Luke 19:47-20:19

We're in Luke 19 47 through 20.

Um, you can stand with me.

Albert, would you come and read God's word for us this morning?

Every day he was teaching at the temple.

But the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the leaders among the people were trying to kill him, yet they could not find any way to do it because all of the people hung on his words.

One day, as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple courts and proclaiming the good news, the chief priests and the teachers of the law together with elders came up to him.

Tell us what authority you are doing these things.

They said, Who gave you this authority?

He replied, I will ask a question.

Tell me.

John's baptism was it from heaven or human origin.

They discussed it among themselves and said, If we say from heaven, he will ask, Why didn't you believe him?

But if we say of human origin, all the people will stone us.

Because they are persuaded that John was a prophet.

So they answered, We don't know where it was from.

Jesus said, Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.

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.

At harvest time, he sent a servant to the tenants so that they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard.

But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed.

He sent another servant, but that one also they beat and treated shamefully and sent away empty-handed.

He still, he sent still a third, and they wounded him and threw him out.

Then the owner of the vineyard said, What shall I do?

I will send my son whom I love.

Perhaps they will respect him.

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.

So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them?

He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyards to others.

When the people heard this, they said, God forbid.

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.

Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces.

Anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.

The teachers of the law and the chief priests looked away for a way to arrest him immediately.

Because they knew he had spoken this parable against them, but they were afraid of the people.

Let's pray.

God, we ask that you, by your Holy Spirit, we want to open up our eyes to see wonderful things out of your word.

We submit to you our lives and just want to proceed through this text in an attitude of surrender and submission to you.

Lord, it's wonderful when your Spirit speaks to our hearts something that is true.

And we've encountered truth, Lord, as we've gone through this text, but Lord, we pray that we would have an experience with the truth this morning.

And you know our stories.

You know our suffering, you know our pain, you know our lack, you know broken relationships in our lives, you know all of these things.

And you, God, we ask that you would meet us this morning as we encounter your word.

And we pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Luke 19.

You may be seated.

Luke 19, finishing up.

Finishing up 19, going on into chapter 20.

I want to just draw your attention as we begin this text to this particular passage here in Luke 3.22.

Way back in the beginning of Luke, when Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist, there is a voice from heaven that says this You are my beloved Son, whom I love, with you I am well pleased.

Does any of that sound familiar?

Doesn't that sound familiar to the text we just read?

You see, there is no ambiguity or question related to the authority of Jesus, but the wiring of humanity's wishes that there was or that there were.

And we're going to see in this text this issue of authority, right?

If you go into the NIV, you're reading from the NIV version, it's possible that the caption over that's been placed into the text between chapter 20, verse 1, and verse 9 is Jesus' authority is questioned.

And that's what's happening here.

If we get down, and this is how we're going to start this text, if we get kind of down into the weeds and just zero in on the text, what's truly happening is that the authority of Jesus is being questioned.

But the issue of authority is transcendent on time, people group, tribe, region.

The issue of authority, of power is central to society, to the world in which we live.

And back at the beginning of the Jesus story, when he is baptized into the water, the Father affirmed his authority and said, You are my son, whom I love, with you I am well pleased.

The structure of this morning's text is going to have us looking kind of, there's three sections here.

There's verse 47 and 48, which is a summary statement about Jesus' teaching in the temple, and that there's three people in the audience, which we'll look at in just a second.

Then you have verses 1 through 8 or 9 right in there, 1 through 8 out of chapter 20, and that is this questioning of Jesus' authority by the Jewish leaders.

And then you have a parable that's tied in with the same subject in verses 9 through 19.

You'll notice if you look at the text right there in front of you, verse 47 of chapter 19 is very similar to the verse 19 of chapter 20.

It says the same thing that these religious or these Jewish leaders wanted to destroy Jesus, but they were afraid of the crowd.

Right?

Did you see that there?

It starts and it ends.

That's kind of why we're taking this section together.

So it's a lot of, it's, there's there's a lot there.

I understand that.

Um, but I feel like those are the bookends to this section.

Jesus responds to the questions from the Jewish leaders by asking them a question, right?

