Good morning, friends. My name is Ryan. If you don’t know me, I’m one of the pastors here. I am 53 years old and — I don’t know why we’re laughing. That was not a laughter bit. …and I remember what watching TV used to be like.
[Am I ringing out, David, like crazy? I feel like I’m ringing out like crazy.]
I remember what TV used to be like. Even that phrase, if you think about it, “watching TV,” has disappeared. We watch a streaming service like Netflix, or HBO Max, or whatever your choice is.
If you’re here and you’re younger than me, maybe 30 and below, you don’t understand what it used to be like. You don’t know how good you have it.
If you’re old, you’re going to remember the pain because, back in the day, when I was a kid, we were watching shows like The Incredible Hulk with Lou Ferrigno. Or Knight Rider with David Hasselhoff. Or a lesser-known: Streethawk, featuring a motorcycle with Rex Smith.
Back in the day, when you watched a show like that, you watched it Friday night at 8 p.m. Then, to figure out what happened next, you waited until Friday night at 8 p.m. the next week. There was no such thing as binging. There was no way to record it. If you were sick or you were on vacation, you missed it.
I actually quit Cub Scouts because I would miss The Incredible Hulk on Friday night. So my argument is, if I would have had the TV advantages that all you people now have at a younger age, I would’ve been an Eagle Scout. But I quit because of the way I had to watch TV.
The worst, though, was at the end of a show. Freeze frames were a big deal back in the 80s. At the end of the show, the action, the car jumping through the air, would just freeze. The frame would freeze, and then you knew what was next: It was the “To Be Continued” title screen that popped up.
Again, you had to remember what happened in this week until the next week. If you missed it, the only way you could catch up was to wait until the summer when they did reruns, and you had to watch it all over again. You had to hold on to information from one week to another, to another, or maybe into the future to get the whole story.
In a sense, that’s what we do when we gather together each week, taking a book apart like Matthew, which has taken us quite a long time. We come back after a to-be-continued title screen pops up at the end of a sermon.
For the three weeks we’re in right now—where Peter taught last week, and then I’m doing this week and next week—it’s almost like an unprecedented 80s TV show three-parter. They all go together. You have to remember those events from last week.
So, just like what would have happened in the 80s, let me give you the quick recap of last week:
Peter set us up really well by giving us kind of a one-word summary last week: Jesus refuses to reveal himself to liars.
That was last week. He chose to not provide the truth of his authority to untruthful religious leaders.
These leaders suppressed the truth to Jesus’s question about the baptism of John. Jesus said, “Where did it come from?”
They huddled up and said, “If we actually say heaven, then he’s going to say, ‘Why didn’t you believe?’ If we say man, the crowd is going to be furious,” because they thought John was a prophet.
So one of the bright leaders among them said, “Well, let’s just look at Jesus and say, ‘We don’t know.’ Let’s not be truthful.” So that’s what they did.
Jesus then chose to not answer their question, their original question about his authority. “If you’re not going to be truthful, then we’re not going to dialog.”
At the end of last week’s story, it would be easy to assume that Jesus, at that point, kind of just walks off the scene. Or the religious leaders, offended, get mad, and walk away, huddling up once more to figure out how they can kill Jesus. Neither of those things happen.
Instead, Jesus decides to tell a couple of stories. Classic Jesus, right? The Great Storyteller, the use of stories to teach, enlighten, challenge, and sometimes even confuse people. But in this moment, his two stories are very, very pointed.
He is not veiling truth whatsoever. There’s no doubt as to why Jesus tells these stories because he actually lets everybody know at the end.
So if last week was, “Jesus refuses to reveal himself to liars,” this week is “Jesus reveals to liars truth about themselves.” If last week was “Jesus refuses to reveal himself to liars,” this week is “Jesus reveals to liars truth about themselves.”
[David, I’m going to switch. We’re going to get rid of that popping.]
Jesus reveals to liars truth about themselves. He does that through the creativity of two stories that share the same structure. I want to walk through that structure really fast because it’ll give us a guide as to how to interpret each story.
Both stories begin with an invitation. Jesus says, “Hey, listen to my story.” He invites the audience to be part of it and participate. Then Jesus will simply tell his story to the people, his parable.
Both times the stories share the same content, so they have the same structure and even the same content:
Both stories share a location (which is a vineyard), a key figure (a father in one, a businessman in the other), key relationships (sons in the first story, employees in the second story), and key responses of characters within the story. Some characters lie, and then in next week’s story, there’s even violence.
