Matthew 20 - The Upside-Down Kingdom of Jesus

So we studied through Books of the Bible here at the Village Chapel.

We have extra copies.

If you didn't bring one and you'd like one to follow along, raise your hand up high.

These are paper copies that you can leaf through.

You also have access to the uh internet here via our network.

I believe the uh uh information is up there on the screen.

And uh let me also remind those of you that had your phones and devices know how to use them.

That uh barcode up there, I believe, gets you to the uh sermon notes, the slides, the quotes, all that stuff is up there posted for you so that you can follow along.

You can even read ahead if you want, and and you know, try and figure out what I'm gonna say later or whatever, if you want to, that's fine.

But we're uh we're in Matthew's gospel, and we're calling this uh uh the King and His Kingdom.

That's the name of our study through Matthew's Gospel today, Matthew chapter 20, and we'll be looking at the upside-down kingdom of Jesus.

Matthew 20 · chapter mention

Uh so I'm gonna take this in four sections.

Uh loved uh what uh uh Pastor Matt led us through uh chapter 19 last week.

That was really great.

If you if you have not, if you weren't here or didn't have a chance to watch it online or whatever, it's up there, just along with all of our studies of Matthew's gospel.

I want to encourage you to uh to go and and and perhaps catch up there.

In Matthew 19, what happened there?

We had the Pharisees asking questions about divorce, Jesus answering with statements about God's original creation designed for marriage.

Um, interesting that he would answer their questions on divorce that way.

Uh the disciples tried to keep some children away from Jesus.

Jesus corrected the disciples by declaring that to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.

Next came the rich man asking what we must do to have eternal life.

Jesus pointing out that entering the kingdom of heaven isn't about us doing anything, it's about us believing and trusting what God has done and receiving something we can't achieve.

The disciples then asked that soteriological question: who then can be saved?

And it's a great question.

I think it's a question that should be pushed on every single religious belief system in the planet that you or I might consider.

Another one is, who is God?

And how can we be saved or reconciled to God?

These are great questions.

In today's passage, uh, and in answer to some of those kinds of questions, Jesus did what he did so often.

He um uh he unfolds a parable that would illustrate what the kingdom of heaven is like, or he would compare it to something.

That's what parables are.

It's laying one side one thing alongside another and showing by way of comparison uh what they are what one of those things really is.

So we get we learn about the kingdom of heaven as uh Jesus teaches through parables.

And I'm gonna do this in uh four sections.

If you want to go ahead and turn there in your Bibles, uh you'll notice, I'm sure, that verses one through sixteen make up a section, verses 17 through 19, verses 20 to 28, and then on through to the end of the chapter.

And um let me pray before we uh get started with the reading part of this blessed Lord who caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning.

Grant us so to hear them.

Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them in our souls that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life which you've given us in our Savior Jesus, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

And God's people said amen.

So verse, uh let's read verse 30 of chapter 19.

It's uh it's gonna form what um um would be typically called an inclusio, although it'll be an inverted inclusio.

Uh it's it's like a bookend uh in ancient literature, especially with the ancient Jewish literature.

This device is to say something and then fill it in with uh some illustrations and some other teaching and at the end to say the same thing again.

And it sort of helps the people who are on the ground to be able to memorize that.

Oh, this is the beginning of something, and this is the end of it.

Here's the left bookshelf or the bookmark and the and the right bookmark, and you can tell that it all goes together.

This is an inverted inclusio, so Matthew's quite clever.

He says this in verse 30 of chapter 19, but many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.

And you can, if you want to jump ahead and see the other part of the inclusio, it's verse 16 to chapter 20.

He inverts it, right?

He says, Many who are last will be first.

And the first will be last.

But what a great device.

You would miss that if we didn't stop and sort of point that out to you.

But remember, all of this goes together, and Matthew does such a great job.

Verse 1 of chapter 20, and these chapter breaks, remember, they were uh uh the English Bible, they inserted chapter breaks in the 13th century and verse breaks in the 16th century.

So Matthew, as he's writing, and and the scribes that would would follow up and make copies, ancient manuscripts, copies of his writings, they don't have chapter, they don't, it doesn't say chapter 20, it doesn't say verse 1.

