Parable of the Workers - Life of Christ Part 69

Last week I mentioned Garth Brooks and the song, Unanswered Prayer. And I took a little grief about that because Dean believes that no self-respecting Christian ever listens to country music.

And I said, that's not right. That there's a lot of good, fine Christians that listen to country music, huh? I went back and listened to the song this week because I'd mentioned it and I hadn't heard it in oodles and oodles of time. And I was impressed with the message that it fit so well with what I was going to do this week. So, I want you to listen to it. And maybe we can make you a real person and turn you on to country music.

Anyway, listen to the message, okay? 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 granted 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 who stares and just because he doesn't answer doesn't mean he don't care.

Some of God's greatest skills are unanswered prayers. She wasn't quite the angel that I remembered in my dreams. And I could tell the time changed me in her eyes too it seemed. We tried to talk about the old days.

Wasn't much we could recall. I guess the Lord knows what he's doing after all. And as she walked away I looked at my wife and in and there I thanked the good Lord for the gifts in my life. Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers.

Remember when you're talking to the man who stares and just because he doesn't answer doesn't mean he don't care. Some of God's greatest skills are unanswered. Some of God's greatest skills are all too often unanswered. Some of God's greatest skills are unanswered prayers. What's Garth Brooks really saying? It seems to me what he's saying is that God did a better job of picking out a wife for him than he had done for himself. And that's exactly what I want to talk to you about. What God wants to talk about today is letting God choose for us when many times we're so sure that we can choose better but letting God make the choice.

Let's look and see if you agree with me when we're done here. Verse 1 of chapter 20, for the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. This is a story all about harvesting grapes. And I don't know if you know much about harvesting grapes but grapes have to be harvested at just the right moment.

You let them sit on the vine even one or two days too long, the sugar content goes way up and ruins the grapes. And so in ancient Israel there was a group of men, kind of like migrant farm workers, who would go around and make themselves available for hire for these owners who had to get all of these grapes picked right away. They couldn't wait. They would stand around in the marketplace and the owner would go in and hire these men for the day, or for two days. Now the work day was 12 hours long.

It went from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. And the first hour was 6 a.m., the third hour was 9 a.m., the sixth hour was noon, and the 12th hour was 6 p.m. That's how they counted the day. Now you need to know that to make the story make sense. Verse 2. And he agreed, the owner did, to pay them a denarius for the day and he sent them into his vineyard. A denarius was a Roman silver coin and the Bible indicates here, and this is the most important part of the whole story, if you miss this you'll miss the point. The Bible indicates that there was a haggling that went on, a negotiating that went on between the two, the owner and the men. Because this word where it says he agreed to pay them literally means in Greek that he made a contract with them. They obviously said to him, hey look, we are not going out to work in that field until we've got a contract we like with a wage that we agree with, and only then will we go out there and pick your grapes. Now does that sound familiar?

I mean I wonder if any of these guys was named Cal Ripkenstein. You don't understand what I'm saying? But anyway, they got a contract, they agreed on one denarius, and out they went. Now the story goes on, verse 3, and about the third hour, 9am, the owner saw he needed more people. So he went out in the marketplace and he told some more guys, you go out and work in my vineyard and I'll pay you whatever is right. Would you notice this next group did not negotiate wages with him. They simply said, okay, we'll go work and we'll trust you, whatever you think is right and fair, that's what we'll take from you.

So there's a huge difference between the first group and this group. And so they went. And he went out again the sixth hour, noon, and the ninth hour, 3pm, and did the same thing, made the same deal.

And about the eleventh hour, that's 5 o'clock in the afternoon, I quit in time of 6. He went out and he found some more guys in the market and said, what are you doing standing here? And they said, no one's hired us today. He said, you also go out and work in my vineyard and I'll give you what's right.

And they did. Now the end of the day comes and it's time to settle up, verse 8. And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, call the workers in and pay them their wages, beginning at the guys who went into the field last, the guys who went in at 5 o'clock.

Start with them and work your way back to the guys who've been there since 6am. And so the workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each one received a whole denarius. And the implication is that everybody else who'd gone out into the field part way during the day also got a denarius.

