Luke 20:9-47 & 21:1-4 - The Source of Our Water

Church, we will be in Luke, as I said, but I want to tell you about a verse in the Old Testament, a verse in the book of Jeremiah.

Jeremiah is writing to tell Israel that God is going to judge them because of their hard hearts.

They do not pursue truth anymore, they do not walk in love, and they do not desire to see God's glory.

They are content with their own self-glory.

So he writes to them, and in this judgment, in this rebuke, he says what they have done in verse 13 of Jeremiah 2.

For my people have committed two evils.

They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed or dug out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

Two evils, Jeremiah points out.

They've rejected the living water, the source of life, God, and they've dug for themselves their own cisterns.

On top of that, these are broken cisterns.

A cistern is just a giant hole in the ground laid with clay or brick or something to hold water.

And in this day and age, back then, this would have been the least of quality of water you could have.

The best water you could have would be from a spring.

And they would call that living water.

It's flowing out of the earth.

The worst you could have is a cistern because you're just collecting water from where you can and dumping it into this tank.

And here the people of God have rejected this living, abundant thing that God has provided.

His plan, and they've dug for themselves their own plan.

They pursued their own ways.

And in Luke 19, Luke 29, verse 21 through 4, we see this same pattern.

So let this be a warning to us.

Let's see what happens when you reject living water.

Jesus is teaching with great clarity who he is and the judgment that is to come on those who reject him.

See, Jesus is heading to the cross, to crucifixion.

So in chapter 20 and in chapter 21, things really ramp up.

His judgment, his declarations of who he is and the judgment to come is made clear, abundantly clear.

The same pattern we see.

This judgment is that they do not pursue truth.

They do not walk in love, and they are consumed with self-glory.

We'll see this pattern again and again through this passage.

They don't pursue truth, they don't walk in love, and are consumed with self-glory.

And that's what happens when you reject living water.

Jesus first declares judgment.

He gives the parable of the wicked tenants.

Few parables are as clear that Jesus gives as this one about what's going on and who's who, so to speak, in the parable.

A man planted a vineyard, he led it out to tenants, they rented it, he went to another country for a long while.

He sent his servants to gather what was his as the owner.

And what did the servants find when they got there?

Well, the tenants ran them off.

They beat them, treated them shamefully, and sent them away empty-handed.

Do this again and again.

And then he sends his beloved son to go, singing, surely they will respect him.

That's the last thing that happens.

What they see is an opportunity to take the vineyard for themselves.

In the old covenant, in the Old Testament, the language of a vineyard would have been synonymous for the listeners to the nation of Israel.

The nation of Israel was often referred to as a vineyard.

Jesus is now speaking of the prophets that had come, calling Israel to repentance.

Think about how they treated Jeremiah after he brought this rebuke in chapter two through chapter five.

And they scorned them and treated them shamefully.

And then the son comes.

But not just A son, the beloved son.

The hearers would have been thinking of Jacob and Isaac, the beloved son, come.

Thinking, no, they wouldn't do something like sacrifice the beloved son.

But that's what they do.

And then in 15, and they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

And what's Jesus speaking of now?

What's going to happen in just a few days?

They're going to take the beloved son and throw him out of the city, the city of the kings, the city of David, so go to Gelgotha, where they will hang him, where he will be crucified.

They will cast him out.

And then Jesus asks this question What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them?

And he answers his question.

Really easy to see who the Pharisees, the false teachers are in the parable, right?

They're the wicked tenants.

But when they hear this, their response is, surely not.

For God would not give the vineyard, the nation of Israel, to someone else or to some other people.

But Jesus looked directly at them and said, What then is written is this that is written?

The stones that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

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

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

Just a few verses back, a few maybe days earlier, when Jesus was riding into Jerusalem, the triumphal entry, they quoted Psalm 118 again to verse 26.

That this is the king.

He's come.

And here Jesus is declaring the judgment that is to come.

They have rejected the stone.

Now, I'm not a stonemason or any of those things, but I do know that the cornerstone, especially if you see old buildings, it's kind of this really important piece.

Because from that stone everything else is built.

Symmetry matters, must be of high quality, must be set just right, must be good.

So the idea that they would have rejected this stone, but yet it was the cornerstone?

They missed it?

