Who Owns This Vineyard?
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The Parable of the Tenants Luke 20:9-19
The Parable of the Tenants Luke 20:9-19
A few years ago, a family living in a beautiful home in West Palm Beach, Florida, told a movie director and a film crew that it was okay to use the front lawn of the house as a set for filming an episode of a TV show. They knew that cars would be crashing violently in front of the house, and the yard was going to probably get ruined. While the front yard was being destroyed, the owner of the home was tipped off and called from New York, demanding to know what was happening to his house. You see, It seems that the people living in the house were only tenants who had no rights to allow the property to be used for the movie.
Andrew Syrios, in his blogpost for biggerpockets.com back in April 2017, lists the “4 Types of Horrible tenants, and how best to deal with their shenanigans.” He lists them as “The Destroyers, The Non-Payers, The Pests, and the Professional Tenant. Those that break everything— those that won’t pay the rent (which reminds me of the story we will study today!), those that seemingly bother everyone around them, and those that are looking to take you to court over minute discrepancies in lease agreements, rental contracts, or any number of loop-holes in rental and eviction law.
What we see in our West Palm example— is that awful mistakes can happen when those who are tenants begin thinking and acting as if they were owners. Can you imagine tenants in a beautiful mansion who refuse to pay rent and who threaten or beat up those whom the owner sends to collect rent? They argue, “We live here; it’s our house now.” No one making that claim would stand a chance in a court of law. The owner has the right to receive rent and to have his property treated rightly.
With this thought in mind— let’s read this parable Jesus shares in Luke 20:9-19
9 He went on to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard, rented it to some farmers and went away for a long time. 10 At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants so they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 11 He sent another servant, but that one also they beat and treated shamefully and sent away empty-handed. 12 He sent still a third, and they wounded him and threw him out. 13 “Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my son, whom I love; perhaps they will respect him.’ 14 “But when the tenants saw him, they talked the matter over. ‘This is the heir,’ they said. ‘Let’s kill him, and 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 tenants and give the vineyard to others.” When the people heard this, they said, “God forbid!” 17 Jesus looked directly at them and asked, “Then what is the meaning of that which is written: “ ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’? 18 Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.” 19 The teachers of the law and the chief priests looked for a way to arrest him immediately, because they knew he had spoken this parable against them. But they were afraid of the people.
The parable answers the question that the leaders had just asked Jesus: “By what authority are you doing these things?” If God owns the vineyard and Jesus is the Son and rightful heir to it, then He is acting under God’s authority. The Jewish leaders have wrongfully usurped the authority of God, the rightful owner.
Thus the fundamental question that all who hear the parable need to answer is, “Who owns this vineyard?” We soon will discover that how we answer that question will determine how we live.
If we acknowledge that God owns the vineyard, we will live accordingly.
To further understand this parable, lets identify the main characters:
Owner of the vineyard ….. God
The vineyard ……………. Israel
The fruit......... product, replication
The farmers ……… Religious leaders
Servants of the owner …… prophets
Son/Heir of the owner ….. Jesus
When they heard this parable, Jesus’ audience would immediately have thought about Isaiah 5:1-7
1 I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard: My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. 2 He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit.
The prophet Isaiah calls Israel “God’s vineyard” and goes on to warn that He would lay it waste because it produced only worthless grapes. Jesus shows that God expects fruit from His vineyard, but He emphasizes God’s great patience and love in sending many messengers and finally, His beloved Son.
Jesus also spoke in imagery like this earlier in his ministry— the disciples would have heard this, and remembered what he said in
34 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.
These things apply not only to ancient Israel, but also to us, whom God has graciously grafted us into His family. Pairing this teaching with our message from last week— on how Jesus confronted the corruption in the temple--- We can begin to see that Jesus is using this last week of his ministry on earth to get people to understand His ideals for worship. I would like us to consider four observations about God and those who profess to be His people:
1. God expects fruit from His people.
1. God expects fruit from His people.
Why go to the bother of planting a vineyard if you don’t expect fruit? It was a common arrangement for an owner to rent out his vineyard to tenant farmers who would pay him a percentage of the crop each year. So, at the proper time, the owner rightfully sent a servant to collect what the farmers owed him.
