Well, if you got your copy of God's Word with you this morning, let's in fact turn to Matthew 20, the passage that was just read on the video, Matthew chapter 20. We'll come back to that again and look at it a little more closely this morning. As you're turning there, One of my favorite moments as a sports fan was the year the St. Louis Rams won the Super Bowl. You remember that? I'm sure most of you do. It was the birth of the greatest show on turf. And you remember that year, the Rams came out of nowhere, and they had a quarterback who came out of nowhere, and they won the Super Bowl. And it was a magical season. Kurt Warner, if you remember that Super Bowl game, threw the game-winning touchdown pass to Isaac Bruce. Mike Jones got the game-winning tackle on the one-yard line. And as a sports fan in St. Louis, it was just incredibly surreal. During the trophy presentation, ESPN's Mike Tirico started by interviewing Georgia Frontier, the owner of the Rams at the time. He moved on next to Dick Vermeule, the coach. But finally, he made it to the Super Bowl MVP, Kurt Warner. And you might remember, Tirico started his interview like this. He said, Kurt, First things first, the touchdown to Isaac Bruce, the momentum had changed. Did you say anything before you guys went out for that play? And Kurt's response was legendary. He said, no, first things first, I gotta give praise and glory to my Lord and Savior up above. Thank you, Jesus. And on that stage in front of millions and millions of people, Kurt understood what we've been talking about here at First Baptist Army for the last several weeks. Jesus and Jesus alone is the one who defines our priorities in life. Not us, not the world, not a motivational speaker, not a self-help book. Jesus, our Lord and Savior up above. As his followers, he sets our priorities. He determines our priorities. We're his followers. He's not our follower. He sets the priorities for our life. And over the last several weeks, we've been discovering these priorities through the several times that Jesus simply uses the word first, or in the Greek, the word protos, where we get our word priority from. And in the Gospels and in the book of Revelation, he does this over 30 times, he uses that word. Now, I'm not gonna backtrack and go over anything that Pastor King's already talked about in previous weeks. I do encourage you, if you've missed any of these messages in this series, I do wanna encourage you, it has been an awesome, awesome series. I would encourage you to go back online and just watch every single one of the messages. But today's priority that we're gonna look at is found in Jesus' well-known statement in Matthew 20, verse 16. Here again, we see the word first. Actually, it's also found in chapter 19, verse 30 of Matthew as well, although the verse is a little bit different. In Matthew chapter 19, verse 30, the verse which immediately precedes our passage of Scripture that we're looking at today, it says, but many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first. Now I want you to scroll down to verse 16 in chapter 20. There Jesus says, so the last will be first and the first will be last. Kind of the same, but it kind of changes the order, makes it a little different, doesn't he? Well, in the context here, what Jesus is talking about, he's talking all about grace. It's all about grace. That's what that verse 16 is all about. It's about grace. As a matter of fact, if you're the type of person that writes in the margins of your Bible, I wanna encourage you right next to verse 16 of chapter 20, write the word grace in all capital letters, all right? Because that's what that verse is all about. No one is first and no one is last. The first and the last and the last and the first, they all kind of get mixed together. If the first are the last and the last are the first, that means there is no one who's first and there is no one who's last. We're all standing side by side, shoulder to shoulder, crossing the line together. And what Jesus is trying to do here is he's making the point that the first and the last don't matter anymore in the kingdom of God, in the kingdom of heaven. And what Jesus is saying is the kingdom of God is an arena of grace. It's a kingdom of grace. And as that kingdom is slowly infiltrating the kingdoms of this world, what you're gonna find is this kingdom, the air we breathe in it, is all of grace. And Jesus is saying here that grace, it's not about finishing first. It's not about finishing last. It's not really about counting at all. It's about not keeping score. I'm not better than you, you're no better than me. You're no worse than I am, I'm no worse than you are. I mean, the Bible says in Romans 3, 23. for all of sin and fall short of God's glorious standard. God's standard for your life and my life is 100% total obedience and perfection. And listen, you may be a little bit better than me or I may be a little bit better than you, but all of us together, we are light years from the standard that God has set. We have fallen way, way, way, way, way short of that standard. But we can all be covered by the grace of Christ. And