In the sermon titled 'A Landowner Seeking Fruits' by Scott Brown, the parable from Matthew 21:33-46 is explored. The parable features a landowner who creates a vineyard and entrusts it to tenants, expecting them to produce fruit. However, the tenants mistreat and kill the servants sent to collect the fruit and eventually kill the landowner's son. This story reflects the rejection of God's prophets and His son by the religious leaders of Israel. The kingdom of God is thus taken from these heartless leaders and given to those who will bear its fruits. The parable highlights themes of authority, rejection, judgment, and the demand for genuine fruit-bearing. It underscores God's patience and mercy, as He continues to send messengers despite repeated rejections. The sermon reflects on how this parable relates to the broader narrative of Jesus' life and the rejection He faced, culminating in a call for self-examination regarding our response to God's expectations of fruitfulness and obedience.

Matthew 21, 33 through 46. Here another parable. There was a certain landowner who planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a tower. And he leased it to vine dressers and went into a far country. Now when vintage time drew near, he sent his servants to the Vindressers that they might receive its fruit.

And the Vindressers took his servants, beat one, killed one, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did likewise to them. Then last of all he sent his son to them saying, They will respect my son. But when the vine dressers saw the son, they said among themselves, "'This is the heir, come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.' So they took him and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vinedressers?

And they said to him, He will destroy those wicked men miserably and lease his vineyard to other vinedressers who will render to him the fruits in their seasons Jesus said to them Have you never read in the scriptures the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone? This was the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes. Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it, and whoever falls on this stone will be broken, but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder. Now when the chief priests and Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking of them, but when they sought to lay hands on him, they feared the multitudes because they took him for a prophet. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we praise you for your word this morning and for the copies that you have brought us Lord. We pray that you would open our hearts to the revealed truth in this passage Lord. We pray that you would anoint the preacher as he preaches and as he teaches Lord. May you have grace and give us grace in your eyes this morning we pray. Amen.

You may be seated. As God has been leading us as a congregation Over the last few months, he's been so gracious to us to teach us about his kingdom, to show us what it looks like, how you're included, how you're not included into that kingdom. And so here in the Gospel of Matthew, it is revealed over and over again to us, so great a kingdom. And here in this passage of Scripture, what we see is just further revelation about that kingdom and how the kingdom is, in this text here, taken from the heartless. And it's given to those who have a heart for Him.

He's taken the precious, he's taken the valuable from the worthless, and he's given it to the scum of the earth, to the prostitutes and the tax-gatherers and the sinners. This is an aspect of the kingdom of heaven. And so this passage of Scripture is so helpful to us. I've titled it A Landowner Seeking Fruit, and we're covering Matthew 21, 33 to 46. And as I've been looking at this, you know, over the weeks, the words that just keep popping out in my mind is, I will send my beloved son.

I will send my beloved son. And it's such a precious statement, Because it's true that all human happiness can be traced to the heart's response to those words, I will send my son. And at the same time, all human despondency and destruction can also be traced to the heart's response to those words. And so the sending of God's Son is what this passage is all about. The sending of God's Son is the center of all of history.

It's really the dividing point of all of history. And so we're in this section, which is a long section in the Gospel of Matthew. It's fully half of the Gospel of John is about these last moments in the life of Jesus, this last week in the life of Jesus. And all the Gospel writers give an enormous proportion of time to talk about this last week in the life of the Son of God, to explain the meaning of the coming of his Son. And so in this passage here, there are a number of things.

The death of the Son of God at the hands of the wicked tenants, or the vinedressers, is here. The guilty leaders who rejected the prophets who were sent to her. The hard-heartedness that comes over a person so that when you hear the Word of God or a prophet of God or someone sent from God, your heart hardens and you reject them and you kill them in a sense. It's about the terrible judgment about of those who rejected God's prophets and His son. And it's also about God's demand for fruit.

He built a vineyard so that it would produce fruit. And it's about the rejection of Jesus, the stone which the builders rejected, which is marvelous in some people's eyes, but not all people's eyes. And so this is the dividing line of history, the coming and the death of the Son of God. Now, this is in the context of other parables that are spoken. In the first parable, there are two sons, and Jesus is speaking in that parable about the two responses of the voice of sons toward their father.

One son says yes and doesn't work in the vineyard and the other says no but he out of remorse his heart turns he sees the bankruptcy and the error the tragedy of his ways and he turns and he ends up in his heart saying yes. Well, the first son said yes with his mouth, the second son said yes with his heart. And there are two kinds of people here that are profiled in this parable that Jesus tells. First, there's autonomous man who works for himself and by himself. And his life mission is, my kingdom come, my will be done.

Forget heaven, earth is all that matters." And he does not love the sound of his master's voice. He has not loved the appearing of his master. And the second is a person in the vineyard. And this is the person or the persons who the vineyard will be given to. They'll be taken away from that kind of son and be given to another kind of son.