Two stories, identical structure, similar content. Both of them, Jesus is using to reveal truth to these liars who are standing in front of him.
After he tells the story, Jesus is going to ask a question in both stories. He invites that dialogue: What do you guys think about this?
Both times, the religious leaders are going to answer Jesus’s question. They answer it accurately, but very, very carefully. They’re very controlled responses.
Then Jesus finishes each one with a direct application. He talks directly to the religious leaders about the meaning of his story.
The structure: invitation, story, question, response, application. Jesus strategically uses that to reveal to liars truth about themselves.
We’re in the “to be continued.” Remember from last week: We’re in the temple, all together in front of Jesus. His disciples are there. There are some children there who have actually been praising Jesus. We have the scribes and the elders there in front, the chief priests.
Jesus says, “I’m not going to answer you,” and then he tells this story. Story number one: a father and two sons.
“‘What do you think? A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, “Son, go and work in the vineyard today.” And he answered, “I will not,” but afterward he changed his mind and went. And he went to the other son and said the same. And he answered, “I will, sir,” but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?’ They said, ‘The first.’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him” (Matthew 21:28-32).
I want to walk through the story using our structure to help us understand. We’ll kind of use it as a tour guide.
Jesus begins with this invitation: What do you think? I’m going to tell you a story, and I really want to know what you think about it.
In my study, I found out that this is a pretty well-known style of learning within the temple. Students were taught to ask questions, to even respond to questions with questions. Curiosity was a Jewish virtue.
I was on one website of a synagogue where they described questions as a sacred Jewish duty. So Jesus is being strategic here. He’s utilizing the religious leader’s methods of teaching to bring them into his conversation.
Jesus is now the one taking over the challenge. They asked the first question, now Jesus—through his question—is bringing them into his framework, into his logic, and taking control of the moment. In that, I think Jesus is brilliant.
The story. Jesus launches into his story about a father and two sons working in a vineyard. The story is super short. It’s only 53 English words, but there are a lot of words that are repeated that really, really matter. So let’s look at the action of the story.
What does the father do? He went to the two sons. I don’t know if you caught it, but in this story, the words “went” and “go” are everywhere. Movement in the story really matters. Movement is important. Notice who moves and who doesn’t:
The father, the very first one, comes on scene, shows initiative. He moves in the scene before anyone else. And nobody receives preferential treatment. He didn’t just go to one son. He went to them both. And they were approached with the same invitation: “Go and work in the vineyard today.” Be part of the family business. Engage with what I’ve provided, follow my direction, produce fruit. He invites them in.
In Jesus’s day, this would have been a very normal practice. These people would have known someone who was in this situation of having a job, working in a vineyard, inviting their son in to produce fruit with them.
What do the sons do with the invitation?
Son number one does this: He receives the invitation from the father, rejects it, reconsiders it, and responds. A lot going on in there, I know. Very different reaction than son number two. He receives it, rejects it, reconsiders it, and responds.
One important thing about parables that I want to throw in here: We have to be careful when reading Jesus’s parables so we don’t get lost and miss the ultimate point.
Anyone here who is a parent could read this parable, and when that first son looks at his dad and says, “Nah! I’m not going to go into the vineyard.” We could get lost and assume, “Well, now Jesus is going to teach on obedience, because you don’t say no to your parent, you obey,” and we would miss the point.
Jesus isn’t teaching about obedience. He’s teaching about truth. He’s teaching the truth. Even things that seem out of the norm end up revealing Jesus’s ultimate point. So let’s look at this response of son number one.
He receives it (listens to dad), he rejects it—”Dad, can’t do that right now. Busy on TikTok. Gotta play a little Call of Duty. Need a nap. Can’t go out in the field.”—and then he reconsidered. We get that from the word “afterward.” Afterward is going to be one of these important words in the story.
Later, after saying no, he reconsiders it. He thinks about his answer, and he responds by going. He has a change of mind. Another really important repeated phrase: he has a change of mind. His “not going” turns into “I’m gonna go.”
And he went. He didn’t just do a mental exercise about it and think, “You know, I should have said yes when dad invited me.” Instead, he thought that, and then he responded by going, by moving. He went out in the field and began to work.
What about son number two? Son number two receives the invitation, accepts it, and then sits still. He accepts the invitation, and then he doesn’t move.
