Matthew 21:33-46 Receiving the Rejected One

You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsack takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called

Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in. Well, good morning and welcome to Recast Church.

As Dave said, I'm Don Filsack, I'm the lead pastor here, and I'm really glad to be back together again this week. Let me clarify at the start of this message that we had an intentionally over -the -top response to our first two cases of COVID -19 here at Recast.

Our canceling last week was not because we had a lot of infections here. We only had two people who tested positive and a third person who tested negative, but was told by their doctor to assume that they were positive.

All three had mild cases, are completely recovered and have already gone past that recovery period and are back out to work and everything.

So our canceling last week was out of concern for secondary spread. We had many people tested last week, and some of those tests weren't going to come in until later in the week.

And were they to test positive, which they didn't, but were they to test positive, it would have impacted so many people in the church that we couldn't really risk going into a normal service last week in those conditions.

And so, but God continues to be gracious to us as we work through these momentary confusions.

I thank you all for being really gracious to each other, for being gracious to leadership. And I confess that the task of leadership has taken a flavor that I don't prefer during COVID -19.

And at the same time, God is good and he is gracious. I'm confident that God will continue to bless this church. And I want to just give you a promise from his word, a promise that goes to the entire church, not just to Recast, but Recast certainly, because we are a church and that he promises to us that the very gates of hell will not prevail against his people.

And so we take that to heart. We believe that to be true. And we believe that we will come out the other side, a stronger church.

We will not come out the other side of all of this. The same church, but we will come out stronger.

And I'm confident of that because the spirit of God works in adversity, works in difficulties and brings strength out of that.

And so with that hope in mind, let's turn our attention to the drama that's awaiting us here in this text in Matthew.

Jesus has been challenged by the religious leaders here in the last week of his life. They are challenging particularly to defend himself.

The religious bigwigs encounter Jesus and they found him in the middle of a crowd in the temple precincts, the outer court of the temple where God was worshiped by the

Jews. And they found him there in the midst of a gathering teaching them. And they immediately approached him, interrupted his teaching and challenged him to give them an answer.

On what authority are you doing these things? On what authority are you teaching? Who do you think you are?

In other words, doing our job. These scribes, these Pharisees, these elders of the people, the religious leaders, the chief priests, they all thought that he was doing their job.

And on what authority does he have the right to do these things? So Jesus addressed them using stories.

And we saw one a couple of weeks ago. And that one was shocking. And then the story this morning is just as equally shocking to the systems of these religious guys.

Jesus is going to answer their question as to his authority. But at the same time, while answering that, he's indicting these religious leaders as rejecting the very work of God because they are rejecting him.

And he's ultimately going to say through story form that you are rejecting the very son of God himself.

Now, he's already told these religious leaders that they're refusing to bear fruit for God. He's been that direct with them.

He likened them to fruit trees in harvest time with all leaves but no fruit.

Now, has anybody here gone to an orchard yet this year? Have you been to an orchard? What do we usually do when we go to orchards besides eat donuts and cider?

We usually go to an orchard for apples, right? You go to pick fruit. Now, does anybody go to the orchard to pick leaves?

Now, you go and you look for fruit, right? Like, we don't look for leaves. We're not interested in leaves.

As a matter of fact, they're far from our mind when we go to an apple tree. We're looking for apples. But they are like fruit trees in harvest time with only leaves.

They're like a young man, said Jesus a couple of weeks ago in a story form again. They're like a young man who emphatically answers, yes,

Father, when his dad asks him to mow the lawn. But only that son never quite gets up off the sofa, puts down his video games, and gets to the lawn.

They are words, in other words, all words and no action. They love authority, but they don't really love the people of God.

They kind of like the authority. They love religion and the power that comes with it, but they do not love the

Almighty God. And further, they prove to be rejecting the one big thing that God is doing in their generation.

The one big thing that he's doing in their midst. Obviously, namely, Jesus Christ himself, who they are confronting.

And so, here's the one big point from our message this morning. If you're a note taker, you might not have your notes out, but just jot this one down.

It's simply this, judgment is coming for all who reject God's Son. Not a feel -good message, but that's the message that Jesus wants to convey.

Judgment is coming for all who reject God's Son. And that's the one big thought.

