[Machine transcription]
In the name of Jesus, amen.
Dear Gabe and all the baptized, there is a miracle at work in baptism.
And it is the opposite miracle that the Lord performed in the wilderness.
We’ll remember that in the sea, the Lord Jesus makes a path, a dry path for the people
to cross through the wilderness.
He makes a desert in the ocean.
In fact, all throughout the Old Testament, the Lord is pointing the people’s attention
back to that desert in the ocean.
Remember what happened, he says.
Remember what happened when you were being chased
by the armies out of Egypt.
When the pharaoh was after you
and you were pinned between the mountains and the sea
and the Lord had Moses raise the staff
and he made there a path of dry land in the wilderness.
The Lord is the one who rescues, and He will do it again.
Now all through the Old Testament, the Lord is always pointing back to that miracle, always
pointing back to the little desert that He made in the ocean, always using that to remind
them of the good works and the strength that the Lord does.
But here in Isaiah, He says, look, the day is coming when I will no longer point back
to that old miracle because I’m going to do a new miracle.
Instead of making a desert in the midst of the ocean, I’m going to make a river in the
midst of the desert.
I’m going to bring the garden of Eden back.
He says, behold, I am doing a new thing, and now it springs forth.
Do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
And that, dear Gabe, is what the Lord has done in this baptismal fount, the fountain
of the Lord’s grace, the river of the Lord’s mercy, the forgiveness of all of
your sins, the forgiveness of all of our sins. The Lord has brought us back to the
joy of the Garden of Eden in the gift of the forgiveness of sins.
God be praised.
This is what the Lord wants and what the Lord is working for all of us.
The trouble is that not all receive it.
And that’s the trouble that Jesus is addressing with the parable that he tells in Luke chapter
20.
Now here’s the context.
Jesus has visited the temple. We’re in Holy Week, by the way. I mean, we’ll be in
Holy Week next week, but in the parable, Jesus is in Holy Week. Holy Tuesday. He’s
cleansed the temple. Remember, he’s driven the money changers out. And the Pharisees
came to him and they asked, by what authority do you do these things? And
Jesus says, I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you by what authority if you just answer one
simple question from me. Whose authority did John have when he baptized? Now, the
Pharisees get together in a committee to try to answer the question because the Pharisees
can never just answer a question.
They got to figure it out because it’s always a, I mean it’s always a trick for them so
they figure it’s always a trick that they’re being backed into and it was.
They get together in the committee and they say, we can’t say that the baptism of John
is from heaven because then that would give Jesus the authority that He needs.
We can’t say that the baptism of John was from man because everyone thought that John
was a prophet and they figured that they would reject the Pharisees.
So, they went to Jesus and said, we don’t know.
And Jesus says, well, then I’m not going to tell you.
If you can’t answer my question, I’m going to answer yours.
But then he gets after them in the parable.
And this parable is as getting after you a parable as any parable that Jesus tells.
He says, okay, you want to understand yourselves?
Listen.
There was a man who had a vineyard.
He planted it, and then he rented it out to tenants, and then he went away for a long
time to a foreign country, and then when it was time to collect the rent, to collect the
proceeds, the royalties from the vineyard, he sent a servant to collect it.
But instead of giving the servant the money or the fruit, the grapes or the wine or whatever,
instead of doing that, the tenants took the servant and they beat the tar out of him,
and then they sent him back.
Now remember, dear saints, whenever we’re reading the parables of Jesus, we always want
to be looking for the strange thing, the unexpected thing.
And here a couple of unexpected things begin because this vineyard owner, he looks at this
wounded beat up servant of his and he says, well, I’m going to try again.
And he sends another servant.
And the tenants think, hey, we got away with it the first time, why not?
They beat him.
In fact, not only do they beat him, but they treat him shamefully.
They send him back.
So, now the vineyard owner has two servants in the infirmary, and he says, well, let me
try a third time.
So he sends a third servant, and the same thing happens again.
Okay, so now you just got to see this.
Here’s the vineyard owner.
He’s got three beaten up, limping, bleeding, bruised up servants.
He’s got royalties from the vineyard there.
What is he going to do?
So here’s the first big surprise. He says, you know what I’ll do? I’ll send my son.
Who would do that? In fact, the text magnifies the strangeness of what he’s
doing. It’s in verse 13, the owner of the vineyard said, what will I do? I’ll send
my beloved son. If he had a son that he didn’t like, that would be the one you
would want to send to try it out. But he sends the son that he loves into the
hands of these men, and he’s not even sure it’s going to work.
Look it says, perhaps they will respect him.
What are the odds?
Now this is what Jesus is preaching to call out the Pharisees.