Why?

How can they not see?

Well, they were not pursuing the truth.

They're not listening to all the judgment that the prophets have been declaring for centuries.

They did not pursue the truth.

So that when the cornerstone came, they rejected it.

As Psalm 118 said, Now they have done.

And they had all the Bible knowledge they needed.

They had all the training they needed to know.

But their hearts were hard.

They were against God.

They had rejected the living water, and they were content with their broken cistern.

Their hearts were set against him.

They rejected the Messiah, the cornerstone.

And because they reject him, they will now face judgment by him.

For he is the perfect one, he is the just judge.

And they've rejected him, and they will now stand condemned and be judged according to his standard.

See, they will be broken when they fall on his judgment.

They will not stand.

They don't walk in love.

They're outraged not at the behavior of the tenants in the parable.

They're outraged not because they were these tenants treated these servants shamefully or they killed the owner's beloved son.

They were outraged that the idea that somehow the owner of the vineyard had sovereignty over his vineyard.

And it was his to give.

This outraged them.

This sense of entitlement.

How often we walk in senses of entitlement.

You're stuck in traffic.

You feel entitled.

Candace and I were talking about this last week.

This sense of like, you just, when things aren't going your way in the day and you get frustrated or you get angry, why is that?

For somewhere, some reason, deep down, you feel like you're entitled to things going well for you.

Like somehow you shouldn't have to sit in traffic.

Somehow your Amazon package shouldn't be late.

You know, somehow your grocery or your order shouldn't be mixed up.

Like you're entitled to these things.

But when we walk in love, we realize what Christ has loved us.

We don't deserve that.

And love isn't something really anyone necessarily deserves.

It's a gift given.

So as we love others, it softens our heart.

As we love others, it reveals our entitlement.

It reveals what true justice is, what true righteousness is.

But for these leaders, they had rejected the cornerstone.

They had rejected walking in love.

And they were consumed with self-glory.

They're blinded by their own tiny little glory.

Here, they were just tenants.

They were just called to steward the vines, to tend to the land.

They were not owners.

They weren't even servants.

They're just tend to the land.

And yet they thought, man, we work the land.

This must be ours.

We're doing a pretty good job according to our standards.

We must be something special.

In their own tiny little glory.

They wanted to see it increase.

They wanted to see it grow.

And they're so blinded by the pursuit of their own glory that when the one who came, the only one worthy of glory, the only one worthy of praise, the only one perfect, the only one righteous, comes and they reject it.

This sounds insane.

Certifiably insane.

This is what happens when you reject the living water.

You begin to be consumed with your own glory.

You think about yourself, and what matters to me is most important.

And how others think of me is the most important thing in my life.

What's my standing in society?

You see this all the time.

You see it in every strata of our culture.

You get a group of little kids together.

You go into school in different grades.

There's a pecking order.

You go into jobs and places of employment.

What's your status?

Where do you live?

How much money do you make?

How many books have you read?

Who are you?

Yes.

Status.

Right?

What is all that?

Oh, it's self-glory.

I can't be God, sure.

But at least I can be better than these people.

You see how deceptive that is?

We no longer care about God's standard.

I mean, who can keep his standard anyway?

But among my peers, I'm doing pretty good.

Or I'm doing terrible.

So I don't really care what God says about me, but among my peers, I feel like I'm a failure.

And that's the opposite.

It's just selfishness either way.

It's about you when you're prideful and you're seeking glory.

Or it's about you when you're self-pitying and thinking about yourself.

So they were consumed with their self-glory.

And so they yet again, yet again, they did not hear the judgment of Christ, the call of Christ.

He is the cornerstone.

He is the way of salvation.

For they have rejected that.

And then they begin with these false questions that reveal their false faith.

They're trying to trick Jesus.

And maybe they learned from last time that Jesus, they asked Jesus, by what authority do you do this?

And he says, Well, answer me this question.

So maybe they're learning and they try to trick Jesus.

Teacher, verse 21 says, We know that you speak and teach rightly.

Remember, these are spies, these are deceived and deceivers, and show no partiality, but truly teach the way of God.

Nothing they said there was wrong.

And I'm inclined to think they maybe they believed this.

But they still didn't care.

They're speaking what's true about Jesus, but their hearts are hard and far from him.

