In the Vineyard

Well, good morning, yes, my name is Valerie. I'm one of the pastors on staff here at Twin Lakes. Wow, where have you people been all my life? This is awesome. I'm glad to be with you today. Truth Stories is the name of our summer series. We're going through the parables of Jesus that are found in the Bible. And I just, before we get started, wanna remind you, like Adrienne said, at the end of the service, we're gonna be partaking in communion. So if you haven't yet had a chance to get some of the communion elements, now would be a good time to sneak out and do that. And if you're joining us on the live stream, good morning to you too. And just make sure you've got some water or juice or bread ready for communion later in the service.

Well, I wanna start today by revealing to you one of the sneakiest lies that I think has just traveled through church history. And this is a lie that I have fallen prey to more times than I can count. I've probably spent decades deep in this lie. And this lie has led people to despair. It's led me to despair. This lie has started cults. This lie has tanked churches. It's destroyed denominations. And yet it just slips in almost unnoticed 'cause it sounds kind of churchy. It sounds like it might actually be in the Bible. It's kind of close, but it's completely divorced from what Jesus actually said about faith and teachings. And the chances are good that probably every one of us in this room has believed this lie. Or maybe you're right in there right now believing this lie. And here it is. Here's the lie. God gives me what I deserve. I get the deal I deserve.

And what happens with this lie is it slips in and just kind of slowly you start to feel less joyful. Slowly you start to feel less gratitude. Get a little more stingy 'cause it just slides in. And slowly but surely the needle starts to move from grace to performance, to performance. And in my life there's two results that come out of this. Conceit and despair. I can get conceited thinking, you know what? I'm better. I'm right. Oh, such a great sentence, isn't it? I deserve more. And then it can also lead to despair where you just look at your life and you go, I'm not good enough. There's no way I'll ever be good enough. I can't do this, forget it. And you're just tempted to check out on it all. Thinking God rewards me, God rewards you according to our performance, absolutely just drains joy out of us. And it introduces the poisoned, the slow working poison of entitlement and envy.

Well, Jesus told a story about this and we're gonna look at that today. If you have your Bibles with you, you can open them up to Matthew 20. Matthew's in the second half of the Bible, the New Testament. We're gonna be in verses one through 16. The verses you need will be on the screen and then there's some in your notes as well. So I'm gonna read the whole parable to you first and then we're gonna go back and look at some details, some context and find out what God has to say and what we learn about God in this parable today.

So starting in verse one. For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. About nine in the morning, 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. And so they went. He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. And then about five in the afternoon, he went out and found still others that were standing there. And 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 work in my vineyard.

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 five in the afternoon came and they each received a denarius. So when the first workers, when those came who were first hired, they expected to receive more but they each also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. These 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. But he answered one of them, I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I wanna give to the one 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.

So let's unpack this for a minute here. First of all, it's important to know who is Jesus talking to? That's always critical when Jesus is saying something. Often in the parables, we see Jesus is talking to a large crowd or he's talking to the Pharisees, the religious leaders. But in context, if you go back into chapter 19, we know that Jesus is talking to his disciples. He's talking to his closest group of followers. And actually this parable is an answer to a question that Peter asked. In Matthew 19:27, Peter says to Jesus, we've left everything to follow you. What then will there be for us? And in response, Jesus tells Peter some really great news. He says, truly, I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits 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 wife or children or fields for my sake will receive 100 times as much and will inherit eternal life.

And this is sounding great. Peter's like, awesome, a throne for every disciple. Loss is replaced at 100 to one. This is an awesome deal. And then Jesus closes by saying, but many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first. And I imagine Peter going, okay, I like the thrones. We're off to a good start. But I don't get it. Am I getting a throne because I'm last now? Then we gonna be first? Or does being first come with a cost? I don't get it, Jesus. And so Jesus launches into this parable to help explain what he said.

Now you might know this, but the Bibles that we hold in our hands that have chapters and verses, those numbers weren't added until the late 1400s or the early 1500s, and I'm super glad they're there. Because can you imagine someone going, go to the verse that says, praise the Lord? How would we ever find that? So originally though, because there weren't these chapters and verses, this parable would have been bookended by basically the moral, the point, but many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first. So Jesus tells us right out of the gate, here's where we're headed. I'm starting with it, I'm ending with it, here's where we're headed. But he tells us this parable, this story, to get us there.

