Transcription
Well, hello everyone. This is Mike Howard and I am here with Beverly Howard. And we're going to do a Bible study. We're in Matthew chapter 20. We're going to look at verses 1 through 16. The title of the lesson is grace. It's a continuation of where Jesus was in last week's lesson talking about eternal life being a gift, not something that we achieve or we earn. And he's going to tell a parable in today's lesson. And this parable will stretch all of us because it is difficult. On the one hand, it seems like God or in this case the landowner is being incredibly unfair. And you'll feel that when we read the the parable. On the other hand, when you look at it from God's perspective, he's being incredibly gracious. So, it's it'll pull you both ways. It really will. So, it's not one of my favorite stories and yet it has such a great message. So, let's go ahead and get started.
What's the context for Jesus telling this parable? And quite frankly, for last week's story about the rich young ruler. And the answer is God is about to do something really radical. He's soon, as soon as the crucifixion and the resurrection, he's going to take the leadership of his kingdom away from the Jewish leadership, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law. He's going to take it away from them and he's going to put it in the hands of uneducated fishermen, former tax collectors and quite frankly, former prostitutes. And they're going to be in charge of God's kingdom in this next age, the church age. And the way that Jesus describes it is he says the least will become the greatest or the first. The last will become the first. And it's really mind-boggling, but it's demonstrates God's greatness.
So, there are going to be three vineyard parables in chapters 20 and 21. Today we're going to take a look at a parable that's called the stingy workers and they're going to begrudge the gracious landowner who pays everybody the same thing. And in Matthew chapter 21, we'll study this next week, there will be two sons who are asked to work in the vineyard. One would say no up front, but then changes mind and finally go to work. The other one would say yes, but he never went. Matthew 21 verses 36 through 34 to 4 33 through 46 will be the third and final vineyard parable. And that is the parable of the wicked tenants who refused to give any of the vineyard fruit to the landowner or to the owner of the vineyard. So, all of these are targeted at the religious establishment that has mishandled the gift of God's kingdom or telling about teaching about God's kingdom, portraying God's kingdom in this world. Good lesson to be learned.
So, this week we're going to look at parable number one and that is the stingy workers. And remember, a metaphor is when something is something, but a simile is when something is like something or it's similar to something. And today we're doing a parable that's a metaphor. So, a metaphor. Simile, that's right. The landowner is going to be this represent God. Vineyard is going to be God's kingdom or his people. The grapes is the fruit of God's kingdom. The workers, in this case all of the workers are unskilled laborers. They're pretty much seen, at least by the vineyard owner, as being about the same. A day's wage is going to represent eternal life. And that's going to be that how that the the parable shakes out. Let's go ahead and get started.
To get started, we actually have to go backwards to the last verse because this verse and the last verse of this parable are pretty much the same verse. So, it's two verses with the parable right in the middle of it. So, God's kingdom is like many who are first will be last and many who are last will be first. And that implies or indicates that God's kingdom is not the same as man's kingdom. So, let's see what that looks like.
For the kingdom of heaven is like. That's how he starts out his simile, his parable. He says like a landowner. We saw that that's God who went out early in the morning. That's 6:00 in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. These are the people that he's going to bring into his kingdom, into his vineyard. So, at 6:00 he goes, he finds as many people as he can. And then he makes a covenant or agreement with them enough to or basically to give them, remember what we said, this is going to be the pay or the wages or eternal life. He agrees to pay them a denarius and that's to in other words to keep them alive for the day and he sent them into his vineyard. But the story continues. He wants to recruit or he needs to recruit more workers. So, about 9:00, 3 hours later, he goes out to other places, sees other workers standing in the marketplace and they're not doing anything. So, he says, "Look, you also, I want you to go and work in my vineyard. I'll pay you whatever is right." Remember, instead of working all day, they're only going to work part of the day. So, verse 5a, they they went.
So, it's noon and 3:00 p.m. He's out looking for even more workers for his vineyard. So, he went out again about noon and about 3:00 in the afternoon and he did the same thing. He even goes out one last time, just 1 hour before the work day is over and he says about 5:00 in the afternoon, he went out and he found still others standing around.
