The Blessing of Being the Lord’s Laborer

Again, he went out about the sixth and ninth hour and did likewise. At about the eleventh hour, he went out and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, “’Why stand ye here all the day idle?’ They say unto him, “’Because no man hath hired us.’ He saith unto them, “’Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive.’ And when even was come, so when even was come, the Lord of the vineyard saith unto his servant, steward rather, call the laborers and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first.

And when they came that were hired, about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny. And when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more, and they likewise received every man a penny. And when they had received it, they murmured against the good men of the house, saying, “’These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day.’ But he answered one of them and said, “’Friend, I do thee no wrong.

Ditt’st not thou agree with me for a penny? Take that thine is and go thy way. I will give unto this last even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil because I’m good?

So the last shall be first, and the first last. For many be called, but few chosen.’” Would you pray with me this morning? Lord, first we thank you. We thank you for your word. And Lord, we have so much to learn from it. Lord, so much that is before us, so many ways that we need to be better, that we need to be helped. In many ways we don’t even recognize at this point in our life and our growth.

But Lord, as we look at Matthew 20 here and this parable of the laborers, we pray that you would guide us in our study. Lord, that you would help us to see your will, your ways very plainly. And Lord, that you would guide our study. Lord, bring our minds into the things in our life that you want to apply these things to. Lord, help me. Lord is the person who brings the message and tries to explain the word that you would control me and what I say, that I would say just exactly what you want me to say and nothing more or less, that your people might be edified.

And so Lord, our eyes are upon you. We look to you. Give us Lord what we need. Remind us of the truths that we need to remember and bless our time in your word and bless your word to our hearts in Jesus’ name. Amen. Now this parable does not stand alone in Matthew chapter 20. And you gotta be careful of the chapter divisions in the Bible. Originally the original writers didn’t put chapters.

They were put later to help us find verses of the Bible. It would be very hard to find places in the Bible if there were no chapters. And we know that based upon, in this case in particular, the first word of chapter 20 verse one is the word four, which tells us that what’s found in chapter 20, specifically the parable, is it does not stand alone. It is part of, it is connected with what comes prior to it.

So let’s read that in chapter 19 and verse 27. Then answered Peter and said unto him, behold, we have forsaken all and followed thee. What shall we have therefore? And Jesus said unto him, verily I say unto you that ye which have followed me in the regeneration when the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon the 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel.

And everyone that hath forsaken houses or brethren or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for my name’s sake shall receive in a hundredfold and shall inherit everlasting life. But many that are first shall be last and the last first. So verse 30 should sound familiar because verse 30 matches verse 16 in chapter 20, where it says, so the last shall be first and the first last.

But that’s not all. If you continue in chapter 20 and verse 17, we’ll not read 17 to 19, but then you go down to verse 20, there’s several things in verse 20 and following that are related to what we’ve just read. I’ll just read a few verses here. Then came to him the mother of Zebedee’s children with her sons, worshiping him and desiring a certain thing of him.

And he said unto her, what wilt thou? And she saith unto him, grant that these my two sons may sit the one on thy right hand and the other on thy left in thy kingdom. And so he asked them a question in response and he tells them about the baptism, which Lord Willem will cover tonight, verse 24. And when the 10 heard it, they were moved with indignation against the two brethren.

Now notice this, these are the disciples of Christ mad at each other, right? And that’s directly related to what we see in chapter 20, verses one through 16. And so this parable is given to answer or to respond to what we see at the end of chapter 19, this question of what are we gonna get therefore when Peter asks him, which is a little bit, I think a little bit problematic in light of chapter 20.

But anyway, they are connected and the Lord is specifically describing what he means by verse 30 of chapter 19 when he says many that are first shall be last and the last first. Now, I wanna point out first of all that the Lord uses in this illustration, in this parable, he uses the idea or the symbol of a vineyard, of a vineyard. And that’s something he uses in a number of other times throughout scripture, but just put that aside for a minute and notice the other factor in this parable, which is the laborers, the laborers.

I wanna show you something, look if you would very briefly at Matthew chapter nine, Matthew chapter nine, and then we’re gonna go to Matthew 19 very, very quickly, Matthew nine, verse number 37.

