vineyard, you become part of his vineyard kingdom. 00:28:59.640 --> 00:29:00.240 You are saved. 00:29:00.240 --> 00:29:04.230 And Jesus ends this parable by quoting from Psalm 118. 00:29:04.230 --> 00:29:18.180 That seems kind of out of place until we understand that's the same psalm that the people were chanting in the Triumphal Entry when he entered Jerusalem, just back in chapter 11, and he picks out one particular verse. 00:29:18.299 --> 00:29:22.680 "Haven't you read the scripture?" he says to these proud Jewish religious leaders. 00:29:23.069 --> 00:29:31.410 "The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone." And just to give you a little context of this, what is he describing? 00:29:31.619 --> 00:29:39.869 He's describing, really-- this quote describes how the temple was previously destroyed long before the Romans. 00:29:39.871 --> 00:29:47.440 In 587 BC, the Babylonians surrounded Jerusalem and did the same thing to it that the Romans would do. 00:29:48.009 --> 00:29:50.440 They destroyed, they leveled, the temple. 00:29:50.441 --> 00:29:52.180 They took down every stone. 00:29:52.450 --> 00:29:55.029 They created just piles of rubble. 00:29:55.569 --> 00:30:18.309 And when Ezra and Nehemiah came later to rebuild Jerusalem and rebuild the temple, what they found is just these piles of broken stone, and among these broken stones, as they sought to rebuild the temple and the walls, there were stones that the builders of trying to rebuild the city would say,"That's broken. 00:30:18.309 --> 00:30:19.809 "That was from the old structure. 00:30:19.810 --> 00:30:23.140 We can't use that anymore." They would reject it. 00:30:23.950 --> 00:30:28.750 But the image is of God, out of those piles of rubble, rebuilding a new temple. 00:30:29.380 --> 00:30:32.980 Not a temple of stone; a living temple. 00:30:33.730 --> 00:30:40.900 The religious leaders know the meaning of this, even if we don't get it, because we're not as familiar with the Old Testament past. 00:30:41.619 --> 00:30:44.230 The stone, they know, refers to the Messiah. 00:30:45.809 --> 00:30:53.890 The builders are they, the religious Jewish religious leaders who are rejecting Christ as Messiah. 00:30:54.640 --> 00:31:10.329 But the story, the parable, the point here is that he is not just a stone; he is ultimately, he, Jesus, is the capstone of God's New Covenant kingdom, and again, this brings in images that we may not be familiar with. 00:31:10.330 --> 00:31:16.000 There's a diagram up on the screen of a capstone and a keystone. 00:31:16.240 --> 00:31:19.089 Some of your versions may talk about a cornerstone. 00:31:19.089 --> 00:31:22.240 I don't think that's the correct interpretation here. 00:31:22.869 --> 00:31:41.859 What Jesus describes here is probably either a capstone, that final stone that is placed upon the structure that becomes the pinnacle of the structure, or it's the keystone, that that stone that is placed in the arch that holds the whole arch and the whole wall together. 00:31:41.861 --> 00:31:51.160 Whatever the specific meaning, the stone we see is the most important one of all, and that is who Jesus is to us. 00:31:51.460 --> 00:32:21.549 That's why Peter picks up on this image, making it absolutely clear in 1 Peter 2:"Now to you who believe, who believe in Jesus as the Christ, this stone is precious." But to those who do not believe, those who reject the Christ as the heir of the vineyard, the stone that the builders rejected has become the capstone, and a stone that causes men to stumble, and a rock that makes them fall. 00:32:22.599 --> 00:32:33.549 The application is pretty clear: you can either believe that Jesus is God's Messiah, your Savior and your King, or you reject him as the Jewish religious leaders did. 00:32:33.550 --> 00:32:42.230 There is no in-between, and if you believe you are not only saved, but Peter goes on to say God makes you a living stone. 00:32:42.230 --> 00:32:48.230 You become part of this new, spiritual New Covenant temple that God is building. 00:32:49.339 --> 00:32:59.599 But many who want to be their own lords of the vineyard, many who want to run their own life their own way, Jesus says they will stumble over him. 00:32:59.960 --> 00:33:04.099 Matthew says they will even be crushed by him, the living stone. 00:33:05.079 --> 00:33:12.529 And the rejection of the stone by the Jewish religious leaders leading to the crucifixion of Jesus, that wasn't an aberration of God's plan. 00:33:12.530 --> 00:33:18.140 That was all, Jesus makes the point, that was all included in God's plan. 00:33:18.141 --> 00:33:19.369 That's verse 11. 