One Last Chance

[0:00] Good morning, church. My name is Ed. If I haven't gotten a chance to meet you, I'm one of the pastors at Trinity Cambridge. It's my joy to preach God's word this morning. Let's open up our Bibles. We're going to continue on in our series of Matthew.

[0:13] Matthew, we're in chapter 21, starting in verse 33, all the way to the end of the chapter. If you are in need of a Bible, feel free to raise your hand. We'd be happy to hand you a physical copy of a Bible that you could use for now, and then hold on.

[0:32] Anyone? Again, we are starting in verse 33 to the end of the chapter. Let's bow our heads as we approach God in prayer.

[0:47] Heavenly Father, this world can discourage us, beat us up.

[1:09] Our flesh, we have to wrestle with it. Satan, as we heard in the prophecy, attacks us incessantly with lies. Lord, we come to your word, pleading, begging for you to illuminate it to our souls, that we'd understand it, not just in our heads, but with our hearts, and that in our hearts, that would transform, that would manifest into our hands.

[1:43] That we would grow as holistic disciples, that in our heads, hearts, hands, every aspect of us, that we would be transformed. Father, I believe in your Holy Spirit.

[1:54] I believe that you can preach through people like me, weak mouths, weak servants. So please multiply the five loaves, two fish, that I can offer to feed the masses.

[2:08] In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Please rise to honor the reading of God's word. Starting in verse 33.

[2:23] Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a wine press in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants and went into another country.

[2:40] When the season for fruit draw near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another.

[2:54] Again, he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did the same to them. Finally, he sent his son to them, saying, They will respect my son.

[3:08] But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance. And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

[3:24] When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants? They said to him, He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who were given the fruits in their seasons.

[3:39] Jesus said to them, Have you never read in the scriptures the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone? This was the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes.

[3:52] Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.

[4:07] When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them. And although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds because they held him to be a prophet.

[4:22] This is God's holy and authoritative word. You may be seated. In my 30 years of life, I never once wanted to become a vegetarian.

[4:41] Sorry to all the vegetarians out there. But I just liked eating meat too much. Even when I heard about all the terrible things about the meat industry, the abhorrent living conditions that the animals have to endure, I embarrassingly still never wanted to change my ways.

[5:02] That is, until I watched the film called Okja. If you've never seen the film, it's about a young girl who tries to rescue her genetically engineered pig-dog thing from a company that raised it for meat.

[5:18] And along the way, she exposes the inhumane conditions in which these super pigs are raised. And she does it by leaking a video to the public. So in one scene facing major scandal and risk of their stock plummeting, the executives of that company, they have this following discussion.

[5:39] One says, what about spending some money on media damage control? The other says, no point. They'll hate us for a bit and then they'll forget.

[5:53] Yes, but I'm not sure if the customers, how they're going to respond after today. If it's cheap, they'll eat it. Oof. Right, that's me.

[6:06] Thinking about Okja the pig, my wife and I were very convicted and ashamed of our eating habits. And so, that's the story about how we became vegetarians.

[6:20] For one week. Now, Okja works because you are immersed in the story, you are cheering for the good guys, you think that you're on their side, but before you even know it, you're hit with the truth that actually, you're one of the bad guys.

[6:38] You're part of the problem. Now, this sermon's not about vegetarianism, and nor do I think that all Christians need to become vegetarians, but there's a truth that we do need to all accept that Jesus addresses today.

[6:56] There are times where we must deliver the truth straight up, undiluted, neat. But there are also times where we must deliver the truth indirectly, on a slant.

[7:12] By sharing this parable of the wicked tenants, Jesus does just that. He engages the Jewish leader's imagination. He bypasses their defensiveness.

[7:23] They clearly rebuke the wicked tenants for their arrogant pride in rebelling against the master. But then, the shoe drops. They get it.

[7:36] Jesus is talking about them. They are the freeloading tenants on borrowed land who have rejected all of God's messengers, thinking that they can rule without the master.

