LIVING WITHOUT
HARD HEARTEDNESS
DR. JIM DIXON
MATTHEW 21:33
NOVEMBER 15, 2009
Some of you, I’m sure, have traveled to Florence, Italy, and you have seen Michelangelo’s David. Perhaps you’ve heard the story that Michelangelo carved, sculpted, this masterpiece out of rejected stone, and that is a true story. Michelangelo took marble, a huge marble block, which had been rejected by other sculptors, by other masters, by other artists. Some of them in Italy, some across Europe, but they had rejected this block of marble and Michelangelo took it, and as a master he sculpted it and he created one of the greatest artistic works in the history of the world: his David. So he portrayed the King of Israel. The Bible tells us that Jesus is rejected stone, that Jesus is the stone rejected by many, but chosen of God, chosen of God, the master. By God’s sovereign will, Jesus is the foundation stone for the kingdom of heaven. Jesus is the foundation stone for the Kingdom of God; he is the stone upon which the church is built. “Therefore,” the Bible tells us, “be careful not to reject Jesus.” Don’t have a heart so hard that you would even consider rejecting the Son of God for he is the stone chosen of God.
Now today we look at hardness of heart and we look at it in the context of this parable. I really have two teachings and the first is this: that Israel had a heart that was hardened towards God. So, I want to focus on Israel’s hardness of heart, first, and then I want us to take a look at the Church and the hardness of heart that exists within the Church. So we’ll look at Israel and then we’ll look at the Church. We begin with Israel and its hardness of heart.
I think many of you have heard of Manuel Noriega. Manuel Noriega seized control of the military in Panama in the year 1984. The year 1987, Manuel Noriega became the President of Panama and he established his corrupt government. He assassinated all his political rivals and he began to build international drug cartels. ow, there was a period of time when the relationship between Manuel Noriega and the United States of America and its government involved some controversy. There may have been a period of time when our government and some of its leaders actually tried to work with Noriega to bring down some of these international drug cartels, but ultimately Manuel Noriega thumbed his nose at the United States of America. Ultimately he rejected the authority of the United States of America and he did this publicly and he did this privately. He defied the United States. December 20, 1989, George Bush sent American military forces into Panama to topple the government of Manuel Noriega. And in 1992 he was placed under trial, convicted, incarcerated and sentenced to 40 years in prison.
It’s not a good idea to defy a super power. Not a good idea to defy a super power, and yet you can look at our history and you can see some who chose to do that. So you can look more recently at Saddam Hussein of Iraq, who defied the United States of America and paid a great price. You can look at others who defied the United States and at least in some measure appeared to have gotten away with it. Muammar Qaddafi of Libya defied the United States, thumbed his nose at the United States repeatedly and feigned repentance, and appears to have at least in some measure, gotten away with it. You look at Al-Qaeda and its operatives and some of them have paid the price for their atrocities. And it seems even now as we are gathered here there are trials ongoing for those who perpetrated 911. But there are other AI-Qaeda operatives that seem to have escaped our wrath, including Osama Bin Laden. ls it not, a dangerous thing to defy on this earth a superpower?
Now how about God? How about defying God. ls that dangerous? How about thumbing your nose at God? How about shaking your fist at God? ls that dangerous? How about defying the Son of God? Is that dangerous? So you see, that’s what this parable is about. It’s about Israel. It’s about their hardness of heart and their defiance of God and indeed God’s own Son. In this parable, told by Jesus, there is a vineyard and the vineyard represents the Kingdom of God. As in so many of the parables of Christ, the central theme is the Kingdom of God. So the vineyard represents the Kingdom of God and the tenants, the tenants in the vineyard, represent Israel and the Jewish people chosen of God and beloved of God. So the tenants represent Israel and they were given stewardship over the vineyard, stewardship over the Kingdom of God and they were called by the Master and Owner to bear fruit. In the course of time the Master and Owner sent servants to the tenants of the vineyard. These represented the prophets of old; the prophets through the centuries, the prophets of God sent to the people of Israel and those prophets were rejected. Those prophets were beaten. Those prophets were killed. Those prophets were stoned again and again over time, so finally the Owner, finally the Master, finally God sends his Son saying, “They will respect my Son.” So Jesus comes into the world and he’s sent to the tenants of the vineyard and they cast him out and kill him. It’s a story told by Christ about himself because he foreknew what was to be. And so you have then this statement made by Christ to the leaders of the Jews for this reason. The Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to another nation producing the fruits of it. They rejected the Son of God.
