No Room for Envy

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsack takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called

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Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in. Well, good morning, everybody, and thanks a lot to Spencer for making announcements this morning.

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I'm Don Filsack. I'm the lead pastor here, for those of you that aren't here often. And I'm really glad, as Spencer said, just for the opportunity to gather together.

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I want to let you know that a further announcement is that the staff and the elders are going to be working on plans moving forward for the fall in the coming weeks, and it's my goal that we be able to explain a plan for what does it look like.

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Right now, we're kind of enjoying this outside time, and I love this opportunity. It's great to be out here in nature and all of that, but I don't think we want to be out here in November, right?

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How many of you want to be out here in November? Nah, probably not. So we're going to be working on that plan, and we continue to work to navigate this time with grace and with kindness and with truth.

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And so, I'd ask you to please continue to pray for wisdom for the staff and the elders as we work through this together.

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But I want to let you know that just from my personal understanding from God's word and everything, that it would take very dangerous circumstances for us to close our doors and go totally online ever again.

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What I mean by this is that we would need to be a hotspot for the spread of COVID -19 for us to move back to online -only services.

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I believe, and it's my conviction, that we must be committed to the gathering together of God's people. I've been very vocal over the years of the need that we have for face -to -face communication and interaction with one another.

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We are made and designed for community. It's in the very core of who we are. And even the most introverted among us, we still need people.

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We still need that interaction and that relationship, and so we're designed for that. The meaning of the word church in the

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New Testament, it comes from a Greek word, ekklesia. It means the called -out gathering of those who worship

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Jesus. So every time we cast church, we use the word church, we say we are the church. We are saying that we are

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His gathering. Without the gathering, we are not church. But in the gathering together and the hearing of His word and the coming together under His word together in unity, that is what makes us church.

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And so we gather to hear from His word together so that our faith is growing in the context of community together.

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And so this morning, we're going to encounter His word again. Once again, if you come to recast church, my hope and prayer is that you always encounter

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His word and that His spirit speaks something into your heart. And this is one of my favorite parables that Jesus talks about.

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We're marching our way through the book of Matthew, and we're up to the first 16 verses of chapter 20.

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And it's a straightforward story that Jesus is going to tell us this morning. But it's a story, parables are a story with a theological purpose.

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There's an intention behind it. It's not just story hour with Jesus, and oh, that was a good one, tell us another one.

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It's at the end of the day, a theological understanding of who God is and what His kingdom is.

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And that's what He's getting at in this parable. As I read the story this morning, you will likely understand everything that's said.

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It won't need a lot of explanation. The story itself makes sense. In other words, you hear the words, you hear the story, you're like,

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I can picture that. I can see that happening in my mind. Now, you might not understand all the cultural nuances, the differences between 2020

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America here in Matawan and Palestine in around 33, 30, or 30

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AD or something like that. But there's some subtle differences, but most of it's pretty easy to grab a hold of.

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And yet at the same time, as much as you're going to understand it, I believe that it will also challenge your sensibilities.

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It's going to challenge you. So listen, as I read the text, before we even explain it, before we go to the sermon, before we go to worship,

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I want you to listen for the challenge and see where it confuses your heart or where it rubs you the wrong way.

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Listen for the way it makes you feel as you hear it. Sometimes the parables are meant to evoke some kind of an emotion or a feeling within you.

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So how does this make you feel as you hear what could very well be perceived as inequity, as unfairness, as injustice?

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How much tolerance do you have for what is your perception of inequity?

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How much are you able to look at the blessings of others with gladness for them as your hands are empty?

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Are you able to do that? His kingdom is like that in this parable.

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The kingdom of God is not a kingdom with room for envy, no room for jealousy, and no real room for demands of justice.

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So before we read, I would like to share an intentionally shocking quote from D .A. Carson. D .A.

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Carson is one of my favorite professors of New Testament study. Every once in a while, he throws out a gem that has a little bit of an edge to it.

