Alright brethren, I do thank
you for your prayers. I appreciate it. When you men
pray, I really do appreciate it. The Lord is so good and kind
to us. Alright, Mark 12. Mark 12 will
be our text. We'll be looking at verses 1
through 12. And this here is a parable that
the Lord gives in the presence of the Pharisees, and we can
call it a historical parable. And what that means is that it
spans the whole history of Israel from the time of their exodus
when they came out of Egypt all the way until the time when the
Lord would destroy Jerusalem in 70 AD. That's the time that it spans.
And so, the prophet Isaiah, he gave a good overview of Israel,
both in his day, but it was also true of Israel in the Lord's
day, when the Lord was there in the flesh. Isaiah 5, verse
7, he says, for the vineyard. The vineyard of the LORD of hosts
is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant. And he looked for judgment, but
behold, oppression, for righteousness, but behold, a cry. It serves as a warning, and it
serves them as a warning, and it serves us as a warning in
our day, lest, like these Pharisees, we should deceive ourselves and
think ourselves to be something when we're not. And what I want
to do is speak to you today regarding the Lord's instruction in this
parable, but we're to hear it as it's coming to the local church. the local assembly towards those
that profess Jesus Christ as Lord. All right, our title is
The Lord Plants a Vineyard. The Lord Plants a Vineyard. And
our first point will just be a very brief overview, just a
few remarks, and then we'll get to the second point, which will
be the meat of our study, which I've called A Word to the Local
Church. A Word to the Local Church. All
right, now, if you've ever wondered, just by way of overview, if you've
ever wondered how it was that Israel, which had the law, and
the prophets, the oracles of God, they had such blessings
poured out upon them. If you've ever wondered how it
is that they could be turned to such idolatry. And that they,
when Christ came, could reject the Christ of God and crucify
Him on a cross. The best way to enter into that,
to see and behold what happened there, that we can do, is look
to our own heart. Look to our own heart, because
we see in our heart all the makings of that which is evil and idolatrous
and falls far short of the glory of God. So, when we're honest
with these things, when we're honest with these things, we
see that we're the guilty sinners, that we're the ones who are guilty
and that we're the problem. And then, you know, understanding
what we are by nature, we look to We can look to any nation,
including our own nation, and we understand what's going on.
We understand why we do the things we do, because our heart is evil
and wicked. Now, leading up to Judah's captivity
by Babylon, we read in 2 Chronicles 36, it says this, in verses 15 and 16, and the
Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising
up betimes and sending, because he had compassion on his people
and on his dwelling place. But they mocked the messengers
of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until
the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no
remedy." And we'll see that's really a summary of what this
parable is, that the Lord sends his messengers, and they reject
them. They dismiss the messengers of
God, and it's till there's no remedy for the people. What happens
with the people, with the nation, is their moral decline, it never
just happens out of thin air. They don't just suddenly become
morally decadent in all things. I mean, it's in our heart, but
it begins with a spiritual decline. It begins with them going into
idolatry, and we'll likely see that more in our study of Romans
next. next week as we move on in chapter
one, but it begins there with that idolatry. And you find today,
you can see where the root of it is because in the preaching
that is just broadcast through so many so-called churches today,
is people preaching up man, and they're preaching to men as though
men and women have the ability to save themselves. And it's
not wrong to speak of the law and to show the righteousness
of God in the law, But what they're doing is they're showing the
law as though it's something that man can do. And it's something
that man can keep. And that if he just tries a little
harder, uses a little more elbow grease, that he can do that law
and sanctify himself. And to set himself up and position
himself to be more favored with God by his law keeping. And not even just law keeping,
but even him you know, the will works where they speak to sinners
as though salvation is something that they must and can do. And
they leave it with them. And when I say it's not bad to
show the righteousness of the law, what I mean by that is you
can speak of the law, but it's to show men that we can't save
ourselves, that we fall far short of the law and so that our mouths
are shut before the law and we don't come away thinking that
we're able to do something to save ourselves. What with Israel in mind, Paul
says to the local church there at Rome, to the local church
of Rome, he said, well, because of unbelief, Israel, the Israelites,
they were broken off. Their branch was broken off out
of Christ and his inheritance. And he says to that local church