anything that you experience in this life, church, is because of His grace. It's not because you accomplished something great with your life. It's not because you performed well, that you achieved some greater level of morality or goodness or however you measure that. It's not because we finally caught up to somebody that we kind of hold in high regard, or maybe we finally surpassed them. It's not about that at all. Everything we have, has nothing to do with you, and it has nothing to do with me. It's all because of His grace. So that leads to our priority today. The priority that Jesus is setting forth in this passage is a very simple priority. As a matter of fact, I'm gonna make it real simple for you. I'm gonna give it to you in two words, and I've made it so simple, these words rhyme, all right? So all of us should get it today. Here's the principle, here's the priority. You and I, as a priority in our life, We need to embrace grace. It's imperative that we embrace grace, that we grab onto it, that we hold onto it for dear life, that we let it get all over us, that we let it get smeared all over us. In our culture, we're quite familiar with the word grace. The bank gives us a grace period. The corrupt politician falls from grace. We describe a hostess as gracious. We describe a dancer or a performer as graceful. Before meals, we say what? We say grace. We talk a lot about grace, especially at church when we come to church. As a matter of fact, if we were ever to put a greatest hits album together as a church, the number one hit single on that album would be a song called Amazing Condemnation, right? No, amazing what? Amazing Grace. See, everything that Jesus said and did had grace all over it. In Matthew chapter 20, verse one through 15, Jesus uses a parable actually to engage our imagination on his grace. And it's sandwiched between the verses that we just looked at on being first, the first being last, and the last being first. Now, I want you to listen to these words one more time, but in the video, we read them as we typically do on Sunday out of the New King James Version. That's the Bible that Pastor Kenny preaches out. That's the version that I typically preach out. But I want to this morning to read it out of the New Living Translation. And this parable is actually very, very simple. I'm not going to dig deep into it. I mean, the meaning of the parable just sits right on the surface. It's simple. But even though it's simple, it's as Philip Yancey said about it, this parable is scandalous, it's shocking, it's surprising. As we read it, you're gonna find that it's a little unsettling. Barbara Brown Taylor says, this strange parable is a little like cod liver oil. You know Jesus is right, you know it must be good for you, but that does not make it any easier to swallow. Well, let's look at this parable again one more time, but let's just really focus hard on it. It says that beginning in verse one, for the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early one morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay the normal daily wage and sent them out to work. At nine o'clock in the morning, he was passing through the marketplace and he saw some people standing around doing nothing. So he hired them, telling them that he would pay them whatever was right at the end of the day. So they went to work in the vineyard at noon. And again, at three o'clock, he did the same thing. And at five o'clock that afternoon, he was in town again and saw some more people standing around. And he asked them, he said, why haven't you been working today? And they replied, because no one hired us. And the landowner told them, then go out and join the others in my vineyard. That evening, he told the foreman to call the workers in and pay them, beginning with the last workers first. When those hired at five o'clock were paid, each received a full day's wage. When those hired first came to get their pay, they assumed that they would receive more, but they too were paid a day's wage. When they received their pay, they protested to the owner. Those people worked only one hour, and yet you paid them just as much as you paid us, who worked all day in the scorching heat. And he answered one of them, friend, I haven't been unfair. Didn't you agree to work all day for the usual wage? Take your money and go. I wanted to pay this last worker the same as you. Is it against the law for me to do what I want with my money? Should you be jealous because I'm kind to others? In this passage, I wanna talk about five principles that we see here that help us to understand grace. And understand this, these principles are all throughout the pages of Scripture, but man, Jesus has got them concentrated really tightly right here in this passage of Scripture. The number one principle about grace that I want you to catch, and this is the number one most important principle. If you're taking notes, put a little star next to this, underline it a couple times, circle it. This is the number one principle on grace, and if you don't get this one, you'll never understand grace, and you'll never understand really anything