SPEAKER_00: This podcast is the Ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information in our church, please visit grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we are continuing on in our uh in our sermon series on the parables of Jesus, and we'll continue to do that all the way uh through mid-August, and then uh we'll start something new.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's on August the 18th, uh when uh things resume as normal around here.
SPEAKER_00: So uh but we are in the in the uh we're gonna be talking about the parable of the laborers in the vineyard.
SPEAKER_00: That's a mouthful.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, and it is in Matthew chapter 20, and we're gonna read the first 16 verses of Matthew 20 as we look at the parable of the laborers in the vineyard.
SPEAKER_00: And and and this there's a few things that God's gonna impress upon our hearts and our minds today.
SPEAKER_00: The first one is this we have all got to have a proper perspective on who God is.
SPEAKER_00: I wrote a bit a little bit about that in an email yesterday, just this God of perspective, and uh, I was surprised that none of you chastise me on my opinion of soccer, uh, which means you all must agree.
SPEAKER_00: Uh either that or all of them are in Costa Rica playing whatever games they're playing.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but nonetheless, uh we we have we've got to have this perspective on God that that is true and that is right.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Tozer said that the most important thing about a person uh is what comes into their mind whenever they think about God.
SPEAKER_00: And so whenever whenever you mention God, or you you hear the word God and understand the names of God, what comes into your mind is the most important thing about you.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so, since that's true, we've got to have a great, beautifully text-centered uh appreciation and perspective of who God is.
SPEAKER_00: And the second one is this if you hear nothing from me for the rest of the day, I'll just give away the end.
SPEAKER_00: You can leave.
SPEAKER_00: If you have a potty break, you never want to come back, that's fine too.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever you need to do.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I'm the father of two preschoolers.
SPEAKER_00: Potty break is normal language for me.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but whatever it is, if you hear nothing from me for the rest of the day, is this the kingdom is not about what you deserve.
SPEAKER_00: And that is unbelievable and unbelievably good news.
SPEAKER_00: And I say unbelievable because in our minds, it truly is.
SPEAKER_00: It's so good and so far out there that to really, really grasp the depth and the breadth of that statement, uh, it can be really unbelievable.
SPEAKER_00: But the kingdom is not about what you and I deserve.
SPEAKER_00: It is about God's generosity.
SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly the point that Jesus makes today in Matthew chapter 20.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have your Bible, we are on page 825 of the Bible on the end of your row.
SPEAKER_00: Please pick that up, and we'll be reading from there shortly.
SPEAKER_00: Before I get to that, let me just say this that Jesus is about to enter into his Passion Week, his last week on earth.
SPEAKER_00: And this is actually the final parable that's recorded in the book of Matthew before he kind of takes the turn and gets on a donkey and rides into Jerusalem, and literally all hell breaks loose on earth to take down the Savior.
SPEAKER_00: So this is the last one that he tells his disciples, and he's continuing to try to reorient their minds, continuing to try and take the lens of the world off of their eyes and perform cataract surgery to put new lenses on, kingdom lenses on his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's walking around and he's inviting children to come to him, and he's he's addressing young rulers that are unbelievably wealthy and rich, and saying, no, just because he's rich, that doesn't mean that God's approval is on him.
SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, because that's what the culture would be saying.
SPEAKER_00: Well, he's rich, God must love him.
SPEAKER_00: I'm poor, so I must be a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: My circumstances are great, so God must be approving of me right now.
SPEAKER_00: My circumstances are terrible, so what did I do wrong?
SPEAKER_00: That's not so different than the world we live in today.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus enters into all that, and then he says this in Matthew chapter 20, 1 to 16, which says this, 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.
SPEAKER_00: After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard, and going out about the third hour, or 9 a.m., 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.
SPEAKER_00: So they went.
SPEAKER_00: Going out again about the sixth hour, or noon, in the ninth hour, or three PM, he said the same.
SPEAKER_00: And then at about the eleventh hour, or five PM, he went out and found others standing, and he said to them, Why do you stand here idle all day?
SPEAKER_00: And they said to him, Because no one has hired us.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to them, You go into the vineyard too.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: And when those hired about the eleventh hour, five PM, came, each of them received a denarius.
SPEAKER_00: Now when those hired first, say around six AM, they thought that they would receive more.
SPEAKER_00: But each of them also grumbled, 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 an hour, and you made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.
SPEAKER_00: But he replied to one of them, Friend, I am doing you no wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Do you not agree with do you not did you not agree with me for a denarius?
SPEAKER_00: Take what's take what belongs to you and go.
SPEAKER_00: I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you.
SPEAKER_00: Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?
SPEAKER_00: Or do you begrudge my generosity?
SPEAKER_00: So that the last will be first, and the first will be last.