And Jesus tells it in the midst of an elaborate parable. To get down to the serious peril of anyone who would reject

God's only Son. And so, if you're not already there, open your Bibles or your devices to Matthew 21, verses 33 -46.

And we're going to read that together, and then we're going to have some video announcements immediately following my reading this. But Matthew chapter 21, verses 33 -46.

God's holy and precious word. A little bit of a longer text than we've been taking out in Matthew, but a complete story.

You'll see that it all holds together. And recast, this is God's word. It wants to change us. Come to it, listen to it, follow along with it in a way that you're open to it changing you.

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 leased it to tenants and went into another country.

When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another.

Again, he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did the same to them. Finally, he sent his son to them, saying, they will respect my son.

But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, this is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.

And they took him, and they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. When, therefore, the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?

They said to him, he will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.

Jesus said to them, have you never read in the scriptures the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone?

This was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. 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. And when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them.

And although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds because they held him to be a prophet.

This has been the word of the Lord. If you feel led to give, you can put your money or check in here and put it in the giving slot at the welcome table.

Recast is part of Operation Christmas Child. If you want to get involved, there's three ways you can do this.

One, fill up these boxes with some awesome gifts. Two, donate $9 online for the shipping cost of these boxes.

And three, be praying for these kids so that they can get to know the gospel and get to know

Jesus through these things. I just wanted to share with you guys our vision and mission here at Recast Kids.

COVID has brought a lot of changes, but our mission here has always been the same, which is to bring the gospel to your children every week.

We desire for these kids to know in their hearts and minds that they are in need of a Savior. It is nothing they can do on their own, but it is through salvation through Jesus.

We have an exciting opportunity for you to join in that vision in helping kids have the chance to hear the gospel.

If this is something you're interested in, please let me know. We do ask for a commitment of serving twice a month.

We do this because we want our kids to be able to develop a personal relationship with you. We recognize that 2020 has been a hard time for everyone, full of inconsistencies, and that is why we feel it now is so important to partner with parents in sharing the gospel with these kids to bring them out of fear and into hope.

If you'd like more information, go to recastchurch .com. Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel and click the notification bell.

We're going to go ahead and pray before Don comes up to preach. Lord, we are so thankful for the opportunity to gather together.

We are thankful to come and to worship you, the one who is high and lifted up, who is above all and sovereign over all of our problems.

Lord, we are thankful that you did not stay high and lifted up, but that you humbled yourself and humbled yourself to the point of death on a cross so that we might have access to you.

Lord, we are so thankful for the mercy and the grace and the hope that you provided us through the cross.

Lord, this morning we are thankful just that you have placed us into the local body here at Recast.

I'm reminded every time I think of the church that you have given each and every one of us gifts that are to be used to build one another up to the measure of Christ.

Lord, as we enter into the winter season here, I am thankful to see that we're doing service opportunities and looking for ways to reach out.

Lord, I pray that you'll use our spiritual gifts over the next couple of months to not only build up the church body here, but to reach out to our community with the good news of the gospel.

Lord, we pray for Don this morning. We are thankful that you have called him to shepherd this body.

We're thankful for his faithful exposition of the scriptures each and every week. Lord, we know that your word is powerful and it changes hearts.

We're thankful that Don is going to preach from it this morning. We just ask that your spirit is working in each and every one of us as he preaches the word.

Lord, we are thankful for your spirit that indwells us and helps us to be more like Christ.

We pray in Jesus' precious and holy name. Amen. I encourage you to get comfortable and make sure your

Bible is open to Matthew 21, 33 -46 that we just read together. Anytime you need to get up and get more coffee or juice or donuts, you can take advantage of that back there.

Jesus used stories a lot in his teaching. He used them for dramatic effect, and here he uses a parable, a story, with the purpose, once again, of drawing the religious leaders into a self -indicting answer.

He was a master teacher who, at the end of the day, often would ask a question that, at the end of the day, the answer would implicate somebody.

It would get you kind of caught. People who pride themselves in being pretty smart can be drawn into all kinds of silly challenges.

That's why the posts on Facebook get so many comments when they're challenging people to figure out a riddle or a puzzle.

Do you know what I'm talking about? Those things that they ask you to figure this out, and somebody walks in, and there's a bed, and there's 14 animals in the room, and then how many feet are on the floor, or something like that.

