Lessons From the Vineyard Owner

Text: Mark 12: 1-12

Proposition: Knowing the grace of God we ought also to know His expectations.

Introduction: Jesus was walking in the temple area, it was Tuesday, two days  after He had purged the money changers and time wasters from the temple court. He spoke freely to the disciples, He taught as the crowds gathered about Him and He moved with dignity and authority. That’s when the chief priests and scribes came up to Him, challenging Him, “By what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority?” The problem with these questions is that they were asked from a place of misunderstood authority. The chief priests saw themselves as people of authority over Jesus rather than the reality of the situation which placed them very much under the authority of Jesus the Son of God. To expose their false understanding of their own authority Jesus tells them that they must first answer His question, “The baptism of John, was it from heaven or from men? Answer Me.” If they said from heaven then the response would be, ‘Why didn’t you listen to him?’, meaning they were under that God given authority. They couldn’t say it was from men because the people considered John a prophet and that would upset the people, revealing that they had little authority over the people. Authority is a strange thing, it demands responsibility for the power that it controls. It’s like a police officer stepping into the middle of highway 2 and holding up his hand to stop traffic. The cars clearly out-weigh him, not to mention the tractor trailer units. But he has the power to make them stop because of the authority invested in him, an authority that is to be exercised with a high degree of responsibility and accountability. The chief priests lacked responsibility which eroded their authority. Jesus was inviting them to see that and to turn from the sin of this selfishness. The grace of God is seen when He exposes our foolish thinking and then invites us to agree with Him. If we refuse then He makes it even more simple for us to see, and not only us but those around us who are also listening and learning. Thus we come to the simple teaching that so embarrassed the chief priests that they clenched their fists even as they clenched their jaws. It was a lesson from the vineyard Owner, let’s look at it in Mark 12:1-12.

I. Authority and Responsibility Come Not From What You Have Made But From What Has Been Entrusted To You.                                                                      

In verse 1 we see that the vineyard owner plants the vineyard, sets a hedge around it, digs a place for the wine vat and then builds a tower next to it. We could read all kinds of things into this but the essence of it is that the owner established the vineyard, established a hedge of protection around it, created the place where the fruit could be harvested and even set a tower next to it for the watchman to have shelter. It seems pretty clear that the owner has taken all the reasonable steps to ensure that the vines would grow and produce fruit. The preparations even went to the point of getting things ready for harvest. A tower declared that this vineyard was under a watchman, a person of authority entrusted by the owner. With all this preparation in place, it was then leased to the vinedressers. The vinedresser was responsible to lift up the sagging branches, to prune the shoots that sapped energy and to ready the branches to produce fruit. They were vinedressers who would be rewarded for their work, they had responsibilities and even authority entrusted to them.  So what becomes clear is that though they had an important role to play they were not the ones who made the vineyard neither were they the ones who were in the place of supreme authority over all that was about them. You remember the parting words of Jesus in the Great Commission of Matthew 28, “All authority has been given to Me, in heaven and on earth, go therefore and make disciples…”. Perhaps the first lesson is that authority resides in the Owner, His plan is that we will be fruitful but only as we care for what belongs to Him.

II. The Owner Has Legitimate Expectations.                                                              

In the parable before us the owner expects that there will be fruit that belongs to Him. This brings up the question of what are the legitimate expectations that God has of us. Certainly there are expectations that God has of every person whether they are believers in Christ’s work of atonement or not. This is His creation, we are here to tend it and regardless of belief or unbelief we are accountable, whether we believe it not. God has made Himself known to us, even His invisible attributes are made known to us through creation itself and we are, as Romans 1:20 says, ‘without excuse’. But what are the things that Christians are particularly accountable for, what are the Lord’s legitimate expectations of the church? Certainly phrases like, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are Gods’.”, reminds us of His expectations. The parable we are reading seems to be saying the same thing, there are certain things that really belong to God. What enters your mind when I say that, worship, tithes and offerings, prayer, our very lives? But does God also have legitimate expectations upon how we treat each other since how we do that proclaims volumes about Who we believe God is. Perhaps the words of Romans 12 give us a prompt in the right direction… “For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly as God has dealt to each a measure of faith… Let love be without hypocrisy, abhor evil, cling to what is good, be kind to one another…not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer…” What do you think are the legitimate expectations that God has of you? Will those expectations create a fruitful life in you? These questions are intended to amplify the very real expectations that God has of us and that the purpose of such is that it would be well with your soul and with your life as you rise to the expectation. Perhaps this is the next lesson of the vineyard Owner, that we see His just claims upon us, we agree with Him about that and respond in good faith.

III. The Owner Has Extraordinary Grace                                                                  

This is perhaps the most outstanding part of the parable, it goes beyond what people would normally expect. The greater the longsuffering patience of the owner the greater the degree it is abused. It begins by disgracing the first servant, a message of contempt to the owner. It escalates to greater wounding and shamefully treating the next servant, and the next one they kill. The parable is speaking about the way the Jewish nation had scorned the ownership of God over it, how they had abused the prophets and acted shamefully towards God. What strikes us is that the Owner is incredibly patient, un-humanly or divinely, patient. He suffers their abuse, their insult, their injury of His name. In what we would call a move of reckless hope, He sends His own beloved Son to these authority drunk vinedressers and the response is to us, predictable. They kill Him, they throw His body outside the vineyard as they would if a robber or thief has been caught by them, a prophetic statement of what was soon to occur at Golgotha. In their thirst for power and authority over that which was not theirs, they lost reason. They said to themselves that now they would take the place of the Son, now they would inherit the vineyard. The grace of the Owner does not nullify the Justice of the Owner. Jesus says that what will happen next is that the Owner will come and destroy the vinedressers and in a further act of grace then give the vineyard to others. The third lesson of the vineyard Owner is that His extraordinary grace and reckless love towards us is all in pursuit of that which rightfully belongs to Him. That fruit in the parable that the Owner so carefully created, expectantly looked for and in a measure of breathtaking grace pursued… that fruit is you.  The parable is about the chief priests misplaced sense of authority, it describes how Israel would be set aside for time, literally until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. We are now the vinedressers, entrusted, knowing the expectations, recipients of extraordinary grace as we yield fruit to the Owner, even to the Owners Son, Jesus Christ. Look at the closing words of Jesus, “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord’s doing and it is marvelous in our eyes,”.  It’s an invitation to remember what you have read in the Scripture, remember that which ought to be marvelous to our eyes, the design of God in making Jesus Christ the very cornerstone of not only the way to eternal life but also of your very life itself. Who is the builder of your life, is that not to some degree you? What has been the cornerstone upon which you have built your hopes, your plans, the fruit of your life? Learn the lessons of the vineyard Owner.

 

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