Recreate Church, Pastor Michael Shockley—Service, Sunday, February 4, 2024

ReCreate Church’s Podcast

Honor God With Your Vineyard.

Today, Pastor Michael is discussing a parable Jesus taught about workers in a vineyard. He had just had an encounter with religious elites, those who should have been the most excited about Jesus, but they did not like Jesus at all! The zealots did not recognize that the power and authority that they had was not for their own benefit; it was to help people!

The temple courtyard in Jerusalem is the setting, and the time is Passover. So it’s a busy place, and among the crowd are Jesus and His disciples. So Jesus starts teaching, and a delegation of leaders comes out to challenge Him, essentially for the big table turnovers He did the day before, asking Him why he was back. Jesus answers them by telling them a story about a vineyard.

A man planted a vineyard and made it a productive and good vineyard. He rented it to caretakers and said he would return in a year to see how it was doing. So, after that time came, he sent a slave to see what was up, but the farmers beat the slave up and sent him away. He sent another slave: same story. Then a third slave and, you guessed it: same story. Then the owner decided to send his only son; obviously, the slave thing wasn’t working!

As it turns out, the slaves got off pretty good; the farmers killed the son and threw his body over the vineyard wall.

At this point in the story, Jesus turns to the leaders and asks them, “What should the owner do?” to which they reply, “The owner should come and kill the vineyard farmers.” Jesus said the owner of the vineyard should give the farm to others!

The context in which this was told is that Jesus is at the temple courtyard and was discussing this with Church leaders. What was Jesus challenging them on? Authority. What did Jesus expose about them? That they loved their authority and power they received for representing God more than they cared about God’s authority!

In this parable, the landowner represents God. Everything is His. Still is, by the way :) And, in this parable, the vineyard is the Promised Land, an image of Jerusalem, especially. The tenant farmers are the people of Israel, especially the leaders. And the owner’s only son? A representation of Jesus.

What God asked here, in this parable, is honoring God’s authority and obeying Him.

Did the tenant farmers (or Israel) do that? Absolutely NOT!

The religious leaders were just like the farmers in the story: they are rejecting the Son, sent to them.

Three takeaways:

1. Recognize that everything you have is a gift from God.
2. Don’t ignore God’s messages.
3. Believe in the Son!

Verses can be found in Mark 12: 1-12.

Scripture quotations marked CSB have been taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.