Parable of the Tenants: Leadership is all about stewardship

do well hello and welcome to crowd church it's great that you're here happy sunday afternoon for those of you who don't know me allow me to introduce myself my name is matt edmondson and i get to run leads do this amazing online church which is just great fun it's great to see you we are an online church whoops nearly not my microphone over uh we are an online church for those that don't see the point of church but want to know more about jesus and how he can help us to live a meaningful life oh yes now it doesn't matter uh that we're online that we're not in a building because we are an online church we do digital church and it just matters that we get together and that we just enjoy jesus and learning about him when we can so it's really really great that you're here i've just realized i've forgotten to plug my scene switching switch in uh so do forgive me uh schoolboy errors so i'll be looking at my screen a fair bit so there you go now i know many of you watching this are new to crowd so just to give you a bit of context if you are we are part of a church called frontline frontline church and that is based here in liverpool in the uk and the whole mission and ethos about frontline is basically to inspire you about jesus and how amazing he is so we hope that you feel at home with us now if you are watching this live whether it's on facebook or now we also stream to youtube that's right it's a bit of a test this week as we stream to youtube for the first time we're trying to stream to both platforms because you know why not and so we've got a whole bunch of tests going on which is why i've got to plug my uh switch in earlier on but if you are watching this live you can join in using the comments below the video below the live stream say hi let us know what you think ask your questions do debates uh all i ask is that you just do it respectfully but it'd be great to hear from you let us know where you are watching this now if you are watching the replay of the live stream you can also use the comments as we do monitor them okay you can also messengers uh on i just want to do it that way that's right on the whatsapp number shown on the screen uh and if you want to messages in private senders prayer requests say hi ask your questions privately you can do that with that number you can get in touch with it and we especially love it when you send us your photos uh be warned i may just show them on the stream though we may show a few of them later uh for example we've got of course matt crew uh sends in his photograph every week before the live stream but you can join in don't just don't just leave it all to matt you can join in as well you can show us what's going on uh so why not send us a photo of where you are now and how you are watching the stream any excuse for a selfie right so if you feel like you can and you are able make sure you like comment uh give us a share share it out uh as we uh as we just basically want to reach and connect with more people and as you share as you comment as you uh give us a thumbs up a like it just tells facebook and youtube this is probably worth watching so it just helps us uh reach more folks around the world so please do that okay so let me tell you what is coming up in today's live stream uh we have the delectable john harding senior pastor john harding of frontline church he's with us today and he is going to be explaining the parable of the tenants that's right he's going to be getting into that which is all about stewardship basically and after that we're going to have a brief time of worship which i'll talk more about later then we will have this week's catch-up video where josh is bound to get into trouble with his nan you're gonna have to tune in later to see what i mean uh we aim to finish around five this before five around this just so you know when we're gonna end but first if you have been to one of our live streams before you may have noticed something is a little bit different oh yes we have changed our name that's right we have changed it from frontline city to crowd church now i'm going to explain why we've done that in more detail in two weeks time so do stay connected with us if you don't know our story basically we started as a small church uh this time last year funnily enough in the city center here in liverpool we met in a coffee shop and at that time frontline city as a name made a lot of sense as we did indeed meet in the city now of course then the pandemic hits and changes everything uh including how we do church and we moved our little coffee shop church online and discovered you know what we like online church yes we loved it so over the last few months we've been trying to understand how to do a digital church and as a result we've decided to stay as an online church a proper online church so frontline city really didn't make any sense anymore so we've changed the name oh yes and we've changed it to crowd church now josh in a little while uh when he gets into trouble with his nan is going to show you uh the new website give you a little brief tour around that but that's much later on that's going to be after the talk and so on and so forth uh so let's let's see actually who we've got here today so uh who's who's put some comments in oh we've got nick hey nick good to see you thanks for joining us uh we've got of course mr matt crew who of course loves the techno music just for you that matt uh because we are now crowd church we have to change the intro right so because we've got to change the intro um i don't know if we'll keep the techno mat it may change i'm just saying so i hope you enjoyed that maybe the last time uh we of course got sharon on the stream which is great see you who else have we got down here we've got antoine hey great to see you guys uh thanks for your commenting and what's uh matt put here i'm so glad you've accepted me as part of the crowd matt edmondson you are definitely always going to be