"Beatific Vision: Equal Pay for All" Matthew 20:1-16 Sunday Morning Worship Service

This weekend we held a conference on the theological doctrine called the Beatific Vision, which is a term that may not be familiar to many of you, but the beatific vision is the doctrine of our eager hope and expectation that we will see the Lord.

That in the next life we will have an encounter with God that is in a sense visual terms, that Job in the Old Testament, at the height of his trials, said, Though his flesh be destroyed, he knows that with his eyes he will see God.

I know that my Redeemer lives, Job says, and the end I will stand on the earth.

I will see him with my own eyes, and with my own eyes, and not somebody else's eyes.

The ESV says, I will see him with my own eyes and not another's.

I will see him in my own resurrected self.

John says it this way in 1 John chapter 3, that we will see the Lord, and when we see him, we will be like him.

1 John 3 · chapter mention

There's a conforming power to it.

Job in his trial says, I want to see God.

I know I will.

John says, We will see him one day and we will become like him.

The phrase, the beatific vision, beatific is a weird word, but it comes, it's a biblical phrase from the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

That word for blessed is the word for beatific.

All of the Sermon on the Mount beatitudes are paired with each other.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Blessed are those who there's this idea of hunger creating a filling, persecution creating reward, mourning, creating comfort.

So those through the beatitudes, they're always paired together.

So the one that stands out then is blessed are the pure in heart.

What would be paired with pure in heart?

Well, the answer is seeing God.

That's what's paired.

It seems an odd pairing, doesn't it?

But seeing God is what goes with it.

We have this eager expectation that when we die, we will see the Lord.

One of my favorite hymns on Jordan's stormy banks, I stand and cast a wistful eye to Canaan's fair and happy land where my possessions lie.

All over that wide, extended plain lies one glorious day.

This is a place where our troubles fade.

And in this life, we're just longing to see it.

We're on Jordan's stormy banks, is the idea.

We're looking across the river of death into eternal life.

Where God is our vision.

We will see him.

We will be in the light.

God is light.

We will walk in the light.

We will see him because we see the light.

Now there's questions about what the beatific vision means.

There's questions about when it happens.

Does it happen immediately or all at once?

And, you know, Job said, I know when I die, I will see the Lord with his own eyes.

But has Job seen that yet?

Has Job's body resurrected from the grave yet?

Does he have his resurrection eyes right now?

And the answer is no.

He's waiting so that apart from us, he wouldn't be made perfect.

We'll all go in, in a sense, together.

When you die and close your eyes in this life, you'll stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

But you don't have your resurrection body yet.

And there's the kingdom after that, and then eternity after that.

There's stages in the future.

And so there's that tension.

Is the vision immediately at death, or is it over time?

Do you see God through the person of Jesus Christ?

Is God always mediated through a human, the man Christ Jesus?

Or do you see him directly?

Do you receive rewards in heaven, or does everybody enter eternal life the same way?

Those are tensions that are all over the passage that we'll look at this morning.

Now, this passage is set up by the question that Peter asked last week.

Last week Peter asked, he saw the rich young ruler leave empty-handed.

Jesus said, follow me, and he wouldn't follow Jesus, and he left away empty and sad.

And you see the wheels starting to turn in Peter's mind, where Peter says, Wait, I did what he didn't do.

And Peter says that.

Remember, Lord, we left everything to follow you.

We left our houses, we left our lands, our brothers or sisters or mothers or fathers, we left it all.

And so his question then is a classic Peter question we left it all.

What do we get?

And there's a good way to ask that question, isn't there?

Like, Lord, I was obedient.

What's the reward?

And that's how we looked at it last week.

And there's kind of a bad way to read that question, like, hey, what's in it for me?

And that's the way we'll look at it this week.

Jesus responds to Peter's question by saying, You'll receive rewards, Peter.

Those who left lands and houses will receive lands and houses in the next life.

In the regeneration.

The restoration is the language in the book of Acts.

In other words, the kingdom, when Jesus comes back to earth and reigns over the nations.

