Matthew chapter 20. This morning we will be in verses 1 through 16 as we look at this parable that Jesus gives his disciples. Matthew chapter 20 verses 1 through 16 follow along with me as I read. For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the laborers for denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the marketplace. And to those he said, you two go into the vineyard, and whatever is right, I will give you. And so they went. And again, he went out about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, and he did the same thing. And about the 11th hour, he went out and found others standing, and he said to them, why have you been standing here idle all day long? They said to him, because no one hired us. And he said to them, you two go in to the vineyard. And when evening had come, the owner of the vineyard said to the foreman, call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last group to the first. And when those who had hired about the 11th hour came, each one received a denarius. And when those who were hired first came, they thought that they would receive more, and they also received each one a denarius. When they received it, they grumbled at the landowner saying, these last men have worked only one hour and you have made them equal to us who has borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day. But he answered and said to them, to one of them, friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for Denarius? Take what is yours and go your way. But I wish to give the last man the same as to you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous? Thus, the last shall be first, and the first shall be last. Let's pray. Father in heaven, Lord, Come before you now, and we ask that your Holy Spirit would illuminate our minds, that you would help our hearts to be pricked by the teaching of your word, that you'd help our minds to understand what you have us to know, that you give us ears to listen and focus over this next hour or so, Lord, to meditate upon your word. and let us rejoice at your grace. In the name of Christ, our Savior, we pray. Amen. We are wired by nature to work and to labor and to do what we do for what we receive. I don't go to work because I love it. If I was not paid, I would not work where I'm at. I work and I labor for what I am paid. It is not in our nature to be freeloaders. Yes, I know there are people who are freeloaders, but it's not in the nature of the vast majority of us to be freeloaders. We understand the concept of work and reward. And that is especially even true when it comes to earning God's favor. We compare ourselves to other people, and if we perceive that we are better than the other person, we think God will look upon us with greater favor than someone else. And we do things for God with the expectation that He will reward us. think in our minds that our good things that we do make God incur a debt of obligation to us to do something. And that is precisely where we find ourselves in Matthew chapter 20. The previous chapter we saw two completely different types of people with the same thinking. They both were asking Jesus questions about their work and their reward. In verse 16 of chapter 19, it was the rich young ruler. He came to the Jesus and said, teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life? He wanted eternal life. He knew he did not have it. And he asked Jesus, how do I get it? And when Jesus tells him what he has to do, ultimately what he has to do is to sell off his possessions and give it to the poor. And Jesus said those words because the man was rich and he knew the man's heart and he knew that the man loved his money more than anything. And Jesus was ultimately saying, if you want to be with me, if you want to have eternal life, you have to give up of yourself and follow me. And he walks away sad because he did not have or because he had much money and he had much land. And then, right on the heels of that, the apostles ask a very similar question in verse 27 of chapter 19. Peter answered and said to him, Behold, we have left everything and followed you. What then will be for us? What is our reward for following you? The rich young ruler was told, you have to give up everything and follow me. We have given up everything and followed you. What do we get? What is our Reward and Jesus tells them bluntly that there is a reward there is an individual reward for following me and giving up everything Jesus does reward those who in faith follow him and sacrifice for him So there is an individual reward that we individually get But do you know what the most impressive and most valuable thing and all of the world is It is your soul That is the most precious thing in all of life. And it is your salvation of your soul. There's nothing that even comes close to the value of the gift of salvation. We will live forever. We are not eternal beings. We did have a beginning. Mine started on July 2nd, 1975, or if you want to go nine months before then when I was conceived, right? That's when I had a beginning. I did not exist before then. God exists forever. We have a starting point, but we have no end point. Every single person in this room will live forever. Our bodies would decay, our bodies would die, but our soul, our being, will live on in eternity. And they will live on in eternity, either in everlasting joy in heaven, or eternal suffering and damnation and wrath in hell. All souls live forever. So your salvation of your soul is to be your greatest pursuit and your greatest joy and your greatest treasure. Your soul is worth more than anything on this earth. Jesus says in Matthew 16, 26, for what will a man be profited if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? What will a man give in exchange for his soul? The wealthiest man in the world is Elon Musk, who is worth an unfathomable