The Workers in the Vineyard - People Jesus Met Part 31

You know, as we begin today, I have a confession that I want to make.

And my confession is this, that I like country music. Is that all right? Yeah? All right. As a matter of fact, do you know what you get if you play country music backwards?

Well, you get your wife back, your house back, your dog back, your car back. That's true. Yeah. Anyway, one of my favorite country music songs is a song by Garth Brooks, and the song is entitled Unanswered Prayers. Here's part of the song.

Listen. Just the other night at a hometown football game, my wife and I ran into my old high school flame. And as I introduced them, the past came back to me and I couldn't help but think of the way things used to be. She was the one that I'd wanted for all times, and each night I'd spend praying that God would make her mine. And if He'd only grant me this wish I wished back then, I'd never ask for anything again. Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers.

Remember when you're talking to the man upstairs, and just because he doesn't answer doesn't mean he don't care. Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers. Now, if I understand correctly what Garth Brooks is saying in his song, he's saying that God did a much better job of choosing a wife for him than he would have ever done for himself. And this is what we want to talk about today. We want to talk about how God's choices for our life are always better than our own choices. Remember, we're in a series of messages entitled People Jesus Met, and today Jesus tells us about some workers in a vineyard who are not so much people that he met, but rather are characters in a story that he told. We want to go back 2,000 years, and we want to see what the point of his story was, and then we want to reel all of that forward to today and ask, well, what impact should that make on my life in the 21st century? So Matthew chapter 20 is our passage, and we begin at verse 1.

Here we go. Jesus said, For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. During harvest season in ancient Israel, men would often stand in the marketplace offering themselves out for daily work, kind of like migrant farm workers. And the Bible says that this landowner went to the marketplace first thing in the morning to hire a group of these men. Verse 2, And the landowner agreed to pay them one denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

Now, a denarius was a small silver Roman coin. It was a fair wage for a day's work, and with it a man could feed his entire family for several days. But here's the really important thing I want us to notice from verse 2, and we can't miss this because this is the crux interpretatum of this story. This is the key to understanding this story, and that is that these first workers haggled with the landowner over their wages before they agreed to go to work.

You say, Well, Lon, how do you know that? Well, I know it because of what verse 2 says. Verse 2 says that the landowner agreed to pay them this wage. The Greek word that's used here is the word symphoneo.

We get our English word symphony from this word. Literally, it means to come together in harmony, but this word at the time of Jesus was a technical business word that meant to come to a business agreement together, to make a business contract together. And so the point is that these first workers said to the landowner, Hey, we are not working until we have a contract where we have stipulated the terms, and here are the terms, one denarius for one day's work.

The landowner agreed, and out they went. Verse 3. And about the third hour, stop for a moment, in ancient Israel, the workday was divided into 12 hours. 6 a.m. was the first hour. Quitting time, 6 p.m., was the 12th hour. So the third hour is what time? 9 a.m.

Okay, right. So about 9 a.m., the landowner went back to the marketplace and saw other men standing there doing nothing. Now, they weren't standing there doing nothing because they were lazy. It was because no one had hired them yet. So the landowner said to them, You also go and work in my vineyard, and whatever is right, I will pay you. So they went. Do you notice?

No contract. Verse 5. Then the landowner went back at the sixth hour, noon, and the ninth hour, 3 p.m., and did the same thing. And around the eleventh hour, 5 p.m., the landowner went back to the marketplace and found still others there. So the landowner asked them, Why have you been standing here all day doing nothing? And they said, Well, because nobody's hired us. So he said to them, You also go and work in my vineyard. Now, here we see that the landowner kept going back to the marketplace and hiring more and more men as the day went on. He hired men at 9 a.m., at noon, at 3 p.m., at 5 p.m.

But notice that in contrast to the 6 a.m. workers, none of these workers haggled with the landowner about their wages. He told each group, verse 4, Whatever is right, I will pay you. Just trust me. And they did. Do we all see that? Yes.

Okay, that's very important. Verse 8, When evening came, the landowner said to his foreman, Call the workers in and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired, the 5 p.m. guys, and then moving on to the first ones hired, the 6 a.m. people. So the workers who were hired about the eleventh hour, 5 p.m., came in and each received one denarius.

Now, this is exactly what happened to the 3 p.m. group and the noon group and the 9 a.m. group. They all got one denarius. Remember, we said earlier that a denarius for a day's work was a fair wage, but a denarius for only part of a day's work, it was more than a fair wage.

It was downright magnanimous. I mean, the pay of the 5 p.m. guys should have been, you know, one twelfth of a denarius. The guys should have prorated their payments, but the landowner understood that no man could feed his family on one twelfth of a denarius, and so in great generosity, he paid every single worker a full day's wage. Verse 10, So when those workers who had been hired first at 6 a.m. came in, they expected to receive more than one denarius, but each one of them also received one denarius.

