Please take time to read this passage in Matthew 20.
This is an interesting parable of Jesus because it follows Jesus telling the disciples about the rewards they will get for sacrificing for Him. When many people read the parable of the vineyard workers they think Jesus is giving a story about rewards. If He is talking about rewards then He contradicts His early statement.
Jesus is NOT talking about rewards in this story. Rather, Jesus is speaking about salvation. In the parable some workers work the whole day, while others are hired at the eleventh hour and only work a little. Both sets of workers are paid one denarius. The workers who worked all day find this repulsive, but the employer says that it is his right to do what he will with his money.
Some of us have been Christians our whole life. Some of you really have lived a straight and narrow kind of life thus far. Some of you have only recently found Jesus. You may have spent much of your life before chasing after pleasure and not working for the Kingdom. Jesus says that both of you will receive equal salvation.
Those of you that were living without Christ for a long time see this as an awesome truth, but those of you who neglected chasing pleasure for the sake of pursuing God may find this to be unfair. And it is unfair.
Unfairness is what, in my mind, makes our salvation so great. The last will be first and the first will be last. Jesus takes our idea of 'fair' and turns it upside down. Really, it is unfair that any of us receive salvation.
We Christians need to learn from this parable. We need to focus on the unfair mercy and love that God has lavished on us, rather than trying to judge what everyone else has.
Appreciate God's unfair grace today.
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