Is it, verse 22, lawful for us to give tribute to Caesar or not?

Right?

This is point blank.

Yes or no?

You gotta answer the question.

But he perceived their craftiness and said to them, Show me a denarius, whose likeness and inscription does it have?

They said, Caesar's.

He said to them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.

And they were not able in the presence of the people to catch him in what he said.

But marveling at his answer, they became silent.

For us, it's easy to look at this and marvel at how they're able to marvel at Jesus, but still keep rejecting him.

They're marveling.

He is a good teacher.

He is impartial.

He just speaking it the way it is.

He's right.

He doesn't show partiality.

His wisdom is phenomenal.

They're marveling at this.

But yet, and this is amazing.

But yet, their hearts were hardened against him.

It's amazing the difficulty.

They did not want a savior.

No doubt that if you don't know the political climate at the time, this was kind of a things were a peak tension.

And this was a question to trap Jesus, because they're Jews, they're living in Israel.

However, the Romans are over top of them, occupying them.

They're the ultimate authority, so that's why they have Roman coins.

And if Jesus said to them, well, no, don't pay tribute to Caesar.

Because in Rome, they thought Caesar was a god.

So this is idolatry for Jews to pay tribute in a sense.

Or still their argument is leaning, it's going.

So if Jesus says, yeah, don't pay tribute, then they'll go to the Romans and say, look, he's starting a rebellion.

He's an insurrectionist.

But if Jesus says, Yeah, pay tribute, yes, fine.

Do all those things.

As if it sounded like participate in the Roman system of honoring Caesar as God, then they go to the Jews and they say, Look, he's a heretic.

So they think they got him.

And what Jesus reveals to them is their wicked hearts and the principles of the kingdom.

He says, Whose face is on the coin?

It's his coin.

Give it to him.

Whose land?

Who's governing this region?

Sure.

It's an earthly king.

All throughout the Proverbs and the Psalms and the Old Testament, the scriptures, they would have had memorized.

Again and again it tells them that there is a sovereign God who places earthly kings in positions of authority and power.

But that earthly power is under the sovereign hand of God.

All of it.

All the time.

Always.

So yeah, you live in this land, pay tribute, give to Caesar what's his.

It's a temporary thing.

It's so temporary.

Don't worry about it.

But for you, give to God what belongs to God.

Give him your worship.

Give him your allegiance.

Give him what he is due.

Your worship from a pure heart.

A repentant heart.

They hear all this and yet they marvel, but they do not repent.

And these Sadducees come, right?

This very small group.

There's the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and there's a lot of differences, but Sadducees are very small, kind of elite in the sense of they're very wealthy, they're very kind of unique, and they deny the resurrection.

They see there is no resurrection.

Right?

And Jesus deals with that, and he makes it really clear.

They give the story about a woman who dies and she had all these husbands, and you know, whose husband will she be in heaven?

Which is, you know, it's always interesting when people who don't believe in something appeal to something they don't believe in to make their argument.

We know in Jewish tradition that lineage was such an important thing.

So that if a husband did, or yeah, if a husband a man died to keep his line going, it was the responsibility of another male in his family to provide offspring in his line.

So this is something so central to their culture.

It's kind of hard for us to wrap our minds around how significant their lineage is, so that they would have offspring.

So this would no doubt have been something people would have talked about often.

Well, if so-and-so dies, you know, who's going to provide an offspring for them?

The Sadducees who don't believe in the resurrection come, offer this question to Jesus, and Jesus answers them with kind of a no-brainer.

Of course, there's a there's a resurrection in the sense that looking back to Abraham, right, it says, verse 37, but the dead are raised.

Even Moses showed in the passage about the bush where he calls the Lord God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob.

He is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.

So he gives us clean, clear answer to the Sadducees and the scribes who believed in the resurrection, so the Pharisees, like, yeah, that's a good answer.

This guy knows what he's talking about.

But yet their hardness of heart continues.

How is it they brought these questions?

But they still did not pursue truth.

All the promises of the old covenant, they would have known.

They would have known if they would have walked in God's obedience, in obedience to God and his commands, they would have been free from Rome.

So their question isn't, well, Jesus, where did we go wrong?

Like, why are the Romans over us?

