Matthew 21:23-26 - By What Authority

And go to the Gospel of Matthew.

We're going to be in chapter 21.

So I said last week we're entering into what is called the Passion Week, the final week of life of Jesus' earthly ministry, moving toward that day of ultimate suffering, the cross.

We find him in our passage again in the temple.

We're going to be looking at verses.

Well, we'll start in verse 23 and work our way all the way to the end of the chapter, a big section, but very related to one another.

And as Jesus enters into this temple, he returns to teach and finds himself confronted and interrupted by religious authorities with a question about his authorization for doing that.

And we find the conflict that's been swirling around Jesus since his birth and all through his ministries coming to a head.

And starting at the point that we'll look at, all the way through the end of the chapter and into the end of this next chapter, we're going to witness no more than five confrontations, five tense encounters between Jesus and the Jewish religious leaders.

Today we're going to look at his interaction with the chief priests and the elders, beginning in verse 23.

And in verse 45 mentions the chief priest and the Pharisees.

In the next chapter, which we'll look at later, we'll see a confrontation with the Pharisees and Herodians in verses 15 and 16, the Sadducees in verse 23, and even a specialist in the Torah in verse 35.

And following that will be Jesus' stinging condemnation of the religious leaders that is found in chapter 23.

Throughout all of these encounters, Jesus confronts and silences the religious leaders with the various means, his actions, his questions, his scripture quotations, and his parables.

In each of those situations, he is seen as a master of scripture, an expert in argumentation, and he has the ability to shut the mouths of those who try to silence his.

We're going to cover two of these confrontations today and a third one next week, and then more in weeks to come.

But I want us to understand what's happening here in the life of Jesus Christ as he confronts people who have not been fulfilling their roles and responsibilities in leading people into the kingdom of God.

In fact, the religious leaders have been countering any effort to bring the kingdom of God into the lives of others.

The first thing I want us to notice in verses 23 to 27 is a stony stalemate.

A stony stalemate, I call it.

Take a look at verse 23.

He enters the temple, the chief priest and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching and said, By what authority are you doing these things?

Who gave you this authority?

If we don't realize on the surface quickly what's being said here, it's important to know what's going on.

These two factions of people.

They're described here as the chief priest and the elders of the people.

Without our understanding, we would just sort of go past that without realizing the significance of those remarks.

The chief priests were one group, high-ranking members of the priestly line.

They joined together with the high priest himself in giving oversight to the temple activities, to the treasury, to the priestly orders, and all the sacrifices.

The elders, on the other hand, the elders of the people, were members of the Sanhedrin, the ruling body.

And so we have here representatives from what would be the faction of the Sadducees and people who are representative of the Pharisees.

Those two people hated each other.

How much did they hate each other?

Well, we discover an insight in a little passage in Acts 23 where Paul is under trial and he's in the middle of a group answering for himself.

And it says in that passage that he realized that a part of the crowd was Sadducees, and the part of the other crowd were Pharisees.

And so he takes advantage of the moment.

Why did he say that?

Well, Luke tells us, because the Sadducees say there's no resurrection at all, nor angels nor spirits.

And the Pharisees accept those things.

And immediately Paul is no longer the focus.

Now they're lobbing stones at each other.

And it says here that a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

And then in verse 9 it says, the shouting grew louder.

And some of the scribes and the Pharisees got up, and even though they hated Paul, they began to argue vehemently, Luke says, We find nothing evil in this man.

Paul's one of us.

And then it says, when the dispute became violent, the commander feared that Paul might be torn apart by them.

Not because of what he said about Jesus, but because he said, I'm not a Sadducee, I'm a Pharisee.

So here are these two groups in this passage of Scripture who would rip each other limb from limb in any other argument that they had, or all of a sudden here, arm in arm, pals, because there's one person they don't like, and that's Jesus.

And they both ask this question By what authority are you doing these things?

Who gave you this authority?

This is not a casual question for them.

These were the religious leaders, priests, scribes, Pharisees, members of the Sanhedrin Council, whose authority among the Jews was among the highest.

And it wasn't an improper question, if it was asked sincerely.

I mean, here Jesus just walked in the day before into this holy place and started rearranging the furniture.

And here, the next day, he's back and he's teaching like it's his place.

Who is this man?

This Nazarene, this man, he's not a scribe, he's not a Pharisee, he's not a Sadducee, he's not a priest, he's not an elder, he's not a well-known rabbi, and he's teaching here.

Why are you here?

