Hidden Kingdom: Seeing What Others Miss | The Rejected Son

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, I'm Kevin. Thanks for listening to our message. We strive each week to bring you relevant, practical, biblical teaching that meets you where you are. Hope you enjoy the message.

SPEAKER_02 0:12

It's been good to be with you this morning. Um couple of uh a couple I just want to mention Julie had mentioned uh about the outdoor service next Sunday. Um the idea it's my stomach.

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It's it's okay.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

That was just bad Mexican food last night. Sorry. Um so uh next Sunday we're where if the weather cooperates, we'll be outside. If not, we'll be set up in here and we'll still have we'll still have the we'll do an indoor picnic. But I want to talk about the celebrating uh milestones in people's lives. Um as I as I watch on social media all the stuff that's happening in your life, we're a family, we're a church family. And I just think we ought to celebrate some of the accomplishments, not just graduates, I because that's huge. Like we get to celebrate Adam. Uh Adam Rainford. Wow. Adam Rainford graduated, and we had several, we had several graduate, but as I watched, as I watched Adam and was so happy for him and kind of chuckled at his mom crying all the time. Uh but and then and and then to see Katie, uh, who's back with the kids, reach her retirement. And then this one, like every day, there's like an article in the Wall Street Journal about Grace Newberry, uh, and all of the um as a freshman, she's going to U of I. She uh she made the the marching band, which is a big deal at a Big Ten school as a freshman making the marching band. And I mean, that's like uh I mean, it's tougher than football. Uh, they they work really, really hard. And I just think there's so many things like that, not just not just uh graduations, but there's things that are happening in your lives, and we may know about them and we may not. Like, like there's some of our kids that have hit National Honor Society as a junior. I want to celebrate all those things, but I can only do it if you let me know. So we're so if you want to just hound me with emails this week, that'd be great. Tell me about your grandkids, tell me about your accomplishments. I we're we're not gonna have gifts for everybody and all that. I just want people to know what a gifted group of people you are. And then uh we're gonna order a cake along with whatever else people bring in. We're gonna order a cake and say, we're just celebrating Water's Edge Church people because there's some really great, great accomplishments. Um, I know uh is yeah, he just came in. Adam is is getting ready to uh uh apply for a big job down in Peoria, America, where I grew up. Uh and did you do that yet, Adam? Have you gone to Peoria yet?

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Thursday.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

