Speaker 1: The following resource is brought to you by Real Life Community Church in Richmond, Kentucky.
Speaker 1: We hope you're both challenged and encouraged by this message from Pastor Chris May.
Speaker 2: Matthew 21, verse 33.
Speaker 2: I forgot to open my book.
Speaker 2: Usually I have it printed in my notes, but I do not today.
Speaker 2: Here we go, verse 33.
Speaker 2: Here, another parable there was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a wine press in it and built a tower and leashed it to tenants and went into another country.
Speaker 2: When the season for the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit.
Speaker 2: And the tenants took his servants and beat one and killed another, and they stoned another Again.
Speaker 2: He sent other servants, more than the first, and they did the same to them.
Speaker 2: Finally, he sent his son to them, saying they will respect my son.
Speaker 2: But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves this is the heir.
Speaker 2: Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.
Speaker 2: They took him and they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
Speaker 2: When, therefore, the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?
Speaker 2: And they, this is the temple leaders.
Speaker 2: They said to Jesus he will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out of the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.
Speaker 2: And Jesus said to them have you never read the scriptures?
Speaker 2: The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
Speaker 2: This was the Lord's doing and it was.
Speaker 2: It is marvelous in our eyes and therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits, and the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces.
Speaker 2: And when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.
Speaker 2: And when the chief priests in the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking of them and although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds because they held him to be a prophet.
Speaker 2: It's the word of God for the people of God, and you may be seated.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm not telling you anything.
Speaker 2: You do not know this morning, but we tend, as Americans, to be an inpatient people.
Speaker 2: An inpatient people.
Speaker 2: Is that true?
Speaker 2: Fast food, which was given to us because we couldn't take the time to sit down at a restaurant and wait on our food, fast food is now too slow for us.
Speaker 2: We actually order ahead now, so it's ready the minute we get there.
Speaker 2: Stores used to sell Christmas items at the beginning of December, then it moved to November and now it's July.
Speaker 2: Who said that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 2: Black Friday deals now begin on Thursday or before.
Speaker 2: That card debt is absurd.
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 2: Because we don't save up for anything anymore.
Speaker 2: Remember layaway.
Speaker 2: But we can't do layaway anymore.
Speaker 2: We can't save up because we've got to have things now that we want.
Speaker 2: Now we have apps like InstaCard Door Dash right, you don't have to wait on your groceries anymore.
Speaker 2: This is crazy.
Speaker 2: If you're at a stop light and it turns green, if you're in the front and you take even a millisecond to put your foot on that gas, you apparently have crushed the guy's life behind you, and he will let you know it.
Speaker 2: He will tell you that you are number one with the wrong finger.
Speaker 2: That just happens.
Speaker 2: And so Shakespeare said this.
Speaker 2: He said how poor are they that have no patience?
Speaker 2: Think about that.
Speaker 2: We're impatient with people, aren't we?
Speaker 2: We're just quick to write people off and we tend to be a bit unforgiving at times.
Speaker 2: And what's even more, you know a lot of Christians today, particularly in the West.
Speaker 2: We tend to be impatient towards God.
Speaker 2: It's like if we pray, even though you only pray five minutes a week, or only when you need something, you pray at your door in 15 minutes or less.
Speaker 2: And if he does not answer your prayer in the way that you want and or in the timeframe that you want, then you're frustrated with God and you're wondering does he even love me, does he even care about me?
Speaker 2: Why would God?
Speaker 2: We're entitled, right, but we're impatient.
Speaker 2: Warren Wersby said that Satan wants us to get impatient with God, for an impatient Christian is a powerful weapon in the devil's hands.
Speaker 2: All of this to drive home the fact that, yes, we know this, we are impatient, but praise God that he does not share in this trait.
Speaker 2: We serve a patient God.
Speaker 2: We serve a God who is long suffering.
Speaker 2: Let me just read you a couple of verses Psalm 86, 15,.
Speaker 2: But you, oh Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding, instead fast love and faithfulness.
Speaker 2: First, timothy 1, 16,.
Speaker 2: But I this is Paul speaking received mercy for this reason, reason that, in me as foremost, jesus Christ might display, get this his perfect patience as an example of to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.
Speaker 2: Why has the Lord not returned yet?
Speaker 2: Because he's patient.
