Paradise for All Redeemed Matthew 20:1-16

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I remember sitting in seminary class nine years ago hearing my professor describe the difference between God's grace and His mercy.
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A simple definition of God's mercy is that God does not give us what we deserve.
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On the other hand, God's grace is defined as God giving us what we do not deserve.
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Let me say that again. God's mercy is that God does not give us what we deserve.
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God's grace is that He gives us what we do not deserve. Everyone who lives in this world apart from Christ is a slave to Satan, sin, and the world.
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In other words, one is a prisoner, and unless this person repents and believes in Christ, this person will be sent to the eternal prison known as hell.
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But here's the big question. Every believer receives mercy so that the believer never has to go to hell because Christ paid the full penalty.
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But the big question is this. Will some in heaven have an unglamorous existence while they are there because they lived an unglamorous life for the
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Lord here on earth? The question is, will it be a second -class experience for some in heaven and a first -class experience for those who lived closely with the
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Lord, who did much for the Lord in this life? What's interesting is that Jesus answers that question.
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And He answers it in the Gospels. And today we're going to see it in the Gospel of Matthew in chapter 20, verses 1 -16.
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So this time, I encourage you to turn in a Bible with me. What I'm going to do is
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I'm going to read the text and then we will go through it verse by verse. And I'm going to begin by reading the last verse of chapter 19 because that's very important as we seek to understand this text.
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But many who are first will be last. And the last, first.
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For the King 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 to them he said, you go into the vineyard too and whatever is right, I will give you.
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So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same.
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And about the eleventh hour, he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, why do you stand here idle all day?
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They said to him, because no one has hired us. He said to them, you go into the vineyard too.
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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 eleventh 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 worked only one hour and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.
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But he replied to one of them, friend, I'm 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 chose with what belongs to me?
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Or do you begrudge my generosity? So the last will be first and the first last.
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Here's our big idea. What this sermon is calling each of you to do.
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Taste the sweetness of the Lord's generosity. Taste the sweetness of the
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Lord's generosity. And we're going to say one reason why in this text and I'm not going to reveal the reason why to the very end to keep you in suspense.
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But what we'll do right now is I'm going to give you a little recap of where we were one Sunday ago. We looked at the end of chapter 19 where Jesus explained the future of a believer.
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And after we saw the story where the rich young man could not leave his wealth behind,
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Peter told Jesus that he and his disciples left everything to follow him.
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And even though the disciples had flaws, Jesus agreed. They had left their trades. They had left their old lives behind to follow
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Jesus. And what we saw is what Jesus said to them. He said, you will sit on the 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel.
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The disciples along with the church will reign with Christ during the millennial reign, the millennial kingdom.
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Those who follow Christ will receive a hundredfold. They will receive much more in the age to come than what they gave up to follow
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Jesus in this life. So in other words, it's worth it to follow Jesus.
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This is a great reminder to us. And this should encourage us to persevere through the ups and downs of the life of faith, knowing what awaits you in the future.
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Now this leads us to our text this morning that we've already read, but now we're going to zero in on, and I'm going to begin by looking at the first two verses where Jesus says 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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And he hires the first laborers. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sends them into the vineyard.
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What we see here is a parable. We've seen parables in the Gospel of Matthew. And a parable is a picture.
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It's a story to describe some spiritual reality.
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Now when we see Jesus compare the kingdom to physical realities, this is nothing new.
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We've already seen him do this in the Gospel of Matthew. We saw him do it extensively in chapter 13.
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In that chapter, Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven to a farmer sowing seed and to wheat in weeds in a field.
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He also compared the kingdom of heaven to a mustard seed, leaven, hidden treasure, a pearl, and a net that catches fish.
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If you don't remember how those images relate to the kingdom of heaven, you can go back and read them, or you can go back and listen to those sermons from chapter 13 on our church website.
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But in the two verses that we've already read, he compares the kingdom of heaven to a master of a house who hires laborers to work in his vineyard.