In fact, at the end of Matthew 19, verse, what is it, verse 28, Jesus says, You'll reign with me on the thrones as well.

Will reign over the nations.

It's coming, Peter.

But then he says, There are many who are first who will be last and the last who will be first.

And that's an odd kind of riddle, isn't it?

It's a riddle.

How can the first be last and the last be first?

Does it mean that the first people get the worst and the last people get the best?

We use it that way sometimes, like you're going to a buffet and you're like, oh no, after you, the last shall be first, kind of kind of thing.

I remember in my college soccer days, we would often eat as a team at the you know the Golden Corral buffet.

And you know, you learned you don't necessarily want to be first because the first person in when it opens, that food might have been there from last night.

You kind of want to go in last because then they're bringing out the new stuff.

And I'm not sure Golden Corral even exists anymore, a casualty of COVID, but I digress.

So Jesus tells his own story about this.

The kingdom of heaven, chapter 20, verse 1, is like the master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.

Now, this is going to be a story about fairness.

And we all love fairness, don't we?

You know, kids come into this world loving fairness.

Even if you have one kid, that kid at some point learned to say, that's not fair.

If you have more than one kid, that's all they say for like eight years of their life.

And you never taught them to say it.

When they were two years old, you never sat them down and said, okay, repeat after me.

That's not fair.

You can use it in any situation in life.

But we recognize that there is a sense that fairness is good.

Right?

You want fairness.

I'm sure you all voted last week to restore fairness, right?

Fairness, come on.

I just, I just.

Like fairness in the abstract is good, isn't it?

Like one kid looks at his steak and he's like, my older brother has a larger steak than me.

That's not fair.

And you know, as a parent, you're thinking, yeah, we all want fairness, but he's older than you, so he gets more food than you.

But then the broccoli comes out and the whole thing is reversed.

You know, the oldest kid comes home and sizes up how the other kids are eating dessert.

Like he had in his mind the dessert inventory in the freezer, and he sees what's out, and he's doing the math, and it's like, wait a minute.

That's not fair.

So we all want fairness.

We get that fairness is a good quality, but it all kind of depends on how you define fairness, I guess.

And you know, but you have to embrace this parable, you have to get that it's about fairness.

And so the landowner goes out in the morning.

Usually 6 a.m.

is the time this would happen in the Palestinian world back then.

You're hiring day laborers at 6 in the morning.

You hire them to work all day.

They work 12 hour days.

You don't work into the dark, of course, and you want to start early before it gets too hot.

And you don't have these people all year round on your payroll.

You buy them or you pay for them during harvest season.

This is a very American kind of situation.

This maps onto the American experience so well.

Not all of Jesus' parables do, but you would understand this very well.

You know, in your house, you don't have, you know, a landscaper on contract year-rounds.

Like you don't employ a full-time landscaper or a full-time, you know, granite installer on your own house's payroll.

Of course not.

But if you need to install granite, you might go hire somebody from the Home Depot parking lot.

I don't know the legality of it, but you understand the concept at least.

You need to put in new rocks in your backyard.

You can go hire somebody.

You know right where to go.

Right there, Braddock and Little River, you pull in your pickup, the guys will come up and you'll say, We work today, and they'll say, How much are you gonna pay?

And you negotiate a price, and this is out loud, and everybody hears, and then the guy comes and works for you for the day.

That's that's this scene.

This is a very American kind of scene.

So he goes and he hires the guys, it says in verse 2 for the day.

They agree for a denarius.

Now that's a standard rate.

200 American dollars, let's say.

That's probably what you would pay somebody to put in rocks in your yard for the day.

You might hire them early in the morning, 200 bucks for a day's work or so.

But the point is there's a conversation about it.

He says, I'll pay you this, and they said, That seems reasonable.

And everybody hears the conversation in verse 2.

And so then he sends them to the vineyard.

They'll work all day for 200 bucks.

Well, around the third hour, it's supposed to be nine in the morning, the landowner goes back to Home Depot.

