The Stone, Which The Building Rejected, This Became The Chief Corner Stone

And so in this situation, the man's planted himself a vineyard. He's the owner. He's going to go away, and it says that he rented out the field. And what he did was he contracted with these people. They were tenant farmers. You come. You live here. You care for my vineyard, and you'll pay me a portion of its produce. You'll get to keep the rest. You'll get to sell. You'll get to make your living as my tenant farmers. Now, generally, when we think of tenants, they really only are two types of tenants. There are the types of tenants that tear everything up, and there are the types of tenants who take ownership of the thing they're renting. They care for it like it's their own. They improve it, which is generally a good thing if you get the kind of tenants that treat your property as though it's their own. They're protective of it. They're careful with it. They care if it's maintained well or not broken. But that sentiment,

that tenants can have, which is that if this is mine, can become a real problem. When does it become a problem when a tenant thinks, when is it a problem when they think that it's theirs? When it's time to give it back. That's right. It becomes a problem when they have to deal with the owner. Owner comes in, owner wants to do something to the property. Change something. Change the rent. Change the terms. Tell them they can't have a dog anymore. Whatever it is. The owner wants to come in and he's going to change it around. Does the owner have the right to do it? Oh, yeah. Do the tenants think the owner has the right to do it? Oh, no. And here we have the problem with tenants who think that the thing they're renting, the thing that belongs to someone else is actually theirs. They take ownership of it in a way that's inappropriate. In effect, what they're doing is stealing from the owner. They forget whose property they're on.

Now, if you've rented property or had friends who've rented, you understand this. This makes perfect sense. This is how renters are. If you ever want to get into owning rental properties, this is what you're going to deal with. I want you to see this morning that the same principles apply to the parable that Jesus is telling. These tenant farmers have decided that that vineyard is theirs. It belongs to them. It's theirs to do what they want with it. And there's no one over them. to direct them. They think that they do not owe anything to anyone. And this is the context in which the slave comes to him to collect his master's portion and they get turned out. These tenants think that it's theirs. And who are you to come take what's ours? Throughout scripture, you have this sort of tenant farming principle all over the place. You have it in the garden even, in the Garden of Eden. You could think of Adam as a tenant farmer. God created the world.

put Adam in it and told him to take care of it and gave him some parameters to abide by. What did Adam do? Adam decided he could do whatever he wanted in the garden. And then there was a conflict and a problem between the Lord and Adam. And Adam got evicted. He got thrown out. He was judged. And you and I are still dealing with the consequences of Adam's failure as a tenant in our own lives. And so I want us to see that the way that this vineyard is being dealt with is a common way that God describes his dealings in this world. This is how he deals with us. So let's answer a couple of questions. Who are the tenants? Who are the slaves? What's the vineyard? Who are the tenants? Well, the tenants are the scribes, the Pharisees, the leaders of the people. It's their job to care for, to protect, to guide.

to instruct the people under their care in the way of righteousness. They're supposed to lead the people to God, to teach them who he is, what he's like, how to worship him, how to know him. That's their work. They're supposed to tend, you know, the vine dresser is supposed to tend the vine. But in reality, those vine dressers are the leaders of the people and they're supposed to tend the people and care for them. So what is the, you know? It almost goes without saying, what is the vineyard? Well, the vineyard could rightly be said, it's all of this world. It's everything that God has made. Because there's nothing that he's made that he doesn't have dominion over. And so you could rightly say, all of creation is God's vineyard. But in this parable, what is the vineyard? Well, the vineyard is the church. The vineyard is the people, his people. At that time, the nation of Israel.

Nowadays, it's the church. We make up the vineyard. We are the vines. In John 15, Jesus says, I am the true vine and my father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away. And every branch that bears fruit, he prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away. As a branch dries up and they gather them and cast them into the fire and they're burned.

