OWNERSHIP EXACTS A HIGH PRICE

(Luke 20:9-18)
January 29, 2017
Read Lu 20:9-18 One night a mugger jumps a well-dressed man, pulls a
gun and says, Give me your money. The man replies indignantly, You
cant do that. Im a US Senator. The mugger replies, In that case, give me
MY money! Its an issue of ownership, and thats what this parable is about.
Its not often that you hear someone say, I hate God, right? But do you
realize, outside of Christ, we all hate God. We repress and cover our hatred as
indifference say Hes irrelevant. But the Bible insists we hate Him. God says
in Rom 8:4, 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh (self) is hostile to God, for
it does not submit to Gods law; indeed, it cannot. The natural mind is not
just apathetic toward God, it is at war with God, and it is all about ownership.
We intuitively know He owns us by right of Creation, but we want to own us.
And so we hate Him. We know we owe Him, but we want what we want. So
we hate Him. If that thought makes you uncomfortable, chances are you are
living outside of Christ and in a state of denial.
The parable relates specifically to Israel. But the application is scary relevant
to every life. The vineyard owner is the hero. Tho Hes absent, nothing could
be more foolish than to live as tho He does not matter. But thats what these
tenants do leading step-by-step to their own destruction. How does apathy
toward, or hatred of God, lead there? Step by step.
I.

Gods Present (Gift) -- Prostituted

Absentee owners, ceding authority to trusted tenants, were common in Jesus

time. The symbolism would have been obvious. The owner is God. The
vineyard is Israel. Israel as vineyard is all over the OT in Isa 5, Jer 2, Psa 80,
the Song of Solomon and many others. The temple where Jesus stood had a
richly carved grapevine 100 feet high sculpted around the door that led into
the Holy Place. The owners absence represents that God is not physically,
present with His people. The tenants are religious leaders acting in His stead.
But theres a problem. The owner sends a servant in to collect his fruit. Mid v.
10: But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Whats
happening? The tenants are beginning to act like owners. Theyve gotten
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greedy. The vineyard was a result of the owners risk; the owners investment;
the owners money. The tenants will be paid, but they are there to follow his
instructions. The profits are his. But His absence has created an attitude of
independence. His request for return is seen as an intrusion. Independence
becomes hatred when accountability is demanded. The tenants beat the
owners representative and send him packing. They are acting like owners.
This represents what the scribes, Pharisees, priests and religious elite were
doing in Israel. Claiming to be Gods representatives, they had so defiled His
Law with their own interpretations and traditions that Judaism was theirs, not
His. They were acting as owners, not as faithful stewards. The parable aims at
Israels leaders who were prostituting Gods gift of their privileged position.
But there is a broader application. Jesus is saying to all of us, Look at your
life. Where did you get it? It was a gift from God. You have abilities; you
have intelligence; you have possessions; you have creativity; you have
certain powers; you have privilege; you have health. Where did it all come
from? Its a present. God challenges in I Cor 4:7, What do you have that
you did not receive? Answer: nothing. Implication: we are all tenants.
Weve been given life with the expectation of a return. But like the tenants in
the parable, we put our interests above His. We think of ourselves owners of
what we have been given as opposed to tenants. So, when we insist on having
our own way, we are tenants acting like owners. Weve been given a mind,
but we are not to believe just anything. Weve been given a relational and
sexual desire. But we are not to use it just any way we want. All our privileges
are to be managed for the One who gave them. Theyre on loan, not owned.
But the world with its self-help books and power seminars is saying just the
opposite. You decide your values, your agenda, your worldview you
decide. Those books are saying, Act like an owner! And Jesus is saying,
Youre not an owner; youre a tenant! We respond I will use my mind,
ambition, money, position, advantages to advance my own cause, fulfill my
own dreams, to provide for my own security. God is far away if He exists at
all. Perhaps you prayed once and He didnt answer, so Hes really irrelevant.
Thats how we act. The principle is this: God has given us a life, but we are
to live it for Him. Instead, we act like we are owners. In so doing, we are
prostituting Gods present His gift of life. We are abusing it promoting our
glory instead of His. The idea of accountability stirs our hatred.
II.

