A Slave For Christ Part 8
Scriptures: Matthew 21:33-40; Matthew 22:11-14; Isaiah 61:10
Introduction:
In my message last week I shared with you the hope that we have in Jesus Christ. Jesus, as you recalled, served God the Father as a slave; was betrayed for the value of a slave’s; and was crucified, dying a slave’s form of death. On the third day however, Jesus rose from the dead forever giving us a hope that what we experience in this life is not the end, but the beginning. This morning as I conclude the parables that Jesus told relating to slaves, I want to focus on two stories that He told that as I grew to understand them, caused me to take thought of my own life. Next week we will begin examining what Paul had to say about being a slave for Christ.
In one of our previous bible study lessons, we discussed Matthew 24:42-51 from a slave’s point of view. In that scripture, Jesus told the disciples to always be ready for His return because they did not know what day, time or hour that He would arrive. This became a steadfast promise to the disciples when they saw Him after the resurrection. To illustrate to His disciples His meaning of always being ready, He told them the parable about a slave who was left in charge while the master was away. He called the slave who was doing what he was supposed to be doing when his master returned “blessed”. Likewise Jesus referred to the slave who was not found doing what he was supposed to be doing when his master returned “wicked.” The point Jesus was making to the disciples was that they were to be about His business until He returned for them. When Jesus rose from the dead He forever removed the doubt from the disciple’s minds of what He was capable of doing and what He was planning to do. They began to live a life of readiness which required them to make some sacrifices, including the ultimate sacrifice of their lives. This message is also for you and me. We do not know when Christ will return so we must always be ready and doing what He has called us to do faithfully and with diligence. In that lesson I focused on the mentality of the slave – one of carrying out their duties with a mindset of not having a choice. I asked the group if they knew Christ was coming back on a certain day, would it change some of the things they were currently doing. This is the mindset that we need to have – living as if Christ can return at any moment and will find us hard at work fulfilling what He has called us to do.
This morning we will examine two parables that Jesus told using the master and slave relationship. The first story speak to the slave’s willingness to do something even when they knew it might cost them something great while the second story focuses on our willingness to wear (use) what has been given to us. Let’s begin with the story from Matthew 21:33-40.
I. A Slave Until Death
In Matthew chapter twenty-one, Jesus tells the story of a landowner who had planted a vineyard and had workers tending the vineyard. What I want to focus on this morning is not the purpose of this parable, but the attitude and disposition of the slaves in the parable. Let’s begin with verse thirty-three.
“Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a wall around it and dug a wine press in it, and built a tower, and rented it out to vine-growers and went on a journey. When the harvest time approached, he sent his slaves to the vine-growers to receive his produce. The vine-growers took his slaves and beat one, and killed another, and stoned a third. Again he sent another group of slaves larger than the first, and they did the same thing to them. But afterwards he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the vine-growers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.’ They took him, and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine-growers?” (Matthew 21:31-40)
As you read this story it is easy to see that Jesus was talking about what would happen to Him. God was the landowner who gave us authority over this world in the beginning. Then sin entered into the mix and the world (the renters of the land) decided that it would not pay the landowner. God sent His servants (the prophets and other leaders of the Old Testament) in an attempt to re-establish His rightful claim to what was His. Of course as you read through the Old Testament, God’s servants were often abused while doing their jobs. Finally Jesus was sent to reclaim the world for His Father. What Jesus was relaying to His disciples was His death and God’s judgment on those who refused to accept Him. Now that being said, let’s go back and examine the attitudes of the slaves and put ourselves in their position.
