The Other Two Sons

Father, we have just sung these words and we trust that we paid attention to the words that we were signing and so we ask again truly from the bottom of our hearts that you would show us Christ. I need your help to preach, I am inadequate in myself for the task so send your Holy Spirit that the Word to be preached would be better than the one that I have to give and give us eyes to see and ears to hear that Christ would be exalted, that sinners would be converted, that the wayward would be brought back, that the weary would be encouraged. Oh Lord to a mighty work through your Word we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Please turn your Bibles to the Book of Matthew, first book in the New Testament, first of the four Gospels. Matthew chapter 21. May have looked at the schedule over these weeks here in the Lenten season leading up to Easter and then beyond and wonder what are these messages, what do they have in common. Well, we are going to be looking at the parables that Jesus tells during Holy week leading up to this crucifixion. That’s what these five parables, this week and the next four weeks, leading up to the resurrection on Easter Sunday morning. That’s what they all have in common, and we will say much more about the context in just a moment.

Matthew chapter 21:28-32. Here’s what Jesus says. “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 go 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.”

I have entitled this sermon, The Other Two Sons because most of us are familiar with the parable of the prodigal son and maybe you were here a couple of weeks ago when Pete Williams preached on the parables of the prodigal son like you’ve never heard it before, like a mad British scientist just pulling all of these pieces together. If you weren’t here, you should really go listen to that sermon and most of us are familiar with that story of two sons, the prodigal son and it’s one of the most famous stories in the history of the world, this is the other parable that Jesus tells about two sons and it does have some striking similarities to that story. It only appears here in Matthew’s account. The basic meaning of this parable is easy to understand. The father represents God, working in the vineyard represents doing God’s will, and the two sons represent two different responses to God’s Word. The first son says no but does yes, the second son says yes but does no. The first son is to be commended over the second son because, as we might say, actions speak louder than words or we can state the point of the parable in the negative saying, the right thing without doing the right thing counts for nothing. Saying the right thing without doing the right thing counts for nothing. So, on that level the parable is easy to understand. You say, pastor this could be the shortest sermon ever, we go it, but there’s more. There is more to it than just that because Jesus is not simply giving a general life lesson, actions speak louder than words or a general life lesson, son you must follow through on your commitments. He is, in fact, making a provocative and challenging statement about the failure of Israelite religion or if that’s putting it too broadly, at least the failure of the Israelite leaders and their religion. They failed and the religion as they know it needs a heart transplant. We need to know where we are in the Book of Matthew if we are going to understand this parable and all that Jesus means to communicate. So flip back, it may be on the previous page you can see the beginning of Matthew chapter 21.

You see the heading there, The Triumphal Entry, so that locates us. There are 28 chapters in Matthew already by Matthew 21 we are in the last week of Jesus’ earthly life. Now he’s going to be resurrected and live some more, but the last week leading up to the cross and the empty tomb. Determining the chronology of holy week can be a bit tricky, but it seems to go something like this. Palm Sunday, that’s very clear, it’s on Sunday. That’s when the worshipers come and they shout, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest. Look at verse 9, the crowds went before Him, began to shout, and when He entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up saying, who is this. We call it the triumphal entry, technically it’s the triumphal approach. By the time, and we see this in other parts of the Gospels, before he even gets into the city he weeps over Jerusalem because he knows that they are not going to get it, he knows that he is going to suffer, and he is going to die, and that the city does not understand who he is. It ought to put to rest one of the misunderstandings that sometimes gets communicated by preachers during Holy week and that is to draw attention to the supposed fickleness of the crowd. Here they are saying Hosanna blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord on Sunday and then by Good Friday they’re shouting crucify Him. How fickle people can be. Well, it’s true that people can be fickle, but those are almost certainly different crowds that are shouting this. In Luke’s account they say Jesus tell your disciples to stop praising you. That’s when Jesus says, well if they don’t do it, the very stones will cry out. So there they’re called disciples, elsewhere it’s referring to those who have come to Jerusalem for the feast so those who meet Jesus on his approach to Jerusalem are some combination of the larger group of disciples, because he has 12 disciples as we all them, but then there are going to be 100 or more that gather with him, 70 that had been sent out earlier, so there’s a larger group of disciples that are following him from place to place so there are some of those and some galilean pilgrims. Remember, he’s from Galilee in the north, there’s a Judea in the south, so the crowd here that’s praising him as the messiah, as the son of David is some group of his larger set of disciples and galilean pilgrims. This where he’s from. When he comes to Jerusalem, verse 10, the whole city was stirred up saying who is this. That will be the crowd stirred up by the religious leaders who will shout on Good Friday, “Crucify Him.” On Sunday, Palm Sunday, he approaches Jerusalem, he weeps over it and he leaves for the night and there’s a lot of back and forth. You probably haven’t noticed before, but he goes back and forth to Bethany. Bethany is about two miles away, a little village, maybe it’s a 30–45-minute walk to get there and this is where he has friends so it makes sense that this is where Jesus and the smaller group of disciples are staying and then they’re going to go to Jerusalem and they go at night to Bethany.