If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. My father is glorified in this, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. And so there's a lot of overlap in the way that Jesus speaks at John 15 and the way he speaks here in Luke 20. In John 15, Jesus speaks of us as branches on a vine. In Luke 20, he speaks of us as being the vines in a vineyard. There's a vinedresser in both of them. In Luke 15, the vinedresser, I'm sorry, in John 15, the vinedresser is his father. In Luke 20, he hires vinedressers. But who is the chief vinedresser? Who was the one that was ultimately responsible for the vineyard in Luke 20? Was it not the master, the chief vinedresser? And the purpose of his vineyard was to produce fruit. And we're told in John 15 that all of the branches that don't produce fruit,

are cut off, gathered up, and thrown in the fire to be burned. They're not useful anymore. And this is very close to the message that's being spoken in Luke 20, where Jesus is speaking about the Pharisees. You've been unfruitful. You've not produced anything good. You've rejected my instruction and my care. And as we'll read later in the text, he's going to take the vineyard away from them. and give it to someone else, and he's going to destroy them as well. And we'll come to that. The last question in terms of characters in this text, who are they? And it may be the one that's least obvious are the slaves. Who do the slaves represent in this parable? They come three times and are mistreated, harmed, and sent away empty-handed. Who were the slaves? That's the question. Well, the slaves were the prophets of the Old Testament.

They were the people that were sent to the vineyard, to God's people, to warn them, to care for them. And as you read scripture and as you learn in the Old Testament, you start wondering, well, how were those men treated? And what you'll find time and again is that they generally were not treated well. And in many cases, they were treated very poorly, even put to death, thrown in prison, beaten. So what do you learn about the people who are doing this to the prophets, doing this to the slaves? Well, you learn that they don't want to hear what they have to say at a very basic level. Get out of my face. I'm not interested. Go away. But the master really wants his produce. If you keep it up, and then comes the consequence. Thrown in prison, beaten, killed. In 2 Chronicles 36, we read this. It says, The God of their fathers, speaking of the Israelites, the God of their fathers sent word to them again and again by his messengers because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. So the vineyard's not doing well and he wants to see it doing well. So he sends them instruction and care for their good. But they continually mocked the messengers of God, despised his words and scoffed at the prophets.

until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, until there was no remedy. And so what you see in 2 Chronicles 36 is that the people, historically, God's people, were opposed to him and opposed to his instructions and fought against him and kicked against him and rebelled against him. And when he was gracious in sending them warnings, reminders, they despised them, they scoffed at them, they laughed at them, until there was no remedy, until it was too late, until there was no hope. Jesus says a similar thing in Matthew 23. He says, And so there's a lot going on in these passages, but there's the same thing going on in all of these passages. What you have are the leaders of the people and the people themselves.

rebelling against their God, not doing what they ought to do. And when their master, their God, is merciful and kind and patient, and he sends to them messengers of warning, they refuse to hear him. They refuse to repent. And as a result of that, destruction comes. In Chronicles, they're carried off into captivity. In Matthew, where he bemoans the sin of Jerusalem, what happens is Jerusalem's destroyed. And in our text in Luke 20, with the scribes and the leaders of the people who are leading them astray, he says, I'm going to take it away from you and I'm going to give it to someone else. You're no longer going to be the people of God. I'm going to expand my people. I'm going to change my people. People who do what's required of them. And you could describe the whole book of Acts as fitting under that heading. God sent his messengers to people who would actually hear and do what they were told instead of those

who would kill God's messengers. So we know who the tenants are. We know what the vineyard is. We know our place in it. We know who the slaves are. We haven't talked about the master yet. What's he like? Well, the answer to that question depends on what perspective you answer it from. What do you think the tenants thought of the master? Well, they thought he was a greedy man, reaping where he hadn't sown, quite literally, taking what didn't belong to him, laying claim to what was not his by right. And they resented him. But this is not the true nature of the master. This is not what he's actually like. And I want to show you a couple of things that the master does in this parable to show you the patience of the master, the humility and the vulnerability of the master, his kindness toward these people. There's a bit of a discrepancy. If you were to read the parallel accounts of this parable in Matthew and Mark and in Luke, Matthew says that he sent groups of slaves.

Luke says he just sent one, and then he sent another one, and then he sent a third. Matthew says he's sending a bunch of people, a bunch of his slaves. Now, those slaves cost him money as a master. They're his subjects. They're to do his will. They're to come back having accomplished it. How many would you send when the first one came back beat up without any of your money? Would you send another one? Let's say that you do. He comes back treated even more poorly. What would you do then? Send another one? At some point you start to wonder, why is he sending all these slaves? Why doesn't he deal with this? Maybe he ought to send his mighty men, his army perhaps. You have to keep in mind what the master's desire was. Was his desire simply for the vineyard to produce its produce? What did he want of the vine dressers?

