| Mark
12:1-44
“Turn to Mark chapter 12. Last few
weeks as we’ve been studying in Mark, we’ve seen
this true state of the House of Israel [really the House of
Judah, the real House of Israel having been deported to the
shores of the Caspian Sea by Assyria in 721 B.C. and never
returned]. We saw last week, Jesus cursed this fig tree that
was a great picture of the state of the nation of Israel,
the House of Israel [and at this point, Judah represented
both the House of Israel and Judah, as Judah was the last
remaining representative of the 12-tribe nation of Israel
to actually be left in the land]. God desired to see some
fruit but instead, as Jesus was looking for figs, the tree
didn’t have figs, there was no fruit. And in turn Jesus
cursed the fig tree, the tree withered up. And that’s
not far from the time that we read here in Mark 12, where
God is going to curse the nation of Israel. And last week
we talked too from John 15 that like that, Jesus says to us
in John 15, he says to us, you know, ‘I desire to see
fruit in your lives…’ And if there’s not fruit,
then we’re in a dangerous position. We saw that in John
15, much like this fig tree, much like the House of Israel.
And the fruit, of course, that he wants to see is the fruit
of the Spirit. The fruit of thanksgiving and praise, the fruit
of the gospel. But I think, if I was to summarize that in
one main word, it would be “love”. And we do talk
about that at times. The main thing that God desires to see
in my life and in your life is love. That is the primary thing.
And we’re gonna look at that and consider that a little
bit this morning. Yesterday we had this renewal of vows, a
little wedding sort of ceremony. I don’t know what you’d
call it technically, in the church, but it was a wedding.
It was fun. And, two people decided to renew their vows, a
husband and wife. And other folks joined in with that too.
God desires a love relationship with us, and that we would
express that love in our life, that our heart would beat for
him. He’s not so interested in the other things, the
other duties and performances that we have. But he really
wants our heart, he wants to walk in the garden with us, wants
us to enjoy him, spend time with him-just to walk hand in
hand with him and fellowship with him. Maybe today you’re
at a place where you need to renew your vows to the Lord,
you know. You’ve been a Christian awhile, and like the
Church at Ephesus there’s not a lot of flame in the fire,
you know. So maybe this morning would be a good time to renew
those vows to the Lord. It’s about love, you know a wedding
is always a great opportunity to speak about love. What God
desires with us is intimacy and an intimate relationship.
Maybe you’re here and you’ve never received Christ
into your life and maybe today should be sort of a wedding
where you express and you choose the Lord this morning. Let’s
say a word of prayer, and then we’re gonna look at Mark
chapter 12. ‘Thank you, Lord, that we can once again
come together and spend time with you as a body. I would imagine
though for some of us it’s been a busy week and maybe
we haven’t spent a lot of time with you. And I would
imagine that that does bother you, because you want to walk
with us, you want to just spend time with us. You love us.
You want people that love you. And I pray Lord that you speak
to us more about that this morning as we’re together,
as we spend time with you. That we would realize the love
you have for us, but also realize how you desire us to love
you. And I pray we would, all the more. But thank you for
this time, in Jesus name, Amen.’
Let’s read verse 1 of chapter 12. “Then
he began to speak to them in parables, ‘A man planted
a vineyard and planted a hedge around it, dug a place for
the wine-vat and built a tower, and he leased it to vine-dressers
and went into a far country. Now at vintage time he sent a
servant to the vine-dressers that he might receive some of
the fruit of the vineyard from the vine-dressers. And they
took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Again
he sent them another servant and at him they threw stones,
wounded him in the head and sent him away shamefully treated.