part of the crowd map there's no doubt about that so yeah let us know where are you where are you watching this from do come in the comments and say hi do join in it's always always great to hear from new folks uh and connect with new people now that's enough from me uh we are gonna get into today's talk now uh the message is going to be given to us by john john harding like i said who's the senior pastor of frontline church and crowd is part of frontline church and so it's great that he's with us today he's going to be carrying on our study of mark's gospel he's going to be talking about stewardship um and so on and so forth right all the good stuff like am i a good steward do i steward my life well oh we've got some good stuff well he's got some good stuff coming up now i do want to pre-warn you i have watched this talk because john did pre-recorded as a busy guy he did pre-record the talk and there is a slight inaccuracy in the talk just want to say a bit controversial i know but he said i told him to talk on this scripture i didn't he chose this one i just want to point this out right but you'll see more about that in a minute so i'm going to roll the intro to mark's gospel mark's gospel is a book in the new testament which chronicles the life of jesus and we've been working our way through it literally all year oh yes it's taken us a while to get to this stage we've been working our way through that then mona is going to read out the scripture and then john's going to be in the talk and i see john has just commented here no no you did john honestly uh nick great to be with graduate it's great to have you nick thanks for joining us right without further ado let's roll this and see what happens don't forget to comment as we go through the talk write down your thoughts anything that's going to be coming through uh just we'll we'll join in so we'll see you in the conversation he again began to speak to them in parables a man planted a vineyard he put a wall around it took a pit for the wine press and built a watchtower then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey at harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard but they seized him beat him and sent him away empty-handed then he sent another servant to them they struck this man on the head and treated him shamefully he sent still another and that one they killed he sent many others some of them they beat others they killed he had one left to send a son whom he loved he sent him last of all saying they will respect my son but the tenant said to one another this is the air come let's kill him and the inheritance will be ours so they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard what then will the owner of the vineyard do he will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others haven't you read this scripture the stone the build has rejected has become the cape stone and the lord has done this and it is marvelous in our eyes then they looked for a way to arrest him because they knew he had spoken the parable against them but they were afraid of the crowd so they left him and went away hi there frontline city hi everyone tuning in today for online church thank you so much for joining us as it's already been said my name is john hardin i am the senior pastor the leader of in liverpool a church that has lots of smaller different varied expressions of church like on the rural or in tokster for for polish speakers and and city what we're doing here today soon to be known as crowds it's just one expression of that and in particular a really important digital expression of that one frontline church family so thanks for joining us so um edmo the big man the main guy he gave me this passage from mark's gospel to speak on as part of your journey through mark's gospel it's mark chapter 12 verse 1 to 12. you might want to follow it in your bibles and it's jesus speaking in a parable it's called the parable of the tenants and i've called my talk today this how fruitful is your vineyard because for me that's the big question that this parable raises now jesus used parables all the time they're sort of stories with this hidden meaning parables are stories divine designed to provoke a response you can either think well nice story thank you jesus and then move on or you can engage with the story and work out where you fit in that story and what it means for you today and so parables they're just incredibly effective powerful ways of teaching because this parable jesus told some 2000 years ago right now today it will still have that same effect it will discriminate it will divide it will separate us into one of those two groups who say either well nice parable thanks jesus and then get back on with life or those who think hang on a second there might be something in this he might be describing me here there might be something for me today in parable i wonder which of those two groups we will be in now this parable is called the parable of the tenants and it basically works along the ideas that we still have in today's society where you have the landowners those who own and rent out land and then you have the tenants those who work the land on behalf of someone else and the way that the tenants would pay for the use of that land in the time that jesus spoke is that when harvest time came fruit would be gathered and given to the owner and then some would be kept back for those tenants they would live on it or sell it for profit it was a pretty good economic system that worked for everyone and jesus uses this relationship to shape his story his he says there was a man who planted a vineyard carefully deliberately with the intention of wine after all well it doesn't matter if you're planting pinot noir or grenache or chardonnay you're planting it for a yield a harvest for fruit for wine for joy for celebration that is the purpose and in parable the landowner god which makes perfect sense if you think about it because everything belongs to god he is the ultimate