# God's Failing People

Sermon transcript from Cross Church Surprise.
Series: Parables
Date: July 19, 2026
Watch: https://crosschurchcares.com/surprise/episodes/gods-failing-people

## Summary

Are we truly honoring the keys God has entrusted to us? What happens when we forget who the real owner is? Join us as we explore the parable of God's failing people and discover how we can shift from neglect to faithfulness. Let's dive in together!

## Transcript

0:00 · How many times has that been tried in our world today?

0:02 · Is kill the idea of God and we become like gods.

0:06 · I get to make my own choices.

0:08 · I get to decide my own view of reality.

0:10 · I get to make my own view of right and wrong,

0:13 · justice, good and evil.

0:14 · I get to decide it because God is gone.

0:22 · Hey church, well if you have your Bible,

0:23 · go and open it to Matthew chapter 21.

0:26 · Matthew chapter 21,

0:27 · and we're gonna be starting in verse 33.

0:31 · And if you've been with us,

0:32 · we are deep into a series called parables,

0:35 · winding down in the last few weeks.

0:38 · And throughout this series,

0:39 · we've been just asking this question over and over again,

0:42 · is what does Jesus teach?

0:45 · You see this series came kind of at the pair,

0:49 · or kind of at the tail end and kind of dovetail

0:51 · to our series on the miracles of Jesus.

0:54 · And the miracles of Jesus ask the question of like,

0:56 · who is this man?

0:57 · Who is Jesus?

0:59 · And over and over again, we answered,

1:01 · he is the one who has authority.

1:02 · He is the God wrapped in human flesh

1:05 · who has saved us from our sins.

1:07 · And we can say, okay, Jesus is God.

1:10 · That is a Sunday school answer.

1:13 · But the harder answer is what does he teach?

1:16 · And do I actually do it?

1:19 · And when he teaches, do I listen to him?

1:22 · So week after week, we have leaned in.

1:24 · We have seen the sower, the wheat in the weeds,

1:27 · the treasure buried in the field, the mustard seed.

1:30 · Last week, we saw the math of grace.

1:32 · And every one of those parables has kind of been

1:35 · about a little bit of the same thing.

1:36 · It's what we receive from God.

1:40 · Seed, soil, treasure, a pearl, forgiveness.

1:44 · But this morning, Jesus turns around the table

1:48 · a little bit and ask, what do you give?

1:52 · And many of us in our pockets right now,

1:54 · we probably have some keys.

1:56 · I have keys in my hand.

1:58 · And many of you have keys that,

2:00 · maybe they're keys that belong to something

2:02 · that is not yours.

2:05 · Maybe you live in a rental house or an apartment

2:06 · and you do not own that.

2:08 · I have a mortgage.

2:10 · I really don't own my home for the next 28 years

2:12 · until I pay the bank back.

2:14 · And then do you really owe it then?

2:15 · Because if you stop paying your taxes,

2:17 · the government just takes it anyway.

2:19 · Maybe you own a company truck.

2:20 · Maybe you own keys to the building of your company.

2:24 · These are keys to our church buildings.

2:26 · Many of us have keys that someone else owns

2:29 · or operates something, but we have been entrusted to it.

2:35 · And when someone gives you keys to something

2:36 · you do not own, what they are saying

2:38 · is that I trust you not to mess this up

2:41 · and screw it and burn this thing to the ground.

2:44 · And here's the thing, sometimes I think

2:46 · when we have keys to something,

2:48 · even something we don't own,

2:50 · it is easy to get comfortable.

2:53 · Maybe eventually, if you're watching a neighbor's house,

2:56 · the first couple nights you're actually cleaning up

2:58 · after yourself, and by night two, by night three,

3:00 · you're putting your feet on the coffee table

3:02 · like you own the place.

3:05 · And today, as we dive into this parable,

3:09 · we're gonna see that Jesus shows

3:11 · that he gives us keys to something we do not own.

3:14 · And the thing about this is it was never our house.

3:17 · It was never something we were supposed to own

3:19 · in the first place.

3:22 · Jesus tells a story about people who forgot

3:26 · that they did not own the property.

3:29 · And here's the thing about this

3:31 · that I love the setting of this story

3:33 · in Matthew chapter 21, that as he's telling this,

3:37 · he's not telling this to a bunch of farmers on the beach

3:41 · and said he is telling this story

3:43 · in the temple courts, the church of the day.

3:47 · He's telling this story to the most religious people

3:50 · in Jerusalem three days before those same religious people

3:54 · would nail him to the cross.

3:58 · And as we get into the story

4:00 · that I'm calling this message today,

4:03 · God's failing people, it cuts two different ways.

4:09 · It's about people who have failed God

4:11 · despite having every advantage, every blessing,

4:15 · and every warning.

4:17 · And oh man, do we fall into that category today.

4:21 · But it's also a story about a God

4:23 · who has never once failed his people.

