For America's 250th birthday, Greg Laurie recommends a great film about the man behind the spiritual awakening of our nation. Just as surely as George Washington is our founding father, George Whitfield is our spiritual founding father. Two Georges played a role in founding the United States.
So find out more about George Whitfield in this film that's called A Great Awakening, and we'll send it to you for your gift of any size. Available on DVD at harvest.org. Hey there, thanks for listening to the Greg Laurie Podcast, a ministry supported by Harvest Partners. I'm Greg Laurie, encouraging you. If you want to find out more about Harvest Ministries and learn more about how to become a Harvest Partner, just go to harvest.org.
Amen. Let's all pray together. Father, you are the same God. You are the same yesterday, today. and forever.
And God, were we just saying, Oh God, my God, I need you, how I need you now. Lord, it's true. We need you. We declare our dependence on you for every area of our lives. God, we need your wisdom.
We need your insight. You are a good father who provides for us. You provided for us, Lord, not just financially and giving us, you know, trinkets, but Lord, you provide for us spiritually, eternally, in every way, Lord. You are a good father. And we thank you, Lord.
We thank you. We ask now that you would speak to us through your word. That you would encourage us, that you would challenge us, that you would correct us like a good father would. Speak to us through your word. We thank you for it.
These timeless truths, these things that have been written thousands of years ago, hard to even really wrap our heads around. Thousands of years ago, Lord, but they're so true. They are eternal. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. Jesus said that.
And so, Lord, we thank you that we can apply them in our lives, that they can benefit us. And so, we commit ourselves now to you. Anoint our ears, Lord. Speak through me as I prepared for this sermon, third time teaching it today. Asking, Father, that you would use this sermon, use these words and the scripture, of course, to speak to your people.
In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Amen. You guys can have a seat. Awesome.
Welcome to church, everybody. Good to see you all. I'm Pastor Jonathan Laurie and Want to welcome all of our campuses joining us right now. Harvest Riverside, good to have you guys. Harvest on the island of Maui, good to be with you.
Aloha, and of course, Harvest Orange County, good to be with everyone. Can we welcome all of our campuses joining us right now?
Well, my message title today is The Vineyard Isn't Yours. The Vineyard Isn't Yours. And we're going to be in Luke chapter 20. If you want to turn in your Bibles there, Luke chapter 20.
Well, this Friday was July 24th, and it marks a very important day for my family and I. It marks this year, 2026. It's the 18th year that my older brother Christopher has been with the Lord. And many of you know that my brother was killed in an automobile accident while on his way to work at Harvest, our church in Riverside. And it's a hard day.
It's a hard day. And just reflecting back, it is for sure the most transformational day in my life. Because that was the day I decided to take my brother's advice and give my life to the Lord and surrender. And it's been 18 years now that the Lord has been walking with me, and I've been walking with Him.
So I'm very thankful for that. I believe the words in Romans 8:28, Romans 8:28, when it says, God works together all things for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. And I have seen God bring good out of bad. Have you seen that in your life? You had something bad, you've seen God bring something good as a result of it.
I have too. And That doesn't mean that we'll ever call the bad thing a good thing. No, never. It was a bad thing. My brother not being on this earth, bad thing.
Worst thing. Worst thing that's happened to my life for sure. And um But I've seen God bring good through it. He's brought good things as a result of it. And I am thankful for the promise that we have in 1 Thessalonians 4, which says the Apostle Paul reminds us: I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep.
Lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who sleep in Jesus. I love the way the message translation renders that last one. And it says in verse 14, since Jesus died and broke loose. From the grave, God will most certainly bring back to life those who died in Jesus.
This is the hope for the believer. Amen. This is the hope for the believer, and we are thankful for that, and we put our hope in that. But if you've ever lost somebody you love, you know that you never really get over it. But you do get through it.
Holidays are hard. Of course, birthdays, Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving. Of course, the anniversary of their departure to heaven, they are hard. They're hard. And then they get less hard as time marches on.
They get less hard because you get further away from it and the emotion isn't as raw, but then it becomes harder in a different way. And you're almost like, I wish it was actually harder emotionally. I wish that it was still painful like it once was because you were closer. To them then, right? You were closer to their life on this earth then.
So it's hard in a different way. And so time marches on. And what we do is we talk about our loved ones. We tell stories about them. We post pictures of them on those days.
I named my son after my brother, but it's always hard. And I just want to thank you, though, for your prayers for my family. We do not grieve as those who have no hope. We do not grieve like the world does because Jesus conquered the grave. That doesn't mean we won't suffer in this life.
It doesn't even mean we won't face death in this life, though there is a generation that is coming that will not face death. I hope I'm part of that generation. But we do not have to fear death because we put our faith and trust in the one who conquered the grave, who conquered death. And so we do not have to fear death because, like Adam, all died, and all in Christ will follow in Christ's example and will rise from the dead. We can be thankful for that.
Amen, church. Amen. And as I was preparing this message, writing it a little bit on Friday, Luke chapter 20, I was just reminded of some of my antics. That I engaged in before I was a Christian. Yeah, I didn't always live my life for Christ, that's for sure.