Now that was a very magnanimous thing this guy did. In fact, I actually have here a denarius. I bought it in Israel. I don't know if you can see. It's about the size of a dime.

It's a Roman silver coin. You can come up afterwards. I'll put it up here. You can look at it. Just don't steal it.

That's all I ask. This is actually from the time of Christ. And with one of these coins, you could buy between a day and two days worth of food for your family. So that was a very good wage. Now the guy knew by giving a twelfth of this to the guys who'd only been out there one hour, they were not going to be able to go home that night and put food on the table. And so in a benevolent way, he gave them a whole denarius for being out there one hour.

Now human logic would say that didn't make any sense. They should have gotten one twelfth. The guys who went out at noon should have gotten one half. That's what should have happened. But that isn't what the owner did. He gave them all a denarius.

Now so far, so good. And then it says that the workers who were hired first, verse 10, when they came, they expected to receive more. They said, my goodness, if he's given guys who've only been out there an hour or three hours a whole denarius, man, just think what we're going to get.

But the Bible says they got one denarius too. And when they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner and say, no fair. This is no fair.

We've been out there all day. We've been out there 12 hours working in the heat of the day and you're going to give the guys who only worked one hour the same thing you give us? This is not fair. Look what the owner said to them.

He said, friend, verse 13, I'm not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for one denarius? Wasn't that the deal we made? Y'all were so worked up about making a deal and making sure you got what you thought you deserved. Didn't you make the deal? You set the terms, didn't you? You established the pay, didn't you? I made a deal with you and I gave you exactly what we agreed upon.

Look what he said. He said, take your pay and go. If I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you, don't I have the right to do with my own money whatever I feel like it? And why are you upset if I'm generous? Now take your money and get out of here. He says two things to him. One, it's my money, I'll do whatever I want to with it.

If I want to give those guys a denarius, it's my business, it's none of your business. And the second thing he said is, I wasn't unfair to you. You were the guys who made up the deal. You were the guys who set the wages.

I paid you exactly what we agreed and I wasn't unfair to you at all. Now take your wages and go home. Now that's the end of the story, but let's see if we can figure out what the point is. Well, who's the owner in the story? Well, it's God, right? And who are the workers in the vineyard?

Well, that's us as Christians. And the lesson of the parable to the best that I understand it is this, that God is most generous to those who let him dictate the terms. Would you notice the one thing that separated the 6 a.m. workers from all the rest of the workers is that in the case of the 6 a.m. guys, they insisted on dictating their own terms. They wanted to negotiate for what they were sure was best for them and in the case of everybody else, they just went out and trusted the owner and let him set the terms, let him dictate the terms. And who got the short end of the stick? Hey, the 6 a.m. workers got exactly what they bargained for. God wasn't unfair to them, but the other guys got what was unfair.

They got more than they should have gotten. But friends, this is the way God is. And the point of the story is that everybody in the story who let God dictate the terms found that God was exceedingly more generous than human logic would have predicted him to be.

Human logic said some would get a half, some would get a 12. God gave them all a denarius. And the ones who let God set the terms found God to be more generous than they ever would have dreamed. This is the way God is. To understand this is to understand an important part of who God is, that God is a generous, benevolent being. Psalm 35 says that God delights in the prosperity, in the well-being of his children. Psalm 31 says how great is the goodness God has stored up to give to those who will trust him. And you remember Psalm 23, my cup what?

Runneth over. What does that speak of? That speaks of an overflowing generosity of God. God is saying in all these verses and in our story, just trust me, don't dictate the terms, just trust me, and I'll do better for you than you'll ever do for yourself. And friends, since God is who he is, we can trust him.

We can trust him to always choose what's best for us. It was these deal makers in the story, the 6 a.m. crew, who wouldn't trust him, who felt that the owner would not look out for their interests, who felt the only way they could protect their interests was to negotiate out terms for themselves. They were the ones who ended up the losers. It was the ones who said, fine, we'll just trust you and we know you'll do what's right by us.