So Jesus introduces us to this landowner who has a vineyard, and he's in need of workers, and so he did what would have been very common in that day, and he went out to the marketplace and he found some workers, and he said, I'm gonna pay you, this would be great. And he agreed to pay them a denarius, which by the way was about double what they would have expected to earn in a day. Double, and so this is a generous deal for these guys, and they're super excited about it, because as day laborers, then, like we often see now, they literally are subsisting day to day. As a matter of fact, Jewish law in the book of Deuteronomy even says when you hire a day laborer, you have to pay them by sunset, because most likely they need that money right then.

And so then it must be a busy time, maybe it's harvest time, I don't know, the owner goes out and four more times he recruits people to come in and work in his vineyard. And there's no real discussion of pay, he just says, don't worry, I'll pay you what's right. And so sunset comes and it's time for everybody to be paid, and the vineyard owner interestingly says, well let's start with the people we just hired. And those folks have been working about an hour. So they file by, hand out, and they receive one denarius. Oh my goodness, can you imagine their shock? Like, oh, this is, I worked an hour and I just got a day's wages, this is awesome. And so everybody, all the different workers are filing by and the people who were hired first are like, yes, we got a raise, there's no way we didn't get a raise. Those guys are getting one denarius, we're gonna get at least two because we work 12 times longer than those slackers, it's gonna be awesome. And they get up there and they get a denarius, as promised.

And it's that moment when you hope your face isn't registering what you're thinking. Like, thank you, what'd you get? What is going on? And they can't take it and they just burst forth into group grumbling, which is the worst kind of grumbling of them all because it just feeds and cycles around and it never leads towards gratitude. And finally one of them stands up to the landowner and says, it's not fair, it's not fair. The anthem of every three year old I've ever met. It's not fair. Frankly, it's all of our anthem, who are we kidding? We know it. I tell you, if you ever want children to focus and pay attention, place a pastry in front of them and slice it in half. And I tell you, those children will keep a very close eye on you and they will look to see if just a couple crumbs falls to the other one, oh, the cries of it's fair are gonna ring throughout the land at that point.

They can't take it and that's the angst, the emotion that these 12 hour workers are feeling. It's not fair. But the vineyard owner isn't really up for having a debate with them about it. He just closes out, Jesus closes out the parable with two questions. Can't I do what I want with my money? And are you envious because I am so generous? And then once again, the point of the story. So the last will be first and the first will be last. And so there stand the disciples. I think a little bit perplexed at this point. Again, they're going, okay, we get the thrones. We like the thrones. The first, last, last, first stuff is weighing us down. Now and I have empathy for them. I have a feeling I'd be walking around dazed and confused if I had been in their place as well.

Because in Matthew, this story happens right before the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. And so at that point in Jesus' ministry, he's super popular. And these disciples who've probably never been popular in their whole lives are kind of riding the coattails of Jesus and they're kind of popular too. And they're thinking, let's just get back to the 12 thrones. Jesus, let's just talk about that. It sounds a lot better. But it's interesting because I think using this parable to answer Peter's question, what will there be for us? I think Jesus is reminding all of us that there's so much more than a throne. There's so much more than a position. What is there for us? What is there for you? What is there for me? This parable reminds us that there is grace. There is grace, God's undeserved favor and continued blessing.

And now for some of you, that word grace is just like a cup of cool water on a hot day. For some of you, you're looking at me smiling politely. Interior is an eye roll. You're like, oh, shocking. Twin Lakes talking about grace. I can't believe it. Not again. Will you people ever talk about something else? And it just doesn't even move the needle for you anymore. You're just like, I know about it. It's good. But I just don't feel anything when you say that word, Val. Well, the good news is that our feelings about grace and what we think about grace don't mess with God's grace at all. And the reason we talk about grace a lot here at Twin Lakes Church is because we will absolutely positively never exhaust the subject. And because it is literally the only hope of every single one of us in this room. Grace is our only hope.