Look at verse 17, “And leaving them he went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there.” It’s a little confusing here in Matthew’s account because you see in chapter 21:12-13 have the cleansing of the temple and then a healing at the temple and then Hosanna to the son of David and their indignance and then he goes, well likely that cleansing of the temple is not in strict chronological order. Now don’t hear me saying the Bible made a mistake, though it’s very common that authors, especially in the ancient world organized their material thematically, it’s not that every verse must move sequentially. So, likely verse 17 is after this first day in Jerusalem, approaching Jerusalem and then he goes to Bethany. Then on Monday he comes back to Jerusalem, and he enters the temple. If you look at chapter 21:23, he enters the temple there, seems that he curses the fig tree, clears the temple, returns again to Bethany with his disciples and then he comes again on Tuesday to Jerusalem. So, the first Jerusalem he comes on Palm Sunday, goes to Bethany. Second day in Jerusalem is likely the clearing of the temple and then the cursing of the fig tree which is the parabolic representation of that and then on the Tuesday he is going to come to the temple again and that’s actually what verse 23 is telling us. So, everything in these five parables from chapter 21:23 until the end of chapter 25 is a very busy Tuesday. He is telling parables, he’s getting into conflicts with religious leaders, some of which that are brought upon him, many of them he is bringing in a provocative way to them, he ‘s going to give what’s called the Olivet Discourse and so if you turn several chapters to chapter 26, look at verse 1 when Jesus had finished all these sayings, He said to his disciples, you know that after two days the passover is coming. That’s the Passover meal he’s going to celebrate as the last supper on Thursday, so that makes sense.

Here we are Tuesday, chapter 21:23-25 Tuesday. These five parables that we are looking at this week and the next four weeks happen on this busy Tuesday of Holy Week. So, look again more closely at chapter 21 beginning at verse 23. There are two different confrontations that Jesus, 1) initiates, and 2) responds to with the religious leaders in Jerusalem. Beginning at verse 23, returning to the temple the chief priest and the elders come up to him and they say by what authority are you doing these things. This is actually the second conflict. What are the “these things” that they are asking about? Well the “these things” may refer to the whole manner in which He came into Jerusalem like he owned the place, which he does, like He’s the messiah, which He is, but most specifically when they ask, “How do you get off doing these things”, they’re thinking of the day before and the cleansing or the clearing of the temple, so we need to start there.

Conflict number one is Jesus cleansing the temple. Jesus, you have to realize, is aiming for a confrontation. Jesus was upset in a Godly way, you have made this a house of prayer and now you’ve made it into a den of robbers, but you should not imagine Jesus just shocked and flying off the handle in a fit of rage and turning over the temples as if his temper just got the best of him, no that’s not how Jesus operates and that’s not indicative of the deliberate nature of what he is doing. None of the Gospel accounts talk about Jesus being angry. This is not a moment of rage and fury like the many times where my kids say, “Dad, you’re rage cleaning again.” I rage clean our shoes, it’s a mild rage I’d like to think, unless you’re too, but when I take the shoes and I say, “Kids, I am picking up all the shoes”, and by that, I mean I’m putting them in a big black trash bag and I’m throwing the trash bag outside. That’s rage cleaning, that’s the shoes, I’m tired of the shoes, they’re all being tossed outside, and you can go find your shoes. Jesus is not entering into the temple and blustered and frustrated to see people exchanging money there, then flips over the tables. No, He very deliberately enters the temple in a way to start a fight. He wants to show something. What was wrong with the temple that it needed to be cleansed, that’s what it’s called, flipping over the tables, turning over the seats, cleansing the temple. This I believe gets to the heart of Jesus’ critique of the religion as they were fulfilling it. There is an Israelite religion that had become fancy, but not fruitful, fancy but not fruitful. Now why do I say that, because that’s what Jesus does when He curses the fig tree. This is very deliberate also. In fact in Mark’s Gospel it sandwiches with the cursing of the fig tree, clearing of the temple, and then Jesus explains the fig tree, one of those Marken sandwiches to say that the fig tree is the picture of what Jesus did, and we have the explanation of the fig tree later here, you can see the heading above verse 18, Jesus Curses the Fig Tree, why, because he comes to this tree and he says it’s green and leafy and looks like a very nice tree, but upon closer inspection, no figs, no fruit. That’s what the Jewish religion had become. That’s what it is without Jesus at the heart of it. Jesus says, just as that fig tree looked to be a wonderful plant, oh we’re hungry, well go to the fig tree. When you get closer you realize there’s no fruit in the same way the religion of these Jewish leaders had the temple, it had sacrifice, it had these grandiose aspirations and Jesus says it is not bearing fruit and isn’t it sadly still the case. There are many churches in our land that can look fancy and not be fruitful and I hope it’s not this church, don’t think that it is, but let’s come humbly before the Lord. Sometimes this happens with the kind of religious formalism.