Gods Patience -- Perverted

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Now, at this point this parable takes a dramatic turn. After the servant has been
beaten and turned away empty-handed, Jesus audience would have expected
swift retribution. Anyone would have. Call the cops, oust the scoundrels and
arrest them. Instead, the opposite happens. 11 And he sent another servant.
But they also beat and treated him shamefully, and sent him away emptyhanded. 12 And he sent yet a third. This one also they wounded and cast out.
What is this? This is Gods almost infinite patience. God who is not willing
that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance (II Pet 3:9),
giving chance after undeserved chance to His wicked tenants.
The messengers are the prophets God kept sending to Israel. Stephen charged
Israels leaders with crimes against the prophets prior to his own stoning
death. Acts 7:51, You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears,
you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. 52 Which of
the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They drove Elijah into the
wilderness. Jeremiah was thrown into a pit. Isaiah was sawn in two. Zechariah
was stoned to death near the altar. And yet God kept sending messengers.
And after 400 years of silence, He had sent yet another John the Baptist. But
the Pharisees hated him, too. Because they hated God. You say, They didnt
hate God. They were trying to please God. Their whole life was about
keeping His law. They were the back to the Bible movement of their time.
But dont you see, thats the very reason they hated God. They hated God
because they didnt know grace. They hated His law because they couldnt
keep it. They knew they could not, so they perverted His law with their own
traditions. And they slavishly labored to keep those commands, hating every
minute of it. They never got past Law to grace. And when messengers arrived
saying, Its not about performance; its about repentance. Its not about
your perfection; its about His. Its not about outward compliance; its about
inward cleansing they killed the messengers. They never got past Law to
Grace and so they hated God instead of loving God.
But what of us? Do we also hate God because we dont know grace? How
many of His messengers have we beaten and killed? J. C. Ryle says in our
rebellious human nature If we could pull God down from His throne, we
would. Since we cant get to Him, we kill the messengers sent to underscore
His ownership. We ask, What has He done for me? and say, The gospel
makes no sense. His claims are invalid. But the truth is, we want to own
what is rightfully His. The gospel is so simple a child can understand. Jesus
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died to pay the penalty for our sins and now offers forgiveness if we will only
repent. How hard is that? But we pervert Gods patience in our life by beating
and killing His messengers.
Who are the messengers? Parents, perhaps. Friends, a campus ministry, a
book, the Bible, a pastor, some stranger that God sent into your life one day.
But youve beaten them all and sent them away empty-handed, trading a
few years of playing owner for an eternity of separation from God. You want
your ambition more than Him. You want your empty pleasures more than
Him. You want your sexuality more than Him. God is saying, Would you
please give me the steering wheel? But you beat up His messengers
perverting His patience as tho it will last forever. It will not.
Edmund Clowney notes: People ask, If God exists, why doesn't He prove it?
Why doesn't God appear with lightning and thunder to accompany His
presence? The story of the Bible gives a full answer to this question. God
did so appear [at Sinai]; He will so appear again. The reason he does not
now appear is not that He is reluctant to persuade unbelievers, but the
opposite. Hes giving them time to repent. But the time will not last forever,
Beloved. Rom 2:4, Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and
forbearance and patience, not knowing that Gods kindness is meant to lead
you to repentance? Hes saying, Dont pervert Gods patience by
presuming on it. Its not intended to be ignored! Its intended to lead to
repentance. Every messenger is one more sign of grace, but theyre not
forever.
III.

