Showdown at the Temple: Jesus Confronts the Corrupt System

But showdown at the temple. And as we see in this opening slide today,

some of you may not can see all the slides if you're sitting way in the back,

but you have a little sermon guide back there in the back if you'd like to get

one or work through it this week as well.

But the whole direction as we see in this opening slide, this next slide of

Luke's gospel has been moving toward the cross.

We saw that in chapter nine, verse 51. And now Jesus has entered the city that kills the prophets.

We saw that back in chapter 13. And the next two chapters here take place during

the Passover season in the temple complex where Jesus is going to teach daily until he is arrested.

And as the temple, remember, is the center of the Jewish religious life of which Jesus was so critical,

It's really fitting, y'all, that the final climactic showdowns of his earthly

ministry should take place here at the temple.

Yes, at first we have the cleansing of the temple right here.

In fact, Luke's account of the cleansing of the temple is much shorter than

those of the other gospel writers.

In fact, his version actually leaves out the overturning of the money changers

tables that we read about in Matthew 21.

But Jesus entered into the temple courts, it tells us, in Luke 19, verse 45.

Luke 19:45

Particularly those outer court where Gentiles were permitted to actually mix

with the Jewish worshipers.

And the Sadducees, if you remember, oversaw this region of the temple.

And the changing of money and the selling of animals for sacrifices was a huge

stream of revenue for the temple.

But Jesus was outraged by this profiteering of those who were selling, right?

And he says that in verse 45, we saw that as he drove them out,

he actually compared their work to that of robbers, to robbers.

In fact, you see, my house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it

a den of robbers. That's Luke 19, 46.

And the first part of this verse, or the part of this quote in this verse,

comes from Isaiah chapter 56, verse 7.

Isaiah 56:7

And in context, where the Lord is actually seeing a day,

church, when all peoples, both Jews and Gentiles, will actually be able to bring

acceptable worship to him.

Now, I want to stop there for a moment, and I want y'all to think about that.

Did you hear what we just said?

Acceptable worship to him. Let me just stop a minute and say that,

y'all, when we come together as the body of Christ,

this is a holy, sacred time when we're worshiping God, when God's word is being proclaimed, right?

And that's one of the reasons why we encourage each other. Don't be distracting.

You know, don't be typing out on your cell phone or your iPad or whatever it

is that you have, unless you're using it to read the Bible, right?

But even then, you got to be careful, right?

Because we can get distracted so easily. Because if we don't have those things

turned on silent or notifications on silent, man, you get a pop-up from Facebook

or you get a pop-up about email. Oh, maybe I need to look at this,

right? It can be a distraction.

And we all know that we can be distracted from God's Word so easily.

And I think Satan doesn't so much mind you coming to church.

It's just, are you going to listen to God's word? Are you going to be instructed

by it? Are you going to actually worship him?

Or do you keep on with your living like you always do through the week, right?

So it's a time that's holy, that's set aside. It's a time where we actually

humbly come together. We don't want to distract one another, right?

We don't want a ton of movement going on because we want to focus on God while

we're here to bring acceptable worship to him, ready to worship him,

ready to listen to his word, to be changed and challenged by it.

But you got to realize today at the Jerusalem temple, the place where sacrifices

were actually bought and worship was offered here,

the system of buying and selling had turned God's house into a den of robbers.

And really he's quoting from Jeremiah 7, 11.

There was, if you think about it for a moment, you look at the passage of scripture,

this was a gesture that was just, for lack of a better term, pregnant with meaning.

Jesus eventually stormed in and he staged a coup in the temple.

He kicked out the old system, church, and then proceeded to hold court for the next five days.

Teaching a rapt audience that actually hung on his every word.

It says right here in the passage, Luke 19, verse 47 and 48, the religious leaders,

Luke 19:47

including the chief priest, the teachers of the law, and the leaders among the

people all understood the significance of what was happening here.

The only thing keeping them, don't miss this, the only thing keeping them from

killing Jesus was the adoration of the crowds at this point. That was it, y'all.

And that really brings us next in this passage to a question of authority.

On a subsequent day, when Jesus was preaching the good news,

the elders and the chief priests, they confronted him about,

if you look there in chapter 20, verses 1 and 2 of Luke 21 and 2,

it confronted him about the authority by which he was doing all these things.

And y'all, this was the one place where they probably felt like that they could

press an advantage over Jesus.

He was wildly popular, according to verse 48 of chapter 19, but he did not have a title or a position.