Isn’t it very sad, you notice, almost any city in our country, big cities, especially old cities, if you go downtown, you’re going to see a beautiful church and 9 times out of 10 those churches are dead. They’ve been killed by liberal theology. So often they don’t have the Gospel, and they are absolutely beautiful, and they may even have great liturgical services and there may even be lots of elements of truth just in the service and the liturgy and the hymns and you might love the organ or the music that’s there. It is possible to have a religious formalism, a pipe organ, hymns, the preacher wears a robe, long titles, history, beauty and it be dead. It’s also possible if not religious formalism, a religious, what should we call it, productionism, entertainism. If those are the city churches. Isn’t it often sometimes out in the suburbs you have the biggest churches, lots of lights, screens, dimly lit auditorium, all the best video clips, the best band in town, the best fog machine in town, the best lights in town, seamless transitions as if it were Star Trek itself, beam me up and just the band’s gone and the pastor appears and the pulpit goes into the floor and comes up and there’s a trapeze and there’s all sorts, it’s a great production. You say, lot at what a big church that is, and oh I love the band there, I love the worship there, and it’s possible that those churches are just like this fig tree that Jesus cursed. Well, they’ve got big lights, big production value. You could just cut an album from the worship team right after the service and when you get closer, they don’t have real lasting spiritual fruit. That’s what Jesus is saying, that’s why He goes, and He turns over the temple to say, this worship looks very impressive. And here’s where we need the spirit to work in our lives, it’s possible that some of you look very religiously impressive and you know the right things to say, you have the right Sunday clothes, you’re already planning for the Easter outfit, Jesus is not interested in merely having beautiful green leaves, he wants figs, he wants fruit. So, Jesus is upset, yes they’re maybe swindling people, he calls it a den of robbers. He probably thought the whole stockmarket atmosphere was trivializing the importance of what was supposed to take place, but it wasn’t by itself that money was changing hands, it had been a practice for a long time there in the Court of the Gentiles, worshippers have come from a long distance, they need an animal to sacrifice, they’re not going to bring their animal on a week long journey so they have to purchase an animal. It wasn’t that a purchase was happening, but that the whole atmosphere had become instead of a house of prayer, it had become about making a buck. It had a big fancy show and there was no spiritual fruit. At the heart of this premeditated confrontation was Jesus’ belief that the temple had turned them into a people of presumption, presumption. There’s a passage in Jeremiah when God’s people were being punished. Jeremiah says, “You say to the Lord the temple, the temple”, meaning you cry out to God, you can’t punish us, we have the temple. Like saying, but we have an organ, we have a choir, we have John Calvin, we have pews, whatever it is that you might trust in rather than in God, that’s what the temple had become to them. A people of presumption, a good thing God commanded, God inhabited the temple just like our creeds and confessions and catechisms are a good thing, our hymns, our building, our behavior, our works, our religious heritage, all of it is good, but if your assurance comes from anything other than the Gospel it is a false religion. And so, it had become for so many of the Jewish people. Jesus confronts the heart of Israel’s religion because Israel’s religion needed a new heart. That’s what we have already read from Ezekiel, to take out that heart of stone and to give a heart of flesh.

