"So The Last Will Be First" Matthew 19c-20a Dec 1 2024

Intro and Scripture

Matthew 20:1 ESV

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.

Good morning

(Pray…)

The Context

The title of my sermon is “So the Last Will be First”

Today: The Laborers in the Vineyard - first 16 verses of Matt 20

Nearly every Bible translation -

Chapter 20 begins this opening declaration with the word “For”

If you remember your English grammar - “for” is a conjunction

A conjunction is a word that connects two or more words, phrases, or clauses in a sentence

for

and

but

because

Matt 20 begins with what’s called a “coordinating conjunction”

It’s at the beginning of the sentence, and the beginning of Chapter 20

“For” connects the previous thought in the last part of Chapter 19

Jesus is about to tell us a new parable: Laborers in the Field

But he masterfully connects it with the end of Chapter 19

Please understand - chapters and verses were not originally in the Bible

Not to get into the history -

but it wasn’t until the 16 Century that we had a complete Bible with chapters and verses

In fact, the original Greek New Testament was written with no spaces between words!

We now have spaces between words, punctuation, and chapter & verse numbers

They are now part of our Bibles because it’s very convenient for us

They also help us to memorize Scripture

But there’s nothing holy about “3:16” when we quote John 3:16

This is important to remember so we see things in proper context

As I used to teach my students - studying the Bible in proper context is the best way to understand it

If we only look at Chapter 20 of Matthew, we’re missing the bigger picture

We always need to see the bigger picture when studying the Bible

I plead with people who have never read the Bible all the way through -

At least once in your life:

Read the entire Bible all the way through...quickly

Almost skimming it

Don’t worry about what you don’t understand

Try this once in your life -

No Study Bible, and no commentaries

Just pray, “Lord, I feel like I’m missing 63% of what I’m reading - help me to understand what I need to know”

If you will do that - and read it quickly - take no more than one year

And pray over scripture

And rely only on the Holy Spirit for understanding

You will see the bigger picture - what I call the “arc” of the Bible’s overall message

You can go back later with all the commentaries and study tools you want

But just once in your life - just read pure Scripture

If you’re dedicated and consistent -

You’ll be surprised how the Holy Spirit brings things to life for you

So what if you don’t understand this or that - who cares??

The point is: No one can fully grasp the Bible

Now when I say to almost skim the Bible -

I don’t mean that in a meaningless way

I’m talking about - don’t get hung up on the details

Just tell the Lord about it, and keep reading

But earnestly pray that God reveals to you what you need to know

And he will bless you

Everything I do here - every sermon I preach here at Charter, is intended for you to have a closer walk with the Lord

When I preach a sermon from the Bible,

I’m wanting you to read and study the Bible on your own

Hopefully, my ministry here encourages you to grow in the Lord and read his Holy Word

That’s my prayer

If you’ve never read the Bible all the way through - it’s not too late

Chapter 19c

Before we get started in Chapter 20,

let’s go back to Chapter 19, starting in verse 23

Jesus had just had his conversation with the Rich Young Man

If you remember -

that message was all about how that rich man was unable to give up everything in order to follow Jesus

And we looked at how it speaks to our modern world

We are like that Rich Man

We have so many comforts in life

It can be hard for us to see our need for Jesus

If you remember -

The Rich Man walks away from Jesus all sad

Because he was unwilling to give away his wealth to the poor

Even though Jesus told him he’d have treasure in heaven

And even though Jesus told him to follow him

The man abruptly walks away and Jesus turns to his disciples and tells them:

It’s difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven

It would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle

The disciples are greatly astonished, and throw up their hands and ask, “Who then can be saved?”

Jesus: “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

Peter: “We left everything to follow you. What do we get out of this?

Jesus tells the disciples in heaven they will have special roles, governing over the 12 Tribes of Israel

Then he says this about us:

Matthew 19:29–30 ESV

And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.