New tenants, the tenants who love to work faithfully in the vineyard, who desire to produce fruit for their master. And they sing songs like the song, really the praise song of Psalm 118, which we'll get to later, which Jesus quotes in this passage. And it's about those whose heart cry out, I delight to do thy will, O Lord. And so there are a number of things that are happening here. First, this scene happens on Tuesday during Passion Week, during the final week of Jesus' life.

Also notice, secondly, that Jesus is standing in the court of the Gentiles. He's just cleared the temple. The tornado had just blown through, and all the tables were overturned. And now Jesus is talking to those who are so afraid to do anything about Him, that they are actually continuing to have what seems to be a civil discussion. You imagine what it was, and then that did not just attack him, throw him into prison after what he did.

But they could not do it. He was invincible. It's like he had a force field around him. Well, he did. God was protecting him for the right moment.

And he's after all of the violence of the turning over the temple, he's having a conversation with the people that he is contradicting. And it's really a remarkable situation. And he's standing in the court of the Gentiles, these massive stones, these precious stones that were placed there in the greatest structure of the Roman world, the Jewish temple. You know, in 70 AD, where Jesus is standing will be full of dead bodies. Blood will be running all over the floor of the court of the Gentiles and running down the steps.

It will be a horrible place. All the stones will be displaced and it will be absolutely undone and destroyed. Now the Lord has already cleansed the temple three years before this. And he went to inspect, and he saw that his house had become a place for robbers. And he comes back here now to inspect it again, and nothing really has changed.

And so what is happening here is that the sad Diedron are gathering after all of this and they're asking him, by what authority do you do these things? And they're talking about the cleansing of the temple. And so he's being confronted and what's happening here is still part of that same confrontation. And the third thing that you see is that the Lord tells the story of God's abundant provision. He provides a vineyard full of everything needed for human happiness and productivity.

And then fourthly, he documents the historical fact of God's patience. How through one rejection after another, God is still patient. He still sends his word. He still sends emissaries. And like those emissaries, we should never ever give up in going and telling of the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Because We don't know when the ears will be open to hear or not. And then fifthly, he shows the difference between those who will be cast out and those who will embrace him. And to do this, he quotes Psalm 118 as a reminder of how the presence of heartfelt joy, gladness in His mercy, shows whose son you really are, and how He takes from the heartless and he gives to those who have broken hearts before him. So I pray that somehow this morning we would be able to grasp together a full measure, or at least a greater measure, of the words, behold, I will send my beloved son, and to take a sound in our own hearts and say, what happens to me when I hear the voice of the sun? What's going on in my heart?

Because that's really the pivotal, pivotal matter. And it also just shows that the dangers that there are among autonomous people who are working for themselves, who have no joy in the coming of the sun, who spurn the sun, who weren't working to give fruit to their master anyway. They were doing it all for themselves. So let's go into the text, verse 33. Here is this parable, the parable of the landowner's provision in the vineyard.

Now he says, hear another parable. So this is a parable, but it's not a parable that conceals the truth like Jesus spoke of earlier in Matthew where he said, seeing they will not see, hearing they will not hear. This is not that kind of a parable. It's a parable that he explains and makes perfectly clear, and it's a parable about fruit bearing. And you know, I've said this before a couple of times as we've been in Matthew chapter 21, this whole chapter is about fruit bearing.

Every corner of it is about fruit bearing. In verse 19, you see Jesus was hungry for fruit, and he was walking by the side of the road. And he saw the fig tree, and he came to it, and he found nothing on it but leaves. And he said to him, let no fruit grow on you ever again and immediately the fig tree withered away. So the Lord has already surfaced this idea of religion that's green and leafy, it looks so good there's a lot of activity, it looks like a fig tree but it's not doing what fig trees should do, and that is to produce fruit.

In verse 34, we see it again. Now, when vintage time drew near, he sent his servants to the vine dressers that they might receive its fruit. And then in verse 43, there's this statement of the Lord Jesus that the kingdom of God will be taken from them and given to a nation, what? Bearing the fruits of it. That's the pivotal issue in Matthew chapter 21.

Now, there are three parables in succession here. You know, Jesus is responding to the confrontation and then he spins out three parables in succession, in response to the challenges. All the parables are about authority and love. All the parables are about the authority of the father and the loving obedience of sons and daughters. And that's what the first one is about, a son and the disobedience of another son.

And then the second parable is the authority of a landowner and the lack of love of the tenants, the vine dressers. And then the third is the authority of the father of the groom and the lack of desire of the guests to honor and celebrate, and the desire of the others to come. So there are these two, there are two parties in all these three parables. In the first it's the Sun, in the second it's different kinds of vinedressers, and the third those who have been invited to a wedding feast. And all of them really say the same basic thing.

And the Lord is piling one thing up on another to help his listeners understand what he means by all these things. And so there are these various callings in the three parables. The calling of the sons is, come and work. The calling in the parable of the Vineyard is, come and joyfully give the fruit of your labor. And the calling of the wedding feast is, come and celebrate.