Imagine yourself as one of these slaves. Your master comes to you and your other peer slaves and asks you to go to his vineyard to collect His produce from the vine-growers who had rented part of his land. In your mind you’re thinking this is a simple request. Your master owns the land; he rented it to these vine-growers; and now it is time for them to pay a portion of their produce for the land they have rented. You and your peers would just be collecting what was owed to your master. This is a simple request right? So, not fearing that anything bad could happen, you and your group leave to go and collect your master’s portion of the harvest. You’re part of this first group of slaves who has no idea of the mentality of the vine-growers who has rented the land from your master. In your mind they owe your master and you’re just going to pick up what is owed. However, when you arrive there, you find that not only do they not want to pay they begin to abuse you and actually kill some of you. You are not prepared for this attack against you especially since they are on your master’s land. At some point some of you escape to tell your master what had happened. Imagine describing how you were beaten, stoned and some of you killed when you tried to collect the money. Now consider what the other slaves felt when they heard the news of what had happened to their fellow slaves. Imagined them hearing about their fellow slaves being beaten stoned and killed. Imagine the fear that is now freely flowing through everyone and then the unexpected happens – the master comes and asks for another group to go.
The first group of slaves had no idea of what would happen when they went to collect their master’s produce. They did not think anything bad would come out of it. But this second group understood fully what could potentially happen to them. They knew that they could receive the same treatment. They knew that they could lose their lives at the hand of the vine-growers. They knew that they could leave their homes for this mission and not return. This is a very different understanding that they had versus what the first group. Now imagine that you were not in the first group but were in the second group.
In the story the slaves did exactly what their master had requested of them. They too went to collect their master’s produce and were treated exactly like the first group. But imagine for a moment that this happened today and we were charged with collecting the rent from the landlord (who is our boss, not our owner). Imagine being sent to the roughest part of town to collect the rent after hearing about how your friends were treated when they tried to collect the money in those neighborhoods. What would you do since you’re not a slave but a hired worker? Would you go or would you quit immediately? Now consider that you were a slave and had no choice? Which position is easier to walk through life in? Obviously the position where you’re not a slave is much easier to walk in because you can always choose not to walk in and through any difficult situation. You can only deal with “stuff” that is comfortable for you.
This is the mentality that many of us have today. When we get into situations where our walking with God conflicts with the world’s view, we sometime yield to the world’s view to make our lives easier. But consider the impact of this story. Are we willing to put our lives on the line to accomplish what God wants us to do? In the United States it is not dangerous to be known as a Christian and to profess publicly that you’re a Christian. However, in some countries, this would be very dangerous to do. If you were to leave the United States and travel to a country that was hostile to Christians, would you deny that you’re a Christian if it meant that you would be killed if they knew you were one? As a slave, you’d have no choice because you would carry the marking of your master and you would not be able to hide your association with your owner. But today, although we are Christians, we do not necessarily “always” show it on the “outside.” This is what I want to leave with you from this story – are you willing to lay your lives down for being known as a Christian. When there is a difficult task before you, are you willing to go through the trial and tribulation of completing the task even if it means you must give up part of yourself? I have struggled here because it is not the easy things of being a Christians that push me to the limit, it is those things that require me to adjust “me” and how I think and desire to respond that shows me that I have not fully gotten there yet. There was a time in my life before I chose to live a life as a slave where the Ten Commandments were treated more like the “Ten Recommendations.” During my life time I have broken several of them and when I broke them I was not thinking like a slave, I was thinking like someone who had choices. You see, as a slave, a commandment was non-negotiable. However, if I am not a slave, a commandment could still be broken if I chose to see it as a recommendation and I applied a great amount of grace. How many recommendations have been made to us through the years that we did not take? It was a sobering awakening when I realized that even though I walked in a certain calling I had not adjusted my life to be that of a slave. What I am sharing with you in this series comes from my own awakening inclusive of my shortcomings as I have tried to walk with Christ. Have you made a conscious decision that what you believe in is worth dying for if you had to make a choice? If you have then the first thing you realized is that the first death is that of self – we must die to ourselves to live as a slave for Christ. That was a hard lesson for me to learn! Turn to Matthew chapter twenty-two.