SPEAKER_00: What unbelievable statements by Jesus as he's continuing to reorient his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: What we know about this is that this would have been a real life situation that his disciples would have been able to relate to.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe hard for us several years later, but here's what was going on at the time.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is telling this story about uh uh a very wealthy landowner, so obviously it's not wealth that gets you into heaven, it's not wealth that takes you out of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: It's this landowner that looks and it's harvest time.
SPEAKER_00: And his normal hired hands cannot handle all the work.
SPEAKER_00: And so he goes into the marketplace and he hires day laborers.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, much like today.
SPEAKER_00: I remember growing up, this is probably illegal on all levels.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but I remember growing up and being in my dad's suburban and going into, I mean, in every probably nook and cranny of any town in America, you can find day laborers.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I remember going and hiring day laborers and bringing them over to the house, and they would work all day, and my dad would pay them a generous wage.
SPEAKER_00: Very same thing.
SPEAKER_00: I loved those days, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: That meant I didn't have to do any work.
SPEAKER_00: That meant I wasn't paying, I wasn't picking the weeds.
SPEAKER_00: I was out doing something fun, or we were out at Galvison or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: I loved those days.
SPEAKER_00: Uh so it's very, very similar to things that we might see, definitely things we notice uh along the road.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's harvest time.
SPEAKER_00: The landowner needs a bunch of labor, so he goes into the marketplace and he starts to pick and choose his workers uh for the much work that needed to get done.
SPEAKER_00: He does so at 6 a.m.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, there are laborers there, and he does all throughout the day.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't know about you, but it's a strange thing to hire somebody new at 5 p.m.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're not gonna go to work on Monday and at 5 p.m.
SPEAKER_00: your boss shows up and says, Hey, this is uh Bob, they're gonna be taking care of for the rest of the day, they're gonna be working here just today.
SPEAKER_00: That's not gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so Jesus does kind of just peculiar and tells peculiar points to stories to prove really, really poignant points.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so as we get into this, uh, he just basically tells us there's two people in the kingdom, two types of people in the kingdom, and then there's him.
SPEAKER_00: There's himself.
SPEAKER_00: It's he is the giver.
SPEAKER_00: He is the generous, good, gracious master of the house, the landowner that we'll read about and hear about at the end of all of this.
SPEAKER_00: But there's two people that come before that.
SPEAKER_00: There's those who bargain, and then there's those whose trust.
SPEAKER_00: In the kingdom, there are those who bargain and there are those who trust.
SPEAKER_00: And so for the rest of our time, I just want to look at kind of the characteristics of these two people and the results of what happens when we live out of these two mindsets, especially when we apply those mindsets to God.
SPEAKER_00: The first one is this is that bargaining with God is absolutely disappointing.
SPEAKER_00: Bargaining with God is only going to produce disappointment in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not talking about Moses bargaining with God.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, these are your people.
SPEAKER_00: Don't forget about your people here.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you do this, I mean, if you if you if you destroy your people, I mean, all the nations around us are gonna wonder, that's the God that rescues them?
SPEAKER_00: I don't think so.
SPEAKER_00: All right, all right, all right, I'll relent.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about the the the bargaining that Abraham did.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, if there's 50 people, if there's 40, how about 10?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that takes a lot of boldness to approach God in such a way and start baring.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about that, because in those instances, those two men stood in the place of God's people to take away God's wrath, to appease and satisfy God's wrath.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, that's not even our position to do, because the wrath of God has been appeased and satisfied in Jesus Christ alone.
SPEAKER_00: And not only has it been satisfied, it's been taken away.
SPEAKER_00: That's an unbelievable statement.
SPEAKER_00: It's not even in the realm of where we live, it's not even in the vineyard.
SPEAKER_00: God's wrath has been literally taken away, thrown into the sea.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about that bargaining.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about the bargaining that approaches God, much like the workers did in verse 2, where it says this.
SPEAKER_00: After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, that's all I have to say.
SPEAKER_00: See, they are in the marketplace and they're all there.
SPEAKER_00: This is what we know about the text and about this story.
SPEAKER_00: All these different workers are there early.
SPEAKER_00: They're all there at 6 a.m.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't know anything about day labors, what ends up happening is the guys that are buff, I mean the guys that are flexing with their shirt off, they're proving to everybody else that I can be a good worker for you for the rest of the day.
SPEAKER_00: And so those are the guys that get picked first.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Those are the guys that the the landowner, the master of the house is coming out to the marketplace and saying, All right, I'll take you, you, you, and you.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because of their skill set, because of what they look like, because they they're gonna prove to be good workers throughout the day.
SPEAKER_00: You guys following that?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: So uh most of us didn't show up on, or not gonna show up on Monday and flex and ask your boss to hire you for something, but but the reality is a lot of us will show up really early.
SPEAKER_00: We're eager beavers, we're we're the early bird gets the worm kind of people.
SPEAKER_00: And an American society that's absolutely valued.
SPEAKER_00: And that's not what this is text is about, though.
SPEAKER_00: This is about the heart in which we approach God because they're all there in the marketplace early.
SPEAKER_00: These bargainers approach God, approach the landowner, approach the master of the house.
