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If you will remain standing, for our text this evening, we’re looking at Matthew chapter 20, verses one through 16, which is found on page 980 of your Pew Bibles, if you’d like to follow along with those. So this is Matthew chapter 20, starting in verse one this evening. This is God’s word.

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. And going out about the third hour, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace. And he said to them, you go into the vineyard too. And 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. And when those hired first came, they thought that 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. I 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.

Amen. May God add his blessing to the reading of his word. Let’s pray. Father in heaven, we come and we ask, Lord, we are needy people. We have your word before us and your servant has made preparations, but Lord, without your spirit now with us this evening, these will be dead words falling on deaf ears. We ask that your spirit would be present to make these words of truth and life alive and life to us. Ask that you would pour out your spirit on the hearer and the speaker, that you might be glorified and your people might receive your blessing. We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen. You may be seated. The title of the message this evening is Equality in the Kingdom, Vineyard Workers. And we’re looking at a series of parables as we’ve been looking lately.

And for children or others, the words you can be listening for is sweeping, self-righteous, and sovereign. Well, have you ever felt like something was deeply unfair? That may perhaps be a child’s favorite phrase. But even when no rules were broken, maybe as you get older, your coworker with happier experience gets the same raise, or a sibling who barely tried gets the same reward you worked for. Group projects are infamous for this type of unfairness.

And Jesus’ listeners felt this tension as well. In a world that runs on merit, hard work, achievement, and status, he tells a story this evening that we’re looking at that turns that fairness seemingly upside down. Tonight we’re looking at the parable of the vineyard workers. And Jesus said, the kingdom is heaven is like this generous master who’s going out to hire these workers all day long. And even at the very last hour and then pays everyone the same full wage.

Now, before we get started in our passage, the word for that our passage begins with merits a little bit of context for us this evening. So it’s important that we look back into chapter 19 to find exactly the context that Jesus is giving us here. The reason he’s telling us this parable. So I’ll read actually starting in verse 16 to give us a bit of the context of where this parable is coming in. Matthew chapter 19 verse 16.

And behold, a man came up to him saying, teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life? And he said to him, why do you ask me about what is good? There’s only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments. And he said to him, which ones? And Jesus said to him, you shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. Honor your father and mother. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

The young man said to him, all these I have kept, what do I still lack? Jesus said to him, if you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me. When the young man heard this, he went away sorrowful for he had great possessions.

And Jesus said to his disciples, truly I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again, I tell you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, who then can be saved? But Jesus looked at them and said, with man, this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible.

And then Peter said in reply, see, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have? Jesus said to him, truly I say to you in the new world, when the son of man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on 12 thrones, judging the 12 tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for my namesake will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. The many who are first will be last and the last first. Jesus is telling this parable in the context of this statement to illustrate his point that many who are first will be last and the last first.

We have in this situation a young man who thinks he’s kept all the commandments. There’s no one more diligent than this young man. He may have been self-deceived, but if his life were marked with scandal, he would have hardly insisted that he had kept all those things. There would be plenty of people to call him out.

And then Jesus reiterates his point to his disciples in that passage, that wealth, which is often a result of diligence, industry, and intelligence, has no bearing or value in acquiring entrance into the kingdom of heaven. All the young man’s riches, his self-righteous commandment-keeping, which made him first, in the eyes of all those around him, certainly in society, in the world, had made him last in the eyes of God.

And this is the point that Jesus is driving home in our parable this evening. We’ve already seen in our look at the parables, God’s sovereignty in the parable of the soils, the mixed reality of the kingdom in the mustard seeds and weeds. and how the kingdom is worth everything, more than everything, in the treasure and the pearl parables, as well as the fact that we will be evaluated in the parable of the dragnet. And now Jesus shows us another side, equality in the kingdom, which is not equal pay for equal work, but the equality of the kingdom is undeserved grace for all. In the kingdom, equality is not based on what we deserve. It’s based on the master’s sweeping generosity. So let’s examine this evening how this story exposes self-righteous hearts and reveals God’s sovereign grace. We’ll look at this parable in three parts.