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And I love it because he's a real down -to -earth guy who's very egg -headed and has written stuff that's hard to understand and I have to read it twice just to get it.

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But then every once in a while, he throws something out that's so practical and a zinger. And this one's a zinger. He says this about this passage.

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Do you, think about it, do you really want nothing but total effective, totally effective, instantaneous justice?

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How many of you at the core of your heart would just admit right now, what I want is justice? I really would like to have justice on this planet. Anybody? Anybody?

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Well, he says, if you want that, do you really want nothing but totally effective, instantaneous justice?

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If that's what you want, then go to hell. That is the place where there's instantaneous justice for all.

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Everybody gets what they deserve right away. That's what he's trying to get at there.

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We all deserve, every single one of us, whether we believe it or not, whether we're really able to look at the depth of the darkness in our own hearts, we all deserve an eternity of condemnation based on the holiness of God and our sin against him.

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So any grace, any goodness given to us that is short of eternal condemnation, that is short of hell, is an act of immense mercy and kindness from the hands of our maker.

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So let's open our Bibles. Look for the offense in this. Look for the way that it rubs you the wrong way. Look for the feeling.

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Matthew chapter 20, verses 1 through 16, you can open up in your device or in your copy of the

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Bible or whatever you have there. But follow along as we read this passage together. Recast a privilege to hear from God and let him convict us and transform us.

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

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After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace.

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And he said to them, you go into the vineyard too and whatever is right, I will give you. So they went.

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Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. And about the 11th hour, he went out and found others standing.

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And he said to them, why do you stand here idle all day? They said to him, because no one has hired us.

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He said to them, you go into the vineyard too. And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last up to the first.

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And when those hired about the 11th hour came, each of them received a denarius.

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Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius.

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And on receiving it, they grumbled at the master of the house saying, these last workers worked only one hour and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day in the scorching heat.

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But he replied to one of them, friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius?

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Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you.

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Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge me my generosity?

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So the last will be first and the first last.

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Let's pray as Dave comes to lead us. Father, I thank you so much for your word that deals with even just the corruption of our hearts and the perception of inequity and the perception of what we deserve and what we've earned.

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And Father, I pray that you would press down into every heart that is gathered here this morning your grace, your unmerited favor, your intense and amazing love shown to us in giving us anything or we have by no means earned any of our salvation.

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So Father, I pray that you would give us joy and delight in knowing that you have loved us, that you have saved us.

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But I pray that you would protect us and preserve us from the envy and the comparison and the competition that so easily creeps into our fallen sinful hearts where we look at others and we think, oh, they're more blessed or they're more blessed or how come they get that or how come they get to go to heaven and they've sinned their entire life and here at the last hour they get eternity with you while we've served you our whole lives.

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And so Father, I pray that you would protect our hearts and root that out where we see it and where it's found, where your

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Holy Spirit finds it in us. I pray that you would do holy surgery on our hearts and remove the envy and the competition and the comparison games that we entertain so regularly.

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And Father, that even now we come on a level playing field to worship you. I pray that you would just allow us to make a joyful noise before you as you're saved and redeemed people here in this community.

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In Jesus' name, amen. Well, let me encourage you to get comfortable and keep your

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Bibles open to Matthew 20, one through 16. Get back to that place in your

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Bible or your app. And I want to start off with a question. How many of you have problems in your life that come about because you look around at others?

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Because you actually can look and see what others have. You can look and see their quality. You can look and see what they look like.

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You can see all of these things. And so some of our problems in life come about because we have eyes, don't they?

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Because we can see others and that can tend to be a problem. You look around and you see a coworker that gets a promotion and a raise, but it's not just any promotion or any raise.

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It's the promotion and raise that you thought you were going to get, right? The other toddlers in your kid's playgroup already speak

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French, Latin, and a little bit of Mandarin. And your kid's over in the corner eating Play -Doh, right?

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You know what I'm talking about. And so, I mean, we get these comparison games going in our hearts, right?