So what do we see in this parable? What are some reminders that we can just soak in for these minutes together and hopefully carry into our week? I think there are three things that we see in this parable that we can be reminded of about God's grace. And the first one is this. God's grace is received. It's not deserved. God's grace is received. It's not deserved. Question for you. How many of you love a good deal? Love to get a bargain. I love a good deal. Here's the thing. I don't even think it matters how much money you have. I think everybody likes to know they did not pay what they were supposed to pay. They did not pay what they deserved to pay. And then after you get the good deal, the best part of the good deal is the story about the good deal. 'Cause then you get to tell the story to people about the good deal, like this story.

My sister and I went on a trip last month. It was a long delayed trip from 2019. We went back east and it was fun. But we had planned to go in 2019. Didn't go, didn't go, didn't go. But what happened while we were delaying and delaying and delaying is we got more hotel points. We got more airline points. My sister lives in Oregon where you get 10 cents for every can. So she just kept gathering up cans from all her friends with Diet Coke addictions and we were just cashing in on those. And so we just slowly built up this little pool of cash and points. And by the time we went on this trip in May for flights, hotels, food, entrance fees, everything, we each paid only $200. Oh, so sweet. Made a great trip even better for my soul.

And I think probably every one of you in this room right now is thinking of your own good deal tale. Some of you are thinking, you paid $200? Rookie, last time I went on a trip, they paid me $200 to travel. We love to know that we got a deal. Well, for all you deal lovers out there, I have got some great news because grace is the best deal ever. The deal to end all deals and it's simply received. You don't have to go to 18 websites and know the secret password and time it out just perfectly. Grace is received. And the Bible is just overflowing with verses about this. I put one of my favorites in your notes. Psalm 103:10, he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. Wow. He does not treat us as our sins deserve. When you take that in, it's kind of shocking. It's actually kind of scandalous. It's like, but wait, what? He doesn't treat us as our sins deserve. And praise God, because as it says in Psalm 130:3, if you Lord kept a record of sins, who could stand? Short answer, no one. Not the kindest, sweetest, gone to church, the longest person in this room could stand. What we deserve from a holy God is punishment. What we have received is grace.

And I love this and I struggle with this. I love this because I do not want to receive what I deserve from the Lord. And you may think, but you're a pastor, how bad is it? It's bad. I do not want to receive what I deserve from the Lord. But I also struggle with this because sometimes I am okay with other people receiving what I think they deserve from the Lord. And sometimes I do want to see it go like that. You know, we live in this world where one plus one equals two and grace doesn't fit our math. I love what Philip Yancey says in his book, What's So Amazing About Grace. Jesus' story, and he's referring to this parable, makes no economic sense. And that was his intent. He's giving a parable about grace, which cannot be calculated like a day's wages. We receive grace as a gift from God, not something we toil to earn.

One of the most classic passages in the whole Bible about grace is Ephesians 2:8–9. And it says, "For it is by grace you have been saved." You have been saved from everything you need to be saved from through faith. And this is not from yourselves. It's not anything we deserve. It's the gift of God. Just in case we think we deserve it again, not by works, so that no one will boast. It's not from me, it's not from you, it's not some math of how many things I've done for God and how many things I've done against God. It's received, not deserved. And I'm gonna grapple with this 'til the day I die, I tell you. There are days when I just revel in this, and I'm like that one hour worker just looking, going, "Oh my goodness, look at what I've received. This is just amazing, I can't believe it." And then there are days that I am like those 12 hour workers and I'm just looking at what I have going, "Hey, what's going on here? These slackers over here are doing great. I've been over here for 12 hours, Jesus, what are you doing?" But again, praise God, his grace does not depend on my feelings about it, 'cause I am gonna flop between gratitude and grumbling. And all the while, he will just lavish, lavish his grace on us. Received, not deserved.

And then second in this parable, I think we learned that God's grace is about mercy and not fairness. And this is where our 12 hour worker friends struggle. This is where I can struggle. I'm sure you are the same in some of this. Back at verse 12, they said, "These who were hired last worked only one hour," they said, "and you have made them equal to us." There was the crime. You have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day. It's not fair. It's not fair.