of Rome, thou standest by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear. For if God spared not the natural
branches, take heed, lest he also spare not thee. Alright, so now I want to come
to that parable. With that in mind, I want to
come to the parable that the Lord gives. And we can learn
seven things from this parable. And this is a word now spoken
to the local church. To us as a local church, we're
to hear it, right? There's truths. to the church
universal, but it's very easy to dismiss things. It's too broad
when you say, well, this just applies to the church, but we
do good, we do better for ourselves to hear it as though the Lord's
speaking to us, that we hear it that way, that we might seek
the Lord in it. We'll seek him to hear his word. All right, now, the first thing
that we learn is that God's church, his church in this world, is
his vineyard. It's his vineyard. Let's look
at verse 1. Mark 12, verse 1. And Christ
began to speak unto them by parables. And he said, A certain man planted
a vineyard, and set an hedge about it, and digged a place
for the wine-fat, and built a tower, and led it out to husbandmen,
and went into a far country. All right, now God the Father,
He's that certain man who planted a vineyard. And the church, the
church is His vineyard. And we're to hear this parable,
it serves us more if we hear it as the local church, as though
the Lord is speaking to us right now. Because He is, He's speaking
to us right now. His vineyard, that is those men
and women, us here, that profess faith in Christ and believe Him
and trust Him for His righteousness. Not looking to ourselves, but
to Him for our righteousness. Now we're to understand, we are
to understand that every true gospel church is a vineyard of
God's planting. He's the one that plants his
church, and we're to regard it as such, and therefore, when
we're here, when we're serving and ministering to one another
here, we're not to be high-minded, but to remember, wait a minute,
this isn't my church, it's the Lord's church. And you see that
in certain churches, or places where maybe they don't have a
pastor, and they've gotten used to not having a church, and sometimes
there's somebody there, or a few older people that They don't
want to take control, and they don't like the idea of bringing
in a pastor, because then they're going to lose their authority
and their things to have with them. And so we don't want to
be in that way. And if you think about it, it's
just as a nation begins in idolatry, and then they spiral into moral
decay and decadence. So it is here with us. That all
begins at the individual level. We don't want to think of ourselves
more highly so that we become idols that we worship ourselves,
you know, thinking of ourselves more highly than we should. So
the local church vineyard, it belongs to the Lord. He's the
one who chose out a place. I mean, you think about that,
that's amazing that he chose out this place here in Nixa,
Missouri. That's pretty amazing. He chooses
out a place. He plants it, and he hedges it
about so that this place where you now are gathered together
with God's elect, you're here to worship the Lord Jesus Christ,
you hear of His grace and His mercy and His salvation, the
Gospels preached to you, and He reveals it to you by His Spirit. That's all His work, what He
does in His vineyard. And seeing that, the blessing
of that is to realize, wow, there's no greater blessing that we have
in this life than to be planted in God's church and in His vineyard. And that's hard to hear in the
flesh, right, because in the flesh there's certain things
that we love and attach ourselves to very much, but to realize
If he's done this work, if this is his church, that's a blessing
because it's not everywhere that the Lord plants his vineyard
and gathers his people into that vineyard. It doesn't happen everywhere
all the time for all people. So that's the first thing. The
vineyard is the Lord's planting. His church is His vineyard. Alright, second now. The Lord
has led out His vineyard to us here as husbandmen. He's led
out His vineyard to husbandmen. Now I know that it speaks primarily
to me in a lot of ways, but we do well to realize we're the
husbandmen here. God has given us this great blessing
of his gospel here to us as husbandmen. Look at verse 1 again. I'll read
the beginning of verse 1 and then the very end. A certain
man planted a vineyard and led it out to husbandmen and went
into a far country. So this is a great privilege
and honor to us as husbandmen. So what he's saying there is
that the Lord entrusted that church that he's planted, that
vineyard, he's entrusted to us, into our hands, the gospel treasure,
the treasure of his gospel. We want to preach his gospel. We don't want to be another false
church, another fake, you know, lying synagogue of Satan, right? We don't want to be just like
all the other vain dead churches out there. It's his church, we
have his gospel, so that in this age, in this age, here we are,
as Paul said to Timothy, the church of the living God, the
pillar and ground of the truth, And we're to hold forth the light
of His gospel in this dark corner of the world. That's what we're
charged to do, to preach this gospel of Jesus Christ. Not man's
works, but what Christ has accomplished successfully for you his people."