amount of money that none of us could even really truly comprehend. And if he dies without Christ, it profits him nothing to have all of that money. Philippians chapter three, verses seven and eight, Paul says, but whatever things were gained to me, whatever things were I treasured, whatever things were valuable to me, Those things I've counted lost for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing Jesus Christ, my Lord. But again, Jesus in Matthew chapter 6 says, Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroy, and where thieves do not break in or steal. The most valuable thing in the world is your salvation that God gives to you. It's the salvation of your soul. Your soul is precious. And salvation is invaluable. And what this parable teaches us is that the greatest gift that is not one that can be earned and the greatest gift that can be received is that of your salvation. And the great reward is given to every single believer. At the end of chapter 19, Jesus does affirm to Peter that there are individual rewards But then in this closing of this teaching here in the first 16 verses of Matthew chapter 20, Jesus teaches a parable about the great importance of your salvation and God's grace in giving salvation to all those who believe. We all get the same grace. The gift of salvation is given equally to all who believe. It is all by grace. This morning we will look at two things. We will look at the presentation of the parable, and the parable itself, and then we will look at the principles of the parable. The first thing is the presentation of the parable. If you look back just one verse, and at the end of chapter 19, the last verse of chapter 19 says, but many who are first will be last, and the last will be first. Chapter 20 verse 16 says, thus the last shall be first and the first shall be last. Those two proverbs that Jesus gives are almost virtually identical. They frame the book work, the beginning and ending of this parable. They're the bookends of this great parable. And whenever you see in the Bible, when you're studying the Bible and you see a phrase that's repeated one spot and then another spot, make note of that because what's in between is being explained, is explaining what is being said. And Jesus is explaining in his parable, he's explaining what he means when he says, the first shall be last and the last shall be first. What does Jesus mean when he says that? That's saying Jesus said often in his public ministry in the Gospels. And it's not found in hardly any other literature of his day. So many people believe that the proverb might have been invented by Jesus. We don't know that, but could be. But it was a favorite proverb of Jesus. And what does he mean when he says the first shall be last and the last shall be first. And he explains it by giving a parable. Verse 1 of chapter 20 says, for the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out. For the kingdom of heaven is like is the traditional way that Jesus used, phrase that he used when he was teaching in parables. In Matthew chapter 13, when he teaches in a bunch of different parables, he says that over and over again. Matthew 13 verse 24, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to one who sows a good seed. Matthew 13, 31, the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed. Verse 33. Kingdom of heaven is like leaven. Verse 44, the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field. Verse 45, kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls. And verse 47, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into the sea. It's the phrase Jesus used to indicate I am getting ready to teach in a parable. And this parable is only found in the Gospel of Matthew. It's not found in the other Gospels. It's not found in the other synoptic Gospels, which is Matthew, Mark, and Luke, which are called that because they tend to be in sync with each other in terms of what they teach. And this one's only found in Matthew. For some reason, it caught Matthew's attention. Maybe it's because Matthew being a tax collector was focused on money and this one has to do with money and maybe it's stuck in his mind, who knows, but it's stuck in his mind and it's only found here in Matthew. And it's been a while since we've talked about parables and we've had some new people who have joined us so we just want to take just a moment to remind ourselves about what is a parable. Jesus of course is the son of God but when he was on the earth he was dwelt in flesh and he was God in the flesh and he was clothed in humanity which means he had things to do and he had a job and he had a calling. His job was that of a carpenter. Would have been awesome to have a table built by Jesus. Right? He was a carpenter. He built things by trade. That's what he did. But his calling was that of a rabbi. And for 30 years, he walked the earth and no one noticed anything about Jesus. There was nothing special about him in his appearance. He worked his job as a carpenter. Then at the age of 30, after his baptism and his 40 days of trials in the wilderness, he begins his public ministry and he begins his calling as a rabbi. And rabbis would go around and they'd have disciples who would follow after them and these disciples would learn from the master and learn from the rabbi what he had to teach them about God. And one of the most powerful ways rabbis taught was to use parables. A parable that was not a fable. You know what a fable is, right? Like Little Red Riding Hood. That's a fable. It's something that's not based in any sense of reality. It's purely fiction, or like the Three Little Pigs. I remember the cartoon, the Bugs Bunny cartoon, or Little Pig. What was his name? The cartoon character, the pig. That's all, folks. I remember that cartoon when I was little watching him do the three little pigs. That is a fable. That's