But some people just made light of the celebration. They thought it was too goofy. They just could not be involved in something so ridiculous as that. And so there are these various callings, these various responses that are given in these parables. Now, more about the parables.

I think it's helpful to understand just what these parables are doing and what Jesus' intent is. Number one, two groups are contrasted in all the parables. Number two, they illustrate that the first shall be last and the last shall be first. Number three, they identify the issue of authority. It's about the authority of a father over his sons and his daughters.

Number four, they all indicate that there's a reversal of leadership, that the kingdom of God will be taken from one and given to another. And number five, they really are manifestos of the rejection of Israel and the inclusion of the Gentiles. And then number six, all three parables, They contrast the heart condition of those who love the sound of the voice of the Son of God and who are living for Him, that all of their lives are bound up in bearing fruit for him. So these are the common threads in all of these parables that Jesus tells here. Now the first, what we see here is this profile of a faithful and beneficial landowner.

Now I love this part of the parable, but there was a certain landowner, verse 33, who planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a tower. And so here is this parable of this landowner, which perfectly reflects the economy of the day. It's like it's the way business was organized. There were men who were investors, and they would go out and they would build something. He was building a machine.

He was building a machine for productivity. It's like his factory. Men do that. They buy machines for productivity to produce something. That's what men do.

Well, this was a kind of a machine that a man built that included all these elements. And of course, the elements are critical to understand. The vineyard is a picture of the nation of Israel. The vine dressers are the leaders of Israel. The servants are the prophets.

The fruit is the worship of those. It's the heartfelt desire to serve and please the master so much as to give your whole life to bearing fruit, to work the land that you've been given and to produce something good from it. That's the whole matter there. There is a wall and a tower and a wine press. And I think we should ask, do we allegorize all those elements?

Some have. I'm not confident all those elements are critical. Some have said that the tower is the temple. The hedge around is the law to protect, and that type of thing. But whatever it is, the heart of the matter is the landowner who abundantly provides, the servants who are unfaithful, and then the prophets who are sent, and then the heart response of those.

That's the issue. Now with this landowner, he provides everything. He provides so completely. He's such a good landowner. He builds a place, He builds like a little kingdom, a little kingdom of productivity.

And this kingdom of a vineyard is really a prototypical of God's kingdom. That it's a place where a father has built in so many things. So he's just saturated it with every possible resource so that benefit can be brought out of it, so that labors can be engaged, so that people can come together, so that something can be produced. And It is a sweet productivity. It's nourishing.

It's beautiful. And the landowner has done all these things. He's provided so well. Now, when we get to the application, far later on in this message, I want to talk about how we are tending this vineyard that God has given us. Because He has given us such capability together.

And how are we maximizing? How are we utilizing the vineyard that He has built? So this time-consuming investment that the landowner has engaged in means that he spent significant investment. He was going to wait five years before he sees a penny. He's paying these workers.

It's all sunk costs. I don't know if you've ever started a company. And you're sinking. You're just sinking money into that thing. And you hope that someday it'll start throwing something off.

And that's what this landowner did. And it's a fantastic experience. And this is the experience of this landowner. And so he's now sinking the cost year one, year two, year three. The losses are mounting.

And he comes back, and he's hoping to find a return. And this whole imagery is taken from, really from all of Scripture. Because this imagery of the vine and the vinedresser and the workers of the vineyard has been spoken of many times in Scripture. So when Jesus is giving this parable, He's calling back. You can go back to every passage that talks about a vine and a vineyard, and in most of them, you'll learn something about what Jesus means here.

Here is the critical core text that Jesus is referring to because he's actually quoting from it directly. Isaiah chapter 5. Let me read it for you. If you could turn to Isaiah 5, What I would love for you to do is look at the language, look at the words, especially at the very beginning. And you'll get the pathos, the heartbeat of God's design for a vineyard and the workers in it, and how the workers are really meant to be full of admiration and joy at the landowner, because he is such a good landowner.

That's the whole pathology of this text here. Now let me sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved regarding his vineyard." You see the tender and beautiful language. These are tenants who are, they think of their landowner as beloved, and they're singing a song. My well-beloved vineyard, I mean, my well-beloved has a vineyard on a very fruitful hill. So he's taken pains to put his vineyard on the very best place so that the tenants are actually they're cultivating something that has enormous capability better than it's better than any other kingdom it's better in than any other soil it's the better the best soil you can ever cultivate you know soils are different I have different kinds of soils at my house.

Some are fruitful and some are not fruitful at all. But this soil was fruitful soil. The whole imagery is that God is so kind that He puts his children on fruitful soil. He puts them on the very best soil. And he dug it up so he's working in verse 2, and cleared out its stones and planted it with the choicest vine.

He even finds the very best vines to grow there. So he's a very diligent, thoughtful, strategic, beneficial, lavish landowner. That's what he is. He is so good. And he built a tower in its midst for its protection.