Why are you saying you have the authority to do these things, they say?

Well, what are these things?

Well, yesterday, the triumphal entry, yesterday, the cleansing of the temple, yesterday, the healing of the lame and the blind, today, standing in the middle of the temple and teaching, or in the temple complex and teaching.

All of those events have said something about Jesus.

They've conferred on him a fourfold title that he's king and judge and healer and teacher.

When he came in, they cried out, Hosanna to the Son of David.

He's the king, he's the Messiah.

By calling him the Son of David meant he fulfilled all the obligations that needed to be fulfilled to be the Messiah.

As the judge, he is the divine legislator.

As the healer, he's the creator himself.

And as teacher, he's nothing other than incarnate wisdom.

And these religious leaders have no way to deal with this.

There's no way they can accept that all of these titles should converge on this one man without their giving him the authority to be that one man, to be all of that.

And they can't deal with the truth that all of these things have come upon Jesus with such obvious force and such obvious absoluteness that his origin is from God.

So they ask this vital question: Where is your authority?

Because we didn't give it to you.

Jesus responds with a question.

And he does so in a very common way that would have been argued back then.

An adverse question is responded to by a counter question, and then there's an admission, and then there's a final return.

This is a common way of conversation here.

Argumentative, yes, but common to them.

And he responds with a question.

I've got a question for you.

John's baptism, where did it come from?

From heaven or from human origin?

And these religious leaders realize that Jesus has just laid a logical trap for them.

They can't answer it.

On one hand, if they validate John's ministry, Jesus is going to connect the dots between John and Jesus.

Because what John says about Jesus is really, really important.

And that's what Jesus is driving at when he asks the question.

Well, what did John say about Jesus?

Matthew's gospel, we read this back in chapter three.

Jesus said, I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I'm not worthy to carry.

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

His one-owning fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn.

He was talking about Jesus.

John's gospel, John's baptism or testimony, gets even clearer.

I am the voice of one crying into the wilderness.

Make straight the way of the Lord.

And then he said in John 1, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Well, if they say that John's baptism came from heaven, then John's pronouncement about Jesus could have, well, that would have also come from heaven.

They can't do that.

They won't do that.

But they can't publicly deny the ministry of John the Baptist either.

Because the people saw him as a prophet, ordained of God.

And they feared the people because of that.

Even though John had been dead for some time, he still held sway over the people the people's opinion.

And so here they are, stuck between two impossible answers for them.

And so they equivocate.

Oh we don't know.

Squirming.

Like a politician who's been given a very direct question.

And doing like politicians do and like the rest of us do.

Interested not in the truth, but in making our opponent look bad.

These religious leaders are not interested in pursuing the truth.

They're interested in pursuing an outcome that's best for themselves.

And so their refusal to answer this question immediately exposes their dishonesty.

It exposes them to the accountability of their equivocating answer.

They're spiritually dishonest men.

They're not seeking truth from God.

They've hardened their hearts already to God's revelation, or they would have responded differently already to Jesus.

And so Jesus' condition has not been met.

He refuses to enter and later changes his mind and goes.

The second son, however, says, Dad, I'll go, but doesn't.

And Jesus asks the question, which of the two did what the father wanted?

And these men answer the question.

Well, the answer's obvious.

The one who went.

To agree to go and not go is to not go.

To say you're not going, but then go is to go.

It's a very obvious point.

But the application is very pointed to the Pharisees.

They claimed to have a favored relationship with God.

But when God called them to affirm the ministry and message of John the Baptist, they refused.

They didn't go.

And he picks out two categories of people: prostitutes and tax collectors.

People who, on the very surface of it, are certainly not laying claim to having a special relationship with God.

However, when they heard the preaching of John the Baptist, they repented and were baptized.

They said no at first, and now they've gone.

And so these priests and these Pharisees who have all this outward appearance of allegiance to God are the unrepentant ones and don't believe the preaching of John the Baptist.

And Jesus brings the point home to them.

He says to them, I tell you the truth, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you.

For John came to you in a way of righteousness, and you did not believe him.

Tax collectors and prostitutes did believe him, but you, when you saw it, didn't even change your minds then and believe him.

These look ready but actually refusing Pharisees can't stand the fact that Jesus has shown them so disfavorably and unfavorably before God by exposing them over against these people who look rebellious but are repentant.

And then Jesus tells them a second parable, parable of a vineyard owner, beginning in verse 33.

And without a pause, he launches into the second story.

It's a stinging one, just like the first.