Speaker 2: Second, peter, 3, 9,.
Speaker 2: The Lord is not slow to fill, fill his promises as some count slowness, but is patients toward patients towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
Speaker 2: I don't know about you, but I'm grateful that we serve a patient, god.
Speaker 2: I think back to my life and I think why did he not take me out a long time ago?
Speaker 2: Because he's a God of grace and mercy and a God of great patience, and I this really connects to our texts today.
Speaker 2: This is what I want to point out.
Speaker 2: God is extremely patient with sinful people, but his patients can be exhausted.
Speaker 2: How many of you have ever been really patient with someone?
Speaker 2: But then you say, man, you're trying my patients.
Speaker 2: Some of you are sitting next to that person this morning.
Speaker 2: You're trying my patients, but if you ever been to that place where it's just your, your patients has been exhausted.
Speaker 2: I've done everything I can for you.
Speaker 2: My patients has been exhausted.
Speaker 2: Do you know that we should not take God's patients for granted, because we can exhaust his, his patients?
Speaker 2: And so I want to show you this in the text.
Speaker 2: Um, three easy points today.
Speaker 2: Number one the patients of God.
Speaker 2: Number two the extent of God's patients.
Speaker 2: In number three our response to God's patients.
Speaker 2: Okay, we're going to look at his patients, the extent of his patients and our response to his patients.
Speaker 2: Number one um, let's just look at the parable.
Speaker 2: And then in the parable we see the patients of God.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to read it again, but I just going to give you a a summary.
Speaker 2: But before I do, let me just give you a little recap of where we've been.
Speaker 2: A couple of weeks ago we looked at a familiar story of Jesus storming the temple you remember that right.
Speaker 2: And he turns over the, the money tables, and he challenges the temple authorities.
Speaker 2: He drives out uh, the, the money changers, and you know the merchants and the, uh and the buyers, and he says you're not worshiping God.
Speaker 2: This is supposed to be a house of prayer, but you've turned it into a den of thieves.
Speaker 2: And so then he leaves the temple and he had a leader's permission, just starts teaching.
Speaker 2: And so the temple leaders, the chief priests and the elders, they confront Jesus in the temple and they say what are you doing?
Speaker 2: Who has given you this authority?
Speaker 2: But they're not really interested in where Jesus authority comes from.
Speaker 2: They just want to entrap him, they want him gone, they want him to say the wrong thing.
Speaker 2: And so, jesus being much wiser than they are, he doesn't give them a direct answer.
Speaker 2: But here's what he does.
Speaker 2: He gives them three parables One we looked at two weeks ago, uh, we're going to look at the second today and the third, god willing, next week.
Speaker 2: But three parables, and and it's really interesting here that the parables are kind of cryptic, right, but what he's doing is he's he's calling out the Pharisees in these parables and you'll see, at the end of our text you remember what I just read it's like the Pharisees are the and the temple leaders.
Speaker 2: They're like he's talking about us, but it's just cryptic enough, right, where they can't just flat out accuse him right there and so, uh, so here's today's parable.
Speaker 2: There's a wealthy landowner who establishes a vineyard, with the fence around it and a watchtower, and he leases it to tenant farmers and then he departs.
Speaker 2: Now, this was a very common practice in Jesus day.
Speaker 2: You would have wealthy landowners and, uh, they, they would in the Palestine area.
Speaker 2: They would buy up land, they would plant vineyards and then they would lease the land out to tenants and those tenants would work the land and then they would give the landowner a certain portion of the harvest.
Speaker 2: That was kind of their rent.
Speaker 2: So that's what's going on here, and so it is.
Speaker 2: It's a very common practice in Jesus day.
Speaker 2: That's what's going on here.
Speaker 2: And so it it harvest time.
Speaker 2: The landowner would come back, uh, he would send somebody to the vineyard because he doesn't live on this estate, but he would come back, uh, sending servants, and they would collect his portion of the harvest and then they would go about their business.
Speaker 2: All right, are you with me?
Speaker 2: All right, so here is what we have.
Speaker 2: We have this beautiful vineyard, a picture of a vineyard, you know, you conjure this up in your mind and it's bearing this beautiful fruit and it's worked by these tenant farmers.
Speaker 2: But then it takes this bitter turn, shocking turn.