[7:50] The word of God has exposed their hearts. And written 2,000 years ago, the word of God exposes our own hearts this morning.

[8:01] In more ways than one, have we not all declared to them, master of the vineyard, I want to be owner. I want my autonomy. I want you dead. We, like these wicked tenants, should be cast out of the vineyard for our arrogance, for our subversiveness, but instead, instead of immediately casting us out, the master makes one final appeal.

[8:28] The master sends his son as a final call to repent and to bear fruit. That's the main point of my sermon this morning. And so to understand the logic of this parable, we need to see two things.

[8:42] First, that the master will, or the master demands his fruit, and secondly, the master will get his fruit. So here, another parable Jesus exhorts.

[8:54] We meet the master of a house who invests his time and money in a very common business venture in the day. It's a vineyard. Placing a fence around the land, he guards from intruders.

[9:09] Digging a wine press right there on the property, he sets up the winemaking process from start to finish right on site. He builds a watchtower, allowing for shelter, storage, visibility over the land.

[9:24] All in all, he meticulously sets up the vineyard, deliberately thinking about what these tenants might need, and he covers all the bases. In every sense, any tenant would be so lucky to work this land.

[9:40] And after establishing the vineyard, the master entrusts it to tenants on a contractual lease common in that day. They cultivate and care for the land, they invest their time, effort, sweat, blood, and tears to get rich off the fruit, and in return, they give the owner just a cut, a cut of the proceeds, a cut of the fruit.

[10:04] Under this clear lease agreement, there is no possibility of feigning ignorance or citing miscommunication. Oh, I didn't know I had to pay for the utilities.

[10:16] You never said I owe the broker's fee. Buddy, it's all right here, and you signed your name on the dotted line. You owe the master his fruit. To those who knew the scriptures, like the chief priests listening, these details must have sounded familiar, because this is not a random story with random details, but this is rather a direct echo of Isaiah chapter 5.

[10:44] From the opening words of the parable alone, Jesus is predisposing his listeners to hear this parable as a commentary about the relationship between God and the nation of Israel.

[10:57] There, too, a careful master plants a vineyard, which is Israel. He digs a winepress and sets up a tower, echoing all the same details of this parable.

[11:08] just like here, he expects good fruit, the good fruit of repentance, of righteousness, justice, mercy, loving kindness from them, but despite supplying them with all that they might need, God only gets sour, wild grapes from the vineyard.

[11:29] The Lord laments, what more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done for it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?

[11:42] But after referencing Isaiah, Jesus introduces a brand new element to this parable, and it's the tenants. In Isaiah, the problem is with the land.

[11:55] In Matthew, the problem is with the tenants, the ones to whom the master has entrusted this land. So if the vineyard is Israel, then the tenants must be the leaders of the nation, the chief priests, the scribes, the elders.

[12:13] So make no mistake about this parable. The story is not merely a general moral lesson about good stewardship. This parable is a specific pointed rebuke against the leaders, and they will come to know it.

[12:28] He goes on, when the season for fruit came, seeing that the vineyard is well supplied, and the agreement was clear, the owner rightfully sends his servant to the vineyard to get what belongs to him, his fruit.

[12:43] You see that possessive pronoun repeated throughout the parable? It's his land, his fruit, his servants. These servants are sent as ambassadors for the master, right?

[12:57] While the master is away, they embody and they carry all of his authority, and they should be treated as such. They should be treated with respect. But showing their true colors, the tenants reveal what they think about the master and the way that they treat the servants.

[13:17] One after another after another, these tenants show great contempt for the master by beating, killing, and stoning them.

[13:29] Don't just gloss over those details either. They take one man, someone's son, someone's precious son, and they beat him to a bloody pulp.

[13:40] They take another, someone's precious brother, and they kill him. They take another, someone's best friend, and they stone him to death. Can you just imagine the amount of malice and evil that needs to reside in your heart to be able to do this?