So the authority of Jesus is questioned, and rather than Jesus responding, he asks them a question.

And what was the question?

The question was, whose baptism, where was John's baptism from?

Where was John's baptism?

Was it from heaven or was it from earth?

Was it God inspired or was it just the initiative of human effort?

And then Jesus tells a parable which answers the question of authority.

It's this parable of a landlord who rents out his land to tenants.

And the point of this parable is really to condemn the tenants.

And then the other thing, just to note, just kind of briefly in this text, once we get down to this whole thing of Jesus looking at them in a confrontational way, Jesus quotes Psalm 118.

Now, if you've been with us for a couple of weeks and you were looking at the triumphal entry, you'll note that there in that text, a couple of weeks ago, Psalm 118 was also quoted.

So Psalm 118 is a messianic text.

So the Jewish mind is kind of taking in the story and seeing all of the messianic implications that are going on here.

So when Jesus quotes back to these Jewish leaders, the um uh Psalm 118, in their mind bells should be going off.

Oh, this is a psalm about the Messiah that we as Jews have been waiting for, that that has been promised to us since Moses that he would come.

Let's look at a couple of things.

Just don't want to take for granted our biblical literacy.

Um, as we mentioned last week, the place where we're at in Luke is this last week leading up to the crucifixion.

So literally, this story takes place on either Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning of the Passion Week.

You remember Jesus is gonna celebrate um the Passover with his disciples on Thursday night.

He is going to be um captured Thursday night in the Garden of Gethsemane, right?

He's going to go through the trials as soon as the Sanhedrin can meet in the morning.

He's gonna go before Pilate and Herod.

Um, and ultimately he's gonna be crucified on midday, Friday.

Then he'll be in the grave Friday, Saturday, and he'll be raised Sunday morning.

So we're right at the beginning of that week.

And we're gonna be there for a little while as a church as we go through this text.

There's a lot of material, a lot of teaching that Jesus did during this time.

There are three groups here that oppose Jesus, and I think Luke is uh significantly referencing all three.

You have the chief priests.

These would at this time have been Sadducees.

Interesting, they were not very religious.

They were more secular, wealthy individuals that were the elites of their day.

They were put in power by Roman government through some backhanded dealings, and uh.

But they also play an important role in Jewish leadership at that time.

And then we have this reference to the leaders or the elders.

And what this probably meant, you remember how there's the 12 tribes of Israel?

These tribes would designate leadership to represent them in Israel, in Jerusalem.

So just Jerusalem was both the worship and the political capital of Israel.

And the different tribes and towns would designate these elders to be lay representatives of their interest in Jerusalem.

It's like the House of Representatives.

And I think Luke includes the references to these three to emphasize a point that there is broad opposition to Jesus from Jewish leadership.

It's not like just Jesus was like rubbing this one group the wrong way, like the Pharisees.

It wasn't like he just ticked off the scribes.

No, across the board, those who were representing Jewish leadership were upset with Jesus.

We'll get more into this in just a second.

Now the temple, I do have a picture of the temple here.

This is called Herod's Temple, and at the time of this writing, at the time of this writing, this temple is under construction.

A significant part of it has been built, but it'll be finished in around 65, between 65 and 67 A.D.

Here's what's crazy.

It gets destroyed three years later in 70 AD, right?

So literally, um the construction of this takes 80 years.

Um the temple itself here was constructed under Ezra, Nehemiah.

You remember that part, this is the second temple.

But then the whole courtyard, this whole area, this whole area here was being redeveloped by Herod.

So the teaching that Jesus is doing, so this is like a um a royal area.

This is the guard would be up there.

This comes, this becomes a significant um uh place for when Paul is captured in Acts 24, 20, 25.

But the teaching that Jesus is doing is probably under the porch here, Solomon's porch.

There's all these places to gather, to be out of the uh heat of the sun, and to listen to a rabbi teach.

And that's what Jesus is doing.

He'll do it all week.

Um, he's not going anywhere, even though he faces these different challenges from the leadership.

Um, and then there's also this reference to John the Baptist.