And again he sent another and him they killed, and many others,
beating some and killing some. Therefore still having one
son, his beloved, he also sent him to them last, saying, They
will respect my son. But those vine-dressers said among themselves,
This is the heir, come let us kill him and the inheritance
will be ours.’ So they took him and killed him and cast
him out of the vineyard. Therefore, what will the owner of
the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the vine-dressers
and give the vineyard to others. Have you not even read this
Scripture, ‘The stone which the builders rejected has
become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord’s doing,
and it is marvelous in our eyes.’ And they sought to
lay hands on him, but feared the multitude for they knew that
he had spoken the parable against them, so they left him and
went away” (Mark 12:1-12). This parable, to
the listeners here before Jesus, especially the religious
leaders, they tune into what he’s saying here, it’s
pretty clear. If you have just a basic understanding of the
Old Testament, it’s clear what he’s saying to the
people of Israel. And he’s given us just a picture of
their state again and of the history, their history. In this
parable, Jesus is referring to this man that’s planted
this vineyard, and that man is God [the Father], that man
refers to God. God has planted this vineyard. The vineyard
is the House of God, is the House of Israel [at this time
the literal House of Judah is all that remains], the nation
of Israel, his people. Psalm 80, we read the Psalmist says
that very fact. He says, “You have brought a vine out
of Egypt, you have cast out nations and planted it. You prepared
room for it and caused it to take deep root and if filled
the land. The hills were covered with its shadow and the mighty
cedars with its boughs. She sent out her boughs to the sea
and her branches to the river.” He said, you took this
vine, a wild vine in Egypt, you took it out and planted it
in the Promised Land, and it just prospered and became a nice
vineyard that went from the river to the sea, and you did
this Lord. And the vine very clearly in Scripture, this vineyard
is this House, the people of Israel. The vine-dressers are
those that have stewardship there, and that’s the religious
leaders. They have the Law, the Prophets, that specifically.
And they were to take care of the House of Israel, minister
to the House of Israel. The servants, here, are God’s
Prophets, typically. Those that he sent to warn over and over
the people of Israel. But they’re off track, they’re
missing the point. Eventually, as you read there, they treated
the Prophets poorly, he sent his one and only Son. That’s
what he’s doing at this very moment as you read. Jesus
is the Son, standing before them. And he says, he prophetically
says, you know, they took the son, threw him out and killed
him, and that’s what they’re gonna do in just a
few days. Then Jesus says prophetically after that, 'What’s
the owner of the vineyard gonna do? God? He’s gonna destroy
the vineyard, and of course that happens just thirty or forty
years after this time [69-70 A.D.]. God sent many a prophet
to the nation of Israel. Many times he sent folks to them
to tell them what it was all about, to warn them, say, ‘Hey
man, just love God with your heart, man. Just walk with him,
just adore him, just praise him.’ Repeatedly he would
send people, you know, you read the book of Hosea, a beautiful
book. But he would even try to woo them, just woo them back
to him, that they would have a heart for him, many times.
And yet they would abuse these prophets, over and over, and
eventually they rejected his son and killed his son. And soon,
as we read, God is gonna deal with the vineyard as a whole
and the vine-dressers. He’s gonna take the vineyard and
give it to another. Of course the Church ages starts at this
point, and now God has this very special relationship with
us as the Church-the nation of Israel was on hold for awhile
in a sense, you could say [70 A.D. to 1948 to be specific-and
won’t totally be restored till after the return of the
Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth]. And God still has a work to do
with them. But this is similar to prophecies we read in the
Old Testament in other places such as Isaiah. In Isaiah we
read, “And now, please let me (this is God speaking)
tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away its
hedge, it shall be burned, and break down its wall, and it
shall be trampled down. I will lay it waste and it shall not
be pruned or dug, but there shall come up briars and thorns.
I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it.
For the vineyard of the Lord is the House of Israel, and the
men of Judah are his pleasant plant. He looked for justice,
but behold oppression, for righteousness but behold a cry
of help (Isaiah 5:1-7). [Look up this Scripture in the NIV
and read it. It is quite revealing, he’s talking about
Judah, verses 3-4.] He came looking for fruit but instead
he found a very different state. And in Isaiah’s case
God spoke of the exile when he was gonna really lay waste
to the vineyard. Well here you see a similar thing. God was
so patient. You know, I read this, I was thinking, you know,
just how I could encourage you about God. As I read this,
you just can’t help but consider the love of God again.
You read through the Scriptures over and over you can just
see God’s love. But here what is the thing that you see
is that God’s love is longsuffering. My goodness, his
love is so longsuffering. People in Israel, he was just so
patient with them, just waiting and waiting, sending all these
representatives, trying to get them back on course, over and
over again, so longsuffering with them. The Psalmist cried
in Psalm 86, he said, “But you O Lord, are a God full
of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in
mercy and truth.” Paul said a similar thing to the church
of Rome, he says, “Now may the God of patience and comfort…”
His love is so patient, is so longsuffering with you and I,
so longsuffering. 1 Corinthians 13 tells us the same thing
about the love of God, that it’s longsuffering, a love
of tremendous patience. I tell you, I’m so thankful for
that. As I consider my life, that God has been so longsuffering
with me. Some of the roads I’ve been down and some of
the things that I have done, I’m glad I don’t serve
Buddha, have to worry about going back later, as a bug or
something, because of some silly thing I did. Or even Allah,
it seems Allah is like a bug-zapper, he just zaps you as soon
as you get out of line, you know. I serve Jehovah, a God that’s
longsuffering and patient, so patient to me. If you’re
struggling, maybe today, you’ve been struggling with
this or that sin in your life, be encouraged that God is longsuffering.
