Thank you, children. This morning we'll come to another one of Jesus's parables this morning, the fourth one in our series. I've received a number of kind words from many of you on how important and helpful these parables have been to you and to your own faith and how enriching you've found this series. Well, that may end today. The reason I say that, there's good news in this parable, of course, but what I find is that the longer that you have walked with Jesus, the more offended you may be by what he says here. His grace is good, but his grace offends things within us. I hope that's a hook enough for you to be interested to hear now the reading of God's word. I will read verse one through 19 of chapter 20. Here are the word of the Lord. Jesus says, for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. Going out about the third hour, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace. And to them, he said, you go into the vineyard, too. Whatever is right, I will give you. So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. At about the 11th hour, he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, why do you stand here idle all day? They said to him, because no one has hired us. He said to them, you go into the vineyard too. And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last up to the first. And when those hired about the 11th hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now, when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it, they grumbled at the master of the house, saying, these last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat. But he replied to one of them, friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. Choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity? So the last will be first, and the first last. And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the 12 disciples aside, and on the way he said to them, see, we are going up to Jerusalem, The Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death, deliver Him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and He will be raised on the third day. This is the Word of the Lord. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, give us Eyes to see, ears to hear for the first time, or refresh our eyes and ears that we might hear the good news once again today. We ask in the blessed name of Jesus and God's people said together. Amen. You may be seated. Shortly after the Second World War, representatives from the allied nations gathered in Nuremberg, Germany to hold leaders of the defeated Nazi party accountable for their many, many atrocities. Over the period of 11 months, overwhelming evidence was compiled that secured the convictions of many of those who led the most brutal war machine in modern history. Shortly after the trials, though, the American public was surprised to hear that one of their own, an army chaplain by the name of Henry Gorecki, had spent considerable time with many of these Nazi leaders while they awaited trial. Henry Gerecki was a Lutheran pastor from Missouri, and he, with his boys, fought in the Second World War. But after the war, he was called up to return to Germany to be a spiritual comfort to many of these men awaiting trial. And so he met with them, some of the most horrible humans to ever walk the earth. He met with those that would meet with him and many were largely unrepentant and went to their executions swearing an undying allegiance to the Third Reich, but many repented. Let me give you some examples. The Nazi labor leader. meeting with Gorecki and hearing about what the Lord Jesus had done for him, the Nazi labor leader wept for his guilt and confessed Jesus Christ as his savior. Not only did he repent and confess Christ, so did the Nazi minister of war production. And then there was the leader, the director of propaganda, the leader of the Hitler Youth. Remarkable was the confession of Wilhelm Keitel, who was the field marshal over all the armed forces of the Nazi regime. Shortly before, he was hung with a rope. He met with Chaplain Gorecki and said this. You have helped me more than you know. May Christ my Savior stand by me all the way. I am a horrible sinner and I need his mercy. When news of Gorecki's conversations went public, to say that Americans were displeased is an understatement. They were outraged. See, the Geneva Convention mandated that someone go and offer spiritual leadership, and they had hoped that maybe a liberal would go who would tell them there is no heaven, there is no hell. You don't need to believe anything. You're just fine. But they sent a man who preached the gospel to them, and they were outraged. The opinion pages of the newspapers of our country were littered with letters from many Americans who were not just underwhelmed, but livid. And many of these people called themselves Christians. Slogans like, these men don't deserve mercy. And they are unforgivable, filled the opinion pages of our newspapers. They called him a sympathizer. Gorecki is a Nazi lover, a traitor. They were outraged. One of the things this parable does is it shows us that behind such outrage is entitlement. You see, many who are ferociously angry at Gerechi believed that the promises of God were only for those who met some sort of minimum baseline of morality. You must be this good to qualify for the kingdom. And those men do not qualify. What they said out loud was they don't deserve mercy. What they didn't say is But we do. But we do. This parable corrects Jesus's disciples. who are operating on kind of a merit