This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Hi, I want to welcome you to Daily Drive Time Devotions in Mark chapter 12 this
week, day one, verses one to 12 today. As we look at Mark chapter 12 together,
this week we're going to be looking at a chapter that is all about what is most
important in life. Jesus teaches us about what's most important in life in this
chapter.

You might remember last week we began to look together at Jesus' last week of
life on this planet, His last earthly week of life. And as we saw Jesus entering
Jerusalem on Sunday, we saw Jesus as King. As we saw on Monday, Jesus going in
and clearing out the temple, we saw Him as priest.

And last week we began to look, Jesus began to go into Jerusalem and began to
teach on Tuesday. And on Tuesday, you see Jesus not as King or priest, but Jesus
as prophet, Jesus telling the truth. Many times when we hear the word prophet,
we think of somebody who is a foreteller of the future.

If you take a close look at the word prophet, not only in the New Testament, but
also much in the Old Testament, the idea of a prophet is not a foreteller so
much as a fourth-teller, a fourth-teller of the truth. And Jesus is certainly
that. He's actually both the fourth-teller and the foreteller in these next
couple of chapters.

He's the fourth-teller. In chapter 12, the prophet proclaiming the truth. Not
telling the future, but telling people how to live in the present.

And then next week as we look at Mark chapter 13, we're going to see Jesus as
the foreteller. He's going to talk about the plan of God, His second coming, and
how God's at work in human history. In this chapter, Jesus as the fourth-teller
has truth that will turn your life upside down and right side up.

He's talking in these verses about right thinking, right thinking about history,
right thinking about integrity, right thinking about eternal life, right
thinking about what's most important, right thinking about giving. And He says
much of this through answering people's questions. And then He does some
teaching of the truth Himself later in this chapter.

In this chapter that's all about right thinking, it's all about what's most
important, this chapter begins with a parable. And this is one parable that
everyone understood. You might remember there were many parables if you've gone
through Mark that many people didn't understand.

This one everyone understood because it's a parable concerning right thinking
about history. It's a parable with words of warning, learning lessons from
history so that you don't make the same mistakes again. And everyone understood
this parable in Jesus' day because it's from a story in the Old Testament, from
Isaiah chapter 5 verses 1 to 7.

Isaiah chapter 5 begins this way. Let me read those verses and then let's listen
to Jesus' parable and you'll see how they parallel. Isaiah 5 says this, "My
loved one has a vineyard on a fertile hillside.

He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He
built a watchtower in it and he cut out a winepress as well. " Everyone who
heard this story from Jesus this day knew that this was a story about Israel
from the book of Isaiah.

Well, Jesus has a story to tell this day, Mark chapter 12 verses 1 to 12. He
then began to speak to them in parables. "A man planted a vineyard.

He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the winepress 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 tenants
said to one another, 'This is the heir. Come let us 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 the scripture? The stone the builders rejected has become the
capstone. The Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes.

Then they looked for a way to arrest him, Jesus, because they knew that he had
spoken this parable against them. They were afraid of the crowd, so they left
him and went away. This parable is a clear warning to the Pharisees and
religious leaders in that day.

It's a picture of what had happened in Israel. God had planted this nation to be
a blessing to the world, and he tried to help this nation to love him, but they
rejected God again and again. He'd sent prophet after prophet after prophet, but
they killed and mistreated shamefully these prophets of God.

And then he sends his son. It's a warning. This is a warning about the past.

They had killed the prophets of God. This is a warning about the present. They
are preparing to kill the son, and it's also a warning about the future.

Jesus says the vineyard is going to be given to someone else. God has a way of
letting us know that judgment is on the way, and he's telling, clearly telling
these leaders of Israel, judgment is on the way, and they clearly understood it.
They wanted to kill him in that moment, but they couldn't because of the crowd.

Now, the mistake you and I would make in these verses is to read them about some
people long ago and think we would never have that kind of problem in our lives.
The truth is there are two broad truths evident in this story. Truth number one,
God is at work in the whole of history.