What do you want of people when they're in sin? Do you want their destruction? If we're honest, some of the time we say, yeah, that's exactly what I want. I want their destruction, and now. But if you think about it, what do you want of those who are in sin? You want their repentance. You want to see them restored. You want to see them reconciled to God, to you. This is what you want for them. And so your actions are contingent upon that desire. You want good for them, and so you seek good for them. You're patient with them. You caution them again. You warn them again. These guys didn't listen. They continued in their way until we're told his wrath was aroused and he was going to destroy them. So then the third slave comes back, beaten, treated poorly, and without any grapes. And then we have, you know, Jesus tells this story, and he says, Then the owner of the vineyard said, what shall I do? And this is the question I was putting to you earlier after the first slave and the second slave comes back and they're beaten and they don't have what you sent. What would you do? But here the owner asks, what shall I do? And the question to us is, what would we do? Go again. Go get them, right? We're going to go get what's mine and more than what's mine. I'm going to show you who's boss. Now, is that ultimately what happens to people who

who are in sin and refuse to repent. Well, yeah, our text tells us eventually they're going to be destroyed. There's going to come a day of reckoning and there's not going to be any more mercy or any more grace. But what I want you to see is before that day, the master sends them his son. His slaves have been beaten. They've been treated shamefully. They've been turned away. His response is to send them his son. Now, lest you think that he sent his son because they thought, well, they're going to, we need to, we need to. He's a tough guy. He says, well, maybe they'll respect him. Maybe they'll listen to him. Perhaps. Perhaps if I send them my son, they'll repent. Now, I want to say a word to you about this parable because this is not actually how God reasons in the world. God didn't sit there scratching his head, looking at the world, wondering, man, there's a real problem. And these sinners, they don't listen. What are we going to do? This is not God's way with us.

He knew before he created the light and the dark that this was how it was going to be. And this is what he was going to do. This was always his intention. But when you're telling a parable, one of the things that you do is you relate the story to the hearer. If I was going to tell you a story and I was to divide this group up and have just the men, and I was going to tell the story to the men, I'd tell it with some details and leaving some other ones out. If I was going to tell that story to a mixed group, the story would change a little bit.

If I was going to tell that story to the children of the church, the story again would change. And I would accommodate the story to their understanding. Because the goal, after all, is I want them to understand what's being said. And so that's what Jesus is doing here when he speaks of his father. His father isn't sitting there going, how am I going to get these? Maybe they'll respect my son. He knows they're not going to. He knows that he sent his son into this world to die. He already knew that. And so don't be confused by the language. Perhaps they will respect him as though God doesn't know what's up. He knows what's up. But Jesus tells the parable in such a way that everyone would understand what was being said. Perhaps they'll respect him. Sending them his son was gracious, and it was meant to appeal to their hearts and their consciences, to the men who had acted so rebelliously. Now, how did they respond when they saw the son? It says when the vine growers saw him, they reasoned together. They talked.

And they said, this is the heir. Let us kill him so that the inheritance will be ours. Let us steal. Let us finish what we started. Now consider for a moment. Do you think that the scribes, if you had been able to go to them two years before this and said, would you kill the Messiah, the long-awaited Messiah, the one that you've waited your whole lives to see, the one you've been taught to look forward to, would you kill him? And what would their response have been? No, are you kidding me? There's no way in the world I would kill the Messiah. I would die myself before I would kill the Messiah. I would never do that. He's the one we've been waiting for. And yet, that's exactly what they do. And they do it knowing who he is. And so the caution to us is when you start down a path, you're going to end up at the end of the path. You don't start walking west and end up going east. You start down the path of opposing God, resisting God.

fighting against his will, you're going to end up a rebel. You're not going to end up a son. Sons don't behave that way. And so these men would have said, we would never kill the Messiah. And yet that's exactly what they're intent on doing. And the only reason they haven't done it thus far is they're afraid of the people. And yet in a few short days, they do exactly what they've intended to do in their heart, which is to kill Jesus. Later on, when Jesus is being tried, And Pilate says, I find nothing in this man to make him worthy of death. What do they say? Let his blood be on our heads and on the heads of our children. They are intent on killing him. They're absolutely intent on it. No matter what the consequences, they don't care. Not the consequence to them, not the consequence to their children. They're intent on killing Jesus as opposed to repenting and turning.

