The Kingdom’s Equal Grace (Matthew 20:1-16)

Big Idea: Grace isn’t a paycheck; it’s a gift.

If you are a parent or you manage people, there is one phrase I guarantee you will hear: “That’s not fair!” Kids, workers, and all of us tend to look around the room. We see how others are treated compared to us and quickly notice where we feel we are not getting enough. It’s our way of saying, “I want justice. I want equity. I want to be treated with the same care and given the same opportunities as everyone else.”

It’s a reflection of our longing to know that the rules are consistent, that we’re not being overlooked, and that we’re being treated. And, it turns out, we bring this into our relationship with God.

Here’s an example.

One of Jesus’ disciples, Peter, said these words to Jesus: “See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” (Matthew 19:27). Think about the audacity of this question. Jesus had taught the disciples that being a disciple meant renouncing all possessions and following him. Now, Peter tries to negotiate with Jesus by saying, “What’s in it for me?” Instead of accepting Jesus’ call as a reward, Peter calculates the return on his sacrifice. This transforms discipleship from devotion into a business arrangement.

Even worse, Peter thinks that he has special status. He seems to think that he’s done more and deserves more. Jesus had just finished teaching about self-sacrifice, and Peter follows it up with a question about what he’s going to get from following Jesus.

Here’s what Peter shows us: it’s easy to focus on the wrong thing when following Jesus. Instead of following him because he is worth our devotion, we can slip into following him for what’s in it for us. We can begin to view Christianity as a transaction, and to think that God owes us for our devotion to him. We believe God owes us something. And when we do this, we lose the beauty of the gospel. We get trapped by self-interest when we should be amazed by the great kindness of a loving God who doesn't owe us anything but has given us everything.

And to help us see this, Jesus tells a story. It’s a story that’s hard for us to accept, but is exactly what we need.

The Story

Here’s the story.

For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. (20:1-2).

This landowner had a vineyard. The challenge with owning a vineyard is that grape harvesting couldn’t be scheduled in advance. The owner had to determine daily when grapes reached optimal ripeness for the best price, and when that happened, he needed workers immediately.

So he goes out and looks for day laborers. Day laborers occupied the lowest rung on the socioeconomic ladder. Unemployment was so high that they would just wait around in the market, hoping that someone would come along and hire them. They didn’t have a lot going for them, except for when the grape harvest was ready. Then they had bargaining power because the landowner really needed workers to help him with the harvest.

So early in the morning, the landowner went out and hired a bunch of workers. He offered to pay them each a denarius, which represented a standard day’s wage for a full twelve-hour workday from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. All good so far. The day laborers got a job, and the landowner got his workers.

But the landowner soon realized he needed more workers. He went to the market again at 9 a.m. and found more workers just waiting around, and he hires them. This time he doesn’t say how much he will pay them. He just says he will pay them what’s right.

Why weren’t they hired before? We don’t know for sure, but the later workers say they were standing around because nobody had hired them yet. Maybe these were less desirable laborers. Maybe the landowner was trying to make sure he didn’t hire too many people for the job. But he kept going back and repeating the process. His first trip was at 6 a.m. Then we went back at 9, at noon, at 3 in the afternoon, and finally at 5:00, just an hour before quitting time. He made five trips to the marketplace in total, and the laborers worked anywhere from 12 hours to 1 hour before quitting time.

What did he promise them? He promised the first batch a day’s wages. He promised the rest that he would pay them what was right.

Here’s the shocking part in verses 8 to 10.

And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius.

At day’s end, the landowner paid everyone the same wage—starting with the men hired for the last hour and ending with those who had worked all day. Each one received a full day’s pay.

Now picture yourself in the first group—tired, sweaty, twelve hours into the heat. You watch the landowner place a denarius into the hands of the latecomers, and you can’t help doing the math: “If they’re getting that much for one hour, this is going to go really well for me.” But then the ones who worked three hours received the same. So do the ones who worked six. And nine. And finally, you step forward—after twelve hours—and you’re given the very same denarius.

It would feel deeply unfair, even unjust, like the landowner is treating unequal work as though it were equal. Everyone would expect that those who worked longer in harsher conditions would get more pay.

They let the landowner know about it.

And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ (20:11)

It’s hard to blame them, isn’t it?