The fig tree that Jesus cursed was going to wither at its roots just like He says, “this temple will be torn down stone from stone because a new temple is here” and that’s the temple of Christ’s body which is why we as the church, his body are called living stones in that temple. He is doing away with the temple so that the temple, the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, the center of God’s religion, what it means to be God’s people will no longer be centered on the place or a building, but upon a person. God hates any religion that does not have Jesus at the center. That religion may do some good things, it may make people into decent human beings. We give thanks for God’s common grace and yet any religion that does not have Jesus at the very center of it, is a false religion. That’s the first conflict, he goes in the temple. Second conflict follows on the heels of that and this where we come back to verse 23. He enters the temple, this is the next day, Tuesday, chief priest, elders say as he was teaching, “What gives? By what authority are you doing these things? You’re not a priest, you haven’t been approved by The Sanhedrin, you aren’t descended from some noble family, you’re from some nobody up in the hick town of Nazareth, who do you think you are pulling off a stunt like you did in here yesterday.” It’s a good question. By what authority are you flipping over tables, cracking a whip in the middle of Passover week in the holiest place in the holy city. It’s a good question except it’s not a genuine question. It’s an angry question and so Jesus answers their question by tying them up in knots and like so many big shots who feel like they have a lot to lose by giving the wrong answer, they give at the end of it a very calculated verse 27. So, they answer Jesus, “We do not know”, well there you go, well why don’t they know?

Because they asked Jesus by what authority are you doing this. It’s not an honest question, it’s a finger in your chest, who do you think you are? And so, Jesus turns the tables, figuratively, he had done it literally, and says, well I’ve got a question for you. John’s baptism, his whole ministry, John the Baptiste, where did that come from, what was his authority? And if you know the story and it details it here, they huddle up and okay, time out, just one second Jesus and they huddle up and say, okay, well, ah, if we say it wasn’t from heaven, ew, that’s gonna be really unpopular because a lot of people like John. He was pretty popular; in fact he is a martyr so we don’t wanna say that. All the regular people here are going to be after us with pitchforks so, but, uh, if we say it was from heaven, well we kinda know that’s what Jesus wants us to say so that’s gonna look bad because we didn’t follow John so we don’t wanna be on the wrong side of the people, but we don’t really want to acknowledge John so they come back and say, we have thought it over, eheh, pass. And Jesus says, alright, if you don’t answer my question I don’t answer your question. But Jesus in a way did answer their question. His question was not just a counter trap, but His question is the answer because what Jesus is suggesting by his question, and then he makes clear here in this parable, we’re coming to it, I promise, is that His authority is tied up with John’s authority. What Jesus is communicating to them is that if you make up your mind about John, then you can figure out by what authority I do these things. That’s why he asked them the question. You ask me what gives me the right to flip over tables in the temple, while I ask you what do you think about John, because if John came from heaven and John was the one to prepare the way of the Lord, that is Jesus, then they have to acknowledge that Jesus is the messiah who has come and if he is the messiah, the son of David, then he has a right to do whatever he wants because he is the king of the place. If John had a legitimate baptism by water and John said, “One comes after me whose sandal I’m not fit to tie” he’s gonna baptise you with the spirit. If John was great then Jesus is greater. If John was mighty then Jesus is mightier. If John had a ministry from heaven, then Jesus just might be the son of God come from heaven. That’s why they refused to answer the question.

Now this parable, the parable of the two sons, is a continuation of this controversy. The controversy that started on Monday when He deliberately picked a fight with the religious leaders by clearing out the temple, and then on Tuesday, when He is teaching in the temple and they ask Him by what authority because they’re upset with Him and they don’t answer His question, He then tells this parable. We don’t know if it’s just immediately after it or some time in the course of his teaching that day, but here on this day He gives this parable. The religious elite are like that second son. That second son that said, “I will go sir”, I like how the ESV translates it to sir, it is the sort of snap to attention, yes, salute, father I love you, yes, I’m going, I’m gonna do it, and then they don’t do it. It reminds me when my younger sisters were smarter than I was about the food that they didn’t like. Now no one dislikes more kinds of food than I do so that was part of the problem and I’m sorry, this will be very disappointing to you, but I don’t think I’ve ever been to any of your houses, and you’ve fed me this so I’ll say it, but I do not like meatloaf at all. I do not understand it, anything about it, I just, meat good, loaf good, meatloaf not good. And we would have meatloaf, did not like meatloaf, and I was a foolish son and would make widely known the things I didn’t like, complainer, my wife doesn’t see any of this, and just complain and then once your parents know that you don’t like the thing then they are zeroed in, zeroed in on, you’ve gotta eat, you’ve gotta sit here until you finish this. We didn’t have cats or dogs or anyone else to eat the food on the table. Well my sister after me was smarter, oh meatloaf, yummy, so hungry, it’ll be so good and you just get in the parental mind, this child likes this good and loads it up and what I can see all she’s doing it cutting it up and pushing it around to different parts, not eating any of it, but made a big deal about me and meatloaf are tight, I love meatloaf, not the band, the food. I love meatloaf and so the parents just, well it’s there, said yes, big meatloaf fan, didn’t eat anymore of it. Now to make the parable really true, I’d have to come around and change my mind and say, “yes I do love meatloaf” so it didn’t really happen that way, but the point is you learn as a child sometimes, even if you don’t mean to do what your parents ask you to do, you just have a cheerful affable spirit about and say, absolutely, yeah, going up right now to clean my room. A smile, and an hour later you’re gone at a friend’s house, you didn’t do a thing, but you got away with it.