Now God loves all people. God loves Jews. God loves gentiles. God loves you. God loves me. God loves people all over the world, but don’t reject the Son. That takes a hardness of heart that is hard to understand. I mean Jesus, in Matthew 19 and Mark 5 and Mark 3 and Mark 10 and Mark 16, and so many passages, Jesus spoke of the hardness of heart that had come upon the Jews, the hardness of heart that had come upon Israel. Paul mentions the same thing in Romans 9, 10 and 11. And of course that led them to reject the Son of God. It’s happening today amongst all people. All over the world, Jew and Gentile, many people have rejected the Son of God. How about you? There is nothing more dangerous than rejecting the Son of God.
Now I want us to take a look at the Church because the Church consists of those people who allegedly have embraced God’s own Son. The Church consists of those people who allegedly have welcomed the Son and pledged themselves to him that they would serve his kingdom, his vineyard and see it bear fruit. So you have the Church, and I think within the church there is also hardness of heart. And how do we see this hardness of heart manifested? Well, we see it in two ways. First of all: a lack of passion for the vineyard, a lack of passion for the Kingdom of God. That reflects a hardness of heart: that we’re not passionate about the vineyard, about the Kingdom of God and we don’t long to see that Kingdom bear fruit. I think also in the Church there’s this hardness of heart that exists in a lack of compassion for people and for the needs of people. A lack of passion and a lack of compassion: these two things reflect a hard heart and hearts within the Church that need to be ploughed and tilled and broken and changed. So, within the Church we do see a lack of passion for the vineyard and for the things of the kingdom. “And remember,” Jesus said, “the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you, Israel, and given to a nation producing the fruits of it,” and that nation the Bible calls the Church. We
are called to be passionate about that production of fruit.
Perhaps you’ve heard of Thomas Coke. Maybe you haven’t, but you should have because Thomas Coke is one of the greatest Christians this world has ever seen. Thomas Coke was born in 1747 and 21 years later he graduated from Oxford University. That was in the year 1768, 21 years old, graduate of Oxford. He was brilliant. I mean so brilliant that when you look at generations rise and fall on the earth, in each generation there are very few as intelligent and brilliant as Thomas Coke. That same year, at age 21, he accepted Christ. He asked Jesus Christ to come and be his Lord and Savior and he did that with tears and his heart was broken. Thomas Coke began to have a passion for the vineyard. He began to have a passion for the Kingdom of God. He went to theology school to receive theological training in a seminary context and to get advanced degrees. He accomplished this and then he was ordained as an Anglican priest, became a priest in the Anglican Church. He was given a parish. He began to preach. He began to teach. He began to pastor and care for the flock.
A strange thing happened when he was 29. In the year 1776, when Thomas Coke was 29, he was fired. He was fired, and you might wonder why. Why was he fired? Was there some fiscal misconduct? Did he abuse church funds? No. Was there some sexual impropriety? Was there some conduct unbecoming the gospel? No. So why was he fired? Did he drift theologically? Did he go into apostate ideas and apostate thought? No. He was biblical and orthodox. Why was he fired? He was fired for one reason and the records prove it. He was too passionate. That’s what they said. He had too much passion. They said he preached with too much passion. They wanted someone more dignified, someone more respectable, someone more lukewarm to run their church, so they fired him.
One year later, when he was 30, in the year ] 1777, Thomas Coke met John Wesley. Now this was a marriage made in heaven. You know who John Wesley was. John Wesley the revivalist. John Wesley the evangelist. John Wesley who in his lifetime shook two continents for Christ. John Wesley the preacher. John Wesley the founder of the Wesleyan movement. John Wesley the founder of the Methodist Churches. They met in 1777, Thomas Coke and John Wesley, and they formed a partnership. They would minister together the rest of their lives. John Wesley placed Thomas Coke over all the churches of North America. Thomas Coke became superintendent of all the North American Methodist churches. And he became renowned in the Christian world, as famous as Wesley himself.
