Tenants of the Vineyard

If we just step back and think about how dangerous that is, the desires that come from within can be deceptive. We must have help from outside, as Jesus provides, to see which desires are dangerous, destructive, and deceptive, and learn how to actually have our hearts straightened back out to worship God. Our passage this morning, if we really want to weigh it the way it's supposed to be weighed, it's a warning not to presume upon God's grace. It's a warning for how hardened we can become against God.

At the same time, I want to make sure it's a call, believer, to believe in Christ and bear fruit. The call is to believe in Christ and bear fruit. We're gonna look at the section of the text with two points. First, the father's vineyard, then the father's cornerstone. But I wanna just first look at that, the first three words there. Here, another parable. What does that assume for you? What does that imply? There's already been a parable. So let's go back and see the context because where we've been is gonna be very important to see how Jesus has been building up a argument and a presentation for these chief priests.

We've come into Jerusalem for the last time, the triumphal entry at the beginning of chapter 21. He's gone to the temple. He cleanses that temple. The robbers, the chief priests had allowed to come in. Robbing of the chief priest is going to be a theme here a bit. Then he curses the fig tree. And again, that is an odd event. And it really only makes sense in light of what's happening here with this confrontation of the chief priest. The chief priest, even in the temple, accused him of wrongly allowing people to worship him. Then they challenged his authority, beginning in verse 23. He says, by what authority do you do these things and teach these things? And he puts it back on them, as he often does.

You tell me who John the Baptist was. Was that from heaven or from earth? have a consultation with each other, and decide they can't answer the question. Then he gives that first parable. There's two sons. One says he will not do what the father says, but then does it. And one says he will do it, and he doesn't do it. And he asks them the question. It's important to see which of these did the will of the father. And the chief priest, he answers rightly. The one who did the work, the father called.

Notice in what he says there, beginning in verse 31, 32,

the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going to be before you in the kingdom because you did not believe in John the Baptist.

You did not believe God and his word and his prophet. There, there's already a challenge that they don't have faith. And without faith, they cannot bear fruit.

The father's vineyard

And that's going to be an important theme as we go all the way from the fig tree to our parable now. So the whole section here is a judgment against the chief priest, who will be replaced, as they themselves have to recognize at some level. The Father's Vineyard.

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

As we see here, we have a vineyard. picture of Israel throughout the Old Testament. Isaiah 5 is one of the pictures here that God's people is likened to a vineyard or a vine. And the point there is a judgment as well, where the vineyard is going to produce sour grapes, not good grapes. The whole focus, again, is God's grace leads to faith that produces fruit. that they have not truly trusted God's grace and therefore they do not produce good fruit. Jesus brings us back into a parable here of a vineyard and it represents God's people at some level. The master, he buys it, he moves it to another country and then he leases it to tenants. And everything would be normal up through verse 34. This would not be uncommon. But the tension of the parable is introduced in 35.

The tenants, when the master sent his servants to get the fruit that belonged to him, they beat one, they killed another, and they stoned another. They don't own the vineyard, they don't own the fruit. The master has a right to what he owns. The tenants are supposed to steward what they have been put in charge of and give to the master what is his. They're no longer stewarding, they're pretending they own it. They're really robbing the master of the vineyard. They're robbing him of his fruit. They've gone even so far as robbing him of his servants because they killed them.

They beat them. You see here a malice and a greed presented in the way the tenants treat the servants of the master. Well, verse 36,

again, he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did the same to them.

He seeks another shot, another try. Their actions show their wickedness. They hate the owner, they hate their fellow man, they're stealing from the owner, they're coveting what does not belong to them, they're breaking a number of commandments here. They've murdered, they've stolen, they've coveted. This verse 37 ratchets up the tension all the more.

Finally, he sent his son to them. Not a servant, but his own flesh and blood, his son who would be the rightful heir to this vineyard. And he said, surely they'll respect my son. They've not respected my servants. It's a tenant versus servant problem. He hasn't understood the bigger problem yet, or the parable is building up this tension. Surely they'll respect my son. But then when they saw it was a son, They said, this is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance. Now, there are certain words we teach our children not to say.

One of them is stupid. But here, I have to insist, sin makes you stupid. In what world does it work where if you kill the son of the master, you inherit the vineyard? Their greed? Their posture, their hatred of all that's good and true of the master who's given them good work to do is evident and on display here. Now, again, we probably would think, you know, this father, he's not a very good guy, because why would he send his son to such crooks and criminals? It's a parable. It's emphasizing how bad the tenants are. Notice the action is threefold.

