Jesus just spoke to His disciples about the difficulty of entering the Kingdom of God for the wealthy. And we begin this chapter with a parable that further explains the grace of God in salvation, specifically the statement Jesus made in Matthew 19:30, “Many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.” Just because some people have advantages in this life – from a worldly perspective – doesn’t mean they are God’s favorites. In the second half of this chapter, Jesus makes His way toward Jerusalem for the last time, preparing His disciples en route and healing the blind out of parental compassion. Let’s take a look:
1) V1-16 – 1“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. 2He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. 3About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5So they went. He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. 6About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ 7‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’ 8When 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.’ 9The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. 10So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12‘These men who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’ 13But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ 16So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
Matthew 19 ended with Jesus speaking the same line that He ends this passage with – “the last will be first, and the first will be last.” Jesus is reconfiguring the minds of His disciples, who thought being wealthy in this life equaled being blessed by God and practically guaranteed of receiving eternal life. No, Jesus says, being wealthy makes it hard to enter the Kingdom of God, because it’s hard to let go of a lot of wealth, and it’s hard to see your need when you have a lot. Furthermore, no one is worthy of the Kingdom of God, and so any who enter do so by grace. Hence, the first (those who are seemingly the most valuable) will be last, and the last (those who seeming lack value) will be most esteemed in heaven.
To further illustrate this absolutely essential point, Jesus gives the parable of the workers. The landowner hires day laborers early in the morning, and promises them a full day’s wages. He hires more people throughout the day, agreeing to pay them “whatever is right” (v4). Still with only 1 hour remaining in the workday, the landowner finds several unemployed individuals and brings them on for a very short shift. The climax of the story is found in v8-10, as the day comes to an end and everyone lines up to receive the wage. Those who were hired at the end of the day and worked for merely an hour were given a full day’s wages. Wow! What a generous landowner, everyone no doubt thought. We are even told in v10 that those who began working early in the morning were expecting more when they made it to the front of the line. But they were only given a day’s wages – which, you must remember, is what they were promised. They received what they earned, while everyone else got more than they deserved; but no one got less than they earned. The full day laborers grumbled against the landowner, complaining that others got the same as them without putting in as much effort. And the landowner, referring to one of the laborers as “friend” (v13), explained that he was not being unfair to anyone. Some receive mercy (non-justice); some receive justice, but no one receives injustice.
This is how salvation works, Jesus says. Who can be saved? No one can deserve it, but God can grant it. Some of those to whom God grants salvation (the laborers) will live the Christian life in all of its difficulty and rigor for a very long time, and they will be rewarded; others (the laborers) might only embrace Christ on their death bed, having lived a life of impiety and hedonism, luxury and splendor, and yet they will receive the very same reward. We who labor long for the Lord must remember that we do so by grace and still imperfectly; we can never deserve His favor, nor should we be envious of others who receive apparently greater favor. We must never be angry at the generosity of our God, for He has surely been generous to us. Can we not see that we are all, as the Apostle declared of himself, the chief of sinners? The reality is that all of the laborers in the parable were given a job, and that by a grace that we will never grasp. Can we not just marvel at that without fussing over what type of wage we receive? Being included in the Kingdom of Heaven will be enough to merit eternal praise to our great God and Savior Jesus Christ; it shouldn’t matter if someone else there – our brother or sister in Christ – has a bigger mansion. God is the landowner and can be as generous as He wants to be with whomever He chooses (Romans 9).
2) V17-28 – 17Now as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, He took the twelve disciples aside and said to them, 18“We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn Him to death 19and will turn Him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day He will be raised to life!” 20Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of Him. 21“What is it you want?” He asked. She said, “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at Your right and the other at Your left in Your kingdom.” 22“You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said to them. “Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?” “We can,” they answered. 23Jesus said to them, “You will indeed drink from My cup, but to sit at My right or left is not for Me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by My Father.” 24When the ten heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers. 25Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 26Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27and whoever wants to be first must be your slave – 28just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”
Oftentimes, when Jesus teaches a hard lesson, we find the response from His audience is silence. I think that must have been the case here, as Jesus explains what He means by “the first shall be last and the last shall be first” with a parable humbling us all to the sovereign grace of our God. V17 begins some time later, as Jesus made His way toward Jerusalem with His disciples for the final time. He paused en route to remind them of what would happen to Him, specifically that He would be betrayed to the Jews, condemned to death, turned over to the Gentiles, beaten and crucified. But, with an exclamation point (v19), “He will be raised to life!” This amazing testimony to Jesus’ divinity through His perfect foreknowledge goes practically unnoticed by the disciples, as the next thing we know, James and John’s mother shows up, basically begging that her sons would be granted to sit next to Jesus when He reigns as King. It’s quite likely that she’s thinking that Jesus’ kingdom reign will be an imminently earthly one, but even if she has the understanding that His kingdom is not of this world, her request seems by Jesus’ reply to her sons to be solely so they don’t have to ask Jesus themselves. Instead of being rejected directly, the brothers invite Jesus to turn down their mother instead. But Jesus directs His response to them when He says in v22, “You don’t know what you are asking.”
