[SPEAKER_00]: Christian parenting.
[SPEAKER_00]: As Christian parents, you want to be praying for your kids, but knowing what to pray can be hard, that's why Christian parenting created a great cloud of witnesses prayer journal to help busy parents like you intentionally pray for your child and their faith all year long.
[SPEAKER_00]: This weekly journal walks through the lives of faithful men and women in scripture.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like Abraham, Sarah, Moses, and Rahab, who trusted an extraordinary God.
[SPEAKER_00]: It helps you pray boldly for your kids to follow in their footsteps, grow in character, deep in their faith, and trust God's plan.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love this journal because it takes examples of men and women of the scripture, the same men and women we have learned about through the episodes of this podcast, and gives you practical ways to pray over your children standing on truths from these examples in scripture.
[SPEAKER_00]: visit cpgive.org and use code cloud to get your special podcast listener discount.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's cpgive.org code cloud.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello and welcome to the True Seeker's podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: The True Seeker is someone who wants to know the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: They search for what's true and they won't rest until they find it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am a True Seeker and if you are to then you've come to the right place where we will search for truth each week in the stories of the Bible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back to Seekers.
[SPEAKER_00]: In today's episode, we are going to listen to a parable that Jesus told during the week leading up to his death.
[SPEAKER_00]: He knew the time was close.
[SPEAKER_00]: He knew that not everyone was happy that he was so popular among the people.
[SPEAKER_00]: He knew that no matter how many miracles he performed,
[SPEAKER_00]: that there were some men who refused to believe that he was the son of God and had been plotting to kill him.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Jesus was not surprised by this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember, he is God.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is God's son, come to earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus had come to do the will of his father, and that would lead him to the cross.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus knew why he had come, and so he then began to speak to them in parables.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, a man planted a vineyard.
[SPEAKER_00]: He put a wall around it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dug a pit for the wine press and bill a watch tower.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place.
[SPEAKER_00]: At harvest time, he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they seized him, beat him, and sent him away empty handed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then the man who owned the vineyard sent another servant to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: They also struck this man on the head and treated him shamefully.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the man who owned the vineyard still sent another, and that one, they killed.
[SPEAKER_00]: He sent many others, some of them they beat, others they killed.
[SPEAKER_00]: The man who owned the vineyard had one left to send.
[SPEAKER_00]: A son.
[SPEAKER_00]: His only son whom he loved.
[SPEAKER_00]: He sent him last of all saying, they will respect my son.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the tenant said to one another, this is the heir of the owner.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come let's kill him and the inheritance will be ours.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard.
[SPEAKER_00]: What then will the owner of the vineyard do?
[SPEAKER_00]: He will come and pay judgment to those tenants and give the vineyard to others.
[SPEAKER_00]: How about you read this passage of Scripture, Jesus said?
[SPEAKER_00]: The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Lord has done this and it is marvelous in our eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders looked for a way to arrest him, because they knew Jesus had spoken the parable against them.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they were afraid of the crowd, so they left him in one away.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, friends!
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus had been speaking of the cheap priests and the teachers of the law in this parable.
[SPEAKER_00]: For the owner of the vineyard in this parable represents God, and Jesus represents the son that was sent to collect what was his.
[SPEAKER_00]: The son was killed in the parable, and Jesus knew that it would not be long before his life was also taken.
[SPEAKER_00]: Taken by men who did not understand what they were about to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's sad, really.
[SPEAKER_00]: For the cheap priests and the teachers of the law should have been the ones to understand the most that Jesus had come as the long awaited Messiah.
[SPEAKER_00]: But all they could see was their jealousy, their loss of power over the people.
[SPEAKER_00]: They wanted to be in control.
[SPEAKER_00]: They wanted to be the ones that people came to and listened to.
[SPEAKER_00]: But instead, Jesus had drawn their attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rather than seeing that Jesus, God Himself, was standing right in front of them, they had allowed their hearts to become hardened, even despite all the miracles they witnessed.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in the midst of the crowd and the angry Pharisees, there was one woman who came forward to show her great faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: What this woman was about to do would catch Jesus' attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many rich people threw in large amounts of money without even thinking twice about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins worth only a few cents.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you might be thinking, why bother?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why did this woman put in only two small copper coins?
[SPEAKER_00]: Barely worth anything when those rich people were able to put in so much more money.
[SPEAKER_00]: Surely her money won't do very much.
[SPEAKER_00]: But instead Jesus understood just how much this had cost the woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see, this was all she had left.
[SPEAKER_00]: These were her last few coins.
[SPEAKER_00]: The last coins that could have bought her food, and she chose to give them back to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: She chose to give all she had, which was more than what the wealthy had given.
[SPEAKER_00]: Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others.
[SPEAKER_00]: They all gave out of their wealth, but she out of her poverty put in everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: All she had to live on.
[SPEAKER_00]: dear true seekers.
[SPEAKER_00]: What a powerful example of what it looks like to give our all for Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: While the Pharisees were blinded by their jealousy and love of power, this poor widow who had nothing left to her name was willing to give all she had left to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes we can let the things of this world get in the way of our worship to Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: We look around us and we worry about what our friends think of us, or how many toys we have, or what we're going to watch on TV, where we're going to go for dinner, who we're going to spend time with, we worry about silly things, and we worry about important things too.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in the end, can all of these worries about all of these things really do anything?
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of our worries and attention and focus on other things take our eyes off of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were created to worship Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: But God has given us a choice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just like He gave the Pharisees a choice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just like the widow had a choice.
[SPEAKER_00]: We all have a choice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who will we worship?
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever, or whoever you make as most important in your life is who you worship.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to worship Jesus with all I have.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to give Him my all, my everything, because He has God and He deserves my worship.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are there things in your life that are keeping you from giving everything you have to Jesus?
[SPEAKER_00]: Are your eyes focused on things of this world instead of Him?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's amazing what He can do with just a small amount.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even something as small as a few coins, he can multiply to do great things for the kingdom of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's fix our eyes on Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's vow to give Him everything we have, even if it's a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's give Him what we can and let's watch Him take what we give Him in use and multiply to do great things for His name and His glory.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you'd like to read today's story in your Bible, you can find it in Mark, chapter twelve.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me pray with you before we go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you so much for the reminder that you have created us to worship you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are holy and good and righteous.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are magnificent and wonderful and full of awe.
[SPEAKER_00]: God, you deserve our worship morning, noon, and night.
[SPEAKER_00]: I pray that our hearts would be turned towards you, that we would not become distracted by the things of this world, the things that we think we need or want.
[SPEAKER_00]: God, I pray.
[SPEAKER_00]: that our desire would be for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: For more of you, Jesus show us more of you in our lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: We give you all of our hearts, our minds, our souls.
[SPEAKER_00]: We give you everything, Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just like the widow gave her last few coins.
[SPEAKER_00]: We give you all we have.
[SPEAKER_00]: We know that you will be glorified in our surrender.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, true seekers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for joining me today and I look forward to our time together next week.