Doug McMasters: And go to the Gospel of Matthew.
Doug McMasters: We're going to be in chapter 21.
Doug McMasters: So I said last week we're entering into what is called the Passion Week, the final week of life of Jesus' earthly ministry, moving toward that day of ultimate suffering, the cross.
Doug McMasters: We find him in our passage again in the temple.
Doug McMasters: We're going to be looking at verses.
Doug McMasters: Well, we'll start in verse 23 and work our way all the way to the end of the chapter, a big section, but very related to one another.
Doug McMasters: And as Jesus enters into this temple, he returns to teach and finds himself confronted and interrupted by religious authorities with a question about his authorization for doing that.
Doug McMasters: And we find the conflict that's been swirling around Jesus since his birth and all through his ministries coming to a head.
Doug McMasters: And starting at the point that we'll look at, all the way through the end of the chapter and into the end of this next chapter, we're going to witness no more than five confrontations, five tense encounters between Jesus and the Jewish religious leaders.
Doug McMasters: Today we're going to look at his interaction with the chief priests and the elders, beginning in verse 23.
Doug McMasters: And in verse 45 mentions the chief priest and the Pharisees.
Doug McMasters: In the next chapter, which we'll look at later, we'll see a confrontation with the Pharisees and Herodians in verses 15 and 16, the Sadducees in verse 23, and even a specialist in the Torah in verse 35.
Doug McMasters: And following that will be Jesus' stinging condemnation of the religious leaders that is found in chapter 23.
Doug McMasters: Throughout all of these encounters, Jesus confronts and silences the religious leaders with the various means, his actions, his questions, his scripture quotations, and his parables.
Doug McMasters: In each of those situations, he is seen as a master of scripture, an expert in argumentation, and he has the ability to shut the mouths of those who try to silence his.
Doug McMasters: We're going to cover two of these confrontations today and a third one next week, and then more in weeks to come.
Doug McMasters: But I want us to understand what's happening here in the life of Jesus Christ as he confronts people who have not been fulfilling their roles and responsibilities in leading people into the kingdom of God.
Doug McMasters: In fact, the religious leaders have been countering any effort to bring the kingdom of God into the lives of others.
Doug McMasters: The first thing I want us to notice in verses 23 to 27 is a stony stalemate.
Doug McMasters: A stony stalemate, I call it.
Doug McMasters: Take a look at verse 23.
Doug McMasters: He enters the temple, the chief priest and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching and said, By what authority are you doing these things?
Doug McMasters: Who gave you this authority?
Doug McMasters: If we don't realize on the surface quickly what's being said here, it's important to know what's going on.
Doug McMasters: These two factions of people.
Doug McMasters: They're described here as the chief priest and the elders of the people.
Doug McMasters: Without our understanding, we would just sort of go past that without realizing the significance of those remarks.
Doug McMasters: The chief priests were one group, high-ranking members of the priestly line.
Doug McMasters: They joined together with the high priest himself in giving oversight to the temple activities, to the treasury, to the priestly orders, and all the sacrifices.
Doug McMasters: The elders, on the other hand, the elders of the people, were members of the Sanhedrin, the ruling body.
Doug McMasters: And so we have here representatives from what would be the faction of the Sadducees and people who are representative of the Pharisees.
Doug McMasters: Those two people hated each other.
Doug McMasters: How much did they hate each other?
Doug McMasters: Well, we discover an insight in a little passage in Acts 23 where Paul is under trial and he's in the middle of a group answering for himself.
Doug McMasters: And it says in that passage that he realized that a part of the crowd was Sadducees, and the part of the other crowd were Pharisees.
Doug McMasters: And so he takes advantage of the moment.
Doug McMasters: Why did he say that?
Doug McMasters: Well, Luke tells us, because the Sadducees say there's no resurrection at all, nor angels nor spirits.
Doug McMasters: And the Pharisees accept those things.
Doug McMasters: And immediately Paul is no longer the focus.
Doug McMasters: Now they're lobbing stones at each other.
Doug McMasters: And it says here that a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
Doug McMasters: And then in verse 9 it says, the shouting grew louder.
Doug McMasters: And some of the scribes and the Pharisees got up, and even though they hated Paul, they began to argue vehemently, Luke says, We find nothing evil in this man.
Doug McMasters: Paul's one of us.
Doug McMasters: And then it says, when the dispute became violent, the commander feared that Paul might be torn apart by them.
Doug McMasters: Not because of what he said about Jesus, but because he said, I'm not a Sadducee, I'm a Pharisee.