Speaker 2: Um, when harvest time is near, here's what happens the master sends his servants to collect his portion of the fruit, and so at least three servants go to this farm.
Speaker 2: They're supposed to, supposed to bring the fruit back to the owner.
Speaker 2: But what happens when they arrive at the owner?
Speaker 2: If the estate?
Speaker 2: Here's what?
Speaker 2: Here's what happens in the parable One of the servants that the tenants kill one of the servants, they kick out another, or they kill another, sorry and they stone another.
Speaker 2: So they beat one, kill one, stone one.
Speaker 2: That's how it goes.
Speaker 2: All right, farmers, gracious, has hired these tenants or the landowner.
Speaker 2: He sends service to get his service, to get his portion of the harvest.
Speaker 2: And this is how they're treated Once killed, one stoned, think about that.
Speaker 2: And one's beaten.
Speaker 2: So what happens?
Speaker 2: The the the landowner gets word of this and what's he do?
Speaker 2: He sends more servants and the same thing happens to those servants.
Speaker 2: Think about that.
Speaker 2: Beaten and killed.
Speaker 2: Well then, what happens?
Speaker 2: The landowner thinks, well, let me do this.
Speaker 2: And you know what happens.
Speaker 2: The landowner sends his son to collect his portion of the fruit.
Speaker 2: And what's the story?
Speaker 2: Say the tenants put him outside of the vineyard and they kill him.
Speaker 2: That's the story.
Speaker 2: What do we do with that?
Speaker 2: You say, where, where is the patience of God seen in this?
Speaker 2: Well, let me, let me give you these allegorical elements to kind of tell you what's going on.
Speaker 2: The landowner represents who do you think?
Speaker 2: God?
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 2: The vineyard represents Israel, and here's how we know that God's chosen.
Speaker 2: 5-7, for the vineyard of the Lord of Host is the house of Israel.
Speaker 2: Israel was God's chosen people, and so there's the vineyard.
Speaker 2: And they're a vineyard because they were chosen to bear spiritual fruit in a dark world.
Speaker 2: They were to be a light to the nations.
Speaker 2: And so they were a vineyard supposed to bear this fruit of worship and obedience to God.
Speaker 2: And then you have in the story the tenants, who represent the chief priests and elders, the temple leaders, the religious leaders of Israel to whom Jesus is speaking.
Speaker 2: And then you have the servants who were sent, and the servants represent the prophets of the Old Testament who were sent to Israel to warn them because Israel didn't always do well about bearing spiritual fruit, so God would send prophets.
Speaker 2: And then, finally, the son.
Speaker 2: Who do you think that might represent Jesus Christ?
Speaker 2: So where do we see God's patience?
Speaker 2: Well, in the story we would have expected the vineyard owner to do what to the tenants after they, you know, destroyed his servants, obliterated his servants?
Speaker 2: I kill him, punish him, but you know what he does.
Speaker 2: This, this landowner, by grace.
Speaker 2: He says you know what, I'm going to give him another shot.
Speaker 2: And he sends more servants to collect his portion of the harvest.
Speaker 2: The same thing happens.
Speaker 2: So now, what would you expect the landowner to do?
Speaker 2: Kill him, right.
Speaker 2: Like this is the ancient world, they don't play.
Speaker 2: But shockingly, the owner is so patient and he gives the tenants another chance and he says I know what I'm going to do.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to send more servants, I'm going to send my son.
Speaker 2: They'll respect him, but they don't.
Speaker 2: They put the son outside of the vineyard and kill him.
Speaker 2: Well again, what do we do with this?
Speaker 2: God called Israel to be his people, remember?
Speaker 2: He rescued them out of Egypt, brought them through the wilderness, gave them this promised land full of milk and honey.
Speaker 2: He gave them the law.
Speaker 2: He said here's how you, here's how you can bear spiritual fruit, here's how you worship, here's how you, here's how you obey.
Speaker 2: Awful, awful.
Speaker 2: The people constantly turned their backs on God, and God would bring some form of light, punishment upon them and they would say oh Lord, we're sorry, help us, we're going to change.
Speaker 2: And then God would bless them.
Speaker 2: And what would happen?
Speaker 2: It's recapitulation, over and over and over Same story.
Speaker 2: They would turn back to false idols, they would go back to their pagan ways and they would disobey and make a mockery of God.