basis that you sort of, you get what you give. The more obedience you give to God, the more he is going to be on the hook to reward you in some way. And Jesus comes along and says, the kingdom of God does not operate like that whatsoever. This is not a merit-based kingdom. The operative principle in the kingdom of God is not merit, but mercy. And the longer you're in this kingdom and the more you serve Christ, the more you sacrifice to him, the more you will find my mercy. Off-putting, offensive, troublesome. And so Jesus gives this parable in one way to correct his disciples, both then and his disciples today, that have a sense of, this is what God owes me because of, well, I'm better than others. So there's a correction in this parable, but there's also a celebration, a celebration that Christ calls each and every one of us. to engage in, a celebration of the, if you would like to say, scandalous mercy of God, the troubling mercy of God. All right, so we'll look at this parable under those two headings, one, the correction of the disciples, and then following that, the celebration of God's generosity You know, as always, when you drop into a text like this, it's important to consider the context. Context is king in order to understand why Jesus is telling this parable and what it's addressing. And so I want to tell you first about the context of what happened immediately before this, but also what immediately follows, because that's going to help us understand what's going on. Why does he tell this story, this parable, about this vineyard owner. So, right before this parable, before we jump in then, let me tell you the context. Right before this event, Jesus has met the rich young ruler, and this rich young ruler says, what do I got to do to be saved? What must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus essentially goes through the second half of the Ten Commandments, do all of these things, and if that's the question, what do you gotta do? Then Jesus hears the answer, you gotta keep the law in its entirety. And this rich young man says, yeah, I've done that since my youth. I've kept the law in its entirety. Jesus, knowing that he has not and that his real love is for his wealth, he says to him, if you were to follow me, you need to sell everything you own and give it away. Everything you own because that's your God. That's what your heart serves right now. It's your wealth. It's your possessions. If you want to follow me, kill that idol. And the rich young ruler walked away sad because he was unwilling to part from his God, his God of wealth. The disciples then, you know, they're looking at this rich young ruler and he refuses to walk away from everything. And the disciples say, Lord, what about us? We've walked away from a lot of things. You know, I know it's popular to say that the disciples were dirt poor fishermen. That's not the case. Several of them owned their own boats. They owned their own fleet of boats that they used for fishing. So these were probably middle income business owners. And these guys, they walked away from it all. They let their businesses nosedive to follow Jesus. And they said, Jesus, what about us? And Jesus says, yes, there's staggering rewards for you. Men, staggering. You will sit on twelve thrones and judge Israel. at the judgment. Now, what exactly that means? We don't know exactly what that means, but what it does mean minimally is that the disciples will play a prominent and privileged role at the judgment. And Jesus goes on to say, in fact, anybody, anybody who denies themselves of this world and loses this world will gain a hundredfold in the next. Okay, so that's what happens right before this parable. Men, you're going to rule on 12 thrones. Because you walked away from your possessions when the rich young man would not. Well, it seems that that promise of what will be given to you, 12 men, it started to create a sense of entitlement. We should be congratulating ourselves, boys. Now, why do I say that? I say that because right after this parable, Jesus ends this parable with saying, the Son of Man is about to be crucified and flogged and murdered, but I'll be raised on the third day. But. Then the mother of James and John says, yeah, yeah, yeah, enough about your death and all that stuff that's coming up. I want my boys to be closest to you. I want their thrones to be the closer ones to you. So that's what Matthew reports here, is that their mother comes to them and says, hey, you got 12, but my boys, they're not like the rest. Mark tells us it was actually James and John. James and John come up to Jesus. Again, it's like, enough about this murder and crucifixion and all that. We want the thrones that are closest to you. We're better than the other guys. It's like, boys, read the dang room. He's talking about his murder, and you can't get over this self-congratulatory entitlement. What do we get out of this deal? Not only do the 12 of us get to sit on thrones, Some of us are better than others, Lord. Aren't you glad the Lord gathered these knuckleheads around him? Because it shows that he loves us all. He's willing to put up with us. He's willing to teach us. He's willing to show us through this parable that my kingdom doesn't operate like that. Kingdom doesn't run on merit. The operative principle in my kingdom is mercy. So that's what we're gonna see here in this parable. Let's take a look at it now. Let me first warn you, this is not a model for how to run a business. You will destroy your business. If you operate in the business world like