Now, we need to note this. He's probably gone to a lot of different places looking for workers throughout the city or maybe even throughout several villages in the neighborhood. So, he goes to this one last place and he finds people still available to work. But you got to understand that there are other people with other vineyards who've been looking for workers. So, the ones who are left at 5:00 in the afternoon are not what you would call high quality workers. So, okay. So, he asks them, "Why are you standing here all day long doing nothing?" Well, the answer is, if you've ever been part of a high school or or maybe probably a grammar school, middle school, maybe game where the teacher says, "Okay, you and you pick people and let's go play volleyball, baseball, whatever you're going to pick." These were the last ones picked. I don't know if you can identify with that. Because no one has hired us. No one has asked us to come work. They're probably not the strongest, maybe. So, he said to them, this is remember it's 5:00, 1 hour is left. Okay, you also go and work in my vineyard. So, these are kind of stragglers that come that are chosen to go to work in the vineyard.
So, now it's 6:00. It's almost evening. That would be the start of the next day for the for the Jews. So, when evening came, the owner of the vineyard, that would be God, said to his foreman, the one in charge, "Call the workers and pay them their wages." But look how he's going to ask him to pay. I mean, he says, "I want you to pay beginning with the last ones, the ones that started only an hour ago and then go down to the ones that were hired at 6:00 this morning. They were the fresh, strong, good laborers that anybody would have chosen for their vineyard. The workers who were hired about 5:00 in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. Well, remember he promised the people at 6:00 in the morning the day's wage and we remember that's going to represent eternal life. And so, he he he paid the same denarius that he promised the first workers, he pays to the last workers.
So, so now they're all standing around. The guys that have been there all day working in the hot sun, they're all standing around. They're watching this last group of kind of rejects get paid what they were promised to be paid. So, they're going to have an expectation. So, when they those came who were hired first, he skips over the 3:00s and the noons and the 9:00s and he goes right to the heart of the message here. When the ones who were hired first, they had an expectation. They expected to receive more than the ones that only worked an hour, but each one of them also received a denarius, eternal life.
Verse 11, when they received their denarius, they weren't happy about it. They began to grumble against the landowner. Now, when Jesus is telling this story, when he says the word grumble, that's like a trigger word for the Jews. Why? Well, because they've been brought up with the stories of the Israelites in the wilderness where Israel always grumbled against God. How long, Numbers 14, will this wicked community, that's Israel, grumble against me? I have heard the complaints of these grumbling Israelites. So, when Jesus in this parable says that this first group grumbled, that was a trigger word for the audience.
Verse 12, they're going to tell why they're grumbling. They're going to tell the landowner why they're upset. These These people that you hired last, these mangy, you know, leftover people, they only worked an hour. And you made them equal to us because you've given them the same pay. But we bore the burden of the work. We worked all day long in the heat of the day. See how it makes you feel like this is unfair? It really does. I mean, if I had worked all day and I only got paid what the guy who worked 1 hour got, I would feel like I got ripped off. Uh I'll tell you a brief story. I worked for a company and the first Thanksgiving that I was an employee, I got a a little card that says, "Take this to the grocery store and get a free turkey." I said, "What in the world is that all about?" Well, it turns out it has a backstory. One year, this company was located in Boston, Massachusetts, in a very small town. The gross local grocery store ordered duplicate They had a duplicate order for turkeys for Thanksgiving. So, they had way too many turkeys. So, the grocery store contacted the president of the company. He said, "Hey, we've got way too many turkeys. Would you like to give these turkeys out to your employees?" And the president of the company said, "Sure, sounds like a great idea. You know, happy Thanksgiving." So, he did. The next year rolls around and guess what? All the employees started grumbling. Why? Where's our turkey? Where's our free turkey? It's Thanksgiving. He's What he did is a gift, one-time gift. Now, everybody is expecting it to happen every year. That's human nature. Those were now It said, "This isn't fair to us. You've made them equal and we've done all the work or a lot more work."
But the vineyard owner says this. He answered one of them, not all of them, but one of them. He says, "Look, I'm not being unfair to you, friend. Didn't you agree at the beginning of the day that you would work all day for a denarius? Take your pay and go." I want to give the one who was hired last the same if I want to give the one who I had hired I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. I want to be generous. And that word is gracious.