else that we're talking about. Here it is, are you ready for it? Real simple. Jesus went first. Jesus went first. In each case, it was the landowner that took the initiative to come to people standing around in the marketplace. He made the first move. They didn't come to him. He came to where they were at. They had been stuck all day. They were purposeless. They had nowhere to go. They had no direction. They were desperate. They were destitute. They were bankrupt. But the landowner came to them. And listen, you will never understand grace if you don't understand this. You did not find Jesus, Jesus found you. You were lost and he came to where you were at and rescued you in your lostness. He did and he does all the work and we reap all the benefits and we deserve not one of them. As a matter of fact, we've done everything to not deserve any of them. If I had to sum up the Bible, this awesome book, this big book, This book that's sometimes difficult to understand, if I could sum it up with just one word, it would be the word grace. The Bible is a record of grace. It's a record of God in his grace reaching out to redeem mankind. It's a record of man, it's not a record of man trying to find God. The people of planet earth did not decide they needed a savior and called out to God. God knew we needed a Messiah, a perfect sacrifice. So in due time, because he loved this world, he sent his son and he gave his son so that all who believe in him should never perish, but have eternal life. And listen, the only reason that you and I can fall in love with Jesus is because he first loved us. That's 1 John 4, 19. That's the starting place of grace. It's that Jesus went first, that he came to us. You didn't make the first move, he did. But that leads to the second principle we see here in this passage. And it's this, it's never too late to come to Jesus. It's never too late to come to Jesus. You see, this story centers around a number of people that were all invited to work the vineyard at various times in the day. Some were invited, came early. Some came late in the day. But what Jesus is saying here is that in his grace, it's not too late. It's never too late. Jesus, in his grace, he keeps the light on. He keeps the welcome mat out. He keeps the coffee hot, and his invitation is always there for us to come to him till the day that we die. It's a gracious invitation. Years ago, Andrew and I, we were serving at a church near Evansville, Indiana, and in Evansville, there was a pastor by the name of Jeff Stratton. Several years ago, Pastor Jeff was called to visit a 93-year-old man who had terminal cancer. His name was Adolph Allen, and he had been a hard-living, hard-drinking union iron worker for most of his life. Two minutes after that conversation began, Adolph looked at Pastor Jeff, and he asked this question. He says, is it fair for somebody to live their whole life one way, and then at the end of their life, ask God to take them to heaven? And after thinking about it for a minute, Pastor Jeff said, no, Adolph, it's not fair. But luckily for you and me, God isn't fair. And Pastor Jeff shared the gospel of grace with Adolph, that plan of salvation. And that 90-year-old man battling terminal cancer bowed his head and he asked Jesus Christ to come into his heart and into his life to be his Lord and Savior. Four weeks later, Pastor Jeff preached Adolph's funeral. And during that funeral message, he talked about how some football games come down to the final play. The team that's behind might've been outplayed the whole game, but on this last play, the quarterback fades back and he heaves a Hail Mary pass into the end zone as time is expiring. And the ball might be batted around, but if a offensive player receives that ball, catches it, the game is over and they win. And Pastor Jess said that's what happened with Adolf. The devil was in the lead for most of his life, but the final score was Jesus one and the devil zero. And what a reminder to us today, it is never too late. I don't care who you are, what you've done, it's never too late to come to Jesus. But don't procrastinate. Don't put it off. You can never guarantee another tomorrow. It's been said there are a lot of people waiting until the 11th hour that actually die at 1030. Studies have shown that more people die with their shoes on than their shoes off. More people die outside of a bed than in a bed. You just never know. But I'm telling you this, as long as you have breath in your lungs, the gracious invitation of Jesus is to come to me. And he invites you to come today. It's never too late to come to Jesus. But while that's true, that leads us to the next principle of grace that we see in this passage, and that's this. It's never too late to come to Jesus. It's always too soon to quit on Jesus. Always too soon to quit on Jesus. You notice in this passage, every last one of these hired hands worked until the bell rung. Not one of them quit. And some had been at it a long time. They had been there all day. And vineyard work was hard work. As a matter of fact, in verse 12, one of these workers who had been there all day kind of brought that