SPEAKER_00: They were eager, they were certainly, they were hired at six.
SPEAKER_00: There's good things about them.
SPEAKER_00: They were competent, they were strong.
SPEAKER_00: The problem is they wanted a wage, and they agreed upon that wage, and they approached the landowner with this heart that says, Hey, I've been taken advantage of by pretty much everyone else in this world.
SPEAKER_00: I need to know what you're gonna give me up front.
SPEAKER_00: I need to know what you're gonna do for me up front.
SPEAKER_00: And let me just say that if we are approaching God with that posture, what we'll find out later on is that he's got fullness.
SPEAKER_00: It's not like he's just got like a bank account and there's only so much in the bank account.
SPEAKER_00: And so if he gives some to build, then that means less for you over here, and if he gives some to you over here, that means less for you over there.
SPEAKER_00: No, he's got a treasury of fullness, grace upon grace that we'll find out here at the end that John talks about.
SPEAKER_00: And so when he when he's hiring you, bringing you out of the marketplace, which is where all of our faith begins, and brings you into the vineyard where you didn't belong to be in the first place, he's not he's not telling you, and he's really warning all of us hey, don't have the posture that says, I need to know what you're gonna give me right up front.
SPEAKER_00: When we do that, we're we're we're it's not accusatory yet, but when we approach God in that way, what we're really saying is we don't trust you.
SPEAKER_00: We've been wronged and we've been hurt by too many people in this world, and so we don't trust you.
SPEAKER_00: Because when that happens, we read it at the beginning of service in Psalm 1 uh in Psalm 18.
SPEAKER_00: We read this at the beginning of service.
SPEAKER_00: It says, With the merciful, you show yourself merciful.
SPEAKER_00: With the blameless, you show yourself blameless.
SPEAKER_00: With the purified, you show yourself pure.
SPEAKER_00: But listen, with the crooked, you make yourself seem tortuous.
SPEAKER_00: Why is that?
SPEAKER_00: Because our heart in approaching God is totally off.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's going to make it to where we we may miss the goodness and the mercy and the generosity of God if all we're doing is going, I just need to know a little bit of certainty here as to what you're paying me.
SPEAKER_00: They were expecting to be taken advantage of.
SPEAKER_00: That was the first thing that probably they did wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Second thing is verse 11 and 12.
SPEAKER_00: They get to this point at the end of the day, and the master of the house is purposefully paying everyone in reverse order.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and they get to the end of the day and they start to grumble against their neighbor here.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 11 and 12, and on receiving it, they grumbled at the master of the house, saying, These last worked only an hour.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, how dare you?
SPEAKER_00: You and I all can relate to this first worker.
SPEAKER_00: You all have worked a job that's been too hard, you've been overworked, you've been underpaid, and you look around, you're like, okay, this is just not right.
SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day, I mean, you're just taking advantage of me here.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's basically the equivalent of this.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's being hired, going in on an interview, being hired, and on your interview you talk about uh an agreeable wage, uh, whatever your salary might be, and you get hired and you start, and all of a sudden you realize you didn't know this, but you're the first person in this job, and other people start to get hired, and all of a sudden you start to realize, hey, they're not working as hard as I am, and uh, you know what, I got other problems with not only just their work ethic, but I come to find out they're getting paid more than me.
SPEAKER_00: All of us, most of us have been in a similar situation, if not the exact same situation.
SPEAKER_00: So we can relate with this first type of worker.
SPEAKER_00: The problem is that they have this uh this unceasing sin of comparison.
SPEAKER_00: The sin of comparison will rob us.
SPEAKER_00: It is sneaky, and it'll it's here before we even know it.
SPEAKER_00: The sin of comparison will rob us of freedom.
SPEAKER_00: The sin of comparison will rob us of the promise, the sin of comparison robs us of joy because all of a sudden, what was fine, our salary was fine until I figured out what you're making, and now I'm not okay with that anymore.
SPEAKER_00: The sin of comparison is something that's been in the people of God for a long, long time, robbing us of freedom, robbing us of the promise.
SPEAKER_00: In the book of Numbers, uh, we see this grumbling spirit in the book uh yes, in the book of Numbers and in the people of Israel, when they are wandering in the desert, and Moses is leading them as any good shepherd would, and uh they don't quite know where they're going, they don't quite know where they're headed.
SPEAKER_00: Moses doesn't even know really where they're headed yet.
SPEAKER_00: God hasn't revealed that, and so they're kind of doing a couple of circles in the sand, and they realize, hey, this little speck of sand, Moses, looks a lot familiar to me, and I'm not okay with that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna appoint a new leader, and we're headed back to Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: And so in Numbers 14, uh, verse 2, it says, And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we don't know how many people were there, but safe estimations are in the millions of people, of Israelites in the desert, and they've been there and they're looking around and they're going, Okay, this rock right here looks familiar.
SPEAKER_00: I can see the setting of the sun, I know I've seen that before.
