INTRODUCTION

In ‘The parable of the wicked tenants’, we see how God left them in charge of His vineyard and gave them everything they needed to do the work required within it, Mark 12:1-2.

In this parable, we’re going to see that everyone He calls upon is entitled to work in His vineyard. No matter where they’re from or when they decided to listen to His call. The issue in this parable isn’t how long the people worked in the Lord’s vineyard. The issue in this parable is the spirit in which the work was done.

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.” Matthew 20:1-2

Notice that there are two types of workers in God’s vineyard.

1. Those who came to an agreement with the master, Matthew 20:1-

2. They said they would work for Him if they were given the right amount of money. So these first labourers were given a contract, a denarius for a day’s work.

3. We have those who came to work for Him later, Matthew 20:3-7.

“About the third hour, he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. “He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. About the eleventh hour, he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.” He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’” Matthew 20:3-7

The difference between these guys and those who had an agreement is that they were thankful and glad just for the chance to work. And their pay wasn’t an issue because Jesus said, ‘He would pay them what was right,’ Matthew 20:4.

It’s sad when people think they will only work for God if they get paid enough for it, and although some get financial support to come and work with a congregation, that doesn’t mean that they have to do all the work, just because they get paid for it. That’s not the point of this parable because they didn’t get their pay until their work was finished, Matthew 20:8.

Remember that Jesus isn’t talking about actually receiving a denarius when we get to heaven, Matthew 20:2 / Matthew 20:9-10. He’s revealing a spiritual and moral truth to His disciples. He’s saying that your reward will be the same as any Christian, and that reward is eternal life.

A Christian doesn’t work in God’s kingdom for the money; a Christian works in God’s kingdom for the joy, Proverbs 10:27-28 / 1 Peter 1:8-9. It’s a joy to serve and work for the Lord; we all work for Him because of the joy we get out of serving our Lord in His kingdom.

Remember it’s God’s vineyard, Matthew 20:1; it’s God who dishes out the wages, Matthew 20:8-9. He’s the one doing the hiring, Matthew 20:1-7; it’s His work that’s being done. You’re the worker, and He’s the owner.

These men who were standing in the marketplace weren’t being lazy, hanging around the street corners wasting their time. They didn’t have a local job centre to go to like we have today. The marketplace was the place to go to find work, Matthew 20:3-7.

A man would go there first thing in the morning with his tools, and he would wait until someone came along and hired him. And so some of them would get hired first thing in the morning, but others would wait all day to get some work. Some men worked only a few hours, and some men worked all day.

And when I say all day, I don’t mean a 9-5 job. I mean, these guys started at 6:00 am and finished at 6:00 pm. And even though work usually finished at 6:00 pm, some of these men would still be waiting until 5:00 pm, hoping to get a job, Matthew 20:6-7.

Jesus said the landowner went in the morning, Matthew 20:1, then the third hour, Matthew 20:3, and then the sixth hour, Matthew 20:5, and then the ninth hour, Matthew 20:5, and then finally He went again to the marketplace at the eleventh hour, Matthew 20:6. This shows how desperate they were, they were still there waiting in the marketplace, desperate for work.

4. This parable also tells us about ‘the generosity of God’.

“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’ “The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius.” Matthew 20:8-10

These men didn’t all do the same work, but they did receive the same pay, at the end of the day, Matthew 20:8-10 / Deuteronomy 24:15 / Leviticus 19-13 / Job 7:2 / Malachi 3:5 / James 5:4. These workers were grape pickers to a degree. And the grapes in Palestine would always be ready for harvest and be ripe around the end of September.

And it was always a race against time to get the grapes in before the rains came. And so, because of this, anyone who was willing to work was welcome to work at this time, even if they could only give an hour or two’s work, Mathew 20:6-7 / 2 Corinthians 10:12.

Each man was given a denarius, Matthew 20:10, which was around a day’s wages for a man back then. And so, because a job was hard to come by, getting a job for a day’s wages sometimes meant the difference between living and starving. But God knew that a denarius was no great wage. He knew that if the workmen went home with less than a denarius, there would be worried wives and hungry children.

This parable tells us that God goes beyond justice and gives us more than we’re due. Justice says that we deserve to die in our sin, but God goes beyond justice and offers us eternal life through His Son, Jesus Christ, Ephesians 2:3-5.

“When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner.’ These men who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’” Matthew 20:11-12

And when it comes to God’s justice and the way He gives His grace to people, there are two great lessons to be learned.