up. He said, man, we have been working all day in the scorching heat. But what a reminder that it is always too soon to quit on Jesus. And I don't know who this is for this morning. I don't know what transitional point you're at in your life, but I wanna remind you, you don't get to set Jesus aside for a season. I don't care what you're at, what you're doing, you don't get to set him aside for a season. Whatever comes first, the end of your life or the end of time, that's the moment you get to stop, not a moment before. See, for some of you today, you're here at church, and man, that's a good thing, I commend you, but if you were honest, you would have to admit that your heart is far from the vineyard. Your heart is far from serving Jesus and living for Jesus and being in His will. Let me just tell you something today. In His grace, He never quit on you. In His grace, He never gave up on you. If you'll just let your eyes scan down just a little bit on the page, go down to verses 17 through 19. Here in this passage, Jesus tells us how he was gonna be mocked, and scourged, and crucified. And he did do that. He did go through that. And he did it for you, and he did it for me. And he could've backed out at any moment. He could've just said, I'm getting off this highway, I'm taking the ramp off. But grace kept him in it. And so I just want to encourage you today. I don't know where you're at in your life. I don't know what's pulling you away or what's causing you to slowly drift away, but you need to hang in there. Don't walk out. In this parable, there's a fourth principle of grace that I want you to notice. And this is the one that just to me kind of just screams off the page. God is free to show his grace any way that he wants. God is free to show His grace any way that He wants. See, I think that's one of the reasons we kind of struggle with this passage a little bit, especially if you're a business person, you're an employer, you hire people, you kind of read this passage and think, man, there's no way I could ever run a business like this. As employees, sometimes we look at this passage and we think, man, if other employees got treated like these guys who came late to the party, man, I would have a major problem with this. And there's just something about this passage that just doesn't sit right. And I think that's because it offends our sense of fairness. We think that the workers who are in the vineyard longer, we believe that they deserve to be given more and that the latecomers deserve to be given less. As a matter of fact, these 12 hour workers that were hired at the beginning of the day, they do actually go to the owner and complain. And he just smiles. He says, I paid you what we agreed. And if I want to be generous, then that's my right. because it's my vineyard, and it's my money, and you just need to get over it. Now we read this and we think in the context of employee-employer relationship, and you think, man, I would never let this fly. But let's be honest, a lot of you have had this conversation this week with your kids. Hey, I can do what I want, I'm the parent, it's my money, get over it, right? You've had that conversation. We have it regularly at our house. Now unless you reside in a fairy tale, everybody here knows the truth of the statement that I'm about to give you. Life ain't fair. Life ain't fair. Let's be honest, we've all thought it. We've all said it. We've probably all gotten mad about it. Some of you at some point in your life or another may have tried to call God on the carpet because of that. Life's not fair. And we complain, we get mad about it. But let me ask you this, is fairness really what we want? I mean, is fairness really what we want? In his wonderful book, one of the best books I've ever read, I'd highly recommend it, it's a few years old now, but it's a book by Philip Yancey entitled What's So Amazing About Grace? And he makes this observation about the parable we're looking at today. He says, the workers' discontent aroused from the scandalous mathematics of grace. They would not accept that their employer had the right to do what he wanted with his money when it meant paying scoundrels 12 times what they deserved. He goes on to say, many Christians who study this parable identify with the employees who put in a full day's work rather than the add-ons at the end of the day. We like to think of ourselves as responsible workers. And the employer's strange behavior baffles us as it did the original hearers. And then he says, we risk missing the story's point, that God dispenses gifts, not wages. And then he just gets straight to the point. He says, if paid on the basis of fairness, we would all end up in hell. In other words, what Yancey is saying is, hey, if you wanna relate to God on the basis of what you do for him, he owes you something in return. If you wanna relate to God on this merit system or on this wage system, so to say, Well, the Bible does talk about a wage system. In Romans 6.23, the Bible identifies the wage system that God would operate with you and I. It's found in Romans 6.23, where he just simply says, the wages of sin is