Jesus was outside of the religious and the political establishment.

And so in the eyes of the leaders here in this passage, y'all,

he had no credentials or pedigree, if you will, to justify his cleansing of

the temple and his ministry of teaching, right, and healing.

And Jesus didn't answer them directly, though. But instead, you know what he did?

He turned the matter around and he asked them a question about the authority

that lay behind John's baptism.

You know what he asked them? Chapter 20, verses 3 and 4, look at it in your

Bible, Luke 23 and 4. Was it from heaven or of human origin?

That's what he was really asking, right? Was it from heaven or human origin?

Y'all, this was a strategically brilliant question. I think for at least two reasons.

First, it actually effectively trapped the leaders here into answering their own question.

For John had testified clearly that Jesus was the Messiah, the anointed king

sent by God to save his people.

And if the leaders acknowledged that John's authority was from heaven,

in fact, we can go ahead and look at this next slide here.

If they actually acknowledged that his authority was from God, what's going to happen?

Then Jesus could simply tell them, well, listen to what John said about him.

John proclaimed him as the Messiah, right? He had the authority,

according to John, to cleanse the temple because he was the Messiah.

But if they said that John's authority was not of divine origin or not from

God, then what are they facing?

Well, you stop and think about it. It would be obvious that they were not in

a position where they would be willing to acknowledge Jesus' authority either

if they don't recognize John's authority.

And in forcing those leaders, Eastwood, to take a position on John here,

Jesus was actually forcing them to take a position on his ministry as well.

He was essentially making them answer the question they had asked him. Pretty clever, right?

In fact, the second aspect, as we see in this next slide, of this brilliance

was that it put the leaders on the horns of a political drama, right?

In fact, go back one slide, Dakota. I'm sorry. I put you too forward a little

bit. It put them on the horns of a political drama, a fact that they acknowledged

here in verse five and six of chapter 20.

They obviously could not admit, again, that John's ministry was from God because

that would open them to rebuke since they had not believed him,

it tells us in verse five.

Nor honored him even as a prophet.

But they were also afraid of who again? The people.

The people, y'all, were persuaded that John was a prophet.

Look at verse 6. And apparently the people, y'all, had rocks that they were willing to throw.

Wow. They had rocks they were willing to throw.

So the religious leaders didn't dare say anything negative about it.

Y'all, it's really indicative of the spiritual condition of these leaders.

That the truth, don't miss this today, the truth was far less important to them

than the political ramification of the truth.

And as a result, you know what? They chose to take the least damaging route

and simply told Jesus that they didn't know how to answer his question.

Verse seven, they came to undermine Jesus' authority, church.

Don't miss this in the text, but they were the ones who had been exposed as

woefully inadequate to exercise leadership over God's people.

If they would not answer Jesus's question, in other words, with integrity,

they would not receive an answer from Jesus, as you see in verse 8.

And that brings us, as you saw the slide already, to the parable of the vineyard in this passage.

Y'all, the tension in this moment, we're still in this same moment, okay?

Think about it. The tension in this moment must have been so thick that you

could cut it with a knife.

The people were hanging on Jesus' word, every word. It says in verse 48 of chapter

19, but the religious establishment, literally what? What did they want to do to Jesus?

Kill him. That's what they really wanted.

Now, just when they thought that they had Jesus cornered with his question about

his authority, they found themselves, y'all, publicly humiliated by his response here.

Most people in this situation would want to change the subject or say something

just conciliatory or in order to kind of, you know, diffuse the tension a little bit, right?

Jesus, I just want y'all to know this. You probably already know it,

but Jesus was not most people, okay?

Not most people. Instead of trying to pacify the angry leaders,

he actually turned to the crowd in chapter 20, verse 9.

You know what he did? He told a parable that was clearly meant to skewer the

scribes and the Pharisees in verse 19.

As you know, the parable recounts the relationship between a man who actually

planted a vineyard and the tenant farmers to whom he rented it. in verse 9.

Y'all, this was a fairly common business relationship in those days,

wherein the farmers would actually work the land and pay their rent with a share of the fruit.

When the owner, who had gone away, it says for a long time in verse 9,

he actually sent a servant to collect the rent that was owed. Look at verse 10.

The tenants, what did they do to the servant?

Yeah, the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed.

And we're not told what motivated their actions,

but it seems that they understood the landlord's absence here as an opportunity

for them to actually assert themselves and their personal interest over and

against him and his, right?