The towers were put there both for protection, the housing of the tenants, and also even for a little bit of storage in ancient Israel. And he also made a wine press in it. And so he expected it to bring forth good grapes, but it brought forth wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge please between me and my vineyard. What more could have been done to my vineyard that I have not done in it?

Why then, when I expected it to bring forth good grapes, did it bring forth wild grapes? Now, what he's saying is that how could he have done any more? Could he have been any better landowner? No. He built within it all that was necessary because he is such a beneficial and good landowner.

And then he says in verse 5, And now please let me tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away its hedge, and it shall be burned, and break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will lay it waste. It shall not be pruned or dug. But there shall come up briars and thorns.

I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel." Now that's really important. The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel. That's who Jesus is talking about here. And the men of Judah are his pleasant plant.

He looked for justice, but behold oppression, for righteousness, but behold they cry for help. Now then, in verses 8 through 10, in this chapter you'll see that they were obsessed with their earthly houses and they did not love the house of God. In verse 11, you'll see that they're obsessed with earthly pleasure and their inebriation. In verse 12, they're obsessed with their feasts and their music and their entertainments. At the end of verse 12, they do not think about the work of the Lord.

It says, at the end of verse 12, they do not think about the work of the Lord. It says at the end of verse 12, that they do not regard the work of the Lord, nor consider the operation of his hands. And then in verse 13 to the end, it's about the judgment that is promised. And then Isaiah begins to deliver various woes in the same way that Jesus will in Matthew chapter 23. Matthew chapters 21 to 23 have many coordinates and mirrors of Isaiah chapter 5.

When Jesus starts giving the woes to the Pharisees, he's saying very similar things. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. There's nothing more tragic than you can do in your life than to put bitter for sweet, to replace good with evil. And so the Lord here is spoken through the prophet Isaiah to say these things, and then there's this judgment in verse 24, Therefore as the fire devours the stubble, and the flame consumes the chaff, so their root will be as rottenness, and their blossom will ascend like dust, because They have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. When God said, Behold, I will send my beloved son, they despised what he said." That's the issue that's here.

And at the same time, you see this glorious praise. Now let me sing of my well-beloved, my song, a song of my beloved regarding his vineyard. It's about people, it's really about people who do not love the sound of the voice of the sun. They don't cherish it. It doesn't warm their hearts.

They're just going through the motions. They're just working in a vineyard, but they are working by themselves for themselves. And they are not giving thanks or giving glory to God as Romans 1 says what marks the wicked from the good. But they love their own name and that's it. And they find no joy in the landowner.

And the flip side is also true. Those to whom the vineyard is given to, because later on we'll see that the vineyard is taken away and it's given to somebody else. Who is it given to? It's given to those who say, my beloved has planted a well-appointed vineyard. Look at how good he is.

That's the difference. And the goodness of the landowner is really so critical in this whole thing. He, as a man of means, is like the Lord Jesus Christ. He is hungry for fruit. He created a resource so that it would bear fruit.

You might think of all the resources that God has given you in the vineyard that you're working in right now. Everything that is in your hands, Are you working it for the profit of your master? Is that the purpose of it? Or do you think it's just yours for yourself? If so, it will just rot.

If not, it will bear fruit to eternal life. What you see here is the autonomy of these vine dressers and the vengeance that God has against them. And then the vineyard is leased out, leased out to these tenants, and he goes into a far country. You know, this strategy that landowners had, the way I understand it, landowners would build these things and they would expect about a 25% return. They would want to come back and after four to five years they would want to get 25, at least, percent of the fruit out of that vineyard.

And so you can imagine the disappointment. Everyone can understand that kind of a disappointment. And here we are. How do you view your obligations in the vineyard of the Lord? How do you view the landowner?

How do you view your responsibility with the resources that you have been given? And are we making maximum use of that? And then the second thing we see here on your outline here is that the landowner sends his servants to receive fruit. And This is the first attempt in verse 34, when vintage time drew near. Again, this is like four to five years later that this happens.

He sent servants. And their response is nicely stated, ungrateful. The nation owed God everything for their prosperity, but they were ungrateful. They did not praise God for his provision. They did not embrace him, but they rejected him.

They had no joy in the voice of their master coming through the servants. And so they treated them terribly. This is the treatment of the prophets. They were rejected, that he beat one, killed one, and stoned another. So the treatment is pretty brutal.

The punishment in the Old Testament of Stoning was for soothsayers. That's the kind of treatment the prophets of God are getting. It's interesting how religion gone bad persecutes the true church, and they use religious means to do it. They're using the law of Moses to persecute the prophets of God who are appealing for obedience to the law of Moses. That's the way it was working here.

And sometimes they're beaten, sometimes they're stoned, and other times they were killed. In Mark, he tells us there were more than three waves that came through, but here the Lord is identifying just these three. Malachi says they have rejected the prophets and withheld what was rightly due to God. And so when you think about the sinning of all these prophets, you can think about Moses the prophet and how he was treated. He went through periods where he wanted God to kill him because the rage of the people was so harsh.