And so you see the progression in our text. There's a cause and effect going on. The tenants proceed from bad to worse. And you're left wondering, he sent them slaves. They didn't listen. He sent them their son. They didn't listen. In fact, they killed him. And at this point, Jesus steps out of the parable and tells what's going to happen. He asks, what then will the owner of the vineyard do with them? He answers, he will come. and he will destroy these vine growers, and he will give the vineyard to others. And so we learn here that the master will not perpetually endure his tenants' unfaithfulness to him. At some point, he deals with the tenants. He will deal with them the way that they need to be dealt with. He's going to take away their status. He's going to take away their name. He's going to take away their reputation. He's going to take everything away from them, and he will destroy them.

Now you do realize that this is exactly what they want to do to Jesus. And in turn, it's exactly what happens to them. They want to kill Jesus. They want to destroy him. If you were to read back up earlier in Luke 20 and back into Luke 19, these are the exact words that are used. They were seeking a way to destroy him. And here Jesus says, divine growers are going to be destroyed. And so they bring about their own destruction by their rebellion against Jesus. Seeking to destroy him, they destroy themselves. And not only this, the thing that they had, the good thing that they had, the commission, the good work that they had is taken from them and given to other people. And they cry out and they say, may it never be. Don't ever do that. The kingdom is going to be taken from them and given to other people. They cry out, no, not that they would be destroyed. No, that God would not remove his fatherly care and his affection for them and his provision. May it never be.

And wouldn't we cry out if that was the threat to us? May it never be. But what hope do those who've gotten to this point have of it not being? But Jesus looked at them and he said, what then is this that is written? Which is a construction that says, no, this is how it's going to be. Because here's what's written and it's going to happen. You've gone too far. You've tarried too long. The judgment has come. In 2 Chronicles, it says that they... What then is that, this that is written? The stone which the builders rejected, this became the chief cornerstone? You who reject me?

will have rejected the chief cornerstone. And if you understand anything about buildings, the chief cornerstone is what everything else is laid out based on. It is the starting point. And if you don't have one, you have no way to build. That's what a cornerstone is. And so when you reject it, you lose the whole building that it's built on. Changing analogies a bit, Jesus continues. He says, everyone who falls on that stone, that cornerstone, me, everyone who trips over me, stumbles over me, will be broken to pieces. But on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust. And so what is there for those who reject Jesus? Whether they do it in ignorance or they do it willfully, there's nothing for them but destruction. This is what Jesus is saying to these crowds and everyone's tracking with him. At the very last part of our verse, it says, you know, the chief priests, they were all upset at Jesus. They feared the people.

But the reason they were so upset was because they understood that he was talking about them. Now, this is the kind of message that if it was spoken generally, okay, I can understand God can be that way and do those kinds of things, and that's terrible, but I can accept it. But when a warning comes to us the way it came to them, all of a sudden, their response is understandable. And it's understandable because we have a propensity to share that response. Oh, you know, I mean, whatever it is in your life. You know, here's what it means to be a godly husband. Okay, that's great, says the man. Here's what it means to be a godly wife. Oh, great, that's wonderful. Here's what it means to raise children. Oh, yes, that's, uh-huh, yep. Here's what it means to be a hard worker at work. Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah, I get it. Here's what it means to work hard at your school. Here's what it means to do your chores. Here's what it means. And we're all like, uh-huh, that's right, yep. I'm all for it. But if someone comes to you and says, you are being lazy at work. Someone comes to you and says,

you are not disciplining your child. All of a sudden, it's like, you know, you can't tell me that. You can say it generally, but you can't tell me that because you don't know me. And they're my kids. And you can't tell me what to do with my kids. But if I were to come to you, just as an example, and I were to speak to you about your kids, and I was going to say, little Billy is naughty and you're not dealing with it. I'd like to talk with you. And you get angry at me, stick my nose in where it doesn't belong, don't understand the situation or little Billy's personality. What are you whispering back there? He's special. Yes, aren't we all? One of the things I'll say to people who get upset at that point is I'll say to them, why do you think I came to you? Do you think I like coming and having conflict with you and arguing with you or having you not like me for a little while? Do you think that's what I enjoy?

Well, you're a fool because I don't enjoy it. I like to be liked. What I often say to them is I say, here's the thing. I don't stand to gain anything by making you mad at me personally. It doesn't do me any good. So consider why we come and talk to you then. If it's not for my own personal interest, I don't get anything out of you being upset. I get joy if you listen, but so do you. And so even in that instance, it's not self-serving. When I come to you and I speak to you about whatever it is, it's because I have your best interest in mind. Now, maybe I don't understand the situation, and that's why we need to sit down and talk so that we can all get everything out on the table and then put it back together the way it belongs. But my intention is love. I love you. I care about you. I want to see your marriages do well. I want to see your kids do well. I want to see you succeed at work. And yet all of us have this propensity to just not listen when it's about us. You need to be careful.

