CHAPTER FIVE

DOES GOD HAVE A RIGHT?

“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.” But he answered one of them, “Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man 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?”

MATTHEW 20:12-15

At a certain state university there was a freshman English class with the typical variety of students. On the one hand there were a few conscientious and well-disciplined students who had learned good study habits in high school. They consistently did assignments, studied well for tests, and turned in well-prepared term papers on time. At the opposite end of the spectrum were the typical “party boys” who did just enough work to get by. They rarely did assignments, hardly studied for tests, and never turned in a term paper on time. And as is typical in such a class, the vast majority of students were somewhere in between.

At last final exam day arrived. As expected, the disciplined students all did well, and the party boys all did poorly. After a couple of days, the professor posted the grades outside his office door. As the students crowded around to see what grade they had received, they were all stunned to see that everyone in the class had received an A. The party boys could hardly believe their good fortune, and the good students were outraged to realize that those who deserved to fail had received the same top grade as they had.

If you saw any credibility in this story you probably shared in the outrage of the hardworking students. It certainly does seem unfair that the class “goof-offs” should receive the same grade as those who actually earned an A. But what you have read is simply a modern-day version of the parable of the generous landowner we considered in the previous chapter. Although I have recast the story in terms of a present-day setting, the essential elements of the two stories are identical. In both versions a group of people got far more than they deserved and received as much reward as those who had actually worked for theirs.

The message even of the biblical parable strikes many people as unfair. On some speaking occasions, I have actually asked for a show of hands on the issue, and the vast majority of people have felt the landowner was unfair. People agree with those workers who labored a full twelve hours, right through the heat of the day, that they should be paid more than those who worked only one hour. In the strict context of labor relations (or of class grades in the modern parable), they are right. A person should be paid in proportion to his work. The landowner and the English professor both seem unfair.

But Jesus was not teaching principles of labor relations. He was teaching principles of grace. He said, “The kingdom of heaven is like . . .” and proceeded to tell the parable. In effect, He said to Peter, “In the kingdom of heaven, the operative principle is not merit but grace.”

One group of people didn’t think the landowner was unfair: the laborers who worked only one hour. Jesus didn’t tell us their reaction, but we can easily assume they were elated and grateful. As the day had worn on, leaving them standing unemployed in the marketplace, their hope for any pay and hence any food for their families for the day had gradually eroded. At five o’clock in the afternoon they faced an evening with no supper. Finally they were given an opportunity to earn what they assumed would be a mere pittance, one-twelfth of a day’s wages —not nearly enough to buy food for their families. It’s not hard to imagine, then, their joy upon receiving a full day’s wages, enough to feed their families that day. They didn’t think about any unfairness on the part of the landowner; they considered him very generous.

AN ATTITUDE OF DESERVING

Why do so many people stumble over this parable and consider the landowner to be unfair? I believe it is because we Christians instinctively identify with the workers who had worked all day. We place ourselves in their shoes instead of in the shoes of those who worked only one hour. We look at society around us, instead of at Jesus Christ, and we begin to feel pretty good about ourselves. We consider ourselves to be twelve-hour workers, and we expect to be rewarded accordingly.

That is the way Peter felt and that is the way many people feel today. I was talking one day with a man whose mother, a faithful servant of God for over forty years, was dying of painful cancer. He said, “After all she’s done for God, this is the thanks she gets.” Such a statement sounds irreverent to us, but the man didn’t intend it to be that way. He simply thought God owed his mother a better life. He only verbalized what many people feel in their hearts.

There are other occasions when we remind God of the sacrifices we have made to serve Him. “Lord, I’ve done this sacrificial service for You, and now I’m in need of this special answer to prayer.” When we assume such an attitude, we are putting ourselves in the position of the twelve-hour workers. We suggest to God that we deserve this answer to prayer because of our sacrificial service. With such an attitude we may grumble about blessings not received instead of being grateful for those we have received.

