Grace Beyond What's Earned

Transcript

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[0:00] Our sermon text today comes from Matthew chapter 20 verses 1 through 6 and this will also be from the NLT today. For the kingdom of heaven is like the landowner who went out early one morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay the normal daily wage and sent them out to work. At 9 o'clock in the morning, he was passing through the marketplace and saw some people standing around doing nothing. So he hired them, telling them he would pay them whatever was right at the end of the day. So they went to work in the vineyard. At noon and again at 3 o'clock, he did the same thing. At 5 o'clock that afternoon, he was in town again and saw some more.

[0:57] He asked them, why haven't you been working today? They replied, because no one hired us. The landowner told them, then go out and join the others in my vineyard. That evening, he told the foreman to call the workers in and pay them, beginning with the last workers first. When those hired at 5 o'clock were paid, each received a full day's wage. When those hired first came to get their pay, they were paid by the foreman. When they received their pay, they assumed they would receive more. But they too were paid a day's wage. When they received their pay, they protested to the owner. Those people worked only one hour, and yet you've paid them just as much as you paid us, who worked all day in the scorching heat. He answered them, friend, I haven't been unfair.

[1:52] Didn't you agree to work all day for the usual wage? Take your money and go. I wanted to pay the last worker the same as you. Is it against the law for me to do what I want with my money? Should you be jealous because I am kind to others?

[2:11] So those who are last now will be first then, and those who are first will be last. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We ask your blessing upon this word today. May your words from your Spirit speak to our hearts.

[2:38] Prepare our minds for what the Spirit would have you say to us. These things we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. So is it fair? We are really into getting what is our fair share. Is this parable fair? We know what we're supposed to think. We're supposed to think, oh yeah, that's fair because God says so. But what do we actually think? I think the kids kind of told us what we actually think. Even when we were talking about it being in the word of God and saying, this is what happened in the parable, they were like, that's not fair. They're very honest, and I think most of us are inclined to side with the workers, just like the kids did. They've worked all day, so why shouldn't they be paid more?

[3:34] We live in a capitalist society, and we've been conditioned from the time we were born to understand that hard work brings honest pay, and we need to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and we need to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, and my money is earned directly by the effort I put in. What I have is mine and is well deserved. And we also live in a system of punitive law, where everybody gets what they deserve. And so we look at this parable, and we feel conflicted. We know that the vineyard owner represents God, and so we feel that we should be on the side of the vineyard owner.

[4:17] But the workers made a very good argument in our eyes, which have been influenced by this capitalist society. And so our status in heaven seems to be the same. We say things like, oh, that person's going to have so many jewels in their crown.

[4:35] And Jesus' own disciples wondered who would get to sit at his right hand. So is it fair for one person to be a Christian their entire life? From the beginning, they were all Christians. From the time they're even too small to remember. Always, always walking the straight and narrow, doing what is right, striving for the Lord, living for God day by day for years and years. While another person lives for themselves all their life.

[5:05] Maybe even taking advantage of other people and running from Jesus until, with their dying breath, they surrender to God's calling in their life. Is it fair that they get the same reward? We know that God is both entirely fair and entirely just. And that's hard for us to understand. Because of our mindset of earning our own rewards, we forget that God's system is entirely different.

[5:36] God's system of grace goes against everything that we've ever been taught. It's foreign to us. God deals with us according to who God is, not according to who we are or what we do. And there are dangers in our human mindset. That we get what we have individually worked for and what we ultimately deserve. Well, for one thing, we walk a fine line between fairness and greed. We don't want people to have more than us. We don't want to share what is rightfully ours. And we don't want people to succeed where we were unable to. We want to win. We want the glory. We want to be the best. We want to have the best. And this all goes back to original sin. Which is this fear that will not be taken care of completely. And the pride that we can care for our own needs better than God can. So because we fear that we will not be completely taken care of by God, we take matters into our own hands. And suddenly, life becomes a competition. We want everything that we can have so that we can survive the best we can. If we have it all, then we'll be provided for. Then we'll surely be okay. And that includes God's gifts. We think if we can work hard enough, we can earn our salvation and our eternal safety. But God's kingdom doesn't work like that.

[7:13] In fact, it's just the opposite. If in our greed, we try to push others aside so that we can have it all or we can just have more than them, well, Jesus says, Those who are last now will be first then, and those who are first will be last.

[7:32] Greed is what the workers had. They saw those who had only worked a few hours would be paid the normal daily wage. That was about one denarius, by the way. And in their eyes, they turned to dollar signs because they thought they would be paid even more.

[7:51] Even though they'd originally agreed to work for that one denarius themselves. And it was like the passage that Adele read. The people were given this gift of freedom in the wilderness. They were given an incredible gift to be free from the oppression of the Pharaoh and his armies. But when they were out in the wilderness, they said, You know what? This isn't fair. It would be better if we were under Pharaoh's rule because we'd have food to eat. And God gave them food to eat. And eventually they grumbled about that too. And they were constantly trying to cheat and get more. Some people tried to gather more than what God said they should gather. And it rotted and they complained.