1. All service ranks the same with God.

It’s not the amount of service that counts but the love in which it is given. You can always tell the people who think they deserve more from God than their fellow brothers or sisters in the kingdom of God, Matthew 20:11-12. You can tell because they grumble a lot, and people are always grumbling against God.

Not only in today’s world but also in the Biblical world, Exodus 16:2. And even after they received the Promised Land, they grumbled, Psalm 106:24-25. We shouldn’t grumble about the amount of work a Christian is doing or not doing in the kingdom.

We should be patient and grateful for the little work that they’re doing, James 5:8-9. God doesn’t look at the amount of work given, so long as our service is all we have to give. All service ranks the same with God.

“But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous? ‘So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” Matthew 20:13-16

2. All God gives is grace.

We cannot earn what God gives us, we cannot deserve it, and we cannot put God in our debt. People are always trying to put God in their debt; people are always trying to say to God who deserves to go to heaven and who doesn’t.

Some people appear to have always been God-fearing people, but people aren’t born Christians; they are born again Christians. Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:3-8 that people need to be born again to enter the kingdom in the first place.

Peter says that you need to be born again to be purified, 1 Peter 1:21-23. Purified from what? From our sin, all Christians have a history because nobody comes to the cross, sinless.

When we look down at others with that superior attitude, He will say to us what God said to Jonah, ‘Is it right for you to be angry?’ Jonah 4:4 / Jonah 4:8. He will just say to us what He said in the parable, ‘Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ Matthew 20:15.

When it comes to inheriting eternal life, nobody is going to get ripped off, whether they’ve been a Christian for one day or fifty years. We all know that Jesus’ disciples were the first Christians in His church, and in Acts 2:41, we find that others were added and became a part of His church. And in Acts 5:14, we find that even more people were added and became a part of His church.

But Jesus’ disciples had to learn a hard lesson: ‘first come doesn’t mean first served’! Matthew 20:16. And so Jesus explains what He meant when He said to His disciples about their position of honour in Matthew 19:26-30. But the point that Jesus is telling them is that the disciples couldn’t claim any special place of honour just because they were Christians before anyone else.

There’s a big lesson for the church today mentioned in Matthew 20:16, isn’t there? Too many people, just because they have been members of the Lord’s church for many years, think that the church partially belongs to them. They think they can dictate and control what goes on within the church.

In the church, authority doesn’t necessarily mean honour. I’m not saying don’t honour those who have been in the Lord’s church for many years, because the Bible teaches us that we should honour those who are older in the faith.

I’m saying just because you’ve been a part of the kingdom longer than some other people, it doesn’t make you more important than any other Christian. No matter where you come from or when you became a Christian, you’re of equal worth to God as any other Christian. But the point is that it doesn’t matter if you’ve been a Christian for one hour or forty years, you’re of equal worth to God in His kingdom, Galatians 3:26-28.

That was the problem the Jews had; they knew that they were God’s chosen people, and they never forgot that. And it’s because of this that they continually looked down on the Gentiles. They hated and despised the Gentiles and hoped for nothing but their destruction.

And so to a Jew, if the Gentiles were going to be allowed into God’s kingdom, then they must come in as inferiors and on their terms. In Acts 15:1, we find some Jews saying to the Gentiles that they must be circumcised. We also know that the apostle Peter found this difficult to deal with, Galatians 2:14.

The Jews were willing to allow the Gentiles into God’s kingdom only if they were circumcised and followed their traditions. And that spirit hasn’t changed much in some religious circles, has it? Some people think they are more favoured in God’s eyes because others don’t match up to their level of spirituality.

There’s no master race in Christianity, ‘all are one in Christ Jesus’ as Paul reminded us in Galatians 3:28. Instead of looking around at each other and wondering who’s doing what in the kingdom. Maybe we should be looking out for those who are eager to work in the kingdom.

Instead of following the ways of the world, people turned and started following the ways of Christ, Galatians 5:21. So now that we understand why we needed saving so much because of our sinful lives, we should never say that no one is good enough for God’s kingdom, Romans 3:22-24.

What God gives us is given out of the goodness of His heart, out of His grace. And what He gives us isn’t pay, but a gift, not a reward, but a grace. Grace is amazing, and it’s a gift of God so that no one can stand before God or other people and say, ‘look how great I am, look what I do as a Christian’. It’s a gift which cannot be earned by yourself, so that no one can boast. And it’s available to everyone who is willing to obey the Gospel call of Christ.