5/19/2002

Turn to Matthew Chapter 21. Matthew 21 is a passage that is fairly familiar to many of us, I’m sure. We are studying the parables and included in this passage are a couple of parables, but this is also one of the days, actually it looks like in Matthew’s account here that it all takes place in one time frame but when you put all four of the gospels together you find out, when Matthew, Mark, Luke and John put their accounts together, you find that some of these events took place a day or two later. So you will see in Chapter 21 of Matthew they are all kind of put into one account. It sounds like it all took place in a short time, within a day but it didn’t. It took place over a couple of days. During the last week of Christ’s life. Of course the triumphal entry is the beginning of the passage in Chapter 21 it says, "And when they had approached Jerusalem and had come to Bethpage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, "Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied there and a colt with her; untie them, and bring them to Me. And if anyone says something to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of them,’ and immediately he will send them." Now this took place that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, "SAY TO THE DAUGHTER OF ZION, ‘BEHOLD YOUR KING IS COMING TO YOU, GENTLE AND MOUNTED ON A DONKEY, EVEN ON A COLT, THE FOAL OF A BEAST OF BURDEN.’" And the disciples` went and did just as Jesus had directed them, and brought the donkey and the colt, and laid on them their garments, on which He sat. And most of the multitude spread their garments in the road, and others were cutting branches from the trees, and spreading them in the road. And the multitudes going before Him, and those who followed after were crying out, saying, "Hosanna on the Son of David; Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the Highest!" And when he had entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred, saying, "Who is this?" And the multitudes were saying, "This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee."

Now if you put the account of John together and the account of Matthew you will know that there were a number of people who came with Jesus into the city and there were a number of people who came from the city to meet them. And so there are actually two crowds that converge and then followed on with each other into the city of Jerusalem. And so that is why I said that those who were going before and those who were coming with him, they were together. 

Verse 12 says, ‘Jesus entered the temple and cast out all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who were selling doves. And He said to them, "It is written, ‘MY HOUSE SHALL BE CALLED A HOUSE OF PRAYERS’: but you are making it a ROBBERS’ DEN." The blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that He had done, and the children who were crying out in the temple and saying, "Hosanna to the Son of David," they became indignant, and said to Him, "Do you hear what these are saying?" And Jesus said to them, "Yes, have you never read, ‘OUT OF THE MOUTH OF INFANTS AND NURSING BABES THOU HAST PREPARED PRAISE FOR THYSELF’?" And He left them and went out of the city to Bethany, and lodged there.’ Bethany was just about a couple miles away, it wasn’t a long walk for him.

‘Now in the morning, when He returned to the city, He became hungry. And seeing a lone fig tree by the road, He came to it, and found nothing on it except leaves only; and He said to it, "No longer shall there ever be any fruit from you." And at once the fig tree withered.. And seeing this, the disciples marveled, saying, "How did the fig tree wither at once?" And Jesus answered and said to them, "Truly I say to you, if you have faith, and do not doubt, you shall not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, "Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ it shall happen. And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive." And when He had come into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to Him as He was teaching, and said, "By what authority are You doing these things, and who gave You this authority?" And Jesus answered and said to them, "I will ask you one thing too, which if you tell Me, I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. "The baptism of John was from what source, from heaven or from men?" And they began reasoning among themselves, saying, "If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say to us, "Then why did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From men,’ we fear the multitude: for they all hold John to be a prophet." And answering Jesus, they said, "We do not know," He also said to them, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.’

"But what do you think? A man had two sons, here is the parable by the way, one of them. And he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go work today in the vineyard.’ "And he answered and said, ‘I will, sir’; and he did not go. "And he came to the second and said the same thing. But he answered and said, ‘I will not’; yet he afterward regretted it and went. "Which of the two did the will of his father?" They said, "The latter." Jesus said to them, "Truly I say to you that the tax-gathers and harlots will get into the kingdom of God before you. "For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax-gathers and harlots did believe him; and you, seeing this, did not even feel remorse afterward to as to believe him.’

