The Parable of Two Sons
Jesus told some of the greatest stories ever told, we call his stories parables. In Matthew 21:28-32 we have two sons who were asked by their father to work in his vineyard, one said, “ Dad, I am not going to go out in that hot sun, forget it,” the other son said, “ sure dad, just give me a few minutes and I will be right there.” The next part of this story is the story of life, we are one of these two sons, and in this parable Jesus confronts every one of his listeners with an everlasting truth.
The first son who had declined to go out into the vineyard had a change of heart, maybe he thought how good his dad was to him and decided that to work the vineyard was the right thing to do. The second son who had promised his service to the vineyard never got around to even leaving the house, here is the punch line, Jesus asks, “which son did the will of the father?”
The setting for this story is amazing, a bunch of everyday, common people gathered with the most religious groups in town, the Scribes and Pharisees, and both groups gave the same answer, the first son was the one that did the will of the father.
Jesus then said something that I think shook up the religious people that had heard this wonderful story, he said, the publicans and prostitutes enter into the kingdom of heaven before you.
Today this story confronts us just as it did almost 2000 years ago. Here is the moral of the story. Religion promises God that it will do a lot of things that it never does, but those who truly receive Christ into their lives give themselves fully to the work of God. Inside the house we make a lot of promises but outside the house in the fields is where the work of God is done. Jesus is basically relaying that Christianity is a matter of the heart, not just a service to the house. As it has been said before, if going to church made someone a Christian, then going into a barn would make them a cow. Let Jesus live in your heart today, and enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Stephen Funderburk
Pastor Bethel Assembly of God
Wetumpka, Alabama
