In the sermon 'The Power of a Changed Heart' by Scott Brown, the focus is on the transformative power of repentance and obedience to God's authority as illustrated through the parable of the two sons in Matthew 21:23-32. Brown explores the themes of authority, submission, and the significance of a changed heart in coming to faith. He contrasts the genuine transformation that leads one to work in God's vineyard with the hollow religiosity of the Pharisees, who are trapped in outward conformity. The sermon underscores the importance of recognizing and submitting to Jesus Christ's authority and warns against the dangers of fearing human opinion over divine command. Through the lens of authority and submission, the sermon highlights the beauty and necessity of a heart transformed by God, which leads to true obedience and fruitfulness in life.

Our sermon text for today's message is Matthew 21, from verse 23 to 32. Let's read. Now, when he came into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people confirmed him as he was teaching and said, By what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority? But Jesus answered and said to them, I also will ask you one thing, which if you tell me, I likewise will tell you by what authority I do these things.

The baptism of John, where was it from? From heaven or from man? And there is an amount themselves saying, if we say from heaven, He will say to us, Why then did you not believe him? But if we say from men, we fear the multitude for all count John as a prophet. So they answer Jesus and say, We do not know.

And he say to them, Neither we will tell you by what authority I do these things. But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, Son, go work today in M'Vinje. He answered and said, I will not. But afterward he regretted and went.

Then he came to the second and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go sir. But he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father? They say to him the first.

Jesus said to them, As surely I say to you, that tax collectors and harlots entered the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, as you did not believe him. But tax collectors and harlots believed Him, and when you saw it, you did not afterward relent and believe Him. Let's pray. Holy Father, we thank you, Lord, for the opportunity that we have to listen to Your Word, Father.

As we've seen before, Lord, we ask You to reveal Your glory to us, Father, to You, the preaching of Your Word, Father. Your Word is a light into our paths, Father. May you convict us today, Father. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

As I was considering this passage for this morning, I had a lot of things running through my mind, especially the last couple of days on it, and it really having to do with the whole reality of the way that God desires to shepherd his church is through his word. That he leads his people by his word. People say, where is this church going? And the answer to that question really is, well, the Word of God is designed to lead the church in the right direction. So whenever you're in a passage of Scripture, the greatest challenge is to try to understand what is the heart of that passage of Scripture.

Can you state it in a sentence? Can you somehow, after reading it over and over again and meditating on it, can you somehow, by using the words, the context, the phraseology, its wider context, The theological context, the historical context, try to bring all those things together and try to be faithful to it. In many ways, the whole enterprise is an act of submission. You're trying to conform your thoughts to the words that are in that passage. It's a process of ordering yourself under the authority of that passage, because God is speaking and man has to order himself under God's authority to conform to his words for the feeding of the flock.

Whether those words are offensive, whether they're pleasing, there are so many pleasing words, There are so many difficult words in Scripture. We don't get it just one way in the Bible. If you want a sunny book only, the Bible is not the place to go. It is sunny in some places, but it's terrifying in others. And so those who are shepherding the church have to try to put themselves under submission.

Now you have an outline in front of you and I titled this message the power of a changed heart. Well, it really could have been titled so many other things. It could have been titled, Submission to Authority, because that also is a great theme in this passage. I really wanted to title it, Son, Go Work in My Window Today. I love that phrase.

So there are so many themes running throughout this passage of Scripture, And I dare say that the title that you have at the top of the page is a little too small for the scope of what's here in this passage. I titled it The Power of a Changed Heart, though. Changed heart, though. And I did that because this passage shows how you can come out of such a destructive life and have your heart changed. How you can tear yourself to bits in your life for years and years and years to the point of being a harlot or even maybe it's worse to be a publican.

But It shows how you can start regretting that. You can start... Something happens in your heart and you regret that. Somehow He shows you, you see it and you begin to regret it like that son who said he wouldn't follow, but then he did. He regretted that.

As he was going along the way, somehow he came to his senses. We don't know how, but it was the work of the Holy Spirit, for sure. You see the foolishness of it. And then you hear the most wonderful words that you can ever hear. If you're able to hear it, hear those words, son, my son, go and work today in my vineyard.