"Listen to another parable, There was a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a wall around it and dug a wine press in it, and built a tower, and rented it out to vine-growers, and went on a journey." By the way if you want to build a vineyard this is how you do it. This is how they did it in those days. They find a vineyard, put a wall around it to keep the thieves out, and put a wine press in the bottom of it to crush the grapes for the wine, build a tower so that they could watch over it and see if there were predators and things coming in to get the grapes and so that is how they did it. And then they would rent it out often times to somebody who would actually do the farm work "And when the harvest time approached, he sent his slaves to the vine-growers, to receive his produce." Usually twenty-five per cent sometimes more, sometimes less depending on the situation. "And the vine-growers took his slaves and beat one, and killed another, and stoned a third. Again he sent another group of slaves larger than the first; and they did the same thing to them. But afterward he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the vine-growers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and seize his inheritance.’ And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Therefore when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine-growers?" They said to Him, "He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, and will rent out the vineyard to other vine-growers, who will pay him the proceeds at the proper seasons." Jesus said to them, "Did you never read in the Scriptures, ‘THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE CHIEF CORNER STONE, THIS CAME ABOUT FROM THE LORD, AND IT IS MARVELOUS IN OUR EYES’? "Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you, and be given to a nation producing the fruit of it. And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust." And when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they understood that He was speaking about them, And when they sought to seize Him, they feared the multitudes, because they held Him to be a prophet.’

If you read the whole passage in one chunk like that you begin to see that there were people and things that should have happened that didn’t happen. The father told the sons to go to the vineyard and they should have gone. One did, one didn’t. He came into the temple, he came into the city, this city should have acclaimed Him as King or proclaimed Him as the Messiah, they didn’t. In fact, I find as I studied passages I begin to see some of the patterns that are there and things. And every once in awhile I make the mistake of thinking I am a speaker instead of a teacher. And I am not, you already figured that out. But it is really interesting because I was thinking, How would somebody who really knows how to talk say these things. And I thought you know if they had the people coming to the city the leaders should have lead the procession, not stifled the expression. Pretty good huh. Ok, the leaders should have instructed the children, not obstructed them. Pretty good huh, ok. Never mind. That is why I don’t speak I teach. Alright. But you will notice that things that should have happened didn’t happen. The leaders should have been at the first of the line to proclaim Him. They should have been able to say when the children were praising. They should have said, ‘This is the Messiah, this is the one we have been waiting for. Here are the scriptures that teach us of his coming. And here he is, what a blessed generation we are because we are seeing the Messiah. They should have said this is what’s happening here.’

When Jesus went in the temple He should have seen an honorable system of worship and they did have to bring in right animals and when they came in with foreign currency it had to be exchanged. So that was a normal function of some of the Priests in the temple but they were taking profits upon the people. They were actually misusing the people in a number of different ways. So he said, ‘You are treating this place as a house of robbers. A place to prey upon the people instead of praying to the Lord. And so he said it should have been this way but it is turning out to be this way. The expectation that God should have been able to see fulfilled is not so.

When he came to the fig tree, there were leaves on the fig tree. Now I don’t know much about fig trees but figs is those days in that era supposedly have different ways of forming fruit than we do. We see the blossoms in the spring time, we see the leaves; then later on you see some fruit. Well the fig trees sometimes would bear fruit two or three times a year. Sometimes there would be fruit on the tree with no leaves. They were the fruit that hung on after the leaves were gone and then the new ones would almost push the old ones off. So when Jesus saw the leaves on the tree, the expectation was that there should have been at least some old fruit, if not old fruit then some new fruit. And so when he came and there was no fruit at all, it was a bad tree. And so what your expectation is when you come to a fig tree with leaves like that at that time of year you should have gotten fruit. So that expectation was dashed. And so you are seeing all the way through this passage what should have been, that wasn’t. Who should have been teachers, weren’t. Those who should have been acclaiming Him and proclaiming Him as the Messiah weren’t. In fact they were obstructing those who were. You see the fig tree that should have been bearing fruit, that wasn’t. You see in the parable of the Sons, you see that the people before that, the leaders questioning his authority when they should have been asking him for instruction, they were questioning who sent him. This was not an unusual thing when somebody came to preach or teach in those days, it was not an uncommon this to say, ‘Who sent you, who gave you this authority?’ If somebody came to us to speak to us about governmental things we would say, what is your authorization? Who sent you, what authorizes you to speak about these things. What are your credentials? What are the letters after your name? What is your title? And so we would ask the same thing. If somebody is going to speak, as an expert on the subject we would say, what makes you an expert? Well it is not unusual for them to ask the same thing. They were not asking it because they want to know he is from God, they are asking him so they can catch him saying that he was from God in a public place before even the magistrate so they might find a reason to capture him and turn him into Caesar so they could say, ‘See this guy is anti-Roman.’ Well Jesus didn’t do that. He turned the tables on them, answered the questions with a question.. He didn’t avoid the question, he actually answered it for them. Well, tell me about John. If you accept his authority as from God, you can accept mine from God. The same authority because John, of course, came at the bidding of God to proclaim the Messiah’s coming and he said that Jesus is the Messiah. So by accepting that John is from God, they accepted Jesus as from God. So he wasn’t avoiding or turning the tables in a sense of getting away from the question. He said you already know the answer. Because if you accept that John is from God, he proclaimed he was from God, God said at Baptism ‘You are my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.’ And so they knew what the answer to the question was. They were avoiding his authority however. 

