Latest / HBCWestminster / 1.2.22 Luke 20:9-18 Pastor Danny Gardner

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1.2.22 Luke 20:9-18 Pastor Danny Gardner · HBCWestminster

• 0:00
  If you have your Bibles, open to Luke chapter 20. Luke chapter 20, we're going to read verses 9 to 18. And when you find it and if you're able to stand in honor of God's word, I would ask you to do that as I read our text. Luke 20 verses 9 to 18. And then we'll pray and begin. Verse 9, and he began to tell the people this parable. A man planted a vineyard and let it out to tenants and went into another country for a long while.
• 0:31
  When the time came, he sent a servant to the tenants so that they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed. And he sent another servant, but they also beat and treated him shamefully and sent him away empty-handed. And he sent yet a third. This one also they wounded and cast out. Then the owner of the vineyard said, What shall I do? I will send my beloved son. Perhaps they will respect him. But when the tenants saw him,
• 1:01
  They said to themselves, This is the heir. Let us kill him so that the inheritance may be ours. And they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others. When they heard this, they said, Surely not. But he looked directly at them and said, What then is this that is written? The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.
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  And Lord, your word knows us and it confronts us. It drives us to our knees. It forces us to be honest about our own heart condition and to ask for your forgiveness. We ask that you give us open hearts to receive the truth as revealed in your book. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Thank you, church. Well, the winter holidays are concluded. Now we look forward to the spring.
• 1:58
  We look forward to Resurrection Sunday just a few months out as we march our way toward celebrating the crucifixion and resurrection. So also we march forward in our study of Luke's gospel as it parallels Christ's journey toward the cross. We are now about halfway through the Passion Week. Christ, who is our master conductor, is ensuring that the melody line of his ministry, and as you recall, that is chapter 19 and verse...
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  10 where it says for the son of man came to seek and to save the lost that melody line of his ministry is itself not lost in the mayhem of the crowd's messianic euphoria we said that jesus never forgot why he came and despite how that week began with his being hailed as king he never forgot that those same crowds would only six days later be yelling crucify him the events
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  About to happen in the city of Jerusalem will not in any way take Jesus by surprise. He was purposely, masterfully orchestrating the events surrounding his own death. When he said that no one takes his life from him, but he lays it down freely, he was serious. We are reminded that we do not live in a world at peace with and in love with Jesus Christ. We live in a world at war with him and at war with his people. And what we read in our New Testament is what is happening worldwide.
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  a wholesale rejection of Christian morals, values, and beliefs, a rejection of truth, even down to a rejection of our very biology. We are like the clay shaking our fists at the potter, demanding to know why he made us this way. As you read the pages of Scripture, you realize that these things are nothing new. They are exactly what we should expect. You'll recall the words of Jesus in John 12. In verse 24, truly, truly, he said, I say to you,
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  Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. And this was the attitude of Christ. He knew that if he was to bear spiritual fruit, he must first die. And for the final few days of Jesus' life, what will be our study until Easter, we will look at the systematic attempt of the Jewish religious establishment.
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  in conjunction with the Roman Empire to completely erase the ministry of Jesus from the map. In that effort, they will bury him in the ground, completely unaware of the fruit that their actions would bear. In this morning's text, Jesus tells a parable that will ensure that his hearers will seek to rid him from their nation. They determine they cannot allow him to continue preaching in this way, and so they fall right into his trap.
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  a trap that will end with his burial. The text before us this morning is a prophetic parable. It describes the murder of Jesus. It was told perhaps on Tuesday or Wednesday of the Passion Week, only two days prior to the crucifixion, Jesus' temple cleansing, where he only a day before...
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  drove out the corrupt keepers of the temple precinct confirmed his enemy's decision to remove him in fact if you look at Luke 19 verse 47 just a few verses ago it actually says the chief priests and the scribes the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy him and here he tells a parable predicting not only what they would do but what they would accidentally accomplish by it as you know I enjoy reading
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  I enjoy reading fiction. I especially enjoy reading fiction that makes you think, solving clues, guessing the answers to riddles, putting together hints that authors may drop in order to figure out whodunit. Imagine this parable to be like a murder mystery. Not because it's difficult in any way to decipher who it was that committed the murder, right? Rather, it's a mystery because of what the Lord accomplished through the murdering of his own son. There's no question regarding whodunit.
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  The parable says exactly who it was that committed the murder. What it doesn't provide until the very end and what Jesus tags on to the end is the answer as to what was accomplished through that murder. The father used the murder of his own son to provide life and atonement for his followers. Now the parable was intentionally directed at the Jewish religious leaders.
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  But, as J.C. Ryle has said, we must not confine its application to them. This parable, he says, contains lessons which should be remembered in all churches of Christ as long as the world stands. And here we are 2,000 years later. The world is still standing, barely, and the church is still here. Which means, he says, this parable has lessons for you and I.
