All right, so we are in Matthew 20. And if you remember last week, last week, Caleb taught, and we all stayed together, right? Caleb taught, and he had a lesson about a specific person that came to ask Jesus a question, all right? Now, do you remember what was the question that that person asked. Does anybody remember? Yeah, he asked, how can I have eternal life? That's an important question, isn't it? He was thinking about some really important and big things. But at the end, after Jesus asked him a couple of questions, what happened? Did he go away happy and knowing how he could have eternal life? No, he didn't. Remember, he went away sad because he did not want to do what Jesus said he needed to do. He did not want to admit that he was a sinner. In fact, remember, he told Jesus, I have done, I have kept all the commandments. It's a pretty big claim, isn't it? That's a big claim to say that you've never lied or cheated or stolen anything at all, not even the smallest little tiny thing. We can all admit we've done that, right? Or we've disobeyed our parents, right? I mean, all of us have disobeyed our parents. None of us can do that perfectly. The only one who's ever done that is Jesus. He's the one that has done that. That's why he was asking that man, that rich young ruler, he was asking him those questions to try to get him to admit that he was not perfect, that he needed something outside of himself to have eternal life. Well, tonight we're going to talk a little bit more about how Jesus wants us to look at our own life and we need to be really careful that we're not looking at other people and kind of gauging where we are, especially in relationship to God. We need to be really careful. We're not determining our relationship with God based on how we compare to other people. And that's one of the things we're gonna talk about tonight. So we're gonna be in chapter 20. And remember, Jesus likes to tell, he likes to tell some stories, doesn't he? that help people understand maybe some important things. So he tells stories, and that's where we're gonna be. He's gonna give a parable. They're called parables. And so it's like a story with a lesson attached to it. You're supposed to understand something from it. It's not just for entertainment. All right, so he says, for the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. Okay, so Jesus is telling this story. There's people who are around listening. And He says, the Kingdom of Heaven, that's what our whole series of lessons are about, the Kingdom of Heaven. What is it? How can we know what it's about? How can we be part of it, right? So Jesus is giving us a clue where He says, So He said, I'm going to hire you to work, and I'm going to pay you this much for a day, okay? He sent them into his vineyard. So the first group of people that he meets, he meets right at the beginning of the day. And he says, I'm going to pay you this much, and you go work for the day. And they are like, sounds good. We're ready. They go out. They start working. Verse three, and he went out about the third hour. So this is a little bit later. He goes out again. Now, I was reading someone said that that actually would have been pretty rare during that time period. So Jesus is kind of, he's throwing him off here with the story he's telling, because the landowner really would probably just go out and hire everybody needed right at the beginning. And then he would just have everyone, and they'd just work all day. But, in this story that Jesus is telling, he says, the landowner, he goes out again, three hours later. And he looks for some more people that might need to work. Says he went out into the marketplace, and to those, he said, so there were other people standing there, needing work. He says, you also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right, I will give you. So this time, he says, If you come work for me for the rest of the day, I'm going to pay you a fair wage. He doesn't even tell them what it is. And how many people would do that? How many people would just trust somebody that said, hey, if you do this work for me, I'll pay you fair at the end? How many people think that they would trust somebody to do that? I guess it depends on how much and how well you know that person, right? If it was someone that you know was a trustworthy person that was fair, you would say, OK, I'll do that. But if it was somebody you didn't know it at all, you might wonder, oh, man, I might do all this work and then not get anything. But he must have had a good reputation, because they all go out and they start working. And so they went. And again, he went out about the sixth hour. So he goes out three hours later. And the ninth hour. So he goes another three hours. So now we've got people who've been there from the start of the day. We've got people who came three hours later than that. And then people that came six hours. And then people that came nine hours. And they're all working out in the field. This must have been a really big field, right? So they're all working. And he did the same thing. So he did the same thing with those people. He said, I'll pay you a fair wage for your work. All right? Now, that sounds like, you know, normally you work probably, it sounds like they worked a 12 hour day. That's a long day to work, isn't it? So you can imagine, it's getting towards the end of the day. And in verse six, it says, and about the 11th hour, he went out and found others standing around. So he goes out again, and he sees more people who are just standing around, they don't have jobs, they don't have work. And he said to them, why have you been standing here idle all day? He's like, why haven't you been doing anything? Why haven't you been working? And they said to him, because no one hired us. And he said to them, you go into the vineyard too. So he says, you guys, you can go work in my vineyard, even though there's only like one hour left of the workday. You go out and work too. All right, so that's the setup. Now, what do you think is gonna happen? When everybody comes in