Matthew – God’s Purposes
Nothing I would do as a teacher would get a bigger gut groan from students than when I would turn their line around for lunch or recess! My purpose was to stop the running to be first in line. They would push and shove, knocking people from the head of the line. Some would run, knocking over chairs for the coveted title of “being first” to go anywhere. The first time the students tried this method of lining up, they experienced “the first shall be last and the last shall be first”. Yes, I would say this out loud as I went the back of the battered line of last people who didn’t make it to the front and lead them around the room and out the door. Those first kids, now at the end of the line, groaned and signed, “That’s not fair!” Mm, is that right? I don’t think so. Those who calmly walked to the line were rewarded for doing what was right. That’s all. This moment brought to you by “teachable moments by Susan”.
Ah, but I cannot take the glory or credit for this moment. Jesus taught his disciples (and all of us) who were always fighting over who was the greatest with wondering what reward awaited them for their work with this parable.
Matthew 20, NLT
Parable of the Vineyard Workers
20 “For the Kingdom of Heaven is like the landowner who went out early one morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay the normal daily wage and sent them out to work.3 “At nine o’clock in the morning he was passing through the marketplace and saw some people standing around doing nothing. 4 So he hired them, telling them he would pay them whatever was right at the end of the day. 5 So they went to work in the vineyard. At noon and again at three o’clock he did the same thing.
6 “At five o’clock that afternoon he was in town again and saw some more people standing around. He asked them, ‘Why haven’t you been working today?’
7 “They replied, ‘Because no one hired us.’
“The landowner told them, ‘Then go out and join the others in my vineyard.’
8 “That evening he told the foreman to call the workers in and pay them, beginning with the last workers first. 9 When those hired at five o’clock were paid, each received a full day’s wage. 10 When those hired first came to get their pay, they assumed they would receive more. But they, too, were paid a day’s wage. 11 When they received their pay, they protested to the owner, 12 ‘Those people worked only one hour, and yet you’ve paid them just as much as you paid us who worked all day in the scorching heat.’13 “He answered one of them, ‘Friend, I haven’t been unfair! Didn’t you agree to work all day for the usual wage? 14 Take your money and go. I wanted to pay this last worker the same as you. 15 Is it against the law for me to do what I want with my money? Should you be jealous because I am kind to others?’
16 “So those who are last now will be first then, and those who are first will be last.”
WAIT, THERE’S MORE…
When we did deeper, it is most about those who receive salvation late in life. We should rejoice but our human minds wonder if they will receive the same reward of heaven. OF COURSE, they will. No matter when our friends and family accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior, we rejoice! We should not think or say, “well, it’s about time” and then wonder about the reward. “When we ALL get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be…” Remember that old hymn?We are all sinners in need of God’s saving grace. Praise God for not giving all of us what we really deserve. Praise God for His generous, reckless, relentless, unconditional, unchanging love, mercy and grace! Thank God for all He has done through Jesus Christ who brought us back into a relationship with Him! Thank God for His Holy Spirit that keeps us on the right road with focus on our Lord and His teaching. Thank God for His generous provisions, protection and blessings daily on top of all that! AND there’s an eternal home waiting for us, too when Jesus comes for His own!
There’s no need for groaning when Jesus turns the line around. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. Where are you in the line? Does it matter?
Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you, thank you, thank you for all you have done, are doing and will do in our lives. Help us to stop judging each other’s salvation timing and works. Help us to rejoice like all the angels of heaven when one lost soul find you and follows you…no matter when.
In Jesus Name, Amen
Now, I’m singing…When we All Get to Heaven…
Sing the wondrous love of Jesus
Sing his mercy and his grace
In the mansions bright and blessed
He’ll prepare for us a place
When we all get to heavenWhat a day of rejoicing that will be
When we all see Jesus
We’ll sing and shout the victory
While we walk the pilgrim pathway
Clouds will overspread the sky
But when travlin’ days are over
Not a shadow, not a sigh
When we all get to heaven
What a day of rejoicing that will be
When we all see Jesus
We’ll sing and shout the victory
Onward to the prize before us
Soon his beauty we’ll behold
Soon the pearly gates will open
We shall tread the streets of gold
When we all get to heaven
What a day of rejoicing that will be
When we all see Jesus
We’ll sing and shout the victory
Songwriters: Don Wyrtzen / Emily D. Wilson / E.E. Hewitt
16 Someone came to Jesus with this question: “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?”
It is not a matter of what you will get, but with Whom you can have a relationship with forever!
Randy and I are in the last few weeks of working at Santa Cruz Children’s Learning Center with all kinds of children, younger and older, all precious humans created by God for His glory, honor and praise. I stop in the busyness of teaching at times to realize what a privilege it is to be invited to God’s work of growing and maturing His created to be and do all that they were designed to be. 