You are familiar with these verses. Matthew nine, verse 37 says this, then saith he unto his disciples, the harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray you therefore the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth laborers into his harvest. So you have this picture that the Lord uses, he uses illustrations and parables that deal with farming and agriculture very often. In this case, he’s using a vineyard.

In Matthew, he’s using wheat farming, right? Weed or some sort of grain farming. But the idea of laborers, there are people that are working for the household, the landowner in each of these cases, and that’s what these laborers are. Now go to Matthew 19, not Matthew 19, let me get my bearings here. Luke 19, Luke 19, I’m sorry, I was misreading my notes here. Look at Luke chapter 19, and I wanna show you a different parable, but there’s a little bit of a distinction made between the two that’s important for us to kind of get our basis, get our footing of what we’re talking about in Matthew 20.

Luke 19, look at verse number 12. Verse number 12 of Luke 19 says this, he said therefore, a certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return. And he called his 10 servants and delivered them 10 pounds and said unto them, occupy till I come. Now don’t misunderstand the word occupy, that’s related to the word occupation. In other words, they were not supposed to sit there, but they were supposed to work, that’s the idea of the word occupy.

But notice verse 14, but his citizens hated him and sent a message after him saying, we will not have this man to reign over us. So this nobleman leaves, and he leaves this money with his servants, so you gotta make the distinctions here. He leaves his money with the servants, and then he leaves, and he expects those servants to use that money to work for him. But then there’s another group of people that are mentioned which are the citizens of that country.

Now the servants, though the servants are citizens, not all the citizens are servants, and there’s two different groups here. And what we see in this particular parable is the citizens utterly reject this nobleman. While he’s gone, they send a message, that seems to be a very stupid thing to do, but they send a message after him and says, we don’t want you to reign over us, and so when he comes back, they’re gonna have some problems, and indeed they do in the parable.

But that is not what was happening with the servants. The servants were left by the nobleman to work. So you have the citizens and you have the servants. So you might refer or you might look at these people as the citizens refer because they rejected the one whose kingdom, it was his rightful kingdom, they reject him, so that might refer to a group of people who aren’t believers, who reject Christ and his rule.

But the servants have not rejected him. Indeed, they’re working for him. He is committed to their care pounds, or he’s committed to their care pounds. In other words, those responsibilities to work for him while he’s gone, and when he comes back, he’s going to reckon with them, and he’s going to give rewards and all those things. But I want you to see that. Notice the servants that work for him in his kingdom here.

Now, go back if you would to Matthew 20. In Matthew 20, what do we have here? We don’t have any mention of servants or mention of citizens, rather, or anyone similar to them. What we have are laborers. You know what laborers are? Laborers are servants. Laborers are people who are being hired, maybe not exactly like a servant, but they’re workers. They’re workers. So when we read this parable in verse number one, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder.

Everything he says here, the Lord is describing something about his king, the kingdom of heaven. He’s describing something about that to us to help us to understand the way he interacts with us. And I say us because he’s dealing with servants. Now, I’ll readily admit, there might be another layer of truth to this parable than I’m covering this morning, but I’m not certain of that. So I’m not gonna teach something I’m not absolutely certain of.

But so there could be a whole like dispensational view of Israel, you know, there might be something there, but we’re not going there today. If you have light on that, hey, I’d like to hear it. To be honest with you, I’d like to hear it. But what I wanna draw your attention to is the fact that the Lord is dealing with his servants and those servants in the kingdom of heaven refer to us, people who are serving him, people who are doing his will.

Now, there’s no mention of the quality of service here. When you read it, you know, he went out and he hired the laborers at the beginning verse two says they agreed with him for a penny a day. Now that might seem like peanuts to you, but a penny, and in fact, remember they’re capitalists here, right? Because they agreed for a penny. It wasn’t forced upon them, they agreed to it.

So if it’s unfair, it’s their fault. They didn’t have to go out and work, but they agreed to the price, which tells me that this is a fair day’s wage. Not even though the word penny is not used in our time in that way, but that’s what a penny, this is one of the actually one of the go-to places of scripture where we understand the value of a penny as the Lord uses it in a number of his parables.

