Vineyard Grace (Part 1)

Grace That Feels Amazing Again

No Compromise Radio. Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Abendroth. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the Scriptures, verse by verse with no compromise.

I want you to go back in a time warp if you would for just a moment. When you first got saved and you sang Amazing Grace, what went through your mind? I grew up singing Amazing Grace as a kid. You watch Amazing Grace at football halftimes.

We all know Amazing Grace. But when you got saved and then you sang that for the first time as a redeemed person, as a regenerate person, as one forgiven by God, didn't you think grace was just amazing?

As I look at the hymnal, it says in John Newton's words, Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see. I remember in 1989 and I sang that song really for the first time with meaning, with appreciation.

And I thought grace is amazing. I bet you did the same thing. But what happens as time goes on? I mean, how amazing really is grace? For some, amazing grace has turned into kind of boring grace, same old, same old grace, redundant grace, old hat grace, been there, done that grace.

How about you? We just like to have that feeling of joy and that deep sense of appreciation unto God where you say, I am saved by the grace of God. I deserved hell and I get heaven. I should have paid for my sins, but Jesus paid for my sins.

I remember when I first got saved, I thought the horrors of hell I have been rescued from. And an eternity's worth of hell's punishment condensed down to three hours and dumped on Jesus because he died for me.

He cared for me. He loved me. That gets you excited. It makes me think, well, it's not so boring. It's not so routine. Sometimes when on Sunday nights we pick our favorite hymns and someone picks amazing grace, I think to myself, do I really think it's that amazing anymore?

Do I really think this is mind blowing? This is mind boggling. Well today we're going to look at a passage designed by Jesus to increase your appreciation for grace, to make you say, you know, that is really amazing.

So turn your Bibles, if you would, to Matthew chapter 20, I couldn't get to first Corinthians six this week. It's just been a rough health week. And so we're going to go to a passage that preaches itself, a passage that's by my favorite preacher on my favorite subject.

How about that? Jesus Christ preaching a parable that will rock your world. I'll make a confession right now before we start. I preached this here eight years ago and I will guarantee you this. If you were here eight years ago and you heard me preach this, you're still going to say to yourself, wow, I can't get over that.

Because when you read this and you go through Matthew chapter 20, it's one of those passages that really is designed by God in his omniscient wisdom to help you say it's no longer boring grace anymore.

To help you say, yes, it's all of God's sovereign grace, not just the sovereign grace, but a distinguishing grace where God distinguishes in his application grace. God says in Hosea chapter 14 verse four, I love you freely.

Why does God pick us? Why does God love us? Why did God have his son die for us? Because it's the mercy and the sovereign distinguishing grace of God. So we're going to come to this passage, Matthew 20.

You don't have points to the parable. Someone says, let me give you four points to these parables. It's kind of like reading some wonderful poetry and say, I'm going to give you three points to this poem.

Kind of wrecks the poem, doesn't it? So there's not really three points. There's just one main point. As we look at this master of the vineyard, master of the field, and we'll immediately say to ourselves, that's speaking of God.

That's how he deals with sinners. That's how he's dealt with me. Grace is amazing. This is one of those passages where really, if you're a kid, here's how I'd like you to think about it. Have you ever gone to Six Flags?

Where is it? Agawam? What kind of name is Agawam? But anyway, somewhere out there, and you have to get on one of those rides, was it Superman or Batman? And you've got double protection. You've got the thing that comes up over your shoulder, and then you have to buckle it down here, the seatbelt, and you're just strapped in.

I mean, I kind of already think I'm claustrophobic. I'm buckled in. I'm at the mercy of some 16-year-old summer temp person. I'm locked in. But you just start getting that feeling like, this is going to be exciting because they're having to double bolt me in.

It's that kind of passage that's going to make you say, at least it's my prayer, God, your grace is amazing that you would save a wretch like me. Well, let's look at Matthew chapter 20. The first 16 verses will be our text, and I think we'll immediately get a glimpse of God, His heart, His purpose, His mind, and you are going to be encouraged and convicted, I trust.

Let me say one other thing about a parable, maybe one or two. The way Jesus tells this story, He's trying to bring you into the story. The way Jesus tells a parable, and parables by design are trying to make you identify with someone.