If you're not familiar with Scripture and you're like John the Baptist, what's going on there?

Like, did he go to a Baptist church?

And is that why he's John the Baptist?

No, no.

John the Baptist, he was this guy, yeah, he was baptizing people.

Is that what you were going to say?

It's because he baptized Jesus.

He did do that too.

He did that too, but he was already, yeah, he was already baptizing people.

He baptized most of the um common people in Israel.

He was widely accepted.

And near um, and then Jesus comes to him, and and what's his response, right?

He's like, no, no, no, I need to be baptized.

I'm not worthy, right?

I need to be baptized by you.

So John the Baptist, though, was prophetic.

You remember going back to the beginning, literally, he's born into a family with an infertile mother who's old, like they're old.

And God reveals to Zachariah, you're gonna have a son.

Uh he doesn't believe it.

God causes him to be mute so he can't speak until the baby is born.

Um, he names him John.

This is the fulfillment of Isaiah 40.

It's it John is the forerunner to Jesus.

18 to 12 to 18 months prior to this particular conflict, John's been not crucified, he's been uh beheaded by um by the government because uh he was prophesying against a particular leader's uh immoral relationship that he had uh with his wife.

He basically stole his brother's wife.

So John the Baptist, though, was clearly sent by God.

Like he was the prophet that was prophesied of that would like be the forerunner to the Messiah, a significant one.

And so Jesus puts it to, he puts the ball in the lap of these Jewish leaders, and he says, What's your take on John?

What do you think about John?

Now this put the religious leaders in a difficult place because we know, going back to the beginning of Luke, that here's the crowds are going out to John, they're being baptized, and that baptism was literally John just taking them into the Jordan and it fully immersing them in the water, pulling them back up, and they would be repent, they would be repentant.

It was a baptism of repentance.

It wasn't like baptism today where it's like, I'm a Christian, and so I want to identify with Jesus.

It was the baptism of repentance.

So the Pharisees and the scribes, they are not down with John at all, right?

And John is not down with them.

He's like, you guys are whitewashed tombs, you guys are hypocrites, like John, John, they didn't get along.

Let's just say that, right?

They were not fans of one another.

So when Jesus puts this question to them, they're stuck, right?

Because if they could just speak their mind, they would just, they would just condemn John outright.

Like he was not from God.

He didn't, he didn't have the pedigree, like he didn't go through the proper channels, like he didn't get the certificate, he didn't have the letter of recommendation, whatever you needed in that day.

Like John didn't have it, and they were opposed to John.

But they can't say what they think about John because the crowd loved him.

It's amazing to me, it's profound to me that just in these verses, these um 21 verses that we're looking at this morning, that these religious leaders, as much as they have authority, they keep getting stuck.

Like they can't kill Jesus because the crowd wouldn't allow for it, right?

They can't speak their mind on the question that Jesus asks because the crowd wouldn't have it.

Right?

They can't destroy Jesus because the crowd wouldn't have it.

I want to just walk you through really quickly just the um the phases of the Jewish leaders over the life of Jesus.

Okay, walk with me through this.

First of all, here's, and this is kind of their perspective, right?

I use a little ad-lib here.

Wow, have you heard about this guy, Jesus, who is healing people?

He had the gut to introduce himself in his home synagogue by reading Isaiah 61, 1 and 2, right, which is a prophetic thing, prophetic verse, set of verses.

He seems to be doing a lot of itinerant preaching, and even John the Baptist is saying that he's from God.

Uh-oh.

He isn't even observing the Sabbath in the way that we teach, right?

That was really the breaking point.

That was like, now we're getting to you kind of closer to the point of conflict.

Okay, here's phase two.

This isn't good.

Jesus is disrespecting us, right?

He's not honoring us.

He's pointing out our hypocrisy.

Now this is getting personal.

Man, his crowds have really grown.

Now people are murmuring about him possibly being the Messiah.

Did I hear right?

He's eating with tax collectors and sinners.

Okay, now he's crossed the line.

Jesus is calling God his Father and saying that he's equal with the Father.

That's a huge, huge issue for them.

