Sermons

1. Two-faced vs. Integrous (vv. 28-32)

[Context] X continues midweek teaching, still addressing, “the chief priests and elders” (v. 23), undeterred by rejection, heading to the Cross, and begins with a parable.

• X’s method of teaching, making his point w/unmistakable potency.
  • Made to pack punch w/indicting judgment.
  • W/judgment, there is grace.

 

1. Two sons

[KEY] Using “sons” tugs emotional heartstrings.

• X extends grace saying, “Son, go and work in the vineyard today” (v. 28).
  • First son, missing grace offered.
    • Working vineyard, brings privileges.
    • Israel’s vineyard, lush, filled w/grapes to create wine.

 

• Not harsh ask to be avoided but rich opportunity, spurned.
  • First son replies: “I will not” (v. 29).
  • Nt/stay this way, as son quickly “…changed his mind and went” (v. 29).

 

• Ultimate picture: “Actions speak louder than words.”
  • Aphorism: “A good leader makes a bad decision and turns around and makes a good decision.”
  • Son w/integrity.

 

• Life choice proves what’s resident within.
  • Note connection to X’s introductory phrase: “What do you think?” to “…afterward he changed his mind…” (v. 29).
    • Matthew’s μεταμεληθεὶς (Mat 21:29 BGT) “repented” (v. 29).
      • “mindset” did a complete 180.
      • Work of the Spirit inside of a person’s life.

[KEY] Verse 30, same father [“man”], “went to the other son and said the same” (v. 30).

• Same offer, the grace of good rich work.
  • This son did the exact opposite, answering, “I go sir,” but did not go (v. 30).
    • He is “two-faced” saying one thing while doing exact opposite.
    • Opposite of integrity, being whole.
      • Being two.

 

• If make a commitment, keep it.

^ESV  Matthew 5:37 Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil. (Mat 5:37 ESV)

 

^ESV  James 4:17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. (Jam 4:17 ESV)

 

[Point] First son immediately said no and then being caught up short in his conscience, turned and said yes.

Second son apparently w/no conscience says, “I’ll go” while never intending to and never giving this a second thought.

[App] People stripped of their conscience have a real problem.

Hard hearts are usually not manifestly angry but what slide into a blasé “I don’t care” attitude.

Mindset not understand what God offers, when being offered.

 

[Appl] Missing the grace of a clear conscience is what puts you in real jeopardy.

[Illus] When beginning seminary as a 22-year-old, I had misgivings about my qualifications. Serendipitously, running into the dean of the Seminary’s wife at bank, like a single son to a mother, I confessed my dilemma. She wisely said, “It’s when you stop caring about your fitness for ministry, is when you need to be concerned.”  

 

[Question] “What’s sacrificed when we say, yes and then no?”    

[Illus] Grace of X’s joy. Where grapes are grown, collected, stored, pressed, squeezed and where juice would run.

[Illus] Grace of holiness. God blessed Israel w/God’s revelation, compared to surrounding nations (Egypt, Assyria, Greece, and Rome) privilege was being spurned.

 

[Illus] Grace of mission.

 

JC Ryle compared vineyard to England and the broader United Kingdom of his day.

1800’s Great Britain had glowing privilege, sending missionaries to win the world. Surrounded by “heathen nations” they supplied preachers as a missionary outpost:

 

1. William Carey raised in Church of England, 1793 w/wife shipped out to bring the Gospel to Bengal, India.

 

2. David Livingston, born in Scotland was sent through The London Missionary Society in 1845 as a medical missionary to central interior of Africa.

 

3. Hudson Taylor, British, 1853 began 51 career mission to China, founding China Inland Mission. Good friends with Spurgeon, also attracting followers like the CT Studd, students from Cambridge, the Cambridge 7, drawn to the mission.

