Starting Point: The Story of Our Faith

Hello and welcome to the Kalamazoo Church of Christ podcast.

Thank you so much for listening.

We're Startup Church.

We just planted in September, 2020 and at the Kalamazoo church, we believe that Christianity is done best when it is done together.

And so if you live in the Kalamazoo area, we would love to connect, be it coming to a Sunday service, one of our small groups, or even just grabbing coffee with a member to learn more.

You can visit kalamazoo.church in order to do that.

We pray that you are inspired by what you hear today.

Church, how are we doing?

God is good.

I am excited to be preaching on our fourth and last topic on the starting point series.

You know, in the last three weeks, we've had some awesome lessons, kind of getting our minds engaged with this thread project that we're really excited in doing.

And in the last three weeks, we've been doing this call to begin again.

And the things that we've gone through is like we've looked at how to reassess our image of God by going back to the basics, the core of our identity of like why we call ourselves disciples.

Right.

And we talk about the importance of our story, how our story fits in to the importance of our creator, our God.

And then this last week, we looked at the importance of our spirituality in our house churches.

And super grateful for those who have spoken.

I remember, you know, Paul has done two great lessons for us, obviously for our house church.

Also two weeks ago, shared, you know, passionately about his stories, made me want to ride a bicycle or a motorcycle, not a bicycle, yeah, a motorcycle.

I'm so uncoordinated with those things.

I'm like, I'll say, you know, far, far away.

And Jaron did a great job leading us that first week.

And yeah, so I think about this week, I've really thought about like, well, what does it mean to begin again, to refresh, to start my mind anew.

And I'm starting to like slowly get up there in some of my spiritual years, like this year will be eight years I've made Jesus Lord.

For some of you, you're like, okay, like, chill out, dude.

That's like, you know, that's baby steps.

But like, I've seen in the last eight years, I've seen a lot of growth, I've seen a lot of me having to start again and begin again.

And I think this was a really interesting week, when it comes to me understanding how to begin again.

You know, something I've really been trying to do and trying to begin again, is my journey with my health, my weight.

And it's just been so much ups and downs in the last year, but even longer than I, you know, after COVID, maybe some of us are like, I feel you, some of you like, I got really ripped for COVID, you know, during COVID, I'm like, good for you.

That was not my case.

Right.

So like, I, but I think coming to Kalamazoo, I really wanted to like make it something where I'm like, hey, like, I want to like be repentant of this.

I want to be healthier.

I want to be the, you know, 18 year old kid who could play like four games of basketball in a day.

That hasn't happened in a really long time.

We'll get to that part, though.

But I think this week has been a really cool part of that journey.

That's the idea of beginning again.

You know, this week has probably been the most exercise, the most miles walked, the most running I feel like I've done in a week time frame.

In a really, really long time and right, which is cool, it is really cool.

Friday, me and Jaren played basketball at six o'clock in the morning.

I was not up for it.

I felt like I was walking through mud the whole time and there were some good basketball players there and I felt like I was behind the eight ball half the half the game.

Jaren balled out.

He'll tell you enough.

I feel like that that basketball game is going to carry that his story, his legend on for at least two months.

So if you have to hear about basketball pickup, I'm sorry.

You know, he played pretty good.

I got to admit.

But then, you know, later that day, me and Spencer play some basketball.

And I kid you not, it was this moment where I was like, I haven't done this since like 2019.

And it was really cool and it was the first time I didn't think about crumbling into a little million pieces.

But also, I can't really explain.

Truly how sore I feel right now and how much I've imagined this like three times already, it's like I just like I want to lay right here and just like take a nap and that just sounds so good right now.

Right.

You know, but to the point, it's given me a lot of perspectives of starting points.

You know, so much of me, like I said, just wants to be the, you know, the one ninety five quick basketball player that I was when I was 18.

But that's just not where I am at this moment.

Right.

I'm having to begin again.

I'm having to reassess the importance of my health and truly go back to the basics of what it means to take care of myself and my body.

I think the same sentiment can be said about our spiritual life.

Right.

I think that is exactly what these four weeks of starting point are trying to get us to do.

