The 11th Hour Workers

Matthew 20 and the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard

Well, if you would turn with me to Matthew 20, Matthew 20, and I'll read the first 16 verses. Before we read, let's let's ask the Lord's blessing. Our Father in heaven, we thank you, Lord, that you have gathered us together, that, Lord, you are the one who sought us out, that it was in your mercy and compassion towards us who were lost and even enemies, Lord, that we were running away from you, that you sought us out.

We thank you, Lord, that you've delivered us from this present evil world and that you have made us sons and daughters of the Lord Jesus Christ. Help us to grow in grace in the days ahead. We pray, Lord, for our meeting this morning, that you would bless your word and that you would, that it would be edifying to all of us, and we ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen. All right, Matthew 20, verse 1, I'll begin. For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder which went out early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the laborers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard, and he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and said unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you.

And they went their way. Again, he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise. In 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 you receive. So when evening was come, the Lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, 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. But 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 a good man 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. Dint'st 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 my own?

Is thine I evil, because I am good? So the last shall be first, and the first last. For many be called, and but few are chosen. Well, when you heard this reading just now, did you find yourself sympathizing with the older workers, the ones that were hired first?

Did their complaint resonate with your heart as they tell the landowner, These who were hired last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.

And you might say, you know, they have a point. Something doesn't seem right about that. It does seem a bit unfair. Those last hour workers only worked an hour, and it wasn't as hot. They weren't in the sun, most likely, and they all got paid the same.

Or did you do this? Did you think, as this was being read, you know, this is really a great story. It's a wonderful thing that those 11th hour workers got a full day's pay from such a generous landowner.

I think if we're really honest, that's not our go-to mode. We view ourselves through the lens of human fairness, rather than God's fairness, which is grace. It's one of the most difficult things for our flesh to grasp.

We've been taught from an early age that fairness matters, right? Fairness matters. Just watch a bunch of kids play, and it won't be long before you hear one of them say, that's not fair. Our idea of fairness is based on what you deserve.

How hard you work, what you achieve. We live in a wage-based society. A deserving, rewards-based model in which you earn what you get, and you deserve the consequences, good or bad, of your actions.

And I don't know many who would disagree with that. That's how we're wired. That's how how we think. But what happens when divine fairness trumps human fairness? Well, you get today's parable, today's story, and what it tells us about the Lord.

The bottom line is this, God feels no need to do what we expect him to do, except for what he promises in his word to us. God's economy is not based on what we deserve. It's based on what God wants to give.

He doesn't have to give anything to anyone, ever. His economy is not based on deserving, but it's based on his compassion. And it's very difficult for us to cling to this truth at times. Now remember what grace is.

Grace is giving benefits to those who are undeserving, which is every worker in our parable, every one of us. Grace makes us happy when we receive it, but grace can make us angry when we see others get what they don't deserve.

And this is one of the dangers of God's grace, isn't it? I mean, have you ever been angry at grace? And I'll give you a biblical example of a person who was. Jonah was angry at God's grace. He was angry that God would spare Nineveh.

And he even tells God, I knew that you were a gracious God, and merciful, and slow to anger, and of great kindness. And as he saw the people of Nineveh repenting, he was so angry at God's grace that he tells God to take my life.

Take my life. It's better for me to die than to live to see this. He was angry at God for being God. Let me give you a more current or up-to-date version of this story. There was a pastor from Missouri named Henry Gorecki, and he was stationed at a prison at Nuremberg at the end of World War II.

And he was a chaplain, and his ministry was to the Nazi officers while they were on trial for their crimes against humanity. And some of them came to faith in Jesus. Not very many, but some of them did.

And in time, 10 of those individuals were sentenced to death. And the first one to face the hangman's noose was Hitler's foreign minister, Joachim von Rippentrop. He was a brutal man, and he was all for the final solution, the extermination of the Jews.

And as he's standing there before he's to be hanged, an American officer asked him for his last words. And he responded, I place all my confidence in the Lamb who made atonement for my sins. And then he turned to Pastor Gorecki, who was there, and he says, I will see you again.

Moments later, the trap door opened beneath his feet, and he breathed his last. Now, Pastor Gorecki received a lot of mail. Some of the mail gave thanks to God for enabling the gospel to reach into the hearts of these hardened war criminals.

But he got other letters, too, condemning him for reaching out to them, that he should have been hung along with them for his work. Those people were angry at grace. And so Jesus tells us this parable to warn us of this very thing, to warn us of the danger that grace can cause our hearts to have towards others who receive it.

And the context of the parable is that, going back a little bit, is that Jesus had been talking to Peter and his disciples, and this is when the rich young ruler approached. And he says, good teacher, what good thing shall I do to inherit eternal life?

