Why We Hate Grace

If you'd like, you can get together for lunch and continue these conversations.

Uh or after church, go to brunch.

You're at the nine o'clock.

Go to brunch.

So my name is Russ.

I want to say welcome to Church at the Grove.

If you're here, maybe for the first time, second time, third time, excited to have you all with us.

You've chosen to jump in at a good time as we're on the front end of the series Grace Upon Grace, where we're looking at the grace of God and what is taught in Scripture about grace.

Let me also mention one other thing kind of on the forefront of coming on the calendar with Church of the Grove.

This coming Thursday is our senior adult lunch.

We didn't have these over the summer, but this past year we began doing these once a month.

So it's Thursday.

I'm almost 100% sure that it's here at this campus.

And just okay, it is.

I'm seeing the thumbs up on that.

Um, but you can sign up.

If you're not sure, go to our app or or go find Pat or one of our staff, and we'll make sure go out to the kiosk on this side of the lobby, and and they can help you there with some of these things going on.

Just saying.

We're playing bingo?

Okay.

All right.

All right.

Um, so as Jill and I, uh we, as we kind of, you know, are moving into the empty nest phase of our life, um, uh it's almost like our kids were heading out the door and they tagged our parents and said, your turn.

And so we're, you know, we're in that process of uh you know still kind of helping, you know, take care of our kids a little bit, now adjusting to taking care of uh of parents.

But as we raised our kids, there were certain things that they couldn't say, and we were probably more strict than nine, that not, you know, the not strict and uh a little bit, you know, kind of compelled and and and caught up in you know what's right, what's wrong, what should we not say, what's fair.

And so we didn't allow we didn't allow words to be said, and and they're not necessarily obvious bad words, but S T-U-P-I-D, we weren't, you weren't allowed to say that.

In our household, you weren't allowed to say um uh uh obviously words that that we all probably agree on that are not acceptable.

Another phrase that we were not allowed to say is the phrase that's not fair.

Our kids were not allowed to say that's not fair.

And that's kind of a you know a normal saying, especially for a young child who looks maybe at their siblings or looks at other children and they compare themselves and they say that's not fair.

So we heard we we heard these things in our in our home growing up.

One child, we had three child children, one child gets to play while the other does homework.

That's that happened in our house.

And what's the response of the one that's doing the homework?

That's not fair.

That's not fair.

One has to clean his room while the other has to clean the the living room or the family room in the house.

And what do you what do you hear from the one that is um cleaning the big family room?

That's not fair.

One child did more chores than the other and received a bigger reward.

Well, what are the what do you get back from the one that receives less?

That's not fair.

And and of course, we know that the the real meaning behind that phrase is is typically that's not what I want.

But this idea of fairness is not just something that our kids proclaim or or talk about they're not getting their way, or that's not fair.

This idea of fairness is woven into the fabric of our nation.

Even some of the founding documents, the Declaration of Independence says this we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

And so we and listen, that I I love the Declaration of Independence.

I love these founding documents that our nation was founded upon, and and these words have helped.

Uh, this Declaration of Independence, these specific words I just read, they've helped provide a framework for our society, for our nation.

Um and but they're a bit misleading.

This idea that everything is going to be fair, everything is gonna be right.

As a matter of fact, when this was written, was everything fair to all the human beings in our culture?

No.

They applied more to the to the to kind of the people that looked like most of these founding fathers.

They were, you know, white men were given these rights at the time they were written.

Uh but as even though they weren't applied and put into place over the course of the history of our nation, things have turned.

There is more right now than there was when these things were written.

We're not necessarily, we have not arrived, but we have seen.

We've seen, we've gone through the civil rights movement where the Civil Rights Act was put into place, and still, still we needed uh time, and we are still necessary, not that we haven't arrived, but we are moving in the right direction.

That's what we what we see.

And so and so the goal is to have a fair place or a just place where there is justice and there is fairness.

