"That's Not Fair!" | Matthew 20:12-16

[00:00:00] We'll truth Daily This is Daily Truths with Dave Ahlman He is risen. Hello, I'm happy Easter everybody. I know this is the Wednesday or Thursday after Easter. Actually I'm doing this like seven days before Easter.

[00:00:19] But I want to talk about the subject today of things not being fair. How many times when we have grown up? Maybe we said we are parents or parents? We heard our kids say, ah, thats not fair. Right.

[00:00:35] Sometimes we look alive and we say, how come some people are materially blessed and others are not? How come some people are just given incredible gifts by God and others just a few gifts by God? I'm talking about talents and spiritual giftedness.

[00:00:48] How come some people have such success in life? And everything they do seems to turn to gold and other people just struggle in life? How come some people are diagnosed with a life threatening disease and other people who live a kind of a wicked life?

[00:01:02] Get all the way through life unscathed and make it into their 80s. It seems like it's not fair. And we can look at that and we can say, that's not fair. You know, thats what our text is about today in Matthew 20.

[00:01:19] Remember there was this master and he went out and he got guys to work in his vineyard to pick grapes, right? And at the beginning of the day, he said, okay, I'm going to pay you a Daenerious for your job.

[00:01:29] And at the end of the day, another guy just worked, you know, just an hour or two, and he got the same pay that the guy at the beginning of the day got a Daenerious.

[00:01:38] And so the guy who worked all day in the scorching eat had something to say about that basically said, that's not fair. So this is what it says in verse 12, a Matthew chapter 20.

[00:01:52] These last worked only one hour and you've made the meek will to us who have burdened of the day and worked in the scorching eat. But the mastery applied to them, friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for Daenerious?

[00:02:07] Take what belongs to you and go. I chose to give you this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me or do you begrudge my generosity?

[00:02:21] So the last will be first and the first will be last. What's the application of this? And we've kind of talked about this in previous episodes, but let me reiterate what we talked about.

[00:02:33] Basically people who've known Jesus all their life have trusted in him all their life is saved your Lord Redeemer and King at the end of life. Get eternal life those who trust in Christ lay in their life at the end of their lives, get eternal life.

[00:02:47] Now a person who's trusted in Jesus all their life might look at the person who accepted Christ later in life and say, that's not fair. But you know what? It's according to God's grace.

[00:02:59] God is the owner. God is one of bestows the riches. God is the one who makes eternal life possible through the death of resurrection of his son.

[00:03:07] And so if God determines that we all get the same fate by trusting in Jesus, whether we've trusted in him a long time or a short time, that's up to God.

[00:03:17] That's not up to us in any way. What we get is undeserved and not merited or worked for anyway.

[00:03:24] It's all by God's grace. I want to tell you, here's what's not fair. The Jesus Christ, the sinless stainless holy lamb of God came down here and lived among sinners. The holy one among sinners. That's not fair.

[00:03:40] That as he began and carried out his three-year ministry, oftentimes he had no place to stay. The holy one who created the universe had no place to stay.

[00:03:50] That's not fair. The holy one, the perfect one, the sinless one stood in front of the Sanhedrin and was mocked and ridiculed, and eventually by the Gentiles, by the Roman soldiers was beaten and scourged. And then nailed to a cross suspended between heaven and earth,

[00:04:09] carrying the world's sins, the holy one dying in our place. It should have been us on that cross. It should have been us experiencing the crucifixion. It should have been us experiencing the pangs of hell on that cross. That would have been fair.

[00:04:24] But God in his justice and amazing grace and a toning mercy dispatched the holy one to the cross to die in our place, experiencing the wrath of God in our place for our wrongs.

[00:04:39] That's not fair. That's not right. Thanks be to God that he's not fair when it comes to his mercy. That's what makes mercy mercy. It's not merited. It's not work for. It's not deserve. So whether a person is known Christ for a long time or a short time,

[00:05:01] the bottom line is we're sinners and we don't deserve the grace of God. We deserve just the opposite, a life and hell, but God in his mercy and grace and astounding love gives us eternal life. That's not fair. We don't deserve it and yet he gives it.

[00:05:23] So my friend, when you go to bed tonight, thank God for his mercy and thank God for the people who do come to faith later in life in Jesus Christ because they need Jesus.

[00:05:36] And we've talked about in previous episodes, we've lived a blessed life. If we've known Christ for our lives, we've had His mercy and grace and been able to worship Him and serve Him all these years.

[00:05:46] People that are Johnny Cummlaidly's like the pit of the deep on the cross, they don't have that. So just thank God that you've known Christ as long as you have.

[00:05:55] And at the end of life, the outcome as we said in a previous episode, the outcome is the same because we're saved by grace. By what God has done for us through his son and not by our merits. Thanks be to God that He is not fair.

[00:06:16] Have a great day in Jesus Christ. And that is today's Daily Truth. Thank you for tuning in to Daily Truths with Dave Almond. Pastor Dave Almond is the pastor of Mount Hoorchurch in Boulder, Colorado.

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