4:28 · So let's ask the honest and the tough question today

4:30 · is how do we fail the God of the universe?

4:35 · Isn't that a fun question to start church with today

4:38 · is how do we fail the God of the universe?

4:42 · That throughout the miracles we've said Jesus is God,

4:45 · he's the creator, he's the sustainer,

4:48 · he is the one that will repel us into all eternity,

4:50 · but we fail him time and time and time again.

4:56 · And here's the first way that we see this

4:58 · in our story today is we fail the God of the universe

5:01 · when we don't do the work that he has assigned.

5:05 · Matthew chapter 21 starting in verse 33,

5:08 · check out as he dives into this story,

5:12 · and it says this, listen to another parable.

5:16 · There was a landowner who planted a vineyard,

5:20 · who put a fence around it,

5:23 · who dug a wine press in it,

5:26 · and he built a watch tower.

5:29 · He leased it to the tenant, the farmers,

5:32 · and he went away.

5:33 · When the time came to harvest fruit,

5:37 · he sent his servants to the farmers to collect his fruits.

5:43 · I'm gonna stop right there and dive into this first point.

5:47 · We said the first way that we fail God

5:48 · is when we don't do the work that he has assigned,

5:51 · and as we jump into this,

5:53 · I want us to first is count all the things

5:56 · the owner did in this story.

5:58 · It says he planted the vineyard,

6:00 · he fenced the vineyard,

6:02 · meaning he had to dig a fence.

6:04 · Have you ever dug anything in Arizona?

6:05 · It ain't fun, all right?

6:07 · I know this isn't Phoenix,

6:08 · but I'm pretty sure the ground is hard in a lot of places,

6:10 · and probably hard in the Middle East,

6:12 · is he dug the wine press,

6:14 · he built the watch tower,

6:16 · he planted, he protected it,

6:19 · he equipped it, he watched over it.

6:22 · Everything the vineyard needed to succeed

6:25 · was already in the ground

6:26 · before a single tenant ever showed up.

6:30 · Now count what the tenants in this story built.

6:33 · It just says he leased it to the tenant farmers,

6:36 · and he went away.

6:38 · The things the tenants actually built in this story

6:42 · amount to nothing.

6:45 · Not one thing.

6:46 · They did not buy the land,

6:48 · they did not clear the rock,

6:49 · they did not cut the press out of stone,

6:51 · they did not lay a brick in that tower,

6:53 · they walked into a finished vineyard,

6:57 · and someone handed them over the keys.

7:00 · And there was only one thing ever asked of them,

7:02 · they was asked to work it.

7:05 · And when the harvest came after working it

7:07 · was to then give the fruit over to the owner.

7:11 · Now Jesus' audience had actually heard this story before.

7:15 · They were good religious people,

7:16 · so there's actually an Old Testament story

7:18 · where Isaiah, he sang a song about this.

7:21 · Now we think of Isaiah as a prophet

7:23 · preaching these great messages,

7:25 · but apparently he also could sing a song.

7:27 · Just last night I went and took my two older kids

7:30 · who are seven and eight,

7:31 · and we went to Forest Frank at the Sun's Arena, all right?

7:34 · It was legit.

7:37 · Some of you don't know who Forest Frank is, all right?

7:39 · You wanna be hip and young and still love Jesus.

7:42 · Go listen to some Forest Frank on the way home, all right?

7:45 · And get your car bumping a little bit.

7:47 · Turn the sub up, and you know,

7:48 · you can be like just bumping through Sun City West

7:51 · or after you're going back.

7:54 · But we got to hear him sing songs

7:56 · and worship Jesus and Isaiah,

7:57 · and the Old Testament, one time he sang a song.

7:59 · But the song he sang was less worshipy

8:03 · and more like God's going to judge you

8:05 · and doom is going to come on you.

8:08 · And Isaiah sang a song about a vineyard

8:10 · and about a vineyard that God planted,

8:13 · that God fenced, that God dug a pressin'

8:15 · and God built a tower over.

8:16 · All these sound familiar, what we just read from Jesus?

8:19 · But then Isaiah tells you who the vineyard is,

8:23 · and in the Old Testament Isaiah said

8:24 · the vineyard is Israel,

8:26 · the Old Testament nation in God's people.

8:30 · And he said when God came looking for justice in it,

8:33 · he found bloodshed instead.

8:36 · So when Jesus says the word vineyard

8:38 · in the temple courts during the week of Passover,

8:42 · nobody in that crowd is confused about what he's doing.

8:46 · He's about to call them out.

8:49 · In 1916, the Goodyear Tire Company

8:52 · needed a very specific kind of cotton

8:54 · for the cords inside their tires,

8:57 · and they found the climate they needed

8:59 · about 20 minutes from where you are sitting right now.

9:03 · Anyone want to guess where that climate is?

9:06 · It's Goodyear, that's crazy,

9:07 · how'd you guys know that?