[8:42] People are always trying to get more than their fair share. But God gives what is right. In fact, even in the passage, God said that he would give the workers what is right at the end of the day. So the workers who joined after the first batch of workers, instead of saying, I'll give you a daily wage, he said, I will give you what is right. And he still gave them a daily wage. And because God does what is just, we know that the daily wage was what was right.

[9:24] When greed reigns in our hearts, we will never be happy with what we have. We will always want more. We will always want to get ahead. And we'll find that we can never have enough to fully be satisfied. The workers were originally happy with one denarius.

[9:46] Until they found out the other workers were receiving the same amount. The Israelites were originally happy. They were happy to be freed from Pharaoh. Until they found that it was hard. They were provided for, but it was hard.

[10:05] So another danger is that we start to think that we can work our way into salvation. So remember I said that greed was linked to original sin. What finally caused Eve to take the apple from the serpent? It was the idea that not only would she not die, but she would have the same wisdom as God. She wanted to have her entire life in her hands. And so if she would not die, then she could have the same wisdom as God. And just make sure that he wasn't secretly holding anything out on her. And we do that with salvation too. We have this scholastic knowledge that Jesus paid the price for our salvation. But sometimes we think too much like humans. And we decide that we need to pad our future. To take things into our own hands and do things just to make sure we're covered. We like to think that good works and avoiding sin is doing our part to earn salvation. And that's never going to happen. No matter what we do. Because we simply do not deserve eternal life.

[11:18] God gives us what is right, not what is earned. It's a gift of mercy and grace because of his righteousness. So God explained his grace and compassion to Moses in Exodus 34, verses 6 and 7. The Lord passed in front of Moses, calling out, Yahweh the Lord, the God of compassion and mercy, I am slowed to anger and filled with unfailing love and faith. I am filled with unfailing love and faithfulness. I lavish unfailing love to a thousand generations. I forgive iniquity, rebellion, and sin. This is not necessary. This is grace. God's grace. God has mercy on us and gives us an undeserved gift of grace to his people. Because of who he is, not because of what we've earned.

[12:13] So the problems of greed and earning a due reward, are problems that have always existed. In fact, this whole parable was a response to Peter's question in Matthew 19, 27. Peter said to him, We've given everything to follow you. What will we get?

[12:34] Jesus had just told a rich man to sell all his possessions and follow him. And the rich man walked away dejected because that was too hard for him to do. And Peter must have been feeling the same. So excited at that time. He must have been expecting a pat on the back. Hey, we've already done all that. We gave up everything.

[13:00] Maybe he thought he'd get a great reward, greater than anyone else's. Because the disciples followed Jesus everywhere. Other people came to hear him from time to time, did what he said. But the disciples gave up everything. Their whole lives for you. Their years.

[13:18] The human mind always feels entitled to be rewarded. What it feels is a deserving compensation for the work and effort they put in. And Jesus' response to Peter was this parable. God does not recognize and reward us on the basis of what we feel are our true accomplishments that are worthy of recognition or reward or compensation. Instead, God's grace is lavished on us in a totally different context.

[13:53] So let's think about the workers in this parable. The typical workday in this context would have been from about 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. So the first workers hired were probably picked up right at 6 o'clock a.m. They were probably feeling lucky. Hey, we get a day's wages. They worked hard for 12 hours.

[14:16] The last workers were picked up at 5 p.m. and only worked for about an hour. Can you imagine the fear that the last workers must have been feeling? It was 5 o'clock. The workday was almost over. These workers earned their living one day at a time. So if they go a day without working, then their family goes a day without eating.

[14:45] In their situation, earning a wage for even one hour was better than nothing. And it's a gift to them to be asked to work in that last hour when they were worrying about how to feed their family. They were working for what was right according to the vineyard owner. He told them, I will give you what is right. They must have been expecting a wage for one hour. And they would have been expecting a wage for one hour. And they were thankful for that.

[15:17] It is a particularly lavish gift that was given when the landowner decided to pay them a full day's wage. So we've already said that they're paid about a denarius, which was the same amount that a Roman soldier would have earned in a day. So that's not just a fair day's wage, that's a generous day's wage. It's already generous for someone who had worked the entire day, let alone an hour. The landowner has a vineyard that needs to be tended. If the grapes are not harvested in a timely manner, then what's not harvested is just gonna be spoiled and worthless. And so the landowner really wants to get as much of his money's worth as possible. So he does have a purpose for these workers.