That is the mystery of godliness. That God was manifest in the
flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto
the Gentiles, believed on in the world, and received up into
glory. We're to preach this gospel and
be jealous for this gospel. Third, at his appointed time,
the Lord God he rightly looks for and he expects fruit from
the husbandmen of his vineyard. Look at Mark 12 verse 2. He's looking for fruit, and it's
right for him, it's just for him, as the one who planted it,
to look for fruit. It says, verse 2, "...and at
the season he sent to the husbandmen a servant that he might receive
from the husbandmen of the fruit of the vineyard." Alright, now,
what is this fruit that the Lord looks for? What does He expect?
Well, it's not grievous, it's not burdensome, it's simply this,
what he says in verse 6, reverence my son. That's the fruit he's
looking for from us, to reverence his son, to believe the one whom
he sent, Jesus Christ, who came to put away the sin of his people.
to save us, to redeem us. That's where to reverence His
Son, to worship Christ, to bow down to Him, to trust Him, to
believe Him that He's in this work, that He's done this work,
and that He's given us this Gospel. We're to trust Him and believe
Him that He's teaching us and settling us and growing us in
the faith which he gives to his saints, that grace and mercy
which he reveals to us in Christ our Lord. So Christ is the Savior. He's the one who saves his people.
We saw this, well we say it every time that we preach, but We're
the sinners. We're the ones who cannot save
ourselves. We're the ones who are guilty
and condemned under the law of God, so that we can't work a
righteousness by the things that we do. But that's exactly, precisely
why God sent His own darling Son to the world, to take upon
Him the likeness of this sinful flesh, and to do for us what
we cannot do for ourselves, so that Christ fulfilled all righteousness,
and He takes us up in His own arms and He carries us forth
before the Father, puts us in Himself and bears that wrath. He pays for the sins of His people
to put them away in His death to justify us in the shedding
of His blood to make us the very righteousness of God in Him. And He's pleased to reveal that
to us, to make it known through the Gospel, and to bring it to
our hearts and our minds and our understanding by the power
of His Holy Spirit in regenerating us, giving us life where all
there was beforehand, just death. So He makes it known and He gives
us a willing heart. and a willing spirit and a willing
mind to hear what he says and to say, Lord, help me to hear
this. Help me to receive this word and to walk in faith and
to walk obediently before you, Lord, to deliver me from this
flesh and the works of the flesh. It says, faithful stewards, therefore,
our focus and our attention is to make sure that the focus and
the attention is on Jesus Christ and his glorious gospel. We're
not trying to let our flesh get in the way and our works be what's
celebrated and glorified, but that Christ and his work and
his accomplished work and his gospel and he himself is what's
celebrated and glorified among us. We were at a wedding last
week and you had a wedding coordinator, right? A wedding coordinator.
Now what they're supposed to do is do things in such a way
so that it goes smoothly. and that things are done in order
and without distraction, right? You don't want these things to
be a distraction. So that's how we're to be. We're stewards of this gospel
and we don't want to be a distraction. We want things to be done in
an orderly way and for people to be able to focus on what they're
hearing, on the Lord Jesus Christ, and not be distracted by the
things of the flesh and drama or things of that sort. So it's in that manner that we
conduct ourselves because we want the Lord to be glorified.
