Luke #45: Refusing the Son (20:1-19)
Notes
Transcript
Bookmarks & Needs:
Bookmarks & Needs:
B: Luke 20:1-19
N: Week of Prayer flyer
Welcome
Welcome
Bye, kids!
Good morning! I’m Bill Connors, senior pastor here with Eastern Hills, and I’m blessed to be here this morning as the church gathers together to worship the Lord and to reflect on His Word. I pray that this time is a blessing to you as well, but more than anything, I pray that our joining together today brings honor and glory to God, and points us to Him. This morning, I’d like to say a special thanks to our Bible study leaders. Each week, we have many Bible studies, both on Sunday mornings and at other times during the week. And each of our Bible study leaders spends time studying, preparing, praying, and then leading their particular studies each week. Our Bible studies are also a great opportunity to develop deeper connections with others in the church family. If you aren’t a part of a weekly Bible study, swing by the Welcome Center and get a card, or check out the classes online, and let us know if you have any questions about one.
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Opening
Opening
Last week here in Family Worship, we kicked off our Lottie Moon Offering season with a special time of sharing from Shari Gaches about what’s actually going on with our missionaries out in the world, specifically where she serves in Prague. I did not know that Europe has drifted so far away from its Christian roots that only 1% are considered to be evangelical Christians.
This morning, we come back to our verse-by-verse walk through the book of Luke as we consider the story of the King. This morning, we begin our look at the 20th chapter of Luke’s Gospel, considering the first couple of controversies that Jesus found Himself in likely on Tuesday of Passion Week: the week that He was arrested, tried, beaten, and crucified. So if you would please open your Bibles or your Bible apps to that chapter, and stand as you are able to do so in honor of the recitation of God’s holy Word, I will begin reading in verse 1:
1 One day as he was teaching the people in the temple and proclaiming the good news, the chief priests and the scribes, with the elders, came 2 and said to him, “Tell us, by what authority are you doing these things? Who is it who gave you this authority?” 3 He answered them, “I will also ask you a question. Tell me, 4 was the baptism of John from heaven or of human origin?” 5 They discussed it among themselves: “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why didn’t you believe him?’ 6 But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ all the people will stone us, because they are convinced that John was a prophet.” 7 So they answered that they did not know its origin. 8 And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.” 9 Now he began to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard, leased it to tenant farmers, and went away for a long time. 10 At harvest time he sent a servant to the farmers so that they might give him some fruit from the vineyard. But the farmers beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 11 He sent yet another servant, but they beat that one too, treated him shamefully, and sent him away empty-handed. 12 And he sent yet a third, but they wounded this one too and threw him out. 13 “Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What should I do? I will send my beloved son. Perhaps they will respect him.’ 14 “But when the tenant farmers saw him, they discussed it among themselves and said, ‘This is the heir. Let’s kill him, so that the inheritance will be ours.’ 15 So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. “What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? 16 He will come and kill those farmers and give the vineyard to others.” But when they heard this they said, “That must never happen!” 17 But he looked at them and said, “Then what is the meaning of this Scripture: The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone? 18 Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but on whomever it falls, it will shatter him.” 19 Then the scribes and the chief priests looked for a way to get their hands on him that very hour, because they knew he had told this parable against them, but they feared the people.
PRAYER (Missionaries on the field, especially in Europe like Shari Gaches)
I confess to you that sometimes I made really bad choices when I was growing up. When I was a kid I’m certain that this played out many times in my house with my parents, though I can’t remember a specific event. My mom could probably think of a few. But let me paint the picture, and see if any of you parents, and you students, can relate:
An opportunity comes up to do something that you are pretty certain your parents would not approve of, but that you want to do. The first bit of thinking that gets assaulted is your commitment to your parents’ instructions: Am I sure that my folks wouldn’t be okay with this? What do they know about this? What makes this choice any of their business, anyway?
Once you’ve addressed your commitment, then comes the next level—your willingness to submit to your parent’s wishes: They just don’t understand. They don’t get how strongly I feel about this. I should get to do what I want… it’s my life, after all. They just want to control me or ruin my life.
