Matthew 20:1
We are starting this
Bible study by looking at the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. In
Matthew 20:1 Jesus said, "For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder,
which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard." In this
parable the householder is symbolic of God. The householder was the master of
the house. He had total authority to hire and to fire. The primary activity of
the householder was to seek laborers for His kingdom. That’s still the primary
work of God. Every day and every night God is actively seeking the lost, using every good means to persuade people of their need
to turn to Him before it is too late. Jesus said,
"The Son of man is come to seek and to
save that which was lost."
In this parable the
laborers are symbolic of God’s servants. Notice that they are called laborers.
God has work to do in this world, and He calls people to serve Him in order to
do work for Him. Jesus said of Himself, "I must work the
works of Him that sent me while it is day. The night comes when no man can work." If God has called you, then He has called
you to do more than just sit in a pew once or twice a week. It’s great to hear
a good sermon and to sing the songs of
Wherever you
might be employed: at a factory, in an
office downtown, or in a mall; your work at your job
needs to go beyond the general tasks that other people
do. Your interactions with your co-workers and
customers, and your overall behavior at work need to demonstrate the Lord’s
love and concern for those who do not know the Lord. Every believer is
called to be a missionary. Your mission field is where you work and where you
live. There are people without God in all these places, and you might be the
one that God wants to use to reach some of them. Jesus said in the Sermon on
the Mount, "Let
your light so shine before men, that they might see your good works and glorify
your father who is in heaven."
If you are one of God’s
children, then you are a very important person. God has something for you to do
for Him, and even though it may not seem important to the world, it is very
important. One of your goals in life should always be to find out more about what God wants you to do for Him.
Matthew 20:9 says, "And when they
came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny." Those who became servants in the eleventh
hour received the same payment as the others. Perhaps this is symbolic of the
fact that some people come to know the Lord near the end of their lives, but
they end up with the same privileges, the same benefits, and the same status as
all the other believers. This is because salvation is based entirely upon the
grace of God. The good works that you do will never increase your chance of going to heaven, and will never cause you to receive more of God’s
favor. Galatians 2:16 says, "Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the
law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ,
that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the
law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified."
In this parable in Matthew
chapter 20, Jesus makes an emphasis on the equality of believers. Every
believer is simply a sinner saved by grace. Some
Christians have made the mistake of honoring another believer too much, maybe because of their speaking or writing ability or because
of their faithful and dedicated works they have done for the Lord. Be thankful
for such Christians, but be careful not to become a follower of such men,
instead of a follower of Christ. Another extreme in which some Christians err
is that of denying or rejecting the equality of believers. Every person who
knows Christ as their personal Savior is your brother or sister in the
Lord, whatever their denominational affiliation or
lack thereof. Some Christian groups have a negative spirit and a critical
spirit against another group. That harms the cause of Christ. Avoid those who have a spirit of criticism against
fellow believers. They will lead you into many useless and unproductive
doctrines. Anyone who teaches separation from other believers as a doctrine has departed far from the truth and is usually competing with
fellow believers when he or she ought to be cooperating with them. Of
course, there is a proper way of dealing with those who have fallen into error,
and no one should compromise the truth for the sake of unity
at any cost.
In the parable of the
laborers in the vineyard, those that were hired in the eleventh hour were just
as important as the others. God is in the business of saving souls, and the
most important thing for everyone is to get saved before they die. Some people
will get saved on their deathbed. Some people will get saved just hours or even
moments before they die. It happened to one of the thieves on the cross. Since it is
possible for someone to get saved just before dying, sometimes visitation in a
hospital can be important. At any rate, it is possible for a person to
learn more about God on their deathbed than they did all the previous years of
their lives. And if that happens, they will enter into heaven with the same
status as all the other believers.
In Matthew 20:17-19 the
Bible says, "And
Jesus going up to Jerusalem took the twelve disciples apart in the way, and
said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be
betrayed unto the chief priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn
him to death, And shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge,
and to crucify him: but the third day he shall rise again."
This was the fourth time
in the book of Matthew that Jesus reminded the apostles of His coming death.
After all, He and the Father planned His death. Our lives and deaths are also
planned. There are no accidents in the providence of God. The disciples were
often reminded of the coming death of Jesus, and in a similar way we also need
to be reminded of His death. In the last meal that Jesus had with the apostles,
He stood up in the middle of the meal, took bread and
wine that they had been eating and drinking, and used them to be symbolic of
His body and blood to be given for our spiritual life. Jesus said that
when the disciples ate and when they drank in the celebration of the Passover
that they were to use the occasion of eating and drinking to remind themselves
of how Jesus would give His body and His blood so that they could have
spiritual life.
Every day we
should thank the Lord for the death that He suffered so that we
could be forgiven of our sins. And He did suffer a horrible death. He was
betrayed by one of the apostles. Some humans use
their capacity to scheme and to connive and to deceive for the sake of
their own profit. Such arrows from the wicked can cause a lot of grief and
pain, and Jesus Himself took the full brunt of a deceitful betrayal. Jesus was
also publicly mocked and scorned by the religious leaders of the Jews, and by
the civil and legal authorities of the Romans.
In spite of the fact
that Jesus was innocent and that there was no
evidence against Him, Jesus was unjustly condemned to the death penalty. Be
careful about judging and looking down on
those who are on death row, because Jesus was on death row once. And He was
there for your sins and for mine. Jesus was also scourged. The word "scourged" means whipped. His robe would have been
stripped from His back by the soldiers, and His precious skin struck repeatedly
with the whips. The next time that someone says that whipping a child is the
proper thing to do; remember that Jesus was whipped as a part of the torture
that He suffered from evil and violent men.
When the public mocking
was over, when the lying and deception and compromise at the unjust trial was
over, when the torture was over, and when the shouts of the mad crowd crying, "Crucify Him," had died away, Jesus was led away to be
crucified. Crucifixion was a horrible way to die. It was one of the methods of
capital punishment used by the Romans. It was not meant to be humane. It was
meant to cause a slow and tortuous death. Jesus suffered these things so that
we could be forgiven of our sins. He wants us to remember the great things He
has done for us, and He wanted the disciples to be prepared for his betrayal and crucifixion
before it happened. But Jesus did not
want them to be afraid or depressed or to in
any way think negatively about the situation. The last thing that He said about His death was, "and the third
day he shall rise again."
Jesus had just taught
the disciples about the equality of believers in the parable of the laborers in
the vineyard, but evidently the mother of James and John did not hear the parable or did not understand it. Knowing
that Jesus was the King of Kings, she came to Him motivated by ambition, the
kind of ambition that the world knows and teaches so well. But Jesus was to
teach very clearly that His servants were to behave much differently than the
ambitious people of the world.
The incident is recounted
in Matthew 20:20-28 and says, "Then came to him the mother of Zebedee’s children with
her sons, worshipping him, and desiring a certain thing of him. And he said
unto her, What do you desire? She said to him, Grant that these my two sons may
sit, the one on your right hand, and the other on the left, in your kingdom.
But Jesus answered and said, You know not what you ask. Are you able to drink
of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am
baptized with? They say unto him, We are able. And he said unto them, You shall
drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized
with: but to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give, but it
shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father. And when the ten
heard it, they were moved with indignation against the two brothers. But Jesus
called them unto him, and said, You know that the princes of the Gentiles
exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon
them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you,
let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be
your servant: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to
minister, and to give his life a ransom for many."
Jesus said, "Whosoever will be
chief among you, let him be your servant."
The word that is translated "servant" is
the word "doulos". If you were to
take New Testament Greek, one of the first vocabulary words that you would learn
is the word "doulos." It means
"slave" or "servant". There is a big contrast between being willing to be a servant and having the ambition for
power and position that exists in this world. People will be more
productive and more effective when they learn to serve. They will also avoid
many sins like jealousy, hatred, deception, anger and
other lusts that humans commit when they are driven by ambition. It is
no wonder that Jesus said that His followers should not be like that.
Those who have a lot of power
because of how much they dominate others will find themselves a popular target
to be resisted or to be over-thrown. Jesus did not
say who was going to win the biggest prize when the rewards are handed out in
the kingdom of heaven, but He made it very clear that it would be based upon
the principle of service. He said, "Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your
servant."
Jesus is, of course, the greatest example of serving others. He left His
throne in glory in order to give himself to us and to the rest of the world.
The only way that you
will be able to avoid being poisoned by the world and its destructive ambition
is to remember the example of Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all. A ransom is something that you pay in exchange
for the freedom of a slave. Jesus paid the price of His own life. He came to
give, so that we could gain. And Jesus told His followers to have the same
attitude that He had. "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." He certainly has the right to tell us to be
servants. He purchased us with His blood and we belong to Him. It says in First
Corinthians 6:19 and 20, "...ye are not your own. For ye are bought with a price..."
Jesus said that He came
to give His life a ransom for all. On His way
to Jerusalem to die for the sins of the world, He met two blind men whose
experience of receiving their sight would be wonderfully symbolic of the
meaning of salvation. Matthew 20:29-34 says, "And as they departed from
These two men were physically blind, and their blindness was also
symbolic of spiritual blindness. We only see when we have been touched
by Jesus. He is the giver of life and light. Those who have not been touched by
Jesus are in spiritual darkness. These two blind men
cried out to Jesus because Jesus was
their only hope. No one else could help them. Doctors could not help them,
religious leaders could not help them, and money could not help them: only
Jesus. The same is true today. Only Jesus Christ can give you the light of
truth that you so desperately need.
The multitudes rebuked the blind men and tried to keep
them from calling out to Jesus. The same thing
happens today. Others may rebuke you or in other ways put pressure on you to
try to keep you from calling out to Jesus. Sometimes your own fear of those
around you and their opinions may be a stumbling block to keep you from
calling out to Jesus. If you understand how great your sin problem is, and if
you want Jesus to help you as badly as these men did,
then you will ignore the world around you and its opinions, and you will
come to Jesus anyway.
These two blind men
manifested 3 important things that lead to salvation. They trusted in Jesus
100% because they knew that there was help no place else. They recognized Jesus
for who He was: they called him Lord and Son of David. Only God is Lord. Only
Messiah is Son of David. They humbled themselves and asked Jesus for mercy.
If you do the same
things that these men did, you will see the same results in your life. You must
trust in Jesus completely, and recognize Him as Lord and Messiah, the Son of
God. And if you ask Him for mercy, you also will be touched by Jesus. The
spiritual blindness and darkness will be taken from you, because the same
compassion that Jesus had for these two men He also has for you and for
everyone in the world. But don’t delay. Jesus is passing your way today. Call
out to Him while you still have a chance.
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Copyright; 2007 by Charles F. (Rick) Creech
All Rights Reserved