Parable of the vineyard workers | Feat. Luke Taylor

This is one of the teachings of Jesus whereby he reveals his gracious nature and humanity's sinfulness propensities in question the one true sovereign God.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

WILDFIRE, the youth branch of Hope to Families, seeking unity and community, helping people come to know Jesus and pointing people to the local body. Okay, so I'm just gonna invite Peter up stage, and I'm gonna attach a flamethrower to him, and then he's just gonna fire the flamethrower, and we're just gonna see how many rows that we can hit. All right, nobody moved, right? That's because you don't actually believe that Peter's gonna come up here and fire a flamethrower. All of that to say your beliefs dictate your responses. And I believe that there's a lot of beliefs in this room right now that are dictating a lot of responses. On one hand, some of yous are believing that this is a completely naturalistic environment. What do I mean by that? This is just a human communicating to other humans. These are just carpets and these are just chairs and this is the space that we find ourselves in. That's your belief and if that's your belief then the response is gonna be a low expectation one. Nothing's really gonna happen. But I have faith, which is different to belief. Faith is the reality of what is hoped for. The belief in that not yet seen. That all of us can come together, one body, one mind and one spirit. and we can get that there is fire up here that is about to be unleashed. How many of you actually have faith in Yahweh's description of his own words, that this is fire? And if there's fire about to be unleashed, then in what way are you preparing yourself for that? Does your belief, does your faith not reflect? You don't actually believe that this is fire about to be unleashed. Yahweh's description of His words is that this is a sword that can pierce you. Are you ready to be pierced? Yahweh's description of his word is that it's like a hammer that can just hit you tonight in a way that you couldn't have comprehended. I think if we went 2000 years ago to some of the walking disciples of Jesus and we were just walking with Jesus and Jesus just decided to sit down and he said okay I'm about to tell another parable, another teaching, I'm about to reveal to you a secret of my kingdom. You can imagine his disciples they'd be like okay stop what you're doing, Peter drop that there rucksack, let's just sit down and listen to the teaching of Jesus. This is Jesus. This is the Logos, the word God himself. He's about to reveal I can't even believe I'm a part of the kingdom, yet alone the King is about to reveal to me? And I think if we fast forward 2,000 years now to where we're sitting now, do we have faith that is the same reality? I'm here to proclaim to you that whenever Jesus died and rose three days later, and He ascended on high, He gave us His Holy Spirit, the person of the Holy Spirit, the same person that ministered that truth then is the same person. that ministers the truth, no? Do we have faith in that? If you get nothing else from me tonight, get this. It's not about man's words, it's about his words. Jesus is about to teach us. That's exciting. That's intense, that's freeing, that's beautiful. But do you have faith in that? If you were to ask me what my desire was for tonight, what I've been praying for throughout this week, it would be that we would spend less time talking about what man spoke and more about what God spoke. That we would spend less time on the teacher, the communicator, and more time on the content of the teaching. My desire is whenever this quote unquote service ends and we continue our fellowship together, you would not say my name Luke Taylor plus an adjective, good or bad. But rather you would say, can you believe we heard from Jesus tonight? Let's talk about his teaching. He sat with us and he taught us. What do you think about that parable? What do you think about the master and the laborers? These are the questions that we need to be asking. If we truly have faith that Jesus taught us tonight, why would you spend your time talking about me, the communicator and the vessel? My prayer and my desire is that we would spend less time thinking about the numbers and more about his presence. I would rather be in a room alone with him than in a room of a thousand without him. It matters not who you're sitting with, it matters not the empty chairs, it matters his presence with us, which we talked about this morning. What are we talking about tonight? We're talking about Yahweh's revelation of the kingdom through the person of Jesus. Right? Do you have faith in what I just said? I was driving by, I often go, whenever I'm going to football, I'm really nervous and I don't want to do anything else except play football and I love food and I'd drive by a chip shop and I'd be like, that is the last place where I'd want to be right now and I'm watching so many people go into it because there's something greater that I want to go towards. And I was driving by someone who was gardening tonight and cutting the grass and I said, bro, you're cutting grass and I'm going to be taught by Yahweh. I'm gonna get revelation of the kingdom. If you have faith in that, that should stir up an excitement in us. Okay? You don't have to be Pentecostal and raise your hands to express the excitement. It could be this inward jubilance and joy. You and him just saying, you're about to teach me. That is exciting stuff. And how we're going to talk about that tonight is we're going to look at the teaching