one of Aesop's fables. They're stories that teach a lesson. They teach a lesson, but they use things that aren't real. Pigs don't talk. A parable is not an allegory which is where an allegory is where everything has like a specific meaning like the Chronicles of Narnia or Lord of the Rings. Those are allegories right where all this stuff has certain meaning in the story itself. But a parable doesn't have a lot of different meanings. It usually has one or two or just a couple of meanings that it's trying to promote. And everything on the outside of that, that main point, are not really part of the story in terms of other than just adding to the main point. And you can get bogged down in parables if you try to analyze what does everything mean. Like, why did they go to the market at three? And why did they go to the market at six? And why did they go to the market at nine in this paragraph? That doesn't mean anything. There's no meaning in this time that it's given. But a parable is just a simple story used to illustrate a spiritual lesson. That's all that it is. It's just a simple story that is used to give a lesson. The word parable comes from two Greek words, para, which means alongside, and balo, which means to lay, to throw down or to lay beside. It's something that's laid beside teaching. There's teaching that happens and a parable lays down beside it to help understand the teaching. helps you to age in memory, right? For whatever reason, the way that our minds are wired, it's easier to remember a parable than it is sometimes to remember scripture itself. I don't know if you find yourself that way, but I do. I can't tell you verse by verse what the sower of the seed is in Matthew chapter 13, but I know the parable and I could walk you through it. I could walk you through the understanding of that. Parables are very simple tools that they unlock the brain, so to speak, to help it understand deep spiritual truths. So what is this parable? What is this parable that is before us? Before we unpack the meaning, we need to know the story itself. And once we see the story itself, the meaning is pretty simple. It's pretty obvious. The story can be broken into two sections. Verses one through seven is the work. Verses eight through 16 is the reward. Let's first look at the work. In verse one, Landowner went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. The name of the parable in your Bibles might be called the laborers in the vineyard. Is that what most of your Bibles have, the parable name? It's an unfortunate name because the parable is not really about the laborers. The parable is about the landowner. And this landowner goes out into the world and to these laborers to deal with his vineyard. A better name might be the landowner and his vineyard than the laborers in the vineyard. Remember a couple weeks ago when we talked about the rich man, he was rich because he owned much land, much property. Owning land has always been and will always be a sign of great wealth. Those who are wealthy acquire a lot of land. And this particular landowner had a vineyard, and that was a common crop in ancient Israel. That's a common crop in that area. The grapes grow very well there. And he had a vineyard that he needed work to be done. So he goes down in verse one early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. A vineyard needs much care and much work to be done into it. It doesn't say whether the landowner is building a new vineyard and he needs guys to help him put a new vineyard or whether it's an existing vineyard and he has work to be done and whether it's harvest time. It doesn't tell us that. But all of those would require work. A new vineyard would require the men to go along the hillside and to level out the ground and take all the rocks out and make the little terraces and to build the walls. That would take a lot of effort to go do. If it was just a growing season, you'd have to go out and kind of harvest and trim back the grapes and the vines to make them prune them and they make them produce more. Angie and I love plants, but we have zero green thumb. All of our plants die, every single one of them. We were just talking about this last night, right? Angie, we went somewhere and she saw a plant, she goes, I like that plant. I'm like, well, maybe what we should do instead of learning how to care for plants, maybe we just buy plants like every month and we just put that out there so it always looks new, right? Because neither one of us can care for plants. And if you have a big vineyard, you have to take care of it. You have to care for the vineyard. And it takes a lot of work. Or if it's harvest time, perhaps it's harvest time, everything happens at once. All the produce comes at once. And then you have to get out and take it off of the vine. Otherwise, it spoils on the vine. So there's a lot of work to do. He has a lot of work to do. And he goes down and he hires some people. And there's five groups of people that he hires. The first one, in verses 1 and 2, they hire early in the morning. He goes down early in the morning to hire laborers in the vineyard. And where are they at? And verse three tells us all these people are at the end of verse three, they're at the marketplace. This is the area in the center of town, a marketplace where all the day laborers go. They stand around there and they wait for people to come to hire them. We have that even today. Even today, there's locations where people who work as day labor, they go and they stand and then you go. and you hire them. When my brother moved in Atlanta, I helped him move. He went down there. He went down to Home Depot, and then he hired a couple guys to help him move. That's just what they do. They're day laborers. The Jewish workday was from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., and it was broken down into hour-long