The owner was not a greedy tyrant, who stood over them with a whip, driving them mercilessly. He was not a slave master. He freely entrusted the vineyard to them and let them work it as they saw fit. But for these privileges, they owed him a certain amount of fruit.
So it is with us: We are greatly privileged in that God has given us His Word and has supplied us with everything pertaining to life and godliness. He wants us to bear the fruit of “Christ-like” lives so that hurting and hungry people around us will know of His love and goodness through us.
We who live in America are perhaps the most spiritually privileged people in all of history. With these great privileges comes the responsibility of bearing fruit for the owner of the vineyard. Investing in the next generation, our children and youth, is a great example of how we as a church are taking steps and teaching, reinforcing our faith in Jesus in their lives.
Clearly, these wicked tenant farmers in the parable were not working for the owner, but for themselves. The irony is, we always find the most pleasure when we live to bear fruit for Christ, not when we live for ourselves.
John 15:5 (NIV)
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
(“Our Daily Bread,” Nov., 1983).
I recently read a wonderful story of a man who always found many excuses to turn down his pastor’s request that he teach a class of 13 teenage boys. Finally, he admitted that he was afraid that preparing and doing that would cut into his time on the golf course. He finally realized how self-centered that was and agreed to take the class.
He worked hard at it and within a few months, he had led six young men to Christ. On the Sunday that the sixth boy professed his faith in Christ, the pastor asked the teacher, “Has giving up golf Sunday been worth it?” With tears in his eyes, the man said, “My only regret is that I’ve waited so long to put others ahead of myself. This is better than even 6 holes in one!” The joy that he found in teaching that class of 13 boys, six of whom he had personally led to faith in Jesus, far exceeded any pleasure that he could experience on the golf course.
God, the owner of the vineyard, expects fruit from His people.
We have been given so much - shouldn’t there be a return on God’s investment?
2. God’s patience motivates us to live for Him.
2. God’s patience motivates us to live for Him.
If we really examine the story, the parable is not really like real life. These wicked farmers rough up and send away the first servant sent by the owner. I’m thinking that a human owner would not have put up with that. Any sensible businessman immediately would have thrown the jerks out, prosecuted them legally for their negligence and abuse, and replaced them with tenants who would be more faithful in managing his vineyard.
But I’m glad to say that this owner, who represents God, was not a very good businessman in our sense of the word. He sent a second messenger, who also was mistreated. Now after two times, anyone else would say, “That’s it! These guys have had more than enough time!” But this owner sends yet another, — a THIRD messenger, whom they wounded and cast out also.
12 He sent still a third, and they wounded him and threw him out.
Jesus is teaching all of us the unreasonable, illogical, divine patience of our gracious God. He sent His prophets to Israel over and over again, warming them, and looking for the fruit. But the disobedient nation ignored them, mistreated them, and even killed some of these faithful messengers. Yet in spite of this, God kept sending them, over and over again, as a demonstration of His abundant patience and grace.
If you have been a Christian for any length of time, you should be able to look back at God’s extravagant patience and grace in His dealings with you and it ought to motivate you to serve Him more passionately. How many times I have been self-centered, living for my own aims, not even trying to bear fruit for the Lord! And yet He always keeps sending His messengers to get me back on track!
Where human patience would end, God sends three messengers!
Who has God sent your way lately to be a messenger from him? Thank Him for his patience and willingness to continue to remind us of his love for us, and his patience with us!
The greatest motivation to fruitful, faithful living is actually not the many prophets God sent. It is His final messenger:
3. God expresses unconditional love by sending Jesus into the world.
3. God expresses unconditional love by sending Jesus into the world.
Believe it or not, the owner had one more to send, his beloved son.
Luke 20:13
13 Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my beloved son; perhaps they will respect him.’
Again, at this point, the parable is not exactly true to reality. In reality, God doesn’t wonder about what to do or about what will happen if He does it. Both the Father and, as the next verse shows, Jesus the Son, knew that He would be rejected and killed. It was no surprise.
15 So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. “What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them?
Think about that statement for a moment. Jesus is telling this story, to illuminate a real life situation — and everything up until this point in the story has already happened— but this verse becomes prophecy. Jesus is standing there among them— and he predicts exactly what is going to happen to himself.