You see the plot to kill Joseph. Isaiah was sawn in two. Jeremiah was beaten and imprisoned, probably killed by exiles, by the Jewish exiles who were in Egypt. Ezekiel spent years, all of his adult years in exile, Daniel in the lion's den, John the Baptist being decapitated. In this case, religion was trying to muzzle the voice of God in the church.

And they thought they could silence God by muzzling the prophets. And you know what? That never works. It never has worked, and it never will work, because God is always preserving a remnant for himself. And then why are they angry?

Well, the tenants are angry because fruit is being demanded. They want to control the vineyard. They want the fruit for themselves. And they want to work for themselves, by themselves, without any other voices coming to them. And they're the exact opposite of those that the Apostle Paul spoke about in 2 Timothy 4, where he said, There is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous Judge will give to me on that day, and not to me only, but also to those who have loved his appearing.

That is the issue. They did not love the appearing of the messengers of God. And Jesus' response to this treatment is that he continues to send servants. He laments the disposition of their hearts. In Matthew 23, which we'll get to later, he says, Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her, how often I wanted to gather Your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you are not willing See your house is left to you desolate for I say to you you shall see me no more Until you say and this is really important until you say blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

That was the problem. In their hearts, they could not say, blessed is the voice of he who comes in the name of the Lord. When you get to that place in your heart where you cannot say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, be warned what has happened to your heart. Be warned about the status of your soul. You're just like these these vine dressers.

And so the tenants do not see him as wonderful. They're not satisfied by him. They don't see the goodness of his work or his kingdom. And so they cannot give him fruit because they have no worship in their hearts. And so they did not worship, they did not glorify God, nor were they thankful.

Because they did not want his authority, and because they did not want authority, they could not have his love. And because they did not have his love, they could not find happiness in him. The only happiness they could find was in their own work for their own selves. And that was the problem. And so, Matthew is identifying this whole matter of fruit bearing.

He's done it many times in the Gospel of Matthew. He spoke to the Pharisees and the Sadducees. He called them a brood of vipers and he said, bear fruit worthy of your repentance. In Matthew chapter 3 verse 10 he says, now even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees, therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. In Matthew 7 verses 16 through 20 the Lord says, You will know them by their fruits.

Do men gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. For By their fruits you shall know them.

And the Lord said a very similar thing in Matthew 12 verses 33 through 37 where he says either make the tree good and its fruit good or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for a tree is known by its fruits." And then he talks about one of the elements of fruit-bearing, and that is how you talk, the words of your mouth. And he says, a good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil things. But I say to you that every idle word men may speak, they will give an account of it in the day of judgment, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." And so part of this matter of fruit bearing has to do with your words. You bear fruit with your words. And idle words are not fruitful.

It's not the right fruit. It's bad fruit. But there there is this responsibility with our words with our mouth God has given us mouths in his vineyard and We bear fruit either good or bad With our mouths So the whole matter of fruit bearing is a significant theme in the Gospel of Matthew. And so in verse 36, there's the landowner's second attempt to receive the fruit. Again, he sent other servants more than the first, and they did likewise to them." Now, what we find here is verse 36 should warm our hearts.

It should help us to see the patience and the kindness of the Lord. It should help us to see that there's time for us. There's time for the hard-hearted person to turn. Because even though He has sent many prophets to you, It's not too late until it is too late. And you don't know when that is.

But He is such a kind landowner that He continues to act in mercy to give you the Word of God here, to give it to you there, on the radio, in a sermon, through a friend, through something. And He continues in His kindness. He doesn't give you the Word one time and cut you off. And so it's not too late. It's not too late to turn for these vine dressers.

And so he sends even more. Even though these new prophets or servants knew what happened to the last ones, they went back anyway. And so the servants are also patient. This should give us a picture of how we ought to think about those who we've shared the gospel with, but who are hard. It's not over.

You can go back again, and you can say it again. And so it's his long suffering that's really portrayed here. And you know how, what a good thing it is for God's people to walk in the footsteps of these servants who just keep going back. They don't get frustrated, they take their lumps, but they keep coming back. And they proclaim the goodness of God.

And, you know, This is his long-suffering that gives us hope. It's our only hope that he would stay, his punishment toward us. You know how the Bible says, his kindness leads us to repentance. I think this is one kind of his kindness where he comes and he speaks to you and he convicts your heart, but your heart remains hard. And then he comes again.

And then he comes again. And it's his kindness that leads you to repentance. You know, we actually have a little girl in our church who's named Mercy. And she has a sister named Patience. And I love those names.

And they so beautifully explain this landowner and his heart and how He comes in mercy. He comes in patience. I mean, Mark says that one of them was wounded in the head. But the owner is patient. He could have destroyed them, but he had so much mercy for them.

And so The landowner just keeps sending messengers. He's not making war. He's making mercy. He's not coming to destroy. He's coming to express his patience toward the lost.

