The Cornerstone They Rejected . . .

Christ is my firm foundation, the rock on which I stand. When everything around me is shaking, I've never been, I've never been so proud. I put my faith in Jesus. He's never let me down. He's faithful through generations. You are— I've never seen him fail. No, you are faithful. You are faithful. I have a testimony. I have a story to see. This is my story, this is my song. I have a testimony.

Can I sing my testimony?

Rain came, wind blew, my house was built on you. I am safe with you. I feel somebody's faith rising. This is the reason you made it. One more time.

Good morning, good morning. Happy Wednesday to everybody. Happy Holy Week to everybody. Rylee, what's happening? Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. We had most of the folks who are on right now, we're on the prayer call, and, uh, as we switch over to the actual Bible study, a lot of them turn their cameras off. So if you could turn your camera on, turn your camera on. I'd love to see your face. I love for everybody to interact. Um, Rylee, I have to ask, I know you saw Roger. How do those long flowing locks look in person? Man, incredible. I think that's the first thing I commented on, right, Rod? Like, it was, it was, the look on your face was kind of Roger! I had to do a double take, man. Yeah, it was fantastic to see Raj in the flesh. It's been, been a while. Yeah, it's been a minute. Amazing. Wonderful surprise. Yeah, it's awesome that we could get together like this. I mean, as much as I hate technology at times, and it could be a hindrance in our lives and a time sucker, Um, I mean, how amazing is it that we could get together every Wednesday morning and do this through Zoom? It really is awesome. But there is nothing like being together in the flesh, together side by side. I'm excited about today. Last week, um, I don't think I like completely forgot that Easter was coming around the corner, and I don't even like calling it Easter. When I hear Easter, I think of like bunnies and chocolate and things like that. So Resurrection Sunday. Um, but I think it's like the third year in a row I just planned on continuing through whatever book we're studying, and then the Lord said, no, let's take, take a break in that and focus in on what this is— Holy Week, right? It's, it's something we, we shouldn't just overlook or breeze past. And I'm sure everybody had an awesome Sunday service Palm Sunday, um, you might have a Good Friday service, and then obviously Resurrection Sunday service. For, for most churches, it's, um, it's a great opportunity to invite an unbeliever to church. It's a great opportunity. Usually, you know, uh, in, uh, church leadership, we— there's a saying for some folks, uh, they're called CEOs, uh, church and Easter only. Right? That's the only time they come to church. So there's going to be a lot of folks that aren't typically at church, and they could be, they could be impacted more by a conversation in the lobby sometimes than the, the message about our risen Savior from the pulpit. So, uh, have your, your, your, uh, spidey senses— not spidey senses though— your discernment up for those opportunities to just reach people. On a week like this. And we mentioned in Bible study, uh, cheaster Christians. Yeah, uh, that sounds like such a dirty thing. You're a cheaster Christian. Sounds a lot like cheater Christians, but yeah, cheaster Christians. Uh, we mentioned on Bible study, uh, just that story at the NBA, the player getting cut for his, you know, faith in Jesus. Seemingly that, that's what it is. And it's good for, for the church to get angry about that, you know, with the righteous anger. And it's good that things like that are in the news, and we need to rise up as a church. But this week we're, we're going to get into a parable that Jesus told. Probably a lot of you, first Sunday, the Palm Sunday message, had something to do with the Sunday before Jesus was crucified at Palm Sunday. And he rode into town, into Jerusalem, on a donkey. The crowds yelled, 'Hosanna, Hosanna!' You know, 'Lord, Lord, save me,' right? And it was not so much as a blessing, as a chant, but it was like the crowd, they were prepared and they were screaming out like, 'Save me, deliver me.' And then many in that same crowd just a week later were yelling, crucify him, crucify him. But right after that story where Jesus rides into town, right, he goes to the temple, and what does he do? He drives out the money changers. And you would think a week like that, a week where Jesus, he knows this is going to be his last Sunday alive. And I mean, one might think that he'd be trying to somewhat play it cool, but it was like, no, he, he started, uh, kicking tables over. He started driving out the money changers. He, he, you know, he, he always had the boldness that we all desire at all times. And then after that, here he is, he's in Jerusalem, he's outside the temple, and what does he do? He tells a story. He tells a parable. He tells a couple of them, and he's talking mostly— it's directed, they're directed towards the religious leaders of the day. But in particularly this, this parable that we're going to get into here in Matthew chapter 21, verses 33 through 46, that like always the crowd gathers and the message is directed towards the religious leaders, but the message is for all those in the crowd as well. And ultimately, the more I looked into this parable, the more it is just for us today. It's not just for, for the Jewish leaders of the day, those who were the hypocrites. It's for us. This is a story about the heart of man, period. And really, God's goodness, his grace, his mercy towards us now. Um, this is a parable, and it's a short parable like, like most of Jesus's parables are, but it's so impactful and it's so insightful and it's so strategic in Jesus allowing people to come to the conclusion themselves, uh, of, wait a second, I'm the one in the story. I'm the one that, that Jesus is referring to here. This is a parable about rejection. It's a parable about control, our desire as man to have control, to have power, to have authority. But although we do have power and authority, what man seeks, that power and authority in a worldly way. So Jesus says here, starting at verse 33, he says, hear 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 vinedressers, and he went into a far country. So the vinedressers— your translation may just say farmer, but the— this landowner, he, he plants a vineyard. He's invested in this vineyard. And the moment that Jesus starts this parable with this sentence, all the religious leaders, all the Jews should immediately recognize, oh wait, That's Isaiah 5. This is a parable that's going to sound familiar to them, and Jesus is intentionally echoing Isaiah 5. And Jesus isn't subtle about the message in this parable, and he, he tells it with very familiar imagery. So Isaiah 5, the first two verses say Now let me sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved regarding his vineyard. My well-beloved has a vineyard on a very fruitful hill. My well-beloved being God himself. And verse 2 says, he dug it up and cleared out its stones and planted it with the choicest wine. He built a tower in its midst, and he also made a winepress in it, so he expected it to bring forth good grapes. But it brought forth wild grapes, really worthless grapes. And then if you jump ahead to verse 7, says, for the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel. So Isaiah 5 declares what, what this vineyard is. It's this house of Israel. And the men of Judah are, are his pleasant plant. He looked for justice. God looked for justice, but behold, he's found oppression. He looked for righteousness, but behold, he found a cry for help. Now, the well-beloved here is God. It clearly says that the vineyard is Israel, and the fruitful hill is really the perfect conditions that, that God gave to his people. It's not a struggling vineyard, it's a vineyard with every, uh, possible advantage you could find. He dug up— God dug up the ground. Anything that would hinder the growth of this vineyard, uh, vineyard, he, he dug it up. He cleared out its stones. So he removed all the obstacles. He planted the choicest vine, the best seeds, right? Not average, the, the best. And if God is doing anything his best, best believe it's pretty good. He built a tower in it. So God was watchful. He protected it, uh, that there was oversight there. And he made a winepress. There