Right.

They're trying to get us to reassess our starting points, the basics, get back to things that we thought we could just do.

Right.

Every time I play basketball, I'm like, I can play like for two hours and like three minutes and I'm like, I hurt everywhere.

What is happening?

Right.

I can't do that sometimes.

Right.

I think it'd be so easy for us to look at how like on fire we were when we first made Jesus Lord.

Like I was thinking about like, man, when I when I first made Jesus Lord, like no one could stop me from just reaching out to people.

I was a little crazy.

I did.

You know, I shared probably like weird ways.

I was kind of socially awkward.

Still am.

But like, you know, was like really, you know, you know, strong on sharing people.

Right.

And, you know, had to be refined and everything.

But I was on fire.

Like I didn't care.

Right.

And I also think like it also could be really excited to look at the end.

Right.

Like sometimes we're just like, I feel this.

I'm like, God's taking home.

Like if there's a sign, I'm I'm I'm heading, you know, like I want to I want to be home with you, Jesus.

I want I want to be there for the day where I'm one of Jesus.

I think it'd be very hard to ignite a fire in the middle of the story.

You know, and so if anyone listened to the podcast that Jaron was alluding about, David and Hannah talked about bookends of the Bible, Genesis one and Revelations twenty two.

And it's a beautiful connection on how the Bible starts and ends.

The Bible starts in the Garden of Eden.

Right.

Is this unique, intimate connection with God?

One we truly like haven't seen since.

Right.

That connection is broken by rebellion.

And we think we think of Adam and Eve's rebellion, but it's also our continuous rebellion, our sin on a day to day basis that continues to break this promise that was broken at the Garden of Eden.

And then you look at Revelations twenty two, the Bible ends in a garden, the last chapters of Revelation describe a garden city, a garden that we live in.

And God is there to this vision of intimacy restored.

Right.

The rebellion is no longer those who believe, trust and make Jesus Lord intimacy is restored.

And to a point, those two things like big bookends, it's like, wow, like we I often have always gone back to like, it's Adam's fault.

I would be perfect if, you know, if I was in that situation, it's like, no, I sin every day.

Like I would have, you know, I would probably done it sooner.

I don't know how long it took him to eat, but I've been like, that looks like a good apple.

I'll eat that or whatever fruit there was, you know, and then it can be so easy to look at the end like I just want to be, you know, restored to that.

Like it wasn't my fault.

Let me get to the end.

But what happens in between is a grand narrative of struggle.

We often struggle because of our sin and others, and God fights to restore our relationship.

And so today, as we're going to wrap up our starting point series, we're going to look at the big picture story of the Bible as Jesus told it in one amazing parable about a sort of garden, a vineyard to be exact.

And so the title of this lesson is the story of our faith.

And we're going to read Matthew 21 verses 33 through 46.

Matthew 21:33–46

And before I read this, there's a view, a lens I want you guys to think about, a rhetorical question.

As I read, I want you guys to try to look deeper and see why the Jewish leaders wanted to arrest Jesus after he told this story.

He tells this story because they have been questioning him and trying to trap him.

Keep that in the back of your mind as we read this.

Starting in 33, it says, listen to another parable.

There was a landowner who planted a vineyard.

He put a wall around it, dug a wine press in it and built a watchtower.

Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place.

When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.

The tenants seized his servants.

They beat one, killed another and stoned a third.

Then he sent other servants to them more than the first time and the tenants treated them the same way.

Last of all, he sent his son to them.

They will respect my son, he said.

But when the tenants saw the sons, they said to each other, this is the heir.

Come, let's kill him and take his inheritance.

So he took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?

He will bring those wretches to the wretched end, they replied.

And he will rent the vineyard to other tenants who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.

Jesus said to them, have you never read in the scripture, the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

The Lord has done this and it is marvelous in our eyes.

Therefore, I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to people who will produce fruit.

Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces.

Anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus' parable, they knew he was talking about them.

They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.

I've heard this story a lot of times in my life.

I don't think I've ever truly thought of it as mind blowing as I have when I dug into it for this lesson.

This story is absolutely mind blowing.

