Matthew 21:28-46 | "Listening to God"

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Would you begin your new year with me in the Gospel of Matthew?

Gospel of Matthew.

We've spent a couple of months now looking at some other passages, considering holiday elements of those texts.

And I think this is a good time to return and pick up where we left off in the Gospel of Matthew.

Not because this passage is particularly appropriate to New Year's Day, but because it is well suited for considering the state of our souls as we enter a new year following Christ.

I want to direct our attention to a long section beginning in Matthew 21, verse 28, and we're going to continue this morning through the end of Matthew 21.

Matthew 21:28

This section has three clear divisions that could be three separate sermons.

So settle in, we're going to preach three sermons.

Trying to shorten them.

But Matthew connects these three sections into a single unit.

So this passage, while it could be preached in three separate sermons or even more, it is a single speech by the Lord Jesus directed towards the chief priests and the elders of the Jewish people.

So if you have your Bible, would you look with me at Matthew chapter 28, beginning in verse 46?

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

I'm sorry, chapter 21, beginning in verse 28.

We'll go through verse 46.

See if I can turn that on.

What do you think Jesus begins?

A man had two sons.

And he went to the first and said, Son, go and work in the vineyard today.

He answered, I will not.

But afterward he changed his mind and went.

And the father went to his other son and said the same, and he answered, I will go, sir.

But he did not go.

Which of the two did the will of his father?

The chief priests and elders said, Well, the first.

Jesus said to them, Truly I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you.

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

But the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him, and even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him.

Hear another parable.

There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard, and put a fence around it, and dug a wine press in it, and built a tower, and leased it out to tenants, and went into another country.

When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit.

And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another.

And he sent other servants more than the first, and they did the same to them.

Finally he sent his son to them, saying, They will respect my son.

But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, This is the heir.

Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.

And they took him and they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?

They said to him, He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.

Jesus said to them, Have you never read in the scriptures, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone?

This is the Lord's doing, and it's marvelous in our eyes.

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

And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on any one, it will crush him.

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them.

And although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because they, the crowds, held him to be a prophet.

Amen.

Humility is a complex attribute for human beings to attempt to cultivate.

Humility is difficult to develop because let's admit it, no one likes to be told that they're wrong.

No one wants to be told that they are doing something incorrectly, that they're believing something that is inaccurate, or that they've built their lives around something insufficient.

Our natural pride rebels against those kinds of things.

Therefore, acting humbly or possessing a humble spirit is contrary to our well-being and our self-protective nature.

That's what we think.

That's how we normally believe and function.

But Scripture teaches us that humility is a part of spiritual maturity.

We see a great example of this back at the beginning of Matthew in Matthew chapter 3.

Matthew 3 · chapter mention

Before Jesus began his public ministry, his cousin, John the Baptist, was preparing the way for Jesus.

John was controversial because he challenged the established Jewish religion.

It could be more accurate to say that John challenged the established faith of the Jewish people.

See, John challenged the thought, the conviction, the belief that being Jewish meant automatically belonging to God's family.

Oh, they believed in God.

But John challenged whether they believed rightly.

If someone came to you and said, I don't think you are believing God rightly, how would you respond?

That's what John was doing.

Listen to how Matthew records this in Matthew chapter 3, verse 7.

Matthew 3:7

But when John saw many of the Pharisees and the Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

And do not presume to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father.

For I tell you, God is able to from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.

Even now, the axe is laid to the root of the trees.

Every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

Would you appreciate that being said of you?

Oh, you've been a member here for decades, but you know what?

You don't believe rightly.

Bear fruit in keeping with repentance or watch out.

Would you receive that well?

These Pharisees and Sadducees did not receive that well.

Many people came to John to confess their sins, so John baptized them in the profession of that repentance.

But these religious leaders refused to participate.

They believed they did not need to do such a thing.

They were already right with God.

But John declared that in their pride, they were blinded to their need for humble repentance and true faith in God.

A belief that lived itself out in humility towards God's word.

Now, in Matthew 21, we have much the same situation.

Only it is between Jesus, not John, and the chief priests and elders of the people.

Jesus is now confirming what John said.

And Jesus does it through parables, two parables, and a reference to the Psalms.

Like with John, the religious leaders before Jesus were too proud to see their need for humble repentance and a turning to God in genuine faith by believing in Jesus.

So this section is directed toward respected Jewish religious leaders whom Jesus subtly condemns.

