God’s grace means there is nothing you can do to make Him love you more, and nothing you can do to make Him love you less.

KEY VERSES

Matthew 20:1-8 (NASB)

1“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2 When he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the marketplace; 4 and to those he said, ‘You go into the vineyard also, and whatever is right, I will give you.’ And so they went. 5 Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did the same thing. 6 And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why have you been standing here idle all day long?’ 7 They said to him, ‘Because no one hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ 8 “Now when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, starting with the last group to the first.’ 9 When those hired about the eleventh hour came, each one received a denarius.”

Matthew 20:10-16 (NASB)

10“And so when those hired first came, they thought that they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they grumbled at the landowner, 12 saying, ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day’s work and the scorching heat.’ 13 But he answered and said to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14 Take what is yours and go; but I want to give to this last person the same as to you. 15 Is it not lawful for me to do what I want with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?’ 16 So the last shall be first, and the first, last.”

UNDERSTANDING

• Put yourself in the place of one of the workers hired early in the day. How would you have felt throughout the day as new workers continued to arrive? How would you have felt at the end of the day?

• Put yourself in the place of one hired at the close of the day. How would you have felt?

• Do you think we have an overinflated sense of the need for fairness in our culture? Where do you see evidence of this?

• How might that impact our relationship with God? How about our relationship with others?

• Think about your own Christian life, particularly your work for the kingdom. Which group of workers do you most identify with? Why?

• Why is it important for us to see that the focus in this parable is on the employer, not the employees? What happens if our focus in the kingdom is on each other and not on God?

• What do we learn about God from this parable?

• In what ways might we be tempted to think that we deserve to be a part of God’s kingdom and work? What happens to our relationship with God and others when we think this way?

• What are some ways you might continually bring to mind your complete dependence on God’s grace?

• Why didn’t the workers in this parable appreciate the generosity of their employer? Where was their focus?

• Why is it tempting to compare what we get from God with some else? What happens when we do?

• Why is it dangerous to demand that God give us what we deserve?

• How does such a demand demonstrate that we have misunderstood God’s grace?

• In what specific ways have you experienced the generosity of God recently? How might remembering God’s generosity and grace in your own life help you better extend His grace to other people, even in “unfair” situations?
  

APPLICATION

• Pastor Jeff asked the question, “What are we to do with this scandalous thing called grace?” Based on Jesus’s parable of the vineyard workers, how would you answer that question?

• We learned the following three truths in this week’s message: Grace keeps us from looking down on ourselves. Grace makes us equal to everyone else. Grace reminds us that God’s favor is a gift. Which of those three truths did you most need to hear? What would it look like for you to apply that truth to your life this week?

• There are people all around us who need to hear that there is nothing we can do to make God love us more, and there is nothing we can do to make God love us less. How does this change your perspective about how to handle the “unfairness” you see?

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GIVING

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