Dad says, “Go,” offspring says, “Yes.” It’s the answer we anticipated with son number one. Of course they’re going to say yes to the father. But only son number two says it, and then he just sits still. He did not go. He doesn’t move. His actions don’t line up with his words. He’s a living, walking, mixed message.
So the father moves towards the sons, gives them the same invitation to go into the vineyard. The sons respond in very different ways. Son number one: his no turns into a yes, and he moves. Son number two: his yes is actually a no, and he sits still.
Jesus then asks the religious leaders a question: “Who did the Father’s will?”
Now these guys would have been part of judging religious and civil matters for people attending the temple. Once again, Jesus is being smart. He’s appealing to them in their role as leaders among the people.
People would come to them and ask about family issues. This is how people learned in the temple, hard questions. “Who did the father’s will?” And the leaders give their measured response: “The first.”
After a 53-word story, a 10-word question, they give Jesus (in Greek) one word: “protos,” the first. It’s the least amount of words these guys speak to Jesus in the entire gospel.
They don’t provide a reason for it. They don’t act like leaders should, who would reason through why they would give their answer, so they can show their work almost. They just barely answer Jesus. “The first.”
In response, Jesus moves right into applying his story. And his application is: he reveals to them truth about themselves. I’m going to reread what Jesus says to them.
“Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him” (Matthew 21:31b-32).
Jesus reveals truth.
Truth #1: You aren’t first in line.
When it comes to the kingdom of God, you think your position, your status, your knowledge, your authority, your role in the temple allows you to enter the kingdom. Not only that, you think you’re a VIP and you’re getting in first.
Throughout the Gospels, we learn that these religious leaders were very concerned about their position and status.
If you remember back to when we talked about Jesus entering into Jerusalem (the triumphal entry), one of the things that the religious leaders were afraid of was that—because Jesus did that—Rome would come in and take over their nation and their positions.
They thought well of themselves, and Jesus reveals the truth: Tax collectors and prostitutes will precede the religious leaders into the kingdom of God.
I want to do a little sidebar conversation here. And I want to warn you: In practicing this, I’m about 50/50 crying and not crying when I work through this section. I did a “not cry” in first service, so we’ll see where this goes.
I think we have to look at why Jesus picks these two groups of people. What is Jesus saying about tax collectors and prostitutes?
Let’s begin with tax collectors. Who were they? Tax collectors were Jews in the service of Rome (the occupying force) who made their money by collecting the taxes that Jews owed Rome.
They would often add a little surcharge of their own to make even more money. So these people were not only traders, but they were traders profiting from their brothers and sisters when they were being occupied.
How did Jesus interact with people like that? Let’s look at a couple of moments. This is in Matthew 9.
“As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he rose and followed him” (Matthew 9:9).
Pause. Not a difficult question here: Does the name Matthew ring a bell? It’s the guy we’re reading. The guy telling us this story was one of these people.
In my brain, can you imagine what it must have been like for Matthew when Jesus, in the middle of the temple, looked at the main religious leaders and said, “Tax collectors are going to go into the kingdom of God before you”?
Do you think Jesus looked at him and gave him a wink? Or a smile? Or a nod? To remind Matthew, “Yeah, Matthew, it doesn’t matter what you did or who you were. When you received my invitation, and you stood, and you moved, and you put your faith in me, your status of entering the kingdom of God changed.”
Matthew continues:
“And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ [Do you feel the judgment?] But when [Jesus] heard it, he said, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:10-13).
Jesus called a tax collector as a follower, ate with many tax collectors, and even had other tax collectors follow him (like Zacchaeus, recorded in Luke’s Gospel).
Jesus is not calling tax collectors the worst of people from his perspective. He’s actually revealing the truth to liars about themselves: “This is what you think of tax collectors. The people you think are the worst are going in before you.”
What about prostitutes? I think the first thing we have to do here is maybe admit the complexities of what it would have been like to be a woman in first-century Roman-occupied Israel.
Could it be that a woman was a prostitute not out of preference but out of powerlessness? If you were rejected by family, what power would you have had in this day? If you were owned, what power would you have had? If you were indebted, what power would you have had?
One such woman made a surprise visit to a Pharisee’s dinner party where Jesus was invited. We get this story in Luke 7.
“One of the Pharisees asked [Jesus] to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and reclined at table. And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner—” (Luke 7:36-37).
Now I’m calling this woman in the story a prostitute because of that language, “behold.” “What I’m going to say next stands out: This is a woman of the city who’s a sinner.”