It just rolls, man.

And so he literally rolls from that very first part of the inclusio.

Many who are first will be last, last, right into for the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.

And when he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard.

A denarius would be an average day worker's wage.

Um, and so he's agreed with them, they've made this deal, and they're gonna go work in his vineyard.

He went out about the third hour, and the work day for them began roughly 6 a.m., so this would be about 9 a.m.

He went about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the marketplace.

And to those, this uh this landowner, this vineyard owner says, You too go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.

And so they went.

So no set amount is mentioned here.

But these folks who are idle are invited to come and to be a part of the vineyard work that needs to be done.

And he went about the um uh as well, he went about the sixth and the ninth hour.

That'd be noon and three p.m.

roughly, and did the same thing.

At about the eleventh hour, that's probably 5 p.m.

ish, he went out and found others standing, and he said to them, Why have you been standing here idle all day long?

And they said to him, Because no one hired us.

And he said to them, You too, go into the vineyard.

And when evening had come, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last group to the first.

And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each one received a denarius.

And when those hired first came, they thought that they would receive more.

And they also received each one a denarius.

And when they received it, they grumbled at the landowner.

Grumbling is an expression, none of you know what this is, I'm sure.

It's an expression of disdain or disappointment.

Um, and so they grumbled at the landowner, saying, These last men have worked only one hour, and you've made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day.

And he answered and said to one of them, Friend, I am doing you no wrong.

Did you not agree with me for a denarius?

Take what is yours and go your way.

But I wish to give to this last man the same as to you.

Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own?

Or is your eye envious because I am generous?

Here's this inverted inclusio.

Thus the last shall be first, and the first last.

And there's kind of a fade to black, and that's the end of that scene right there, right, Chip?

Where's Chip?

I know he's here somewhere.

Yes, there you go.

That's a great, I love this parable.

It's one of those ones that gets some people really upset.

And that's one of the reasons I like to sort of go in and say, well, why, why, you know, what is Jesus doing here?

Is he scrambling all of our ideas about equity and fairness and justice and and uh um how do things in God's economy work anyway?

If that's the way things go down.

What about commonly impressed principles of fair play and getting what we deserve?

How's the Christian gospel so starkly different in essence from other belief systems that are based on moral merit and karma?

This parable, we must be reminded as we begin to interpret it and apply it, this parable is actually not sort of part of God's HR program for employment.

This isn't a handbook, you know, for how to treat this employee or that employee.

That's not what this is.

It begins in verse 1 very clearly and directly telling us that the kingdom of heaven is to be compared to what?

This landowner, this vineyard owner.

So it's not even about the vineyard.

First century Jews would have thought of the vineyard as Israel.

That would have been very natural for them to think of that.

God's vineyard, you know.

But Jesus said, no, this parable is actually about the vineyard owner and the way that this vineyard owner treats everybody.

It's really interesting.

It's a kingdom parable.

Uh we have different kinds of parables.

It means that it's about the kingdom of heaven.

Um, most people, upon a surface reading, though, will think this is some kind of labor relations, work ethics, fair wages, and economic injustice or something like that.

And it's really just not about that.

And I think it's important for us to know.

This is the parable of the workers in the vineyard, and I think it teaches us a couple things.

One, we've got to beware begrudging the generosity of God's grace toward others.

I mean, that that's what really stands out.

Yeah, when the when the par when the owner of the vineyard starts talking to the grumblers, you know, this is what the this is what the the argument that's made by the vineyard owner.

Are you just envious that I've been generous with somebody else?

Now raise your hand if you've ever.

No, please don't.

It's probably not a good idea.

I've been that way.

You've been that way.

We've all seen somebody get ahead.

Or we've all seen somebody win something that we thought we were entitled to, or we should have won that.

How many of you have ever bought a lottery ticket?

No, don't do that either, okay.

But we do, we all think this way.

And on the surface reading of this parable, it's kind of natural.

I kind of expect everybody to kind of go, that doesn't seem right.

I mean, the guy that got paid who only worked one hour, he started at 5 p.m.

and his day ended at 6 p.m.

He got a denarius.

So if I'm going to be paid after him and I'm the guy that worked all day long 12 hours, I'm kind of thinking I'm getting 12 days' wages.

One hour equals a denarius.

12 hours must equal 12 denarii.

And uh so you kind of you can relate.

This is the upside-down kingdom of Jesus.

Recipients of God's generosity realize that grace removes all earning and all entitlement.

Grace is for the guilty and undeserving.

Mercy is for the helpless and needy.

I am both in need of grace and in need of mercy.

And whatever hour you are approached by him and invited into his vineyard, which notice the divine initiative there, he came looking for them.

And he comes looking for you, and he comes looking for me as well.

We must not overinterpret the parable.

I think we'll find ourselves simply making stuff up to fit into our own social imaginary.

The point of the parable is not that all the kingdom will receive the same reward, but rather that God is consistently generous with people who don't deserve, who weren't looking for him.

And he goes out and takes the initiative in every case.

I'm just starting a book called Biblical Critical Theory.

I'm about 29, 30 pages in.

It's by a guy named Christopher Watkin.

He says this Jesus' message is as uncomfortable as it is destabilizing.

In the kingdom of God, all the petty calculating hierarchies of merit and virtue by which we compulsively rank ourselves against others are dashed aside to make way for a richer ethic of generosity.

Our petty bastions of social superiority are unceremoniously flattened by the generous juggernaut of the kingdom of God.

Somebody say amen.

Biblical critical theory is the title of the book, and yeah, I so far, 30 pages in, I highly recommend it already.

He's essentially analyzing the culture, the world around us through the lens of the Bible, not the reverse.

But asking the question, what's going on out here, and why is it so broken?

Why are people so acrimonious toward each other?

Why is there so much division?

And what if, what if the gospel could really make a difference if we simply let it loose in this world and begin to live it out, begin to have it roll off our tongues a little bit more and have it be seen visibly in our relationships, in our work ethic.

In our the way we respond to God's generosity to someone else, perhaps.

This is just this is a tough issue for this town.

I don't know.

I mean, I've lived here for a long time.

I can see this being one of those kind of difficult things, but I don't want to get marred down in it too much.

Let's look at verses uh 17 through 19.

This is great too.

Um, Jesus then was about to go up to Jerusalem.

Remember, Pastor Matt told us he's uh left uh the northern part uh Galilee last week, and now he's headed for Jerusalem.

And next week in chapter 21, we'll read about that event called the triumphal entry when Jesus enters uh into Jerusalem to lay down his life on the cross.

And so this is the this is what's happening.

This is the flow or the context of what's happening.

And along the way, for the third time now, I would say, in Matthew's gospel, I want to make sure you understand that.

Jesus was about to go up to Jerusalem.

For the third time, he took the twelve disciples aside by themselves.

Huddle up, guys.

And on the way, he said to them, Behold, we're going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man, his most often used self-reference, will be delivered up to the chief priests and the scribes.

They will condemn him to death.

They will deliver him up to the Gentiles, that's the Romans, to mock and scourge and crucify him.

And on the third day, he will be raised up.

Now you're with Jesus, thousands of people have been following in Galilee.

It seems like we are on a roll.

This thing is a movement, man.

Nothing can stop the juggernaut of this movement.

And yet Jesus, for the third time, now says, I'm gonna be arrested.

I'm gonna be.

Matter of fact, in verses 18 and 19, there are seven things about the cross and the resurrection there.

The suffering, the passion of Christ, and the cross and the resurrection.

Seven different things there.

And I don't I don't put them up on a slide, but it could be an entire study all by itself.

We're going to Jerusalem.

The Son of Man will be delivered up to the chief priests and scribes.

That means he'll be betrayed.

Some of your English Bibles may even say, instead of delivered up, might say betrayed.

Okay?

Thirdly, they'll condemn him to death.

Fourth, they'll deliver him up to the Gentiles.

So he'll go from being delivered up to the religious leaders over to the civil or civic authorities, the Roman government, to mock and to scourge.

Sixth, to crucify him.

In other words, die the death of a criminal after being tortured.

