Grace

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. We're starting a new series today. It's called The Big Relief. And I think we all need that. There's such an urgency in our day and age right now, in our culture. The pressure seems on, doesn't it? The tension on every level. And to produce, to perform, to be, to prove yourself, to justify yourself, to look good enough, to fake it till you make it, whatever it is. We need to understand more deeply the relief that God's grace in Jesus Christ gives us. And how that impacts every area. So over the course of the summer, we're going to be working with this theme, The Urgency of Grace for a Really Worn Out World. I don't know how many of you feel worn out? Do you feel a little burned out, worn out, rusted out? Yes. Okay. There's a lot of reasons for that. It's a break for some, at least, as far as classes go. But now, the pressure's on, right? Graduating, getting a job, figuring out what's next in life. You named the pressure. Well, today, we're looking at all of that. Now, here's the reality that is true all the way across the board. It's something that Paul writes to the Corinthians, who were kind of full of themselves. And the Corinthians, he says this, and I think this is kind of a theme that's going to run through the entire summer. It's from 1 Corinthians 4, verse 7. What do you have that you did not receive? Hear that? Hear that? What do you have that you did not receive? And if then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? Just think about that. What do you got? Whatever you got in life, it's all a gift. Everything is a gift, right? Everything is a gift. Even your ability to work is a gift. Even the job is a gift. Yes, your job is a gift. Everything is a gift. Paul asks that question, and it's kind of what we're going to be looking at, because that's what grace is. It's that sheer gift of God for us, before we've even asked for it. You never asked to be born, okay? And even fathers today, you can say it to your kids, but it's not true. I brought you into this world, and I can take you out. No, that's not actually true. First of all, moms have a little to do, but guess who had even more to do? God is the one who really, it's all a miracle, really. I know how the process works, but I mean, it's still a miracle. All is a gift from God. There's nothing I have not received. That is both humbling, rightly so, and a huge relief. So, we're going to be exploring this. Each week we'll look at a different way the gospel gives us that relief. Next week it's forgiveness, and the relief from regret. Hmm, yeah. But today, we're on grace and the relief from deserving. When I was thinking about this, I was trying to figure out what was going to be a good passage to talk about God's grace in Jesus Christ. And of course, I could have turned to Romans. It's filled with it. Or Ephesians, for by grace you are saved. And we're going to use a little of Ephesians today. I could also turn to Galatians, or some of the epistles of Paul. But instead, I think we're going to be going to Matthew chapter 20. Because I thought, what's going to get to us? Because when I hear, for by grace you are saved through faith, it's a gift of God, not a work so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2.8.9, for example. It just kind of floats right over my head. It becomes a doctrine, which is, nothing's wrong with doctrine, but it becomes an intellectual proposition for me too often. I need grace to get under my skin. I need it to bother me as well as to comfort me. I need to understand it more as a real life experience. And so I think a better place to go is Matthew 20, because it's a story, a parable that Jesus tells. And it's a little disturbing. I don't necessarily like the whole thing. It kind of gets to me. It's called the workers in the vineyard. The laborers in the vineyard as they come at different times of the day. And so we're going to be looking at this and understanding God's grace from this perspective and how this is really good news in the end. So let's read Matthew chapter 20. 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. And going out about the third hour, 9 a.m., he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and to them he said, you go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give to you. So they went, going out again about the sixth hour, 12 noon, and the ninth hour, 3 o'clock. He did the same in about the 11th hour, 5 o'clock. He went out and found others standing and he said to them, why do you stand here idle all day? They said, because no one has hired us. He said to them, you go into the vineyard too. And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, call the laborers and pay ...