[13:56] It doesn't stop there, seeing what happens to his first batch of servants. The master sends even more the second time, believing, surely, surely they will now surrender.

[14:14] Yet, even with the greater number and presumably greater time, more time to self-reflect, these tenants show absolutely no shame, no desire to change, no ability to repent.

[14:28] Without batting an eye, they do the same, the same to these servants too. This was a Netflix documentary level of evil, maliciousness, and wickedness.

[14:41] A story that when we watch, when we read, it should make our blood boil, boil with righteous indignation, because in their proud arrogance, they think that they are the master of the land.

[14:55] Again, this is not a fictional tale, this is not just a made-up legend, this was true history. Throughout her history, like in the parable, God sends not armies of angels, but humble servants, bold prophets who loved their nation enough to tell the truth, despite what it cost them, to win the leaders of Israel back to obedience.

[15:25] But her rulers have rejected God's messengers time, time, and time again. He sent prophet Jeremiah, who pleaded, reform your ways and your actions.

[15:39] But the officials of King Zedekiah beat him and cast him to rot in a muddy cistern. He sent prophet Isaiah, who cried out, turn to the Lord and be saved.

[15:53] But ancient tradition says that King Manasseh ordered that Isaiah be killed, being sawn into two. He sent prophet Zechariah, who rebuked, you have forsaken the Lord, a desperate plea for them to come back into a right relationship with God.

[16:10] And King Joash ordered that he be stoned to death on holy ground. One they beat, another they killed, another they stoned.

[16:22] This just scratches the surface too. God sends prophet after prophet to win them over, but each time they choose blood over repentance.

[16:33] Each time they choose blood over righteousness. It's no wonder that Stephen rebukes the chief priests and the scribes in Acts 7 saying, you stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit.

[16:52] As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? So when you read the opening word of verse 37, right, finally, what do you think that the rest of the verse might say?

[17:09] finally, finally, his patience ran thin. Finally, the hammer just dropped. Finally, God will get his vengeance.

[17:22] It doesn't say any of that. Finally, he sent his son. He sends not just a son, right, but in Mark's record of this parable, he writes still, still he had one other, a beloved son, a cherished son, a son in whom was all of his delight.

[17:47] This is a picture of a man yearning desperately, desperately for these tenants to come to their senses and to return to a right relationship with him. Now, is it cruel of a father to send his son into a bloodbath, into the hands of serial killers who have attacked every single messenger before him?

[18:11] Is this wicked child abuse? Only if the son didn't want to go too. Only if the father forced him to go against his will.

[18:24] But we know who this son really is. This beloved son is Jesus Christ, who came not against his own volition, but willingly, joyfully came to a rebellious people like us.

[18:40] Isn't this amazing? As he said in John 4, my food is to do the will of my father who sent me. My food, the thing that gives me life, is to do his will.

[18:52] The only thing crazier than the master sending his son is that the son willingly goes. Then don't you just marvel at the patience of these two.

[19:04] They could have come guns blazing, physically imposing their will at any legitimate breach of the contract. That was their legal right to do so.

[19:16] And compared to us, our patience, wouldn't our patience for illegal freeloading squatters, it would have tapped out a long, long time ago. sinful anger is not in the past I've found it easy to believe that anger is only something that a small subset of people struggle with.

[19:38] Sinful anger is only something that the people who need to go to anger management classes struggle with. And of course there are levels to this, but sinful anger is not something that only a few people struggle with.

[19:52] In the best book on anger out there, Good and Angry, in the shortest chapter that I've ever read in a book, David Powelson titles a chapter, Do You Have a Serious Problem with Anger?

[20:08] And the chapter is one word. Yes. That's it. And why is it such a ubiquitous problem? When we think that something that is our right is ripped away from us, when we think that something that doesn't go according to our plan, doesn't that immediately cause anger to bubble over?