Then you see the two sons. What should happen when a Father says to his sons, ‘Go out and care for the vineyard today’. They should say ‘Ok, Dad.’ That’s what we do. We shoulder our own weight and go out there and do what we should do. One Son said, ‘Sure I’ll go my work,’ and then didn’t. The other one said, ‘No I am not going to work today,’ then later on repented and said you know I need to go and do what my Dad said. So he turned and went and did the work. Jesus ask the obvious question. If they could be honored by God, by the Father. Who did the will of the Father? We all know who did. The one who started out not doing so but turning and doing so. So Jesus explained it. He says, ‘You know the prostitutes and the tax gathers, by the way tax gathers, were those who cheated the people so they could make a profit off it. They would be contracted by the Roman government in order to get the taxes from the people. Anything they would get beyond the taxes was their profit and so if you could overcharge at taxes you could make a lot of money.

Remember Zacchaeus, the little tax guy that was up in the tree following Jesus. And Levy who became Matthew, the name Matthew and Levy are the same guy. Well it was Zacchaeus said I will give back four times as much. So he said I will give back four times as much, and he probably had the money to do so because he had already gypped the people into paying to many taxes. So therefore he was kind of like a tax rebate. You know you overpay so you get some back. Well, he said the people who started out not doing God’s will and turn and do God’s will are honored by God. But those who say they are going to do God’s will and don’t do God‘s will, don’t honor anybody except themselves. And so you see the Pharisees, the leaders of the people, were saying we are the ones who honor God. Look at us, we are the Holy ones. In fact Matthew, himself earlier in his book says, ‘They blow trumpets and they call people together to watch them give alms to the poor, to pray, and they do Holy things and have people watch them.’ He says in reality they are not clean on the inside they are just with their lips proclaiming me but there heart is far from me. That is what he said a number of different places. So he says, what about the vineyard here? What should have happened, what normally would happen is a man had a vineyard, it was a man who had plenty of money, who had plenty of vineyards probably. This bunch would work in this vineyard and he would get his share of it and they would be able to keep the rest. So what should have happened is when his slave went to collect the amount that should have actually come with voluntarily, really. But must be they were late in payment so he sent the collector. And so the slave went to collect the money, they wouldn’t give it to them and not only that they beat him so he sent more, they beat some, killed some. For these seeds of the prophets. These are the ones that God sent ahead to tell people to follow Christ or follow God and they refused to. They killed the prophets, they beat some, and even when he sent His own Son to the vineyard workers they killed the Son. Of course, we can see the parallel easily. He sent prophets, He sent people to teach the people that preached to the people and they disregarded them, killed some and beat some. He sent is own Son, it says they took him out of the vineyard and killed him. Of course Jesus is taken out of the city and killed in Golgotha. And so you can see the parallels we see here in retrospect. They might not have seen them that well at that time because he was still not crucified yet. But they give there own condemnation. He said, ‘He will bring those wretches to a wretched end. They will rent out the vineyard to vine-growers who will pay the proceeds of the proper seasons. Jesus said, ‘That is right.’ What will happen is those of you who should have been honoring me and don’t. The kingdom then that should have been yours will be taken from you and given to those who may not have started out honoring me but who do honor me now and do my will and I will give the kingdom to them. And so you won’t get what you should have had because you rejected the Messiah. You have rejected the stone that now becomes a corner stone. And so the priests and chief priests, they understood that he was talking about them.

Now what is the story he is telling us here? The whole chapter tells us the same story doesn’t it. What should have been, wasn’t. At least what was expected, wasn’t. The ones who should have been able to be the teachers, leaders in worship the ones who should have said this is the Messiah let’s follow him said, ‘We are going to do everything we can to make sure he is not.’ And so the one’s who had no regard for Christ earlier on turned to Him in repentance and followed Him. And he says those are the ones who do the will of God.’ So we see is to bring that to modern day, of course, we see the possibility of a number of different people here. We see a person who is able to honor God with their lips but don’t obey him, like the first son. Who said Ya I’ll do what you say and then not do what he says. Now you can describe that person anyway you want to. He is either a false Christian, one who really is not a believer, or a carnal one who says I am honoring God but does what they want to anyway. Either way you want to put it, I don’t care, but neither one honors God, do they? They are not honoring God, they are not furthering the kingdom, they are not bringing people to the kingdom because people say wait a minute here you say you are a Christian but your life doesn’t look like it. So why would I want what you have got. I can sin just as well as you can and not fight Christ. It is interesting if you read in the papers and especially if you see now days on television the world doesn’t mind if sinners sin. In fact the world tends to exalt that.