Finally, shoot! He just raised Lazarus from the dead.

Right?

That's like no good.

And that's this that brings us to kind of phase three where we're at.

We are the authorities in Israel.

Jesus has become a real threat to our authority.

Jesus needs to die.

That's where we're at.

That's where we're at.

We looked last week.

John, John, um, the Gospel of John adds a lot of material in uh for us so that we can uh see really kind of Jesus in Jerusalem and some other conflict that Luke doesn't include.

The feast of dedication, um, there's this one that I referred to back right here, where Jesus is calling God his father and saying he's equal with the Father.

That takes place at an earlier visit.

Um this whole power struggle between Jewish leadership and Jesus is so real, right?

This is a classic power struggle.

It's a story arc that has been repeated over and over again.

Some people hold power, others are moving into the circle of influence, and that is perceived as a political threat.

How many movies, how many movies, how many books, how many real life stories have have been based on this type of power struggle?

You know, I mean this this is really the the um the world that we live in, whether it's in business, a business setting or it's in a political setting.

And this is one of the primary reasons.

Note this this is one of the primary reasons why people have rejected Christ.

They do not want to submit their life under his authority.

They don't want God to be in control.

But at the same time, everything that is wrong with the world is rooted in opposition to God's authority.

So while what we see demonstrated in these Jewish leaders is so common, it is the very thing that is wrong with the world.

Think for just a second.

What about Satan?

Satan rejected the leadership of God.

We look in Ezekiel and Isaiah, and it tells us the story of Satan that before creation he believed that he could be equal with God.

He exalted himself, and God judged Satan and cast him and a third of the angels that wanted to follow Satan out of heaven.

Satan's agenda now in the world is to usurp the authority of God as much as possible.

So Satan is opposed to the authority of God, and his influence on the earth is to lead a rebellion, right?

He started with his rebellion, causing a third of the angels to rebel against God.

But now his number one goal is to try to cause humanity to rebel against God.

Look at him in the garden, right?

And look at Adam and Eve.

They're created by God, they're living in perfect harmony under God's authority, but death came into the world once Adam and Eve rejected God's leadership.

And who's there tempting them, right?

Yeah, there's the responsibility of Adam and Eve.

They bear the responsibility for this decision.

But at the same time, there's Satan's original influence is to reject the authority of God.

The temptation is to reject God's authority.

The fall of humanity, this is the fall of humanity from God's intended design.

Everything bad that we experience is the product of Satan's or our rebellion against God's authority.

And I mean that in a collective sense of humanity, right?

You may suffer a sickness.

That's not because you are necessarily sinful, but it's because sin is in the world and everything is in a process of decay and destruction.

These Jewish leaders that we're encountering here in the text, they continue to reject the authority of God.

There's an accelerated curve here in these last few days where they are just become murderous.

They become demonic.

In fact, we see Judas, we'll see Judas in a little while, that he is brought into the fold, and literally Satan fills Judas' heart to betray Jesus.

So this is the agenda of the world to contend with the authority, the authority of Jesus.

But while that is the case, there's this beautiful gem in our text, and I want to draw your attention to it.

It's really the resolution, the chief cornerstone.

Luke 20, verse 17 and 18, it says this.

Luke 20:17

Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, anyone who it falls on will be crushed.

Even in this dark moment in history, a beautiful light comes shining through.

Jesus says, There is building material that has been overlooked.

If you will just recognize what Jesus is, you will be able to build your life off of him.

Here's what he says.

Just a little bit different.

Jesus didn't back down.

He said to them, Why then do you think this was written that the stone the Masons throughout is now the cornerstone?

Same idea.

Same idea.

That Jesus is this overlooked building material.

I mentioned earlier that this is a quote from Psalm 118.

So Jesus is taking the Jewish text, the Jewish text that's about the Messiah, that they are raised as kids to know this text is about the Messiah, and he's saying to them in a confrontational way, why does the Scripture say this?

Why does the Scripture say that there is this building material, that there's this stone that the builders rejected, but becomes the chief cornerstone?

Jesus does not need the endorsement of Jewish leadership.