I was on a walk the other day listening to an episode of This American Life, and the episode was actually called No Fair. And if you happened to see me walking through Capitola that day, you would have probably seen me bent over in hysterics listening to this story. A preschool teacher had had it. She had had it with all the "it's not fair" stories that she was hearing every day. She couldn't take it anymore. So in her exhaustion, she came up with a plan. She gets this giant red phone, like the kind I think the president uses to launch nuclear weapons or something, and she puts this phone on the wall. And every time a kid has a "it's not fair" story, she's like, "Talk to the tattle phone." That's what she calls it. Talk to the tattle phone. And it's funny, she said she didn't have to tell the kids twice to do this. The teacher said everyone wanted to use it, even if they didn't have a tattle. Kids sang a song into it. One tried to order a pizza. Somebody said, "Hi, Mom, pick me up early." But pretty soon, it started to focus in on what the tattle phone was for. Life's unfairness.

And she started to hear things like, "Eli told me a lie." My friend Simone said no at me. Hate it when someone says no at me. My friend Jack was in my face when I was waiting to go to an area, and that made me really upset. And somebody even tattled, "People are not sharing the tattle phone." Tell ya, it's just like us. And I love what the host said. He said, "It's funny, they can't make breakfast for themselves, they can't get dressed, they can barely talk, and they're just full of 'that's not fair.'" That's not fair. I used to think sometimes the main usefulness of numbers for my son Max, the whole reason he knows how to count, is score keeping. How many of something he has, and how many of something his brother has. I don't think Max is the only one with a score keeping problem. It's not fair.

I struggle with this. Sometimes I'm looking around in life, I'm like, "Huh, what's going on over there for those people? Eh, it seems to be flowing right along for them. That's great, what's happening at that church over there? Huh, seems pretty good for them. Hey, Jesus, over here. Been here for 12 hours, maybe you forgot about me. But I'm right here. It's so hard sometimes. And that's one reason that as I studied this passage, that final question just pierced into me. That final question, "Are you envious?" Because I am so generous. "Are you envious of God's generosity to somebody else? Are you envious because he's so generous?" Just sit with that for a minute. Maybe you're struggling with envy because of someone's stuff, and you don't want to admit it because you're like, "I know I'm not supposed to struggle with that." But you just can't help but notice. Or maybe you're envious of someone else's relationships. Maybe they have great friends, or they have a really great relationship with their spouse, or even it can be hard. You see someone who has a great relationship with their kids, and you don't feel like you do. And it's just hard not to feel that unfairness.

In my life, envy turns me into the world's best mathematician. And I'm not good at math, so that's saying something. And I'm imagining sitting there at my life calculator going, "Okay, what have I done? What have I done?" Total. Great. Okay, what about them? This doesn't equal. I should be over here. It should be more fair for me. But God is about mercy. And I think God knows we were gonna struggle with this because there are verses all through the Bible that remind us that God's economy, God's math is mercy-based. It's absolutely mercy-based. Look at those Romans verses that I put in your notes. What then shall we say? Is God unjust? 'Cause that's sometimes our fear. Like, well, if he's merciful, then he's not gonna be just. No, not at all. For he says to Moses, again, this is all through the Bible, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." It does not therefore depend on human desire or effort, but on God's mercy.

And you know what helps me trust God's mercy is that I know he's also perfectly just. It's a combination that we cannot achieve as humans, but he can. He's perfectly just and he's lavishly merciful. And again, I know this can be hard. I have been hurt by people in life deeply, and sometimes it baffles me. Sometimes it actually ticks me off to think that God is out there being merciful to people who have crushed me. But sometimes I have the opposite problem, and I think, well, of course God is merciful to all you. I mean, look at you all, you're lovely. Of course he wants to be merciful to you, but there's no way he's ever gonna be merciful to me. But the truth is, it doesn't depend on us. The math will never add up. He just is merciful. He's merciful. And what does he ask of us in return? Luke 6:36 says, "Be merciful." Just as your father is. So that same mercy that we are being lavished with, we're to hand back out. Hand back out to people in relationships. Hand back out to people that we cross paths with. Be merciful, just as he is merciful.

And that's why it's so critical that we first grasp God's mercy for ourselves. Because if we are not giving out of the overflow of what's been given to us, we will not have enough mercy. We'll just be picking up the tattle phone to God, going, hey God, you gotta see what's going on down here. Hey God, what about this? And we will not have any mercy. God's grace is about mercy, not fairness. And then finally, number three, we see that God's grace is for the last as well as the first. The beginning and the end of this parable, the last will be first and the first will be last. In other words, as much time and space as you can think of, there's grace. There's grace. God's grace is for all. And he's reminding us being first is not the goal. Being first is not the goal.

