- Today we're in part
two of this series, The Unsettling Solution
for Just About Everything. And as I said last week, and
I'll say it again this week and I'll say it again
next time we gather, and I know this is naive,
so you can criticize me for being naive; I get that. But I genuinely don't know why, I genuinely don't
know why everybody wouldn't want the
message or the story of Christianity or the message or the story of
Jesus to be true. Maybe not the version
that you grew up with, maybe not what
maybe we've made it or what your church or your
denomination has made it, but the original version. When you track with
Jesus through the gospels and you hear Him teach, and
you see how He treats people, I don't know why everybody
wouldn't want that to be true, why they wouldn't want to wish that perhaps Jesus, in
fact, came from God, and that there is a
God who has invited us to call Him Father, and
that our Heavenly Father, in some way, reflects
the personality and the character and the love
and the compassion of Jesus. The irresistible version,
that's the version I just don't know why everybody
wouldn't wish is true. And I get this,
there's a difference. There's a difference between
I don't believe it's true, which I get, and I don't
want it to be true. And I understand why you
don't believe it's true. If I had heard what you'd
heard, read what you'd read, been to school where
you went to school, experienced maybe
what you experienced as a result of church
or religious education, I understand why you
don't believe it's true. What I don't completely
get and what I want to help you get is
I don't know why you wouldn't want it
to be true because, in the first century,
people, all kinds of people, religious and
unreligious people, Jews and Gentiles, were
actually attracted to Jesus. They found Jesus attractive. So consequently,
if we get it right, they should find Christianity
in modern times attractive. People who were nothing like
Jesus, as you've heard me say, people who were nothing
like Jesus liked Jesus. And Jesus liked people
who were nothing like Him. And the reason were
attracted to Jesus was really a single word, the
word that makes me want it to be true, but perhaps a word that was never in
the equation for you. And the word is grace, grace. Undeserved, unearned, unearnable favor. Favor from God not based
on anything you did. In fact, in spite of
everything you've done. It's what you crave,
even though you may not have had the word,
it's what you crave and it's what you crave when
you hurt someone you love, and it's what you crave
when you hurt someone or offend someone that you need. Because in that moment,
you can't take back what you've done and you
can't erase the past, but in that moment, you
want them to treat you, you want them to accept
you, you want them to feel about you, you
want them to see you in a way as if
whatever you had done as if it never even happened. That somehow they could remember what you've done, and
yet the relationship would be completely restored
in spite of what you've done. Undeserved, unmerited,
undeservable favor. And that's why, as
we said last weekend, we're really gonna dig
into this next week. Don't miss part
three of this series. That when correctly applied,
grace really does solve just about everything. When it comes to
a man and a woman in a relationship, when it
comes to parents and their kids, when it comes to kids
and their parents, when it comes to
what's going on at work or a broken friendship or any
kind of broken relationship, that grace really
is the solution, when properly applied,
for just about everything. But there's
something interesting and mysterious about grace. There's a sense in which
grace doesn't even exist until it is first experienced. Grace is just a word
until it's experienced. There's no emotion around
it, there's no story to tell until it's experienced, because the experience,
the experience of grace, requires a relationship. Where there is no relationship,
there can be no transfer or experience of grace. And this is why,
this is so important, this is why God had to show
up among us as one of us. This is why God had to show up. We would have never known,
we would have never known the grace of God without
the presence of God. It would've just
been a word, a term, a category that
nobody experienced until they experience
the presence of God. And this is why what John
writes in the gospel of John that we looked at
quickly last weekend, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. John, who is an old man,
who finally, the people around him say, John we
gotta get your story. We don't know your story. You are somebody who
spent time with Jesus from the moment He steps onto
the banks of the Jordan River as an adult till the time
He was taken up from us. We need to get your story. And so when John begins to
dictate his story as an old man, he begins like this,
it's so interesting. He gives us the Christian
creation account. He says in the beginning,
and of course His scribe is thinking, I know, in the
beginning God created... And John says, no, no,
not that beginning. Same beginning, different words. In the beginning was the word. And instead of saying God, he
reaches into this Greek idea to say that the Logos,
everything that was, everything that existed,
everything that was important, all the information, in
the beginning was the word. And then he says this. "The word," or
God, "became flesh "and made His
dwelling among us." And I'm sure the