landowner he is the source he is the creator he is the origin he is the first cause of all things they all belong to him and and his desire is joined celebration god is supremely interested in joy c.s lewis said joy is the serious business of heaven so god is the landowner and and as jesus is speaking the the jewish people they were the vineyard and we know this because right throughout the old testament the jewish nation was referred to as god's vineyard it was a metaphor an image that helped those people understand well well first of all they were not their own their lives belonged to god they were his vineyard and secondly well that god requires some sort of fruit from them a harvest from them more on that later god the landowner plants a vineyard humanity people from whom he desires fruit so what about the tenants in this story well god the landowner the vineyard owner employs tenants farmers to care for the vineyard to steward the vineyard to steward his people now on one level parables and multi-levels multi-layered things like tiramisu or lasagna on one level the first level these tenants were the religious and political leaders of jesus's day and i think this is important to understand the tenants are the leaders that is a big idea because it means for us today at our level that nothing and no one that we ever lead are truly ours they belong to god we are only ever merely stewards of that that god has entrusted to us of what belongs to him i used to be a school teacher but my classes those pupils they weren't ever really mine not really they belonged to god first and foremost they were his and that is a very powerful idea it means god cared for them and loved them more than i could ever care for them i love them and he had merely appointed me as a steward over them and now i lead a church in the church i lead well it's not my church they're not my people they are gods first and foremost and once again god has appointed me to his people and that idea as we've all got ideas can be scaled up to anything think about your family your business uh imagine the impact of seeing the family that we lead or the business that we lead or the team that we lead or the nation that a person leads imagine if we saw it not as there for us as ours to produce fruit and resources for our benefit to serve us but imagine if we saw them as belonging to god as gods belonging to a god who loves and cares for them and is deeply deeply interested in their well-being imagine how that might impact your leadership or perhaps rather i should say your stewardship and so the point of leadership the point of stewardship according to this parable that jesus told is to nurture people who belong to god who are loved by god to nurture them into fruitfulness the point is fruitfulness to help others become fruitful that is what leaders do but what does that look like what does fruitfulness look like what does it mean well again i think there are a number of layers to that a number of ways that we can view it because it's a parable and so on one level it might look like that team that you lead that business that you run that family or that classroom it might look like really investing in those people so that they can thrive so that they can be their best so that they can be fruitful that's what good stewardship good leadership looks like now on a slightly deeper level more spiritual level the bible describes human fruitfulness with words like love joy peace patience self-control these are called fruits of god's spirit at work within us values that we as leaders are called to cultivate within the groups that we lead and have influence over so at an even deeper level i think that what jesus was primarily talking about here the fruit of this vineyard was first and foremost repentance repentance tricky word religious word it simply means to recognize what your thinking is faulty where your thinking doesn't line up with god's thinking and to change your thinking to align your thinking to bring your thinking into line with god's it's a course correction to align with gods you can't really produce spiritual fruit like peace or joy without repentance without a change of thinking without aligning how you think with how god thinks as revealed in the bible without recognizing that god's way is the best possible way to live so hopefully you're still with me tricky parable blame edmo he gave it to me to talk on so quick little recap at this halfway point god the land owner plants a vineyard with the desire that we humanity would produce fruits that we would be fruitful that we'd be loving and patient and full of peace and full of joy that we would bear good fruit and god gave the responsibility of nurturing the vineyard to leaders to the tenants their job was to steward his vineyard to make it fruitful to bring about a good harvest but of course you will notice if you read the parable that these tenants they were not good tenants they were bad tenants because what happens is god sends along his servants to the tenants to say hey tenants where are the fruit god wants his fruit and the tenants reject the servants they won't pay to the land owner what is due to the landowner now these servants who are they well these servants are the prophets of old they are those who challenge the leaders of the nation throughout the old testament to repent to change their thinking to produce fruits and what we see throughout the history of the old testament the history of israel the history of the world is that those prophets they were silenced they were killed the powers that be have always silenced their prophets and jesus in particular is referring to john the baptist one of those prophets who called out the hypocrisy of his day of the leaders of his day called them into repentance and so if you know the story you'll know that king herod had him arrested and beheaded today we might think about prophets who have called nations to peace and to justice and to equality racial equality people like martin