Um if you look at education circles and academic circles, there's a lot of debate and conversation about what is what is uh what is equality as people try to figure out what is right, what is just, what is fair.

At the end of the day, we expect things to be fair.

When they aren't, we get frustrated, we get angry.

We we know a lot of times we just we know because of our God-given conscience that we we look at this world and we see what's right, but we also see what is gravely wrong.

Um, it's even been documented in the animal kingdom.

You do your job, you get paid.

Life is good, right?

Unless you're a monkey.

Unless you're a monkey, and you see that your buddy is getting a better reward than you for doing the exact same task.

And so, Franz DeWall, we're gonna look at this video here in just a second.

He's a primatologist and an Emory University professor.

He conducted an experiment on capuchin monkeys about 10 years ago.

He called it the Fairness Study.

And so during the study, two monkeys were each asked to perform the very same task for reward.

If you're a monkey, a chunk of cucumber is an acceptable reward.

But you know you're really keeping up with the Joneses, even in the animal kingdom, when you're when you see your buddy, another monkey, getting a better reward than you.

Instead of cucumbers, he's getting grapes.

You say, well, that doesn't really hit home with us, but but it does if you probably start thinking about uh what you feel you are due to have or what you deserve to have.

And so this um viral video that was uploaded back in May uh it shows the first time monkey he completes the required task.

He's getting a he gets a small chunk of cucumber, but then he notices his buddy in the nut next um little cubicle area.

He is actually getting a better reward than he's getting for doing the same task.

And I want you to see if your response would be the same as it is for this capuchin monkey.

The one who gets a cucumber note at the first.

There we go.

No, the one on the right.

The one who got the cucumber note at the first place.

Okay.

It's not working.

It's okay.

We'll send this out.

We'll try to send this out either through one of our uh Instagram or Facebook and and and make sure you have the chance to look at the capuchin monkey video.

But basically, the one on the left is is given he he's he's he has rocks in his little uh crate area, and and so he gives the attendant a rock and then he's given a reward.

He gives a reward back to the capuchin monkey, and it's a piece of cucumber.

Well, the other monkey on the right side of the first monkey is does the same task.

He hands a rock to the attendant, and then he's given a reward, but he gets a grape.

And so the the first monkey continues to receive cucumber pieces.

He realizes what he's getting in contrast to his buddy over there, so he starts throwing the cucumber pieces back to the attendant, which is the funny part.

Um if you like animal videos uh that aren't cat videos, you know, you can appreciate that.

And so the idea is is this idea of fairness.

Hey, they're getting something that I should have.

We we have we talked about the the one of the enemies of grace is is this idea of deserving something.

This enemy of grace is is the sin or or the dilemma of comparison.

And so the big idea for today is this fairness is the antithesis of grace.

Fairness goes in stark contrast to the idea of grace that we see played out in Scripture.

And we're gonna look at a couple of passages in uh Matthew chapter 20, but also Ephesians chapter 2.

Matthew 20 · chapter mention Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

And if you want to go ahead and open up uh your copy of God's word, you can follow along with that as we're continuing this series.

Um we we said last week God's grace is to be experienced, not just uh understood, or not just intellectually explained.

And so the goal of this series is not just to teach you concepts about grace, but for you to experience God's grace, that you could walk in God's grace.

And so that's what we want is to experience this irresistible grace that only comes through Jesus from our Heavenly Father.

And so it's not something you just understand intellectually, it's something that you are to experience by the power of the Holy Spirit.

So we're gonna be in Matthew chapter 20 in this passage in the preceding chapter in Matthew chapter 19, we store we see the story of the rich young ruler.

Matthew 20 · chapter mention Matthew 19 · chapter mention

And this is so you can understand the context.

This young man comes to Jesus and asks how he can receive eternal life.

And Jesus says, Hey, keep all the commands, in which the man says, Hey, I have keeping all the commands.

And Jesus tells him, Go and sell.