And when they received it, they began to murmur against the landowner. They said, These men who were hired last only worked one hour, and yet you have made them equal with us who have borne the burden of the work in the heat of the day. They said, Look, this is not right. This is not fair. I mean, how can you pay those guys who work one hour or three hours the same amount as you're paying us? But the landowner said to them, Friends, I'm not being unfair to you.

Watch. Didn't you make an agreement? Look to work for one denarius. Hey, the landowner says, You guys insisted on what your pay was going to be. You insisted that you were going to get one denarius. I haven't been unfair to you.

I gave you the one denarius that you insisted on to begin with. Verse 14, And then the landowner said to them, Take your pay and go. If I want to give the men who were hired last the same as I gave you, don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money?

Why are you jealous that I am being generous? In other words, to the 6 a.m. guys, he said, Hey, in contrast to you guys, all these other workers left the terms up to me. All the other workers just went out into the field and trusted me that I would do right by them. And I decided to be amazingly generous with them.

But that's none of your business because you didn't go out in the field under those contracts, under that agreement, under that circumstance. And I think the implication here is crystal clear that he says to these 6 a.m. guys, if you had gone out in the field without stipulating your own terms and you would have just left it up to me, I would have been more generous with you, but you got exactly what you asked for. Now, that's as far as we want to go in our passage because it's time to ask our most important question. And you all know what it is. So all of you folks at our campuses and on the Internet, down in the edge, I want to hear you yell right along with us.

Are we ready? Are you sure? All right. Deep breath.

One, two, three. How good does that feel? You say, Lon, so what? I mean, all right, it's a nice story. I understand it. But you know what? I don't see how this is relevant to me.

I mean, I've never even seen a denarius. So what difference does any of this make to me? Well, let's talk about that. And to begin, I think we ought to first figure out who's who in this story, don't you? All right, the landowner who was hiring everybody to go out in the field, who do you think that was?

That's God. Okay. And the workers who were being hired to go out in the field, who do you think that is? Well, that's us, followers of Christ.

Absolutely. And what was the key difference between the workers? Well, we've already said it. We said the 6am group, they insisted on dictating their own terms to God, while all the other workers let God dictate the terms.

And what was the result? Well, the result was God gave the 6am workers exactly what they asked for. But God gave all the others far more than any of them would have dared ask for. He gave them more than human logic would have ever expected. Now, friends, understanding this means that we understand something very important about God, something very important about who God is and how God acts and the ways of God, namely that God loves to be overly generous to His people.

Listen to these verses from the Bible. Psalm 35 verse 27, the Bible says God delights in the prosperity of His servants. Psalm 31 19, the Bible says how great is God's goodness that He has stored up for those who trust Him.

And in Psalm 23, you remember what David said. He said, My cup, what did he say? Runneth over. He didn't say my cup is half full or three quarters full or even full to the brim. He said my cup is just overflowing with the goodness and the mercy of God. What is God saying in all of these verses?

He's saying, Hey, if you will allow me to make the choices for your life, like all of the workers except the 6am guys did, I will be more magnanimous to you than you can ever dream. I will give you blessings that defy human logic. I will lead you down paths oozing with the goodness and the mercy of God.

And I will see to it that your cup runneth over also. God says, Hey, trust Me with the choices in your life and you will never be sorry. Now all of this reminds me of a story from the Old Testament in the book of Numbers, Numbers chapter 11. And in Numbers chapter 11, the Israelites have left Egypt, you know, in the Exodus through the Red Sea, you know. And they've been camped at the foot of Mount Sinai for a year. And while they've been camped there, they've been eating supernatural food, manna that falls from heaven every morning and they pick it up on the ground and eat it. And then verse 4 of this chapter says, The Israelites began to wail and say, If only we had meat to eat.

We remember the fish that we had to eat in Egypt, but now we have lost our appetite. We never see anything but this manna, manna, manna, manna. We're sick of manna. Now you say, Well, Lon, what was so wrong with manna?

Well, there was nothing wrong with it. The Bible says, Exodus chapter 16, that it tasted like honey. Here, right here in Numbers 11 verse 8, the Bible tells us that the Hebrew women cooked it with great ingenuity to keep it from becoming boring. I mean, they made baked manna and broiled manna and fried manna and stewed manna and fricasseeed manna. They had scrambled manna and sunny side up manna and over easy manna. They had manna cakes and manna pies and manna rolls and manna burgers and manicotti. They had it all.

All right. The key point is that God had chosen for the Israelites to eat manna. He knew it was best for him and that's what he wanted for them.

But the Israelites, for sure, that they knew what was better for themselves than God. And so they began weeping and praying and begging God and insisting that God give them something different than he had chosen for them. Verse 31, So a wind went out from the Lord and brought quail down all around the camp to a depth of three feet above the ground. Hey, you think the snowstorm here was bad?