[20:33] You see that anger in our hearts when our children disobey us, when a rude driver cuts us off, when a coker seeks to upstage you, and out comes the frustration that reveals what we actually believe at the heart of hearts, the belief that we should be in control, that we should be respected, that we should be God.

[20:56] We are gods over our little kingdoms, and others should know that too. But what kinds of gods would we be? Some struggle with the idea that God, he gets angry at all, that justice and wrath are options for God at all.

[21:16] For some, they believe him to be so vindictive and nasty. They think if I were God, if I were God, I wouldn't do it that way.

[21:29] You're right. If you were God, if you knew all of the world's sinful thoughts, you saw all the world's sinful actions, would your wrath not furiously been poured out a long, long time ago?

[21:44] Our own wrath rises at even smaller offenses. Do not mistake the character of our God, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

[22:02] Our God is not to trigger happy in the same way we are. For him, justice and wrath are not the first, but the very last options.

[22:14] He exhausts every other option first, even at great personal cost to him, losing servant after servant and ultimately his own son.

[22:26] But now with all the other options exhausted, everything has come to a head in the sending of his son. There will be no more chances after this.

[22:39] The author of Hebrew writes what we read earlier, long ago at many times and in many ways God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these days he has spoken to us by his son.

[22:52] Jesus is the final revelation, the final messenger. There will be no more servants, no more prophets who come after the son. And so everything hinges upon what you think about Jesus, about who Jesus is to you.

[23:12] If you're here today and you have not put your faith in Jesus Christ, I urge you, I urge you, do not mistake the long patience of our God with indifference.

[23:25] Perhaps many of God's own servants have come to you in the past, sharing the gospel, loving on you, wanting you to come to faith. This church, this body of believers also stands as witness, as one of the sent messengers to you, testifying that you are on borrowed land and you are on borrowed time.

[23:48] Every day you live is another opportunity for you to repent. For the Lord has given you time not to continue on in sin, not to continue to grow your career or to build your family.

[24:02] Every day that he's given you is so that you can come to repentance. We don't know what tomorrow, what tonight might even hold for us. So today could be the last chance, the last chance that you might have to come to full faith.

[24:18] Surrender ownership to God before it's too late. Our church yearns for this. But when the tenants, they recognize the son, they take the great kindness of the father and they repay it with greater evil, people.

[24:37] They scheme amongst themselves, if we kill his son, we will receive his inheritance. And so, like a dog, they cast the son out of the master out of the land and they kill him.

[24:51] It's not hard to see the connection with Jesus as he was cast out of the city of Jerusalem and he was crucified on the cross. After reading this over and over, I, for the life of me, could not understand their logic here.

[25:06] Why in the world would they gain the inheritance if the son were suddenly dead? It makes no sense. That is, unless they assumed that the master was dead.

[25:20] Hence, they used the word inheritance for the first time in this passage. It seems like they knew that the legal principle, they knew this legal principle of possession is nine-tenths of the law.

[25:35] That ownership is easier to maintain legally if one has possession of something already. Even today in our law, typically in property disputes, the person in possession is presumed to be the rightful owner until proven otherwise.

[25:52] So if they kill the son, and if the master is dead, there is no one left to claim the land. So they can claim, as we did on the playground, finders, keepers.

[26:02] But before we judge them, does not every one of our own sins functionally play out because we believe too that the master is dead?

[26:17] Every sin that we commit truly is a tiny expression of atheism. Take a moment to reflect on the sin that you confessed privately during the confession of the sin.

[26:31] In that sin, what did you believe about God? Was he real to you? Or did you operate as if he were dead? Would you really slander and gossip about that coworker if you actively remembered that God was listening?

[26:51] Would you watch that video if you actively believed that God was in the room with you? Would you lie on your taxes if you actively knew that God sees it all?

[27:05] We do this only because in that split second, we too believe that the master is dead. Even stress and anxiety can be a tiny expression of atheism.