A landowner plants a vineyard and rents it out to some farmers.

And when harvest time approaches, he sends servants to those tenants to collect the fruit.

But that doesn't happen.

The tenant sees his servants, they beat one, kill another, and they stone a third one.

And then the landowner sends more servants, and they do the same thing to them.

And then the landowner sends his son and they kill the son.

It's a very, very tragic story.

But it's simply and sadly this that God so loved the world that he chose Israel from among the nations to be a blessing to the nations.

He gave them his law.

He set up a city.

He gave them instructions for how to understand the forgiveness of sins.

He told them that he would be their God.

There are several verbs in verse 33 that describe how much God or the landowner works on behalf of this land to prepare it for the people that are going to rent it.

The Lord sends his prophets among the people to reap what he's sown, and the leaders of the nation of Israel persecute and kill the prophets.

Then with great patience, God sends them more prophets, and the same fate is met by them.

Finally, he so loves Israel that he sends his own son, Jesus Christ.

And Israel's leaders plot, arrest, and kill the son.

So back to the story.

Jesus asked the question when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to these farmers?

And the religious leaders are once again speaking their own judgment.

He will completely destroy these terrible men.

And lease his vineyard to other farmers who will give him the fruit of the harvest.

And if you look down at verse 36 46, they end up being the answer to their own statement.

Although they were looking for a way to arrest him, they feared the crowds because the people regarded him as a prophet.

So here's this stony stalemate that's followed with two stinging statements that are made here in these stories about the leaders.

What are we to learn from this?

Well, there's some significant things here.

And the first thing that we learn from this is God's refusal of empty religious devotion.

In the first parable, Jesus exposes these the false religion of the chief priest and the elders.

They're all about saying that they obey the Lord.

But when it comes to actually working in the field, just like the son who said he would go but didn't, they refuse.

The second son, if you were to look at the two of them, that second one looks so much better than the first one.

The father speaks to the second one, and his reply is verbally all the father could really want.

I will go, sir.

With this perfect politeness, the second son speaks to his father in a way to give his father the greatest confidence that what he wanted done is going to get done.

That he's fully at his father's disposal.

I'll do whatever you want, Dad.

He ascends to his father, he consents to his father's request.

He is very polite and precise and good-sounding.

He carries himself with this easy natural religiosity, which makes it feel like he's someone who stands in great contrast to his ungodly brother.

But he didn't go.

But he didn't go.

All of his fine phrases, all of his fair Promises, they're really nothing but words of deceit and falsehood.

You see, the older brother, or the second brother, never did go to the vineyard.

He didn't even go to look at it, let alone work in it.

He didn't pick up a pruning knife or a spade or anything.

He didn't go.

His father's vineyard could go to ruins for all he cared.

And yet, all the while he's bowing and scraping, promising and proclaiming, lauding his father, saying he's in submission to him and never is.

And the Lord paints a picture of vain religious worship with that stark of a story.

You see, we look at religious people and think, how wonderful for them, how devoted they are.

I hope they find significance in life from what they do.

From God's vantage point, it's repulsive and dishonoring.

They profess great reverence for the divine word, but when the divine word was spoken to them through John the Baptist, they plugged their ears and refused to hear it and carried on with their religious play.

The book of James tells us to be doers of the word, not hearers only.

Because if we do that, we're deceiving ourselves.

If anyone's a hear of the word, not a doer, it's like someone who looks in his face in a mirror, walks away, and forgets what kind of person they are.

He says this one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres in it is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer.

This person will be blessed.

If anyone thinks that their religion, without controlling their tongue, is worth anything, James says it's useless and we're deceiving ourselves.

He said, true devotion to God will show itself.

It will show itself in caring for the distressed and caring for those that are looked down upon and those who are in difficulty.

And it will also mean internal purity of heart, keeping yourself undefiled from the world.

So here, one of the significant statements of lesson we receive here is God's condemnation against empty religious, vain religious activity.

He doesn't care a whit about it in any favorable way.

In fact, he pronounces judgment upon it.

There's another significant thing we learned from this.

Jesus pulls it to a point for these religious leaders at the latter part after all of the stories are over.

Verse 42, he says, Have you never read in the scriptures the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone?

This is what the Lord has done, and it's wonderful in our eyes.

Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruit.

Whoever falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but on whomever it falls, it will shatter him.

The second thing we learn here is the retribution of God upon all who reject the Son.

Whoever falls on this stone will be broken into pieces, and whoever it falls on, it will shatter him.