It's awe inspiring and beautifully articulated story of our world.

You know, this is this is 13 verses.

Somehow Jesus is able to weave the creation of the world, the choosing of Israel, the nature of sin, his own death and our own acceptance or rejection of him into one short story about a wayward vineyard.

That is that is that is the God that we serve.

That is the you know, that is how articulate is, that's how smart is, that's how he's able to bring us in to this setting.

Right.

So since this parable is an awesome story about creation, let's look for the places and people that this parable represents.

So here's going to be the first three ideas, but we're going to first and foremost about this setting.

The main person is the landowner, right?

The landowner is the focus.

He's the one who creates the vineyard.

He builds the wall.

He dug in the wine press, built the watchtower.

This is our creator, right?

God, just as the landlord is intentional about the creation of the vineyard, so was God and intentional about the creation of the vineyard, a.k.a. the creation of us, right?

And the two points to start out this analogy of the vineyard is he we were created just as the vineyard was with purpose and care.

So let's talk about purpose for a second.

What was the land's purpose?

Think about that for a second.

What was the land's purpose?

Well, it's not just a piece of land.

It's a vineyard, right?

What are vineyards supposed to produce?

They have grapes and then those grapes are made into wine.

Right.

Just as a vineyard has a unique and purposeful job of bearing fruit, we were also put here with a purpose, right?

Something so important that we've talked about in the last three weeks is just how important each one of our stories is in the grand scheme of our universe and God's creation, right?

He gave us an intentional purpose of bearing fruit in this world.

I think that is something so unique about discipleship in general, right?

I don't think that, you know, when I have a lot of talks on campuses and a lot of the, you know, you know, interactions, especially with people who are not religious is, you know, we're just we're here for, you know, maybe a fluke or I don't know what my purpose is.

And that's why I love this scripture is, you know, Jesus is specifically saying, like, look, just as this vineyard was purposeful, like you are purposeful, like you weren't just here to live your life for whatever reason.

Like I made you so that you will bear fruit in my name.

So think about that.

I think about our purpose, like your purpose isn't just to be here in Kalamazoo to to make money and do your own pleasing work or whatever.

Right.

We are made in his creation to bear fruit.

We have purpose.

And think about care.

Anything with purpose, anything given intentional thought has also been given care.

The landowner wanted the vineyard to grow, right, to be successful, right, if he just you built the vineyard, right, built the I don't know what they're called, like the how like the grapes intertwine on those like that long, you know, like wooden.

Yeah, that's yes.

Thank you.

I didn't I should have looked that up.

I didn't know that word.

Yeah, that's coming in handy, Blaine, coming in handy, right.

But like if he just like looked at it and was like, that looks good and just like left it to its own, you know, you know, demise is like nothing would happen to it.

The grapes would would come and then animals would feed on them.

No one would produce anything.

And then they'd come and go each year.

Right.

Nothing made of it.

Just wild.

Right.

If we wanted to look at it like the vineyard being made with care.

Right.

What he also did was he dug a wine press.

Right.

He built a wall to take out the animals that are going to come and try to eat it.

The intruders, anybody that would want to steal it.

Right.

And he also built a washtowel to look over, to be protective, to be vigilant.

Right.

He gave the land the best opportunity to grow.

You know, I think tying that to our own lives, we have also been given what we need to produce fruit.

It's not just a vineyard full of wild grapes.

And you can look at it from the Israel perspective.

We can look at it from our own unique perspective now.

Right.

I think of for us, God has given us his word.

Right.

He's been he's given the Bible since the beginning of time.

Right.

The the Israelites in the wilderness were also given the word just as we are given the word.

Right.

And that's that could be a whole lesson in and of itself that we we have everything we need to understand, you know, where we go wrong, where we mess up, how we need to, you know, be humble to Jesus, to feel his love, to get connected, to get fired, to reignite our story, to begin again.

Right.

Jesus and God has given us everything that we need, everything to be taken care of and protect the land and watch over it.

And then it says, right, he rented the vineyard to some farmers.

And this is where the story gets, you know, a little corrupted.

Right.

God rents his vineyard out.

