Christ The Cornerstone

Mark 11:27-12:12

Transcript

 He came again to Jerusalem, and as he was walking in the temple, the chief
priests and scribes and the elders came to him, and they said to him, by what
authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?
Jesus said to them, I will ask you one question, answer me, and I will tell you
by what authority I do these things. Was the baptism of John from heaven or from
man? Answer me. They discussed it with one another, saying, if we say from
heaven, he will say, why then did you not believe him? But shall we say from
man? They were afraid of the people, for they all held that John was really a
prophet. So the answer, Jesus, we do not know. And Jesus said to them, neither
will I tell you by what authority I do these things. And he began to speak to
them in parables. A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a
pit for the wine press and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and went into
another country. And when the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to
get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. And they took him and beat him
and sent him away empty handed. And again, he sent to them another servant, and
they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully. And he sent another and
him they killed. And so with many others, some they beat and some they killed,
he had still one other, a beloved son. Finally, he sent him to them saying, they
will respect my son. But those tenants said to one another, this is the heir,
come let us kill him and the inheritance will be ours. And they took him and
killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. What will the owner of the
vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to
others. Have you not read this scripture? The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our
eyes. And they were seeking to arrest him, but feared the people for they
perceive that he had told the parable against them. So they left him and went
away. Let's take a moment and pray together. Father, as we look at your word, we
ask for the illuminating power of your Holy Spirit to make clear to us the
things that are unclear, to make real to us the things that are far away and
fuzzy, to speak to our hearts and cause us to see Christ more clearly in his
work. We pray for that in your name, amen. So we're gonna focus on the parable
in Mark chapter 12 this morning, but first let's see the stubbornness and
hardheartedness that sets the stage for this teaching. So if you remember in
Mark 11, Jesus has arrived in Jerusalem. It is the week of his passion. It's the
week of the Passover. He was hailed and welcomed as a king when he entered. Then
he went into the temple and observed that it had become a place of, that it was
no longer functioning as a place of prayer and worship of God. It had become a
place of commerce, a place of business, where things were being bought and sold
and the religious leaders are profiting off of it. So Jesus comes as judge of
the temple and cleanses it very aggressively, flipping over the tables of the
moneylenders, driving out those who are buying and selling, and it obviously
creates a very public scene. And when Jesus returns to Jerusalem in our passage
today, the priests and scribes come to him and they say, by what authority are
you doing these things? Who gave you the authority to do them? And they're
referring to what just happened in the temple, like what business do you have of
doing it? What authority, what power gives you the right to do this? But they're
also talking about his ministry in general because he's not an authorized priest
or religious leader, like they are. So in his brilliance, Jesus exposes the
nature of their question by asking them a question in return. He asks them about
John the Baptist, whom they've already rejected, and says, who authorized John's
ministry? Does John have a heavenly anointing or was he just a self-appointed
leader? Kind of like they are accusing him of being. And this puts the scribes
and Pharisees in a bind because they are afraid of the people who revere John,
but they can't say that his ministry was anointed by God because they had
already opposed him. So they don't answer. And in response, Jesus says, neither
will I tell you by what authority I do these things. If they cannot correctly
identify that John the Baptist was sent by God, then they are certainly ill-
equipped to evaluate Jesus' ministry. So Jesus refuses to answer them. And that
leads into the parable of the tenants this morning where we're gonna focus. And
it continues this idea of judgment that begins in chapter 11. Mark's gospel does
not have as many parables as Matthew and Luke. This is actually the first
parable since Mark 4. And often when we read a parable in the New Testament, the
disciples need an interpretation. They don't understand what's going on. They
are the insiders and they don't understand the meaning. And then the parable
often functions as a form of judgment on the outsiders. What's notable about
this parable is that the outsiders understand what Jesus is saying. The
religious leaders who this parable is aimed at, they do get it. And they
recognize this is being aimed at them. They recognize that they are being
accused and yet they don't take it to heart. So this is the parable that the
unbelievers actually understand. Let's look at this. I'm gonna break it into
four parts. The plan of God, the patience of God, the wrath of God, and the