Doug McMasters: So here are these two groups in this passage of Scripture who would rip each other limb from limb in any other argument that they had, or all of a sudden here, arm in arm, pals, because there's one person they don't like, and that's Jesus.
Doug McMasters: And they both ask this question By what authority are you doing these things?
Doug McMasters: Who gave you this authority?
Doug McMasters: This is not a casual question for them.
Doug McMasters: These were the religious leaders, priests, scribes, Pharisees, members of the Sanhedrin Council, whose authority among the Jews was among the highest.
Doug McMasters: And it wasn't an improper question, if it was asked sincerely.
Doug McMasters: I mean, here Jesus just walked in the day before into this holy place and started rearranging the furniture.
Doug McMasters: And here, the next day, he's back and he's teaching like it's his place.
Doug McMasters: Who is this man?
Doug McMasters: This Nazarene, this man, he's not a scribe, he's not a Pharisee, he's not a Sadducee, he's not a priest, he's not an elder, he's not a well-known rabbi, and he's teaching here.
Doug McMasters: Why are you here?
Doug McMasters: Why are you saying you have the authority to do these things, they say?
Doug McMasters: Well, what are these things?
Doug McMasters: Well, yesterday, the triumphal entry, yesterday, the cleansing of the temple, yesterday, the healing of the lame and the blind, today, standing in the middle of the temple and teaching, or in the temple complex and teaching.
Doug McMasters: All of those events have said something about Jesus.
Doug McMasters: They've conferred on him a fourfold title that he's king and judge and healer and teacher.
Doug McMasters: When he came in, they cried out, Hosanna to the Son of David.
Doug McMasters: He's the king, he's the Messiah.
Doug McMasters: By calling him the Son of David meant he fulfilled all the obligations that needed to be fulfilled to be the Messiah.
Doug McMasters: As the judge, he is the divine legislator.
Doug McMasters: As the healer, he's the creator himself.
Doug McMasters: And as teacher, he's nothing other than incarnate wisdom.
Doug McMasters: And these religious leaders have no way to deal with this.
Doug McMasters: There's no way they can accept that all of these titles should converge on this one man without their giving him the authority to be that one man, to be all of that.
Doug McMasters: And they can't deal with the truth that all of these things have come upon Jesus with such obvious force and such obvious absoluteness that his origin is from God.
Doug McMasters: So they ask this vital question: Where is your authority?
Doug McMasters: Because we didn't give it to you.
Doug McMasters: Jesus responds with a question.
Doug McMasters: And he does so in a very common way that would have been argued back then.
Doug McMasters: An adverse question is responded to by a counter question, and then there's an admission, and then there's a final return.
Doug McMasters: This is a common way of conversation here.
Doug McMasters: Argumentative, yes, but common to them.
Doug McMasters: And he responds with a question.
Doug McMasters: I've got a question for you.
Doug McMasters: John's baptism, where did it come from?
Doug McMasters: From heaven or from human origin?
Doug McMasters: And these religious leaders realize that Jesus has just laid a logical trap for them.
Doug McMasters: They can't answer it.
Doug McMasters: On one hand, if they validate John's ministry, Jesus is going to connect the dots between John and Jesus.
Doug McMasters: Because what John says about Jesus is really, really important.
Doug McMasters: And that's what Jesus is driving at when he asks the question.
Doug McMasters: Well, what did John say about Jesus?
Doug McMasters: Matthew's gospel, we read this back in chapter three.
Doug McMasters: Jesus said, I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I'm not worthy to carry.
Doug McMasters: He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
Doug McMasters: His one-owning fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn.
Doug McMasters: He was talking about Jesus.
Doug McMasters: John's gospel, John's baptism or testimony, gets even clearer.
Doug McMasters: I am the voice of one crying into the wilderness.
Doug McMasters: Make straight the way of the Lord.
Doug McMasters: And then he said in John 1, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
Doug McMasters: Well, if they say that John's baptism came from heaven, then John's pronouncement about Jesus could have, well, that would have also come from heaven.
Doug McMasters: They can't do that.
Doug McMasters: They won't do that.
Doug McMasters: But they can't publicly deny the ministry of John the Baptist either.
Doug McMasters: Because the people saw him as a prophet, ordained of God.
Doug McMasters: And they feared the people because of that.
Doug McMasters: Even though John had been dead for some time, he still held sway over the people the people's opinion.
Doug McMasters: And so here they are, stuck between two impossible answers for them.