[16:08] At the point where they only... only worked an hour of the day, it was foolish of the land owner to pay them so much money, because they didn't really... They didn't really do enough to earn that. It was almost like the land owner would lose money on that deal. In fact, he would, he would lose money on those particular workers. He could have just as easily paid them for no work at all. It would have been about the same. He could have just said, well, here's some money to feed your family for tonight. But instead, he gave them work, and work is part of the gift. He gave them a purpose and a part in his vineyard, and they were able to use their own gifts to make a difference, and then he paid them generously for it. So even the workers who were hired at 6 AM were given a generous opportunity. They were given an opportunity to use their skills, and then they were given this generous gift to feed their families. And the land owner could have passed them over altogether. He could have just chosen one or two. He could have shown up and just chosen a couple, but he chose every person that he saw, and he went back multiple times, and every time he saw someone, he invited them to come. He was giving them an opportunity and a chance to participate in earning their daily bread.

[17:49] And he continued to hire people as he saw them. So it's really foolish lavishness that he continues to hire all these people, and even more so, continues to pay them a day's wage. But what's the alternative? The alternative is that they go home without having earned enough to feed their family for the day. And what is our alternative? Without God's grace and mercy, our alternative is that we would not reach eternal life at all.

[18:21] We see examples of God's foolish lavishness in other places in Scripture. Think about the prodigal son. The son had made a fool of his father and spent himself into destitution. But before he even has a chance to apologize, he has to make a sacrifice. He has to make a sacrifice to the Righteous Son.

[18:46] Righteous Son declares he is the Righteous Son declares he is the Righteous Son declares he is the Righteous Son declares he is the Righteous Son declares he is the Righteous Son declares he is the Righteous Son declares he is the Righteous Son declares he is the Righteous Son declares he is the Righteous Son declares he is the Righteous Son declares he is the Righteous Son declares he is the Righteous Son declares he is the Righteous Son declares he is the Righteous Son declares he is the Righteous Son declares he is the Righteous Son declares he is the Righteous Son declares he is the Righteous Son declares he is the I slaved for you, and you never even gave me a goat. He took for granted that all that time he got the grace of living in his father's house, always reaping the rewards. He had ready relationship with his father the whole time, and every day that he ate at his father's table was a celebration of them being together. But he felt entitled. He thought that he deserved more, and he was jealous and greedy and frustrated and angry when his brother got what he thought he should have. But God thinks differently. We're reminded of this in Isaiah 55, 8 and 9. My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts, says the Lord,

[19:53] and my ways are beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts. God works on an eternal level, while we tend to dwell in the here and the now. So when things don't go the way we want them to, or don't go to plan, or we don't receive what we think is our due recognition or reward for the work we've done, we become resentful and upset and maybe even confused. We might even get angry with God. But look at the landscape. The landowner's response to the angry workers, even though he was being accused of being unfair, he didn't treat anyone unfairly or unjustly. The landowner responded with grace and spoke to the angry worker in a loving way. He calls him friend.

[20:52] And he tries to explain, but he doesn't have to explain himself. It was his money to do with as he pleased. Further, hadn't he told the worker early on that he would earn a fair daily wage? And that's exactly what happened. He didn't short anybody. If anything, he was overly generous. So he's disappointed by their greed and resentment towards the generosity he showed the other workers.

[21:22] The point is that God rewards on the principle of grace. He will never be less than fair. But he does reserve the right to be more than just a worker. He does not want to be more than fair as it pleases him.

[21:36] God's grace always operates righteously and on the grounds of unconditional love. The landowner in today's parable is God. The vineyard is his kingdom. And the workers hired at dawn are actually the Israelites.

[21:58] These are the ones he offered his first covenant. They were in covenant with him for years and years and for centuries and centuries. The hired workers later in the day, those are the Gentiles, that's us.

[22:19] So we don't have a right to grumble about this fair wage at all because God is giving us this undeserved extra wage. We are the Gentiles in this story. Well, we're the Gentiles always. But in this story, we're the workers who showed up at five o'clock.

[22:44] In the Lord's great generosity, the same wages, the same blessings promised to the first call, the first called, the Israelites, are now the same inheritance of equal value to be paid. They're paid to those called last, which is ultimately all of humanity to the end of the age.

[23:09] God works specifically and differently within each person's life in order to save them. First Timothy 2, 3 to 4 says, this is good and pleases God our Savior who wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth.

[23:28] So we should never resent or become a slave to God. We should never be disillusioned by how God works in another's life. God is a father of grace and is generous far beyond what we could ever hope or dream of expecting from him. God is infinitely compassionate and will never be less than just.

[23:50] So in the kingdom of God, there are no elites. There are no extra jewels in the crown. There's no middle class, majority, or minority. There will be no one with a right of superiority or a higher reward in eternity.

[24:11] So I don't know how many of you have seen Alice in Wonderland, but Dodo says, everybody has won and all must have prizes. It's all by God's, well, he doesn't say this part, but it is all by God's lavish mercy. And grace that everyone has won and all must have prizes.

[24:35] Let's pray. Our God, we thank you that when we were undeserving, that when we were still sinners, you died for each and every one of us. A blessing we don't deserve, but that you gave out. Amen. And because of your compassion and mercy.

[25:02] God help us to extend this grace to others and to dwell in your gift of salvation. These things we pray in Jesus' name.