II. Utilizing What Is Available To You
In this story, Jesus tells a parable about king who prepares a wedding feast for his son. He sent his slaves to gather attendees for the feast and once again some of them were abused and killed during the process. The king immediately avenged his slaves and took actions against those murderers. The story continues with the king sending his slaves back out to gather “whosoever will come” to the feast. Although I am focusing on our having a slave mentality, I want to focus our attention in this parable on one of the guests who came to the feast. Look down at verse 11.
“But when the king came in to look over the dinner guests, he saw a man there who was not dressed in wedding clothes, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without wedding clothes?’ And the man was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.” (Matthew 22:11-14)
For years I did not understood why this king could be so cruel. First he sets up the feast for his son and when no one else wants to come, he gathers any and everyone who agrees to come so that the wedding hall would be filled. Having gotten a room full, now he comes in and gets angry at one of the individuals because he did not have on wedding clothes. (This story has caused some Churches to establish rules about dress codes for what is appropriate to wear to Church but they miss the point of this story. I will explain more shortly.) As I read this parable, I did not read that wedding clothes were a requirement for attendance. I could not understand why this man was being punished for not wearing wedding clothes when he was brought in off the street to attend a feast that others refused to come to. What concerned me even more was the fact that this story was about how God would treat us. If you have read this and did not understand why the king responded this way, let me explain his reaction and why he was justified.
It was the custom then (and in some places now) that the host would provide the invited guest attending the wedding feast with the appropriate wedding garments upon their arrival. This would have been necessary for the guests at this feast in particular for as I mentioned previously they were brought in directly from the street. The man in question failed to avail himself to the wedding garment that the host had provided for him which was an insult to the host. The host now having been insulted responds by forcibly removing the man from the feast. With this bit of history, do you understand why the host was so upset? This story was to give us a glimpse of our coming to Christ’s feast which God is preparing. Many have been invited but not everyone avails themselves to the garment required for attendance. In this case salvation through the blood of Christ is the garment required for attendance to Christ’s feast. Isaiah 61:10 records the following: “I will rejoice greatly in the Lord, my soul will exult in my God; for He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.” As Christians we have been given what we need to attend the feast that God is preparing in honor of His Son Jesus Christ. Although many have been invited, just as we read in the story, few are chosen.
I want to close this morning with one additional thought from this story. As a slave of Christ, we recognize that we have been given those things that we need in order to do what Christ has called us to do. If we were invited to His feast and He had clothes prepared for us to wear, would it seem cruel if He threw us out for refusing to accept the garments that He had prepared for us as part of the invitation and requirement to attend the feast? In that same line of thinking, is it cruel for Christ to be saddened when we refuse to use the other tools He has provided for us to operate by in this world? We talk about faith and we talk about grace. We have faith when we are believing and patiently waiting on God to move. We apply grace when we receive something that we do not deserve. But as a slave of Christ, where does obedience fit in? The first requirement of a slave is to be obedient. In our obedient, are we willing to do what has been asked of us; wear what we have been given (spiritually); and utilize all of the resources placed at our disposal to accomplish what we have been called to do? As a slave we would not have a choice, but until we fully accept the bondage that comes with serving Christ, we will continue to think the choice is ours to make.
Some of you are thinking that you have nothing to offer. Some of you are thinking that you have battled and lost so much in this life that you’re reaching up right now just to touch bottom. Some of you are thinking that God has given to everyone else and yet He has passed you by – that you missed your opportunity. I am standing before you as a living witness that if God can use me He has plans for you! It is not about your age or past failures; it is about your willingness right now! It is not about your attitude; it is about your servitude! It is not about your abilities; it is about His abilities! God has equipped you; pick up what He has given you and go to work! Stop blaming yourself; other; and life. Life happens – but God also happens! He happens to care about us! He happens to love us! He happens to empower us! He happens to equip us! He happens to answer our prayers! He happens to carry us through if we are willing to be carried! There is more to you than even you know. Do not be like the man in this story. Take the garment that Christ has placed before you and come to His feast.
Until next week, may God bless and keep you is my prayer.