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Or maybe it just seems, just a general sense, I can never get ahead. While you look around and everybody else is driving nice cars, taking dream vacations and living in their mansions, and you just keep getting hit with medical bills and car repairs and you feel like, when's that going to end?

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When am I going to get my break? And all of these comparisons are possible without the bigger comparisons of life, right?

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Life in America, comparing yourself to the wealth of Jeff Bezos or the ingenuity of Elon Musk or the really, really, really, really, really good looks of Ben Stiller, right?

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You can... Three of you got that? It's okay. It's okay. Don't look it up then, you're fine.

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But Jesus wants to talk to us about comparisons. He wants to talk to us about comparisons and talk to us about envy and jealousy this morning.

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He wants to deal with every single one of us through this parable. The reason he addresses this here in this context is with a specific purpose.

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It's that his disciples were plagued with some of the common human problems of comparison that we're going to see even later in chapter 20, but we already saw it before in chapter 19.

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And even to some degree, the text that we saw a couple of weeks ago in chapter 19 was driven by a comparison that came from Peter.

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You see, the rich young ruler would not give up his wealth to follow Jesus, but Peter and company had given up everything and so he asks,

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Peter asks at the end of chapter 19 to explain what's in it for us, Jesus. What do we get?

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We've given up a bunch for you. What's in it for us? So Jesus did indeed tell them that there were benefits that were coming to them and a hundred fold investments and we talked about that a couple of weeks ago.

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But now what Jesus is doing is to make sure that his disciples know that his kingdom is not one of looking around and looking at the rewards that he chooses to give to others.

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You see, in the conversation about rewards, our hearts can quickly turn to envy and to jealousy and comparisons.

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So in speaking about rewards, which are indeed genuine motivations that are offered by Jesus for those who are in his kingdom, he wants to be sure that his followers know that we are not to be looking around to others, comparing our blessings to the way that God blesses others.

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This recast is not a race against each other in this kingdom.

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It is a celebration together of the grace we have received in Christ. So the comparison and competition that comes so naturally to the human heart is not the stuff of his kingdom.

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And so Jesus starts in verse one by bringing us into a story. I love how he's a master teacher and he tells stories that hit us in awkward places and in awkward ways in our hearts.

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He says the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house. He's obviously has in mind a wealthy, wealthy landowner who has at least one vineyard, maybe multiple in his mind, but at least one, if he's only got one vineyard, he's got a very large one because it needs a lot of workers.

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And this landowner went out in the early morning to find some day laborers to help him bring in the harvest for his vineyard.

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Now a word about the process, this process that we don't understand because of the cultural divide between us and them.

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We don't routinely run down to the Texas corners market to get us some workers for the day, but they did.

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That is the way that the culture worked in that day and age. And although I don't want to make too much of it, we need to understand a little bit of what a day laborer is to understand what we're talking about.

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As a side note, the day laborer was one of the lowest of lows in society. They were like the homeless person holding up a cardboard sign that says, will work for, will work for food.

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You've seen it. So you see to be a day laborer in those days required a couple of key things to be true of you.

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You would not be at the marketplace looking for work if there weren't some problems in your life.

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There must be problems for you to be there. And here's the types of problems to be a day laborer.

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They're looking for work on the day that you hope to work means you don't have your own field to work.

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You don't have a field. Well, I mean, in an era and a time of subsistence, subsistence farming, which means that you eat what you grow to not have your own plot would matter, wouldn't it?

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No means to grow your own crop. And so you're looking to make some bucks helping somebody else.

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And further, the second thing is that you don't have a family farm to work.

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So not only, I mean, in those days, in that day and age, this guy wouldn't be sitting in the market looking for work because he would have had, he would have had his dad's farm to lean on or his uncle's farm or his brother's farm.

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So the person that's there in the market looking for daily work has some issues in their lives already.

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And the third thing is that you are not housed by a master who provides food and lodging for you.

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Now, in some instances, the day laborer, and this is from research that I did, was worse in some ways than even a slave in ancient

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Palestine. You see, the day laborer often didn't know where he was going to sleep that night.

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The day laborer wasn't sure whether they would have the means to buy food from day to day to day.

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At least the slave had a place to sleep and food. They knew where their next meal was coming from. But the work day for an agricultural day laborer here was also a long and hard, laborious day.

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It began at sunrise, according to the Talmud, an ancient Jewish document that talked about life and society in this ancient time.

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It would begin at sunrise and ended when the first star would be seen in the sky.

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How many of you think that's a pretty long, especially in the summer months, that's a pretty long day? Sunrise to the first star.

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And the division into hours is a bit fluid so that our modern translations want to make it logical for our mind and so it divides it up nice and easily.

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But in that ancient time, have you ever thought about how an hour worked? And how did the day get divided up in terms of what a day was?

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They didn't have Apple watches to tell us Apple time. And so this vintner, this owner of a vineyard goes out at sunrise and hires some day laborers.

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They agree to work for a day's wage, a denarius. And we can only translate into whatever you feel is a fair wage for a daily worker.

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And so maybe this is $100, maybe this is $120 or whatever you think in your mind is a fair wage for labor for a day's work.

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That's what's going on here. Any offers? Hey, come and work for me for the day and I'll pay you a denarius.

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And they're like, sure, they sign on. And off they went into his harvest field. And about nine o 'clock in the morning, he came back for more workers and he did this at noon, he did it at three o 'clock in the afternoon as well.

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But those that he hired at 9 a .m., noon, and three, he didn't even tell them how much he was going to pay them.

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All he told them was that he would pay them a fair wage. And hear me carefully recast, these workers trusted the landowner.

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And they went to work for him, not even sure what they would be making, but just trusting that it would be fair.

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But here's the kicker. At the 11th hour, in other words, about an hour before sunset, the owner of the vineyard goes to get more workers.

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And he found men still desperate for some work. At that late hour, there were still guys there, there were still people there eager to work.

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And they would have been people who had been overlooked all day. I don't think it's unreasonable to identify these 11th hour hires as people who have not been deemed worthy workers.

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Why are they still there at the 11th hour? They've been standing there all day according to verses 6 and 7.

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People have come to hire from the pool of day laborers all throughout the day. Even this guy overlooked these people early on.

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But no one has hired this batch of workers. I don't know what it is about these workers.

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Maybe some of them were hobbled, some of them were unable to, they just didn't look healthy. Maybe they were sick.

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I don't know what it was, but they weren't hired throughout the day. So the great farmer sends them to his vineyard for the last hour of work.

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Well, the first star appears in the sky, and in verse 8, it comes time to settle up with the workers at the end of the day, give them their wages, and send them home.

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And so the owner tells his foreman, gather them all and let's settle the accounts in reverse order.

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We're going to settle with the workers that were hired at the 11th hour all the way up to those who were hired at 6 o 'clock in the morning.

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And so in verse 9, we know, here comes the turn. Those who worked for only one hour in the cool of the evening received, what?

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A denarius. Yes, they did. They were given a full day's wage. They had gone to work trusting the landowner to pay them fairly.

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A reasonable assumption is that they're going to get one twelfth of a denarius, right? Do you see the math there? Do you understand why that would be the logical amount?

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Well, I've only worked for an hour, so I expect to only get one twelfth of the amount. And instead, they received an abundance of grace.

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An abundance of grace. The landowner paid them a full day's wage for only one hour of work. In recast,

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I have a question for you. Do you see the grace and kindness of this farmer? Raise your hand if you see his grace and his kindness.

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What you perceive here is that he is being kind and generous. You can see it.

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And I would suggest to you that sitting outside of the story, I think we can all respect his undeserved kindness towards these eleventh hour workers.

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Well, those who worked all day thought they were going to receive more, according to verse 10. How many of you would assume you were going to receive more if you had worked all day long and you watch him give the eleventh hour workers a denarius?