The parable is built on this three-fold action, but here it's they took him, they threw him out of the vineyard, and they killed him. They're supposed to receive him, give him the fruit of the vineyard, and then send him away alive to his father. But their actions were to take, throw out, and kill. Now they've murdered the son.

As Jesus has numerous times, and again, the previous parable, he's already asked them the question to make the judgment on who's right and who's wrong with the two sons. He does the same thing here. He asks the chief priest,

when therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to these tenants?

Hear their answer, verse 41.

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 season.

The chief priests are making a clear, right, fairly harsh judgment on the tenants.

They've added some language for some texture here, right? The wretches. They're not just tenants anymore, they're wretches. What kind of death? A miserable death. The master would rightfully bring down a harsh judgment and kill them who have killed not only his servants but even his son and then new tenants we put in the praise.

What's amazing is they are right in making this observation about this abstract parable situation. What they fail to see is that they themselves are the tenants in the story. We want to be careful not to allegorize every part. We're not sure we should make the fruit one thing and the winepress another and the tower another, but it's, I think, safe to say the master is God the Father.

The servants who go to the vineyard to get the fruit from the tenants, those are the prophets who have gone before Jesus. John the Baptist would be one of those servants. The servants represent The many prophets who went before who to tell the priest and the Kings, they've gone astray. And too often they were punished in the same way that was described here. Well, the tenants, those are the priests, sometimes the Kings. They're the people who were put in charge of God's temple, to steward God's way, to teach God's people who he is and to point to God and to help them come into God's presence in the temple worship.

The son is Jesus. The beloved son of God, who they should have revered, who they should have worshiped, He has come to be the true Lamb of God who will be taken outside of the city, who will be murdered unjustly. Now, as we step back one more time, it's pretty amazing. The chief priests, they're the ones who are about to sacrifice the Lamb that one time a year in the Holy of Holies. They're responsible for handling the holy things of God and the Lamb of God who would be slain. They're unknowingly putting forth the real Lamb of God, the true Lamb of God. They're putting forth Him to be sacrificed for the sins of God's people. It's amazing how their evil and their wickedness will actually bring about God's will because He is sovereign over all.

The son who gives us an inheritance

Think about who Jesus is here. He will die. first to take away our guilt and free us from the power of sin. He will rise again to give us new life. He has come to be the son who gives us an inheritance. This might be one of the more interesting twisted ways in the way that it's presented in that they think we'll kill him and then we'll get his inheritance.

What's wild about that, Christian, is Jesus came to die so that you could have his inheritance. Jesus intentionally is coming to give you his inheritance, not to be servants, not just to be tenants, but to truly be adopted as God's own sons. That means you have eternal life, eternal resurrected life.

It means you have access, as Matt read earlier, nearness to the Father. The Son has come to his people to give them more than they could ever desire. But this is the wickedness, not trusting God's goodness, not having a reverence for all that belongs to him, thinking we need to take from God what is good and right, when God gives us everything that is good, right, and true. Christian, we get to draw near to God now? closer than these priests could have possibly gotten? Because the son has died, he's risen again, and he's ascended, and now we get to go to the father and call him father as sons in the name of the son who is at the right hand of the father.

We get to enter boldly. Christian, this is what he gives to you. The son came to give you peace with God, nearness to God, the love of God to enjoy. My question is, are you enjoying it? He came to give it to you. You don't have to take it. He freely gives you all that you could ever wish for and want to see the glory of God, to know the grace of God. He gives it. We keep thinking he's stingy. We believe the lie that we need to take something that God's just so in His grace gives us.

There's something else we need to think about here, church, is these tenants are a warning. They failed to remember they're stewards of God's good things, not owners. All right? If I buy a shovel and I own that shovel and I break that shovel, it's my shovel. If I borrow a shovel and break it, it's a responsibility for somebody else now. We're never owners of God's things.

We're stewards. We're stewards of all the holy things God gives us. That is each other. The, the, the Lord's supper, the baptism, the, the word of God, we're, we're stewarding in prayer. Christian never forget we're stewards who have been given such great gifts to use according to God's will.

The father's cornerstone

The father. has sent his son to die to give us these things. Our second section, Jesus continues the same teaching. And it's important, we see there's a continuation, but there's another way he's gonna lay the same point down. And here, our point is the Father's cornerstone.

So he's taught them in numerous ways. He's given them a discourse. He's given them two parables. He's already showed them that they don't actually really want to know where his authority comes from. Now he's going to teach them from the Psalms. And remember, these are the guys who are supposed to know the word of God. They're assumed to be the protectors and those who are to steward the word of God. So his first question is already getting a little dicey.