[27:18] If you forget that the Lord is alive and well, if you feel like you're on your own, stress and anxiety, it creeps up in our hearts. And maybe it's deeper than just a slight expression of atheism.

[27:32] Maybe there are areas of your life where you refuse to recognize God as master, as the owner of our lives. Any place truly that we say, Lord, you can have this much, but this relationship, this money, this job, this is mine.

[27:56] You see, what we believe about God, not just with our heads, but in our hearts, it has a profound impact on how we live our lives. Every decision of our hands, every emotion in our hearts, every thought in our heads is a reflection of what we think about God, what we believe God be.

[28:16] So where in your life are you still living as if the master were dead? As the tenants will quickly find out, the master is in fact not dead, but very much alive.

[28:32] Pulling the chief priests and the scribes now into the conversation, Jesus asks them one simple question. When the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?

[28:43] For all the times that these leaders of the Jewish nation try to trap Jesus with their questions, Jesus turns the table on them. With their blood boiling at the thought of these tenants, by their own words they indict themselves.

[29:00] And I actually like the NIV better here because in verse 41 it captures the repetition in the Greek. He will bring those wretches to a wretched end.

[29:13] The master will repay you exactly the punishment that you deserve because you did not render to the master the fruit that he deserves and you've scorned his servants and his son.

[29:26] Just how will the master judge them though? How will then the master get his fruit? Jesus gives us the answer in verses 42 to 44. And what initially feels like a sudden detour, Jesus questions, have you never read in the scriptures?

[29:45] And he quotes Psalm 118 which we read again earlier. A psalm that the Israelites already knew very, very well because they sang it at every single great festival like Passover.

[29:57] And this psalm was already quoted in the chapter of Matthew 22 during the triumphal entry. So it should have been fresh on the listeners' minds. But Jesus' interpretation of this psalm is unlike anyone that Jews have ever heard before.

[30:15] Verse 42 reads, The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes. The cornerstone of course back then was the most important stone in a building construction project.

[30:32] More literally translated as head of the corner, the cornerstone was the indispensable stone that was propped up in the corner of the wall. It held the two sides of the walls together.

[30:44] All the other stones in the building structure they need to shift and adjust according to the shape and the size of the corner stone. It's the thing that makes or breaks a building.

[30:57] So wise prudent builders, they would carefully search for the highest quality stone for their cornerstone. But these builders, they lack discernment.

[31:10] Here another parable. A woman goes to a market to find the perfect watermelon. In a pile of melons, she picks up each one, taps it, puts her ear to it to see what it sounds like.

[31:25] She inspects its weight, its rind color, the field spot, the shape, and she is rewarded for all that hard work to find the perfect immaculate watermelon.

[31:38] But then she tosses it to the ground. She takes home the rotted blight one. It's a picture of how the Jewish leaders, they searched for the Messiah.

[31:52] The Messiah is foretold to be born in Bethlehem in the lineage of David. Jesus is born in Bethlehem in the lineage of David. The Messiah is to be born a virgin.

[32:04] Jesus is born of a virgin. The Messiah is to give sight to the blind and unstop the ears of the deaf. Jesus does all that.

[32:15] The Messiah is to ride into Jerusalem on a donkey. Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey. The Messiah is to be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. Jesus is betrayed for 30 pieces of silver.

[32:27] The Messiah is to have his hands and feet pierced and to die among transgressors. Jesus is nailed to the cross between two thieves. And the Messiah is to rise from the dead.

[32:38] Jesus walks out of the tomb on the third day. The final verdict for the Jewish leaders? Meh, must be someone else. The heart of verse 42, it's a comeback story for the ages.

[32:55] But for whom? The Jews traditionally understood the rejected stone that became the cornerstone to refer to themselves. That they will get ultimate triumph over the enemies who despised, who belittled them.