SPEAKER_00: Moses and Aaron, y'all even know what you're doing.
SPEAKER_00: Because although Egypt was full of slavery and oppression, and oh, by the way, they tried to kill our firstborn, I'd rather go back.
SPEAKER_00: You don't even know where you're headed.
SPEAKER_00: I'd rather go back.
SPEAKER_00: There is a grumbling in the people of God that if we are not careful, it will rob us of the promise of what's ahead.
SPEAKER_00: Even though we can't see it, even though we don't know exactly what it's gonna look like, if we would just trust God's intentions for us, then we'll be able to find it one day.
SPEAKER_00: And I must say that my wife is really the one that's been preaching this sermon to me for years.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's the first uh, I don't know what I want to call it, Melissa ism.
SPEAKER_00: That I told her we were going to dinner last night, I said, uh the things that you have all over this house are starting to seep into me and now are gonna come out all in one sermon.
SPEAKER_00: She's like, All right, well, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_00: The first one is this, she's got it written up on our on our mirror, our bathroom mirror.
SPEAKER_00: Trust God's intentions for you.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the first worker just could not do.
SPEAKER_00: And so they not only grumble, they not only complain because they have seen that their fellow workers are getting paid the same amount for less work.
SPEAKER_00: That's not okay in their eyes.
SPEAKER_00: But then they get through this hardship at the end of verse 12 and they say this these last workers, they only worked an hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.
SPEAKER_00: So when we come to God and we have an entitled attitude, we're gonna start thinking that he owes us something because life is hard.
SPEAKER_00: And he'll answer us because he's gracious and generous.
SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of days when I'll be this guy, I'll just go first.
SPEAKER_00: We're not having confession time, but I'll go first.
SPEAKER_00: Uh recently, one of your pastors definitely thinks this way.
SPEAKER_00: Uh recently, I I've been going through like a whatever they call a dry season or dry spell in the desert, which is exactly where God wants me.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh been praying to God, been asking God, been, you know, Lord, just answer me, please.
SPEAKER_00: What do you think about this?
SPEAKER_00: And what about this?
SPEAKER_00: And oh man, we got big plans for the fall.
SPEAKER_00: And if not, if you don't come through, if you don't start speaking, I mean, come on, man.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm gonna be desperate here if you don't start showing up.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm journaling over here, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Do you understand how I mean that's like at least 50 extra points?
SPEAKER_00: I love to journal, but I hate to journal.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm I'm I'm just pouring myself out, and I go to bed one night and I just go, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you what, you're probably not gonna listen to this.
SPEAKER_00: But I just I'm sick of the silence, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Can you just break through a whisper, an earthquake, a raindrop?
SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
SPEAKER_00: I just need to hear you.
SPEAKER_00: Just something personal, just for me.
SPEAKER_00: I need it.
SPEAKER_00: I go to bed, and uh the phone rings at 4 a.m.
SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so I get up and I answer it, and it's the alarm people uh for here.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I think the Holy Spirit set off the alarm that night just to get me out of bed.
SPEAKER_00: And that's okay.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I grumbled about it on the way home because that's what apparently I do.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but I got here and on my way, I'm I got in the car, and they're like, how long is it gonna take to get here?
SPEAKER_00: 12 to 15 minutes.
SPEAKER_00: What kind of car do you drive?
SPEAKER_00: Uh black trailblazer.
SPEAKER_00: I'm on my way.
SPEAKER_00: We'll be looking for you.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I don't know who else is coming it for, but I'll be there.
SPEAKER_00: Uh so I get in the car and I realize my I'm gonna run out of gas before I get halfway there.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm sitting there and I'm like, all right, well, I ain't stopping.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna go.
SPEAKER_00: I'm past E.
SPEAKER_00: I've had my car for a long time now, and I know when I run out of gas, it's happened.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so I know where I'm at.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, this is this is not good.
SPEAKER_00: I checked how many miles I've got per this tank.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's right at that point where it's just past the limit.
SPEAKER_00: And uh so I go, I'm like, I'm not stopping.
SPEAKER_00: If I stop, I don't really don't want to get you know stranded at four in the morning.
SPEAKER_00: Who am I gonna call?
SPEAKER_00: No, no one.
SPEAKER_00: My wife's definitely not getting out of the bed, uh, and definitely not getting the girls out of the bed.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so, all right, well, we're just gonna go.
SPEAKER_00: And I just whispered this prayer in my heart.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Lord, can you just take care of the gas?
SPEAKER_00: Can you just take care of it?
SPEAKER_00: So I get to the church, cops are here, we're walking around, nobody's here, it's fine.
SPEAKER_00: So I get in the car because I'm too lazy to walk back to the warehouse, and I drive back to the warehouse, and I realize I looked at my gas gauge again, man, that's a that was a dumb decision.
SPEAKER_00: Why am I driving this thing back here?
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: Uh so I get back there and I look at everything, everything's fine.