I made some foolish decisions, a lot of them. I remember when I was in high school, I would come home after being up to no good, and I would pull up in front of the house and I'd see sometimes, not every time, but sometimes the light would be on in the living room. And I knew exactly what that meant. Dad was up waiting for me, and he'd give me the interrogation: you know, who were you with? What were you doing?
Where were you? Empty your pockets. I hated that one. Why do you have a lighter? What are you hiding?
Or my mom, she would Come and you know, she was always so sweet, and she would always give me a hug, but she had a really good sense of smell, too, and so. She would, you know, yup, Greg, he smells like smoke, you know. Thanks a lot, mom, you know. But I knew they were right. You know, sometimes...
They would catch me, other times I would elude them. But I always knew that they were right. They were trying to help me make the right decisions, even if it meant making the decisions for me. Because that's what a good parent does. A good parent gets involved.
They intervene. They don't allow their kids to go off the rails. They step in and they make a difference. That's what a good parent does. They ask the questions.
They verify information. Oh, you say you were at Bill's house?
Okay, I'm calling Bill's parents to make sure that you were there. Oh, Bill's parents say that you guys were at our house.
So where were you really, right? It's good. Ronald Reagan said, trust but verify, right? That's a good one to remember, parents. They verify information.
Why? Because they want to get their kids in trouble and catch them in a lie. No, no, because they want to protect. They want to preserve and they want their kids to prosper. There's a day that we live in currently where people believe that they just have complete autonomy.
The kids have autonomy, right? We hear that a lot from our kids. Oh, I'm almost an adult. When I'm 18, I'm moving out.
Okay, well, you're 25 now. Is that going to be happening anytime soon? Everybody wants autonomy, and you know what? We're not that much different as we get to be adults. We believe that we are in charge of everything.
But there actually is one who is over everything. His name is God. And we are created in His image, and we need to submit to His authority. Shit. This question of authority is an important one.
When you're a kid, when you're a teenager, when you're an adult, when you're a senior citizen, when you're retired, when you're facing death, authority is an important thing to understand. God created systems of authority. He created systems of authority starting with the family. We are born into a family structure, right? Exodus 20 tells us in the Ten Commandments: honor your father and mother.
That your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you. The Apostle Paul points out In his commentary on this commandment, that this is the first commandment that has a promise attached to it. Honor your father and mother that your days may be long, right? That your days may be long. Honor your father and mother, that things may go well for you.
If you learn to submit to authority, Things will go well for you. Parents, let me give you just a quick word here. Your job is to be the authority in your kids' life. It's not to be their best friend. It's not to be an enabler.
It's not to be their peer. You are something much, much greater than a peer or a friend. And that is their parent. That is their parents. You see, a parent we love at all times.
Unlike a friend who gets upset with their friend, you don't have to be friends with that person anymore. You can move on. As parents, we are to love our children at all times. And sometimes that means having to make difficult decisions. A lot of times that means having to make difficult decisions and sometimes painful ones.
Why? Because we're doing it for the greater good. Those difficult decisions include discipline, They include punishment. Holding back rewards, not letting them do what their friends are doing just because their friends are doing it, challenging them. And in all of this, it must be rooted in love.
Now, of course, we bless our kids. That's the fun part. That's the easy part: giving our kids things that they didn't earn, blessing them, letting them have that extra scoop of ice cream, letting them have that treat, letting them go to their friend's house when they still got bad grace. Yes, we bless our kids because that's what God does with us, right? God loves to bless us, He loves to give us things that we didn't earn because He is generous and we should reflect that.
Because we love our children, we discipline them. I saw a great quote. That said, if you raise your children. you'll get to spoil your grandchildren. If you spoil your children, you'll get to raise your grandchildren.
You know, that one makes us a little uncomfortable, but you know you've seen it. You know that it's true, right? Listen, godless society, the godless society we currently live in, has made it seem like the best thing you can do, the coolest thing you can do for your kid, is affirm them in everything they do and be their best friend. Oh, yeah, Billy, you're so great at this. Yeah, you know what?
Yeah, you should go on. I think you could make the Los Angeles Lakers, I think you can make that sports team. Even though you're five foot eight and we have no history of basketball in our family and you're 18 years old, you just live out your dreams. No, hey, buddy, you love basketball. Maybe we could work with something, right?
Let's pursue our passion, but let's be realistic here, right? That's what a parent does. They tell their kids the truth, right? We don't lie to our kids, we intervene, we step in, we get involved. 1 Timothy 5:8 tells us this also.
Paul says: if anyone does not provide for his own, And especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. Oof. If he does not provide for his family, Now, of course, we often interpret this as providing, meaning financially providing, making sure that we have food to eat and a place to sleep. Yeah, that's part of it, and that's an important part. Men, we should work.
We should work hard so that we can provide for our family and give them the advantages that maybe we didn't have as kids. That's the idea, right? We want to set our kids up for success, more, you know, to be more successful than even we were. A great goal to pursue. But to provide for the original language, it isn't just financial, it's other areas as well.