So you'll say, yeah, I get that. It's like bringing you into the story where you feel like you're part of the audience, where you think, yeah, I know what they would feel. I know what I would do. By the way, in this passage, if I was one of the workers, I know what I would say.

I know how I would act, and that's just the way Jesus does it, just a master storyteller. If anybody ever asks you who your favorite preacher is, for the love of God, don't say John MacArthur, John Owen, John the Baptist, John the Apostle, or John Piper, or any other John.

You say, Jesus Christ is my favorite preacher. Because when you see this passage today, this is illustrative of Christ's preaching style, where you'll say, it's the beginning of the year, I probably should read, I probably should study the Gospels again.

So if you're going to start off with Leviticus on January 1st, I'm going to say, forget that. Let's go right to Mark. Let's go right to Matthew, Matthew chapter 20. This parable that we can understand God's grace, his distinguishing grace, and his generous grace.

Verse one of chapter 20. I know you're already ready to get into it. Quit telling me all this introductory stuff. Some of you, I've been watching you reading ahead. You ought not to do that. For the kingdom of heaven, Matthew 20, verse one, is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.

The kingdom of heaven, the way God does things, it's like this. Now before I go any farther, texts have context. So let's go back up to chapter 19, verse 16. You have to say to yourself, parables are given for a reason.

There's a context to parables. There's an occasion. There's a setting. There's a situation. Why did Jesus give the parable? He just didn't walk up to the Sea of Galilee. Let me tell you a parable. There was a reason why parables were given.

And the reason is found in chapter 19, rich, young ruler. Let's read some of those verses in Matthew 19, so you can better understand 20, Matthew 19, 16. And behold, a man came up to him saying, teacher, what good deed must I do to inherit eternal life or to have eternal life?

He said to him, why do you ask me about what is good? There's only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments. He said to him, which ones? Jesus said, you shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not steal. You should not bear false witness. Honor your father and mother. And you shall love your neighbors yourself. Young man said to him, all these I have kept. What do I still lack? Jesus said to him, if you would be perfect, go sell what you possess, give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me.

When the young man heard this, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. Verse 23, and Jesus said to his disciples, truly I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven.

Again, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, who then can be saved?

They knew the utter impossibility of this salvation from man's perspective, but Jesus looked at him and said, with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. And now we start getting an eye towards 20.

Peter said in reply, what do you think Peter would say? Probably something bluntly. Probably something maybe curtly. Maybe Pastor Mike Lee, he might say. Peter said in reply, see, we have left everything and followed you.

What then will we have? You demand this from the rich young ruler? You say Jesus, the rich young ruler, has to give it up all to come and follow you, and then you'll have treasure in heaven? We have done that.

We have done exactly what you've told him to do. See, Peter says, we've left it all and followed you. Verse 28, Jesus said, truly I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

And now he expands it, not just to the apostles, but to everyone. And everyone who follows him, everyone who has left houses, our brothers, our sisters, our father, our mother, our children, our lands, for my sake will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.

If you have come to me, Peter, and followed me, or anyone else who gives up anything else for me, they will have eternal life. And then he says something very fascinatingly, verse 30, but many who are first will be last and the last first.

ESV says, but many who are first will be last and the last first. Look down in chapter 20, verse 16, doesn't he say the same thing? What does 1930 mean? That's why he gives the parable, because it's tied in to chapter 20, verse 16, so the last will be first and the first last.

What does it mean, Jesus, that the last are first and the first are last? Answer, Matthew chapter 20, 1 to 16 for the parable. So he's talking to Peter and the disciples, and he says the first will be last and the last will be first.

By the way, how can that happen? I'm going to have to tell you ahead of time, just so we'll catch it when we're there. If there's a race, and there are eight racers in the Olympic Stadium, and the first are last and the last are first, how can that happen?

Slow motion? No. What? Say it out loud. Tie. Look to the neighbor to your left and say, it's a tie. Oh no, sorry, we don't do that here. It's a tie. And Jesus is going to explain in this parable that if you come to faith at 15 or 90, guess what?