And the owner actually responded with amazing patience to all of this.

He actually sent a second and a third servant.

Each of whom received, by the way, the same scandalous treatment.

We see in verses 11 and 12 of that passage.

At that point, Eastwood, he decided to send his beloved son in the hope that

they might show him more respect.

Do you think they did? Hope they would show his son more respect than they had shown to his servants.

It talks about in verse 13. but the tenants

here at this vineyard however saw their

chance to what to kill the son

and take ownership of the vineyard for themselves verses

14 and 15 it seems that they misinterpreted the son's appearance y'all as a

sign that maybe the owner had died and so if they were able to actually eliminate

the man who stood to inherit the property then what could happen they might

be able to assert something like our concept today,

especially in some states, of squatter rights. You've heard of them, right?

But this was, however, a drastic miscalculation, right?

They assumed that the owner was either dead or feeble and lacked the will to oppose them.

But y'all, they could not have been more wrong, Brother Ronnie.

Jesus actually ends the parable in verse 16 here by saying that the tenants

will be destroyed and the fields they have tried to steal, what's going to happen?

We'll be given over to other tenants.

So let's break this down because the parable opens up really neatly along these

allegorical lines, right?

And the immediate response of the audience here in the passage,

you look at verses 16 and 19, show that the meaning of the parable,

y'all, was just totally evident to them. It was transparent.

The vineyard, let's break it. Are you ready? Break it down.

The vineyard is an image used in the Old Testament to represent who? the nation of Israel.

We learned that Isaiah 5, Psalm 80. This would mean that the tenants of the

parable, the tenants, are the leaders of Israel, namely the chief priests,

the scribes, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees.

It was their job, don't miss this, it was their job to tend the vineyard of

God's people, to work to help it produce spiritual fruit. For who? For the Lord.

The servants that are sent to collect the proceeds, who are they?

They're the prophets who called on the people of Israel to what?

To produce the obedience and justice and worship that they owed to the Lord.

And the people of Israel systematically here mistreated God's prophets.

We see that in the scripture.

We saw that back in Luke chapter 11, chapter 13.

Luke 11 · chapter mention

And now in just a few short days, this generation would make matters worse.

How does it say there? By killing God's son.

Do you see where it's pointing? Do you see where the parable's pointing?

The primary point of the parable was not merely to reflect on the history of Israel, but rather,

y'all, to explain that the leaders of Israel were gonna be removed from office by who? The Lord.

They would be replaced by followers of Jesus.

The scribes and the elders, they didn't miss the meaning of Jesus' parable either.

Because you look in verse 19 of chapter 20 there, take a look.

They were outraged by it, but Jesus, you know what he did?

He looked right at them, and in verse 17 there, he responded to their objection

with a quotation from Psalm 118.

At first glance, by the way, and we'll see in this next slide,

it seems like an abrupt change of subject to start with.

After all, they've been talking about vineyards, messengers, and sons, right?

And now suddenly, the topic has shifted to what?

Builders and stones. Builders and stones.

But most likely, y'all, this is just a play on words at work here in this passage,

because you're going to like this,

because the words for son and stone in Hebrew and Aramaic, which is most likely

the language that Jesus was speaking, are similar. Thank you.

Ben and Eben, they were similar.

And so it's likely that Jesus is creating this play on words,

mixing his metaphors a little bit in this passage, because he tells a story

about a rejected son, Ben,

a rejected son, and then he quotes a Psalm about a rejected stone, Eben.

You're probably thinking Ebenezer, right? Well, anyway, Ebon,

right? A rejected stone.

Jesus, y'all, is both the son of God and the cornerstone on which the people

of God are built, is what he's saying.

And you look at it there in chapter 20, verse 17 of Luke.

And also, as we read earlier in verse 18, the stone on which the enemies of God are what?

They're broken. They're crushed. You see it? Verse 18. And when the parable

and the quotation from Psalm 118 are put together, what do we see?

We see that the leaders of Israel are both like the tenants who rejected the

owner's son and also the builders who rejected the most important stone, the ebbin.

In fact, in rejecting Jesus and his ministry, y'all, the leaders of Israel were

actually missing out on the thing that they most needed.

They were like builders, in other words, who were tasked with creating a building, right?

But had foolishly rejected the one stone that was crucial to holding the whole structure together.

You know, on the most basic level here, this parable and the quotation from

Psalm 118 that comes with it.