It's the Greek word prono-eo, prono-eo. Say that five times fast. Basically, the way that you interpret that word, the original Greek. It could mean a couple of things. First, it means, and this is from the Strong's.
Greek dictionary. It means to give careful thought for To take thought for, to take into consideration, and have regard for.
Okay, so it's more than just working hard, it's to take careful thought for, to think of them. To weigh their strengths and their weaknesses and to try and set them up again for success. And also, another definition for pronoeo is to think about beforehand in a solicitous manner to care for and to provide for someone.
Now, to care for someone in a solicitous manner doesn't mean you try and sell them solar at their front door, right? It means that you, solicitous means that you are attentive, you are concerned, and you are eager. That is how you should be with your kids. You are attentive. You were concerned and you were eager.
That is what it means to be prono eo, to provide for.
Now as parents, we are commanded to train up a child in the way they should go. And when they are older, they will not depart from it. I love that scripture. It's a great reminder. And you may be saying, well, Jonathan, I was raised in a really dysfunctional home, and that makes it challenging for me to know what to do and what not to do and whatever else.
Hey, I get it. Yeah, if you're raised in a dysfunctional home, that's hard. How many of you were raised in a dysfunctional home? Raise your hand. Yeah, yeah.
I was raised in a dysfunctional home, and I'm the head of a dysfunctional home today. That's still no excuse. That's not an excuse to not pro-neo for your children and even for your household, right? All of us have imperfect families. All of us were raised with moms and dads that did the best they could, but ultimately, we are still to proneo provide for the ones we love, the ones in our household, and that means getting involved, even if you didn't have the perfect family.
Because the fact is, we do have a perfect father. It's God in heaven, and He has shown us what it means to be a good father. We should model our character after Him. Amen? Amen.
Okay.
So. Teaching your children to honor authority is important because it naturally segues to honor the authority of God. If you teach them to honor your authority and to listen to what you say and to obey, it will naturally segue into honoring the highest authority, which is God Himself. If our kids don't learn to respect us, will they learn to respect the police officer that pulls them over and tells them to get out of the car? Are they gonna throw a fit?
And you know, we've all seen the YouTube clips, right? Will they learn how to take correction from their boss when their job performance needs improvement? Will they learn delayed gratification in order to achieve a higher goal? You know, yeah, son, yes, I know you got the $20 for your birthday. Doesn't mean you have to spend it right away, right?
You could save it and you could buy something much better, right? Delayed gratification. That's an important principle because we don't want our kids to become dopamine addicts, constantly chasing the next high from the iPad, the new app, the toy, the video game, the candy. Because what that later turns into could be the drug. The sex, the relationship, Still the video game, right?
A good father doesn't ignore bad behavior. He doesn't accept just the statement, oh, I was at Shane's house.
Okay, well, what were you doing at Shane's house? Nothing.
Okay, well, let's dig into that a little bit. What do you mean, nothing? You were there for 24 hours. You guys did nothing the whole time, right? No, you get involved.
He asks the hard questions because he knows you well enough to see through the performance and he loves you enough, and he loves you more than pretending like everything is okay, right? How easily my parents could have just pretended everything was fine. Oh, yeah, he's sown his wild oats, he'll come around eventually. My parents saved my life. If they had not intervened, if they had not called me into account, if I knew that there wasn't a potential checkup when I came home, I would have made worse decisions.
I could have seriously hurt myself, somebody else, and I am thankful that my parents got involved and they had the hard conversations because now. We enjoy each other's company. My mom still smells me from time to time. Thankfully, I'm not, you know. Smelling of smoke, but more like, hey, you need to take a shower, but you know, no.
And so, what are we talking about here? Are we talking about parenting?
Well, yeah, we're talking a little bit about parenting, but the theme of our text and the message today is about authority. It's about authority and it's about stewardship. It's about stewardship. What we're going to see in our text now is that Jesus is speaking to a group of people who try and use some verbal jiu-jitsu to perform their way past God. Jesus basically has the religious leaders in a rare naked choke and they need to submit and tap out and recognize that he is the authority, but they just slime their way through it.
They wiggle their way out of it and they're constantly putting it off. But Jesus, he sees through it and he calls it like it is. Let's read together in Luke chapter 20, starting in verse 1. Again, my message title: The Vineyard Isn't Yours. Verse 1.
Now it happened on one of those days. As he taught the people in the temple and preached the gospel, that the chief priests and the scribes, together with the elders, confronted him. And they spoke to Jesus, saying, tell us. By what authority are you doing these things? Or who is He who gave you this authority?
But Jesus answered and said to them, I will also ask you one thing and answer me. The Baptism of John the Baptist. Was it from heaven or from men? And they reasoned among themselves, saying, If we say from heaven, he s gonna say, Well, then why did you not believe him? But if we say from men, all the people will stone us, for they are persuaded that John was a prophet.
So they answered that they did not know where it was from. And Jesus said to them, Well, neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. Let's pause there. That brings us to our first point: the scene of the crime. The scene of the crime.