He is patient with you--trying to work through something in
your life. Maybe you haven’t got there yet. God will
take his time, man, he is patient, longsuffering, waiting,
waiting for you and trying to help you along to just get things
right. But you know I think sometimes folks misunderstand
the longsuffering of God and they start to think that maybe
God approves of certain lifestyles or decisions that I [we]
have made or behaviors that I [we] have. Sometimes we go down
roads of certain lifestyles or decisions that we have or behaviors
that we have, sometimes we go down roads and God is longsuffering
and we think, ‘Well, he’s just approving of what
I’m doing.’ Hasn’t done anything necessarily
yet, and yet I look in my life and I still think, ‘I
still see some blessing in my life, I must be doing OK.’
But yet you know from the Word of God, you’re clearly
outside what he’s said, and maybe you’re trying
to rationalize in another way, but consider his longsuffering
love. But understand that it is not necessarily that he approves
when you get outside his Word. That’s for sure, he doesn’t
approve of that at all. Don’t confuse the two. If we
do not repent, if we get on a certain road and we’re
saying ‘Alright, it’s OK, I’ve been doing this
for awhile. No problem. Nothing’s happened yet.’
If you don’t get off of that road, just follow the parable
through. Eventually, eventually, you do break that last straw.
God’s love is righteous. And he waits, and he waits just
as you do sometimes with your children, if you’re parents
and they’re out of line, you don’t necessarily walk
right up and smack ‘em. You know, you try to sometimes,
but you try to wait awhile, work with them, try to be longsuffering
with them, to a degree anyway. But eventually they break that
last straw. Now there’s consequences, so today if you
are outside of God’s desires, his will for your life,
and you know that-maybe you think it’s been fine-the
day will come. The day will come, God will chastise you, if
you’re a child of God. If you’re not a child of
God then you will someday certainly see judgment. We considered
this a little bit on the “men’s breakfast”
on Saturday. You know the Israelites, God did so much for
them, all those miracles, all those miracles, just providing
for them. Whenever he did something good they were happy.
But if it was ever contrary to what they desired they were
very displeased, always refusing to love him, to trust him.
Just wanting someone to take care of them rather than, you
know, a real Lord, a God to love. They were very self-centered,
they complained a ton, belly-ached a ton. And we looked on
Saturday morning that eventually they broke the last straw.
They just keep complaining and complaining. Then in the wilderness,
God sends the 12 spies. Ten of them come back and say ‘Hey,
we can’t get this Promised Land. No way, these guys are
big over there.’ Two of them come back, Joshua and Caleb,
and say, ‘Hey, we can do it with the Lord.’ But
then, of course, the ten were influential, and the whole community
in Israel were like, ‘Awe, let’s go back to Egypt’,
and again they got into that mode, and this time they broke
the last straw. And God said to them, ‘Alright, I heard
what you said, you don’t want to go into the Promised
Land, you’re not going to the Promised Land. That’s
what you said, that’s what you want, that’s what
you get this time. I’ve worked with you, I’ve been
patient, I’ve been moving you along. You’ve complained,
I kept moving you along. But today is it. You’ve got
to that point. For every day the spies were in the Promised
Land, you’re gonna spend a year in the wilderness. And
you’re gonna die in the wilderness.’ He said, ‘The
only two that are gonna make it to the Promised Land is Joshua
and Caleb. And your kids, you said that your kids were going
to get destroyed in this Promised Land. No they’re gonna
make it, and they’re gonna prosper there.’ But eventually,
eventually, we get to that point, if we don’t repent,
we get to that point and break that last straw because God
is a righteous God. He’s so longsuffering, so patient
for our own good, that he’s gonna [eventually] deal with
it. And how he often will punish us is by giving us just what
we ask for, giving us just what we’re seeking after.
He’ll give it to us, “Alright, you want it? You
got it man.’ ‘You want that to be your lord? Want
that to consume your time? You can have it? It’s yours,
keep it. You really don’t want me, I won’t bother
you too much.’ Eventually he gives us what we ask for.
