Mark 12 1 thru 12

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1 “Marvelous In Our Eyes,” Mark 12:1-12 (March 23, 2014) And he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and went into another country. 2 When the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. 3 And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 4 Again he sent to them another servant, and they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully. 5 And he sent another, and him they killed. And so with many others: some they beat, and some they killed. 6 He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 7 But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ 8 And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. 9 What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. 10 Have you not read this Scripture:

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“ ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”

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And they were seeking to arrest him but feared the people, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them. So they left him and went away. PRAY We are doing a series of studies on the person of Jesus Christ leading up to Easter. Each Sunday morning we will be in one of the four gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – and we will look at some of the events that took place during the days of the Passion Week, the week leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus. Today we are in Mark 12, and the events of Mark 12 took place on the Tuesday of the Passion Week. Actually, a lot took place on that Tuesday – in Mark, the last half of chapter eleven and all of chapters twelve and thirteen are devoted to what happened that Tuesday. And in these twelve verses we’ll look at the parable of the tenants. Now clearly when Jesus originally spoke this parable, he was directing at the chief priests and the teachers of the law, the heads of the religious establishment in Israel. This is a parable of judgment against them for their rejection of Jesus Christ as the Messiah. But I also think that this parable, when we study it in our context rightly and carefully, contains a really good, powerful, searching explanation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So I’m very excited to be able to share it with you this morning. We’ll look at it through the lens of three of the characters of the parable: first, the tenants. Second, the Lord. Third, the son. © 2014 J.D. Shaw

2 First, the tenants. The situation depicted in the parable was actually very common in first century Israel – archaeologists have discovered lots of documents (papyri and parchments) describing how absentee landlords owned lots of property in Israel and leased it to tenant farmers – basically, sharecroppers. The landlords owned the land, and the tenants worked the land for the landlords. Then, at the harvest, they would divide the crops between them somehow so that everyone makes money. But here’s the key: the one who owns the land calls the shots. The landlord owns the land, so he gets to tell the tenants how to farm the land, and the tenants have to obey him, or they’re going to have to find some other piece of land to work. In light of that, I want to show you three things about the tenants: first, they make a universal mistake. “And he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and went into another country. 2 When the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. 3 And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 4 Again he sent to them another servant, and they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully. 5 And he sent another, and him they killed. And so with many others: some they beat, and some they killed.” Mark 12:1-5. The landlord sends representatives to the tenants to get what’s rightfully his – a share of the crop. The tenants are sharecroppers – they are obligated to share some of the crop with the landlord, because the landlord owns the vineyard. But what do the tenants do? They make the mistake of acting like they own the vineyard. Friends, here’s how I want to apply this to us: I think it’s a perfectly reasonable analogy to say that our lives are like vineyards. The Bible uses this imagery often when it comes to human beings – whether individuals, or families, or churches – all are like vineyards, or cultivated fields. But here’s the mistake we all make – we think our lives, our vineyards, belong to us. Our default mindset is, “This is my life. This is my body, this is my money, this is my career, this is my time, this is my family, these are my friends, it’s my life and I can do with it what I want.” The Bible, though, says that your life is not your own. You do not own the vineyard. One of the most foundational verses in the Bible is Genesis 1:27: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” What’s that verse mean? It means that when God created you he didn’t not make you randomly and for no purpose; rather, he had a very specific purpose in mind. You are to bear God’s image. All of us were created to be mirrors, reflecting the character of God © 2014 J.D. Shaw

3 back at him. All of us, walking around on earth, living testimonies of God’s love, God’s mercy, God’s justice, God’s honesty, God’s gentleness, God’s faithfulness, God’s peace. All of us were made for that. Now if you’re here today and not a Christian, welcome – we are glad you are here, and we want Grace Bible Church to be a place where you can come regularly and learn about what the Bible teaches when it comes to God. But if you’re not a Christian you may naturally not be sure about this notion that your life is not your own; that may not be selfevident to you. I think I can prove it to you. We all know it’s absolutely wrong to do certain things – for example, it’s absolutely wrong for deceive and cheat other people out of what they have. I heard last week that since it’s close to April 15 the same phone scam that happens every year is cranking back up. People are calling elderly people and claiming to be from the IRS and telling them they owe $400 in back taxes, and telling these vulnerable people that they must go and get a prepaid debit card at Wal-Mart and mail it to such-and-such address, or the IRS is going to come and take away their house. Everyone knows that’s wrong; we, rightly, get angry when hear of someone doing that to a great-grandmother. But why do we get angry? If your life is your life, why can’t you do whatever you want with it? Why can’t you steal? What can’t you take advantage of other people? Why isn’t it just too bad for that foolish old woman for believing the liar on the phone? Isn’t there a sucker born every minute? Some people say, “Well, society couldn’t function if we allowed that to go on, so we’ve have to put a stop to it.” I agree, but that doesn’t explain why we get angry at the very thought of someone doing that. Why do we get angry? Why do we rightly get so angry when we hear stories like that? Because we were made in the image of a holy, just God who loves the widow, who loves the poor, and he gets angry when people take advantage of them and oppress them, and our lives belong to him. Our lives belong to him – we bear his image; it’s his vineyard. When we get angry at injustice we are doing what we were made to do – we’re acting like a mirror, reflecting his character. Yet we all too often forget that and make the very common mistake of forgetting we are tenants and instead thinking we are owners. Second, the tenants in the parable have a universal reaction. Look at the reaction the tenants have toward the servants the owner sends. Do they say, “Hey, we know your boss thinks he owns this field, but he’s confused. We own it. He must be thinking about some other field. We’re sorry about the confusion, but go back and tell him that he’s wrong and if he feels the need to talk to the authorities about this we understand.” Now that would be a perfectly understandable reaction if this were an honest disagreement between the landlord and the tenants.