And once you’ve decided on refusing to commit and refusing to submit, you go your own way. And when things go very wrong or you wind up in hot water for going your own way, you refuse to accept the logical, reasonable consequences of your choice (such as getting grounded)… and in fact, you resent your parents for correcting you, for disciplining you, … basically for loving you: If they would have warned me that this or that bad thing could happen, I wouldn’t have done it...If they didn’t have such stupid rules, I wouldn’t have to break them! It’s all their fault.
You see, sometimes rather than turning and changing our direction at any point in the scenario, we double down on our poor thinking and get further and further away from where we need to be: We refuse to commit. We refuse to submit. We refuse to accept. None of those ways of thinking are good or right or godly, but we do them anyway.
Any adults live this out when you were younger? I bet that most of us have been there. The funny thing is that we probably live this out with God way more often than we care to admit, and we see it reflected in this morning’s focal passage as well, as we see Jesus interact with the Jewish leaders.
1: Refusing to commit
1: Refusing to commit
The path for the rejection of Jesus starts for some with not an outright denial or refusal, but with a questioning of His authority instead. And until we have had our questions answered to fullest of our satisfaction, we are simply unwilling to commit. We see this in those who came an interrupted His teaching on that Tuesday in the temple courts:
1 One day as he was teaching the people in the temple and proclaiming the good news, the chief priests and the scribes, with the elders, came 2 and said to him, “Tell us, by what authority are you doing these things? Who is it who gave you this authority?” 3 He answered them, “I will also ask you a question. Tell me, 4 was the baptism of John from heaven or of human origin?” 5 They discussed it among themselves: “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why didn’t you believe him?’ 6 But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ all the people will stone us, because they are convinced that John was a prophet.” 7 So they answered that they did not know its origin. 8 And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”
As we saw two weeks ago, Jesus was in the last week of His earthly life prior to His crucifixion, and He chose to spend every day teaching in the temple and declaring the Gospel. And this leadership trifecta: the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders, come with this question about authority. These were likely an official entourage from the Sanhedrin, the ruling Jewish council. Jesus had predicted that this would happen, and where it would eventually lead:
22 saying, “It is necessary that the Son of Man suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, be killed, and be raised the third day.”
Likely they were bothered by what Jesus was teaching, as well as by what He had done on Monday when He turned over the tables of the merchants and drove out the money changers. They saw themselves as the authority for Jewish life, and since they didn’t tell Jesus He could do those things, where did He get the idea that He could do them?
But Jesus doesn’t answer their question, choosing instead to ask a counterquestion about John the Baptist’s ministry (referring to a part of his ministry—baptism—as representative of his whole ministry… a literary device called a synecdoche). Was it from heaven, or from men? This may seem like it comes out of left field, but it doesn’t. Since John was the forerunner for Jesus’s ministry (and the go-between for the old and new covenants), it matters whether his ministry was heaven-sent or man-made.
You can almost see how the leaders respond to being asked the question: I picture them gathering into a huddle and discussing it in whispered tones, every now and again one of them popping his head out to look furtively at Jesus or around at the people gathered in the temple. They have found themselves trapped between a rock and a hard place: if they say “from heaven,” then Jesus can accuse them of failing to believe in someone God had sent—ignoring a true prophet of the Lord. If they say “from man,” then they would be saying that John was a false prophet, even though "all the people” considered John to be a true prophet. This would make them false prophets in the eyes of the people, and put them at risk of the punishment for false prophets—death by stoning (Deut 13). Neither answer has a desirable outcome in their minds.
So what do they do? They refuse to respond to His question at all. They just refuse to commit one way or the other, thinking that this will get them out of the logical jam they find themselves in. But they’re wrong. Their refusal to commit only reflects their failure as the spiritual leaders of Israel, because they show that they have no right to any kind of spiritual authority, since they can’t even tell whether someone was a prophet or a crazy guy in the wilderness. And as they refused to answer Jesus, so Jesus refuses to answer them (but He’s honest about it).
This is how some people approach Jesus today—in what is called agnosticism. The agnostic believes that we can’t know about the nature or the existence of God, and so they claim to neither believe in nor deny Him. Functionally, it’s passive atheism—no knowledge, so no faith, so no belief, so no response. But the agnostic thinks they might be okay if Christianity is true, because they haven’t flat out rejected Jesus. But the truth is that not to decide is to decide. If you don’t decide FOR Jesus, you decide against Him.