Speaker 2: And so the point of the story is this God could have wiped Israel out way early on, after he brought them out of Egypt, and they were complaining and grumbling in the wilderness, like so many of us do.
Speaker 2: He could have just said hey, I'm done with you.
Speaker 2: And how many times could the Lord have said hey, I'm done with you, are you, are, you, are me.
Speaker 2: But you know what God did in the Old Testament?
Speaker 2: Over and over and over.
Speaker 2: He sent his prophets to confront the people and say you need to repent or you're going to face judgment.
Speaker 2: And they would reject the prophets and persecute the prophets over and over.
Speaker 2: And God again.
Speaker 2: He could have been very justly.
Speaker 2: He could have said hey, you've rejected my prophet, I'm done with you.
Speaker 2: But oh, aren't you grateful for the patience of God.
Speaker 2: Hallelujah.
Speaker 2: Over and over and over.
Speaker 2: God gave them chance after chance, but then God sent even another servant after all of his prophets had been rejected.
Speaker 2: You know, the people might listen for a while and then they turn their backs on the message of the prophets.
Speaker 2: So God does something else.
Speaker 2: We read this in the Gospels before Jesus comes on the scene for his earthly ministry, god sends another prophet.
Speaker 2: Who is it?
Speaker 2: John the Baptist.
Speaker 2: And John the Baptist.
Speaker 2: He was going around to the religious leaders and to Israel.
Speaker 2: And what was his message?
Speaker 2: Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.
Speaker 2: And he was baptizing people saying listen, you're not pleasing God, you're not bearing spiritual fruit Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.
Speaker 2: And he was telling them your Messiah is here, the kingdom of God has come.
Speaker 2: You better get your life right.
Speaker 2: That's the point.
Speaker 2: So we see this over and over and over God's grace and his patience towards his people.
Speaker 2: But you know what?
Speaker 2: They rejected John the Baptist, the religious leaders.
Speaker 2: They rejected John the Baptist as well.
Speaker 2: And so what happens?
Speaker 2: Jesus still doesn't wipe them out.
Speaker 2: He says here's what I'm going to do.
Speaker 2: I'm going to send my son.
Speaker 2: They'll listen to him.
Speaker 2: But no, as they rejected the prophets, they also rejected the son.
Speaker 2: They wanted to be rulers, they want to be the gods.
Speaker 2: Remember, in the story it's like if we get rid of the son, we can have the inheritance.
Speaker 2: That's what Adam and Eve wanted.
Speaker 2: They weren't comfortable satisfied being under the kingship of the Lord.
Speaker 2: They wanted to be their own gods, and that's what the religious leaders in the story want.
Speaker 2: They want to be the Messiah themselves.
Speaker 2: They want the authority, and so they reject the son.
Speaker 2: So we see here that God is extremely patient.
Speaker 2: But the second point, quickly, is this Look, if you would, at verses 41 through 43.
Speaker 2: So, jesus, let's back up just a little bit.
Speaker 2: So Jesus asked that, after he tells us parable, he asked the religious leaders.
Speaker 2: He says what do you think the landowner is going to do when he comes?
Speaker 2: What's he going to do?
Speaker 2: That's tenants.
Speaker 2: And here's what the Pharisees say.
Speaker 2: They said to him he will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to the other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.
Speaker 2: Listen, listen, the Pharisees and the religious leaders.
Speaker 2: They don't understand yet that Jesus is talking about them.
Speaker 2: So they hear the parable.
Speaker 2: You see what Jesus is doing.
Speaker 2: He says hey, what do you think this landowner should have done?
Speaker 2: Kill them, give them a wretched death, you know a painful death.
Speaker 2: Don't make it quick.
Speaker 2: And what they're doing, by their own words, they're bringing judgment upon themselves Because they are the tenants in the parable.
Speaker 2: And so then Jesus says have you never read the scriptures?
Speaker 2: The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
Speaker 2: This was the Lord's doing and it's marvelous in our eyes.
Speaker 2: And therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to the people producing fruits, and the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.
Speaker 2: The question what should the owner do to the tenants?
Speaker 2: And the Pharisees say destroy him.
Speaker 2: Jesus quotes then from Psalm 118.
Speaker 2: He says to them he talks about this stone that's rejected, that has become the cornerstone.