Think about this in the in the context of the Bible story.

Right.

He rents it out to the Israelites first.

Right.

It's Abraham's.

Right.

He said, I'm going to produce a fruit in you, one that is your generations are going to be bigger than the stars.

Right.

More than the sand on the in the sea.

Right.

He's going to make Israel fruitful.

Right.

Wants them to produce fruit.

There's an expectation to produce fruit.

He's given them everything that they need to.

Right.

And think about we look at this all the time.

I know I do.

I look at the Old Testament.

I'm like, guys, you guys had it easy.

Like God, God was literally willing to, like, kill all of your enemies for you.

That's like, you know, he had like it's not that heavy handed expectation.

Right.

You know, it should be a wonderful experience.

You guys should be able to go to God.

Like, you know, I got everything.

Like, I don't remember a time, you know, I prayed to God.

And, you know, the sun stood still, you know, or that, you know, like he literally spit a red sea for you guys.

And you guys are still complaining.

You guys are stinkers.

Right.

Like like that was like kind of the expectation that I had just growing up, like every time I read an Old Testament story, I'm like, you guys are fools.

Like, you guys just mess it up all the time.

We'll get into how we're also the same.

We'll just hold on that for a little bit.

We'll hold of the Israelites full hearted, full hearted listeners.

At the moment, if that is a word, but we're going with it.

Right.

And I think about like there were great times within the land.

Right.

There were.

Think about the time of David, the time of Solomon.

Israelite experienced great wealth.

They had great seasons.

Think about in the view of the vineyard.

There were great seasons.

There was great years of good wine.

Like think of the, you know, 550, you know, BC wine.

That would have been like the good wine.

But the overall product and care of the land was not great at all.

To align it with the parable, the wine produced from God's land would have been poisonous and undrinkable.

That's how the tenants took care of what was cared for and what had been given purpose.

As soon as the tenants arrived, it became poisonous and undrinkable.

When God sent servants like the prophets to remind Israel that they were supposed to bear fruit for God, they beat one, killed another, stoned a third.

Right.

Think of it.

Think of they had all the prophets.

They had Samuel.

He's going to lead them.

No, we want a king.

We don't need this prophet.

Right.

And after the kings, God's like, I'm going to send, I'm going to give you so many tries to turn towards the Lord.

I'm going to give you Jeremiah.

I'm going to give you Ezekiel.

I'm going to give you these men.

They're going to tell you if you don't turn away from your sin and repent, I'm going to have to exile you.

Right.

And every time he sent more and more servants, the results were the same and the results were Israel being exiled from Israel.

Here's where the story takes a turn to on the edge of the seat type of a story, right?

It's been just like, oh, Israel's bad.

Yes, we are bad also, but here is what's important.

Enter Jesus.

Kind of like, I love it when people, when we talk about Jesus, kind of like a big ol' like WWE, like coming in.

Just, you know, like you don't know who to expect and I'm not a big WWE guy.

No, like I think there's some people in here that really like it.

I just, I think it is very scripted.

That's a whole nother conversation for another time.

But I know people get really excited when like someone who hasn't, someone hasn't like made an entrance for like years.

Right.

And then you hear like the theme music and everybody in the stands like, oh my goodness, like they're freaking out.

You hear like screaming, people like fainting, right?

Like that's how I kind of feel like Jesus is in these moments, right?

He's like, you know, we're gonna talk about me, right?

It's the music.

It's the, it's the theme music and he's coming in.

Right?

Jesus puts himself in the story and the crates where he tells us, right?

How he will die and where he will die before he dies, right?

This is wild.

God, in love and grace for his people, decides to send his son, right?

Just as the tenant, the landowner for the vineyards, like surely if I send my son, they will respect him because they know it's coming straight from me.

It's not a servant.

He's my blood.

He's everything I am, right?

He's obviously going to make a big impact on them if they tell him what to do, right?

Jesus knows he's the son in this story.

And as this quote, I love thinking about the humanity in these moments, right?

We obviously, we read it and we can picture the, you know, the conviction that's read.

But I think there's something unique about like just the human experience.