Why is God disciplining us in this way?

Where did we go wrong?

That wasn't their question.

They weren't asking about how they misinterpreted the truth of the old covenant, the old testament scriptures.

No.

They were concerned with little technicalities.

Where the all-glorious and all-righteous creator God might be diminished a little, so that their little tiny speck of glory might increase for just a moment.

That is what they cared about, not truth.

They were not walking in love, their hard hearts drove them to be slaves, in a sense, to the Romans.

They were not a light to the nations like God had called them to be.

Rather, they wanted their own glory.

They wanted the nations to look at them and say, look at their religious system, look at their temple, look how righteous they behave, look at all the laws that they keep.

Not look at the love of the God of Israel.

Look at the love of the God of Abraham.

And they were consumed with their own glory.

So Jesus then gives them a warning, and he gives them a reminder.

This warning he gives in verse 45.

In the hearing of all the people, he said to his disciples, Beware of the scribes.

This is what they do.

They walk around in long robes, they love greetings in the marketplaces, and the best seeds in the synagogues, and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers.

They will receive the greater condemnation.

The scribes were not paid the same way the Pharisees were.

They lived off of charity.

So they'd cozy up to widows and devour their wealth, their money, their homes.

They'd act all pious.

I think for us in our culture, we're really sensitive to this kind of facade.

People are just, they're so fake.

And because we're Americans or here, we're living here, we don't go for that stuff.

You know, just cut it straight.

We are who we are.

Everyone's a self-made person here.

No one's riding on the coattails of someone else.

At the same time, this attitude, this lack of seeking true truth, this lack of love, this pursuit of self-glory, needs to be a warning to us.

One, to avoid people who are like that.

And you probably know people in your life who they just they act one way and then they actually, what's really happening behind all the facade is so different.

Now, I want to be clear, I'm not talking about like everyone, you know, kind of has like, well, if you knew the deepest part of me, you wouldn't want to know me.

We all have things like that.

But I'm talking about people who really live a fake life.

They're pretending to love the things of God.

They maybe come to church regularly, maybe they even give generously financially, they serve.

But it's all for show.

It could be for show for different reasons.

It could be that they want to earn approval.

I do all these things for the church, and the church would love me.

So they would kind of treat me as like I belong and I'm here.

Or they do it because it makes them feel better.

They look around.

They think, I'm pretty good.

I give more than these people do.

I sacrifice, I know more than they do.

It's a dangerous thing.

So it's this warning to stay away from fake people.

And then a reminder that true worship is from the heart.

We see this widow's offering in chapter 21.

Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts in the offering box.

The poor widow put in two small copper coins.

And he said, Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them.

For they all contributed out of their abundance.

But she out of her poverty put in all that she had to live on.

See, Jesus is acknowledging something.

True, genuine worship.

All through this passage, he's just going after those who are putting their pride, their self-righteousness in their own behavior.

They say, do not do that.

Just look and see the facade, see how fake all this is.

What Jesus knows is that judgment is coming on them.

Judgment will come.

There will be a sense of partial judgment when the Romans come and destroy Jerusalem.

It's a terrible time.

But then there will be an eternal judgment that is to come.

So don't go around digging for yourself cisterns that cannot hold water.

Thinking, well, I am doing this, I hope they see this.

And I'm doing that, I hope they see that and acknowledge it.

My source of water is my own self-righteousness.

It's my ability to keep the law.

It's my ability to honor the Lord according to my understanding, my interpretation of Scripture.

But this woman, she is giving not out of her abundance.

She's giving out of her poverty, out of her nothingness.

R.

C.

Sprawl puts it this way the New Testament equivalent of the Old Testament method of tithing does not spell out in detail what percentage we are to give, but rather that we are to give cheerfully as the Lord prospers us, so we ought to give.

This woman, in spite of her unspeakable poverty, was still so thankful for the blessings that she enjoyed from God that she gave proportionately so much more than the wealthy man, for they give their gifts out of their wealth.

Hers was a sacrifice of love.

And though she was poverty stricken, she was fabulously wealthy spiritually.

She did not expect to be noticed for her tiny act of sacrifice, but she was noticed by the King of Heaven who pronounced his benediction upon her for her charity, compassion, and sacrificial love.