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Now what you will notice is that the master of the house has to find workers to work in his vineyard.
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And what we've already read in verse three is that he finds these workers in the marketplace.
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This is a common practice in the first century that men who were looking for work would be hired by the master of the house who would send them into his vineyard to work for the day.
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And at the end of the day, he would pay them. What we read in verses one and two is that he finds these men and they discuss the amount that they will be paid.
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This is how it goes for any job. When you start a job, you know, Doug just started a job, right?
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They tell Doug, this is what we're gonna pay you. And Doug says, okay, I agree. And he works. That's how any job goes.
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An agreement is made, and then you get paid what you agreed to be paid.
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In the first century, a typical day's work earned a person one denarius, the
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Roman currency at this time. The standard amount is the amount that the master of the house and his workers agreed on.
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So they're thinking, well, this is the standard amount. This is fair. We'll do it. So the workers go to the field knowing at the end of the day, this is what they will be paid.
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But the master of the house planned on finding more workers. The more workers you have, the more gets done.
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There's an old saying, many hands make light work. And the faster things get done, the more gets done by the end of the day.
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The master needs this work to get done. And of course, wants more productivity so that he has no problem finding more help.
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He's willing to go to the marketplace again to say, you know what? Let's find more workers. So this is what he does.
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Let's read this in verse three. And going out about the third hour, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace.
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So the master of the house goes back to the marketplace and finds men standing there idly. Idly means they're not doing anything.
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This does not mean that they're lazy, but they are looking for work. And if someone offers them work, they will do it.
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And the master of the house finds them. They're willing to do it. So they go to the field.
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And what we learn is that he finds them at the third hour. In the first century, the workday officially started at 6 a .m.
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Pretty early, huh? The third hour, as verse three mentions, is 9 a .m. So what we learn is that the first workers start at six, the second workers start at nine.
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And this is what the master of the house tells the new workers in verse four. And to them he said, you go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right,
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I will give you. So the master of the house tells them to work, but he doesn't tell them what he is going to pay them, like he did the first.
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The first workers know what they're gonna get paid. They're gonna get paid the standard amount for the day, which is a denarius.
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The second workers are thinking, okay, we can trust this guy. He's gonna pay us the right amount.
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Because the text says, he will pay them whatever is right. And the fact the master is paying the first workers a denarius, the standard payment for a day's wage, shows that he is fair.
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So this is a man that these workers want to work for. They know they're not going to get stiffed, but the master of the house is not done finding workers, as verse five tells us.
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So they went, going out again about the sixth hour, and the ninth hour, he did the same.
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Once again, the more workers he has, the faster the work gets done, and also the more work gets done.
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So the master of the house is glad to send more workers out into the field. What this verse tells us is that he found these men at the sixth and the ninth hour.
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The sixth hour is noon, the middle of the day. The ninth hour is 3 p .m.,
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so we're starting to get later in the day. You're thinking, well, why is he hiring more people? They're only going to work three hours.
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Remember, the workday is from six to six, 12 hours. The sun's getting very high in the sky, starting at three, starting from noon to three, and it's starting to descend, and yet the master of the house still sends these workers into the vineyard.
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And once again, as we saw with the second group, we do not hear how much they're going to make.
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Only with the first group have we heard what they're going to make, and that, of course, is the standard amount for the day of denarius.
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But we can assume he told the third group the same thing he told the second group. I will pay you whatever is right.
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Now, at this point, you would think the master of the house is done. Okay, he's got enough workers. It's getting later in the day.
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He's not done. He goes out and finds people still willing to work.
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Still people looking for work. Verses six and seven. At about the 11th hour, he went out and found others standing, and he said to them, why do you stand here idle all day?
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They said to him, because no one has hired us. He said to them, you go into the vineyard too.
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What verse six says is that he finds people in the marketplace who have not worked all day, and he asks them why this is so.
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What they tell him is that they are not standing in the marketplace because they're lazy, unwilling to work.
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They're there because no one's hired them. And so he tells them, you go into the vineyard too.
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What is remarkable is that the master of the house is willing to hire them at the very end of the day, and also that these men are willing to work at the very end of the day.
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They're probably thinking, well, we're gonna make a penny for working one hour. And the master's willing to send them out there still at this late point in the day.
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And it might not be worth it for both sides, but they agree to do this. Now the term the 11th hour should sound familiar to us.
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This is used in our common vernacular. In our day, when something happens at the last moment, people say that it happened at the 11th hour.
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When I grew up, I was a big baseball fan, and my summers were spent watching lots of twins games.
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And during the year, the teams could trade players at any time, but there came a time when the deadline came.
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And the deadline, at least back then, and maybe still is, is July 31st.
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Teams could trade at any time, but most of the trades happened right near the deadline.
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And they called these trades 11th hour trades. In our text, this fourth group of workers start their day at the 11th hour, 5 p .m.
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And the workday ends at the 12th hour, 6 p .m. Once the 6th hour hits, the workers will be called in from the field, and then the workers will find out what they are paid.
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Now we reach the end of the day, and the whole point of this parable that Jesus is driving home, he's not just telling this because he likes telling stories.
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There's a point to this. There's a spiritual meaning to this, as there is every parable in Scripture.
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And this is what 1st Sage says. 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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So the owner who hired all these workers tells his foreman, the foreman is someone who works for him, call the workers in.
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As the workers come in, they find out what they're going to get paid. Remember at the end of verse four, the master of the house said, whatever is right,
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I will give you. Only one group here knows the amount that they're going to get paid, and that's the first group.
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They're going to get paid a denarius. Everyone else is in suspense. I wonder what we're going to get paid.
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At the end of verse eight, Jesus says that they are paid their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.
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Do you remember that clause at the end of chapter 19? That's very important. Jesus said the first will be last, and the last first.
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We are going to see what this means as we go through. The first ones to receive the payment are those who came last.
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And let's see how much they made in verse nine. And when those hired about the 11th hour came, each of them received a denarius.
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Hmm, that's interesting. Those who are hired at the 11th hour, having only worked one hour, receive a denarius.
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They receive the standard payment for what one would receive for working an entire day.
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So people started at six. That's what they were going to get paid. And this is what these people get paid, and they worked one hour.
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Not a bad deal, huh? As the first workers see this, the whole time they're thinking, okay, we're going to get paid a denarius.
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And now they're probably thinking, oh boy, I wonder what we're going to get paid. Two denarius? Three denarius?
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Okay, let's see what verse 10 says. Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more.
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But each of them also received a denarius. Okay, what do you think the response is going to be?
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Are they going to be grateful? Man, I'm so glad you were generous to these people. Sadly, that's not the response.
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Verses 11 and 12, and on receiving it, they grumbled at the master of the house, saying, these last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.
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Think about this, it's probably hot. They come in all dirty and tired and exhausted and thirsty.
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And they're thinking, we might actually get paid far more than these people who only worked one hour.
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Maybe we'll get paid three denarius. Maybe we'll get paid four. But they think we got robbed.
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It's not fair. They worked one hour. We worked 12. We got the same payment.
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This isn't fair. We got a raw deal. Anyone have a job where you got a raw deal?
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Where you thought you were going to get paid something and you weren't paid what they told you you were going to get paid? That's not what's happening here, by the way.
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But sometimes you do get a raw deal, but they think they're getting a raw deal because these people are getting paid the same that we're getting paid.
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It can be easy to think in this way when people get something because someone benefited from another's generosity.
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Instead of being happy for the person who received the generosity, jealousy rises up in one's heart.
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And that's what we see here. Injustice. It's not right.
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We should have gotten better. I should have gotten that. I remember having a friend who got his whole college paid for.
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And I remember thinking, how lucky he is. And I had another friend who got his seminary paid for and again thinking, how lucky he is.
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What I should have been thinking was, how wonderful that he was a beneficiary of someone's generosity.