victory of God that we see in these 12 verses, one through 12, the plan of God,
the patience of God, the wrath of God, and the victory of God. This is a
judgment parable and the audience for the parable was a group of hard-hearted,
evil religious leaders. So let's start with the plan of God. I'm gonna read
verse one. He began to speak to them in parables. A man planted a vineyard and
put a fence around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower and
leased it to tenants and went into another country. There are probably a few of
you that have been to France or Napa Valley or maybe just the Finger Lakes and
you look at those rows and rows of grapevines and think that would be nice to
have a little vineyard. I don't really know much myself about winemaking but my
understanding is that you can make a little money doing that as long as you have
a lot of money to begin with when you make that massive investment. It's a huge
project to create a vineyard. As Jesus tells the parable, we can tell he knew
how the winemaking industry worked there in Israel and he describes the process
that the man goes through. In this parable, the man takes great care in what
he's building. It's a major investment. First he plants a vineyard. Then he
protects the vineyard by putting a fence all around it. It's all hedged in. Then
he digs a pit for the winepress. It's not easy to do. A winepress wasn't easy to
make. It was typically carved out of stone, carved out of the rock. There would
be like a vat on a higher level where the grapes would be trodden out or smashed
and then as they're squeezed out that would be connected to a vat on the lower
level where the juice would flow down into. Then the owner built a tower,
probably 15 or 20 feet tall, to protect his vineyard from thieves and from wild
animals. All that to say is that building a fruitful vineyard would take great
care and would be a major investment of both time and money if you want to do it
right. The vineyard in the parable is a symbol for the nation of Israel. And
Jesus' audience would certainly have known this. Jesus is borrowing very
directly from an Old Testament passage in Isaiah called the Song of the
Vineyard. So I'm gonna read that for you and you'll see the correspondence. This
is Isaiah 5. Isaiah 5, Isaiah says, "'Let me sing for my beloved "'my love song
concerning his vineyard. "'My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.
"'He dug it and cleared it of stones "'and planted it with choice vines. "'He
built a watchtower in the midst of it "'and hewed out a wine vat in it "'and he
looked for it to yield grapes, "'but it yielded wild grapes. "'And now, O
inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, "'judge between me and my vineyard.
"'What more was there to do for my vineyard "'that I have not done in it? "'When
I looked for it to yield grapes, "'why did it yield wild grapes? "'And I will
tell you what I will do to my vineyard. "'I will remove its hedge and it shall
be devoured. "'I will break down its wall "'and it shall be trampled down.'" So
you can see Jesus is very intentionally using this language of Isaiah that these
religious leaders knew as he gives this parable. Israel is the vineyard that God
has planted. And think about what God has done for the nation of Israel. First
he calls Abraham and he blesses him and promises to bless the nations through
him and curse those who curse him. Then he protects his people from famine and
sends them to Egypt. Then he delivers them from Egyptian slavery and gives them
a deliverer in Moses. Then God in his grace gives his people the law so that
they would know how to live before him. And he shows them how he intends for
them to thrive. And then despite their stubbornness and despite their years of
wandering and rebellion and the rejection of Moses, God eventually gives his
people the promised land in the land of Canaan and drives out all the fearsome
nations that inhabit it. And when the Psalms reflect back on God's faithfulness
to his people, they say in Psalm 44, verse two, "'You with your own hand drove
out the nations, "'but them you planted.'" Israel is the vineyard of God's
planting. And God has every right to expect a fruitful harvest. The promise to
Abraham was that, "'In you all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.'" God
wanted his blessing to flow through these people to all the nations of the
earth. In the business world, you would talk about, people talk about ROI,
return on investment. In other words, what would you expect to get back from
what you put in to your investment? The return on investment that God expected
from his vineyard would that it would become fruitful, that it would become a
blessing, a light to the nations. The parable tells us that the owner, that's
God, leased the vineyard to tenants while he went away for a season. So the
tenants are representing the spiritual leadership of the nation of Israel. So
now we see God's plan. He establishes a vineyard, and he intends for it to be
fruitful. But then in verses two through eight, we see God's patience. When the
season came, I'm gonna read verses two through eight When the season came, he
sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the
vineyard. And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Again,
he sent to them another servant, and they struck him on the head and treated him
shamefully. And he sent another, and him they killed. And so with many others,
some they beat, and some they killed. He had still one other, a beloved son.