And then to have a whole new life, an entire existence, totally transformed, working for good, working in something that matters, working that's eternal, even in the heavens. At the hearing of the words, Son, son, go work today in my vineyard." You remember when you heard those words. You know you couldn't even have been given ears to hear those words unless He opened them so that you could hear them. But what a blessed hearing that is when you first begin to hear. And it touches your heart.

And you realize that He has given you a new job. And you quit your job as a devil. And you start working. And so also on the other hand in this passage you see those that can't hear, they can't hear that phrase and they have the fear of man in their souls so much. And also they're so sin-hardened and they're so desensitized by their religion that they cannot change.

And they're like what Jesus said in Matthew 23, for they say and do not do. They're entrapped, they're just entrapped in this outward religion. And so our text here brings all these issues together, the issue of the authority of Jesus Christ, the issue of the hardened religious heart, and the issue of the remorse that leads to life. When you look at your life, it takes your breath away, and you're so sorry for what you have done to yourself, and you turn. So that's what this passage is about.

It's a beautiful text. And the question of the passage is very simple, you know, who will you work for? Who will you follow? Whose vineyard will you tend? And it really is an issue of authority because the most important question we can ask is whose authority am I under?

Because this passage is also about authority. Now we face authority every day in different kinds. No one ever gets out from under authority. It's always interesting for me to see children. Somehow they have this vision that someday they're going to be able to escape authority.

And when you get as old as I do, you realize that ain't never going to happen. So you might as well learn how to live within authority because you're always facing it. Even if you're out in the middle of a desert and there's not a single human being around, you're going to wake up in the morning and you have the authority of the weather. So no one ever escapes it. But this passage speaks of Christ's authority.

But at the same time, you know, it's interesting. There was no one who ever had more authority than Jesus Christ. But at the same time, nobody ever lived more in submission than Jesus Christ as well. It's such a remarkable, is it a contradiction or what is it? But he was under authority on the one hand, but he had perfect authority on the other.

Another mystery of the Godhead. And so, you know, in this text, the Son of God who obeyed his Father, leaving his heavenly glory to take the likeness of man, He's now experiencing the last week of his life where he'll lay down his life for his friends and he will enter into the Garden of Gethsemane and what will happen to him is he'll actually have a crisis of authority in his humanity. Go figure. And he'll say, let this cup pass from my lips. And he wants it in some moment.

How do you even describe that? Wanting to get out from under his father's authority and do something else. But he is under his father's authority and he does complete the task here in this last week of his life. So while Christ's authority is so manifest in this text, he has authority over his own temple, and people are challenging his authority over what is his. And at the same time, he's on his way to the greatest act of submission that ever was.

You see the beauty of the contours of this text, that you have authority, submission, you have love, you have a remorse and a heart that leads to life, you have all these things just sort of wrapped up in this one beautiful story here. And you know, it reveals the struggles of religious people against the authority of God. And so this issue ends up getting raised in the midst of a personal conversation between the Lord Jesus Christ and the Jewish religious leaders. So let's take it beginning in verse 23. Now when he had, when he came into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people confronted him as he was teaching.

So there is a confrontation for the Lord Jesus' actions. Now notice the location. He came into the temple. Now, just give you a marker in terms of Matthew's treatment of this. Everything from here all the way to chapter 24 verse 1 happens in the same area in the temple.

Everything happens there. So we're going to keep reading, we're going to be preaching through this, but just recognize it's all happening right in this same context, as far as I can discern. And he's in the temple, he's right here in the court of the Gentiles, And there's this confrontation, and they're plotting against him. Mark says that they've already determined to kill him. Matthew doesn't record this until the end of this chapter.

When it says that they feared, They wanted to lay hands on him, but they feared the multitudes because they took him as a prophet. God gave them fear in their hearts so they couldn't take him. And so there's this confrontation taking place and You see, I think you see the fearlessness of Jesus Christ here. You know, he's saying, show us Christ. Here is Christ.

He is in the temple. And consider what has just happened. Just previous to this, the Lord has cleared the temple. Now, this is a 25-acre piece of real estate. Who knows how many cables were there that He turned over?

There were hundreds of animals, people hocking and yelling, and there were bleedings of sheep and lowings of oxen. And it was a cacophonous kind of a scenario. The Lord Jesus goes in there, he totally stops all the commerce, he stops it with his own hands, so the other gospel writers say. It's a remarkable situation. And he turns over the tables.

It must have looked like a tornado had gone through there. And there are all these tables overturned. And he leaves. And he comes back. And now, here he is.

And what is he doing? He's teaching. First he turns over the tables and then he teaches. And that's what we see here. It's amazing that he would even go back in there.

But he has the chief priests and the elders, leaders of Israel, who are united to destroy him. And the teaching is the term that is used here is that it's imparting information. So the Lord is teaching about Himself, I'm sure. That's what He likes to speak of the most, because He is going to be glorified. And he is teaching them.

And then there's this question that comes from the leaders, by what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you that authority? So here we bump into this whole theme of authority. And they are referring, most likely, to the things that have just happened. You know, he rode in to Jerusalem like a king, and the whole crowd is praising him, thousands of people, most likely.

And then he comes into the temple and he cleanses the temple and he's accepting worship of the children and now he's teaching. And so they're saying, By what authority are you doing this? I think it's the whole package they're referring to here. And they want to know why he can do these things. Now, he's already said why.

Remember? Remember what he said? It is written. That's why he's doing it. He's doing it because he's fulfilling prophecy.

He's already actually communicated that. And so this whole matter of authority, you know, is brought before us. We know from the Bible that there is no authority but what has been established by God. That's what we learn in Romans chapter 13. I can't think of a more unseasonable subject to bring up in modern society than authority because we live in a society that hates authority and It hates authority because it knows that eventually the buck stops somewhere.

And you've got to hate authority on lower levels or else you'll have to accept authority at the higher levels and then the highest level, which happens to be God Almighty, Jehovah, himself. So people hate authority because they know where it leads. If you acknowledge it in one place, it has a trail, and you're not going to have much chance for autonomy unless you can kill the little authorities. Because if you can kill them, you can kill the big one as well. We know that there are powers and principalities that rule, they have authority.

We know that human beings have authority, that we have been given the mandate to take dominion, and that we have authority to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and all that is on the earth. He has made us a little lower than the angels and we have some kind of authority. He creates authorities everywhere. He creates it in the family, He creates it in the church, He creates it in the government and it exists in heaven. It's everywhere.

No one can ever escape it. And, you know, this is why a father can say, along with Joshua, as for me and my house, it's my house, I have authority over it. I've been placed as a jurisdictional head over my house. Jesus now is in his house and he's saying, this is my house. He has authority over it.

And the Pharisee, the scribes and the priests, they understand that. They understand that He is claiming authority over His house, and that's why they want to kill Him. This is a struggle over power and authority that we're seeing right before our eyes. The whole Gospel of Matthew is going to end with this whole subject of authority, where Jesus is going to say, all authority has been given unto me in heaven and on earth. In Ephesians chapter 1, verse 21, in this prayer, we read that his authority is far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named not only in this age but also in that which is to come.

And he put all things under his feet, and gave him to behead over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all and all." He is a man of the Lord Jesus of authority and it's his authority that he is exerting. And that's why when a person, no one becomes a Christian without submitting to His authority. And that's why the ultimate act of all the ages is, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that. Jesus Christ is Lord. And so he's coming and he's exerting his authority.

There's no better, no sweeter, no more comforting, no more just authority ever. No better authority to ever live under. You might chafe under it, but you've got to know how good it is. And so, at the same time, the Son of Man is under authority. You read in John chapter 519 where he said, Most assuredly I say to you, the Son of Man can do nothing of himself but what he sees his Father doing.

For whatever he does, the Son also does in like manner." And he said in John 14, 31, as the Father gave me commandments, so I do, arise and let us go from here. Here the Son of God, the head of the church, who owns the temple, is also one under authority. And this is how he can sympathize with our weaknesses in the face of authority. This is how he can call us to submit, because as our elder brother, he has also submitted himself. Jesus is not asking us to do anything that he hasn't done himself, as he's placed himself under the authority of his Father, to do the will of his Father.

And it's the same thing that an earthly father does too. He asks his children to submit to Him. At the same time, on the other hand, He is submitting to His Father in heaven. He is both an authority and one who submits. This is the way that God has designed human life to operate.

He gives us both at the same time. And none of our authority is unlimited at all. But the greatest authority that the Lord Jesus Christ perhaps exerts is this authority spoken of in John 17, verse 2. As you have given him authority over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom he has sent." So this is a challenge of Jesus Christ's authority.

This is what the leaders are doing. And how do you try to process this for your own life? Here are a couple of ways. Ask yourself, do I love the authority of Jesus? Do I love His commands?

Do I desire it in my heart? When you said, as the psalmist said, Seek my face, my heart said, Your face, Lord, I will seek." Well, the Pharisees didn't exactly have that heart, did they? Their hearts were hardened, hardened by religion, hardened by an over-exaltation of their law-keeping, hardened by their hatred and their heart set against Jesus Christ. And then the Lord answers in verse 24, Jesus answered and said to them, I also will ask you one thing, which if you tell me, I likewise will tell you by what authority I do these things. Here again we encounter the intellectual brilliance of the Lord Jesus Christ, His vanquishing ability to debate how it's...

The Lord Jesus is not one you want to enter into a debate with because he'll he'll put you in a corner and you cannot get out without lying or compromising or slandering. And that's what happens here. He so deftly works them into a box canyon. Don't you wish you had those capacities so that you could just command all situations? Well, I'm sorry.

There is one who and only one who can do that right. And the Lord Jesus does it so beautifully here. Verse 25, the question, the baptism of John. Where was it from? From heaven or from men?

So that threw them into a tizzy. You know, they couldn't quite, They were grasping the difficulty of the question, the impossibility of answering this question. Because they were so self-serving, they couldn't answer the question with honesty. They had to lie. And so, they reasoned among themselves.

So they apparently had some time to talk, you know, the Lord Jesus asked this question, this is not a question you just want to pop off, they're at least wise enough for that. They're not going to go shoot their mouth off, they're going to collaborate, They're going to come with a united front. This is what wise guys like to do. And that's exactly what they did. And they came back saying, if we say from heaven, He will say to us, why then did you not believe Him?

So they understand the problem? So the Lord here is answering the question and The problem was they They understood what was going on in their culture They they had this rightly discerned the times. They knew that the people respected John. They knew that if he would speak against John, it would get them in trouble with the people. And what they wanted was the praise of the people.

They wanted the respectful greetings in the market places, so they had to lie in order to maintain that. In 14.5 we learn that Herod feared the multitude because they thought John was a prophet. So that was sort of the deal. That was a problem for the scribes and Pharisees because... What did John say about Jesus?

Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. John had put his stamp upon Jesus. Jesus was using a lot of the same lines that John used. And their disciples were friends. John had said that Jesus would be baptized by the Holy Spirit.

So the religious leaders were in big trouble because they understood that they had a real problem. If they embraced John, they would logically be forced to embrace Jesus. If they renounced John, then they would be renounced by the people. That was the problem. They had to make a decision.

So their measured man-pleasing answer is found in verse 26. But if we say from men, we fear the multitude. At least they were honest. At least they were talking about what was really true. For all account, John is a prophet.

So they answered Jesus and said to him the most brilliant thing they could possibly think of. After collaborating, after going back and forth, they came with the final answer And it was, we don't know! And that was a lie. And so Jesus answered them with the truth, and He said, neither will I tell you what authority that I do these things." So they were not answering out of any kind of genuineness, but out of strategy for the people because they feared the multitude because they, the multitude, believed that John was a prophet. Now what we learn here is that the people are more astute than the leaders in this culture.

