The Stone the Builders Rejected

I will ask you a question. You tell me now, tell me, was the baptism of John from heaven or from man?

This is important as we look back to what's happened and what's he going to say here in a moment. Was John the Baptist, was his ministry marked here by the baptism? Was John the Baptist and what he was proclaiming, is it from heaven, that is from the Lord, or was it just from earth? Did it come down with heavenly authority? Was he a prophet of God? If we go back to John the Baptist, He is the prophet who said of Jesus, Jesus is coming, and when he saw him, he said,

behold, the Lamb of God.

He identified Jesus very uniquely. The Spirit anointed him with this very unique mission to be the last prophet who was going to say he's coming, and to be the first prophet who says he has come. He prepared the way. He baptized Jesus, not because Jesus repented of sin, but to make sure he is ready and anointed, identifying with us as part of his mission. So, if John is from earth, he doesn't have heavenly authority. He's not a prophet of God. He's not uniquely called to prepare the way. John is important because of the ways in which he is specifically preparing the way for Jesus. He's Jesus' cousin. He preached outside of the norms. He did not preach in the synagogues. He preached out in the wilderness. He preached repentance, turn away from your sins. He confronted the people, these religious leaders, even political powers. He was eventually beheaded by Herod. Jesus' question is pressing for them, as we see in Luke's narration. Look at verses five and seven.

And they discussed it with one another, saying, if we say from heaven, he will say, why did you not believe him? But if we say, from man all the people will stone us to death, for they are convinced that John was a prophet.

They get the trick. They're feeling the catch-22. They are admitting they did not believe John the Baptist, the prophet of God. Notice there. There's actually no deliberation on how they treated John or how they responded to John, how they received him. If we say he's from heaven, he's going to ask, and we don't have an answer for this, why don't you believe him? If we say he's from man, again, that fear of the people hanging on the very words of Jesus, that's what's controlling them. If we say he wasn't from God, then we're in danger from the people. What we see among these religious leaders who are supposed to be leading God's people to have a right reverence for God is they don't have a fear of God. And God is right there in their midst in the temple. They do not lead with conviction. They are more worried about the people. And so they say, we will not answer you. And Jesus says,

therefore, I will not tell you by what authority I do these things.

Leaders of Jefferson Park Baptist Church, may we never get caught in this dilemma. To be clear, it is an absolute honor to preach to you. Church, choir, it's an absolute honor to preach to you because when I come across a difficult, demanding passage, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna get in more trouble if I don't present it as clearly and fully as it is. I praise God for that. I have friends who pastor churches and they have to wrestle with what they can say and not be accused of something afterwards. And when it comes straightly from the word, there's many Sundays I have to look at my notes. Am I going to say this? Well, the text demands it. Church, I want you to see how important it is for the healthy, regular preaching of the word for you to be eager and ready to hear it. It's a blessing. It isn't just is someone willing to preach boldly. Is there a church that's willing to hear it and respond to it and want to promote it? You have a significant role in the regular preaching of God's Word. This past Wednesday, Matt taught from 1 Thessalonians 5, 20, 21.

Do not despise prophecy. Test everything. Hold fast to what is good.

we as a church are responsible for how the Word of God is being taught. If you want to see an example of how this plays out, look at Galatians. Paul holds the whole church responsible for what is being proclaimed. I want to just thank you for being a blessing, to making it an honor to proclaim God's Word to you, because you are eager to hear it. I also want to just make sure we hear a warning We need to be regularly wanting to hear God's word. The way we've designed our worship is that we're trying to protect as much as possible from someone's opinion or some ideal philosophy intruding in what we're doing because we're going to walk through the books of the Bible. The topics are already designed and planned out for us. This is our commitment to you, church. Don't want to continue to desire your love for the word, to help promote our love for the word. Another thing we gotta wrestle with from the text, a real important question. Where does Jesus get his authority? We would ask, what kind of authority does Jesus have? Do we look to Jesus as the one who has all authority? in heaven and on earth. Do we see him? He's gonna answer where he gets his authority from eventually in the text. His authority is that he's the son of God, our creator. His authority comes in that he's the savior, the one who died on the cross to purchase us with his precious blood. He has all authority. And we have to do a little bit of work here. I just want to recognize, we live in a sinful world. We see authority abused over and over again. We need to do a little bit of work and just make a statement that might not always seem obvious to us. There is such thing as good authority. There is such thing as good authority. Okay, we all have been treated by someone with authority poorly. He who has all authority is God. And he is good. That's worth meditating upon the whole week. Go to James. He gives every good and perfect gift. He who has all authority. He holds the nations in his hands. He who rises up the kings in authority and will crush them at his will. He's good. He's good. So we need to wrestle with Jesus' authority. One, it's the most powerful authority. It is perfect, complete authority. And he is perfectly and completely good. This is so important for us to recognize. It's good authority. He who reigns over us, he who has come to be our king, he who has come to teach us, he's good. When he exercises his right arm, it's good. As we continue our texts, we now see he is the son. He's been teaching the people, the chief priests interrupted to try to catch him. He turns that back on them. They refuse to say anything. Now notice Jesus is going to speak to the people and he's going to give a parable. The parable would reference something that's pretty common for them to understand. At one level, this would be pretty common in just practice. Someone would buy land, they would live in another place, they would hire tenants out to work it and keep it. Another level, this is actually a text that I believe should bring us back to Isaiah 5, where God builds a vineyard, puts tenants, the prophets, in charge of it, and the people revolt, or the people are unfaithful in their work. Here we see there's a number of ways this parable is going to be playing out for us. So we turn to the parable.