 

The Cambridge Seven were six students from Cambridge University and one from the Royal Military Academy, who in 1885, decided to become missionaries to China through the China Inland Mission. The seven were:^[1][2]

• Charles Thomas Studd
• Montagu Harry Proctor Beauchamp
• Stanley P. Smith
• Dixon Edward Hoste
• Arthur T. Polhill-Turner
• Cecil H. Polhill-Turner
• William Wharton Cassels

Preparations in Britain[edit]

Having been accepted as missionaries by Hudson Taylor of the China Inland Mission the seven were scheduled to leave for China in early February 1885. Before leaving the seven held a farewell tour to spread the message across the country – it was during this tour that someone dubbed them “The Cambridge Seven.”

For the next month, the seven toured the University campuses of England and Scotland, holding meetings for the students. Queen Victoria was pleased to receive their booklet containing The Cambridge Seven’s testimonies. The record of their departure is recorded in “The Evangelisation of the World: A Missionary Band”. It became a national bestseller. Their influence extended to America where it led to the formation of Robert Wilder’s Student Volunteer Movement.

 

 

4. Open air preachers sent from Oxford: John and Charles Wesley along with George Whitfield who came to preach to the American Colonies.

[Point] Working at this vineyard was a massive privilege but now 150 years later is a distant memory and exactly where USA is moving to today.  

[TRANS] Two sons, starting one way; hard reversal the other way.

[Question] “Who’s X talking about?” Tested w/X question.

 

1. One question

[KEY] X’s question is the question of questions!

• X sets up question, to be answered in way accusers would certainly answer.

 

• Before getting to their answer, explore the question.

 

• Jesus’ question is the question for everyone who’s ever lived.
  • Determinative and eternal and binary.
  • You will be asked by X, on final day.

 

[Appl] World is truly binary, where you either do the will of the Father or not. Contrary to a works salvation, all of humankind falls under converted and unconverted, saved, and unsaved, light and darkness, blind and seeing, Spirit-filled and natural, dead or alive.

[Appl] Either dialed into God’s will or clueless, rebelling, and outside of God’s will. You either are under Adam’s head or Christ.

 

[Appl] Either under the Lordship of Christ or the prince of the power of the air.

You are either on the wide road or narrow road. Either trying to save yourself by works or having been saved by grace alone.

[Quote!] “What’s amazing is how “chief priests and elders” got right answer, right, in terms of the parable, and same right answer, wrong, in terms of its application!

• They said, “The first” meaning the son w/integrity, the son who “did the will of his father” (v. 31).
  • Response feels blurted out!
  • It was immediate.
    • Quick to vouch for their own integrity.
    • Based on privilege and merit.

 

• They believed, “Jesus got it!” about them!
  • Too arrogant to see Jesus was offering them grace.
    • Their predicament was their indictment.
    • This is American Christendom.

 

• Assumed themselves integrous.
  • Defining integrity differently.
  • How Jesus defined integrity.

[TRANS] Verse 28, father commanded the first and second son to “…go and work the vineyard today” (v. 29).

• Working the vineyard, either defined as an obligation or blessing.
  • Either a work or a grace.
    • Difference in application appears minuscule.
      • But is as wide as heaven is from hell.
      • Command issued to both sons.
        • Both had the option to obey.
        • But one response over the other comes down to one thing.

 

• The state of heart of each.
  • Person remade by Christ (whole), obeys from the inside out.
  • Person, not remade (not whole) by Christ, obeys outside in.

 

• Indicting how clear the religious leaders were about, “first son.”
  • Assuming they were whole!
  • Jesus clears this up.

[KEY] “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you” (v. 31).

• Most untrusted, besmirched members of society!
  • Following X w/no other motive.
  • Than to follow Jesus.

[ILLUS] Pharisees and Sadducees for baptism of John, John right called them a brood of vipers.