Doug McMasters: And so they equivocate.
Doug McMasters: Oh we don't know.
Doug McMasters: Squirming.
Doug McMasters: Like a politician who's been given a very direct question.
Doug McMasters: And doing like politicians do and like the rest of us do.
Doug McMasters: Interested not in the truth, but in making our opponent look bad.
Doug McMasters: These religious leaders are not interested in pursuing the truth.
Doug McMasters: They're interested in pursuing an outcome that's best for themselves.
Doug McMasters: And so their refusal to answer this question immediately exposes their dishonesty.
Doug McMasters: It exposes them to the accountability of their equivocating answer.
Doug McMasters: They're spiritually dishonest men.
Doug McMasters: They're not seeking truth from God.
Doug McMasters: They've hardened their hearts already to God's revelation, or they would have responded differently already to Jesus.
Doug McMasters: And so Jesus' condition has not been met.
Doug McMasters: He refuses to enter and later changes his mind and goes.
Doug McMasters: The second son, however, says, Dad, I'll go, but doesn't.
Doug McMasters: And Jesus asks the question, which of the two did what the father wanted?
Doug McMasters: And these men answer the question.
Doug McMasters: Well, the answer's obvious.
Doug McMasters: The one who went.
Doug McMasters: To agree to go and not go is to not go.
Doug McMasters: To say you're not going, but then go is to go.
Doug McMasters: It's a very obvious point.
Doug McMasters: But the application is very pointed to the Pharisees.
Doug McMasters: They claimed to have a favored relationship with God.
Doug McMasters: But when God called them to affirm the ministry and message of John the Baptist, they refused.
Doug McMasters: They didn't go.
Doug McMasters: And he picks out two categories of people: prostitutes and tax collectors.
Doug McMasters: People who, on the very surface of it, are certainly not laying claim to having a special relationship with God.
Doug McMasters: However, when they heard the preaching of John the Baptist, they repented and were baptized.
Doug McMasters: They said no at first, and now they've gone.
Doug McMasters: And so these priests and these Pharisees who have all this outward appearance of allegiance to God are the unrepentant ones and don't believe the preaching of John the Baptist.
Doug McMasters: And Jesus brings the point home to them.
Doug McMasters: He says to them, I tell you the truth, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you.
Doug McMasters: For John came to you in a way of righteousness, and you did not believe him.
Doug McMasters: Tax collectors and prostitutes did believe him, but you, when you saw it, didn't even change your minds then and believe him.
Doug McMasters: These look ready but actually refusing Pharisees can't stand the fact that Jesus has shown them so disfavorably and unfavorably before God by exposing them over against these people who look rebellious but are repentant.
Doug McMasters: And then Jesus tells them a second parable, parable of a vineyard owner, beginning in verse 33.
Doug McMasters: And without a pause, he launches into the second story.
Doug McMasters: It's a stinging one, just like the first.
Doug McMasters: A landowner plants a vineyard and rents it out to some farmers.
Doug McMasters: And when harvest time approaches, he sends servants to those tenants to collect the fruit.
Doug McMasters: But that doesn't happen.
Doug McMasters: The tenant sees his servants, they beat one, kill another, and they stone a third one.
Doug McMasters: And then the landowner sends more servants, and they do the same thing to them.
Doug McMasters: And then the landowner sends his son and they kill the son.
Doug McMasters: It's a very, very tragic story.
Doug McMasters: But it's simply and sadly this that God so loved the world that he chose Israel from among the nations to be a blessing to the nations.
Doug McMasters: He gave them his law.
Doug McMasters: He set up a city.
Doug McMasters: He gave them instructions for how to understand the forgiveness of sins.
Doug McMasters: He told them that he would be their God.
Doug McMasters: There are several verbs in verse 33 that describe how much God or the landowner works on behalf of this land to prepare it for the people that are going to rent it.
Doug McMasters: The Lord sends his prophets among the people to reap what he's sown, and the leaders of the nation of Israel persecute and kill the prophets.
Doug McMasters: Then with great patience, God sends them more prophets, and the same fate is met by them.
Doug McMasters: Finally, he so loves Israel that he sends his own son, Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: And Israel's leaders plot, arrest, and kill the son.
Doug McMasters: So back to the story.
Doug McMasters: Jesus asked the question when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to these farmers?
Doug McMasters: And the religious leaders are once again speaking their own judgment.
Doug McMasters: He will completely destroy these terrible men.
Doug McMasters: And lease his vineyard to other farmers who will give him the fruit of the harvest.