Who is some of the most honored people? (Turn Tape) who claim Christ, do things that are sinful, the world takes notice and that is news, isn’t it? That is news because we are not supposed to be the ones doing those things. If a sinner sins that is ok because that is what we do as sinners, but if a Christian sins that is newsworthy. And it should be actually. Because we are honoring God with our lips, but if our heart is far from Him then it doesn’t do any good. And so we says if our lips is going to say we are Christians we need to follow it up with a life that conforms to those words. And that is not what happened in this passage. So either this person is not a Christian or they are a false Christian, or carnal Christian. The person, of course, who follows Christ after not following Christ is either a Christian who was disobedient and who has now become obedient, because that is all of us too isn’t it? All of us have sinned but if we confess our sins he is faithful to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And that is the Christians, we sin too. And there are times when we sin for awhile. But in 1 John it also says, ‘The Christian, the one who loves God, does not continue in sin, does not sin.’ The word there is present continuous which means does not continue in sin. So when we find ourselves in sin, at some point we finally say wait a minute here, I have been disobeying my Father. I said I would obey Him now I am disobeying Him, I need to return to obedience and so we turn back and start obeying Him and God loves that. God loves a repentant humbled heart.

But the hard heart, the proud heart, is what he resists. The Bible says many places, ‘God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ Do you want God’s grace then humble yourself and say, ‘God I have sinned, I haven’t been obeying you, but I will from now on.’ Grace means a strength and power to do what is right. So if you want strength and power to do what is right, turn and start obeying God. Not just with your lips but with your life. So we have a person who either isn’t a Christian or is a very disobedient one or carnal one or we have a Christian who is disobedient now but is going to turn soon. By the way that is what the Holy Spirit does. The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin and righteousness judgement to come. He says here is where you are going and that is wrong and you need to turn back.

By the way guilt is a good thing if you hadn’t noticed that. Guilt is a good thing because if we allow ourselves without guilt then we don’t feel guilty over sin. It is kind of like pain, we don’t like pain but pain is really a good thing. It is protecting. Because if you put your hand on a hot something or other and it is hot, pain says get your hand off there. If you had no pain you might leave your hand there. In fact, years ago I knew a young fellow who was paralyzed from the waist down, he got into a shower and the water was on his legs but not on his upper body and it was to hot and it scalded his skin but he didn’t notice it. He didn’t have any nerves to tell him that this was bad. So pain in actually a good thing. It lets us know when we have done something that is harmful to ourselves. Same way with guilt. Guilt is spiritual pain that God brings into our life to let us know that we are going the wrong direction. And so we can turn and go right. If we disregard that pain, Bible talks about our consciences being shirred as with a hot iron. Sometimes you get flesh that has been injured enough that the flesh is no longer sensitive to pain. And so you have seen little kids, there are certain parts of your body that are callous, ever seen any little kid put a needle through their callous. How many have never seen that happen? Ok. We have all seen that happen. Every kid finds a place on there body that they can stick a pin through and it doesn’t hurt. Well, there is no pain there so you can do a lot of things with that part of your body. By the way, right there is one of those places you can pinch as hard as you want to and it doesn’t hurt a bit. I don’t know why God did that to us except maybe we can put our elbows on the table that way and not get pain except our Mother’s tell us to get our elbows off the table. But we have places that don’t hurt and so God’s spirit says, ‘This is bad, I am bringing spiritual pain into our life,’ if we don’t acknowledge that pain we don’t change. And so pain is good. Spiritual pain, guilt, is good for us because it helps us to turn back and that is why Jesus said, ‘You know when the Harlot and the tax-gatherers believed John and turned from their sin, you didn’t even notice and you didn’t regret and have spiritual remorse and turn to believe yourself.’ It says the picture that I show of people turning to repentance, in repentance, you didn’t even catch it then, you should have.

So the moral of the story, I guess, is this. The question I guess is this, Who are you, who are you? Are you a person who can sing all the songs, who can sing all the songs we have sang and sing them to the best of your ability and people like to listen to our voice and say that person is really spiritual because they can really sing those songs well. But if they saw your life they might see a different story. It is like the tree, the fig tree, that has a promise of fruit. A promise of nourishment. A promise of benefitting the person comes and takes the fig and eats it. But when they get there, there is nothing there. Is your life really promising until people see you outside of church? Then they find out what kind of language you use, they find out what kind of habits you have, they find out what kind of business dealings you do, things like that and they say, wait a minute here this fig tree is supposed to be producing the fruit instead there is nothing there of value. We don’t want that. That doesn’t honor God, that doesn’t bless people.