They are the tenants, right?
And the servants that are sent to collect the proceeds are the prophets who came preaching
repentance and looking for the fruit of repentance, faith and good works.
But instead of giving God what they owed, they beat the prophets, they killed the prophets
And at last the son comes and what do they do with the son finally do they respect him finally do they repent finally?
Do they pay the master? What’s owed? No quite the opposite if it was strange that the owner of the vineyard sent his son
Here’s the really strange part these wicked tenants look at him and they say to themselves
That’s the heir
Let’s kill him
So that we get the inheritance.
Now that is just stupid.
I mean, how many of you, if you think to yourself, well, you know, there’s a guy with a big house
and a nice car and he’s got a son who’s going to inherit it all, but if I go and kill the
son then I’ll get the house and the car.
You get thrown in prison.
You don’t get to be the heir.
But this is the point.
I mean, sin is always foolish.
Sin never makes sense.
Sin is never rational.
But we want to get to the plot here in a little bit with why the Pharisees have to do this.
But the Pharisees say, this is the heir, let us kill him so the inheritance will be ours.
So they threw him out of the vineyard and they killed him.
What do you think the owner of the vineyard will do to them?
He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.
Now the Pharisees know that Jesus is knocking on their door.
However, when they heard this, they say, it can’t be, surely not, because they know that
He is condemning them of rejecting not only the servants, but also the Son.
And Jesus is here saying that their kingdom will be destroyed and given to another.
Surely not, they say, but Jesus looks directly at them and says, why is it written, Psalm
From 118, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
Jesus is the stone.
The builders are the scribes and the Pharisees.
Their rejecting of Jesus is His crucifixion, but God in His resurrection and ascension has
made Jesus Christ to be the cornerstone of His church, and this is what matters.
Jesus â and this is a kind of unique parable because not only does Jesus tell the parable,
He gives the punchline of the parable, and then He gives the Old Testament background
to the punchline, and then He gives a recap of the parable as a riddle.
He says, everyone who falls on the stone will be broken, but whoever the stone falls upon
will be crushed.
In other words, there’s a stone falling, and you will either be on top of the stone and
saved or under the stone and crushed.
And Jesus is that stone.
So clear is the preaching that from that very moment they try to arrest Jesus and lay hands
on Him, but they feared the people so they couldn’t do it, and they have to go and plot
how to catch Him and hand Him over.
Now, as we look at this text, we can see pretty clearly that Jesus is getting after the Pharisees,
but we’re tempted to say, well, what of it, right?
We’re not part of the Pharisees.
They’re the bad guys, and we are the good guys.
They’re the ones that were rejecting Jesus.
We’re the ones who have gathered here on Sunday to worship Jesus.
They’re the ones that were plotting to trick Him.
We’re the ones that are listening to His words, but let us not forget that each one of us
Jesus has in our own heart a little Pharisee living there, and here’s the point.
That Pharisee wants to build up, you and I want to build up a monument to our own righteousness.
That’s what the Pharisees are building, that’s what they’re doing, that’s what they’re using
the stones for, and that’s why they have to reject Jesus, because Jesus stands as a rebuke
to every form of self-definition and self-righteousness and self-indulgence and self-sinnerdness and
And anything that has to do with the self, Jesus says that your righteousness comes from
me and from me alone.
So for all of us, this text is a call to repentance.
To every single one of us, this text is a call to throw aside this building of this
monument to ourselves, which we are naturally engaged in, and to worship Jesus.
Paul gives it to us so clearly in the epistle.
He was being dogged by all of the Judaizers who were coming and saying that he wasn’t
a true apostle, that they should listen to them and so forth.
And Paul says, look, if anybody has reason to brag, it’s me, I’m of the tribe of Benjamin,
I’m a Pharisee of Pharisees, I’m righteous according to the law.
But look at what he says, everything, all of these things that I have done myself, all
of my sin and all of my good works, all of it I count as loss for the surpassing worth
of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
Instead of throwing Jesus into the rubbish bin, everything else that we have we throw
into the rubbish bin that we may gain Christ and Him alone.
And here’s the key for Paul and for you and I this morning, that we would be found in
Him. Not having a righteousness of our own that comes from the law, but that
righteousness that comes through faith in Christ. The righteousness of God that
depends on faith. When we recognize our own sin and we fall on this rock, broken
and contrite in heart. He saves us. He delivers us. He rescues us. And He keeps
us as His own. So may God grant it for the sake of Christ that we would not
rejoice or build our own righteousness but trust in Christ and Him alone who
God has made for us to be righteousness, sanctification, and peace.
In the name of Jesus, amen.
And the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus
Christ our Lord, amen.