Verse 42, Jesus said to them,

have you never read in the scriptures?

That's not a nice way of getting the point across if you're speaking to the Pharisees and elders and chief priests. Have you not read? It assumes that they're ignorant. They would have read this text. They would be aware of the text, but he's pointing in, have you really heard it? Have you really believed it? Have you really read this and understood what's going on here?

Now, he's quoting Psalm 118, and that was our call to worship. And we had this section in that code of worship.

The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.

Now, Psalm 118 is a psalm of thanksgiving.

There's a distress. There's a problem that Israel has outside of the camp, that another nation is attacking them. So they cry out for God to save them, and God saves them. And it has the same Exodus language, because every salvation in the Old Testament is a new salvation that carries with it the connotations and expectations of something like Israel out of Egypt. The enemy was outside, the nation surrounded, and God helped them. God saved them.

And then in verse 19, there's a turn. They're back home. They're in the temple. They've been saved and now they enter into the holy city. And there is where we have this really unusual declaration. A text that's quoted often in the New Testament.

The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

After being saved from the outside enemies, they're in the temple, they're in the place of Jerusalem. Now there's something being rejected again. There's another problem being introduced very slightly. And what's even more interesting is what follows, they rejoice.

It's the Lord's doing that the cornerstone's been established. He was rejected, but it's marvelous that he's established the cornerstone.

This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice.

It ends with a great thanksgiving to God. It's a powerful statement about the stone that has become the cornerstone. It's a bit of a mystery, I think, if you are just in the Old Covenant, in the Old Testament, before Christ comes and asking, how does this fit with everything else going on? Because there was an enemy outside, God helped them, they go in and they're rejoicing, and then there's this odd thing that happens in the camp of Israel, the stone rejected. Kind of makes me wonder, I'm pretty sure the author was saying something more than he understood at the time.

The marvel is that God would establish such a cornerstone. Now, just to take the mystery out of the text, the cornerstone is Jesus. Over and over again, Jesus refers himself here as a cornerstone. Peter makes it very clear this text is about Jesus. He calls him the living stone. He was a stone. He was an Israelite.

He came to be king and was rejected, suffered, and died. If we were to really double click on that word rejected, we could go back to what he's already predicted. He'll be condemned, handed over, suffer, crucified. The stone rejected is shorthand for the suffering of Christ, the putting of the crown of thorns, the mockery, the spitting, the beating. That's all. captured, in that simple word, rejected.

But he was made the cornerstone. He who was crucified, he was raised three days later. He is risen. The son who was killed outside of the vineyard. The son of God who came to his people and was murdered outside of the city walls. He is a stone rejected by the people he came to save. The same identity. The chief priests are supposed to see him as a lamb of God and worship him, but instead they see him as a threat to their own glory and their own status and position and their own deceitful desires. And so they do desire to crucify him, not knowing it's the real final lamb of God.

He's a cornerstone as the risen savior that establishes a new people. Verse 43 now goes to a direct discourse. He's given them a parable, he's shown them a psalm, and now he tells them very directly, therefore I tell you. Again, 45 tells us it's the chief priests and the Pharisees, the religious leaders of the temple sacrifices and the teachers. Therefore I tell you, listen up, The kingdom of God is taken from you.

The terrible tenants who killed the son are the same people who rejected the stone. As the chief priests answered themselves, it's taken from them. The kingdom is taken from them. The vineyard is taken from them. Your special place, your blessing and promise is lost because you haven't believed. It's emphasized in the same parable, the previous parable as well, where Jesus said their lack of faith is why the prostitutes and the tax collectors will be before them in the kingdom, will enter before them. Now, the kingdom is taken from the chief priest.

It's given to people who bear fruit. It implies the chief priests are not bearing real fruit because they do not have faith. That's the key thing that has all these different texts together. Do you have faith? that bears fruit. Faith is emphasized in the first parable. Fruit is emphasized in the second parable.

The chief priests, I think, are especially in view because they will lose their special position to lead God's people in worship. We have to realize Jesus is the great high priest right before them. Jesus is a threat to their unique special status because their special status is now done with because everyone who believes in Christ is now a priest. Everyone who comes up with Christ is now a, we're a kingdom of priests as God designed.

Their, their ministry becomes obsolete because there's no need for any more sacrifices anymore. The one true lamb has been sacrificed once for all. If we drop back in the old covenant though, there's regular judgments. You did not feed my sheep. They become robbers. They've allowed robbers in the temple. They're no longer feeding God's people, God's word, they're taking from the people. They've not been worshiping, they've refused God and his word. As we see here at 43, there's something important.