Finally, he sent him to them, saying, they will respect my son. But those
tenants said to one another, this is the heir, come let us kill him, and the
inheritance will be ours. And they took him and killed him and threw him out of
the vineyard. So the owner or landlord goes away, and he leaves his vineyard to
the tenant farmers. They are to cultivate, their job is to cultivate the
vineyard so that it grows into a fruitful harvest. Then at harvest time, the
owner sends back one of his servants, one of his representatives to the
vineyard. So in the parable, the owner represents the Lord God, the tenant
farmers represent Israel's religious leadership, and the servants and the owner
represent the prophets over the years who have come to call the people of Israel
to covenantal obedience with the word that God's already established. So the
servant comes, rightfully expecting to see a fruitful harvest. He's a
representative of the owner, and he has every right to expect to see a harvest.
So instead, he finds that instead of cultivating the fields, the tenant farmers
are actually hindering the fruitfulness of the vineyard. And not only that, but
they completely reject the authority of the servant who's been sent and what he
represents. And you can see the escalation in the text. First, one comes and
they beat him. Second one comes and they strike him on the head. Third one comes
and they kill him. And it does not happen just a few times. The text says, so
with many others. Some they beat, some they killed. We can think about this in
terms of Old Testament history. So the greatest Old Testament prophet, Elijah,
was chased out into the wilderness by Jezebel and Ahab. We could think of
rejected prophets like Isaiah or Jeremiah or Zechariah, or we could come all the
way up into the current day and look at what happened to John the Baptist. The
nation of Israel repeatedly rejected the servants that God sent to them. And
sometimes it's the nation, but sometimes it is the actual religious or political
leadership of the nation that's doing the rejecting. And it's the tenant farmers
who are to blame. In other words, it's the spiritual leadership of the nation
that's to blame. They are looking out for their own interests. They want the
land for themselves. They care about their own prophet. You can see that when
they try and usurp the land for themselves. This is where we look at our own
lives and start to realize this is more than just sort of an interesting,
symbolic, historical story. Jesus said to his followers that he is the true vine
and that we are the branches. Jesus said, every branch in me that does not bear
fruit, he takes away. And every branch that bears fruit, he prunes that it may
bear more fruit. It's very simple in the sense that you and I are meant to bear
fruit for God's glory. If we lack that, if we are Christians lacking
fruitfulness, then that needs to become a real matter of soul searching and
prayer. Galatians tells us what the fruit of the Holy Spirit looks like. Fruit
of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, self-control. Against such things, there's no law. And those who
belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
And we might expect that the owner would look at his vineyard and decide at this
point it's a lost cause. It's a sunk cost. Put all that into it, but I'm not
getting this back. There's no point any longer in investing in this vineyard.
But instead, the owner reflects and says, I have a beloved son. They will
respect my son. Surely they will respect my son. Do you see the love and the
patience of God the Father? And do you see the miracle of humility of Jesus the
Son coming to earth? Jesus came to earth and was rejected by people who had
already long established the pattern of rejection. The scripture tells us that
that's how much God loved the world. So much that he gave his only son that
whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. God did not
send his son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world
might be saved through him. The incarnation, the sending of the son to earth is
a demonstration of the incredible love and patience of the father and the son.
And in his patience and in his love, God the Father continues to reach out. He
continues to extend grace. But those tenants said to one another, this is the
heir. They recognized that the vineyard rightfully belongs to the son. However,
instead of submitting to his authority, they see it as an opportunity because if
they can remove the son from the equation, then the land will become ownerless.
They're like, this is the last one. The land will become ownerless. They will
have unimpeded access to the vineyard and authority over it. What they want is
unhindered power. So we see God's immense patience with his vineyard. We also
need to see who Jesus is addressing in this parable. It's the ones who are in
charge of the vineyard. If we put it more in our terms, it's the spiritual
leaders. It's the pastors. It's the clergy. The messengers that come, the
prophets, they are a threat to the religious establishment. It's a threat to
their power. It's a threat to their prophets. They believe that they are
entitled. And you've probably seen this. I've seen it many, many times. There's
a terrible and terrifying dynamic in spiritual leadership where people can start
to believe that the rules do not apply to them, that the people that they are
quote unquote serving actually exist to meet their personal needs. There's an
entitlement that people who serve others can feel that they deserve special
treatment for their sacrificial labors. And they start to believe, insidiously,
that ministry is really about them. And this can manifest itself in so many
ways. They may misuse funds. They may manipulate people. They may misuse their
power. But it's a proud self-importance that is sadly common among people in
spiritual leadership. When the tenant farmers say, then the inheritance will be
ours, they really think that they are the point. They think the vineyard is for
them. And what a reality check that is for us. Whatever type of ministry we
engage in or whatever position we may or may not hold, this text ought to warn
us and humble us. Francis Schaeffer said, we are not building God's kingdom. He
is building his kingdom. And we are praying for the privilege of being involved.