Doug McMasters: And if you look down at verse 36 46, they end up being the answer to their own statement.
Doug McMasters: Although they were looking for a way to arrest him, they feared the crowds because the people regarded him as a prophet.
Doug McMasters: So here's this stony stalemate that's followed with two stinging statements that are made here in these stories about the leaders.
Doug McMasters: What are we to learn from this?
Doug McMasters: Well, there's some significant things here.
Doug McMasters: And the first thing that we learn from this is God's refusal of empty religious devotion.
Doug McMasters: In the first parable, Jesus exposes these the false religion of the chief priest and the elders.
Doug McMasters: They're all about saying that they obey the Lord.
Doug McMasters: But when it comes to actually working in the field, just like the son who said he would go but didn't, they refuse.
Doug McMasters: The second son, if you were to look at the two of them, that second one looks so much better than the first one.
Doug McMasters: The father speaks to the second one, and his reply is verbally all the father could really want.
SPEAKER_00: I will go, sir.
Doug McMasters: With this perfect politeness, the second son speaks to his father in a way to give his father the greatest confidence that what he wanted done is going to get done.
Doug McMasters: That he's fully at his father's disposal.
Doug McMasters: I'll do whatever you want, Dad.
Doug McMasters: He ascends to his father, he consents to his father's request.
Doug McMasters: He is very polite and precise and good-sounding.
Doug McMasters: He carries himself with this easy natural religiosity, which makes it feel like he's someone who stands in great contrast to his ungodly brother.
Doug McMasters: But he didn't go.
Doug McMasters: All of his fine phrases, all of his fair Promises, they're really nothing but words of deceit and falsehood.
Doug McMasters: You see, the older brother, or the second brother, never did go to the vineyard.
Doug McMasters: He didn't even go to look at it, let alone work in it.
Doug McMasters: He didn't pick up a pruning knife or a spade or anything.
Doug McMasters: He didn't go.
Doug McMasters: His father's vineyard could go to ruins for all he cared.
Doug McMasters: And yet, all the while he's bowing and scraping, promising and proclaiming, lauding his father, saying he's in submission to him and never is.
Doug McMasters: And the Lord paints a picture of vain religious worship with that stark of a story.
Doug McMasters: You see, we look at religious people and think, how wonderful for them, how devoted they are.
Doug McMasters: I hope they find significance in life from what they do.
Doug McMasters: From God's vantage point, it's repulsive and dishonoring.
Doug McMasters: They profess great reverence for the divine word, but when the divine word was spoken to them through John the Baptist, they plugged their ears and refused to hear it and carried on with their religious play.
Doug McMasters: The book of James tells us to be doers of the word, not hearers only.
Doug McMasters: Because if we do that, we're deceiving ourselves.
Doug McMasters: If anyone's a hear of the word, not a doer, it's like someone who looks in his face in a mirror, walks away, and forgets what kind of person they are.
Doug McMasters: He says this one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres in it is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer.
Doug McMasters: This person will be blessed.
Doug McMasters: If anyone thinks that their religion, without controlling their tongue, is worth anything, James says it's useless and we're deceiving ourselves.
Doug McMasters: He said, true devotion to God will show itself.
Doug McMasters: It will show itself in caring for the distressed and caring for those that are looked down upon and those who are in difficulty.
Doug McMasters: And it will also mean internal purity of heart, keeping yourself undefiled from the world.
Doug McMasters: So here, one of the significant statements of lesson we receive here is God's condemnation against empty religious, vain religious activity.
Doug McMasters: He doesn't care a whit about it in any favorable way.
Doug McMasters: In fact, he pronounces judgment upon it.
Doug McMasters: There's another significant thing we learned from this.
Doug McMasters: Jesus pulls it to a point for these religious leaders at the latter part after all of the stories are over.
Doug McMasters: Verse 42, he says, Have you never read in the scriptures the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone?
Doug McMasters: This is what the Lord has done, and it's wonderful in our eyes.
Doug McMasters: Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruit.
Doug McMasters: Whoever falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but on whomever it falls, it will shatter him.
Doug McMasters: The second thing we learn here is the retribution of God upon all who reject the Son.
Doug McMasters: Whoever falls on this stone will be broken into pieces, and whoever it falls on, it will shatter him.
Doug McMasters: Let's go back to that second parable for a second.
Doug McMasters: Things didn't turn out like the patient, long-suffering landowner had hoped.
Doug McMasters: He sent the servants, and then more servants, a lot of servants, and then his son.