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  You say, well, what parable, what lessons from this parable can I draw today? What lessons are there for me? Lessons like this one. This parable gives a glimpse into the deep corruption of human nature. In fact, we at times, and we all know this, we at times like to pretend like we are good. That we're better than we are, but we're not.
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  What we have before us this morning is a perfect representation of what would be our dealings with God and toward Christ, if not for his abounding grace. This is exactly how we would treat the Lord, if not for the Lord's goodness to us. The parable provides a perfect illustration to Paul's statement when he said, but by God's grace, there go I. Another lesson that we can learn is that it puts on display the amazing patience and long-suffering of God.
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  The Lord's messengers were consistently rejected. Do you see that in the parable? And yet he sends another one, and then another, and then another, and then another. Prophet after prophet, we find in the Old Testament, was sent by God to his people with a message of acceptance, forgiveness, and love. Our Lord is amazingly patient and long-suffering, but it also shows the severity of God's judgments.
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  when they fall on sinners, especially obstinately beset by sin. God, we know, is a gracious God. He is unwilling to force upon his people what they are unwilling to receive. In fact, Exodus chapter 34 says this, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. Isn't that the God that we enjoy?
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  That is our God. He is abounding in love. He is merciful and gracious and slow to anger and faithful. And he keeps his love and he forgives our iniquity over and over and over. Isn't that the God that we love? It is indeed. And yet notice the truth tacked on at the very end. It says, but who will by no means clear the guilty. He says, you know what? If you don't want that forgiveness, I'm not going to force it on you. If you want to remain in your guilt, okay, I guess you can.
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  J.C. Ryle again has said we must never flatter ourselves that God cannot be angry. Yes, he can. He is indeed a God of infinite grace and compassion. Amen and amen. But it is also written that he is a consuming fire. And so let's look at the story and then at Christ's startling statements, predictions that he would become the rejected stone of the Jewish faith only to become the chief cornerstone of the Christian faith. You'll recall that Jesus was,
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  surrounded by a great crowd they'd followed him since his triumphal entry and the story he tells is told not only to the crowds but about the crowds and the actions that they would take in a mere matter of hours and notice in verse 9 it says he began to tell the people a parable by saying a man planted a vineyard and let it out to tenants now terrorist vineyards are everywhere in the hill country of israel they still are
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  In Matthew's parallel account, the master also constructed a hedge, a wine press, and a tower for its protection. This was a common occurrence. This would have been a story well known to his hearers. Also common would have been the hiring of tenant or contract farmers. Those farmers would have had the freedom to work the land the way that they wanted, but they didn't own the land itself. They would, at the end of the harvest season,
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  pay the owner of the land an agreed upon price or percentage of the produce, and then they could keep the rest for themselves. He continues, the master went away into another country for a long while. Now, it never says how long. We can assume his absence must have spanned many months, perhaps years, since he missed the growing and harvest seasons. Verse 10, when the time came, he sent a servant to the tenants.
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  so that he would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. And so we find when the harvest came, the owner dispatched one of his men to collect what was due to him. Again, no surprise, very common. All of this would have been standard operating procedure, except for the word but. Verse 10, but the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed. This would have been shocking news.
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  That the owner's servant would be treated in such a way? Jesus' hearers would have known this was not only wicked, this was criminal. In fact, the word for beat is a severe Greek word. It could also mean a full body pummeling. It could have been translated abused. The man was abused and sent away. They didn't just turn him around at the gate and send him away. They angrily...
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  beat the tar out of him with malice in their hearts, and then sent him away. Now, if you just stopped right there, what would you expect the next verse to say? If you were the master of the vineyard and you sent one of your servants, you've got a contract, right? What would you do? You call the police, you call your lawyers, you get your warrants, you get your stuff in order, right?
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  You go in there with a warrant and an army, don't you? I mean, you don't get to treat my people that way. Verse 11 should read, And the master of the vineyard showed up with a small band of soldiers, and they kicked in the door. Right? But that's not what it says. Verse 11, And he sent another servant. He sent another servant? He shouldn't have. But they also beat and treated him shamefully and sent him away empty-handed.
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  The words there, treated shamefully. It's the Greek word traumatized. They traumatized him and sent him away again. Again, Matthew's parallel account says that additional servants were sent. They were all treated in similar ways. Matthew says some killed, some stoned. These tenant farmers were wicked by all accounts. Verse 12, and he sent yet a third.
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  This one also they wounded and cast out. They refused to do what was right. They refused to keep their word. They refused to uphold their side of the contract. And I love verse 13. You can imagine here, the hearers, his audience, they're appalled, right? This is not right. The owner of the vineyard says in verse 13, what shall I do? If you stop right there, you notice.