We need to adopt the attitude of the Roman centurion described in Luke 7. The man sent some of the Jewish elders to Jesus asking Him to come and heal his sick servant. When the elders came to Jesus, they pleaded earnestly with Him: “This man deserves to have you do this, because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue” (verses 4-5). Notice the Jewish elders’ emphasis on deserving.

The centurion surely was a remarkable man. He was an officer in the Roman occupation army, yet he served the occupied people by building a synagogue for them. Think of an occupying army in today’s culture and ask yourself how many “enemy” officers would do such a thing.

But the centurion’s attitude about himself is even more remarkable than his deeds. Instead of thinking of what he should receive because of what he deserved, he freely confessed he didn’t deserve anything. He sent word to Jesus, saying, “I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you” (verses 6-7). The centurion placed himself in the shoes of the eleventh-hour workers. Because of this he not only experienced the joy of having his request granted, but also the added joy of knowing he had received what he did not deserve. He experienced the joy of knowing he had received a gift —not a repayment of a debt.

WE CAN NEVER OBLIGATE GOD

We can never obligate God by our obedience or our sacrificial service. Even if we were perfectly obedient in all our Christian duties, we would still be forced to say, “We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty” (Luke 17:10).

Suppose you perfectly obey all the traffic laws of your state. You always stay within the speed limit, always come to a complete stop at stop signs, always drive in the proper lane, always use your turn signals —always obey every traffic rule. Do you receive any reward? Not at all; that is what you are supposed to do. You have only done your duty. You do not, by perfect obedience of the traffic laws, obligate the state to reward you in any manner. All you can say is, “I have only done my duty.”

As the sovereign Ruler of the universe, God has the right to require perfect obedience and faithful service from all of us without in the least obligating Himself. We owe Him such obedience and service. If we were to perfectly obey every command God has given and faithfully perform every duty —which, of course, we never do —we still could only say, “I have merely done my duty.” We cannot obligate God in any way.

God Himself asserted His freedom from any obligation when He said to Job, “Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me” (Job 41:11). God was not stating a mere abstract, theological principle. He was rebuking an attitude of “I’m not getting what I deserve,” on Job’s part. Job, in defending himself against the false accusations of his so-called friends, had fallen from an attitude of grace into thinking he deserved better treatment from God. He had fallen from an attitude of “The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised,” into an attitude of “It profits a man nothing when he tries to please God” (Job 1:21; 34:9).

Job had, over the time of his suffering, shifted from the position of an eleventh-hour worker to one who felt he had indeed “borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day” (Matthew 20:12). And God directly addressed Job’s attitude. If God were to deal with us today as He did with Job, I wonder how many of us would receive a similar rebuke?

Through the inspired pen of the apostle Paul, the Holy Spirit again asserts His freedom from obligation to anyone when He says, “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?” (Romans 11:35). This assertion was not made in a vacuum. Paul had been dealing with the difficult question of the Jews’ future in the face of God’s apparent spurning of them in favor of the Gentiles. Regardless of how we understand Paul’s teaching about the Jews in Romans 9–11 (an issue on which many Christians disagree), the principle stated by the Holy Spirit through Paul is crystal clear: God does not owe anyone anything.

There is a very high sense of entitlement within modern society. Older people feel entitled to certain benefits from the government. Middle-aged people feel entitled to generous health and retirement benefits from their employers. Younger adults feel entitled to immediately enjoy the same standard of living their parents took years to achieve. And young people feel entitled to whatever material luxuries they desire.

Many observers of our culture are quite concerned about this pervasive sense of “rights” and expectations within our society as a whole. But for Christians, such a high sense of entitlement is especially detrimental to our spiritual lives. For one thing, God is the ultimate supplier of all our needs and desires. Every good gift is from Him, regardless of the intermediate means through which that gift is supplied. As James said, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1:17). However, God, through His providential workings, almost always uses some person or institution or other human instrumentality to meet our needs. Ultimately, though, He is the One who provides or withholds what we desire or think we need.

Therefore, a high sense of entitlement and expectations, though seemingly directed toward some person or institution, is actually directed toward God and His providential dealings in our lives. If we do not receive what we think we have a right to expect, it is ultimately God who has withheld.

More importantly, our sense of entitlement, which may be originally directed toward other people or institutions, is almost invariably transferred directly to God. We begin to be as demanding of our “rights” before God as we are toward people. It is bad enough, and certainly not very Christian, to have the attitude “The world owes me something just because I am,” but to have the attitude that God owes me something is exceedingly dangerous to spiritual health. It will ruin our relationship with God, nullify our effectiveness in ministry, and perhaps turn us bitter or resentful. Unlike our government or school or family or employer, God will not “give in” to our sense of rights or respond to pressure tactics. We never win the battle of “rights” with God. He cares too much about our spiritual growth to let that happen.

GIVING TO GOD

We actually cannot give God anything that He has not first given to us. David recognized this fact when the leaders of Israel gave so generously for the building of the Temple. In his prayer of praise to God he said,

But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand. . . . O LORD our God, as for all this abundance that we have provided for building you a temple for your Holy Name, it comes from your hand, and all of it belongs to you.

1 CHRONICLES 29:14, 16

David knew he and his people had not given anything to God that wasn’t His already. Even our service to God comes from His hand. As the prophet Isaiah said, “LORD, . . . all that we have accomplished you have done for us” (Isaiah 26:12). Paul summed up the whole question of what we have given to God rather conclusively when he said, “And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else” (Acts 17:25). When every breath we breathe is a gift from God, there really is nothing left to give that hasn’t been first given to us.

So where does all this emphasis on the fact that God doesn’t owe us anything leave us? It leaves us in the blessed position of being eleventh-hour workers in God’s Kingdom. It leaves us going home at the end of the day from God’s vineyard profoundly grateful, knowing that the gracious landowner has been generous beyond all measure. In a word, it leaves us content, and “godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Timothy 6:6).

Contentment with what we have —whether it is possessions, or station in life, or mental or physical abilities —is worth far, far more than all the things we don’t have. A multimillionaire reportedly was once asked how much money was enough, to which he replied, “One dollar more.”

The person who is living on the basis of merit is like the multimillionaire. He is never content. One day he thinks he is not being rewarded fairly by God; the next day he is afraid he has forfeited all hope for any reward. Far better to adopt the biblical attitude that grace does not depend on merit at all, but on the infinite goodness and sovereign purpose of God. I would much rather entrust my expectations of blessings and answers to prayer to the infinite goodness of God and His sovereign purpose for my life (a purpose He has already declared to be for my good) than rely on all the merit points I could ever possibly accumulate. We need to remember that God has already been shown to be the exceedingly gracious and generous landowner. To realize that grace, all we must do is acknowledge we are no more than eleventh-hour workers.

With this emphasis on contentment, I’m not suggesting we should always be satisfied with the status quo in every area of our lives and not pray for or seek improvement. Remember, God by His nature is graciously disposed to give us all good things (see Romans 8:32). But for all of us, there are certain things that simply are not going to change. In those areas, we must learn to be content, always accepting the fact that God does not owe us something different.

Frankly, I have had to struggle to learn this myself. God has given me a physical body that, in a number of ways, is less than average. He has given me spiritual gifts that lie largely outside the mainstream ministry of the organization He called me to serve with. Neither of these circumstances is going to change, so I have had to learn to be content with what God has given me. I have learned this by focusing on two facts: He doesn’t owe me anything, and what He has given me was given by His grace alone.

THE PERIL OF COMPARING

There is still another valuable lesson to be learned from the parable of the generous landowner. God is not only generous, He is also sovereign. That is, God has the right to dispense His blessings as He chooses. Jesus asserts this prerogative of God very clearly with the landowner’s question: “Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money?” (Matthew 20:15).