SPEAKER_00: There's some cars back there checking on things.
SPEAKER_00: I get back in the car and I look down at the gas gauge and I got a quarter tank.
SPEAKER_00: So there are just points like that where I can grumble all I want, and I did grumble some more.
SPEAKER_00: Of course it's four in the morning, you're gonna continue to of course you've got to make it inconvenient for me.
SPEAKER_00: Ah ha ha ha ha ha.
SPEAKER_00: But I giggled a lot after all that happened got done.
SPEAKER_00: And giggle is like, you know, like a kid's word, but Jesus says we're supposed to be like children, so don't judge me.
SPEAKER_00: But I giggled all the way home, and then I laid my head back down to sleep, and I said, now can I go back to bed?
SPEAKER_00: Or is this like, are we we still doing lessons here?
SPEAKER_00: He's like, Yeah, you're good.
SPEAKER_00: All right, sweet, I'm going back to bed.
SPEAKER_00: Wake up the next day, told Melissa about it was great.
SPEAKER_00: But I there's a point where, I mean, even in my posture towards God, hey, I'm gonna do great things for you, God.
SPEAKER_00: Aren't you don't you want to honor that and listen to me and speak to me?
SPEAKER_00: There's a grumbling that comes along and an entitlement that comes along in being in the vineyard.
SPEAKER_00: When you're there long enough, you forget that your place is really in the marketplace.
SPEAKER_00: Desperate, destitute, without purpose.
SPEAKER_00: And what we'll find out about this master of the house, this landowner, is he's just gonna keep pursuing us like crazy.
SPEAKER_00: We finish with these contractors, these bargainers, they will always lose out.
SPEAKER_00: They will always lose out because they'll always be thinking about what is in it for me.
SPEAKER_00: I need to have this certainty of pay.
SPEAKER_00: And they think they've earned their position in the vineyard.
SPEAKER_00: Based on their abilities, based on their strengths, based on the fact that they got picked first at 6 a.m.
SPEAKER_00: before everybody else.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's like getting picked first for dodgeball or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm awesome, I must be.
SPEAKER_00: I got picked first, and so I'm here, and there's a little bit of entitlement that comes along with that.
SPEAKER_00: And if the story ended there, we'd we'd see a sad story of a really stingy people.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus goes on to tell us about another kind of person in the vineyard those who trust God.
SPEAKER_00: And what we'll find is that these people really paved the way for us in Jesus' story that trusting God will ultimately lead to gratitude.
SPEAKER_00: Trusting God will ultimately lead to gratitude.
SPEAKER_00: If we were to read verses three to seven, we'd understand there's not a lot revealed about this group of people.
SPEAKER_00: We do know, though, they weren't hired first, they were left in the marketplace, and they increasingly become desperate.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, like I said, who's out there at five P.M.
SPEAKER_00: still waiting for a job, much less who's out there at 5 p.m.
SPEAKER_00: hiring people.
SPEAKER_00: So they're desperate.
SPEAKER_00: They are ri they need to feed their family.
SPEAKER_00: And so we see their heart in verse 4 and 5.
SPEAKER_00: It says this.
SPEAKER_00: And to them, those who have been hired a little bit later in the day, he said, You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right, I will give you.
SPEAKER_00: So they went.
SPEAKER_00: Now notice something.
SPEAKER_00: There's no measurement here of a wage.
SPEAKER_00: There's no there's no negotiated price.
SPEAKER_00: There's no salary being discussed.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, I'll pay you whatever is right, but here's the deal.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta trust my character.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta trust who I am.
SPEAKER_00: In order for this to work out for you in the end, you gotta trust my goodness and my generosity.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't, if you come to me with a bargaining chip in your hand, you're never gonna see my goodness.
SPEAKER_00: You're always gonna look at me through the lens of what you're entitled to.
SPEAKER_00: So you just gotta trust that I've got your best interests in mind here.
SPEAKER_00: I'll pay you.
SPEAKER_00: I am a fair person, I am a just person, I am a right person, and I will give all of that to you if you will just come and work and do your due diligence.
SPEAKER_00: Just come to the vineyard and what's right will be yours.
SPEAKER_00: Willing to work?
SPEAKER_00: They were there at 6 a.m.
SPEAKER_00: for sure.
SPEAKER_00: But the other guys got picked.
SPEAKER_00: They were there at nine, they were there at noon, they were at 3, and then at 5.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't that they were lazy.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Jesus says and asked them, hey, why are you why are you standing here all day?
SPEAKER_00: Why are you idle all day long?
SPEAKER_00: And we can hear that and think through our Western eyes, well, they must have been lazy.
SPEAKER_00: There must have been something wrong with them.
SPEAKER_00: No, they were just as good as everybody else, perhaps.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe they just got passed over.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they weren't the muscular guys at 6 a.m., but they still had a lot of expertise and a lot of stamina.
SPEAKER_00: We do know they put in a good day's worth of work, however long it was.