scribe and the people around John wanna say okay,
tell us more about that. How in the world,
how in the world did God take on a body? How in the world did God
squeeze Himself into a body? What do you mean that
the word became flesh? And I think John would
say I can't explain it any further than that,
all I know is this. After my time with Jesus,
I'm convinced of this, that Jesus was God in a body,
that somehow God became flesh and He dwelt among us. And we, not you guys and not us, "we have seen His glory, the
glory of the one and only Son "who came from the Father
full of grace and truth." That Jesus was all grace
and all truth all the time. That Jesus was all truth
and all grace all the time. He wasn't the balance
of, that's what we try. He was all grace and
all truth all the time. But it was the grace part of
Jesus that was so unsettling. For example, one day, Jesus
and His guys are traveling, and they go into through
the city of Jericho. In fact, the text says this. Luke, who thoroughly
investigated all of these things and talked to eyewitnesses. That's why the gospel of
Luke has so many details, so many names, so many places,
tides, all kinds of stuff. "Jesus entered Jericho
and was passing through." Not planning to stay, not
planning to stop for a meal, not planning to spend the
night, just passing through. And a man lived there
whose name was Zacchaeus, and "he was a chief tax
collector and he was wealthy." And the reason he was wealthy is because he was a
chief tax collector. And as a chief tax collector,
he had gone to Rome or he had contacted the
Roman representative, probably the governor, and
he had purchased the right to collect taxes. And as a chief tax collector, he basically had
a pyramid scheme. He would then hire
other tax gatherers who would hire
other tax gatherers. They were called tax farmers. And they would set up
at different stations on the riverbanks
and port cities and crossroads,
all kind of places. And they would collect a variety of different kinds of taxes,
and it would all funnel up to Zacchaeus, and he
was very, very wealthy because Rome, as long
as Rome got their money, they didn't care how much
what kind of surcharge or what kind of
extra they charge, the tax gatherers
charge the people. As long as Rome got Rome wanted. So Zacchaeus was hated. Everybody in the
community knew him, and pretty much
everybody hated him. But Luke, who apparently
talked to someone who was there that
day, perhaps he talked to Zacchaeus, we don't
know, that he says that Zacchaeus
wanted to see Jesus. See, "he wanted to
see who Jesus was, "but because he was short, he
could not see over the crowd." Now, he didn't
want to meet Jesus. The odds of that
were slim anyway. He didn't want to get too close. But, like a lot of
us, he was curious. Besides, Jesus was
just passing through. So Luke goes on to tell
us, "So he ran ahead" of Jesus and His posse, and he
"climbed a sycamore-fig tree "to see Him, since Jesus
was coming that way." So here's a man, I don't know, men climbing trees,
that's awkward, okay? Men climbing trees in
what they wore back then is really awkward, but anyway,
Zacchaeus is desperate. He wants to see
Jesus, and he knows where the parade's headed. So he goes ahead of the parade, climbs up in a sycamore
tree, and waits for Jesus to get there so he can see
what Jesus looked like. And sure enough, "when
Jesus reached that spot," and by the way, how many of
you know the Zacchaeus song from childhood,
Zacchaeus was a what? - [Congregation] Wee little man. - Wee little man. No one would ever write
that lyric in modern times. But anyway, yes, Zacchaeus
was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he. He climbed up in
the sycamore tree, for the Lord he wanted to... - [Congregation] See. - And as the Savior
passed that... - [Congregation] Way. - Look at you guys,
see, that's great. (congregation laughs) Our friends in different
parts of the country or parts of the world are like,
what are they talking about? I know, it's strange music. But anyway, we're
not gonna sing it. So "when Jesus reached the spot, "He looked up and
said to" Zacchaeus, "come down immediately." And here's what I think;
this is not in the text. Luke doesn't say this. When Jesus stopped, the
whole group stopped, He turns and there is a
man, a grown man, in a tree. And He says, "Zacchaeus,
come down immediately." I think that there
was a hush that fell over the crowd, and
here's what they thought. Finally, finally, finally, somebody's gonna
call this guy out. Finally, somebody has the
courage to face this guy down. Finally, somebody's
not intimidated, and finally, he's gonna
get what he deserves. And the crowd probably spread
out and created a circle. And then talk about the most
awkward moment of his life. The entire town watches a grown
man climb down from a tree. (congregation laughs)
Awkward moment. And they're thinking this is it. And as he makes His way down,
and as he pushes his way through the crowd, Jesus
shocks everybody listening and everybody in the
first or second century who would read this
story by saying, "I must stay at your house "today." (laughs) And the
disciples groan. Can't we just pass through? Are you not even
paying attention to
your own story, Jesus? We are passing through,
and now you wanna stop and have lunch. And all the people,
all the people who are on this
parade side "saw this "and began to mutter,"
which is a word we should bring back, right? They "began to