Jesus has already made this clear a couple of times in Luke, as we have seen:
24 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will save it.
23 Anyone who is not with me is against me, and anyone who does not gather with me scatters.
See, we don’t have the option of just “not responding” to the question of whether Jesus is Lord. We can say “we don’t know,” but that’s really just saying “no.”
The writer of Hebrews gives it to us straight:
2 In these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son. God has appointed him heir of all things and made the universe through him. 3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
Jesus is God the Son, through whom the universe was made and by whom it is held together, the “exact expression” of God, and thus is knowable. The Scriptures tell us that He made “purification for sins” by dying in our place on the cross as a punishment for our sins, and that He rose again, and has ascended to heaven where He sits at the Father’s right hand, and that He will return to judge the world. He has all authority and all power.
Salvation is through belief in what Jesus has done to save us: trusting in Him as Savior and surrendering to Him as Lord. There is no “kind of” saved. Simply not answering the question of who Jesus is isn’t an option. Refusing to commit to Jesus is deciding not to commit to Jesus… it’s not a middle ground.
So they, and we, refuse to commit. But another way in which we refuse the Son is by our refusal to submit to Him.
2: Refusing to submit
2: Refusing to submit
Whereas refusal to commit was not taking a stand, a refusal to submit means a willful choice to reject the authority of Jesus. Jesus said that this is really what the religious leaders of the day were doing, even though they claimed to know and obey God. He said this by means of the parable of the wicked tenants:
9 Now he began to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard, leased it to tenant farmers, and went away for a long time. 10 At harvest time he sent a servant to the farmers so that they might give him some fruit from the vineyard. But the farmers beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 11 He sent yet another servant, but they beat that one too, treated him shamefully, and sent him away empty-handed. 12 And he sent yet a third, but they wounded this one too and threw him out. 13 “Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What should I do? I will send my beloved son. Perhaps they will respect him.’ 14 “But when the tenant farmers saw him, they discussed it among themselves and said, ‘This is the heir. Let’s kill him, so that the inheritance will be ours.’ 15a So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
This parable also appears in Mark 12 and Matthew 21, and is incredibly rich. A group of farmers are leased a large tract of land from a wealthy landowner, where they are to create a vineyard. If they were starting this vineyard from scratch, then it would take three to four years before they would see their first real harvest. In the meantime, the owner of the land would have bankrolled their operations as an investment in years of future income and produce from the vineyard. This was actually a common practice in the fertile crescent in the Roman empire. As He often did, Jesus draws upon a very common practice of the time to illustrate His point.
The owner sends servants after “a long time” to collect his rents at the normal harvest time, and they refuse to pay. He sends one, and they beat him. A second, and they do one worse: they beat him and mistreat him. A third, and again, they up the ante—giving this one a “wound” which likely would have led to his death. This owner is incredibly patient with his tenants.
Finally, he decides to send his beloved son, who has authority over the vineyard, and who will one day own the vineyard and be the landlord of the farmers. The expectation is that they would respect him because of that authority. The farmers, however, go the other way and somehow think that killing the son will make the vineyard theirs forever. So they throw him out of his father’s vineyard and kill him.
The question that we’re left with at this point is this: where did the tenant farmers get the idea that they would somehow inherit the land if they killed the owner’s son? The best you can say is that these characters might think that if they kill the heir, then the owner is too far away to want to bother with them, so the death of the son would make them the de facto heirs—rulers of their own little kingdom. But ultimately, we can say that they thought so because the Storyteller wanted them to think it because it made a point about His true meaning in the parable.
Not all parables can be taken allegorically, but we can do that if we are given the interpretive key that tells us that we can do so. Again, like several of the other parables in the Gospel of Luke, we are given this key that allows us to understand what each of the various aspects stand for something in reality. This key is actually found in verse 19: “He had told this parable against them.”