luther king gandhi nelson mandela people who were silenced or even killed of course they were never truly silenced so how does this parable end well in the end the land owner he sends his only beloved son someone unique and distinct from all who had gone on before someone with an inheritance claim to the vineyard someone with all the authority of the owner of god because he was god's son god thought well if they respect me then they'll respect my son and what did the tenants do they killed him jesus is of course talking about himself he's talking about his divine nature as the unique beloved son of god he's talking about his purpose as the world's greatest leader his purpose to bring forth fruit from humanity to lead humanity into true joy true peace true patience and he's talking about the sort of death that he would die at the hand of sinful men the religious and political authorities of the day he's talking about his death on the cross desiring good fruit he entrusts humanity to leaders who actually carry on as if the world and if the people belong to them as if the people were there for their benefit so god sends his prophets to request fruit from those leaders but they ignore the prophets they silence the prophets they be and even kill the prophets so god sends his son and they kill him too so what about us what about today how will we engage and respond to this challenging parable that speaks of conflict and a well for all of us i think the parable challenges us to see ourselves as god's vineyard we are god's vineyard that means that your life is not your own you belong to god you are precious to god you are the object of his attention and affection because you are his and this parable shows us that god's desire for your life is that it would be fruitful fruitful in every sense but especially in that sense of bearing fruit like joy and peace what the apostle paul in galatians calls the fruit of the spirit that is god's desire for your life and then i think there's a challenge for all of us in those areas that we lead whether it be a team or a family or a classroom or a business or a city or a nation there's a challenge the people we lead they're not ours they're not there for our benefit they are gods they belong to him they are precious to him he loves them deeply more than we could ever love them it is not your vineyard and actually that's an incredible relief i remember when i was teaching and you'd from time to time of the sort of really annoying kid in class who'd be just so disruptive i don't know making silly noises or poking the kid next to him and you're about to sort of lose it and blow your top and go all jail crazy on him and and i would just find myself saying to myself john that boy is loved by god he is precious to god he belongs to god and that would completely change my emotional response to that kid and therefore my behavior because in all those things that we lead on the goal is to lead those who have been entrusted to us those we've been called to steward into faith fruitfulness that is god's desire for us as leaders to lead people into fruitfulness i think the parable also challenges us to consider how we respond difficult people like those prophets of old who dare i say put us in our place who give us that unrequested feedback and criticism will we be humble enough to listen to repent to course correct our thinking or will we silence and ignore them i said at the start of the parable that these stories are designed to provoke a response to discriminate we can either think well nice story jesus thanks for that today john and then move on and get on with our lives or we can engage with the story and we can work out where we are in the story and what that means for us today and so i pray for each of us as we listen today that you would actually hear god speaking into your heart leading you into his truth and i pray that your vineyard your life those things that you lead would be incredibly fruitful and that you would lead them into joy and peace and all of the fruit that god's spirit brings bless you and have a wonderful day amen indeed thank you so much john for that what a great great message that was i hope you got a lot out of that uh you know your vineyard is your life how fruitful is your life with love joy peace and all of those amazing things listen i would love to know what your big takeaways from today's talk have been whack those in the comments uh let us know what your takeaways have been we would love to hear those uh thanks for all your comments great to see so many folks join in and uh dave with us notice dave's on the stream as well great to see dave let me move that there we go so you can see it better uh so yeah what was your takeaway now for me i loved how there was this weaving of leadership and stewardship and like nick said in the comments you know when you do that it kind of takes the pressure off which is a it's a beautiful thing right um so that for me was a massive takeaway it's that kind of yeah this is all gods and i'm just you know my business my family my what i have here i don't own any of it i'm just a steward of it and it's just quite it's quite nice actually just make sure i'm stewing it well but what about you what was your takeaway write those in the comments below and what we're going to do now is we're going to have a brief time of worship we've got a song called worthy of it all which john and anna grace are going to sing for us which is fantastic the words will come up on the screen now if you are new to the christian faith if you are new to this whole concept or idea of worship awesome you're in for a treat right because uh jonathan and grace are great um now they uh are gonna lead us in this song called worthy of us worthy of it all and it is literally that jesus you are worthy of everything you are worthy of us uh giving up everything you know it's not my life it's your life let me lead it how you want to lead it right so this idea that john talked about repentance