SERMON OUTLINE:
The Context:
• 2nd of 3 parables
• time of Confrontation
• issue of authority
The Name:
• the stone rejected
• the stone which crushes
SERMON BODY:
Ill:
Sleeping Beauty, Tom Thumb, and Quasimodo were all talking one day.
• Sleeping Beauty said,
• "I believe myself to be the most beautiful girl in the world."
• Tom Thumb said,
• "I must be the smallest person in the world."
• Quasimodo said,
• "I absolutely have to be the ugliest person in the world."
So they all decided to go to the Guinness Book of World Records to have their claims verified.
• Sleeping Beauty went in first and came out looking deliriously happy.
• "It's official, I AM the most beautiful girl in the world."
• Tom Thumb went next and emerged triumphant,
• "I am now officially the smallest person in the world."
• Sometime later, Quasimodo comes out looking utterly confused and says.
• "Who is Martin Fielder?” [Replace with some other person in the fellowship]
• Now that has nothing to do with my message;
• But I thought you might enjoy the story!
• When it comes to sleep have you ever considered how desperate Jacob must have been;
• In the Old Testament (Genesis chapter 28 verse 17)
• To choose a large stone, a rock for a pillow?
• A rock is hardly a comfortable place to sit on for a long time,
• Let alone to sleep on all night.
Note: there is a big difference between comfortable and comforting.
• A rock is a secure place on which to build.
• ill: Wise & foolish builders (Matthew chapter 7 verse 24).
• Unlike the house built on shifting sand,
• The house built on the rock withstood the ravages of rain and flood.
• ill: You remember David’s great Psalm (No 40);
• A rock is a safe place on which to stand;
• After one has been slipping and sliding about in quicksand.
• A large rock is secure, fixed, and unmovable.
• It represents constancy and permanence,
• something to which to grab hold of when everything else about us seems to be changing.
• ill: You all know the classic hymn ‘Rock of ages cleft for me”.
• Augustus Toplady discovered that a rock can be a shelter under which to take refuge.
• Augustus Toplady lived in England in the 1700’s.
• In 1776 he was walking through a gorge of Burrington Combe,
• A Mendip gorge close to Cheddar Gorge in England.
• When suddenly a terrifying storm swept down out of the sky.
• He was far away from the nearest village and he had no shelter,
• As he looked around for somewhere to hide,
• He saw a large rock ahead of him and thought that,
• If he leaned against it, he might escape some of the storms violence.
When he got to the rock he saw that it had been split open.
• And there was a crack into which he could fit
• He went in and was sheltered from the storm.
• While he was hiding inside the rock,
• He thought about God’s coming judgement;
• And of the fact that Jesus the Rock of Ages was broken by God;
• So that sinners like ourselves, might choose to hide in him and be safe.
• Struck by this thought,
• He found a playing card that had been lying at his feet and wrote this hymn on the card;
• “Rock of ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee”.
One of the names and tiles of Jesus Christ is the Rock, or the Stone:
• Our passage is Matthew chapter 21 verses 33 to 50;
• The parable of the Tenants/Vineyard.
• A parable that in many ways is self-explanatory.
• This parable appears in three of the gospels;
• (Matthew 21:33-46; Mark 12:1-12; Luke 20:9-19),
• With Matthew’s account being the fullest version.
Notice the context:
• This parable is the middle one of three stories that Jesus told;
• The first being ‘The parable of the two sons’.
• The third being ‘The parable of the wedding banquet’.
• Jesus spoke them as a result of being confronted by the religious leaders:
• Verse 21: Jesus goes to the temple courts to teach.
• Verse 23: The chief priest and elders confront Him,
• They want to know by what authority He is teaching.
• To the religious leaders Jesus is a self-imposed Rabbi;
• He has not trained in the religious leaders universities and schools.
• Therefore he does not fit the mould or say the right things.
• Notice that Jesus does not allow these religious leaders to control the conversation,
• In verses 24-26: Jesus answers their question by first asking a question!
“Jesus replied, “I will also ask you one question. If you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. 25 John’s baptism—where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or of human origin?”
The religious leaders do not like His question;
In fact they are unable or unwilling to answer his question.
“They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ 26 But if we say, ‘Of human origin’—we are afraid of the people, for they all hold that John was a prophet.””
• We might say in verse2 25-26 it is ‘Check-mate!’ to Jesus.
• This exchange causes the leaders to become angry and puts them in opposition to Jesus.
• Jesus then further frustrates the priests by telling these three parables:
• The first story was the Parable of the Two Sons.
• Jesus tells the priests that like the son in the story;
• They have claimed to accept the message from God;
• But they have failed to live up to it by being obedient.
• Outwardly, they are pious and appear to be people of God,
• But God knows the heart, and there they have failed miserably.
The second parable (the Parable of the Tenants) is like pouring salt on a wound.
• Just in case they didn’t fully understand (which they did),
• Jesus gives a much clearer picture of what He means.
Note: There are 6 main characters in this parable:
• (1). The landowner = God.
• (2), The vineyard = Israel.
• (3), The tenants/farmers = the Jewish religious leadership.
• (4). The landowner’s servants = the prophets;
• Who remained obedient and preached God’s word to the people of Israel.
• (5). The son = Jesus.
• (6). The other tenants = the Gentiles.
It is a simple but profound parable/story:
• As soon as Jesus told this parable,
• The religious leaders would instantly have thought of the book of Isaiah.