was an expectation now of production. There was an expectation of fruit. God set up this vineyard to succeed, to flourish. There was an expectation of fruit. Everything about this vineyard screams care, provision, expectation. And that, that's exactly what God did with, with Israel, with the Jews. They, they were God's chosen people. This is the line that Jesus himself, our Savior, came from. God prepared them. He protected them. He position them. And what would you— what would God expect from anybody? I mean, think of us as parents. If we prepare our kids, we protect our kids, and we position them, we expect them to thrive. We expect them to be successful. We expect them to live out the, the plan that, that ultimately God has for them. But as us, you know, as we're helping them navigate lives as our children, we expect them to succeed and flourish in the path in which they're taking. Now, he expected to bring forth good grapes, right? So God's expectations aren't unreasonable, and he, he helped them in this process. He gave them revelation through the law. He gave them his presence, uh, through the temple. He gave them protection. He gave them prophets, right? He wrote— he raised up people who will be a voice for the people. But what did verse 7 say? But it brought forth wild grapes. And really, the, the word wild in the Hebrew, it's worthless, rotten, unusable fruit. So it, it's, it's quite contrary to what God had set forth and what he positioned the people to produce. And God, he looked for righteousness. Why is there not righteousness when I, I set everything for you in your favor? Why, why is there not justice? Why is there oppression? And obviously the, the heart of the story is our man, our desire to rebel. Um, this story is, uh, is about the issue of the heart of man. It's not— like I said, Jesus is directing this story to the religious leaders of the day. The crowd gathers, everybody in, in is encircling, encompassing Jesus as he's telling this story. You know, he— this is the, this is the Jesus that just rode into town, uh, on the, the donkey. You know, people waving the palm leaves, like, uh, putting their cloaks down at the feet of Jesus and kind of, um, you know, the celebration of this Palm Sunday. And Jesus is saying The, the bad fruit isn't just bad fruit. You're unproductive. It's just an outright rejection of God. And in Isaiah, God is disappointed in the fruit. And now here in this parable that, that Jesus is sharing in the Gospel of Matthew, God is, is confronting those responsible for this bad fruit. And what Jesus is truly exposing here is the mismanagement of what he entrusted the Jews with. Um, so we move on to verse 34 in Matthew, and we see the heart of the, the vineyard owner. He's not willing to give up on his land. He's not willing to give up on his land. He sought to redeem the soil of this vineyard. And it says, now when the vintage time drew near, he sent his servants to the vinedressers that they might receive its fruit. So it's like, all right, it's harvest time. I'm going to send my servants out to these guys, these farmers who are taking care of my vineyard. They're the hired hand, and it's harvest time. I'm going to send my servants out to receive the harvest, the, the fruit that has come. And the vinedressers took the owner's servants, beat one, killed one, and stoned the third. So again, the owner, 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. Mark's account of this— now, the same parable. This is anytime you got all three synoptic gospels sharing the same powerful— the same parable, you know it's going to be important. So Matthew, Mark, and Luke all share this, the same parable. Mark, it's chapter 12, and Luke is chapter 20. Mark's account says that the owner still had one to send, a beloved son. And as the, the crowd is hearing this story, right, and again, they should be familiar with this imagery that, that Jesus is bringing to them from, from, um, from Isaiah 5, especially the religious leaders. The crowd's hearing this and they'd probably be thinking, oh, the owner's sending his son now, surely the son is going to get some respect. The son is going to look like the father. He's going to be wearing the robe of the father. He's going to have the signet of the father. So surely the son is going to go handle things. Verse 38: But when the vinedressers saw the son, they said amongst 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? They said— so Jesus is asking them this question. What— when the owner comes, when the owner sees that, that he sent his son, not only did he— he— the— these vinedressers, these farmers, those hired hands, not only did they kill all the servants, and, you know, they were just going to collect the harvest that is rightfully belonging to the owner. So Jesus says, when the owner of this vineyard comes, what will he do to the 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. So the religious leaders are hearing this story, but they're missing the story because this is their story. This is their history. This story is the account of all God had done for Israel. God rescued them. He planted them on a fertile hill. He, he had shown them mercy. He gave them scriptures. He set them up for, for human flourishing. He gave them promises. And he sent them servants. He sent them prophets. Sent them Jeremiah. He sent them Elijah. All the prophets, all the way up to John the Baptist. God was raising up voices to bring forth from his vineyards fruits of righteousness. But what did, what did Israel do to all the prophets? They kicked them out, they beat them. You know, we know Zechariah says in scripture he was murdered. It doesn't say in scripture, although there's a reference in Hebrews about prophets getting sawed in half and You know, it's not in the Bible, but church history or biblical history says that Isaiah was, was sawed in two. So Israel, they kicked them out, they beat them, they killed them, but God kept giving them chance after chance after chance. Nobody— it's remarkable. I'm not going to mention the person's name because, uh, some people on here may know his name, but I got an invitation, uh, via text to come to somebody's prophetic commissioning. Rylee, I'll talk to you about it. Uh, yeah, you'll know who it is. Good to come to their prophetic commissioning as this big celebration. They're being ordained as prophet. And not that the office of prophet isn't still existing in today's church, but to be a prophet, that's a pretty weighty— it's a heavy calling to have. When you look at Old Testament prophets, Um, nobody was signing up, certainly in the Old Testament, to be a prophet. Uh, typically when prophets were called, it's like, uh, really? Uh, me? Uh, you sure? I don't know about that because you know you're going to be up against it. You know everybody's going to hate you because— what does the world hate? The world hates the truth. The world hates Jesus because he is the truth. But God kept raising up more voices for the vineyard, more voices for Israel, more voices to declare truth of who God truly is. And what they were missing even more in that story that Jesus is telling in this parable— they weren't just missing that this is the story of their history, the nation of Israel, but they were literally standing in the midst of the story. Because Jesus asked, what will the owner do and they answer their own judgment. They unknowingly pronounce judgment on themselves, and he lets them condemn themselves with their own words. Now, the account in Luke here, chapter 20, starting at verse 15, says, so they cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. So the vinedressers cast the owner's son out of the vineyard, killed him. And then therefore, what will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy those vinedressers and give the vineyard to others.' And when the crowd heard this, they said, 'Certainly not! Certainly not! God forbid! Perish the thought!' If those words sound familiar, it's because we've been reading them in Romans. Paul said this in Romans 6: 'What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not!' It's the same word—perish the thought, God forbid. No, no. And in these two accounts, what likely the sequence of events is, is if you harmonize these two accounts, that Jesus tells the parable, um, he asked the— what will the owner do? Some respond correctly, he'll destroy them. And Jesus affirms or kind of restates the, the judgment. That whenever there's