I don't know what your attitude toward the lost people are in your life, but this should be it. Ever patient, ever merciful, always coming back, ready to speak of how good that landowner is, what a beautiful vineyard he has, how well appointed it is, how fruitful the ground it is, Singing the praise of that landowner. And to keep on going back without rancor, without frustration, My guess is some of us have not been like the landowner in his patience with those whose hearts have been hard. But he does. He keeps coming back.

And then In verse 37, the landowner sends his beloved son. Mark calls him, Mark and Luke speak more than Matthew about this. Matthew just says it's his son. The other gospel writers say it's his beloved son and his only son, interestingly enough. And so then last of all he sent his son to them saying, they will respect my son.

But when the vine dressers saw the son, they said among themselves, this is the heir, come let us kill him and seize his inheritance. So they took him and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. So the son of his love was sent, the ultimate act of long-suffering towards sinners. And he came with this in his mind, they will respect my son." Now, respect. What does that mean?

Jesus uses the word, the word entrefau, which has to do with heartfelt honor, which has to do with respect, almost being ashamed to be in someone's presence to bow down. It's that kind of respect. You know, when someone so above you and honorable comes into your presence, They are so gifted, they are so above you in every way that you're ashamed to present yourself in their presence. That's the kind of word that is used here. And it's this deep respect that they didn't have.

Now, it's interesting also how the Lord Jesus turns this word. He uses the future passive indicative. Future meaning that this is something that is going to happen in the future. Passive in the sense that it will happen. They will be made to respect my son.

It will come upon them. I think it's prophetic here. And it's indicative, It's a real condition that will take place. That there will be those who will honor. They will be made to honor in their hearts the sun.

And it will happen in the future. But the issue with these servants was their heartfelt joy. They had no delight in their master who came to collect the fruit. In Psalm 43 verse 4, the psalmist says, Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy, and on the harp I will praise you, O God, my God. Remember the harpists, the musicians in Isaiah 5?

They were just playing to have a party for themselves. Here, here the harpists are playing to God, for God. In Psalm 4, verse 7, one of my favorite verses in all of scripture, you have put gladness in my heart more than in the season that their grain and wine increased. This was what was missing. It was joy in the heart for the voice of Jesus Christ.

That made all the difference in the world. And then the wrath of the landowner, verses 40 through 44. Verse 40, therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine dressers? Here, Jesus is asking a question of the leaders. And of course, any reasonable person would say they deserve the most severe judgment.

And Notice there are two things that the landowner does. First of all, he destroys. And the truth of the matter is this, as unsettling as it might be to any of us, He will destroy those who do not have joy in their heart toward the voice of the Son, who will not say, My beloved Master has built a vineyard, who do not rejoice. And secondly, not only does he destroy, he leases the vineyard to others. In verses 41 to 43, he takes the kingdom and gives it to those who are bearing fruit, verse 43.

And he leases it to those who love the sound of his voice, who desire to labor for him, who desire to give all of their lives to produce fruit for him, who see the resource, the machine, and then to use it to its greatest capacity to bear fruit for him. And then Jesus interprets the parable in verse 42. Jesus said to them, have you never read in the scriptures? Jesus is always going back to the scriptures. The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.

This was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes." So rather than it being marvelous in their eyes, it was rejected. And then in verse 43 he says, Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it and whoever falls on this stone will be broken but on whomever it falls it will grind him to powder." Now Here Jesus changes the metaphor in the middle of the parable. He changes it from a vineyard to a building, to a temple, and you still see this mercy of the landowner. He doesn't wipe out his name in the world by destroying all of his people. He simply gives it to another people so it will continue.

He leases it to people who have a heart, who find joy in their master. And then he quotes a verse of Scripture. And this is a very pivotal point in the parable that gives you the interpretive key for why all this is happening. He Quotes Psalm 118. Please open your Bibles to Psalm 118.

Because you can't understand what Jesus is saying or meaning without grasping what Psalm 118 is all about. This is a praise song. This is a prophecy fulfilled. This is an explanation of this parable. This is a foreshadowing of the parable that Jesus just told about the landowner.

And notice the pathos of it. Notice the heart condition of the people who are saying these words. Because this is the key to understanding what Jesus is saying. Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. For His mercy endures forever.

Let Israel now say, His mercy endures forever. This is a cry to Israel to have a heart that cries out in thankfulness that says, Oh, give thanks to the Lord. Do you see that? This is a profile of a people who believe, who've been satisfied by the voice of their master. Verse 4, let those who fear the Lord now say, His mercy endures forever.

Notice the fear is a pleasant fear. It is the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom, but it's a very pleasant kind of fear because it declares His mercy. I called on the Lord in distress. The Lord answered me and set me in a broad place." This is the abundant treatment of the landowner. The Lord is on my side.

I will not fear. What can man do to me? The Lord is for me among those who help me." Is it possible that Jesus is speaking of what was happening around him? They could not touch him, even though he had just turned over all the tables and belittled everything they were doing. There he was.