They refuse to see the authority of Jesus.

That's what verses 23 through 27 are all about.

Four times we see this reference to authority.

Who has the authority to make statements of truth?

Who has authority to make statements of acceptance and condemnation?

They refuse to acknowledge the authority of Jesus.

So this is not written directly towards you or towards me.

It's not even written directly towards modern church leaders.

That means we need to exercise some care in how we apply it to ourselves.

It does apply.

The question is how?

I think the place to start is to see that this part of Matthew 21 is about two primary realities.

First, it is about the need to genuinely, not just outwardly, but inwardly believe in Christ.

To believe in Jesus, Messiah, and to place your trust in him alone.

Not in yourself, not in your abilities, that is, your own strength to do what makes God happy.

Not in your own righteousness to atone for your sins yourself or your own faithfulness to God or your own goodness, but in Jesus alone.

One man on his deathbed said, I'm going to pile up all of my sins in a pile.

And on that pile, I'm going to pile up all of the good things that I've done in this life, and I'm going to leave them behind and run to Jesus.

That's what this is about.

Second, it is about Jesus' authority to declare truth.

It is about Jesus' authority to make statements about himself, to make statements about what God says about his son, and even about God's own people.

And that helps us grasp a little more about the parameters of the application of this section to us.

Jesus is the one who is speaking about pride and humility and faith and obedience.

He makes those statements because he has the authority to make them.

He is the one who must be believed.

And whoever does not believe him stands condemned in their pride.

Because they're not humble enough to hear.

That's hard for us.

Because we righteous churchgoers would certainly enter the Lord's kingdom before the murderers and the molesters, right?

The cheaters and the scoundrels would not get into heaven before we would.

Certainly not.

Hopefully you get the sense of jest there in my tone.

The reality is that we modern churchgoers may stand in the shoes of the chief priests and the elders.

If our pride gets in the way, the Lord Jesus may direct these challenging words to us.

So what hard things does Jesus say?

Jesus says there's only one way to think of him.

It's only one way.

Jesus is worth every ounce of trust that you can give him.

He is worth all humility.

He is worth every ounce of repentance and of complete and utter obedience.

And he will be a wrecking ball.

Demolishing your eternity if you don't think of him in this way.

What we find here are some dangers of refusing to hear God speak.

So let's listen to Jesus, which means we listen to God.

Jesus tells two related stories called parables, and he follows those two stories with an exposition of Scripture.

The first story, or parable, sets up the second story.

And these two fit together.

They come together to prepare the way for the swinging of a wrecking ball of exposition.

And it's helpful, I think, to see how all three portions of this passage fit together.

But think first, not about the first part, but about the middle portion.

That second parable about the master of a house who plants a vineyard.

And Matthew draws this out in the way he writes it with all of these and.

There is a master of a house who planted a vineyard.

And he put a fence around it.

And he dug a wine press in it.

And he built a tower in it.

And he leased it to tenants.

And then he went on vacation.

The story represents a common aspect of the world at that time.

And we need to notice especially the process described.

Not that he went through to get to the end, but we need to notice the end.

Everything is set up here so that we notice the result of all of the effort put in here.

A tenant arrangement was established by an owner of the property with workers who agreed to give a percentage of the profits to the owner at harvest time.

It was normal for an owner to send some servants and collect his portion at harvest time.

It was agreed upon.

It was part of the contract, part of the lease agreement.

And so when the tenants ignore and then kill the owner's servants, they are in essence ignoring the owner and ignoring the contract.

They reject the owner's claim on the percentage of the prophets.

They refuse then to recognize the true master of the house.

They say, no, we are better, we are stronger, we are more important, we did all the work.

It's ours.

Now this story follows the one about John the Baptist, because in the first parable, John functions as one of those servants of the Master.

God sent John to His people to receive the fruit of the harvest, to receive the fruit of humble faith and obedience from his people.

But instead of fruitfulness, instead of a well-tended vineyard that produces vintage grapes season after season, all he finds are vipers.

Deadly baby snakes.

Venomous, deadly, unfruitful people.

Not all were vipers.

But the established, faithfully religious leaders refused to acknowledge John as God's representative.

That goes back even to the previous section in verses 23 through 27 when Jesus challenged them about John's baptism.

Was it from God or from men?

They didn't know because they didn't acknowledge that he was God's representative.

Story is set up with two sons.

One said yes to his dad about going to work in the vineyard, but he never followed through.