at the end of the day, what do you think is gonna be fair for those people when they come to get paid? They get paid. All right, everybody gets paid. You think everybody's gonna get paid. I agree, that would be fair, right? Everybody went out and they did some amount of work. But what would you do? Let's say you were one of the first people You were one of those people that were out there at six o'clock in the morning working, and you've worked for 12 hours. And you know that you agreed to be paid a fair wage. You agreed for that denarius. That's the typical day's wage. All right, so you would be expecting to get that, right? Now let's say, what if you were, what if you had someone that was working next to you who had come six hours later than you? What do you expect that they should get paid? If you're somebody that's been there at six, somebody else comes at noon, what do you think they should be paid? less right maybe half as much right they did half as much work or they worked half as many hours now maybe they did more work though you never know they might have come in fresh at noon and they just worked twice as hard for six hours that could be that can happen right you have some people that were really hard workers those people at the beginning of the day who maybe they got tired about two o'clock in the afternoon they'd been there most of the day i don't know it doesn't say but We kind of think in those terms, right? We think, well, you get paid so much an hour. So the people that came later, they should be paid less. That would be fair. What do you think the people who worked in the field thought? Do you think they think like we do? Yeah. Yeah, the people in this story, they think like we do. So let's see what happens. Does the landowner think like we do? That's an important thing to think about, isn't it? Verse eight says, when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last group to the first. So he says, bring them all in and we're gonna pay them from the people who were here the least amount of time to the people who were here the longest. All right, that's how we're gonna pay them. And when those hired about the 11th hour came, each one received a denarius. Now, how much did he agree to pay the people who started at the beginning of the day? A denarius, right? That's that day's wage. So the people that came at the very end of the day, they got paid a full day's wage. Now, if you were one of those people that came right at the beginning, what would you be thinking right now? Oh, yeah. You're waiting, aren't you? Now you're like, oh, wow. Wow, this rich guy is paying everyone, and he just paid people who only worked one hour a whole day's wage. And I've been here for 12 hours. So they're probably calculating it, right? Oh, man. I'm not going to have to work for two weeks. That's what they're thinking. Well, let's see what happens. It says, when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more. They were like us. They thought, you know what? I worked harder than all those other people. I deserve more. I, I, I, I, I, I, right? That's how they thought. But what happens? But each one of them also received a denarius. So they come up, and the landowner pays them the same amount. He pays everybody the same. It doesn't matter how many hours they worked. I have a question for you. Who thinks that is unfair? Anybody think that's unfair? Why? Why is it unfair? Because they worked harder than everyone. They worked longer. They were out there longer. All right. Did he cheat them? Did he? He told them he was going to pay them a denarius for their day's work, right? And he paid them what? A denarius for their day's work. Did he tell the other people, I'm going to only pay you part of a denarius because you're working less? What did he tell them? He said, I'm gonna pay you a fair wage, right? He said, let's see, let's go back. It says, and whatever is right, I will give you. Now, who gets to determine what is right? When you're paying somebody, who determines what's right? Right, the person who owns the land, right? The person who's hiring gets to determine what is right to hire the workers, right? Now, in this scenario, who do you think the landowner might be? Who do you think Jesus is comparing the landowner to? Right, himself or God, the Father? Yes. So everyone's paid a fair wage, but it's determined it's the landowner who gets to decide what is right in this scenario. But did the people working think that it was the landowners? That it should be him that decides? They wanted to decide, didn't they? They wanted to decide how much the work they had done was worth. And that's why they got jealous, right? They were jealous of those other people. That's not fair. And that's how we are a lot of times. We always look at what somebody else gets, and we think, well, I didn't get that, or I didn't get more than that, even though I did more. So let's see what happens. How does he respond? Verse 11 says, when they received it, they grumbled at the landowner. They were mad. They were just like you guys thought. They were mad. They were upset. They grumbled at the landowner saying, these last men worked only one hour and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day. So now they didn't complain at all about how hard they had to work until they saw somebody else receive the same thing as them, right? Then all of a sudden, now they're complaining about how hard the day was. Now all of a sudden they had to work in the scorching hot sun. And those people didn't, that's not fair. But the landowner, he paid them exactly what he had agreed. But he answered. So the landowner finally speaks. He says, but he answered and said to one of them, friend. So he calls them friends. He's not mad. He's not upset that they're complaining about him and talking bad about him. He says, friend. Am I doing you no wrong? Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go, but I wish to give to the last man the same as to you." So he says, I want to be generous. I want to give everyone the same wage. Here's my question. Those people who were waiting till the 11th hour, did they just show up waiting to work? Did they like lay in bed all day and then run out to the marketplace at five o'clock? Is that what it sounded like happened? No, remember it says they were waiting to work, but nobody hired them. They were waiting. They would have worked all day if they had had the opportunity. So I think that's why the landowner said, I'm going to pay them the same thing because I care about them and I'm generous. That's the way God is with us. God is generous to us. He doesn't do a works-based system. He's not looking at us all going, now you're working harder than them, so you get more, you get less. I like you more, I like you less. That's not how God works. He loves all of us, right? He's caring for all of us. He's generous to all of us. So he, in verse 15, it says, it is, is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? So he kind of, he kind of gives them a question here. He's like, don't I have the right as the landowner to pay people what I want? I'm the one who's hiring people. I'm the one who has the money to pay. He says, or is your eye envious because I am generous? And that's where it really gets to it. That's our lesson. We need to be careful that when we're thinking about, well, I'm a good follower of God and I do all these things and I look at other people and I think I'm better than them. God should bless me more. That's how these people thought. They thought God should bless me more because I'm a harder worker and I'm better than they were. I did more than they did. We need to be careful with those kind of ideas. And he finishes off by saying, so the last shall be first and the first last. Okay, so that is the parable that Jesus tells. Now we're gonna go a few, we're gonna go a few verses later and we're gonna see if his disciples understood the lesson. Did they get it? Did they figure it out? He doesn't explain it. This is one of those parables where Jesus doesn't explain it. He just kind of says it, and He just lets them think about it. Alright? So this is a few verses later. Verse 20. It says, then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to Jesus with her sons. So that is, that's James and John. They're two of his closest disciples. You'd think that they would have been listening best, right? They would have been listening well to what Jesus said. And I'm sure his mom was also, their mother was also a follower of Jesus. But here's what she does. She comes and she says, bowing down and making a request of him. And he said to her, what do you wish? And she said to him, command that in your kingdom these two sons of mine may sit on your right and on your left. So right after Jesus tells this story about how we shouldn't be acting like we're better than other people and that God is generous to all that are following and working for him, They come and they say, hey, can you make us really important in your kingdom? Can you make us like number 1A and 1B right next to you? Let's see what Jesus says. But Jesus answered, you do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink? And they said to him, we are able. Now, I skipped over a few verses. But those few verses that we skipped was Jesus telling them, we're gonna go to Jerusalem and they are going to kill me because they hate me. And he says, I'm gonna be crucified, but I am gonna raise again a few days later. That's what he tells them. And they're listening to this. And then when he says, are you able to follow me? They say, yeah, yes, we can do that. They think of themselves pretty highly, don't they? All right, so let's keep going a little bit more here. It says, and hearing this, so remember we talked about how those workers at the beginning, they got really jealous when the workers at the end were paid the same wage. Let's see what happens to James and John, when they come and ask this favor, or their mother does, they're right there. It says they're with her. So it's not like she did it without them knowing. They knew. It says, and hearing this, the 10, that's the other 10 disciples, the 10 became indignant with the two brothers. So they were mad. They were like, how dare they? We should have asked first. They were jealous. It wasn't that they were so upset. I think they just, they wished they had thought of it first. So they completely missed the point of Jesus' parable. Jesus was saying, don't try to figure out some order of importance between yourselves. You're all working for God. You're all following me. Don't worry about each other. Worry about doing your best. Worry about working for me as well as you can. All right? They missed the point. And he gets on him a little bit. He says, Jesus is saying, if you try to spend all your time, become really important, that you're going to fail. It says if you want to actually serve God well, then you need to serve other people. You need to put other people as more important in your life. You need to help them. You need to serve me. Be a servant, rather than being someone who wants to be ruling and in charge of other people and feel bigger and better and more important, okay? So that's a good lesson for us all, but I think sometimes we struggle with that even in serving God. We look at other people and we kind of think, oh, I'm doing pretty good, because it looks like I'm doing more than somebody else is. But we need to be careful that we don't start having those attitudes. Jesus says we're supposed to be a servant. We're supposed to serve him by serving other people. All right, let's go ahead and pray, and then we'll get into our verses tonight. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time. We just thank you for this lesson, and the lesson in humility, and a lesson in faith, and trusting that you are fair in the way that you deal with us, and that you're generous to all, and that we should not be jealous when we see other people receive good things, and we should not compare ourselves to other people. Just pray that you would help us to serve you well. In Jesus' name, amen.