Like kind of like if we were talking right here, what I would feel like, how I would direct something towards someone in some type of way.

Can you picture the way Jesus was telling this story?

I can, I can just picture Jesus, like, you know, say that, and I'll just pick on Jaron over here because like he, this is a good, you know, I feel like this is where the Pharisees would be.

Like if Jesus is telling this story, telling this great parable, and he's like, yeah, so they sent the son, and the tenants are going to kill him, right?

They send him over.

So no, sure, we're going to send a message to the landowner and kill him, right?

I just, we don't really know how Jesus, how he said it, but I can just imagine, right?

He is talking boldly.

He's talking in a way of boldness, right?

They will respect my son.

He knows exactly who he's talking to.

He's talking to the Pharisees here, and he knows that his life is meant to be killed by those people, right, right?

But as you know, the tenants had rebellion and self-rule in their hearts.

They took the son out of the vineyard and had him killed.

Jesus himself was crucified out of Jerusalem, just as the parable.

If you look at John 19, 20, Hebrews 13, 11 through 13, for context to that.

Now that the owner has sent all of his servants and even his son to the vineyard, we can expect that he himself will come, right?

Like that is the last step.

You killed the servants.

You murdered my son.

It is my turn to come.

And that is exactly what's next on God's calendar.

In the meantime, he has found new tenants who will produce fruit, just as the verses say.

Again, as we talked about last week, the kingdom of God is no longer just for the people of Israel.

It's been given to those of us who see Jesus as Lord, who see him as the true Son, right, and live their lives of purpose and care, just as the original tenants should have.

And everyone in this room, this is the call we've been given.

We've been given the call to be the new tenants, right?

Think about what kind of tenant you've been with the story that you've been given.

But the story doesn't end just there, right?

We have a few more verses that talk through his interaction with the Pharisees.

You know, remember that first rhetorical question, right?

Why the Jewish leaders wanted to arrest Jesus after he told the story?

It actually all is happening right here.

To this point, I think that they probably would have riled some feathers and been like, okay, you're talking above your weight class, you might be, you know, we get that you're a man of God, but you're talking with some boldness maybe you shouldn't be, right?

But that just makes people upset.

What he does next is the kind of stuff why people wanted to kill him, right?

There was a reason people wanted to kill Jesus, because he was bold, he knew what he needed to say, and he said it with authority.

Jesus brings up a passage from Psalms 118, a chapter in Psalms, which I encourage everyone this week, you know, as you reflect on this lesson, to take time and reflect on.

Read Psalms 118 and bring it back into the lesson that we're doing today.

But at this moment, feel free to turn to Psalms 118 as I go through some of the verses that Jesus specifically is talking about and how it reflects on what he said.

Now, this is a very messianic Psalm that predicts the coming Savior.

The Jewish leaders would have known it well, especially the Pharisees, they were well trained in the Bible, they would have known exactly what Jesus was talking about.

And they would have been very offended by Jesus using it to refer to himself.

He was definitely, without a doubt, calling himself the God that was coming, and the Pharisees would have known it.

You know, a few things that Psalms 118 tells us about the Messiah to come, and a few of them are on here that you can look and write down, right?

In verse 17, it says, I will not die, but live.

Verse 25 and 26, Lord save us, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

25 and 26 are referring to what the Israelites are shouting to Jesus on Psalm Sunday, right?

When he was entering Jerusalem on the donkey, that's exactly what they were saying to him verbatim, right?

But Jesus, in Matthew 21, he focuses back on verses 22 and 23.

And this is what verses 22 and 23 of Psalm 118 say.

The stone the builder rejected has become the cornerstone.

The Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes.

We just read that, didn't we?

Because it's also in Psalms 118.

Let's imagine these verses together, right?

Like, we are no longer in a vineyard.

Take the vineyard side out of this, put your mind instead of a first century quarry.

When holy buildings like the temple were constructed, all of the hammering and chiseling was done in a quarry.

So it would just be like a field of different rocks.

Think of them like they would go out there, they would chisel it out, and it would all be just like these set pieces of rocks out there.

So then they could just take them from there, right?

They wouldn't take big old slabs.