People answer the question because they want to show how smart they are, and they always get it wrong. That's the kind of stuff that we're drawn into, these kinds of things, where we want to show everybody how smart we are, or an

IQ test, or anything like that. These religious leaders, nearly 2 ,000 years ago, were no different than that.

They have an eagerness to get things right and to answer correctly and to show that they've got the moral authority.

They're the ones that are right. As Jesus poses these conundrums and these questions and tells these stories, they're eager with an answer.

We're going to see that in the text. Jesus launched into what is an agricultural story, in essence.

It's got some commerce in it and some things like that, but primarily it's agricultural. He used agriculture a lot in his stories because that really connected with his culture and his society.

Jesus obviously knew a lot about the culture in which he was living, and he used it to bring spiritual understanding.

He looked around him and told stories about the things that he saw around him and the things that people valued so that he could get the spiritual weight of understanding there.

He tells the story of a wealthy landowner here in the text who planted a vineyard. Right away we see that he planted the vineyard.

It's his. He's the one who invests in this. He fenced it in to protect it from thieves and animals.

He dug a wine press on the property with hopes of a good harvest and the ability to produce wine. He built a watchtower there.

Again, another move of protection from thieves and from animals. But this landowner had no intention of running the operation himself.

Instead, he leases out the operation to some tenants with an agreement, of course, that he would get a percentage of the harvest when it comes.

Now, it usually takes about four or five years of tending grapes, grape vines, before you ever get a reasonable harvest.

So this is an investment. This is an upfront investment on the part of this guy. He's the one who's funded it with his own capital.

He's put a little bit of risk in this, and he's the one who's planted these vines, and he's at least funded the building of this tower and funded the building of this wall and the digging out of a wine press and all that.

This is all his money that he's fronted for this operation. And then he moved away and left it in the hands of some tenants.

Now, the story's not an allegory where every little thing we need to figure out what it means. What's the watchtower?

What's the wine press? It's not an allegory like that, but there are metaphors in it.

There are illustrations. There are things that do stand for things. It's just not everything stands for something.

And so all the work that this wealthy businessman puts into the vineyard is there for really kind of two primary purposes.

It first shows us that the master owns the vineyard. It's his. He's the one who started it.

He's the one who invested in it. And second, that he cares about this vineyard. He wants it protected by putting a wall around it, putting a watchtower in it.

He wants it successful. And further, what you need to understand is that all throughout the Old Testament, frequently,

Israel, the people of God, are likened to a vineyard planted by God. So this would have been a metaphor, an understanding to those religious leaders that often in their literature, often in their stories,

Israel was pictured as a vineyard planted by God. And so that would be in the back of these very religiously educated individuals that Jesus is talking to.

So in this story, they would not have a question. Who he was talking about or what he was talking about. What's the vineyard?

The vineyard is the people of God. And so when harvest season came, and Jesus is continuing the story, when harvest season came, the master sent some servants to get his cut of the grapes.

So it's obviously been a few years, and there's a great expectation that there's going to be a harvest, and so he sent some of his servants.

And the tenants were wicked, and so they beat one. And so he sent another, and they killed that one.

So he sent a third, and they pelted him with stones and tried to kill him, but he barely made it out alive. I think the text

Jesus would have said, they killed two of them. If they killed two of them, this guy makes it out alive, but they tried.

And again, remember that Jesus is telling a story, so if the actual account stretches your credulity, it's only for dramatic effect.

Often when telling a story, the places where it's like, no, people don't really act that way. That's not the way that things really go down.

If somebody's business practice is like this, it probably serves the purpose of making us think a little bit.

Why in the world would this guy persistently send his servants to try to bring in this harvest?

Why? Would you keep sending servants? Think about it. Would you keep sending servants?

They're coming back bruised, beaten, and some of them don't make it back alive. But this point serves.

This stretching our credulity in this story, Jesus understands that. Jesus isn't, I mean, is that good business practice?

He's not telling you good business practice. This serves to accentuate what

God has done for us. What God has done for us.

Let me break out of the story with an observation for just a moment at this point. All throughout the Old Testament, God faithfully sent prophet after prophet after prophet.

Prophets that were beaten. Prophets that were put to death. Prophets that were stoned. And despite their poor treatment,

God was faithful. Faithful to keep patiently seeking to win the hearts of his people.

Continually, continually, continually seeking our hearts. Sending his servants to seek a harvest. And even in that Old Testament time, sending servants to seek a harvest that was not coming.

A harvest that was not coming. You see that in verse 36 with the master sending yet even more servants who were treated the same way.

He keeps sending servants and the tenants abuse them and harm them and even killed some of them as well.

It's not just these first three. But he sends even more. And they're treated badly too. So again, the logic of this master might be called into question when we get to verse 37.

Go ahead and look at verse 37 and tell me if you're questioning the logic of that verse. They beat up my servants, so I guess

I'll send my son. I say this because that's not the way my logic runs. Hey, they killed some of my employees.

They left them bleeding and bruised and some of them dead. Maybe I'll take a chance and send Adam or Luke. Is that your logic?

Is that the way that your mind thinks? Or are you sending in the military? What's the next step for you?

911, get over there right now. What are you doing? Are you sending your son into that mix?

And look at verse 37 at the logic of the love of our

God. They haven't respected my prophets, so I will send my son.

So he sent his son to the vineyard with the purpose of bringing him his harvest. But those tending to his vineyard, those tending to his people, had wicked intentions that are revealed for us in verse 38.

When they saw the son of the master, they plotted his demise, the text says.

We have the inner workings of their dialogue with one another, what they're thinking, how they're processing. Let's kill him, and then we can have the vineyard for ourselves.

It'll be all ours. We can have it all to ourselves. If we just kill the air, we kill the sun.

And as we understand and seek to understand this story, it's worth pausing at this point to highlight the darkness in the hearts of these powerful religious leaders over Israel during this time.

They want the vineyard. They want the vineyard. Now, what did the vineyard represent to them in their minds and in their hearts and in this story?

What's Jesus, what's the metaphor, what is he driving at here? They want the people of God.

They want them. Religious leaders want the people of God for themselves in this context, whether it's the vast hordes of money given by paying for indulgences in the

Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, or the power and prestige of these religious leaders that Jesus is speaking to there in the temple.

During the times of Jesus, they were highly respected, and they were highly rewarded, and they lived better than other people, or even the respect and community power that can be granted to a small -town pastor in Middle America.

There is an enticement to minister for the wrong reasons. And that's not just for pastors.

It's for all of us. There's an enticement and a temptation to minister for the wrong things.

There's a temptation for all of us to own things that are not ours to own.

The people of God, I say this with all humility as a pastor, the people of God belong to no man.

You are not my church. We, recast, we are

God's church. We belong to Him. We're His. I'm a steward.

And I recognize that you could take this in a snarky way, but I am glad to give you up to the Son when

He returns for us or brings me to Him. I'll gladly do that.

You are His and not mine. But you see, these guys,

Jesus is telling them directly. Well, not directly. He's telling a story about them. They don't get it yet. They're not making the connections until we get later into the text here.

But these guys wanted the inheritance for themselves. They wanted control. And to those of you who, maybe there's some in the room who doubt that there is a genuine threat of religious control, consider that we have within all of us such an innate desire.

There is an innate desire to worship that can be likened to an appetite. We have a hunger to worship something.

And just like a person who has access to all the food, did you know that somebody who has access to a lot of food can control starving people?

There's a level of control that can be had there. If you have the means to fulfill other people's appetites, and you can control that, you can control them.

And so can a religious leader control people who are starving for the knowledge of God?

That's how Jim Jones was able to lead his cult to such a devastating end. Our appetites are able to be leveraged to control us, and these religious leaders got it.

And these religious leaders had found a good recipe for religious control over the masses. And then in walks

Jesus to upset the equilibrium of what they thought was a pretty good deal. They thought they had it figured out.

They had a pretty good gig going for them. They get respect, they get authority, they get wealth, and the people get their rules and their laws and their regulations, and a chance to connect with the knowledge of God.

And so this seems to be a pretty good system working here, Jesus. Things are clicking in this vineyard.

Things are going fine. We don't need the Son of the Master to show up here. We've got it well in hand.

And you're just in the way. But when the Son shows up in the vineyard, according to the story that Jesus is telling to receive

His harvest, the text tells us in no uncertain terms the tenants seized Him. That's a violent action.