Be on guard. This isn't a general warning. It's a specific warning. I think that you are struggling here. I think you are losing ground here. I think something in your life needs to change here. And the dangers will stiffen our necks. We'll resist what's being said to us. You don't understand. You're treading on my toes. This is mine, said the tenant farmer. This is mine. You stay off. So the application to us, given these dangers, is simply that we wouldn't reject Jesus. Understanding that in his wisdom, he's made it such that we live our lives amongst other Christians. And some of them have authority over our lives for our good. And we don't do well when we ignore them. And that applies to me as much as it applies to any of you. Be on guard not to reject the Lord. Seems like a crazy thing to say. I would never do that.

nor would they have killed the Messiah if they understood what they were doing when they were doing it. The points at which our lives and our temptations are most especially addressed. These are the points at which we're most likely to rebel. You can't tell me that. Scripture, pastor, whoever. But I want you to know that at these points where our lives are brought into the spotlight and they're examined and we're warned, what's going on at that time in a very basic level is we are going to demonstrate our allegiance. And you can only be allied with Jesus or you can be a rebel against him. You can't be anything else. You can think you're something else. You can think you're considering. You can think I'm going to pray about it. You can think I'm going to get some more counsel about it. You can think all kinds of stuff. But when Scripture comes to bear, When Jesus comes to bear right in our lives, who will we align ourselves with? Will we be like the scribes and the elders who were intent on killing him no matter what it meant? Lord, I hope not. It's not my desire for any of us, not for me, not for you, not for your kids or for your grandkids. But it's not a foregone conclusion that we won't face these temptations and that some of us won't make bad decisions. And so our caution to us this morning is,

Be on guard against that temptation. Cultivate sensitivity to God's word and to people loving you and caring for you and listen to them. Listen to them. Don't lie to them. Don't hide from them. Listen to them. They love you. And what you'll find is grace to help in your time of need. You'll find that there's care and there's compassion and there's mercy and there's forgiveness and there's joy and there's peace. All of that on the other side of your humiliation. And it's worth it. Let's pray. Father, I pray that there would not be in any one of us an evil, unbelieving heart that falls short of the grace of God. We're so easily tempted and led astray, amused by our own intelligence and ability to wheedle and cajole and connive and mislead and hide.

But Father, what fools we are when we give ourselves to this. Nothing's hidden from your eye. And we're fools to think that our actions will not have consequence for us and for those that we love. Father, help us to be humble, like Jesus, to despise the shame and to look forward to the joy and the peace that you've promised to us, to all who will bend their knee, bow before you and confess that Jesus is Lord. Father, have mercy on us. Save us. Give us peace and great hope as we go out from this place. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Would the officers please come forward? We now have the privilege of celebrating the Lord's Supper, which is a physical representation of a spiritual reality. Jesus came to earth. He lived a perfect life, was unworthy of any condemnation, any judgment, and certainly any sort of death. And yet what we have before us this morning is a representation in the bread of his body and in the cup of his blood that was broken and that was shed for the forgiveness of our sins. This is the remedy to the problems that plague us. But it's only a remedy for those who will submit to it. It comes with strings, is another way of saying it. This meal is not free. It's not free.

It costs God his own son's life. It's not free. And it comes with expectations that you would trust God. These are the expectations that you would trust God and that you would abhor yourself and that you would seek with everything that's in you to love and to serve God who loved you. Those are the strengths. Will you fail at it? Yes. And when you fail, you come back. to the broken body and the shed blood of Jesus for cleansing and for healing and for strength to get back in to the fight. That's what we celebrate when we celebrate this meal. Now, that means that anyone who doesn't believe that, want that, isn't signed up for that, it means that this meal's not for you. Does that mean that it can never be for you? No, not at all. And it's my heart's desire that it would be for all of us. But the reality is it's not for some of us.

And if it's not for some of us, then I want you to take this time to consider your ways and to consider your end. And I want you to repent and I want you to turn before it's too late, before the door of salvation is closed to you. I want to read to you the words of institution from 1 Corinthians chapter 11. Paul writes, And when he had given thanks, he broke it and says, this is my body broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, he took the cup also after supper saying, this is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Let us pray.