this guy, this vineyard owner, you will, if you take a for-profit or even a non-for-profit and try to say this is how you are to run a for-profit or non-profit, you will destroy it overnight. Because this vineyard owner actually practices terrible business practices, terrible. But his bad business practices, amount to good news for people like us. So first warning, don't run your business like this guy. Because first, the first thing that he shows here, well, there's going to be three things I would not advise to a business owner. It's the questionable hiring practices. He looks for the worst employees. Second, he's irresponsible in his spending. And third, he has a confrontational management style. All right? Questionable hiring practices, irresponsible spending, and public confrontational leadership. So let's look first at the questionable hiring practice. So the story begins. You've got a vineyard owner. His grapes are coming in and he needs to bring them in. You know, there's a level of urgency. The grapes, when they're ready to go, you've got to get them off the vine. You've got to get them into the press and so on and so forth. And so what this vineyard owner does is he goes to the marketplace and he's looking for day laborers. Not unlike, you know, if you go to Home Depot on Skyline, there's all those guys standing under trees. They're available to work. It's in the same way in the ancient Near East, first century. You go into the marketplace, there's a bunch of guys. We are willing to work for you on this day. And so he goes first thing in the morning, which would have been at 6 a.m. And he enters into a negotiation with them. I will give you a denarius for a day's work. Now, a denarius was the wage a man needed to take care of his family. OK? So normal living in the first century Israel, you needed a denarius to take care of yourself and your family. And they agreed to it. So the first one's on. Soon as the sun's up, these guys go out saying, I will work for a day's wage. Then at 9 a.m., he goes back and he says, I need more. He doesn't tell him what he'll pay them. He simply says, I'll be fair with you. The other guys worked for three more hours. I'll be fair with you. So he goes back at 9, and then he goes back at noon, and then he goes back at 3. And then he goes back one more time at 5 p.m. And it's interesting because he now engages in a conversation with the 5 p.m.ers. Look there in verses 6 and 7. About the 11th hour, so that's 5 p.m., he went out and found others standing and he said to them, why do you stand here idle all day? They said to him, because no one has hired us. He said to them, you go into my vineyard too. Now see the idea here is we've been here all day. It's not as though they all slept in. They're sleeping off a hangover or something and they show up at four. And he comes and says, oh, I'll hire you now that you're here. He says, you've been here all day. All day you've been here. Why are you still here? And they respond saying, no one would hire us. We're not told why. It could be they just didn't look strong. They didn't look reputable. I grew up on the south side of Chicago. We did a lot of pickup games for basketball. I was the short, heavy kid with glasses, and whenever there were teams, I'll take him, I'll take him, I'll take him. I was always the last guy picked. Why have you been here all day, Brent? Well, because I'm short, I'm white, I've got glasses. Of course I'm not gonna be picked. That's the idea here. Why have you been here all day? No one wants us. But the owner of the vineyard says, but I do. It's irresponsible hiring, right? I mean, you get this idea that this owner hires not with his head, but with his heart? Everyone else has passed you over, the other vineyard owners don't want you, but I do. You know, it's like a church search committee, right? Looking for a pastor, and they find this guy who doesn't know his Bible well, he doesn't like to do public speaking, and he refuses to work weekends. You, come on in. Again, don't exercise this practice if you own a business. No one else wants us, but I do. These 5 p.m. workers are analogous to the tax collectors and the prostitutes that Jesus said, I'm calling them in. You too, you come into my vineyard. Yes, you. Not only does he have questionable hiring practices, he spends his money irresponsibly. Now why do I say that? It's helpful to know that sunrise to sunset was the typical working day, so 6a to 6p. This is a grape harvest, which would be September, and so the sun starts to set around six, and the normal day laborer would work for those 12 hours. He would have breaks for prayer and for lunch and things like that, but generally the workday was 6am to 6pm. And so recall, I want you to recall that the 6 a.m. guys were hired and they bargained. I will give you a denarius. I will give you what you need. What you need and the family that you represent. I'm gonna give you what you need. And this is where the parable takes a strange turn. Because as he hires more and more workers, he never tells them what he's going to pay them. He only says, I'll be fair. I'll be fair. I'm not going to take advantage of you because no one else has hired you. I will give you what is fair. And, you know, if we were the 6 a.m. workers, we would rightfully think, well, we'll get the full denarius. We'll get what we need for the day. At some point, those who only work half a day only get half a denarius. Those who only work for an hour, they'll get a fraction of that. And if, you know, if this were the business world, we