And so they agreed with him for a penny a day and he sent them into the vineyard. And then notice in verse three, the third hour, which is 9 a.m., he found others and he said, he didn’t agree, they did not know in advance what he would pay them, but he said, whatsoever is right, I will give you. Then he went out again at the sixth hour, which is about noon, and then he went again at the ninth hour, which is about 3 p.m.

And then finally in verse six, he went out in the 11th hour, like five o’clock in the afternoon. Only one hour in the work day is left if you count it from six to six, which is usually from sun up, some down, but rough number six to six. So when there is but one hour remaining in the work day, isn’t this weird? How much work could a guy get done in an hour?

I mean, considering the fact that he’s not in the vineyard, he’s in the marketplace, which is what the verse says. So he has to actually get out to the vineyard to work. And if you’ve ever been in a place where they have these large scale vineyards like this, it is not a three minute stroll across the street down the way to get to a vineyard. Sometimes you gotta go a long way to get to where they’re working.

Why would the householder, why would, as the Bible says, the goodman of the house, the landowner, why would he hire a guy with only an hour left in the day to work? That is weird. You would never do that. In fact, there’s a number of things that this man does that nobody would ever do. But nevertheless, of course, we know when he reckons with them at the end in the evening, he tells the steward to pay each person.

But notice in verse number eight, he tells the steward to call the laborers and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first. Now, you’re gonna see this last first, last first, last first, because that’s what he’s talking about. Chapter 19 verse 30, chapter 20 verse 16, this last and first switch. So the ones who were hired first get paid last. The ones who were hired last get paid first in order.

But you also have a switch based upon their wage. And then lastly, we see, of course, because he did it in this order, those who were hired in the morning then saw how much the guys who were hired last got paid and set up some expectations which were unfounded. And then were upset at the good men of the house. And so that’s the summary of the story.

So I think in this parable, based upon the fact that we’re looking at laborers, that the Lord has his eye upon us as those who serve him. He’s trying to tell us something about the kingdom of heaven, about the way the Lord, the economy of the kingdom of heaven, if you will, the way the Lord rules, the way the Lord operates, the way his policies and his practices regarding his servants.

And really there’s some strong parallels here with us. And so this is what I wanna, what I wanna do is I wanna give you several kind of principles or principles or truths that we see throughout the story. Rather than going verse by verse on it, I want to give you several individual truths that maybe you can write down or remember that are seen in this passage. The first thing I want you to see is this.

Labor is good for the laborer. Labor is good for the laborer. Or you might say labor is good for the worker or work is good for the laborer. This man went out, now granted, this householder, he has a job to do. He has business that needs to be taken care of. And so that’s obviously why he hires them. But you see a little bit of truth, a little nugget of truth in the fact that he goes out three more times to hire more people.

Think about that. If you go to the marketplace where people are waiting to be hired each day, daily workers, and you hire them, would you not hire what you need and then you go out to the vineyard and do your thing, right, and you do the work? But he went back to the marketplace three more times, even in the 11th hour, which is five o’clock, and he went back there to hire more people.

In other words, he wants people to be working. And you see it here, he says, look at verse six. The householder says, why stand ye here all the day idle? You know what that tells us? That he sees value in the work. You see that? That’s why he’s going out to hire them. He doesn’t want them to be standing idle. So he goes out and hires them.

He gives them a job to do. And that tells us that the labor is good for the labor. Now you might say, well, obviously it’s good. You all in here have jobs. You labor, you have work you do, and you get paid for that work, like we see here. You say, well, of course it’s good. That’s how I pay my bills. No, no, no, it’s not just that.

That’s true. That’s true, and that’s good. That’s biblical and right. It’s not just that, though. The labor itself is good. The work itself is good, virtuous, and commendable. And so for the householder to call these men, he’s actually helping them. He’s doing them a favor, because if they’re not working, they’re idle. So there’s value in the work. Listen to these verses. If you want to note down the references, go right ahead.

Proverbs 10 verse 16. The labor of the righteous tendeth to life, but the fruit of the wicked to sin. Proverbs 13 verse 11 says this. Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished, but he that gathereth by labor shall increase.

Proverbs 14 verse 23 says this. In all labor there is profit, but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury. Proverbs 21, 25. The desire of the sloth will killeth him, for his hands refuse to labor. Ecclesiastes 5, 12. The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much.

I’m sorry, Ecclesiastes 5 verse 19. Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth, and hath given him power to eat thereof, and to take his portion and to rejoice in his labor, this is the gift of God. And then of course we can go to the New Testament. The same truths are repeated. Ephesians 4, 28 says this. Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good that he may have to give to him that needeth.

Second Thessalonians 3, 12 says this. Now them that are such we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work and eat their own bread. There is no question about it. There is no question about it. God commends labor. You know what? That doesn’t necessarily mean that labor you get paid for. God commends work in general. You know, some of you are retired.

Sitting down and watching TV all day long will not help you, right? It will not help you. I think of obviously who do I think of? Brother Vernon, man, Miss Betty. Those people, I don’t know how they do what they do. He’s in his mid 80s and he is constantly mowing people’s grass and all those kinds of, I mean it’s amazing how much he gets done. But that is because labor is good.

Labor is good, God commends labor. And that’s true also in the kingdom of heaven. Let me explain something to you about your Christian life and my Christian life. If we do not serve the Lord, it will hurt our Christian life.

Because just as in this world, right? If you sit around and watch Netflix all the time and you don’t employ yourself in something profitable, useful, important, significant. If you don’t employ yourself in some way, in some useful way, it could be family, it could be friends, it could be helping those in need, it could be church things. There’s a lot of, I’m just speaking of labor in general.

When we become idle and we are not using our time, that is ultimately destructive to us. It hurts us. So the Lord, speaking generally now, the Lord commends labor. But in the kingdom of God, here’s what I want you to see, is all of these people here, what are they doing? They’re working for the householder. They’re laboring for God. And what I wanna do is I wanna commend to you.

I wanna commend you. Don’t just occupy your time in labor and worldly, or I should say maybe earthly things. There is work to be done for the Lord Jesus Christ. There’s jobs to do. There’s service to be performed. And the Lord wants all of us. In fact, when you read these parables, just speaking broadly, these parables of the Lord Jesus, you often find the Lord using this symbolism or this example of his people working for him.

The parable of the talents, the parable of the pounds, the different parables, even what I just read in Matthew 9. The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labors are few. The Lord over and over says, listen, I have a job for you to do, but I wanna tell you something. If you as a Christian, if I as a Christian have a Christian life where we are not actively engaged in the service of God, that is not gonna be a fulfilled Christian life.

There is no fulfilled Christian life being a spectator. There’s no fulfillment in that at all. It’s when we’re using our time, you’re using our talents, using our wisdom, using all the things God has given us in his vineyard. In other words, the Lord wants us to work for him. He doesn’t want us to just sit by and let other people do it. He wants us to work for him.

So therefore the people of God, the church of God, should all be looking for places to serve God. We should be, as it were, in the marketplace saying, Lord, I’m ready. I’m waiting on somebody to hire me. I’m ready to go. Listen, I got things I can do. I know how to work a hoe. I know how to dig with a shovel. I know how to use a pickaxe.

I know how to prune those vines, those grapevines. I know how to do that. I can rake leaves. I can blow leaves. I can cut down trees. I can do that. I can cut down trees. I can pass out gospel tracts. I can share the gospel. I can go with somebody that can, even if I can’t.

Nobody’s hired us, but I’m looking for work. Here’s the question. Are you looking for work in God’s vineyard? Because in all labor there is profit. It’s good for you. It is good for your Christian life. The Christian life without service to God, without labor is going to be one that is not fulfilling, and it’s not gonna be one that’s rich and growing. We have to have a way, an outlet, where our life before the Lord now, not our earthly life, our life before the Lord is significant and matters.

It matters. So labor is good for us. Forget about the reward. It’s mentioned here. Forget about the reward. Reward is great, but even if we just put that aside for a minute, all of us need the work.

Part of being a believer, growing, increasing in faith, and knowledge comes from laboring for God. That’s part of the growth, and without it we’re hindered. One of the best ways for you to learn scripture is to tell other people about Jesus. It’s true. Any of you that have done that have realized that there is a motivation that’s put there because you have to have an answer.

So that’s one example of how service helps us grow. Labor helps us grow. So labor is good. So when the Lord, this is what I want you to see. So when the Lord, the householder, goes to the market, even at the 11th hour, you know what he’s doing? Think about it now. You know what he’s doing? He’s trying to help those guys. It’s not much benefit to him.

At the 11th hour, at 3 p.m., at 5 p.m., is it much help to him? Is much work gonna be done? No, but it is really helpful to those laborers because they’re not idle. They’re serving, they’re laboring, and that’s good. It’s good for them. Now, there’s one running theme throughout this parable I want you to see, and that is the goodness of the householder. One way you see his goodness is the fact that he makes a place to labor.

God’s showing goodness to you and to me by giving us a place to labor and to serve. The question is, are we at the market saying, Lord, I’m for hire, I’m ready. I wanna serve you.

Because spending, listen, spending our Christian life watching Netflix, the Netflix of spiritual life, and just blowing our time into oblivion, it hurts us. It doesn’t help us grow. It really doesn’t.

And that leads me to the second thing, and you see it here several times, which is idleness. Notice what it says in this, verse number three. And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the marketplace. So he hired them. And then verse six, by the 11th hour, he went out and found others standing idle two times. Why stand you here all the day idle?

I wanna tell you something. In contrast to what I just finished saying, I’ll say this, in your walk with God, idleness is a danger. It is a grave danger.

When David was idle, when he should have been working in the place God had given him as the King of Israel, he got into big, big trouble. We just covered it in Psalm 51, remember? We spent three weeks, three Wednesdays, covering the result of idleness in Psalm 51. Idleness will lead us to a world of trouble. And the reason it leads us to a world of trouble is very simple, our own nature.

Our own nature. Brothers and sisters, does everybody here have an automatic transmission in your car? Does anybody not have an automatic transmission? Oh, you got one, Brother Dennis and his beater, the Nissan, what is that, Nissan something? But he’s got new tires on it.

Here’s our nature. You get in your car, and you put that booger in drive, and you let off the gas. You don’t have to press the gas. You let off the gas. You know, when you’re letting off the gas, you’re just holding the steering wheel, you’re not really driving, you’re just sitting in the car. You’re just sitting in the car. You’re just sitting in the car. You’re just sitting in the car.

What is it gonna do? It’s moving forward, you know why? It’s that transmission, that’s automatic transmission, that’s the way it works. It keeps constant pressure, right? That’s you when you’re idle. That’s me when I’m idle. When we’re not actively engaged in laboring for God, in serving the Lord, we’re spiritually idle, what happens is our nature takes over, our natural tendencies, and that’s not a good thing. And so one of the reasons the Lord gives us work is to occupy us, to keep us from our own wicked selves.

This is why we should work for the Lord. It keeps us out of trouble if nothing else. Forget the reward. It keeps us out of trouble. Because idleness is a danger. You know these verses, Proverbs 19, 15, slothfulness casteth into a deep sleep, and an idle soul shall suffer hunger. Think about that spiritually. An idle soul, spiritually idle, shall suffer hunger. Can it be that not serving the Lord will famish you spiritually?

Yes, it will. Yes, it will. Ecclesiastes 10, 18, by much slothfulness the building decayeth, and through idleness of the hands the house dribeth through. Brothers and sisters, there’s so many ways I could go, so many places I could go here. How is the work of God gonna go forward? Is it not gonna be dropping through and decayed through neglect because if we’re all of the people of God, the servants, the labors are not serving the Lord, that’s what makes the work of God go forward.

That’s why he’s hiring us. He’s got jobs for us to do. First Timothy 5, 13, and with all, this is speaking of young widows, widows who are widowed earlier in life, and with all they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house, and not only idle, but tattlers also, and busybodies, speaking things which they are not. So the next verse, I didn’t write down the verse, but verse 14 in that same passage just tells the younger widows to do what?

Somebody gotta be with me. No, that’s the older women. The younger widows are said to marry, guide the house, bring up children. I’m paraphrasing, but that’s, in other words, get to service, don’t be idle. Get married for the younger widows. Get married, have children, guide the home, raise them kids, and listen, that’s a way, that’s a way a woman who is at home with the kids, that’s one of the primary ways she serves God.

So I’m not trying, listen, I’m not trying to make people that are guilty, I’m not trying to make people feel guilty who have responsibilities before God to serve God with their children. I’m not trying to make people feel guilty. I know when my kids were small, my wife had all those little kids, and it was a long period of time, both in Cambodia and in South Carolina, where she couldn’t go visiting, and she couldn’t go pass out gospel tracts, and she couldn’t do, she couldn’t, because she had those kids, but that was her ministry.

That was her service to God. And then, here’s the thing, seasons in life change, and now we’re in a different season, and so there’s different opportunities to serve. What we can’t do, though, is be idle for the Lord. Be careful here.

We can’t occupy all of our time and service and labor on things earthly. That’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about things heavenly, the kingdom of heaven, right? And there is absolutely a place to, you gotta labor, you gotta work, to pay the bills, support yourself, support your family, you gotta, we all know that’s commendable and that’s right, but it should not be to the exclusion of serving the Lord, because that’s what we’re talking about here.

Romans 3, 14, I’d like you to look there if you would, Romans chapter 13, I apologize, Romans chapter 13. Romans 13, verse 13, 13, 13. Let us walk honestly, as in the day, not in writing and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. Of course, we often take this to mean, don’t go to that website, don’t go to that place, because you know you’ll fall if you go there, make provision, what about idleness?

That’s the way we provide our flesh with opportunity to sin, make not provision. One way we can do that is by serving the Lord with all of our heart. Go back to Matthew 20, if you would. Next thing I want you to see is this.

The Lord does not deal with his servants as we see practiced in this world. So, you remember, at the end of the day, the guy who had come to work at 9 a.m., work starts at six, the guy who had come to work at 9 a.m., noon, three, and then five, all get paid the same. I ain’t never met a boss that does that. You know what they’re gonna do?

They’re gonna pay you about an hour, unless they pay you salary in which you’re a slave, basically, ask Joseph, poor Joseph. Bosses don’t do that. Here’s the point of the parable of the kingdom of heaven is the Lord’s saying, I don’t operate like that. The world, in the world, the householder operates like this. You work an hour, you get an hour’s pay. What you see is the opposite.

You see the Lord giving them pay they don’t deserve. It tells us that he doesn’t operate the same as this world does. With his servants, he’s not operating the same. Now, you look at those guys at the beginning, they wanted an agreement. That’s kinda like what Peter did in chapter 19. So what are we gonna get? Tell me now, in advance. I’ll tell you something, it’s better, it is better to trust in the grace and goodness of God for what you get than it is to demand something from God in advance.

And those that did that, whatsoever is right, there’s a level of trust. They don’t know how much they’re gonna get paid. How many of you would go take a job and you don’t know how much you’re gonna get paid? But they did, you know why? They trusted the goodness of the householder. Whatsoever is right, that’s what I give you. And when they got there, even those that had gotten there at the 11th hour, those got the full pay for the day.

You know what that is? That’s grace. I wanna tell you something. Please don’t look at living for God and serving God and laboring for God as a burden. It’s not.

It is the fulfillment of the reason you’re here. The reason I’m here. We’re not here to be a burden to you. The reason I’m here. We’re not here to spend our time in uselessness. We’re here to spend this life for eternal benefit to others, to the church, to the lost, and to the glory of God. That’s why we’re here. And listen, listen, please, if you do that, your Christian life will be so satisfying and rich because when your life comes to an end, you will say, it wasn’t all it should have been, but it was exactly why I was created.

I did that thing. I fulfilled my purpose. I fulfilled my purpose. And besides that, the one who hired me is so good to me. It’s not a burden. He deals with us in grace.