mutter, 'He has gone 'to be the guest of a sinner.'" It's like what? This isn't how it works, right? We got here early, we
got the curb, right? I got the kids up and dressed
early, we got here early. We made signs, I love Jesus,
yes I do, I love Jesus. And the other side of the
street says how 'bout you? We got a chant, we got songs,
we had T shirts printed, okay? We got here early,
we're prepared, we are Jesus fans, and then
this basically this traitor to the nation, an
outcast from society who has ripped all of us
off, gets to meet Him? We didn't even get to meet Him, and Zacchaeus gets to
have a meal with Him. So unsettling, so upside down,
so backwards, so unexpected. Everything about it's wrong. And it was unsettling to
Jesus' original audience, and it was unsettling to people for the next several
hundred years who would read this account, and it's unsettling
to you to the degree that you understand the
context of the story because they and because we
don't necessarily understand the kingdom of God,
the kingdom of heaven, God's economy, the way
that God sees the world, the way that God sees you,
the way that God sees me. So over and over in
the form of parables, Jesus would try to explain
this upside down kingdom that He had come to
inaugurate, this brand new set of ethics, this brand new
way of seeing the world. So on one particular
occasion, He attempted to explain this upside down
kingdom, this new value system, this grace that the people
seem to be so unfamiliar with in the ancient world
and in the world today. When in front of another crowd, He said, let me try to
explain it to you this way. "For the kingdom
of heaven is like," which meant he was about
to tell a fictitious story in order to make a true point. This is a parable. And in every parable, anybody who followed
Jesus knew this. In every parable, there
are two things to look for. There's the God figure,
and there's the you figure. Somewhere in the parables,
you find yourself, and somewhere in the
parables, you find God. So they're all excited. It's like another story
that we won't understand, but they're interesting, right? Another story that's gonna
leave us scratching our heads and wondering why He doesn't
just answer questions directly. But they're always
so fascinating. So Jesus says, to the
best of My ability, let Me try to explain what
the kingdom of heaven, what the kingdom
of God, is like, this kingdom you've been
invited to step into, this new way of living
that I'm inviting you to. "The kingdom of heaven
is like a landowner," rich guy, "who went out
early in the morning," about 6:00 AM, "to hire
workers for his vineyard." So the rich landowner would go to the public square where
the day laborers gathered, hoping to be chosen in order
to have a job for the day. And you usually hired
everybody you needed for the day all at once. And the primary
concern of a landowner was getting the work done, not
the ones that did the work. The primary concern
of the landowner was getting the work done,
not the men who did the work. So, as they would expect, "he
agreed to pay them a denarius "for the day, and then he
sent them into his vineyard." He said okay, this is the
day, you're day laborers, and everybody knows what you
get paid for a day's wages. It's one denarius, so you,
you, you, you, you, you, you, take off, and you know where
my vineyard is, go work for me. Then, about three hours later, "about nine in the
morning, he went out "and saw others standing in
the marketplace doing nothing. "He told them, 'You also
go and work in my vineyard, 'and I will pay you
whatever is right.'" We'll figure it out
at the end of the day. "So they went." Now, maybe you've
heard this one before, and maybe you haven't. But if you've heard
this parable before, you already know where this
goes, and it's so unsettling. It's unsettling because
it seems so unfair. And one of the
reasons that I believe that these are the
actual words of Jesus and that these weren't
written decades later by the church is because
they're so brilliant, they hold together
so well, and besides, anybody who could
write this well would've taken credit for it. They wouldn't have put
it in the mouth of Jesus. Besides, Paul didn't
write this way, Peter didn't write this way, the church fathers
didn't write this way. This is so extraordinarily,
extraordinarily unique and brilliant. And the other reason I
think this is genuine is we're about to discover
what Jesus is about to say. This isn't how you
build a following. This isn't how you
build a movement. It's the opposite of everything that everybody grew up with
and everybody had experienced, but it is the way you introduce
the upside down kingdom of God. So this fictitious landowner
who owned this vineyard that he'd sent these
fictitious workers to work in, the text says, "he went
out again about noon." So it's lunchtime. He goes back out to the
marketplace, to the square, and he found some other
people standing around. He said, hey, I want you
to go work in my vineyard. Then he came back at
three in the afternoon, and he said hey, I
found some other folks. I want you to go
work in my vineyard. Now one of the things
that Jesus did, because He was the most
brilliant storyteller, is He always took
things to an extreme. He took things to
such an extreme that everybody in His
audience would lean in and try to imagine where in the
world is He going with this. Nobody would do this. And they're thinking, okay,
which one's God, which one's me? Which one's God, which one's me? And then Jesus takes
