Word of Salvation – Vol.23 No.20 – February 1977
What About Rewards?
Sermon by Rev. H. Pennings on Matthew 20:1-16
Scripture Reading: Matthew 19:16-30 & 20:1-16
Psalter Hymnal: 110:1,3,5 (Response to law or Profession of Faith);
169:1,2,4,6; Before sermon 439 all vss;
After sermon – response 386 all vss.
Doxology 172:6
When the man we know best as the RICH YOUNG RULER was told by Jesus to go, sell all that he had, and to follow Him, he went away very sad. This caused Jesus to remind the disciples that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. When the disciples heard Jesus say that, one of the things they thought was summed up by what Peter said. We can look upon him as their spokesman. He said to Jesus, WE HAVE LEFT EVERYTHING TO FOLLOW YOU. And so they had too. Like their Master, they had often no place to lay their heads. If Peter had only said THAT MUCH, the parable which is our text for this morning need never have been told for their benefit. But Peter followed that statement about having left everything to follow Him by a QUESTION. It was this: WHAT WILL OUR REWARD BE? Yes, only Peter asked it. But we can safely say that the rest of the disciples thought it! Therefore this parable!
Something is totally amiss with their thinking. Is it the same with OUR thinking? The disciples have left EVERYTHING behind in order to follow the One who was their dear rabbi. They realized that Jesus had OTHER friends – even other disciples who followed Him around for a time, and then went back to their daily task in life. We remember that on one occasion Jesus sent 70 – not 12 – disciples of His, out to preach the gospel. So it was. BUT THEY (the twelve) HAD LEFT EVERYTHING BEHIND for their dear Saviour! Surely, that makes a difference, does it not? Later on they were persecuted. They travelled to distant lands. Peter, who makes the statement and asks the questions, is himself crucified for his faith: upside down, too, if we can trust the account which tells us this. Stephen was stoned to death. John was banished to the Isle of Patmos. Paul was often beaten up, and others were stoned, as he was too. They were imprisoned, Jesus had said that the disciples were to be treated just as the Master was, and so it proved to be. We know that a similar fate awaited all of the O.T. prophets many were imprisoned, and some even killed. Isaiah was cut into two! In more modern times it continues. The names of Wurmbrandt and the Soviet Saints come to mind quickly, and there are tens of thousands more. For the sake of discipleship they have suffered, in the body, as much as their Lord suffered.
Then there are people like the thief on the cross of Golgotha. He lived a whole life of crime and was justly sentenced to die for his sins. At the moment of death, the very LAST MOMENT of his life, he repented. He became a Christian. It has happened many times since then. There are people like him, and there are people like Wurmbrandt there are people who become ministers of the gospel as pastors of congregations, and there are people who will always sit in the pew. There are people who have been beaten up a hundred times for confessing Christ, and there are people who have always been left alone to worship as they wished. There are people who, as pastors and missionaries, have been used by God to lead many, many others into the faith, and there are others who cannot even name one person whom they have influenced in this way. Each of these people may ask the question which Jesus received from Peter. The answer comes in every single case, from the parable of the labourers of the vineyard. The answer is always the same. WHAT ABOUT US? WHAT WILL OUR REWARD BE?
If this latter question were to be asked within the sphere of any heathen religions the answer would be something like this. THE MORE YOU SUFFER, or, THE MORE YOU MEDITATE, or, THE LONGER YOU ARE A MEMBER AND THE HARDER YOU TRY, THE GREATER IS YOUR REWARD! Ask it within the sphere of many sects and the answer is much the same: YOU WILL RECEIVE IN ACCORD WITH YOUR SERVICE. No wonder either, for this is nearly always the case with the ways of men. Those who work 50 hours on a certain job will receive higher wages than those who work 40 hours on the same job. That is why overtime is sought out so much by many people. After the same principle, those who have stolen a large amount of money will receive a heavier prison sentence than those who have stolen a few dollars on the spur of the moment. This is the way of MAN. We are used to it. It is difficult to imagine any OTHER way.
There are some who have thought that the parable, which is our text, teaches us that we ought to behave differently. This can best be illustrated by referring to a Christian booklet which some of our children may receive some time. After telling the story of our parable in the form of a poem there is a note of application. It says, “The vineyard owner had compassion on the unemployed workers. Men who received no pay would not have bread for their hungry children. The small pay for an hour’s work would not feed a family. Pity for these poor men who picked grapes for only an hour moved the owner to give them a full day’s wages…!
This sounds so good. But it is so wrong! The parable has nought to do with working conditions, or justice of wages, or charity to those who are poor. It has nothing to do with anything on earth! The moment our minds wander in this direction the meaning of the parable is lost. For then we can ask such questions as this: “Why were those who were employed late in the day not at the labour exchange a little earlier?” And this: “Does not God’s Word teach us that those who will not work ought not to eat?”
What we must do is get back to the question which the disciple of Jesus asked, for it is the question alone which prompts Him to tell the parable. Peter points out that they have left EVERYTHING, so, WHAT ABOUT US? WHAT WILL OUR REWARD BE?
But, did not the first-employed agree to work for a denarius? And did not those who were employed later agree also – agree to work for what the master of the vineyard considered right? In the parable the master of the vineyard says, “Am I not allowed to do what I want with what belongs to me? Or, do you BEGRUDGE my generosity? So, the last will be first, and the first last.”
There we have the heart of the matter. A Christian is a person who is CHOSEN by God. We can go back a little further though. We can go back to that time which we have to call the time before creation, the time at which God decided to create the heavens and the earth and then people in His own likeness as the high-point of creation. One part of creation followed another part, for, “In six days the Lord created the heavens and the earth and all that is in them, and God rested the seventh day.” In subsequent history all of our forefathers were born and spent their days. But, even then, and at the time before creation began to take place, God saw you and me, and what we would do, and how He would speak to us by the power of His Spirit – and He saw Jesus Christ as a baby in Bethlehem, and He saw Him hanging on a cross – He saw Jesus raised from the dead and ascended into heaven – and God, before the creation, saw Jesus sitting afterwards in heaven with Him, and He saw what is still future in our day – He saw Jesus coming to the earth a second time that all who believe in Him He might bring into heavenly glory with Him.
Yes, we are only PEOPLE. But He is God! We talk about length of believing in Jesus, and amounts of Christian work. We talk about intensity of persecution. We are used to thinking along those lines, and can hardly seem to escape it. We even apply this to the ways of God, as Peter and the rest of the disciples did. We are but people, creatures of the creation, but HE IS the CREATOR and He is God, and God was the one who knew all of this from the very beginning. Before the creation of the world, the Scripture says, God saw you and me – He chose us who believe today to belong to Him. He saw our rebellion – that we were no different to other people as if there were something special about us to make God have some compassion for us because we were so close, because we were trying so hard, to please Him. God saw Peter, and the other disciples, in a hopeless situation, and God called them to Himself through the Good Shepherd Jesus Christ. You and I are included. God called us, because He chose us from the beginning, and He gave us the willingness and humility, so necessary to respond to His calling. That’s why we are Christian! There is no other reason!
Why, why, then Peter, are you boasting about length of service, and why are you expecting more than the thief on the cross? Peter, Peter, are you trying to get to heaven YOUR WAY – a way beside the one which Jesus came to reveal? A way besides, BESIDES!, the way of the cross? That we will be in heaven with God is always a part of God’s calling and it is the culmination of His gifts to us. God looks down from heaven upon all people – upon every Abraham and every Peter and every Judas and God sees that there is not one who deserves His favour. He looks down upon the works of Christian people – their length of service and their suffering because of the name which they bear and even there God sees corruption and faithlessness and rebellion and God says through the prophet Isaiah that the best of our works are like utter rubbish to Him, But, out from among the sons of men God chooses some to belong to Him out of His compassion alone, and not because of anything good, anything of merit, in us, and He gives us eternal life through the blood which Jesus shed on the cross of Calvary. Because of Jesus, we are worthy. Because He was obedient, we are accounted to be obedient. Because He suffered hell, we do not have to. Why then, Peter, and why then, Christian, do you boast? Why do you expect more from God than He will give to others whom He has chosen? Are there, perchance, distinctions to be made about heaven? Can what is totally perfect still be divided into better and worse parts? Or, can eternity be either longer or shorter?
The punishment for sin and unbelief is ONE, for there is nothing worse. The gift of God, the gift of faith which is also the gift of eternal joy with Him, is ONE GIFT. It is the gift which Peter receives who, we can say, laboured in the vineyard all day long. It is the gift of the apostle Paul who for a while worked against the Owner of the vineyard. It is the gift of the man on the cross next to the cross of Jesus. He can be said not to have worked for even ONE hour, but he too received a denarius. God calls us all in the time which He has prepared, and He gives us the necessary gifts to do the work which He has provided for us. The best of our works are not only still as filth to God, but they are also only the works which God has set before us to do, only our necessary service. All our boasting is excluded.
We can see, then, that within this parable, which we cannot apply to anything but God’s way with man is contained the heart and soul of the Christian gospel. Eventually the apostle Peter would learn it. It went right against everything which he had been taught by the religious leaders of his own day. There was nothing to which he could compare it at all. The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, congregation, is INCOMPARABLY BEAUTIFUL AND FULL OF GRACE! Are we able to work in the vineyard a full day? What a blessing God has given us then! Are we employed only in the last hour? Well then, that has been God’s choice for us! Yet in both cases, and in every case in between, God has called us out of total darkness into His marvellous light. We both receive a denarius! Nothing more, for there is nothing better, and nothing less, for anything less is hell itself.
Peter’s question was answered by a parable, and, eventually, he understood what it meant. His question is still being asked, though, by many people: all of the time within the heathen religions, and most of the time within the sects …and …sometimes even within the true, Christian church!
Congregation, please answer this one question. DO YOU THINK THAT YOU CAN STAND BEFORE GOD ON YOUR OWN MERITS? BECAUSE OF YOUR LABOUR IN HIS VINEYARD? HAVING WORKED FAITHFULLY FOR ONE MINUTE?
We have to repeat, in conclusion, what has been said before. This parable has nothing at all to do with anything which happens on earth. And yet….. and yet…. there is no more practical parable in the whole of Scripture! Those who come before God and are not satisfied with a denarius, for themselves and the rest of the workers, are the first who are so much last that it is outside of the kingdom of God completely. But those who are satisfied with the justice and mercy of God for others, realizing that not one worker is really worthy to hold out his hand for his wages, are the last who are so much first that our Father in heaven is satisfied…. satisfied that we have come to Jesus offering nothing and accepting everything.
There is no other gospel. There is no other way or truth or life. What is called HARD and UNJUST by the multitudes is for us who believe the sum and the total of God’s marvellous way with those whom He has called to love Him.
Amen.