Parables of Jesus Part 5: The Vineyard Workers

This free Bible lesson, The Parable of The Vineyard Workers, will teach preschool and elementary students about the lesson Jesus taught when He was living on Earth as a human and the greatest teacher of all time.

This lesson is part of a summer series titled "Jesus Makes a Splash: Lessons from the Parables of Jesus".

This lesson comes from the Seeds of Truth Elementary Bible Curriculum that is free to anyone looking for ideas to "plant seeds" into the hearts of children as they are learning about Jesus. Find more details HERE.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Seeds of Truth podcast, where seeds of biblical truth are planted into the hearts and minds of listeners so they can grow into a relationship with Jesus. I'm your host, Miss Dana. Thank you for joining me today. Let's get started. Hello, friends, and welcome back. Today is part five of our series about the parables of Jesus. So, a parable is a short and simple story that uses everyday situations and ideas to teach a big lesson. Jesus used parables a lot when he was teaching on earth. So the parable that we're going to learn about today is in the book of Matthew, and it is called the Parable of the Vineyard Workers. You may also see it referred to as the parable of the laborers in the vineyard or the parable of the workers in the vineyard. So before we start, I want to ask a question. What is heaven? Heaven is a place. Heaven is where God lives. Heaven is a place of perfection. There is no evil or sin allowed into heaven. I want you to think about this question before we discuss the answer. How do we get into heaven? We know that Jesus is the only way to heaven, but what does that mean? Jesus is the only way to get into heaven. And this means that because sin separates us from God, we are not allowed into heaven when our bodies die on the earth without Jesus. Jesus died on the cross to make a way for us to have eternal life with God. To be able to get into heaven, we must believe that Jesus is the only way we can have a relationship with God. We must trust in Jesus and we must ask Jesus to be our Savior. Through God's mercy and grace, Jesus saves us and gives us eternal life. I want us to think about these two words. What is mercy and what is grace? Mercy is not receiving the punishment that is deserved. And grace is receiving the reward that is not deserved. Let's think about what that means. When we receive mercy, we do not get punished when we deserve to be punished. And when we receive grace, we get a reward when we do not deserve a reward. In the book of Ephesians, the Apostle Paul wrote if in Ephesians chapter 2, verses 4 through 5, it says, God loves us deeply. He is full of mercy. So he gave us new life because of what Christ has done. He gave us life even when we were dead in sin. God's grace has saved you. We are sinners, and the punishment for sin is separation from God after our bodies die on this earth. God has mercy for us. He does not give us the punishment that we do deserve. God gives us grace. So Jesus told the parable of the vineyard workers as a reply to some questions that he was asked. There was a rich man who asked Jesus, What good thing must I do to receive eternal life? Jesus told the man to obey God's commandments and follow Jesus, and then he would be saved. But the man did not want to give up all of his possessions and follow Jesus. After hearing this about the rich man, Jesus' disciples asked him, Who can be saved? Then Peter asked Jesus about the reward that they would receive for giving up their old way of life and following him. Jesus told the disciples that they would receive rewards in heaven, and then he told them the parable of the vineyard workers. Now the Bible doesn't tell us exactly what kind of rewards we will receive in heaven, but we will receive rewards in heaven based on our faithfulness. Our ultimate reward is being in heaven with God forever, being in heaven and living with Jesus forever. But we also will receive other rewards based on how we live our lives on earth. You do not earn your way to heaven. Jesus died on the cross to take away your sin. And the only way that you can get into heaven is to believe in and trust Jesus. But believing in and trusting Jesus will make you want to do good things. The good things do not get you to heaven, only trusting in Jesus gets you to heaven. So this parable about the vineyard workers. A vineyard is like a farm for grapes. In the time of Jesus, it was typical during the time of harvest for the vineyard owners to need extra help harvesting the grapes that had grown. People who were looking for work would stand in the marketplace early in the morning, and people who needed workers would come and hire those people who were needing a job. The work day would begin at 6 a.m. and end at 6 p.m. A denarius was considered a generous day's wage and was the same amount that a Roman soldier earned. So the parable, the parable that I'm going to read gives four specific later times of day that the vineyard owner hired the workers. I am reading from the NIRV translation. So your translation, if you are reading from a different one, may sound a little bit different than mine. Mine gives the actual times of the day. Other translations will say third hour, sixth hour, ninth hour, and 11th hour. So the third hour is 9 a.m. The sixth hour is noon, the ninth hour is 3 o'clock p.m. and the 11th hour is 5 o'clock p.m., which would be the hour right before quitting time. Okay, so I'm going to read the parable in Matthew chapter 20, verses 1 through 16. And as I'm reading, I want you to think who is the vineyard owner a symbol of? Who are the workers a symbol of? And what is the lesson that Jesus is teaching? After I finish reading, if you want to pause the episode and reread and think and discuss before I explain it, you may do so. It says, The kingdom of heaven is like a man who owned land. He went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to give them the usual pay for a day's work. Then he sent them into his vineyard. About nine o'clock in the morning, he went out again. He saw others standing in the market doing nothing. He told them, You also go and work in my vineyard. I'll pay you what is right. So they went. He went out again about noon and at three o'clock and did the same thing. About five o'clock he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing? Because no one has hired us, they answered. He said to them, You also go and work in my vineyard. When evening came, the owner of the vineyard spoke to the person who was in charge of the workers. He said, Call the workers and give them their pay. Begin with the last ones I hired, then go on to the first ones. The workers who were hired about five o'clock came. Each received the usual day's pay. So when those who were hired first came, they expected to receive more. But each of them also received the usual days' pay. When they received it, they began to complain about the owner. These people who were hired last worked only one hour, they said. You have paid them the same as us. We have done most of the work and have been in the hot sun all day. The owner answered one of them. Friend, he said, I'm being fair to you. Didn't you agree to work for the usual days' pay? Take your money and go. I want to give the one I hired last the same pay I gave you. Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Do you feel cheated because I gave so freely to the others? So those who are last will be first, and those who are first will be last. So remember, some of the people didn't understand when Jesus taught in parables. So sometimes he would explain the meaning of the parable. And sometimes he wouldn't. So with this parable, he did not explain the meaning, and it was not written down in the Bible for us. So in those circumstances, we can study, we can pray and ask the Holy Spirit for guidance. We can look to others' interpretations and then put it against what we understand to figure out what Jesus was teaching. So in this parable, Jesus is teaching us that salvation cannot be earned. Salvation is a gift. It does not matter how much someone does or how long someone serves God. Everyone who believes in Jesus will receive the same gift of eternal life. We will receive rewards in heaven based on how we live our lives on earth, as I mentioned earlier. We don't know exactly what type of rewards will be given, but the Bible does say that rewards will be given. What Jesus is teaching in this parable is that no matter what you do or how long you serve God here on earth, all people who believe in Jesus will receive eternal life. And there's nothing that you can do to earn that gift. The vineyard owner in this parable is a symbol of God, and the vineyard workers are a symbol of all believers in Jesus. So when you believe in Jesus, it means that you believe that Jesus is God and that he loves you so much that he came to earth to live a sinless life and die on the cross to take away your sins. It also means that you believe that three days after he died on the cross, he rose again. When you believe in Jesus and trust him to be your savior, you can admit to him that you know you are a sinner and ask him to save you and he will. In this parable, there are five groups of workers that were hired. The first group of workers were hired early in the morning and they worked all day long in the heat. They agreed to work the whole day for a certain amount of money. The second group of workers were hired mid-morning. The third group of workers were hired at noon. The fourth group of workers were hired mid-afternoon, and then the fifth group of workers were hired only one hour from the end of the workday. The workers who were hired early in the morning worked all day. The other workers who were hired at different times throughout the day didn't do as much work as the workers who worked all day. Then the workers who were hired at the end of the day when they were paid for the whole day, even though they only worked for one hour. So when the workers who worked all day saw that, they thought they were going to get paid more than a day's wage because they had worked so much more. All of the different groups, though, were paid the same amount, including the workers who worked all day. So this may not seem fair for those workers, but the lesson that Jesus was teaching through this parable is that no matter how much a believer does or how long they serve God here on earth, they will still receive the same gift of eternal life that other believers in Jesus will receive. And that is the meaning of that part of the parable at the very end in Matthew 20, verse 16, where Jesus says the last will be first and the first will be last. The first represents the people who have known Jesus the longest. And the last represents the people who have not known Jesus very long. The point is that both groups finish in the same place. Does any person deserve the gift of eternal life? No person deserves the gift of eternal life. God gives us the gift of eternal life because He is full of grace and mercy. Remember, God's grace has saved you because of your faith in Christ. Your salvation doesn't come from anything you do, it is God's gift. That is Ephesians 2.8. Salvation cannot be earned. It is a gift that is freely given to us by Jesus. We cannot do anything to earn eternal life. We receive the gift of eternal life because of what Jesus did for us when he died on the cross to take away our sins. To receive the free gift of salvation, we must have faith in Jesus. The Bible tells us what faith is. Hebrews 11:1 says, faith is being sure of what we hope for, it is being sure of what we do not see. So faith is having complete trust or confidence in something or someone, even when you can't see it with your eyes. The gift of eternal life is free to anyone who believes in Jesus and asks him to forgive their sins and save them. This parable is a reminder to us that salvation cannot be earned. Eternal life cannot be earned. Only Jesus can offer eternal life. Eternal life, life forever with Jesus, is a free gift. We must accept the free gift by believing that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and rose back to life. When we believe in and trust Jesus as our Savior by asking him to save us, we will receive the gift of eternal life. Let's pray. Dear God, thank you for your word, the Bible. Thank you for the parables that Jesus used to teach big lessons. Thank you that anyone who believes that Jesus is God and that he died on the cross to take away our sins will receive the gift of eternal life. Thank you for this amazing truth and for the plan that you have had from the very beginning, even before sin entered the world. We know that we are sinners in need of a Savior. Thank you that you sent a Savior who loves us and offers us the free gift of eternal life. If there is anyone who has not accepted the free gift of eternal life, please give them the courage to take that step. If there is anyone who does not fully understand how to receive the free gift of eternal life, please give them the courage to ask a grown-up for help and understanding the truth of your love for us. We love you and we praise you. In Jesus' name. Amen. Next time we are going to be learning about the parable of the barren fig tree. Until then, God bless. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Seeds of Truth Podcast. For more free Bible resources, visit Seeds of Truth Ministries.com.