And they had fearful leaders who were suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. So coming to the end of this first section, let's just consider a few things before we move on to the parable that the Lord Jesus tells them in order to explain what is happening there. So I think one question we should ask is how are we like these leaders? When considering the spiritual leaders, what can we learn about ourselves from them? It's so easy to just sort of disassociate ourselves from the guys who said, we don't know, but how are we like that?

You know, It's always important for us not to miss who the characters are and what is it in us that might connect. Because the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking truth to them. And who knows? They may look back and see the wrongness of their ways and turn. So how are we like that?

Do we look for loopholes to avoid authority because we fear people? The religious leaders did not want to change because they feared the people. Has that ever happened in your life? You were afraid to change because you feared someone in your life. You feared their displeasure.

You feared their wrath. You feared that their their attitude would turn against you if you change and so you don't and You can and and by doing so you get to keep you get to keep your dead religion because you've just become lifeless. Looking for loopholes to avoid authority because we fear the people. Because we fear the people. And of course, how can we escape just the proposition for mankind to embrace the authority of Jesus Christ?

To realize that when you think you can rule your own life, your own way, that you've actually set yourself against Jesus Christ. But the opportunity is there to repent and to receive, to have faith. He's the one who saves us from that kind of rebellion. He's the one that can save us from being so man-pleasing that we are afraid to change because of the wrath of our fear of people. He can set us free from that because He's the one who saves us from our sins in a lot of different ways.

He justifies us by applying the blood that he shed on the cross, by vanquishing our dead works and making us alive. And then he also deals with our sins as we progress day by day, year by year. We can come to him as the authority. He's a good authority. He'll only be relieving us of the things that keep us in bondage.

And so he's such a good authority. Now, let's sort of, I want to transition toward this parable where the Lord Jesus makes this statement about the son. So after Jesus responds to the confrontation, he tells three parables, okay? We're only going to cover one of them today. And the parable of the two sons is in Matthew here, in Mark, And the other are in Mark and Luke.

And then the wedding feast is only in Luke. But there are three parables that Jesus tells in this same scene. Matthew only records this one and another one. This one and another one. But in the parables, two groups of people are contrasted.

And all three of the parables indicate the following things. There is about to be a reversal of leadership, that the old are going to be set aside for the new. They illustrate that the kingdom of God will be taken away from them and be given to a nation that will yield the fruit. Look with me at verse 43 of this chapter. Look, set your eyes on verse 43.

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." So, Last week I said this is all about bearing fruit, right? Well, all the parables that are coming are about bearing fruit, too. Almost the whole chapter is about fruit bearing. So they illustrate the fruitful and the fruitless, the first and the last, the new and the old.

And so, in many ways, it's a manifesto of the rejection of Israel and the inclusion of the Gentiles. So there's a lot here in this parable that begins in verse 28. So Jesus says, but what do you think? He's asking a rhetorical question. He doesn't want them to answer this question.

He now is going to be the teacher. He's not actually wanting them to respond, I don't think. But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, Son, go work today in my vineyard. So there are two sons that are called to work.

And now it's interesting that there are a number of scenarios like this in the Bible of two sons. The pairs are often divided as the sheep and the goats. There's Cain and Abel. There's Jacob and Esau. There's Isaac and Ishmael.

There's the Prodigal Son and the other Son. There are the sons of God and the sons of the devil. And here we have another parable about sons. I believe that there's a connection with these real sons in Scripture and these two sons right here. And the Lord Jesus is gathering up what began in Genesis with Cain and Abel, where you had one who was bearing, one son bearing fruit, and the other had a dead religion.

And the Lord Jesus is now going to tell a parable of two sons, which is a parable of all those other sons that were like this. So you have to ask yourself, which son am I? And there's the command, son, go work today in my building. And this imagery is filling the mind of the Lord Jesus. He tells a number of horticultural parables like this.

He casts these scenes in chapter 20, verse 1, to read, for the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers in his vineyard. And, You know, the whole point of that was the first shall be last and the last shall be first, but many are called, few are chosen. That's the theme that he's working here. He's dividing the sheep and the goats. Now, I want us to look at the words that are said to the Son.