9:10 · The climate was not 100 degrees

9:12 · with 70% humidity like it is today.

9:15 · I think it was 115 summers, all right.

9:18 · But here's the thing, is they bought

9:20 · roughly 16,000 acres of raw Sonoran desert

9:25 · out in the Alafreya Basin.

9:28 · And I mean raw, there was no roads,

9:31 · there was no houses, there was no power,

9:33 · there was no water.

9:36 · Goodyear, the company, they built all of it,

9:38 · the irrigation, the roads, the homes, the town itself,

9:41 · they even named the town.

9:43 · Maybe you don't know this

9:43 · and you're getting some Arizona history.

9:45 · All of you that are from Washington

9:47 · and Oregon and California,

9:49 · welcome to our beautiful city and our state,

9:52 · it is so much better than the one you left.

9:53 · But they actually named the town,

9:57 · cheap shot, but you're here for a reason.

10:00 · They named it after the actual,

10:03 · the man running the operation, Paul Litchfield.

10:05 · That's why we have Litchfield Park today.

10:09 · And then after they built it all,

10:10 · here's what happened.

10:11 · The farmers came and they worked the ground

10:14 · that they did not clear,

10:15 · they drank the water they did not dig for,

10:16 · they lived in a town they did not build.

10:18 · Nobody out there was confused about whose land it was.

10:22 · It literally said it on the name of the town.

10:27 · Surprise has a different story.

10:29 · Actually, the founder of Surprise,

10:31 · they named it Surprise because she said

10:34 · she would be surprised if the town

10:36 · ever amounted to much.

10:39 · Fast forward 200,000 people in 2026, all right?

10:44 · But here's the deal, church.

10:46 · You never built one thing

10:49 · that God did not first hand you the ground to build it on.

10:53 · Your lungs, your mind, your marriage, your kids,

10:57 · the house you are still paying off,

10:59 · the business with your name on,

11:00 · the sign every dollar, every hour,

11:03 · this church, it is all leased ground.

11:07 · We are borrowing it.

11:09 · We are tending to it.

11:12 · And notice how reasonable the owner is in this story.

11:15 · I just love this.

11:16 · You see the heart of the owner here

11:18 · is he never asked the tenants to build the vineyard.

11:22 · He built the vineyard himself.

11:23 · He only ever asked that they work it and produce fruit.

11:28 · So this is the first way that we fail him.

11:30 · And it's quieter than you may think

11:32 · because sometimes we think our sin

11:34 · and our failure is so loud.

11:36 · But look at verse 34 again.

11:38 · It says when the time came to harvest fruit,

11:40 · he sent his servants to collect his fruit.

11:43 · But here's the thing, is there was none there.

11:47 · At this point, the tenants have not hurt anybody.

11:50 · They have not stolen anything.

11:52 · They have not raised a hand.

11:54 · The first crack in this whole thing

11:56 · is simply the harvest came

11:58 · and there was nothing to hand over.

12:02 · Here's the trap I think we can fall into

12:03 · is we take the keys to tend to the good grace

12:07 · and the good gifts that God gives us,

12:09 · but we never actually do the work

12:11 · of producing the fruit that it was meant to do.

12:14 · And here's the thing is you don't have to be a wicked man

12:16 · to be a wasted one.

12:19 · You can spend 40 years in the vineyard

12:21 · enjoying the shade of a tower somebody else built

12:24 · and produce absolutely nothing

12:25 · for the one who owns the ground.

12:27 · And let us not be vague about the fruit here.

12:30 · The scripture tells us what the fruit of the spirit is.

12:33 · Fruit is meaning to look like Jesus,

12:36 · to love and have joy and have peace,

12:39 · showing up in a way that we love our families

12:41 · the correct way, that we handle our wife

12:44 · in right ways on a Tuesday when we're stressed,

12:47 · that we love our neighbor

12:48 · who has never heard the gospel from you.

12:50 · It means using our finances and our calendar

12:54 · in a way that honor God more than ourselves.

12:57 · Fruit is what a life produces

13:00 · when a life actually belongs to God.

13:03 · And the terrifying thing about verse 34

13:07 · is that these men still had the keys

13:09 · and we're gonna see how this slow crack continues to move.

13:13 · They still lived on the land from the road.

13:16 · It still looked like they were working the vineyard.

13:18 · There was just nothing in the basket

13:21 · when the owner came looking.

13:24 · But watch what the owner does

13:27 · when the fruit does not come.

13:29 · He does not walk away.

13:31 · Instead, he sends somebody.

13:33 · And this is the second way that we fail God

13:36 · and we fail the God of the universe

13:38 · is when we don't listen to the leaders

13:41 · that he has appointed.

13:43 · When we don't listen to the leaders

13:45 · that he has appointed, keep going in verse 35.

13:48 · It says the farmers took his servants.

13:51 · They beat one, they killed another,

13:54 · and they stoned a third.