And then lastly, I love that it ends this way, so hopeful.

And on the third day, he will be raised up.

Now they've seen Jesus raise one, two, three different, three different people by this time, or two at least.

The widow of Nain's son and Jaris' daughter, he Jesus raised them both from the dead.

Depending on when you place the raising of Lazarus from the dead, it might be three already.

But they know he has the power over life and death, and now he's saying, I'm going to die, and yet I will be raised again on the third day.

Seven different things right there, just about the cross, just about the Passion Week, just about the resurrection of Jesus.

And he's telling his disciples not just to give them data, and by the way, we don't come in here on Sundays.

None of us that stand up here and teach the Bible are interested in you just being a data download.

We tell you what he's done because it really means something.

It's significant.

And rather than, you know, just sort of an indifferent whatever, let's turn that into a curious what if?

What if it's really true that when he laid down his life, they didn't take it from him, he laid it down.

What if it was his initiative, his plan to come and do this?

What does that say about him and his love for the likes of me and you?

And what if it's not just a fairy story or a myth or a legend, but it's actually something that happened in space-time.

What if he really did satisfy the wrath of God completely?

What if that happened?

What does that change for you?

What does that change for me?

About whether I walk around wallowing in guilt?

Or about the way I refuse to forgive somebody else?

What if it's really true that he has shown me that much grace, mercy, and forgiveness?

That I could come in at 5 p.m.

and still receive the full reward that he is offering for free.

Really powerful.

This is.

I think at the very least, we got to see the paradox that the cross becomes the power of salvation.

And that's the way God works, isn't it?

Doesn't always make sense.

Paradox, by the way, is something that appears to be a contradiction.

Jesus dying on the cross, someone say, ah, shucks.

Another good man down.

Another tragic hero figure.

I don't know about you, but listen, you know, this whole COVID thing, you know, with the staying in, and many of you exhausted Netflix like we did.

We watched everything.

I am so tired of tragic hero figures.

Somebody say amen.

I mean, it's like you're all just, you know, riddled with morbidity and Brooding with all your depression and all that stuff.

And that's the person they put up as a hero figure.

When I was growing up, Spider-Man had a sense of humor.

When I was growing up, Batman was a lot of fun, and so was Superman.

And none of them were, you know, just riddled with all kinds of strangeness and whatever.

Whatever happened to that?

I don't know.

Forgive me.

I've stepped away from the sermon now, haven't I?

But here comes, here comes Jesus with this paradox, which is, again, it seems like a contradiction in a way, right?

It seems like that he would die and that that would be something that would bring us life.

His death brings us life.

Paradox.

It's amazing.

That's one of the most remarkable.

It's so wildly just unimaginable that it's either true, really true, or it's it's a complete hoax, and we should stay home on Sunday mornings.

Or go play golf or something.

Do whatever you want to do.

But if this is really true, think about what that means for me, what it means for you.

Our good friend Christopher Wright, he and his wife Liz are from London.

He heads up the uh uh Langham Partnership that we support, one of the missions organizations we support here at the village chapel.

He's a brilliant uh Old Testament theologian.

Uh and here uh in his book to the Cross, proclaiming the gospel from the upper room of Calvary, um, he says the death of Christ in utter weakness would turn out to be the demonstration of the saving power of God that will ultimately destroy all powers of evil and violence.

What a paradox! But it lies at the heart of the gospel.

I love that.

That's so brilliantly said.

Uh read with me, if you will, verses 20 through 28.

I'm not used to doing it this way, but I'm so glad to be trying today.

All right, verse 20.

Then the mother, this is an awesome little pericope right here.

This is great.

Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to him with her sons, bowing down and making a request of him.

He said to her, What do you wish?

She said to him, Command that in your kingdom these two sons of mine may sit one on your right and one on your left.

This is the original stage mother.

She's like, Here's my boys.

These are my boys, you know.

As Kim said earlier, we were just visiting with my mom.

Um and uh all four of us, she has four boys.

All four of us, boys, I'm a boy.

Um, all four of us, she makes us, each and every one of us, feel like we're her favorite son.

Now that's an artful mother.

But I got her on video saying it this time.