of Jesus, the purpose of his teaching, the details of his teaching, the revelation in his teaching, and we're going to draw out two major truths, you guessed it, from his teaching. Tonight's priority is his teaching. Look to him, his teaching. You're teaching me, Jesus. Remind yourself in faith constantly. Don't ever leave that tonight. And why talk about this? Well, there's a lot of different people in the room, but we're all soil. There are some of you who will hear what is said tonight and almost immediately forget it because you do not value it nor have faith that it's his words. There are others of you who will, you'll listen, you'll hear. but you forget what we talked about. And then there are those of you who are so close because you'll listen, you'll hear, you'll think, and you'll live out, but then life will collapse in on you. You'll forget about what we talked about tonight. And finally, and I have faith that all of us can be here, there are those of you who thirst for God's word because you wanna be closer to the one who created you and loved you. So you listen, you think, and you live. but the key and defining characteristic of any obedient and intimate disciple of Jesus is that you will persevere with the truth talked about tonight. That when Monday comes, when Tuesday comes, when Wednesday comes, you persevere and you live out with the truth that we talked about tonight. And the only way that you can persevere with the truth that we talk about tonight is if you abide with Him and you abide with His people. We need Him and we need one another to persevere with the truth that we've talked about tonight. If you think this is an isolated Sunday night thing, you're gonna get nothing tonight. This is family abiding with family and family abiding with him, with his truth, living it out every day together. So are you expecting, are you ready to be taught, rebuked, corrected, and trained? To leave here the same and unchanged is to say something about God and His word that is not true, that it is both lifeless and powerless. Rather it is alive and it is active, sharper than any double-edged sword. So with all that being said, you, me, let's come together and pray to Holy Spirit that he would minister to us. So just bow our heads and pray. God, teach us. Give us ears to hear your words. So this is his teaching. So let's get ready. Whatever you have to do to understand that you're not just in this earthly reality, you're not just earthbound, we're stepping into a heavenly one and Jesus is about to teach you. If that means closing your eyes, if that means looking at the text, do it. This is Jesus teaching us. This is his words. for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going about the third hour, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace. And to them he said, you go into the vineyard too. And whatever is right, I will give you. So they went. going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same, and about the eleventh hour, he went out and found others standing, and he said to them, why do you stand here idle all day? They said to him, because no one has hired us. He said to them, you go into the vineyard too. And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last. up to the first. And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more. But each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it, they grumbled at the master of the house saying, these last worked only in hour, and you've made them equal to us. You have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat, but you replied to one of them, friend. I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go, I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I chose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity? So the last will be first, and the first last. She's gonna give space. We're very bad at this in Western culture. We view it as negative, but I'm gonna allow for stillness and silence. Because whenever it's silence. You're forced to go into yourself. And I want you just to take the time, the space, and the silence to think, wow, I'm in his presence. Wow. This is his teaching. Take the time to be alone with him, read his words again, be taught by him. Being in your presence is the best. Hearing your words is the best. Letting you teach us is the best. I still can't believe that you do this. That you allow us to be in your presence. You allow us to hear your words. So what is the purpose of our Lord's teaching? At the core of Jesus' teaching is the good news of the coming of the kingdom of God. In the gospels, it accounts for us, the ministry of Jesus, he speaks of the kingdom over 50 times. Jesus himself said that I must preach the good news of the kingdom to the other towns. I was sent for this purpose. It is an emphasis of Jesus, the kingdom of God, and him establishing it. But why parables? Well, Jesus was a Jewish rabbi, so it makes sense that he utilizes the teaching methods of his day. He uses parables, but what's their purpose? And the disciples asked this question. They said, why rabbi do you speak to us in parables when you can't speak plainly? And Jesus in his grace and in his mercy gives us the answer. So this is what he says, this is why he teaches in parables. Jesus' words. To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. But to them it has not been granted. For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have in abundance. But whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables. because while seeing they do not see and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand, in