about changing our thinking to align our thinking with god's thinking god not what i want but what do you want for my life what do you want me to do here um and we do that because he is worthy he is worthy of it all and that's what this song uh is basically about now if you are new to the live stream if you're new to christian faith um don't feel like you have to sing along uh you're more than welcome to sing along if it is safe to do so the words will be on the screen otherwise just sit and listen to the song let the words minister to you and just let the words sort of mull over in your head let let the words that john spoke mull over in your mind and just think about god what are you saying to me even if you're not a christian you just pray that prayer god what are you saying to me and write your big takeaways if you can in the comments below we would love to hear them so i'm going to play this track now and then i'll be back again when it's finished for your throne oh the elders cast their crowns before the lamb of god and singing all the elders of god from you are all things until you are all things here deserve the glory you were you are all things until you are all things you deserve the glory for your you deserved you deserve the glory and night night and day let incense rise day and night night and day let incense day and night night and day let incense day and night night and day live you are until you chill all things hey man thanks again johnny grace for doing that song lovely beautiful beautiful song uh what did nick put here thank you for this beautiful song jonathan grace jesus is so worthy of our devotion we as christians fully believe that that he is actually worthy of it all he is worthy of our devotion and i love the imagery of that song that day and night uh you know the elders they sort of cast their crowns talking about what's going on in heaven that people kind of they give everything their crowns their identity their royalty everything they laid at the feet of jesus and go you are worthy of everything that i can bring everything that i am everything that i have you are worthy of it all and that is awesome when you think about it hey listen i just wanted to give a shout out to everyone who was watching us on youtube it is the first time that we have actually broadcast both on facebook and youtube at the same time doing this live stream uh stoked we got the technology to work so thanks for on youtube it's been great to see you guys over there as well as the guys on facebook so yes it has been going on so uh what have we got going on here uh beautiful really blessed me says john yep such a great song isn't it love it love it love it the good news is i have a copy of that song so i can play it all the time it's on my phone uh nick says thanks yeah um matt put here take away bear fruit don't let anyone stop you developing what god has given you embrace your fruitfulness all for jesus love that matt don't let anyone stop you developing what god has given you because too many people will try and talk you out of it right christians non-christians anybody i think sometimes when there's a call on us when there's a desire to do something when we kind of embrace something that is bigger and beyond ourselves people will try and talk us out of it uh especially when that thing is from god so um so yeah i totally agree with that matt that's awesome awesome awesome awesome well i hope you've enjoyed this now we've got the time uh well now we've got the time now is the time uh for our catch-up video so this week uh josh i mentioned earlier may well be getting into trouble with his nan uh you are gonna see why very very quickly here is this week's catch-up video hello and welcome to this week's sunday catch up for those of you who don't know me allow me to introduce myself my name is josh edmondson i'm a student at the university of saint andrews studying theoretical physics and i am a cool member of the team here at crowd church if you have never joined us before welcome hello it's great to have you this part of the stream is where we look at videos sent in from members of the community just so that we get a feel for what everyone has been getting up to now before we dive into any of the week's catch up there is some quite exciting news over the past few weeks matt my dad has been dropping little hints of what's to come and how we're sort of rebranding and everything well now we've got this fantastic new website and i thought it'd be kind of nice if we took a quick look at it right so here we are on the new website and it looks i mean it looks fantastic so if you are ever looking to find out more information about what we get up to if you want to find if you want to find the stream if you want to find old recordings that we've streamed previously head over to the website crowd.js and you can find all the information that you need it's got information on how to find the stream how to watch the stream it's got the crowd church whatsapp number so if you have any questions or anything like that just send this number a quick message here we go we've got our blog posts all the latest videos an option to subscribe to the crowd weekly newsletter oh awesome so here we go so we've organized all the blog posts do you ever watch the stream and you want to go a little bit more in depth with any of these talks feel free to head on over to the blog we've got all the information there you can go to watch so here you can find our most recent live stream we've got the different ways that you can watch the stream and if you miss any of them the super cool thing is you can catch up on all of them either by youtube facebook or the website so if you watch crowd church and you like what you see feel free to head on over to the website hit connect get in touch we would love to be in contact with you and to answer any questions that you might have about church done about you but i am super excited for this whole rebranding i think we're starting off in a great