He will not fear. What can man do to me? Therefore I shall see my desire on those who hate me. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes.

All nations surrounded me, but in the name of the Lord I will destroy them. They surrounded me, yes, they surrounded me, but in the name of the Lord I will destroy them. They surrounded me like bees. I picture that in the temple court. They were quenched like fire of thorns.

For in the name of the Lord I will destroy them. You pushed me violently that I might fall, but the Lord help me. The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation. The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tents of the righteous. The hand of the Lord does valiantly.

The right hand of the Lord is exalted. The right hand of the Lord does valiantly. I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord. The Lord has chastened me severely, but he has not given me over to death. Open to me the gates of righteousness.

I will go through them and I will praise the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord, through which the righteous shall enter. I will praise you, for you answered me and had become my salvation. The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing.

It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day that the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. Save now, I pray, O Lord, O Lord, I pray. Send now prosperity.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. We have blessed you from the house of the Lord. Great is the Lord, and he has given us light, buying the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar. You are my God, and I will praise you. You are my God, I will exalt you.

Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His mercy endures forever." So on the one hand, you see the joy of those who respond from their hearts and then you see those who they do one of two things they stumble over the stone and fall or they are crushed by it and the truth of the matter is this no no no one No one can turn their heart away from the Lord without either stumbling or being crushed. That stone will break you in pieces. It is the chief cornerstone. People will fall on it or it will fall on them.

And so the judgment of God is here in this passage of Scripture. And It's the judgment of God, but it's also the blessing of God. How He gives the vineyard over to others. You know, Micah chapter 4 verse 6 speaks of this. In that day says the Lord, I will assemble the lame, I will gather the outcasts and those I have afflicted.

I will make the lame a remnant and the outcasts a strong nation, so the Lord will reign over them in Zion from now on and forever." So the kingdom will be given to a different kind of vine dresser. They're the outcasts. They're the former prostitutes, the former homosexuals, the former thieves, the former adulterers, Those who defiled their marriages, those who have hurt people in the world, God will make a kingdom out of those who have repented and whose hearts have changed, whose hearts say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." And so it's such a glorious proposition that is here. And then finally, the fear of the chief priests and the Pharisees in verses 45 and 46. Now when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking of them.

So they were convicted. They understood who this was about. But verse 46 is so remarkable, but when they sought to lay hands on him, They feared the multitudes because they took him as a prophet. And there the Lord Jesus Christ surrounded by the bees, the oxen, the braying wolves there. He's untouchable because it's not his time to be taken.

So they were not able to apprehend him and it was out of fear. Fear will always hinder you from doing what's in your heart, and it was with these as well. They were self-absorbed, they were convicted, they were cowardly, they were murderous, and they were willing to put the Son of God to death. They wanted to silence Him, they wanted to murder Him, But they could not, because it was the Father who was going to put his son to death in his own time, for his own glory. Okay, let me give you some applications here.

Here. Number one, God here is identifying the lives of leaders among his people, the shepherds of Israel. God gives leaders to his people. What are they like? How do they treat the prophets?

They will incur a strict judgment. So it is for leaders to give heed to the law and the prophets, because the Lord Jesus Christ's words are summed up that way. And so God has brought His vine out of Egypt, as Psalm 80 says. But the problem is the shepherds have not been good shepherds. In Jeremiah 12, 10, many rulers have devoured my vineyard.

They have trodden my portion underfoot. They have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness. Now, you know, I happen to be one of the appointed shepherds in this church, and so this is a very convicting point. What kind of shepherd am I? Am I caring for the flock?

Do I love the sound of the Master's voice? Do I love his prophets? Do I love his law? These are most pivotal questions. Is it in my heart or is it just a job as it was with the elders of Israel.

And so all elders have to consider this passage very seriously. Dan Horn, Scott Brown, Jason Dome. This passage is for us. And it cannot go over our heads in its seriousness. Secondly, are we making full use of the vineyard?

The ground, the plants, the tower, the wine press, the workers? There's so much capability around us. There is so much good that we can do with the land, the possessions, the technology. There's so much in our hands. Are you bringing what is in your hands to its full fruitfulness?

This should bring us into a life of diligence. And I've been asking myself and my staff this question. Are we using what God has given us to the fullest extent? Are we bearing fruit? Are we so bent on bearing fruit that not a moment passes when our hearts are not turned toward the Lord for fruit bearing?

We have homes, we have neighborhoods, we have a church, we have a nation, and all kinds of other resources as a result of that. What are you doing with what you have been given? Here's what you've been given. Your landowner has built a vineyard that is so well appointed. It lacks nothing at all for your fruitfulness.

So I pray that God would bring us together as a church into a time of fruitfulness. Think about this in your family. Husbands, heads of households, are you managing your family to the greatest fruitfulness? Are you using every piece of that ground, cultivating it as best you can? Are you wasting any of that capability?