In the parable, these stubborn tenant farmers do not turn from their wicked ways
when the beloved son comes. Instead, they take him and kill him, throw him out
of the vineyard. And we see Jesus in the week of his death knowing exactly what
is about to take place as he delivers this parable. We see the plan of God, the
patience of God. But ultimately, we do see the wrath of God. Look at verse nine.
What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and
give the vineyard to others. And that's exactly what happened. After sending so
many prophetic messengers, then eventually and finally, judgment comes to the
religious establishment. And this all takes place in real history. The temple
that is the pride and joy of these religious leaders and their place of
commerce, the centerpiece of their prophet, it gets completely destroyed by the
Romans in 70 AD. And all those trappings of religion, the Pharisees, the
scribes, the sacrificial system, all the power and prestige that those leaders
enjoyed, it all gets wiped out because God's chosen people rejected him. They
lose the vineyard. It goes to the Gentiles. It goes to the new Israel of God.
How many messengers needed to come? And how many warnings were necessary? In the
parable, it speaks to Israel as a whole in a historic sense, but it also speaks
to us as individuals today. If the Lord is showing his love and his patience to
you, we have to realize his kindness is meant to lead us to repentance. It's
meant to lead us to repentance. It's not indefinite. To explain the parable,
Jesus takes his listeners back to the Psalms, which they understood to be about
the promised Messiah. So Jesus finishes up by saying this, and this is our
fourth point. We see the plan of God, the patience of God, the wrath of God,
which ultimately comes on the religious establishment, but we also see the
victory of God. Verses 10 through 12. Have you not read the scripture? The stone
that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This was the Lord's
doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. And they were seeking to arrest him, but
feared the people, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them,
so they left him and went away. Jesus was quoting from Psalm 118, which we read
at the beginning of our worship service. The stone is the cornerstone. It's the
foundation stone, and the builders, in this sense, were the smart and
intelligent people who decided that that stone was the wrong one, that it was
not a suitable foundation. In the Psalms, this referred to Israel, which many
world leaders saw as a small, insignificant nation. They could not accept that
Israel was foundational to God's plan of redemption. But in the New Testament,
this passage gets used to refer to Jesus. He's the cornerstone of the new
household, or the new family that God is building. So the stone that the
builders rejected, he becomes the cornerstone. People have tried to destroy the
vineyard. People have tried to harvest the vineyard for their own purposes, but
the vineyard will remain protected. Christ himself is the foundation, the
cornerstone, the foundational stone upon which the walls are built. He will be
himself the strength and protection of the vineyard, and it will include people
from all the nations of the world. It's the Lord's doing. It's his plan. It's
marvelous in our eyes. And those who reject him are just like those leaders of
old. And there will be evil people who will plot against the church, and there
will be wolves in sheep's clothing appearing to care for the vineyard, but
really seeking to destroy it. And yet Christ is still the cornerstone. So just a
couple points of application for me to finish with. First, if we are in Christ,
we're part of the vineyard. We've been grafted into the true vine, Jesus. You
are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and this text tells us you are meant to bear
fruit for his glory. Second, it's a warning, it's a very sobering warning to
those of us who are in ministry of any kind that's never entitlement to operate
above the rules. If we are serving in the Lord's vineyard, it's for him. It's
never for us. It's never about us. It's never about power, never about
recognition. It's never about ego. And then third, it's very easy for us to look
around at corrupt spiritual leadership, whether that's in America or around the
world, because we read about it and see it very often. It's hard for us to
quantify. We have more information than we used to, but we know that this has
been going on for centuries. But when the prophets were persecuted or killed,
God was in control. When God's very own son was plotted against, it was never
outside of God's control. In fact, it was part of his plan. Look at what it
says. This was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. It's a
manifestation of his divine patience, so we don't lose heart. First Peter tells
us this. It stands in scripture. Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a
cornerstone chosen and precious. Whoever believes in him will not be put to
shame. So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe,
the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone, and a stone of
stumbling and a rock of offense. Christ is our cornerstone and our foundation.
Let's pray.