00:33:19.970 --> 00:33:46.759 Quoting Psalm 118, Verse 23:"The Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes." Even their rejection of Jesus, even their evil actions in crucifying him, God providentially used to accomplish our salvation, to take Jesus to the cross, where he paid the penalty for your and my sins that we might be saved. 00:33:47.509 --> 00:34:07.339 Peter makes this clear in Acts 4:28:"They only did what God's power and God's will had decided beforehand should happen." God uses the rejection of Jesus Christ, both then and now, for the greater purpose that is marvelous in all of the eyes of those who have eyes to see him. 00:34:08.690 --> 00:34:12.559 Let me close with this application of those five points, those five"P"s. 00:34:13.039 --> 00:34:17.389 It doesn't normally happen that I get all my points starting with the same letter. 00:34:17.391 --> 00:34:22.190 I know you think they teach that in seminary, but that's not a rule or anything like that. 00:34:22.190 --> 00:34:23.690 It just worked out this week. 00:34:24.500 --> 00:34:26.840 What is God's purpose for you? 00:34:27.590 --> 00:34:36.769 Your purpose is more than just to live a happy, trouble-free life, as impossible as that is in this fallen world. 00:34:37.219 --> 00:34:48.380 Your purpose, the reason he saves you, the reason he has sent Jesus to you, is that you might live for him, that you might be a faithful laborer in his vineyard, and you might produce fruit. 00:34:48.380 --> 00:34:56.869 You might bring others to him, and you might help them become followers and disciples and makers of other disciples. 00:34:56.929 --> 00:34:58.099 That's our purpose. 00:34:58.130 --> 00:35:03.860 That's why we breathe the air we breathe even today, but what gets in the way of that? 00:35:03.980 --> 00:35:04.550 Our pride. 00:35:05.329 --> 00:35:16.880 And every one of us, both on the front side of accepting Christ, but even after, we wrestle with that desire that one way or another, we want to be lords of our own vineyard. 00:35:17.150 --> 00:35:20.719 We want to be in control of our lives. 00:35:21.440 --> 00:35:25.159 But we have a God who is greatly patient with us. 00:35:25.429 --> 00:35:27.409 He sends us his servants. 00:35:27.469 --> 00:35:29.389 He sent us his son. 00:35:29.630 --> 00:35:35.599 He is kind and forbearing and patient, because he doesn't want any of us to perish. 00:35:35.601 --> 00:35:40.619 He wants every one of us come to a true saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. 00:35:40.621 --> 00:35:44.159 He wants every one of us to produce fruit. 00:35:44.309 --> 00:35:48.210 The reason that he's placed us in his vineyard. 00:35:49.110 --> 00:36:00.750 The warning, though: those who reject him til the end face God's punishment, but the Gospel, God's provision, He provides Jesus the Christ, the capstone. 00:36:00.900 --> 00:36:06.510 He provides Jesus as the keystone, the one that holds the whole wall of his temple together. 00:36:07.860 --> 00:36:10.079 He becomes the crucial stone. 00:36:10.289 --> 00:36:13.619 He becomes what our salvation is based upon. 00:36:14.250 --> 00:36:17.489 Is this marvelous in your eyes? 00:36:17.699 --> 00:36:19.920 Do you have eyes to see this? 00:36:20.190 --> 00:36:23.280 Do you embrace the heir of the vineyard? 00:36:23.820 --> 00:36:30.900 Do you accept the surrender to being a faithful servant, a tenant farmer in the Lord's vineyard? 00:36:31.019 --> 00:36:31.619 Let's pray. 00:36:34.380 --> 00:36:38.070 Oh Lord God, may we see our purpose more clearly. 00:36:39.090 --> 00:37:03.190 If there is anyone here who does not know, this morning, Jesus as the Savior, the Lord of the vineyard, Lord, help them to see that the world they live in and all that they enjoy, that is all your doing, all your creation, and you've merely allowed them to live into it until they come to a saving knowledge of you. 00:37:03.610 --> 00:37:24.760 For those of us who who have, and we know Jesus as Savior and Lord, help us to see that the point of our ongoing life is not just to create a life that makes us happy; it is to be faithful servants and to produce fruit, to produce the fruit of salvation in the growth of your kingdom. 00:37:24.920 --> 00:37:27.940 Oh Lord, we thank you for your great patience with us. 00:37:27.940 --> 00:37:33.039 We hear the warning of your punishment for those who persist in rebellion. 00:37:33.909 --> 00:37:43.210 We worship and thank you for your provision of Christ as our chief capstone, our keystone. 00:37:43.960 --> 00:37:47.829 We worship him, Lord, we embrace him as our Lord. 00:37:48.280 --> 00:37:52.719 Make us faithful laborers that we would produce your fruit. 00:37:52.780 --> 00:37:54.550 We pray this in Jesus' name. 00:37:55.329 --> 00:37:55.719 Amen.