© 2014 J.D. Shaw

4 But it’s not an honest disagreement they have with the owner, is it? They either beat or kill all the representatives that he sends. Why? Because the rightful lord comes to claim what is his, but they hate it. They don’t want to admit he has a claim on them. And friends, it’s true of us as well. It’s not just that we think our lives are our own; we hate it when we sense our rightful Lord making claims to us. Romans 8:7: “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.” And earlier in Romans 5 it says that we are all, by nature, enemies of God. Did you know that? And someone must be saying, “Wait a minute. I do not hate God – I’m not sure I believe in God. How could I hate him?” I know I can prove this to you. Have you ever noticed how much all of us really dislike authority? We have to learn to respect authority – we all had to learn to respect our parents. We didn’t come out of the womb saying, “O, wise father, thank you so much for your nurture and discipline in my life.” No, we resented our parents’ authority. If you are in middle school right now, and you’re struggling with respecting your parents – take heart! No matter what your parents might admit to you now, I guarantee you that when you were their age they struggled respected their parents, too. When you were in high school, you really struggled with respecting the authority figures of your teachers and principals. And then you grew up, you entered the work force, and you left all the behind, right? No, you still struggle with authority. You still don’t like being told what to do. It doesn’t matter how old you get, this is a problem for you. It can get really irrational. I know one man who has worked in law enforcement, he wasn’t an officer of the law but he worked in the court system. And so whenever he got pulled over for speeding which wasn’t often but it happened now and again the policeman would find out his position and he wouldn’t get ticketed. But, still, he really disliked getting pulled over. He took it personally and it was like he was offended at getting pulled over for speeding. And occasionally he would be really difficult with the police officer – to the point where a few times the officers would get really mad at him and try to give him a ticket anyway. Now why would anyone act that way? Because of our innate dislike of lawful authority. We are all by nature in rebellion against lawful authority, and friends, what is the highest, the most lawful, the most sovereign authority in the universe? It is God and his law. We hate being told what to do even when it comes from God. I can remember going to RUF when I was in college at Mississippi State back in the late nineties and walking out angry several different times because the campus minister was preaching in such a way that he was convicting me of some of my pet sins. And I remember arguing with friends over what the minister had said afterward, acting like I was mad at him because he was all wrong about the Bible, but really I was mad at God.

© 2014 J.D. Shaw

5 The man was preaching the truth, and I was offended that God had a will and it contradicted the way I wanted to live. Have you ever walked out of here on a Sunday morning, mad at me? You may have been mad at me for saying something stupid – I do it all the time. But just maybe, you were offended by something written in the Word of God. I just happened to be the one to tell you about it. And when that happens, you are experiencing a universal reaction to God – hatred, hatred that he would dare tell you what to do with what you think is your life. Third, the tenants have a universal problem. If you want to get anything out of a garden, a vineyard, then you must tend it in a certain way. You can’t just let it grow wild. No, you must weed it, you fertilize it, you keep the deer out of it so they don’t eat everything in it (or, at least, you try to). And you must do these things very carefully, or things wont grow right. You must water it, but you can’t overwater. You must weed, but you’ve got to be careful or you’ll tear up the roots of your plants. You can’t over or under fertilize, or that will kill it. You must take great care and tend your garden, or nothing will grow. It’s not explicitly stated in Mark 12 but I think it’s assumed that the tenants did a horrible job running the vineyard – their vineyard did not produce any fruit. But in case there’s doubt about this we can read Matthew’s account of this same parable, and in 21:43 we read this – Jesus said, “43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.” God has set up certain parameters, guidelines, for your life, and if you want to bear fruit, the kind of fruit that in your sane moments you want to have – a life of love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and selfcontrol – you must tend the vineyard the way the Lord of the vineyard says. But if we reject His claim on our lives we all too often won’t do it. Now some of you know people who aren’t Christians who have great marriages, great friendships, great careers, wonderful relationships with their children. I know they do too – but if they do, it’s because they are unconsciously living according to the way God made us. You can’t live contrary to our nature as image bearers and find that happening. You simply can’t run your marriage any way you want to, your dating relationships any way you want to, your work life any way you want to, handle your money any way you want to – you can’t even handle your leisure time any way you want to and expect to bear fruit – it doesn’t work that way. You must live the life you tend on the Lord’s behalf according to His principles or you won’t bear fruit. For example, when we lived in Starkville and pastored there I got to meet two widows. They were friends, and I met one of them about a year before I met the second. And within three minutes of meeting the second widow, she launched into how much she missed her husband. For a good ten minutes she talked about how her husband had this important job and how they did everything together in the community and she didn’t know what she was going to do without him.