“…when she learned that [Jesus] was reclining at table in the Pharisee’s house—”
She went to him. She went to a place she knew she would not be welcomed, and she did this:
“…[she] brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment [a very public and intimate display]. Now when the Pharisee who had invited [Jesus] saw this, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner” (Luke 7:37b-39).
Do you feel the judgment again? The way Luke writes, the words are one thing, but you can just feel it oozing off of this guy, looking at this display, and just looking down on this woman. What does Jesus do? Jesus responds this way to the Pharisee:
“‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.’ And [Jesus] said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ Then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, ‘Who is this, who even forgives sin?’ And he said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace’” (Luke 7:44-50).
Jesus compares the Pharisee’s response and the prostitute’s response to him. The prostitute believed she needed Jesus, that she actually needed a lot of forgiveness, and therefore her display was one of great love towards Jesus.
The Pharisee, on the other hand, didn’t welcome Jesus into his house at all, none of the normal customs of the day. He didn’t need Jesus a whole lot, and his offering to Jesus revealed that.
So Jesus loved, ate, and received the worship and forgave the sins of a prostitute in the house of a religious leader. Jesus is speaking from the perspective of these religious leaders. He is revealing truth to them: The people you think are the worst are actually ahead of you in line.
I don’t think we can actually understand the depth of offense that these leaders would have received at the mention of these two groups. When Jesus says, “they’re in front of you,” they would have huffed, they would’ve rolled their eyes, they would have puffed up their chests, or—as my family used to say about my dad, Buzz—when my dad got angry, he was thin-lipped and red-necked. That would have been these religious leaders.
Jesus is pointed. Jesus is not playing. Jesus drops a truth bomb on them after his story: They’re in front of you.
Truth #2: You rejected John’s message.
You rejected the truth. This is that to be continued from last week. The religious leaders are not going to answer Jesus about John’s baptism. They refuse to give any validity to the fact that John’s message and his person were from heaven. There’s no way they’re going to do it. So now Jesus pushes it even further:
Jesus looks at them and says, John preached to you in the way of righteousness. He had the message, he had the truth, and you did not believe him. You rejected him.
Just like they rejected John, they are rejecting Jesus, because John and Jesus literally preach the exact same message in the book of Matthew: “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
In neither case, in none of the interactions with Jesus, do these leaders believe. They rejected John, and he ultimately died. And in about two days, they rejected Jesus, and they’re going to kill him.
Truth #3: The tax collectors and prostitutes believed.
Jesus just outright says it. He looks at them, “They believed.”
These two groups that you think you’re better than, they believed. That’s why they get to precede you into the kingdom of God, because when they heard the invitation from John, they changed their mind. They believed. They went and followed Jesus.
All those important words in the story: They changed their mind, they believed, they moved. They believed John’s message about who Jesus was. They believed.
Truth #4: You see lives changed, but reject the truth that changes lives.
You see lives changed, but you reject the truth that changes lives.
That little phrase Jesus used, “even when you saw it.” You guys weren’t ignorant of what happened in these groups’ lives. When they went and heard John speak, when they heard the message to repent and believe (to change their mind, believe, and go), you saw it. You’re not ignorant, you’re not blind.
But they did not “afterward.” There’s that keyword. Unlike the first son, they didn’t take time to reconsider what they believed in light of the change they saw in these two groups of people. Their minds were already made up.
Even though they saw it, they did not change their minds, and they did not believe. They saw change but rejected truth. So Jesus says to the religious leaders (this is the truth Jesus reveals to them):
You think you’re better than others, but you aren’t first in line. You think you know the truth, but you rejected John’s message of truth. You missed the wonder of the tax collectors and prostitutes believing because, even when you saw it, you rejected the truth that changed them. You have rejected me, you have rejected John’s message, you have rejected righteousness, you have rejected the truth.
Jesus reveals to these liars all that truth about themselves.
As I worked my way through this story, I was trying to figure out its impact on me. Like, what do I do with this story?
I had this moment where I went back to Jesus’s original question at the beginning of the story, where he begins it with, “What do you think?” It’s his setup question. “I’m going to tell you, but at the end, I want to know what you think.” So I decided to respond to Jesus’s question as if he had told me that story.
That’s my invitation to you as well. What I’m about to say is an application for myself, and I invite you to do the same process. Go home with family, friends, life group, or just yourself, and do the exercise of asking yourself, “What do I think about this story?”
I’m just going to share my answers, and they might provoke you to go through this exercise as well. So Ryan, what do you think the truth is in this story?