death. Physical death, eternal death, separation from him forever and ever and ever. The wages of sin is death. You wanna come to God and say, God, this is what you owe me for what I've done? That's the wage system that God operates with you on. But that very same passage, if you want grace, he says it's a gift that can't be earned. He said the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God or the grace of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. What's eternal life? Well, Jesus defined it for us in John 17 three, when he said, and this is eternal life, that they may know you, he was talking to his father, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. You see, when we talk about eternal life, eternal life isn't just about living forever, it's not just heaven. Eternal life at its core, at its heart, is knowing God. It's a relationship with the God who made us, the God who loves us. That's the gift. That's the gift of grace. That's the dadarius in our text. That's the day's wage, the day's pay that's mentioned in this passage of scripture. It's the grace of God that he puts in our lap. And think about what Jesus had to go through to get that gift for you. I want you to think about that for a moment. If you want to talk about something not being fair, that wasn't fair. When Jesus was hanging on the cross, that wasn't fair. but he did it for you and he did it for me. The most unfair moment in all of history became history's greatest gift. And so before you start whining about God not being fair and about life not being fair, before you throw your hands up in the air and just turn your back on Jesus, I want you to remember that he often will give you something that appears to be unfair. But really, it was a gift for your ultimate good. That's the promise of Romans 8, 28. That unfair moment or that unfair season that you've gone through, or maybe you're in it today. Instead of complaining to God, we remember that even that season, even all those things that are happening in that to make you feel like life is unfair, even that is a gift of His grace to your life. Because in the end, it's for your ultimate good. It's just more of His grace just being poured out every day. And let me just tell you something. He's free to do that. He's free to give you whatever He wants to give you or not give you whatever He doesn't want to give you. He's God. You're not. He's the Lord. You're not the Lord. He can give in any way that He chooses. But we know at the end, whatever He gives or doesn't give, it's ultimately for our good as He conforms us to the image of His Son. That takes us to the last principle that I want to look at this morning, and it's simply this. We need to uproot jealousy and entitlement and plant as much gratitude as possible. We need to uproot jealousy and entitlement and plant as much gratitude as possible. So I want you to look down towards the end of this parable. I noticed the chain of events that took place in the hearts of these workers. They started with entitlement, what they believed that they were owed. Then they went to comparing themselves with others. And you know, that's really what jealousy is, isn't it? Jealousy always comes from comparing yourself to someone else. You compare you to them, And as you do that, you don't like how the comparison turns out and that anger or that resentment or whatever it is you feel, that's negative and nasty, that's jealousy. We see that in verse 15. And then in their jealousy, they get stuck in grumbling and complaining. And finally, they forget and lose sight of just how generous the owner of the vineyard is. I tell you what, I am just always amazed at how modern human nature is as old as the Bible, because you know what? We are the exact same way. People who lose sight of the grace of God and all that God has richly provided are the most petty people on the face of this planet. How often times has that been you? How often times have I been that way? It's just petty. It's immature. It's childish. Years ago I heard a pastor tell a story about a beautiful car that he owned and he was proud of that car. So proud that he actually put it out in front of his house so everybody could see it. One morning he walks outside and he noticed a tiny little scratch on the driver's side door and he tried to buff it off but did so unsuccessfully. So he got in his car and he drove to work. When he came back to his car after work, what do you think the first thing he noticed was? That scratch. In fact, it's the only thing that he saw. It's the only thing that he was able to focus on. 99.9% of that car was immaculate, but his eyes immediately went to the scratch. Other people would admire his car. They'd say, wow, man, that car is so cool. And he would say, yeah, I'm just really upset about the scratch. And they'd say, what scratch? And he would show them and they'd say, ah, I didn't even see it. But he noticed it. Constantly. He would go on to say, for me, a big part of my spiritual growth has been learning to stop fixating on the scratches of life and learning to be grateful for the rest of the car. Listen, I know it seems that