Envy and Contentment (Wisdom, Week 8)

Texts: Proverbs 14:30 | Philippians 4:10-13 | Matthew 20:1-16

Comparison can turn contentment into envy in an instant. Through Jesus’ parable of the workers in the vineyard and Paul’s words in Philippians 4, we discover the secret of true contentment: it isn’t found in having more, but in Christ. When we stop looking sideways at what others have and look instead to the generosity of God, we discover that in Christ, we already have everything that matters.

Transcript

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In Matthew 28, Jesus said, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. He calls you to be that disciple. To hear his word, to receive his promises, to repent, to believe. That Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And that by believing you have life in his name. Now here are the good news of Jesus for you. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Have you noticed how quickly comparison can ruin a perfectly good day? You're doing fine. Life isn't perfect, mind you, but you're grateful. You're grateful because the kids are healthy, the bills are paid, you've got food on the table, work is going reasonably well, and that's when you open your phone, and you see that a friend has just posted a picture from their great and wonderful, fabulous vacation. And it's a vacation you have wanted to take for a while. You see that someone has announced a promotion, even though you've been working really hard. Another family has just moved into an even bigger house. The church down the road. They seem to be growing rapidly, they're bursting at the seams. And just five minutes earlier, you realize that you were fine, you were content, and now you're frustrated. And then in the meantime, what has changed for you? Nothing, nothing in your world has changed at all, except you started comparing. That's at the heart of the parable that Jesus tells in Matthew 20. He says, The kingdom of heaven, again, this is a comparison of what the kingdom is like relative to the world in which we live. The kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. During Jesus' time, these kind of day laborers would gather in the marketplace every morning, and they would gather, waiting and hoping that someone would come and hire them. And if they weren't hired, then they wouldn't get paid. And if they weren't paid, then their families wouldn't get food on the table and they wouldn't be able to eat. And so this is important that someone comes and hires them. And in the parable, this particular master goes out to the marketplace on several different time periods. He goes out at dawn at the beginning, he goes out at nine and then at noon and then at three, and then finally at five o'clock, which is just one hour before the workday is completed. And then when evening arrives, he tells the foreman to gather all the workers together. Except for he dolls out their pay in reverse order. He starts with those who he hired last, and he gives a denarius. A fair wage, by the way. A denarius was a day's wage. That's what a denarius was. He gives a day's wage to those who have been there for an hour. You can already begin to imagine. You've read the story, you know the parable. You can imagine how this goes if you're one of those workers. The last one gets a denarius and then starts going down the line. If you're one of the first ones hired, what's your assumption? I'm going to get more. And that's when the surprise comes in. Denarius, denarius, denarius, denarius, denarius. Denarius. They all get the same. Of course, again, it's a day's wage. So it's fair. It's not unreasonable. It's what they agreed to. But they are furious. They're angry. And who wouldn't be? Right? Who wouldn't be mad in that situation? I mean, the ones who were hired at the very end of the day, they didn't bear the heat of the day. They didn't work as long. They weren't working as hard. And yet they received the same. But Jesus points out the obvious here that the workers who labored all day, they weren't unhappy. They weren't unhappy when he said, Hey, come work for me and work in my vineyard. They weren't happy during the day. There weren't any things with labor disputes or any concerns going on that the work environment was a hostile one or anything like that. They were fine all day long. They weren't even unhappy when it came time for them to get paid their day's wage for their day of work. They weren't unhappy. But they were when they started comparing. Comparison isn't really the problem in the story. Comparison does, however, lead to the real problem that's going on underneath the surface of what happens when we do compare, and that's envy. And envy isn't just wanting something or something else. Envy is resenting someone for what they do have. Envy says, why do they get that? And not me. Why did they have that opportunity, even though I've been working really hard? Why do their uh children seem to be doing better in school and in sports? Why does their family, you see it on Facebook, why do their family look so happy? Why does their business succeed and mine struggles? Envy has this way of doing this to us. It destroys the good things that God gives to other people and to us. That's why Solomon says this, and we're going through wisdom this summer. Solomon says this in Proverbs 14, 30. He says, A tranquil heart or a peaceful heart gives life. A peaceful heart gives life to the flesh. And then here's the turn. But envy makes the bones rot. That's an awfully graphic image, isn't it? Envy doesn't give you just a headache or make you frustrated or cause your blood to boil, although it may do all of those things to a certain extent. It says envy makes your