Getting Every Penny You Deserve

Text: Matthew 20:1-16

Title: Getting Every Penny You Deserve

Textual Theme, Goal, Need:

Theme: God gives graciously to those who work for him.

Goal: to encourage Jews that God is gracious to Jews and Gentiles alike who work for him.

Need: Jews, the long time people of God believed they deserved more than the new Gentile believers.

Sermon Theme, Goal, Need:

Theme: God gives graciously to all those who answer his call.

Goal: to motivate Christians to work gladly with all others who answer God’s call.

Need: Christians tend believe God values long time Christianity more than the short term.

Textual Outline:

Vs 1-7: Calling the workers

Morning: a denarius

3rd hour: A fair wage

6th hour: A fair wage

9th hour: A fair wage

11th hour: Rebuke for standing idly

vs8-10: Making the last first:

vs 11-12 Muttering of the first workers

vs 13-15 The Master is More than Gracious.

Vs 16- The last will be first and the first last.

Textual Notes:

Sermon Outline:

Intro
Called
Calculating Income
Critiquing the boss
Correct Income
Conclusion

Sermon in Oral Style:

Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ,

Learn how to get every penny you deserve. That’s one of the lines that I heard from a self-help person with ads on TV. He said that he could raise your personal income up to 100,000 dollars a year if you followed the steps that he claimed.

Get every penny you deserve.

We take that mentality with us in most of the financial moves we make. When you sell a house, how do you get every penny out of it that you deserve. When you try for a raise in your company. When you do a job for someone. When you get a new job. How do you get every penny that you deserve?

That’s really what getting every penny we deserve is all about. Its about other people seeing how valuable we really are. We are offended when someone gives us less than we feel we rightfully deserve.

How about among Christians? Does it happen here in the body of Christ? Do we try to have other people see how valuable we really are? Do we think we deserve much more than we are getting?

If you go to some of the old churches you will notice that the front pews were fancier than the rest of them. The richest people in the congregation were entitled to better pews with some cushions right up at the front so people would know how much more spiritually superior those rich folks were.

Today’s church might still have some of that status difference between those with much and those with little. In the church today and in the world today, we have our own ways of making ourselves feel like we deserve more than others.

In a congregation, many times the long time established people of the church have a feeling that they are some how more valuable members than those who have just come to know Christ. Or you see it in real family oriented churches. If you are not related to the great patriarch or matriarch of the church, you really don’t count for a whole lot.

Our passage this morning helps remind us for our week ahead that we all will get every penny we deserve from Christ. Christ gives generously to everyone who accepts his call. Christ gives more than every penny we are worth when it comes to eternal blessings.

For Matthew as he is writing his gospel, it is already after Jesus had died and rose again. He is trying to correct the superiority complex of the Jewish believers. The Jews have a superiority complex. They believe they deserve more from God for their faithfulness.

We can understand why they might feel that way. Just think about how you would feel. The most monumental moment of faith would be the coming of the Messiah when he would bring back the power of the Jews. Then when the Messiah does come, he preaches a message of salvation to all people.

That just isn’t fair. The Jews had waited for over 6 centuries for the savior. And they have been the only people of God for over two thousand years. You better believe they think they have a special place with God even when Jesus tells them to go into all the world telling everyone to believe in him.

The first thing Christ tells in this story is, yes there are people called at different points in history and in life.

There is this landowner. He has a vineyard and he needs people to work it for him. At five different times he goes out to find people. At Six AM, he goes out finds some workers for the vineyard. He makes a deal with them, you work for the day and I will pay you a denarius… which was usual days wages.

That’s just the first group. Then he goes out again at 9 AM, Noon, and 3 PM. The landowner promises them a fair wage for their day of work. They all agree also.

The fifth time he goes out, he almost reprimands the guys that he finds standing around. Verse 6 & 7. “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.’[1]

Christ’s kingdom is just like this. Over the scheme of all time, the Jews were the first ones called, then the rest of the people were called by God. We Gentile are just the newbies when it comes to the grand scheme of being welcome by God.

But also in the kingdom of every lifetime, there are people who were called decades and decades ago. There are people who have been living out their faith so long they don’t remember a time when they weren’t living for Christ. But in the kingdom of God today there are people who have just heard that call in their heart. Those of us who count the time we have been saved by Christ in days and hours instead of by years.

God calls people all the time, at different times.

From Calling to Calculating payment. At the end of the work day, Christ tells how this landowner called together those workers to give them their pay. He lines them up. The ones who worked the most get paid last. The ones who lazied around all day until the last hour get the paychecks first.

The way the master calculates the payment is the most ridiculous thing he could have ever drempt up. He starts with the people who worked one hour. Each one of them gets a denarius!! Can you imagine what the guys at the end of the line are starting to think. They are calculating their income. If the boss is handing out a denarius for every hour worked, they would haul in two weeks of income from a day of work. Not bad.

That’s the way we calculate our spiritual income. The more I do, the more blessings there are.

God calculates it differently. If you have had the Holy Spirit for a day or a lifetime, the reward is eternal life with Christ. In the kingdom, you will either you don’t get the reward or you get it completely. There are no extra perks for years of service.

The Jews hearing what Christ taught would have been appauled just like the workers who had been at it all day already. Verse 10-12 sound like any grumbling employee. ‘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.’[2] Master, that is not fair.

The Jews in Jesus day were thinking, we have waited through the worst for the coming messiah. Now you are telling us that salvation is for everyone. You’ve got to be kidding me. Jesus, that just isn’t fair.

It’s not fair. It’s more than fair. It’s compassionate, gracious, loving. It’s incredible that our God works that way. That’s the way God calculates blessings through Christ.

What really is God’s word asking us for? Humility! It’s always asking us first of all to be humble. Take yourself down a notch or two. We really aren’t that great. We really don’t have it all together. The work that we do for the kingdom is not all that perfect. We just do the best we can. That’s all. Whether this is the first time inviting someone to church. Or the first time serving on the council. Or the first time volunteering for Sunday school teaching. We humble ourselves. But take pride in the work that God has called us to do.

Humility is what we hear most in the last verse of our passage. “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.”[3]

Don’t argue with the boss. What are we going to accuse him of, being too gracious? That’s all we possibly could accuse him of. Being too kind to us and everyone, being too compassionate, being too loving, healing too many people’s lives, giving everyone too great a purpose in what they do on this planet. Our God is too great!!!

Princess Dianna died ten years ago this weekend. The spotlight was always on her. And while the spot light was on Dianna it moved off of a more righteous figure who lost her life that same week. Mother Theresa.

Mother Theresa and those who serve the way she did are good examples to follow. In humility they worked through the heat of the day for the kingdom of God. In humility they passed away knowing that a reward was hers to share.

For us, work everyday for the kingdom of God. Work for the sake of Christ, and not for his reward. Rejoice that we get every penny we deserve from God, and blessings well beyond that.

This is God’s will from his word. And all God’s people say, AMEN.

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[1] The Holy Bible : New International Version. Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1996, c1984

[2] The Holy Bible : New International Version. Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1996, c1984

[3] The Holy Bible : New International Version. Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1996, c1984