He does not need to hold a political office.

He doesn't need anyone's letter of recommendation or a perfect pedigree.

He can even submit to death on a cross.

In Philippians 2, 8 and 9, it says that he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.

Therefore, God has highly exalted him.

That's authority, right?

God has given Jesus authority, bestowed on him in the name the name that is above every name.

The Father has taken the Son and exalted him above every other name.

And here's these Jewish leaders representing us in our humanity, rejecting the authority of God.

It is fundamental.

It's fundamental that you understand that the Bible teaches that humanity hates God.

It says this in Romans chapter 3.

Romans 3 · chapter mention

There's none that seek Him, there's none righteous.

No, there's not one.

That we're born as enemies of God, not because He is our enemy, but because we're enemies of Him.

And if you and I as Christians have not yet come to the place of recognizing how much in our human nature we're at war with God, then we haven't yet stepped into the light.

We, even as Christians, are still have this influence that is against the authority of God.

We live with that while we are in this body.

It is fundamental, it's fundamental to understand that God, in His glorious grace, is able to overcome that rebellion.

It's fundamental that we recognize Jesus as the chief cornerstone, not as some forgotten piece of building material.

I want to just walk you through a couple of these texts, and this is where this is where you will need your Bibles, because I'm not going to put these up on the screen.

But I just want you to understand that what Jesus teaches here becomes fundamental for a baby church that is threatened by religious.

So Jesus dies, he's resurrected.

50 days later, he ascends up into heaven, and he leaves 120 followers in Jerusalem where he just got killed.

And he's like, don't leave here until you get the promise from the Father.

It's like, good luck.

He didn't leave them with much.

You know, it's like, what's gonna happen?

I just want you to know that what Jesus is saying here on the Temple Mount, as he's teaching, this stuck with the disciples.

This teaching got carried on throughout the ages.

They made Jesus their fundamental building material.

They clung to this metaphor.

First of all, Acts 4, 7 through 12.

Acts 4, 7 through 12 is the first text.

So while I'm pulling it up, look at it in your Bibles or however you open your Bibles.

Look at this in Acts, Acts 4.

Acts 4, so we're like maybe a few months into the story of the church.

And in Acts 4, um Acts 4 8, it says, or no, look at look at actually verse 7.

So Peter and um Peter and John become chief spokesmans in the early church, right?

And they are preaching in the temple, like the same temple we're looking at today.

They're back there preaching in the temple.

And one day, they're going into the temple, and there's this guy begging on the side, saying, Can I have some money?

And Peter looks at him, he fixes his eyes on him, and he says, Look, I don't have any money, but in the name of Jesus Christ, rise up and walk.

And the guy is healed on the spot.

Like 40 years, the guy had been lame, I think.

And he's healed right at that moment.

And that leads to the people like praising God, and it gives Peter and John an audience, and they preach about Jesus.

Well, you know who's not happy about that is the same people that aren't happy in our story, the Jewish leaders.

And so look what they say.

Like, so they imprison Peter and John overnight, they bring them back in the morning, and then check out verse 7.

They had Peter and John brought before them, and they began to question them.

What's the question?

By what power or what name did you do this?

A question over authority, right?

Here's what Peter says.

I mean, I just love how this how the Bible goes together.

It's just so good.

Okay, Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, which means the Holy Spirit is going to speak through him.

He's gonna activate his mind to remember what Jesus taught.

Like he's gonna say things that God is leading him to say.

He says to them, rulers and elders of the people, if we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who is lame and are being asked how he was healed, then know this.

You and all the people of Israel, it is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed.

Jesus is, and then what does it say?

Jesus is the stone, and then Peter sticks in there, you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.

Man, he's got guts, right?

That's some boldness.

He's like, they just killed Jesus, and he's like, You killed him, you killed him.

And then verse 12, salvation is found in no one else.

For there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.

Amazing.

So Peter, Peter uses this idea to say, in the midst of this, with the same crowd, the same question, the same analogy, but Jesus has been raised.

And that has demonstrated the power of God, the authority of God.