Now Just before this moment, we actually read a few weeks ago in Luke chapter 19, right? We're in Luke 20. Luke 19 comes right before. You should write that down. That's great to know.
But the events of Luke chapter 19 contain what is called the triumphal entry, right? This is the moment that is just amazing, it's beautiful, it's bittersweet because we see that Jesus rides into Jerusalem and he's given the heroes welcome. He is recognized for being the Messiah that he is, and they worship him and they sing songs about him, and all of Jerusalem comes out to meet him. You remember, this is when the Pharisees call out and condemn Jesus and say, Jesus, you know, tell your disciples to be quiet. They're saying things that are blasphemous.
And Jesus responds to them: if they should keep quiet, even the stones would cry out, right? Just a great moment, great passage of scripture. But as Jesus gets into Jerusalem, The first thing that he does, He rides to the temple, his father's house, the place of worship. And as he gets there, what does he do? He goes and he flips the tables.
He flips the money changers' tables. He kicks them out, coins rolling everywhere, birds flying around, probably, right? A crazy scene. And so that's what he does. He did that one time at the very beginning of his ministry.
He goes and he cleans the temple, cleanses it, and then he comes again at the end now of his ministry, days before he would be crucified, and he cleanses the temple. And so they're asking him this question of authority: who gives you the right? To go and flip these tables over, to say how worship should be conducted in this place. We are the Pharisees, we are the Sadducees, we're the Sanhedrin, we're the religious elite, we're the ones that interpret God's law and the scriptures for you to understand. Who are you?
What gives you the right? Who gave you this authority? And so, Jesus, after flipping the tables, a couple days go by, and I can guarantee you that his disciples probably told Jesus, hey, After that scene today, you know, probably thinking maybe don't go back to the temple for a couple of days. Like, maybe try and lay low for a little bit. You kind of tick some people off, Jesus.
And Jesus is like, okay, interesting. We're going right back, and I'm going to go stand in the temple and I'm going to preach the gospel, right? I do not care because Jesus was the authority. And here we see he's confronted by the religious leaders. Again, they ask him, What is your authority?
Now the chief priests and the scribes. They could not deny that Jesus was Was any ordinary man. They couldn't deny he was something special, a prophet. Maybe the Messiah. They couldn't deny that because Jesus had the miracles, raising people from the dead, walking on water, the feeding of the 5,000, multiplying the loaves and the fishes.
They couldn't deny that. And yet their only goal was to not figure out who Jesus was. But they just wanted him to stop. They just wanted Jesus to go away. And they were constantly trying to entrap him with these questions, right?
They weren't interested in actually figuring out who he was. They were interested in getting back to how things were. They liked the status quo, they liked being in charge of the people, and Jesus was a threat to that.
So their line of questioning was not a sincere who is Jesus, seeking, researching, and investigating. Again, it was entrapment. All they wanted was to get Jesus to stop, whether it was turning public opinion against him. whether it was arrest by the Romans or ultimately, and they were fine with it. Execution.
All they wanted was for Jesus to stop. And so, this line of questioning. By what authority are you doing these things? Or who is He who gave you this authority? Shows they were moving the chess pieces to try and put Jesus in a difficult position.
They were surrounding him, they wanted to trap Jesus. G. Campbell Morris, a Bible commentator and pastor who's now with the Lord, offers this insight into their mindset of the religious leaders. He says, They knew perfectly well, and they knew perfectly well when they had rejected John's ministry. That was the trouble with them.
God never condemns men for ignorance. God's judgment is upon men who, having the light, disobey it. These religious leaders knew the prophecies better than anybody else. They knew what to look for in the Messiah, and it is likely they recognized that Jesus met all of those things, and yet they rejected him because they They loved their power. They loved their power more than they cared about the actual Son of God.
They knew that if they affirmed Jesus' question and said, yes, John was a prophet. That they would also have to affirm John's saying, and found in the Gospel of John, where he said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And so they answered. We don't know. We don't know.
That statement wasn't because of a lack of information or understanding. It was cover. It was an excuse because they knew the true answer would have cost them their fragile authority that they were not willing to give up. What fools What fools, right? You think about that.
The living Son of God standing before them, engaging in conversation, and they're challenging him, they're trying to get him arrested. What fools! You know, The fact is though, people are still doing this today. They're still doing this today. When they're confronted by Jesus, they come up with an excuse.
Well, I've got questions about the Bible, I've got doubts about the claims that scripture has, right? I'm still figuring out what I believe. You know, Jesus, I like some of the stuff that you said, but also, like, there's some other religious books out there that I think have some good insight too. And I'm still figuring this all out. You know what that is?
That sounds like honest research, but notice the research always stays unfinished. Maybe you know one of these people, and they're constantly offering up excuses why they won't go to church or why they won't give their lives to Christ, and it's because they've got one of these things. That's just a smokescreen. That's just a veil. You know, it never resolves into an answer, it just relocates to the next question.