like a little shift in the story of the, the same story in scripture You know, people want to say, oh well, this story contradicts the, the way it's told in another gospel. No, it— this is man giving their accounts of what happened. And we've all played the game of telephone as kids. Like, by the time it gets to like the third person, the whole story is a little bit different based on what they heard. Whenever we see any discrepancies in scripture, it just kind of shows the truth that, that This is real. This really happened. If it was verbatim, every story— oh, if Matthew, Mark, and Luke had the exact same parable verbatim, then I would start to question, hey, maybe, uh, this is just made up. Maybe they got together and decided that this, uh, this would be good for the history books. But Jesus asked them, hey, what's the owner going to do? And they said, oh, they're going to kill these vinedressers. He's going to get revenge on them. He's going to punish them for what they did to his son. And when Jesus affirms that, yeah, that the owner is going to punish, there's going to be judgment for this, and it says that those in the crowd heard to say, certainly not, certainly not. So Matthew shows that they understood the justice of the story but didn't realize it condemned them, while Luke shows when the implication became clear to them they rejected it. People often agree with truth in theory, but when it applies to them, um, they reject it, right? And I think that we, we could all say that to at some point in our lives. I agree with the truth, but when it— the, the truth starts to affect me, it's like, I don't know about that truth anymore. You start to reject it when it starts to really hit home for you, and They could recognize justice when it was a story, but they start to resist it when it becomes personal. So I'm going to jump ahead to verse 45, that the end of the story here, and then I'll circle back to verse 42. 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. So they start to perceive, like, wait a second, I think what Jesus is talking about now, I think he's actually talking about us right now. And what they want to do, they didn't want to surrender. The evidence was before them, right? They had the evidence. They, they knew. I mean, this is the Jesus that, that healed the lame, that raised Lazarus from the grave. They had the evidence that in front of them. But what happens when we're confronted with truth? This is why when we evangelize, when we start talking about Jesus, uh, that there's usually going to be a reaction one way or the other. We're either going to pierce their hearts and they're going to receive what we're sharing, or they're gonna, they're gonna be defensive, they're gonna draw back. Because when people are confronted with truth, it's hard to just stay even-keeled about it if you're for the truth. You're, you're going to be for the truth, you're going to receive it. If you're against the truth, you're going to reject it, and you're going to lash out. You're going to lash out. That many of you have heard my testimony, a lot of you many a times, but when I was an unbeliever, I wanted somebody to tell me God bless you because I was waiting for the opportunity to blast them because of just all my personal perception of God. And who he was and if he was even real. And that's because, like, the, the name Jesus, the just the, the idea of God and who, who is truth, who now I couldn't be more convinced— if I was the only believer walking planet Earth right now, I, I'd be okay with it because God's— what God did for me in my life when he radically transformed me and delivered me, I— if nobody else believed I would never be able to not believe. So I know truth, I accept truth, I love truth, I share this truth. But before that, I certainly rejected truth, rejected it wholeheartedly, as passionately now, probably literally as passionately as I receive truth and spread truth now, is how much I rejected it. So when when these religious leaders and, and the crowd that's gathering around, they, they're, they're hearing the story and that they're drawing the conclusion that, okay, there, this is a story about nation, the nation of Israel and its history, but this literally is a story that they're in the midst of because they are the vineyard and Jesus the Son Is the son in the story, right? Is the son in the story? And literally a week from the day he— not a week, 5 days from the day he's telling the story, they're going to do the same thing. Because the— in the hearts of man, although— and even today— and the reason why, why this story is applicable for all of us is because we are humans and we have a heart. And we all desire to live lives the way we want to live our lives. We want to receive the benefits of the vineyard, right? But oftentimes we want to kick the owner out. We, we want God's grace, we want his blessings, but we, we want the owner to kind of be far away. We want the owner to not look over our shoulder and see what we're doing. Do— if we're, if we're in this vineyard now and we're not welcoming the, the owner, we're not welcoming the Son, then how are we doing? And what are, what are we doing when the Son steps into our vineyard, our personal space, our, our life now? What are we doing when the Son steps into it right now? We may not publicly say, crucify him, crucify him. No, but even us as believers, what are we doing to the Son when he steps into our vineyard? Now, if you go back to verse 42, Jesus said to them, have you ever read the scriptures? Read in the scriptures? Which I love Jesus and kind of his sarcasm. These are the religious leaders. He's talking about Isaiah 5, and he's saying, have you ever actually read the scriptures? He says, the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone, right? So he tells this parable straight from Isaiah 5 and then Psalm 118, the, the, the, the, this poem, this prophetic poem of Psalm 118 that, that mentions what's hap— what had just happened that day, the yelling of Hosanna, Hosanna, which if they actually knew the scriptures, they knew that that day that Jesus rode to town in Jerusalem was prophesied in scripture to the day. If you go back to, to Daniel, the prophetic word in Daniel, and then you, you literally take the time from, uh, Nehemiah, right, the rebuilding of the walls in Jerusalem, it could have been predicted to the day that that would be the day that Jesus would, would come and he would declare himself King and he would be crucified. Now Jesus says, 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. So again, this quote is from Psalm 118, this great messianic um, Psalm, the Messianic poem. And clearly Jesus was claiming to be right now the, the rejected stone of Psalm 118:22-24 that God had appointed to become the chief cornerstone. And when we— a lot of times I've said it, it was like, how can Jewish people today, how can they miss the Messiah? How could they miss the Messiah? But how in the world did these religious leaders of the day, who literally knew— because I mean, maybe Jewish people today know the Old Testament well, but not as well as the religious leaders of the day here— and how did they miss all those prophecies? And literally the story that they were missing, this parable about the owner of this vineyard And he sends his servants, he sends his servants, and the vinedressers, they reject, they torture, they stone, they kill, they kick out of the vineyard. And then the owner sends his son, and they do the same thing. And these guys are saying, oh, surely— like I said, they were pronouncing their judgment on themselves. They would know Isaiah 8. That, that Jesus is the stone that people stumble over. He's the foundation stone and precious cornerstone of Isaiah 28, and he's the stone of Daniel chapter 2 that destroys the world in rebellion to God. That Jesus says the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. Jesus warned the religious leaders that if they continued their rejection of God and his Messiah, they would expect that God would pass the leadership of his work on to others. Then, and what, what these religious people were, were so afraid of, and oftentimes what, what we're so afraid of and why it's so hard for us to, to simply, um, surrender, simply surrender, is because we're letting go of ourselves. We're letting go of ourselves. And even if nobody has failed us more in our lives than ourselves, it's so hard for us to let go of ourselves