Let's go back to that second parable for a second.

Things didn't turn out like the patient, long-suffering landowner had hoped.

He sent the servants, and then more servants, a lot of servants, and then his son.

And when the sun came, just like the sun is in front of these chief priests and elders, they did exactly what the story tells.

When the tenant farmers saw the sun, they plotted against him.

When these chief priests and elders saw the sun, they plotted against him.

And they said to themselves things that they wouldn't dare say openly.

They hate Jesus.

They know he's the Messiah, but they're afraid that he's going to assume a position of authority and steal away their authority and their inheritance and the wealth that they'll receive.

They say, This is the heir.

Let's come, let's kill him.

Let's keep this, let's seize this inheritance.

They knew he was the heir.

They knew that he was the one who was going to receive the inheritance, but they were trying to figure out a way to make it work out so it was better for them.

And so they caught the son, going back to the story.

They cast him out of the vineyard, and they killed him.

And here Jesus becomes prophetic in his story.

These tenant farmers immediately carry out what they plotted.

No sooner was it said that they went about doing it.

And then the three acts of this drama are carried out.

They catch the sun, they cast him out of the vineyard, and they kill him.

They catch Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.

They cast him out of the council halls of Caiaphas.

And they take him to Calvary and they kill him.

The air is slain, the job's done.

But it's not.

It's not.

These murderers don't long enjoy the luxuries of the vineyard that they thought they now had in their possession.

Swift justice overtakes them.

Jesus asks the Pharisees and the chief priest to answer the question: What will happen to these men?

What will the owner of the vineyard do when he comes?

He will completely destroy these terrible men and lease the vineyard to other farmers who will give him the fruit of the vineyard.

And they pronounce the judgment upon themselves.

All of the share and the honors of the kingdom that these religious leaders could have enjoyed if they had acknowledged the king, Jesus, is going to be ripped away from them and given to another people who will produce fruit.

Jesus presses that theme of judgment home in these latter verses when he says, He who falls on the stone will be broken into pieces, but if that stone falls on them, they're going to be shattered.

And he pulls together a couple places of scripture.

The first half speaking about the personal liability, the judgment of individuals who stumble or fall over Jesus Christ.

Isaiah chapter 8.

Isaiah 8 · chapter mention

He will be a sanctuary, but for both houses of Israel, he'll be a stone that causes men to stumble in a rock that makes them fall.

For the people of Jerusalem, he will be a trap and a snare, and many of them will stumble.

They will fall and be broken.

They'll be snared and captured.

Jesus pulls from Isaiah 8, and he also pulls from Daniel chapter 2, of the stone that was cut out, not made with hands, and rolls over the kingdoms of the earth and crushes them.

Daniel 2 · chapter mention

At the end of days, Jesus will come as judge, and he will fall on humanity.

And if the sun falls on an unrepentant heart, it will be shattered.

Shattered.

This despised stone will stand as the cornerstone over all humanity.

You see, Jesus is not only chosen by God and promoted to a place of prominence, he is also dangerous to ignore.

And these men should have known it, because the last prophet of the Old Testament says this in Malachi chapter 3.

Malachi 3 · chapter mention

See, I'm going to send my messenger to clear the way before me, John the Baptist.

Then the Lord you seek will suddenly come to his temple.

The messenger of the covenant you delight in.

No, he's he is that messenger.

See he's coming, says the Lord of armies.

But notice the next verse, Malachi three.

But who can endure the day of his coming?

And who is able to stand when he appears?

For he will be like a refiner's fire and like a launderer's bleach.

Who will be able to stand?

Not a one of us.

Not a one of us.

Peter picks up these verses that Jesus uses to encourage the people of God and to tell them that with them there is acceptance.

He says, Honor will come to you who believe.

But for those who are unbelieving, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone, and a stone to stumble over, and a rock to trip over.

They stumble because they disobey the word.

They were destined for this.

Jesus is not only premier and prominent, he's also dangerous to ignore.

This is what Jesus is warning these men about.

But let me continue on because there's a few other lessons I want to get to.

And this one might seem contradictory, but it's not.

God's repeated patience to all sinners.

God's repeated patience to all sinners.

Let's go back to the first story.

Man has two sons.

He says to the first, go.

And he says, No.

This first son's quite a quite a son.

Son, I want you to go to work today in our vineyard.

And immediately there is the relationship, father and son.

There is the father's claim of authority.

There's the son's duty and the scope and sphere of his responsibilities, all in one word.