A man planted a vineyard and led it out to tenants and went into another country for a long while. When the time came, he sent a servant to the tenants so that they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard.

Again, everything should be pretty normal up till now. Story goes a little sideways with but. But the tenants, those he left in charge of his land, beat him, the servant, and sent him away empty-handed. The land owner, the man who created the vineyard, moved away. He has every right to the fruit. He's sending the servant as an ambassador into his vineyard to do what he has every right to do, and that is to receive some fruit. The tenants, we don't have any motivation yet, but they treat the servant who's representing the landowner so poorly, they beat him and they sent him away empty-handed. Well, what does the landowner do next? Verse 11,

he sent another servant, but they also beat and treated him shamefully, and they sent him away empty-handed.

Okay, verse 12, what happens next?

And he sent yet a third. This one also, they wounded and cast out.

There's a pattern here. It's a wicked, destructive pattern. We could actually look and say, why does the landowner keep sending servants? What we see here, they're very consistent, the tenants. Every time he sends someone, they mistreat them and they don't give the landowner what he wants. Curious, what would you do at this point if you're the landowner? Would you send another servant? Would you send the police? Well, verse 13 is significant. This landowner of the vineyard said,

what shall I do? I will send my beloved son.

Thank you for the people. You have a bit of a gasp here. But what will they do to the son? The pattern's set. These guys seem pretty bad. Are you sure, landowner? The tension should be felt fully.

Perhaps they will respect him.

They haven't respected servant after servant after servant, but I'll send my beloved son.

Perhaps they shall respect him.

Notice how the tenants respond.

When the tenants saw the beloved son, they said to themselves, This is the heir. Let us kill him so that the inheritance may be ours.

The owner assumes I'm going to send someone more important, more powerful. They'll have more respect. Notice the wickedness of the tenants. The more important, the more powerful, the more wicked they become. They go from beating and treating shameful to killing him. And the whole thing's backwards. How are they going to inherit because they killed the son? Here we see the landowner. Sending the servants, finally sending the beloved son, assuming they must respect him, but the wicked tenants, they never change. Verse 15,

they threw him out of the vineyard and they killed him.

Then he asked,

what then will the owner of the vineyard do to them?

There's a moment of reflecting. What should this owner do? He's been patient. He's been generous. He's been assuming there will be some kind of respect. Well, Jesus answers this question.

He will come. and he will destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.