So you watch my Instagram think, I got her saying, Mama, I am your favorite one, right?

Oh, yes.

She even called me precious.

And I was like, Oh, I'm precious.

That's awesome.

Well, here, here is the the Mrs.

Zebedee.

We don't know her, well, I think she's Selime, is her name.

And she comes and brings uh James and John and she makes a request of Jesus.

He even opens the door for her to state what her uh request is, and uh and she wants him to, when he sets up his kingdom, because good grief, they're going to they're going downtown, they're going to Jerusalem, it's the center of everything.

And she's been a part of the following, you know, the band of disciples following along.

Hey, make sure when we go downtown and take over and kick out the Romans that you put James on one side and John on the other side.

You know, that's awesome.

Jesus answered and said, You do not know what you are asking for.

Now, how many times I wish I could have heard Jesus say that in my prayer life?

But I would not.

Why?

Because my agenda was too much in the front.

Um, you do not know what you're asking for.

We've all heard people say, be careful what you ask for, you might get it, you know.

And but here he's saying, you don't even know what you're asking for.

And uh, this is really amazing.

Are you?

He asked the question then, are you able to drink the cup that I'm about to drink?

And they said to him, James and John, we are able.

Now, Peter heretofore has been the sort of cockiest of the disciples.

But I think James and John just went right past.

This overconfidence spiritually is something we all need to be on guard and watching out for.

That can never happen to me.

I read another uh another story of another pastor who's fallen, and it's so easy for people to just get to the place where you've got, you know, you look down your nose at somebody as you think they they blew it, as their own fault, without ever thinking to yourself, that might happen to me too.

Let me watch out.

Let me take every one of those as a warning, a reminder to myself.

So he says, You don't even know what you're asking.

Are you able to drink the cup that I'm about to drink?

We are able.

My uh, he says to them, My cup you will drink.

And James and John did, by the way.

James will be the first of the disciples to die by the sword.

And John will probably be the last, as best we can tell in history, will be the last of the disciples.

Just so they will inclusio the death of the disciple.

They will be the front and the this side and that side of all the other disciples.

My cup you shall drink, but sit on my right and on my left.

This is not mine to give, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.

Hearing this, the ten became indignant at the two brothers.

Now you see church schism because of ambition.

All ambition is not bad, by the way.

Let me be clear to say that, and and but godly ambition, ambition for God, what God wants, and a desire to see things God's way and want what God wants, that's all good, to weep over what God weeps over, to be concerned about what God's concerned about, to care about what God cares.

All of that's good, ambition in that direction.

But ambition is not just universally good.

It's what direction is your ambition leading you.

And so here he says, You're gonna drink my cup, that's true.

It's not mine to give, but it's for my father.

Hearing this, they become indignant, the other ten do, at these two brothers, James and John.

And Jesus called them to himself and said, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them.

In other words, those who are pagans from the get-go, their rulers dominate them, and their great men exercise authority over them.

It is not so among you.

But whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant.

Whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.

Another hint at that inclusio as well.

And another paradox.

Those who want to be great will become servants.

Because greatness is redefined in the kingdom of heaven.

From the uh maybe it's uh it's reset.

I think what's happened is we've redefined greatness.

We've traded in greatness for the cheap substitute of celebrity, the cheap substitutes that the world has us to offer in their value system in their economy.

And it's like we've changed all the price tags in a department store, put the expensive price tags on the cheap stuff that doesn't really matter, and vice versa.

Jesus says, it's not so among you, whoever wishes to be great among you should be your servant, whoever wishes to be first among you should be a slave, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.

And when he said that right then and there, remember we just read about his prediction that he will give his life.

And yet they still don't seem to be getting it.

It doesn't seem to, they're so filled with their own agenda.

Let's go downtown, let's run out the Romans, let's let's take over, let me sit on your right and left, whatever.

And so this is this is just one of those amazing uh moments where it illustrates the fact that people's value system kind of get it wrong.

And we have an endemic lust for privilege, prestige, and power.

And I think it's on full display here in verses 20 through 28.

T.

S.

Eliot said it this way: most of the trouble caused in this world is by people wanting to be important.