Our Lord, our boss, the householder, always deals with us in grace. He’s gonna give us more than what we deserve. Now, I don’t know how this is all gonna come out in the wash, if the judgment seat of Christ. I know the Bible does say that we will get according to our labor. Yes, I know that much is true. But the point of this parable is to show us that if we live for God, he’s gonna deal with us not as a matter of agreement, but in grace.

And that’s the best place to be, is to serve God because he’s good, because he is. There’s no better person to serve. There’s no better person to serve. So giving your life, giving your time, your energy, your talent, your wisdom, your understanding, your skill, whatever it might be, giving it for the Lord is well worth it.

Because you might get to the end of the day and realize that he paid you for a full day and you know that you didn’t earn that. That’s grace. He is worth serving.

But there’s another truth here, which is this. As you saw, one went out at the third hour, the sixth hour, the ninth hour, the 11th hour, and they all got the same pay, including the ones that went out at 6 a.m. They all got the same pay. Here’s the principle, and we’ll move on. The Lord does not deal with his servants equally like we might expect.

There’s something in us that really, especially as Americans, I think Americans are really bad about this, to be honest with you, and I’m one, is the expectation for fairness.

And we think somehow that because that’s an axiom in our society that somehow God’s bound by it, but he’s not. He’s not. Yes, he did give them all the same pay, in a way, it is fair, I guess. You all get the same pay. But they all did different work, different lengths of time for work. Now we could assume and say, well, it must have been that the one who worked at 11, at the 11th hour must have worked really hard.

We don’t have any reason to think that. So one of the main points of this, which is covered in the parable, is that the Lord doesn’t deal with all of us the same.

Sometimes he gives one of us a grace of 50, and sometimes he gives another a grace of 200, and sometimes he gives another a grace of five, and sometimes he gives another a grace of 5,000.

Well, that’s not fair. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own, the householder says. Yes. But here’s the thing. Although that has been, has it not been so abused in theological arguments. But no matter what he get, he always comes out good. Whether it’s a boatload of grace, or a little bit of grace, comparative, or whatever the case might be, he always deals with us in grace.

He is good, and he says it. He says in verse 15, is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil because I am good?

In the parable of the talents, you remember in Matthew 25, did he give all the servants the same number of talents? No. Why not? Was he not fair? That’s his, that’s God’s prerogative. That’s what this parable is teaching us. But at no point will God ever do wrong by us who serve him. He might do things differently with his servants, but he’ll never do it wrongly. Most of the time, I would say probably every time, the one exception being the first group that went out, he’s always gonna do graciously.

And that leads us to our last point. If you would look at verse number 10. But when the first came, those that were hired at 6 a.m., they supposed that they should have received more, and they likewise received every man a penny. Now let me ask you a question. Did the householder do right? Yes, that’s what they agreed to. That’s what they got. Did he wrong them in any way, fashion, or form?

Well, no. And when they had received it, they murmured against the good man of the house, saying, these last have wrought but one hour, but thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day. Notice this. You know what this is? Envy. It’s envy directed at the householder, and it’s envy directed at the fellow servants. And this comes back to our original point.

What is this parable talking about? It’s talking about a group of God’s servants. Here’s the principle, the truth. There will exist envy among God’s servants due to the differences in the way God deals with each one. You see it in chapter 19. Peter says, what are we gonna get? We’ve forsaken all. You know what that is? That’s the root of envy. The Lord says, everyone who hath forsaken all of these things, and Peter says, what about me?

You go to chapter 20, starting verse number 20, 20 verse 20. And you see, the Lord says, starting verse number 20, 20 verse 20, with James and John and their mother. She says, well, can they sit on your right hand and on your left? And the Lord says, and he answers them, and then the others get mad. Now think what you have here. Think, brothers and sisters, here’s what you have.

The disciples are mad at each other because two of them want a promise from Jesus. That was stupid to get a promise in advance. That was bad with that parable. They just heard the parable, and yet they’re gonna demand an agreement anyway.

The other disciples hear about it, and they’re angry. The 12 disciples are angry at each other because of envy. Now let that sink in. These are people who love God, love the Lord Jesus, and serve him, not getting along, because of envy. They’re comparing. Look at even the, look at the disciples. Did Jesus deal with the disciples all the same? No. He had Peter, James, and John, the sons of thunder.

