The Parable of the Vineyard
Today we’re going to be talking about the fraud of generosity.
What we see in the parable of the vineyard is we see that the landowner hired people and they worked all day long and they got the same wage as the people that came in in the last hour and got paid the same thing.
So Jesus describes a landlord as God who hires workers throughout the day.
Everyone gets the same pay regardless of effort. So we need to understand this.
So the shock of the parable, the offense comes here. You’ve made them equal to us.
This is the core tension. Human thinking equals reward based on effort.
So we have this idea that a reward is based upon our effort. And that’s human thinking.
Kingdom thinking, reward is based upon generosity. Let me just say this again. Kingdom thinking is our reward is based upon generosity which is grace and what we see is the generosity of grace.
In Ephesians 2:6, and this in the Mirror translation, we are co-included in His resurrection and we are also co-elevated in His ascension to be equally present in the throne room of the Heavenly realm where we are co-seated with Him in his executive authority.
We are fully represented in Christ Jesus and then in Ephesians 6 and 7, in the Passion translation, imagine how God is able for timeless perpetuity to exhibit the trophy of the wealth of His grace demonstrated in his kindness towards who? Us – in Christ Jesus!
Grace exhibits excessive evidence of the success of the Cross. Our/Your salvation is not a reward for good behavior. It was a grace thing from start to finish. You had no hand in it. Even the gift to believe simply reflects his faith. How would you like to have this?
And look at this. This is Romans 4:8 – How blessed is the one who receives a receipt instead of an invoice for their sins? It’s paid in full. So what we see here is the story of the vineyard, the Parable of the Vineyard. Why should my generosity make you jealous? Because they all got paid the same thing.
Of the people that that worked all day long and they sweated, they were complaining about the people that just came in for an hour and got the same wage. And so we have the same salvation. We have the same blood of Jesus covering all of us.
“And am I not permitted to do what I choose with what is mine and we are His? Do you begrudge Me by being generous?”
He was generous giving the ones that came in last the same as the ones that worked all day long.
“Is your eye evil because I am good? Don’t I have the right to do what I want with what is mine?”
And we are His.
“Why should my generosity make you jealous of them? And what we see here, and this is kind of neat, the fraud committed against generosity. Which do you want? The invoice or the receipt? Have you received the generosity and the grace?
And again, our eyes and hearts open up to hear and see because it doesn’t seem fair, but it is.
God loves us and He loves everybody. I am not working for God. I am living in and from Him. And that’s where the generosity flows. That’s where the love flows. And God is in us. We’re in Him. And we are one.
Amen and amen.
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