Number one, sweeping opportunity. Number two, self-righteous resentment. And number three, sovereign generosity. Number one, sweeping opportunity. Or I think I have in your notes sweeping reversal. I went back and forth between those points. Sweeping reversal for number one.

This parable opens with a man seeking to harvest his grapes. He needs workers for the day. And so he goes to the marketplace looking for people who can help. He’s up at dawn in the square, And he finds a group of willing workers and agrees to pay them a standard day’s wage. Denarius was a Roman coin, which was the common amount paid for about a day’s worth of work. Now today, at the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, for eight hours, the pay would be about $60. But since a day’s work in this time went for about 12 hours, we can think of a denarius as basically a $100 bill, a single unit of money which was worth about a day’s work at minimum wage.

So the vineyard owner finds workers right at dawn ready and eager to work in the vineyard. And however, as the day goes on in this story, for some reason the vineyard owner wants more workers. And so perhaps he was trying to ensure that all the grapes would get harvested in one day. We’re not told, but either way, every couple hours, he’s back to the marketplace to see if there are any more workers available. And every time, every couple hours, he finds more, sends them into the field, promising to pay them what is right.

It’s only the first workers that he agrees on a set amount. It’s not stated in our story whether these workers weren’t around because they slept in. or if there was some other reason that he didn’t find them there the first time. But each time he goes back, there are more. And finally, with one hour left to the workday, the 11th hour, which if we calculate the day starting at roughly 6 a.m., which would be the first hour, and the third hour then would be 9, and the sixth hour would then be 12, The 11th hour would then be about 5 p.m. He’s still going out and getting workers. He finds more idle workers looking for something to do.

And with these last ones, we get a snippet of their conversation in this parable. He asks them why they’re idle. And they respond that no one has hired them. It’s not completely clear whether this is meant to demonstrate that they are undesirable, no one else wants them, or they simply lacked opportunities.

But the master offers them employment, even though there’s only one hour left of work in the day. So the first thing we can notice is the vineyard owner is offering this opportunity. This is a gift that he’s offering to these workers. Because all day he repeatedly returns to the marketplace seeking people to give them employment. And if it were not for his offer of employment, they would be sitting there all day without income and without purpose. Any of you who have recently been or currently are job hunting, or if you found your job recently threatened, you can appreciate what a privilege employment is, that these workers were happy to have this opportunity.

The vineyard owner keeps going back, inviting workers to come in until the very last minute. And so we’re meant to see that this opportunity is offered to every worker. Every worker in the marketplace was offered a chance to come into the vineyard. But the main point here is not how badly the vineyard owner needed workers, but the way in which he kept going back and offering and gathering in all that he found, even with one hour left to go, still bringing them in.

What might have been less clear with the first few iterations of workers is painfully obvious by the time we see the last group. Jesus’ point is not that this master was desperate for workers, but that he was extending the opportunity to all who were there, even those who were last in the world’s eyes. Those that were there with only one hour left to work. No one was turned away. All day the master was inviting his workers to come. And this highlighted This is highlighted by the conversation that we saw with those last workers.

This is not a man in need of help, but workers in need of opportunity, and a man who is ready to invite even the last, in the world’s eyes, to be first. And at the end of the day, the owner directs his foreman, of course, to pay the workers for their work, but to start with those who came in last. and to work backwards. The last to come into work are first paid, representing Jesus’s illustration, his illustrating principle for this parable. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. Because in the kingdom of heaven, Jesus is saying, there is a sweeping reversal of the expected economy of merit and which brings wealth. Which brings us then to our second point, with which we see the self-righteous resentment of the first workers. The self-righteous resentment. The trouble starts as soon as the money is paid to the workers.

The workers who were diligently slaving away in the field all day watch as the last-minute workers are paid first, and they receive an entire day’s wage, an entire denarius. Then the workers who only worked three hours, they also receive a denarius as well. And finally, we get to the last group who had worked all day.