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  This is in quotes. Jesus actually said this out loud. He's asking the crowds, what should I do? And you can almost hear their reply. Like, what do you mean, what should you do? I'll tell you what I would do. You ever fantasize about what you would do in a given situation? Right? Well, if that were me, I'd have done it this way. Or if that happened to me, if I was there, it's a good thing I wasn't there. I'd have handled business. I'd have knocked somebody on their rear end.
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  You can almost hear the thoughts of Jesus' audience. They're already imagining what they would do if they were in that situation. Man, if I was that owner, I would, and you can fill in the blank. Or, what should you do? What a stupid question. There's only one thing to do. Take vengeance. They killed your servants, now you go and kill theirs. And I guarantee, church, that none of them would have thought to do what the owner did next.
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  What shall I do, he asks in verse 13? I will send my beloved son. Perhaps they will respect him. You know, the language there is great. What he actually says is, I will send my only begotten son. I will send my only begotten son. Surely, they will respect him. Again, Matthew's account adds the words, last of all. Last of all, I will send my beloved son.
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  They must respect my beloved son. Respect for his son would have been so assumed that any other response would have been considered shameful. And it's almost like the master is always wanting to give the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he was thinking, well, maybe they just have such a low view of servants, right? Seeing them as property, equating them with animals. You notice the master never saw them that way.
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  But he says, maybe they just think so lowly of servants. And if that's the case, then surely they will respect my son. Verse 14, but when the tenants saw him, they said to themselves, this is the heir. Let us kill him so that the inheritance may be ours. They threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? Through thoughtful planning and...
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  with full knowledge of who he was right this was premeditated it was premeditated murder in the first degree they thought that if this was the master's only son maybe the son's inheritance would pass to them because there would be there would remain no one else to work the property maybe we can steal the property by killing the son and i love this question that he asks in verse 15 what then will the master the owner of the vineyard do to them
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  You guys catch it? He is absolutely setting a trap here. What should the master do? Our house always gets mice in the wintertime. Every time when the weather turns cold, mice infiltrate our house, which is a great joy to us. In fact, as I was leaving for church this morning, I actually saw one, so brazen are they, running across the floor with all of the lights on. I set out the traps.
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  You know, I'm assuming they must like the warm interior of our home. We enjoy being hospitable people, not necessarily to mice. I've asked my neighbors about it, both neighbors on both sides. You guys always get mice in the winter? They say, no, we have dogs. I said, okay, so you have dogs that gets rid of the mice? They say, yeah, the dogs kind of sniff them out, smell them out. And they said, we've trained our dogs to run the mice toward your house. Great.
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  You know, you can imagine Jesus telling this story. Just listen to it a point at a time, right? Oh, you can hear him. He's pulling back the arm of that trap. He's squeezing a little bit of peanut butter onto the trigger. He's gingerly swinging that arm over the spring, right? And then he's setting it delicately in front of their toes. Here it is. You can just imagine him sliding that mousetrap.
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  Right over to the fronts of the toes of the people who are listening. And in verse 15, here it is. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to him? There he is. He's setting it and now backing up. What is the owner of the vineyard going to do? The trap has been set. His audience knows exactly what they would do. Before they could even answer, he describes what would happen. Look at verse 16. He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.
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  Isn't that what he should do? Isn't that what they just said they would, that he should do? That's exactly what they should do. But then it says when they heard this, they said, surely not? You know, it's funny. Again, Matthew's parallel account. I'm just going to point out one little phrase here. One little phrase. They said to him, they said to him, he will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.
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  He asks them a question. Luke doesn't record it, but Matthew's account does. He asks them a question. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? And Matthew records, they reply. They give the answer. What's the answer? Kill them all. Put those miserable wretches to death and let out the vineyard to somebody else who's going to follow through. They actually replied. You guys catch that? They answered the question. That's important to know.
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  When they heard this, they said, surely not. Again, in the Greek, an emphatic, never, never, never. Don't let him do that. You're like, wait, they just said that's exactly what he should do. Why would they then say no? Because, church, the meaning suddenly occurred to them. Look back at verse 16, right at the end. When they, it says, heard this.
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  The Greek word there, akuo, it's where we get the word acoustic. Acoustic. The sound of his words suddenly reverberated in their minds and hearts, and they understood. They didn't just listen. Now they heard. They comprehended. They suddenly realized what? What did they suddenly realize? Who he was talking about.
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  They suddenly connected all of the dots and so when they just thought it was a nice story They were like act kill them all the miserable wretches put them out and then suddenly it sunk in and they thought oh, no, don't do that No, wait, I think he might be talking about us What was it that they suddenly understood look at the parable in pieces? The owner is who the owner is clearly God. How do we know because God owns everything?
