Our Reward at the End of the Day

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On Labor Day, I took three of my kids to the store with me. I mustered up the bravery to do that, and I quickly found the one item that I needed to get, because of course you’re there in the longest lines the days you need one item. I found the one item I needed, and I went and got in line.

And of course, there were only two registers open, as usually happens, and so the lines were incredibly long. I wasn’t in a huge hurry, so I just accepted the wait for what it was and tried to make the best of it. The kids and I were talking about some of the stuff on the candy displays there while we were waiting.

A cashier came up to us. She came up front to open another register. I was not the next person in line, but she must have taken pity on me.

She must have seen me standing there patiently in that line with three kids and one item, because she came up next to me and said she was going to be opening register three, that she checked me out on register three. And I thought, this must be God rewarding me for my patience, because I’m so rarely patient. God must be rewarding me for my patience.

You know, my first job was at a grocery store, and when we’d open a new register, it was common, if there were a lot of people, it was common for us to find somebody to help who wasn’t being a nuisance about the wait. All right? The people who are being a jerk, you’re going to continue to wait, but the people who are being nice, I’ll go grab you out of line and say, I’ll get you on whatever register, whether they were next or not.

So I got out of line and I maneuvered myself and the three kids toward her, toward her register. And just as we were coming around the corner to register three, some woman, some woman came flying over to the register with her entitled attitude and her, I demand to see a manager head bob. You’ve seen this.

She came flying over there and she plopped her stuff down on the counter and she shouted, I’m next. Now the poor little cashier girl said, I’m sorry, man, but I actually went to go get him. I got him out of line.

I was going to wait on him. And that woman got so offended. She was offended.

She twisted up her whole face like she was having a stroke. And she whined, I’ve been waiting longer than he has. does that not matter?

You’ve seen this. You might have done this. I wanted to tell her how little it mattered.

But I figured if I went ahead and put her in her place, she might somehow show up to visit our church one day, and then that was just going to be awkward. So I behaved myself, and I just told the cashier to go ahead. It wasn’t worth it.

And fortunately, I was able to get my old spot back in line instead of having to go all the way to the back. But I thought it was crazy. I thought it was absolutely crazy that she would get upset about something good happening to another person.

Okay, nobody had taken her spot in line. Nobody had sent her to the back. The cashier waiting on me wouldn’t have made her wait any longer.

But she felt like she had been wronged and she was going to let everybody know about it. All right. Now, we’ve all seen people act that way, and if we’re honest, I’m sure we’ve all acted that way ourselves.

Maybe we don’t make a scene in the middle of the store. I’m not likely to do that, but it’s easy to complain inwardly. It’s easy to throw a fit inwardly when we feel like we’ve been cheated because something good happened to somebody else over there.

Humans are selfish creatures. And if something good happens to another person, when we think it should have happened to us, we feel like we’ve been wronged, even if we’re no worse off because of it. And so if you’ll turn with me this morning to Matthew 20, Matthew chapter 20, we’ll see how Jesus had to set the disciples straight about that kind of petty jealousy, because even they weren’t immune to it.

And yet the kingdom doesn’t work that way. So Jesus had to set them straight. Now last week we studied the interaction between Jesus and the rich young ruler, which we find in Matthew 19, Mark 10, and Luke 18.

The rich young ruler asked Jesus how to inherit eternal life. And this man thought he was probably good enough to get into heaven, so Jesus needed to show him the sin that was in his heart. Most of you were here for this, to hear the message, not to hear Jesus’ conversation with the rich young ruler.

To help the man understand that he was sinning in his heart by loving his possessions more than he loved God, Jesus told the man to go sell everything and give it to the poor and then come follow Jesus. And when the man walked away sad, Jesus had a conversation with the man, I’m sorry, with the disciples about how it’s impossible to get to heaven on our own merits. See, even that man who appeared so good was filled with sin.

Jesus said that it was impossible. He said it was like trying to thread a camel through the eye of a needle. Now, the part we didn’t get to after that story, as Paul Harvey used to say the rest of the story, the part we didn’t get to at the end of Matthew 19 in particular, shows Peter bragging, the apostle Peter bragging, about how much he and the other disciples had given up to follow Jesus.

In Matthew 20, 27, he said, See, we have left everything. Let me read it as he probably said it, in the voice he probably said it, which reminds me of my children. See, we have left everything to follow you.

So what will there be for us? Peter was trying to compare himself to the rich young ruler. He was trying to make himself look better.

He was trying to show that unlike the rich young ruler, he had given up everything to follow Jesus. Aren’t I special? Then he asked Jesus what he would get in return.

Surprisingly, Jesus didn’t backhand Peter at that moment. But instead, sorry, I just think about what I would have done. Instead, what do I get?