And truth number two, we have a tendency to stubbornly go our own way. In the
whole of the history of the nation of Israel, God had been at work. That's what
this parable is all about that Jesus is telling.

And in the whole of the history of the nation of Israel, people had stubbornly
gone their own way. They were doing it this very day as Jesus spoke to them.
Look at my life.

Look at your life. In the whole of history, the whole of history of my life,
your life, the whole of history of our nation, the whole of history, as we look
at how God is at work, God is doing things. God is leading, but we still have
this tendency to stubbornly go our own way.

So how do I deal with that? Well, I can't deal with it by pointing to 2000 years
ago and saying what terrible people they were. I got to look at my own life and
what God can do in my life.

How do I let go of my stubbornness towards doing my own will? Because we all
struggle with this. It's in every one of our lives.

It's in this story, but it's also in every one of our lives. How do I let go of
my stubbornness? Jesus tells us in this story, "I let go of my stubbornness to
do my will by recognizing the real facts of human history.

" Here are the real facts. There are three of them. Fact number one, God is the
owner.

I don't own this planet. I don't own my own life. God has given me this life.

He is the owner of everything that I see. The minute I begin to think even a
small way that I am the owner, somehow it is mine, then I'm going to stubbornly
want to go my own way. And I don't know about you, it's the easiest thing in the
world to think I'm the owner.

It is my life. I'm going to go my way. Mine is one of the earliest words that a
child learns, but we don't forget it when we get to be adults.

We hold on to what's mine, but it's not mine. God is the owner. And so I
recognize that God is the owner.

Fact number two about human history, recognize that I am a renter. That's the
picture that Jesus gives here. He rented out the vineyard to some others.

I'm just a renter. I just get to manage these things that God has put into my
life for a certain amount of time while I'm on this planet. I'm just a renter.

And when I begin to see that I have this stewardship of these things that God
has placed into my I begin to look at the relationships, the opportunities, the
job, the energy, everything that God has put into my life in a totally different
way. They're given to me by God as the owner, and he rents them to me for a
time. Why?

To be used for his glory, to be used so that the world can see something of what
he is like. And that goes to the third truth of human history. Truth number one,
recognize that God is the owner.

Truth number two, recognize that I am a renter. Truth number three, recognize
that a day of accounting will certainly come. This idea that I can live my life
any way that I want and no one is ever going to notice is not going to make any
difference how I live my life, not make any difference to God.

That's absolutely false. That's 100% false. Now, I can fool myself into that way
of thinking, and you can too when I want to stubbornly go my own way.

That the Bible is filled with the picture, with verses, with the truth, that
there will come a day of accounting. Now, that day could be a sad day. They
could be a day that's all about my stubbornness and my will and how I've missed
God's will for my life.

Or that day, or that day could be a glorious day, a day where I recognize that
despite my faults and failings, despite the fact that I've not been perfect in
this life and I need his forgiveness desperately, I have decided to follow him.
I've recognized that he is the manager, and I've tried in some small measure,
humble measure to use the things he's put into my life to let people know what
he's like. When I've done that, then that day is the glorious day of recognizing
that the accounting is him saying, "Well done, good and faithful servant.

" What's it going to be for me? What's it going to be for you? I'm not to that
day of accounting yet, but what I do today is going to affect that day.

What can I do today to recognize that God's the owner, I'm the renter, and a day
of accounting will certainly come? Let's spend a moment talking to him. God, we
begin by recognizing these truths.

You own it all. We're stewards of it for a certain amount of time. Thank you.

And a day of accounting will come. We don't want to fear that day. Because of
what Jesus Christ has done in giving us forgiveness, and because of what your
spirit wants to do in our lives, to let the gifts you put into us show the world
something of what you're like.

We want to look forward to that day. And I pray that the things that we do
today, things that I do today, would look forward to that day when I'm going to
stand before you. Help me to live in that kind of way, Jesus.

I pray this in your name, amen. I know you're going to want to join us tomorrow.
We're going to look together at Jesus' answer to the question, "Should we pay
taxes?