“Is God Fair?”
(Matthew 20:1-16)
Series: God’s Fulfilled Purpose [on screen]
Rev. Matthew C. McCraw, EdD
First Baptist Church, Bartow, Florida
April 19, 2020
The Passage
Matthew 20:1-16
1 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 After agreeing with the workers on one denarius, he sent them into his vineyard for the day. 3 When he went out about nine in the morning, he saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He said to them, ‘You also go into my vineyard, and I’ll give you whatever is right.’ So off they went. 5 About noon and about three, he went out again and did the same thing. 6 Then about five he went and found others standing around and said to them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day doing nothing?’
7 “‘Because no one hired us,’ they said to him. “‘You also go into my vineyard,’ he told them. 8 When evening came, the owner of the vineyard told his foreman, ‘Call the workers and give them their pay, starting with the last and ending with the first.’
9 “When those who were hired about five came, they each received one denarius. 10 So when the first ones came, they assumed they would get more, but they also received a denarius each. 11 When they received it, they began to complain to the landowner: 12 ‘These last men put in one hour, and you made them equal to us who bore the burden of the day’s work and the burning heat.’
13 “He replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I’m doing you no wrong. Didn’t you agree with me on a denarius? 14 Take what’s yours and go. I want to give this last man the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with what is mine? Are you jealous because I’m generous?’
16 “So the last will be first, and the first last.”
Introductory Comments:
Thank you so much, Dirck, for leading us in worship through music. I’m so thankful that we can sing about God’s amazing grace! Now, let us learn about God’s amazing grace.
Please turn in your Bibles to Matthew 20. In just a moment, we’ll be starting in verse 1 and we will read through verse 16. Before we do so, let’s pray together.
(prayer)
Have you ever felt like something was unfair? Perhaps you remember when your older sibling got to go out and see a movie and you had to stay home. Perhaps you think about the person that got the job promotion over you. Perhaps you think it’s not fair that you have to stay at home all this time during the coronavirus outbreak. You see, we humans, particularly we Americans like for things to be fair.
However, we will see in today’s passage that God is not fair.
In the previous passage that we studied from the book of Matthew, Jesus ended with the idea that the last shall be first and the first shall be last. In today’s passage, Jesus revisits this and teaches us something about the fairness and the grace of God.
This passage is what we refer to as the “Parable of the Vineyard Workers.”
Let’s look at this passage together and discover what God is teaching us.
Read Matthew 20:1-16
1 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 After agreeing with the workers on one denarius, he sent them into his vineyard for the day. 3 When he went out about nine in the morning, he saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He said to them, ‘You also go into my vineyard, and I’ll give you whatever is right.’ So off they went. 5 About noon and about three, he went out again and did the same thing. 6 Then about five he went and found others standing around and said to them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day doing nothing?’
7 “‘Because no one hired us,’ they said to him. “‘You also go into my vineyard,’ he told them. 8 When evening came, the owner of the vineyard told his foreman, ‘Call the workers and give them their pay, starting with the last and ending with the first.’
9 “When those who were hired about five came, they each received one denarius. 10 So when the first ones came, they assumed they would get more, but they also received a denarius each. 11 When they received it, they began to complain to the landowner: 12 ‘These last men put in one hour, and you made them equal to us who bore the burden of the day’s work and the burning heat.’
13 “He replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I’m doing you no wrong. Didn’t you agree with me on a denarius? 14 Take what’s yours and go. I want to give this last man the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with what is mine? Are you jealous because I’m generous?’
16 “So the last will be first, and the first last.”
What a fascinating parable. Let us take away two actions that we are moved to do as a result of this passage.
First, . . .
I. We should celebrate God’s unfairness. [on screen]
Let us establish from the very beginning that God is not fair.
To be clear, when we speak of fairness we speak of what is right or what is just in light of the reality in which we find ourselves. So, again, God is unfair when it comes to dealing with those of us who are followers of Jesus and we should celebrate that.
We learn this truth in this parable: the Parable of the Vineyard Workers.
We see in the parable an agreement between this landowner and some day-laborers who agree to work for a denarius, which was about an average wage for a day’s labor at that time. This was a fair wage. These workers were looking for work, the landowner was hiring, so they agree upon a price and made a deal.
We must catch the fact that those who were hired in the morning agreed upon a denarius for their work. This fact is crucial to the parable.
Well, apparently the man needed more workers, or he simply wanted to be generous so he hired more workers. The workday was usually 6 AM to 6 PM, but the owner hired more workers around nine in the morning, and then more around noon, and then more around 3 PM, and finally more around 5 PM.
With the first, they agreed upon a denarius payment. With the others, they apparently just trusted the man to pay them what they thought was fair for their work.
We see in verse 8 that when evening came, which was probably around 6 PM, the owner told the foreman to pay each for his work. Now, this is where the story gets a little lively.
We learn that the owner said to start by paying the last ones he hired first. So, obviously, the ones who started working first had to stand and watch the last ones get paid first.
Well, what happened? Those who worked about only an hour got a denarius for their work. The others must have been thinking, “Well, if they got a denarius, surely we’ll get more. Perhaps we’ll get 10 times that much or even more!” In fact, verse 10 says, “So when the first ones came, they assumed they would get more, but they also received a denarius each.”
The ones who had started working first had begun to set their own expectations for what the landowner owed them and they thought that they deserved more.
Once they got what they originally agreed upon they thought, “Well, this is not fair!”
Now, let me tell you as a side note that this parable probably doesn’t teach you good business or management practices. However, it does paint a beautiful picture of the grace of God.
Here’s what we must understand, church: God’s grace is not fair; He doesn’t owe us anything!