You get the grace of God. If you're a child who believes like Timothy most likely was and lived his whole life for the Lord, through the Spirit's power, or you're the thief on the cross, and you die at the last second, trusting in Christ Jesus that repents, there's the generous grace of God.

And you don't get half forgiveness, you don't get half salvation, you don't get half of generosity, you don't get half imputed righteousness, you don't get half the benefits of the resurrection, you get it all.

You come to faith early, you come to faith late, you get everything. Why do some come early, some come late? We're going to answer that as well. You say to yourself, you know, I got saved. For me, I was 29.

Why did I get saved when I was 29? My life could have been so much better if I would have got saved earlier. Why wasn't I saved earlier? We're going to find out in this parable because it's God's choice when we get saved.

It's in His plan. Maybe some people are saying to themselves, you know, if I got saved when I was 60, if I could have just gone back, changed it all, and believed when I was 14, my life would have wrecked, wrecked so much of my life, and God has had to put it back together.

Why didn't I get saved earlier? Answer, grace is distinguishing, grace is sovereign, and God is the one who saves. And so we're going to go to Matthew chapter 20 now and find out how the first can be last as we see this generous grace of God sovereignly and distinguishingly bestowed.

Now, let me read verse 1 again. For the King of heaven is like a master of a house. By the way, this is very common. They all knew what was going on. They didn't need a manners and customs book like we do.

Went out early in the morning, literally at dawn, in the Greek, to hire laborers for his vineyard. Very typical. The sun goes up. It's time to work. It's 6 a .m. We've got to hire some workers. Now I spend a lot of time in California, both Los Angeles and in Northern California.

And here's what I see at 6 o 'clock when I drive past the Home Depot and when I drive past Lowe's. When you drive past there at 6 o 'clock, what do you see in large cities? Maybe even here in Worcester you see it.

I don't know. I'm not that up that early to go, let's go to Lowe's at 6 a .m. In California, at least, you see not dozens of people, but hundreds of people standing around by the entrance to the store.

Who are they? They're day laborers. They could be migrant workers. They could be undocumented aliens. They could be illegal aliens. They could be all kinds of folks who say, you know what, we want to get hired for the day, and we're hoping someone like Mike pulls up and says, you know, pay you $10 under the table an hour to work all day to, you know, hoe in the backyard or help me put up these two-by-fours or whatever, hop in the car, and off we go.

It happens today, doesn't it? Happened back then as well. That's the scenario. Day laborers, you drive up, you find where the people are. In this particular case, you don't drive up, but you go there and you find them and say, work for me.

We don't know what kind of work it is. There's a new vineyard. The old one's falling apart. We need to have fertilizing. We need to have some kind of preparing, pruning. We don't know exactly, but it's not significant.

And so, verse two, after agreeing with the laborers for denarius a day, which is a good wage, it's a day's wage, it's what people make for a day generally, it's what a soldier made for a day, they agreed for it, he sent him into his vineyard.

Once in a while, I'm going to sprinkle in a little fact. Was it wrong for this master of the field to pick these, but not everybody else? Did he do these other people that he didn't pick any harm? Was he unfair for not picking them?

No, of course not. These guys, 6 a .m., get a whole day's wage. They're happy, desperate for work. They were chosen as a privilege. Going out about the third hour, how do we calculate hours? The zero hour is six in the morning.

Third hour would be what? 9 a .m. So, he goes out at the third hour. Maybe he needed more work to be done. Maybe the grapes were getting more, you know, there's high sugar content. They all needed to be picked up, picked off, picked upon.

He needs more workers, that's the point. He saw others standing idle in the marketplace. It's just where they stand. That's the marketplace. It's like the outside of Home Depot in L .A. And he said to them, verse 4, you go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right, I will give you.

So, we've gone from, you know, they make an agreement earlier on to now, I'll just give you the right thing. The story starts to get condensed. It starts kind of getting zip drive like where we're not getting all the information early.

It's just taken for granted. Here's the deal. Here's the wage. Here's what you do. It's a common thing. Let's get paid. Here, we'll do the work. We're happy to have the work. Thanks for picking us. He picked some.

