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Here’s the story as Jesus told it: “ ‘What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, “Son, go and work in the vineyard today.” He answered, “I will not”; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, “I go, sir”; but he did not go’ ” (Matthew 21:28-30 NRSV).

Let me ask you right up front here, how do you respond to God’s call on your life? Have you sensed Him calling you to a special kind of ministry? Or perhaps just calling on you to surrender your life to Him?

How did you respond? Did you resist or go willingly?

And now the next question: how is your walk and work with God going? It’s possible to answer the call of God once in your life, but then to get off course. In fact that’s what had happened to the people Jesus addressed this parable to.

The priests and Pharisees get pretty bad press in much of the New Testament. But even though there were numerous conflicts between them and Jesus, we shouldn’t assume that all of them were in open rebellion against God. In fact the book of Acts reveals that many of them eventually became Christians.

And in the parable they are represented by the second son—the one who agreed to go to work in his father’s vineyard. No doubt many of these men had good intentions and had started out to serve the Lord faithfully. But they’d gotten sidetracked along the way.

For them there had come a time—a watershed point in their lives—when they had chosen the wrong path.

Jesus pointed to a specific time and place where they had failed to move forward in their walk with God. And what He said to them is still important today as we consider our own walk with God.

Just before He spoke this parable, Jesus had challenged the priests with a question about the ministry of John the Baptist. And the priests had questioned Jesus’ own authority. Jesus was teaching in the temple one day, when the priests came to came to Him and asked who had given Him the authority to teach.

Jesus responded with a question of His own: As long as we’re talking about authority to preach, what about John the Baptist? Was his authority from heaven or simply his own?

In the parable of the two sons, Jesus reminded the religious leaders of how they had responded when God called them to repentance through the ministry of John. Though they had started out to do God’s will, they hadn’t really done the work He’d called them to—the work of repenting and coming back into a close relationship with Him.

After telling the story of the two sons, Jesus asked the religious leaders which of the sons had actually done his father’s will. Well, of course the answer is obvious. The first one—the one who first said he wouldn’t work in the vineyard but then changed his mind and went.

The son who said he was going but then crawled back into bed didn’t do a thing for his father.

And the lesson Jesus draws from this points squarely at the heart of the religious leaders He was talking to. And friend, let me say this, it points that my heart as well.

Here’s the lesson, as found in Matthew 21:31, 32: “Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him’ ” (NRSV).

What is it that has qualified the tax collectors and prostitutes to move up in line for the kingdom of heaven? Notice Jesus doesn’t exclude the religious leaders, He just says that the people usually expected to be last in line—or out of the line all together—have gotten bumped up to the front of the line.

These lowly, sinful, despised people have made a lot of wrong choices in their lives. They’ve gone down the wrong path entirely. They’ve answered the world’s call instead of God’s call. When God first invited them to be laborers in His vineyard, they rolled over in bed and said “No!” But then, along comes John, and these people do the right thing. Recognizing their need of repentance and cleansing, they respond to their Father’s call.

The religious leaders, on the other hand, seem to have responded to God’s call. But when John shows up and calls them to repentance, that’s the work they’re supposed to do today. And instead of doing it, these men who claim to have said Yes to God crawl back into bed! They make a show of being “in God’s work,” but really they do nothing but put on a show, exalting themselves. They feel no need of repentance, and they turn a deaf ear to John’s preaching.

Complacency.

Preserving the status quo.

It seems like such a good thing to do—to keep things on an even keel. Don’t rock the boat!

Then along comes a guy like John the Baptist. He doesn’t take a paycheck from anyone. He doesn’t dress like other people. He doesn’t mince words. He insists on telling it like it is and calling people to repentance.

The people at the bottom of the heap—those who have been treated as a spiritual outcasts—recognize this as the opportunity of a lifetime. It’s easy for them to accept John’s call to repentance, because they sense their need. They know they are sinful.

But for those who have made a profession of being religious, those who are at the top of the spiritual hierarchy, it’s not so easy.

How would you feel if you saw your pastor going forward at an altar call? In most churches, it’s the pastor who makes the call, and it’s the parishioners who are supposed to come forward in repentance. In many congregations, if the pastor were to go forward repenting of his sins, tongues would start to wag. What horrible thing do you suppose he’s done that he needs to repent of?

And maybe that’s the way the scribes and Pharisees thought. Maybe they had become complacent in their walk with God, doing what seemed to be all the right things, but neglecting genuine closeness with God.
Perhaps John the Baptist’s call to repentance pricked their conscience a bit, but they didn’t respond—they just wrote him off as part of the religious fringe.

But repentance is important -- even for righteous people. Remember Job for example. At the beginning of the story, he’s called a “blameless and upright.” But by the end of the story, we find him repenting in dust and ashes, and it’s only after he has done that, that God restores his fortune to him.

And what about Daniel? If anyone was ever blameless and faithful in God’s sight, surely it was Daniel! And yet in the ninth chapter of the book of Daniel we find one of the most poignant prayers of repentance in all of the Bible. Notice how often Daniel uses the word we in his prayer, including himself among those who need to repent: “ ‘We have sinned, we have been evil, we have done wrong. . . . We have not listened to your servants the prophets . . . we have always brought disgrace on ourselves. . . . We did not listen to you, O LORD our God, when you told us to live according to the laws which you gave us through your servants the prophets’ ” (Daniel 9:5-10, NRSV).

And think about the apostle Paul. He called himself the chief of sinners and thanked God for saving him by His grace.

There’s no room for pride in the Christian life. No room for thinking that “I’ve arrived.” And no room for giving lip service to holiness.

There were two things that made a difference between the two sons in this parable. One was their attitude. The other was their action. Son number one started out with bad attitude but changed his attitude and brought his actions into line with his new attitude. Son number two seemed to have good attitude at first, but his attitude turned bad, and his actions (or inaction) displayed his change of attitude as well.

Perhaps this parable is one of the best illustrations of the principal found in the book of James: “ ‘Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith’ ” (James 2:18, NRSV).

But keep one thing in mind here. It’s not so much the work that the first son does in the vineyard that is important. The point of the parable centers around his repentance. That’s what Jesus was looking for from the scribes and Pharisees. … An attitude of humility toward God…. A willingness to respond to God.

And that’s what He’s looking for in us as well. He calls us today—you and me—just as He called to the scribes and Pharisees and the prostitutes and tax collectors in Jesus’ day—come to me. Repent. Turn back to me. And go into my vineyard and labor for me.

How will you respond?