13:56 · This is gonna get super uncomfortable

13:57 · for me really quickly, all right?

13:59 · Again, he sent out other servants,

14:02 · more than the first group.

14:05 · And listen to this, and they did the same to them.

14:11 · Read these verses slowly.

14:13 · As he sends servants, it says they beat one,

14:17 · they killed one, they stoned a third,

14:19 · and then they did the same thing over and over again.

14:23 · And here's what's crazy is after the bad response

14:27 · to the first group of servants,

14:29 · God just keeps sending more.

14:31 · And God's response to being ignored

14:34 · is not to stop speaking.

14:37 · It's he just keeps sending more voices

14:39 · to say the same message.

14:42 · And then you ask the question,

14:43 · well, who are these servants?

14:45 · You see, Jesus is not being subtle here.

14:46 · The servants are the prophets of the Old Testament

14:49 · as he is talking to this crowd.

14:51 · As God spent centuries sending men to his own people

14:55 · and his own people kept killing the mailman

14:58 · because they did not like the mail they were receiving.

15:01 · All right, if you get bills in your mailbox,

15:03 · it is not because the mailman put them there, all right?

15:06 · Be nice to your mailman.

15:07 · You probably don't even know your mailman anymore.

15:09 · It just comes in the slot

15:10 · and you take your little key and you go, right?

15:12 · But here is they just didn't like the mail

15:14 · so they started persecuting who was bringing it.

15:17 · And a little background on who are these people

15:20 · from the Old Testament.

15:21 · Well, we see guys like Jeremiah.

15:23 · Jeremiah preached the word of the Lord

15:24 · and he got beaten and locked in the stocks,

15:28 · guess what?

15:28 · By a priest.

15:30 · Man, how depressing is that?

15:32 · A prophet got beaten by a priest.

15:36 · Zechariah, he stood up in the temple courtyard

15:38 · and he told the people that they had abandoned God

15:41 · and the king he served gave the order

15:44 · and they stoned him right there

15:46 · in the middle of the house of the Lord.

15:50 · John the Baptist told a king a truth

15:52 · about his marriage.

15:53 · His wife and him did not like it

15:56 · so they cut off his head in the middle of dinner.

16:00 · In tradition says Isaiah,

16:02 · the man who wrote the vineyard song,

16:04 · he eventually was sawn in two.

16:09 · You see, not one of them was sent to hurt Israel,

16:13 · to hurt God's people.

16:14 · Every one of them was sent to deliver a message

16:18 · to save her from herself.

16:21 · Now let me be careful here

16:23 · because I know this room is we are Americans here, right?

16:27 · Like we just are still setting our fireworks off

16:29 · that we got a few weeks ago from 4th of July.

16:33 · And we're not naturally good at being told what to do

16:36 · and honestly we come by that in an honest way, right?

16:38 · This whole country got started

16:39 · because a handful of men and women looked at a king

16:41 · and said no, and that instinct has protected us

16:45 · and I'm not asking you to hand it over at the door.

16:48 · There is a healthy suspicion

16:50 · that you should keep especially inside the church

16:53 · that when you are hearing his people in the pulpit

16:57 · tell you something that God's word does not say,

16:59 · you should close your Bible

17:00 · and you should quit listening to them.

17:03 · There's these little reels and these little memes

17:05 · where a dude comes and he has a really sweet mustache

17:08 · and he comes and he sits down in like a pew or a chair

17:11 · and he opens his Bible

17:12 · and then they kind of run some viral clips

17:14 · of some things happening in churches

17:16 · and it's like usually heresy

17:17 · and then he closes his Bible and says nope

17:20 · and walks out the door.

17:22 · And honestly when you hear something being preached

17:25 · that goes against this book

17:27 · and that includes myself for anyone

17:29 · who is ever on this stage,

17:31 · then you should be calling that out and approaching it.

17:35 · But here's the difference in this story

17:38 · is these servants were not coming

17:40 · to take anything from the tenants.

17:42 · These servants were not coming

17:43 · to tell something that God had not already said.

17:45 · They were proclaiming the message of God.

17:49 · They came there to just collect the owner's fruit

17:53 · to see the fruit happen of hearing the word of God

17:57 · and seeing a changed life and they rejected it.

18:02 · And church, this is still how God works today.

18:05 · This is why we gather together in churches

18:08 · to read his word, to challenge one another

18:11 · with the gospel, to say am I living out my life

18:14 · the way I should?

18:16 · Am I producing a fruit that shows that I know Jesus

18:19 · and he has changed everything about my life?

18:23 · And here's the deal.

18:24 · What I'm grateful for is in the West Valley

18:27 · and in surprise we do not stone messengers

18:30 · literally with rocks.

18:31 · I'm very thankful for that, all right?

18:34 · But here's what we do instead.

18:37 · We just stop returning their texts.

18:39 · We stop showing up to their church.