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  Psalm 24 and verse 1, the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. God is clearly the owner. They figured that out. Who are the vineyard? The vineyard is the nation and the people of Israel. Isaiah chapter 5 and verse 7, for the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel. The men of Judah are his pleasant planting. Psalm 80 and verse 8, you brought a vine out of Egypt. You drove out the nations and you planted it.
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  Who are the tenants? Those tenant farmers, the contract farmers, are the religious leaders within Israel. They weren't the owners. The owner is God. They were merely tenant farmers. They were the kings and the priests, the self-appointed false prophets of Israel. They were any and all who claimed any kind of religious authority in Israel. In Jesus' time, they were the high priests, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes, the lawyers.
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  The experts in the law. What about the long journey? The long journey is the Old Testament history given from Abraham to Jesus. About 2,000 years. The owner gave over the field, Israel, to tenant farmers, and then he took a long journey. 2,000 years. It's the history of the Jewish people to that point. Now, who were the servants that were being sent? These were the Old Testament prophets.
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  At certain intervals, God sent his servants, the prophets. They were rejected and killed. They were stoned. They were cut in two. From Moses to John the Baptist, they all had the same job. They were to call the people to love and worship God, to repent from their sin, to cry out to God for mercy and peace. But those prophets were rejected. They were shamefully treated. In fact, the history of Israel can be summarized as a history of
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  rebellion and apostasy isaiah was perhaps sawn in two with a wooden saw jeremiah we know was chased he was imprisoned in a cistern he was eventually stoned to death ezekiel the same amos had to flee for his life zechariah was stoned michael was punched in the face john the baptist the final and greatest of all of the prophets according to jesus was imprisoned
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  and then beheaded. Hebrews 11, verse 35 says, Some of the prophets were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, even chains, imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn in two. They were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, of whom the world was not worthy.
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  wandering about in deserts and mountains and in dens and caves of the earth. Alfred Plummer said it this way, the uniform hostility of kings, priests, and people to the prophets is one of the most remarkable features in the history of the Jews. The amount of hostility varied, and it expressed in different ways, on the whole increasing in intensity, but it was always there. In other words,
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  The thread that binds the history of Israel together is not obedience to God. Rather, it's the killing of his prophets. You want to know what they're known for? The one thing that ties it all together, it's the killing of his prophets. One day, Jesus had some not so nice things to say to the scribes and the Pharisees. In fact, his exact words were these. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You're like whitewashed tombs.
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  which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you're full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them.
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  and shedding the blood of the prophets, you know, in a matter of two more days. In a mere two pages in the scriptures, they would prove otherwise. Can you imagine? They would say, they would go and decorate, Jesus is saying, decorate the tombs of the prophets, decorating the monuments of the righteous, all the while saying in their own hearts, if we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in the shedding of the blood of the prophets. We wouldn't have killed them.
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  Our generation would be different, and yet in a mere two more days, they would prove otherwise. Alistair Begg has said this in this parable, Christ pulls back the curtain of their hypocrisy and hostility. He lays bare their predicament. Instead of bowing down before Christ and embracing Him as their Lord and Messiah, they resolve with an unmitigated bitterness to be rid of His influence once and for all.
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  In fact, if you skip just to the next section in verse 19, Luke chapter 20 in verse 19, it actually says the scribes and the chief priests sought to lay hands on him at that very hour. Right then they said, we got to get rid of this guy. We can't let him go on anymore. But you'll notice finally what God accomplished through the murder of his son. There's no mystery at all in the parable as to who done it.
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  The real mystery is why done it? Why did the master allow his own son to be murdered in this way? The book of Ephesians describes a great and eternal mystery revealed in Christ playing out in the church. In fact, the Greek word for mystery, mysterion, is used seven times in the book of Ephesians. This word for mystery.
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  As unlike our English equivalent, it doesn't necessarily describe something that can be ascertained given enough time and thought. Rather, it describes something that is impossible to know without divine assistance. The point is this. The crucifixion of Christ, the murder of God's own Son, would reveal a great mystery, that being the redemption of mankind and the reconciling of man to God. Look then at verse 17.
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  But he looked directly at them and said what then is this that is written the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces and when it falls on anyone it will crush him This is why Jesus quotes Psalm 118 describes a rejected stone That would become the chief cornerstone of God's kingdom rejected by men rejected by his own people
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  And yet becoming the very bedrock of the church. And Lord, this is the message that we rejoice in this morning. That the rejected stone has become the chief cornerstone of your body, your people, your bride, the church. Lord, we thank you for preserving your church, sustaining your church. And Lord, we rejoice in the good news that we have a firm foundation in Jesus, in whose name we pray.
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  Amen.