Let's read that together aloud.

Most of the trouble.

That's probably worth writing on something and reminding ourselves over and over again.

I mean, we really have a lust for this.

We lust for autonomy, meaning no authority higher than self.

And that's that just gets us in trouble.

Because then what happens is our our affections run amuck and crazy, and now we want to be so important that we're, and as Lewis always says, how much is enough?

Just a little bit more than the next guy.

And and that's true.

Our hearts are deceitful, as the prophet Jeremiah uh told us quite honestly.

The temptation of the young, Frederick Bruner said, is lust.

The middle-aged, ambition, and of the elderly, bitterness.

You see yourself up there?

Actually, all three drives are similar and related.

Ambition is a refined lust, bitterness a disappointed one.

Yeah.

Wow.

That's that's like cold water, you know.

Just to kind of wake us up a little bit.

Jesus says the first shall be last, the last shall be first.

If you want to be great in his kingdom, become a servant.

Serve God, serve everybody else, serve everybody you come into contact with.

And guess what?

That means I guess you can't really be hating them at the same time you're serving them.

Because they have a different yard sign than you did.

You can't really be hating them if you're praying for them, praying for them to be captured and seized by God's affection, God's grace.

I'm often on the highway praying for people, but I pray for them to be hit with a brick or something because they've made me mad.

It's really hard to hate people when you're really praying for their good.

So if you have trouble with hating somebody, if you have a repugnant other in your life, those people, the ones that watch that cable news channel, pray for them and for yourself as well.

Um, pray for yourself so that you would start to get to the place where you see there's no me.

These guys are going, me first, me first.

There's no me first in the kingdom of heaven.

In a lot of ways, it eliminates me second as well.

It eliminates me third as well, it eliminates me fourth as well.

It kind of moves us to the place of where Jesus was.

Me last, me for you.

I give myself for you.

And that's what Jesus is calling us to do if we are to follow him.

Fourthly and finally, this is just a little short pericope here, but it's a great one.

I love this.

As they were going out from Jericho, a great multitude followed him.

And so they're they're down near Jericho, by the way, if uh uh some of you have been to Israel before.

There uh is an Old Testament site for Jericho.

Of course, it gets demolished.

Most of us will remember that story from the book of Joshua.

And then the Herod later on uh rebuilds about two miles away, rebuilds Jericho.

So in, I think it's Mark's gospel, it's uh one of them is one way and one's the other way.

One says he's leaving Jericho, one says he's entering Jericho, that this event takes place.

Which is it?

Yes.

He's between one and the other.

That's what it is, right?

As they were going out, this one says going out.

Okay, a great multitude followed.

And behold, two blind men sitting by the road, hearing that Jesus was passing by, cried out, saying, Lord, have mercy on us, son of David.

Understand, in the first century, son of David would have been a messianic title.

These blind guys have eyes that can see better than a lot of these religious leaders who can physically see.

And they can't see that Jesus is the son of David.

The multitude sternly told them, these blind guys, to be quiet, but they cried out all the more: don't be like the multitude.

Who are you trying to shush from approaching Jesus?

Who are you trying to silence?

Well, except you become like a child.

Remember when they were trying to stop the children?

And Jesus said, Let them come to me.

Yeah.

And the multitude sternly told them to be quiet, but this is like this is like the guy that says, Get off my lawn! And nobody ever became a Christian by being yelled at like that.

Okay?

And they cried out all the more, Lord, have mercy on us.

Desperation is the right spot to be if you want the kingdom of heaven to draw near.

Son of David, have mercy on us.

Jesus stopped, called them, and said, What do you wish me to do for you?

Now, if I'm in the crowd, I go, duh.

But Jesus always asked rhetorical questions, wants us to think about what's about to happen, especially in connection with that title, Son of David.

Messiah was already, already, rather, um, described as one who would open the eyes of the blind.

And so this is directly connecting him to that same idea.

All right.

They said to him, Lord, we want our eyes to be opened.

Moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes, and immediately, not after months of therapy, not after medicine, but immediately, they received their sight and they followed him.

Here's an example of seeing that leads to believing, that leads to following.

So you could unpack this for there's a lot there.