segments. Date number zero was early morning, was 6 a.m., hour one was 7 a.m., hour two was 8 a.m., hour three was 9 a.m., and so on and so forth, all the way up to hour 12, which was 6 p.m. That's how they'd split up their day in 12-hour increments. These men are hired right off the bat. Do their full-day labors. They don't have full-time work. They go down and they work for whoever hires them for that day. And verse 2, they agree to, with the laborers, the landowner agrees with the laborers for denarius for the day. The landowner has a conversation and negotiates a price with them. about how much work he has to do. He tells them what I have to do, right? You don't just hire them for nothing. You say, this is what I have to do. I have, my vineyard has got to be pruned, or I have to build new terraces in my vineyard, right? You tell them what you have to do, and you tell them how much you're willing to pay, and you have this negotiation, and it's the start of the day, and the laborers have all the, they have, they can drive a harder bargain, perhaps, because it's just the start of the day, and I got other people who are gonna come, so what's the price? And they agree to a denarius. which was the wage of a Roman soldier. It would have been a lot of money for an unskilled laborer. It wouldn't have been pennies. A day's wages, called denarius is a day's wages, but it's a day's wages of an average person, not the unskilled laborer, not the unskilled day laborer. Getting a denarius for a day's work would have been a lot of money for them. And they would have been extremely happy to have that much money. So they agreed to it, and he says, go into the vineyard. And they go into the vineyard. And then a second group of people he hires in verse three. And he went out about the third hour, which is 9 a.m. He goes out around 9 a.m., which is typically when our workdays actually start, around that time. Not many people getting up at 6 a.m. Some of you do, I know, don't come up to me, boast that you get up at 6 a.m. Some of you do, but most of us start work around 8, 9 o'clock. It drives me crazy. My boss is out on the West Coast, and I get started between 8 and 9, and half the time I'm up, they're already working, and it drives me crazy. I'm like, why are you up at 5 a.m. working, right? But typically, we start work around 8, 9 a.m., so he comes back to the vineyard, and he sees some more people there standing idle, and he says to those, you two go into the vineyard, and I will give you whatever is right. The standing idle doesn't mean that they're lazy, it just means that they haven't been hired yet. They went down there to work, they're standing down there waiting for somebody to hire them, other people have come and hired other people, but they haven't gotten hired yet and they're still just standing there. They're obviously not lazy because they're down at the marketplace early in the morning still looking for work to do. And he tells them, go into the vineyard, and whatever is right, I will give you. He doesn't say the amount that he's going to give them. He basically just says, whatever is right, whatever is just, whatever is fair, is what I will give you. In the story, you can assume that the man was wealthy, and he's wealthy because he has a vineyard, and he would have done this kind of stuff all the time. He had a good reputation, and they knew that this guy would just fairly treat them to pay them what is fair. He tells them to go into the vineyard, and they go into the vineyard. And then the third group he hires, he comes back in verse 5, and again he went out about the sixth hour. This is about noon time, so half a day's work. It could have been much work to do, and Elena keeps coming back. But the indication of the parable is not that the guy doesn't know how to calculate how much work he needs. The parable is showing us that this guy is gracious, and he keeps going back to hire more and more people, because he can. He tries to help as many people as he can. They're still standing there, waiting for work to be done. And then he hires a fourth group at the ninth hour. Again, he went out about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and he did the same thing. He goes and he tells them, hey, go out to the field and I'll pay you what is right. We'll square up at the end of the day. These people are still there, still wanting to work out, ninth hour is 3 p.m. They're still wanting to work at 3 p.m. and they're still standing there waiting for somebody to hire them. That's when their workday's almost over. I get annoyed at work when somebody schedules a meeting at 3 p.m. I'm like, I'm starting in shutdown mode. You don't need to be scheduling a meeting at 3 p.m. These people are still there waiting to start working at 3 p.m. And then the fifth group, of those he hires, in verse six, at the 11th hour. At about the 11th hour, would have been 5 p.m., at the end of the workday, only one more hour of work to do, he went out and found others standing and he said to them, why have you been standing here idle all day? Again, idle all day doesn't mean laziness, but why have you been standing here all day and no one has hired you? They're waiting for someone to hire them. They've been at the marketplace for 11 hours now. They've been down there for 11 hours waiting for somebody to hire them. And no one has hired them. Why would they not have hired them? Why would somebody be there all day and not be hired? Who would have been left at the end of the 11th hour? If you were like me and unathletic, you know exactly what these people are like. The worst phrase to hear when you're a child in middle school and you're unathletic is, pick a side. You two superstars on the football team, you pick who you want on your team. Guess who's always picked last, right? The person who has no skill, unathletic, unable to do