And true, they had made a contract with the owner for denarius. But they’re looking at this guy and he seems to be paying people more than they deserve. And so they started to expect that they deserved something more. The ones who worked all day diligently certainly deserve more than the others who didn’t earn their denarius. So surely the longest workers earned a greater share of greater abundance.

But when it came to be their turn, instead of being satisfied with what they had received and had agreed to, and should have expected, they are resentful. They felt that the master’s generosity had wronged them. They became entitled. They thought the generous vineyard owner actually owed them more than he had offered them.

Now, on the one hand, I can certainly understand how that expectation began to build. I even would start to have that idea on my own as I’m reading this story. This master is paying people what they don’t deserve. I expect he’ll give me, above and beyond, what I deserve as well. It’s pretty much human nature to think this way, applying the logic of proportionality.

The others got more than they expected, so the first workers might expect to receive more than they might have expected. But instead, the workers find that despite the varying amounts of work done by each worker, they all received a full day’s wage. Now, if you were an employee at a company, and you found that the brand new employee is starting out at the salary above or equal to the one that you currently have, You would be a little indignant. I certainly would.

And there might be a temptation to interpret this parable as though there are some who end up keeping all the rules, really suffering for salvation, while others have to do barely anything and still get in. I’ve heard this parable interpreted in terms of those who have lived a long life in the faith. They did all the right things. They kept all the rules. They came to Christ young. They didn’t fall into scandal. And they didn’t fall away.

And these are the diligent workers who bore the heat of the day. They’ve come to, and this perspective comes to see the various workers as corresponding to various seasons of life in which a person might come to faith. Some come to faith early, but some suffer much in persistent obedience, while others get the privilege of a last minute deathbed conversion without any prolonged battle with sin, like the thief on the cross. just invited in at the last second, no matter having indulged a life of sin and still getting away scot-free. While the diligent workers slaved away year after year, trying to obey God decade after decade. The last minute workers got the most bang for their buck. They get away with the most money per hour, the least work for the most pay.

But the application in this case, this interpretation of the parable would be that despite how unfair it feels, we should not begrudge God’s generosity, God’s salvation to those who receive it while having done less to deserve it. But that reveals part of the problem with interpreting the parable this way, as I have heard it done before, because this would be a big mistake. To interpret the parable this way would be to adopt the perspective of the jealous workers who got rebuked. Of course, it is important for us to not begrudge those who receive God’s generous salvation, no matter how undeserved.

But the jealous workers viewed the situation as ultimately unfair because they had worked and they got what they had earned. They earned what they got, while the others received what they did not deserve. In reality, Jesus’ intention here The workers who grumbled in this story are not diligent Christians who did their best all their lives to keep God’s law and never fell into scandal and who also suffered grievous trials for their faith. The ungrateful workers in our story are those who fail to enter the kingdom entirely.

These are those who self-righteously try to earn salvation for themselves. This parable catches us off guard, as it’s meant to, because if the diligent workers who earned every penny of their paycheck are actually the bad guys, this throws us off. It’s meant to be a little disconcerting. But how do we know that these are the villains of the story? These are the ones who do not make it in.

Well, to start with, we see the word friend. If you look in our passage, verse 13, he replied to one of them who was grumbling, friend, do you know wrong? Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Now the gospel writer Matthew only uses this word two other times in his gospel. One is in Matthew 22 verse 12. If you would like to flip over and look at that. Matthew 22 verse 12, which is another parable which we’ll look at next time.

We find here the king speaks to one of the guests that had been brought in. And he said to him, friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then the king said to his attendants, bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. So the use of the word friend here is meant to be ironic. This is not a friend, this is one who gets thrown out.

The other use that we find in the gospel of Matthew of friend is in chapter 26. Chapter 26, verse 50. In Matthew chapter 26, verse 50, we find the scene of Judas coming to betray Jesus. In 49, verse 49, Judas came up to Jesus at once and said, greetings rabbi, and he kissed him. And Jesus said to him, friend, do what you came to do. Judas is obviously not acting like a friend.

