The Last Hour Steward
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Greetings…
Theme: The Life of Christ
Hope: To draw closer to God through a better understanding of Jesus in this life here on earth.
Our text today, Matthew 20:1-16 examines the parable of the “Last Hour Steward” and the path he took verse the path of “first-hour” took, but before we get into our text, I want us to consider what led to Jesus giving this parable.
Right before Jesus gave this parable a “rich young man” came to Jesus seeking his advice. He had asked Jesus “what good deed must I do to have eternal life.” It turned out that this man had one thing holding him back, his money. Jesus told him to sell all he had, give it to the poor, and follow Jesus. The man went away sorrowful.
When the disciples heard Jesus say how hard it was for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God they were confused and worried. They even asked, “Who then can be saved?”
Peter, seized the opportunity to list his sacrifices for Jesus “we have left everything” and then wanted to know “What then will we have?”
Peter was for sure out of order on this, but Jesus assures him anyway that his sacrifices will be rewarded.
However, because Jesus knew the motives behind the question, he gives them the parable of the “Last Hour Steward.”
With this in mind let’s examine our lesson for this morning.
The Parable
The Parable
The Natural & Strange.
The Natural & Strange.
In this parable there are several things about it that we would consider natural and some things that we would consider strange.
This isn’t necessary uncommon with the parables Jesus taught as they had a lesson within them.
The natural things we find.
There have always been common places where the unemployed tend to congregate.
It might be a union hall, an unemployment center, or a local corner of a street.
At the time of this parable, it was obviously at the marketplace.
Unlike most other professions, as many of you all know, a farmer has “peak times” of the year when laboring long hours is required or a loss of harvest can happen.
Twelve-hour days or longer are common during harvest time.
These men being paid off each day was also common during this time and in fact a law on the books from the Law of Moses.
13 “You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until the morning.
Because most of these workers lived day to day, they needed that pay for their family’s daily food and other things.
The unnatural things we find.
The farmer hires workers he knows will only be working for a very short period of time.
This would appear to be one of those “desperate times demand desperate situations.”
The produced here could spoil for sure and it might just be that the master of the house wanted to get as much done as possible before that happened.
It would be wise in this case to hire as many as possible no matter how long they actually worked.
What is harder to explain, from a physical perspective, is why the farmer paid the same wage for each of the workers no matter how long they had labored. This simply isn’t good business sense.
Yet, we are assured that God knows what he is doing as he is the farmer in this parable.
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
This point, that God knows what he is doing, is the main lesson of this parable.
Summary
Summary
As God’s children when we say we have “faith in God” what we better mean is “we trust God completely.”
We won’t and don’t always know why God has asked us to do some things they way he does but if we trust him, we will do what he desires anyway.
That brings us to a very important lesson from this parable.
There is a difference between…
Quality & Quantity
Quality & Quantity
These Aren’t Always The Same.
These Aren’t Always The Same.
It’s not always the quantity of work that we do that makes us important.
The quality of the work must be considered as well.
If you are packing my parachute, I don’t care how many you pack as long as they are packed right.
It’s not the length, but the depth of the service that God considers.
Do we really think that the eleventh-hour laborer in our parable would have been rewarded as much if he had been a slothful servant?
He was probably the last one coming off the field.
I know a preacher that tells the story of an elderly man he met while doing a gospel meeting in connection with a VBS.
This elderly man was in his 80’s yet he was the one leading the singing and helping in almost everything that was going on.
It was enough that the preacher I knew, recognized the labor he was putting in and was impressed.
Upon asking about the man, he found out he was a relatively new convert of only a few years.
The congregation itself was new as well as it had recently been established in that part of town a few years earlier, and new building happened to be across the street from this elderly man’s house.
The preacher of the congregation there mentioned that his man was so happy that he had found Jesus and fellowship with the church that we work tirelessly to “make up” for lost time.
Unfortunately, this man did not live long as a child of God having died not long after the meeting took place; he was indeed an eleventh-hour laborer.
Personally, like many of you hear, I’m thankful to have been raised in the church and to have labored as a child of God as long as I have.
But as you also know it doesn’t matter how long you labor for the Lord but how you labor for the Lord.
The reality is some have been in the church for 50 years and have been outworked by new converts.
14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?
17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. 18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!
20 Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works;
23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. 24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?
26 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.
Summary
Summary
Because the eleventh-hour laborer works so hard it can sometimes lead to a poor attitude from long time laborers.
It has actually been said by brethren before, “This person lived almost their entire life in sin and at the last minute changed and will get to go to heaven, how is that fair to me who has suffered as a Christian all this time.”
This is the most dangerous attitude anyone could have and the reason they are ineffective at teaching the lost.
Conclusion
Conclusion
The preacher who told me the account of the real life “eleventh-hour” laborer said the preacher of the local congregation there had told him what the elder man had said after obey the gospel.
He told the preacher, “I am so happy to have found Jesus and the hope of heaven. But before I found Christ, I reared a family of nine children whose feet I set on the wrong path. There is little hope of my changing them now. I gained eternal life, but I lost my family. I wish you had moved to our area sooner!”
Brothers and sisters, those that enter into the kingdom at the eleventh-hour miss so much.
They miss a life of meaning and beauty.
They have wondered aimlessly through life with no “real purpose.”
They have no blessed Father, no precious Big Brother, and no fellowship with the brethren.
They have scared themselves with sin through the years and ruined countless lives spiritually.
The eleventh-hour laborer had “so much pain” after they obey the gospel let us make sure we are never the cause of any more pain in their lives!
They deserve as much as you and I to “come to Christ, rest from their physical labors also.”
That is why it is so important that we convince people that God wants them in his vineyard right now.
Invitation
1 Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; 2 but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.
6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,
32 “Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven.
8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.