And Jesus tells him, go sell all that you have, and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come follow me. But the man walked away, rejecting Jesus. And we read that the disciples were astonished.

They were astonished. And Peter chimes in. He says, Lord, we've left everything to follow you. I know that that man didn't want to leave everything to follow you, but we've left everything. What are we going to get?

Can you imagine saying that to the Lord? I've done this, and I've done that, I've done this. What am I going to get, Lord? So Jesus, of course, understands that they're not, they're very much like the thinking of the rich young ruler.

What must I do? What am I going to get? And so, but Jesus answers him graciously. He says, yeah, Peter, you're going to sit upon the 12 thrones, and judge the 12 tribes of Israel, and everyone who's forsaken everything for my name's sake will receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life.

So Jesus assures Peter that everyone who follows him will receive more than they could ever give up. But then Jesus says this amazing thing, because he sees that the disciples have a misunderstanding as to the thinking of the rich young ruler, and what the gospel is.

He says, many who are first will be last, and the last will be first. And this had to astonish Peter and the disciples. And so to awaken Peter and us to his grace, Jesus tells this amazing story here in Matthew.

Grace, Fairness, and God's Generosity

And of course, the landowner is a picture of God. The vineyard is the world. And Jesus tells us about this vineyard, this vineyard owner who goes out to hire workers at the first hour, 6 a .m. And he offers them a good wage, a denarius, which was the daily wage back then.

And these laborers depended completely on landowners giving them work like this. They weren't people who had a salary. They, there wasn't a backup plan. There was no food banks, or Salvation Army, or rescue missions.

This was all about day-to-day survival. And they needed this work for their livelihood. And here this landowner is offering all that they need for their life that day. But then the landowner goes out again at 9 a .m. to the marketplace to hire more workers.

And he says, I will give you a fair wage. Whatever is right, I will pay you. And they go and work for him. And then he goes out again at 3. And then we see the first hint that there's something very different about this landowner.

Because he personally seeks out these workers throughout the day, not just for the harvest. But it seems like his reason is to give them a livelihood, to give them life and their families. And I think Jesus is giving us a glimpse into the heart of God here.

Because it's out of God's immense love for people that he seeks them out. And it's all his initiative to offer them life, to come into his vineyard, to know him. And if you're not a Christian today, perhaps God is seeking you out, whether you know it or not.

He's seeking you out to receive the grace of knowing him. And to know the life that he can give you. The things that you truly need in life. And if you are a Christian, it's only because he searched you out.

And you responded because of his grace. He drew you to himself. You said yes to his invitation to come into his vineyard. To come to him. To stop wandering around aimlessly as these workers were doing.

Basically it's the same language, standing idle. Without his grace and hope that changes everything. So there's a picture here of this landowner seeking out as God himself does. And then we have verse six.

Where grace really begins to be revealed in our parable. Let me read that again. And about the 11th hour he went out and found others standing idle. And saith unto them, why stand ye here all the day idle?

Have you ever wondered where the term the 11th hour comes from? And what it means? It means this. It means a point in time when it's nearly too late. It's describing a situation that seems destined to end badly.

And you're just moments away from that ending. Think of the thief on the cross in his dying hour. That was the 11th hour for him. And look what Jesus does at the very last moment. He's welcomed into God's kingdom at the very last hour of his life.

And he's welcomed as warmly and as fully as Paul or David or any of us. The 11th hour is five o 'clock in our story. It's impossibly late for these workers to find work. Because the end of the day is an hour later, 6 p .m.

That's when the sun goes down. And you can just picture what these people are thinking at five o 'clock. I'm going to go home with nothing for my family. I'm going to go home empty and ashamed. No food that night or the next morning.

And how hopeless and desperate they must have felt this sense of failure. And the landowner asked them, why do you stand here idle all day? And they said, no one has hired us. And it's kind of a revealing question.

And it's likely they were not good workers, perhaps. Perhaps they were late. They got up late. Perhaps they didn't have the ability the other workers had. Maybe they weren't as strong. They could have been frail looking.

Perhaps some were disabled. They didn't know the right people. For whatever reason, they're outsiders. They're not the cream of the crop. They're the leftovers. They're the ones who are easy to ignore and not hire.

They're unemployable. But this employer hires them. He knows they're not going to be really of any use to him in his vineyard. But he went out and sought them. And you wonder what the other workers thought as they were working in the fields.

And they see these workers, these Johnny-come-latelys coming into the field at 5 o 'clock as the sun is beginning to go down. And they're saying, look at these guys. What possible help are they going to be?

They're useless. And finally, at 6 p .m., the landowner tells the foreman to gather all the workers together to pay them. And again, you can picture all these workers standing, each in their own category.