anything. So who is left here at the 11th hour? It's those who are weak, those who are feeble, the scrawny, the old. No one wants to hire them. If you go down to the marketplace to hire somebody in your vineyard, the first person you see is big and strong. The next person is a weak old man hunched over. Which one are you going to hire? This landowner goes back, and he gets the last, the worst of the bunch. And he tells them, go into the vineyard, and I will make it right with you. They held out hope, hoping that someone would hire them. Most days they'd go down there, no one would hire them. But this day, somebody hired them. They might not get much. They might just get like a little snippet of food, maybe buy some crumbs, but at least I'll get something today. That's the work. What is the reward that is shown in the parable? Verse eight, and when the evening had come, The evening, that would have been about 6 p.m. as dusk began to settle. We don't think much of it in our day and age, but in the ancient world, when dusk came, nothing else happened. You didn't have streetlights, you didn't have flashlights, you didn't have house lights. It was dark. The only light you had was the soft glow of fire. So you couldn't do much. So when the evening came, like today when it's harvest season and you see the farmers out in dusk and they have the lights on the tractors, that didn't happen. When it was dusk, you couldn't work. So the 12th hour comes or 6 p.m. comes, it's the end of the day, it's the evening, and he said to the foreman, call the laborers and pay them their wages. It's not just a cultural norm to pay at the end of the day. It wasn't because the landowner said to do this. It wasn't his standard and nobody else's. It wasn't because it was part of the agreement that they made back in verse two when they agreed on the denarius, that, hey, I'll pay you at the end of the day a denarius. The reason why he pays him at the end of the day is it's a command of God. Leviticus 19 verse 13 says, you should not oppress your neighbor nor rob him. The wages of a hired man are not to remain with you all night until morning. Deuteronomy 24, 15, you should not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy. Whether he is one of your countrymen or one of your aliens among you, you shall give him his wages on his day before the sun sets. For he is poor and sets his heart on it. so that he might not cry out against you to the Lord. They need the money. Most of us in here don't need money every single day in order to survive the next day. We have enough money in our accounts that we can survive day to day. Now we might live paycheck to paycheck, but we have enough money to last us for the next day. Those who are desperately poor, those who are these day laborers, they didn't have that luxury. They needed the money in order to survive. The Lord has great compassion for the poor and needy. They worked so that they could eat, they worked so that they could provide, they worked so that they could survive. If they didn't get it that night, they wouldn't survive the next day. They needed the money, so you had to pay them. Line them up, verse eight, said to his foreman, call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last group to the first. So he reverses the order, right? He went down and hired a bunch of people first in the morning, and then he hired some at the very end, the 11th hour, and says, now pay everybody and reverse the order of the payment. Men would have lined up, right? You can picture it. Dozens of men lined up, ready to get their payment for their day's work. Those in the morning had agreed to work for Denarius. The third and sixth and ninth hour people had agreed to work and that they would be made right. And the eleventh hour people were agreed to like just come and work and I'll make it right. So they expected very little. Verse 9, and when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each one received denarius. They each got a day's wages of work. Labor. I mean they each got a day's wages for their work. Now, at first, this would have been beyond a pleasant surprise, right? The guys who came down at the 11th hour, you can see them all weak and feeble, not expecting much, and then what he puts into their hand is a denarius. And they do a double-tape, like, are you sure you paid me the right amount? I only was here for an hour. They would have been full of rejoicing at the payment for a full day's wages. And the rest of the people would have been happy too. And that's what they were. Verse 10. And when those who had hired first came, they thought they would receive more. Why were they happy? Because they said, well, if that guy gets a denarius or work in one hour, I work 12 hours. Let me do some quick math. I'm not great in math, but maybe I'm going to get 12 denarius or maybe 10. I'm gonna get a lot of money for this. I was not expecting to get paid two weeks worth of wages just to come here today. He told me an hour, he told me a denarius, and I'm happy to do that. But man, now I'm gonna get two weeks worth of wages? That's awesome. I can't wait. That's not what happened. and when they had first had those who had come first thought that they would receive more and they all received each one denarius they would have been furious and they were furious And you can imagine, as the group of people who were weak and feeble were hired at the 11th hour, they're all standing in the line, and there's a table there, right? That's how they would have paid them. Table's set up, and you go up, and he takes his little treasure box, and he flips it open, and he gives that guy a denarius. And then he gives the next guy a denarius. And you don't know when everybody was hired, and all of a sudden, you start to think, wait a second, that guy didn't get here at 6 a.m. with me. He got here, like, at