And the term seems to be put in irony. in which his description, this is not a special Greek word that means something else. It means the same thing in English. But we see the use in Matthew’s gospel of the word friend in the other two places of this specific irony. It’s a term of endearment in Greek, and yet Matthew uses it ironically in all three cases. So that would be one thing that would clue us in at first. this use of the word friend here in this passage.

But then in verse 14, we see that the vineyard owner tells this one to take what is yours and go. It’s also the word that we often find depart. It’s a very curt rebuke. He’s not welcoming him to stay. He’s telling him, depart. Get out of here. Take what’s yours. Take what you earned and get out of here. None of the other workers are sent away in this passage. Only this one group of grumblers. And this group also, we notice that they receive their wages and nothing more. They are not recipients of gracious abundance in this story.

These are those who are like the hypocrites that Jesus describes in Matthew chapter six. In Matthew six, when Jesus is talking in the Sermon on the Mount, in chapter six, he has three sections where he speaks of giving to the needy, giving alms, of praying and of fasting. And he tells his disciples to not be like the hypocrites, because they do things in certain ways. So in verse two, Jesus warns his disciples, thus when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others.

Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. And again in verse 5, relating to prayer. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. And then in verse 16, regarding fasting, he says again, truly I say to you, they have received their reward. This is very much ringing true with what we find in this passage. The Master says, take what you earned and go.

These are the hypocrites. In their case, as Jesus described in the Sermon on the Mount, these hypocrites, they were giving to the poor, they were fasting, they were doing all these things in order to make others notice and like them. That was the reward they were earning, that they were seeking by their good deeds. They sought to earn the glory of men. And as a result, Jesus says, that’s all they got. They forfeited any glory from God.

They’re like the workers, slaving away all day just to get what is owed them. And this is called self-righteousness. And it displaces Christ’s righteousness. Those who are self-righteous have no need for Christ’s righteousness. They’re all set. But self-righteousness is false righteousness. It does not measure up to God’s standard of righteousness. It seeks the praise of men, and that is all it gets. And look at what the self-righteousness produced in these workers.

Resentment. The phrase at the end in verse 15, do you begrudge my generosity, could be more literally translated in the Greek, is your eye evil because I am good. It’s this great contrast between evil and good. And the master’s goodness brings out only evil from the hearts of those who on the outside looked like the most admirable.

These are the ones who looked like they ought to be first in payment. These are the ones who looked like they actually earned the paycheck. And yet there I was evil because of the Master’s goodness. The Master says to those who are self-righteous, take what you have and go. Take the benefits that you think you’ve earned. Take what merits that you believe you have and depart from me.

They receive a denarius in the story, but the point is not the amount of money that each one gets, but whether or not he got what he deserved or what he did not. what he had earned. In this parable, we find two categories, two kinds of workers. Those who got what they had earned, and those who got what they had not earned. The point is, you want to be in the group that gets what you do not earn. Because those who get what they have earned are sent away from the presence of God to receive their wages.

And as Romans 6.23 says, The wages of sin is death. But contrast this, of course, with the gift of God, which is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. So finally, we see, thirdly, the sovereign generosity of the master.

Number three, the sovereign generosity There’s no indication that any of the other workers were complaining about the inequality of wages. All except for the last group could have complained that they got less bang for their buck. But it’s only the first group that complained. They had agreed to what they were getting, and yet they complained about what they got.

But notice that they didn’t complain to the other workers, but to the master, not who made us less. Not who made us, brought us down to their level, but you who brought them up to us. You made them equal to us. It wasn’t that the master had wronged the first workers, but that he had given others what they did not deserve, what they did not earn.

But the owner of the vineyard invokes his sovereignty over his wealth, which entitles him to distribute it as he chooses. The first workers were paid exactly what they were contracted to get, nothing less. He did them no wrong, as he states. And they were told to take what was theirs and go. While the master asserted his right in our passage to do with what was his as he pleased.

Verses 14 and 15 again. I choose, or it’s the Greek idea of wishing. I wish to give to this last worker as I gave to you. And we find again restated, am I not allowed to do with what I choose? With what belongs to me? This is the word for wish or for willing here in the Greek, in which we find translated in ESV as choose.