The other said no to his dad, but changed his mind and then later went and worked.

The great sinners of the day, the tax collectors and the prostitutes, the murderers and the molesters, the cheats and the scoundrels, said no to God by choosing their sin.

They said, we would rather have our own desires met today than to meet your desires.

But when God sent his representative, John, to collect the fruit, those sinners were convicted and turned in humble repentance, generating fruit for God.

But the religious leaders were those sons who said yes to their father, and so revealing on the outside a faithful, obedient, outward appearance, but they never followed through with humble repentance and fruitfulness.

And they had three chances.

They had God's word.

Many of them had it memorized.

But they didn't recognize John.

Not only did they have the scriptures to guide them, but when John first came and they had the opportunity to hear God's word from John's mouth and to humbly respond to God's messengers, they didn't.

Jesus says, You did not believe him.

Then when the crowds of sinners began streaming from the cities out into the desert to see this strange man who wore camel's clothing and ate locusts and baptized people in muddy water, they had another opportunity to turn to God.

And Jesus says, You did not believe him.

Here is our first danger, my friends, of refusing to hear God speak.

Refusing to hear God speak cements us in our pride.

Remember that they had God's word.

They had their Torah scrolls.

Every Sabbath they read the Torah and the synagogues.

It was sung in the Temple Commons.

But they didn't listen.

For if they had listened, they would have recognized God's spokesman.

They would have heard John and understood he's speaking for God.

Therefore, they did not acknowledge that God spoke to them through John the Baptist.

When they heard John call them vipers and describe them as dead trees about to be felled, they ought to have felt convicted and turned to God in humble repentance, giving that fruit to God.

Instead, they displayed the danger that reveals itself in the outwardly religious.

They became more entrenched in their pride.

And pride blinds us to the truth.

They ought to have known the truth.

They thought they did know the truth.

They believed that they understood things correctly.

They believed that they were reading what they saw correctly.

But because they were.

In their pride, they began to be cemented in their pride.

That's why Jesus tells these stories.

John wasn't the first of God's messengers, of course.

The Old Testament tells us that they sent one prophet after another, after another, after another.

And whenever God's people heard God's messengers speak, they beat some and they killed some and they stoned some.

They refused to hear.

But whenever God sent his representatives to collect his portion of the harvest, those called by his name rarely heard his voice through the messengers.

Instead, they said, We don't want to listen to you because we want what we want.

And the cement of our pride hardens into an immovable substance when we refuse to hear the voice of God in humility and repentance.

That's why Jesus tells the second story.

Notice that he doesn't stop talking, kind of like me.

Just keep going.

Instead, Jesus continues to a second story that builds on the first and intensifies the first.

It shifts from the past in John the Baptist to the future with a prophetic illustration of what these people will soon do to Jesus.

The second parable is also a picture of a typical farming arrangement.

It was prevalent in the Roman world, and we have evidence of similar situations in the Jewish world of the first century.

You see, wealth was primarily displayed through property holdings.

You were recognized as someone if you had property.

And the more property you had, the more of a someone you were.

If you had property, you didn't work it yourself.

You had somebody else work it, either by your own slaves or by tenant farmers.

The chief priests and the elders were some of the wealthiest people in Judaism.

There's a high likelihood that they lived this parable.

They may have experienced the frustration of tenants withholding profits, of tenants falsifying records of how much was actually produced, or even having to evict tenants who did not hand over the agreed-upon arrangement of profit or of actual produce.

So Jesus' question in verse 40 is extremely appropriate.

When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?

What would you do if you owned property and you expected certain profits from that property?

And every time you sent a representative to gather your portion of the agreed upon profit, your representative was killed or beaten or maimed.

What would you do if you sent your son, your heir, to get the prophets because you thought finally they will listen to my son and he never comes home?

What would you do?

Now don't forget the significant loss already endured by the owner in the parable.

He has suffered the loss of the harvest prophets.

Not only that, he's lost the servants whom the tenants have murdered and maimed.

They've killed his son.

The most egregious act of all.

They say, He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their season.

Just don't do it to us.

But don't take the vineyard from us.

Matthew records a play on words around the word for evil.

It doesn't really translate into our English very well.

Those tenants are evilly evil ones.

And those evilly evil ones ought to be put to a very evil death.

Maybe evil wretches deserving a wretched death is close.

It's not politically acceptable today, but it's even stronger than that.