So the parable is against the Jewish leaders—they are the wicked tenants. If that is the case, then the owner of the vineyard is God, and the vineyard is His kingdom—His people. This makes the parable probably a reflection on or a reinterpretation of Isaiah 5:
1 I will sing about the one I love, a song about my loved one’s vineyard: The one I love had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. 2 He broke up the soil, cleared it of stones, and planted it with the finest vines. He built a tower in the middle of it and even dug out a winepress there. He expected it to yield good grapes, but it yielded worthless grapes. 3 So now, residents of Jerusalem and men of Judah, please judge between me and my vineyard. 4 What more could I have done for my vineyard than I did? Why, when I expected a yield of good grapes, did it yield worthless grapes? 5 Now I will tell you what I am about to do to my vineyard: I will remove its hedge, and it will be consumed; I will tear down its wall, and it will be trampled. 6 I will make it a wasteland. It will not be pruned or weeded; thorns and briers will grow up. I will also give orders to the clouds that rain should not fall on it. 7 For the vineyard of the Lord of Armies is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah, the plant he delighted in. He expected justice but saw injustice; he expected righteousness but heard cries of despair.
There is no way the religious leaders would have missed this connection. They had been given spiritual care over the people of Israel—a fact that we just saw they also believed through their question about Jesus’s authority—and yet they had not done so faithfully.
Instead, throughout Israel’s existence, the leaders had consistently mistreated the Lord’s “servants”—the prophets—in defiance of the Lord and His authority. We see this rejection of the prophets throughout Scripture: for example, 2 Chronicles 36:14-16 records the mistreatment of the prophets of the Lord, Jeremiah records his own personal beating in Jeremiah 20:2, and the prophet Zechariah son of Jehoiada (not the author of Zechariah) was stoned to death in 2 Chronicles 24.
Jesus had already spoken about this in Luke’s Gospel as well in chapter 11, and again in chapter 13:
34 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!
Now, if we know who all of these others are, then interpreting who the “beloved son” represents is simple: It’s Jesus Himself. Throughout Luke’s Gospel, we’ve seen the references to Jesus as the Son of God: first in the beginning of the Christmas story in Luke 1:
32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David.
And we see God’s declaration of Jesus’s sonship in chapters 3 and 9 as well.
35 Then a voice came from the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, the Chosen One; listen to him!”
The tenant farmers in the parable decide that the best course of action to keep or even to improve their positions is by putting the son to death, so the religious leaders somehow are thinking the same thing. And as Jesus has already predicted, these same religious leaders will call for His death, and He will be killed.
Now, we read in verse 9 that Jesus had told this parable to “the people.” The common folk of Israel were not the culprits, but the vineyard. Whether or not they understood the ramifications of this parable is unclear by the response to Jesus’s closing of the parable in verses 15 and 16:
15b “What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? 16 He will come and kill those farmers and give the vineyard to others.” But when they heard this they said, “That must never happen!”
There’s no way to know for certain whether their statement, “That must never happen!” was because of their offense at the tenants’ mistreatment of the son or of the owner’s response to the murder of his son. However, I think it was the former: they were offended at the farmers’ refusal to submit to the owner, missing the meaning behind the parable.
Jesus here was again alluding to the coming judgment against Jerusalem which would take place in 70 AD, when the city would be destroyed by the Romans, which Jesus had predicted when He wept over the city during His Triumphal entry on Sunday, which we looked at two weeks ago (19:41-44).
So this parable reflects a refusal of the religious leaders to submit to the authority of the Owner, and of His Son. They had been given care over the vineyard of God’s kingdom, and they had rejected God in the process, and would reject His Son who had been sent to them to call them to repentance.
The question remains: how would killing Jesus help them at all? It’s because they thought the kingdom and the nation were theirs, not God’s. Just a few days before this would have taken place, they had said in a discussion recorded by John:
48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”
Jesus was a threat to their position, their power, their prestige, and their popularity.
And as a result, the vineyard...the kingdom...would be given to others. In fact, the vineyard would become others as salvation through the Messiah was offered to those outside of the people of Israel, and the political nation of Israel would be destroyed.
They refused to submit to the King, and in their sin, they thought they had a way to protect themselves, and would end up losing everything instead.
Isn’t sin always like this? It makes great promises, but then never lives up to what it promised to give us? But still, we listen to the promises of our sinful hearts and believe them, refusing to submit to the authority of the Son, and trying to get what we want in the way that we want it, as if our kingdoms are actually our own.
But our kingdoms aren’t our kingdoms. We are but tenant farmers. We owe God not just a portion, but all of us. And interestingly enough, if you really give thought to this parable, the owner in the parable pursues not just what he is owed, but the tenants themselves. He is long-suffering in allowing them to mistreat his servants who had been sent to collect the rents due. He takes a great risk in sending his beloved son so that the relationship could be restored. How He desires that we walk with Him and give Him what belongs to Him—our faith, our worship, our obedience.