Have you ever made only one trip to Home Depot?

And so he's back at nine in the morning, and there's still people there looking for work.

And so he hires more people at nine in the morning.

And he tells them, you go in the vineyard too, and whatever's right, I'll give to you.

So notice that the nine in the morning people don't negotiate the cost anymore.

This all hinges on them having heard the 6 a.m.

conversation.

They all know what you told the people at six.

So they're like,$200, that's going right, that's generous.

So we'll come work for you at nine, that's fine.

We don't need to quibble over the details.

And so there they go.

Again, this is a very reasonable scene that you may have even experienced yourself.

Well, verse five, along they went.

But then around the sixth hour, so lunchtime, he goes and finds more people.

And then at the ninth hour, so now you're at three in the afternoon.

He's still seeing workers there.

What kind of person is still there at three in the afternoon?

You know, you're hiring it throughout the day, and these guys didn't get work at three in the afternoon.

You know, I, having been in Home Depot parking lots at three in the afternoon, I wonder what's their sobriety level at this point.

You know, they didn't get up at six in the morning to hang out in the parking lot all day.

So around two, you've kind of given up hope, right?

And they're hanging out with their friends, they don't want to go home empty-handed.

That's what's happening.

Three in the afternoon, they're likely drinking or whatever, and but they get hired again.

Hey, come work for me at three in the afternoon, let's go.

In the 11th hour, he goes out there.

So now we're talking five in the afternoon.

All right, you have to have the scene in your mind.

5 p.m., he goes out there, and there's still a few guys in the parking lot.

And he asks them a question, and it is a fascinating question.

He knows the answer, but he just wants them to say it.

Why are you standing around all day long?

That's a very rude question, isn't it?

You see the guys in the parking lot at five in the afternoon.

Why are you standing here?

Mind your own business, man.

Nobody hired us.

And that's what he says in verse 6.

Why do you stand here all day?

And they say, verse 7, because no one wanted us.

No one asked us to come.

No one hired us.

So the landowner says, Well, you go into the vineyard too, then.

And they go.

When evening comes, which is like an hour later, the owner of the vineyard says to his foreman, call the laborers and pay them their wages.

Notice that the wages here, and this is an important part of the parable, often overlooked, but very important for understanding it.

The wages do not come from the landowner directly to the workers.

The wages are the theological term mediated.

They come from the landowner to the workers through a mediator.

And the mediator exists in both worlds, doesn't he?

If you've worked on construction or a land escaping career, which I have for many years of my life, you understand that the foreman is your mediator.

He is on your side and he is on the owner's side both.

You want to get to the owner, you go through, try to go to the owner without going through the foreman, see what happens.

But if you have a concern, you go to him and he represents the owner to you.

He is the mediator, and you get paid not by the owner, the dude in the khaki shorts and the penny loafers doesn't walk through the rock tending out hundred dollar bills.

He gives it to the foreman.

And that's the scenario as well.

So the foreman has the money, and the owner says, pay them beginning with the last up to the first.

That's all he communicates to the foreman.

It is as if the owner and the foreman have worked together for a long time and know each other's thoughts.

He doesn't need to give them more express instructions than that.

They share a mind, so to speak.

Which again, very important to understand this parable.

Well, he starts with the guys who got hired at 5 p.m., probably started working around 5:30.

When those hired about the 11th hour came, each of them received$200.

Now, at this point, you set up for verse 10.

When those heard of it who came in the morning, heard of this, they thought they would receive more.

So you have to very typical situation all the way up until the guys who got hired at 5 30 get 200 bucks.

That's where this goes weird.

Have you ever been in a situation like this?

I remember babysitting as a high schooler and you know picking the kids up from soccer practice and giving them food and you know ordering pizza for for me and putting the kids down to bed, and I might have a friend or two come come over then and we'll do homework or watch a movie together and eat the pizza together.

And then the the dad comes home and gives us money and sees three of us there and gives the guy who showed up last all the money for us.