And this first son, no, no, no, no, no.

Not going.

And he's outspoken in his denial to be willing to do anything his father wants him to do.

I've got better things to be concerned with than to think about what you want.

Dad.

I will not go.

I don't know, Dads, what would you do if you had a son who said that to you?

Clean the garage.

No! It's rude, it's rebellious, it's ungrateful, and it's counter to family love.

And you'd say that and a whole lot more, right?

I have.

Let me bring out a point here.

The shock is that the father puts up with it.

The father bears with that.

Huh.

The second story.

Here's this landowner.

He doesn't just take a sort of briar-filled section of unattended land and hires people to make it better.

He goes to great expense and energy to take that plot of land and to make it fruitful.

He plants it, he fences it, he puts a wine press in it, he guards it with a tower.

It's ready to bear fruit right there.

And he hires these guys to, well, casually watch what's already made up.

Everything that's there for good production is done by the landowner.

He sends his servants to collect the fruit.

Seems very natural.

These guys would have to say, look, I'm not working a field like my cousin over there, who's having a really rough time of it with that landowner.

This landowner is a great guy.

These servants who ought to have received the servants, or these tenants who ought to receive the servants with the same respect as the landowner?

No, they don't.

They beat them, kill them, stone them.

What does the Lord of the Vineyard do?

What would you do?

Three of your servants were killed by some guys who are renting out your property.

I think I'll send them some more servants.

That's what he did.

Anxious to win over these tenant farmers.

He thinks maybe I just didn't send enough guys to tell him how much I want this fruit.

So he sends them more.

Way more than he sent them the first time.

Trusting that these men would yield to all these repeated calls.

Nothing good comes out of it.

They do the same thing to those guys.

He sends his son.

Who would do that?

Luke even has the landowner posing the question, what shall I do now?

They killed those servants, they killed all those servants.

I'll send my son.

Waves of servants being killed.

More waves of servants being killed.

His son.

What is this telling us?

This father who puts up with a rebellious son, this landowner puts up with these rebellious tenant farmers.

The strength of God's long suffering and patience to rebellious people of all kinds.

All kinds of people.

Take a breath.

It was God's to give you.

Every life, every moment of life, every table filled with food, every season in its cycle, every day that dawns and every night that comes, every laugh around a table, the enjoyment of family and friends, these are the gifts of God.

He makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust.

He gives them harvest in their seasons and gladness in their hearts.

This benevolent landowner, however, has his patience come to an end.

And God's patience will eventually come to an end.

Let's pull it away from the context of this story with these religious leaders.

But let me speak kindly but urgently to all of us.

We must never regard the scriptures as speaking simply to strangers and people in past ages.

This is something to say to us here.

And the rejection of God's prophets here, that's a sin of all of us.

The murder of the Son of God was a crime, but it wasn't just a crime of people in the past.

It's a crime of us all.

We've all shared in it.

We might say, look, we weren't back there, we might have done things differently.

Really?

How many messengers has God sent you in the vineyard to receive the fruit of the land that's his?

How many days have you woken up with your heart loving the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and all your strength?

I haven't.

God has sent us many messengers.

He's given us wave after wave after wave of patience.

And what have we done with it?

We've had family members plead with us about our soul.

We've had friends tell us about the life that they've received in Christ.

And what have we done?

We've ignored it.

We've run away from it.

We've neglected it, or we've argued against them.

God has sent his messengers.

And time after time we've opposed, especially when our consciences have been struck, and we find ourselves needing to wrestle not only with them, but our own conscience, and so we speak louder, hoping to drown them and it out.

We've heard the message of his death, of his burial, of his resurrection, of his sacrifice for sin, for his call to eternal life.

And how often have we said, not today, not today.

And if you're still refusing him today, you stand as an adversary still.

Be careful lest the prophecy becomes true of you.

He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and he will let out his vineyard to other farmers who will give them the fruit that's due him.

What an unhappy people it is to reject the message and to reject the Son.

May it never be said of us.

May it always be said of us that he has become our teacher, our friend, our savior forever.

Let me give you two more points very quickly.

God's reception of repentant people, regardless of their past.

One of the most beautiful truths of this parable, especially the first parable, is that the gates of God's kingdom are burst wide open to the ungodly who repent.

The prostitutes, the tax collectors, the I'm not going rebellious son, who thinking about it says, What am I holding on to?

And repents.

You see, this is the ironic reality of it all.

Jesus didn't come for the healthy, he came for the sick.