Verse 15a. Now, he's talking to this guy who's still mumbling and upset. Don't I have, as the vineyard owner, the right to do what I want with my own money? I paid you what I promised you. Now, don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? And this is where Jesus is going to summarize the parable for us. And what he's going to say here is, "God chooses to be gracious to everyone."
Verse 15b. In the NIV reads this way, and it's a good translation, but it misses something that's pretty important. Uh are you envious because I am generous? And that's a that's a good translation, but it misses something that the audience listening to this parable understood. Because if you go to the King James, the Hebrew actually says this. Is your eye evil because I am good? Remember back in the parable in the parable, the story of the rich young ruler? He goes, "Good teacher, what good thing must I do to earn eternal life?" That's the same word that's used here for good. But what's all this about is your eye evil because you see I am good? And NIV says, "Are you jealous, envious, you know, because I'm being generous?" Well, it turns out that that's an old Hebrew idiom. Well, you know what idioms are. They're things that just don't make sense literally and yet if you hear them, you know exactly what the meaning is. For example, if I say to you, "That's a piece of cake," you know that it's not hard to do. If I said someone spilled the beans, you know that they told a secret. And this is something I'm guilty of because they're trying to translate these lessons into other languages. I'll use a sports idiom like "Boy, he really knocked it out of the park." Well, that's a baseball story. If you knock it out of the park, that means that you did a really good job. You've also heard things like you They're They're going to have to eat humble pie. And the favorite southern idiom for all of us is, "Bless her heart." And what that really means is, "She's a mess." Well, there is another idiom that says people who see eye to eye. Well, it doesn't mean that your eyeball is up next to somebody's eyeball. It means that you're seeing things the same way. Well, there's a Hebrew idiom that's called bad eye versus good eye. In Hebrew, a bad eye refers to stingy stinginess or a begrudging attitude toward others. It's the opposite of a good eye, which is gracious. And it also represents a negative, envious way of looking at the world in someone's heart. If you'll go back to uh I think it's Matthew chapter 6, where Jesus says if your eye is bad, then your heart is dark. But if your eye is good, your heart is filled with life. And that uses the same idiom. And instead of bad, it's the same word here. If your eye is evil. And what it means is if you're if you look at the world and you only see a lack, then you're stingy and you don't want anybody else to have anything because you want it all for yourself. And that kind of plays into the rich young ruler. He walks away from eternal life because he doesn't want to part with his money. So, he had a bad eye. So, that's an idiom that Jesus used in this parable. It What it Do you have an evil or a bad eye because I am being generous or good? I've got a good eye, you've got a bad eye. I see the world and want to be gracious. You see the world and you want to be stingy. But God chooses to be gracious.
Now, I said earlier that Jesus is going to Matthew's going to have Jesus uh sandwich this parable with the same saying. In verse 19, before he starts the parable, he says, "But many who are first will be last and many who are last will be first." Meaning that those poor, mangy, 5:00 people who couldn't find anybody to choose them, they're going to be chosen and they're going to be provided grace the first. Because God's going to give them grace first. And then the last, those that were hired at 6:00, uh they're going to be provided grace, too, but last. Then there's the parable of the grumbling workers. And then he ends this parable this way by verse 16. So, the last will be first and the first will be last.
On the one hand, it's easy to understand why the people who were hired at 6:00 are upset. On the other hand, looking at it from the landowner's perspective, he simply is a gracious man and he wants to be gracious to the people who are needing the grace the most, the ones who probably go days without being hired by anybody. So, God is up to something. He's about to take the kingdom from the religious leaders and give it to fishermen, uneducated tax collectors, prostitutes, basically the lowest level of person. But that's who he's going to give the kingdom. Why? Because he's gracious. And he wants everyone to know that he is the one giving the grace. No one has a right to brag.
So, what's the summary? Grace is not given. Grace is given, it's not earned. Ephesians 2:8 says this, and this is where I'm sure Paul gets it. "For it is by God's grace that you've been saved through faith. And by the way, even this faith is not from yourself. It also is a gift of God, not by works." Why? Why? Why not by works? Why can't we do something? Well, if you did, then you could boast. But this is all God and none of us. It's all God's grace, none of our works. God gets all the glory.
