SERMON
NOTES

Jesus’ story of the two sons is a curious one. It is simple telling of some profound truths about accepting the privilege of being a son or daughter of God, as well as what it means to serve as a son or a daughter. Being a son or daughter of God depends on one of two responses to the love of the Father. The one is responding turning one’s life around to accept that love. The other response is to reject love by continuing whatever path you originally set your heart on.

The context in Matthew telling of the story is what happens after Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Jesus’ very visible acceptance of people’s attention and honor angered and worried the religious hierarchy. To them it violated everything they believed about their God, the Messiah and their Jewish faith. They of course did not believe that Jesus was sent by God. To them everything about the triumphal entry made Jesus the Pretender they believed him to be, and therefore to be rejected. They questioned his authority that allowed him to act in the way he did. It was in response that Jesus told this little story.

I.  True sons/daughters of the King are those that respond, that change their life-direction

• A. The son with the changed heart.
• A father has two sons. We are not told who the older son is. All we know is that he goes to one of the sons and asks him to go and work that day in the family vineyard, and the son point-blank refuses.
• In Biblical/Jewish culture that’s a big “no-no” and an insult to the father which was punishable. Yet the father does not punish him, but lets him go his own way.
• The son later changes his mind and does go and work in the vineyard.
• This son did the will of his father. The “doing” the will of God is the heart-response to God’s voice and call. It begins with listening (which is active and intentional), the eventual turning (even if it is delayed), and the sincere acceptance of his Voice working in us.
• Jesus, in his own interpretation of the story, drew his listeners’ attention to the tax collectors and so-called prostitutes that seemed to be drawn to him wherever he went.
• They were considered religious outcastes because their earlier lives were anything but ethical, moral and spiritual.
• But now they had repented – they had listened to the Voice of God, changed their life-direction, turning God-ward – through Jesus’ and John the Baptist’s ministries had experienced heart-change and life-change.

VISUAL

• Jesus claimed to be this Voice of God, The Word that became flesh (John 1:14). It was because of him and through him the we too have this identity as son/daughter (John 1:12)
• Jesus likened those “tax collectors and prostitutes,” and those of us who have responded to his Voice, to the first-asked son who said no initially but finally went and worked in the vineyard. He did this because of their subsequent change of heart and subsequent obedience.
• True listening is that sincere acceptance of the inner Voice that reassures us of our identity as a son/daughter and eventually moves us to obedient action.

B. The son with the unchanged heart

• The father in the story, however, after getting the one son’s refusal, goes and tells the other son to go and work in their vineyard.
• That son readily says yes, but doesn’t really go. He said the right thing; his attitude towards his father was appropriate. But he didn’t follow through.
• This son heard his father’s voice, but had not really listened. He made no effort to do anything about the sounds of words that he glibly answered. He did nothing to respond.
• Jesus likened his religious antagonists to this other son who said all the right things but didn’t really obey the father’s bidding. The Voice he heard were sounds of words.
• Will a son know he is really a son if he cannot, does not listen, does not want to listen to the Voice of the Father? If he only hears sounds of words that he interprets any way he wants to, and does what he wants to, how does he know he is a son of the person who’s speaking?

Jesus’ question to his mostly antagonistic listeners was who finally did what the father desired. The answer was obvious – the son who went and did the work even though he initially said no.

But what about this “work in the vineyard” that the father asked of the sons?

II.  True sons/daughters become Kingdom-servants, just as Jesus was a suffering servant
“Son (Daughter), go and work today in the vineyard.” (Matthew 21:28)

• A. Vineyard work that God needs to get done
• The vineyard is the place that belongs to the Father
• “Vineyard” signifies a place where cultivating, sowing, nurturing, and reaping/collection of fruit are done. It is the place of need, it is where God the Father is working. This is Kingdom work.
• Physical need – The Poor (the least)
• Estimated 800 to 830 million people worldwide—nearly one in ten people—live in extreme poverty, surviving on less than $3.00 per day.
• Nearly 1 in 5 people globally live on less than $4.20 per day (the poverty line for lower-middle-income economies).
• Nearly half of the global population lives on less than $8.30 per day (the poverty line for upper-middle-income economies).
• Spacial need – The displaced (the last)
• 41.6 million refugees in the world.
• 68.7 million internally displaced people (IDPs) who have fled their homes but remain within their own country.
• 9 million asylum-seekers awaiting decisions on their claims.
• Total of 117.8 million people are forcibly displaced worldwide.
• Spiritual need – The Unreached by the Gospel (the lost)
• Population size: Between 3.2 and 3.4 billion individuals have never heard a meaningful presentation of the Gospel.
• Global proportion: About 40% to 42% of the global population.

B. Going and working, today

• Jesus came to earth “making himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant…” (Phil.2:7) to do his Father’s “Kingdom work”
• Graham Kendrick’s “The Servant King”:

1. From Heaven, You came helpless babe
Entered our world, your glory veiled
Not to be served but to serve
And give Your life that we might live
Chorus: This is our God, The Servant King
He calls us now to follow Him
To bring our lives as a daily offering
Of worship to The Servant King…
4. So let us learn how to serve
And in our lives enthrone Him
Each other's needs to prefer
For it is Christ we're serving.

• John writes in John 13 that Jesus, knowing he was, washed his disciples’ feet and said, “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.” (John 13:15-16)

VISUAL

• For some strange and wonderful reason, Jesus calls his brothers and sisters, to be servants, just like him.
• Why? Because only true sons and daughters can be trusted servants. They don’t “work” for personal gain. They will serve because they see how their brother Jesus was a servant. They serve because they have a growing love and passion for the Father in their heart.
• God calls them, us, to go and work, today. Those that actively listen don’t “volunteer” – they listen to the call, and obey the Voice
• God doesn’t want volunteers as his children.
• He wants his sons and daughters to be Kingdom Servants – just as his Son Jesus, came as a suffering servant