Imagine yourself as the foreman.

I like this part.

I'm like, I like construction.

And you are in charge of building your life, right?

You have the blocks.

You're the foreman.

It is your job to build it.

You are looking for the cornerstone, right?

Like, any important house.

I think, you know, Spencer has done land development.

I've also done some, like, land development.

Alec over here has done a lot of construction in his life.

Like, it is so important that the foundation is strong.

Like, the cornerstone, like, nowadays is concrete, right?

Like, there's slabs and there's, like, rebar through it.

Like, it is so important to have a strong, you know, concrete foundation.

But especially, like, back older days, like, what you would use your cornerstone on is usually, like, a fireplace mantel, right?

You would build up from that and around it.

And it's, thinking of the cornerstone, think of, like, how important that first build is, that first step, right?

It is the most important stone.

The foundation that everything else is going to be built upon, right?

So think of that.

That's what Jesus is talking about, talking in construction terms.

He's my type of guy, right?

And Jesus says here that the Jewish leaders picked up that stone, looked it over, they looked at what Jesus said, heard what he had to say, and they rejected him.

Right?

They chose something else to build their lives upon.

And this is what he's calling out in them, right?

He's calling out, he says, I'm the cornerstone, you're rejecting me as of this moment.

Think of yourself in that position if you were one of the Pharisees.

I think it would be so easy to think about the one that's like, I'm going all for Jesus, I love it, yeah, like, call out the Pharisees.

But imagine yourself the one sitting there and he's calling you out, he's like, you haven't built yourself as a cornerstone.

I'm not the cornerstone of your life.

I am not what you've built your story around.

And you're like, I don't like what you're saying, dude.

Like, it feels a lot more, you know, it feels way more hurtful.

It feels attacking.

Right?

But we also have to understand that we live this life.

We live it.

And this is where we get to the more personal side.

Finding our place, your place, in God's story.

Right?

We reject Jesus just like this sometimes.

Right?

It's the humbling part of the stories.

Like I said, I've looked at the Israelite story so many times in my life and it feels just like, yeah, there's life here and I'm here.

Obviously I'm not going to, you know, I'm not the foolish one that's going to, you know, run away from God after he split the sea and, you know, had a pillar of fire come down.

Like, I'd be following God all the time.

Well, he saved my life from certain doom and then, you know, two months later I'm, you know, I'm angry, I'm prideful, I'm, you know, I don't have control of my emotions.

I want to be by myself.

I don't give to other people.

Right?

Like, I do the exact same thing.

Right?

And the part is, Jesus is the perfect fit, is the perfect cornerstone for everyone's life.

Right?

It doesn't matter where you come from, the background that you have, where you've lived, how you've lived, the pain, the hurt that you've done.

Right?

You have to build with one cornerstone.

Even if, like, right, think of Matthew 27, the building of rock and sand.

If you've built on sand, tear that sucker down and then rebuild again.

Rebuild again.

But yet, sometimes we just look at Jesus and pick some other broken, messed up rock to build our lives upon.

I think in my life, I think so much of the natural things I can build my life on is just shallow things.

I'm a big sports guy.

I would just talk about sports and watch basketball until my heart was content.

That's all I would do if I was up to my own uselessness.

I would think of I think Jaron and me have talked about this once, but if I wasn't a disciple, I'd probably be in the middle of Alaska fishing and hunting and being this wild man who doesn't talk to humans.

That's the cornerstones I would build on.

It's goofy.

It's weird.

Obviously I don't want to, but then my heart's like it's so beautiful up there and there's no one to talk to.

It's my sin.

It's what I want to build on.

I know Jesus.

I feel like I've grown in the seven to eight years I've made Jesus Lord, but there's times I'm just like I just want to go.

I want to watch my basketball.

Or even to a point, do I want to make more money than ministry or whatever?

These things that I call it's the sin.

It's Satan being like it's this.

Be called to this other cornerstone.

We just want so many things.

You guys could think for a second one, two, three things probably right off the bat in the last month that Satan has been telling you to seek after not name Jesus, not name the cornerstone.

Such the unique part about this in that second point is Jesus is so humble about this.