And says, Ian, you split it.

You know who is here the longest.

You split it.

And so I'm like, I pick those kids up from soccer practice, I put them to bed, those rascals.

This dude shows up when they're in bed and eats my pizza.

So I deserve more than him.

And of course, that guy is like, I'm just dividing us in thirds.

There's three of us.

Maybe for my pizza, man.

You're probably doing math in your head.

You see the guy who got it there at 5 30 getting$200, and you're like, he worked for one hour, I worked for 12 hours, I'm gonna get$2,000.

That's what you're thinking.

You're doing math.

I don't need to work tomorrow.

Again, fairness is good until you start to put clothes on it.

Receiving their$200, they grumbled.

The Greek word for grumbled is anomanopoetic, it's grigzami.

Receiving their$200, they grumzjumai.

ESV just translated grumbled.

At the master of the house, the foreman pays them, they're grumbling at the owner.

And they're saying, these last clowns, they just work for one hour.

And you've made them equal to us who've been out here when it was hot all day.

Noon, we're sweating out here.

That's the complaint.

In Jesus' parables, have you noticed so many of his parables, he tells them in such a way that you side with the bad guys?

That's a common theme in his parables.

Like you enter his parables and you're you're like, you know what?

The prodigal son didn't get a fattened calf.

Come on, dad.

Time and time again.

This would be another one of those examples.

At this point, you're like, these guys have a legitimate gripe, don't they?

You would complain.

Don't tell me you wouldn't.

You would complain.

The landowner responds with three questions.

Those three questions will kind of guide our rest of our time together this morning.

He asks, friend?

And the word friend here in the Greek world, the word friend here, it might be better translated bro.

Like it doesn't mean you know, amigo in Spanish.

It doesn't mean like we would use it in English, like friend.

It's more like buster.

That would be a better way, like an older way of saying it.

Like, hey, wise up here, man.

Yo.

I'm not doing you any wrong.

I didn't wrong you.

Didn't you agree?

And that's the first question.

Didn't you agree for Daenerys?

Here's a way you might render it.

Did you sign up for grace?

Do you want grace?

That's the question.

Do you want to receive grace?

Because at a statement of fact here, nothing is wrong.

You agreed eagerly at 6 in the morning, you're excited to get hired.

Right?

Go back to 6 a.m.

It's hard to remember that at 6 p.m., but try hard at 6 p.m.

to remember your disposition at 6 a.m.

At 6 a.m.

when the pickup truck rolled into the parking lot and said, Hey, I need somebody for the day for 200 bucks.

Do you want to work?

And you said yes, and you were happy.

You got to the pickup truck first.

You hopped in the back of it.

You signed up first and you were stoked about it.

Do you remember that?

Is the question the landowner asks.

Do you remember what it was like to sign up for the job?

You wanted it.

Now jump over to Christianity real quick.

Do you remember the joy you had when you first started following Christ?

Do you remember how excited you were that God called you into his kingdom?

He said, Come follow me.

What he said to the rich young ruler who left.

So remember, this parable is aiming at Peter here.

Do you remember when I told you, back on the shore, drop your nets and follow me?

And you were like, Yes.

I'm in, Lord.

And now a few years later, you're just starting to wonder.

The rich young ruler goes away and empty, and you have a relationship with the Lord, but other people are starting to follow too, and certainly you're going to get more than those other people.

You've been a Christian a long time.

Maybe you've been a Christian 30, 40 years.

Your brother or your sister, who hasn't followed the Lord her whole life, starts coming to church a few weeks ago.

And everybody, all of your friends start hanging out with her.

And she's using your jokes.

And your friends find them funny.

And they say things to you like, oh, your sister's funny.

No, she's not.

Oh, it's so cool to see your sister in church and she's following the Lord.

But yeah, yeah, really exciting.

Answer to prayer right there.

There's that attitude in you.

I was at Emmanuel Bible Church when Andy Christensen was here.

Oh, uh-oh.

I was here when Michael Easley was here back when we had four services.