There's Jesus caring about the whole person.

Uh, there's just tons of good stuff there and lots of things that we could say.

But the point, I think the summary point that we can make is that Jesus shows compassion on those who cry out for his mercy.

Does he heal every single person?

Well, in the text of the gospels, everyone that asks for healing, he does heal.

So we have that as his his uh response to those who come and ask, How do I enter, how do I gain the kingdom of heaven, as with the rich young ruler.

This guy wanted to buy, he wanted to purchase, he wanted to achieve what you can only receive from Jesus.

You can only be a recipient of grace.

You can't earn grace.

So this is really important for us, I think.

What's so amazing about grace is that none of us are excluded because none of us ever deserved grace in the first place.

By definition, grace is for the undeserving.

Peace is that uh let me throw this stuff quote up.

This is great.

Grace and mercy are both expressions of God's love, grace to the guilty and undeserved, mercy to the needy and helpless.

Peace is that restoration of harmony with God, others, and self, which we call salvation.

Now, a lot of us probably have been raised to think in the mode of salvation is dodging hell, and that's all we ever thought of it as.

But it's so much more than that.

He came that you might have life and have it abundantly, not just in the by and by, but now, in relationship with him, joining him in his mission in this world, joining him in laying down our lives for others, and joining him in being an example to the watching world of how God's love has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

And that we're now able to share that love and show that love rather than merely trying to win the argument all the time.

Let's try to turn people's disinterested whatever into a curious what if.

What if it's true?

What if he really did do that?

I'll close with this Max Lucato quote.

Our prayers may be awkward, and mine are certainly sometimes.

Our attempts may be feeble, yes, mine are.

But since the power of prayer is in the one who hears it and not in the one who says it, our prayers do make a difference.

I think that's what we see all through this chapter.

It's not about the wages, it's not about how many hours you worked, it's about the fact that he's generous.

Will you receive?

Do you begrudge his being generous with someone else?

You need to pray about that.

You need to ask the Lord to soften your heart there.

I need to, too.

Um, begrudge the great anyone receiving God's grace, the cross, the resurrection.

This really happened, and it matters.

Really matters.

He didn't just come to be born in the stable and be a sort of a sweet little story.

He isn't just a nostalgic, ah, good man down kind of tragic hero thing again.

No, he came to be victorious over death and to pay the price in full for my sin and for yours.

Let's turn our eyes upon him.

I don't know if you noticed this is how this chapter ends.

Our eyes were opened, and they moved from seeing to believing, and then they moved from believing to following.

Um, this again, I I don't know why Jesus doesn't heal everybody in our own day and age.

I'd love to go down to Vanderbilt and clear it out.

I really would.

Um but not being able to answer that question doesn't prevent me from asking him every time and going before him on an ongoing basis and placing myself before him so I could just receive his grace and mercy.

And others that I'm praying for can also receive his grace and mercy.

And it might be that his grace and mercy for them looks like courage for the fight.

It might look like hope that's inexhaustible in spite of suffering that's chronic.

It might be that it's about joy all along the way, because our joy is sourced in Jesus, the King.

He's the King you've always wanted, He's the King you've always needed.

And his name is Jesus.

You need look no further.

Let's pray.

Thank you that you came, Lord, uh, even as you're on your way to Jerusalem here in this text, uh, the way you approach the city that would reject you, the religious system that would reject you.

We don't want to be like that.

Um we love that you love us because we know how unlovely we can be.

We're grateful, uh Lord, even as we sit here right now, and I'm just calling to mind the people that might annoy us.

We're grateful that you would be gracious to them and generous with them.

Free us up as we receive your grace, free us up from that exhausting tension of acrimony and rancor and outrage and all of that, Lord.

Just help us to be free to see how you have set your love on us and we didn't deserve any of it.

How beautiful you are, how gracious and kind you are, Lord.

Yes, please use this group of people we call the village chapel in some way to be a city on a hill of light that cannot be hidden.

Uh Lord, just as salt that makes people thirsty for you over and over and over again.

We place ourselves in your hands and your care, and we love you.

Thank you for your grace in Jesus' name, amen and amen.