For the rest of his life, Thomas Coke served with passion the churches of North America. This involved him in going back and forth over the Atlantic, transatlantic voyages, 9 different times between England and North America. He did this in all weather conditions, calm seas and violent seas. On one occasion when Thomas Coke was 38, and the year was 1785, he was crossing from England back to North America and there was a horrible storm at sea. It had hurricane conditions with unbelievable winds and high waves, and yet the thought occurred to him because he’d never seen such a violent storm, this captain of the ship thought, What if Thomas Coke has offended God? What if he’s a Jonah? He said by his own confession later he actually thought about placing him off the ship in midst of the violent storm. But the thought occurred to him, well, what if I’m wrong? What if I’m paranoid? What if Thomas Coke is in the center of God’s will and I stand against him? So he left things as they were and the storm was so violent, the ship went way off course. Thirty-eight years old, Thomas Coke, the year 1785, the ship off course and it wandered hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles off course and went into the region of the Caribbean and it finally settled early Christmas morning in St. John’s Harbor on the island of Antigua.
So here they were, Christmas morning very early. They’d come ashore on the island of Antigua. They got off the ship, came onto the shore, and Thomas Coke immediately began to look for a Methodist missionary he’d heard of in Antigua: a man named John Baxter. He’d never met him, but he’d heard of him. He searched around St. John’s Harbor and he found John Baxter that morning, that Christmas morning, and he greeted him and John Baxter was stunned that Thomas Coke was on his island. He’d never met such a great and famous Christian man. Thomas Coke said, “We’re having a Christmas service, aren’t we?” And John Baxter said, “Yes, I’m scheduled to preach this morning and I prepared a sermon, but I don’t want to preach. I want you to preach.” Thomas Coke said, “Oh no, you prepared the sermon.” John Baxter said, “No, you’re Thomas Coke. Everybody’s heard of you. You’ve got to preach this morning.” So he said, “Well, okay.”
So they gather at the Methodist church for that Christmas morning service and the church was packed because word had gotten out, “Thomas Coke is here.” So word had gotten out and the church was packed and they had to tum people away. They never had a crowd like that, not even on Christmas. So they thought, Let’s do it again. Let’s have another service. So they had another service, packed again, turned people away again. So they thought, Let’s do it again, so they had another service, packed it again, turned people away again. They thought, Let’s do it again. They had another service, packed the place, sent people away again. Ultimately, a movement began and St. John’s Harbor on Antigua that led 17,000 people to Jesus Christ. And you wonder why there was that storm at sea, why that ship went into the harbor at St. John’s. It was the will of God, and Thomas Coke never doubted that. John Baxter thought to himself, I’ve never seen anything like this. Not in my entire ministry have I ever seen anything like this. Perhaps he thought, Things go better with Coke. He might have thought that.
But you see, here’s the point: things go better with passion. Things go better with the power of the Holy Spirit and with his passion. The Church of Jesus Christ needs passion. This church needs passion. The Church of Jesus Christ Universal needs passion for the vineyard. For the harvest, for the Kingdom of God, we need passion. If we don’t have that passion, something is wrong with our hearts, something is hard in our heart. So God calls us this day to pray for passion in our lifetime; passion for the vineyard over which he’s made us stewards, in which he’s made us tenants, passion for the vineyard and its fruit. And then for compassion as well, that our hearts would not be hard and that we would have compassion for people. I’m convinced of this. Even if we go forth into this world with passion for the vineyard, the fruit will be small if we don’t have compassion for people
The word passion is the Latin word “passio.” Passio means “to suffer.” That’s why the last week of Christ’s life, that Easter week, is called The Passion Week, because that week he suffered. Eventually the word evolved, went through change, and the word came to mean suffer in a cause. To have passion meant you were willing to suffer in a cause. Something you are passionate about. Eventually the word passion came to refer to any strong emotion, any strong feeling, but God wants to know this morning is there any cause you’re willing to suffer for. Is there any cause you are so committed to, so passionate about, you’d be willing to suffer for it. And then do you have compassion? Are you willing to suffer with people? Do you feel what they feel? Are you willing to go to them, be with them, “sumpathos,” suffer with them? Compassion.