And how different that is than the religious leaders.

And how different your heart posture is when you go to the source of living water.

See, this is true when you pursue truth and you let God's word really take hold in your life.

And what it says is what you do.

When you surrender yourself to the Lord, He provides for you.

He creates in you a heart that is generous, that's willing to sacrifice.

You know that your identity and your security isn't tied up to your money.

You freely give.

When you pursue the truth, it changes you.

It makes you to walk in love.

This widow, I don't know if she had children or not, or what her particular situation is.

But no doubt she was trusting in God's provision.

And here these religious leaders had gained their wealth, no doubt, many of them, from manipulating God's laws.

The scribes have done it from swindling widows out of their homes.

For all we know, this could have been a widow who was swindled out of her home from these scribes.

Either way, she sacrificially gives.

You know what Jesus is saying?

She's not giving so that she could be recognized.

Actually, the the the point here in two small copper coins, there was actually a law that you couldn't give one.

Because one copper coin was so worthless, it wasn't even worth the effort to go in and take it out of the box or out of the cup.

So at least put two in.

She gave all that she had.

She was not consumed for herself glory.

She was caught up with the glory of the Lord.

And you see this warning, this text for us about where you go, what well do you go to?

Source of living water or do you dig a broken cistern?

Forsake earthly kingdoms.

Stop looking for meaning, brother and sister, for hope in the little things.

So often we take creations, we replace that, we worship the created thing rather than the creator.

But rather come and know his mercy and grace.

For his love has been lavished on you.

Jesus Christ is heading to the cross.

And he's going to the cross because he knows that these people cannot save themselves.

All of the Old Testament is an example of the inability to save ourselves.

And here they have set their heart against him, and he will come and he will give his life.

He will pour out his blood.

His body will be broken.

Not so that they can do a little better, not so they can have a little hand up or a little help in their own self-righteousness.

No.

So they would come to the end of themselves.

They would forsake the things of this world.

They would know his love and his truth.

They would walk in them.

He's come to bring life.

The difficult part for those who think they need Jesus a little bit.

All the Pharisees, all the self-righteous people, all the scribes, they were excited for a Messiah to come.

Clearly, they couldn't kick out the Romans and make Israel glorious again.

They wanted some help for those things.

They thought Jesus could help.

Christ, the Messiah, would come and do those things for them.

They were not interested in changing their hearts.

They were not interested in someone who would come and said, Listen, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

They were not interested in a Messiah who would come and say, Listen, I will take out your heart of stone, and I will put in a heart of flesh.

I will take out this heart that loves the things of this world, that's caught up with the desires of the age, and I'll put in a heart that loves the things God loves.

They weren't interested in that.

They weren't interested in a Messiah that would come and say, I'll make you a new creation in Christ.

Behold, all things will be taken away, and all things will be made new.

They didn't want that.

They didn't want living water.

They wanted their broken cistern.

Let this be a warning to us how easy it is for us to keep going to broken cisterns, expecting living water.

But rather go to the living water, to Christ, to the living water that you did not purchase, you did not redeem, you could not access, it wasn't yours, but it has been given to you freely without merit from you.

You deserve none of it.

It's been given to you.

So come and drink.

Come, pursue truth, walk in love, and be about glory, God's glory, meditating on him, beholding him, hoping your word daily, the scriptures.

Ask that God might reveal to you his glory.

Go into prayer regularly, daily, asking the Lord would increase your love for him, your ability to see his glory.

Fellowship with other believers who keep pointing you to God's glory and not your own.

Come and know him.

It's not through you, it is through Christ that we do these things.

This is why we sing, What gift of grace is Jesus my Redeemer?

There is no more for heaven now to give.

It's given its beloved Son, no more for it to give.

He is my joy, He is my righteousness, He is my freedom, my steadfast love, my deep and boundless peace.

Who does not want that?

To this I hold my hope is only Jesus, for my life is wholly bound to his.

Oh, how strange and divine I can sing all is mine, yet not I, but through Christ in me.

Church, what a gift we've been given, living water.

Let's rejoice in that.

Let's keep pointing one another away from broken sisters into the living water.

For he is a God who hears us, a God who knows us, and a God who invites us to come and drink.

So let's turn our eyes to him.

Let's pray.