life is unfair and that God has allowed your life to get scratched up a bit. I get that. Well, let's learn to find as many ways to be thankful for everything else good that He has placed in our lives. Listen, if Jesus had done nothing but save your soul from hell, that defining moment when you place your faith in Him as your Lord and Savior, you would have enough reason to be the most grateful person in this world. If that's all He ever did, at one point gave you that gift of salvation, that's all He ever did, You ought to be the loudest thinker that this world has ever seen. I don't even know if that's a word. But you ought to be filled with gratitude. People ought not to be able to shut you up. You're that happy and that appreciative. But let's be honest, he's done so much more for us than that. He's given us so much more than that. And so we as his people, we gotta plant as much gratitude as we possibly can. Ephesians 2.7 tells us that we need to be overflowing with thanksgiving. Are you defined by your grumbling or are you defined by your gratitude? People who understand God's grace are filled with nothing but gratitude to God for all that He does and is doing in their life. I'm going to close this morning with maybe the greatest grace story I've ever heard. My parents pastor, my parents go to First Baptist Church of Maryville on the other side of the river there, and their pastor, Dr. Tom Hufty, before he was a pastor, was a college professor and a college administrator at Hannibal LaGrange University. One semester he was teaching a youth ministry course and it was the end of the semester and it was finals week. The big day had come for those students to take the final exam in that class and everybody was in the classroom getting ready for the test. They were busy with last minute cramming and studying. And Dr. Hufty arrived and he said, hey, before we take the test, we'll do a quick review. And the students, of course, were happy about that. But as they began to go through that review, they started saying, hey, we didn't talk about that. And we didn't talk about that. And I don't remember this. And Dr. Hufty said, it was in the assigned reading. And the assigned reading is something you had to be responsible for. They knew they were toast. Well, it came time to take the final exam, and Dr. Hufty began passing a final exam to each student, placing it on their desk in front of them, face down, and he told them, do not turn the test over until I say begin. Got all the tests passed out, and finally, he said that word, begin. And for some, that word invoked fear. For others, it brought a sense of relief, because they were finally able to get it over with. But when the students turned over their exam papers, everyone had the same expression of shock on their face. All of the answers on all of the tests were filled in by hand. At the bottom of the last page, Dr. Hufty had written this note on every single one of those exams. He said, this is the end of the exam. All the answers on your tests are correct. You will receive an A as your final grade. Some of you thinking, man, I wish I had a professor like that at least once in my life. You will receive an A as your final grade. The reason you passed this test is because the creator of the test took it for you. All the work you did in preparation, though it may have been a great discipline for your study, it did not help you get this perfect score. And then Dr. Hufty addressed the class with these words. He said, some lessons you learn from lectures, some lessons you learn from research, but some lessons you learn from experience. And you will probably never forget those lessons. And class, you have just experienced grace. And then he said, 100 years from now, if you know Jesus Christ as your personal savior, your name will be written down in a book and you will have had nothing to do with writing it there. And that will be the ultimate grace experience. When we talk about grace, we're just not talking a little favor that God does for us. It is being given something that you did nothing to deserve and really did the total opposite. You did everything not to deserve it. Simply put, grace is Jesus. He hung on that cross for everyone on this planet. He bled knowing that we are sinners so unworthy of such perfect love. His forgiveness should never touch us, but it does because in His grace, Jesus made it possible. He gave and He continues to give it to us anyway. It's His grace. And I don't know about you, but grace is a big deal to me. It's a big deal to me. It's a very special thing. And it's not easy. It's heavy at times. It's hard to always relate to my Heavenly Father on the basis of grace. I always want to fall back into what I can do and what I accomplished and what I did. It's even harder relating to other people on the basis of grace. But I'm telling you at its roots, grace is the most beautiful act. And I hope, I hope and I pray that before you walk out here today, if you've never experienced that grace, I hope today is a day that you'll experience for the first time because it really will in the end amaze you. Let's bow for prayer.