What if the most effective workers in God’s kingdom are not the polished, saintly-looking ones, but the messy, struggling sinners who actually get up and go to work? On Sunday, June 7, 2026, Collin Brown — Grace Bible Church board member, gym owner, and recovering 1990s music obsessive — stepped into the pulpit while Pastor Josh is in Colorado and pressed the church with a deceptively simple question: Would you rather?
Collin framed the morning with a cultural lens — the 40-to-45-day window in late 1991 when bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Guns N’ Roses, and Metallica dropped career-altering albums that didn’t just shift a genre but toppled a glossy, hairspray-era establishment. None of them were clean-cut. Many were battling addiction, brokenness, and anger. But they did the work, and the industry was never the same. The question Collin brought to GBC was whether the church has the same courage — or whether we have become, in his phrase, “garage door Christians” who pull into the driveway, hit the opener, slide inside, and disappear from the lost world entirely.
To answer it, he walked us through Jesus’ parable of the two sons in Matthew 21.
The Father’s Command: Work in the Vineyard, Not in Safe Agreement
Right after Jesus cleanses the temple, the chief priests and elders challenge his authority. Jesus responds with a parable. A father asks both of his sons to go work in the vineyard. The first refuses — and then changes his mind and goes. The second says, “I will, sir” — and never goes. The point of the parable is not which son is more polite. It is which son obeyed.
“What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’ ‘I will not,’ he answered. But later he changed his mind and went. Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir.’ But he did not go. Which of the first two did what his father wanted?”
— Matthew 21:28-31
Collin noted that when Jesus begins a sentence with “Truly, I tell you,” it is a signal to lean in. The hard punchline is for the religious leaders standing right in front of him: the tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom ahead of them, because the sinners repented and went to work, and the saints did not.
To deepen the picture, Collin turned to Isaiah’s vineyard song, where Israel is the vineyard God planted, hedged, and tended — and where he looked for justice but saw bloodshed, for righteousness but heard cries of distress.
“He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a wine press as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit… What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad?”
— Isaiah 5:2-4
The father’s command is blunt: son, go and work today in the vineyard. The command is not “work today, but only if you feel spiritual enough.” It is not “agree with the work in the safety of the temple courts.” It is work today. The vineyard of a broken world is still open. The father is still saying go.
Words Without Works: The Hypocrisy of the Second Son
The second son is the religious-leader type. He says the right words — “I will, sir” — and never moves. His promise is empty. His piety is clean on the outside and fruitless on the inside. Collin called this profile the garage door Christian: rarely sins publicly, looks saintly, has scripture on the walls and an organ in the corner, but the garage door never opens, and the lost world is never engaged.
“Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.”
— Matthew 21:31-32
The tax collectors and prostitutes of first-century Judaism were messy, scandalous, and culturally despised. But when John the Baptist called them to repent, they actually went to work. The saints, by contrast, said all the right words and never left the temple courts. Action, not appearance, is the key to this parable. The polished second son who was willing in his mouth did not, in the end, do the father’s will. The first son — the reluctant, struggling one who said no and then repented — did.
The Gospel Advances Through Unlikely Workers, Not Polished Spectators
Collin’s third point is the one that landed hardest: God has a long track record of using the weak, the flawed, and the dangerous. He walked through a quick biblical roll call.
Moses the murderer, who killed an Egyptian and fled into the desert, was the same man God called from the burning bush to deliver Israel.
“I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and I have come down to set them free. Now come, I will send you back to Egypt.”
— Acts 7:34-35
David the adulterer became the man after God’s own heart, who prayed:
“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”
— Psalm 51:10
Peter the rock was the same Peter who denied Jesus three times before dawn. And Saul the persecutor became Paul the apostle to the Gentiles.
“For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it… But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being.”
— Galatians 1:13-16
None of them had the resume the religious leaders of their day would have approved. None of them looked like a polished spectator. They were messy, reluctant, sometimes straight-up dangerous. And God used them to move history.
So What? A 40-Day Challenge
Collin closed with a direct, personal application. He is convinced God will often prefer a repentant, struggling, even reluctant sinner who eventually gets in the vineyard over a supposed saint who never leaves the garage. God is not looking for perfect resumes. He is looking for obedient feet.
His challenge to GBC: take 40 days. Just as the 1991 rock revolution transformed an industry in roughly 40 to 44 days, take a season and try to revolutionize your own life. Spend 40 days in Scripture. Spend 40 days in daily prayer. Spend 40 days serving people you would not naturally choose to serve. Do something that gets you out of the comfort zone — even if every part of you is whispering, I don’t know if I’m talented enough, smart enough, or good enough. Just get out there and do the work.
He also offered a small, funny illustration of why this matters. Right at the start of the service, he had everyone pull out their cell phone, turn on the flashlight, and hold it up — for no announced reason. Many of you just did it, simply because the person at the front of the room said so. If a little bit of imperfect influence can move a room to do something as random as turning on a flashlight, imagine what a little faithful obedience, backed by the Holy Spirit, can do in the actual lives of actual people.
So which son will you be? The one who talks a good game but never leaves the garage, or the one — flawed, struggling, maybe a little reluctant — who eventually gets up, walks out the door, and goes to work for the King?
Watch the full sermon on the Grace Bible Church of Phoenix YouTube channel, and join us this summer as we back out of the garage, get the tennis ball off the windshield, and go to work.
Scripture References
- Matthew 21:28-32 — The parable of the two sons
- Isaiah 5:1-7 — The vineyard of the Lord Almighty
- Acts 7:23-35 — Moses the murderer becomes the deliverer
- Psalm 51:10 — David’s prayer for a pure heart
- Galatians 1:13-16 — Saul the persecutor becomes Paul the apostle