The landowner was under no obligation to give those first workers a job at all. After he did, he was under no obligation to pay them more than what he agreed to pay them.
Further, it is the land owner’s money to decide what he wants to do with it. He said in verse 15,“Don’t I have the right to do what I want with what is mine? Are you jealous because I’m generous?”
Likewise, God blesses us with eternal life, and other blessings, simply because of sovereign grace that He shows to us.
God’s grace is not fair and that’s a good thing for us!
You see, if God gave us what we deserve according to His holy justice, we would all have eternal separation from God and damnation by God to punishment in Hell.
David Platt helpfully says, “God doesn’t owe us salvation for something we have done; He gives us salvation despite everything we have done.”
We have work to do for the master, church! That work is to faithfully follow after Jesus! No matter when God draws us to Himself and we start following Jesus, the reward is the same: eternal blessings from God; blessings that we do not deserve!
God gives us unearned, unwarranted, and unfair grace. We do not deserve it.
Ephesians 2:8-9 reminds us of this truth. Paul says, “8 For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift— 9 not from works, so that no one can boast.” [on screen]
Jesus says in verse 16, “So the last will be first, and the first last.” Those who think they deserve more from God may find that they get the same reward as those who only followed Jesus for a little while. However, God is free to give His grace to anyone at any time, and the reward is of the utmost value no matter when we receive it.
Here’s the key: we must not lose sight of the beauty of the reward: Jesus and eternal life with God. That’s a great gift and it’s worth us giving up our whole lives to receive.
The beauty of this reward in the midst of the ugliness of our sin shows us how great and how unfair the grace of God really is. We don’t deserve God’s grace, yet He shares it abundantly.
We should celebrate God’s unfairness.
However, God’s grace is not only for us, which takes us to our next point:
II. We should share God’s unfairness. [on screen]
We should not seek to keep God’s grace and undeserved kindness for ourselves. We should seek to share it with others.
Listen again to the complaints of the workers.
Look at verses 9-12:
9 “When those who were hired about five came, they each received one denarius. 10 So when the first ones came, they assumed they would get more, but they also received a denarius each. 11 When they received it, they began to complain to the landowner: 12 ‘These last men put in one hour, and you made them equal to us who bore the burden of the day’s work and the burning heat.’
These workers were jealous and upset because of the generosity of the owner. Again, the owner asked in verse 15, “ . . . Are you jealous because I’m generous?”
Listen, church: we should not be jealous of those who receive God’s forgiveness. We should not want God’s rewards reserved only for us. We should want God to show His mercy to whomever He wants. Praise God if He chooses to extend grace to someone!
The great thing about God’s grace is that He has enough for everyone! It can be shared boundlessly!
Illustration: Not too long ago I was invited to a trade show at the Orange County Convention Center and it was targeted towards amusement and game people. Well, one of the things they have at amusement parks is food. Once you got into the convention, everything was free. There was this entire section with free fair and amusement park food. They were French fries, ice cream, elephant ears, donuts, popsicles, cotton candy, and more. My family went off to play a game and I said, “I’ll wait for you over here by the food.” It was amazing. I caught the attention of another dad about my age and we started telling each other about all the good food in the areas where the other had not been yet. We were excited to tell each other because it was so good and it was totally free!
Listen, church, we should be excited to share the good news of the free, undeserved, unfair grace of Jesus Christ!
We must aim to tell our neighbors, our coworkers, our family, folks in the community, and more. We must take the Gospel and equip others to take the Gospel to other parts of our state, other parts of our country, and other parts of the world.
Let us share God’s unfairness!
We should not be hateful towards others or jealous of God’s grace shown towards others. Rather, we must celebrate God’s unfair grace and be the ones who deliver God’s unfair grace to others.
Concluding Thoughts:
God is the giver of all good. He is the giver of all grace, mercy, blessings, reward, forgiveness, eternal life, love, all that is good.
He doesn’t owe us anything. We are the creature, He is the Creator.
Yet, God in His grace has shown us unmerited favor. His love for us is unfair because we don’t deserve it.
That leads to our bottom line:
Bottom Line: The grace of God flows into the unfairness of God. [on screen]
(repeat)
May we never be so foolish to say to God that we want Him to give us what we deserve. No, we want His beautiful and bountiful grace.
Challenge yourself this week to capture the meaning of this passage by taking the following steps:
Weekly Challenge: [on screen]
1. Make a list of all that God owes you. [on screen]
R. C. Sproul states this convicting, yet helpful, truth, “If we were to try to list everything God owes us, it would be the easiest task we were ever assigned, one we could complete in record time. The truth is, He owes us nothing except His wrath as punishment for all our sins.”
Here’s the reality, as has already been stated, God doesn’t owe us anything.
So, this weekly challenge won’t take you very long. However, it’s still helpful to reflect upon.
2. Make a list of all that you owe God. [on screen]
Take some time and list all the ways that He’s blessed you beyond what you deserve.
God has blessed us in so many ways. It’s helpful for us to reflect upon those blessings to both gain a proper perspective and to be thankful to God for His blessings.
3. Make a commitment to celebrate the grace of God. [on screen]
How can you celebrate God’s grace this week? Take some time and celebrate the grace of God.
Don’t be deceived into thinking that God owes you something or that He owes you more than someone else. Focus on celebration and gratitude for God’s generous grace.
Let us not be like the grumpy first group of workers. Let us celebrate and rejoice in God’s grace, both when it’s shown to us and when it’s shown to others.
Closing:
If you’ve experienced God’s grace, live in gratitude, celebration, and faithfulness.
If you’ve not experienced God’s grace, He’s extending that unfair offer of grace to you today. He wants you to follow Him and His reward for you is beautiful and eternal.
(Gospel presentation)
(closing prayer)
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