The tenants seized Him. They threw Him outside the walls, and they killed Him. And the specificity of the words show just how clearly

Jesus knew what was going to happen to Him in just a few short days. This conversation with these religious leaders is happening four or maybe five days before He's crucified.

We're that close to the crucifixion when He says, they will take the Son, telling a story obviously, but there's no question that it's a veiled prophecy of what's going to happen to Him.

They will take the Son when He shows up to the vineyard. They will throw Him outside of the walls, and they will put

Him to death. He would be seized. He would be taken outside the walls.

And He would be killed. There's no question that this parable is a finely crafted story, weaving four things together, four amazing things that He's able to weave into one simple story.

The indictment of the religious leaders, woven together with Jesus' desire for a harvest among His people, woven together with clear identification of Jesus as the

Son of God. He's not just another prophet. He's not just another one sent. He's the very

Son. And then the fourth thread woven, a clear understanding of His coming rejection.

All of that brought together in this one simple story. He's not merely one of the servants. He's the very

Son of God who comes with the very authority and ownership of His Father. On what authority do

I do these things? Well, when He came into Jerusalem, do you remember what the people answered? People in Jerusalem were like, who is this guy?

They're making all this ruckus outside of the city gates as they're coming in, and He's riding on the donkey, and they're throwing down their cloaks and the palm fronds, and people are shouting,

Hosanna in the highest. Save now, Jesus. And the people of Jerusalem are like, who is this guy? And the people from Galilee that are traveling with Him say, oh,

He's a prophet. He's our prophet. He's our prophet from Nazareth. He's from up north.

You haven't met Him yet, but here He is. This is our Prince Ali or whatever. They're having this big fanfare as He comes into town.

This is our guy. On what authority do

I do these things? The people said, He's a prophet. What's He saying here? No, I'm not just one of those.

You've got me wrong. I'm not just one of those. I'm not just one of the servants sent. I am the

Son. I'm the very Son of God. Come with His authority. Come with His right of ownership over this whole thing.

That's me. I'm the Son sent at the final hour to bring to my

Father, to bring to the owner of this vineyard His rightful harvest.

That's why I'm here. I'm here to bring Him His due. I'm here to bring Him what belongs to Him, which is a harvest of many people.

Now, to this point, the religious leaders haven't taken the same rabbit trails that we've taken and kind of getting behind the scenes and seeing the guts of this story.

They're staying on the surface. They're just seeing the skin of this thing. And on the surface, they're not getting all that deeper meaning.

So they've been following it as a mere story, a moral story. That's what they were used to in their time. They expected it to be a lesson about morality.

And morality is their specialty. So we asked them to show off their knowledge in verse 40.

Judge in this case. Oh, they were good at judging. They were good at that.

So it says judge in this case. And so he asked them a question in 40, and they are eager to answer.

And they answer in verse 41 the question, what will the master do to these tenants when he returns? They've killed a bunch of his servants.

They've left a bunch of them bleeding and bruised. They killed his own son. What will he do?

And they answer well. As a matter of fact, they answer so well, and the force is missed in a weak translation into English so that we don't get the force or the power of the words.

And for some reason, sometimes in Greek we don't, in English we don't translate it straight over. So it doesn't, I don't know why they choose not to do that.

But where it says they're wretches in the ESV, they reply that these are bad people who will be badly killed.

The word bad is in both. So the means of judgment and their character are both maligned by the religious leaders.

The root idea that the religious leaders got right is that bad people come to a bad end.

That's why we cheer for the demise of the villain at the end of the stories. You look forward, how's he going to get his?

And it's always like in Hollywood, they're always trying to get more creative about that. So how does the bad guy come to an end after his monologue?

So they were getting it. And they answer even further, they go beyond that. What's going to happen to them?

Well, they don't just answer what's going to happen to them, but they go on to say what's going to happen to the vineyard too.

They answer further that the good master will lease out the farm, and he'll lease out that vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits at the harvest time.

He's not going to put up with that. He's going to end them badly, and then he's going to take care of the vineyard, because obviously he loves the vineyard.

And God loves a good twist. Jesus has just led these religious leaders to indict themselves.

They were not thinking beyond a legal dispute over tenants, and so they answer correctly. They deserve to come to a bad end for the way that they've treated this master.