There will actually probably be seasons in life when you are first. And you know what, that's great. Celebrate and remember it's all grace. And there are seasons in life when you will feel last. And you know what, grace will meet you there as well. Grace will buoy up your spirit in that moment of feeling like last as well. Grace reminds you that God is still on the move, that God is still with you, even in those low moments. And the truth that starts and ends this parable is not only tough for us to get, it was tough for the disciples in the moment. And we know this because not four verses later, four verses later, James and John, two of the disciples, and in the Matthew account, their mother joins them, gotta love that when a mom shows up, and they ask Jesus a question.

Now again, remember what they've just heard. First, last, last, first. And I just imagine in my mind's eye the scene where they come up and they ask you, they're like, Jesus, we love you. We love what you're saying. First, last, last, first. This actually may be some of your best stuff, it's great. However, circling back to the thrones, they just can't let this go. Circling back to the thrones, James and John and their mom ask, when you come into this glorious kingdom that you talked about, can one of us sit on your right and one of us sit on your left? Now we're gonna let you pick because you're God and all, but we're just calling dibs on the right and the left. Can you imagine being Jesus in that moment? You have just explained that the first are gonna be last, and the last are gonna be first. And then this is, any questions? Can I sit on your right and left, my brother and I? Is that okay? Jesus must've been like, come on.

And so he circles back again to remind us of this truth and further on in chapter 20, Jesus answers them by saying, okay, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant. If you wanna be first, must be your slave. Just as the son of man, and that's another name for Jesus, did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. That's our example. The one who could've rightly demanded first, who could've rightly demanded service, instead came to serve, to bring us a grace that we cannot imagine, a grace that covers us from first to last.

You know, one thing I found interesting in this parable is that every time the landowner invited somebody out into the vineyard, it was the same invitation. You also go work in my vineyard. It didn't matter if they came first or last, the invitation was the same. You also come work in my vineyard. And I think that's what Jesus is doing for us even now. You're welcome in. You also come in. Work in my vineyard, I've got purpose for you. I've got life for you, I've got grace for you. And I know some of you in this room might be thinking, it's a little late in the day for me, Val. There's a lot of water under the bridge, you don't know. You know, the thief on the cross had minutes left, who knows, when he looked at Jesus and he said, remember me. And you know what Jesus said to him? Come on into my vineyard. Today you will be with me in paradise.

'Cause here's the thing, the big idea for today, it's all grace. It's all grace. Whether you walked in feeling on top of things, whether you walked in feeling buried by things, whether you feel like you're at the front of the pack, or you feel like you're just trailing behind and everybody's left you in the dust, it's all grace. Jesus is present, lavishing grace in every situation. I wish that with every breath I took, with every breath you took, you would just be saying, it's all grace. It's all grace. It's all grace. This grace that's received, it's merciful, lavishly merciful. And it's grace that covers you from the first to the last, and it is for you. It is for every single person in this room who's listening on the live stream and you do not have to worry. No better deals coming along. This one doesn't expire. This is the best and the only deal we will ever need. God's grace.

Let's pray. Father, we come before you today and we're humbled. We're humbled by your mercy and your grace. And if you're here today, and maybe you've never taken that first step, you've never asked Jesus to come into your life, your heart, to save you. Today would be a great day to just say thank you. Thank you God for that free gift of grace offered through Jesus. I know I don't deserve it, but I receive it. The gift that costs you your life, that covers my sin and my guilt, I receive it. I suspect that a lot of us in this room maybe have made that decision, but we might find ourselves feeling like those 12-hour workers. Wondering, what is there for me? Wondering, I've been here for 12 hours. I've borne the heat of the day. Lord, do you remember me out here? I pray that for you, God would soften your heart. God would open your eyes to his grace. I pray that your heart would be both broken and awed again by the amazing grace that Jesus has for you. What a joy to have been in the vineyard for 12 years, 12 hours, to know that you have that day's wage, to know that Jesus is with you. But I pray that you would find that joy again, that you would find that peace simply being in the vineyard. Father, may we all remember that with every breath, it's all about your grace. It's all about your grace. Root each one of us, I pray, deeper in this truth. Lord, may we be agents of your grace and your mercy to those we encounter, and may we rejoice in what you have done for us and what you are doing for others. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.