21 For you were called to this, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. 22 He did not commit sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth; 23 when he was insulted, he did not insult in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten but entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree; so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. 25 For you were like sheep going astray, but you have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
By refusing to submit to the authority of the Son, thinking that we somehow get to maintain and keep our own kingdom instead, we actually lose everything. Surrender to Jesus this morning and be saved! The author of Hebrews writes:
3 how will we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? This salvation had its beginning when it was spoken of by the Lord, and it was confirmed to us by those who heard him.
And brother and sister in the Lord, understand that we are given a sacred stewardship of the Gospel, which we know that we don’t deserve. We are to be a people who live out this lavish, shocking, undeserved, and unexpected love every day, and we are to help others live it out as well.
How will we respond to this incredible offer of salvation and blessing? Will we accept the offer, or will we refuse it? We see in our passage that the religious leaders chose the latter.
3: Refusing to accept
3: Refusing to accept
In response to the people’s cry of desire that the parabolic situation would never happen in Israel, Jesus turns the corner to His application of the parable. In it, He declares that He is the foundation, the cornerstone of the kingdom of God, and the results of refusing to accept that truth. This is actually the crux of our entire focal passage: the identity and authority of Jesus.
17 But he looked at them and said, “Then what is the meaning of this Scripture: The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone? 18 Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but on whomever it falls, it will shatter him.” 19 Then the scribes and the chief priests looked for a way to get their hands on him that very hour, because they knew he had told this parable against them, but they feared the people.
The application that Jesus makes is that He is the stone that the builders have rejected, but that instead is actually the cornerstone that holds up the entire structure. He was quoting directly from Psalm 118:22:
21 I will give thanks to you because you have answered me and have become my salvation. 22 The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. 23 This came from the Lord; it is wondrous in our sight.
The imagery of the Messiah as the cornerstone is also found in the book of Isaiah:
16 Therefore the Lord God said: “Look, I have laid a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; the one who believes will be unshakable.
The elders refused to see the truth about Jesus because they were too busy protecting their own kingdoms. It’s ironic, really. Jesus predicted that they would kill Him, and rather than doing some heart searching, they plot to kill Him instead, fulfilling exactly what He had just said about them. They would reject the cornerstone, and as a result, would face God’s judgment.
Jesus is the cornerstone to stand on. If we stumble over Him, meaning we reject Him or refuse Him, then we destroy ourselves. If we end up with Him falling on us, meaning that we face condemnation, we will be destroyed in judgment. There’s no middle ground, other than to build our lives upon the cornerstone. He is the cornerstone of Israel’s existence: the primary reason God set them apart was for His glory as He brought the Messiah into the world through them.
And now Jesus is the cornerstone of the church, as if the Jews and the church are two walls that come together and stand upon this firm foundation. We see this all come together in the New Testament in Peter’s first epistle:
6 For it stands in Scripture: See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and honored cornerstone, and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame. 7 So honor will come to you who believe; but for the unbelieving, The stone that the builders rejected— this one has become the cornerstone, 8 and A stone to stumble over, and a rock to trip over. They stumble because they disobey the word; they were destined for this.
There will come a day when we will all face judgment. And that judgment will be based upon what our relationship to Christ. Those who disobey the word are destined to stumble and fall. Those who believe will partake in the honor and glory of the Son.
11 This Jesus is the stone rejected by you builders, which has become the cornerstone. 12 There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people by which we must be saved.”
Closing
Closing
Accept the fact that Jesus is the cornerstone of salvation. He is the foundation upon which we can stand. Do not walk in refusal to submit to Him, and commit to the truth of His identity and authority as Messiah. Believe the Gospel and be saved.
Surrender
Baptism
Church membership
Repentance
Prayer
Giving
PRAYER
Closing Remarks
Closing Remarks
Bible reading (1 Pet 4:12-5:14 (EOB), Ps 141)
No Pastor’s Study
Prayer Meeting joining in our Week of Prayer for International Missions together
Instructions for guests
Benediction
Benediction
19 So, then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building, being put together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you are also being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit.