their case, the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, hearing you will hear and shall not understand and seeing you will see and not perceive for the hearts. of this people have grown dull, their ears are hard of hearing, their eyes have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears because they hear, for truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desire to see what you see and did not see it, and to hear what you hear and did not hear it. Ed Jarrett says that Jesus' use of parables served to divide his listeners into two groups, his disciples and everyone else. His disciples would be able to learn from them, but to those who were not his disciples, their meaning was obscure. By using parables, his disciples would be enriched, but others would be further impoverished. Now, make no mistake, Jesus desires that everyone would understand and respond to his teaching. But Jesus is emphasizing that the means to which we understand is by dependence on God and revelation from him. This is why I love the kingdom of God so much, because it takes a battering ram to every human measurement and metric that we have ever created. That it's not about your social class, your economic class, it's not about your job and your profession, it's not about how smart you are. Jesus says blessed are the poor in spirit for they shall inherit the kingdom of God If you are poor in spirit if you're broken here if you're lacking Then that's just you being honest and that's where we're all at We're all lacking. We're all poor in spirit and we just need Jesus to give us understanding sure You can sit there if you're a brain box and accumulate knowledge But knowledge without understanding will not lead to wisdom. You will not live these truths out. And a faith without works is dead. If you want understanding, the only means to which you'll get there is if the Holy Spirit ministers it to you. You need to ask. I mean, this is the Logos speaking, the most important mouth in human history, right? Surely we should value his mouth, and he would emphasize that, and he does. But notice in the ministry of Jesus, he always says, and those who have ears to hear, let them hear. Because Jesus recognized in an audience of people, and including here tonight, yes, you're here physically, but your ears are closed. You leave here unchanged, but there is a remnant, there are a few sitting here now, and you're being receptive to the words of Jesus. And you're saying, I want ears to hear. Teach me. give me understanding so that I might live this out and my life may change. What are some of the details of Jesus' teaching? To better help us understand the characters that are at play here, and to give us better understanding. Well, the master's vineyard is the kingdom of heaven. The master is God the Father. The laborers are his followers. The marketplace the world. The foreman, God the Son. The money. the rewards of the Kingdom War. but what is the revelation of his teaching? Why is Jesus telling us this parable? If you were to distill it down and say, Rabbi, Jesus, what is the secret of the kingdom that you are bestowing to me in your grace? What are you trying to teach us about your kingdom? And it is this, the kingdom of our God is a place where we work with gratitude because of his generosity. The truth of this parable teaching of Jesus and the secret of the kingdom that he has given us is the kingdom of God is a place where we work with gratitude because of his generosity. That's what Jesus is giving to us now. And I wanna just extract two truths from the parable teaching of Jesus. Truth one is the truth of his. It's the truth of his. God, you wouldn't choose what you want because you simply want to. You're obligated to consult me to do as I see fit. Your generosity must be consulted first by our board of governors who will approve your choices. We have our metric of justice that you, the God of justice, must abide by. I mean, that's what they're grumbling about in this parable. And so many of those questions may resonate with us. That we would somehow think that we can question God and hold him to our standard and say, you're obligated to live the way that I see fit. But let's get Jesus' answer to these questions. Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? take what belongs to you, go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity? So the last will be first and the first will be last. It makes sense that the first and the last gets to decide who is first and who is last. None of us have the title of first and last, so we don't get that choice. It's in His sovereignty. Arthur W. Pink said this statement, to say that God is sovereign is to declare that He is the Almighty, the possessor of all power in heaven and on earth, so that none can defeat His counsels for His purpose or resist His will. The sovereignty of God of scripture is absolute, irresistible and infinite. To put it now in its strongest form, we insist that God does as He pleases, only as He pleases, always as He pleases. that whatever takes place in time is but the outworking of that which He decreed in eternity. Big statement, but all of that to say that it's His vineyard, it's His generosity, it's His laborers, it's His rewards, it's all His. Can we worship Him because of the revelation of Him that it's not about us? It's never been about us. But it's always been about Him. What He did for us. How He called us. How He saved us. How He's coming back for us. The focus is not ourselves, but it's Him. It's through that lens that we worship and that live our lives through the revelation of Him. The second truth that we can find from the parable teaching of Jesus is our response. That's what I love about this parable so much, that in order to understand it, there's a response that's required. You can't leave here and live the same way. If you wanna understand this parable, you have to live it out in faith. R.C. Sproul, a famous professor and teacher, recounts this story about the start of a semester, he had 250 students who came to him. And he said to them, you have three deadlines. At the end of each month, if you miss that deadline, you fail, so don't miss the deadline. First deadline comes along, 200 out of 250 students bring in their papers. 