© 2014 J.D. Shaw

6 And after she left, I went to the other widow – the one I’d known first – and I remarked, “Wow – she’s really hurting. When was her husband’s funeral?” I thought it had been a few weeks ago. The other widow said, “Brother J.D. (that’s what they called me), it’s been three years.” She said, “It’s been three years, and she’s my friend but I don’t know how much longer I can take this. I don’t know what to say anymore when she keeps going on about how much she misses her husband. I miss my husband, too, but I’ve tried to keep going, and I don’t think she has.” What happened? I think what happened is this: the first widow actually accepted God’s claim on her life. She entrusted her life to God. And when her husband died she mourned his loss, but she didn’t grieve as those who have no hope – that’s what Paul says in 1 Thessalonians. Grieve, but don’t grieve as those who have no hope. She was a dear lady and still bore fruit. The other widow, though she would have no doubt claimed to be a Christian because of where she lived and grew up, lived as if her life was her own. And she had not entrusted it to God; she’d entrusted it to her husband. And when he died she was absolutely lost. She had no hope. Her life was not hers to give to her husband – she was acting like an owner, when really she was a tenant, and therefore she could not bear fruit. It’s a universal problem. Tenants – that’s who we are by nature. We get confused, and we think we’re own our lives, but we don’t, and it trips us up. Second, the Lord. The owner of the vineyard is the Lord of the vineyard – literally, in verse 9, where it says, “What will the owner of the vineyard do?” the Greek word translated as owner is kurios, which means “lord.” And in the parable the lord of the vineyard, lowercase “l”, is actually the Lord of the universe, uppercase “L.” What can we learn about the Lord from this parable? A couple of things. First, how many messengers, servants, does he send to the tenants of his vineyard? We read about three particular servants first – one they beat, another they strike on the head, the third they kill. But then in verse 5 it says simply, “He sent many others …” We don’t know how many servants the lord of the vineyard sent – we just know it was many, many more. Now, why in the world would he do that – keep sending messengers after the tenants reject and beat and kill so many? There’s only one reason – he’s patient. He’s unbelievably patient. 3 This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 1 Timothy 2:3-4. Another place in the Bible it says that God does not even take pleasure in the death of the wicked. He’s unbelievably patient with us – even when we are acting like his stuff is our stuff, and ignoring all the different messengers he sends to warn us about what we are doing. Now, just think about how different God is from us. How irritated do you get when someone takes something that’s yours and acts like it’s theirs? © 2014 J.D. Shaw

7 But when we do the same thing with God, he’s patient. We do all kind of things with our lives that we know we shouldn’t, that we know are destructive, that we know hurt others and that, once we start reading the Bible, displeases him, but he does not show us his wrath – he’s patient. And patient, you know, isn’t really a good word to describe it. The biblical word is better. God is longsuffering – that’s how 1 Corinthians 13:4 describes love in the old KJV. Love suffers long. And no one who’s been a Christian for ten years or more can stand up and testify that God is exceedingly patient, he’s far more patient with us than we’ve ever been even with loved ones, and that he is certainly the kind of God who does not take pleasure in anyone’s death but wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. Why? Because, second, he loves you. The Lord loves you, and he wants you to flourish. Our lives are vineyards, right? Here’s Psalm 1:1-3: “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; 2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. 3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.” The love of the Lord will cause us to flourish, and we will yield our fruit in season and prosper. The Lord is patient because the Lord is love. Our parenting conference begins Friday night, and I’m giving the first talk. And I’m going to take a risk because those of you who were planning on coming might not once you hear this – I’m going to tell you what will be my main point. And my main point is this: children, above all else, need to be loved. The hard part about being a parent, or a spouse, or a friend, isn’t any technique to talk to children or discipline them you have to learn or anything else – it’s learning to love them, the way they need to be loved. But if you learn how to love your children, they will flourish. They will grow; they will prosper, because they are made in the image of God and God has decreed that that is how all human beings prosper. We flourish, we grow, we yield fruit when we are loved. And the Lord wants to do that to you. The Lord will be patient with you and with love you so as to cause you to bear fruit. That’s the Lord. But how can we be loved by him? Third, the Son. 6 He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 7 But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ 8 And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. Mark 12:6-8. Remember the context of the parable: Jesus is pronouncing God’s judgment on the chief priests and Pharisees because they reject Jesus as the Son of God. That’s what Jesus is trying to teach. He’s not teaching that he’s surprised the Pharisees are rejecting him.