and simply surrender. And they knew that what Jesus is going to do is going to shake stuff up. He was going to shake stuff up. Matter of fact, in John 11, after Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, says, then the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered a council and said, what shall we do? For this man works many signs. If we let him alone like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation. It's kind of funny, like, if we let him alone like this and we let this Jesus guy keep doing what he's doing, look what's going to happen. As if they had any power or say as to what Jesus was doing in the plan that, that God had for all of humanity. But they were afraid of losing their place, losing their status, losing their power, losing their prestige, and ultimately losing their nation. Now again, this is a story that's directed towards the religious leaders, but the crowds are hearing it, and it's a story that they were literally in the midst of, because the son in the story that the, that the vinedressers killed is the son that's standing in front of him. And, and again, 5 days later, they actually— they, they don't learn from this, this parable. They crucified Jesus, who, as we all know, as we were coming up here on Resurrection Sunday, Easter Sunday, we know that he raised from the grave. Like I said, we may not publicly reject the vineyard owner, right? We may not publicly reject God the Father. We may not publicly reject God the Son, but we do oftentimes want to enjoy the blessings of the vineyard without a real relationship with the owner. We want forgiveness often, but we don't want to yield to the authority of the— this vineyard owner. We want grace, but we don't want his lordship. And we live with, with the same illusion that we could simply drive out the owner and live life as we please. And that, that's what the world wants to do, but that's what us as Christians, we want to do it at times as well. We, we, we want to receive the benefits, but we want to drive out the owner. And, and certainly what the world wants, because if we could drive out the owner of the vineyard, then we could live as we please. We could do what we want. We could have the power. We could have the prestige. There's an author, his name is, um, Thomas G. Long, and he spoke about this. He said this is the oldest story in human history. As old as Adam and Eve hiding from God in the first garden. And it is the newest story, the latest breaking news, as new as the flattened secularity of the West and the dreamy and empty bourgeois spirituality of Middle America. The endless quest to banish God, the living God, the demanding God, from the vineyard. And And Jesus, when he tells all these parables, no matter who it's directed to, is directed to all of us, right? And I, I just think that we live— and this may not be like a typical kind of like, ooh, Holy Week message, but I think certainly, um, I think certainly this is appropriate for the time because oftentimes we, we miss the message. We have our eye— like, if we have our eye on Easter Sunday, we have our eye on celebrating the resurrection, but we miss, we miss kind of the journey to the cross, the, the message that Jesus— that this was a timely parable here, that this is on Palm Sunday. And oftentimes we missed a message when we have our eye on the destination. I recently saw a clip of Stephen Furtick And I, I think for like the last 3 years, the only clips I've seen of Stephen Furtick is somebody posting it because he's, you know, said something heretical or whatever, right? But this clip popped up and he talked about— he was backstage, he was about to go out, preach a sermon. He goes to the bathroom, he washes his hands, um, and God put a melody in his heart. And is that that song, um, Worthy Is Your Name, Jesus? I'm not a singer, so I hate when I have to like describe a song, but everybody knows the song Worthy Is Your Name, right? And he said like God just put the melody in his heart, and he's drying his hands, he's about to get on stage, preach, preach the message, and he was kind of like, all right God, that's good, I, I like, hopefully I remember that for later after the message. And he goes out, he preaches the message, and he got back to it, he remembered it, and he wound up writing that song. Like Stephen Furtick, no matter what you think of him as a pastor, he's got some great nuggets from time to time. He said some stuff that's a little, little off, but, uh, he's a great songwriter, right? And he said that he was so focused on the destination— I gotta go preach this message— that God put something in his heart that he almost missed. Like, that song is a song that we all— you may not recognize it based on the way I sung it, but I guarantee if you look up, uh, Worthy Is Your Name by Elevation Worship, you're going to recognize the song. You've probably sang it at church. And he said, I almost missed the message that God was giving to me because it was given to me in my journey, this short journey from the bathroom backstage to the pulpit, and he said, I have no idea. I couldn't tell you for the life of me what I preached about that Sunday. I don't know what that message is. I don't remember it. But what God was speaking to me, I almost dismissed because I was just focused on the destination and not what God was talking to me in the journey to get to the destination. The destination for Jesus, 5 days after this, was the cross. And then we know on Sunday he rose from the grave. But the message, the journey to the cross for Jesus, is a message not just for the Jews at the time, but it was a message for all of humanity. It was recorded in the three synoptic gospels so we would have this for, for all of eternity because it's so important. And the, the message is like, where does your heart lie with this? We all— I think I'd be able to call you a liar if you— if I— if If you said you don't want the blessings of God, the blessings of the vineyard, you don't want the promises of God, right? And what— as God, he rose up, he, he raised up these, these voices, these servants, right? So the prophets that God raised up, those were the servants that the owner initially sent to the vineyard to, to receive the harvest. Well, Guess what? When Jesus says that, that I am the chief cornerstone, right? And essentially he's declaring that what, what I had gifted you with, you're— you rejected me, you're going to get punished. And now that there's going to be apostles that are raised up, there's going to be the church that now takes your place. Now, now every one of us as a member of Christ's body We are those servants, right? And we want the fruit. We want the good fruit of the vineyard. We want the harvest. We desire to harvest. We take heed to the owner's blessings. We take heed to his promises. But how often in our personal lives do we want to just say, like, yeah, I know who the owner is. I surely respect his son. I'm not going to reject the son. The son, he represents the father. But how often do we want to just kind of push him, give him that nudge, or kind of turn our back to him and kind of, kind of, you know, nudge him out of the vineyard? Because in the hearts of all men, even— and this is what we've been talking about in Romans 6, right, the, the fall of Adam— and now we, we have a choice. We could live in Adam, or we could just give in to our, our evil, wicked desires of the heart. The fleshly desires that, that aren't going to cease until we get our glorified incorruptible bodies one day, or are we going to live in Christ? So I thought this was a timely message because again, the, the message, the journey to the cross that Jesus has given to, to humanity is, yeah, like we could celebrate, um the resurrection on Sunday. But the message on the way to the cross is, hey, don't be those vinedressers. Don't be those vinedressers that's so desperately trying to push out, push out the owner from the vineyard. And you could, you could look— I just glanced at the chat. I saw Zach wrote, when does the LP drop? Thanks. Yeah, if there's anything that I, I, I've prayed for this, I've kind of slowed down on praying for it because I think it's in vain. But I literally was talking to Lucy, my daughter Puka, about this because we have worship music in the house. And if you guys know the song, um, To Worship You I Live by Israel Houghton and New Breed, um, unbelievable song. Um, oftentimes he's singing with like just a little—