The religious people assert that those terribly evil farmers ought to be destroyed.

Not just wipe out the contract and get rid of them so that you can hire others.

No, they ought to be destroyed.

In other words, put them to death.

Like the evil people that they are.

Jesus painted a picture so horrendous to them that they reacted with the most intense rage legally possible to the killing and abuse of the owner's sons and servants.

They could discern that the owner's son was worthy of trust and humility.

The problem underlying this account is that they were not convicted by the reality that they were the tenant farmers of the parable.

Oh, they understood Jesus was talking about them, but there was no conviction.

There was no sense of humility to say, He's talking, he's talking about me.

He's talking about what do I need to do?

No, instead, we see further cementing in their pride.

And here's a second danger of refusing to hear God speak.

The first danger is that refusing to hear God speak cements us in our pride.

The second danger is that we become numb.

We are desensitized to the fact that there is cement holding us in our pride.

Notice what happens here.

Jesus moves from the two parables to an exposition of Psalm 118.

We're going to come back to that in a moment.

But first, notice the reaction to what Jesus says in verses 45 and 46.

The chief priests and the elders discern that he's speaking about them.

But there's no conviction, there's no repentance, there's no ounce of humility.

Even though everyone else sees him at least as a prophet.

See any parallels to John the Baptist?

Everyone else believed Jesus spoke for God.

But not these, not these religious standard bearers.

They're not willing to hear God say that they are in the wrong.

They refused to listen to God's voice through John the Baptist.

And now they refuse to listen to God Himself in the voice of His Son.

They would soon treat Jesus how they deserved to be treated for refusing the voice of God.

Jesus supports all of this with Scripture.

He quotes Psalm 118, which is fascinating.

Psalm 118 is a kingship psalm celebrating the establishment of the Davidic kingdom in Israel.

It says David is God's chosen one, and we're establishing his kingdom, and God has done it.

But it's also messianic.

What is said about David in Psalm 118 is ultimately fulfilled in the Messiah, Jesus.

And the part that Jesus quotes of Psalm 118 describes an integral part of a building.

It can represent a foundation stone, like the very first block of stone laid in place, upon which the rest of the building is going to be constructed.

Or it can define a capstone, a top stone, the last stone put on the corner where two walls come together and it joins them and holds them together.

Either way, the psalm describes a vital but rejected stone.

The builders looked at this fine piece of stone and said, Yeah, no, that's not acceptable.

It's not gonna work.

That can't be the cornerstone.

It was insufficient to serve the purpose.

But God saw otherwise.

He took that stone and he made it the most important stone in the building.

And now Jesus ties all of this together.

All of the sinners, the rejected people who listened to the voice of God in Scripture and through his spokesman John, and now through Jesus, respond with humble repentance.

They are like the son who initially refused to work in the vineyard but changed his mind and went because he repented in humility.

They are the ones who will be given the kingdom because in humble repentance they will produce fruit for their father.

But those like the other son, who's firmly religious on the outside, he agrees with what's being said.

Yes, Dad, I'm going to go, but internally refuses to respond to the voice of God with humility and repentance, those kind of people are like the tenant farmers.

Even the portion that they had will be taken from them and given to the repentant sinners.

And that leads us to the third danger of refusing to hear God speak.

The first danger is being cemented in our pride.

Second danger is becoming anesthetized to the cement that grounds us in our pride.

The third danger is that we become so immune to our pride that we can't even notice reality.

It's only our perceptions that are true.

And our perceptions we don't notice are wrong.

And the reality that Jesus describes here is frightening.

For one thing, those who think they are God's children are blind to the fact that God Himself is speaking to them.

The Son is here.

Yes, or what?

Big deal.

So they show that they are not God's children because they cannot truly see who he is and they do not listen to his voice.

They're also blind.

They are also blind to the reality that there is a massive wrecking ball swinging and it's on its way to crush them and their sinful bride.

And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces.

And when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.

Did you notice there's no way out of that?

There's no good there.

If you trip on the stone, you're gonna be crushed.

And if the stone falls on you, yeah, you're gonna be crushed too.

Either way, you're gonna be crushed.

There's no way out.

Now, what do we do with this?

We know it's directed towards those religious leaders.

It's a specific situation where these Jewish leaders rejected Jesus.

He is the culmination of all that God's been doing.

All of the prophets have been leading to the sun coming to the vineyard.

And we know this is a specific situation that can't be repeated.