50 of them don't, and they say, please, Professor Sproul, can you give us a deadline? Please. Professor Sproul says, I will give you mercy, whereby you won't receive what you do deserve, and I will give you grace. You'll receive what you don't deserve. Have a deadline. Second deadline comes along. 150 out of 250 students bring in their papers. And they say, please, Professor Spool, you did it the last time, you can do it again. Will you give us a deadline? Will you give us an extension on that deadline? Professor Sproul says, all right, I'll give you an extension. Third deadline comes along, and you guessed it. 100 out of 250 students bring in their papers. 150 students walk in and they're like, Sproul, you're the man. You're the one that everyone loves on campus. Man, you give us an extension the first time, the second time, thanks for giving us an extension this time, I'll bring it in to you. Professor Sproul says, no. Deadline's up. You failed. And all of a sudden, from the back of the classroom, a student comes up and he says, that's not fair. Professor Scroll, he looks at him and says, Dean, isn't it? Didn't you miss the deadline the last time? He says, yes. If it's just as you want, just as you'll get, you also have failed. You see, what we see from this story, if you notice it, the students at first, they were surprised by grace. The second time, they expected grace. But by the third time, they demanded grace. And that's what we see in this parable teaching of Jesus. That's what we see play out in our own lives. That somehow we have this capacity to take something like the grace of God. and to twist it and manipulate it into something that it's not. That we would somehow say to God that he is now obligated to bestow something to us. And we forget that it all started with his generosity and that our response is simply one of gratitude. I can't believe I have any grace at all. The second thing that we notice from this story is that student Dean, right? He got confused between what justice was and what grace was. And he conflated and he mixed the two. And that's what we see happening in this parable teaching, and that's what we see happen in our lives the most. Listen, justice is not grace. Grace is not justice. A defining characteristic of justice is that it's fair. A defining characteristic of grace is that grace isn't fair. Grace is not fair. I don't know how many times I've been in conversation with people and they say to me, okay, you're telling me this, this is how his kingdom works, the kingdom that you're a part of, that someone can murder for 60 years in their life and at the end of their life, accept Jesus and they get into the kingdom of God? Now by accept Jesus, do you mean they're drawn by the Father? They're embraced by the Son. They're transformed by the Holy Spirit upon their confession, accepting, believing, confessing that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead. Yeah, that's the one. Then yes, they're in the kingdom of God. That's not fair. Yes, that's not fair. But can I present to you another reality that is just as unfair? How is it that he extends that same grace to you and to me? Are we not the chief of all sinners? I look at my own life. I am a sinner. And there is coming a point, whether you believe it or not, it's a reality. We will be face to face with God, our Father. And on that day, I'm not gonna ask for justice. I'm gonna ask for mercy. I'm gonna ask for grace. I'm gonna stand before my father, I'm gonna say, I don't need justice, I need grace, I need mercy. And my father's gonna look at me and he's gonna say, but I'm just. and there's a wage that needs to be paid. There's a punishment that needs to be given and there's a wrath that needs to be poured out. But I want you so much that I'm gonna send my son and my son wants you so much that he's gonna come and submit to me. And my spirit wants you so much that he's gonna come and transform you and stay with you. and your sin's gonna be placed on Jesus and his righteousness is gonna be placed on you. Justice will be expressed on him and grace and love will be expressed and lavished on you. And so now I stand in this empty place of forgiveness with his grace on me. What's my response? Okay, now you owe it to other people. Now you go do the same. Now you owe me. I'm your child, you owe me things. The parable teaching here is that now that you have received that grace and if you have faith that is a reality in your life, then the natural response, the only response is gratitude. And if you don't have gratitude, maybe that's symptomatic that you think you're deserving of grace. I think maybe God owes you something. But like we talked about this morning with that woman, who anointed Jesus' feet, she seen how sinful she was and she seen how far grace was. And there was a chasm in between. And that chasm is not bridged by us, but it is bridged by the grace of God. And the bigger the chasm, the