Instead, he told him that there would be abundant rewards in heaven. There would be abundant rewards in heaven for everything we sacrifice for Jesus’ sake. But he added that those rewards wouldn’t necessarily be calculated in the way that we’d expect.

Matthew 19 ends with verse 30. And I think I said Matthew 20, 27 a minute ago. It was Matthew 19, 27.

It ends with verse 30, which says, but many who are first will be last and the last first. And that became the theme of the story that Jesus went on to tell in Matthew 20 about people’s jealousy and their entitlement over the rewards of God. Now we go to Matthew chapter 20 and starting in verse 1, Jesus said, For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the workers on one denarius, he sent them into his vineyard for the day.

When he went out about nine in the morning, he saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He said to them, you also go into my vineyard and I’ll give you whatever is right. So off they went.

About noon and about three, he went out again and did the same thing. Then about five, he went and found others standing around and said to them, Why have you been standing here all day doing nothing? Because no one hired us, they said to him.

You also go into my vineyard, he told them. Now Jesus said that this landowner, this master of an estate, he needed help in his fields. That was pretty common.

He went into the marketplace early in the morning, presumably about 6 a. m. because that’s when the day started on the Hebrew calendar.

And he was looking for some laborers, some day laborers. These were peasants, probably people without land of their own, who made a living by working on whatever project, working for whatever landowner had a project available for them that day. And they would meet in the marketplace, and they would wait for a job offer.

And so the landowner found these men about 6 a. m. , And he offered them a denarius each in exchange for a full day’s work in his fields.

Now, a denarius was a silver Roman coin that was worth about one-sixth of an ounce. I’m sorry, it weighed about one-sixth of an ounce if I did my math correctly. And most sources say that it was an average day’s wages at that time.

It’s an average day’s wages. But a few historical sources add that it was an average day’s wages for a Roman soldier. Now, the Romans had to take good care of their army.

That was important to them. They had to take good care of their army, so the average wage for a soldier is actually a pretty generous wage for an unskilled laborer. It wouldn’t have made them rich, but it was more than fair for them to be offered a denarius.

So the arrangement was good for both sides, And so the workers happily left the marketplace to put in their 12-hour day with the landowner. As time went on, though, the master of this estate realized he needed more workers for his project. So at 9 a.

m. , he went out, he went back to the marketplace, and he found some more day laborers. Now, this conversation was a little bit different.

They didn’t finalize all the details. They agreed to work for him for the rest of the day with the understanding that he would take care of them at the end of the day, that he would do right by them. They didn’t discuss a set amount.

And I want you to think just for a moment how much faith that required in the goodness of the landowner. Just pay us whatever you think is right. Few of us would agree to start a job without some idea of the pay scale, right?

But these people had enough confidence in the generosity of the landowner that they were willing to go and put their pay in his hands. Now, the same thing happened at noon, happened again at noon. It happened at 3 p.

m. and it happened at 5 p. m.

And each of these groups of workers agreed to work for the remainder of the day, whatever it was, without settling on a fixed amount of pay, just trusting that the landowner would take care of them. Now that brings us to verse 8. It says, When evening came, the owner of the vineyard told his foreman, Call the workers and give them their pay, starting with the last and ending with the first. So around 6 p.

m. , the day was coming to a close. The Hebrew calendar went from 6 a.

m. to 6 p. m.

, roughly, sunrise to sundown. The day was coming to a close, and the landowner told his foreman to settle up with the day laborers. But they were going to receive their pay in reverse order from when they had been hired.

Now, this idea of the last being first showed up in Jesus’ story again, It showed up again in Jesus’ story after he’d already brought it up with the disciples at the end of chapter 19. And it upset some people in the story. It became a problem when the 6 a.

m. crowd saw what everybody else received at the end of the day. Look at verse 9.

It says, when those who were hired, about five came, they each received one denarius. These people were entitled to an hour’s worth of pay for an hour’s worth of work. That’s all they were entitled to.

But they had received a full day’s pay. They had each received a whole denarius. And so those who came in at 6 a.

m. got excited. You see, if the master of the vineyard was generous enough to pay these people a full day’s wages, actually a pretty generous full day’s wages, for an hour of work, How much would he pay them for a full 12-hour day’s work?

After all, they had given him their whole day. They’d given him everything. They were caught up in some serious champagne wishes and caviar dreams, as Robin Leach used to say on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

They were picking out wheelbarrows to haul home all that cash. And finally, and they’re not even paying attention, They saw the 5 p. m.

crowd get paid, and they’re thinking about how great it’s going to be. And suddenly, before they know it, it was their turn to get paid. And they’re so excited.