Man, those were the glory days.

And now you got these people from McLean Bible sitting in my pew.

I just want to remind you that you came to a God who, if he's known for nothing else, he's known for being gracious.

So maybe don't be so surprised when he's gracious to other people.

Like, yeah, I loved it when he was gracious to me.

I loved it when he hired me at six in the morning.

But does he have to be gracious to people at five in the afternoon also?

Romans 8.28 says we eagerly await the adoption of sons.

Romans, Hebrews 9.28 says we eagerly await our redemption from the one who's on high.

And so you have to remember there's an eagerness in Christianity that we are waiting for the Lord.

The rest of the parable doesn't make sense if you can't answer yes to this first question.

Did you want grace when you came to Christ?

Are you like the man who, for the joy set before him, sold everything to follow Christ?

Did you want to be in a relationship with the gracious Savior?

Yes, of course.

Second question he asks.

Do you resent grace?

Verse 14.

Take what belongs to you and get out of here.

I chose to give to this last worker as I give to you.

Am I not allowed to do that with what belongs to me?

That's the second question.

Don't tell me I can't give$200 to the guy I hired 20 minutes ago.

It's my$200.

It's not yours.

But you start to resent grace.

God gives grace through covenant.

Obviously, this parable here is hinging the target audience here is Israel.

The rich young ruler, remember, I told you a few weeks ago, personifies the old covenant.

He kept the law since he was a kid.

He knows the Ten Commandments.

He says, I've done it all.

He's a synagogue leader, for goodness sakes.

And he walks away with no relationship with Christ.

Meanwhile, Jesus looks at a centurion and says, That guy, I haven't seen faith in Israel as much as that centurion.

He's about to send the apostles into the nations to make disciples of the nations.

He's going to break off Israel.

That's the language that's using.

In fact, in the next chapter, we're going to see him say the kingdom is going to be taken away from you and given to other people who will bear fruit in keeping with it.

That's what's happening here.

And so you have this element of people that are saying, I was with you at six in the morning.

We were following you since Joseph was enslaved.

We were with you.

We had to make pyramids out of mud and straw, and then we did it without straw.

That's us.

And now you you bring in some Zeus-worshipping Romans.

You've got to be kidding me.

That's their attitude.

And Jesus' response is Do you resent that God is showing grace to other people?

The Abrahamic covenant was supposed to be a blessing to the nations.

Do you resent that the nations are here?

It's not part of the fine print in your relationship with God that He's going to be gracious to the world.

It's kind of the bold heading on top.

Third question.

Will you submit to grace?

Am I not allowed to do with what I choose to do with what belongs to me?

Or do you begrudge my generosity?

It's more of a personal restatement of the previous question.

The first question, I mean the second question was at a corporate level.

The third question is more individual.

Do you resent this?

Are you upset about it?

I know in the nonprofit world, I've been in the nonprofit world enough in universities and other organizations that you can resent people's generosity very easily.

Somebody gives you$10,000 a year for 10 years.

And then the 11th year they give it to some other organization.

Like, wait a minute.

And you start thinking, like, that was our money.

No, it's not, it's not your money.

It never was your money.

Do you are you upset that a generous guy is suddenly generous to somebody else?

Are you surprised that the generous guy turns out to be generous?

But it's so easy to start saying, no, that money, they should give it to us.

In some sense, it belongs to us.

Not really.

And that's what these workers are saying.

They see the$200 going out the door to the guy who got hired at 5 30, and they're like, wait a minute.

That belongs to us.

That's our money.

No, my friend, it was never your money.

Let me tell you how you hear this, put the money aside, how you hear it spiritually.

Can God save whomever he wants?

Is it the prerogative of God to show salvation to whomever he desires?

And we often recoil against that.

We think, no, God has to be equitable in the display of salvation to everyone.

God has to elect everybody to be saved.

That's not what the Bible teaches.

God is a gracious God.

Salvation does not depend on man who wills or man who runs, but on God who chooses.