SPEAKER_00: But they never negotiated.
SPEAKER_00: They were simply unemployed.
SPEAKER_00: There's something so much more to gain when we approach God on the basis of faith.
SPEAKER_00: We approach God based on the basis of trusting his goodness and his character.
SPEAKER_00: Not what we can see, but beyond what we can see, beyond what our eyes can see.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's what Hebrews talks about when he talks about faith.
SPEAKER_00: It is assurance and conviction of things unseen.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the second kind of worker that Jesus is just saying, hey, this is the guy, by the way, that's going to be first in my kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: For them, the wage was not the most important thing.
SPEAKER_00: Getting credit, getting a reward cannot be top priority for us.
SPEAKER_00: And this is where we can get way off.
SPEAKER_00: I remember being in seminary, and seminary is an interesting place for a lot of different reasons.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I can't even go into them all, but here's one that just there's a few experiences that anybody that goes to seminary, you're gonna go, man, I remember that day.
SPEAKER_00: Wow, that was an interesting day.
SPEAKER_00: This was one for me.
SPEAKER_00: We were in evangelism class, so take note of that.
SPEAKER_00: Evangelism class.
SPEAKER_00: When you go and you're taught methods and you're taught why, and you're taught the mission of God, and that God is a sending God, a giving God, He's gonna send people out.
SPEAKER_00: May as well be a missions class, but it's an evangelism class.
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about going out and methodology and all these different things, and hey, question came up: well, why don't we do these things like we should?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what's really holding us back?
SPEAKER_00: And I don't remember what the answer to that was, but I do remember what someone said just shortly after that when they answered or they raised their hand and they said, Yeah, about this whole evangelism thing.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, come on, guys, I mean, we got to get in the game here.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, here's the deal.
SPEAKER_00: When we get to heaven, I mean, all these people that come to faith, when we get to heaven, we get credit.
SPEAKER_00: We get credit for all that.
SPEAKER_00: And um, there are certain points in my life where I've been so angry that I can't talk.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and that was one of them.
SPEAKER_00: I was just like, okay, I can't, nope, can't, nope, nope, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it.
SPEAKER_00: And I sat there, and the reality was this is if we have that attitude where we get credit, if we're working and we're in the vineyard, we're accepted, we're we're in with God, and we're all of a sudden doing the things that we're doing, holding babies, teaching in the in the kids' ministry, upstairs, doing whatever we're doing, doing whatever it is.
SPEAKER_00: If we're doing it for reward, we're gonna be sorely disappointed when we get to to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Here's why I'm saying that, because whatever reward God God gives us, He's gonna lavish on us reward.
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be beautiful and great.
SPEAKER_00: And then once we get it, we're gonna go, here you go, Jesus, is all for you.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's you that get the credit, it's you that get the glory, it's you that get the reputation.
SPEAKER_00: That's why that band is called casting crowns.
SPEAKER_00: You cast your crowns at Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Did you know that?
SPEAKER_00: I think I just put that together right here, right now.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: But the wage was not the most important thing for the second class of workers, and these are the ones that all of a sudden they realized that God's rescue of their lives in the marketplace, destitute and desperate, that was the thing that carried them through the whole workday, whether it be at 9 a.m.
SPEAKER_00: or 5 p.m., they were working to love and worship he who hired him.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, we see the picture that it's God.
SPEAKER_00: And there's no workers, there's no vineyard, if there's no master of the house.
SPEAKER_00: So it's he that we now turn to and realize this second Melissaism of the day.
SPEAKER_00: And I think I butchered it, so I'm gonna say it.
SPEAKER_00: This is probably the wrong words.
SPEAKER_00: But God's generosity will never be outdone.
SPEAKER_00: God's generosity will never be outdone.
SPEAKER_00: He will never be outdone or outmatched in his generosity towards his kids.
SPEAKER_00: And so we look at God and we approach God, He, there's no measure that we can put on just how much favor He has for His kids.
SPEAKER_00: He sought out all the workers.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, these are all gracious and generous acts that all these people were in need of provision, were in need of help, were in need of rescue.
SPEAKER_00: They're at the marketplace looking for someone to hire them, someone to trust them, someone to just invest in them a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: And he did all that.
SPEAKER_00: He went back and he went back and he went back and he went back.
SPEAKER_00: And it should tell all of us that no matter what circumstances we find ourselves in, God is going to come back for us, even if it means it's at the 11th hour, literally.
SPEAKER_00: He'll come back for us.
SPEAKER_00: He sought the destitute, he sought the rejects, and he kept going back to prove a point.
SPEAKER_00: And it was this to say to all of us and all of them, that master, that landowner, Jesus, who we now know his name, he's this guy out of Ezekiel 34.
SPEAKER_00: This shepherd that comes and seeks out his flock.
SPEAKER_00: It says this in Ezekiel, as a shepherd seeks out his flock, when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so I will seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see it?
SPEAKER_00: And I will seek the lost.