would say yes. That's not only to be expected, it's appropriate, it's just. But then. The owner of the vineyard does something that creates some buzz. The first thing he does is he says, okay, the sun is setting, and I'm going to pay you all, and I'm going to pay you all publicly, and I want to start with the guys hired last. I want everyone to see what I pay these guys who only work for an hour. And so he calls the foreman, the foreman starts giving out money, and those who only work for an hour, he says, you get a full denarius. And you know, if you and I are the 6 a.m. guys, we're like, sweet. If he's given a denarius for an hour, Surely we're going to be getting overtime or something. They only worked an hour. They get a full day's pay. What about those of us who've worked a half a day or seven hours or the full 12? We're in the money. This is like two weeks of work for one day. This is sweet. But then something happens and that buzz that must have been, you know, they must have been counting on their fingers, right? He gives the 5 p.m. guys the full denarius. He gives the 3 p.m. guys, the noon guys, the 9 a.m. and the 6 a.m. guys the same amount of compensation. And the 6 a.m. guys are livid, and you would be too. Those of you in school, you ever been in a group project Teacher says, I want you four to write a paper or do something. And there's always that guy who does nothing. And you work, and you work, and you work. And then the teacher says, well done. You get an A. And you look at this guy. And you're like, this ain't right. It's not right. And look, I'm not a professor. But I hated it, all the way through seminary. I hate group work, because there's always someone who doesn't want to do anything. They get full credit? This is where we secretly start to sympathize with the bad guys in this parable. Hey, it's not right. And let me stress, in the business world, it wouldn't be right. But Jesus is trying to shock us by using a business model and putting over it kingdom principles to say, my kingdom is not like the world of business. This is not a meritocracy. I am not looking for the best and the brightest. And I am not looking out for the bottom line. I will give to my people not what they've earned, but what they need, no matter what it costs me. It's not hard to feel the resentment of some of these workers, right? These guys are working, as were the disciples, working on this principle that we've done more, we've served you longer, Lord Jesus. We aren't as bad as the Pharisees. We're not as bad as the rich young ruler. We're not as bad as the Muslims. We're not as bad as child molesters. We should be getting something more. But the kingdom of God is not based on merit, is it? And when we think it is, the Lord's generosity is offensive to us. Let me try to offend you this morning with God's mercy. I told you this about a year and a half ago. It bears repeating. Many of us know the name of Jeffrey Dahmer. In the late 80s and early 90s, you couldn't turn on the TV without hearing about this man that had murdered and cannibalized 17 young men. His evil was incomprehensible and redefined for my generation what it means to be wicked. Well, he was finally caught and thrown in prison. While he was there, he started going to a chapel where he was given a Bible, and he started reading that Bible. He started attending chapel more and more and more. He started meeting with the chaplain, and he started praying, and right before his death, he was murdered by another inmate, but right before his death, he said, I have turned my life over to Jesus Christ, and he has forgiven me of all my sin. What that means is that if his confession was sincere, and obviously I don't know, But if his confession was sincere, the day may come, Christian, when you are in glory, standing before the Lord Jesus Christ, and next to you is Jeffrey Dahmer on one side and Wilhelm Keitel, the Nazi leader, on the other. You are no more closer to Jesus and they are no more further back, but you are on your left and on your right, a serial killer and a Nazi war leader saying, isn't he good? That offend you a little? Maybe a little? Maybe a lot? Those of you who are covenant children and have been known Jesus for all of your days and you never went on a bender, you never slept around, you never got into drugs, you never smoked a cigarette. Does it offend you a little bit that Jeffrey Dahmer is just as saved as you are? And that you are no more saved than he? Can you start to feel the words of v. 12 arise? Here's the problem. Here's the problem when we hear about Jeffrey Dahmer or Wilhelm Keitel or anybody else that comes into the kingdom late. Look at the workers' voice in v. 12. These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us. And that's the rub, isn't it? That's the rub. That's when God's grace becomes offensive to us. It's when someone like Jeffrey Dahmer is my equal? Now look, there is a difference between my level of integrity and righteousness Holiness than Jeffrey Dahmer. There is no question of that. But it is minuscule compared to the difference between my righteousness and my holiness of the one in whose image I am made. There ain't a single angel veiling their sight in my presence. No one has to be hidden in a cleft of a rock when I walk by. None of my enemies will melt like wax in my presence at the judgment seat. There is a difference between you and Jeffrey Dahmer and Wilhelm Keitel. Yes, but it is minuscule compared to the vast chasm between you and the one who has called you to bear his image in all