Doug McMasters: And when the sun came, just like the sun is in front of these chief priests and elders, they did exactly what the story tells.
Doug McMasters: When the tenant farmers saw the sun, they plotted against him.
Doug McMasters: When these chief priests and elders saw the sun, they plotted against him.
Doug McMasters: And they said to themselves things that they wouldn't dare say openly.
Doug McMasters: They hate Jesus.
Doug McMasters: They know he's the Messiah, but they're afraid that he's going to assume a position of authority and steal away their authority and their inheritance and the wealth that they'll receive.
Doug McMasters: They say, This is the heir.
Doug McMasters: Let's come, let's kill him.
Doug McMasters: Let's keep this, let's seize this inheritance.
Doug McMasters: They knew he was the heir.
Doug McMasters: They knew that he was the one who was going to receive the inheritance, but they were trying to figure out a way to make it work out so it was better for them.
Doug McMasters: And so they caught the son, going back to the story.
Doug McMasters: They cast him out of the vineyard, and they killed him.
Doug McMasters: And here Jesus becomes prophetic in his story.
Doug McMasters: These tenant farmers immediately carry out what they plotted.
Doug McMasters: No sooner was it said that they went about doing it.
Doug McMasters: And then the three acts of this drama are carried out.
Doug McMasters: They catch the sun, they cast him out of the vineyard, and they kill him.
Doug McMasters: They catch Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Doug McMasters: They cast him out of the council halls of Caiaphas.
Doug McMasters: And they take him to Calvary and they kill him.
Doug McMasters: The air is slain, the job's done.
Doug McMasters: But it's not.
Doug McMasters: It's not.
Doug McMasters: These murderers don't long enjoy the luxuries of the vineyard that they thought they now had in their possession.
Doug McMasters: Swift justice overtakes them.
Doug McMasters: Jesus asks the Pharisees and the chief priest to answer the question: What will happen to these men?
Doug McMasters: What will the owner of the vineyard do when he comes?
Doug McMasters: He will completely destroy these terrible men and lease the vineyard to other farmers who will give him the fruit of the vineyard.
Doug McMasters: And they pronounce the judgment upon themselves.
Doug McMasters: All of the share and the honors of the kingdom that these religious leaders could have enjoyed if they had acknowledged the king, Jesus, is going to be ripped away from them and given to another people who will produce fruit.
Doug McMasters: Jesus presses that theme of judgment home in these latter verses when he says, He who falls on the stone will be broken into pieces, but if that stone falls on them, they're going to be shattered.
Doug McMasters: And he pulls together a couple places of scripture.
Doug McMasters: The first half speaking about the personal liability, the judgment of individuals who stumble or fall over Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah chapter 8.
Doug McMasters: He will be a sanctuary, but for both houses of Israel, he'll be a stone that causes men to stumble in a rock that makes them fall.
Doug McMasters: For the people of Jerusalem, he will be a trap and a snare, and many of them will stumble.
Doug McMasters: They will fall and be broken.
Doug McMasters: They'll be snared and captured.
Doug McMasters: Jesus pulls from Isaiah 8, and he also pulls from Daniel chapter 2, of the stone that was cut out, not made with hands, and rolls over the kingdoms of the earth and crushes them.
Doug McMasters: At the end of days, Jesus will come as judge, and he will fall on humanity.
Doug McMasters: And if the sun falls on an unrepentant heart, it will be shattered.
Doug McMasters: Shattered.
Doug McMasters: This despised stone will stand as the cornerstone over all humanity.
Doug McMasters: You see, Jesus is not only chosen by God and promoted to a place of prominence, he is also dangerous to ignore.
Doug McMasters: And these men should have known it, because the last prophet of the Old Testament says this in Malachi chapter 3.
Doug McMasters: See, I'm going to send my messenger to clear the way before me, John the Baptist.
Doug McMasters: Then the Lord you seek will suddenly come to his temple.
Doug McMasters: The messenger of the covenant you delight in.
Doug McMasters: No, he's he is that messenger.
Doug McMasters: See he's coming, says the Lord of armies.
Doug McMasters: But notice the next verse, Malachi three.
Doug McMasters: But who can endure the day of his coming?
Doug McMasters: And who is able to stand when he appears?
Doug McMasters: For he will be like a refiner's fire and like a launderer's bleach.
Doug McMasters: Who will be able to stand?
Doug McMasters: Not a one of us.
SPEAKER_00: Not a one of us.
Doug McMasters: Peter picks up these verses that Jesus uses to encourage the people of God and to tell them that with them there is acceptance.