Or are you one of those Sons that Jesus says, do this and we say I’ll take care of it. And two weeks later we haven’t taken care of it. Three weeks later we haven’t taken care of it, four weeks later, a month, year, two years down the way, we are still disobeying God in a direct command. Has God given you a direct command in a particular area of your life and you said, ‘Yes, I hear you Father and I am going to do that.’ And then you haven’t done it. We may call it procrastination but at some point it becomes disobedience doesn’t it. I can understand a little kid when you say go and do this thing and they get involved with things and get distracted but they plan to do it eventually. But at some point it becomes disobedience, doesn’t it. And so are you just lollygagging as my Mom used to say or are you actually disobedient. If you are just lollygagging, get with it and start obeying. If God has given you a particular direct commandment and you know what it is, do it. Otherwise we don’t have God’s grace we have his opposition.

It is kind of like I told one guy one time I said do you want God’s hand like this against you or like this for you. It is our determination. He resists the proud, he gives grace to the humble. Which do you prefer? God’s opposition to your life or God’s beckoning and grace to our life. It is our choice. By disobedience, he goes like this sorry I can’t bless you or obedience good I can bless you. I can give you grace, strength and power to do what is right. As God is at work within us both to desire and do his good will. That is God’s grace pulling us toward him, toward obedience. But if we express pride and say God I will do it when I feel like it, we are pushing his hand against us because he said I have to resist that pride. I can only give grace to the humble. 

So where are you? Has God given a direct command? By the way, if you honor God with our lips and your voice here is a test for you. Are you honest when nobody is looking? Do you use proper language and proper thoughts? And are you proper when nobody else is watching, when only God is watching? And when you leave here and you are somewhere else on a Sunday do you find a place to worship? Or is church just a habit? If church is a part of your life of worshiping God whether here or there we find a place to worship. Because our intent is to honor God with our lips and to honor God with our lives. Do we take a vacation from church on a Sunday when we go somewhere? I think we ought to be in church because our purpose is to honor God first of all with our lips and our heart first and our lips follow. So that is a good test, I think. Say ok when I am away do I say oh good I don’t have to go to church today. Church isn’t what church is for. Worship is what church is for. That is why we come and sing songs that exalt God. Are we exalting God wherever we are that’s why I say when you are not here, are you exalting God somewhere? Finding a place to get corporate with other Christians so you can lift your voice in praise toward God. 

Finally, we are adopted as children into God’s family by our faith. See we have Son’s who are obedient, son’s who are disobedient and some who are not son’s yet. Who are not children of God. yet. Are you a child of God? Now adoption into God’s family is a legal process just like it is here on earth. You adopt a child, it is not because you intend to it is because there are actually adoption papers drawn up and signed and filed somewhere because you are actually adopting them. It is not because you plan to it is because you did so. Now there are many people who plan to follow Christ. Who plan to become God’s child. The Bible says, ’Jesus came unto his own and his own received him not, but to as many as received him to them he became and gave the right to become children of God even to those who believe in his name. So we become children of God by our faith, but it is not an intent towards faith, it is an expressed faith of God by accepting Jesus as our Savior. Then we become his child and not until then. Until then we are a neighbor kid. When we get adopted we are part of the family. So don’t intend to, become adopted. Sign the papers, ok. 

Let’s pray,

Father we don’t want you to come to our house and expect to find obedient Christians and look at our web sites and see what we have been looking at and finding out we are looking at all the wrong stuff. We don’t want to have you come to our work place and expect to find a Christian who witnesses to his neighbors and friends and is the most honest and best worker his company has ever seen and then find us sitting around taking breaks when we are not supposed to and being lazy on the job and having language of the world. You have the right to expect of your children obedience. Because we honor you with our lips, we say we are Christians, we say that we are your children. So our lives ought to be consistent with that. So Father help us not to be like the passages we just read where people should have been one thing but were something else. They said they were one thing but were something else. Like the fig tree that had leaves but no fruit. You said it was a bad fig tree, you in fact cursed it and it withered up and dried up. And so Father help us not to be that kind of person who says all the right things on a Sunday or when people talk to us about spiritual things or Biblical things and then when they find out what kind of person we really are they say, Hey that is not right. There is a promise of fruit and no fruit. Father we don’t want that to be true of us we don’t want it to be true of anybody. But Father help us to follow you and honor you with our lips and with our life, bearing fruit which glorifies you. In Jesus Name we ask it. Amen

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