it to the extreme. "About five in the afternoon." There's only one
hour of daylight, working daylight,
left, basically. "About five in the afternoon," he goes out to the
marketplace again, and he "found still
others standing around. "And he asked them, 'Why
have you been standing 'here all day long
doing nothing?'" And he knows the answer to this, and everybody in Jesus' audience
knows the answer to this. "'Because no one has
hired us,' they answered." And he says to them, at 5:00 PM, "'You also go and
work in my vineyard.'" And then I think Jesus
pauses to let this settle in on His audience
because they're thinking, this is gonna be a disaster. How are you gonna
sort all this out? What happens when all
these people come back and expect to get paid? Okay, we need all
the 12-hour guys and all the nine-hour guys,
how is this gonna work? So Jesus builds it even more. He says, "When evening
came," when evening came, and the audience
is thinking, yeah, this is gonna be interesting. "When evening came," that
Luke tells us that Jesus said, "When evening came, the
owner of the vineyard said "to his foreman, 'Call
the workers and pay
them their wages, 'beginning with
the last ones hired 'and going to the first.'" So start with the people who
basically worked an hour. They probably didn't
even work that long. By the time they
got to the vineyard, it was time to come
back and get paid. So start with the folks who
maybe worked 30, 45 minutes. And here's the twist,
and here's the gist, and here's the value
system that Jesus is trying to introduce to the world. Here is Jesus's way of saying
this is what God is like. And what He's about to unfold, if you don't know where
this parable goes, is so unsettling to some people, but it is so hopeful for others. And I'll be honest, the
way this parable ends is unsettling for
people like me. So perhaps Jesus was
addressing people like me, the early birds that
got there first. The I made the T shirt
and I made the sign, I got there at 5:30 knowing
I wouldn't be hired till six, but that's okay, and
when quitting time came, I stayed 15 minutes later. I'm the person that
grew up and tried to do it right from
the very beginning. And no, I'm not perfect,
but I tried to stay on the straight and narrow. God, have You been watching me? I've been reading my Bible
since I was about 15 years old. I used to have a quiet time. I used to skip PE in high
school to have my quiet time. Now, I shouldn't
have skipped class, but I was having my quiet time. Come on, right? I'm the got there first,
I'm the behaved myself, I'm the did my part people. The text goes on,
the story goes on. "The workers who
were hired about five "in the afternoon came,
and each" of these men, these are all men,
"received a denarius." They received what the
original group was promised. And everybody in line behind
them went wild with joy, why? Because this can
only mean one thing. We're not getting
paid a denarius a day. We're getting paid
a denarius an hour, right? "So when those came
who were hired first, "they expected to receive more." (laughs) "But each one
of them," actually, "also received a denarius." And what did they do
when they received exactly what they had
agreed to receive based on the number of hours
they agreed to work? "When they received it,
they began to grumble "against the landowner." Just like the religious people
outside of Matthew's house that we talked about last week. Just like the people in Jericho who got there early
for the parade and didn't get to meet
Jesus because He put His arm around Zacchaeus and
headed to Zacchaeus' home. And so the laborers
in the parable respond to the man who hired them. They said this, "'These
who are hired last 'worked only one hour,
and you have made them 'equal to us.'" And they are not equal to us. They are... Well, they're not equal
to us, I'll just leave it at that, right?
(congregation laughs) Not by our standards,
they're not equal to us by our standards. We spent more hours, we
worked right through lunch, we worked through the
hottest part of the day, we got there early,
we stayed late, we exerted more
energy, more time, and more effort, and
they are not equal to us. But the landowner
"answered one of them," and he said, "'I'm not being
unfair to you, friend,'" to which everybody
in Jesus' audience, because they could so identify with the 12-hour workday guys, what do you mean not fair? By what standard is that fair? And the vineyard owner
says, "'Didn't you agree 'to work for a denarius? 'Take your pay and go.'" And then Jesus,
through the voice and the words of
the vineyard owner, gives us a really big
clue about the way of life that we
are invited into. Ready for this? "I want," says the
vineyard owner, "I want." Oh, so this is
about what you want, not what we want, right. "'I want to give the
one who was hired last," well, it's a gift all right
because they certainly didn't earn it, "'I
want to give the one 'who was hired last the
same as I gave you.'" (laughs) Oh, oh,
wait, wait, wait. You didn't give us anything,
we got out there and earned it. You didn't give us
anything, we worked for it. You didn't give us
anything, we earned it. Right after you gave us a job... Well, there is that. This is so brilliant. Still in the parable. "'Don't I have the right 'to do what I want
with my own money?'" And then this, this
is the punch line. This is the crowd goes silent. This is the convicting part. This is the moment that,
if nobody had figured out who they were in the