Thursday, this coming Thursday. And um and so maybe next week we get to celebrate that. But I just want to know what's going on, and let's just celebrate um um you so just uh let me know. Maybe maybe you got maybe you're a senior and and uh you you're celebrating that you get 10% off at Denny's. I want to know. I want to know because I I do too. I do too. Get that get that card out, and and uh and now now it's not even offensive if I get a discount without even asking for one, you know. I just figure I'll take it. So uh, but I just want to I want next Sunday just to be a fun time, hang out together. Uh again, we've got uh food coming in, and uh Steve for many is doing that, and he just does a great job of that. And uh, so you bring a side dish, stick around afterwards. I know, I know it's a busy Sunday. We got a whole bunch of our kids singing down at the uh um Jack Hammers. Is that what it is? Slammers now. Slammers, uh the slammers game, they're singing the national anthem and stuff. So busy day, busy, busy day. And this is a busy weekend. So I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you got up on Memorial Day. And uh thank you for doing that. Whoever did the lights, that's helpful for me. And um uh and I'm glad you're here. And uh, I have another surprise. Um, my sermons are usually six pages long, and today they're only it's only three. Yeah. Okay, that the clapping is not appreciated on that a whole lot, but I get it. So, hey, um, we have been doing a sermon series on the parables of the gospel of Mark. Uh, I've thoroughly enjoyed doing that. Today is a little bit different because parables very rarely are allegories. As a matter of fact, some Bible scholars and theologians would say there are no parables that are allegories. Um, but this one to me is just obvious. I can't even figure out why people say that. This is indeed an allegory and a parable. And Mark includes it. He only includes five parables. We've talked about three. This is number four. Um and so I wanna I want to look at that. And I think that you'll, as we read through it, if you if you've been connected to the church and church history and Old Testament stuff, you're gonna see the really clear picture of the allegory. Jesus tells this parable parable during the most intense week of his life. He is in Jerusalem. Palm Sunday has happened. He's come down from the mountain. They were waving the palm branches. And the religious leaders, as Jesus has come back into the temple, they're confronting him. They do not like his message. They want to, they want to stop it. That's why the 120 were gathered up in a room, wondering what is going to happen, because they were fearful of their life. I didn't want to go too deeply into the with the kids, but they were afraid to come out of the room of 120 people because they thought that they would be killed as well, because they were followers of this Jesus. They hated the message of Jesus. And now he's in Jerusalem in the temple. The cross is only days away. And in this moment, Jesus tells this parable, this story, and it explains the entire history of God's relationship with his people and predicts about what is to happen in the next few days. If you have your Bibles, turn to Mark chapter 12. Mark chapter 12. Uh, the first pair, the first three parables were in Mark chapter 4. So, so the the Mark, and when he writes his gospel, he he doesn't use a lot of Jesus' teachings, uh, especially his stories, until we come to this final week of his life. Mark chapter 12, verses 1 through 12. Here we go. Jesus then began to speak to them in parables. Notice all these verbs. A man that represents God. A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, he dug a pit for the wine press. He built a watchtower, and then he rented the vineyard to some farmers, and then he moved to another place. 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. Why would they do that? Then the owner, he sent another servant to them, and they struck this man on the head, and they treated him shamefully. Verse 5, he sent still another, and that one they killed. And he sent many others. Some of them they beat, others they killed. What is going on? The owner, the the owner, God, the owner just he just wanted a little bit of the harvest. He wasn't even asking for a lot. He he said at harvest time, he sent them to collect for them some of the fruit. He didn't say, go to my property and bring me back my harvest that my people that I pay can bring back to me. He just said, Hey, just go get some of the wine. Just get some of the harvest. Verse six. He had one left to send. A son, whom he loved. He sent him last of all, saying, Surely they will respect my son. But the tenants said to one another, This is the heir. Come, let's let's kill him. And then the inheritance will be ours. So they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others. Haven't you read this passage of scripture? The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The Lord has done this, and it's marvelous in our eyes. Verse 12 is so important. 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 this parable against them. But they were afraid of the crowd. So they left him and they went away. To scheme. To stop this. A couple of things I want to point out. Most of this message is obvious. Most of this message, you could stand up here and walk me walk us through it. It's an easy win. A man planted a vineyard. I want you to notice how much this man, God, cares about you. He plants it. He fences it. He digs the wine press. He builds a tower. The vineyard matters to him. Today, today we look at the vineyard as the church. The vineyard has now become the church. We're the ones that that has it has been given, we have now have been given the vineyard to care for. And God cares for the church. He loves the church. He planted it. He birthed it. He has set a hedge of protection around it. As much as Christianity is being attacked around the world, it's still fenced off. There is nothing that will ever stop the church. Nothing. As a matter of fact, across this world, the church is growing faster in countries that have forced the church to go underground. Several years ago, I was on the Ministry Council of the Church of God when we were told on a report that the Church of God in Pakistan, we didn't even know there was a church of God in Pakistan. We had no idea, but they were listening to the radio program in Arabic that we have. And the church of God in Pakistan is now larger than the church of God in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. And those are our four largest states. The church will never be stopped. The church of God, not Church of God, Anderson, Indiana, but the church of God will never be stopped. It will never be stopped. God loves the vineyard. He plants it, he