18:41 · We stop hanging out with them

18:43 · because all of a sudden we have people in our lives

18:45 · that tell us a message we do not like to hear

18:48 · because we are stuck in our sin.

18:49 · We are not producing fruit so we decide

18:52 · to shun them and walk out

18:53 · so we don't have to hear that message anymore.

18:58 · And what's heartbreaking is I think there is a Bible

19:01 · on somebody's nightstand this morning

19:02 · that has not been opened in months

19:04 · because they don't want to hear the message

19:07 · that God has for them

19:08 · because it convicts the sin inside their lives.

19:11 · But somebody who loves you has probably sat you down

19:15 · and had the hard conversations.

19:18 · The hard conversations about the stuff in your life,

19:20 · about the drinking, about the anger,

19:22 · about the way you talk to your kids or your spouse

19:24 · and maybe you have walked out of that conversation

19:27 · deciding they were the problem when you need to look

19:30 · and maybe your sin is the problem

19:32 · and God's word wants to correct it.

19:35 · You see, church, when God keeps sending you messengers

19:38 · that give the same message over and over again,

19:41 · maybe he is trying to send a specific message to you.

19:47 · But I think if we're honest,

19:48 · we can fall into this trap

19:49 · of being swept up by the wrong voices.

19:52 · And here's the danger I think in 2026

19:54 · is we have created echo chambers for ourselves online.

19:57 · Is all of a sudden we start watching something

19:59 · on Facebook or Instagram or TikTok

20:02 · or those other platforms I don't understand

20:04 · and you watch one video of something you like

20:06 · and they start feeding you more that is exactly like that.

20:11 · And pretty soon the voice you like hearing

20:13 · because it tells you what you want to hear,

20:16 · you hear more of that

20:18 · instead of the voices that convict you

20:21 · that shivers down your spine

20:23 · that make you weep when you are alone

20:26 · because you know something is not aligning

20:28 · with what God has.

20:31 · You see, in this passage so far

20:32 · we see the failures of the tenants

20:37 · that they don't do the work that God has assigned.

20:39 · They don't listen to the leaders that he has given them

20:44 · and he has appointed in their lives

20:46 · and this leads to the final way that we failed God

20:49 · is when we don't follow the savior

20:52 · that he has ascended.

20:54 · Keep checking out in verse 37 as this passage continues,

20:58 · it says finally, all right, it doesn't work.

21:01 · There's no fruit, he checks in, it's not good.

21:03 · He sends servants, they beat them,

21:05 · they beat the second group.

21:07 · Finally, he sent his son to them.

21:10 · They will respect my son, he said.

21:15 · But when the tenant farmers saw the son,

21:17 · they said to each other, this is the heir.

21:20 · Come, let's kill him

21:23 · and let's take his inheritance.

21:27 · So they seized him, they threw him out of the vineyard

21:32 · and they killed him.

21:35 · You see, finally in this passage, he sends his son.

21:40 · Any landowner on planet earth sends an army at this point,

21:45 · sends the police, sends forces,

21:47 · they've already killed and beaten the other servants

21:49 · but instead he sends his son.

21:53 · And look what the tenants say out loud to each other.

21:55 · Because it's the whole human heart, the sin of us

21:58 · and one sentence is this is the heir.

22:01 · Let's kill him and let's take his inheritance.

22:04 · What is his, let's take it for ourselves.

22:07 · You see, we see the lie that they have bought into

22:10 · the tenant farmers in this story

22:12 · is it was never about the fruit to them,

22:14 · it was always about the field.

22:15 · They did not wanna give the owner what was his

22:18 · and said they wanted to be the owner.

22:21 · And the only thing standing between them

22:23 · and the deed was his son.

22:25 · They had this idea, kill the son,

22:28 · keep the vineyard and the spoils for ourselves.

22:32 · How many times has that been tried in our world today

22:35 · is kill the idea of God and we become like gods.

22:40 · I get to make my own choices,

22:41 · I get to decide my own view of reality,

22:43 · I get to make my own whatever I think is right,

22:47 · my view of good and right, right and wrong,

22:49 · justice, good and evil.

22:51 · I get to decide it because God is gone.

22:55 · But do not skip past as the story progresses

22:58 · where they killed him because this directly goes

23:01 · into the greater art of scripture.

23:03 · In verse 39, it says they threw him out of the vineyard,

23:07 · outside, outside the wall of the very thing

23:09 · he came to collect from.

23:11 · Hebrews 13 tells us that Jesus suffered outside the gate.

23:15 · Golgotha, where Jesus was crucified on a cross and died,

23:19 · it sat outside the city wall of Jerusalem.

23:22 · Three days before this event happened,

23:25 · standing face to face with the men

23:26 · who would do the killing and would execute this arrest

23:30 · and ultimately his execution,

23:31 · Jesus told them exactly how they were going to kill him.

23:35 · And then he asked them a question in verse 40.

23:39 · He says, therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes,

23:41 · what will he do to these farmers?

23:45 · Jesus is goading them.

23:46 · He's like, all right, can you see how this is working out?

23:49 · He's like, what's gonna happen when the owner hears

23:51 · about how they killed the son?

23:53 · Verse 41, they respond to him.

23:55 · He will completely destroy these terrible men

24:00 · and lease his vineyard to other farmers

24:03 · who will give him his fruit at the harvest.

24:07 · That's it, he's gonna completely wipe them out

24:09 · and they name them.

24:10 · They're like, these men are terrible.

24:12 · These men are wicked

24:13 · and he's gonna give their fruit away.

24:15 · They just handed down their own death sentence.

24:19 · Jesus set a trap for them

24:21 · and they walk straight into it with their eyes wide open.

24:24 · But the story does not end there.

24:27 · It does not end with the death of a son

24:29 · but Jesus keeps going in verse 42.

24:33 · And he says, Jesus said to them,

24:35 · have you never read in the scriptures

24:37 · the stone that the builders rejected

24:41 · has become the cornerstone?

24:43 · It's what he's just saying about.

24:46 · He says, this is what the Lord has done

24:49 · and it is wonderful in our eyes.

24:53 · Jesus quoting Psalm 118 here,

24:55 · the same Psalm that the crowds were chanting

24:57 · as he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey

25:01 · mere days before this.

25:04 · And this is a resurrection verse.

25:06 · He was rejected, then he's raised,

25:07 · he's thrown out of the vineyard,

25:09 · then he's seated over it,

25:10 · he's buried by builders,

25:11 · then he's set as a stone,

25:13 · the whole building is built upon.

25:17 · That is the word in our point this morning.

25:19 · The son was not just sent.

25:21 · He was sent on our behalf

25:23 · to pay a price that we could not pay

25:25 · but then he was ascended.

25:27 · God took the stone, they threw away

25:30 · and he lifted him to the highest

25:32 · and most important place in the building.

25:37 · Like I said, I went to Forest Frank last night,

25:39 · it was in downtown Phoenix

25:40 · which surprisingly did not smell like weed

25:42 · as much as the last couple times I've gone down there.

25:46 · But one of the fun things if you go downtown Phoenix

25:49 · is if you look at some of the old buildings

25:51 · and as we were even driving there,

25:53 · you know some of the newer skyscraper buildings

25:55 · is my kids were asking all sorts of questions

25:59 · about them like, why is that building so tall

26:00 · and how tall is that building?

26:02 · I'm like, I don't know,

26:02 · why don't you count the windows, all right?

26:04 · Like you do the fun game,

26:05 · I don't have all the answers.

26:07 · But if you go to these old buildings

26:09 · and especially these brick ones

26:10 · as you might see on the outside

26:12 · where they have a special brick

26:14 · that might have something printed on it

26:15 · like when it was laid,

26:18 · the time in there and like a date stamp

26:20 · and usually they will do that on the stone

26:23 · that is the cornerstone.

26:26 · It is the first brick laid

26:27 · that everything then else builds off of

26:30 · and what's important about the cornerstone

26:33 · is if the cornerstone is off by even an inch

26:36 · that whole building ain't gonna work,

26:38 · it's gonna be off

26:39 · and it's gonna mess the entire thing up.

26:41 · That building has to,

26:42 · that brick has to be perfect

26:44 · in order to build the rest of the structure on.

26:48 · And here's the thing,

26:49 · the third failure that we see in this

26:51 · is they rejected the cornerstone,

26:54 · they rejected the one

26:55 · who was more important than it all.

26:58 · And what we need to understand

27:00 · is that when the son of God himself

27:02 · walked into the vineyard,

27:04 · we decided so often

27:06 · that when we reject the cornerstone

27:08 · that we would rather have the field

27:10 · than have God himself.

27:13 · And I think if we're honest,

27:13 · we need to ask the question

27:15 · is how many times do we choose our sin

27:19 · because we want to be the Lord,

27:20 · we want to be the owner,

27:22 · we want to be the ultimate one over our own life.

27:28 · But here's how this passage winds down in verse 43.

27:33 · He says, therefore,

27:35 · I tell you,

27:37 · the kingdom of God will be taken away from you

27:40 · and it will be given to a people producing fruit.

27:45 · Now this is very specifically written

27:47 · to the Jewish people.

27:49 · They said,

27:49 · you are no longer going to be my people

27:52 · but I'm going to establish this thing

27:53 · called the church

27:54 · that is available to all nations

27:56 · but it's still a warning for us today.

27:59 · And in verse 44,

28:00 · he tells us the process it takes to get to him.

28:04 · It says,

28:05 · whoever falls on this stone

28:08 · will be broken to pieces

28:10 · but on whomever it falls,

28:14 · it will shatter him.

28:17 · You see, this is the banner over this entire text.