Jesus says which one of these sons did the will of God and the chief priest and the elders can see it, well obviously it’s not the one who smiled and said, “I will do it” and then does nothing, it’s the one who actually ate the food, actually cleaned the room, and Jesus got ’em. This is kind of like the parable that Nathan the Prophet tells to David after his sin with Bathsheba about the rich man who steals the one lamb and David says, “How dare he” and then Nathan says, “You are the man” and scales fall from his eyes. Jesus says, “You’ve answered correctly chief priest, elders, you’re right, it’s the son who actually went and worked in the vineyard who did his father’s will and congratulations the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom ahead of you.” It’s possible that some of you are like this son, you cause no scandal in your life, you have all the outward motions of religiosity, you don’t complain about going to church, you’ve not been a complainer. You may be the sort of young man or woman that other moms and dads would love to have their son or daughter marry. The picture Jesus gives here of this son who seems obedient, just like the fig tree that looked very leafy and green, beautiful people compared with tax collectors, prostitutes, you know, you’ve heard this before, you understand these are categories of, in their minds, obviously dirty despicable people and Matthew often does this, one more corresponds with man and one more corresponds with women. Men would have been the tax collectors, women would have been the prostitutes so I’m giving you the worst a man can get and the worst a woman can get, that’s what tax collector because tax collectors were cheats and swindlers and in cahoots with the Romans and prostitutes sold themselves sexually for money. Mention these two because they were in their minds obviously sinful, dirty, despised people. Now depending upon your own political affiliation, your own network of people, I don’t know what you might put in these two categories, there’s some people in this country if Jesus were telling this story, he would say gun owners and MAGA deplorables. Or others Jesus would say, coastal elites and woke progressives are entering the kingdom ahead of you. What sort of people, if you’re honest, would you think no good Christian should really be anywhere near, antisemites, Jihadists, racists.

Now listen very carefully, lest you think well are you saying that Jesus’ message here is just whatever sort of outsider you are, you get into the kingdom. No, the key that’s hanging here on the door is repentance. Now why do I say that because the word repentance is not given here in our English translation. I say that because the point Jesus is making, notice what he says, is about how you view John. That was the question he asked them in the previous paragraph, tell me about John’s ministry. Well Jesus answers his own question, he says in verse 32, “John came to you in the way of righteousness”, so clearly, he’s telling them here’s the right answer. John’s ministry was from heaven. He came in the way of God. It was a righteous ministry and here’s the problem. You did not believe Him, but tax collectors and prostitutes believed him. So don’t misunderstand what your pastor is saying or what Jesus is saying. This is not a bland message of generic inclusion as if Jesus is just saying, whatever sort of person you don’t like, well they’re in the kingdom. What he is saying explicitly is that these dirty tax collectors and prostitutes believed John and John came in the way of righteousness and do you remember what John’s message was about? The very first thing we read in Matthew’s Gospel, Matthew chapter 3, about John, “In those days John the Baptiste came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” That’s why Jesus says the tax collectors and the prostitutes are getting into the kingdom ahead of you, because they believe John and what was John’s message, well it was about the coming Messiah, and it was first of all about the need to rid yourself of all your spiritual filth in order to be ready to receive that messiah. It was a message of repentance. He came baptizing as a sign of repentance, washing away of that dirt, so the tax collectors, the prostitutes, these dirty sinners are like that first son who at first was living a life and the father says, go, and the tax collectors and the prostitutes fold their arms and say, no way, get lost dad, I’m gonna do what I want, I’m gonna live my life. What the first son said to the father should be shocking to you. We’re perhaps not used to it, our children may not be so instinctively respectful every moment of the day, but it was an unheard of thing for the Jews and especially in the first century that a son would say to his father in verse 29, “I will not.” Now that’s rude in any culture at any time and it was especially offensive and shocking for them, for your father who in the first century has almost total authority over you as a child, father says son head out into the vineyard, go get some grapes, get to work, and he says, “No, I will not work in the vineyard father.” That’s the tax collector; that’s the prostitute going their own way. You see, this parable of the two sons is like the other parable of the two sons, they’re like the prodigal who go out and squander. What does he squander his living on, prostitutes, until he finally comes to his senses.