I've seen these debates people go and have on the street. You know, Charlie Kirk was great at that, and I've seen others that engage with people in conversation and challenge their way of thinking, and they're constantly moving the goalpost, right? They get crushed in one area, you know, on one claim that they make, and it gets dismantled. And so, without even recognizing, oh, that's interesting, you give me something to think about, they move on to the next thing, and another, and another, and another. Hey, listen, I had questions about the Bible.
I did. I still do. I've had concerns. I've had doubts. And listen, I have thoroughly investigated these things, and personally, I have been completely satisfied by the answers that I have found.
I did the research, I actually did it, and I came to the conclusion: Jesus is who He said He was. The claims of the Bible are true. But for quote unquote skeptics For skeptics, it's never about the evidence. It's never about the evidence. It's always about an excuse.
It's always really what it comes down to. is that they want to be in charge, right? They wanna be in charge. Like the little kids that we have, they wanna be the boss. They wanna choose what they eat.
They wanna choose where they go. They wanna choose how they cross the street. I don't wanna look both ways, mom and dad. I wanna do it my way.
Okay, you're gonna die, right? No. It's all about who's in charge. Because if evolution is settled and it's not just a debunked theory, and if we are the result of trillions of years of random events and a giant explosion and evolution, and the Bible is just mythology, and truth is relative, and morality is personal, what you feel. then nobody, including God, gets a vote in how you live your life, right?
You're only accountable to yourself. You are the highest authority in your life. But the truth is There is a creator. And you were created by him, and you were created for a purpose, and you were created on purpose. He is the designer, just like.
Just like that phone you have in your pocket has a designer, just like that propane barbecue you have in your backyard has a designer and has a purpose, just like that MRI machine at the hospital has a designer and a purpose, you were created by a designer and you were created on purpose and for a purpose. And the designer's name is God. And he loves you. And whether you like it or not, he is the ultimate authority above every parent, every teacher, every politician, every king, and every spiritual entity. And there will come a day when he authoritatively asks you the question.
What did you do with my son Jesus? Did you reject him? Did you say, my body, my choice? I'm in charge. I'm the one that gets to make all the decisions for my life, right?
Only I get to choose what I'm going to do, right? I'm in charge. Nobody's going to tell me what to do. Are you going to say that? Are you going to say, I received Jesus as my Lord and Savior?
I submitted to His authority, He is the Lord of my life. You know, a lot of the so-called doubt out there. That walks around isn't honest uncertainty, it's something to hide behind. And Jesus senses this. He recognizes their denial, their unwillingness to answer his question about John the Baptist, and he goes for the jugular here.
And we continue in verse 9. Jesus tells a parable about the men that are asking this question to their face, which is pretty great. We continue in verse 9. And then Jesus began to tell the people this parable. A certain man planted a vineyard, and he leased it to vine dressers.
And the owner went into a far country for a long time.
Now at vintage time, he sent a servant to the vine-dressers that they might give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the vine dressers beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Again he sent another servant, and they beat him also, treated him shamefully and sent him away. And then again a third time, and they wounded him and they also cast him out. And so the owner of the vineyard said, What should I do here?
I know. I will send my beloved son. Probably they will respect him when they see him. But when the vine dressers saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours.
So they cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore, what will the owner of that vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy those vine dressers and give the vineyard to others. And when they heard it, they said, certainly not. Verse 17.
And then he looked at them and he said, What then is this that is written? The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. Whoever falls on that stone will be broken, but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder. And the chief priests and the scribes that very hour sought to lay hands on Jesus, but they feared the people, for they knew he had spoken this parable against them. Let's pause there.
That brings us to point number two: stewards, not owners. Point number two: stewards, not owners. Guys, this moment is incredible. There's a reason these guys got so upset with Jesus that they wanted to lay hands on him without even a legitimate legal charge. They were just so personally offended and annoyed that Jesus just said this about them that they wanted to lay hands on him on the very spot without a sufficient evidence.
And so we see Jesus tells a story about a vineyard.
Now, this symbolism would have been familiar to every Jew, everybody living in Israel at the time, because throughout scripture, we see Israel referred to as a vine. In Psalm 80, Asaph writes about how Israel is a vine that was plucked out of Egypt and planted in fertile soil and how it bears fruit. And so they would have understood the concept of Israel being the vineyard and how these religious leaders were the tenants. They were put in charge of the prosperity of the vineyard. They were supposed to see it succeed spiritually.
They were supposed to lead the people to God, but instead, what did they do? They were pimps. They were using the people of God to enhance themselves for their own personal gain. And so God sent various servants through the ages to go and collect on this debt, to go and intervene, basically. And what did they do?
They attacked them. They persecuted them. And ultimately, we read in Scripture. That the people killed the prophets of God. They killed Zechariah.
They killed Uriah. They killed Isaiah. And they killed John the Baptist. And ultimately, The son comes. The master's son comes, and that is Jesus.
And what do they do to the son? They killed him. And that is exactly what happens. An interesting response from them in verse 16. I don't know if you notice, when Jesus made known the wicked tenants of the vineyard would be destroyed, and the chief cornerstone that was rejected will fall on them and turn them into powder.
And they said, certainly not. Like, oh no, that's not going to happen. The master's probably going to give them a hug and say, good job. Like, that was really good. Thank you.