And it shouldn't surprise us that this is more a hospital than a trophy case, the church.

Prostitutes who repent of their sins, money changers who repent of their sins, they get in the kingdom, Jesus says.

The Pharisees who repent of their sins, they get in the kingdom too.

The apostle Paul said, I was a blasphemer, I was a persecutor, I was an arrogant man, but I have received mercy.

He was a Pharisee.

And he said, Christ Jesus came into the save sinners, and I, a Pharisee, was the worst of them.

He said, But I have received mercy.

For this reason.

He said, so that the extraordinary patience of God might be an example to all who later on would believe in his name.

This is a beautiful, beautiful story.

This is the beauty of the gospel right here.

Here's a lesson in the parable.

Some of you, perhaps even to this day, are saying, I'm not going to go.

But in repentance, the Lord says, Welcome.

Welcome.

And I pray that now you would repent and run to the Father and go and serve him.

And perhaps there's some on the other side who thought, I'm respectable.

Thank you.

Yeah, I'm very devoted, religious.

Every Sunday, even more.

I give.

I'm a good guy.

Pray that you'd repent of that self-reliance.

And if you do, welcome.

Welcome.

Welcome.

Hear the master calling you patiently to actually go, not just say you do, to actually be one of his.

The last point here, Jesus speaks about God raising up the rejected stone.

Verse 42.

Have you never read in the scriptures the stone that the builder rejected has become the cornerstone?

This is what the Lord has done, and it's wonderful in our eyes.

Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruit.

Just yesterday, in the life of Jesus here, the crowds of Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem took up Psalm 118 and cried out, Save us, O Lord, Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna to the Son of David.

O Lord, save.

Jesus now grabs that same psalm and speaks these words.

The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone.

What is that capstone?

Well, it can be one of two things.

It's either the cornerstone of two walls that holds it stable, or it's the keystone at the top of an arch that fits it all in and makes it strong and secure.

In either way, it's a place of significant prominence.

Without it, the walls fall.

Without it, the archway crumbles.

He is the one, though rejected, will be exalted by the Father.

These men, with all their plotting, with all their questioning, with all their intrigue and all of their efforts, are going to fail to get rid of him.

Because God is going to exalt him.

This suffering stone will become a significant stone.

It will take the place of prominence and importance.

It will become the capstone.

And he's going to lead in a new people who will bear fruit for the kingdom.

Jesus said that behind this stone are going to be living stones who are going to bear the fruit that the kingdom requires.

It's going to be a new identity of the human race.

No longer Jew or Gentile, but a third race of people, Jesus people.

And these people who truly know him as the chief cornerstone, as the keystone of every archway.

They are going to be the people, and seeing Christ exalted in their life are going to produce a fruit that the kingdom of heaven deserves.

A nation of gathered people from the Jewish people and from the Gentile people, gathered as one in unity with each other, over the exalted head of Christ.

The kingdom of God will produce its fruit.

It will produce the fruit of righteousness that Jesus talked about in the Beatitudes.

It'll produce the good fruit that Paul talks about in Colossians chapter 1, bearing fruit in every way.

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

It's going to be the fruit of spirit-produced transformation of character that Paul talks about in Galatians 5: love and joy and peace and patience and gentleness and meekness and kindness and self-control.

Go to all nations with all authority, so that there can be all allegiance to the Son.

Peter says, As you come to him, a living stone, rejected by people but chosen and honored by God, Jesus, you yourselves as living stones, a spiritual house, are being built to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

For it stands in Scripture, I lay in Zion a stone, a chosen and honored cornerstone, and the one who believes on him will never be put to shame.

Hallelujah.

Let's pray.

Father, in the midst of this confrontive stalemate, we have heard these startling, striking stories that have so much significance, not only in the moment of the life of Jesus and the plotting of the religious leaders, but great significance for us today, as they look forward to a day that we already live in, in which that stone that was rejected has become the cornerstone.

Father, that being true, so also true is the pronouncement of warning that if this stone falls on the disobedient, it will shatter them.

O Lord, we pray that our hearts might respond rightly, truly, sincerely, and humbly so that Jesus might reign in each of us and might reign over us.

And we pray it may never be that anyone here would ever be one that gets shattered.

We pray that your enduring patience would bring wave after wave after wave of patient proclamation as the Son comes here with the good news that he is life eternal.

And may it have its effective power to bring life to all who believe.

And may all of us be truly a part of that new nation, that new people.

And we pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.