If you've kept all the commands, go and sell everything that you have and give it to the poor.

And the man goes away sad because he has many possessions.

And then Peter speaks up, Lord, we have left everything to follow you.

In other words, we're better than this rich young ruler.

We've sacrificed everything for you.

And then Jesus, in response to what he says, what Peter is saying, he says, Let me tell you this parable, Matthew 20, verse 1.

Matthew 20:1

For the kingdom of heaven, read out of the Christian standard Bible.

Kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard.

And after agreeing with the workers on one denarius, which was the basic pay for one day of work.

And so he sent them into his vineyard for the day.

And when he went out about nine in the morning, he saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing.

And he said to them, You also go into my vineyard, and I'll give you whatever is right.

Circle, underline, star, that word right.

So off they went about noon and about three, he went out again.

The landowner went out again and did the same thing.

He gathered more laborers and more workers.

Then about five o'clock in the afternoon.

So he starts at 6 a.m.

in the morning, then at nine, then at noon, and then now he's all the way to five o'clock, one hour left on the workday.

He found others standing around and said to them, Why have you been standing here all day doing nothing?

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

He said, You also go into my vineyard, he told them, when evening came, the owner of the vineyard told his foreman, Call the workers and give them their pay, starting with the last and ending with the first.

Now, how well do you think this idea of fairness is going to fly right here?

Every person receives the same pay, whether they came at five in the afternoon and worked one hour, or they came at three or noon or nine or six in the morning, twelve-hour day all the way down to a one-hour day.

That doesn't fly too well with probably any of us.

And so they were all promised a denarius, a a the payment that would be equal to a day's pay.

And so you see it play out.

And so the time comes to pay the workers, and he starts with the ones who've been there the shortest amount of time.

Verse 9.

When those who were hired about five o'clock came, they each received one denarius.

So when the first ones came, they assumed that they would get more, but they also received a denarius, a day's wage.

When they received it, they begin to complain to the landowner.

These last men put in one hour, and you made them equal to us, who bore the burden of the whole day, the day's work and the burning heat.

So you see a drastically different pay scale.

They're paid the same amount for two different jobs.

And the workers who had been there the longest cry out, that is not fair.

That's not fair.

And again, the desire for fairness is rising to the surface.

You read this, you feel the same way.

We all probably feel like, man, this isn't right.

This isn't fair.

This isn't just.

It's not fair for the ones who worked a shorter amount of time to get the same pay as the ones who worked the long hours.

Nine to twelve hours.

Either the workers who work shorter hours should get paid less, or the workers who work long hours should be paid more.

That is what is fair.

Now, I'm gonna, before I continue to read in verse 13, let me just stop there for a second.

So we feel we feel these emotions, we feel a little bit anger, a little bit of disappointment, we feel badly for the ones who didn't work an entire day, uh the ones who did work an entire day and and and received a denarius versus the ones who worked an hour and received the same equal pay.

And so my response when I think of looking at fairness and grace through the lens of Scripture, that grace and fairness do not go together.

They are the antithesis of one another.

The kingdom of God is not built on fairness, it is built on grace.

It is built on grace.

And I shared with you at the beginning of this series, we talked about just the basic understandings of grace.

Grace that is not going to make us uncomfortable is not amazing grace.

If we are not wrestling with grace in the way that the readers and the listeners would hear Jesus' teaching and wrestle with grace and fairness, then to the point that we are uncomfortable.

To the point, I'm gonna share a couple things as we move toward the end of this message that you're just probably gonna squirm a little bit.

And you're gonna think, well, hey, that sounds really good as you say this, Pastor, but that's really not how things are gonna be.

That's what we we kind of begin to rationalize in our mind, yeah, that's that's the way he's supposed to say it.

But come on.

We don't, we're not really gonna live according to what the Bible says about grace, are we?

So in verse 9 he says, when those who were hired about five came, they received one denaris.