The truth is, Jesus is courageous.
Jesus is not afraid. Jesus knows the approach that he’s taking in the context where he’s taking it, with the leaders in front of him, is only going to fuel the fire for them to want to kill him. And he’s so blunt.
This is an old man phrase, but it’s like Jesus is “poking the bear.” He’s being so truthful. That in Jesus, in Matthew, for me, has been a big deal. If Jesus is courageous like that, I really want to follow him. I want to follow a guy like that.
Second, the truth is Jesus invites me to a total-person response.
Change my mind, believe, and go. Change my mind, believe, and move. To me, that seems to be the rhythm of the story.
In a way, like the second son, I can say I believe and not live out what I believe. A change of my mind and belief will lead to a change of life. I will go. I will follow.
So Ryan, what’s the truth of this story? The truth is that I am the chief priest, the tax collector, and the prostitute in the story. I’m pretty much everybody but Jesus in this story. This is what I mean:
I think, for me, that I can look at some people’s lives, the way they live, the choices that they make, and—I may not be as obviously arrogant as these religious leaders who would literally walk by people with their nose in the air, or pray in front of people about how much better they were than this person—but I think I can have the same internal attitude sometimes towards people’s lives (who are making choices, taking actions), and I have a sense of being morally superior.
There are times when I think I’m better than the sinner. Jesus’s story bluntly hits me in the face and moves me back to, if you have changed your mind and believed, then that’s part of recognizing that you’re a sinner just like the tax collectors and prostitutes. Which leads me to my second thing:
The truth is, I am just like the tax collector and prostitute. Although I’ve never been an actual tax collector, like in the story, or been a prostitute, I am equally Jesus’s target audience because Jesus says, “I have come to seek out sinners,” and I am most assuredly one of those.
I may not have the title “tax collector” or “prostitute,” but if we were to interview my life over the past 30-some years, I would have other titles that go along with other sins that would be equally shameful for me to share with you if I’m standing up here.
And yet, Jesus moved towards me with an invitation to come into his kingdom. Through a change of mind and belief, I’m following him. So the truth is, I’m like everybody in that story but Jesus.
May everyone in this room recognize the invitation we receive in this story to have a change of mind, belief, and follow Jesus. Change your mind, believe in Jesus, and follow him. Recognize his authority and join your fellow tax collectors and prostitutes as we make our way towards entering the kingdom of God. Let’s pray.
Father, I ask you to continue to work this story into my heart and into the lives of my brothers and sisters. There is something about coming face to face with Jesus revealing truth that makes me feel so vulnerable. So I pray you would reveal to all of us truth about who Jesus is.
I pray you would give the gift to respond to Jesus to everybody in this place. I pray that we would feel your love, even if in our lives we have been hurt by religious leaders.
Jesus, thank you for being so courageous and not quitting the path that the Father had for you. You went all the way so that our invitation into your kingdom is secure. Amen.
Those who have changed their minds, believed, and followed Jesus need to be regularly reminded and experience what it is they actually believe. I think this is what Jesus does.
On the night before Judas betrayed Jesus, the disciples of Jesus were having an annual Jewish meal called Passover (which in and of itself was a reminder and experience of God rescuing Israel out of slavery in Egypt).
Jesus reaches into that meal and pulls out the elements of bread and wine and creates a new meal, which is once again a reminder and experience of how he saves us from slavery.
At that meal, Jesus took a piece of bread in front of his followers, and he broke it. He told them, “Hey, this is my body. It’s broken for you.” It was a reminder that “for you to be freed from slavery, something’s going to happen to me.”
Jesus also took a cup of wine that would have been shared around the table, and he said, “This is the new covenant in my blood.”
New covenant there: “Covenant” is a strong agreement between two people. In this case, it’s the strong agreement between God and man. How can we be reconciled again? How can we be okay?
Jesus says, “That covenant, that’s through me. The way that happens is I’m going to die and shed blood just like all the lambs that you’ve slaughtered for a couple of thousand years.”
Any time those two things are present for God’s people, bread and wine, we’re able to stop to remember (by seeing) and to experience (by eating and drinking) the reality of this good news story.
We’re going to do that today. We’re going to pass out some bread and cups of juice, and we’re going to remind ourselves and remind each other that through Jesus’s body and blood, we are all saved from slavery.
So we’re going to hand it out, and I’ll come back up, and we’ll share it together here in a few minutes.