28:21 · This parabolic truth that everything is pointing to,

28:25 · that everything is illuminating in this text

28:27 · is the only way to avoid eternal failure

28:32 · is to be eternally faithful to Jesus Christ.

28:37 · You see, that's exactly what this text is saying here.

28:40 · He's saying that you can either accept

28:42 · the corners shown

28:43 · and here's what he means by this.

28:45 · This is when he says you fall on it

28:46 · and you break to pieces.

28:48 · That is a symbol of a broken man

28:50 · who recognizes a sin falling on Christ

28:52 · and completely coming unraveled.

28:55 · Saying, God, I've tried to do this on my own.

28:57 · I've tried to live this great life.

28:58 · I've tried to work for my salvation.

29:00 · I've tried to earn everything the world has to offer me

29:03 · and has left me empty and empty and empty

29:05 · and when we fall on Christ,

29:07 · we humbly break apart before him.

29:10 · But the other image is when we don't do that

29:13 · and faithfully follow Jesus Christ

29:16 · and faithfully lean to him,

29:18 · the stone will fall on us

29:20 · and it uses a different language.

29:21 · It will shatter us,

29:23 · meaning we'll be completely broken beyond repair.

29:26 · We will be eternally judged

29:28 · to a way that we cannot come back to him

29:30 · because the falling on him

29:32 · is a picture of eternal judgment

29:34 · and when we hear this,

29:36 · you're like, okay, wait, wait, wait.

29:37 · What are you saying?

29:38 · Do I gotta earn my salvation?

29:40 · Do I gotta work hard enough?

29:41 · I gotta be faithful to Jesus?

29:42 · I gotta show him that I'm a good enough person

29:44 · and he will save me.

29:46 · This is not what it's saying at all.

29:47 · Instead, faithfulness, it is not the payment

29:51 · but faithfulness is the proof

29:54 · that we know who Jesus is.

29:56 · We have recognized our sin.

29:59 · We have bent our knee to him

30:02 · and everything changes because of it.

30:06 · You see, you are not faithful to Jesus

30:08 · in order to be saved by Jesus.

30:10 · You are faithful to Jesus

30:11 · because Jesus has always been faithful to you

30:15 · and you have been saved by him

30:17 · and the life that really is in you anyways

30:20 · eventually shows up in your hands

30:22 · and here's what I love about this passage.

30:24 · When you fail in church, you will fail

30:28 · time and time again

30:31 · but when you fail, you are not held by the strength

30:35 · of the grip that you can hold onto Jesus.

30:38 · Instead, you are held by his strength

30:41 · of his grip on you.

30:43 · Paul says, whenever we are faithless,

30:45 · he remains faithful

30:48 · and he keeps going in this passage

30:50 · as he continues to build this

30:52 · and he points everything to himself

30:54 · that he is the cornerstone that we can either accept

30:56 · or that we will be eternally judged by

30:59 · but in verse 44, Jesus starts to give options in here.

31:03 · In every single person in this room,

31:05 · we fall into one of these two options

31:08 · where we either accept him

31:10 · or we are broken by him

31:13 · and in verse 45, as he continues on,

31:17 · it says this, when the chief priests

31:19 · and the Pharisees, they heard this, his parables,

31:22 · they knew he was speaking about them.

31:25 · I love this as Jesus is throwing down

31:28 · this condemnation, this prophecy

31:29 · and says, you're gonna reject me

31:30 · and there are gonna be judgment because of it.

31:32 · They knew he was talking about them, verse 46,

31:36 · although they were looking for a way to arrest him,

31:40 · they feared the crowds

31:42 · because the people regarded him as a prophet.

31:46 · The most harrowing part of this passage

31:48 · is they knew, they got it,

31:50 · they understood the sermon perfectly,

31:52 · they knew every word of it was aimed straight at them

31:56 · to condemn them, to convict them,

31:58 · to show them how they had failed the God of the universe

32:02 · but here's the sad part of this

32:04 · is it did not make them repent.

32:07 · Instead, it made them want to kill him

32:10 · and here's the deal, churches,

32:11 · understanding is not the same thing as repenting.

32:16 · You can sit in a room like this,

32:18 · you can take notes on your paper or on your phone,

32:22 · on a message like this, you can nod at every point,

32:25 · you can walk out to your car

32:27 · with the same hard heart that you carried in

32:31 · and you can be just like these Pharisees,

32:34 · blind to the truth that he has for us

32:40 · and here's the problem with this

32:43 · is the question that we need to ask

32:47 · and the thing that really needs to gear into our heart

32:50 · is we need to see what has God entrusted to us

32:54 · and are we truly using it as he would value.

32:57 · Here's what I'm gonna ask you to do

32:58 · is if you have keys in your pocket,

33:00 · go ahead and take those keys out.