No. That's not what happened. They obviously God is going to judge them. But they said, certainly not. I just thought that was funny.
That's like that line from Hamlet: the lady doth protest too much, methinks. Like, obviously, this struck a chord with them. Jesus is making it really clear. He's making it really clear. The killing of the Son won't end the story on their terms.
Because the killing of the Son of God didn't end the story on their terms. It ends on God's terms. Because the Son they wanted to get rid of was the same Son who would rise again from the dead. The religious leaders felt like they had ownership of their roles, of their responsibility, that it was not actually entrusted to them. They were stewards.
They were supposed to be cultivating the people of Israel, leading them closer to God, but they had not been doing that, just like the wicked vine dressers. They were using it for their own benefit, not giving to God what belonged to him, rather, to the master, what belonged to him. The authority that they were clinging to so tightly was slipping through their fingers. The vineyard, which is the people of God, that had been entrusted to them, was never their possession. It was always God's, and there was a reckoning coming, and they knew it.
They knew it. I heard the story about a lady and a guy who were setting out on a nice long trip. They were getting on a plane together and they didn't know each other, but she ended up sitting in one seat and he sat in the seat next to her. And as the guy was getting ready for his trip, before he boarded the plane, he went to the gift shop and he bought a $45 bottle of water and he bought a $72 magazine, right? I love how they gouge you.
And he also saw a bag of cookies and he bought the bag of cookies. Oh, that sounds good. Maybe on the flight I'll enjoy some of these. And so he sits down, he puts the cookies down, and the flight goes on. He says hello to his person sitting next to him, that lady.
And halfway through the flight, he decides, I'm going to break open that bag of cookies. That sounds pretty good. And he opens up and he reaches his hand in and he eats one of the cookies and he's enjoying it, puts the bag back down. And then the lady next to him reaches her hand into the bag as well. And she takes a cookie out and she eats one of the cookies.
I should mention this was on Spirit Airlines, right? And so. He's like, I knew things got bad, but not this bad. This is crazy. No respect for personal property.
And so He's just outraged. How could, are you kidding me right now?
Somebody actually is just eating my stuff?
So he reaches his hand in, you know, rips out another cookie, eats it, you know, and she reaches her hand in and eats another cookie. He just cannot believe this is actually happening. This goes back and forth until there's one cookie left in the bag. And before he can reach his hand in and take that last cookie, she gets her hand in the back and she pulls it out. And she takes the cookie and she breaks it in half.
And she gives him one half and she eats the other half. He is just, I mean, his blood is boiling. He does not understand how someone could be this rude, right? And so the flight goes on, it wraps up, they touch ground, and he doesn't say one word. He's just putting everything in his bag, putting all his gear away, his computer, whatever else.
And as he's opening up his bag, putting his stuff away, he looks in, and there's his bag of cookies. He was eating her bag the entire time. He was eating her bag the entire time. She was sharing with him. She shared the last cookie with him.
Now you might think Because you had something a long time. You have a gift. You have an amount of money. You have your life. You might think you have something.
It belongs to you. That job, that marriage, that kid, that gift you were born with. And when God reminds us that it was Him that gave it to us to be stewards over, to be tenants over, a lot of times our first instinct isn't to hand it back. But to stop the reminder. To get rid of the obstacle, to stop listening to that friend or to that preacher, or to come up with some convenient excuse.
The psalmist said in Psalm 24: The earth is the Lord's and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein. Everything belongs to God, including us. We are stewards. We are not owners. Everything belongs to God.
Job said in Job 1:21, Naked came I into this world, naked shall I return. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Now, Job could say something like that. If you know the story of Job, this was after he lost his children. His servants, his livestock, his homes, all of these things came crushing down, and he lost all of them in a matter of moments. Job could say something like this: Blessed be the name of the Lord. Because he had already settled the question of authority before the crisis came.
Everything was God's. He knew he was a servant, he was a tenant. And so losing it wasn't theft, it was just the owner deciding to reclaim what was always his.
Now it's easy to nod along with that. Wow, that's really good, that's amazing, Job. But it's a lot harder when it's not just livestock and it's actually children on the ledger. And so the leaders now they bring one more challenge to Jesus. They bring one more challenge to Jesus, and it gets a lot more personal than any of them had bargained.
Let's finish now reading verse twenty. And so they watched him, and they sent spies who pretended to be righteous. That they might seize him on his words, in order to deliver him to the power and the authority of the governor. And so they asked him, saying, teacher, what do you We know that you say and teach rightly, and you do not show personal favoritism, but teach the way of God in truth. Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?
But Jesus perceived their craftiness, and he said to them, Why do you test me? Show me a denarius, and whose image and inscription does it have? And they answered and said to him, Caesar's. And he said to them, Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. But they could not catch him in his words in the presence of the people, and they marveled at his answer and kept silent.
That brings us to point number three. Finally, image bearers. Image bearers. This is the crescendo. I mean, this is the part where Jesus just drives the point home so hard with all of them.
