Scripture Lesson: Luke 20:9-20
Sermon Title: What You Need to Hear from the Vineyard
Peace Lutheran Church
April 6th, 2025
Introduction —
One of the things I love about kids is that they tell you exactly what they’re thinking. They are refreshingly honest. No filter. Here it comes. Listening to them—parents are thinking, “Child…where in the world are you going with this one?!”
I read the following kids’ story that cracked me up.
It was written by a gal who has much experience in children’s ministry.
In this article she wrote, “One day while working with an outreach for underprivileged children, I decided to ask my group of pre-teen girls if they had any prayer requests. Alyssa asked for prayer for her family since they would be burying her great grandmother the next day.
After expressing my condolences, I began to get confused. Wasn’t this the same young girl who asked for prayer because her great grandmother Nanna had passed away two weeks ago? Was I confusing her with another child? Were there multiple deaths in the family? Certainly, there weren’t two great grandmothers who had passed. I decided to ask a clarifying question, “When did your Nanna pass away?” “Two weeks ago,” she replied.
“Two weeks!” I thought to myself, “How are they just now burying her?”
I didn’t want to press the issue at such a sensitive time, but I just had to know. “So, Nanna was cremated, and you are just now having the funeral service?”
“No,” the kiddo replied. “We didn’t have enough to pay for everything. So, we just kept her in an extra freezer till Friday’s check came in.”
(The writer continued…)
I don’t know what my face must have looked like, but something prompted the child’s next response: “It’s ok. Nanna was a small lady. She fit.”’
Kids Say the Most Hilarious (and Deep) Things
By Kendra White, Film Producer for American Family Studio
01/15/2016
Folks, God has a wonderful sense of humor, especially through kids, doesn’t He?!
I can’t help but be reminded of Robert Fulgum’s book title, “All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.”
There’s plenty of truth to that statement!
Speaking of truth, I’m also thinking of the familiar saying: “I got what I needed to hear not what I wanted to hear.”
Can you relate?
We’ve all been there many times.
What we need to hear is a difficult thing.
It’s very uncomfortable.
It’s not what I want.
That guy/gal over there needs to hear that hard truth, but I don’t need it!
I want to put my feet up in my lazy boy recliner, with my favorite beverage in hand, and have you say, “You’re the greatest! You deserve this. Need anything else?!”
I don’t want to hear the hard truth:
“You lazy bum! You’re not a king. I need your help!
We’re family; let’s be a team.
Let’s work together and then we can relax or go on that delightful walk.”
God knows our hearts.
He knows what we need to hear.
Isn’t that true?
We ask God to hear us as a body of faith when we pray: “Lord, hear our prayer.”
In the same way, what do we need to hear in our faith journey with Jesus?
The religion scholars loved to hear what their itching ears wanted to hear. They prayed, gave, and spoke “to be seen” by others. It was a religious talent show. They touted that they were doing it for God, but the Lord knew their hearts.
“You say, ‘Lord,’ ‘Lord,’ but your hearts are far from me.’”
This same lesson applies in our lives too. If worship is all about getting what my tickling ears want to hear, why bother gathering here? That’s not why you’re here. You’re here because—while everything in our fallen natures don’t want it—we need to hear what Jesus Christ accomplished for us repeatedly—something we could never earn on our own.
In this profound parable that Jesus preached—He describes the difference between what we want to hear compared to what we truly need to hear.
Which “heart” describes yours?
That which you worship the most tells the story—what are you telling people?
When a Holy-Spirit-filled believer tells you what you need to hear—touching that “nerve” that you’re lacking—how do you react?
To dissect this parable—the owner of the vineyard represents God—the “servants” describe the OT prophets who prepared “the tenants” (i.e., Israel/the world) for the Coming Messiah—the Master’s Son—Jesus Christ!
(Pause…)
Just like their hard-hearted ancestors in the OT who wanted to receive messages that tickled their ears (not the truth) Jesus tells the religion scholars/us what we need to hear: “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”
True faith, true salvation isn’t built on the religious rules of the Pharisees or this denomination or that one. True faith, true salvation is built on nothing more or less than Jesus’ faith and righteousness.