bones rot. And we know this to be true. Envy has a way of eating at a person slowly inside. Envy has that way of, it fractures, it fractures relationships. It uh fuels gossip, it creates bitterness, it steals your joy. And so a person out of envy can receive blessings upon blessings all day long. And then they will spend all of their energy and all their time focusing on the one thing that they did not receive that they wanted. And this is especially true in the area we live, uh, certainly in our country, in the United States, one of the most blessed nations in the history of the world, certainly financially. But it's also true in our specific communities that we live in, in in Powell and in Delaware and Marysville and Plain City and Upper Arlington and Westerville and Worthington, all these wonderful and beautiful communities where there are blessings that abound all around us. But you know what that also means? That also means that there's somebody next door that has a bigger house. And then there's somebody on the other side who just bought a new car. And there's somebody across the street that their kids just got into that prestigious school. There's always somebody who has more. And that's the problem with envy. When you play this comparison game, there is no finish line. There is no finish line. There will always, always be someone who is happier and healthier and more joyful and more successful and who has more talents and more possessions. There will always be someone with more. Which means that envy is a game you never, ever, ever win. And it still doesn't stop you from trying. And so these workers they play this comparison game in this story, and then they start to grumble, and Jesus says that the master hears their grumbling, and he responds, he says, Friend, even in their grumbling, he still is compassionate. Friend, I'm doing you no wrong. We agreed. We agreed to this. You received what I promised. We shouldn't have any issues. And so the problem is not one of injustice. The problem is that they resent his generosity. And that's why Jesus says, this is what the master says, and it's a it's a piercing question. He says, or, or do you begrudge my generosity? Oh, that's a really cool uh Greek phrase there. Um comes from two words ophthalmos and poneros. Uhthalmos is where we get the uh Greek word uh that we we have ophthalmology, all right. So your I, alright, uh your eye, and then poneros is the word for wicked or evil or injustice. So evil or wicked or injust I. A better literal translation is Is your eye evil because I'm good? It's a piercing question, isn't it? Is your eye evil because I'm good? Which is foolishness when you really think about it. Jesus uses the same expression in Matthew 6 on the Sermon on the Mount. Uh, this this same optalmos paneros, uh, an evil eye. Uh that's the it makes the whole body bad, is what Jesus says there. So this is describing an eye that's struggling to see goodness as good itself, and instead sees the goodness around as a threat. The good things that God gives to you and to other people is actually a threat or an indictment against you. And so these workers, they don't have a math problem, they have a seeing problem. They can't see, they've their eyes have gone bad. Not because the master lied to them or because he withheld their pay, but because generosity towards someone else in their eyes is really an accusation. It's an accusation against them. And grace given to someone else feels like it's grace being withheld from them. This is why, by the way, the the parable is not about proper economics. It's not a good way for us to do labor or policy of some sort. This is a parable about the kingdom. This is a story that Jesus tells about how God deals with sinners. Uh because if God paid us out according to what we deserve, what we earned, according to our log, our log of hours and what we've merited, uh none of us would say that we showed up first or that we worked hardest or that we worked during the heat of the day. And so none of us would receive the denarius. We'd receive less. We'd all be those workers that are hired at the very end of the day, hired at 5 p.m., the ones with almost nothing to show for our work based on our day. And so the scandal of the parable is that the master is generous, incredibly generous to all of them. Again, look at what the master does throughout the parable. He keeps going out, he keeps going out into the marketplace, he keeps calling workers at nine, at noon, at three, at five, one hour before the end of the day, before the day is nearly over, there's nothing they can bring. They have nothing to offer the master of the vineyard at that point, but he seeks them out. He brings them into the vineyard, he gives them what they could never earn in an hour. That's what Jesus has done. The thief on the cross, standing next to him as he is being crucified, this thief on the cross receives the same eternal life as the apostle Peter. And the person that is baptized as an infant and spends their whole life in the body of Christ and in the church receives the same salvation as the person that is 80 years old and converts. And the lifelong Christian and the believer that comes to faith on their deathbed, they receive the same Christ, the same forgiveness of sins, the same resurrection, the same life everlasting. Because Jesus earned it for them. And that's not fair, which is good for us. It's good for us. Because fairness would mean that we receive exactly what we deserve on account of what we've done. But instead, Jesus receives what we deserve on account of what we've done. On the cross, Jesus is perfectly content to receive what the Father gives, which is ultimately judgment and death. Our