• Isaiah also told a parable of a vineyard;
• You can read it in Isaiah chapter 5.
• You cannot help notice the similarity, the link between the two.
• The point being the religious leaders knew that Jesus was declaring himself as God’s son;
• And was saying openly and publicly that they were the wicked tenants!
• Verse 45:
• “When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them”
• For the religious leaders that was shocking, it was scandalous;
• But the application to the parable appalled them even more.
• In verse 43 Jesus applies the parable to the religious leaders;
• He tells the leaders that because of their disobedience,
• They will be left out of God’s kingdom;
• And when it seems Jesus could shock them no more;
• In verse 43 he tells them that God has given their ‘vineyard’ – the kingdom;
• To “other tenants” – that is the Gentiles.
• This is more than the religious leaders can tolerate,
• And in verse 46 they looked for a way to arrest him.
• And ultimately kill him!
Now into this parable Jesus introduces this title ‘Stone’ or ‘Rock’
• If you look closely;
• You will notice that there are actually two pictures to do with the ‘stone’ in the parable.
(1). THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED,
• The first picture is quite clear.
• It is the picture of a stone which the builders rejected,
• But became the most important stone in the whole building.
• The picture is taken from Psalm 118 verse 22:
• “The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner.”
• Remember this was the Psalm quoted to Jesus as he entered Jerusalem;
• Chapter 21 verse 9 - the triumphant entry the crowd shouted:
“Hosanna to the Son of David!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
• So this Psalm would have been fresh in the minds of his hearers;
• And fresh in the minds of the religious leaders.
Now Psalm 118 originally was a picture of the nation of Israel.
• Israel was the nation which was despised and rejected.
• Throughout history the Jews have been hated & persecuted & rejected by many nations.
• History records how they had been servants and slaves of many nations.
• But – and here is the point;
• This tiny nation which all men despised was actually the chosen people of God.
• “The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner.”
• To paraphrase – this insignificant nation to God is the most important.
In this parable Jesus takes these verses from Psalm 118 and applies them to himself:
• The religious leaders may reject Christ, and refuse him, and seek to eliminate him,
• But they are in for one mighty shock!
• Because they will yet find that the Christ whom they rejected;
• Is the most important person in the world, yea, the entire universe!
Ill:
• It was Julian, the Roman Emperor (355ad to 363ad)
• He was called ‘Julian the Apostate’ by the early church.
• He tried to turn the clock back by banishing Christianity,
• And determined to bring back the old pagan gods.
• He failed and failed completely;
• And at the end of it the dramatist of his day makes him say these words:
• “To shoulder Christ from out the top most niche was not for me.”
• The man upon the Cross has become the Judge and King of all the world.
(2) THE PICTURE OF A STONE WHICH BREAKS A MAN,
“Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces;
anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.”
• The second “stone” picture is found in verse 44,
• This stone breaks a man, if he stumbles against it,
• And it crushes a man to powder, if it falls upon him.
• It is a composite picture, that is three Old Testament passages are merged together;
• To produce this word picture of ‘the stone’.
The first Old Testament scripture used is Isaiah chapter 8 verses 13, 14, 15:
The LORD Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy,
he is the one you are to fear,
he is the one you are to dread.
14 He will be a holy place;
for both Israel and Judah he will be
a stone that causes people to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall.
And for the people of Jerusalem he will be
a trap and a snare.
15 Many of them will stumble;
they will fall and be broken,
they will be snared and captured.”
The second Old Testament scripture used is Isaiah chapter 28 verse 16:
So this is what the Sovereign LORD says:
“See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone,
a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation;
the one who relies on it
will never be stricken with panic.
The third Old Testament scripture used is Daniel chapter 2 verses 34 & 44 & 45:
• These verses form a strange picture of a stone, cut without hands,
• Which broke in pieces the enemies of God.
The idea behind these Old Testament pictures of a stone are summed up in Jesus Christ.
• Jesus is the foundation stone on which everything is built,
• And the corner stone which holds everything together.
Ill:
• There is an old rabbinic parable used to explain Psalm 118:22,
• Which I think sheds some light on this parable of Jesus:
• When Solomon’s temple was being built,
• It was forbidden for the sound of hammers to be heard at the job site,
• Because it was a holy place of worship.
• You can’t have worship with construction going on in the background!
• So it had to be quiet.
• What this meant for the construction was that each and every 20 ton stone,
• Had to have a ‘shop drawing’ and was made several miles away in the quarry.
• Several miles away each stone was carefully cut for its exact spot in the temple.
• From the very start, there was a plan for each stone.
• The very first stone to be delivered was the capstone,
• But that’s the last stone needed in construction.
• So the builders said, “What is this?
• This doesn’t look like any of the first stones we need.
• Put it over there for now.”
• Well, years went by and the grass grew over the capstone,
• And everyone generally forgot about it.
• Finally the construction was done,
• And the builders said “send us the capstone”,
• And the word came back from the quarry “we already did”.
• They were confused.
• Then someone remembered what they had done with the very first stone sent to them.
• It was taken from its lowly position,
• Among the overgrown weeds where it had been forgotten,
• And it was honoured in the final ceremony to complete the temple.
• Thus the scripture says, “The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone.”
Ill:
• Listen to Peter as he explains Psalm 118 verse 22:
• (in 1 Peter chapter 2 verses 4-7):
“As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him— you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, “The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone,””
