Disclaimer:
Due to the large amount of sermons and topics that appear on this site I feel it is necessary to post this disclaimer on all sermons posted. These sermons are original to the author and the leading of the Holy Spirit. While ideas and illustrations are often gleaned from many sources including those at Sermoncentral.com, any similarities and wording including sermon title, that may appear to be the same as any other sermon are purely coincidental. In instances where other minister’s wording is used, due recognition will be given. These sermons are not copyrighted and may be used or preached freely. May God richly bless you as you read these words. It is my sincere desire that all who read them may be enriched. All scriptures quoted in these sermons are copies and quoted from the Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible.
Ideas for portions of this sermon were obtained from a sermon by Rev. Paul Black. His sermon entitled, "Living with an unfair God" may be viewed at tthis website also.
Pastor James May
God’s Fair Wage!
Matthew 20:1-15 - The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard
20:1 For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard.
20:2 And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard.
20:3 And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace,
20:4 And said unto them; Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way.
20:5 Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise.
20:6 And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle?
20:7 They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard; and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive.
20:8 So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first.
20:9 And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny.
20:10 But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny.
20:11 And when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house,
20:12 Saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day.
20:13 But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny?
20:14 Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee.
20:15 Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good?
Over the years past I have been employed on a number of jobs and, like most of you, I have seen some pretty unfair practices along the way. There was one job that I had that, if you were called out on a holiday and answered the call, it didn’t matter if you were there for 5 minutes or for 8 hours, you were paid double-time and a half, or about $40 per hour with an 8 hour minimum pay.
I have also seen those times when you worked overtime, sometimes as much as 80 or 90 hours a week above the normal 40 hour week, and the earnings on that time spent would earn less than $2.00 per hour.
There have been so many who have cried out against unfair wages, especially to women who are paid less for doing the same job that a man is paid for doing. It seems that the world of business has the out-dated idea that a woman’s income is “secondary income” for the family since it is assumed that her husband is the primary breadwinner for the family. Of course, we all know that this is no longer the case in our society, and yet, the business world, in general, still follows this faulty thought process because it saves them money.
In the scripture for today, we can also see what seem to be, a gross mistreatment of some workers and a very generous treatment of others. How could every worker be paid the same even though some had not worked even 1/10th of the time of another who received the same wage?
Let’s look at another example. Just suppose that one of the local businessmen had purchased a new building and was planning to move all of his stock into the new store.
He placed an ad in the paper offering $100.00 per day to anyone who would come to help him make the move. The first workers were there early on the day, around 6 AM, and went quickly to work moving heavy boxes, filling the 18 wheeler truck with furniture, 55 gallon drums of cleaners, and heavy wooden crates. They delivered this first load, unloading it and setting up the new displays as the merchant directed them to do.
Then they return for the second load to find that there were several new people hired to make the move. As soon as the truck was docked, it was now about 11:00 AM, and all of the workers joined together to begin filling it again with the lighter stock of smaller boxes and small items, then drove off once more to unload and restock at the new store.
The day was getting nearly over now, and the move was nearly done, but to the worker’s surprise, when they returned with the truck there were 3 more new workers waiting for them to arrive. It was now almost dark and all that was left was a small load of odds and ends and so it only took 15 minutes of easy work and they were off again to complete the job of unloading and setting up the new store.
The day was done now. It was time for the merchant to pay the workers who had worked so hard to move his entire store in just one day. As each one lined up for their pay, he handed each one a brand new $100 bill, even those who had only worked for 15 minutes.
What do you think happened then? Unfair! Unfair! Those were the complaints the merchant heard. Would you have been a complainer if you had worked all day and saw this happen? I dare say that all of us would have been among the complainers.
Jesus is trying to teach us a lesson through this parable, just as He always does, for Jesus was the consummate teacher, just as His Word and the Holy Spirit are right now.
First of all, let me say that the wages agreed upon were fair wages for those who worked hard all day. They were to be paid the normal wage for anyone who was employed.
Definition of “penny”:
Penny - silver coin of the value of about &7.50-$8.00 of our present money. It was the daily pay of a Roman soldier in the time of Christ. (This was also the wages I earned as a stock clerk at a local grocery store when I was in High School) This was the "tribute money" with reference to which our Lord said, "Whose image and superscription is this?" When they answered, "Caesar’s," he replied, "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s"
When Jesus places the Call to ministry upon your life and you begin to serve Him, His promise to you is that you will receive a just reward for your labor. What greater reward can He offer than eternal life and a glorious future in Heaven, near the Throne of Almighty God?
I would say that promise is all-sufficient for any work that I may do for the Kingdom of God, not counting all of the wonderful blessings of family, friends, possessions, health and life that He provides along the way. What more could we ask for?