Went into special places where nobody else went, and then he specifically isolated Peter. What about the other nine? That’s his business, that’s his decision, but that kind of stuff, that difference of grace is what causes people to be envious. Envy, listen, I’ll tell you something, brothers and sisters. Envy is a dreadful enemy of the servants of God.

It is a dreadful enemy of the servants of God. And oftentimes envy pops up in this particular case among those who are serving the Lord, and because they’re serving the Lord. Because listen, if you’re serving God with all your heart, and that’s your life, and you love the Lord, and you wanna do his will, and you want him to bless you, and all of these things, and you see somebody else who apparently is enjoying greater blessings in some way, fashion, or form, and that envy comes up in your heart, and it is a real thing, it is a real thing.

First of all, it’ll destroy your relationship with that person. And number two, it’ll hurt your relationship with the Lord too. Because you look at that and you’re like, well, why can’t my life be like, why can’t my servant, why can’t? And that’s how we view others. All servants of God. But where does that come from? That comes from a heart that wants to serve God to the fullest degree.

Wanting to excel in the service of God, beware of envy. 1 Corinthians 3, 3, for ye are yet carnal. Whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? What is that? That’s, I am of Paul, I am of Apollos. In their zeal for the preachers and the gospel preachers that have ministered to them, they have developed envy in that zeal.

It’s this religious envy. Galatians 5, 26, let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another. Philippians 1, 15, some indeed preach Christ, even of envy and strife, and some also of goodwill. What? Some are preaching of envy? That’s what it says. They were preaching out of envy.

You see why I say it’s religious envy? That’s what you read in this parable right here. Why is his life blessed? Why are things going? Why is God using him? You see that difference sometimes creates in us envy, and that is often the source of a lot of discontent. Envy is a sinister, nefarious little virus. Once it gets into our heart, it’ll do a lot of damage.

1 Timothy 6, 4 says this, he is proud knowing nothing, but doting about questions and doubts and not being able to do anything. He is proud knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strife of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmising.

James 3, 14, but if you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. The envying we see here in Matthew 20 is really a factor of the person in whose heart the envy is found. It’s not a fault in the householder.

It’s a fault in the person who’s envious because this person has a high view of themself. My labor is more valuable. They should not, in fact, they say it, look what it says in verse number, verse 12, saying these last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us. You hear that? That’s pride. They are not equal. They should not be treated as equal.

They are not. And there lies the root of envy right there. A proud and high view of oneself. He thinks his labor deserves more. Sometimes, brothers and sisters, what we see as unfairness or unequalsness is nothing more than a difference in the grace of God from one to another.

This is so true. Among people who want to serve God, it is so true. We tend to look at each other and compare, compare. Almost like we’re trying to find a pecking order, which itself is carnal and ungodly, and we shouldn’t do it. But we do it, and we see somebody that their life seems to be closer to God. The Lord seems to be using them more.

Their family seems to be more together. Their life seems to be more ordered. Their devotion seems to be more regular. They seem to be more spiritual. They seem to be whatever that thing is that we observe. We see that. Sometimes that prompts us to gossip or slander, pick at them, find fault, none of which is godly.

But that’s born of envy, okay? We see that, and compared to ourselves, we feel offended at that because we feel inferior to that. So that’s the way we react. This is how envy gets started.

What you might not realize is the reason that person is there in that place with their situation, their life, their spiritual life, their family, whatever, might be purely the result of the grace of God and have nothing to do with that person at all.

That’s the whole point of the parable. That it might be the grace of God has literally picked them up and put them there, and they might be bums just like everybody else.

So really, the issue of envy is not so much an issue or complaint about that person as it is about the Lord whose grace brought them to that point.

The heart of grace is the heart that says, I rejoice at their prosperity. I rejoice. My question to you as we close is this. Are you for hire for the Lord?

Are you for hire? Are you for hire? I want you to use me and I want to labor for you. I’m telling you, I promise you. I promise you.

That is how you will be satisfied in your Christian life. That is how you’ll walk away with it in your Christian life and say, it is good to be a Christian.

Let’s pray together.