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You're like, yep, this, okay, wow, this guy's generous. Am I going to get, what are you thinking? Anybody doing math out there?

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Twelve days? Am I going to get twelve denarii? Is that where this is going? Like, I mean, you're kind of, you know, you'd be just like celebrating and enthusiastic and excited.

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If the master gives one, a denarius for one hour of labor, what's he going to give to those who faithfully served him all day long?

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Well, with that buildup, you can understand why they would be crestfallen when they received a denarius.

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The same thing offered for one hour of work was offered for those who had worked for twelve hours. And this would be a good time to place yourself in the story.

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Move yourself around from role to role to role in this story and think about how you would feel.

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What would it be like to be the farmer? Wow, I'm a kind and generous individual. I'm so gracious. Move yourself to the eleventh hour laborer.

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How are you feeling? Wow. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I didn't earn this, but wow, what grace.

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And maybe even just an add -on. Can I come and work for you tomorrow? Like, how does the eleventh hour look for you? Because I'm open.

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Do you know what I'm talking about? Like, I mean, maybe we could just be back here at the same place, same time? You can picture it, can't you?

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What would it have been like to be that eleventh hour laborer? But now, but now, and I think you know where this is going.

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Now place yourself in the shoes of those who worked all day long.

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Put yourself in those shoes. You worked through the cold dew of the morning, groggy and sore from your labor yesterday.

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You worked through the steamy humidity as the sun baked off the dew in the late morning. You fried in the afternoon through the afternoon sun.

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I don't know, how many of you have been to a vineyard before? There's a lot of vineyards around here, aren't there? You see the vineyards. How much shade is there in a vineyard?

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There's not shade in a vineyard. You don't want shade in a vineyard unless you're the one behind Rob and Carrie that's kind of not growing anymore.

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There's plenty of shade in that one. There's a lot of trees growing in that one up on Red Arrow. Yeah, you don't usually have shade in a vineyard.

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You worked through the evening. How many of you have ever done hard labor like this?

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I think many of us have. If you've done this kind of hard work, you know what it's like when you're tired behind your eyes and your feet are sore and your legs just inexplicably.

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Maybe you're in good shape and you're still exhausted after being on your feet all day long.

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Depleted energy, exhaustion. You worked through that 11th hour just longing for the first star.

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You keep glancing up going, can I quit? Is it over? How many of you here have detasseled corn?

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Some of you. Okay, I detasseled corn. My kids just wrapped up a season. It's good character building work, isn't it?

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It's good work around here. I worked for three summers from late middle school into high school and my description of laboring in the fields that I just gave you was taken from personal experience out in the fields.

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Those cold mornings where you're walking through the corn and you're just drenched and then all of a sudden the sun is there and it's just beating down on you.

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You would not want to see my flesh and how I would respond after a long day of detasseling if I found out that those who worked one hour made the same amount as me.

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You know what I'm talking about? How many of you get riled up at the thought of that? How many of you, if you really put yourself in the shoes of the 6 a .m.

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worker, you're getting a little frustrated with the story? Go ahead and be honest. Are you a little frustrated with the story?

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I think it's reasonable for us to be frustrated with the story. I would ask to speak with a manager faster than a

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Karen that served cold coffee. I mean I would just be on it. I'd be like, I demand to speak to the manager like right now and I'm not moving and no, you're not getting in line and you're not getting your coffee until I talk with a manager.

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I want a warm cup of coffee. How are you feeling? Not what are you thinking?

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But how are you feeling as you hear Jesus, our Lord and master and king, tell the story about the way that things work in his kingdom?

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Is Jesus challenging your thoughts? Is he challenging your understanding? Is he trying to teach you something new?

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I believe that he is. Those who worked all day, of course, grumbled to the master.

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We've carried the burden of the whole day while these slackers only worked the last easy hour.

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But the master replies to the complaint and he calls the Karen and the text friend and he says, didn't you agree to work for a denarius?