They ended up the winners. This is the point of the story. That every time we let God do the choosing, we'll be glad we did. Now if you're here, let me just say before we go on and answer, so what? That if you're here this morning and maybe you've never trusted Christ in a real and personal way, oftentimes one of the things that really hangs people up when they're thinking about that is this fear that God's going to somehow make life miserable, that God's going to take away everything that's fun, everything that's enjoyable, and that life's just going to become like living in a prison. I'd like to say to you nothing could be farther from the truth, that God is the most generous, benevolent being in the universe, and all God wants to do is take your life and make it really worth living. All God wants to do is take your life and really fill it with genuine joy and genuine happiness.

Take away the world's counterfeit for those things. And if you've been holding back and saying, I don't know if I really want to do this because I've heard these horror stories about everything God's going to take away from me, trust me, friend. I've been a Christian now approaching 25 years, and nothing God ever asked me to give up was for my benefit anyway. And God has been so benevolent to me, I just shake my head and go, I don't believe this. How could I ever have doubted it? If you're here and you're thinking about whether Jesus Christ ought to have control of your life, let me just reassure you, you will never regret giving God the first place in your life.

He will be more gracious to you than you deserve or you ever dreamed. And I hope you'll think about that. Now let's ask the real important question, what is it? So what? Right. I want to go back to Numbers chapter 11, and if you're using our copy of the Bible, page 103, Numbers chapter 11, and show you a story in the Old Testament that illustrates the point, again, of so what here.

Now let me give you some background while you're turning. The Israelites have just come out of Egypt. They've gone to Mount Sinai. They've been gone about a year from Egypt. You know, the water opened, the chariots got caved in on and all that good stuff.

You saw the movie. And so now they're leaving Mount Sinai and they're heading for the Promised Land. For a year they've been eating manna. Manna was this stuff that would drop out of heaven.

It was, well, we're going to read about it in a minute. They've been eating this supernaturally supplied manna for a year, and now they're moving through this barren country. And I want to tell you, this past year when I was in Israel, I went to Mount Sinai. We bust down there. Man, there ain't nothing but sand and sand and more sand.

There ain't nothing there. And this is the way God fed his people. Look at verse 7, Numbers chapter 11. The manna was like coriander seed and looked like resin. The people went around gathering it and then ground it in a hand mill or crushed it in a mortar. They cooked it in a pot or made it into cakes.

It tasted like something made with olive oil. And when the dew settled on the camp at night, the manna would also come down. So they've been eating this for a year, but now they're not happy.

Look at verse 4. And the rabble that was with them began craving other food. And the Israelites again started wailing and complaining and saying, If only we had meat to eat. We remember the fish in Egypt that we got at no cost. That didn't occur to them.

They were slaves, and that's why they got it at no cost. And the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic. But now we've lost our appetite. We never see anything but this stupid old manna. Manna, manna, manna.

Sick of it. So they wanted to go back and eat the food they had in Egypt. They wanted to have, like they said, they wanted to have the fish, they wanted to have the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic.

Whew. We're talking florets country here. You understand what I'm saying?

It's bad. You say, Well, Lon, what was wrong with the manna? There wasn't anything wrong with the manna, friends. In fact, Exodus chapter 16 says it tasted like honey.

And we just read in verse 8 that the Hebrew women took it and worked it in all different ways and served it in all different forms to try to keep it tasty. I mean, there was baked manna and broiled manna and fried manna and stewed manna and fricasseeed manna. There was scrambled manna, sunny side up manna and over-easy manna and manna beaters, you know.

There were manna cakes and manna pies and manna rolls and manna burgers and manna cotti. I mean, they did everything with this stuff. And the people said, That's enough. We're sick of it.

Even something great that you have all the time, you know, you get sick of it, right? You say, Well, Lon, well, this was very human, right? Yeah, it was, friends. But that didn't make it right. God had a reason for giving these people manna.

And there are three that I can give you right off the top of my head. Number one, because this displayed his supernatural power. Leeks and cucumbers didn't display anything. But this displayed his ability to supernaturally care for his people. Number two, this was a way of freeing them from spending so much time working on getting their food, preparing their food, harvesting their food, cultivating their food so they could concentrate on God and learn about God.

