Everyone Equal
December 4, 2011 Evening Service
Immanuel Baptist Church, Wagoner, OK
Rick Boyne
Message Point: We are all equal in the sight of God, both before salvation and after salvation.
Focus Passage: I Samuel 30:1-25
Supplemental Passage: "For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. "When he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. "And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the market place; and to those he said, 'You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.' And so they went. "Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did the same thing. "And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing around; and he *said to them, 'Why have you been standing here idle all day long?' "They *said to him, 'Because no one hired us.' He *said to them, 'You go into the vineyard too.' "When evening came, the owner of the vineyard *said to his foreman, 'Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last group to the first.' "When those hired about the eleventh hour came, each one received a denarius. "When those hired first came, they thought that they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. "When they received it, they grumbled at the landowner, saying, 'These last men have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day.' "But he answered and said to one of them, 'Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? 'Take what is yours and go, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. 'Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?' "So the last shall be first, and the first last." (Matthew 20:1-16 NASB)
Introduction: What would you think if you got to Heaven to find Adolf Hitler there? That at the last moment, he accepted Jesus and was saved? Would you be mad at that? Would you rejoice? What about Osama bin Laden? What about Joseph Stalin? What Mao Tse Tung? Others?
I. Equal in Sin
a. They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; There is no one who does good, not even one. (Psalms 14:3 NASB)
b. for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, (Romans 3:23 NASB)
II. Equal in Damnation
a. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23 NASB)
b. All flesh that moved on the earth perished, birds and cattle and beasts and every swarming thing that swarms upon the earth, and all mankind; of all that was on the dry land, all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, died. (Genesis 7:21-22 NASB)
III. Equal in Salvation
a. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23 NASB)
b. So they went into the ark to Noah, by twos of all flesh in which was the breath of life. Those that entered, male and female of all flesh, entered as God had commanded him; and the LORD closed it behind him. (Genesis 7:15-16 NASB)
c. "But it is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant; and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. (Mark 10:43-44 NASB)
d. “but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.” (Revelation 21:27 NASB)
Invitation:
