# Sunday Setup – Matthew 21:33-46 Sermon transcript from Cross Church Surprise. Series: Sunday Setup Date: July 16, 2026 Watch: https://crosschurchcares.com/surprise/episodes/sunday-setup-matthew-2133-46 ## Summary What does it mean to be a faithful steward of what God has entrusted to us? Are we nurturing the blessings in our lives, or are we taking them for granted? Join us as we explore the parable of the vineyard owner and uncover the call to be fruitful tenants in God's kingdom. Let's dive in together! ## Transcript Hey Cross Church family, welcome to the Sunday setup. It's our time each week where we digitally gather together to pray through the passage that we are going to be studying this week because every weekend we want to pray through, we want to praise through, we want to preach through so that we can practice God's word. Today we continue on in the series through the parables. We're winding down to the final three weeks in here. And in Matthew chap 21, starting in verse 33, we're this parable of the vineyard owner. And Jesus starts here and says this. Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, who put a fence around it, who dug a wine press in it and built a watchtower. He leased it to tenant farmers and went away. When the time came to harvest fruit, he sent his servants to the farmers to collect his fruit. The farmers took his servants. They beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Again, he sent other servants more than the first group, and they did the same to them. Finally, he sent his son to them. They will respect my son, he said. But when the tenant farmers saw the son, they said to each other, "This is the heir. Come, let's kill him, and let's take his inheritance." So they seized him. They threw him out of the vineyard, and they killed him. Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to these farmers? He will completely destroy those terrible men, they told him, "and lease his vineyard to other farmers who will give him his fruit at the harvest." Jesus said to them, "Have you never read in the scriptures, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone? This is what the Lord has done and is wonderful in our eyes. Therefore, I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruit. Whoever falls on the stone will be broken to pieces, but on whomever it falls, it will shatter him." When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they knew he was speaking about them. All they were they were look although they were looking for a way to arrest him, they feared the crowds because the people regarded him as a prophet. This parable is packed full of information. And throughout this, we see so much prophecy that Jesus is speaking into here. And he's very specifically talking to the Jewish leaders and some of what would transcribe and them and God moving God moving on from Israel because they rejected him. But in here, there's still so much application for us. And as we begin to set our hearts towards what God how he would speak to us and and how we glean the insights and the truth from this, I want us to start our prayer prompt uh with a prayer of thanksgiving. And in verse 33, it talks about how the vineyard owner, God in this story, creates this amazing vineyard and then it says he leased it to tenant farmers. See, God owns everything in our world, but he leases it. He rents it. He lets us borrow. He lets us work the stuff of our world. And I want to start with a prayer of thanksgiving is God, thank you for leasing me blank. Thank you for leasing me my family, my job, the place I live. Thank you for leasing me my church family. Whatever it is, everything we have in our world is from God and he's just leasing it to us for our time being that we get to work in his world. So here's our first prayer prompt. God, thank you for leasing me blank. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. God, we just thank you for leasing us, God, this world that ever since Genesis, you put men in men and women in charge to love the world around us, to take care of your nature, to take care of the animals. And God, sometimes I think we take for granted how beautiful our world is. And thank you for just Lord leasing us the ability to live here in Arizona and Surprise and in the West Valley that God you have placed us in this great place. There's so many places in our world we could be at but for whatever reason you placed us here and and we are thankful for that. Thank you for the fact that we have our families in our lives, our friends, our community. Lord, none of it is stuff we've earned. None of this stuff we've built on our own, but it is from your goodness, from your grace, and you allow us to be a part of it. God, just thank you for leasing us every good thing that is in our life. But Lord, with this comes a responsibility. And as we continue in this passage, what we're going to see is God leased it to some people. But in this parable, the tenants that he's leasing it to failed time and time again. This is actually a picture of Israel throughout the Old Testament and up to Jesus's teaching there. But if we're honest, we can be tenants that fail God time and time again as well. And then the second prompt as we talk about how do we make sure we're not failing God, but we're thriving and being faithful towards God is we thank him for the fact that he leases us stuff in our life. But let's pray about being the right tenant. And here's our second prompt. is God, let me be the tenant who let me be the farmer, the worker, the the one who's renting, the one who's enjoying the great things that God has created. God, let me be the tenant who works hard, who is faithful to your word, who is teaching my kids Jesus, who is loving the people in my workplace. God, let me be the tenant who fill in that prayer. Pray that prayer to our God. Heat. Heat. God, let us be tenants who are faithful. Lord, what we see in this passage is we see those who are wicked. Those who say, "God, I know you've given us so many good things, but we want to hoard it. We want to take it. We want to make it ours. And Lord, when we do that, when we take our sin into our own hands, and we try to take the good things of your world and twist them into our image, twist them for our gain, God, we fail time and time again. But Lord, let us not be like the tenants in this story. Let us use this as a warning. And God, let us fall broken before you to humble ourselves and to be the ones who work for your kingdom, who follow you faithfully, who love you holy. And Lord, make the love of Jesus known to the world around us. God, we thank you for this time. We ask that you prepare in our hearts for this weekend of how do we make sure we're not failing you? What are the warning signs in our life? And Lord, let us put into practice this passage next week on how we can live faithfully and following you and doing the work you have assigned us to do. And God, that we can just glorify you through it. And we thank you for this time. We lift all this up in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you guys for joining us today. We'll see you this Sunday. Heat. Heat.