© 2014 J.D. Shaw

8 Jesus actually expected to be received as the Messiah from the Pharisees. The son in the parable might have expected to be received; Jesus did not. Jesus came to earth for one reason: to die at the hands of these tenants of the vineyard. Jesus at one point said, “… I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.” John 10:17-18. So he walked into Jerusalem, he infuriated the chief priests and the elders, so that they would get angry enough to kill him. Why? Because the only way we could receive the love of the Lord was through the death of the Son. Friends, the Lord does not take pleasure in the death of anyone, not even the wicked – but he also insists that every sin be paid for with blood. If the Lord allowed sin to go unpunished, he was not be good or just. And we all have sinned; we are tenants, and we’ve acted like owners. Yet rather than give us what we deserve, the Lord sent the Son, who died in our place, for our sins, so now the Lord can love us rather show us his wrath. That’s the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that’s wonderful news – but we’ll look at a few more verses to hopefully make it more accessible. Verses 10-11: 10 Have you not read this Scripture: “ ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?” Jesus is comparing himself to a cornerstone. What’s that? Well, the cornerstone in architecture is the first stone set in the building of a building, and it is the stone which all other stones are placed in reference to. It is the foundation of the structure; the stone which holds everything together. Jesus was saying, “I am the Messiah, I am God’s anointed one – if you want to know God’s love, you must build your faith in God on me. I am the way, the truth, the only route to have access to God. No man goes to God unless he goes through me.” That’s the claim. But then in Matthew’s account, he adds another verse - 44: “And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.” What’s he saying there? Everyone will encounter the Son – to miss the Son, to miss Jesus, is not an option. But there are two possible ways to encounter Jesus. One is that if you reject his gospel, if you reject the good news that he died for you, then you will be crushed. You will be destroyed. That’s verse 9: 9 What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. If we do not acknowledge our guilt, how we’ve acted like owners when God is the Lord of the vineyard, we will one day stand before the great assize, the great judgment seat of Christ, and we will be crushed.

© 2014 J.D. Shaw

9 But Jesus says if we do acknowledge our guilt, our sin, we’ll be saved, but only by falling on the cornerstone and being broken to pieces. Now what is that about? Here’s what I think Jesus meant – in 1740, in Middletown, Connecticut, a farmer named Nathan Cole left his field to hear the great evangelist George Whitefield preach. Thousands would flock to hear Whitefield preach wherever he went in those days. And this is what Mr. Cole said happened to him that day: “And my hearing him preach gave me a heart wound, and by God’s blessing my old Foundation was broken up, and I saw that my righteousness would not save me.” Friends, nobody meets Jesus and walks away in one piece. When you meet Jesus your old foundations will be broken up. Right now, maybe, you think this is your life. You think, “This is my body, this is my money, this is my career, this is my free time, this is my family, these are my friends, this is my life and I can do with it what I want.” But then you meet Jesus – and you see something marvelous in your eyes. You see Jesus Christ, God in flesh, on the cross, dying for your sins, And from that point on you see how stupid and foolish it is to live as owner, because you know you’re a tenant. You know you belong to God. Your foundation has been broken up, plowed under, and you have to build on something else. You say to yourself, “All the vain things that charmed me most I sacrifice them to his blood.” Once you really see Jesus, you know can’t live for yourself anymore – you try time and again, you sin, you mess up, but you keep coming back to Jesus. You can’t help it – you’ve seen something marvelous in your eyes. So, I’ll close with this. Verse 12: “And they were seeking to arrest him but feared the people, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them. So they left him and went away.” Jesus tells these Pharisees this parable, and it only hardens their hearts. They walk away only more determined to hate Jesus. Here’s the application: if you hear this sermon today and you’re offended, and you don’t like how I’m describing your natural condition, and your natural hatred of God, if you think your life really is your life and who has the right to tell you differently, if you hear this and walk away, then watch out. But if you’ve heard this parable and, like I’ve been doing all week, you identify with the tenants, and you say, “Oh, that’s me – that’s me! I do that. I’m a tenant!” Then take heart – you’ve seen Jesus. Only people who’ve seen Jesus can do that – you’ve seen something marvelous. And your old foundation has been broken up, and now you can build your life on the rock. “On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.” And you can trust the master gardener to come into the vineyard of your life and do his work. Amen. Let’s pray together.

© 2014 J.D. Shaw