So the first ones came, they they assumed they would get more, but they also received denaris each.

And when they received it, they began to complain to the landowner.

These last men put in one hour, and you made them equal to us who bore the burden of the whole day and the burning heat.

Drastically different pay scale.

Two different individuals working vastly different amounts, get paid equal.

And you say, that's not right, that's not fair, that's not the way it's supposed to be.

But here's the master's reply.

He replied to one of them, friend, I'm doing you no wrong.

Didn't you agree with me on a denarius?

Take what's yours and go.

I want to give this last man the same as I gave you.

Don't I have the right to do what I want with what is mine?

Are you jealous because I'm generous?

So we see that therein lies a lesson.

Everything we own, everything we have, all that we are, it is given by God.

And if we understand that everything we have is given by Him, He is the creator, He is the one who sets the standards, He is the one who is holy, He is the one who is immutable, He is the one who is unchanging.

And if we first have our perspective that there is a God and I'm not Him, He is so other than us, beyond us, being able to set the standards for all of His creation.

And he says in verse 16, so the last will be first and the first will be last.

This kingdom is an upside down kingdom.

As I said that first week, the currency of the world is is to for you to earn and to collect what you have deserved.

And so earning, earning is the currency of the world.

I deserve it.

I have earned it.

When you open up your passport that says United States, they require certain things for you to be able to travel, for you to be a citizen, for you to have protection, for you to have rights.

But we also have another passport, and that passport is our passport to the kingdom of God rather than the kingdom of the United States.

And that passport does not say I earned it, I earned my standing, I earned my citizenship.

That passport, the currency of the kingdom, is not money and it's not self-effort, self-made.

I can do it, I can pull it myself up by my bootstraps.

The currency of the kingdom is grace.

The currency of the kingdom is grace.

It means you are, you are, your, your wages or what what you your benefits, your your insurance policy, what gives you hope and the promises of eternity with God is all based on the currency of grace.

You don't deserve it.

None of us deserve it.

I shared last week.

Jeremiah said, My heart, the heart is a deceitfully wicked thing.

Paul says, all of sin falling short of the glory of God.

He says the wages of sin is what?

Death.

Eternal life, eternal death, much worse than the transition that we make from this earthly existence into our eternal existence.

A couple things I want you to kind of, if you're going to hang something on this morning and you hang hang hang some thoughts on these hooks here, here's the first one that demands for fairness in the kingdom of God destroy our ability to see the heart of God.

When we demand fairness in the kingdom of God, it destroys our ability to see the heart of God.

And so we buy in the lie that the kingdom of God needs to be fair rather than be a kingdom of grace.

And in this fair mindset, we're compensated for our good works.

We're also compensated for our bad things, which I want to tell you that we can never get over that hump if we were going to be justly compensated for our sin.

We could never recover.

And so they didn't see the point of this story, the point of the truth of God's kingdom, having the currency of grace is to help us understand the master's incredible generosity in this parable, in this story.

They focused on what they didn't receive rather than looking at what we receive when we are citizens of the kingdom.

We get the benefit from the heart of God, the heart of grace.

If we let earning and self-effort and self-made being our dictating values, then we're going to miss out on the significance of the kingdom of God being built on the currency of grace.

See, fairness is the antithesis of grace.

And so the second peg you can hang something on is this God rewards on his goodness, not our goodness.

God rewards on his goodness, not our goodness.

When we read this story, we should see see it as a as a not as a matter of fairness, but one of incredible generosity from the master.

He didn't have to give the same amount of money to all the workers, especially when they didn't deserve it, but he chose to.

And maybe, maybe my my favorite passage when under trying to understand the simplicity of the gospel.

Listen, Ephesians 2.

He says, once you were dead, once you were dead, once you were sick, no.

Once you were just a little bit off, no.

Once you had some issues, no.

Once you were dead, you were dead.

If you look up that verse, that word in the Greek, you know what it means?