He didn't pick others. He passed over others. We're going to trust the guy. He doesn't say he's trustworthy. He doesn't say he had a good reputation, but it's just the way things were done. Verse 5, so they went.

Of course, they did. It's great. The guy's generous. He chose them. Each group is happy. Going out again about the sixth hour, what time would that be? If 6 a .m. is zero, 9 a .m. is the third hour, this is noon.

At the sixth hour and the ninth hour, 3 p .m., he did the same. Needs more workers. Drives back down to Home Depot. We need four or five more guys. Hop on in. No mention of the wages. He understood. They understood.

The readers of Jesus understood. We understand. And about at the eleventh hour, you didn't know this math class was going to be so hard today, did you? What hour was that? 5 p .m. They worked till 6 p .m., 6 a .m. to 6 p .m.

At 5 p .m., he went out and found others standing. You know, they're trying to figure out probably what they're going to go say to their wives when they get home. Honey, I didn't get picked and couldn't earn any money.

He said to them, verse 7, they said to him rather, because no one has hired us. He said to them, with distinguishing, sovereign, generous grace, you go into the vineyard too. Now the next verse is very, very important.

And you don't get the parable unless you get the next verse. Here's the drum roll. And when evening came, 6 p .m. now, it's time to pay because Leviticus and Deuteronomy both say pay wages at the end of the day because they're living day by day.

They need the money. You can't say, I'll pay on Friday. You get paid the 1st and the 15th. No, Leviticus 19, you shall not oppress your neighbor nor rob him. The wages of a hired man are not to remain with you all night until morning.

Pay him right away. So 6 o 'clock, could be 6 .15 now. They're going to divvy up the money. And it's very important here. The vineyard owner said to his foreman, call the laborers and pay them their wages.

So far, so good. Nothing that interesting to the story. But here is where it's amazing. Beginning with the last up to the first. By the way, does that sound familiar? Last first, last first, 1930, 2016, last first, first last.

Does that sound familiar? First last, last first, first last? See? It does, doesn't it? Pay them those beginning with the last up to the first. If it was switched around, the parable is no longer a parable.

It's a dud. It is boring. Owner of the vineyard, Kurios, the Lord, said to the foreman, call the laborers, pay them their wages, beginning with the last up to the first. That's where the power is in this story.

Because we've got a surprise coming. If Jesus would have said in this parable, a foreman, I want you to bring those who I hired at 6 a .m. and I'll give them a day's wage, then send them home, the story would have no power.

Have them come at the very, you know, those who got here early, you worked all day, you get paid first. We're going to mess up the punchline of the story. But do you see the text? That's not what's said here.

Beginning with the last, those hired at 5 p .m. at 1700. And when those hired about the 11th hour came, each of them received a full day's wage for one hour. Anybody ever did that for you? Has anybody done that for you?

You were for one hour. I haven't had too many jobs where I've had to punch in, but I've never punched in for one hour and they said, here's a whole day's work for one hour. Now, what are you thinking if you were hired at 3 o 'clock in the afternoon?

I get three. I get three denarii. This guy's so generous. What do you think if you were hired at noon? I get six, I get a week's worth of pay. What happens to you if you're there and you're thinking, you're watching them give the one to the guy hired at 5, and you thought, I'm days pay.

And what if you were the one hired at 6 o 'clock, you'd be saying to yourself, what? I am going to get how many days pay for my one day's work? Based on what he did to this guy, I'm getting 12 days pay.

This is going to be great. Go buy an eye touch or something. This is going to rock. You're going to just buy food is what these people are going to buy. Verse 9, and when those hired about the 11th hour came, each of them received a denarius.

Now when those hired first came, they like you and like me thought they would receive more. But each of them also received a denarius. Where is Jay Sekulow when we need him? Where is Johnny Cochran? I'm going to have to call up some kind of union representative, ACLU, AFL-CIO, AFL-NFL.

I'm calling somebody. For those of you old enough to remember that. No one was ungraced. No one should have been picked at Lowe's at the beginning, and yet they were. They got what they bargained for.

They got what they agreed upon. They got the normal thing for the day's work. Some even got extra based on the good, sovereign, distinguishing pleasure of the Lord.