That's what they were out there to do. And God was trying to relieve them of the daily chores of life so they could concentrate on God. And the third thing is that God was trying to work out of these people the appetites they had acquired in Egypt. He's trying to cleanse them and give them a fresh start. They're not going to Egypt. They're going to the Promised Land.

And he wants the appetites of Egypt out of their life. God had some reasons for giving them manna. They were good reasons. They were for their blessing. But these Israelites were convinced that God was wrong. These Israelites were convinced that they knew better than God knew what was best for them. And so here they are weeping and praying and begging and negotiating with God for something that God knew wasn't in their best spiritual interest.

Well, look what happened. Verse 31. It said, Now a wind went out from the Lord and drove quail in from the sea, and it brought them down all around the camp about three feet thick. Can you imagine quail three feet high everywhere around the camp?

And it said they went out all day and all night and all the next day. People went out and gathered quail, and nobody had less than ten bushels of them. But then, while the meat was still between their teeth, before it could be consumed, the anger of the Lord burned against the people, and he struck them with a severe plague. Psalm 106 says that God gave them what they asked for, but he sent leanness into their soul. In other words, what they were sure was going to bring fatness to their body actually ended up bringing leanness to their spiritual life.

And that's why God didn't want to give it to them. Now friends, as Christians, I think, don't you, that we're often like these people? We walk around and we're so sure all the time that we know what's best for us.

We are so sure that in every situation we understand and we know exactly what God ought to do to fix this thing just right. A few years ago, I got a burr under my saddle for a conversion van. I drove one of these things one time, and I'm sitting up there driving this, and I'm going, whoa, hey, this is nice.

I like this. I want one of these. And so I began praying and saying, God, I've got to have a conversion van. God, that would be best for my family. God, you know we travel. God, you know we need room. God, you know, and I began telling him why we needed this.

And man, I'm telling you, that burr was under that saddle so good, nobody could get it out. My father-in-law said, are you sure you prayed about this? Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. What did God tell you? God told me whatever I wanted was fine.

Right. And I begged for this. I pleaded for this. I negotiated with God.

Friends, let me tell you something. The most dangerous thing about begging God to fulfill all of your wants and all of your strategies for your life, you know what the most dangerous part about that is? God, if you beg him and ask him long enough, just might give you what you're asking for.

Just might give it to you. He gave one to me. I got my conversion van.

You know what I found out? It was big, it was bulky, it was awkward, it was a gas guzzler. It cost me $700 a month to operate that sucker. And I mean, we nicknamed it in my house. We had a nickname for it. We called it the black hole because it just sucked up every dollar we had. And after about a year of trying to keep that thing going and going broke, I finally sold it, lost my shirt.

The whole thing was an absolute disaster. See, I had my plan for us mapped out. I was so sure. I knew what was right for me and my family. That's why the Bible says the way of a fool always seems right in his own eyes.

And God let me have it, and it was a disaster. Now, if you're like me, and I'll bet a few of you here are, what do we do? Man, we survey our lives, we look at our situation, we sit back and go, I know exactly what God ought to do here, exactly how God ought to work this out, exactly what's best for me.

And we look at it, we say, man, if I'm sick, I'm sure what's best for me is complete healing. If I'm single, I'm sure what's best for me is to get married. If I don't have a child, I'm sure what's best for me is to have a child.

If I'm poor, man, I got to win the Publishers Clearing House. I'm sure that's what's best for me. If I'm suffering, well, man, remove that suffering. That's what's best for me. If I don't like my job, I need a new job.

That's what's best for me. If I've got some agonizing situation in my life, God, just get that thing off of me, and I'll tell you exactly how to do it, exactly how it ought to work out. And then we go to God, and we begin lobbying for what we want.

Oh, you like me? Just like Garth Brooks did. What he said, I lobbied for that woman and lobbied for that woman. Said, God, you give me that woman, I'll never ask you for anything else. And then if it looks like God's going to take it in some direction, we don't want it to go.

Man, we get mad at God. We say, don't you dare. How dare you take it in that direction? I don't want it to go over there.

That's not what's best for me. Be careful, friends. Be careful.