bigger the gratitude. So if your chasm is small and you don't think you've been forgiven much, and so there's an absence of gratitude in your life, They all play together. But you can tell the people who have big gratitude in their life are the people who understand that they've been forgiven of so much. If you don't know Jesus and are standing idle, He is calling you. Our God is the God who keeps going out again and again and again to the 11th hour. He will keep coming. Until Jesus returns. If you are living in his vineyard, then live the vineyard life that is not covetous of what other people are doing in the vineyard on their side, but is grateful that you're even in the vineyard and that you get to serve. Live in wonder over the fact that it doesn't matter so much where it is I serve, but rather the value of my service is measured by who it is that I serve. It doesn't matter so much where it is you serve. If you're the head of the business, if you're a cleaner in the business, the value of it is shown by who it is that you serve. I work in the Bishnell's Inn and I'm serving food, but that's not the only exclusive reality. That's just what most people see. but there is a heavenly reality, a kingdom reality, that as I serve food, I'm also serving in his vineyard. I'm on the front line in ministry. And so it is with all of us, that whatever context you find yourself in, you're serving in the vineyard. So I could work in the Bushmills Inn as a waiter for the rest of my life, or I could get another job elsewhere, but guess what, what doesn't change is I'm always gonna be serving in the vineyard, and I'm always gonna be serving my king, and nothing can change that, and that gets me excited, forgive me. That's exciting. Does that not excite you? That no matter what you do, where you go, you can always testify to the people around you that there is a kingdom reality at play. That as I teach, as I serve in a clothes shop, as I run a business, as I'm a lifeguard, whatever it is I do, that's an earthly reality and that's the context for a kingdom one. You serve in His vineyard, you serve His King, and He is calling us to a unity. We're not serving and building our own kingdoms and our own vineyards. We serve in one vineyard and we serve one King, and all of yous are needed in that vineyard. If you neglect your part of the vineyard, I can't go there because God has assigned to me a part of the vineyard. So we need you. Every individual, if you have faith in that, the God of the universe needs you. The God of the universe wants you. There is a reason why God says, rejoice always, pray continually and give thanks in all circumstances because there is a truth that transcends all circumstances that we may be going through. And it is the truth that we are serving in his vineyard. In the highs or in the lows, nothing will ever take that away from me. Where I serve and who it is that I serve. That you've been called by our God to work in his vineyard, whether that be in the first hour or the 11th hour, first or last. The truth of you being there and not deserving to be there is what matters and is what Jesus is emphasizing in this parable teaching. That the gap between you being there and not deserving to be there is simply his generosity. And it is his nature to be a generous father to which what flows from him is grace in abundance. That is why we walk and we praise, and that is why it is unwavering, because of the object we are walking towards and the praise that we are lifting up is not to ourselves, but everything that he is and everything that he does. So I will never lose ammunition in my praise, because God's always gonna be there. The vineyard will always be there. The king will always be there. Things may get tough, things may get rough. That truth's always there. The question is, do you have faith in that? Is that enough? Does that just testify and minister to your soul? As you leave here and you talk with other people as I will do in the Bushnells Inn, people who don't know Jesus, as they serve up plates of food, that's it. But as I serve up plates of food, I'm also serving the king of the universe. And that's what I'll tell them, because that's the invitation to them. It's not exclusive to me. I'll say to them, do you think that's all that there is? Could it be that the God of this universe wants you just as he wanted me? And that yes, you are a sinner, but yes, he's merciful, he's generous, and the grace that he extends to me, he can extend to you, and together in the Bushmills Inn, we can serve our King in his vineyard. And so it is in all of your contexts, you and God. Will you just allow that to minister to you? Will you understand this is vineyard living that he's calling us to? So don't just stop with the earthly reality. Understand that your life has a kingdom reality. To leave out the kingdom reality is to go back to the way that we once lived, blind in death. God has made us aware of a spiritual reality that all of us are living in. Do you have faith in that? Do you believe that? Because if you do, then there is but one natural response and that is gratitude for serving our King in his vineyard. Vineyard living is the best living because it's a life led down to serve with gratitude to the one who called us. And I will waste no time looking to other people wondering why it is that they're living the blessed life and forgetting the blessed life that I have, that I'm serving in the vineyard, that I'm serving my King. That's an eternal truth that you can grab hold and you can start tonight to live that out in faith. Let's pray. You're an only girl