I don't know, why don't you sing a little bit? Uh, Jonathan, grab one of those guitars, back them up.

Yeah, I'm not gonna do it. 'Cause I started singing. It's one of those songs where you just get caught up in worship, and I was singing, and I saw the look on Lucy and Pooka's face when I started singing this, and I was like, don't mess up my worship right now. But it sounded so bad, I was messing up my own worship. I couldn't even worship 'cause I was hearing my own voice. I know God loves it, I think. I don't know. Maybe I'll get to heaven, and when I approach the throne, there'll be like earplugs and I'll be like, why is there earplugs in? I saw you coming, I thought you're gonna open your mouth. I don't know. But, um, anyhow, where was I? This is why I can't glance at the chat so much, I go off track. But anyhow, um, yeah, I think it— Resurrection Sunday, it's not just a, uh— see you, see you, Rylee. Always good seeing your face on here. As you hop off. But, um, we're 16 minutes to the hour. I know, um, last couple weeks I, I've been going all the way up to like top of the hour. So I want to open this up, um, if, if anybody wants to share just what the Lord's speaking to them through this, this parable that, that Jesus taught. Because I, I think that is, again, as much as this is opportunity for us to invite people to church, celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I think it's a good opportunity for us to reflect on this parable that Jesus told on this day, on Palm Sunday, on his journey to the cross, of where our hearts are. Or can we say that we're guilty at any time? And if we are guilty of it, the beautiful thing about Jesus is that he forgives. Um, but one thing that, that David did when, when he asked God to search his heart. It's like, I don't even want to have sin in my heart and I don't even know it. It's easy— well, I don't even want to say it's easy. Sometimes it's hard to, to confess sin, right? Because when we start to sin, we're walking in darkness, and darkness begets darkness, and, and that small sin turns into bigger sin. But when we confess that sin, God is faithful to forgive us of that sin. And he cleanses us of that unrighteousness. But it takes that confession. But David, when he wrote the Psalms, he said, 'Lord, search my heart. If there's anything that's in me that I don't even acknowledge, I don't even recognize, I don't even want to— want sin that, uh, you know, I'm not overly convicted about, or, or maybe there is sin that I'm just, you know, kind of I'm not convicted about because I've been walking in it for so long.' And this is an opportunity to say, 'God, no, search my heart, because if there's anything unpleasing to you, Lord, anything, I want to confess it. I want to confess it now because I, I— there's nothing greater than the feeling of that restoration and that cleansing when we do confess our sin. And just like that vineyard owner was faithful, he never gave up on his vineyard. He never did. He sent servant after servant after servant and ultimately his son, and they kept getting rejected. And that's it. Like, it almost— if you just read a story like that, you'd be like, why is he going to keep sending servants to get killed? It's because the owner loves the vineyard so much. The owner, God, loves us so much that he gives us chance after chance after chance. And no matter how many times we mess up, he gives us chance after chance after chance. That's God's mercy. That's God's mercy. He's a merciful God, and I want God's mercy in my life to have a short lifespan. A short lifespan. Because God bestows his mercy anytime we sin to the time we repent of it. That's God's mercy. And if God wasn't merciful, none of us would be here, because the first time many of us sinned, he would execute his judgment upon us. But I want that, that, that time of mercy that God bestows upon us. I don't want to be, you know, I'm sitting with this for a year, I'm sitting with this for a month. I, I don't want to sit with it for more than a couple minutes. And if there is sin in my life, if there is something I'm doing that's not pleasing to the Father, I want people in my life to call me out on it. Because we, we're all human, we all have those human hearts, and at the end of the day, our just the— although our hearts have been regenerated, we still have our flesh, and we still have those fleshly desires, that, that, that fallen nature. And again, one day it's going to be gone. One day there's going to be no temptation. There's going to be nothing that, that draws us to evil. Every— everything is going to be, um, well for all of eternity. But in this time It's like, do I want to be a Christian where I just say, all right, I know where I'm going, right? And I know— and I certainly don't want to take, take God's grace as license to sin, because as we talked about in Romans, no matter how much we sin, God's grace, um, is greater than any of our sin. So it doesn't give me license to sin. I don't want to sin. Something the Lord put on my heart this past week is grieving of the Holy Spirit, right? The grieving of the Holy Spirit. When we sin, the Holy Spirit grieves. Holy Spirit's sad. Like, think about when you're sad about something, like, like a deep grieving. If you've lost a loved one, you know, I know when my mother died, I grieved, right? It's sad. Like, you feel empty, you feel lost. And the Holy Spirit himself could grieve I don't want to grieve the Holy Spirit. He's done too much for me. As I said, he— what God has done for me, I mean, it's the Holy Spirit that, that, that entered me and took up dwelling, dwelling place, took up residency inside of me that moment I said yes to him, put my faith in Jesus Christ, and everything changed. Everything changed. And So I do want to open this up a bit, and it could get as deep and personal as any of you are as bold to share. It could just be anything that the Lord's speaking to you through the— this parable. Um, but I think there's a reason Jesus made mention of this parable when he did.

Kathleen? Yeah, so I had a couple thoughts actually on toward the end of your notes, but you had said like we may not publicly reject the vineyard owner, but what about privately? And my brain always kind of takes the Bible and processes it into like my life and today and how would someone today, you know, if you're going to go evangelize the Bible to somebody who has no idea. So I was thinking like, how many times do we confront someone that upsets us but instead of just confronting them on it, we instead go behind their back and, you know, you say something to me and then I go to Leslie and say, "Oh, can you believe Christian said this today?" instead of just coming to you and being like, "Hey." 'What you said didn't really sit with me. Let's chat it out.' So instead of just, you know, confronting the issue, um, which is how my brain processed that, and maybe I'm totally off, so please feel free to correct me there. Um, and you had said like, 'We want to enjoy the blessings of the vineyard but not a relationship with the owner.' And how many times do we all find ourselves like separating art from artist, where you really like the catchy song but you hate that artist because of the way they dress or their publicized beliefs or You have the Target addiction, but you also want to boycott Target because of whatever's going on there with the CEO or whatever it may be. So just like random thoughts were kind of popping in my head there. But again, maybe I'm totally skewing all of it, but that was just where my brain was going with you this morning.

No, that's great. And I mean, what I got from it is I said something that offended you and you're going to call Leslie later and complain. That's what I got from that. So I don't know.

You're just the two I could see on the screen right now because I had my little notes popped up.

No, that, that's good. And God, he wants us to enjoy creation, but never at the sake of like not honoring the Creator, right? And a lot, a lot of people don't think you can enjoy life, enjoy things while honoring the Creator of those things, but most certainly we can, and that's the way God designed it for us. Um, anybody have any thoughts for Kathleen? You stumped everybody, Kathleen. Try my best. Yeah, no, that's good. I mean, one thing that I, I don't want to say I'm like jealous of Lucy for, but I, um, like, man, I want to be more like that. Oftentimes when you're like, say you have a long day, right? Say you're stressed out, you got a million things going on. Like, Lucy's default is, I'm going into the prayer room, I'm sitting with the Lord. Like, that's her default. Where with me, sometimes like, all right, I just need to like to sit down and think of nothing, like do nothing, right? Sometimes it's like, oh, let me put the game on, let me just get my mind off of stuff. And Lucy's default— she came home on Monday, um, I didn't leave for Oklahoma until yesterday morning. She came home Monday and she's got this new position at, at her job as director and just comes with more responsibilities and more stress, more meetings, more problems to solve. And she's great at what she does, but just more stuff on her plate. And it's like she came home and, you know, the house was a little crazy. Grandkids, uh, you know, causing a ruckus, you know, in a good way. Good, good way. Good, cute way that kids cause a ruckus. But when you come home and it's just stuff's wild It's like, okay, for me sometimes I just want to lock myself in a room and just be quiet, right? But for her, she's like, no, I'm— I just need to sit with the Lord. And then— and this, this is what attracted me to Jesus when I first met Lucy, because she would go sit with the Lord. It literally— we'd be just hanging out and she's like, I gotta spend some time with Jesus. Maybe I was the one stressing her out at the time. She needed to just like, uh, take a break, get into the prayer room. But she come out, it's like she's refreshed. Didn't matter how stressed out she was for the day, it doesn't matter how physically fatigued she is, she comes out refreshed. I'm like, oh my gosh, it's like you, you go into a chamber and come out a new person. What is this? And that was one of the initial things that drew me to the Lord. I just saw like what would happen when she spent time with Jesus. And so, so for me, like, I want that to be my default at all times. I don't want to be where I'm trying to just kind of get a break from life. It's like, no, I, I wanna— I mean, God's our refuge. I want to go to my refuge, my, my safe place, my strong tower. Jonathan?

Uh, yeah, really good stuff, Christian. I think, um, I just— what stood out to me, and I think going off of correlating with what Kathleen was saying, um, I feel like that, uh, it's just the idea of the servant what was, you know, stoned, killed, beat, and other, and then the owner says, okay, I'm going to send my son. Like, how many— I would have been like, I'm gonna go get my neighbor's servant and send them. I don't care less about them. But how much Jesus doubles down on relationship even. He's like, all right, I'm going to send something that's even more precious to me and send that. And I thought like, wow, that's, that's in— that's like just shows the heart of the Father, right? Shows the heart of God that I'm gonna, I'm gonna double down and send something even more precious. And then we still like beat that. And I, I was also just trying to figure out how can I correlate that into my life. And I was thinking a lot about faith and how Jesus says, you know, the the cornerstone that you rejected at the end of the parable, and then it goes into— where was that? Anyone who stumbles over that stone will be broken to pieces, and it will crush anyone who falls on it, or crush anyone it falls on in verse 44. And I know we're going to get there in Romans 9, but Isaiah— I think it's in Isaiah Paul quotes at the end of Romans 9. Where he talks about the stumbling stone because you're trying to work out the law through righteousness and your good works instead of faith. And so I was just thinking like how my faith plays into this parable and even, uh, 1 John 5:4 where it talks about we have victory because of our faith. And so I was like, man, how does that— how's my faith play in with that relationship with, uh, Jesus and the master here? Yeah, amen.