purity and all righteousness and all integrity. Amen? There is only one reason we don't like this parable is because it doesn't say anything for our pride. It says nothing for my entitlement. What about all my service? What about my seminary? What about all the times I sit on these church committee meetings, hour after hour, nothing? It does nothing for that sense of entitlement of what about me? when what I should be saying is, look at how indescribably kind my God is. To prideful, entitled brats like me. One more bad leadership. Attribute here, not only does he have questionable hiring practices, he's irresponsible with his money. He does these public confrontations with his employees. In fact, he invites it. You want to fight and argue about this? Let's do it in front of everyone. Not advisable. So the worker confronts, or the vineyard owner confronts his workers. In verses 13 and 14, look what he says there. But he replied to one of them, friend, I do you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I have given to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity? See, so what he says to this man who'd worked all day, he says, did I not give you what I offered? Did I not say I would give you that which you needed? It's the very thing I gave you. You're not angry because of injustice. I've been fair. I gave you what I offered. You're angry because I'm so generous to others. You begrudge my generosity, that's your problem. It's not that I've been unjust. I've given you what I said, I give you. You cannot stand how generous I am with those who have done this. You see, again, this isn't a model for running a business, but Jesus is saying here, this is how the kingdom of God operates. It is not on the principle of merit. It's on the principle of mercy. For it is by grace that you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God so that no man may boast. I don't care what time you started in the vineyard. No man may boast at the gift that God has given to them. So this parable corrects, and you see, I mean, see how sinister this is, folks? I mean, you've got Jesus saying, no, boys, you'll receive extraordinary rewards for walking away from what you've walked away from. You'll sit on 12 thrones. He tells this parable and then he talks about how he's going to be murdered. And they're like, yeah, but let's get back to the thrones. Jesus says, no. It's God's generosity that he has brought you in, brothers. And God is going to be bringing in so many more. Get over yourself or you're going to always be angry at God. Celebrate his generosity. Preach it. Beg people to come into the vineyard. Maybe it'll help us to celebrate this mercy of God to ask, where do we fit into this story? And I've put this off until now because I think it'll be helpful. You know, in many of, not many, but in the most important parables, the ones that give us kind of a key to all the other ones, Jesus says, now let me tell you what everything means. It's not the case in this one. He figures that by now we've sort of kind of picked up on some of the stock metaphors, what to do with this and that, so on and so forth. So this one takes a little bit of detective work. What does, who is the landowner? Who are the workers? What's a denarius? Well, some are easier than others. Landowner, of course, represents God or Christ. We don't need to make a distinction there, that he is the one that owns the vineyard. The workers of the vineyard represent the people who call themselves the people of God. The vineyard is an old stock metaphor in the Old Testament for God's people. You are my vineyard. I plant you as a vine in my vineyard. And so the workers represent those who serve the Lord. And we'll talk in a moment about what time they are hired. A denarius, of course, represents salvation. The denarius is something that God's people need, but that they have not earned. It's something that is given to all who are in his vineyard and as a mark of God's generosity. Okay, so who are these workers? Who do the workers represent, especially like the 6 a.m. guys, the 5 p.m. guys, who are they? Well, for 2,000 years or so, people have come up with a number of different ideas. I think some have better merit than others, a popular interpretation. is that the 6 a.m. guys represent the people of Israel. They are the ones who have a very long history with God, going back to Abraham and all the patriarchs and the kingdom and all of those things, the exile, and your 5 p.m.ers represent the Gentiles. The Gentiles who are now going to be coming in to the people of Israel, the true Israel, they're now going to be welcomed into the vineyard and that those who embrace, the Jews that embrace Christ ought not to be angry that God is showing such kindness to these former pagans, okay? Of course, all of that is true, I just don't know that it fits the context best. Jesus isn't talking about Jews and Gentiles here, which has led to another opinion held by a lot of the reformers, namely that the 6 a.m. people are covenant children. People who are born early into the faith and have served Jesus all their lives. And then someone like me, someone who comes to the Lord at 20. Well, I'm somewhere, I'm a midday hire of some sort. And then there's those who come to Jesus late in their life. You know, Thief on the Cross, Jeffrey Dahmer. Some of you who have come to the Lord in your 70s and 80s. Well, those are the 5 PMers. I think that also has some merit, but I also think it's a distraction. I think it misses the point. I think the point in all of this is