Gods Payment -- Profaned

The amazing truth about God is that what He demands; He supplies. Thats
grace! What He demands (a lot!) He supplies (at huge cost). Thats what will
make you fall in love with Him when you get it. The Pharisees never got it.
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Then the owner of the vineyard said, What shall I do? Obvious answer:
take revenge! Exact justice! But not this owner. Hes not giving up on His
rebellious tenants yet. 13 Then the owner of the vineyard said, What shall I
do? I will send my beloved son; perhaps they will respect him. 14 But when
the tenants saw him, they said to themselves, This is the heir. Let us kill him,
so that the inheritance may be ours. [Perhaps they thought the Sons arrival
signaled the death of the owner. Whatever, they continued to act like owners]
15
And they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. One final chance at
redemption and they blew it. They killed the son.
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This was aimed squarely between the eyes of Israels religious leaders. And
they knew it. Mid v. 19: they perceived that he had told this parable against
them. Theyve killed all the prophets up to and including John the Baptist,
and now the Son has arrived. Gods ultimate messenger is on scene. But He
knows whats coming. Those God-haters are going to kill Him. He knows it;
they know it. Even now, they are in back rooms plotting His demise. But they
are squandering the best chance at redemption theyll ever have.
Kenneth Bailey tells of the late King Hussein of Jordan being informed by
security one night in the early 1980s that a group of 75 Jordanian offers were
plotting in a nearby barracks to overthrow his government. Security was
seeking permission to attack. But the king refused. He ordered a helicopter to
land him on the flat roof. As he exited he told the pilot, If you hear gun
shots, fly away at once without me. Then, unarmed, he walked down 2 to
the meeting room of the rebels and quietly addressed them: Gentlemen, I
know you are planning to take over and install a military dictator. If you do
this, the army will break apart, the country will be plunged into civil war
and thousands of innocent people will be killed. There is no need for this.
Here I am. Kill me and proceed. That way, only one man will die. The
stunned rebels took only a moment to rush forward to kiss the kings hand and
pledge loyalty for life. His vulnerability and courage saved the day.
It was not to be so for the Son of God. They were going to kill Him, and
incredibly, Caiaphas, the high priest urged the same argument to stiffen the
spines of his fellow plotters in Jn 11:50: Nor do you understand that it is
better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation
should perish. He just meant they would avoid further costly encounters with
Jesus. But unwittingly he was prophesying a truth he never got personally.
For here is where amazing enters the picture. Yes, they killed Him; but
only because He let them kill Him. And He did so because by His death, the
penalty for the sins of all who believe in Him was secured. Even His
executioners might be forgiven. What they meant for evil, God intended for
good. The death of the Son would secure life for all who would stop acting as
owners and give their life to Him. How good is that? Thats grace, Beloved.
This parable highlights Gods love. In the face of Israels hard-heartedness,
He persisted and persisted and persisted. One prophet after another was
abused or killed. Luther said, If I were God and the world treated me as it
treated Him, I would kick the wretched thing to pieces. Justice would be
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served! BUT God wanted mercy. So He sent His own Son and turned the
worst that man could do into something wonderful. Spurgeon says, If you
reject him, he answers you with tears; if you wound him, he bleeds out
cleansing; if you kill him, he dies to redeem; if you bury him, he rises again
to bring resurrection. Jesus is love made manifest. In His death, the Son
paid for the very sin of rejecting Him. But we must not profane that payment
by further rejection. The dead Son is now alive again, and next time He
comes, 16 He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to
others. Finally justice! Dont insist on justice, Beloved. Plead for mercy.
You cannot win acting as owner of yourself; you can only destroy yourself.
IV.

Gods Pre-eminence -- Predestined

That is the point of Jesus final comment here. 17) But he looked directly at
them and said, What then is this that is written: The stone that the builders
rejected has become the cornerstone? 18) Everyone who falls on that stone will
be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him. Simple
message. I, the Son, am the chief building block of all that God is doing to
redeem this world. So be aware, the stone you are throwing aside is the one
God has chosen to be the center of everything. If you pit yourself against
that stone by claiming ownership of your own life, it will crush you. Gods
will always prevails in the end. His pre-eminence is a forgone conclusion.
Your short-term gain will be your long-term condemnation. But He was
crushed so you wouldnt have to be if you will only accept it.
Conc So, let me summarize this parable in 5 propositions: 1) God has given
us a life, but we are to live it for Him. 2) Instead, we begin to act like owners.
3) God sends messengers to remind us we are not owners, but we reject them
with increasing violence. 4) God sends His own Son, but we kill Him because
in the end, it is Him or us. Hes making the same claim you are. 5) God
extends mercy to all who ask; others will be broken by justice. Your choice.
Will it be you or Him? Lord Byron, the notorious English poet, whose
scandalous love affairs included his half-sister, was an infidel to the end.
Faced with his mortality as he lay dying of a fever at age 36 he was given one
last chance. But he exclaimed from his deathbed, Shall I sue for mercy?
Long pause. Come, come, no weakness; lets be a man to the last. Acting as
owner to the end, he traded mercy for justice. He had no idea what he was
missing out on by insisting on being his own owner. Ownership comes at a
high price. He would do differently now if he could, but its too late for him.
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But not for me; not for you. C. S. Lewis said it best: There are two kinds of
people in the end: those who say to God, Thy will be done, and those to
whom God says, in the end, Thy will be done. Please be the former. Lets
pray.