Speaker 2: Now you've got to understand that.
Speaker 2: The Hebrews are these religious leaders, they're experts in the Hebrew scriptures and Jesus is kind of poking at them here and he says hey, do you not know the scriptures?
Speaker 2: Do you not get what this means?
Speaker 2: And he quotes from Psalm 118, 21 and 22.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 2: And you know that scripture, you know the stone that's been rejected now becomes the cornerstone.
Speaker 2: That's a bit cryptic, isn't it?
Speaker 2: But thankfully, this text from Psalm 118 crystal clear.
Speaker 2: Here's what he says Peter filled with the Holy this is verse eight, by the way.
Speaker 2: Peter filled with the Holy Spirit said to them, rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you and to all of the people of Israel that, by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead by him, this man is standing before you.
Speaker 2: Well, now listen, this.
Speaker 2: Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone, and there is salvation and no one else, for there is no other name under heaven and earth by which men must be saved.
Speaker 2: So here it is.
Speaker 2: Peter makes it clear the stone is Jesus, the builders are the rulers of Israel.
Speaker 2: The rejected stone was the crucifixion of Jesus.
Speaker 2: The cornerstone is the resurrection of Jesus.
Speaker 2: Peter adds that it's only through Jesus, this cornerstone, that men might be saved.
Speaker 2: So here's what Jesus is saying.
Speaker 2: It's what Peter is saying.
Speaker 2: God is called Israel to be the builders of His kingdom.
Speaker 2: What a privilege, a task that they could never uphold.
Speaker 2: But by grace, god sent His only Son to do for them what they could not do for themselves.
Speaker 2: He came to show them, to teach them and to fulfill the law, but they rejected Him.
Speaker 2: They rejected the stone that God sent.
Speaker 2: And then Jesus, what he does here?
Speaker 2: He says he's saying I know you're going to kill me.
Speaker 2: The stone is going to be rejected, in other words, it's going to be crucified.
Speaker 2: But I want you to know you think you've done away with the stone, but God's going to raise up that stone and he's going to make it a cornerstone.
Speaker 2: Jesus knows, he foretells that His rejection will ultimately result in His crucifixion, followed by His resurrection.
Speaker 2: And in ancient structures such as the temple, the cornerstone was foundational.
Speaker 2: You take away the cornerstone, the whole building will collapse.
Speaker 2: And what Jesus is doing here, what Peter is saying in Acts 4, is listen, you religious leaders, I don't care how religious you are, how moral you think you are, how ethical you think you are, how good at worship you think you are, if you do not have Jesus, your religiosity, your temple will collapse.
Speaker 2: And, as a matter of fact, the temple did collapse in AD 70.
Speaker 2: Not AD 70.
Speaker 2: And so Jesus just makes the warning explicit, doesn't he?
Speaker 2: Here's what he says.
Speaker 2: He says you know what?
Speaker 2: The kingdom is going to be taken from you.
Speaker 2: I've given you every chance in the world, but you reject me.
Speaker 2: The kingdom's, not yours.
Speaker 2: He says I'm going to put you out of the vineyard.
Speaker 2: And by their own words, the Pharisees, the religious leaders' own words, they know God is just in doing this.
Speaker 2: They don't deserve the kingdom, they don't deserve to work in the vineyard anymore.
Speaker 2: And so Jesus is saying you have exhausted the patience of God, you're out.
Speaker 2: You're giving the vineyard to people who will actually bear fruit.
Speaker 2: So we see the beloved, that we can exhaust the patience of God.
Speaker 2: So how do we respond to God's patience?
Speaker 2: How do we respond?
Speaker 2: Last point let's think about the glory of his patience.
Speaker 2: Friends, we're more like the temple leaders than we'd like to admit.
Speaker 2: How often have we been stubborn, not followed the Lord?
Speaker 2: How many of you know?
Speaker 2: None of us deserve to be tenants in his vineyard, none of us deserve to be in his kingdom, none of us, in and of ourselves, can produce spiritual fruit.
Speaker 2: That's the point.
Speaker 2: None of us has loved God with our whole hearts, none of us have perfectly loved our neighbors as ourselves out.
Speaker 2: But secondly, the apex of his patience is seen in the sending of his son, who became a sacrifice, in the substitution for us, to do for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Speaker 2: And through Jesus we don't deserve to be in the kingdom, but through Jesus.