lunchtime. And you're starting to see everybody's getting into Denarius. And then he comes to you and he only gives you one. And you're mad. And you would be too. Every single person in here would be mad. If I agreed, if I told you to come next Sunday, if you're here at 9.30 a.m. when church doors open, I would give you $10,000. everybody would be here at 9.30, right? But then if somebody shows up at, as the doors are closing, as I'm locking up at noon or 11.30, and they show up and I give them $10,000, you're gonna be like, wait a second, I had to suffer through a whole sermon, right? I had to sit there and listen to you for an hour. This guy shows up at the very end and he gets the same thing? And that's what they were. And when they received it, they grumbled to the landowner, not to the foreman who gave them the money, but the landowner who was standing behind them, saying, these last men have worked only one hour, and you've made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day. We've been here all day. We've been with you the whole time. We deserve more. We deserve more because we've done more. We deserve more, we were more faithful to you. What's the answer of the landowner, verse 13? But he answered and said to one of them, so whoever the spokesleader was, Friend, and now that word friend is not the brotherly affection friend. Later on, Jesus says, I no longer call you slaves, but friends. That word friends there is philos, which means brotherly love, friendly love. This word is heretos, which means comrade or a mate or partners, just like a greeting. Like calling somebody, hey, buddy. Hey, hey, pal. Just a greeting. And it's almost kind of like a rebuke, kind of like, you know, you hold on a second there, friend. You're kind of talking out of line here. And why are you talking out of line? And he gives him two reasons. I paid you what we agreed upon. That's what he says. Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for Denarius? Take what is yours and go your way. You and I agreed for a denarius, that's what I gave you. Don't be upset. I gave you exactly what we agreed upon. And you were happy at 6 a.m. and now you're mad. Just take the money and go. The other reason why you have no reason to be mad is it's my money and I can do with it what I want. We agreed to denarius, that's what I paid you. Take it and go. Verse 14, but if I wish to give the last the same as to you, is that not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? I can do with money what I want to do. You have no right to be mad at me. It's my money to give away. And his last words get to the rebuke, get to the heart of the matter. The reason why you're mad is not because I cheated you. The reason why you're mad is because you're envious. You're mad because you think you deserve more even though you got exactly what you agreed to. Or is it you're I envious because I am generous? The reason you're mad is because you perceive they got something that they didn't deserve and you deserve more than what they get. Perhaps you're thinking to your mind, if I knew that if I could have gotten here at 5 p.m. and gotten the same amount of money as what I did for all day labor, I would have waited until 5 p.m. to come and work for you. And then Jesus closes the parable with the same phrase, the last shall be first and the first shall be last. The parable explains the proverb, what does Jesus mean by it? What does Jesus mean? What is he teaching his disciples in this parable? What are the principles of the parable that Jesus is teaching here? Sometimes when it comes to parables, you can read way too much into it. And some of the commentaries I read, they talk about some of this stuff. And they mention, and there's nothing to do with it. For example, this parable is not teaching you how to manage business. No one would manage a business this way. If you managed a business this way, you would go broke. Jesus is not teaching you how to manage a business. You do not pay people the same amount of work, same amount of pay for less work. That's not how it works. If you do that, you will go broke and your business will end. That will not make people work hard for you, that will make people be lazy. It's not a parable about labor negotiations. One commentary even mentioned about how you should take from this, one thing you can take from this is how to negotiate labor contract deals. It has nothing to do with that. It is not about generosity. This is not a parable about being generous towards people. Yes, we are to be generous, but that's not what this parable is teaching. It's not a parable about caring for those who are weak. So what is the parable? Simply put, it is a parable about the equality of grace, the equality of grace and salvation. One of my favorite hymns in my office, I've got four hymns up on the wall, and one of my favorite is, Grace that is greater than all our sin. The last line of that hymn says, Marvelous, infinite, matchless grace, freely bestowed on all who believe. Grace, grace, God's grace, grace that is greater than all our sin. This parable is about God's equality of grace that he offers to all people. God offers his grace to all who believe. and we get the same grace. Whether you come to Christ as a child, or whether you come to Christ as an adult, you get the same grace. Whether you come to Christ in a VBS program, or whether you come to Christ in a nursing home, you get the same grace. Whether you come to Christ as a toddler, or whether you come to Christ in your deathbed, you get the same grace. Marvelous, infinite, matchless grace. God's riches at Christ's expense. It's what you get. We all get that. As I mentioned earlier, this parable has the unfortunate title of laborer in the vineyards, and it should be the landowner in his vineyard God the Father, just briefly, who are all these characters? The vineyard