Judgment

Judgment

Matthew 21:43-44, NIV

Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. 44Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.

Setting the Scene

In case there was any doubt, Jesus turned the crucial point of his parable into an explicit judgment on the priestly delegation that had come to question his authority.

Matthew records that Jesus explicitly begins to use the words the kingdom of God. The special privileges of awareness and access regarding God’s Kingdom will be “taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.” The “you” Jesus was addressing was not all of Israel as a nation, but those in spiritual leadership who had proven themselves unfaithful in the tasks God had entrusted to them. The “people who will produce its fruit” were originally all Jews, the first members of the church. A door was opened here for the Gentiles, but not to the exclusion of Israel (see Romans 11:11-24).

The group to whom Jesus was speaking was clearly guilty of taking the Kingdom of God for granted and treating it as a resource to advance their own kingdom in this world. Their concerns about Jesus might have been couched in the righteous language of spiritual purity and God’s holiness, but their intent was to protect their own power, prestige, and position.

Jesus certainly had more in mind than the religious leaders of his day when he pointed out that talking the talk meant little if there was no consistent walk to go with the words. Lip service to God means claiming to be a citizen of his Kingdom with no discernible evidence for the claim.

Getting Personal

What might Jesus say to you or your church about how well you are producing fruit?

What is the fruit that Jesus requires you to produce?

A currently popular but perennial tendency is to substitute pretense for reality in spiritual circles. Sometimes religious talk is used as a tool to manipulate, comfort, and control others even though the user believes that the words are meaningless. Such disregard for the Kingdom of God is yielding a harvest of deep disappointment and unbelief. True believers live what they say they believe.

Talking to God

Let sincerity mark your interaction with the Lord in prayer as well as your conversations among believers and nonbelievers. Ask God to make your life in him increasingly real and significant; that reality and significance will carry into all your dealings with others.