The new kingdom that Christ has come to establish has a new kind of people where everybody bears fruit. The new people of the new kingdom is full of everybody who bears fruit. That's different from Old Testament Israel, because he could be born into Israel, and then there was true Israel, the Israel that had faith and fruit. The beauty of this declaration is he's making it clear that the new citizens of my new kingdom They enter by faith, and if you enter by faith, you will bear fruit.

We can't lose this connection, believer. Let's make sure we understand what's happening. I'm establishing again, grace, faith, works. That is the absolute paradigm. You're saved by faith alone. There's nothing of your fruit or your works that brings you any salvation, because it's faith in Christ and all these accomplished for you. That is how you're saved. And if you believe, if you have faith, fruit's gonna come. Fruit and work come out of the faith that is true. You must have faith in Christ that then bears fruit by his spirit.

These chief priests, Their work is obsolete because the great high priest has provided the once and all sacrifice. Now he establishes us to be priests, to give ourselves as living sacrifices as Mark Collins preached to us just a few weeks ago. I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you because you do not steward it and be given to those who produce fruits. Lord willing, that's you. 44 continues with a judgment.

And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.

And here, let's just be clear, the same cornerstone is being referred to here. All right, you can fall on the cornerstone, or it could fall on you and crush you. So there's a bit of a dilemma for many, and that is that a capstone, like an arc, and the big stone that holds it on the top could be the one that falls on you, or the cornerstone That's the stone that you put first when you're building any kind of foundation. When I was building a wall, I kept messing up my cornerstone and I couldn't see it until like eight stones later and it gets out of whack. That cornerstone is the first established important piece.

A warning of rejecting Christ

This is a warning passage. A warning of rejecting Christ. The only real foundation this world has, your life built upon Christ the cornerstone, the living stone, the true stone, the stone of God, the rock that holds you steady no matter what storms come, or are you building your life on other lies? How might you be tempted to reject Jesus? Well, absolute rejection takes many forms.

Some deny he even existed, and this is just bad history. Others reject that he's a son of God. They believe he came and he was an honorable man, he was a prophet, he was a good teacher, but he can't be the son of God, he is not worthy of worship. Most of the religions just fit Jesus into their own system, rejecting who he says he was. Others affirm he's a son of God who died on the cross for sinners and rose again, but they reject him as their savior. That's a scary place that I fear people right here are in. You've heard the good news. You acknowledge the good news. The creedal gospel, he came, he died, he rose, he ascended, he's coming back.

You believe that, but you just don't believe he would save you. You don't have access to the knowledge of God of who he will save. Don't stand over God and pretend you can determine if he'll save you or not. If you believe he's the only savior, repent and believe. Stop your subjective refusal and rejection of the God who has shown you who he is. All of these are sins to be repented of. Denying Jesus is the real savior. Denying Jesus is worthy of worship. Denying Jesus would save you personally. Notice the chief priests, they're dangerous because they know enough Bible to twist it. They do not have real faith in what God says, they just have a working knowledge of it.

44 is very clear. You'll be broken to pieces if you fall on this cornerstone. If it falls on you, you will be crushed. Jesus Christ is the great judge who will bring judgment on all who are not truly believing in him. But the flip side of that is, If you believe in Christ, he gives life. He restores you. He forgives you. Peter calls Jesus the living stone. The cornerstone isn't just the piece of material. He's a resurrected one who brings life to all who are united with him by faith. As this is a judgment, I do want us to wrestle with it because these chief priests are wicked. If Jesus likened them to those tenants, they're wicked.

And that didn't happen overnight. It probably happened over a couple of generations where people began to take for granted the word of God. They began to take for granted the grace of God. That happens over time. As we might look out and see churches that are more interested in putting a flag that represents an idea rather than the cross at the center of all they think about and do. We need to be warned this could be us if we stop stewarding the word of God, the gospel of Jesus Christ. I say that because it's too easy to grow cold over time. Simple disbeliefs, simple doubts not challenged and answered. The most common way to be religiously like the chief priest is to grumble religiously. to not be grateful for all that God does, to not be thankful that he is abounding in grace.

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

And again, and so they repented, should be what 46 says. Instead, their desire is to arrest him. to take him, throw him out of the vineyard, and kill him. Notice their fear of the people protects them at some level, but sadly, the fear of the people controls them too much.