So The Last Will Be First

Jesus sets up a theme

This is a literary device called inclusio

He repeats a line - which is known as chiral symmetry

19:30 “But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” 20:8 “…pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.” 20:16 “So the last will be first, and the first last.”

This is the lesson from the Rich Young Man

He wanted to be first with all his wealth, but ends up last

Here’s my message - this is a spiritual truth:

We are only first, when God sees us as first

When we try to put ourselves first, God makes us last

When we truly put God and others first by becoming last - God will make us first

Laborers in the Vineyard

This theme is carried over into Chapter 20 where Jesus tells us the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard

The story starts off with a master of a house who goes out early in the morning to hire laborers

They make an agreement - he will pay them one denarius for the day

While it’s hard to accurately compare that in today’s money - most historians: $50 a day

A generous amount would be $100

This story would have been made sense to anyone listening to the parable back then

It was a common thing - during the harvest - for wealthy landowners to go into the marketplace, looking for laborers:

Often poor, or struggling workers

But for this story, that was their agreement - one denarius for a day’s work

So the workers begin working in the master’s vineyard

And while the workers are busy in the field - the master goes back the the marketplace after about the third hour

He finds even more idle workers and tells them, “Go work in my vineyard and I’ll pay you whatever is right.”

And they go and join with the other workers who are already there

All those workers are now in the master’s field - Mental Note: the very first ones have been there since early in the morning

But then the master goes out again at the sixth hour - and again, at the ninth hour - each time, he hires even more workers to work in his vineyard

Some scholars point out there is a sense of urgency to get all the work done

This is harvest time

More and more workers are in this man’s vineyard - some have been there since about 6 am

But there is much work to do

And again! At around the eleventh hour, the master back to the marketplace,

and finds more workers in the marketplace, just sitting around doing nothing

If you’re keeping track, that’s a total of five times the master goes into the marketplace

There are two harvests going on -

The workers in the vineyard

The master searching for workers in the marketplace

At this point, there’s about one more hour of work left to do

“Why are y’all just sitting here?” said the master.

They reply, “Because no one has hired us.”

“Well, go and work in my vineyard,” the master tells them

Now this was already late in the day and when evening came, the master called the foreman.

“Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.”

And so, the ones who were hired at the eleventh hour each received a denarius

But then the early workers got paid - each a denarius - as was agreed

But they expected more pay - after all, they worked all day in the field

The expectation of receiving more than the agreed-upon amount reveals their inner motives and desires.

And then they began to grumble. “These last guys...”

They actually called the eleventh-hour workers “last”

“These last guys only worked one hour - and you have made them equal to us. We took on most of the work in the scorching heat.”

And this was the master’s reply - he looks at one of the Early Birds, who was making all the fuss:

Matthew 20:13–16 ESV

But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ So the last will be first, and the first last.”

Putting It All Together

So that’s the story of the Laborers in the Vineyard

When most of us hear this, it usually goes against our sense of what is fair

? The first workers took on most of the work? In the heat of the day?

And the last workers -

who were sitting around in the marketplace,

who worked only one hour, got paid the same?

And we cry, “How is that fair??”

Do you remember - when Jesus hung on the cross - and there were two criminals hanging on their crosses next to him

Both of them had dedicated their lives in rebellion to God

They were criminals

But before he died, the one thief showed his faith in Jesus - and he told Jesus,

“Oh Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom”

This man spent his whole life in rebellion to God - he dedicated himself to a life of crime

And Jesus was hanging next to him, just like a common criminal

But this thief saw beyond that - and knew Jesus was the son of God

Out of everyone present, he knew that Jesus was innocent - and that Jesus would enter his own kingdom

And do you remember what Jesus told that thief?

“Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

And do you also remember the life of Billy Graham?