Now, verse 10 says, So when the first ones came, they assumed they would get more. But they received a denarius each. Now, these people had been there since 6 a.

m. They had worked for 12 hours. And yet somehow they had received the same pay as these good-for-nothings who had spent most of the day chatting in the marketplace before rolling in for work at the last hour of the workday.

At least that’s how they thought about the 5 p. m. crowd.

If it happened to us, we’d probably say that’s not fair. And that’s what they did. They said it’s not fair.

Look at verses 11 and 12. When they received it, they began to complain to the landowner. These last men put in one hour, and you made them equal to us, who bore the burden of the day’s work and the burning heat.

Isn’t that precisely what Peter did and the disciples did? Didn’t they boast about how many sacrifices they had made for the master and how much they deserved? Now we can see everybody’s reasoning here.

We can understand why they’d be upset, the laborers and the disciples. Something about it feels unfair that everybody gets the same denarius. It seems upside down that the first end up last and the last end up first, but it’s not unfair.

Let’s take a look at the landowner’s explanation in verses 13 through 15. He replied to one of them, Friend, I’m doing you no wrong. Didn’t you agree with me on a denarius?

Take what’s yours and go. I want to give this last man the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with what is mine?

Are you jealous because I’m generous? Oh, they had been excited about his generosity when they thought they were going to get to dive into a big pile of money like Scrooge McDuck. Yeah, they were excited.

But when they saw somebody else on the receiving end of his generosity, they didn’t care for it one bit. They were jealous because they were comparing themselves to the other guys. They’d done more work for the landowner than the latecomers had, so they believed they were entitled to more of the landowner’s money than the latecomers were, regardless of what they’d agreed to.

They felt entitled. But the landowner hadn’t done anything wrong. He hadn’t behaved unjustly.

He hadn’t cheated them in any way. He had given them the wage that they had happily agreed to at 6 a. m.

that morning, and not a cent less. He hadn’t given them any less than what they’d agreed to. The amount he agreed to pay them was more than fair for their labor and for their skill set.

But by being generous to the latecomers, he hadn’t taken anything away from them. But his generosity toward others was inconsistent with what the 6 a. m.

crowd felt they deserved, what they felt those others deserved, and what they thought they deserved in comparison. It didn’t match up with the 6 a. m.

crowd’s expectations. The bottom line, though, was that he had every right to do with his money as he pleased. If he chose to give a denarius to each of those latecomers, not as a reward for their hard work, but as a gift that reflected his kindness, it in no way robbed the 6 a.

m. crowd. And nevertheless, they complained.

They complained. But Jesus said that the kingdom of God is like that landowner. Verse 16 tells us what they have in common.

In verse 16, Jesus told them that the moral of the story is this. He said, so the last will be first and the first last. And throughout this whole text, there’s a tension that builds up between the way we expect the world to work and the way the kingdom of God actually works. We assume that being the first in line means we should always be the first one to get out of the store and get where we’re going.

We assume that serving Him longer means that we should be rewarded better than those who come behind us. We tend to think that our sacrifices, our investment of time or energy or resources in His service, that we tend to think that those investments, those sacrifices are so impressive to God that they ought to earn us greater consideration in the kingdom, that we ought to be more important in the kingdom. But once again, Jesus pointed out that the kingdom is different from this world.

The things that seem so vitally important here often have much, much less relevance there. And I’ve made this point several times throughout this series on the kingdom to the point that I feel like I’m just repeating myself every week when I come to the point of what Jesus said. Just repeating myself.

But as I was studying this week, it occurred to me that if Jesus spent so much time explaining that the kingdom is different from this world, then the point bears repeating for us too. So if Jesus repeated himself, I’m not going to feel bad about repeating myself. The kingdom of God is different from the kingdoms of this world.

It works differently and it values different things. This landowner was a great example of that. He promised to give his workers what was right, but his idea of what was right differed significantly from the ideas of the early bird workers.

See, they were looking at things from an earthly perspective, where first should always be first, and last should always be last. Where greatest should always be greatest, and where least should always be least. But the landowner, as a symbol of the kingdom of God in Jesus’ story, shows us instead that there is no favoritism in the kingdom of God whatsoever. There’s no favoritism in the kingdom of God. God loves his children equally.

Do you realize that? God loves his children equally and he chooses to bestow his blessings in abundance without favoritism. It’s not based on what we think we’ve earned or what we think we deserve, but it’s according to his purposes and we may never understand those purposes.

Now the end of Matthew 19 is clear in Jesus’ response to Peter that God does reward the faithful service of those who believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. He will reward us for our faithfulness and for our service. Jesus told Peter, Truly I tell you, in the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields because of my name will receive a hundred times more and will inherit eternal life. There are rewards for our faithfulness. Don’t miss that point.