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That's the godly response. And if we're honest, we do this. It's easy to begrudge the generosity that others receive.
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This is the golden rule from Matthew 7 .12. Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them.
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You want to be the recipient of generosity. It's great, right, when someone's generous towards you or to me.
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We receive that and we're grateful. And we say, man, how wonderful that is. But when someone else receives it, how easy it is for jealousy to rise in our hearts.
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Now as they say this, the master responds the way he should in verses 13 and 14.
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In the first half of verse 14. Okay, so they're jealous. They're thinking we got robbed. We should be getting paid more.
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This is what the master says in response. He replied to one of them, friend,
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I'm doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go.
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The master makes it very clear that he's doing them no wrong. And why is he doing them no wrong?
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He is giving them precisely what he told them he would give them.
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He's holding up his end of the bargain. You agreed to work for a denarius.
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You're gonna get paid a denarius. Now if he agreed to pay them a denarius and he paid them something less, then we'd have a problem.
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But that's not going on here. He's paying them what he told them and he would pay them. And what he tells them is this in the second half of verses 14 and 16.
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Did you, sorry. 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 my generosity?
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So the last will be first and the first last. What he tells them is do not begrudge my generosity.
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I paid you what we agreed on and I can pay them whatever I want.
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I have decided to be generous with them and I pay them what I paid you. And then Jesus follows the parable with these important words.
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Remember we saw this at the end of chapter 19? The end of chapter 19 says many who are first will be last and the last first.
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Verse 16 says the last will be first and the first last. If you want to unlock the meaning of this passage, you have to look at those key statements.
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I remember hearing the statement the last will be first and the first last is a child.
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And it was pretty much talked about if you finish in a race last in heaven, the people who finish last in this life will be first and the next.
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Now, this is not what this verse is saying, but it is true that Christians are stepped on in this world by Satan and the sinful world system.
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It is true that God's people are maligned in this world and there is sacrifice to following Jesus. We've already seen that in Matthew where Jesus said, if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross.
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But is that what Jesus is talking about here? It is not. As we understand the first will be last and the last will be first, we need to know the context.
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And the context is that the master gives his workers the same payment for working no matter how much they worked.
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The 11th hour workers received the same payment as the first hour workers.
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And by the way, the people in the middle made the same too. Now, what topic is
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Jesus concerned with as he tells this parable, right? There's a spiritual meaning to this. Jesus is talking about the timing of one's conversion.
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In this parable, the master of the house is God. The workers in the field are believers.
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Okay, the timing of one's conversion. Some believers serve
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God from a young age. Some believe so young that they don't remember when they were saved.
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And this is my story. I don't remember a day not following Jesus. I started to see noticeable growth in college, but as far as I know,
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I've always walked with the Lord. This is the story of some of you in this room as well. You came to faith very early in the journey through life.
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For some of you, your story is a little bit different. You are like the workers who started working at the sixth or ninth hour.
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You may have been saved when you were 20, 30, 40. You joined
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God's work a little bit later, but you have still spent a good chunk of your life walking with the
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Lord. But then there are those who take a very long time to bow their knee to Jesus.
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Their life is a story of squandering most of the time that God has given them.
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Living for some fruitless cause when finally Jesus enters their life and they finally discover that which is truly life.
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That which is truly worth living for. That which is the meaning of life. I mean, think about that.
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People are going through their days living for the wrong thing. And then they die.
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And they lived their entire life for the wrong thing. What a tragedy that is.
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But people who come better late than never, right? If people come to faith late, they're not going to hell.
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At the end of chapter 19, when Peter told Jesus that he and his disciples had left everything to follow him,
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Jesus tells him that he and anyone who follows him will be rewarded. And what he told them in verse 29 of chapter 19 is that those who follow him will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.
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And as I mentioned earlier in the sermon, it means that whatever you give up in this life to follow
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Jesus, he gives you back a hundredfold in the next. So it's worth it. And Jesus says that those who follow him will receive a great reward.
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And we might think some will have a great experience in heaven while others will have a mediocre experience.
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But at least they won't go to hell. But that's not what Jesus is saying because if you look at verse 30 of chapter 19,
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Jesus says what he says at the end of our text in verse 16. Many who are first will be last and the last first.
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Jesus starts the parable with that statement and he ends the parable with that statement. In other words, you get the same thing.
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Whether you worked at the beginning or whether you started working at the end, you get the same thing.
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In one sense, this is true. Every follower of Jesus, whether you start the day with him or join him at the 11th hour of your life, gets the same thing and that thing is eternal life.
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John 17 three says, and this is eternal life, that you know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
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And you will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. That belongs to everyone.
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John 3 16 holds true for everyone. Those who believe have eternal life.
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There is not a second class heaven. There is one heaven where those who dwell there experience fullness of joy forever in God's presence.
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And we might think this is not fair, but God desires to be generous and so the thief on the cross gets heaven just as the one who has walked with Jesus from childhood gets heaven.
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Doesn't sound fair, does it? But he promises eternal life to who?
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Those who believe. Whether you believe at the beginning or whether you believe at the end.
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Jesus said to the thief on the cross, did he say to him, today you'll be with me, you won't be with me but at least you won't go to hell.
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You'll be in some second class existence forever. He didn't say that to him. Today you'll be with me in paradise.
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Think about his life. You wanna talk about squandering your life? He's a criminal.
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He's a thief. And his stealing was so bad that it reached the level where he would die on a cross.
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So this isn't some one crime committed thing. This was a pattern throughout his life.
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This is a bad guy. And yet at the end of his life, his heart softens and he believes in Jesus and Jesus tells him, you have eternal life.
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You came with me at the 11th hour and you have eternal life. Amazing.
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This thief is in heaven right now. He's experiencing fullness of joy in God's presence and he always will.
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He will be raised from the dead at Christ's return. He'll be in the millennium. He'll be on the earth, the new earth, that will last forever.
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And he only followed Jesus for a couple hours. That's it.
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And the response people often make is this, it's not fair. And Jesus says, who are you to say that?
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Do not regret God's generosity. Why does God do this? He does it to glorify himself.
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He's generous. He's far more generous than we can ever imagine. A thief who lived a miserable life, believes for maybe an hour or two or three,
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I don't know how long he was on the cross, but not very long. That's how long he's a Christian.
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He wasn't baptized. He didn't go to church. He probably never did anything good for anybody.
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And yet, guess what? He's in heaven. There's gonna be people who sat in pews their whole life who are gonna be in hell.
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And this thief who probably never went to church is gonna be in heaven. Isn't that different?
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That's so different than how we think. But what God is saying is that it's up to me.
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I'm generous. I chose to give generosity to this thief.
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It's amazing. And God says to us, when we think of someone who comes to faith at the end of their life, it's not fair.
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This person shouldn't go to heaven. He says, who are you to say that? Do not begrudge my generosity.
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If he wants to give heaven to someone, he will give heaven to someone. Even someone like the thief on the cross.
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Now earlier I said everyone in one sense has the same reward from God. And that reward is eternal life.
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Eternal life is living forever in God's glorious presence. But there's a big question that you're probably asking right now.
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And that is this. What about rewards in heaven? Right, we've talked about rewards in heaven before in this church.
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And in fact, in Matthew chapter 25, in the parable of the talents, he talks about rewards in heaven.
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Some people receive more rewards than others. That is true. In 2
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Corinthians 5 .10, at the judgment seat of Christ, which is the judgment for believers, it's not a judgment to find out if you're gonna go to heaven or hell.
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That'll have already been decided. You're going to heaven. It's the judgment seat of Christ. It's the judgment for believers.
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In that place, there will be a book that has all your works from your life.
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And the more you've done from faith, you will be rewarded for that. The more that you've done for Christ, you'll be rewarded for that.