And so to draw the story to a theological point so that these religious scholars could better understand the story and better connect it back to him, this is something

Jesus quoted from Psalm 118, verses 22 through 23. That's where the quote that we see here in our text comes from.

This is a passage that explains that God will use one who is rejected as the foundation or keystone in his construction of his kingdom.

He's going to take a stone that the builders said, no, we can't use that, rejected, and he's going to basically make that the key building implement that holds the whole building together.

You see, they should have been looking for one who was rejected to be the foundation. We should be expecting from the

Old Testament one who was rejected and suffered to be our leader. And he goes on to quote from verse 23 from Psalm 118 as well, which

I think is a further indictment of these religious leaders because it's not only that it was God's idea to use the rejected stone in construction, but it was marvelous in our eyes, says the author of that psalm.

And it's marvelous to us. It's wondrous to us. It's kind of mind -boggling to us. It's glorious to us that God would choose to use the one rejected as the cornerstone.

It's a wonderful thing that God would work this way, but not to these religious leaders. It is not marvelous in their eyes.

It makes them mad that God would work in this way. It makes them angry that God would choose the rejected stone to build his kingdom.

But just like they said the good master would do when he returns to his vineyard, Jesus goes on to say, this is what's going to be done to you.

This is what's going to happen to these religious leaders who reject the son of the master. The kingdom is taken away from them and given to a people who will produce a harvest for the son, who will produce a harvest for the king.

Jesus here is putting the religious establishment on notice. He's talking to the religious establishment of the

Jews and he's saying, your time is over. A new era is coming in. And it is the age of a royal nation made up of a people from all over the world, even us, who recognize the king, who follow the king, and who give their harvest to the king.

But further he goes on to say, beware. And he gives a warning in verse 44. The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces.

And the one on whom the stone falls will be crushed. More about that later, but in verse 45 through 46, we see that the light turns on for the religious leaders.

Especially once he says, just like this, you're going to have, oh, you're talking about us.

Oh my goodness. And they wanted to arrest him right there. Some people, when they find out that they've done wrong or that they're being indicted, they feel bad and they repent.

And then some people just go deeper into the darkness and that's what they do here. And they're like, yeah, yeah.

You were accusing us of rejecting you. We want to arrest you and put you to death. They don't even make the connection.

At the end of the day, they're doing the very thing he's just prophesied that they're going to do. And they are indeed going to reject him and they are indeed going to hand him over to the

Romans to be crucified. But they don't hear.

Why don't they do it? What does the text say in verse 46? Because they feared the crowds who thought him to be a prophet.

You see, these religious leaders, more than anything, fear the people. They don't fear God. They don't want to do things his way.

They just want to make sure that the people are all following them like sheep. And so let's consider what the scripture and the spirit wants to do in our hearts and lives through this text.

What should change in us as a result of coming in contact with this word this week? And the first thing that I want to just put in front of us is first we should heed the servants that the

Lord has already faithfully sent to us. He has been faithful to already send prophet after prophet after prophet.

He has, through his holy word, given us the record of the prophets, the record of all of the histories, the clear message of the way that God works in human history leading all the way up to the giving of his son for us.

It's here. It's like a feast for us to understand what God desires of us and the way that he has worked in our history.

And he has sent prophet after prophet after prophet as messengers to us to wake us up to the way that he wants us to live and the way that he wants to work in and through us.

Consider as you study the messengers that he sent to us, the great patience of our

God over ages. Think about his great love for us, that he would send his only son into the vineyard to be beaten and abused and crucified and killed for us.

Trust in his word. Study his word. Be saturated with his word. This is the privilege that we have of a record of those that he has sent to see how he works among people.

Second, yield to him the fruit. Yield to him the fruits. The good tenants are the ones who serve for his glory.

They serve for him. They are the ones who use their gifts and their talents and their resources in the service of the master.

And further, for some of us, we need a heart change in all of this. We need to think about this differently. We need to start by recognizing that our gifts are actually a gift from him to be used for him.

You see, I don't work my own field. I work his field.

I didn't build this wall. I didn't plant these vines. I didn't build this tower.

So all the glory and honor for this ministry in his kingdom comes back to his kindness to us.

Are you getting that? All of the ability and all of the calling that God would place on our hearts and on our lives to serve him.