But we don’t understand today, the reality, the full
impact of what that means. The people of Israel, once they
started to clue in, said, ‘Wait a minute, that’s
not good.’ Well then they tried to get to the Promised
Land on their own, and that didn’t work out very well
either. [Lesson:] You can’t just grab hold of what you
want, you’ve got to let God give it to you. And of course,
he wants to give you so much. If we would just love him and
receive what he wants to give us. Thank God, that he is so,
so longsuffering towards us. But may it not give us a false
sense of security. Instead may it just cause a love to well
up in our hearts for him. And that love will be expressed
ultimately in obedience. I pray that we are like Joshua and
Caleb. “But my servant Caleb” God said “because
he has a different Spirit in him and has followed me fully,
I will bring him into the land where you went, and his descendants
shall inherit it.” He had a different spirit, a different
heart, God said. ‘He obeyed me fully, so he’s gonna
get there.’ Didn’t get into this rut of complaining
and belly-aching. You know, what is the Promised Land today?
All the more if we just realized what it was for you and I.
Paul says in Colossians ‘It’s attaining to all the
riches and full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge
of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, in
whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.’
He says the Promised Land for you and I today is just growing
and understanding what we have in Christ, and then appreciating
that and then experiencing that, because he is everything.
That’s the Promised Land. God is a God of love and he
wants us to love him, and as we love him we experience all
that we could ever ask for. Because in loving him and spending
time with him and worshipping him is what it’s all about.
He’s got all the answers. As Colossians says, he’s
got all the treasures. So when we go on these other roads
like the people of Israel in Hosea, we go on these other roads,
man, these other idols, they just don’t quite do much
for us, but with him it’s true. He’s truly all we
need. If you’re here today and you’ve not received
Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior I’d encourage you
to consider this text today. No matter where you’ve been,
no matter how rebellious you think you’ve been, maybe
undeserving, God is a God of longsuffering, God is patient.
If the people of Israel would have just repented, things would
have been all set. So today if you are not a Christian and
you’ve decided to turn to God, well, he’s gonna
receive you, that’s for sure. No matter what road you’ve
been on, just look at how longsuffering he is. If you chose
not to, consider the text too, that God is a God of righteous
love, and he’ll bring judgment. But boy is he longsuffering.
You know, we read in Peter, “But consider that the longsuffering
of the Lord is salvation.” Maybe you’re here today
as a non-Christian, haven’t received Christ as your Lord
and you’ve just been down all sorts of roads. God has
just been patient, just waiting. And Paul said the same thing.
He said, “However, for this reason I obtain mercy that
in me first Christ Jesus might show all longsuffering as a
pattern for those who are going to believe on him for everlasting.”
And God of course, Paul was really against Jesus there initially,
wanted to kill Christians. You know as I was reading this,
I was thinking some of these guys that were confronting Jesus
as we go through Mark 12, and we know after the cross, that
a decent number of Pharisees and religious leaders do actually
come to Christ. Probably a small percentage, but a good number
of them, because you read about them, later in the epistles
and things, these guys that come to Christ. I was just wondering,
you know, some of these guys standing before Jesus, you know,
confronting him and trying to trap him, not realizing at that
time what they were doing. And then later, coming to Christ,
some of those that did, and thinking back to those times where
they actually stood physically with Jesus and were trying
to trap him in his words and just against him. I just-boy
God is a God of tremendous love and compassion and mercy.
So wherever you are today, consider that and rejoice in that.
And I guess lastly before we move on, if God’s love is
longsuffering-our love to one another should be longsuffering.
That says it’s a forgiving love, a love that continues
to forgive and forget, longsuffering. You know, you slap me,
I forgive you and I come back, and you slap me and I forgive
you and I come back, you slap me and I forgive you and come
back, and that’s what it is, it’s longsuffering,
you know. That’s the love of God. That’s the way
he is with you and I, 1 Corinthians 13, that’s the love
that we should have one to another, a love that’s longsuffering.
“Enduring all things”-1 Corinthians 13-“Bearing
all things.” But also we’re to show this love to
those in the world. “But you have fully known my doctrine,
manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, love [agape
love], patience, persecutions, afflictions, which came to
me at Antioch…But out of them all the Lord delivered
me…Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus
shall suffer persecution” (II Timothy 3:10-12). For he
says ‘I’ve been longsuffering, I was persecuted
and persecuted, they even stoned me and I got back up and
went right back into the city, began to preach and love ‘em.’
So you and I, Christians here this morning, are to be longsuffering
with one another, but also with those in the world. And persecution
is a promise, to get poked and slapped, is a promise. But
we’re to be longsuffering, that’s our response.
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