Probably everyone remembers when he died in 2018 - he was 99 years old

A wonderful man who dedicated his entire life to serving God

He preached all around the world

He was the spiritual advisor to many US Presidents

It is estimated that he preached the Gospel to approximately 2.2 billion people around the world

And when Billy Graham died, he went to the same paradise with Jesus, as the thief on the cross

How can that be fair??

Billy Graham did all the work

The thief barely did anything

Human beings are all about fairness

We hear the parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard, and we cry out, “How can this be fair?”

How is it fair that some people will go to hell, and some will go to heaven?

How is it fair that a person who is good all of their life, but they never placed their trust in Jesus, end up in hell?

Be careful telling God what’s fair

If you want God to be completely fair, then all of us deserve hell

The message of the Laborers in the Vineyard is grace and mercy, not unfairness

It is by God’s grace that the Thief on the Cross is now in paradise

It is by God’s grace that Billy Graham is also now in paradise

That’s because none of this is based on what we do

That’s the whole point

Did you catch what the early workers said to the master?

“The last workers only worked one hour, and you have made them equal to us.”

They thought they were first

They assumed - because they did more work - that they were better than the other workers

What’s also incredible - they expected to earn more money even though they had agreed to one denarius

I find that surprising in verse 10 - it’s not as if they expected the later workers to earn less - the early birds actually expected more than a denarius

As if that’s fairness

That’s the temptation for any of us who work hard for the Lord

We want the credit for all that hard work that we do

And we want extra credit if we think we worked harder

Because we think we’re better and deserve more than others

We might not explicitly think like that - but it becomes our expectation

That’s why Jesus said, “Many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

And later he said, “So the last will be first, and the first last.”

This isn’t a competition - this is God’s kingdom

And the only reason any of us are welcome in that kingdom is because Jesus Christ died on a cross for us

Billy Graham was a wretched sinner just like all of us - and he’d be the first to admit it

Not one thing Billy Graham ever did earned his way into heaven

Billy Graham was a sinner - just like the rest of us -

But God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us - Rom 5

That’s the most unfair thing I’ve ever heard

This parable is not about fairness, it’s about God’s grace and mercy, and love for us

Here’s what’s weird about the Gospel:

The thief on the cross didn’t deserve to go to heaven

But he went anyway

Here’s what’s even weirder:

Billy Graham didn’t deserve to go to heaven

But he’s there

Apparently, you can preach the Gospel to billions of people - and according to that very Gospel, that doesn’t get you into heaven

None of us deserve heaven

And here’s where we throw up our hands and say, “Who then can be saved?”

The answer is - that with man it’s impossible, but with God all things are possible

That’s the message of the Gospel

God did it all for us

God is the Master who is calling us into his vineyard

We just need to say, “Yes, I’ll leave this marketplace and go with you.”

Close

Jesus is telling us that in God’s kingdom you get to be first

Not by out-working everybody else

But by serving God in humility

So, you’re thinking:

Well, if it’s not based on what we do, then I don’t have to do anything

Well - you’re right

You don’t need to do anything to get to heaven

Salvation comes first before our good works

But our good works become an outpouring of what God has done for us while we were still sinners

My message is for us to serve God in humility - because we know we don’t deserve what he has done for us

We serve God because he did the impossible for us!

(Pray…)

Communion

The Lord’s Supper is similar to The Passover from the OT.

It celebrates the fact that the Lord delivered his people from Egypt - and delivered his people from his own wrath

Today, we celebrate Communion which holds the memory of Christ’s death on the cross

The death of Jesus on the cross delivered us from the desolate wilderness of our sin

And saves us from the coming wrath of the Lord

When we take communion, there is a sense of past, present, and the future

Past: Communion looks back in remembrance of Christ’s death on the cross

Present: It is a celebration of the New Covenant we are in

Future: It causes us to look forward to when we will celebrate with Jesus face to face

(Pick one…)

Matthew 26:26–28 ESV

Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

Luke 22:19–20 ESV

And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

1 Corinthians 11:23–26 ESV

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.