SPEAKER_00: Look who he's seeking.
SPEAKER_00: I'll seek the lost, not those that think they have they found their way.
SPEAKER_00: I will bring back the stray, not those that know where they are.
SPEAKER_00: I will bind up the injured, not those that think they got it all together, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat or the rich and the strong I will destroy.
SPEAKER_00: Those that depend on yourselves, there will be destruction.
SPEAKER_00: And those that realize you're lost, destitute, desperate, all those different things, those who I'm seeking.
SPEAKER_00: But it's no wonder at the end of it, he says, These are the first, and these are the last.
SPEAKER_00: But as we read through verse 13 to 16, as we finish up today, there's a couple different things that we see about the character of God that are just so poignant and so juicy.
SPEAKER_00: We just got to let them marinate in our souls a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: But he replied to one of them, verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: The guy that was grumbling, the guy that was like, hey, it's been hot out here all day.
SPEAKER_00: I think I need a little more lemonade.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: But he replied to one of them, friend, you notice how gentle God's rebuke is to his people?
SPEAKER_00: Friend, I am doing you no wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Did you not agree with me for a denarius?
SPEAKER_00: Take what belongs to you and go.
SPEAKER_00: I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you.
SPEAKER_00: Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?
SPEAKER_00: Or do you begrudge my generosity?
SPEAKER_00: And so the last will be first, and the first last.
SPEAKER_00: Not only does he re gently rebuke his friend, but he reminds everyone of his character.
SPEAKER_00: This outmatch, underestimated generosity that we'll never be able to measure.
SPEAKER_00: That no one deserved a full day's wage, but he contracted with the first guy and then paid everybody more what they deserved at the end.
SPEAKER_00: Because we can get to this and we can realize a couple different things that God's generosity is going to provoke one of two reasons in one of two responses in us.
SPEAKER_00: The first response is this, it's that first worker.
SPEAKER_00: You think you've earned it.
SPEAKER_00: I think I've earned it.
SPEAKER_00: I think that if I have it hard, that somehow you owe me an answer or whatever, that in that particular person, it's going to provoke contempt and envy and entitlement and pride.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why Jesus actually in the Greek at the end of verse 015 says, Or do you begrudge my generosity?
SPEAKER_00: The literal Greek right there is, are you now becoming evil because of my goodness?
SPEAKER_00: Are you now choosing to call my goodness evil?
SPEAKER_00: Which is, by the way, we all have done that or do that at one point or another.
SPEAKER_00: It's the heart of Jonah.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same thing that Jonah did when he was called to preach and go to the Ninevehes, God's enemies, those that ransacked the nation of Israel, hadn't done it yet, but they were going to.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, unbelievable evil in who they were.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jonah looks at them and he says, Are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_00: The Ninevites, the Babylonites, I'm never going back over there.
SPEAKER_00: I'm never going to them.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they are your enemies.
SPEAKER_00: They're my enemies.
SPEAKER_00: They are heinous and they are mean.
SPEAKER_00: I'm never going.
SPEAKER_00: Not only is my life at stake, but I don't want them to repent.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the whole point.
SPEAKER_00: God may want all of us and all of our enemies to repent a whole lot more than we do.
SPEAKER_00: And so at the end of Jonah, what we see is uh little Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Powdy pants outside of Nineveh after people repent.
SPEAKER_00: And he says this in Jonah 4 1 at the end of this whole thing when he gets swallowed up by the great fish, which by the way, somebody came up to me after the first service and said, You know, there's a lot of people that don't think that's real.
SPEAKER_00: It's real.
SPEAKER_00: This happened.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Jonah is a historical story.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just a children's story that we can just kind of go, yeah, those atheists, they think we're crazy if we think if we believe in Jonah.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I guess we're not believing Jonah.
SPEAKER_00: No, believe in Jonah.
SPEAKER_00: It's right in here, right there.
SPEAKER_00: My page is, oh, I don't know, 774.
SPEAKER_00: This is what happens at the end of this episode with Jonah.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't want to go to Nineveh, not because uh he's inconvenienced, but because uh God might just let them repent.
SPEAKER_00: He says this, but it displeased Jonah exceedingly.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, in the Hebrew, it says, I got a footnote in my Bible, otherwise I would have never known.
SPEAKER_00: It says, It was exceedingly evil to Jonah.
SPEAKER_00: So what God had let them do, that he let them repent, that's evil to Jonah.
SPEAKER_00: And he was angry and he prayed to the Lord and said, Oh Lord, it's not, is this, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country?
SPEAKER_00: This is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish.
SPEAKER_00: Tarshish, for I knew what?
SPEAKER_00: What did he know?
SPEAKER_00: For I knew that you are gracious.
SPEAKER_00: I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful.
SPEAKER_00: You are slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster.
SPEAKER_00: God is so generous, so good, so slow to anger, so merciful that all of a sudden, some of us that might be in the vineyard, all of a sudden start to count what God has said is good about Himself, we start to count that as evil.