Doug McMasters: He says, Honor will come to you who believe.
Doug McMasters: But for those who are unbelieving, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone, and a stone to stumble over, and a rock to trip over.
Doug McMasters: They stumble because they disobey the word.
Doug McMasters: They were destined for this.
Doug McMasters: Jesus is not only premier and prominent, he's also dangerous to ignore.
Doug McMasters: This is what Jesus is warning these men about.
Doug McMasters: But let me continue on because there's a few other lessons I want to get to.
Doug McMasters: And this one might seem contradictory, but it's not.
Doug McMasters: God's repeated patience to all sinners.
Doug McMasters: Let's go back to the first story.
Doug McMasters: Man has two sons.
Doug McMasters: He says to the first, go.
Doug McMasters: And he says, No.
Doug McMasters: This first son's quite a quite a son.
Doug McMasters: Son, I want you to go to work today in our vineyard.
Doug McMasters: And immediately there is the relationship, father and son.
Doug McMasters: There is the father's claim of authority.
Doug McMasters: There's the son's duty and the scope and sphere of his responsibilities, all in one word.
Doug McMasters: And this first son, no, no, no, no, no.
Doug McMasters: Not going.
Doug McMasters: And he's outspoken in his denial to be willing to do anything his father wants him to do.
Doug McMasters: I've got better things to be concerned with than to think about what you want.
Doug McMasters: Dad.
Doug McMasters: I will not go.
Doug McMasters: I don't know, Dads, what would you do if you had a son who said that to you?
Doug McMasters: Clean the garage.
Doug McMasters: No! It's rude, it's rebellious, it's ungrateful, and it's counter to family love.
Doug McMasters: And you'd say that and a whole lot more, right?
Doug McMasters: I have.
Doug McMasters: Let me bring out a point here.
Doug McMasters: The shock is that the father puts up with it.
SPEAKER_00: The father bears with that.
SPEAKER_00: Huh.
SPEAKER_00: The second story.
Doug McMasters: Here's this landowner.
Doug McMasters: He doesn't just take a sort of briar-filled section of unattended land and hires people to make it better.
Doug McMasters: He goes to great expense and energy to take that plot of land and to make it fruitful.
Doug McMasters: He plants it, he fences it, he puts a wine press in it, he guards it with a tower.
Doug McMasters: It's ready to bear fruit right there.
Doug McMasters: And he hires these guys to, well, casually watch what's already made up.
Doug McMasters: Everything that's there for good production is done by the landowner.
Doug McMasters: He sends his servants to collect the fruit.
Doug McMasters: Seems very natural.
Doug McMasters: These guys would have to say, look, I'm not working a field like my cousin over there, who's having a really rough time of it with that landowner.
Doug McMasters: This landowner is a great guy.
Doug McMasters: These servants who ought to have received the servants, or these tenants who ought to receive the servants with the same respect as the landowner?
Doug McMasters: No, they don't.
Doug McMasters: They beat them, kill them, stone them.
Doug McMasters: What does the Lord of the Vineyard do?
Doug McMasters: What would you do?
Doug McMasters: Three of your servants were killed by some guys who are renting out your property.
Doug McMasters: I think I'll send them some more servants.
Doug McMasters: That's what he did.
Doug McMasters: Anxious to win over these tenant farmers.
Doug McMasters: He thinks maybe I just didn't send enough guys to tell him how much I want this fruit.
Doug McMasters: So he sends them more.
Doug McMasters: Way more than he sent them the first time.
Doug McMasters: Trusting that these men would yield to all these repeated calls.
Doug McMasters: Nothing good comes out of it.
Doug McMasters: They do the same thing to those guys.
Doug McMasters: He sends his son.
Doug McMasters: Who would do that?
Doug McMasters: Luke even has the landowner posing the question, what shall I do now?
Doug McMasters: They killed those servants, they killed all those servants.
Doug McMasters: I'll send my son.
Doug McMasters: Waves of servants being killed.
Doug McMasters: More waves of servants being killed.
Doug McMasters: His son.
Doug McMasters: What is this telling us?
Doug McMasters: This father who puts up with a rebellious son, this landowner puts up with these rebellious tenant farmers.
Doug McMasters: The strength of God's long suffering and patience to rebellious people of all kinds.
Doug McMasters: All kinds of people.
SPEAKER_00: Take a breath.
SPEAKER_00: It was God's to give you.