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Didn't we have a contract? Didn't we have an agreement at six o 'clock this morning? We were here. We talked. You said denarius.

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I said denarius. You were good with that. You got what you agreed to work for.

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Did you not? And in verses 14 and 15, the emphasis is on the choice of the master to do what he wants to with his own stuff.

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He has the freedom to bless who he chooses to bless. The master in this case chose to give the same reward to all of his workers.

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And in verse 15, we ask two rhetorical questions. Am I not allowed to do what

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I want with my own stuff? Well, how many of you know by this point that the master is God?

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How many of you know that that's where the parable is? The master is God. Is he not free to do what he wants with his own stuff?

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And more pointedly, he asks you, do you begrudge my generosity? The word begrudge there is a really interesting word in Greek.

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It actually means evil eye. Do you have an evil eye towards my generosity? Again, that notion that so much of our problem comes through what avenue?

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The avenue of our sight. We see them drive in with a nice car. We see their house.

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We see them get the promotion. We see, we see, we see, and so much evil comes into the heart through, well, really the evil is in the heart, but it's expressed through the eye.

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Do you begrudge my generosity? The second question really gets down to the heart issue.

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Without the generosity of the master shown, giving lavishly to the 11th hour workers, those who worked all day would have been satisfied with a denarius.

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If you really get down to it, if everything works the same way, but you don't hire anybody from nine o 'clock on, and you just work all day with those that were hired at the beginning, how many of you think that this story ends differently?

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Do you get what I'm saying? You show up at the end, he reconciles the count, gives everybody a denarius, they walk away, no grumbling, no complaining, because there's no comparison.

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There's no envy. There's no sense of feeling that I've been treated unequally, even though you've been given exactly what you needed.

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They were satisfied with the denarius, until someone that they thought unworthy of a denarius received a denarius.

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Craig Blomberg, a New Testament scholar that I read this week on this says, little seems more unequal than the equal treatment of unequals.

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It is the comparison that makes this kingdom seem unfair.

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And if we compare, we will find what we perceive to be unfairness even in the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

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If you compare, what do I have compared to what others have, and his final statement in verse 16, so the last will be first and the first will be last, recast, hear me carefully, this is preparing your heart.

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This is preparing your heart for surprises. You will be surprised.

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We have in our mind classifications, and Jesus says that we are wrong when we classify.

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Are you ready to be wrong in your assessment of who is and isn't deserving of a reward? We ought to practice now getting rid of comparisons that yield a hierarchy in our mind of worthiness in his kingdom.

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And further, more pointedly, we must stop trying to be first.

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The kingdom is not made up of competition. The kingdom is not made up of comparison. The kingdom is made up of un, hear me carefully, undeserved grace and mercy to all.

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You see, recast, as much as we want to identify with a bunch of different characters in this, do you know what you really are?

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Do you know what I really am? We are all 11th hour workers, every single one of us.

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As arrogant as we may want to be in identifying ourselves as the ones who have worked all day and earned the denarius, we did not.

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We have, to a person, come late. We have come desperate.

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We have been overlooked. We have nowhere near earned what we have been given.

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Do you feel it? Do you identify with the 11th hour hire?

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So let's apply this passage down two different lines of thinking as we wrap up our service. We might even get out a little early this morning.

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But on the surface, ask yourself this this morning. This is on the surface. By the way, the parables sometimes have a deeper idea and a surface idea.

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So a lot of these things, you can apply the wealth and the way we look and compare in this life now, but there's also a spiritual component.

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So here's the surface level. Ask yourself this question, can God choose to bless some with extra and not bless others in his kingdom?

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Can he choose that? Is he free to do so? I think all of us, I see even some of you nodding right now, of course the answer is yes.

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But here's the deeper question for you. Can you be okay with it?

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Can you be okay with him giving extra blessings to some? In the material world, we see disparity and unevenness all around us.

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We don't all have the same house. We don't all drive the same car. We don't even have all the same income or the same upbringing or the same potential or the same, as the world calls it, privilege right now.