We want our brethren to just be able to hear and not be afraid
and worried about gathering here together, just to be at peace
and glorify Christ our Savior. And Paul said it this way to
the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 4.1. He said, let a man so count
of us as of the ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries
of God. That's how we, brethren, as husbandmen,
are to be seen and understood, that we're stewards of the mysteries
of God. Right? As stewards. Therefore,
a steward is to be found faithful, right? He wants to be found faithful
in executing that which he or she has been put in charge of,
to be a good steward. Alright, like you're a teacher
and you that have students, you want to be a good steward with
your time and for those students so that they hear and learn what
they're supposed to hear and learn. Alright, now turn over
to 2 Corinthians 4. 2 Corinthians 4 and go to verse
1. Look at the first seven verses
together. 2 Corinthians 4, 1. Now think of this again. We're
stored to the mysteries of God. And Paul says it this way, in
verse 1 there, Therefore, seeing we have this ministry, this ministry
of the mysteries of God, as we have received mercy, we faint
not, but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking
in craftiness, not handling the word of God deceitfully, but
by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every
man's conscience in the sight of God." That doesn't mean that
we're not sinners, that we're not in the flesh, that we don't
need to seek forgiveness with God. We do. We do sin against
one another and hurt one another. overtly or inadvertently. It
happens, but we don't want, we're not trying to harm one another
in that way, but when it comes to the preaching, we want to
be honest and open and forthright in preaching, right? And so this
is how we're to conduct ourselves so as to make Christ preeminent. But, he says, if our gospel be
hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this
world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest
the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of
God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves. We're not conducting ourselves
so as to receive the spotlight and be the one who gets all the
glory. We're not preaching ourselves and we're not preaching up man
and speaking of man's works and what he needs to be doing more
of and better. We're preaching Christ and how
He ministers through the hearing of faith, He ministers that willing
heart to your hearts. He gives that word of faith to
you and brings it to you so that there's a desire and a willingness
to hear Christ preached and just rejoice and be glad in Him. We preach not ourselves but Christ
Jesus the Lord and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. And then Paul turns the attention
to the gospel treasure now in verse 6. For God who commanded
the light to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in
earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and
not of us. So as being faithful stewards
of the mysteries of God, In preaching Christ, we want Christ to be
preached here, and for His gospel word to go forth, and us not
to be distractions, and Him to get all the glory, and the focus,
and the attention. It'll be evident, therefore,
that God is among us, that this is His vineyard, His planting,
His work, ministering to His people. Alright, now, fourth. Fourth, the way that men and
women treat God's faithful servants is how they deal with and treat
the Son of God. It's a picture. How they treat
the servants of God is how they think of Christ. I'll show you
that. Let's read together Mark 12,
verses 2 through 8. Mark 12, 2 through 8. And at the season he sent to
the husbandmen a servant that he might receive from the husbandmen
of the fruit of the vineyard. And they caught him and beat
him and sent him away empty. And again he sent unto them another
servant, and at him they cast stones, and wounded him in the
head and sent him away shamefully handled. And again he sent another,
and him they killed, and many others, beating some and killing
some. Having yet therefore one son, his well-beloved, he sent
him also last unto them, saying, They will reverence my son. But those husbandmen said among
themselves, This is the heir, come, let us kill him, and the
inheritance shall be ours. And they took him, and killed
him, and cast him out of the vineyard. So they treated the
son, as you can see by looking at that, they treated the son
the exact way they treated all the other servants who came before
him. They handled him wrongly. They abused him and killed him. They didn't hear what he had
to say. It was the same way. And this,
for us today, it has to do with how we hear the word. How we
hear the word. Do we receive the word that we're
hearing? Do we believe the word? Do we obey the word? Or do we
just receive it in the flesh where we just say, you know what?
