Sermon Notes

March 10, 2024

Conviction’s Call

Matthew 21:28-32

Thought experiments are a lot of fun. As the one who answers the question, they can help us to think deeper and really consider consequences for our answers and actions before a real situation comes along. However, as a listener they can tell us a lot about the person who is answering values. One of the most common thought experiment questions that we hear is “What would you do if you knew you only had one week to live?” It’s a question that can tell us an awful lot about a person. Those answers are just words and only intentions that are shared, but what could we actually learn about a person if that person knew they only had a few days left to live and we could observe their behaviors during that time? That would tell us more than just the intentions of the person. It would show us who that person really is and what they truly value in life. This is something we can all experience with the life of Jesus. Jesus knew exactly when He would lay down His life and it was recorded exactly what He did during those last few days. From that account we can see what Jesus valued most, what He held dear, and what He wanted His followers to know before He would face His demise. In our time leading up to Easter, I want to look at some of the events in the last week of Jesus' life, starting with His last Monday.

  However, before we talk about His last Monday, let’s talk about His last Sunday. On that Sunday, Jesus had just returned to Jerusalem for the last time. The people had welcomed Jesus by laying down their garments and palm leaves in front of His donkey and they shouted “Praise God for the Son of David! Blessing on the One who comes in the name of the Lord! Praise God in the highest heavens!” (Matthew 21:9). This event in the life of Jesus is what we call Palm Sunday or the Triumphal Entry and it kicks off the last week of Jesus’ life. I want to mention this because this sentiment to Jesus coming into Jerusalem was never seen again during His last week. Just a few days later, those who were shouting “Hosanna!” would soon be shouting “crucify Him!”. This change in attitude didn’t happen just because people are finicky and change their minds on a dime, but rather Jesus used this week to do what He always did and that was to disrupt the sinful and spiritual status quo. This actually happened as soon as He arrived in Jerusalem. In the Gospel of Matthew we are told that the first thing He did was go to the temple and start turning over tables and driving out those who were buying and selling animals for sacrifice. This made a lot of people upset and even angry. We are told that the children in the temple watched Jesus as He made the blind to see and the lame to walk and they praised God because the Messiah had come (This was what was meant when they said “Son of David”). That was a very busy Sunday so Jesus went back to Bethany to sleep. On Monday, Jesus came right back to the scene of the crime. He came back to the temple. Understandably this caused some issues and the religious leaders started to question Jesus’ authority. Jesus answered this with a question about the authority that John the Baptist's authority came from God or man. The religious leaders refused to answer because they didn’t want to stir things up. Jesus refused to answer them because if they didn’t believe John the Baptist, they weren’t going to believe Him, since John was the prophesied forerunner of Jesus the Messiah. That’s when we come to our text this morning. It’s after this exchange of questions and Jesus’ refusal to answer them, that Jesus shares two parables. The first will be our focus this morning, because in it we see some things that Jesus values greatly and the spiritual leaders did not possess.

Jesus values us as individuals. - Matthew 21:28

  What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’  

Jesus starts His parable by telling of two sons whose father asks to come and work in his vineyard. In this parable Jesus is the father and the two sons represent two groups of people who we will get to in a moment. I want to focus first on how the father addresses the sons. He does so, not together in a group, but individually. He makes an effort to deal with each one as separate individuals. It’s in this seemingly minute detail that we see a truth that is played out all throughout the Gospel ― Jesus values us as individuals. When Jesus was calling His disciples, He didn’t just yell to all the fisherman to follow Him, but rather the book of Luke tells us He went to Peter individually and called Him to follow Him to become a fisher of men. When the disciples didn’t want Jesus to be bothered with children coming up to Him, Jesus stopped them, brought the children to Him, and took time with each of them, laying His hands upon their heads and blessing them. We see this when Jesus was walking in a crowd and made eye contact with a crooked tax collector that everyone despised and said, “Zacchaeus, I’m going to your house today!”. Someone the world had no use for Jesus saw as something entirely different ― He saw his value. The time that fits the best with the audience Jesus was sharing this parable with is when the religious leaders brought the woman caught in adultery before Jesus.  The religious leaders were just trying to trip Jesus up. They saw that woman as a means to an end, a piece of human trash. They didn’t care about her brokenness, her shame or where she was at the moment. All they cared about was entrapping Jesus. However that's not how Jesus saw her. Jesus saw her as a person, as someone with value. He got down on her level, took care of her and her needs where she was. This is how Jesus sees us as well, we are all individuals that He knows on an intimate level and cares for deeply. Luke 12:7 says He even knows the numbers of hairs on our heads. Jesus knows and addresses us all as individuals, meeting us where we are. Just like the father in this parable, His call to each of us is the same. In the parable it’s the father’s call to come and labor in his fields. To us it’s a call from Jesus to come, take up our cross, and follow Him. Very often this world sees us as less than human, a product of our poor choices. Maybe we are either just a number or a dollar sign to some, but to Jesus we are much, much more. Jesus sees beyond the faults and sins that we think define us, but praise God, we are not defined by our failure. We are defined by Him alone.  