It's like the final stamp of approval on Jesus was that he was raised.

Anybody could have taught the things that Jesus taught, debatably, right?

I mean, he was a good teacher.

But when Jesus was raised from the dead, that was the stamp of approval upon his authority.

That's what Philippians says.

The father exalted him and gave him a name that is above every other name.

Look over in 1 Corinthians 3.

Turn over there.

I'll turn there to 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verses 9 through 11.

1 Corinthians 3:9–11

Now, 1 Corinthians is a letter that Paul the Apostle, who's a missionary, right?

He's in a missionary, started a bunch of churches, and then he writes letters back to the churches he started about 30, uh 40, no, sorry, about 15 to 20 years after Jesus' ministry.

So Paul is the great missionary to the Gentile regions, and he writes this letter back to the Corinthian church, and the Corinthian church is segmented.

They're kind of debating over who, you know, who's the best teacher, who's the most authoritative teacher.

So here's what Paul says about his ministry in verse 9.

So this is 1 Corinthians 3, verse 9.

1 Corinthians 3:9

For we are co-workers in God's service.

You, Corinthians, are God's field, God's building.

By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it.

But each one should build with care, for no one can lay any foundation other than that which is already laid, which is Jesus Christ.

The foundation, Paul says, that I lay, as I do ministry, he likens his ministry to a general contractor who's laying the foundation.

Do you know when you go to build a building, the slowest part of the process is that laying the foundation?

It's so such a pain.

How many of you have done that?

You like lined it out?

Yeah, yeah, Wallace, Derek, you know what I'm talking about.

Okay, Scott, too, thank you.

It is really?

Yeah, it's so slow.

It's so slow.

You gotta get everything like lined out.

You got your lines there, you got your foundation, it's all dug.

And you're like, is this thing ever gonna be a house?

That's Paul.

He's doing ministry, but the foundation, that foundation that is laid is Christ.

He says, if we don't start with Jesus as the cornerstone to the whole building, then we're lost.

We've we've lost the plot.

Finally, 1 Peter 2.

1 Peter 2.

Peter also, while he preached in the book of Acts, he also wrote letters.

1 Peter 2 is uh where I want you to turn next.

1 Peter 2 verse 4.

1 Peter 2:4

1 Peter 2 verse 4.

1 Peter 2:4

As you come to him, as you come to him, meaning Jesus, the living stone, rejected by humans, but chosen by God and precious to him, you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

For in Scripture it says, See, I lay in Zion a chosen and a precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.

Now to you who believe, this stone is precious, but to those of you who do not believe, the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone, and the stone that causes people to stumble, and a rock that makes them to fall.

Fascinating.

Peter just kind of rifts on this theme.

He develops the idea.

He says that humanity has rejected.

He says, humans did not, they rejected the stone, the living stone, who was chosen by God.

And then he says, You also are living stone.

Isn't that fascinating?

He says, You are also living stones.

That blows my mind.

Jesus is a stone, but then he says, You're like bricks.

You're these living stones that are being built together to make a place of worship for God.

When you walked through that door this morning, did you think, I'm glad I'm here as a brick, right?

Well, that's what he's saying.

He's saying, you are the building material of God to make a worship house for God.

Paul says the same thing in Ephesians chapter 2.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

Or chapter 3, rather.

I thought two or three, somewhere in there.

He's this, you're this building being built for the worship of God.

Here's the thing.

We live, we live in a world of uncertainty.

We live in a world of brokenness.

People have rejected most authority, other than their own self-governance.

Authority is oftentimes presented in a negative light.

Think about just media and how authoritative figures are pre represented.

Dorky, dumb, out of touch, killjoys.

There are very few leaders that are that are or authority figures that are represented well.

They're kind of the butt of the joke.

And yet God is saying that he wants to be an authority.

Is that a bad thing?

Is that something?

I mean, there's so many people that that view that as well, you know, I don't want to be a Christian because I don't want God's authority in my life.

God's offer is this let me give you a sure foundation, something you can build your whole life off of.

Embrace Jesus Christ as the authority, the leader, the foundation.

Let him have that role of preeminence in your life.