[33:13] But then Jesus shocks them with a radically different, a Christocentric interpretation of this verse. The rejected stone that will be exalted as the prized glorified stone will not be the ethnic nation of Israel, but Jesus himself.

[33:31] the one whom the Jewish leaders rejected as their Messiah by crucifying him on a cross will be restored, raised, resurrected as the true cornerstone.

[33:44] Then not the enemies of Israel, but the enemies of Christ. Those who stumble over the stone, they will be the ones who will be broken to pieces, upon whom the stone falls upon will be crushed.

[33:57] And both of these clauses harken back to Old Testament passages, like in Isaiah and Daniel, where rebellious sinners are shattered, utterly shattered for their actions.

[34:10] There's an old rabbinic saying that says, if a pot falls on a rock, woe to the pot. If a rock falls on a pot, woe to the pot.

[34:22] No matter which way they collide, no matter how or which way you dress it up, between a rock and a pot, it will always be woe to the pot.

[34:33] If the chief priests and anyone else stumble over Christ, the rock, they as weak, fragile pots, they will be broken. If they resist and oppose him in pride, the weak and brittle pots, they will be crushed, and the kingdom of God will be taken away from them.

[34:55] But the master, he still needs to get his fruit. The master demands his fruit, and the master will get his fruit. What's his brand new business plan then to get his fruit?

[35:11] The new plan is kind of like the old plan. He decides to lend it out to other tenants. But wait, how is that going to work? For as sinful as the Jewish leaders were, they stood as representatives as all of sinful humanity.

[35:31] The same sin that dwells in these leaders, it dwells in us. In fact, it's not the story of our true representative in Adam, a man who was given a command to cultivate the land of a garden.

[35:45] He was invited to go to the Garden of Eden, but then trying to play God by eating the forbidden fruit. anyone that he would have chosen to run his vineyard would have sinfully tried to take over.

[36:00] We already see that proclivity in us, right? How many times have we rebelled and spurned against our master? We remember how we believed that in the face of God that we are the rulers of our own lives.

[36:13] We are the rulers of our own stories. We are the bosses. We get to do what we want. We owe nothing to anyone, right? No one, not anyone is qualified and trusted with this vineyard.

[36:29] So to get his fruit, the Lord, he decides to make a trustworthy, righteous people. And he does that by the Father sending his one and only Son, knowing full well that this would lead to his death.

[36:47] Jesus came of his own volition to die a death of sinners on behalf of sinners like you and me. We were like these wicked tenants who have hated the master.

[36:59] We wanted him dead. We have rejected his messengers, even his own son. We deserve the righteous justice of God for that kind of rebellion.

[37:11] But even while we were still his enemies, Christ died for us to atone for our sins so that he could send the Holy Spirit into our hearts so that he caused us to be born again, to cause us to be living.

[37:28] In doing so, the Spirit exchanges hearts of stone and gives us hearts of flesh. In doing so, the bad trees that once bore no good fruit are transformed to be good trees that bear healthy fruit.

[37:41] Only because Jesus was cast out are we then now beckoned in. And a word to my discouraged brothers and sisters. Do you know that this is you?

[37:53] That you are truly part of the chosen people of God who are actively producing fruit for him? You may feel like you have nothing to show for your measly Christian life.

[38:05] That you feel like an imposter in the midst of everyone else in this church. That everyone else seems to know what they're doing. They have their story. They have their act together. But I can't even produce anything. Yes, we do fall short of the glory of God in sin every day.

[38:22] But because of the grace that you have received, you bear pleasing fruit for the Lord. You may struggle to obey, but there is a vast difference between blatant rebellion and humble attempts to bear the spiritual fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

[38:44] There are leagues of differences between you and the previous tenants. And it's because of your faith in Jesus Christ, the cornerstone. Verse 43 of our passage then marks a shift.

[38:59] A shift in what defines the people of God. In the Old Testament, in the Old Covenant, what separated the people of God was their ethnicity.