SPEAKER_00: Provoke one response is, and that all becomes because we think we've earned it.
SPEAKER_00: We've been in the vineyard for so long that we've forgotten that we were just as destitute as everyone else.
SPEAKER_00: And then you've got those that receive it, knowing they cannot earn it, knowing that they don't deserve to be in the vineyard, and so they're full of gratitude, they're full of loyalty, they work the entire day, and then no matter how long it is, they're just standing there going, Okay, cool, this is great.
SPEAKER_00: Daenerys, sounds good to me.
SPEAKER_00: You said it was going to be fair, I trusted you then that, and you know what?
SPEAKER_00: It's even more than fair.
SPEAKER_00: One is approaching God as a slave and as a hireling, working, negotiating, bargaining for measures of grace, and the other one is just completely satisfied as a son or a daughter, adopted into the kingdom, and they're just loving the generosity of their father.
SPEAKER_00: No matter what comes down from heaven, they're just enjoying being in the vineyard.
SPEAKER_00: And so we find ourselves here, wondering who are we?
SPEAKER_00: Are we do we approach God with this bargaining mentality, or do we come to God understanding and trusting that his generosity will never be outdone, never be estimated?
SPEAKER_00: I mentioned this earlier, but I wanted to just read it so that we have it in our mind.
SPEAKER_00: This is the heart of God for all those who uh believe in the Son of God as the Savior of the world.
SPEAKER_00: John 1 1 uh excuse me, John 1 16 says this for from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace, grace added to grace, grace multiplied upon grace, so that nothing, nothing that we have done while in the vineyard could be seen as our own.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, it's just grace on top of grace, on top of grace, on top of grace, to where we can never get to the end, whether it be we were hired at 5 or whether we are hired at 6 a.m.
SPEAKER_00: We can never get to the end and say, look at all the things I've done for you, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, he's gonna continue to tell us, I've done way more.
SPEAKER_00: You can't do anything.
SPEAKER_00: I've done way more than you could ever ask or imagine.
SPEAKER_00: I was uh thinking through this and thinking about a man who lived this out while he was alive on earth.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the ladies are reading a book by this guy's name is uh Brennan Manning.
SPEAKER_00: They're reading the Ragamuffin Gospel.
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to uh just share with you his heart a little bit out of a different book called All Is Grace.
SPEAKER_00: If you know anything about Brennan, he was uh uh an alcoholic and he struggled with that for a long time before God finally just made him realize that he has in his word an infinite capacity for beer.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so he strayed from it for as long as he could, for um as far as he could.
SPEAKER_00: But he said this about this whole idea of grace, this whole idea that to the entitled it will offend you, and to those that are humble and those that are see and trust God's goodness, then it is amazing.
SPEAKER_00: He says this about his life.
SPEAKER_00: He says, My life is a witness to vulgar grace, a grace that amazes as it offends, a grace that pays the eager beaver who works all day long the same wage as the grinning drunk who shows up at 10 to 5.
SPEAKER_00: It's a grace that hikes up the robe and runs breakneck toward the prodigal, reeking of sin, and wraps him up and decides to throw a party, no ifs, ands, or buts.
SPEAKER_00: It is a grace that raises bloodshot eyes to a dying thief's request.
SPEAKER_00: Please remember me and assures him, you bet.
SPEAKER_00: This vulgar grace is indiscriminate compassion.
SPEAKER_00: No discrimination, faith and love followed up with appropriate action so as to take you out of your situation and bring you into a better one.
SPEAKER_00: Until we get to all this and we realize that Jesus is calling out to you, calling out to me, and saying, no matter what situation you find yourself in, no matter what loss you've had in recent years, no matter if it's just for your salvation or your loved one's salvation or your kids' salvation or your life or the very breathe air that you breathe, or the or whatever it is, your work, your parenting, your spouse skills, if that's even a word, everything you have, everything depends on his grace.
SPEAKER_00: And so no wonder he says to his servant, the laborer in the vineyard, Paul, he says, My grace is sufficient for you, no matter what.
SPEAKER_00: My grace, my grace, my grace.
SPEAKER_00: And so at some point we've got to realize that although we're in the vineyard, we are sons and daughters of the king.
SPEAKER_00: We are well provided for, and we are benefactors of a generosity that will never be outdone.
SPEAKER_00: That is amazing.
SPEAKER_00: That is unearned and should change us from the inside out.
SPEAKER_00: Would you guys stand with me?
SPEAKER_00: Let me speak a word of blessing over you.
SPEAKER_00: Hold your hands out like this.
SPEAKER_00: Your God is more generous than you could ever imagine.
SPEAKER_00: His intentions for you are worth more than gold.
SPEAKER_00: It may not always be easy, but it's always going to be worth it as long as you're in the vineyard.
SPEAKER_00: Go now.
SPEAKER_00: Work to the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: Live to the glory of God in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.