In other words—only through the Cornerstone—the Savior’s Cross—that He bore on calvary’s mountain—do we naturally sinful, dead people—have renewed joy, life, and hope.
Otherwise, to reject the only cornerstone of the one faith, one hope, one baptism, one Lord—it is to our own peril—to our own crushing—to live for a faithless, hopeless world that will surely pass away.
With this in mind—Jesus asked the most profound question about trusting/following the Christ as the only Savior of your life: “For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself v.24)?”
Eugene Peterson was brilliant with words.
I like the way God put Jesus’ truth on Peterson’s heart in the Message paraphrase.
It speaks to us right where we are:
“Self-help is no help at all.
Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self.
What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you?”
My friends, that’s the honest-to-God gospel we need to hear—to lose the false, gluttonous nature in us that consumes the foolish things of this world—that are of no help at all.
False identities thrown in your face…self-help isn’t what we need.
Rather, receive what you need to hear from the vineyard.
Deny your false, self-help natures at the cross where Jesus said, “It is finished.”
Being built up on the true cornerstone—you are a new living stone, a Spirit-filled brother/sister who rejoices—the forgiven, Spirit-filled you—who produces much fruit from the Master’s everlasting vineyard.
I’m not going to mislead you. We will face all kinds of opposition for trusting/following Jesus, even from people we least expect it. That very moment when Jesus preached that message—the religious rulers—wanted to wipe him out on the spot, but they feared how the people would react.
Isn’t that typical of cowardly people who want to hear what they want to hear and not what they need to hear?
If you want another honest story of someone who needed to hear it from the vineyard—look no further than Saul or as you know him—the apostle Paul.
A former staunch religion scholar who ordered death penalties on the people who followed the Way—you know…the way, the truth, and the life?!
He demanded the heads of believers who trusted in/followed Jesus, until one day Jesus preached to him, “Saul! Saul! Why are you persecuting me?”
Do you remember how he responded?
“Who are you, Lord?”
Only through the same Messiah’s sacrifice on the cross for his sins and glorious resurrection from the dead did Paul realize what his identity—his real purpose—was about.
Paul received/believed through the Holy Spirit what he needed to hear from the vineyard.
Specifically—in his letter to the believers at Philippi—he encourages them/believers everywhere:
“From the people of Israel and the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, I lived according to the law as a Pharisee. 6 In my zeal for God I persecuted the church. According to the righteousness stipulated in the law I was blameless.
7 But these assets I have come to regard as liabilities because of Christ.
8 More than that, I now regard all things as liabilities compared to the far greater value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things—indeed, I regard them as dung!—that I may gain Christ.”
Let that sink in. You can’t miss the awful smell of the sewer plant.
The false images of this world, the sins we so easily cling to are packaged in such a way that make them appealing, but on the inside, they are nothing but rotten-smelling feces.
However—through Christ—the crucified and risen Lord—we are a sweet aroma—even out of the dung pile—our testimonies as living stones are being built up on the Living Stone—speaking of Jesus’ ever faithful and fruitful Holy Spirit—whose sacrificial love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control fulfills you—the real you—in Christ—in whom—we truly stand.
That’s why we keep telling the good old story of Jesus Christ and His sacrifice at Calvary’s Mountain—the vineyard—that tells you what you need to hear.
In the Reformation Hymn that we are about to sing, I love the part in the song that says:
“Our traditions shift like sand while His truth forever stands.
We will live by faith alone, clothed in merit not our own.
All we claim is Jesus Christ and His finished sacrifice.”
Apart from faith in the true Cornerstone, why would you want to inherit a fallen, sewer-filled world and forfeit your soul—you—the real you?
The old stench filled you was crucified with Christ in what He accomplished for you on the cross—so that in Him—being built up on the true Cornerstone of faith—One Lord—One Hope—One Baptism—the fruit from the vineyard—always gives you what you need to hear.
Let’s pray.