Jesus’ Picture of God
Matthew 21:33-46
INTRODUCTION
A. Heard the saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”
B. Why do we take pictures?
1. Some are overly zealous about taking pictures.
2. Imagine the people developing pictures, “What in the world did this person take a picture of this for?”
3. Sometimes pictures just don’t come out right, or we accidentally hit the button and end up with a picture of the floor.
4. Take pictures of people in odd situations.
5. Take pictures of our family, friends and other things that are important to us.
6. Fill up albums with pictures.
7. Take pictures with our phones and store them on CD’s, flash drives and memory cards.
C. And what about paintings?
1. Some like abstract art, the kind that doesn’t look like anything.
2. I enjoy being able to tell what something is when I see it.
3. Some like portraits and others like pictures of outdoor life.
D. In this story, Jesus paints a picture of God.
1. Tells what God has done, is doing and will do.
2. Shares some of his characteristics.
3. Gives a warning to look at.
4. Sometimes the pictures we draw of God in our mind are not accurate; they are distorted.
5. Sometimes we get our description of God from another source other than the Bible or we combine sources which distort what the Bible teaches about God.
HE IS A GOD WHO MAKES PROVISION FOR HIS PEOPLE
A. Jesus’ story was familiar to his listeners.
1. Landowner who plants a vineyard, builds a wall around it, digs a pit for pressing out grape juice and builds a lookout tower.
2. Leases it out to tenant farmers and moves to another country.
3. Jesus describes an agricultural scene to people familiar with agriculture.
4. Grape vineyards were vital and important to the economy, and the hills of Palestine were covered with them.
5. The wall was either stone or a wall of briars.
6. Wall provided protection against thieves or wild animals.
7. The grapes were squeezed in the upper basin, and the juice ran down into the lower basin.
8. Juice was stored in wineskins or clay jars.
9. Tower served several purposes: lookout for enemies, shelter for the workers, storage for seed and other implements.
10. Had confidence in the tenant farmers who would pay him rent.
B. The elements explained.
1. God is the landowner, and Israel in the strictest sense is the vineyard.
2. God’s call to Abraham in the OT shows his setting apart of the nation of Israel.
3. Abram was to leave his land and go to what would become the Promised Land.
4. God would give him a son, and through this son all the nations of the world would be blessed.
5. God would later use his servant Moses to deliver his people from Egyptian slavery.
6. Even further in their history, God would deliver them from Babylonian captivity.
C. Isaiah spoke of the vineyard.
1. “My well-beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill. And he dug it all around, removed its stones, and planted it with the choicest vine. And he built a tower in the middle of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it. Then he expected it to produce good grapes.” (Isaiah 5:1)
2. “Yet on your fathers did the Lord set his affections to love them, and he chose their descendants after them, even you above all peoples, as it is this day.” (Deuteronomy 10:15)
D. Israel is no longer the vineyard that God is working through.
1. God is now working through the church.
2. Peter, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession.” (I Peter 2:9)
E. How has God provided for us?
1. Christ died for the church.
2. God equips us to do his work.
3. He also promises to meet our physical needs.
4. God gives his people, the church, everything we need to do his work.
5. So have courage and take risks to do the work of the Lord.
F. I once watched a show on polar bears.
1. Hungry and not much food to eat.
2. Mother shared fish with her cubs even though she needed it.
3. Parents provide for their children.
G. We think of our school systems providing for our children.
1. They learn social skills.
2. We trust the school to give them the skills they need to succeed in life.
3. God will not lead us to do anything he doesn’t in turn provide the means for us to do it with.
GOD IS PATIENT
A. Demonstrated in the story.
1. At harvest time, the owner sent servants to collect his share of the profits.
2. Farmers grabbed his servants, beat one, killed one and stoned another.
3. Matthew’s account condenses several episodes.
4. Mark’s account shows these servants coming separately.
5. Finally the owner sent his own son, thinking they would respect him, but they murdered him because he was the heir.
6. It was a premeditated murder.
7. Interest of bystanders and religious leaders must have been at peak.
B. Why did the farmers act this way?
1. Wanted the entire harvest for themselves and would not stop at anything to get it.
C. Elements explained.
1. Servants sent to collect the money represent the prophets God sent to the nation of Israel to confront them with their sins.
2. The son who was finally sent represents Christ.
D. God is patient.
1. Many prophets were sent to the nation of Israel because it was their habit to rebel.
2. God also expected them to bear fruit.
3. Isaiah, “Then he expected it (the vineyard) to produce good grapes, but it produced only worthless ones.” (Isaiah 5:2)
4. Even though they continued to rebel, God continued to extend the invitation to repent.
E. God’s messengers and the message they bring are often rejected.
1. Tradition says Isaiah was sawed in two.
2. Jeremiah was throne into a pit of mud, persecuted by his own people and tradition says stoned to death.
3. The people in Babylonian captivity rejected the message of Ezekiel.
4. Elijah was forced to run for his life.
5. Zechariah was murdered in the Temple.
F. God’s ultimate manifestation of patience was sending his Son to die for our sins.
1. Just as the farmer’s son was killed so was Jesus and at the hands of the religious establishment.
2. Jesus threatened the religious leader’s control of the Jewish religious system.
3. In speaking to them, Jesus said, “Consequently, you bear witness against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up then the measure of guilt of your fathers.” (Matthew 23:31)
G. God still shows his patience by sending messengers to his people and to the lost.
1. God sends preachers and teachers to his people.
2. God sends his people to the lost by obedience to the Great Commission.
3. God’s people are often persecuted, killed and ridiculed because of the message we carry.
H. Does it take patience to be a parent or grandparent?
1. Do your kids always act as you want them to?
2. Are they the perfect kids who never do anything wrong?
3. Patience is a virtue that is quickly learned in the parental process.
GOD IS A GOD OF JUDGMENT
A. An aspect we often try to avoid.
1. We like to think of God as a God of love and he is that.
2. By his very nature he hates sin, so he must judge those who sin.
B. Jesus asks what the owner of the vineyard would do.
1. He would punish them and rent the vineyard to some who were more reliable.
2. The religious leaders are condemning and judging themselves.
3. They were the ones leading the people to reject Jesus.
4. To reinforce, Jesus quotes from Psalm 118, “The stone rejected by the builders has now become the cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous to see.”
5. Cornerstone was an essential element of a building, and from it the alignment of every other part was determined.
6. The religious leaders, and the nation they represented, were rejecting the cornerstone, Jesus Christ.
C. What does God expect?
1. He expects results from his children.
2. He expects us to use the gifts and talents he gives us to promote growth in his kingdom.
3. When we don’t, discipline will come (won’t lose our salvation, but will lose our rewards).
CONCLUSION
A. God provides for us, he is patient with us, but he will judge those who reject him and discipline his children who are not faithful to his work.
B. The picture we need of God shows us that God wants us to joyfully serve him by serving others. When we don’t, he will be patient with us, but we will also have to give an account to him for our failure.
C. Barney’s picture of the runaway boy on an Andy Griffith episode.
1. Boy had run away from home and taken up with Opie.
2. Police called and gave a description, and Barney drew a picture.
3. Showed it to Andy on the porch while the boy was sitting there.
4. Barney, “I could pick him out anywhere.” Andy, “Could you pick him out on a front porch?”