And I believe when Luke tells us they heard this, the crowds, I don't believe they're saying, surely not, he wouldn't judge them. I believe the right response is, surely not, this couldn't happen. Surely not, such an owner would not keep sending servants. Surely not, the owner wouldn't send his own son. Surely not. May this kind of story never be. Well, now we have to come and ask, what does this parable mean? As I mentioned before, it likens back to Isaiah 5. The crowd should have already heard a likening of God who builds a vineyard and puts his tenants in charge of it, who are rebellious. We could go back to even Luke 13, 34, where Jesus already grieved over Jerusalem because over and over again, Jerusalem has killed the prophets of God. We go back. to even our passage last week, Luke 19, where Jesus weeps over Israel in the way they refuse to hear and believe the day of visitation is upon them. Now, if we're to interpret this passage rightly, the tenants would be the chief priests in this story. The servants who were sent to go and receive something would be the prophets. Over and over again, they were mistreated, they were rejected, they were refused. And Jesus is the beloved son. Just as the chief priest just admitted they've rejected John the Baptist, the prophet, they're the tenants who have rejected the servants who have come to prepare the way, who have come before the son. And they will soon kill the son, taking him out of the vineyard. It's an incredible story in the way it shows us two things. The incredible kindness of God. The incredible steadfast love that we all repeated earlier in the call to worship. The way it reveals the steadfast love of the Lord. And the way it shows how wicked our sin is. The sin is evidenced by their disrespect. If we were to look at just one word to hone in on that would help us to think about what sin is in this passage, it's the fact that there was such disrespect for the landowner that they killed his son. The parable highlights our wickedness in God's steadfast love. Notice there is a key difference. and what the parable is doing to tell a story and what God's story actually reveals in scripture. The parable, the landowner assumes they won't mistreat the son. In the parable, the son is unknowingly going to get killed. In God's truth, God knows what they're going to do to his son. God ordains even that this is what would happen to his son for their own salvation. Why does God commit to do this? It really is, we can look and say, well, why would God send these servants to be mistreated? Why would God allow such evil to be done? One simple answer is because God promised to save a people, even a people who would over and over and over and over again reject him. God is being stiff in his love in that he's promised to save a people from their sin, and therefore God is going to continue to send his word to his people, and his word being rejected leads to the prophets being mistreated. It's incredible to see how his love is so committed to a people who do not deserve it. That's a significant takeaway. We're gonna step back also. We gotta ask, how are we like these tenants? It's not if. I also don't assume it's how are we just like them, but how? Again, uh, preaching to the choir. Do, do we regularly just receive his authoritative word in rejoicing, or do we, do we reject him? Do we, do we figure out little tricks to play so we know how to dismiss his word? Do we, do we figure out how to regularly hear some word, but, but refuse to be truly conformed the way he's prescribed. What we do is that I assume many of you heard in the Sunday School class, do we suppress what's so clear from God? Maybe His promise and wanting to trust Him, maybe His commandment and wanting to obey Him. This passage is terrifying in that we can become so accustomed to God's Word and yet still grow comfortable with disobedience. We need to let that awkwardness linger for a moment. Can we become so accustomed with God's word and yet find disobedience comfortable? Do we dare pray, Lord, how can I be more conformed to Christ? Lord, how can I Be more conformed to Christ. One of the clear problems that the tenants reveal is that they assume they should be owners when the Lord has given them the privileged position of ambassadors. That's a confusion that we see in sin. You can see in the garden. Oh, God breathed into Adam life. prepared a garden, placed Adam in the garden, gave him everything he ever wanted in the garden. And then when Satan came, well, shouldn't he be an owner of this place? I mean, he can't have that one tree. Adam should have seen, oh, I have everything I want, especially God. But the desire to be acting as if he could be an owner, which he couldn't be, led him to reject the God who had given him everything Good. Brothers and sisters, Jesus has revealed the answer as to where His authority comes from. He is the Son who came knowingly to die for us. We must be careful not to dismiss Him and His goodness. Fred, if you're not a Christian this morning, what we see pictured here is a definitive picture of what sin is. It's rejecting God. It's refusing Him. It's not respecting Him. We were designed to be creatures who respect God and know Him and His love. He is the great God who is worthy of all honor and respect. Our sin, we could go through the whole Ten Commandments and see how we've all broken them. But if we just recognize that the key sin we all have is we've refused to worship God. He's worthy. And there's nothing we can do to actually fix our own problem, our sin problem. That's why Jesus comes down to intentionally come and die in our place for the sin of not, of worshiping him. So that he can restore us in worship. If you're not a believer, don't leave without talking to somebody about what it means to recognize sin. To see the love of Jesus that he would die for us even while we're rejecting him. so that we might grow to properly respect him. If you think about the gospel, it's incredible the tenets and the lie they created. Let's kill the son so we can get the inheritance. Believer, Jesus said, I'm going to come and die so that you can have my inheritance. Do we get how twisted this is as we think about our own way of fixing whatever problem we think it is? Let's kill the son so we can get what Jesus promises with his own death. Oh, the twistedness of sin. Third, the third thing we see in the text. We see he is the one who has great authority. We see he is the beloved son. Finally, Jesus shows us he is the cornerstone. Verse 17. Jesus has been teaching the crowd. The chief priest engaged with him specifically. He pans back out and he talks to the people, verse 9, with a parable. I believe what he says.

He looked directly at them.

I think we're back with the chief priest here.

What then is this? that is written.

They would be very well acquainted with this Psalm, as we would already know, because in Psalm 118, when the disciples are using Psalm 118 to recognize Jesus is he who is coming in the name of the Lord, worthy of praise and Messiah, they say, Jesus, you gotta stop letting them say that, because it's inappropriate. Jesus says,

well, if they do not say it, the stones will praise.

Jesus cites that Psalm again.

The stone the builders rejected.

And if you want to think about how this works, you've got builders and tenants. Builders and tenants are parallel.

The stone the builders rejected, he has become the cornerstone. Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush them.

So he gives these simple quotation that this is what's written. He's, he's making it clear. Uh, this, this text is telling you everything I've already told you. And then he gives us an interpretation.

Everybody falls on that stone will be broken to pieces. And when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.