But Jesus is highlighting the owner’s right to do as he wishes, his own sovereign freedom. And this, of course, is meant to represent God’s sovereign freedom, God’s sovereign free grace in salvation, which is stated in what God declares to the prophet Moses in Exodus chapter 33, verse 19, and which the apostle Paul quotes in Romans chapter 9, verses 15 and 16. Romans 9, 15 and 16. For God says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. And I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy. It didn’t matter how long the workers had worked. What mattered was how much the master wanted to pay them.

But the Bible’s teaching on the sovereignty of God and salvation makes many people uncomfortable. One reason for this is that people can start to think of God owing salvation to people, to those who are lost. It seems unfair for God to withhold salvation from some people while he gives it to others. How could a loving God withhold such a necessary thing from those who will perish without it?

But the Bible’s ultimate answer to that question is, God gets to do what God wants to do. He’s free to show mercy to whom he chooses. And he repeatedly insists that his choice has nothing to do with the worthiness of an individual, since all who receive his mercy do not deserve it. In order to avoid the uncomfortableness of this truth, some have tried to place limits on God’s sovereign freedom to do as he pleases. They’ll speak of man’s free will as somehow limiting God’s ability to work in the world or in the hearts of men and women in rebellion against him. But the Bible repeatedly rejects any limits upon God’s sovereignty and salvation. In the end, the choice lies with God and God alone. This is the biblical teaching about God’s sovereign, the sovereign grace of God in all its awesome beauty. There is nothing anyone can do to force God’s hand.

The choice to show you mercy and to save you is his and his alone. The scary part is you have no say, nothing in yourself that you can leverage against God to constrain him. You have no claim to mercy in yourself. But this is also the comfort. Because a gracious salvation, which you cannot do anything to earn on your own merits, you also cannot lose on your demerits. When God chooses to show you mercy, it had nothing to do with what you could earn. And so there’s no way for you to unearn it either.

God loved you. And he gave you what you didn’t deserve because of what Jesus earned. It is his riches in Christ Jesus, which he pays out to those who do not deserve a full day’s wage. Your salvation rests upon God’s generous goodness, which never changes. And he gives to the most undeserving. Those who think that they deserve his mercy are the least likely to get it. While those who know fully that they don’t deserve one bit of it, find themselves drowning in riches.

In the kingdom of heaven, the first will be last and the last will be first. This parable catches us off guard because the good workers turn out to be the villains. Their hard work and long hours become a barrier to them trusting in the master’s kindness. Self-righteousness on their part produces resentment, but sovereign grace, on the other hand, produces gratitude.

Tonight, if you’re here and you feel offended at how God freely saves late sinners, undeserving people, those that do not deserve God’s grace, examine your heart. You don’t wanna be standing with the grumblers. But if you know tonight for yourself that you have nothing to offer, If you come to Jesus early or late, with a clean past or erect one, you simply receive his mercy. If you know that you are drowning in riches that you don’t deserve, that is the sovereign generosity of God. He has mercy on whom he will have mercy. You cannot earn it, but you cannot lose it.

The good news is this, that Jesus worked the full day in our place. He bore the scorching heat of God’s wrath, so that the latecomers, those invited after standing in the market all day, and those that were starting at three, at the third hour, could receive the same full reward, eternal life. And the vineyard is still open. The master is still going out. Even at the 11th hour saying, you come into the vineyard too. So come to him today.

Receive him if you don’t, receive what you don’t deserve. Full forgiveness, full acceptance, eternal life in Christ. In the kingdom, the equality in the kingdom means that everyone gets undeserved grace. Amen. Let’s pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you that you freely give what we cannot earn, what we do not deserve.

We thank you that Jesus Christ is our righteousness. We thank you for your sovereign generosity in choosing us in Christ before the foundation of the world. So there’s nothing that we can do to argue for our acceptance. There’s nothing we can do to make you change your mind. We thank you for this in Jesus name, amen. In response, let’s turn and sing hymn 427. Let’s stand and sing hymn 427, I sought the Lord and afterward I knew.