Think about the story with the vineyard, the landlord.

He gives him so many opportunities to choose.

He talks and never once talks the Christ never talks once about just striking and killing the tenants right off the bat.

I think when you think about that it's like get him out of there, kill him.

He's like no, I sent servants.

I sent more servants.

I sent my son.

This is where we're at in the story.

He sent his son and Jesus was so humble to go.

He let us choose even though we choose wrong most of the time.

Even though most of the world chooses wrong.

If you want to take back Matthew 21 verse 44 take a look back at that.

Matthew 21:44

He adds this warning in there about our lives and what we choose from our decision here.

He adds this warning about rocks falling or falling on it.

When I read it, it was a little confusing.

What does that actually really mean?

Let's think about it.

I've actually done both of these things because I was a foolish wild little child.

First one, falling on a rock hurts.

When I went camping, there's this really cool place up in Colorado it's called the Grand Mesa.

It's where I went when I was a little kid to go camping.

It was this big camping spot.

It was really cool.

I'd say the size of this room was the camping spot.

Behind it was this volcano rock that went up this hill.

I'm 10 years old.

I should not be climbing up this thing.

Me and my brother are like let's do this.

We're going to climb to the top.

The amount of times there's these little holes, crevices.

It is not safe for any 10 year old.

I keep falling on these rocks and it hurts.

It hurts a lot.

Falling on a rock hurts.

It hurts.

The second one, having a rock fall on you hurts worse.

It wasn't a big rock.

I have a beautiful little scar here on my wrist.

It's going away more and more.

Me and my brother decided that there's this really, really cool game.

If you have a brother, maybe you've played it or maybe me and my brother are just a little unique.

It's called Dodge Rock.

Dodge Rock is a good game, guys.

Don't underestimate the joy Dodge Rock can give you in life.

This was when me and my brother were up.

We lived in the mountains.

We lived literally on the backside of the National Park.

If the road is coming up, it sits like this and then it's like this hill over.

What would happen is my brother would stand here on top of that little hill.

I stand at the bottom.

Tree line, weird breaking opening right at the bottom.

We just thought it was a great deal.

Hey, Dallas, that's my brother's name.

Throw him down and I'll just dodge him.

We could do it for hours.

It was so much fun, guys.

It was truly fun until it wasn't because Josh McCoy is a little bit of a space head every now and then.

I just remember I was staring up at the sky and I was like, it's a really cool day today.

The next thing I feel is my wrist! I screamed like you would have thought I was being kidnapped.

I was screaming bloody murder.

We're out in the woods just a little bit.

My dad's working on the house up on the second level.

He's looking over to see what just happened.

I come running out of the woods holding my wrist screaming.

It probably looks like I was tried and killed by some weird woodsman.

What happened was I got thrown.

A rock hit me right in the wrist and that sucker hurt.

I think of that memory.

It's implanted in my brain forever.

I love telling the story because it's just two brothers being foolish and stupid.

The idea is that rock, it hurt.

It fell and it fell fast.

It came at me.

I wasn't expecting it.

That's the story of our spiritual lives.

Choosing Jesus isn't a magical potion that guarantees a life of ease and happiness.

We still live in a world that mostly rejects Jesus.

That doesn't agree with what we have to say about how we live our lives.

That means we're going to fall and get hurt even as Christians.

We're going to fall on some rocks.

We're going to be climbing.

It's the top.

To the point, think of me as a 7-8 year old boy because that's the years I've been a disciple.

I'm just like, that's a cool mountain.

I want to climb to the top.

I step here and I'm falling.

I'm hurting my knees where they're already not great.

I'm hurting.

I've fallen but I still want to get to the top.

I'm still going to get there.

There's a clear goal in sight but sometimes we're going to fall and we're going to get hurt.

The point here is if we don't have Jesus, if we're the tenants that reject, the rock is going to fall on us.

We won't just be stubbing our toes.

We won't have scratched up shins.

The rock is going to hit you and you're going to scream.

You're going to wish in that moment that you didn't play Dodge Rock.

It was a fun game.