Some of us have been working for the Lord in a number of positions within His Kingdom for a lot of years. We have labored when it was hard, when it was inconvenient, when it was not easy, when it cost us time from our family, when it caused friction among our relationships, when it was unpopular and when we often had to miss out on the “fun” that everyone else was having.
Yet, we labored on, because we knew that, in the end, we would receive that great reward promised by God in Matthew 19:29, "And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life."
Others of us have been saved and working in God’s Kingdom for less time, having been saved only a few years. Yet you too are laboring under the same promise of eternal life and the glory of Heaven as your pay for a job well done.
We that have been around for a longer time applaud you and welcome your help because there is much to do in the Work of the Lord. So many souls are yet to be reached, so many classes to teach, and it would be an impossible task for us to complete without your help.
There will more to come, should Jesus tarry, that will join our labors for Christ before the rapture of the church. I believe that we are in the eleventh hour right now and coming quickly to the end of the day when we will be able to work for the Lord freely.
John 9:4, "I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work."
Just as in the time of Christ, we live in a world that is governed by time. Not one of us has the ability to live without a clock somewhere telling us when it is time get up, to lie down, to eat, to work or to do whatever. Time is valuable and cannot be regained, so we base our wages in life upon time increments.
Divisions of time:
In Biblical Israel, the day began at sundown, but night and day was divided into hours independently of one another. Assuming day begins on average about 6:00 AM, three hours later would be about 9:00 am. This is an approximation, however, since unless you live on the equator, the length of a day depends on the time of year. Since an hour was defined as one twelfth of the daylight (as measured on a sundial), an hour was also longer in the summer than it was in the winter.
Those who began many years ago in the early church began working for Christ under much harder conditions in many ways, than we do now. They began in the 3rd hour of the day so to speak. The dawn of the Church Age had just begun. As anyone who has ever began a new work knows the hardest time of all is the first years when you are trying to get momentum going and when the resources are fewer and you have little experience.
Then, as the church continued to grow, many more joined in the labor of building the Kingdom of Christ under the direction of the Holy Spirit. The great reformers, missionaries and evangelists joined in and the gospel began its march through the hearts of men around the globe. These are similar to those who have joined the labors of the Lord in the 9th hour of the day. They too labored under the same promise of eternal life and the glories of Heaven.
Finally, we come down to you and I. Laborers together in the Kingdom of God, along with Paul, Matthew, and all members of the Body of Christ, worldwide, throughout the whole Church Age, we continue to labor in the spread of the gospel in this last hour of the Age. We labor under the same promise of eternal life and heaven’s glory.
At the close of this Age, when the Church is raptured, when we go to meet the Lord in the air and stand before the BEMA of Christ, then celebrate at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, we will all receive our wages for our work in the Kingdom of God.
Oh how glad we will be that our Lord is just in all that He does. We will all reap the same reward for our labor. Those who have labored for many years will receive the same reward for faithfulness as that one who has accepted Jesus as Lord only moments before the Rapture happens. I thank God that we have the same promise.
Unlike the labors of this life where we work for a pittance for our time, we work for the Kingdom of God as a labor of love. If you love someone, the time you spend working to be a blessing is counted as time well spent. The wages we receive are wages that money cannot buy.
God is no respecter of persons, meaning that He will treat everyone of us with absolute justice and fairness. There is no partiality in His rewards to His children. God’s rewards are not based upon how long we worked, whether we worked hard or not, or whether we did a perfect job, even though we strive to do the best we can for Him.
God’s reward of eternal life is based on one thing only. Have we accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior through repentance and confession to Christ and belief in the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord, and made Jesus the Lord of our lives?
God’s wages are based upon faithfulness to the Call of God on our lives. In Matthew chapter 25 we read about the parable of the Talents. In that parable Jesus promises us that, if we are faithful to God’s work, we too shall hear the words in Matthew 25:21, "…Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord."
What has all of this to do with us right now? I suppose the questions to all of us would be:
“Are we being faithful to the Call of God?”
“What are you expecting your fair wage to be for your labors?”
“Are we covetous or envious of those who seem to be blessed more for their labor than we are even though we know we have worked harder and longer than they have?”
“Do I really believe that the wages that God has promised are sufficient no matter what his Call upon my life will require or has required?”
My friends, God’s great blessings and wonderful wages of eternal life and the wondrous glories of Heaven forever, are more than sufficient for our labor. I don’t believe that any will be slighted or feel they deserved more. We will all be so glad to be with Jesus that nothing else will matter.
May the Lord bless you according to His riches in Glory as we continue to work together and welcome new workers into the labor of the Lord and the spread of the gospel.
