Matthew Chapter 21 Verses 23 – 25a

• Now I love what just happened because if you caught it, these men questioned Jesus’ authority to not only teach but also to do the cleanup work He had done the day before and so while they question His authority, notice, He questions their competence and qualification to ask such a question of Him! I love that!
• What authority? Let me ask you…do you even recognize authority! HA! I LOVE IT! I mean first, they don’t really care what His answer is…they just want to confront Him and shut Him down…and second, to question His authority is ridiculous. It’s obvious! Oh man…but I do it too.   God is so long suffering with me…God what are you doing? What are you going to do? Why is it this way? When in truth, God is God…my prayers should be much more filled with praise than with preguntas…you know what I’m sayin!?

Matthew Chapter 21 Verses 25b – 27

• Oh they know…they just won’t say. They couldn’t say that the baptism of John wasn’t from heaven because at His baptism, there were given two heavenly signs…AND…on top of that…folks had turned their lives over to God! In just a moment Jesus will speak of tax collectors and harlots believing on God as a result of John’s ministry. But they couldn’t say John’s baptism was from heaven because if they said that then they’d have to admit to the deity and Godly authority of Jesus! So they were stuck! Between pride and truth…and isn’t that a place we’re stuck in often…?
• So Jesus stuns them again when they say, “We do not know,” by basically exposing their incompetence to judge the simplest of matters on account of their own pride…it’s really an amazing scene…and so since Jesus can’t reason with them straight forwardly, He turns to parables to break into their cold crispy crusty calloused hearts…

Matthew Chapter 21 Verses 28 – 29

• By the way…love works like that. I want you to know…because we say we love someone…does this ever happen? I already know you’re not perfect towards them…so does this situation ever arise? Where you’ve said something wrong, done something wrong and then gone and had to make it right…, “I won’t go,” and then man love churns…, “I should go. It’s the right thing to do…ugh I shouldn’t have been an idiot,” and you relent and make it right…? Love isn’t always perfect, but it should be pure…you can protect that…you can’t be perfect but you surely can be pure…

• What is regret if it’s not mixed with action? Answer…weakness. Defeat. Failure. Fragility. Powerlessness. Regret should not be permitted to take up residence in our character. We have the right to kick it out…and the decision will always be between pride and truth…

Matthew Chapter 21 Verses 30 – 32

• See, no conference here in their answer. Jesus is using a parable to make a difficult concept entirely simple so that the answer is distinct and glaringly indisputable…and notice, the first son rebelled yes but afterward, when regret set in, love activated and won…and the son did the will of the father. Enter the tax collectors and the harlots…living in open known rebellion…they hear the preaching of John, they turn from their sin, they do the will of the father…but the second son…answers in surety, answers with confidence...

• Hears the command of the father and immediately speaks compliance respectfully…but that’s all he does…he hears and says and does not do…enter the chief priests and the elders of the people…enter Christians with powerless walks…confessing the Word of God is truth and intending to get serious about it someday, talking about doing the Father’s work, singing the lines of hymns or worship songs…all these things, but could it be that your heart is not right with God…?

• May I just bear my heart for a moment…I don’t want to be this second son. God has created me. He didn’t have to…He has given me life and in that giving of life to me, He then had to give His own life so that I could have eternal life…a second life because I trashed my first… I know the Lord…and I have glimpsed His heart for me, for my wife, for my littles, for my church, for my coworkers…and His heart is perfect and wonderful…wonderful Father, mighty Counselor, Prince of Peace…I don’t want to pay Him lip service…I want to serve Him…and so my goal…third son…I want to confess with my mouth and believe in my heart…as evidenced by my integrity of worship in action…God help me!
• By the way, all I have to do is be deeply driven into Christ in order to be the third son. Adam was the first, Jesus the second…through the indwelling Holy Spirit, I can be the third. Co-heir with Christ!

Matthew Chapter 21 Verse 33

• Now they would immediately know that Jesus is talking about them because He is basically walking them through Isaiah Chapter 5 which describes this vineyard and then identifies this vineyard as the house of Israel…and really the message of Isaiah 5 is, “What more could I have done!? I’ve done everything, given you everything necessary for you to be entirely fruitful…and yet just like that fig tree, the landowner has returned and found it fruitless…”

• It’s really the same with us…what God has done that is. There are all walks of life in this room…all types of different situations and backgrounds but one thing is common…God has supplied to each of us individually all we need in order to be fruitful…

Matthew Chapter 21 Verses 34 – 40

• Love them and bless them and shower them with grace! HA! Are you kidding me!? But isn’t this the way we think? Especially when we are thinking about ‘ole number one!? If you think this way then hear me out and wake up! I used to! Why? Because this is the gospel of man, not of God…that we live our lives and we do all sorts of things that are unacceptable to God and yet, “Well, I’m not a bad person…”

• I used to party every opportunity I had. High every day…in multiple relationships at the same time of which none of them knew of any of the others. Spending hours in the gym every day and no time pursuing God. The focus of my life continually myself and getting mine and then when the day would end, I would spend my 4 minutes in prayer before falling asleep talking to God who wept at my voice and I couldn’t even hear His tears…
• Why? Because I didn’t really know Him. I thought, truly thought, that as long as I wasn’t as bad as this other guy, well then that means that you know, God knows my heart, I’m good with Him…but His Word, His prophets, I cast them aside…His Son, the life given to me, given for me to give me a shot at being filled with the very Holy Spirit of God…I didn’t reverence Him…I did as I wanted…therefore, when the landowner comes, what will He do? My answer? Bless me and love me and squeeze me and keep me for His very own…see how ridiculous that sounds now? They knew the answer too…

Matthew Chapter 21 Verse 41

• The correct answer…the one I wouldn’t have liked or accepted as I lived in my flesh…doesn’t make it any less truth…Even now, even with this church, with this family, with this job, with this friendship…God has equipped me with EVERYTHING I need to bear fruit, be fruitful…and yet if I become that second son…the truth is…He will find someone else. And HE SHOULD…and so the third son is not just a desire for me it is a command and it’s not just lip service, I’m actually gonna do it…by the grace of God, man…the son comes to the vineyard I’m leasing and I don’t even have a guest house for Him, the whole thing is His and I’m His servant!

Matthew Chapter 21 Verses 42 – 46

• All humanity will encounter Jesus in 1 of 2 ways. Every man and woman will either fall upon Him or He will fall upon them. We each have a choice…we can be broken in surrender to a Good Father, a Good Master and a Good God…or we can encounter His goodness in justice and be ground up…the word means scattered…crushed…for the world around us to be cleansed of us…