Son, He calls Him Son. You can see the tenderness, the affection, the devotion, the relationship that's there. You see the love of God toward His creatures, how He so desires to call them sons. Now one of these will turn out to be a true son, and the other will not be a true son. But for some reason, he calls them both sons.

And then he says, go. You know, he's enacting a change in their lives. He's going to move them. He's going to move them from one life to another life there's all the excitement of a changed life and a new job a new employer a New destiny that's set out called heaven go Go and go in and work There's there's there's activity there's engagement. There's something to do there's excitement There's something meaningful about life When you wake up in the morning, you know that you have something to do.

You're not wasting your life in the world because you have a Father who's spoken through His Son to you in so many words. And He's given His Spirit to help you engage the work, to show you how to work, how to deal with the people, how to think about it, how to feel about it, everything. To go work, He gives us work to do. And then notice, He says, today, it's urgent, it's immediate. There's always instantaneously, immediately available good work for the person who is working in the Lord's vineyard.

It's the best place to work. And then he also says, in my vineyard. In other words, it's his. We place ourselves in service, in someone else's mission. It's greater than our own.

It's far better than our own. It's more beautiful. It's more compelling, more fulfilling, more effective, and it fits. It's right. And it's a vineyard.

It's a vineyard. It's a place of production. It's a place of fruit bearing. It's a place where beautiful things are coming off and they satisfy and they nourish. That's what this son has an opportunity for.

Son, go work today in my vineyard. What a calling. What a wonderful, what a kind Savior, what a good Shepherd to do such things for His sons and daughters. And you know, when you think about vineyards, you know, I was thinking, how do we talk about this vineyard that's here? Well, we're going to talk about vineyards, you know, a lot more in Matthew, okay?

So we're not done with vineyards and vines and fruit bearing. We're not done with that at all. For some reason, Matthew cannot stop talking about it. The Lord in His vineyard has many plots of ground, many other vineyards that He calls His people to attend. There's the whole vineyard of your home.

Every wife is to be a keeper at home. She has her own plot of ground, her own vineyard to cultivate, to cause it to bear fruit, to nourish it, to make it the sweetest place on earth, like heaven, like that heavenly home. There's your work. It's the same kind of thing. The relationships that you're given in work and the way that you have connections with people, the way that you serve people in your work.

That's another way of working in this vineyard. There's your church. The church is like a vineyard as well, and you work in that vineyard. You cultivate the ground, you speak the truth in love, you preach the Word of God, you love one another, you're tenderhearted, forgiving one another. This is the loamy, beautiful soil that makes a vineyard so fruitful.

So there are all these sort of mini vineyards that God has set out, that He has this vineyard, it's His, and He calls sons to work in it. Unfortunately, all sons don't have exactly the same response to the call. So verse 29, you see the son's response. And he answered and said, I will not. Ugh.

But afterward, he regretted it and went. He regretted it. Now the term that Jesus uses here has to do with experiencing a feeling of remorse. It's sort of on the feeling level. There's another word that's like it.

It's our word for repentance, metanoia, a change of mind, Right? This word is a lot like it, but not exactly like it. It comes from the same root, but it has a different twist to it. It really has to do with the change of feeling. It's as if you, it takes your breath away what has happened to you.

You regret it. You regret saying no. You see what happened when you said no. Now for some people, that no lasts a long time. The longer it lasts, the more you get torn up.

But the Lord Jesus Christ is willing to take us when we're torn up, even though there's maybe a long distance between the question and regretting saying no. But this has to do with someone who has a different feeling about it, an uncomfortable feeling, a change of heart and a feeling deep within the heart that says, I want to go to that vineyard. He said, son, Go work today in my vineyard. I'm going. I'm quitting this job.

You can take this and I'm headed to my Savior's workplace. And That's what's happening here. So that's what the first son did. He said, I will not, and he regretted it. And then the other son answered and said, I'll go, sir.

But he did not go. He had all of the respect, all the outward appearance of it. He said all the right words. He was like that person who says, Lord, Lord. And he says, I never knew you.

Depart from me. So you had a change in heart. So here's a question. In the quiet, in the quiet honesty of your heart, before God alone, not caring for what the crowds or your relatives are going to say. When you hear the words, son, go work in my vineyard, What's happening?

Do you long for the vineyard? Or maybe you have the regret. Maybe you look back and you regret. And that regret in your heart would drive you to say yes and work in His glory. So the Lord asks for an evaluation in verse 31.

He says which of the two did the will of his father and They said to him the first Which of The two did the will of his father that's a really important question in this passage which of the two did the will of his father?" That's a really important question in this message. Which of the two did the will of his father? And this is the issue that separates the two sons. This is the issue that separates the saved from the unsaved. The Pharisees said they were willing, but they did not.

The Son, the true Son, said he wasn't willing, but he repented, And he did. That's what separates the two. And then the Lord Jesus interprets this at the end of verse 31 and 32. Surely I say to you that tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but tax collectors and harlots believed him.

And when you saw it, you did not afterward relent and believe him. So it's interesting, the Lord interprets this parable for them. He doesn't always do that. But right there before those hardened, you know, religiously charred men. He interprets the parable for them as an act of mercy, I'm sure.

So here's some conclusions, some applications. Who are you? Who are you? Are you the person who rejected God? You said no.

And you were very bad. And you tore up your soul and your relationships and your family and you you sowed seeds that you know are killing you. And you had a bad feeling about it, and you changed. Your heart changed. And you said yes, And you went to work in the vineyard.

What a blessing that is to have that happen to you. That is how everyone enters into the kingdom of heaven. I don't think anybody ever gets in any other way than at some point to say no and then say yes. That might happen really young in life. You know, I was really grateful I married a girl who did that really young in life.

The earlier the better, but at the same time, we should recognize that God is glorified in the salvation of sinners. He glorifies Himself by bringing in the tax collectors and the harlots. He loves them. He loves them just like He loves every sinner. And He takes them into His arms and He carries them.

Here's such a wonderful thing about the days that God gives us on the earth. And that is that rejection is not always ultimate rejection. You can say no. And you can have a hard heart, but it's not over. Because God can give you a remorse.

He can give you a heart to hate what the devil has done to you. He can make your heart change. He can make you have remorse for that so much that you turn to Him. And you enter into a vineyard that's bearing fruit, And you're a worker in it for all eternity. So if you've said no, that's not the end of the story necessarily.

How do you know? How do you know? You know. You know when he's giving you a soft heart toward himself. You know when you love his law rather than hate it.

You know. You know when your heart is turned. It may take you a while to figure out that it turned. That's what happened to me. It took me a while to figure out that my heart was turning and it turned.

And there was a day that I knew it had completely turned. It was almost like I woke up one day and I looked and I thought, wow, you've turned. You love Him. You want to love Him. You want to obey Him.

Your heart is soft toward Him. You desire Him. You want to be with His people. Why would you want to be with those people? Something changed.

So who are you? Are you the talker, but not the doer? Some of the characters in this story were talkers and not doers. They honored him with their lips, but their hearts were far from them. And they were condemned by the words of James, faith without works is dead.

This is just that warning about outward conformity, but there's no heart of intention toward action. Their sin was that they had a life of promises that they never followed through. Here's what I heard one of my friends say, to obey is better than to promise to obey. To obey is better than to promise to obey. To obey is better than to promise to obey.

Now why did they reject it? It tells, well we're told here, they feared the crowd and they wanted to be a law unto themselves. We learn that by looking across the scriptures. In Luke chapter 7 verse 29 we read that all the people heard him and the tax collectors justified God having been baptized with the baptism of John but the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the will of God for themselves. They rejected it for themselves.

That was the problem. They liked to talk about the will of God for everybody else, but they didn't like it for themselves. They were relentless in holding everyone accountable, but they did not want the will of God for themselves. And so they, you know, they were the ones that John spoke about when he said, bring forth fruit in keeping with your repentance. They didn't want to do the will of God.