In the early days of our church, we had a saying that everyone knew, and I think this saying had a profound truth and the culture we desired here, and that saying was, We ‘re all bozos on this bus. That’s true on every bus. That’s true on every bus and that’s true on this large bus called Cherry Hills Community Church: we’re all bozos. We need each other. We’re all damaged and we need love and we need compassion, each and every one of us.
Our daughter Heather and her husband Chris have two children, two daughters: Abigail and Nina. Barb and I love them very much as obviously Heather and Chris do. Heather has a third child in the oven: a baby boy on the way. Many of you have prayed for this baby because a lot of the early markers showed that this baby could be a Down Syndrome baby, and so many of you have been praying. We know God loves Down syndrome babies and they are precious in his sight. And we believe had this been a Down Syndrome baby, we would have loved him, but we’re very grateful to God for his mercy because the most recent tests have shown that this is a normal baby boy. We’re very, very grateful to God, but we know the world in which we live.
I was in Memphis a week and a half ago returning from a denominational meeting and I saw a woman there, a Down syndrome woman, and she was probably about 50 years old. Not all Down’s children can grow to the age of 50. Many of them have health problems. Some live nearly a normal life span. But she looked to be about 50 years old and she was standing there, just 10 feet from me, and standing right next to her was her mother, probably 75-years-old, her arm around her. That mom had never left her side. I mean, no empty nest for her. From the moment that baby was born, that mom had never had a break, would be my guess. And she will be with that child until she leaves this earth. Never be an empty nest, she’ll always be there, taking care of her girl.
This is the world we live in. It’s a world we live in where life is not easy. There is a lot of pain. There’s a lot of suffering. There’s a lot of brokenness, and everybody needs compassion. Everybody needs love. Everybody needs to care, and this is meant to be the culture of the Church where we learn to love each other. “By this they will know you are my disciples, if you love one another.” So we’re called to be a culture where we really love and care for one another. How do we see in the Church of Jesus Christ hardness of heart? By the absence of passion for the vineyard and by the absence of compassion for each other.
So, what can we do about it? As we come to the Lord’s Table, what can we do about it? How can we have more passion? How can we have more compassion? How can we change? How can we soften our hard hearts? How do we do that? You think, well, I’ll pray, and that would be good. That’s a great beginning. It should begin with prayer. Pray, we should all pray, for more passion and more compassion that we would be passionate about the vineyard and the Kingdom of God and that we would have great love for people in the midst of our common brokenness.
But I think it takes more than that. See I think, and through the years what I’ve learned is, that the way we change is by taking action. We change by taking action. That’s why we’re constantly presenting opportunities for you to show passion and compassion. Even If you don’t have passion and compassion, we give you the opportunity to take action and that’s how God works. So you go into a Sunday School classroom and you start caring for kids. You go down to the inner city and you start mentoring an inner city kid. You join a small group. You offer to lead a small group and you know you’ll be with other adults and you’ll be required to pray for them and care for them and care about them. Pray for them, but you take the action and then Christ begins to change. He begins to change us. As we make that choice, he begins to change us.
So as you come to this table and you partake of the bread and the cup, remember the action Jesus took. You know, two thousand years ago when he left his throne in heaven and when he came to earth and he was born in a stable in Bethlehem, and when he took our flesh upon himself and became incarnate, and how he lived amongst us and experienced life in our world, he took that action. And then he went to the cross on our behalf. It was all because of passion and compassion. As you come to the table I just suggest this: you think about taking action, think about taking action that would give Jesus a chance to soften your heart. We give you many opportunities here and I pray that you’ll take advantage of them. Before we come to the table, let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.