In 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verses 26 through 29, Paul says this. I know this is hard to read, so I'll read it for you. Think of what He's talking to the Corinthians. Think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were very wise by human standards. Not many of you were influential at all. Not many of you were of noble birth. You basically were the ones hired at 5:00 in the afternoon. But God chose you because he chose the foolish things of this world to shame the wise, the weak things of this world to shame the strong, the lowly things of this world and the despised things of this world. Why did he do that? And the answer is so that no one may boast before him. It's all God, none of us.
So, he chooses the fishermen and the prostitutes and the tax collectors to lead his church, his kingdom into this new age. And the religious leaders who've been there for years, thousands of years, their hearts are dark because their eyes are stingy. They don't understand that the landowner is a landowner of graciousness. But they see the landowner as being stingy. So, their hearts are dark. So, the kingdom of God is like it's like a kingdom. There's a king. Our king is God, and he's a gracious God. There are subjects. There are workers who he calls. I'm one and you're one. And there's a place cuz every kingdom has a territory. And in this particular case, it starts it will be heaven, but it starts right now in a place called your heart. And if your eye is dark, your heart or if your eye is evil, your heart is dark. So, the chief the king, our leader, is a gracious king. And therefore, we should act graciously toward others.
How do What How do you apply this? And the answer is there's really only one thing to look at here, and that is we need to go to the eye doctor. How are the eyes of your heart? You need an eye exam. Is your eye evil or stingy? Uh evil and stingy or is it good and gracious? Well, how do you How What kind of checkup can you do? You know, you put Okay, read the top line. Well, the top line is this. Have you ever been upset with God because he hasn't done something for you? Hey, God, I teach Sunday school. I I go to church every Sunday. I give money. You know, I'm a good person. Why don't you give me all these things that I asked for? Have you ever said that prayer or even thought that prayer? So, cover the other eye. How's that one look? Well, does God owe you anything? I think he gave me a denarius. He gave me eternal life. I can't imagine anything else as precious as that.
Are you envious of other Christians and their ministries? Some people Some Christians have these upfront ministries and some people have these behind-the-scenes servant ministries. And Jesus washed his disciples' feet, and he says, "Look, the leader is going to have to become the servant of all. I came from heaven. I came here and took the attitude of a servant. So, how do you see the world now that you've tested both of your eyes? Do you see it as stingy or you see it as generous?
Well, the writer of Hebrews helps us out here with our eyes. He says, "Look, in your ministry as a worker, whether you were called at 5:00 or at 6:00, let you run Let us run our with perseverance the race marked out for us. Each one of us who were called to become part of God's kingdom, each one of us has a race, an individual race that's marked out for us. And he says, "Look, run that race, but don't don't look around. Instead of looking around, fix your eyes on Jesus because he's the one that showed you how to run the race. He's the pioneer. He's the perfecter of your faith.
One final note, eternal life means that you're reconnected and recreated. You're reconnected to God. You're forgiven. It's a gift of grace that we can't earn. And really, that was the whole point of the rich young ruler story. But that's not the end of the story. We've all been paid the denarius. But there are so many stories that go to that next step. Now that we're recreated, now that we're reconnected, now that we're forgiven, now that we've got a new heart, now that our eyes can see the generosity and graciousness of the landowner, our God, now we have a chance to do some really cool work because now we're in the vineyard, and there's a lot of fruit. And that's in our hearts. And that's the fruit of the spirit. Once we're reconnected, we're to produce fruit for the landowner, for the king. He says, "Look, don't lay up treasure here on earth. Lay it up in heaven. It will be multiplied. Sometimes 20, sometimes 100. It'll be multiplied because it'll be in heaven. Moth, rust, they won't destroy it. It'll be there forever. So, now that you're recreated, work in the vineyard. Produce the fruit. You can't earn salvation. It's a gift. You now are reconnected. Now you get to work because you work for a gracious heavenly father.
Well, that's the story of the stingy workers. It's a great story, but I still feel like they were being treated unfairly until you see it from God's perspective. And I'm so glad that he chose me, the one hired at 5:00, who nobody else wanted, to give eternal life. And for that reason, I will always praise him.
Pray with me. Thank you, Father, for a story that just kind of tears us between the two kingdoms, the worldly kingdom that's so evil and stingy, and your kingdom, which is so gracious and loving. Help us to really clear up our eyes and see the love that you've given to us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Well, come back next week. You'll get to hear yet another vineyard parable. Until then, know that we love you guys. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye.