Grace Isn't Fair — And That's Why It's Grace

Matthew 20:1–16

I read through all four Gospels, every day, for a whole year. Just the Gospels — nothing else. And here's what I noticed: I can't recall Jesus ever actually saying the word grace. Not once, in all his teaching, all his conversations with people.

But John did. John 1:14 says Jesus was "full of grace and truth."

Jesus was full of grace and truth. He never used the word, but he was full of it. He exuded grace.

Same with love, actually. I never once found Jesus saying "I love you" to anyone in the Gospels. Not to one person. But he was full of love. He was love. He exuded love. He demonstrated it on the cross when he took those nails in his hands and his feet for us. Jesus never said the word grace, but he still challenges our natural way of thinking about it.

Our Natural Way of Thinking

Our worldview of grace is based on merit. On fairness. We're taught from an early age: the harder you work, the more you get. In other words, you get what you deserve.

But the Kingdom of God doesn't work like that. It doesn't operate according to human merit. It operates according to God's grace — God's divine grace.

And when it comes to grace, Jesus challenges our natural way of thinking through a story about some workers in a vineyard. A lot of you have read this one before.

The Parable

"For the Kingdom of Heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. About nine in the morning he went out again 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. He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He said to them, 'Why have you been standing here all day doing nothing?' 'Because no one has hired us,' they answered. He said, 'You also go and work in my vineyard.'"

Jesus tells this straight after Peter asks him a question — "We've given up everything to follow you. What will we get?" It's a great question. An honest one. It's the question a lot of us would ask. But it reveals a subtle danger — Peter was thinking about what he needed to do to earn heaven, not about what he'd already been given.

Picture it. The 6am workers are the desperate ones. They're up early because they need this — they need a job, they need a way to feed their family. They agree to a contract for a day's pay, and that acceptance matters to the story. By 9am the landowner's back, picking up the ones who've had their coffee and toast. Noon, he picks up a few more — the late risers who've had their breakfast, watched the morning shows, been down a YouTube rabbit hole, and finally wandered into town. Then it gets strange — he goes out again at three, and again at five. Five o'clock is a weird time to go looking for workers. The vineyard shuts at six.

When evening comes, the owner tells his foreman to pay the workers — starting with the last ones hired, going back to the first. So the five o'clock crowd gets paid first, and each one gets a full day's wage. They're ecstatic. Slept in till three, get a job at five, get paid a full day. High-fiving each other.

By now the 6am workers are getting excited too — if he's that generous to a one-hour worker, how much more is he going to give us? Short-lived excitement, that. They get exactly what they were promised. One denarius. Nothing more.

And that's when satisfaction turns to resentment. Their wage hadn't changed. What changed was they started comparing. Their gratitude for the job at 6am had turned into resentment by 6pm. Twelve hours, that's all it took. "These who were hired last worked only one hour," they say, "and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day." But the landowner answers one of them — calls him friend, even — "I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? Take your 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?"

We Don't Know the Full Story

If you think anything like me, your gut reaction is: that sucks. That's unfair. I'll be honest — I looked at those five o'clock workers and thought, lazy party animals. Slept all day, showed up for the easy hour. I judged them. That's what I thought.

But sit with it a bit longer. Maybe they'd been standing there the whole day and nobody picked them.

Maybe they were older. Maybe they were weaker. Maybe nobody thought they were worth hiring, so they just got left there, overlooked, all day long. We don't actually know their story. I assumed the worst about them, but the landowner didn't. He's the one who went looking for them — not the other way around. Same as God went looking for Adam in the garden, called David in from the paddock, called the fishermen off their boats. God has always taken the initiative. When the landowner found them still standing there and asked why, they just said, "Because no one has hired us."

That's the line that gets me. This is grace. This is God's heart for his people. God sees the ones who get overlooked in society and invites them in. Grace isn't fair. You know that grace isn't fair. But that's why it's grace.

Comparison Changes Everything

The first workers were completely content with their contract — until they looked at someone else's blessing. Comparison is one of the greatest enemies of gratitude.

How often does that happen to us? How often do I reduce God's goodness to me the moment someone else gets a bigger blessing? Someone else gets promoted. Someone else gets healed at the altar while you're still standing there, nothing happening. Instead of thanking God for his faithfulness to us, we get resentful of his generosity to someone else. Sad, isn't it? Grace cannot flourish when comparison takes hold of the heart.

What actually offended the first workers wasn't the money — it was being made equal to people they thought were beneath them. They wanted recognition. They wanted to be first. But grace destroys human pride, because grace puts everyone on equal ground with God. We're all equal in God's eyes. You can be a lifelong Christian standing next to a lifelong criminal who gave his life to Jesus on his deathbed. You can be a missionary standing beside a brand new believer at the altar. Everyone comes to God the same way. Through grace. None of us earn forgiveness. Ephesians 2:9 — it's a gift from God, not a reward for the good things we've done, so none of us get to boast about it. Grace leaves us no room for pride. Just gratitude.

Justice and Grace Meet at the Cross

Here's what I kept getting wrong — I was confusing justice with grace. The first workers received justice. They got exactly what was promised. The last workers received grace. They got so much more than they deserved.

Grace is never owed. The moment it's owed, it stops being grace. If we got what we actually deserved, we'd stand condemned because of our sin. Instead, through Jesus, we get mercy instead of judgment. The cross is where grace and justice meet — God's justice is satisfied because Jesus bore our sin in our place.

The first workers had a contract. The later workers only had a promise. The first workers negotiated. The last workers simply trusted. Our lives as Christians were never meant to be a negotiation with God, a deal we're cutting. It's built on trust. Every blessing is grace. Every answered prayer is grace. Every opportunity to serve is grace.

Living in the Light of Grace

So how do we live in the light of this?

1. Receive grace with humility. Stop trying to earn what Jesus has already bought you. Our salvation is received by grace through faith in Jesus only — not by trying hard. Healing is received by grace through faith. Freedom is received by grace through faith.
   

2. Serve with gratitude. Don't serve to make God love you. Serve because he already does.
   

3. Rejoice when others are blessed. Others getting blessed doesn't diminish your chances. God's grace isn't in short supply. There's plenty for you.
   

4. Extend grace freely, as it's been given to you. Forgive as you've been forgiven. Love as you've been loved. Welcome others as Jesus has welcomed you.

   The church should be the first place where grace gets celebrated. When people walk through these doors, we celebrate. When someone invites Jesus into their life, we celebrate. When someone's healed, we celebrate. When another ministry down the road is flourishing, we give thanks for it. The Kingdom of God is not a competition. There is only grace.

The Last Will Be First

Jesus ends the parable with this — "So the last will be first, and the first will be last." These words completely overturn our natural way of thinking.

The Kingdom of God isn't built on status. It's not built on seniority. Not on titles. Not on achievement. Not on comparison. It's built on God's grace. That's what makes it different from anything else — it's where the rich and the poor kneel together at the cross. Where the oldest believer and the newest believer worship side by side. Where the successful and the struggling pray together. Where the healthy and the sick receive from the same God, in different ways, with open and empty hands.

The Main Point of the Story

This is a beautiful story of God's amazing grace, but the main point is salvation. People putting their faith in Jesus. The 6am workers are the young ones who receive Jesus early. The 5pm workers are the elderly who come to him late in life. The nine, noon, and three o'clockers are everyone in between.

It doesn't matter when you ask Jesus into your life. Some people give their life to him at six, seven, eight years old. Others come to him at seventy or eighty. Doesn't matter if you've lived what you'd call a great life, or if you've lived a real rat-bag life and caused a fair bit of chaos along the way. The reward is the same. Doesn't matter if you're saved at eight or saved at eighty. Hallelujah.

The reward is eternal life. Everything Jesus died for and promised you — it's written in the Bible. That's the reward.

While you're breathing, it's never too late. The Bible says everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. That's a promise from Jesus. Show others grace. Live in the light of it. Accept God's grace.