[39:10] It was their blood. And while there are clear exceptions, it was, there are clear exceptions, but predominantly by your blood, your ancestry, that's what defined you as the people of God.

[39:21] In the New Covenant, what matters is no longer your blood, your ancestry, your heritage, but your faith in Jesus Christ, the cornerstone. As Ephesians 2 says, both Jew and Gentile alike are brought together in him, no longer separated, one new people formed in Christ.

[39:42] So we are truly the people of God built on the foundations of the apostles and the prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure grows into a dwelling place for God.

[39:56] Brothers and sisters, only by faith in Jesus Christ, the cornerstone, not by your works, not by your performance, are you then given access to this vineyard, given the kingdom of God, God, and you're invited in.

[40:11] So as verse 42 says, is this raised cornerstone truly marvelous in your eyes? When was the last time that you marveled at the cornerstone of Jesus Christ?

[40:25] When you slowed down enough in your busy lives to just marvel, to marvel at Jesus Christ, overcome by his love and his grace?

[40:37] When you were in that spot, wasn't that just the best? When you said and you felt with your own heart that isn't Jesus just the best? When the rest of the world finds these flawed, cracked stones marvelous, the boyfriends and girlfriends, the family, the money, the jobs, the popularity, and they prop that up as their cornerstone, the building will always crumble.

[41:04] But we are those who found this rejected stone tossed to the side and we marvel. We simply marvel at its matchless beauty. We marvel at its strength and we prop that up.

[41:17] We prop Christ up as the cornerstone, the foundational stone that could bear the weight of all of our lives. Peter says similarly in Acts 4, let it be known to you, to all of you and all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man is standing before you well.

[41:43] This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

[41:59] Here, this quote from John Calvin, we see that our whole salvation and all its parts are comprehended in Christ.

[42:11] We should therefore take care not to derive the least portion of it from anywhere else. If we seek salvation, we are taught by the very name of Jesus that it is of him.

[42:24] If we seek any other gifts of the Spirit, they will be found in his anointing. If we seek strength, it lies in his dominion. If purity, in his conception. If gentleness, it appears in his birth.

[42:36] If we seek redemption, it lies in his passion. If acquittal, in his condemnation. If remission of the curse, in his cross. If mortification of the flesh, in his tomb.

[42:49] In newness of life, in his resurrection. If inheritance of the heavenly kingdom, in his entrance into heaven. If protection, security in his kingdom. In short, since rich soar of every kind of good abounds in him, let us drink our fill from this fountain and from no other.

[43:10] All we need, all we want, all we have, is in the marvelous cornerstone of Jesus Christ. So, regardless of how it's served, whether it's straight or it's on a slant, the truth that Jesus Christ is the cornerstone, that he is the final call to repentance, it confronts us.

[43:37] There are only two options. Repent of your ways. Live differently. Or carry on with the status quo. In our closing verses, we read of the leader's response to this warning.

[43:53] They explicitly know that Jesus is talking about them. If so, you expect some kind of response, some kind of reaction. They repented, or they considered the parables, or they even got angry at the parables.

[44:11] Just something, right? But radio silence. They knew that Jesus was talking about them, but tragically, they just carry on as if nothing happened, seeking to arrest Jesus while keeping public face.

[44:30] So how will you respond to the message of Jesus today? Will you recognize and treasure Jesus as the cornerstone of your life? I pray that you heed this final call, this final call in Jesus Christ to repent and bear fruit from you.

[44:48] Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we know we are undeserving, but we thank you that we are those who are invited into the vineyard, invited to be called people of God.

[45:03] And so we are, by faith, by grace. And we pray that you would continue to help us to live up to that new title, that new reality, that we would bear spiritual fruit for you, and that we would renounce all, all of our lives to you.

[45:19] That we would surrender all the ownership to you, saying it all belongs to you, oh God. Take what you will. Do what you will. And we want to see you glorified in everything.

[45:32] In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen.