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Jul 28, 2019

Terms of Service

Terms of Service

Passage: Matthew 20:1-16

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: The Stories In-Between: Parables

One consistent thread running through human history has been the debate--at times cool and academic, at others fierce and violent--over the meaning and value of labor. Entwined in the same debate is the question of humanity’s meaning and value. Jesus’s parable weaves no economic theory, but he does tell a story touching on the meaning and value of God, of ourselves, and of our labors for Him.

Order of Worship

Pre-Service Text: 1 Corinthians 4:7
Call To Worship: from Psalm 24
Congregational Prayer: Old Testament Reading: Jonah 3:10-4:4 
Sermon Title: Terms of Service
Central Text: Matthew 20:1-16
Benediction: Hebrews 13:20-21
Post-Service Text: Isaiah 55:8-9

07.28.19 Sermon Notes

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Readings & Scripture

Pre-Service Text: 1 Corinthians 4:7
7 For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?

Call To Worship: from Psalm 24
LEADER: The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof,
the world and those who dwell therein,

PEOPLE: for he has founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the rivers.

LEADER: Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?
And who shall stand in his holy place?

PEOPLE: He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
who does not lift up his soul to what is false
and does not swear deceitfully.
He will receive blessing from the Lord
and righteousness from the God of his salvation.

LEADER: Lift up your heads, O gates!
And lift them up, O ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.
Who is this King of glory?

ALL: The Lord of hosts,
he is the King of glory!

Old Testament Reading: Jonah 3:10-4:4
3:10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.

4:1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. 2 And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. 3 Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” 4 And the Lord said, “Do you do well to be angry?”

Central Text: Matthew 20:1-16
“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. 2 After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, 4 and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ 5 So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. 6 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?’ 7 They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ 8 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.’ 9 And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. 10 Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. 11 And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, 12 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.’ 13 But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14 Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. 15 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ 16 So the last will be first, and the first last.

Benediction: Hebrews 13:20-21
20 Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, 21 equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

Post-Service Text: Isaiah 55:8-9
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Related Scriptures:

  • Isaiah 55:8-9
  • Jonah 3:10-4:4
  • Luke 23:39-42
  • John 21:20-22
  • Romans 4:1-5
  • Romans 9:18
  • 1 Corinthians 4:7
  • Philippians 2:14

Discussion Questions & Applications:

 

  1. Can you remember what you were paid for your first job? How did you feel when you got your first paycheck? How did you feel when you heard what others were being paid--and why?
  2. What do the laborers who were hired to work early conclude about what they think they’re owed? What idea does the master of the vineyard have to replace their conclusion with?
  3. Similarly, what is this parable out to answer in Peter’s comments in the chapter before (Matthew 19:27)? 
  4. Those hired early endured a longer stretch of difficult work. The longer you live by faith in Jesus, the more likely you’ll invite all manner of struggle--both from within and without. So why does it not follow that the challenges to following Him isn’t worth the following of Him? (But why might you think that anyway?)
  5. What else, besides the envy portrayed in the parable, are we liable to if we believe that our benefits from God are directly tied to our labors for God? On the other hand what can happen in us when we see anything we receive from Him as entirely a gift, whether our efforts have been extensive or more modest?
  6. If you could rewrite the parable, what would those hired early have said upon learning of everyone receiving the same pay if they had seen things rightly?

Quotes:

  • How easily I forget how great a privilege it is to spend a full day with my brothers and sisters doing what I was asked to do by the One who loves me most. What prevents me from rejoicing in the landowner’s generosity to others? Why am I not grateful for what I received? And for what they received? The movement to be grateful rather than judgmental of others constitutes a profound conversion. - Henri Nouwen
  • Late have I loved you, Beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you!
    Lo, you were within,
    but I outside, seeking there for you,
    and upon the shapely things you have made
    I rushed headlong – I, misshapen.
    You were with me, but I was not with you.
    They held me back far from you,
    those things which would have no being,
    were they not in you.

    You called, shouted, broke through my deafness;
    you flared, blazed, banished my blindness;
    you lavished your fragrance, I gasped; and now I pant for you;
    I tasted you, and now I hunger and thirst;
    you touched me, and I burned for your peace. - Augustine, Confessions
  • God does not want to deal with us according to work, according to deserving, but according to grace. - Martin Luther

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