You had a lot of fun and in the moment that it stops, you're going to wish by everything you had that you wouldn't have played the game.

Right?

This is what happens and this is the consequences we face without the cornerstone of our faith.

And the beautifulness is He gives this choice to them, to the Pharisees, to the Israelites.

He gives it to us as well.

Fall down and be broken before Jesus or risk being crushed by the weight of your sin and it will happen faster than you realize.

Think about this.

Is it any wonder that they wanted to arrest him?

Right?

That is not a fun thing to tell people.

You're telling someone you're going to get crushed.

You're going to feel the weight of the world on you and you will have no ability to stop it.

It's a really powerful story.

It's the story of our whole creation.

It's the story of the whole Bible.

But most importantly for us, it's our story.

And it's our time in the story.

So let's wind up with this.

All of the starting point elements are here.

I think we've done a good job.

If you really look back at the story, take time to reflect on Matthew 21, which I think if you've been following with the Monday through Saturday timeline in our thread, a lot of the verses are talked about here.

So maybe you can even just reflect and now you can put the whole picture together.

But as we move past the starting point and begin this journey into thread in earnest, we started this series by talking about our image of God.

The leaders had the wrong image of God, especially the Pharisees, when Jesus is calling them out.

They didn't understand that they were the tenants.

They expected to be producing all this good fruit in their lives just from all the good they did.

But they were just so blinded by the fact that they just wanted it for themselves.

They were killing the tenants.

They were stoning.

They were doing anything for them.

They didn't give it purpose or care.

Two weeks ago, we looked at the importance of story.

Jesus is trying to help Israel reframe their story.

More importantly, he's trying to help us reframe our story, no matter where we're at in the story.

Even using their scriptures, he's using a story to do it.

Last week, we looked at spirituality.

You can see clearly that God wants his people to understand important things about his nature.

He wants us to live with purpose.

He wants us to be careful.

If we do that, we're going to produce fruit.

He knows what happens to a good tenant.

We want to be the 2023 really good wine when we get to heaven.

We want to be the one where it's like, God's like, that was good wine right there.

We want to be the good one.

We want to produce the fruit in our lives.

As we reflect on the starting point, beginning again, next week we're going to take our first steps into God's creation, into digging into Genesis, to igniting, to being re-fired.

This week is one more opportunity to take a deep breath and consider where we are as individuals, but also as a church.

The reason we're doing Thread is so that we're a community.

We're tied together.

I love the idea of Thread, because we're supposed to be threaded together.

Like, you know, we're all tenants of God's vineyard.

If one of us leaves, the vineyard hurts.

If one of us is hurting our spiritual lives, the vineyard hurts.

That's the idea of us.

To be threaded together, to grow as a community before God.

So I say this is one thing where you look individually, but then you go back to the community and how we can grow together.

So to finish this lesson, I want you guys to think about which part of the starting point do you want to grow in the most?

Is it the image of God?

Understanding how you view God, how you've viewed Him in your life, and especially where you are with that now?

Number two, expanding your story.

Do you see how important your story is to God?

Do you see how important your time of making Jesus Lord is as of the moment?

Your story, how you impact others.

A lot of you probably aren't in this room if it isn't for somebody else impacting your story.

Be someone who also impacts with your story.

Third, incorporating spirituality.

Think about how much did you let God use your story?

Think about do you go through your day in prayer and just be like, God, use me.

How much of the Spirit are you using every day?

Think about your spirituality.

And then this last one, this fourth one that we talked about, they've seen the big picture.

Do you see yourself as a tenant growing God's vineyard?

The vineyard's going to be here more than likely way after we're gone.

So think about, have you taken good care of God's vineyard?

Think about, have you done what is needed to make God's vineyard thrive for the next tenants that need to be in here?

So this is the last lesson on starting point.

Be engaged with Thread.

We're going to look at a video right now just to get our minds engaged.

Please feel free to talk about the lesson.

Talk about this week's story, the story of our faith, the big picture.

It'd be a shame if we don't talk about this as a group and as a church.

Thank you, guys.

And fill in your information to come to a Sunday service or any other event that we have going on.

In any case, you'll be hearing from us next week.