It means dead.

It means heart stopped.

No breathing.

You're dead.

No hope.

And then he goes on to explain.

He said, You were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins.

You used to live in sin just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil.

All of you, all of us, you and me, all alike.

The commander of the powers in the unseen world.

He is the spirit, the devil.

He's talking about the devil.

He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God.

All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of the sinful nature.

By our very nature, we were subject to God's anger, just like everyone else.

But in verse 4, we see this beautiful transition.

This beautiful transition.

But God, but God, you were dead in your sins and your transgressions.

Following in the pattern of the devil.

But God, but God, thank you for that.

Thank you, God.

But God, who is so rich in mercy, he loved us so much that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead.

It is only by God's grace that you have been saved, for he raised us up from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we were united with Christ Jesus.

This is what happens when you turn and put your faith.

You turn and you believe and you trust God.

You believe the gospel.

For he has raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we're united with Christ Jesus.

We're made one with Jesus.

We are in Christ.

So God can point us to all, point us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and his kindness toward us as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus.

God saves you by his grace when you believed.

You can't take credit for this.

It is a gift of God from God.

Salvation is not a reward for the good things we've done, so none of us can boast about it.

It's the truth of the gospel.

It's the good news.

It's the hope we have in Jesus.

Yeah, somebody say amen.

It's good.

Yeah, yeah.

We should get excited.

And this, it's the it's the it's being shown this immeasurable, uneserved, amazing grace that he's bestowed upon us.

The kingdom, the currency of the kingdom is grace, not fairness, not self-effort.

His kingdom is based on grace, not fairness.

I'm thankful.

I don't get what is fair.

I don't get what I deserve.

By grace, I have received the gift of faith.

So I can reach out to Jesus and hold on to him, pursue him, walk with him.

And some of you, some of you are probably similar to me.

Some of you benefited from experiencing, you were taught grace as a child, and that's a beautiful thing.

That's not something to be scorned at.

It's not, man, we we should all have a testimony.

We should all want this for our children, that they would they would turn at a young age and avoid all the pitfalls and the traps that we've all experienced.

And they could walk in grace their whole life.

And so we we look at scripture, we look, we we we see these stories and we gloss over them and we miss them.

Like the thief on the cross.

He committed terrible crimes and was being punished by hanging on a cross and he cries out to Jesus, this is his prayer, salvation.

Remember me, remember me.

When you come into your kingdom, remember me.

He has no time to clean up his life.

He has no time to go back and ask for forgiveness.

He has no time to get baptized, he has no time to follow the law, he has no time to flesh out the character of Christ in his life.

That is his statement of salvation.

His transformation takes place right in this short window where Jesus grants him and says, You will see me again in paradise.

Today you will be with me in paradise.

You see grace, but not fairness.

And here's where you're gonna be uncomfortable.

When I take someone like Jeffrey Dahmer, I mean he's he's the he's the poster child for what it what it would be for somebody who deserves death, who deserves the death penalty, who deserves what he gave.

He was convicted.

He's known as one of the most famous American serial killers.

Between 1978 and 1991, we know for sure that he killed at least 17 men.

We probably know that he killed more than that, but those are the ones that they could verify with evidence.

He was known as the Milwaukee monster.

Not only killing these people, but committing unspeakable things with their bodies after he had killed them.

And so, I mean, when we think of evil, the word evil, we think that Jeffrey Dahmer's picture is gonna be right in the margins of where that word is found in the dictionary.

But before he was he was killed, Jeffrey Dahmer was killed by another inmate in prison.

But before he before he was killed in prison, he gave an interview by date to Dateline.

And here's a quote from that interview.

There has to come a point where a person has to become accountable for what he's done.

You can't go around making excuses, blaming other people.

He goes on.

I've since come to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the true creator of the heavens and the earth.

And I have accepted him as my Lord and Savior, and I believe that I, as well as everyone else, will be accountable to him.