I'm not going to hear that. I don't believe that. You show
me right here in the Word of God what it's saying, but I don't
like that. And we start to cherry pick things
that we want to hear and believe and we're comfortable with, but
those things that make us uncomfortable, those are the things that we
reject. And that's treating the Word of God with contempt and
saying, I'm not going to hear that. I don't believe that. And so we make excuses about
it, we justify ourselves and find reasons to not believe the
Word of God. And all we need to do, you know,
to know how we treat Christ, how we receive Christ, whether
we believe Him, is when you hear the Word, Do you stiffen up and
say, I won't hear that. Forget that. I'm not going to
hear that word. Or do we receive it willingly
and say, Lord, help me to hear it. In Romans 8, Paul speaks
about those who have the Spirit of Christ, and they cry, Abba,
Father. And that shows me, that tells
me that in the flesh it's not always, we're not always able
to hear things. I mean some things we just don't
hear. I was a hearer too. I sat under a pastor for many
years and I didn't, there's certain things I just didn't hear. But
there's other things that I heard that I wasn't comfortable with
or I didn't want to hear. And the spirit moves his people
not to just dismiss it out of hand and say, I don't believe
that. But, Lord, help me. We cry, Lord, help me to hear
that. I'm not sure about that. Help
me to hear that. And if that's of you, Lord, help
me to walk in faith and to believe and to receive what you're saying.
And so, because we're walking by the Spirit in faith, trusting
Him, And when we see that we stiffen up or don't want to hear
it, we cry out, Abba, Father, have mercy on me. Help me, Lord,
to hear what you're saying and to receive it. But there's others
that don't have the spirit and they just hear and say, I'm not
going to hear that. And they just reject it. And
they say, nope, I'm not going to do that. Of all things, I
won't do that. But the problem is that that's
what Israel did. They saw Christ, they heard Christ,
and they said, we're not going to have that man reign over us.
He's not going to tell us what to do. This is our place, our
vineyard now. We're going to do with it what
we want. And the Lord told Samuel on one
occasion, he said, they have not rejected thee. but they have
rejected me, that I should not reign over them." Right? So that's
why we see that comparison of how they treat the man of God
is how they treat Christ and what they think of Him. And so,
such is the case with man. We either reverence Christ, we
hear Him and say, I want to hear Him, even when it's hard. I'm
not saying that some things aren't hard, but we want to hear Him
and we want to be a faithful and hear Him, or we just don't
esteem Him. We esteem Him not. We just reject
Him and don't hear Him. In Isaiah 53, it's true of us
all until the Spirit gives us that willing heart to hear Him,
which says, He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows
and acquainted with grief, and we hid, as it were, our faces
from Him. He was despised and we esteemed
Him not. And if you don't think that that's
possible today, all you have to do is just look at the Scribes
and Pharisees, because they heard them and they rejected them.
And they crucified them. They killed them. So we know
what we're capable of as men and women. We're capable of rejecting
Christ and refusing him and killing him, if we could. All right,
now fifth, the reason why is because men and women are very
comfortable with religion, whether they hate some religion or not,
but they're very comfortable with doing certain things and
going through the motions, all the while they hate God, hate
his Christ, hate his gospel, and refuse to hear it. And if they could, they would
cast Christ off his throne, they'd seize the kingdom for themselves,
and they'd kill him if they could. And that's what we see in the
scriptures. Let's look at verse 7, and then
we'll go right into verse 12. So let's read Mark 12, 7, and
then 12. But those husbandmen said among
themselves, this is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the
inheritance shall be ours. 12 And they sought to lay hold
on Christ, but feared the people, for they knew that he had spoken
the parable against them, and they left him and went their
way. This is revealed of what's in
the heart of the Pharisees and the scribes, the religious people.
It's revealed throughout the scriptures. It says in John 11,
48, it says, this is when they're all talking amongst themselves
in their little council, and they said, If we let him thus
alone, this Christ, all men will believe on him, and the Romans
shall come and take away both our place and nation. They thought
it was their planting, not the Lord's vineyard, it was their
planting to do and drive things the way they thought things should
be driven and done. And this heart was in Diotrephes,
in 3 John verse 9, it says, But Diotrephes, who loveth to have
the preeminence among them, receiveth thus not. And then again, we
see it in Psalm 2, verses 1 through 3, where the Lord asks, Why did
the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings
of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together
against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, Let us
break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us. Now, we know, brethren, that's
not the heart that we want to have. We're not to have that
heart. And I'm not saying that you, brethren, have that heart. You, brethren, are very kind
to me and generous in many ways and willing to hear. And that's
the heart that we're to have. It says in Isaiah 66, too, But
to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a
contrite heart, or of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word."