I have seasons where my prayer is just like exponential, like increases of faith, and then there's times where it's like the fear of God. I think that the fear of God plays a big factor in this, and it all ties together, obviously. But I mean, if we do find ourselves guilty of just when the Son comes into our vineyard, just whatever our personal space is, kind of, you know, do I fear him enough that I'm gonna just surrender everything to him, or is there anything I'm doing in this vineyard that I don't want him to lay eyes on, you know? And sometimes we, we get okay with that, just, I'm gonna push, you know, we compartmentalize Jesus and it's like, I'm gonna push him over here a little bit while I do this over here. That's good, Jonathan. I, I love how you could, um, just quote scripture from different places of the Bible too. I love that. It's awesome. Leslie?

Um, so some of this kind of like tying all together with a conversation I had the other day actually with an addict, um, about choices. And we were talking about how you can have like this bad day, kind of like you were talking about Lucy, will have like a long day But then she makes a choice at the end of the day that instead of going to do something terrible, you know, like, oh, I need a cigarette or I need a drink. She makes the choice in that to go into her prayer closet. And so it's kind of like, you know, the religious leaders being confronted with kind of this bad news to them, like, oh my gosh, you have to surrender your power to the Messiah. They're like, no, I want to hold on to the world. Like, you know, let's get rid of that. Let's do this counterfeit comfort of embracing our power. Instead of embracing the Messiah. And, you know, it's something that, you know, in all these small ways we have to do for ourselves is at the end, you know, when the going gets hard and you're confronted with, I need to make a choice either that's for God or for myself, you need to empty yourself and make that choice for, you know, prayer, fasting, going to the prayer closet and constantly, constantly making that choice because, you know, that could be where God's trying to correct you, like, come back to me, come back to me. At the end of a long day, he wants your weakness. He wants your surrender, especially in those hard times. And I think that that's that spiritual muscle that we have to build. And I'm as guilty as anybody else because sometimes at the end of a long day, I just want to sit and veg out and watch TV. And it's like, or I could just sit in prayer for 10 minutes and be like, thank you, God, for a job. Thank you for the house I come home to before I you know, start, you know, doing that late night snacking or something. So, yeah, yeah, that's, that's powerful.

Because we do— I mean, it's a gift from God that he gives us volition, right? He gives us the power to choose. And, you know, Calvinists may not like to hear this, but like, we do have the power to choose, right? We're not God's elect just because he plucked us from You know, we're all, um, these ugly ashes, and he just happened to pluck us as the elect. We have the power to choose. And that's why Jesus, when he was looking over Jerusalem, he was weeping how he wanted to gather all Jerusalem, all of Israel, under his wing like a mother hen does its chicks, but they simply were not willing, right? And last week I shared with you guys, I, I was physically tired last week I had long days on the road and had a lot of drive time, and I, I made the decision. I said, um, even though I like to listen to ESPN Radio from time on the drive, right, hear what's going on in the world of sports, um, you know, I, I'll listen to, you know, um, music sometimes. I'll, I'll like, um, yeah, just saying, I'll still listen sometimes to like secular music, and I try to like justify it to myself, even though— and by justify, not that it's sinful, but for me, I know the fruit that just listening to worship music produces as opposed to listening to anything else. So I made the decision. I, I had a playlist. I'm like, I'm just listening to worship music. I'm not just listening, I'm worshiping while I'm driving. I'm worshiping while I'm driving, and I'm going to do it even if my flesh doesn't want to do it. That's what I'm going to do. I made that decision. And by the, by the end of the week, not only did I have like a good week as far as like financially, but I felt better by the end of the week than if I had done anything else, right? So it's like you make the decision and oftentimes, and that's what discipline is, whatever you're disciplined at, oftentimes you're forsaking the short term for the long term. What's this going to give me in the long term? And you see people who are undisciplined in their lives, they make poor decisions and they're just living for the now. Where when you see people who are disciplined, they make decisions where they say, okay, I don't want to do this now, but I'm going to do something that's hard. I'm going to do something my flesh doesn't want to do because I know the harvest that's gonna come from it. Zach, I saw the, the drive-by hand raise. Yeah, we—

sorry, we've got a new puppy and She was sniffing around, so I pulled the hand down. Um, so yeah, I was thinking about what Kathleen said and what Leslie said, um, and what you said. Um, it's probably 3, 4 weeks ago I really felt like, um, it was a conviction, um, from the Holy Spirit, like, hey, I really need to be deliberate about praying more. Um, and it's like we— you're talking about like Lucy, like when when things are really tough or schedule's tight or whatever, it's like her default is to go to the prayer closet. I mean, that is incredible because life is so distracting and everything pulls for our attention. It's hard to stay focused sometimes. And in those moments, it's like trading the self-talk. People are like, "Oh yeah, you have to have uplifting self-talk." And I believe that's true, but trading that for God talk, like when I'm in the middle of something hard, and I'm struggling, I'm like, all right, Lord, you know, what, what is it I'm supposed to be learning out of this? Um, and something that has helped me recently is realizing like when, when I'm struggling with something, like he is getting me to heaven, right? And so then I can accept that, like the whole Job thing, like do we, should we just accept good things from the hand of the Lord? But no, like the bad things are good for us too. And so when I accept those bad things as well, And then at that point, I'm just, it's me and the Lord getting through it together. You know, I'm lifting that up to him in the midst of, let's say, a difficult project or a challenging situation. And then Leslie, you were talking about having like difficulty at work, remembering that, like, for example, all authority is given by God. So like having a challenging boss sometimes or something like that. Is like, yeah, this might be exactly what I need. You know, struggling with a person who, I don't know, whatever their fault is that they carry into their leadership position. Sometimes it's like, all right, well, you know, God, how are you using this to refine me? What do I have to learn here while I'm here? It's helped the perspective immensely and the things that I've been going through recently. But yeah, not to say that I've, gotten through with flying colors. I don't feel like I've— I'm still in that season. I'm still learning that discipline of praying more throughout the day and really need to make more deliberate time for prayer. Just to be a little vulnerable, I really do need to and figure out a good rhythm for that because I remember a point in time in my life where, man, I felt like— it was before I was married, before I had kids, and it was like, I would meet up with some other students for like an hour of prayer every day throughout the week, but then I would have my own prayer time by myself. So like, I'm literally in prayer for an hour and a half, 2 hours on some days. And then I would like do devotion separate from that prayer time. And it was just like, it was an amazing season. I felt so close to the Lord. And I remember there'd be days where I would just miss my devotions, for example, and the next day I could tell I was more irritable. I could tell that I, I didn't have the same amount of patience that I would have otherwise. And, uh, and it really is like you were, you were saying with Lucy, like that time when you spend, it is impactful and it bleeds over to everything else.