Speaker 2: Here's what happens that when Jesus died and was raised, the gates to the kingdom opened wide.
Speaker 2: So anybody who comes to the Lord, jesus Christ, by grace, through faith, they can enter the kingdom.
Speaker 2: Are you grateful for the patience of God?
Speaker 2: But he has offered us grace upon grace.
Speaker 2: So how do we respond to this.
Speaker 2: Well, here's what I encourage you to do worship him, treasure him, love him, adore him, be in awe of him, worship him with all of your hearts.
Speaker 2: We make most of his patience.
Speaker 2: Hear me when we see his patience, his love, his mercy in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we fall at Jesus' feet and say oh, be my Lord, be my savior, I give myself wholly to you.
Speaker 2: Receive Jesus, I mean really receive Jesus.
Speaker 2: Follow him.
Speaker 2: John 1 12 says.
Speaker 2: But to all who did receive Jesus, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God and see, to receive Jesus.
Speaker 2: Here's what it is.
Speaker 2: It is to see our own depravity.
Speaker 2: It is to see that you can never earn your way to God.
Speaker 2: It is to see, as Peter said in Acts 4, that he is the only way of salvation.
Speaker 2: You've not made that decision.
Speaker 2: You can make it today, gloriously.
Speaker 2: Make that decision today, and most of you in here you would say, oh yeah, I've received Jesus.
Speaker 2: You know, I glory in the patience of God, I relish his patience, I revel in his patience.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you this what is?
Speaker 2: I think Israel would have said this.
Speaker 2: I think the temple leaders would have said this how do you know that you're a real follower of Jesus?
Speaker 2: How do you know that you really have received him?
Speaker 2: Let me tell you how it's by the production of spiritual fruit.
Speaker 2: Jesus said you can do nothing apart from me.
Speaker 2: So you, a person who does not know Christ, cannot produce lasting eternal fruit, lasting eternal fruit.
Speaker 2: Here's what Jesus says in John 14, 21,.
Speaker 2: Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me.
Speaker 2: How do you know?
Speaker 2: You love Jesus, you're following him, you're keeping his commandments.
Speaker 2: Now, don't misunderstand me.
Speaker 2: It doesn't mean that we clean up ourselves and we come to Jesus.
Speaker 2: No, we come to him.
Speaker 2: Give ourselves fully to him, your poor and spirit.
Speaker 2: Recognize our spirit, recognizing our spiritual bankruptcy, but we say Lord, I come to you, you clean me up, you clean me up.
Speaker 2: So, spiritual worship, spiritual fruit, namely worship and obedience, it's not the means of salvation, but it's the evidence.
Speaker 2: So, somebody who says well, I had an emotional experience at the altar and I prayed to ask Jesus in my heart, which the sinner's prayer is nowhere in the Bible you want to be saved?
Speaker 2: Yes, you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord.
Speaker 2: But what did Peter say when thousands of people in Acts 2 were cut to the heart.
Speaker 2: He said repent and be baptized.
Speaker 2: Without repentance there is no true faith.
Speaker 2: So the way you know that you've come to Jesus, truly received Jesus, is by the spiritual fruit that's produced in your life.
Speaker 2: And some of you have said, yes, I'm a Christian, but the fruit of your life doesn't match up with that testimony.
Speaker 2: But thank God for his patience.
Speaker 2: Thank God for his patience.
Speaker 2: He should have wiped you out, he should have wiped me out at times, but he didn't.
Speaker 2: Let me remind you, you can exhaust his patience so you can respond with glory and worship I hope that's what you do but you can also respond with exploitation, and here's what I mean by that.
Speaker 2: I fear sometimes that we focus too much on the love, the mercy, the cuddly parts of God.
Speaker 2: Right, and we should love his mercy, we should celebrate his love and his patience and his beauty and his grace, on and on and on.
Speaker 2: But I'm afraid that we focus so much on that that we forgot that he's also a God of righteous anger, he's a God of wrath, he's a God of judgment, and so this is kind of the attitude that I see in the modern church.
Speaker 2: It's this Christians lift, some supposed Christians lift however they want and they're like well, god's so nice, jesus is my buddy, he's not gonna let anything bad happen to me, he would never judge me.