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This is a reality. Now it isn't really merely a political issue, it's an issue of looking at what is real in front of us.

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We don't all have the same. It's a reality. For this reason, it is so great that Jesus tackles this idea head on.

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When we enter his kingdom, we give up the competition. We give up the comparison game that says we all have to drive the same car.

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We all have to have the same house. We all have to have the same income. We give that up. I mean,

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I think that we could liken it to this, really, at the end of the day. We're like a people who have gone through a tragic plane crash and survived like those people who landed on the

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Hudson River, not us, so lost. How many of you saw that movie or you know what I'm talking about? It was a crazy account.

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Can you imagine what life would look like a week after you crashed on the Hudson River? How many of you are jealous of somebody else's house a week after that happens?

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Do you know what I'm talking about? How many of you are just glad that you survived? That is like the kingdom, where we just can't get over the gift that we have been given by what we received that we did not earn and did not deserve.

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When it comes to his kingdom, we are a diverse people, united by one common and ever -important truth.

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We are no longer destined for hell, but bound for his eternal and glorious kingdom.

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Now, I don't care what car you drive, how big your house is, I'm still over here celebrating salvation in Jesus, and I will be for my entire life, and I pray that for you, too, for gladness and joy that goes beyond the circumstance, that goes beyond the stuff of this world, to the greatest and most awesome joy of all, salvation in Christ.

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The second question that you need to ask yourself, kind of still remaining on the surface level of stuff, is do you begrudge his gifts to others?

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This is the second rhetorical question that we see in verse 15. We need to cultivate an attitude of celebrating with each other.

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Can you celebrate others' promotions? Can you celebrate in your community group when others are blessed, when there are raises, when there are acquisitions, when there are new good things happening in the lives of others here, church?

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Does his generosity toward others put you out?

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Does it make you grumble? Does it make you want to talk to the manager, ream him out?

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Come back to the cross, church, where we remember clearly what we deserved. Even as we come to communion this morning,

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I encourage you to celebrate the greatest gift you've ever been given. When you take communion, by the way, don't get it out yet, we've got a couple more points, but when you take communion, you're testifying when you take the cracker and you take that juice to remember his body and his blood that was given for you, that you are a recipient of something far greater than any lottery winner.

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You have won in Christ. It's amazing.

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In Christ, you found eternity. You have been forgiven in Christ by the

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Almighty. And so lastly, in closing, let's look at this from a spiritual perspective.

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We look at the material and can we deal with the way that God blesses people on this realm and doesn't, you know, he doesn't owe me anything.

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But from a spiritual perspective, the first question, can you celebrate the salvation of a person who has lived it up their entire life and then come into a salvation in the eleventh hour?

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Spiritually, can you be happy about that? And that leads to the second question. Do you envy their lazy youth?

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Do you regret that you served Jesus in the long, hot hours of your youth? Or are you glad that he captured your life at an early age?

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You see, here's what this is all driving towards as we conclude. Comparison materially on the surface or comparison spiritually deeper is not the way of his kingdom.

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The way of his kingdom is the way of recognizing his generosity and being thankful that you have been granted anything from his hand.

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So during this next song, if you've asked Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior, then let's take communion and remember the great grace that we've been given in Jesus Christ.

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Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for your grace and I pray that it would pour out on your people here in terms of dealing with our sins, dealing with our comparisons, our competition, our jealousy, our envy.

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Father, that you would move in our hearts to be able to celebrate with one another the victories and the great blessings that you give while at the same time being thankful for the ways that you bless us as well.

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Fundamentally, we are a church and so that just means that we have this one awesome glorious gift in common and that is that we have been granted salvation in your

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Son and a hope for eternity. Thank you for that and I thank you that as we come to communion right now, we take the juice and take the cracker to remember your

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Son's body and blood shed for us. I pray that you would move in our hearts with gratitude and thankfulness of the great and awesome gift you have given to us that is nothing less than eternity in Jesus.