that no matter how long you have labored in God's service, no matter how long you have known the Lord and turned from your sin and walked in righteousness, regardless of how long that has been, God has been just as generous to you as he has been to all. I think that's another purpose for why Jesus says this landowner called for this public confrontation. I mean, can you imagine if you worked HR for this guy? He's like, bring the last one up first. And then I will decrease the value of all the workers from there. Imagine working HR and you've got to deal with this Monday morning, right? What is he doing? But I think there's another reason why he does this publicly, and it's to showcase how kind he is. That to each and every one of my people in my vineyard, I pull from my resource to give them not what they've earned, but what they need. And if you are in Christ this morning, I want you to think about how you are on God's payroll right now. So if you're a Christian this morning, you're in the vineyard and you're laboring. If you're not in Christ, you're still at the marketplace and he has come to you this morning and say, come, you come into my vineyard too. But if you are in Christ, if you have turned from your sin, let's itemize some of the things from our pay stub, shall we? Especially if we're not moved by what we've just read. Especially if we're still feeling a little off-put, that you might stand next to a Nazi leader someday. Let's itemize this, shall we? Think about how this whole parable starts. Let's say you're a 6 a.m. covenant child. It is still the owner of the vineyard who came after you. You weren't born on the property as sons. You were in the marketplace, and he said, in your youth, I'm going to call you. Or maybe you're a midlife hire. Now I'm calling you. Or maybe you're a late to the game, a Gentile come lately, or whatever you wanna call it. God says, I came after you. That's the first thing. God didn't look at you and say, man, I really need this guy. The New Testament tells us that God reveals his love for us in this, that while we were still his enemies in the marketplace, he says, I'm coming for you. I'm coming for you. So regardless of when God called you, on your pay stub you have at least this, God's initiative. He came for me. Amen? He came for me. And that base salary you have, consider some of these promises. He has promised you a resurrected body and life everlasting in the new heavens and the new earth. That's base pay. With that base pay, there is also the forgiveness of your sin. All of it. Your past sin. Your present sin. Your future sin. He says it is gone. Your guilt you bear no more. Your base pay includes having a friend who is closer than a brother, namely Jesus. Your base pay says you have an advocate right now before the Father's throne, namely the Lord Jesus Christ, who right now presents you to the Father in all of His beauty. You have that advocate right now, even if your own soul rises up to accuse you. Even if the evil one now is coming to accuse you of things, your base pay includes an advocate right now saying, he is pure. She is pure. She is innocent. She is beautiful. Base pay. Your base pay includes also the Holy Spirit that abides within you right now, that convicts you of your sin and doesn't leave you there, but shoves you with love to the Savior. Go back to Him. Go and run to the Savior. He loves you still. Your base pay includes God's promise that what I have begun in you, I will never forfeit. I will bring it to completion until you look my son straight in the eyes. That is my promise. Your base pay includes a God who says to you, there is no condemnation for you. And nothing, nothing, nothing will separate you from my love that I have for you in my son, nothing. The more you and I reflect, a vast chasm between the one who has called us to Himself and took on flesh to live for us and to die for us and to be raised for us, the more we reflect on that and what He has given to us in His Son, the less envious we will be of those that God is blessing, but also more the eyes of our souls will be peeled back to say He has been so incredibly, scandalously generous to me and entitled brat. Praise God that He is so merciful to me. Praise God that Jesus became an entitled brat on the cross for me. Praise God that He has become someone who went on benders, someone who sowed their wild oats, who spent terrible nights doing terrible things. Praise God He did all of those things and became all of those things. so that he would be punished in my place, and so that I might be seen as he truly was, as one who would never do any of those things. So where do you, friend, fit into this parable? Where are you? Are you the 6 a.m. covenant child? Are you a midday hire like me? 5 p.m., man or woman, came to Christ late in life. In truth, I think the most appropriate place to see ourselves as workers in the vineyard is to say we're all 5 p.m.ers. Who among us can say, I have toiled I have worked, I have worked in the scorching sun for this. Isn't it more appropriate to say we're all 5 p.m.ers who have been given what we've not earned because someone did the work for us? Someone else bore the burden of the day? And that same someone was scorched under the heat of God's wrath against our sin in order that you and I might come into the vineyard too. Remember our Father's words to the 5 p.m. people, why have you been here all day? Because no one would hire us. To you, he says, even you. Come into my vineyard, and I will give you what you need. Amen? Let's pray together.