fenced it, he digs the wine press so we are provided for. That's who God is. God is not distant, he's not careless, he hasn't left us on our own. He's given us the Holy Spirit. God is generous to the church. He lovingly builds, protects, and provides for his people. That's his character. That's God. And we see that in this text. The second thing is, this is humbling. Church leaders often reject the sun. Church leaders often reject the sun. Not just church leaders in a local church, but church leaders at denominational levels. Powerful church leaders. I I have an email that I get because of because of um of uh what I do other than just pastor here. And I get a list of uh it's called Ministry Watch. You can receive the email. I I wouldn't recommend it if unless you are just really interested. But this ministry watch outlines all the ministers and clergies and churches that have fallen that previous week. Every week. Every week there's lawsuits, and every week there's pastors who are being arrested and put in jail. We don't hear about them. CNN doesn't cover it, Fox News doesn't cover it, but every week we have a whole host of churches that are being, we we just had uh a Presbyterian church in Naperville being sued for sexual harassment of an employee. It happens all the time. The church is always being attacked. Pastors are always falling, clergy are are crashing morally, churches are misusing money. But it'll never stop the church. It'll never stop the church. The most important question you could ever ask me is, Pastor, how are you and Jesus doing? Pastor, are you praying? Pastor, are you studying? Pastor, are you loving your wife? Pastor, Pastor, are you taking a day off? Don't ask me that one. Some of the most important questions you can ask me. It's it's not, Pastor, how are you gonna get the church to grow? I I I wouldn't even ask me that question. But if you want to ask me a question and hold me accountable, you have a right to do that. I'm up here teaching every Sunday. I'm gonna have to stand before God and be accountable for what I do and how I teach and how I lead people. So I sure shouldn't be intimidated if you come and ask me. But church leaders, church leaders since the beginning of time have rejected the message of God. This parable is so filled with drama. What did they do to Jesus? The son of the owner. They, verse eight, it says, they seized him and killed him. And God continues to send. Servants were sent and rejected. They were beaten, they were killed. And then the drama, these same words that that are used in um in verse six, he had one left to send, a son whom he loved. Though that's the same style of grammar of when Jesus was baptized, and when when God, when the Holy Spirit came as a dove and rested upon Jesus, and and God spoke, and people heard the voice of God, and he said, This is my son whom I am well pleased. Same kind of grammar setup. I love my son. I love my son, and that's who I'm going to send. And then there's this pause. And the leaders of that day in the temple, they're listening to Jesus and they know exactly what he is saying. They're the tenants. They know what Jesus is saying. They know exactly that Jesus is saying that they're the tenants. And and there he goes claiming that he's God's son again. And they're about to kill him. This parable lands very hard. You might say it's the tension is in the room. It's awkward. And Jesus kind of lets the silence say, stay there. Because the rejected son he's going to teach now becomes the cornerstone. You see, the the rejection of Jesus is never the end of the story. A church, a church that has trouble, it's never the end of the story. A church leader that falls, it's never the end of the story. Churches being persecuted, Christians being persecuted around the world, it's never the end of the story. Rejection for the Christian is never the end of the story. And I love it how Jesus quotes Psalms 118 and other writers. This is a very powerful psalm in the early church. They had songs about this psalm. They quoted it often. This is a beloved psalm, and Jesus quotes it. Paul uses it later, but Jesus quotes it here and he says, And the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. You see, the leaders rejected Jesus. Rome crucified Jesus. The crowds abandoned Jesus. But God established Jesus. Friends, the vineyard still belongs to the God. The church still belongs to God. We are not the owners. We are the stewards. We're the stewards of the vineyard now. It may seem like God is far away and uh uninterested and disconnected with the church, but he is very aware of what happens in the church. People still think that, well, we can kind of act like we want. God is far away. We've he's always said he's coming back, he hasn't come back yet. This is getting old, but we suppose maybe he will. And people seem to think, people seem to think that we can treat the vineyard, the church, like it belongs to us. That we can kind of set up our own rules. And if if if we can if we don't like a part of the rules, we can change them. I mean, we can we can dump the parts that we don't like. Thomas Jefferson is kind of famous for uh being president, but he he went through the Bible and cut out all the parts he didn't like. He just cut them out. He said, I don't like that part. He had he had respect for the part that he liked, but the parts that he didn't like, he just said, I've let's just get rid of that part. I've seen churches do that. Kind of set up our own rules, cut out the part that we don't like. But Jesus, the beloved son, whom God has well pleased, the conquering king, the church, we have to be reminded he's coming back. And we need to deal with what what are we gonna do with the sun? Like, what what are you doing with the sun? Are you surrendered to him? Are you honoring him? Will he shape your life? Or will you live under that false assumption that really the vineyard, the church, belongs to us? Do what we want to do. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not merely a philosophy. It's the story of a father who loved the vineyard enough to send his beloved son. And the son was rejected, and he was beaten, and he was crucified. But the rejected stone became the cornerstone. You know this. The cornerstone is the part of the structure that brings it all together. It's the final stone that is placed to tie in everything in the building. It's the final piece that finishes it all. Jesus is the cornerstone. You see, all along when the prophets would come and the teachers would come and kings would speak and writers would come and they would all try to get people to repent and come back to God. And then finally God says, I don't know. They keep killing my prophets. What else can I do? And Jesus says, I'll go. And God said, I I don't want to I don't want to send.