Maybe the 11th hour workers were off to the side. They were feeling a little odd, kind of shunned by the others. And then here we see the landowner. He tells the foreman to pay those last workers first.

And they were probably expecting a very small amount because they knew they only worked an hour. And then there's this huge surprise. He pays them a full day's wage. And you can imagine the joy that these workers, knowing they didn't deserve this when they received it.

And you can picture these 11th hour workers, how they felt, how excited they must have been. They weren't expecting this at all. We can go home and we can take care of our families. And this is great.

I can't believe I've received. This is more than I deserve. How can this be true? But it is true because God's grace is fully revealed in this verse. The master chooses to be generous simply because of his compassion.

He wants life for those workers, for those wandering people in the marketplace. That's us. When we look at the different hour workers, starting with the first hour workers, the 6 a .m .ers, down to the 11th hour workers, you might wonder which group of workers do I identify with?

And this parable is meant to turn the mirror on us and call us to put ourselves in the story and apply it to ourselves. So who are you? Which group are you in? Are you a first hour worker or a 9 a .m. worker?

Maybe a 3 p .m. Or maybe that 11th hour worker? Well, according to God's math, we're all 11th hour workers. When it comes to God's grace. And that's something that should change our lives and our hearts towards others.

All we have to offer God is our sin, our shame, our spiritual failure. This is what we offer him. And God hasn't brought you into his kingdom, into his vineyard, because you qualified or measured up. It's certainly not because God owed you something.

The whole point of this parable is to show that God doesn't owe us anything. It's all grace. It's simply because God is gracious. He's generous beyond our hopes, beyond anything we could ask or imagine.

And not only that, he searches for the most unlikely and most unqualified people to bring into his kingdom. And I was thinking of 1 Corinthians 1, where it says, For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble has he chosen.

It's his mercy on which you and I rest. He owes me nothing, yet he's given me everything. And the only basis of my life and your life is undeserved mercy and undeserved grace. And that's the good news.

The Danger of Grumbling at Grace

And so as we hear this, what do we do with it? What do we do with the grace that Jesus is teaching in this parable? Because in the same story, there's also a warning. And the warning shows up in the parable.

It's the 6 a .m. people, those who work longest all day. They watched these 11th hour people getting paid, and they could only think of one thing. How much more am I going to get? Sounds like Peter. Lord, we've given our all.

What are we going to get? See, that's the mindset. It's funny that the Lord Jesus does this. And can you imagine those 6 a .m. workers? They're thinking, wow, those last hour workers received a denarius, and they're nudging each other.

This is a windfall. And we hit it big. And the one guy might say, yeah, I'm going to need two hands to carry all the denarii home. And so they show up, and they come up to the foreman, expecting maybe he's got two hands out.

He gets a denarius. And they're thinking completely changes right after that. They're deeply offended, and they grumble. And they walk past the foreman, they push him aside, and they go directly to the owner, to his house.

And they say, this is not fair. This is wrong. It's unjust. Is this all we're getting? It's as if they're presenting a bill to the landowner, expecting him to honor it. And they're just like the people in Matthew 7 that Jesus spoke about.

Lord, Lord, didn't we prophesy in thy name? Didn't we cast out demons in thy name? We qualify. We deserve to be here. And what does Jesus say? He says, depart from me. We've done all these things, and you owe us.

We deserve heaven. That's a picture of those first hour workers. And notice their attitude towards the 11th hour workers. This story is very similar to the prodigal son. They have the attitude of the elder brother.

The elder brother, no sympathy, no compassion. They're very annoyed at the last group. And they say, they've done nothing. They only worked for an hour, and you've made them equal to us, who've borne the burden of the day and the heat of the day.

There's no sympathy. No sympathy for failures. No use for failures. They made their own bed. Let them lie in it. They deserve nothing. They have no right to expect anything. Look at the way you're treating them.

They deserve to be left in the marketplace. You should have left them there. What you're doing is wrong. They murmured against the good man. And notice the landowner in our text. He says, friend, I've done you no wrong.

But the original is a lot more severe. It's, man, I've done you no wrong. It's more of a rebuke. And he says, didn't I see you in the marketplace at sunrise? And I asked, who's able to work? And your hand went up right away.

You couldn't wait to get a job. Until I came, you were unemployed. You had no prospects of earning anything this day. And I asked you, will you work for me all day, helping me in my vineyard? I'll pay you a denarius.

Count me in, you said. How thankful you were to have the opportunity to work. All of you were perfectly satisfied with the agreement that I made with you. And if I would have paid you first before the other workers, you would have been happy as a clam knowing that you receive what was promised.