is a kingdom of God. It's a picture of the kingdom of God. It says, for the kingdom of God is like. So the vineyard of the parable is a picture of the kingdom. The landowner is a picture of God the Father. He's the one that orchestrates and owns it all. The laborers are those who come to faith in him. They're down in the marketplace and they come to faith and they go into his kingdom, go into his vineyard. The labor that we do is the work that we do in obedience to God. The denarius is a picture of salvation and eternal life. The foreman is probably Jesus Christ. The workday is your entire lifetime. And evening is eternity. So the vineyard is a kingdom. Landowners got the father. Laborers are believers. Labor is the work that you do in obedience to God after salvation. Denarius is eternal life. The foreman is Jesus. Workday is your lifetime and evening is eternity. So what do we learn from this? What is the teaching that Jesus is trying to instruct his disciples? There are three great things that we learn about God from this. First is God's great compassion for the lost. Remember the men that were standing idle in verse three? In the third hour, he came and saw them standing idle. They weren't standing idle because they were lazy. They were standing idle because no one had hired them. And the same was true for those he hired at the sixth hour, those he hired at the ninth hour, and those he hired at the eleventh hour. They were ones who were rejected by everyone else. And he comes and he hires them. That's exactly who God wants. God wants the unwanted. Matthew 21 verse 31, Jesus said to them, truly I say to you, the tax gatherers and harlots will get into the kingdom of heaven before you. If you think that God finds favor in you because you grew up in a Christian home, you are morally a good person, you don't do a lot of bad things, you've got it totally wrong. The prostitutes will get into heaven before you, if that's what your mindset is. Luke 5, 32, I've not come to call the righteous, but the sinners to repentance. But God demonstrates his own love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, Romans 5. 1 Corinthians 1, 26 through 29, consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong. And the base things of the world, and the despised, God has chosen that the things that are not, that he might nullify the things that are, that no man should boast. God hires the weak and the feeble. No one comes to Christ until they admit they are weak and feeble in Him, and they need Him. But look at the landowner who is God the Father. Look at the compassion. He's the one that is doing the work of finding people. They're not coming to Him. There is none righteous, no, not one. No one comes to God on their own. God draws people to himself. And look at this landowner, verse one, for the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out, verse three, and he went out about the third hour. And verse five, and he went out about the sixth and ninth hour. And verse six, and also at the eleventh hour, he went out and found others. God has a great compassion for the lost, and he seeks them out. Luke 19.10, Jesus says, the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. He seeks them out. He's going down to the workplace of life. He comes down to where we're at, and he says, I will hire you. I will take you. No one else wants you. I want you. 2 Peter 3, 9, God is not willing that any should perish, but that all would come to salvation. He is compassionate. He wants the lost to come to him. God's great ability to fulfill his promises. The reason why the landowners quote unquote overpaid the 11th hour person is because he had more than enough wealth to cover it all. He gave the 11th hour person the denarius because he could keep his promise to everybody else too. There was no shortage of funds available. They all received what he promised. Did he not? They all received what was promised to them. The person who came in the very beginning was promised to Denarius. The other people was promised to do what was right. That's what they were promised. They all got what he promised them. He did not short any of them. When God makes a promise to us, he is not only able to, but he is willing and he will keep it, all promises. Joshua 21 verse 45, not one of the good promises which the Lord has made to the house of Israel failed. All came to pass. Hebrews 10 23, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who has promised is faithful. God promises to deliver us. He promises to save us. He promises to keep us. He promises that if we turn to Him and repent of our sins and have faith in Him, that we will live with Him in eternity. And that will happen. He who is promised is faithful. Lastly, God's grace and salvation. Or God's grace and equality of salvation. Maybe to be more precise. I skipped over a phrase when we were looking at the parable in detail because I wanted to talk about it here. And it's in verse 12. And it's the complaint that the people have, the early morning workers. What is their complaint? The complaint was not that the landowner paid the 11th hour worker at Denarius. The complaint in verse 12 is this. These last have only worked one hour, and here's the complaint, and you have made them equal to us. You've made those who came last equal to me, who's been here the whole time. That's the gospel message. It doesn't matter when you come. You get the same thing. Their complaint was that you made these people equal and they're not worthy of that. They didn't labor all day like I did. They weren't struggling in the heat of the summer like I did. And it's easy for us to sometimes feel the same way. God, I've been following you my entire life. And you mean to tell me this person who's been wicked and enjoyed all the flesh, enjoyed all the sins their whole lives, they come to Christ at the