And He chooses people before they were born, before they've done anything good or bad.

And so often we question that and say, that's that's not generous enough.

God's not spending somebody else's money.

Notice that their beef here isn't with the foreman anymore.

They're actually angry at God.

They might take it out on the foreman, but they're angry at the owner.

They're upset with him.

And it's the owner who says, Don't I have the right to do whatever I want to with my money?

Listen, when God saves people from sin, it's not somebody else's currency he's using.

It's himself.

He goes into the marketplace of sin.

He sets his affection on individuals.

He purchases them out with the precious blood of Jesus Christ.

We are ransomed from the power of sin by the gift of Jesus Christ.

It is God's righteousness, it is God's holiness that purchases us out.

And then we become his servants, his slaves.

We belong to him.

He buys us with his generosity, his money.

Don't begrudge that.

Don't begrudge it.

And the parable ends with so the first will be last and the last first.

What that means, it's a riddle, I guess, but it's not that hard.

It means that everybody finishes at the same time.

That's what the first shall be last and the last first means.

You all cross the finish line together.

That's how he ends chapter 19.

It's the last phrase of chapter 19.

It's the last phrase of this parable, verse 16 of chapter 20.

It's the bread on the sandwich of the parable of the vineyard workers.

It's introed and outroed with everybody is paid the same.

And so that's the tension in the story, isn't it?

What sets the story up is the doctrine of rewards.

But then the story teaches the uniformity of the experience.

Store up for yourselves treasure in heaven.

Where moth won't corrode and rust won't destroy and thieves won't steal.

It follows, almost axiomatically, it follows that not everybody obeys that in the same way.

There's different levels of treasure in heaven.

And of course, this is taught all over the Bible, isn't it?

When you die, you stand before the Bima seat, the judgment seat of Christ, to be rewarded for the deeds done in the flesh.

Both good and phalon is the Greek word.

Empty, vapid, insipid, not evil.

Your evil deeds have been nailed to the cross.

You won't be held accountable for God for your sin, but you are rewarded for the profitable things you've done in your service to Christ.

There's certainly degrees of rewards.

You will reign with Christ over the nations.

In fact, that's just the verse before this.

Verse 28 of chapter 19.

You will sit with the Son, will be on his glorious throne, and those who follow me will also have thrones.

There's a sense of authority as you're ruling over other people in the kingdom.

That's if you're wondering where I'm going with that, that's not a quality that's ruling over other people in the kingdom.

That's the scene.

Some people will go into heaven with no works to show.

Smoke coming off from them.

Paul says it's like they were saved through fire.

Some of you might feel that way, man.

Like I'm just trying to cross the finish line, okay?

Back off.

My fingernail gets into heaven.

I'm like, it was it was that close.

And other people labor their whole life for Christ in faithfulness.

And they'll be rewarded for that.

There's no falling words.

The prophet Samuel says, There's no falling words.

Everything done for the Lord, he sees and he rewards.

None of it is void, none of it is lost.

A prayer you make in the solitude of your own room for some missionary across the world that God answers and blesses that missionary through your prayer.

Nobody knows about that prayer.

The missionary doesn't know about that prayer.

God knows about it and will reward you for it.

Every dollar you spend for the kingdom, God sees, he knows, and he'll reward you.

Every relationship you forfeit for following Christ, God sees, God knows, and God will reward you.

That's the promise.

How can that be true?

And the first be last, and the last be first.

And so you need a little bit of help here with the doctrine of the kingdom.

That Christ is going to come and reign on the earth over the nations, and that he will bring us with him.

That you close your eyes in this life, you stand before the Bemis seat, you receive your reward, you experience that reward in the kingdom.

There are degrees of rewards in the kingdom.

Nobody's going to be sad in the kingdom.

Everybody's going to be happy.

All the tears are wiped away.

The best analogy for it is that everybody's cup will be full, but some people have bigger cups than others.

Everybody's going to be excited to be in the kingdom as you reign with Christ, rewarded with degrees of authority in the kingdom over the nations.