^ESV  Matthew 3:6-9 and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

⁷ But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

⁸ Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

⁹ And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. (Mat 3:7-9 ESV) (Mat 3:6 ESV)

• Clear difference between those who were coming to confess their sins fleeing God’s wrath vs. hypocritical showmanship.
  • John required them to “Bear fruit in keeping with repentance” (cf. Mt. 3:8).
  • John as Christ’s forerunner required the same heart change, X required.
    • True repentance μετανοίας (Mat 3:8 BGT).
    • Change of mind brought about by the Spirit.

[TRANS] Back to verse 29, the first son “changed his mind” (v. 29).

• Definition of: Repentance.

[Illus] Neither tax collectors nor prostitutes were allowed entrance inside the religious center, so they had no reason to keep of any pretense.

A tax collector in the eyes of the Jew symbolized political defection and Roman oppression.

Prostitute represented a moral filth within Jewish ethnicity. Pagans!

 

• Both evaluations were external.

[Illus] Tax collector undermining the Jew’s national security and the prostitute undermining the Jew’s familial security, by interrupting solidarity through lineage.

Both Politically and Ethnically — foundation identity markers, tightly held as security.

Identifying nationally and ethnically as Israelite, meant inside God’s kingdom. Secure!

• Jesus making clear that the opposite was true.
  • Jesus saying that instead of working from the outside in.
  • They need to work from the inside out.

[KEY] Jesus again builds case by appealing to John (v. 32; cff. vv. 23-27 “authority”).

• Instead of making his point in view of himself, Jesus again appeals to another, namely John.
  • John’s testimony, what X called, “the way of righteousness” (v. 32).
    • John’s call to repentance implies believe!
      • Repentance and faith are two sides of one coin.
      • If genuinely repent, you genuinely believe.

 

[Appl] Repentance is not penance, mouthing words or perform actions as a means to appease your God and/or your guilt.

 

True repentance is called a gift (cff. 1 Thess. 1:9-10; 2 Tim. 2:22-26) and likewise saving faith is also called a gift (cf. Eph. 2:8-9).

 

Meaning this supernatural work begins with God and will necessarily mean that its origin will rise from someone’s changed heart.

 

From the inside out, never outside in.

[KEY] John’s “way of righteousness” is from people who are genuine believers.

• “…but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him” (v. 32).
  • Those who came to John and to X were “the first son.”
  • They first said “no” then genuinely “changed their minds and believed” (v. 32).

[Appl] There are many detrimentally sad circumstances that befall any and every one of us within our lifetime.

But, one sad circumstance, saddest of all. Defined by “missing grace.”  

You could lose your wealth. You could lose you family. You could lose your reputation. You could lose your health. You could lose your freedom, being condemned to prison.

All these are extremely difficult outcomes for life, but all are lesser outcomes than “missing grace.”

We need grace for salvation, and this is priority. But, when receive grace, not miss grace, we have a supreme gift.

This gift of grace during your lifetime is enabling grace to survive all sad circumstances:

Losing all wealth, all family, all reputation, all health, and all freedom bc/this grace is the “working the vineyard.”

Grace, grace God’s grace. Grace that will pardon and cleanse within. Grace, grace, God’s grace. Grace that is greater than all our sin.

Grace only comes as by one means, as a gift that you cannot earn. Grace must come by means of repentance of faith. From within.

Functionally how? “Come to Jesus, empty handed, and ask him for it.”

 

[Conclusion] Jesus in Luke 18 describes this in another parable.

^ESV  Luke 18:9-14 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt:

¹⁰ “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

¹¹ The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.

¹² I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’

¹³ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’

¹⁴ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luk 18:9-14 ESV)

 

[KEY] End of verse 32. “And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him” (v. 32).

• Jesus’ words are either an indictment or a final appeal.
• • Or both?

 

• They “saw it” meaning, these dramatic conversions.
  • Both hardening and softening.
  • More hardening.

 

• “Is this their last opportunity to repent?” To see!

 

• Are you in the vineyard?

 

• Do you want to work the vineyard?

Come into X’s kingdom.