There are rewards for our faithful service. But Jesus’ story shows that our reward isn’t based on what we contribute to the kingdom. It’s based on the grace of the king.

It’s based on the goodness and the generosity of the king. See, after Jesus’ conversation with the rich young ruler, the disciples realized their efforts wouldn’t get them into the kingdom. Only God’s grace could do that.

But they seemed to hang on to the illusion that they deserved a higher place in the kingdom once they were there because they had earned it by following Jesus. Jesus made it clear our rewards are not because of anything we have to boast about. Yes, God will reward us in heaven in recognition of our sacrifices and our faithful service.

He’ll reward us. But those rewards will be so generously out of proportion to anything that we’ve ever done that we’ll have to realize they’re the result of God’s grace and not our goodness. The 5 p.

m. crowd received a denarius, but they didn’t actually earn that denarius, did they? They deserved much less from the landowner.

The same was true of the 3 p. m. crowd, the noon crowd, the 9 a.

m. crowd. It’s true of all of them.

Even the 6 a. m. crowd, they had worked all day, but a denarius was more than the going rate for unskilled laborers.

Ultimately, yes, they had worked, but ultimately, that denarius came from the goodness of the landowner. His offer of a denarius came from his own goodness and generosity. And so when we start to emphasize how good we are, how important we are, or how much we contribute to the kingdom.

When we start to emphasize those things, we’ll start seeing the blessings of God not as blessings but as a transaction. We’ll start to become entitled and we’ll grow bitter toward God when we receive less than what we think we deserve or when we see others get more than we think they should. We’ll grow bitter toward God because of that when we get entitled.

But Jesus reminded the disciples, there’s no pecking order in the kingdom. There’s no hierarchy of first and second class citizens in the kingdom of heaven. Some who are more deserving of God’s favor and some who are less deserving of God’s favor.

There are only those who have received the undeserved but overwhelming grace of God. Any of us who are there are only there because of the grace of God. See, the master of the vineyard calls laborers into his service.

And whether we reported for duty at the crack of dawn, or if we showed up the last hour of the day, when the work comes to an end, there’s a full denarius for everyone who’s responded to his call. And that denarius, no matter how long we’ve worked, no matter what we’ve sacrificed, what we’ve done, that denarius is far more than any of us deserves. And that’s how it is in the kingdom.

See, some people trust Jesus as their Savior early in childhood and serve him faithfully for their entire lives.

others live the majority of their lives estranged from God rebelling against him and squandering their time for for decades before repenting and trusting Christ just before sundown and yet there’s the ultimate reward is the same eternal life in his presence and we might think that’s unfair some people might say that’s unfair because after all some people work harder for the master throughout their lives than others do why why shouldn’t they get something more why shouldn’t they get something more now my friends when we receive eternal life from jesus christ we’re already receiving far more than any of us deserves the apostle paul wrote for you are saved by grace through faith and this is not from yourselves it’s god’s gift not from works so that no one can boast our good works can never be good enough to earn us entrance into the kingdom.

And they’re not good enough to deserve the blessings of God once we’re there. The reward of eternal life is a gift that God gives, not because we deserve to receive it, but because He’s gracious enough to offer it. So there’s nothing for us to boast about.

We don’t earn salvation. There’s no reason for us to complain about what we deserve. Believe me, when it comes to eternity, we don’t want what we deserve.

Right? We don’t want justice here. We don’t want fairness.

We want mercy. What we receive is already far better than what we deserve. What we deserve, because of our sin, is death and separation from God in hell.

And yet Jesus offers us a reward better than any of us deserve because he paid for it with his own blood. He was nailed to the cross to bear the punishment for our sins. And he shed his blood and died to pay for them in full.

Now because Jesus died and rose again, God offers complete forgiveness and the full reward of eternal life to those who respond to his call. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done, how long you’ve stayed away from him, or how many years you’ve wasted hanging around in the marketplace. He calls you to come to him and receive the reward of eternal life.

That means first, to answer that call, first you admit that you’ve sinned against God and that your sin has separated you from Him. Admit that you need a Savior and can’t save yourself. Then you believe with all your heart that Jesus died on the cross to pay for your sins in full and that He rose again from the dead to prove it.

Finally, you ask God’s forgiveness. Not because you’ve earned it or deserve it, but because of what Jesus Christ did. You ask God for forgiveness, trusting fully in Jesus Christ as your one and only Savior.

As I said, it doesn’t matter how long you’ve stayed in the marketplace. It doesn’t matter how much of the day you’ve wasted. The Master comes into the marketplace and calls all who will hear His voice to come and receive their reward.

And there’s a full denarius for all who receive Him at the end of the day.