I'm going to ask you a question real quick. This isn't even in my notes, but I just want to ask real quick. How many of you would just admit, and I'm going to raise my hand,

I'm going to raise my hand with some of you. How many of you would admit that over the course of this quarantine and over the course of all these political divisions and over the course of all that's going on and raging in our culture, that you've gotten a little bit withdrawn inside?

Anybody besides me? Anybody find yourself taking care of yourself more than you used to?

Thinking about your own interests a little bit more? Finding it a little bit harder to reach outside of yourself?

And what I found and what I've experienced as I've observed, and I have a chance, I have a little bit of a position to be able to observe people.

I think that since like March and April, we were more gung -ho about serving, weren't we?

And people were donating and people were serving. And even as my position on the food pantry, we had more volunteers.

We were turning away volunteers to come and help feed people back in March and April. Hard to find people to help now.

And I think that's the exhaustion that many of us and many in our world are feeling over months and months of this thing.

Anybody relate? You feeling it? We're exhausted. And we've had to make tough choices, right?

Some of you have had to make really tough choices for your kids' education. We have in my household too.

And I mean, back to online again this week. Again.

And 100 % online. And just all of the stuff that's swirling around us. And some of you have had some economic decisions that you've had to make.

And so your work is different. And all of these things. But church, hear me. Hear me carefully.

I'm not here to beat you up on this. I'm just here to put this in front of you.

That we are called to offer our fruits to God. And we are no less called to serve during this season than we've been called in the past.

As a matter of fact, I think we shine brighter when we can serve our community, when we can serve one another well in the midst of this crisis.

And that's a one, each person here needs to assess where you're at on that. Some of you may be just clicking with it.

You're nailing it. And you really are. And you can ask God to, that's a step this week. Ask God to search you and say, am

I doing what I'm called to do during this season? Or is there something more that you would ask of me? Is there something more that you desire?

Is there even just some ways that you want me to think more outside of myself than I am right now? Because I've found myself very wrapped up in my own things.

What is it that God desires? And then give the glory to Him. We need to recognize that all of these gifts come from Him.

And I mean, by gifts, you can just even say every day. Every day is a gift from Him.

How are we going to sow that for Him? And what's going to be the yield and the return at the end of that day? What's going to be the return and the yield at the end of this month, at the end of this year?

Are we going to find that we've only served ourselves and had nothing to offer to Him at the end? And this is a spiritual question.

I mean, at the end of the day, we all get wrapped up in ourselves. But even just to say, God, give me eyes to see outside of myself.

And lastly, consider the centrality of Jesus in all of this. The whole thing centers around Him.

You literally have Jesus telling a story about Himself. Now, some of you have that friend who every story is always about them and about their accomplishments and they're the hero of every one of their stories.

Jesus here is not, ironically, I think Jesus can talk about Himself all He wants, right? Anybody okay with that? Like, because He's Jesus.

Like, He's the King of all the universe. So I think it's okay for Him to toot His own horn. And as a matter of fact, even just the fact that He would illustrate

Himself as the cornerstone. He would illustrate Himself as the rejected one who everyone must deal with and everyone must come to.

That He would call Himself the Son of God, send Him to the vineyard to bring the harvest to His Father. I mean, that in itself shows that Jesus believed something about Himself, didn't it?

That's a pretty significant thing. That He's ready to ascribe to Himself all of these central roles.

But it really is all about Him. Or He's a raving lunatic and you should have nothing to do with Him. I mean, either

He's an egomaniac who's so full of Himself that you ought to just get far from Him because He's about to explode. Or He is the very

Son of God, as He says in this story. He is the cornerstone that a whole thing holds together in Him.

Think that through. What is He saying about Himself? Your life is to revolve around Him.

He's the stone rejected by the builders, but God has made Him the cornerstone. And if you belong to God through Jesus, then you rejoice in this stone.

And your heart has been moved to see it as a marvelous thing that God would take this stone and make

Him the centerpiece, to make Him the thing that holds all things together. And your heart has been moved to rejoice, not that you've moved your heart, but by His Spirit, you have come to find the thing, the thing that really matters, and it is

Jesus. But don't lose sight of the severe words of verse 44.

Jesus putting Himself in the center and saying, everybody has to deal with me. And there are people who will fall on me and be shattered to pieces.