So what I'm hearing you say, Zach, is don't get married and don't have kids and you'll be great with the Lord. You have plenty of time.

The less responsibility you can have in life, the overall, basically Don't overcome challenges, just avoid them so that way you always look good.

No, obviously I'm just kidding. That, that's good stuff. But that, that's like responsibility of being just an adult, right? Obviously if you have kids, especially little ones, you have less time in the day for yourself. But, um, you know, when we got on the prayer call, I mentioned for myself I did little exercise that I got back to we had done on King's Council coaching calls, Big Rock, Little Rock, where I just kind of reprioritized the, the big rocks, the most important things in my life, and, and made sure that they were non-negotiable. Like, what, what those important things are in your life, it's like, no, these are the non-negotiables. I'm going to make sure these things get done first, then everything else that you realize is really less important. Right? Even if it's work-related, in the grand scheme of things, yes, you have responsibilities, you have to get it done, but it's not as important. And then you realize when you stick with doing your priorities first, your non-negotiables, all of a sudden there's like more hours in the day. You have more energy to do those things that were just sucking your time, sucking your energy, and you're— you're, for me, forsaking— like, just, I got so convicted. Like, one time, like, I told Ezi, I was like, yeah, yeah, But as soon as I'm done with this, we'll go in the back and play. And I just got so convicted. And I literally spent last week, when I got home last week to when I left on Monday, I was like, when he asked to play, I'm stopping what I'm doing. I'm going to go play. Like, I'm going to go do it, right? Obviously you can't do that because the 5-year-old wants to play every second of every day. So I can't do that forever. But I'm like, I'm going to stop what I'm doing. I'm not going to be stressed out. I'm not going to let these things that are just sucking my time away from family, like, take that time away from my family when my son, who's 5, like, the— like, he's at an age where, you know, throwing the ball in the backyard, playing a game of Uno, these are the things he's going to remember his whole life, right? And why would I forsake that? Um, so I think— so Leslie and the Grosses got a new puppy? Is this what I'm gathering here?

That's what I heard. Okay, well, technically, uh, Brooke, our oldest, she, she got a new puppy. Um, Lauren said she wanted to get each of the kids a puppy as they turn 13. I'm like, no way, we're gonna have like 4 dogs in the house. That's not— that's not cool. Um, one dog is, is a surplus. But yeah, I like what you said, Christian. Something I've been doing recently because there's so many different types of tasks that I've had to do throughout the day is like, I think I annoy Lauren with this, but I'm like, "Hey, help me prioritize. What is the most important?" Basically, sometimes you look at 2 boulders and you're like, "Which one's the biggest one? Which one do I put in first?" So, for example, today, I've got to fix something on the RV for a trip that we're gonna take in 2 weeks up to Michigan. But before we go up to Michigan, I also have stuff that I have to get done otherwise too. So it's like, what needs to be done first? How do I prioritize? And she's like, "I don't care." But figuring out what do I put in the jar first or what do I put in the bucket first, definitely. When you first said that this morning, by the way, you said, "Oh, I actually did that." And I'm like, "You actually got a bucket and rocks?" It took me a second, you know, I was, I was just waking up.

Well, I have in the past, it's, it's remarkable that to literally do it, like grab a vase, a bunch of rocks, all different sizes, more rocks than what will essentially fit in the vase. And you'll see if you put the small rocks in or just put them in any which way, you'll see that they all don't fit in the vase. But then if you take them all out and you put them in— big rocks first, and smaller, then smaller and smaller— you fit way more rocks in that vase. And then kind of the kicker on top is if you pour water into the vase and the rocks start to settle more, you could fit more in there— the water being the Holy Spirit. So it's really a powerful illustration. And like, but it's so simple. Sometimes the most powerful things, impactful things, are most simple things. Um, but yeah, I, I love this discussion. I, I love digging into this parable myself over this past week. And, um, yeah, I'm excited for Resurrection Sunday. Um, I, I've shared my testimony quite, quite a few times in my lifetime. Roger has heard it maybe more than anybody all the events that we've done and all the times that I've shared it. But, um, this Sunday I'll definitely be sharing it in front of more people at once. I think our church is expecting like 6,000, 7,000 people, and I'll be sharing my testimony at church this Sunday. So, um, I'm honored to, um, just share what God's done in my life. And you guys share your testimonies. Share your testimonies, especially in this season. God's, God's stirring things up in the hearts of man, and, uh, people are hungry. They're hungry. The answer is Jesus. And, uh, let God be able to use you to, to reveal those answers to those who are in need, those who are desperately just seeking answers to their questions. So Sure, yeah, I'll share the live stream. It's funny, they told me it had to be pretty short, so I told, um, I told them, uh, yeah, first service, uh, I'm gonna follow the rules. Second service, when I have that mic in my hand, I'm like, you might have to cut the mic off on me. I told, I told Lucy, I said, service is going long, second service on Sunday. All right, so, but Kathleen, you, uh, seek the Lord. And, um, you know, oftentimes when, you know, obviously study, you know, read study Bibles, commentaries, there's great resources out there. But, you know, nothing will work better for you for this Bible study than just sitting with the Lord. If you have to come up with a topic from scratch, God will give you the topic and Oftentimes when, uh, you're like, oh man, I, I think God's just given this to me, this is what I need right now, turns out you share that and that everybody else is like, man, I needed to hear that at that moment. So yeah, we'll be praying for that and definitely want to hear how that goes as well. And for everybody else, bless the rest of your weeks. May the Lord's hand be upon you, cover your family, your household. May his presence saturate your dwelling place. And yeah, Resurrection Sunday, time to celebrate our risen Savior. Praise him all day long, whether it's Easter or not. All right, love you guys. I will see you next week, and we'll be getting back into Romans 8. See ya.

Yeah, thanks, Christian.