Today’s Scripture: Matthew 20:1-16, 19:27, 19:29-30; Hebrews 12:15; Galatians 5:25-26

Matthew 20
v. 1-2 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day, and sent them into his vineyard.”
v. 3-5 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went.”
v. 8-11 “When evening came the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first. The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner…”
v. 13-16 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take you pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous? So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Don’t judge others based on _____________________…you _______ __________ what God is doing.

Run from __________ and ________________

__________________ hinges on God’s _____________________

Application Questions:

1. Do you notice a hunger for grace in our culture? Where? How?

2. Read Matthew 20:1:2. A denarius was roughly a day’s wages. Was the landowner being fair with the workers hired at the beginning of the day? Why or why not?

3. Why do you think the landowner starts with the last workers hired when it comes to payday? Why not start with the workers hired first?

4. Has generosity ever frustrated you? Someone else was generous and you wished you could be more like them? You had the opportunity to be generous and you weren’t in a position to respond in the moment?

5. How is God’s grace “never less than justice” but rather “more than justice—overflowing, surprising”?

6. Can envy and contempt co-exist with an understanding of God’s grace in our lives? Why or why not? What else can or cannot exist alongside God’s grace?