Who Christ is

Let's pick up on who Christ is. First, he is the ultimate and final judge. He has come to make the judgment on these leaders who will kill him. He knows our hearts better than we know our own selves. He sees with truth without any deception. Christian, his diagnosis of our problem is always clear and has no confusion. He makes, there's no guesswork.

He points out our sins so that he can pull us out of it. He points out our sins so that we can see he saved us from that sin. If you're wrestling in guilt, Defeat? Call it to Christ to be your helper, your savior? He brings a diagnosis to open our hearts and our hands so that we would actually be restored. The diagnosis can be sharp and cutting, but he does so to heal us. We should long for Jesus to show us more sin. so that we can come out of that sin and rejoice all the more in his grace.

If you're here, my challenge to you, you want to be under his diagnosis with an open heart and an open hand? Because if you're not here to be changed by Jesus, you will be judged by him. You're either under his diagnosis to be healed, or you're under his judgment to be destroyed.

Second, he is the rejected stone The cornerstone, the living stone. Again, the rejected stone, I believe you can just see all that unpacked is the suffering and the death and the mocking and the beating. The cornerstone, he's risen and ascended. It's funny, we're gonna celebrate the Lord's Supper. We're gonna meditate upon his body being broken for us. His blood being poured out for our sin.

Peter applies this passage to say Jesus is the living stone, the one who is resurrected. He himself is the only foundation upon which you can build your life and live. He alone has the power of God to truly forgive you and restore you. All blessings are given to you only in Christ, with Christ, and through Christ. All the blessings dependent upon you believing in Jesus.

But let's have a little fun. Jesus said Peter was the rock. Are there two rocks? Is there a cornerstone in a rock? Which is it, Jesus or Peter? Roman Catholics will say it's the same. I think we need to see what God's word says to make sure we understand how there's a One foundation of Christ. Peter's an apostle. We read earlier in Ephesians 2, the church is built on what? The foundation of the apostles and prophets.

Peter can't give you new life. Peter only points you to the one who can give you new life. Peter doesn't replace Jesus. He can't. Jesus is the only cornerstone. Peter only has life and all the apostles only have life as they're united to the living stone.

They're the foundation and we need to make sure we understand they are the foundation. The church must be devoted to the disciples or the apostles teaching. We are dependent upon them as they proclaim Christ. And then we're built up together to be a temple. Christ be the living stone. And the apostles, the prophets being the foundation, means there's a strong foundation for us to know who God is. All dependent, first and foremost, on Christ, who has given us not just apostles and prophets. Guess what else he gave us? Look around. Each other.

Because you're built on Christ. You're built on those apostles and prophets. You're being built up together into the holy temple of God. We're supposed to be focused in on what we're coming together for isn't to make a sacrifice in a temple far, far away.

No, it's to be near to God together as the temple of God. We understand the chief priests, their problem is they lorded over God. They look down upon the son of God. They wanted to have their worship as merely a public religion. Remember, they're whitewashed walls. They do things really publicly. There's nothing inward. Our culture and some Christian traditions have gone worse. It's not even public religion. It's just secret private religion that we think we have. Christianity is public. We have public baptisms. We meet publicly to worship. We publicly look to each other, and we love one another, and we forgive one another, and we worship with one another, and we build each other up.

Faith in Christ that bears fruit

Our individualism and consumerism eats away at what God actually designed for us to be, in Christ, a living stone. You can't be attached to the living stone in a healthy way without other stones. Christ is the judge. He's the son. He's also the cornerstone. What are we called to? It's simple. Faith in Christ that bears fruit. The chief priests are a warning. They did not revere the father. They hated him and hated their fellow humans. They rejected the cornerstone. They rejected the stone. They did not hear the warning. They persisted.

We must lean in. and ask God to help us in our unbelief. We must lean in and truly have faith that celebrates baptisms together, faith that celebrates the Lord's Supper together, the faith in God who loves us and calls us into his presence, a faith that will bear fruit, a prayerful dependence upon God. Believer, leave today. Seeking to believe in the God who forgives you. Seeking to draw near to him who calls you to be his son. Seeking to have that foundation. The cornerstone who gives you life. Will you pray with me?

Father, forgive us for doubting you and how rich you are, how generous you are. Forgive us for believing the lie that we need to take something. Lord, may we be open-handed, seeking to receive all good gifts that come from you. We thank you that you did not spare your own son We thank you that we can know you are the giver of all gifts. May we build our lives upon your son who was rejected by sinners like us and came to give life to believers, all believers in him. Help us sort of know how to build each other up, how to point each other to that cornerstone, how to trust the apostles' teaching, how to bear fruit with each other by the power of your spirit. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.