And that's what the Lord, he ministers that word to your heart. He gives you that willing heart
and that soft heart to see, Lord, not my will be done, but thy
will be done. And he makes us willing and obedient
to hear. And when it's hard for us to
hear, he gives us his spirit to cry out to him for mercy and
to help us, to soften our hard hearts and to make us willing
to to hear him. All right now sixth thing that
we see here is that to despise this great privilege and the
opportunity that God has given us in this the opportunity to
preach and to hold forth this word of glory of Christ, of what
he's accomplished, that to despise that sometimes results in God
removing the light from that, in removing the light from them,
in removing that blessing from those people and bring those
despisers to ruin. He may not remove the candlestick
from the location, but he may bring those despisers and those
that won't hear and refuse him to ruin. Look at verses 9 and
10. Mark 12, 9 and 10. What shall
therefore the Lord of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy
the husbandmen and will give the vineyard unto others. And
have ye not read this scripture, the stone which the builders
rejected is become the head of the corner? And we know that
the Lord did this because he brought Jerusalem. to utter desolation. He destroyed them. And that political
nation over there, it's a godless nation. It's not a godly nation.
They don't have the gospel there, and they don't believe God, and
they're just a political nation. And the same can happen within
local churches. It can happen in those areas.
And the Lord will do that, right? He'll bring that gospel through,
save His people of that tribe and tongue and nation, and bring
them to see that they're nothing. So the Lord is able to do that. And he told the Ephesian church,
he said in Revelation 2.5, he said, remember therefore from
whence thou art fallen and repent and do the first works or else
I will come unto thee quickly and will remove thy candlestick
out of his place except thou repent. to our knowledge, that
church is no longer there. I guess that was in Turkey where
Ephesus was, and that church is no longer there, at least
not in that particular one. If it's there, I don't know where
it is, but it's not there at that original church there because
they forsook the truth of God. And so the preaching of Christ
is made to us, to who here, it's either made to us a saver of
life, or it's made unto us a saver of death, and we despise it and
hate it, or we hear it, it's life, and we hear it and receive
what's being said. Turn over to 2 Corinthians 2.
2 Corinthians 2, verse 14, and we'll see this. Paul says, now thanks be unto
God, this verse 14, Now thanks be unto God which always causeth
us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savor of
his knowledge by us in every place. For we are unto God a
sweet savor of Christ, thanks to Christ we are, in them that
are saved and in them that perish. To the one we are the savor of
death unto death, and to the other the savor of life unto
life, and who is sufficient for these things. Alright, so the
Lord sweetly brings that gospel word to us and either gives us
an ear to hear it and it's a saver of life unto life or we're just
kept in that darkness with no light and understanding and it's
just a saver of death unto death. Alright? Now, seventh, the glorious
news, or the good news for us, brethren, is that God's purpose
is never hindered. His purpose is never hindered.
God is able to establish His church and to bring it home to
our hearts. Look at Mark 12, verses 10 and
11. Our Lord asks those wicked Jews,
He says there in verse 10, have ye not read this scripture? The
stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner.
This was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes."