Notice how they upgrade in strategy. The religious leaders employ here. First, they come and they confront him personally, right? And then Jesus confronts them and humiliates them. And so now they decide that they're not going to confront Jesus personally.
They're going to send spies in religious costumes, pretending to be, you know, devout followers of Jesus. And so they send them instead to go and try and catch him in a trap. But Jesus knew. he perceived their craftiness. They're secret Pharisees, I can tell by the way.
They want to stone me in the face, right? They wanted to kill him. A little Ella Langley for you. That's a weird thing to clap for. It's alright, though.
I definitely went out on a limb doing that just now, so. Mm-hmm. But he knew, he knew that they were secret followers, and he perceived they were trying to trap him. The question they asked him: taxes, are these lawful? Should we do this?
This was a trap question. It was a no-win situation. Jesus knew if he said, yes, pay the tax to Caesar, everybody pay your taxes, pay the Romans even more, right? He knew every Jew within a hundred miles would have been upset with him. But he also knew that if he said, no, don't pay the tax, that he would have likely been arrested for inciting rebellion against the Roman Empire.
They thought they had Jesus in checkmate, right? A no-win situation. I've been playing chess with my family lately. We bought a chessboard, it's a fun little game to play. And my 13-year-old son, 14-year-old now, 14 years old, he checkmated me two times in our games now.
He hasn't even been playing that long. I don't know if that means he's really good or I'm really bad, but I was proud of him. I was so so like, you checkmated me. Like, again, crazy.
So they thought they had Jesus in checkmate here. But then Jesus turns the tables on them. This is so great. He asks for a coin, and he says, Whose image is on the coin? Caesar's.
And whose inscription is on the coin? Caesar's, right? And so he says, Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. Game set match.
Now, maybe we miss some of the nuance of what Jesus is saying here just in this verse. Jesus was saying, whose image is on this coin? Caesar's. And whose image is on you?
Well, God's image is on us. Genesis 1:27 says, So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. Jesus is saying, render the things to Caesar, the things that belong to Caesar, and render unto God the things that belong to God.
Whose image is on that coin? Whose image is on you, right?
Now, Jesus saying that to us, render to God the things that are God's, isn't just a nice little tidy balance that we do with our taxes next to our taxes, right? It's not give your tithe to God, pay your taxes to Caesar, and give the rest of your money to Jeff Bezos on Amazon, right? No, he's saying, yeah, yeah, Caesar gets the medal. Caesar gets the tax, but God gets you. Not a portion.
The whole thing. The whole thing. Everything you have belongs to God. Everything you are belongs to God. Your gift that He's given to you, your career, your beauty, your handsomeness, your intelligence, your time, your talent, your treasure, it belongs to God.
Because what did you enter into this world with? Nothing.
And what will you leave this world with? Nothing.
Nothing.
Again Job said, Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there? The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Everything you are tempted to call mine. Has only ever been on loan to you from the one whose image is on it. Your life, your kids, your spouse, your future, your health. It belongs to God. We are just stewards.
He has entrusted these things to us to bring him glory further with them. You know the parable of the talents, how Jesus gave different talents to different servants, and all of the servants did well and invested it and gave the earnings to the master. They did well with them. One servant. Dug the talents, dug the treasure into the ground, put it into the ground and buried it, right?
Okay, well, that. That servant was condemned for his actions. We don't want to be like that last servant. We want to be good stewards with what God has given to us. We want to bring Him glory with our lives.
We want to lead our children to Jesus. We want to use our careers to work hard and influence our co-workers and to make money and to just have more opportunity. Those who have been faithful with little will be faithful with much, right? Those who are faithful with little will be given much. You didn't arrive with anything, you won't leave with anything.
My brother He didn't get to keep. His life. one day on earth longer than God had appointed. He was a steward over the time that God gave to him, and he stewarded it well. He loved the Lord.
And 18 years later, I can tell you: the only thing that has made that survivable. Wasn't acting like my brother belonged to me. that he was my parents' property and that we had been robbed somehow? No, it was knowing who he always belonged to, and who holds him now in perfect peace and in fullness of joy. that day.
My dad's talked about the events of that day, and he shared in a blog a while back that after some of the people that had come over that day had left, and he just needed a break to process. He went up to his office. And he prayed and he said this: I didn't thank God that it happened. In fact, I would have given anything to have Christopher back. I would have gladly taken his place, but I wasn't given that choice.
So I simply said, Lord, he is yours. I dedicated him to you when he was a little boy, and I dedicate him back to you. I will tell you, we are able to grieve with hope because of that. We are able to grieve with the hope of seeing him again because we know who holds my brother currently. I will tell you that I trust God.
I love God, I wear His image, but more than anything, I love. I want his heart. I want His will for my life. I want His will for my children. I want His will for this church.
I want His will in every area, and the only thing that gets in the way of that is me. The only thing that gets in the way of that is me. I assert what I want. I'm like that kid, that toddler that throws a tantrum when his parents won't let him jump in the deep end of the pool at six months old to only sink to the bottom and die, right? I don't think six-year-olds throw six-month-olds throw tantrums, whatever.