  Jesus values performance over promise. - Matthew 21:29-31a

  “I will not,” he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. “Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go. “Which of the two did what his father wanted?” “The first,” they answered.

  The first son did something that was practically unheard of in the first century Jewish culture ― he told his father no. This wasn’t just a kid saying no, but the idea in this parable is these were grown children who their father was still taking care of. They had a moral and social obligation to work for their father when asked, because not only were they capable of doing so, but their father was sustaining them. The focus is not on the “no” in this story, but rather on the aftermath of the answers. It was this child that after sometime changed his mind and went on to obey the father. We are then told of a second son whom the father goes to individually as well and extends the same call to come and work in his vineyard. This son has all the right words to say, he not only says “yes”, but he says “yes sir”. This is in stark contrast to the first son, but just as contrasting is what he does after he gives the father this lip service. This son doesn't follow through with his answer. Jesus asks the religious leaders who did what the father wanted and they correctly answered, the first. You see, we can make all the promises we want to Jesus and many times we do (ever promised God something in exchange for an answered prayer?), but Jesus isn’t looking for those who talk a good game. He is looking for those who will live it.  In His sermon on the mount, Jesus said just this when He said “Let your good DEEDS shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father!”.  He didn’t say let your talk or intentions shine, He said to make sure your deeds, your actions shine. 1 John 3:18 also backs this up by telling us to not merely say that we love each other, but show the truth by our actions.  Jesus is way more concerned with what our lives say than what our words say. Not saying our words aren’t important, but our actions will speak louder than those words and will reveal what’s really in our hearts. This is just like the difference between how you would answer a hypothetical thought question versus what you would really do if that ever happened to you.

  There is another important point to this parable that can be found. In these few verses, that is that God’s invitation for forgiveness and salvation is open wide even to the most bluntly ungodly individual if they repent. However it is not even open for those who only give lip service to God.  This is the difference between life and death and heaven and hell. What's the thing that causes such a change in the ungodly but fails to move the self righteous? It's a conviction of sin.

  Jesus values conviction of sin - Matthew 21:31b-32

  Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.

  There is a timeline that Jesus lays out for the religious leaders to show them how the parable applies to them. First is that you have sinned (whom Jesus refers to as the tax collectors and prostitutes) who have said no to God and have sinned against Him. Then you have John who pointed to Jesus as the way to righteousness and forgiveness. Then the sinners believed and changed. The religious leaders (even though they said all the right things) saw these changes in the sinners and still did not believe. What caused this? It seems that it was the conviction of sins or the lack thereof in the religious leaders case. In order for us to realize our need for a Savior, we must first understand our sinfulness. This is not an intellectual knowledge of our sin, because those religious leaders had that more so than most of us do today.  It’s something much more. John 16:8 tells us that the Holy Spirit came to convict the world concerning sin and  the word we translate as convict means to convince someone of truth. When the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, we are shown the truth of God’s Holiness and how that compares to our sinful natures. This is what happened when Isaiah stood in the presence of God. He was immediately overwhelmed by his own sinfulness: “Woe to me! . . . I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips . . . and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty” (Isaiah 6:5). When we are convicted of our sins, our attitude toward sin becomes that of Joseph who fled temptation, crying out, “How could I do this great evil and sin against God?” (Genesis 39:9). When we are convicted we become mindful of how much our sin dishonors God. When David was convicted by the Holy Spirit, he cried out, “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight” (Psalm 51:4). David saw his sin primarily as an affront to a holy God. When the Philippian jailer fell at the apostles’ feet and cried, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” He was under conviction (Acts 16:30). He was certain that, without a Savior, he would die. It’s this conviction that brings repentance. It's this repentance that brings faith that in turn brings salvation by grace. These religious leaders had resisted the conviction the Holy Spirit brings because of their self righteousness, but those sinners had responded and repented and were saved. Salvation cannot occur unless one first knows they need to be saved from something.

  While the truths in today's scripture are paramount as all of God’s truth revealed in His Word, I want to focus on the last point as I close because conviction of sin isn’t something we talk about often. As we enter into the Easter season it’s a time when many people are more open to speaking about spiritual things and having Gospel conversations. I want to call the church to pray for conviction. First of all, for the conviction of our own sins. Before we can pray for anyone else we have to make sure we are right first. Secondly, I want you to pray for the conviction of your lost family and friends. Then thirdly, I want to call upon us to pray for our city, our state, our country and our world. Pray for an overwhelming conviction of sin that will be like nothing anyone has ever seen that is followed with true repentance and trusting in Jesus that rivals even the most talked about revivals. The church needs revival and this world needs Jesus. Both start when we are convicted of our sins ― we need to start praying, now!
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