SPEAKER_03 23:11

I don't want to send you. He says, I'll go.

SPEAKER_02 23:16

And so Jesus comes and they reject him. But the stone that the builders rejected became the cornerstone. And his love is still reaching to anyone who wants to be part of the vineyard. In our class last week, in the Discovery class, we were talking a little bit about church membership. This church doesn't have a formal church membership. We don't have a class that you take and then your name is added to the formal church membership line. It really comes back to our very beginning roots, where in when the church of God first started, we we didn't, we didn't really believe that it was going to be a long time and Jesus was going to come up, come back. And so we thought we we really don't want to start churches. We didn't want to start churches. Matter of fact, we didn't start churches. We started missionary homes. One of the first ones was in Chicago. And we started this missionary home. And out of the missionary, missionaries would come there and they would live in these missionary homes. And then they would go out on weekends and throughout the week and they would pass out tracts and they would set up tents and they would have these tent revivals or tent camp meetings and they put sawdust all over the floor to keep the dust down. And they would be outside and they would be preaching because the church kicked them out. They didn't want the church booted us out. As a matter of fact, one of our founders, D.S. Warner, it's recorded in Montecello, Illinois, that he they wore they were going to kill him and they had set up this meeting and they were all around waiting to kill him. And so they came up with this idea that they dressed him up as a woman and got him out of the town of Monticello, Illinois, and got him on a train to get him out safely so he wouldn't be killed for the message of the Church of God. One of those messages is you don't need to join a church. Why don't you need to join a church? Because when you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, you're a part of the vineyard. I'll never forget when uh several years ago, because I remember that we were we still had pews. And I was sitting on the pew after I preached, and Janice would, Janice, are you here? You were here. Is she in the oh there she is right there, Janice? Janice came up, and and I was young, I was probably 25, 26 years old, and she came up the front and she's like, Pastor, I'd like to join the church. And I was like, Oh, okay. I didn't know what to do. I I was like, Well, keep coming. And she goes, but and she's like, she's like, but what do I do? And I said, I just keep coming. And uh I was like, Do you want to you want like tithe envelopes or what do you what am I supposed to do? Because I I had not been faced, I had I'm the pastor here, and I had not been faced with this issue of somebody saying, I want to become a I want to join the church because it wasn't in my vocabulary. Because I I mean I was raised church of God, right? Some of you others are like, well, I belong to this church and I belong to this church, and I have my name in this church, or whatever. And again, it's not the point that I'm against it or for it or against it. It's just this. It it just wasn't a part of me because my theology teaches me, as I'm teaching you today, that you belong to the vineyard when you trust in the cornerstone that everybody else has rejected, except for the people around you here and other Christians across the world. If you've accepted Christ, you're a part of the vineyard. And his love is still reaching. His love is still reaching. Even though people reject the sun, his love is still reaching. To anyone who wants to become a part of the vineyard, that means there's still hope. There's hope for broken people, there's there's still mercy for people that have not accepted Christ. For people who have rejected Christ, there are people uh that that that come to him after they reject him and they're welcomed into the vineyard. No one is turned away from God. No one. The question is not whether Jesus will become king, he is king. The question is, will you be part of the vineyard when he comes? Or will you still be on the side of rejecting him? The question is, will we bow now with joy and accept him as savior and lord? Or will we will we continue to reject him? The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone, and then the psalm says, this was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous. And God keeps reaching towards people. There may be somebody in your life right now that you know is rejecting the call of Christ. Don't give up. Keep sowing that seed, keep loving them, keep keep explaining to them. Keep your hands open and and your heart open to sharing with them because his love is continuing to reach them. His love is continuing to draw them in. Don't give up. I'm gonna close. I'm gonna go over the piano and and the band can come on up while I do that. I'm gonna I'm just gonna sing a chorus of of a song that um it's not very well known, and it's it's actually a a Christmas song that I uh love during uh the season of uh Advent. But I'm gonna sing it today because I I want I want the poetry and I want the music and I want the message to just kind of live in your heart uh today. Today, I and in fairness, I haven't gone over this at all. I printed it out at the last minute because I thought I'm not gonna read it, I'm gonna sing it. And so um nobody knew that I was gonna do this, and I didn't even know for sure. Um I'm not apologizing, I'm just saying prepare.

SPEAKER_01 30:05

I don't even know if it's in the right key. Oh, let's see, I want to make sure I get this set up right.

SPEAKER_03 30:23

Went on longing, and his love went on reaching right past the shackles of my mind, and the word of the father became Mary's little son, and his love reached all the way to where I was love has always been here in the chaos of our world it was the word that echoed through the formless voice and weather in the universe or worlds of our own mind. It's God's love that turns our chaos into joy, his love went on longing, and his love went on reaching right past the shackles of my mind, and the word of the father became Mary's little son, and his love reached all the way to whereks for joining us at church this week.

SPEAKER_00 33:37

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