And the sense of this passage is just an anger in the landowner. And the truth is, neither group owned the vineyard. Both groups needed a job. Both groups were chosen. Both were invited in by no effort of their own doing.

It's the generosity of the landowner. He's the one who gave them all that they needed. And when you see that this is how you were brought into the kingdom by the generosity of God, it creates a thankfulness.

I don't deserve this. And it has a tendency to wipe out this whole idea of being upset with what happens to other people. And that's really the antidote for us. This is kind of a side issue. That, you know, God has brought you into his vineyard and he's promised you eternal life.

I mean, look at what God has promised you as his child. Some of us are always going to try to figure out whether God is doing too much for somebody else. That's our temptation. We easily grumble and say, God owes me more than what I'm getting.

And the issue is this, has God been faithful to you? Has he delivered on his promises to you? And you might look at others and say, they're doing better than I am. We question his fairness, even though we've received everything from his hand.

Everything you have is undeserved. Yet we think God should work in my life the way I think he should work. And he, and to give me what I think he should give. We begin to compare ourselves to others and say, I deserve more than they do.

And when that thinking creeps in, you begin to take your eyes off the Lord and his authority. These first hour workers, what characterized them was murmuring and complaining, just like the elder brother, not happy.

And when that thinking comes in, you can't see what Jesus has done for you and what you can't rejoice in what he's doing, not only for you, but in other people's lives. In fact, the response of grace should have been with these first hour workers, that is just wonderful that these 11th hour workers got a denarius.

That's a work of grace. And Jesus gives us this upside down story and of employment practices to show us that he's given everything to you from beginning to end. By grace, you've been saved. It always has and always will be from God's overflowing generosity.

In his love, in his authority, as the owner, he takes the initiative to give you life by the work of the cross. In the midst of your sin, in the midst of your shame, in the midst of feeling inadequate along with the troubles of this life, God's love for you is constant.

His power is made perfect in our weakness. That's God's math. The call to you and I is to live as these 11th hour workers, thankful, knowing that we don't deserve anything. We're all last minute hires, aren't we?

We're recipients of his mercy who can count blessing upon blessing from God more than we can imagine. We should be a people so overwhelmed with the goodness of God and overjoyed with his goodness to other people as well.

And Jesus is telling Peter and us, this is the way the kingdom works, Peter. The last receive a reward even equal to the first. And here Jesus is going to the cross to suffer for Peter's sins and our sins.

The perfect righteousness of Christ would be credited to Peter's account in ours. And isn't that the very nature of the gospel? That we as Christians, we receive Christ's wages. He does the work and we get the pay.

He bears the burden and the heat of the day and he puts in the full day's labor. We don't, but we get the pay. The last are given generously and are brought up to the level of the first. And that's what happens to all of us.

Aren't we called co-heirs with Christ? We inherit everything he has. We get it all and he does not begrudge us. And Jesus is telling us, I want you to know something about the math of my kingdom. It's not what you think or how the world thinks.

Jesus is telling Peter, you're a recipient of that flipping around, Peter. Don't ever forget that. When you see that this is how you were brought into the kingdom by the generosity of God, you'll be a thankful man.

It's a generosity of God that brings us into the kingdom and gives us the kingdom. It's not what we deserve. And when you look at the generosity of the father, it has a tendency to wipe out this whole idea of being upset with what happens to other people.

In John 2, verse 1, Jesus told Peter, he says, follow me. And as they were walking, the apostle John was in the back and Peter turns to Jesus and what about him? And Jesus rebuked him. He says, what is that to you?

He says, you follow me. And a good way to do this is to focus on God's grace and goodness to you. And this is a practical thing you can do. Make a mental list of things that are undeserved in your life and make a list of all his mercies to you.

All he deserves is everything. So you shouldn't have any trouble making a list, right? There's nothing you deserve. We did deserve something at one time and that was hell. But that's been, we've been delivered from that.

And so in this parable, Jesus calls us to focus on God's amazing grace and generosity to live according to this otherworldly math. And he has given us undeserved mercy so that we will mirror that mercy to others in how we walk.

So let's be thankful to the Lord that he sought you out in that vineyard for his vineyard and brought you in. All right, let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you, Lord, that you do what pleases you.

And Lord, you are a generous God beyond our comprehension and that we should always question, why would you save someone like me, Lord, who ran away from you? Yet Lord, you're the one who sought me out.

You sought each of us out and you brought us into your vineyard. Lord, we're so thankful that you still continue to do this today. We pray for our loved ones that are still standing idly in the marketplace.

And Lord, that without hope, without peace, without anything, Lord. So we pray that you would use us in some capacity as to witness, to be the fragrance of Christ wherever we go. Thank you for our time together, that you would bless the rest of our service.

In Jesus' name, amen.