So the question obviously is so, what does this look like for us in Baltimore this week between, you know, the 16th of December and whatever, the 24th or the 23rd when we meet again?

Like, what does it mean for us to apply this to our lives?

Here's what I would suggest to you.

Do you remember it the parable that's told?

The parable that Jesus gives is this parable about a vineyard.

There's a man that owns a vineyard and he rents it out to tenants.

And when it comes time for harvest, he sends back messengers to get fruit from the harvest, from the caretakers.

And they reject, like wave after wave after wave of messenger.

And then the owner, the the landlord, says, Well, then I'll send my son.

Maybe they'll respect him.

And they kill the son.

Right?

When the Jewish audience, and and and then it says that the landlord's gonna come, he's gonna turn it over to new owners, right?

And and the response of the crowd at the in the temple there is like, God forbid.

Because here's the thing this audience is tracking with this parable.

This is nothing new.

In Isaiah chapter 5, in Isaiah chapter 5, the prophet Isaiah likens Israel to God's vineyard.

Isaiah 5 · chapter mention Isaiah 5 · chapter mention

I mean, this is not new territory for the Jewish mind.

Like he's using a picture that's familiar.

It's familiar to his audience.

Let me read you a little bit of Isaiah 5.

Here's what God says through the prophet Isaiah.

I will sing for the one I love, a song about his vineyard.

My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside.

He dug it up, he cleared out the stones, he planted it with the choicest vines, he built a watchtower in it, and he cut out the wine press as well.

Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit.

Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judea or Judah, judge between me and my vineyard.

What more could I have done for my vineyard than what I have already done for it?

When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad?

Now I will tell you what I am going to do with my vineyard.

I'll take away the hedge, I'll let it be destroyed, I'll break down its walls, it will be trampled, I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briars and thorns will grow there.

I will command the clouds not to rain on it.

Then he says in verse 7, The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the nation of Israel and the people of Judah.

He makes it really clear there in Isaiah.

This is you, right?

And here in the parable, Jesus zeros in on a caretaker of the vineyard, the messengers in the vineyard that are sent, right?

Not the vineyard itself.

He says, There are tenants that are their job is to care for the vineyard.

And those are the ones that are in trouble in the parable that we're looking at.

They're the ones that reject the authority of God.

They're the ones to blame maybe for its unfruitfulness.

Well, this continues, this thought continues when we get into John 15, which is spoken to the disciples.

If we're on Tuesday, it's going to be spoken two days later.

John 15, do you remember John 15?

John 15 is where Jesus says, Abide in me, and I in you.

You are, I am the vine, you are the branches.

No one can bear fruit without abiding in me.

Right?

God is the husbandman.

He's the caretaker.

He's the landlord over this vineyard.

The teaching of Scripture is that if we accept the authority of God, then we are mysteriously woven in to the vine.

Like a branch is connected to the vine, our life is connected to Jesus Christ.

It's relational.

And so the ongoing personal relationship with God is how the authority of God kind of is manifests in our life.

We talk with Him in prayer.

This week, you're going to have moments, moments that are quiet.

And you can just talk with God.

You can tell him whatever.

You can tell him, God, I haven't talked to you in a while.

You can tell him how you're feeling.

We know from the Psalms that you can say a lot.

It's not going to hurt his feelings.

You can tell him, I feel far from you.

I feel abandoned by you.

I'm looking for your rescue.

I need your help.

All of that you're allowed to say.

We listen to him as we read our Bibles, right?

He speaks to us through his word.

It is authoritative, right?

Why have we spent, you know, 40 minutes in God's Word looking at this text?

Because God's words are more important than any some good idea I could come up with.

You know?

I could come up with some things to say, but nothing like what God's word has to say to us.

It's the authority in our life.

And then we serve Him in our obedience.

In our obedience.

So my prayer for us this week is that we would grab onto Jesus as our cornerstone, that he would be our chief cornerstone, and that his authority would be manifest in our life, that he would overcome, that we would not be a people self-willed, but were governed by the will of God.

Let me close with just a man who I believe really manifested this week.