Jesus knows what is going to happen—and he is faithful to the Father (the owner of the vineyard). He represents his fathers love in the world.
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Jesus reveals both God’s great love, and man’s great unfaithfulness.
But in telling the story, Jesus brings out the vineyard owner’s “quandary” to show both the depth of God’s amazing love and the deep wickedness of the human heart. The Father’s love is so great that He was willing to send His beloved Son even after the three other servants had been so abused.
Note that Jesus stands apart from the other messengers that God had sent. They were servants, but Jesus is the beloved Son. Jesus is God in human flesh.
Blaise Pascal: French Philosopher, Scientist and Mathematician
“Knowing God without knowing our own wretchedness makes for pride.
Knowing our own wretchedness without knowing God makes for despair.
Knowing Jesus Christ strikes the balance because he shows us both God and our own wretchedness.” Blaise Pascal, Penses’ 192
God knows our hearts. He sees not only the obvious sins and injustice in the world, but he even sees the private hidden sins of our lives too. And while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Martin Luther once exclaimed, “If I were God and the world had treated me as it treated Him, I would kick the wretched thing to pieces!”
We can all identify with his feelings!
Romans 5:8
8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
As Charles Wesley put it in his great hymn, “Amazing love! How can it be, that Thou, my God, shouldst die for me!”
The real dilemma for most of us lies in the distance between what we deserve and what we are worth. Jesus is the answer to that dilemma. This distance is brought together in Jesus.
But the parable doesn’t stop there--- it shows not only God’s great patience and love, but also His righteous judgment he has on those who reject His Son.
4. Jesus is God’s final messenger, the cornerstone of all creation.
4. Jesus is God’s final messenger, the cornerstone of all creation.
Jesus pronounces the judgment that the owner of the vineyard “will come and destroy these vine-growers and will give the vineyard to others” (20:16). That thought prompts the people to exclaim, “May it never be!” It shocked them to think of such a terrible thing would happen! That judgment took place in A.D. 70, when the Roman general Titus destroyed the city and the Jews were scattered. The point is, if we profess to be God’s people, yet live selfishly and do not bear fruit in His vineyard, He will set us aside and raise up others.
I am enthralled with what I consider the pinnacle of the whole passage:
17 Jesus looked directly at them and asked, “Then what is the meaning of that which is written: “ ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’?
He knows that they know where that comes from… It’s Psalms 118:22-23
22 The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; 23 the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes.
19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone,
These wicked tenant farmers could kill the son, but God would raise him up to be the chief cornerstone, just as His Word prophesied. I hope you realize the truth of this passage— and that you would make it your goal to build everything in your life on top of the cornerstone of everything. To be building on anything else is not going to work— and its pretty foolish.
But do you know what follows in that same passage? Psalm 118:24-26
25 Lord, save us! Lord, grant us success! 26 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. From the house of the Lord we bless you.
The very same Psalm contains the cheer of victory for the one who rode into town on the donkey! Hosanna!
This parable was given to men who professed to know God, to the national religious leaders. But they wrongly thought that they owned the vineyard. They thought that it was their ministry. They were using it for their own selfish purposes.
This church is not my church. It is not the elders’ church. It is not your church. This is God’s church. He’s the owner of the vineyard. If He allows us to work in His vineyard, we are blessed. Any work that we do in the vineyard is not for us; it is for the owner.
Verse 18 sums it up quite well:
Luke 20:18 (NIV)
18 Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.”
We all can understand this picture. If I stumble and fall on Jesus, I might be bruised, or even broken. That is our human condition. We actually want this over the alternative— because if we come to the end of it all, and we are not able to humbly acknowledge that Jesus is Lord. I want to be found on TOP of the rock— not underneath it. If this stone falls on us— we are done for.
And the teachers and authorities of Jesus’ time still didn’t get it— they were dead set to oppose him and even wanted to kill him— playing out the exact story he had JUST told them. Praise the lord for the depth of scripture and the understanding that he gives us.
We’ve been given a wonderful assignment to work in the Father’s vineyard, here in our personal lives, and as a community of believers at Walnut Creek. We, as the leaders of our fellowship here, are fully committed and passionate about you serving in your capability, to your full capacity, for the production of fruit for His glory.
Let’s pray.