They're not aimed at followers of Christ on the most basic level,

but they are aimed at the leaders of Israel and Jesus' day that rejected him.

But y'all, I believe there are principles at work in the teaching that we can

import into our circumstance.

If you think about it, the tenants' most basic crime here was that they were

acting as if they should be who? The owners.

And not the caretakers, of the vineyard. Instead of using the land,

the church, for the benefit of the owner, what did they want to do?

They wanted to use it for their own selfish purposes.

And that dynamic, as we see in the next slide, is a powerful picture of what

sin looks like in your life, in my life.

God has given you all kinds of resources, family, friends, intelligence,

personality, relationships, leadership, all of it.

All those responsibilities that you've been given and you were given all of

those things in order to serve who?

God. And to bear fruit for him.

But what does sin do? Sin tempts us to live our lives.

Don't miss this. It tempts us to live our lives as if we are the owners of all

of these things and not the tenants.

Sin is living as if we make the rules in God's vineyard.

Think about it. Who owns the vineyard of my life? Who owns the vineyard of your life?

Do we make the rules? Are we acting like we're the owners?

Putting all the means of production to work serving ourselves instead of God, the owner.

In fact, in the terms of this parable, sin is most basically acting as if you

are the owner when you are really, and I am really the tenant.

At its most basic level. And I want y'all to look at one more slide here because

I think this is so important.

What is our response gonna be to Jesus?

You think about it. Are we gonna receive the sign?

Those religious leaders didn't, did they? Are we gonna trust the cornerstone?

So receive the sign, Ben.

Trust the cornerstone, Eben.

And then what, bear fruit for who?

God. Y'all, that's what we're called to do here, y'all. That's what we're called

to do at Eastwood Baptist Church.

Have we been living our lives like we own it, like we own the vineyard?

Are we realizing that God has placed us here for a purpose, y'all,

and brought us here together in this community at Eastwood Baptist Church in

Babonet, Alabama, to produce fruit for the kingdom?

You think about it. all the responsibilities God has given you.

In fact, if you're a leader of any kind or you help to teach or do anything,

you think about all those responsibilities, those giftings, all of that,

and even the spiritual gifts that God has given all of us.

Are you acting as the owner or the tenant?

Are you receiving the son? Are you building your life on the cornerstone?

Or are you just kind of saying, man, you're throwing away that most critical part you need.

You know, you think about it. What alternative cornerstones do we seek to build our lives upon?

You think about it this morning. I'm going to encourage you right now,

if you would, to stand with me just to bow your heads for just a moment.

You think about these religious leaders for just a moment as Ms. Sharon comes to play.

You think about how they had rejected everything that the owner had done to reach them.

They rejected the servants, the prophets. They rejected and killed God's own son.

They missed out, y'all. They missed out on the Messiah.

They lived as if they owned it all instead of God.

Y'all, I wonder today if there's any of us here today, maybe we've been living

our lives for ourselves.

Maybe we've never truly surrendered. Maybe we've never truly come to that point,

where we say, Jesus, you are the chief cornerstone in my life.

Lord, you're the one I need to build it on, Lord. You're the one,

Lord, I need to bear fruit for you, Lord. I need to tend what you have given me.

All these gifts, all the responsibilities in your vineyard here at Eastwood.

I need to be involved. I need to take it seriously.

I need to be used by you to see that your vineyard here, through the power of

your Spirit, produces fruit.

And if that's you today, maybe right where you stand, you might just do business

with God. Some of you may not know the Lord, possibly.

Today could be your day to repent, to say, Lord, forgive me a sinner. I'm in need of a Savior.

Be your day to walk this aisle and surrender to Christ. Some of you may have

been here, and maybe you've been coming for a while. Maybe you say,

you know what? I want to get involved in God's work here at Eastwood.

I want to be part of this local body of believers right here to serve in God's

vineyard. We invite you to come.

Whatever it is that God may be dealing with your heart about today,

don't walk out of here ignoring it.

Do business with God. He has blessed you with so much.

He wants to show you that He wants to show up in your life to be the foundation of everything you do.

So receive the Son. Trust the cornerstone.

Bear fruit for the owner. Bear fruit for God Almighty.

That's the challenge today. Father God, as your Spirit moves in our midst,

Lord, we ask that you would draw people to yourself, God,

and people would do business with you, God, that we would do and obey and seek

to worship you with acceptable worship today.

You do business with God.