You get the idea. That's me. That's me. I want my way. I had these plans and it didn't work out.
That's not fair. You know, you can throw a tantrum, or you can recognize God is sovereign. And maybe he allowed that thing, maybe he allowed that job loss, maybe he allowed that breakup, maybe he allowed that thing in your life that you call bad for a reason, for a greater purpose. How many of us would pray to win the lottery if we knew God would answer it, right? Oh, I want to be a billionaire.
That would be the worst thing that could ever happen to us. That could be the worst thing that could ever happen to pretty much all of us here. I don't know if there's any billionaires in the crowd, but. It could be the worst thing because It would distract you and take you away from the Lord. And what profit is it?
If a man should gain the whole world, Jesus said, and lose his own soul. You can have the whole world but not have God, and when you leave, you leave with nothing. Or you can leave this life. And you can leave with eternal life. You can leave with Jesus Christ.
You can leave with the hope of heaven. You can leave with the promises of God. Jesus said, I came to give life and life more abundantly. Those who are good stewards over the things that God has given to us enjoy them the most. Because we see, hey, God, I did what I could in the stock market.
You know, it didn't perform the way that I was hoping to. He says, well done, good and faithful servants. Enter into the joy of your Lord. Notice he doesn't say, well done, good and 6x servant. You 6x'd what I gave to you.
You 100x'd it, good job. No, he says, well done, good and faithful servant. He wants you to be faithful with the things he has given to you. Be a good steward. And the first thing that you need to be a good steward of.
Is the gift that God has extended to you through His Son Jesus Christ? He loves you, He has a plan for your life, and He extends to you the gift of eternal life. And if you have not today received that gift of eternal life, if you have not had your sin forgiven, that's the most important thing that you can do. That's the best thing that you can do because not only do you get the hope of heaven, you get earth thrown in as well. You know, followers of God, Christians, we enjoy this life more than anybody else because we hold it loosely.
It doesn't belong to us. We don't have the death grip on it. We shouldn't have the death grip on it.
Sometimes we get the death grip on it, and we need to relax our hand a little bit and recognize. We're stewards. It all belongs to God. He's in control. And ultimately, he's the one that made it all work out in the end.
Amen? Amen. So listen, if you're here today and you haven't made that decision, Respond to this invitation now. Let's all pray. Lord, we thank you for your word.
We thank you for these principles we find in scripture of seeing, God, we don't really own anything. The gifts you give to us, our natural abilities, our beauty, our intelligence, the family we were born into, the amount of money that we inherited, Lord, these are gifts from you. And Lord, we want to honor you with those things that you have entrusted to us because we know that that's when we'll enjoy them the most. But ultimately, that's when we fulfill our purpose in life, which is to bring you glory. Help us to do that, Lord.
Each and every one of us. Help us, Father, more. To entrust these things to you, we thank you. And when our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed, and we're praying together, if there's anybody here who has not yet made that decision to make Jesus Christ their Lord and Savior, if you have not yet surrendered and submitted to His authority, I would just ask you, what are you waiting for? What are you waiting for?
What are you living your life for? Is there any sin, any possession, any pride in your life that's worth going to hell over? Because that's what it's going to do. It's going to take you away from God. You don't have to, though.
You don't have to. You could receive the gift that Jesus Christ offers you: the gift of eternal life, the forgiveness of your sin. and make him the Lord of your life. and submit. It's the best thing that you can do.
It's the decision that I made over 18 years ago, and it's the best thing that's ever happened to me. It changed my life from the inside out. He's made me a new creation. Yeah, I'm a work in progress, but you know what? He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.
He'll do the same thing for you.
So, if you'd like to do that today, wherever you are, watching here, Harvest Orange County or online or one of our other campuses, I want you to raise your hand up and I want to lead you in a prayer. Yeah, you heard me right. Raise your hand up if you want to receive Jesus Christ today. You're saying yes to God. Raise your hand up.
God bless you. Gabracio. Hold it up high where I can see it. God bless you. Anyone else?
Raise it up. God bless you and you. Yeah, awesome. Awesome. God bless you, buddy.
Again, if you're watching at one of our other campuses, I can't see you, but the Lord sees you, you raise your hand as well. God bless you. Okay, for those of you that raised your hand, I'm going to ask now that you would pray this prayer out loud after me. You would mean it in your heart. This is you talking to God, your Father in heaven, who loves you.
who's done everything he can. to bring you home. Pray this prayer after me. Dear God, I know that I'm a sinner. I've fallen short of your standard.
But I thank you that Jesus is the Saviour. and that He is my Saviour. And from this moment forward I make him the Lord of my life. And I turn from my old way of living. And I follow you.
Help me to follow you. Fill me with your Holy Spirit. I submit everything I have. Everything I am. To you.
In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. God bless you that prayed that prayer just now. Congratulations.
God bless you. Hey everybody, thanks for listening to this podcast. To learn more about Harvest Ministries, follow this show and consider supporting it. Just go to harvest.org. And to find out how to know God personally, go to harvest.org and click on know God.
Mm-hmm.