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The less you've done, you'll be rewarded for that too. So in one sense, there will be a different experience in heaven with rewards.
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But in another sense, there won't. So in other words, if you're in heaven, it's gonna be good for everybody, okay?
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It's not some second -class experience. But some will have more because of rewards, because of what
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Scripture promises. I know it almost sounds like a contradiction, but it's not. Everybody gets eternal life.
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Everybody gets heaven. But there are degrees of rewards in the age to come.
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And down the road, we'll look at that in Matthew chapter 25 when we get there. But the point here that Jesus is driving home is that everyone who follows
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Him, no matter when they start following Him, will receive eternal life. And He does it to show
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His generosity. He could have it. The people come to faith in Christ early on. But He's gracious.
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He's patient. He's patient to the very end with some people. And it's important for me to say this.
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When you look at a passage like the thief on the cross, when you look at a passage like we're looking at today, it might be tempting for someone to say, well,
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I'll follow Jesus at the end of my life. That's a very dangerous thing to do. And the Bible tells you not to do that.
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Today, if you hear His voice as Hebrews says, do not harden your hearts. It says about Esau is a warning in the
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Bible. Esau gave up the promises of God and at the end of his life, he could not repent because his heart was so hard.
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There's a great warning here in Scripture. The Bible tells you, believe today. But it is true that some do believe at the very end.
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And they receive eternal life just like the person at the beginning receives.
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So taste the sweetness of the Lord's generosity. And here's the one reason why that you've been waiting for the whole sermon.
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He gives heaven to everyone who follows Him without exception. He gives heaven to everyone who follows
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Him without exception. And I've been thinking lately too about, but it really is
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His grace only that saves us. And look at the characters in the
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Bible. It's not like a story of great men, right? It's a story of a great
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God. That's what the Bible is. And it's God's grace toward these men and women who are
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His. And they do some good things, yes, but it's only done by the grace of God working through that person.
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If you're ever discouraged about your progress in the faith, look at some of these people who are in the faith hall of fame.
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Like Jephthah is in there. I mean, what an unglamorous life he lived, and yet he's in the faith hall of fame.
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David, I was reading in my own personal devotions, King David, I mean, think of some of the horrible, think of what he did with Bathsheba and sending
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Uriah out to be murdered. And yet compared to the other kings of Israel, God says,
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David was a king after my own heart. He did what I told him to do. God holds
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David in high regard, even though he was an incredibly flawed man. And this should encourage us in our walk with the
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Lord to think, look at what I do in my life, and yet I am trying to follow the
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Lord, and I am doing things for the Lord, and He's pleased with that. So be encouraged by that.
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But the most important thing we need to remember is it's only by His grace that we are saved. It's only by His grace that anybody is in heaven.
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And Jesus wants us to see here what Psalm 34, eight says, "'Taste and see that the
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Lord is good.'" He is indeed good. He is generous with people.
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And He doesn't just free us from the prison of hell, He gives us heaven. Amazing. Those who are
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His are rewarded through enjoying the fullness of His sweet fellowship forever.
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Now, next Sunday, as we inch closer to the end of Jesus' ministry, we're starting to ramp up, we're getting closer to His final hours in Jerusalem.
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You might say, well, we have eight chapters left or nine chapters here, but all this happens in a very short period of time.
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Next Sunday, Jesus will once again tell His disciples the details concerning His death.
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We will take the time to look closely at that. At this time, let's bow our heads in prayer.
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Father in heaven, we come before you and we worship you. We worship you for your generosity.
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We should be utterly speechless and amazed as we think about, we really get heaven for following Jesus?
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Even though we are sinners who deserve hell? That's the truth of the matter.
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That is reality. Everyone who dies in Christ does not die in their sins, but dies with His righteousness.
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To be clothed in righteousness is a beautiful thing. And it's only through Jesus that this happens.
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And so we give you praise, Lord, for your generosity today. Help us to take the time to give you the praise that you are due for that.
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Help us to be so grateful that you have chosen sinners to dwell with you forever.