very end and they don't have, they get the same thing? I suffered my entire life. I denied my flesh my entire life. They were made equal because they both got the same reward. And that's what happens in salvation. We said that the greatest gift of all, the most precious thing in the world is your soul and your salvation of it. And that's where we all get the same reward. Yes, there's individual rewards, but we all get the same reward of heaven. We all get Jesus. We all get heaven. We all get eternal life. We all get no more tears. We all get no more sin. We all get to eat of the tree of life. We all get to drink of the fountain of living water. We all get the crown of life. We all get the crown of righteousness. We all get the crown of glory. We all get forgiveness. We all get peace. We all get to be at the marriage supper of the Lamb. We all get robes dressed in righteousness. We all get freedom from sin. We all get to know Him fully. We all get to be fully known by Him. We get all of it together. No matter when you come to Christ, no one is cheated in eternity. The person who comes to Christ as an adult is not cheated at all. They get the same grace as the one who's followed Christ since VBS. That parable is incredibly important for us to hear, to understand that God gives His grace to all people, but it was incredibly important for the apostles to hear. For thousands of years, God had come to the nation of Israel, and the nation of Israel was the apple of God's eye. He had made his covenant with Abraham, renewed it with Isaac and Jacob. He had made covenants with David. He had made covenants with Moses. He had made covenants with Noah. He made all of these covenants with the nation of Israel, promises to Israel. He had delivered Israel out of Egypt after being enslaved. He had led them into captivity when they'd be burrowed, and he freed them when they'd be pented. He sent prophets to the nation of Israel, and they were the apple of his eye. But that was all changing. Jesus says in John 10 verse 16, I have other sheep which are not of this fold. I must bring them in also. Who were the other sheep? The Gentiles. For thousands of years, the Jews were the ones who were hired in the early morning. And now all of a sudden, at the 11th hour, someone else is going to get saved too. And they needed to hear, you're nothing special. My grace goes to all. I am willing to save all who come to me. That which he had promised to Israel, he is now freely giving to others. You no longer needed to be a Jew to be saved, you needed to have faith in Christ Jesus. You had labored your entire thousands and thousands of years, and now all of a sudden, Gentiles in Antioch, and Gentiles in Corinth, and Gentiles in Ephesus, and Gentiles in Galatia, all these non-Jews were gonna get saved all over the place. And it caused a problem for the Jews who were believers, did it not? That was something that Paul battled everywhere. Jews who were believers and Jews who were not believers both struggled with this idea that these Gentiles don't have to do what we had to do. Just in closing, two things in terms of challenge and application for your life and for mine. First of all, do not be envious of God's blessing of others. It's very easy to be envious of God's blessing of others and to be jealous of how God deals with them. We see God blessing some new believer with great things. We might think, well, why didn't I get that? Or, I know so-and-so, they profess to be a believer in Jesus Christ, but they don't really live that well. They're not doing the same things I'm doing, and God keeps blessing them. Don't be jealous of that. I've been faithful for 30, 40 years, Lord. Why is this newborn Christian getting all the praise? It's easy to do. God is the giver of gifts and he gives gifts however he wants to give them. We should rejoice at those who come to Christ, no matter when. So don't be jealous or envious of God's blessing of others. Secondly, start early and work hard. Start early and work hard. Do not take from this message and this parable that it's okay to be the 11th hour worker. I'm just gonna live my life. I've got somebody very close to me that I shared the gospel with when I was in high school, as we was driving in a car, and they told me at that time, I'm gonna live my life for myself right now, and I'll come to Christ later. And they've never came. Yes, the true deathbed confessions occur, but they are rare. The thief on the cross is a rarity. So if you're here, start now. Start early and work hard all day long. It's far better to start early. And if you're saved and you're young, praise God, get to work. But if you're an adult and you've just come to Christ, get to work. Doesn't matter when you come to Christ, get to work. start working, doing the work of obeying Him, finding ways, more and more ways to glorify Him in your life. But perhaps you're here today and you're still at the marketplace. You're still standing around and you don't even know Christ. You've not even been asked to go work in the vineyard. Jesus is saying to you right now, come. Come to me, all who are weary, and I will give you rest. If you're still standing in the marketplace of life, and you've never given your life to Christ, you've never repented of your sins and called upon Him as your Lord and Savior, today is the day of salvation. Get started and start working. Let's pray. Father in heaven, Lord, we thank you and we praise you for your grace. God, we praise you that you give us all your grace that come to you. And that the vastness of your unending grace is given to all who believe. And we ask that you draw all of us closer to you. And if there's anyone here who does not know you, that they would call upon you as a Lord and Savior even this day, and that they would get to work in the vineyard of your kingdom. In the name of Christ, we pray. Amen.