This is so important in Scripture. And this is one of the major issues in this passage of Scripture. It's so amazing to me you have all these themes running in parallel and changing places in this text as you go through it. The Bible makes it so clear that doing the will of God divides the saved from the unsaved. No one is saved by doing the will of God, But no one can be saved unless they do the will of God.

This is why Jesus said, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, done many wonders in your name? We learn that hypocrisy is actually defined by hearing and not doing. In Luke 646 the Lord says, but why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? Even the Great Commission is a command to obey.

You can't fulfill it without having this heart in you. Because in Matthew 28, 20, to fulfill the Great Commission, you're to be involved in teaching them to observe all the things that Jesus commanded us. And so the Lord Jesus is refuting a false doctrine that exists in Israel and it exists today. And it's a false doctrine that separates the law and grace. You cannot separate them.

They go together. And the scriptures say many things that are very clear about this. It's a refutation of easy believism. It's a false view that says that asking for obedience is legalism. That's a false view of salvation.

It's the separation of law and grace. You cannot separate law and grace any more than you can separate truth and love in the Bible. They both exist together. They both complement one another and help one another. And if you separate them, you don't have what was meant.

That's why Jesus said, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. The love comes first. The love comes first. It's the heart that changes that comes first. It is a true belief, a true desire to submit.

It's trust in the shed blood of Jesus Christ, a love for Him. That's what saves. And then, and then you keep His commandments. They are part of one another. That's why in John 14, Jesus said, he who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me.

And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him." So you have a person who keeps the commandments, loves him, and then he is loved by God. That's the formula Jesus gives. In 1423, Jesus answers and says, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word and my father will love him. In John 15 10, Jesus said, if you keep commandments, my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his law." This is why Paul to the Corinthians said, circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God is what matters. Well, it's not the only thing that matters, but it matters.

And so John, in his book, 1 John, in every chapter almost he makes it really clear that keeping the commandments is one way that you know your status before God. And he says in 1 John 2, 3 and 4, Now by this we know that we know him if we keep his commandments He who says I know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in them Now this is true but it's not true that keeping the commandments justifies you. You're justified by the blood of Jesus Christ. Your faith is verified by keeping the commandments of Jesus Christ. It's said so plainly.

And it really is the power, what it is, is the power of that changed heart. When somebody sees what has happened to them and they feel that remorse deep in their heart and they realize that they don't want that kingdom, they don't want the field of the devil anymore, and they want to follow Jesus Christ. And all that filth and all that destruction gets swallowed up in Christ through his shed blood. And a person can be saved without doing one single work, without obeying one single command, but be cleansed by the power of the blood of Christ, and to stand before him free, and then to work in his vineyard according to his commandments. I love the way Titus communicates it in Titus 3, 4-8.

But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ, our Savior, that having been justified by His grace, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. This is a faithful saying, and these things I want you to affirm constantly, that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men. And that is the gospel of Jesus Christ. That through the kindness of God, he changes someone's heart to believe.

In mercy he saves, he washes with regenerating and renewing power of the Holy Spirit. And he pours it out abundantly by Jesus Christ. And he justifies by grace alone, not by any works of the law at all, and then he calls you to good works to obey his commandments. That is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now there are many religious people in our day that may not enter the kingdom of God while the irreligious enter.

And the difference is that the tax collectors and the harlots that entered the kingdom of God, they were more aware of how depraved they were. And the religious just didn't think they were all that depraved. So the very biggest problem that anyone can ever have on this planet is to believe that you have no need to repent or to obey. Or to obey. And not to be able to hear those words, son, go work today in my vineyard.

And so here we've encountered two things. The hardened heart, the nation not bearing fruit, who will fall on the one hand. And on the other hand, the power of a changed heart. How you can come out of such a destructive life and get your heart changed. How by a miracle of God, you can begin to regret who you've been and what you've done and what you've believed and you can turn and be regenerated and washed and cleansed and carried into a vineyard in which you will work there with a new heart, having quit your job with the devil and answered the call and God and work in the dinner table.

Let's pray. Oh Lord that you would show us your word, show us Christ, Show us your glory in the salvation of sinners and the destruction of the wicked.