33:02 · Look at your keys for a second, your car keys,

33:05 · maybe you don't even have car keys

33:06 · because it's like your phone is your key,

33:08 · you can take your phone out, right, it's already out.

33:10 · If you have that and your fancy

33:11 · and your car drives you home,

33:13 · well good luck with that, all right.

33:15 · My son Archie, as we were driving to downtown Phoenix,

33:17 · he's like, do I need to learn how to drive a car one day?

33:19 · He's like, well just cars drive themselves, right?

33:22 · And he's like, they can just do that.

33:23 · I'm like, stop looking at those waymos,

33:24 · they'll kill you in a storm, right?

33:28 · But take these keys out

33:30 · and look at the keys of what you have been entrusted

33:34 · to personally in your life.

33:35 · Maybe you see keys to a house

33:37 · that you're still paying a mortgage on,

33:38 · keys to a workplace that you've been entrusted to,

33:41 · keys that someone has said something

33:43 · as I trust you to carry this out.

33:48 · But here's the thing,

33:50 · is God has put other keys in your hands,

33:53 · not just physical keys, but spiritual keys.

33:57 · To ask, are you being faithfully and stewarding

34:00 · and tending to what he has given you,

34:03 · or are you failing time and time again

34:08 · to live up, to faithfully work,

34:13 · to produce the fruit that he has put

34:16 · in your life before you?

34:20 · You're like, well, what does that look like?

34:22 · Like, I don't think I'm failing God.

34:25 · You're like, I think I'm doing this thing all right.

34:27 · I'm surviving, I'm pushing forward.

34:31 · I am not like those wicked servants, man.

34:33 · I'm not trying to kill Jesus.

34:35 · Be like, Andrew, I'm not trying to kill you.

34:36 · All right, we're not gonna throw rocks at you.

34:40 · But here's maybe how you're failing.

34:43 · Maybe you're failing when you come home exhausted

34:47 · from a long day,

34:50 · and you're exhausted and stressed,

34:55 · and you start medicating with the things of this world.

34:59 · You go to the bottle, you go to the porn,

35:04 · you go to the anger, you go to the scrolling

35:09 · in the weight of the world

35:12 · that seems like there is no breath from.

35:16 · You're not running to Jesus,

35:19 · but you're running to the garbage of the world

35:21 · that says, hey, I'll take it away for just a minute.

35:24 · But it comes back so much harder.

35:27 · And you feel stuck in this cycle

35:30 · that you just can't get out of,

35:32 · and little by little, you know you're failing the God

35:35 · of the universe every time you engage in that sin.

35:41 · Maybe you're failing the God of the universe

35:45 · when he has called you to something.

35:48 · He has put people in your life.

35:50 · He has placed you in a church community.

35:53 · And here's the thing about the West Valley I love.

35:55 · We have so many amazing churches in our city,

35:59 · and surprise alone.

36:01 · And we got CCV, and the gathering,

36:04 · and Hope City, and Radiant, and the garden.

36:06 · And it's amazing how many gospel witnesses

36:09 · that we have in a city with so many people

36:12 · who are far from Jesus.

36:14 · But here's how we fail the God of the universe

36:16 · is when we sit in one of these churches,

36:18 · and one little thing is done to make us mad.

36:20 · So we pick up our Bible and go somewhere else,

36:22 · and we don't engage in the church family,

36:24 · but we just hide in the shadows

36:25 · because I just want to entertain myself

36:28 · rather than doing the work of the Lord.

36:32 · When we do that, when we run from place to place,

36:36 · when we don't confess our sin,

36:37 · when we don't be honest about the stuff in our life,

36:40 · we were just like the tenants,

36:44 · being handed the keys,

36:46 · but not working the fields that he has put in front of us.

36:53 · So what does it look like to be faithful to this God?

36:58 · To produce the fruits,

37:00 · to produce the harvest that he has called us to.

37:06 · Church, it means getting your hands dirty.

37:09 · It means committing to a church family,

37:12 · whether that's here or that's somewhere else.

37:15 · It means raising up your kids in a way

37:18 · that says my sin, my anger, my pride, my fear,

37:23 · my anxiety are not gonna be what I lead with,

37:25 · but I lead with my faith, my trust,

37:28 · and my dependence on him.

37:32 · It means being honest and vulnerable

37:36 · and letting people in to see the ways you have failed,

37:40 · to confess that, to be free from that,

37:46 · so you can live more closely to him,

37:50 · to faithfully following Jesus.

37:54 · It means saying no to the ways

37:55 · that our world has prescribed.

37:59 · To stop just trying to medicate our pain,

38:03 · stop trying to take the wheel and be the owner

38:05 · to think we have it all figured out,

38:08 · and start faithfully loving the savior of the universe,

38:12 · serving inside his church,

38:14 · and watching how it changes our families

38:17 · now and for all of eternity.

38:23 · Church, are you failing the God of the universe,

38:27 · or are you faithfully tending

38:30 · to what he has put you in charge of?