Doug McMasters: Every life, every moment of life, every table filled with food, every season in its cycle, every day that dawns and every night that comes, every laugh around a table, the enjoyment of family and friends, these are the gifts of God.
Doug McMasters: He makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust.
Doug McMasters: He gives them harvest in their seasons and gladness in their hearts.
Doug McMasters: This benevolent landowner, however, has his patience come to an end.
Doug McMasters: And God's patience will eventually come to an end.
Doug McMasters: Let's pull it away from the context of this story with these religious leaders.
Doug McMasters: But let me speak kindly but urgently to all of us.
Doug McMasters: We must never regard the scriptures as speaking simply to strangers and people in past ages.
Doug McMasters: This is something to say to us here.
Doug McMasters: And the rejection of God's prophets here, that's a sin of all of us.
Doug McMasters: The murder of the Son of God was a crime, but it wasn't just a crime of people in the past.
Doug McMasters: It's a crime of us all.
Doug McMasters: We've all shared in it.
Doug McMasters: We might say, look, we weren't back there, we might have done things differently.
Doug McMasters: Really?
Doug McMasters: How many messengers has God sent you in the vineyard to receive the fruit of the land that's his?
Doug McMasters: How many days have you woken up with your heart loving the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and all your strength?
Doug McMasters: I haven't.
Doug McMasters: God has sent us many messengers.
Doug McMasters: He's given us wave after wave after wave of patience.
Doug McMasters: And what have we done with it?
Doug McMasters: We've had family members plead with us about our soul.
Doug McMasters: We've had friends tell us about the life that they've received in Christ.
Doug McMasters: And what have we done?
Doug McMasters: We've ignored it.
Doug McMasters: We've run away from it.
Doug McMasters: We've neglected it, or we've argued against them.
Doug McMasters: God has sent his messengers.
Doug McMasters: And time after time we've opposed, especially when our consciences have been struck, and we find ourselves needing to wrestle not only with them, but our own conscience, and so we speak louder, hoping to drown them and it out.
Doug McMasters: We've heard the message of his death, of his burial, of his resurrection, of his sacrifice for sin, for his call to eternal life.
Doug McMasters: And how often have we said, not today, not today.
Doug McMasters: And if you're still refusing him today, you stand as an adversary still.
Doug McMasters: Be careful lest the prophecy becomes true of you.
Doug McMasters: He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and he will let out his vineyard to other farmers who will give them the fruit that's due him.
Doug McMasters: What an unhappy people it is to reject the message and to reject the Son.
Doug McMasters: May it never be said of us.
Doug McMasters: May it always be said of us that he has become our teacher, our friend, our savior forever.
Doug McMasters: Let me give you two more points very quickly.
Doug McMasters: God's reception of repentant people, regardless of their past.
Doug McMasters: One of the most beautiful truths of this parable, especially the first parable, is that the gates of God's kingdom are burst wide open to the ungodly who repent.
Doug McMasters: The prostitutes, the tax collectors, the I'm not going rebellious son, who thinking about it says, What am I holding on to?
Doug McMasters: And repents.
Doug McMasters: You see, this is the ironic reality of it all.
Doug McMasters: Jesus didn't come for the healthy, he came for the sick.
Doug McMasters: And it shouldn't surprise us that this is more a hospital than a trophy case, the church.
Doug McMasters: Prostitutes who repent of their sins, money changers who repent of their sins, they get in the kingdom, Jesus says.
Doug McMasters: The Pharisees who repent of their sins, they get in the kingdom too.
Doug McMasters: The apostle Paul said, I was a blasphemer, I was a persecutor, I was an arrogant man, but I have received mercy.
Doug McMasters: He was a Pharisee.
Doug McMasters: And he said, Christ Jesus came into the save sinners, and I, a Pharisee, was the worst of them.
Doug McMasters: He said, But I have received mercy.
Doug McMasters: For this reason.
Doug McMasters: He said, so that the extraordinary patience of God might be an example to all who later on would believe in his name.
Doug McMasters: This is a beautiful, beautiful story.
Doug McMasters: This is the beauty of the gospel right here.
Doug McMasters: Here's a lesson in the parable.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you, perhaps even to this day, are saying, I'm not going to go.
Doug McMasters: But in repentance, the Lord says, Welcome.
Doug McMasters: Welcome.
Doug McMasters: And I pray that now you would repent and run to the Father and go and serve him.
Doug McMasters: And perhaps there's some on the other side who thought, I'm respectable.
Doug McMasters: Thank you.
Doug McMasters: Yeah, I'm very devoted, religious.