And there are others that I will fall upon and crush. Now that's not mamby -pamby

American Jesus. That's not the

Jesus of just love everybody and feel all good together. That's Jesus saying, every human life has something to do with me.

And you will either come to me for grace, and you will come to me bringing your fruits, or you will be dashed to pieces on me or crushed beneath me.

I believe that those who fall on Him, the reason that He uses two metaphors here is that He's thinking of two different types of people.

I believe that falling on Him and being dashed to pieces is more the religious side of failure.

More the religious side who find Jesus in their way. They're actually attentive to Him. They see

Him down the pathway and as they approach Him, they're like, some obstacles in the way of my righteousness.

You see, because it takes a lot of humility to say, I need Jesus, doesn't it? It takes humility to get there.

And so these are people, these would be people who are like, I've just got to get around Him because I'm doing my own thing and why in the world would

Jesus have to come and die anyways? That makes no sense because I'm pretty awesome. I'm pretty good. I don't have anything to confess.

It would be like these religious leaders here who have no category for Jesus, no room for Him. You're in our temple precincts teaching our people, get out of the way.

Who do you think you are? He says, in your attempt to climb over me or to climb around me, you will fall to your doom and be shattered.

But others, I believe, just completely ignore Him. And they don't deal with Him much in this life at all.

And they will in the end. And He will fall upon them for judgment on that final day.

I don't say this to be melodramatic. It is dramatic. These are our friends.

These are our neighbors. These are our coworkers. These are some family members we will attempt to get together with for Thanksgiving.

We'll see how all that works. These are real people. And Jesus is not saying this flippantly.

He's saying it harshly, but truthfully. Some will fall upon Him and be dashed to pieces.

And others, He will fall upon them and crush them in final judgment. There are people that you know that I don't, that are hiding in their homes right now, reasonably, reasonably terrified of this virus.

Why are they terrified of the virus? Can you put yourself in sympathy, in their shoes?

If this life is all that you think you have, would you be hiding out too?

Can you be moved in your heart to sympathy for them? What does this mean for the message that we're called to bring to the world around us?

This is the fate of our friends, our neighbors, our coworkers. Church, we need to be a voice of salt and light in this world.

Now, maybe more than ever. Right now, I believe that the fields are ripe for harvest.

I believe that souls are ready. And there are people who would never have given Christ a thought eight months ago, that now, to your surprise, and to the kingdom's great gain, are eager to hear some shred of hope.

This is a culture, this stuff that we've gone through, this is game -changing. There are opportunities out there for us,

Church, that were not there eight months ago. And those opportunities just look like the same people that you've already talked with about the gospel five years ago, that are responsive now in a way that they would never have been then.

And you think they're just like this, and their heart has been melted to say there's got to be more than this.

Be ready to go back into those conversations. By the way, none of that was in my notes, so that's just from the Spirit. His own

Son, His own Son was sent to bleed and die for us. That is the message that we have to bring when we think about keeping

Jesus central. That is what we have to bring to our friends and our neighbors and everybody. He was seized,

He was taken outside of the wall, and He was killed for us. And what we have to bring to people is the love of God that is displayed in His patience and sending us servant after servant after servant that culminated in the sending of that Son.

And remember that each week by coming to communion. So if you've asked Jesus Christ to save you, then let's take the cracker and the juice to remember

His willing sacrifice for us. And let's go out from this place trusting God and His Word.

And let's go out together from this place yielding to Him our harvest through growing in service to His kingdom.

And let's go out from here with a willing heart to bring others to the Savior while there is still time. Let's pray.

Father, I pray that You would help us by Your grace to open our eyes. We can't do it ourselves and it makes logical sense that we would become inwardly focused except for Your Spirit.

And so Father, I pray that by Your Spirit You would be moving in each one of our lives to take that assessment to really assess in our own hearts whether or not we're yielding our fruit to You or whether we're just serving ourselves at this point and doing our own thing in Your vineyard.

Father, I pray that You would make us bold. That You would give us a passion that moves us for the lost around us.

You would give us an empathy that understands why people are so up in arms and so frazzled about everything going on around them right now.

And that Father, You would allow us to see the fruit of Your kingdom. That You would allow us to see people that we thought would never come to You come to You because the time is ripe now.

Father, I thank You for the sacrifice of Your Son. I thank You that we have an opportunity. Remember that as we take communion now in Jesus' name.