How'd you like to dig out of this, huh? Verse 32, And all day and night the people went out and gathered quail. But while the meat was still between their teeth, the anger of the Lord burned against the people and he struck them with a severe plague. It's very interesting that in Psalm 106, which gives us a commentary on this event in the Bible. I love the commentary of verse 15. It says, God gave them what they asked for, but he sent leanness into their soul.

In other words, that which the Israelites were sure would bring them a blessing actually ended up bringing them a curse. Now let's stop for a moment and be honest. Can we be honest here and admit that so often as followers of Christ, we're just like these Israelites in Numbers 11. We're just like the 6 a.m. workers.

You say, what do you mean by that? I mean we survey our lives and we cleverly figure out exactly what we think is best for us, exactly what we think we need. If we're sick, we're sure we need complete healing. If we're poor, we're sure we need more money. If we're single, we're sure we need to get married. If we're childless, we're sure we need to have children. If we're having trouble at work, we're sure we need a new job. If we're having some tough circumstances, we're sure we need the irritants taken away immediately out of our life. And then what do we do? We go to God and we begin lobbying for this, asking God for this, begging God for this, insisting that God do this for us.

Just like Garth Brooks did with his old girlfriend. Hey, you know, it reminds me of the time I got a burr under my saddle a few years ago to buy one of those high-top conversion vans. You know what I'm talking about? And so I prayed for this and I bargained with God about this and I pleaded with God for this and finally I got my conversion van. It was big and it was bulky and with the high-top on it, it wouldn't fit into parking garages. You know, you always had to look for a parking spot on the street. I got five miles a gallon in town. Hey, but on the road, I got eight miles a gallon.

Yeah. And I'm telling you, I had a car payment on this thing about the size of the national debt. We had a nickname that we came up with in my family for this car. We affectionately referred to it as the black hole because it sucked in every dollar we had. Two years later, I was finally able to advertise it.

I bought it new, but I was able to advertise it in the paper and sell it. But I had to put thousands of dollars in to make the sale work. It took me two years, literally, to financially recover from the black hole.

Really? Hey, friends, you know the most dangerous thing about dictating to God and insisting on God giving you what you're sure is best for you? You know the most dangerous part about that? The answer is God just might give it to you, just like He did me. See, Proverbs 12.15 says the way of a fool always seems right to him, and I honestly think this might be my life verse here. But the truth is this is everybody's life verse, friend. We're always so sure that we know exactly what's best for us, but we have to be careful that we're not like the 6 a.m. workers, that we're not like the Israelites in Numbers chapter 11.

I mean, they were absolutely certain they knew what was best for them too, and they insisted that God give it to them, and God gave them what they want, and then afterwards they were really unhappy they got it. The so what of the message today, my friends, is that I believe many of us here may need to change some of our prayers from, hey, God, do this the way I want you to do it, to, God, I'm not sure what's best for me. Do it the way that you know is best for me. You say, well, Lon, does this mean that it's wrong to ask God for specific things in prayer that you do think are best for you?

No, not at all, so long as we leave the final choice, we leave the final decision to God. We need to pray, God, here's my situation, and I think that this or that is what's best for me, but you know, God, you know what's best for me better than I do, so if I've discerned correctly and this is really what's best for me, then I'm asking you to do it, and Lord, if I've discerned incorrectly and this is not really what's best for me, please don't you dare do it for me. You do for me what you know is best for me, and either way, Lord, I'll receive it with joy and I'll embrace it, and I'll trust you that you know better than I do. Friends, this is not a weak prayer. This is not an unbelieving prayer. This is a prayer that honors the sovereignty of God and the wisdom of God and the benevolence of God. This is actually a very wise prayer. You say, well, Lon, I've got to know, honestly, do you really live like this?

I mean, I've heard you say things like, you know, you pray for parking spaces and you don't let go of God, and when this building was up for sale, you prayed for this building, you wouldn't let go of God until He gave it to us, and you know, you prayed for your son to be able to go right into his residency from his internship in the Navy and all these other things. So which one's right? Well, friends, they're both right.

You say, ah, I see, you've been living in Washington too long, Lon. No, no, they're both right, and I'll tell you why. Folks, there are times in our walk with God that God gives us an absolute confirmation in our spirit of what's best and what's right and what He's planning to do, and God gives us as a result total liberty to pray those things and be like Jacob and hold on to God and refuse to let go until He gives them to us. There are those times. Now, there aren't, at least for me, they're not often, but they happen, and when God gives you one of those times and that liberty, yes, we become persistent, and we become incorrigible, and we hold on to God, but in the normal everyday affairs things, this doesn't happen that much, and our normal everyday affairs without that kind of liberty, then we need to pray and say, Lord, this is what I think would be good, but you know what? I'm not 100% sure, God, you make the choice here.

