Introduction

1. Have you been scolded before … by God?
   
   
2. Matthew 21:28-22:14 contains three parables – He’s using them as “scolding stories”.
   
   
3. Who was being rebuked? The chief priests and the Pharisees.
   
   
4. Why were they being rebuked? Tragically, the leaders of God’s people were coming in last (Matt 21:31).
   
   
5. Perhaps in some ways we are not too different from them. We are offended by God’s rebuke. But there is a better way: responding well to God’s redemptive rebuke results in renovation of the heart.
   
   

There are two redemptive rebukes that emerge from the parables:

A. WILL WE IGNORE THE KING’S INVITATION? (22:1-14)

1. Shocking refusal to accept the King’s invitation (22:3)
   
   
2. Not just passive rejection, but active rebellion (22:5-6)
   
   
3. How are we responding to the King’s invitation to us? We respond more readily when we realise how merciful and magnanimous the invitation is (22:9-10). It’s grace!
   
   
4.  It’s grace given freely, but not grace that can be taken lightly (22:11-14)

   
   
   

B. WILL WE LET THE KINGDOM PASS US BY?  (21:33-45)

1. The landowner would have been looking forward to his return on investment — and rightfully so (21:33-34).
   
   
2. Not only did the tenants fail to pay up, they beat up the landowner’s servants (21:35-36) — the beloved Son was murdered (21:37-39).
   
   
3. The chief priests and Pharisees, the tenants in the story — pronounced the punishment on themselves (21:40-41).
   
   
4. Their hearts were hardened past the point of no return:
   a. “… one of the consequences of choosing what one wants without regard to God’s will is enslavement to one’s own self-conflicted will. On the path of self-will people eventually come to the place where they cannot choose what God wants and cannot want God. They can only want — themselves.” (Dallas Willard,Renovation of the Heart)
   
   
5. Jesus’s logical judgement pronounced on them  the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to people producing its fruit. (21:43)
   
   
6. When we reject the King, the Kingdom will pass us by also
   
   
   

Conclusion
Will you allow God to renovate your life so that Christ is your Cornerstone? (21:42)

Sunday Worship Songs at cefc.ch/sws
Next Week’s Topic: Disciple the Nations (1)
Next Week’s Speaker(s): Rev Tony Yeo (BPJ, WDL & East)