“Amazing grace has become boring grace for many people. It is boring because we do not think of ourselves as sinners—at least not very great sinners—and because we think God owes us something anyway.”
- J.I. Packer (from Knowing God)
PRODIGAL:
● Recklessly wasteful
● Giving something on a lavish scale
QUESTION:
*Have you ever said or heard someone say, “that’s not fair!”?*
MATTHEW 20:1-11 — “For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’”
GRUMBLED:
● Pride
● Envy
● Fairness
LUKE 23:42-43 And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
GET THIS:
“Grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us more. And grace means there is nothing we can do to make
God love us less.
MATTHEW 20:12-15 saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge (question) my generosity?’
“Grace is not about finishing last or first;
it is about not counting.”
- Phillip Yancey
GOD’S MATH:
● The owner (Father) wasn’t thinking profit. He was thinking about people, and their needs. He gives abundantly because that’s His nature.
● At the foot of the cross the ground is level.
MATTHEW 20:16-19 “So the last will be first, and the first last.” And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way he said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.”
GOD’S MATH:
● God’s math ordained that His Son would be murdered for our salvation.
John 3:16-17 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
RESPONSE:
● Have you experienced God’s redemptive grace?
● Are you struggling with fairness, envy, pride, and/or God’s math?