They're both right, and yes, I do live this way. Friday, two days ago, I was scheduled to attend a Jews for Jesus board meeting in San Francisco that was extremely important, but Monday I developed a clogged ear, my left one if you care, but it was my left ear. So I went to see my good friend Dr. Kaminal here in McLean, been my doctor for 30 years, and he looked in my ear and he said, you've got a blocked eustachian tube, and I said, oh, that doesn't sound good. I said, can I fly like this? And he goes, are you kidding?

Of course not. You can't fly. You'll, you know, hurt yourself. So he gave me some medicine, and I said, well, will this clear by Thursday? Doc, I got a really important meeting.

I need to fly Thursday. And he said, I don't know. We'll see. So I went home and I prayed, and I said, now, Lord, this is a really important board meeting. Not that I need to tell you that.

Okay. It's a really important board meeting, but Lord, maybe you don't want me to go. I mean, maybe it's not the best thing for me to go.

And so here I am, God, here's the deal. If you clear my ear by Thursday, I'll take that as a sign from you. I'm supposed to go and I'll go. And Lord, if you don't clear my ear by Thursday, I will take that as a sign from you that you don't want me to go, and I will not go. And God, you need to know either way, I'm good.

Either way, I'll embrace it because you know more than I know about this, Lord. And so, you know, maybe I get on the plane and the thing goes down or something. Now, I would like, I mean, a plane crashes, I would like to go on a plane crash, honestly. I mean, that's okay.

Two minutes, boof, gone. That's, you know, this is why my wife doesn't like to fly with me. Because that's okay with me.

I could go that way, but you never know, you know. Well, my ear cleared, praise the Lord, and I went to the meeting, praise the Lord. And the plane obviously didn't crash because I'm here, praise the Lord. But you know what?

I honestly would have been okay if it hadn't have cleared. You know why? Let me just tell you, it's very simple, friends. I gave up years ago the notion that I'm smart enough to run my own life. And if you're wise, you'll give that notion up too.

Now, let me conclude by giving you two pieces of great news. Number one, piece of great news number one, is that God will direct our lives if we'll just let Him. Proverbs 3 verse 5 says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding in all your ways. Acknowledge Him, watch, and He will direct your paths.

He'll use circumstances, He'll use events like clogged ears, He'll use people, He'll use the internal witness of the Holy Spirit. Psalm 32 verse 8, God says, I will instruct you and I will teach you in the way you should go if you'll just get out of the way and let Me. And my second piece of good news is to remind you that God will always direct our lives with amazing and undeserved and staggering generosity unless we get in the way by demanding our own choices in life, by demanding our own options and terms in life. So many times when we do that we're like the 6 a.m. workers who got what they wanted but missed a lot more that God would have given them. Years ago when I was a brand new believer, I heard a pastor recite this little poem. I never forgot it and it's kind of formed a template for how I've tried to live my life.

Here's how it goes. He says, God knows, He loves, He cares. Nothing this truth can dim. God gives the very best to those who leave the choice to Him. And so the bottom line here is as a follower of Jesus, if you're here today and you've been begging God to do something for you and you've been insisting that God do something for you and you've been dictating to God what He must do for you, if you're doing that without the liberty of the Spirit that you are 100% sure that this is the will of God for your life, if you're doing it without that liberty, I'm here to warn you, watch out.

The 6 a.m. group did the very same thing. They insisted on their own way and they weren't happy when they got it. And the Israelites in Numbers 11 insisted on what they wanted and they weren't happy when they got it. Friends, unless you're 100% sure that this is God, I advise you to leave room for God in this prayer, to leave room for God to make the final choice, to leave room for God to decide which way this is going to go, to leave room for God not to answer your prayer but to actually give you something better. Remember what Garth Brooks said, and he may not be a theologian but he got this right, some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.

Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, I thank you for reminding us today about our limitations. A person has got to know their limitations.

And one of our limitations is that we're not smart enough to run our own lives. The Bible's clear about that and at least in my personal experience, I've proven that to be a fact in my life. And so Lord Jesus, instead help us come to you and acknowledge you in all of our ways as the book of Proverbs says, and trust you to direct our paths in ways that maybe we would never have chosen, in ways that at first we don't even want to go. But Lord, help us to trust you to lead our lives in paths that when it's all over we look back and say with Fanny Crosby, wow, Jesus led me all the way and He did it better than I would have ever done it. Give us the humility and the wisdom to bow before you and let you direct our paths. And we thank you for the liberty of the Spirit that sometimes gives us the freedom to pray with absolute and complete intractability. But Lord, in the times that those things are not true, and that's most of the time, help us to pray with the humility that leaves the choice with you. Help us be okay with unanswered prayers because you give us something better instead. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. And what did all God's people say? Amen. Amen.