parable, they're about to figure it out,
this is so amazing. In this next statement,
Jesus illustrates, or Jesus really, a better word, Jesus illuminates the absurdity
of my resistance to grace. In this next statement, Jesus
illuminates the absurdity of your resistance to grace,
either extending grace or your willingness
to receive it. In this next instant,
with a single line, Jesus puts the spotlight
right on my hypocrisy when it comes to the subject
and the nature of grace. You ready for this? Still in the parable. "'Or'", He says through
the vineyard owner to the fictitious
person in the vineyard, and through that person to us, "'Or are you resentful
because I am generous?'" Whoa, whoa, whoa,
whoa, (chuckles),
wait, wait, wait, wait. Hang on, hang on, wait,
resentful of generosity? Who would be resentful
of generosity? How childish, how immature,
how narrow minded. No, I'm not resentful
of your generosity. I just think, since
I worked harder... You're not resentful because
of my generosity, are you? It's so brilliant, and in this
moment, Jesus outs all of us because we see the way the
12-hour laborers see the world. And in this parable and
through many other parables and throughout His
ministry, Jesus invites you and Jesus invites me,
Jesus invites all of us to see the world differently
and to see people differently and to see the people
around us differently and to see our relationship
to God differently. Because the kingdom of
God, the kingdom of heaven, is characterized by unsettling generosity. And Jesus, through this parable, is asking me, and Jesus,
through this parable, is asking you, can
you handle that? Can you handle that? Will you participate in that? Will you step into a system
where the undeserving get exactly what they don't deserve? Would you be willing
to extend to others exactly what they don't deserve
because my Heavenly Father has extended to you exactly
what you don't deserve? Will you participate? And, of course, all
the prodigal sons go, hallelujah, yes, right? And all the prodigal daughters
are like hallelujah, yes! And all the prodigal husbands,
who blew up their marriages and blew up their
families and thought God's never gonna hear
another prayer of mine, says absolutely yes! And all the prodigal
wives and mothers, who just ditched
their responsibility and ran off and did
something irresponsible and woke up three or four
years later thinking, I'll never put my
family back together, and I can't imagine that God
would ever hear my prayers, says absolutely yes! Well, what about people like me? And if you're like me,
what about people like you, the early to the parade people? What do we say? So Jesus pulls out
of the parable, and He says to people
like me and He says to people like you,
He says to everybody, He says look, when you
begin to understand what My Father's
kingdom is like, when you begin to understand
the value system I've come to introduce to the world,
when you step into this and fully embrace it, every
single day of your life it may feel like that the
last are actually first and the first are actually last. And it will feel unfair because of how you were
raised to measure fair. And how do we measure fair? We compare to
determine what's fair. And here's the takeaway
maybe for somebody who's listening or watching. Grace doesn't compare. Grace doesn't
compare because grace in Jesus is always
married to truth. And the truth is we have all fallen short of God's standard. Now the amazing
thing, this is why, again, I can understand why
you may not believe this is true, but this is the part
where I just think surely there's something
on the inside of you that thinks what
if that were true? Because the system that
Jesus leaves us with at the end of His ministry, the
system that the apostle Paul and Peter and others
would come along behind Jesus and
tease out and explain and document for us
is fairer than fair. It's beyond fair because,
in the kingdom of heaven, in the kingdom of God, over
and over Jesus emphasized this, everybody is invited, everybody. The people who showed up at six, the people who
showed up at noon, the people who
showed up at three, the people who showed up at
five, everybody's invited. The know betters
and did betters, maybe like people a
little bit like me, the didn't know betters,
so I didn't know to do different than I
did, maybe people like you, and even the knew betters
but did it anyway people. I won't ask you to
raise your hand, why? Because we've all done that. I know it's right; I'm
just not gonna do it. I know it's not best for her,
but I think it's best for me. I'm gonna do it anyway. All those people. Everybody's invited. The people with baggage,
the people with regret, the people with a
past, along with, and this is the kicker, along
with all the arrogant people who judge people with a past
and with baggage and regret. Everybody, everybody is
invited to the kingdom of God. And everybody gets in
through the same door. Jesus, Jesus, grace
and truth personified. (chuckles) Jesus,
who called sin sin, called sinners sinners, and
then died for all the sinners. Jesus, who called sin a
sin, He never backed down, sinners sinners, and
then laid down His life for the sin of the sinners. And everybody comes through
the same door the same way, by placing their personal faith
in Christ as their Savior. Trusting, this is it, ready? Trusting that what He did
on our behalf made us right with God, regardless of
how unright we've been and regardless of how
unsettling that might sound.