Do you see the same language in verse 29. “I will not”, but afterward he changed his mind. He’s otherwise saying he repented. That first son was living for himself, didn’t want to listen to the father, but he changed his mind and the chief priest, and the elders recognize obviously that’s what counts, that’s the son that actually went and worked. There the other son, the one who shines up real nicely, knows how to do all the religious thing, maybe some of you knows how to go to church, get the right answer in Sunday school, been to all the Christian schools and said I absolutely will, I love you Jesus, and doesn’t do a thing to follow him. These leaders were self-righteous moralists. It was not only that they didn’t go into the vineyard and work, now work here, don’t think so much good deeds as working in the vineyard is emblematic of following God’s will and what is the will of God as laid out by John the Baptiste it was to repent and believe. They were the fig tree that had no fruits, but as much as they looked at themselves in the mirror they thought, huh, that’s a pretty good religious-looking fig tree. Jesus says look closer, there’s no fruit, look closer at this temple religion, I’m not happy with it. You need to consider that as well as you think you know yourself, Jesus knows you better. You do not know you as well as Jesus knows you, and these priests and elders thought they knew themselves and Jesus says, no you don’t, in fact if you have the eyes to see, I’m pulling off the mask, you’re like the son who said he would go and then he didn’t. Repent. That’s the one thing they couldn’t do, that’s the one thing that so many people today, though they love Christianity, they love Christian influence, they love western civilization. Look, we live in a complex cultural moment right now. There’s a vibe shift. A lot of it seems good. In the last five years or so you see more and more men and women who will publically call out crazy things, having men in women’s locker rooms, people will call that out, good. We see more and more people speak positively about Christianity, about the effects of Christian religion. We may see conservative politicians and pundits who want to defend the rights of Christians and all of that is to the good, but listen, being anti-woke or pro religion is not the same thing as entering the kingdom, it’s not, you have to bow the knee before Jesus. You like Jordan Peterson, you like Ben Shapiro, you like Elon Musk, pray that God gives them a heart of repentance to say I need a savior, I’m a sinner and only Jesus can save me. Pray for our president if he has not yet come to that experience with Jesus. It’s not enough to have outward manifestations of religiosity, you have to be willing to do what is the hardest thing in the fallen human heart to get on your knees, to bow your head, to change your mind and say, John the Baptist was right and I am a sinner in need of repentance and Jesus is the long awaited savior of the world.

Do you see how this ends? I think it ends with intentional ambiguity. Jesus says, “The tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom before you, ahead of you.” Now they are coming, and I think it leaves open the question, they’re there because they see, they understand that the only way they’re getting to God as dirty sinners is with faith and repentance. They’re getting into the kingdom and Jesus says, the ending for you religious elite, chief priests, scribes, put together religious people, the ending for you is open ended, there’s still a chance for you just like the end of the prodigal son, what will the older brother do, will he come to his senses, what will this prodigal do, the one who said I will not go into the vineyard came to his senses, changed his mind and went into the vineyard. What will happen to the one who said I will do it, and hasn’t done anything? This one who seemed to be doing everything right, but in the end his religion was all empty talk. The harlots and the tax collectors, Jesus says, have found their way by faith and repentance and there is still hope for you. It is not too late for any of you to change your mind, to get in line, to bow the knee and to follow the tax collectors and the prostitutes into the kingdom. Let’s pray.

Father in heaven we ask for your grace that your spirit may work so in our hearts to give us real faith, faith in keeping with the fruits of repentance. Oh Lord, would you turn our eyes to Jesus, all for Jesus, he is our only hope and let us find in Him the salvation of our souls. In His name we pray. Amen.