Speaker 2: Have you read your Bible?
Speaker 2: Were you listening to this text just now?
Speaker 2: The kingdom of heaven will be taken from you.
Speaker 2: That's what he tells the leaders.
Speaker 2: How do we exhaust God's patience?
Speaker 2: Number one it's through unrepentance.
Speaker 2: If you're living in habitual sin, you're on dangerous territory, friend.
Speaker 2: The longer you reject God's spirit calling you to repent, the softer his voice gets, and one day your heart may become completely hardened.
Speaker 2: Let me just read you this text.
Speaker 2: I'm almost done.
Speaker 2: I promise Romans 2, 4 and 5.
Speaker 2: Or do you presume?
Speaker 2: Presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience?
Speaker 2: There it is.
Speaker 2: Do you presume on the riches of God's kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?
Speaker 2: It's a point of it.
Speaker 2: His patience is not so.
Speaker 2: You can go on living how you want.
Speaker 2: It's so that you repent.
Speaker 2: He's giving you a chance, and here's what he says.
Speaker 2: But because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself.
Speaker 2: How does that fit into your cuddly picture of God?
Speaker 2: God's patient with you, not that you can continue in disobedience.
Speaker 2: That you might repent.
Speaker 2: If you need to do that today, I pray you will.
Speaker 2: It's one way to exploit or exhaust God's presence.
Speaker 2: Another way is through self-righteousness.
Speaker 2: This is the issue with the religious leaders in Jesus' day to whom he's talking.
Speaker 2: They didn't see their need for a savior.
Speaker 2: They thought they could actually be good enough.
Speaker 2: And that's the slap in the face of the savior that died for you.
Speaker 2: Because why did he need to come if you could pull your own self up by your bootstraps and make it yourself?
Speaker 2: You can't.
Speaker 2: You've got to recognize the cross and say the cross says I've sinned and fall short of the glory of God and Jesus is my only hope.
Speaker 2: And finally, obviously, how we complete total rejection of Jesus.
Speaker 2: And I've seen this with people I'm ministering to a couple of people right now who God is speaking to their hearts.
Speaker 2: They're not Christians yet and I believe you ought to really think about whether or not you want to be a Christian.
Speaker 2: I'm not a high pressure salesman when it comes to the gospel and Jesus has count the cost, but there's a thing called waiting too long.
Speaker 2: Don't exhaust his patience.
Speaker 2: The gate is open right now.
Speaker 2: If you don't know Jesus man, come to him.
Speaker 2: Today I've heard people say one day I'll become a Christian, or one day you know I go to church, but one day I'll really get serious about this.
Speaker 2: Well, it's been said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Speaker 2: So let me close.
Speaker 2: Stand your feet.
Speaker 2: Let me close with this poem.
Speaker 2: I want you to give me your undivided attention for a moment, because this is a beautiful poem that drives home the point of this text.
Speaker 2: It's called Almost Persuaded by Philip Bliss.
Speaker 2: You ready, do I have your attention?
Speaker 2: Smile at me if I do.
Speaker 2: All right, almost persuaded now to believe.
Speaker 2: Almost persuaded Christ to receive.
Speaker 2: Seems now some soul to say go spirit, go thy way some more convenient day.
Speaker 2: On the alcohol First two almost persuaded harvest is past.
Speaker 2: Almost persuaded doom at last.
Speaker 2: Almost cannot avail.
Speaker 2: Almost is but to fail.
Speaker 2: Sad, sad, that bitter whale.
Speaker 2: Almost but lost.
Speaker 2: There's a peril in waiting too long to repent.
Speaker 2: May you repent today.
Speaker 2: Let's pray God, how grateful we are for your presence with us today.
Speaker 2: Lord, preaching scripture by scripture, through Matthew, gives me some challenging text to deal with, some, some sobering texts.
Speaker 2: And, lord, this is a challenging one that we all need to hear, see.
Speaker 2: May you speak to our hearts today.
Speaker 2: Show us those things of which we need to repent.
Speaker 2: There's one here that does.
Speaker 2: Let us do it while your patience is here today.
Speaker 2: There's one here that doesn't know you.
Speaker 2: May they not put you off any longer.
Speaker 2: May they come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2: We pray this in Jesus' good name, amen.
Speaker 1: In the name of Jesus, the Lord the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.