You single young men that are here and young women, it's no different for you either. You have been given ground. The Apostle Paul says you have freedoms that others don't have. Are you maximizing the years of your singleness for the kingdom of heaven? Have you determined in your heart to deploy every ounce of your mind, every moment of your waking hours, every muscle, every word, every activity on this computer?

Are you dedicating it to the Lord? Are you wasting your life with these tools? You live in a time where it is so easy to waste your life surfing the Internet. Beware, You have a Master who is sending servants and he desires fruit. And if you have been squandering Your time in the vineyard, it will be made known, and you will not be happy.

And the wood and the hay and the stubble will make a huge bonfire for you. And it will not bring happiness to your soul. Number three. There really is a warning here for anyone who rejects the voice of the sun. To live as if the resources were yours, to do the work as if it was for yourself, by yourself, to care nothing for the fruit that God desires, who is hungry for fruit.

Life in the vineyard gets very dead and twisted and noxious when the heart does not desire to bear fruit. And the vineyard is given to another. If you reject the voice of the Son of God, Here's what you're missing out on. You're missing out on what is spoken of in Psalm 46. There is a river whose streams shall make glad the city of God.

God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved. God shall help her just at the break of dawn. You are eclipsing the joy and the strength of your Master. You're missing out on what is in Psalm 16 11.

You will show me the path of life in your presence is fullness of joy at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. What is lost from ignoring the voice of the sun. You might ask, why is it that revivals stop? Why is it that there's no joy in God? It's because the work in the vineyard becomes misdirected, it becomes self-centered.

God is not exalted in every activity in the vineyard. In the relationships, the conversations, the meetings, the sermons, the prayers, the cultivation of the flesh, the folly, the prayerlessness, the cycles of life, the busyness, the tiredness, the deadness. All these things bring about deadness in the hearts of the workers in the vineyard. So the question is, do we long for the presence of the Lord? Do we love the sound of His voice?

Do we have the power of God in our gatherings? Do we have the very presence of God in our homes. Do we have the unction of the Holy Spirit in our personal councils when we're together? There was an evangelist that came to America about 30 years ago, and he said he couldn't believe how much could get done in the church in America without the Holy Spirit. And what's the failure?

It's a failure of love. It's a failure of love in the heart. It's a failure of longing for the Master's voice. It's a failure of being able to say, I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord. It's the inability to say, when your heart said, Lord, seek my face, my heart said, your face, Lord, I will seek.

It's an inability to have that. That's the heart of the problem with the vinedressers of Israel. The fourth application is this. Take heart. God will make his vine fruitful.

Nahum 2 says, for the Lord will restore the excellence of Jacob like the excellence of Israel, for the emptiers have emptied them out and have ruined their vine branches, but God will bring a remnant out of the burned-up vineyard. He will do it. Zechariah said this, For the seed shall prosper, the vine shall give its fruit, the ground shall give her increase, and the heavens shall give their due. I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things. Micah 3.11, and I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, so that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field, says the Lord of hosts." In Psalm 128, we read of this beautiful family life.

"'Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine in the heart of your house, your children like olive plants all around your table. And how is how does this happen? Christ, Christ, Christ alone who said I am the vine in John 15, and my Father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit He takes away, and every branch that bears fruit he prunes that it may yield more fruit. Abide in me and I in you.

As a branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine and you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him bears much fruit. For without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered, and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

If you abide in Me, and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you. By this my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit, so you will be my disciples." And this is the heart of the matter. Abiding, loving the sound of the Master's voice, having it in your soul to say, Your will I delight in, Your voice I long to hear." And so what we come to hear is really the whole matter of salvation. That to some He gives a heart to love Him, and to others he does not. To those whom he does he he fills them with fullness of joy in his presence or pleasures forevermore.

To those that do not He gives them the bitter for the sweet. And so what about you today, if you cannot love Him, if your heart cannot say, I love your courts, if your heart cannot say, oh how I love thy law, If your heart cannot say, oh how I love thy law. If your heart cannot say, oh Lord send your son. What do you do? Here's what you do.

You plead with God to give you a new heart. A man can receive nothing unless it's given him from heaven. And the next time you hear the sound of the Master's voice, recognize God is so merciful to you. And He's giving you more and more opportunity to turn your heart to Him. Because He is a God of patience and He is a God of mercy.

And He's already waited a long time for you. He's already not destroyed you, even though you've only worked for yourself, even though you've only served yourself, even though you have been an opportunist and have not loved the sound of His voice. He still has had mercy. He is the Father of all mercies. Here's what you can do.

Cry out to Him. Cry out to Him that He would save your soul. Would you pray with me? Oh Lord, I thank You for this beautiful vineyard You placed us in. We've seen You bear so much fruit through it, through Your own Word, through Your own ways.

And now, Lord, that you would teach us even more how to love the sound of the voice of your Son, His atoning sacrifice, His atonement, His making clean the filthy, His taking the outcasts and making them his friends. Amen.