Sermon - Septuagesima 2019 - Matthew 20:1-16

Among American Christians predestination is one of the more controversial topics. The teaching of God’s eternal foreknowledge, election, and predestination is a narrow road to trod and it’s quite easy to fall off the path and land on either side in the ditch. On the one side, there are those who rightly recognize that we don’t earn our own salvation, instead God chooses us. But they thus reason that if God chooses to save us, then He must also choose to condemn some of us. 

On the other side in the other ditch, there are those who correctly understand that some go to hell by their own rejection of God’s gifts. But they further reason that if we go to hell by our own power, then we must also go to heaven by our own decisions. There are many American Christians who fall off on either side of this narrow road, they start off with good intentions, but quickly err and are deceived. What gets them on either side is that they depend on their powers of reasoning, instead of the pure Word of God alone. 

For according to the scriptures, in regards to salvation and damnation, we don’t merit for ourselves salvation, but it’s the free gift of God in Christ Jesus; yet God doesn’t destine anyone to hell, but they’re lost by their own fault. To help us more fully understand this, today’s Gospel lesson guides us to follow down the narrow path of God’s truth.

For today’s Gospel lesson shows us that we’re not saved by our own works, we’re not saved by our own decision, but we’re saved by God’s grace alone as a free gift. In today’s parable Jesus likens salvation to a denarius. “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. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard.”

At first glance, it appears as if Jesus is saying that in order to reach heaven, you must work very hard. You must labor all day, you must carry the burden of the day and the scorching heat, and only then will you receive your wages which you earned. It appears as if salvation were something that you must earn. However, reading further, we see that this is not the case.

The Master also goes out about the third hour, the sixth hour, the ninth hour, and even the eleventh hour, and brings in more laborers into His vineyard. Those laborers who came in last likely didn’t do any work before the day was over, they hardly arrived and picked up their tools when the foreman came and told them it was quitting time and then paid them for a full day’s work. The wages they received wasn’t earned, it was a gift. 

As the Master said: “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?” So we learn that the denarius is not a payment for work, it’s a gift from the Master given out of His generosity. Likewise, salvation and heaven are gifts, they’re not earned by our hard labors. We’re saved by grace, we’re saved by a free unearned gift in Christ Jesus.

You see, none of those laborers did anything to deserve the chance to work in the vineyard. The Master of the House already has servants, that’s why He’s called a Master of a house, He already has people who can work for Him. He doesn’t need to go out and hire more laborers, doing so will only cost Him more money. So even those laborers hired first thing in the morning are only receiving that denarius because of the Master’s generosity. 

God gives salvation not as a wage earned, but as a free gift. “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Jesus tells us: “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide.” 

But what of the labors which the day laborers performed? Were those not works towards which they earned their reward? By no means, listen to the scriptures! “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” The labors which the day laborers performed, and which you perform as well, don’t merit a thing before God. Instead, your good works are the result of faith, they’re the result of God’s gift of grace. They’re necessary of course, but they’re not the means by which you earn salvation. 

But if we thus receive salvation as a free gift of God, then do some also receive condemnation by God? By no means! Listen to the scriptures! “God desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all.” Again, the scriptures declare: “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” Jesus Himself declares in the Gospel in a nutshell: “For God so loved the World, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”

God is so patient towards us! Today’s parable makes this clear in that the Master goes back out until the very end of the day bringing people into His vineyard. Even though these people previously didn’t come when invited, He still goes out there to invite them again and again until the day is over. Likewise, for us, God has not brought the world to an end not because He’s slow, but because He’s patient! He keeps giving us every opportunity to repent and come to salvation. Every moment He delays is a mercy He shows for the unbelieving world.

As the Lord lives, He declares: “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from His way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?” Our Lord doesn’t want anyone to be condemned, and so He is not the cause of anyone dying in unrepentance. The fault of anyone falling is their own.

The Lord laments over this fact so often in the holy scriptures. Jesus says to the inhabitants of Jerusalem: ““O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” Stephen later speaks to the Jews saying, “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.”

God comes, like the Master comes, with the Holy Spirit who wants to convert us and bring us to salvation. He urges the workers “Take what belongs you,” receive this gift, but He doesn’t force Him to receive it. God doesn’t force anyone to be converted, since a forced conversion is no conversion. While we don’t have the power to say yes on our own and choose to be saved, God supplies the power; He does leave us with the power to say no and resist the Holy Spirit. 

So these things don’t make perfectly logical sense, that you can’t say yes, but you can say no. So instead of relying upon our own logical minds and intuition, listen to what God speaks through His holy scriptures. God has chosen to rescue all of you through His Christ. Don’t doubt it but believe that God loves you, and pray to almighty God that He would preserve you in the faith to life everlasting. 

For you can be lost, not because God so wills it, but because you can wantonly tear yourself away from Christ, you can resist the Spirit, you can reject the gift of salvation and walk away from it. You’re not destined to hell by God, but you’re lost by your own fault. But apart from you tearing yourself away from Christ, do know that your name is written in the book of life. No one can erase your name from it’s pages because your name isn’t written in just any old ink, but your name is inscribed with the blood of the Lamb. Christ says to you, dearly beloved, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.”