We should go back to someone 18 for a little bit. You can go back to page five in your bulletin, or you can turn to page five 11 in a pew Bible. We got to think about what this psalm is doing. It's a psalm of praise. It's a psalm that began, as we heard,

the steadfast love of the Lord endures forever.

He quotes specifically Psalm 22, which is a significant warning and a judgment. But verses 17 and 18, it confesses that God is good. He's ordained all that's happened. 19 and 20, it's about entering the gates of the temple. It's entering the place of praise and the love of the Lord. If we drop down to 23 and 24, the Lord has done it. This is the day of the Lord. We can think back how Jesus has said, oh, Jerusalem, if you'd have only known, this is the day of the Lord, or the day of the visitation. Here in the middle of that ceremony of love and praise to God, we get verse 22. was quoted.

The stone the builders injected has become the cornerstone.

The stone is highlighted. This is Hebrew parallelism. The second line is emphasizing something unique about what's important. And so the stone that the builders injected, well, what stone? What's so significant about the stone? It's the cornerstone. The cornerstone in a building is typically the most important. It's the first stone you put down. It's the foundational piece that will make sure everything else is level. I learned this the hard way, as I learn most things, trial and error. It's building a wall, and so I put a stone in, and about eight blocks later, it's all whoppy-jawed. That's a theological term that means backwards or crooked. OK? When the cornerstone is off, the whole building will be off. But the cornerstone, if solid, foundational, Right. The building's sturdy. We're in the temple. The temple Jesus already told them is going to be destroyed. We're in the temple. The idea of the cornerstone being the most important significant piece of the building that, and this is the most important building. Jesus is simply saying, the builders, those who were leading working, keeping, chief priest. They've rejected the stone, the cornerstone. The cornerstone is the beloved son that was killed. The builders are the tenants, the chief priest. What you see here is Jesus making it clear, this has all been ordained. This is not like the, owner of the vineyard who did not know how a son would be treated. No, this has been ordained, this has been promised, this has been prophesied. Jesus has come to be the cornerstone, to bring about God's salvation, finally. To build up a people who will be worshipers, finally. To know how to enter into the gates of his praise, finally. And those who are supposed to be the religious authorities, The students of God's word, they should be able to recognize this is the one we've all been waiting on, but instead they're trying to destroy him. So he's giving them a warning. You're rejecting the promise of God. You're rejecting all of what the Old Testament was pointing to. And then Jesus, verse 18, to make it very clear,

everyone who falls in that stone will be broken to pieces. And when it falls on anyone, it will crush them.

Well, why does he use those two different pictures? I believe it's to make clear how absolutely definitive and clear the destruction is for anyone who denies him. The picture there, rejecting him will end with absolute destruction. You can receive him, believe and be saved. You can reject him. remain in sin and be crushed. There is no third way. The question we have to ask this morning, are we walking, receiving Christ with the respect that his authority deserves so that we would worship? Let me get back out of this text and think about it. Jesus teaching with all authority as the son of God, he is the cornerstone. He's just cleansed the temple, the most holy place. He's out teaching the temple for God's people. He is being rejected in his holy place by his people's leaders. The warning is, do not reject him. The invitation is to believe in him. Believe in him who is the cornerstone. We're gonna be very careful here. We reject him individually, and we will be held responsible individually, but when we receive him, he is the cornerstone that then builds up a new kind of temple, where we are the stones all united and connected together in him. He is the great high priest, the one who leads us into true worship, building up a new kind of worship among a new kind of people. We see this in Ephesians 2. Paul declares Christ is the cornerstone of the new temple. The stones being used, well, that's the members of the church being built up together. The purpose of being built up together is that we might grow in holiness together, having access to the Father by the Spirit through the Son in prayer. Remember, the temple is supposed to be a place of prayer. The invitation, come to Christ, to be united together, to grow up into holiness. This is where we have to fill the challenge today. Are we growing up into God's holiness in reverence and respect? The question to leave, are we respecting God and his right to reign? Are we respecting God knowing he is and has all good authority? Are we respecting God and his prophets? Are we respecting God and embracing the love of his son? respecting God and his call to be his holy people. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you that you are good, that you have shown yourself faithful to a people who have regularly been unfaithful. Oh, we thank you for the way you have made it so clear you were steadfast in your love and your promise making and keeping. Lord, forgive us for the ways in which we've doubted you as having right authority or being good. We pray now that we would be, we would desire to ask, how is it How are the, reveal the ways in which we have not respected you. We have not sought repentance. We've come too comfortable with disobedience. Lord, we thank you for your grace that helps us see sin. We thank you, Lord, for the grace that heals us of that sin. We thank you for the grace that allows us to be a holy people. Help us to know how to receive Christ, your son, the cornerstone, and help us know how to be built up as your holy temple. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Let us stand and sing our song of response, all to us.