This passage opens with “parents brought their children to Jesus…” Oh, how I pray for parents to bring their children to Jesus today! I immediately think of what God commanded, not suggested, of parents who were ready to enter the promised land of God…TEACH your children about Me and what I have done for you “and all will go well with you”.
Marriage is a bond between two people, male and female. If the male and female seek God first, then their marriage is blessed by God. Will there be disagreements and trials in this relationship? Absolutely, for male and female are distinctly designed in different ways with specific gifts and abilities. The blessing in this bond between two people who love God is strengthened BECAUSE of their differences working together to achieve more than what only one person could achieve in following God’s best for them.
Jesus reclaims what God intended for male and female coming together in marriage. In Moses time, trying to keep God’s people focused on Him, many strayed. That’s probably why they spent so much time in the wilderness wandering around. They were always under God’s care but chose to complain, argue, and lament over their present circumstances. It is no wonder their marriages didn’t last because of this selfishness. Moses used the “paper” of divorce to protect the women sent away by men from the bond, a “concession to hard hearts” of sinful men, freeing her to marry someone else who would care for her. It is not what God intended but they were doing many things not of God at the time. 
19 When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went down to the region of Judea east of the Jordan River. 2 Large crowds followed him there, and he healed their sick.
8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted divorce only as a concession to your hard hearts, but it was not what God had originally intended. 9 And I tell you this, whoever divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery—unless his wife has been unfaithful.”
But then we think of how little we deserve the mercy and complete forgiveness of Jesus Christ that was displayed to the mocking world on a cruel cross. Did Jesus ask God, “How often should I forgive?” His answer, “Only once and forever.”
Matthew 18, NLT
31 “When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened. 32 Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, ‘You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. 33 Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’ 34 Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt.
*Leave a trail of forgiveness and mercy so that others will forgive and show mercy.
Dear Heavenly Father,
Our kind of lame, first answer is God’s church is made up of imperfect people who make mistakes. But as I think more deeply about this answer, it isn’t good enough. We are a redeemed, forgiven, chosen people because of Jesus’ dying and rising again from death as a result of excruciating pain and agony a cruel cross. Why, then do we continue to hurt Jesus by the way we behave as believers with one another when he clearly told us (through His disciples) to “Love God and Love each other” like I have loved you? Our disagreeable stuff pales in comparison! Can we begin there? Can we love each other deeply enough to confront them and love them back into living how Jesus taught us to live?
Matthew 18, NLT
How sweet it is when brothers and sisters agree on the goal helping each other find and follow Christ. Healthy Bodies of Christ know this. Issues resolved in a spirit of love and unity so we can get back to what God has called us to BE and DO is monumental to growing in His love. The closer we are to Christ, the closer we are to each other!
I read a true story a few years ago about a Turkish shepherd who had about 1000 sheep in his care. One of the adult sheep decided to make a run for it from the grass where they were feeding and cared for by the shepherd. He ran right off a high cliff to his death below. One at a time, the other sheep followed! He lost a whole herd that day in a matter of minutes because of one who left and leaped. At the bottom of the cliff was just one big pile of wool sweaters and a huge loss to the economy of the village!
Parable of the Lost Sheep
Before I spoke a word, You were singing over me
We are born with this natural desire to be great. What gets us in trouble is desiring to be the greatEST, to be greatER than anyone else God created. But that is not how Kingdom living works. Whatever gifts or talents God has given us, we use to the glory of God, not to our glory. Jesus points that out to his followers in a great lesson of how to be great and who accomplishes greatness in His eyes. Listen in. Let’s put ourselves in this scene.
About that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?”
7 “What sorrow awaits the world, because it tempts people to sin. Temptations are inevitable, but what sorrow awaits the person who does the tempting. 8 So if your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It’s better to enter eternal life with only one hand or one foot than to be thrown into eternal fire with both of your hands and feet. 9 And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It’s better to enter eternal life with only one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.
“Well, then,” Jesus said, “the citizens are free! 27 However, we don’t want to offend them, so go down to the lake and throw in a line. Open the mouth of the first fish you catch, and you will find a large silver coin. Take it and pay the tax for both of us.”
Isn’t that how it is? When we ask God to break our hearts of things that break His, He does. Then He teaches us how to help each other. There are mountain top experiences in our lives when we see Jesus in all His glory reveal Himself to us in special ways. Then there is the real work, God’s work, that He invites and leads us to…at the foot of the mountain…where the people are waiting…people who need help to find and follow Jesus Christ.
14 At the foot of the mountain, a large crowd was waiting for them. A man came and knelt before Jesus and said, 15 “Lord, have mercy on my son. He has seizures and suffers terribly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. 16 So I brought him to your disciples, but they couldn’t heal him.”
Your promise still stands