direction coming in to the end of 2020. now in usual fashion i will kick off the catch-up segment with what i've been up to this week one of my friends who's actually studying at the university of edinburgh which is just like a stone store away from saint andrews spontaneously decided to come over for a day with some of his friends and he brought a drone with him and we went and flew it on the beach in saint andrews which was just it was brilliant we actually have some footage from that little day out here that was if you ever wondered what saint andrews looks like that's pretty much the whole town in one shot such good fun dad i always love watching what you've been up to in the basement it's always super cool looking at what's coming out of their necks we've had multiple generations of narnia signs lately tan boards furniture like it's it's it's just brilliant that is all from me this week thank you very much for watching i hope you've enjoyed it if you would like to have your video featured on ketchup and we would love to have your video on catch up please send in a short clip of something you've been up to throughout the week to the whatsapp number that my dad will point out to you when we hit the mainstream again honestly we really really appreciate it when you guys send stuff in so please please do have a fantastic week and i will catch you next time very good now i don't know about you but i kind of find myself doing this to that music to catch up and you may not know this but josh actually wrote that music himself oh yes when he was doing ketchup he wrote the music for it and i just kind of love it that kind of little sound awesome there and sharon was indeed right the thing that is going to get him into trouble with his nan and possibly his mum too is the facial hair now i did mention this to josh earlier on when he sent me the video and apparently it's a november thing uh they're all growing their facial hair in november now i'm one not to talk but i know my mum is gonna wallop him next time she sees him just saying just saying uh yes that's right in the in the video you saw uh my little woodshop we've been making some doors and yesterday i had this great fun i was i was making stuff in my little wood shop because you know it's wood it's not digital it's nice to play around with wood and um and i was playing katan on the ipad with josh and his friend ollie instant andrews i got whooped that's okay it was the first match we had there'll be many more to come i'm sure but here i am on one hand doing wood stuff and on the other hand i'm playing katan so i don't know if any of you else are big fans of kitan if you're not put it on your christmas list it's a great great board game and josh was right he showed you the video i don't know if you saw it it did display i'm not gonna lie it did display a little bit surprisingly on josh's computer which is a pc it looks slightly different to how it's displayed on mine but that's okay we're gonna have a little bit of fun with that uh so um i need to understand why that's doing that but that's another story now as josh said anything that you want to know anything you want to find out about will be on our website we are going to develop that now over the commitments now we've got the brand relaunch uh sorted out so we're gonna start putting content on there answering all of your questions and all of your uh you know desires to know more information about christianity so that all that information is coming soon we're going to add other videos we're preparing content we get asked questions a lot during the week through whatsapp through email and questions about suffering and evil and you know if god is real and um how do i pray and all that sort of stuff right all of that's gonna be on the website but in the meantime you can definitely check out the back catalog of stuff because there's plenty of good stuff to be getting on with there do dig into it and do have a look now next week we have the incredible jenny marinette oh yes she is going to be talking to us about politics religion and politics the two things i was told as a kid you should never ever talk about and if there's two things that we probably should talk about it's religion and politics oh yes so i am looking forward to next week as we carry on our journey through mark's gospel jen's going to be sharing with us which is fantastic then the week after that i am going to be talking about crowd church and why we've got crowd church and then drum roll please yes it is gonna be christmas uh we have the three weeks leading up to christmas day uh in december so we have three sundays before christmas day and we are going to be doing some crazy mad stuff sally burch and i uh are going to be leading those three services uh we've got phil watson speaking we've got john harding coming back speaking so we've got some great things lined up for christmas you are not going to want to miss it so if you are watching on facebook or if you are watching on youtube make sure you like the page make sure sign up to get the notification so whenever we go live you get notified of the live streams because honestly it's just going to get nuts going into the next few weeks it's going to be great fun and a good time to be have so uh i think that is pretty much it thanks for joining me everybody uh what have we got here thanks for bringing church to my home crowd church no worries matt thank you so much uh nick says jenny marinette will be awesome absolutely she will be look there we uh we can add that's the broadcast just to prove i'm not making it up uh she is gonna be awesome you're definitely not gonna want to miss it so do join us next week thanks for being with us this week i hope and pray you got a lot out of it today and that you can see that jesus is just the most amazing person in the world and we hope you're getting more and more intrigued by him have a fantastic week we will be back again next week uh so in the meantime stay safe stay blessed and see