Jesus then asks James and John if they can “drink the cup” He is going to drink, and they reply in the affirmative. Again, they don’t get it. Jesus is about to drink the cup of God’s wrath and undergo a most severe, unjust torture of every kind. You may admire their willingness to go with Jesus down whatever road He travels, but they don’t have a clue. Nevertheless, Jesus says, “You will indeed drink from My cup, but to sit at My right or left is not for Me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by My Father” (v23). So James and John may not drink Jesus’ cup in its fullness, bearing God’s wrath toward the sin of humanity, but they will, Jesus confirms, get a taste, likely in the sense of experiencing some degree of the persecution He has and will continue to face. In fact, all believers get to share in that to some degree (2 Corinthians 1:5-7; Philippians 3:10; 2 Timothy 1:8; 2:23; Hebrews 10:32; James 5:7-10; 1 Peter 2:19; 4:13; 5:9), and it’s part of our identifying with Christ. He is our Good Shepherd who goes before us and leads us through a refining process by which we become like Him. Though painful, this earthly suffering is “not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).
Now Jesus points out that God the Father has reserved the seats next to Jesus, and lest we arrogantly think those spots are reserved for us, let us be sure to acknowledge we have neither accomplished anything nor resisted any temptation that would somehow qualify us for those spots; we are right to consider those who have endured much persecution or wallowed in difficulty during their time on earth or fought the good fight like none other as being far more worthy of positions of honor in God’s Kingdom. Yet, as Jesus just explained to His disciples, God has reserved those spots out of grace and not by any perceived merit that might enable some boast in anything other than Christ. Can you picture heroes of the faith thinking themselves worthy of these seats? Can you picture some poor widow who endured decades of persecution in order to serve the Lord boasting that she now deserves that spot next to Jesus? Of course not! I like to think these spots are reserved for children who were severely disabled, or even aborted fetuses…
Moving on, the other ten disciples were mad at James and John for suggesting such a thing to Jesus, especially by way of their mother. But Jesus gathers them back to Himself in v25-28, by reminding them that “whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave.” The first shall be last; Jesus just spent significant time teaching this lesson, and they either already forgot it or never got it in the first place. And we are the same. If you want to be great in the Kingdom of God, don’t pursue esteem and respect and honor and wealth and reputation in this life. Instead, be a servant; be a slave; be nobody to the least of these. And do it sincerely, not because you are trying to earn some special favor with God, but out of love for Him and gratitude to Him, which overflows into a humble love for your neighbor (Philippians 2:3). And Jesus concludes this teaching opportunity by giving Himself as the prime example of this kind of sacrificial, selfless service that considers equality with God nothing to be grasped and instead just loves people. As John, the very disciple who made this foolish request, will later remind us of Jesus’ words, “Greater love has no man than this: that he lay down his life for his friend.” Jesus gives His life as a ransom for many – even the ungodly, who were no friends of God at the time He made this life sacrifice. And that makes Him worthy of all honor.
3) V29-34 – 29As Jesus and His disciples were leaving Jericho, a large crowd followed Him. 30Two blind men were sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was going by, they shouted, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!” 31The crowd rebuked them and told them to be quiet, but they shouted all the louder, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!” 32Jesus stopped and called them. “What do you want Me to do for you?” He asked. 33“Lord,” they answered, “we want our sight.” 34Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes. Immediately they received their sight and followed Him.
En route to Jerusalem, a large crowd trailing Jesus out of Jericho rebukes a couple of blind beggars on the side of the road (v29-31). The men were shouting, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us” (v30)! Undoubtedly, sighted individuals informed them that the Rabbi Jesus was passing by, but in crying out to Him, “Lord, Son of David,” and begging for mercy, the blind men, who surely had heard that the Messiah had come, acknowledge Jesus’ identity as the Christ. They understood the prophetic Scriptures that foretold of the Son of David coming to save Israel, and here He was, passing before them on the road. Though the crowd tried to assuage their pleas for mercy, Jesus, just as He had welcomed the little children whom the disciples tried to stop, greets the blind men and asks them how He can help them. They simply said, “Lord, we want our sight” (v33), and “Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes. Immediately they received their sight and followed Him” (v34). It’s a simple lesson, that Jesus is compassionate and “did not come to be served, but to serve” (v28); but the challenge is that these men immediately followed Him. When we recognize that Jesus serves us, we must likewise follow Him.
Bible text from
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