Doug McMasters: Every Sunday, even more.
Doug McMasters: I give.
Doug McMasters: I'm a good guy.
Doug McMasters: Pray that you'd repent of that self-reliance.
Doug McMasters: And if you do, welcome.
Doug McMasters: Welcome.
Doug McMasters: Hear the master calling you patiently to actually go, not just say you do, to actually be one of his.
Doug McMasters: The last point here, Jesus speaks about God raising up the rejected stone.
Doug McMasters: Verse 42.
Doug McMasters: Have you never read in the scriptures the stone that the builder rejected has become the cornerstone?
Doug McMasters: This is what the Lord has done, and it's wonderful in our eyes.
Doug McMasters: Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruit.
Doug McMasters: Just yesterday, in the life of Jesus here, the crowds of Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem took up Psalm 118 and cried out, Save us, O Lord, Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna to the Son of David.
Doug McMasters: O Lord, save.
Doug McMasters: Jesus now grabs that same psalm and speaks these words.
Doug McMasters: The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone.
Doug McMasters: What is that capstone?
Doug McMasters: Well, it can be one of two things.
Doug McMasters: It's either the cornerstone of two walls that holds it stable, or it's the keystone at the top of an arch that fits it all in and makes it strong and secure.
Doug McMasters: In either way, it's a place of significant prominence.
Doug McMasters: Without it, the walls fall.
Doug McMasters: Without it, the archway crumbles.
Doug McMasters: He is the one, though rejected, will be exalted by the Father.
Doug McMasters: These men, with all their plotting, with all their questioning, with all their intrigue and all of their efforts, are going to fail to get rid of him.
Doug McMasters: Because God is going to exalt him.
Doug McMasters: This suffering stone will become a significant stone.
Doug McMasters: It will take the place of prominence and importance.
Doug McMasters: It will become the capstone.
Doug McMasters: And he's going to lead in a new people who will bear fruit for the kingdom.
Doug McMasters: Jesus said that behind this stone are going to be living stones who are going to bear the fruit that the kingdom requires.
Doug McMasters: It's going to be a new identity of the human race.
Doug McMasters: No longer Jew or Gentile, but a third race of people, Jesus people.
Doug McMasters: And these people who truly know him as the chief cornerstone, as the keystone of every archway.
Doug McMasters: They are going to be the people, and seeing Christ exalted in their life are going to produce a fruit that the kingdom of heaven deserves.
Doug McMasters: A nation of gathered people from the Jewish people and from the Gentile people, gathered as one in unity with each other, over the exalted head of Christ.
Doug McMasters: The kingdom of God will produce its fruit.
Doug McMasters: It will produce the fruit of righteousness that Jesus talked about in the Beatitudes.
Doug McMasters: It'll produce the good fruit that Paul talks about in Colossians chapter 1, bearing fruit in every way.
Doug McMasters: It's going to be the fruit of spirit-produced transformation of character that Paul talks about in Galatians 5: love and joy and peace and patience and gentleness and meekness and kindness and self-control.
Doug McMasters: Go to all nations with all authority, so that there can be all allegiance to the Son.
Doug McMasters: Peter says, As you come to him, a living stone, rejected by people but chosen and honored by God, Jesus, you yourselves as living stones, a spiritual house, are being built to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: For it stands in Scripture, I lay in Zion a stone, a chosen and honored cornerstone, and the one who believes on him will never be put to shame.
Doug McMasters: Hallelujah.
Doug McMasters: Let's pray.
Doug McMasters: Father, in the midst of this confrontive stalemate, we have heard these startling, striking stories that have so much significance, not only in the moment of the life of Jesus and the plotting of the religious leaders, but great significance for us today, as they look forward to a day that we already live in, in which that stone that was rejected has become the cornerstone.
Doug McMasters: Father, that being true, so also true is the pronouncement of warning that if this stone falls on the disobedient, it will shatter them.
Doug McMasters: O Lord, we pray that our hearts might respond rightly, truly, sincerely, and humbly so that Jesus might reign in each of us and might reign over us.
Doug McMasters: And we pray it may never be that anyone here would ever be one that gets shattered.
Doug McMasters: We pray that your enduring patience would bring wave after wave after wave of patient proclamation as the Son comes here with the good news that he is life eternal.
Doug McMasters: And may it have its effective power to bring life to all who believe.
Doug McMasters: And may all of us be truly a part of that new nation, that new people.
Doug McMasters: And we pray this in Christ's name.
Doug McMasters: Amen.