Week of September 21st, 2008

Laboring in the Vinyard

Matthew 20:1-16

Some laborers grumble because they toiled all day in the scorching heat for a fair wage, but received the same pay as those who worked only an hour.  Apparently God's free grace surpasses our sense of fairness.

This is a tremendous parable which illustrates an important truth: It is not the amount of time which you serve nor the prominence or importance of your position which determines your reward.  Rather, you will be rewarded for your faithfulness to the task which God has given you to perform, regardless of how small or how short or how insignificant it appears.

I can easily envision the following scenario: Someday the Lord will reward a dear little lady who may have been a member of my church.  I will turn to a member of my staff and say, "Do you know her?"  She will say, "I have never heard of her.  She did not sing in the choir, she was never president of any of our societies, and she never taught a Sunday school class.  That woman didn't do anything, and look at the way the Lord is rewarding her!"  We will probably find out that this dear lady was a widow with a young son.  She never spoke to thousands of people like some evangelists and preachers, but she faithfully raised her one little boy, and he became a missionary who served God on a foreign field.   The widow had been faithful in the task God had given her to do.  Somebody might protest, "Well, she sure didn't work as hard as I did!"  That might well be true, but God is not going to reward you for the amount of work you have done.  He will reward you according to your faithfulness to the job which He called you to do.  Friends, perhaps God has not called you to do something great for Him, but are you faithful in what He has assigned to you?

Grace and peace,