Now, there are sometimes enemies of the church. They think to
make trouble, they want to make life miserable for other people,
and they want to make trouble among the Church of God. But
know that God is able to deal with them. God is able, if it's
His people that are walking in sin, He's able to deliver them
and to turn their hearts and to give them faith and His Spirit
and His peace and comfort and turn their heart to hear Him
and obey Him. And if they're not His people,
He's able to deal with them and to cut them out. Look at Romans,
well, Romans 3, 3, I'll read it. Are the unbelievers able to destroy
God's work and bring his work to nothing in their hatred of
it? And the history of the church has many that tried to destroy
the preaching of the gospel in their location, but God is able
to overcome it. God who loves his people and
is determined to bring his gospel to his people and causes them
to hear it, to believe it, to be settled in what Christ has
done for them. And in doing that, that's what
Paul is saying when he said in Romans 11, 26, And he said, and
so all Israel shall be saved. As it is written, there shall
come out of Zion the deliverer and shall turn away ungodliness
from Jacob. So the peace, the comfort for
us is that the Lord knows our frame. He knows our weaknesses. He knows the things that we struggle
with and the things that we have need of hearing over. and over
and over again to ensure that we hear it, that we're turned
from self and that we're turned to Him. And He's able to do that. That's the peace that we have
because we know what we are by nature. We know how we can't
do that for ourselves, but He is able and we can trust Him
and look to Him and beg Him for that to help us to serve Him,
to help us to be faithful stewards with the ministry of this Word,
with the mysteries of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so
we seek Him for that. He's able, even when we've sinned,
He's able to sweetly bring that word, to minister it to our hearts,
and to give us a willing heart to do it. He's able to work that
repentance in us, turn our hearts, and make us willing to serve
Him and to bow down before Him as Lord, as He's our Lord and
our Savior. We want to hear Him. And for
the final place in Scripture for this, to drive this point
home, turn over to Psalm 80. This will be the last place we
turn. Psalm 80 and go to verse 14. We'll go down, we'll read together
to verse 19, but let's begin in Psalm 80 verse 14. And here
we can see how the Lord ministers that peace in the hearts of his
people. And here it is, they have repentance
worked in their heart. It says, return, this is the
people crying out, return, we beseech thee, O God of hosts,
look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine. This vine, Lord, attend, bring
your presence here to this vine, Lord, and the vineyard which
thy right hand hath planted, and the branch that thou made
as strong for thyself. it's burned with fire, it is
cut down, they perish at the rebuke of thy countenance. Let
thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the son of man
whom thou made as strong for thyself, and that The verse there
is so evidently, so sweetly evident that it's Christ. Lord, look
to your son, that one whom you laid your hand of justice and
righteousness upon him, that he bore that wrath to put away
the sin of your people. Look to him, Lord, and remember
us and receive us in Christ. For You put away the sin of Your
people in Christ. Remember Him and look to Him
to be gracious to us, Lord. Return again and melt our hearts
and give us a willing heart and an obedient heart and a heart
of faith to hear Your Word and to receive it. And so it's God
who causes us to look to Christ and to cry out to Him to look
to Christ and to be reconciled to us again, to heal us and to
restore us in the Lord Jesus Christ. And it says, verse 18,
so will not we go back from thee, quicken us, make us alive, and
we will call upon thy name, turn us again, O Lord God of hosts,
cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. And so our prayer is, as faithful
stewards of the mysteries of God, we want to have all the
focus and the attention on Jesus Christ, and I'm thankful that
He works that willing heart in His people to cry out to Him,
to seek Him when we see that we've done wrong, that we've
departed and stiffened our necks and hardened our hearts against
Him, that He's able to remind us, to look to Christ, to see
our need of Him, and that though we try and struggle to do things
as we will, It comes to nothing and the Lord is able to bring
that healing and to draw us back to Christ and to settle us in
Christ so that, again, we go forward as faithful stewards
with His Word and His Gospel Word, ministering to the hearts
of our brethren. I pray the Lord will bless that
Word and help us to hear it as we have need of hearing it. Let's
pray. Our gracious Lord, Lord, please
indeed, look to your Son, Jesus Christ, and help us, Lord, give
us repentance to ever look to Him, to trust Him, to rest in
Him for His mercy and grace of our God that is poured out upon
your people in the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, help us to hear
the voice of your Son and to to walk as obedient children,
as dear children, as you say, and that we would have a tender
heart toward one another and especially have a softened heart
to our God, to desire Him above the things of this flesh and
the things of this world. We pray this in the name of our
Lord and Savior.