Who do you say the Jesus of the Bible is? Is He just a good man, my buddy, my co-pilot, and genie? Or. Is He Redeemer, Savior, Lord, Master, The Word, Friend, Prince of Peace, and Soon and coming King?

We are just four weeks away from celebrating the resurrection of our Savior Christ Jesus. During the next several Sundays I would like to speak to you about who the Bible says Jesus is. Whom Jesus Himself says He is.

In the passage we are studying today the timeline puts us right in the middle of what we call the Passion Week or the final week of Jesus human ministry on earth and just days before He would be crucified on the cross. This is likely on Tuesday of that week. The day before, Monday, Jesus and His disciples entered the temple in Jerusalem and He cleared the outer courts of the Temple or the court of the Gentiles where the money changers and a mixture of people would have been. This clearing of the Temple court and Jesus teaching, up until now, angered the religious leaders of the Jews.

Jesus and His disciples came back to the Temple on Tuesday and this angered the Jewish leaders even more. So, they tried to discredit Jesus and His claims by publicly asking Him several questions that would in their eyes prove He was not who He said He was. Little did they know, now Jesus was going to go on the offensive and publicly rebuke them. That is where we find ourselves as Jesus tells them this parable.

(Mark 12:1-12)

Then He began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug out a pit for a winepress, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenant farmers and went away. 2 At harvest time he sent a slave to the farmers to collect some of the fruit of the vineyard from the farmers. 3 But they took him, beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. 4 Again he sent another slave to them, and they hit him on the head and treated him shamefully. 5 Then he sent another, and they killed that one. He also sent many others; they beat some and they killed some. 6 “He still had one to send, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 7 “But those tenant farmers said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours!’ 8 So they seized him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. 9 “Therefore, what will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the farmers and give the vineyard to others. 10 Haven’t you read this Scripture: The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. 11 This came from the Lord and is wonderful in our eyes.” 12 Because they knew He had said this parable against them, they were looking for a way to arrest Him, but they were afraid of the crowd. So they left Him and went away.

In this parable that Jesus told, the man who planted the vineyard is God. The vineyard is seen as the nation of Israel. The tenant farmers are Israel's religious leaders. The servants were the prophets and priests who had remained faithful to God no matter what. The Son is Jesus. And the others could be seen as the Gentiles or leaders who remained faithful.

Jesus was accusing them of being so frustrated, jealous, and possessive that they almost completely ignored caring for the very people they were supposed to be bringing to God. This parable publicly exposed their plot to kill Him, and He warned them in His story that their sins would be punished.

In His story, Jesus referred to Himself as "the stone that the builders rejected," which is an allusion to (Psalm 118:22-23). In this context, a cornerstone was used as a base to assure that the other stones in the building were straight and level. Jesus life and His teaching would be the Church's foundation. And it is true that Jesus would be rejected by most of the Jewish religious leaders and the nation as a whole would have their responsibility of bringing the Gospel to the world put on hold until God turns His people back to Him. But Jesus would become the cornerstone of a new "building," which is the Church (Acts 4:11-12) This Jesus is the stone rejected by you builders, which has become the cornerstone. There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people, and we must be saved by it.”

Peter, speaking before a group of Jewish religious leaders just as Jesus had, accused them of rejecting Christ. But he said now Christ had become the cornerstone of the Church and without Him there would be no Church. Without Him the Church would not be able to stand.