And Christ will be there, and you'll see him, and people will ask, how can everybody in the world see him at the same time?

It's a big kingdom, and people are coming and going, and there's transit.

Not everybody has the same vision, the same access to the vision in the kingdom, but the kingdom is not forever in that sense.

The kingdom gives way to the eternal state.

The sun melts from the sky and is replaced with the lamb.

The seas are dried up.

The lamb will be the glory.

The lamb will be the light.

You'll have an immediate access to him.

All things are submitted unto the Father, 1 Corinthians says, and then all will be all in all, and there will be an immediate presence of the beatific vision, your knowledge of the Lord, where you see him in the sense Revelation 22, speaking of the eternal state, says you will see him face to face.

How can you see God and live?

How can God doesn't have a face?

And yet you'll have that experience through all eternity, seeing him.

You don't receive all of it at once.

You don't have the eternal experience of God immediately because that would make you boundless.

That would make you eternal.

That would make you omniscient.

If you knew all there is to know about God, you would then be omniscient.

Do you follow that?

You don't get to become omniscient in heaven.

You're going to grow in knowledge forever and ever and ever and grow in joy and grow in delight.

You'll see his face.

And so it's worth asking yourself, what is the reward you signed up for?

Here's where it all comes into focus.

What's the reward you signed up for?

When you decide to follow Christ, did you sign up for what?

Certainly there's the forgiveness of sins.

I'm sure many of you would answer that.

I became a Christian for my sins to be forgiven.

That's great and that's true.

That's also negative.

That's cancellation.

It's negating.

That's not a positive thing.

It's like I'm glad dad's not home because he's not going to spank me.

That's not a reward.

There's a positive aspect to this: that you receive the righteousness of Christ.

There's a future hope of this, that you will see him and be made like him in your sight of him.

That your fear will be driven out.

That you will see God.

And here's where the first will be last and last will be first.

Do you understand that everybody sees the same God?

God is the denarius.

God is the reward.

Not the degrees of authority in the kingdom.

God is the reward.

That's what you signed up for to see the Lord.

And everybody sees the same God.

It's not like the thief on the cross gets God behind door number two, and Anna, who ministered in the temple for 60 years waiting for the Savior, she gets God behind door number one.

No, of course not.

They see the same God.

The first will be last and the last will be first.

And that doesn't negate rewards.

It brings us with a unified vision around the person of God.

In the kingdom, no one gets less than they deserve.

Everyone gets infinitely more.

Arlen told me this week a story he teaches at Liberty University.

He told me a story about a student who I didn't ask permission to use this, Arlen.

He told me a story about a student who appealed the grade they got on a paper.

Which apparently you can do.

Who knew?

Please don't ever do that, by the way.

This is as your pastor, I'm telling you, please don't ever encourage your kids to appeal a grade they got to like the border of regions or whatever.

Please don't.

Count yourself cheated and move on.

But this student did appeal because apparently it was super important.

And they convened a committee.

And the committee looked at the paper, and you know what they did?

Gave that kid a lower grade than Arlen gave him.

You want what's fair?

Here's fair, man.

Let me tell you why the Beatific Vision is so important.

If you're focused on yourself, you're grumbling.

Restore fairness in elections.

That's not how it should be worded.

B.

That's a B plus paper.

You're focused on yourself.

That guy got hired at 5 30.

Get your eyes off of yourself and onto something that is transcendent and eternal.

Be shaped by the vision of God.

The things of this earth grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.

God, we're grateful that you don't give us what is fair.

You give us grace and mercy.

And the reward of seeing Christ face to face.

We long for the vision.

The grace that you shower on us is transcendent and indescribable.

Ten thousand years will go by and it will be but a drop in the bucket.

Your grace is incredible.

We long for the day where we will see you face to face.

Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly, we ask.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, iBC.church.

If you want more information about the Master Seminary or our location here in Washington, D.C., please go to TMS.edu.

Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.

area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel.

I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.

But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.

Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.