So it has a very specific direction.

But somehow we also find it uncomfortably revealing some truth about what's in my heart.

So let's think about this in layers of application.

I think there's a primary layer of application.

This is about Jesus.

This is about Jesus.

They they didn't listen to John, and that leads to not listening to Jesus, which will ultimately lead to the rejection of God's Son through death and the wrecking ball, just destroying them.

Those cemented in their religious pride were the human cause of the Lord's death.

But those sinners who turned to Jesus in humble confession, repentance, and obedience found forgiveness, found new life, and and even a kingdom.

They said, Here's the sun.

What do you do with that?

Are you going to respond to the sun in humility or in pride?

There's a second layer of application.

Don't neglect to observe the grace of God.

The direct event that this illustrates is the crucifixion.

They're going to take Jesus outside of the vineyard and hang him upon a tree.

They're going to say, This is the Son, let's take him and kill him, and the vineyard will be ours.

But observe the grace of God.

The event that this illustrates is the means of God's provision of salvation for everyone who looks to Jesus.

This is historical.

This is describing, Jesus is describing what would happen.

The terrible refusal to hear God's voice through his messengers and his son would be how God would provide redemption for all who believe in Jesus.

Isn't that amazing?

But if you know your Bible, you shouldn't be surprised.

Because this was all set up way back in the beginning in the book of Genesis.

With a man named Joseph making the statement, they meant it for evil.

But God meant it for good.

To bring about the salvation of many.

Beware of the danger of pride and embrace the sweet peace of humility.

We do that by listening to God speak and letting his words say to us and be received by us in the way that he intended.

There's the joy of obedience then by which fruit is produced for the master of the house.

The chief problem illustrated in this passage is a refusal to listen and respond with humility.

Instead of responding with humility, what we see is a reaction of pride.

It's displayed first through a lack of faith in Jesus and then in a rejection of those belonging to God through whom he speaks to us.

You see, pride makes us think God is not the one speaking here.

Because God would make me feel better than I am.

But if God is intending to convict, that doesn't feel good to our human nature, does it?

Pride is a subtle but dangerous sin because it draws us in with the this by feeding this desire of wanting to be right, of wanting to be respected, of wanting to be honored, of wanting to be protected.

And when that starts to be chiseled away or broken down, we begin to feel exposed and we're not in control of the situation.

And so we have to exercise even more control to be in control, to feel protected.

And pretty soon we realize, oh, wait a minute, I'm I have cement around my feet.

Yeah, don't worry about that.

It'll be okay.

And then we don't realize that we're even in cement anymore.

So when someone comes along and encourages us to think wrongly, to do wrongly, or to follow sin.

When we're guided in the wrong ways of life, or when we feel misunderstood or judged or criticized, we have the option of responding with humility and gentleness and saying, is this the voice of God to me?

Or we can react with harshness and rejection and coldly refuse to listen.

And so the concrete around our feet begins to harden.

I'm not suggesting that we can never be right.

Not suggesting that we can never be wrongly criticized and that we should never stand for what's true or what's right.

Because someone may speak to us wrongly.

There are false prophets in Scripture.

There is falsehood in which the enemy tries to distract us and to deceive us.

It's been that way from the very beginning.

But how do we respond?

Do we assert our rights and our independence, or do we ask, Lord, what are you leading me to see about you and about me in light of you?

It is not humility to assert my righteousness.

But it is righteous to strive for the truth and truthfulness.

But that can be done with the humble grace of listening.

And then of asking, what is true?

Nowhere in this account do we find these chief priests and elders listening with a humble spirit to say what is true.

Instead, we see them reacting because their pride has been exposed.

Only through humility can we hear God speak and receive the blessings of humility.

But if we stand adamantly, we may destroy relationships with others and with God, and he will not spare the wrecking ball for those who refuse to hear him speak.

But observe the grace of God.

If you hear today, you can respond with humility and trust in Jesus.

And the kingdom will be yours.

Would you pray with me?

Lord Jesus, may you humble us, your people, to make us like you.

Oh, we confess that too often we we rise up and thrust ourselves out and say that we are the ones who who need to be heard.

Oh, let us hear you instead.

May you give us ears to hear, and hearts that are receptive and soft, and have the soil of our inner being prepared to hear you, to listen to you, and ultimately to be changed by you so that we may offer the fruitfulness of your work in us back to you, to the praise of your glory.

Amen.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.