Don't be part of the 6 a.m. crew. Don't be like the Israelites. Hey, they got what they wanted, and they lost.

They were so sure they knew, but they didn't. I've learned over the years we're much better off if we pray and let God do it his way, if we change our prayer from God do it the way I want to, praying, God, I'm not really sure what's best for me here, God. I'm not really sure how it ought to go, God. God, you make the choice. You take it where you know it's best.

Just help me trust you. We need to be like Abraham who went out following God, the Bible says, and didn't even know where he was going. Hey, did Abraham end up a loser? Uh-uh.

No, sir. He ended up a winner because he let God do the choosing. And, friend, we will never be losing when we let God do the choosing.

It won't happen. That's what Jesus Christ is trying to get across to us. And you know the neat part about it all is if we'll let God choose, God will choose. God will direct our lives. Listen to these promises, I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go, Psalm 32. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all of your ways acknowledge God and he will direct your path, Proverbs chapter 3.

Whenever you stray to the right or the left, your ear will hear a voice behind you saying, this is the way. Walk in at Isaiah chapter 30. And, friend, to pray, God, here's my situation.

God, I don't know exactly what to ask for. God, you do what's best for me and I'll just trust you. That is not a weak prayer. That is not an unbelieving prayer.

If God is sovereign, and he is, and if God is loving and generous, and he is, and if God can be trusted to always do what's best for us, and he can, then, friends, this is a prayer that honors God and this is a smart prayer. There's a poem I learned years ago. I never forgot it. It served me well.

Let me share it with you. It's just one little stanza. It says, God knows, God loves, God cares. Nothing this truth can dim. God gives the very best to those who leave the choice to him. God knows, God loves, God cares.

Nothing this truth can dim. God gives the very best to those who have the wisdom to leave the choice with him. Sometimes that'll mean that things won't go the way you want them to. In fact, oftentimes that'll mean things won't go the way you want them to in the short term. But hey, if God's running the show, does God know what he's doing?

If he does, trust him through the short term. And in the long term, you'll always be glad that God did it his way and not your way. I can't help but believe in a crowd like this this morning, that there's some Christians here who've been just like the 6 a.m. crew. Man, I mean, we're negotiating hard and fast with God. We're lobbying, begging, pleading, wailing, complaining, asking, naming and claiming, getting people to agree with us in prayer because we know what we want and we know what's best. And God hasn't answered, and frankly, we're pretty upset about that.

Some of God's greatest gifts are what? Unanswered prayers. My friend, my advice to you, if you want to be a wise, seasoned man or woman of God, is the best thing you could do if God hadn't answered that is let it go. Drop it and say, God, maybe I don't know what's best.

Maybe I'm like Lon who pulled that stupid thing with that conversion thing. Maybe if I get into what I think's best, it's going to be a big old black hole for me. God, well, I think I'll back off here, and you choose. Maybe you won't be single. Maybe absolute healing right now is not what's best for me. Maybe having a child right now is not what's best for me.

Maybe winning the Publishers Clearing House is not what's best for me, although I think all of us have a hard time believing that, but maybe it isn't. Lord, maybe to resolve this crisis the way I think it ought to go is not the right thing. I'll back off, and I'll give you the freedom. You choose how it ought to go, God, and I'll trust you. Friends, you will never regret letting God do the choosing. I hope that God will take what we've talked about this morning and change your relationship to Him and change your life.

Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, as we think about this very real area of life, so many of us here, maybe all of us, have found ourselves in this position with you at certain times, so sure we know what we need, so insistent that you give it to us. And, boy, Lord, some of us have learned the hard way that we're not as smart as we think we are. We don't know as much as we think we do about what's best for us. So my prayer this morning is that for those of us here who are Christians, you would impress upon us that there is another way to handle things, and that's to come to you honestly and say, Lord, we're not sure what's best for us. You choose, because you'll always be gracious, and you'll always choose best, and even if we don't particularly like it, help us to trust you. Father, help many of us here to let go, to let it drop, to give up on it, and just trust you to make the choice for us. Thank you that you're the kind of loving God who will choose, and you'll always choose well. So, Lord, change our hearts and lives by your word this morning. Change the way we live, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. .