Don't Do the Math - Wk2
December 8, 2019

The Unsettling Solution for Just About Everything, week 2: Don’t Do the Math

Matthew 20:1-16

Grace: When correctly applied, solves just about everything.
BUT, it’s so darn

.

Uncomfortable because it’s undeserved, unearned, unearnable favor.

Truly, the reason it’s uncomfortable, is that the math doesn’t work - and we want the math to work.

“All I want is what is coming to me. All I want is my fair share.” —Sally from Charlie Brown Christmas

1 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
3 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went.
“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’
7 “ ‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’
8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’
9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’
13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ —Matthew 20:1-15

The kingdom of heaven is characterized by

.
Will you participate in a system, in a kingdom, where people don’t get what they deserve and get what they don’t deserve?

“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” —Matthew 20:16

We

to determine .
Grace compare.

***Grace doesn’t compare because it’s married to truth, and truth says we are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God. (full stop)

Truth is that Jesus is

.
Stop doing the math - it doesn’t work and you’ll miss the gift.