judgment and our death. And in exchange, he gives us the good stuff. In exchange, he gives us forgiveness and righteousness and life. The gospel, the good news is not that God is fair. The gospel of the good news is that God is the master of the vineyard and he is generous. Extremely generous. This is why Paul says in Philippians 4, he says, I've learned. I've learned in whatever situation I am to be content. Notice that word there, he's learned it. This does it's not something that comes naturally for us. Just look at a toddler. It's not easy for them to share and be content with the things that they have. It's something you have to learn. By the way, we rag on toddlers for this, but adults are not much better. It's something you have to learn. You've learned the secret of being content. He says, I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound. I mean, Paul went through so much. He went through persecution, he was shipwrecked, uh, he was in prison and out of prison. Uh he learned that in whatever situation he found himself in, there was still something for him that was beautiful and that was given to him by God. He said, I've learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, of abundance and need. Uh the Greek word that Paul uses here for uh for secret is is this word for mystery. In other words, another translation for this might be, I've been let in on the secret. It's a secret. Not everybody knows it, not everybody understands it, but it's a secret. Not one that you want to keep yourself, by the way, it's one you share. It's a mystery. I'm let in on the secret. And that secret is that no matter what, no matter what circumstances you find yourself related to, to health or wealth, family, uh crisis, no matter what, there's a secret to contentment, and that secret is Christ. And that's why he says, because of this, I can do all things. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. That's not, by the way, a uh a motto for how to live life and the fact that, well, you know, there's a lot of hard things in life, and no matter what I put my mind to, I can do it because Jesus is with me. No, this is about being content. It's about contentment in life that no matter what, no matter what circumstance or situation I find myself in, you find yourself in, it is good. Because you are in Christ. Because Christ is enough. That's the secret. And Jesus, in Christ, you already possess all that you need. That brings us back to the vineyard. Uh the workers who grumbled, they'd lost sight of the master's generosity, and that's because they're looking to their right and they're looking to their left and they're comparing, they're seeing the things that the others had received that they felt was an indictment on what they had done. Um but what they needed to do was take their eyes off of the right and the left and put their eyes once again on this generous master. And we need to do the same thing: uh take our eyes off the right and the left and comparing from one another and put our eyes on the master. Look at what it cost him. Look at what it cost the master to call you into the vineyard. Uh, you were standing idle, not because you were lazy, but you were standing idle on the sidelines because of your sin. And your sin left you with nothing to offer. And this is gonna be hard to hear, but no one wanted you. No one. And the master doesn't wait. He doesn't wait for you to get better, get better qualities, to fix yourself up, to make a bunch of changes, and then he'll call you as a as a reasonable and good worker into his vineyard. No, he keeps calling you and he invites you into the vineyard. He seeks you out, he seeks you out in the marketplace, and he calls you in. And then he pays you a wage. He pays you a wage that you could never earn on your own. And that wage is not a denarius, it's far more than that. That wage is his son, his one and only son, who obeyed his father completely and loved his neighbor perfectly, all the way from the manger to the cross. And he took his place, and he stood where you stand, uh empty-handed, with nothing deserving. And he received your wage. And what wage is that? Well, scripture tells us that that wage is sin. The wage of sin is death. He received your death, your judgment, your condemnation. And he didn't grumble. He didn't say, Well, this isn't fair. No, he drank that cup. And he did it for you. And because he took what you deserve, you received what he deserves, which is full sonship and full inheritance. That's the exchange. The exchange that happened on a hill outside of Jerusalem. It's for you. So you can stop counting and you can stop comparing, and you can stop totaling up that list that you have of all the things that you've done and all the sacrifices that you have made. Because you're not paid according to your labor. Thanks be to God. You're paid according to Jesus'. And so hear this plainly, because it's the only thing that is strong enough to live to loosen envy's grip that it has on us and it has on our bones. Your sins are forgiven. Not in part, but in the whole. And they are forgiven for Christ's sake. And your place, your place in God's family is not in question. Not on your best day, not on your worst day. The tune is empty. You have everything that matters. You have Christ. And because you have Christ, you have enough. That's the peace. You have enough. And a heart that's at peace is not one that says, Oh, I finally got everything I wanted. No, it's it's one that stopped looking. Like the workers in the vineyard. Stop looking to the right and stopped looking to the left. And it looks to the cross and says, I do. I do have enough. You have Christ. He is yours, and you are his. In the name of Jesus. Amen.