Hmm.

Y'all don't seem so joyful now.

I don't like that.

I don't like that.

I don't like the way I feel when I read that quote.

He doesn't deserve an opportunity to receive grace.

But then I have to be reminded who I'm not the one giving it out.

It's something that God gives out and he gives freely.

And so if Jeffrey's statement is true and faith is real, then by God's grace, it's quite possible.

Now I don't know.

I can't judge him, I can't judge his heart.

So I don't know this, but it's it's possible based on what I read in Scripture, based on these passages we read this morning, it's possible that he is in eternity in the presence of Jesus.

A man who spent most of his life as being thought of as the most evil person that could exist on this planet.

Bothers me.

I know it bothers you on some level, but it gives us a picture of God's grace and his generosity as he hands out salvation, as he hands out our justification, as he grants us forgiveness, as he makes us whole, as he invites us into a relationship where we follow Jesus.

We put our faith in what he's done in his life, and his death, and his resurrection.

As he sits at the right hand of the Father praying for me and you right now.

And so I want to ask you if you need your perspective of grace expanded.

That's our goal, I think, with this series is to help us dive deeper into who God is and what He came to provide for us.

Now, we may all be in the pool, most of us, maybe not all of us, but most of us may be in the pool of salvation.

But some of us tend to want to stay in the shallow water and start out by dipping our toe in to see how it feels.

But series like this are opportunities for us to take some of these basic foundational doctrines of our faith and to step out of the shallow end of the pool into the deep end of the pool and say, you know what, I'm not gonna dip my toe in, I'm gonna dive, and it's gonna be a full-on cannonball into the grace of Jesus.

Where we experience not a little piece of what he wants for us, but experience all of what he wants for us, and that is receiving the inheritance and the promises of a life as a Jesus follower.

And so the power that I was granted by grace in the beginning of my relationship that gave me hope and joy and a sense of purpose, it's the same power that empowers you today to continue to move out of the shallow waters of grace into the deep waters of grace.

And for you to be made uncomfortable, for me to be made uncomfortable when I think that someone so undeserving would receive the same benefit and reception of promises that are given to me and are given to you.

And so if you've never put your faith in Jesus, today is the day of your salvation.

If you need to respond for the first time and trust for the first time to repent and believe, put your faith in what Christ did, in his life, and his death, and his resurrection.

But if you're here and your step, you say, I've already benefited from being in the pool of salvation.

Well, join me as I try to walk out into deeper waters, understanding God's grace on a new, fresh level.

Amen.

Would you pray with me?

Let's pray together.

Father, thank you for grace, thank you for your goodness.

Thank you for helping us understand that grace is always gonna go in contrast to what we deem to be fair and just and righteous.

Father, for those of us that need to experience God's grace for the first time, I pray that this morning would be that morning, today would be that day that they would respond and they would give their heart and their life to Jesus.

To obediently to respond with repentance and belief.

And to understand the simplicity that He gives us this gift, regardless of how well we have lived our life, how well we've carried out our religious duties, regardless of our own self-effort, we're given the gift of grace.

And Father, it it goes against all of our natural human instincts and against our flesh, against what the enemy wants us to believe.

Father, may we be overwhelmed.

May we be made to feel uncomfortable by the significance of your grace and how you freely offer it to those of us that haven't experienced it before.

May we experience it up close and personal.

So, Father, help us to move out of the shallow waters into the deep.

May we desire deeply not just to be beneficiaries of grace, but to be a conduit of grace, that grace would flow from you through us to others that desperately need it.

God, we thank you.

As we come to this point, I just want to encourage you.

Grace demands a response.

And your response may be to come to the altar to pray.

It may be to come ask one of us to pray with you.

We would be glad to pray with you.

But most importantly, you respond based on how the Holy Spirit leads you.

Father, we love you.

We thank you.

In Christ's name, we pray.

Amen.