This is Pastor Wang Yi and Yang Rung.

They're senior pastors, or he's the senior pastor of early rain, and that's his wife.

He was imprisoned last Sunday after church, and he had a contingency plan, kind of like out of the movies.

He said, Look, if I'm incarcerated, and if you do not hear for me within 48 hours, I want you to release this letter.

And so his letter went viral in the middle of the week, Monday, Tuesday, and I want to read you some of that letter.

It's what he calls my declaration of faithful disobedience.

And here's what I think.

There's an interplay here between the authority of the government, which we're going to talk about next week a little bit.

There's the authority of the government and the authority of God.

This is a man who is living under the authority of God.

And this is so much better than anything I could I could preach.

Let me just read you the introduction.

This is from last uh, this is when the post, his letter was published.

It says over a hundred members of the Early Rain Covenant Church in Changgyu, China were arrested beginning Sunday, December 9th.

At the time of publication of this translation, arrests are still being made.

Among those taken away were Pastor Wang Yi, senior pastor of Early Rain, and Yang uh Yang Rong, who have not been heard from since Sunday.

He's since been sentenced with sedition.

Sedition against the government is his formal charge.

Okay.

As a pastor, my firm belief in the gospel, my teaching and my rebuking of all evil proceeds from Christ's command in the gospel and from the unfathomable love of that glorious King.

Every man's life is extremely short, and God fervently commands the church to lead and call any man to repentance who is willing to repent.

Christ is eager and willing to forgive all who turn from their sins.

This is the goal of all the efforts of the church in China, to testify to the world about our Christ, to testify to the middle kingdom about the kingdom of heaven, to testify to earthly monetary lives about heavenly eternal life.

This is also the pastoral calling that I have received.

At the same time, I believe that this communist regime, persecution, against the church is a greatly wicked, unlawful action.

As a pastor of a Christian church, I must denounce this wickedness openly and severely.

The calling that I have received requires me to use nonviolent methods to disobey those human laws that disobey the Bible and God.

My Savior Christ also requires me to joyfully bear all costs for disobeying wicked laws.

But this does not mean that my personal disobedience and the disobedience of the church is in any sense fighting for rights or political activism in the form of civil disobedience.

Because I do not have the intention of changing any institutions or laws of China.

As a pastor, look at this.

As a pastor, the only thing I care about is the disruption of man's sinful nature by this faithful disobedience and the testimony it bears for the cross of Christ.

As a pastor, my disobedience is one part of the gospel commission.

Christ's great commission requires of us great disobedience.

The goal of disobedience is not to change the world, but to testify about another world.

Amen.

The goal of disobedience is not to change the world, but to testify about another world.

That's a man who has come under the authority of God.

He's fully yielded.

He knew this was going to happen, or it was a possibility.

And he wrote about his intentional disobedience so that the world would know.

Let's close.

Let's pray for him and ourselves.

Lord, we um we would ask that you would be our God, that we would be your people.

What a privilege to be associated with you.

What a privilege to know you, to be able to have a relationship with you that's even defined with this agricultural idea of a vine and a branch.

It's amazing.

We are so blessed to be loved by you.

And God, here in America, we're grateful that for the freedom that we have.

We're grateful for the autonomy that we've been given, that we get to choose so many things throughout the week.

And God, we pray that our freedom would not be used to indulge our flesh, but would be used to honor you.

And God, we pray for this pastor.

We pray that you would be with him, that you would strengthen him, that you would use him in his chains, Lord, to preach the gospel.

Thank you for this letter, the just the foresight he had to write this letter, to be so eloquent in his definition of things.

Lord, we pray that you would just bless this man, that you'd bind the works of the devil, that there would be just an incredible work of your Holy Spirit in the persecuted church around the world.

We pray that you would strengthen the underground church in China.

Thank you for its growth.

The fact that without social media, without the ability to promote itself and put up banners and have signs, like underground, it's growing.

That's your power, God.

Thank you that we're on that team.

That's the team I want to be on.

We're grateful, Jesus, for your great power.

Bless us this week.

Be in our midst.

We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.