The landowner replied:

Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to 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? (20:13-15)

The landowner makes two main arguments.

First, he made a legal argument. He has fulfilled, to the letter, the legal obligation he made to each worker. He delivered exactly what he said he would. He hasn’t shortchanged any of the workers a single penny.

But then he made a second argument, and it’s a moral one. He has the right to do what he likes with his money, and if he chooses to be generous, that’s his prerogative.

“Really?” we want to say. It still doesn’t feel fair. It would have been shocking then, just as it’s shocking now. What employer runs a business like that? It sounds irrational—and it would create instant resentment on the job site. By ordinary standards, it isn’t just unconventional; it’s terrible business. If you paid this way all the time, you’d invite conflict, lose your best workers, and eventually go broke. And even if the landowner has the legal right to do it, the outcome still feels unjust.

Jesus gives us this parable to unsettle and startle us so we realize something important about what it means to follow him.

The Point

Do you remember Peter’s question? “See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” Here’s the mental framework that Peter had: God is like a cosmic accountant, tallying our efforts and distributing rewards proportionately based on our work.

But here’s the truth that this story reveals. God’s gift of salvation is just and generous. Nobody deserves the grace we’ve been given. Rather than looking around and asking what’s in it for us, we should be amazed that we get anything at all because we don’t deserve anything. It’s all a gift.

Think about the really great believers: those who have served God a long time and have sacrificed a lot for the kingdom. Think about those who have sacrificed most for God, particularly people who have devoted themselves to religious service or moral achievement. This includes those in positions of spiritual authority or those with exceptional moral track records.

Now consider those who haven’t done as much. In Peter’s day, that would have included people like little children; a leper; two blind men; a centurion; a paralytic; a Canaanite woman; and a tax collector, to name just a few. These are “the last,” the ones no one else wants. No one thinks they’re worth hiring, worth investing in, or even worth noticing. They are the overlooked and unskilled, the oldest and weakest, the ones assumed to be least productive, and therefore most easily ignored.

So what does God owe those who have worked hard and sacrificed so much? The same thing he owes those who have done little: nothing. We don’t earn a standing in God’s kingdom. Everything we receive is grace. Our place with God does not rest on human merit in any sense. We never deserve his favor—and if we start to think we do, we put ourselves in real spiritual danger, because we’ve forgotten that it’s all grace from beginning to end.

There is no one who doesn’t need God’s grace, and there is no one beyond the reach of God’s grace.

A visiting preacher once got a note:

I am in great perplexity. I have been praying for a long time for something that I am confident is according to God’s will, but I do not get it. I have been a member of the Presbyterian church for thirty years, and have tried to be a consistent one all that time. I have been the superintendent of the Sunday school for twenty-five years and an elder in the church for twenty years; and yet God does not answer my prayer. Can you explain why?

Do you see his reasoning? “I’ve done all this for God; why isn’t God paying me back? Why isn’t he keeping his end of the bargain?”

Here’s how the preacher replied:

This man thinks that because he has been a consistent church member for thirty years, a faithful Sunday school superintendent for twenty-five years, and an elder in the church for twenty years that God is under obligation to answer his prayer. He is really praying in his own name, and God will not hear our prayers when we approach him in that way. We must, if we would have God answer our prayers, give up any thought that we have any claims upon God. There is not one of us who deserves anything from God.

Do you hear this? We must give up any thought that we have any claims on God. There is not one of us who deserves anything from God!

That’s why Jesus says in verse 16, “So the last will be first, and the first last.” I love how one man (Michael Green) puts it:

Many Christians who have worked hard for God over a long period will have a lowly place in the kingdom because their motives were not purged of the ideas of merit and reward. Many poor Christians who came to faith only at the end of their life will be high in the kingdom because they knew they had done nothing to boast of, and never gave rewards a thought. They just responded to the unexpected love that sought them and accepted them.

Grace isn’t a paycheck; it’s a gift. In the end, the only right way to respond to grace is to express amazement that God has given us grace at all.

So here’s the answer to Peter’s question. Peter asked, “See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” Here’s the answer that this story gives us: you get the same thing every Christian gets and every Christian needs. You get grace that you don’t deserve, and a Savior you could never repay. So lay down the scoreboard, silence the grumbling, and let the generosity of God move you from entitlement to worship that God has chosen to save someone like you.