We constantly see believers around us who seem more blessed of God than we are. Some are more gifted in spiritual abilities, others always succeed with little effort, still others seem to have few problems or concerns, and on and on. Probably none of us is exempt from the temptation to envy someone else’s blessings and to secretly grumble at God, or even to charge Him with rank injustice, for giving that person more in some way than He has given us.

Yet God in His sovereignty has the right to bless each of us as He chooses. Consider these words from the apostle Paul:

But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?

ROMANS 9:20-21

Regardless of how we understand the particular application of Paul’s teaching, we cannot escape the basic principle in the passage: God is sovereign. And He is sovereign in every area of life. God as our Creator has the right to endow each of us at birth with different physical and mental abilities, with different temperament characteristics, and with different natural talents. He also has the right to give each of us different spiritual gifts. Not only does God have the right, it is obvious He exercises it. We are not created equal, nor are we given equal opportunities throughout life. Each of us has his or her own unique set of circumstances; those of some people being much more favorable than others. Since God is under no obligation to any of us, He is free to bless some more than others as He chooses. He has the right to do what He wants with His blessings.

Not only does God sovereignly determine how and to what extent He will bless us, He often blesses those who, in our opinion, seem most unworthy. We see this demonstrated rather forcefully in Jesus’ recounting of two Old Testament incidents as recorded in Luke 4:25-27:

I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed —only Naaman the Syrian.

Luke recorded that “all the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this.” Why were these Jews who heard Jesus so enraged that, as verse 29 tells us, they wanted to kill Him? It was because the widow and Naaman were despised Gentiles. In the opinion of the Jews, these people were most unworthy. The reaction was, “How could God bless those Gentile dogs instead of more deserving Jews?”

The fact is God did bless those two Gentiles while passing right by His own chosen people. Were the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian more “deserving” than anyone in Israel? Not at all. The Old Testament record of his healing indicates that Naaman, by his anger and haughtiness, was very undeserving. God often does bless people who seem to us to be quite unworthy. But that is what grace is all about, because we are all unworthy.

We rejoice in the generosity of God’s grace as long as it is directed toward us, or toward our family or friends. But how do we feel when someone who we think does not deserve it is blessed by God? Are we envious because of the generosity of God toward that person? Do we feel, as did the workers in the parable, that we “have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day” and yet that other person has been blessed more than we have?

The workers who labored all day did not grumble because they received too little pay, but because less deserving workers received the same as they. The A students in the modern version of the parable were not outraged because they received only an A, but because some obviously undeserving students received the same grade.

The reality of the Christian life, though, is that there are no A students in God’s Kingdom. Some are more obedient than others, some have labored more and sacrificed more than others, but none of us measures up to an A. None of us wants to get what we actually deserve. We all want grace, but we cannot enjoy grace when there is an attitude of comparing.

William Arnot (1808–1875) has some helpful words on the perils of comparing. He wrote,

See the two groups of labourers as they severally wend their way home that evening. As to amount of money in their pockets, they are all equal: but as to amount of content in their spirits there is a great difference. The last go home each with a penny [a denarius] in his pocket, and astonished glad gratitude in his heart: their reward accordingly is a penny, and more. The first, on the contrary, go home, each with a penny in his pocket, and corroding discontent in his soul: their reward accordingly is less than a penny.[18]

Arnot believed it was in this sense that “the last will be first, and the first will be last” (Matthew 20:16). That is, the last workers hired ended up “first” because they had a day’s wages plus contentment, whereas the first workers hired ended up “last” because of their discontentment.

While that is certainly a helpful observation about life, I understand Jesus’ two statements in Matthew 19:30 and 20:16 somewhat differently than Arnot does. I believe Jesus is asserting the sovereign prerogative of God to dispense His favors as He pleases. I don’t think His statement, “So the last will be first, and the first will be last,” is to be taken in an absolute sense as if this would always be the case; rather, there is often no apparent correlation between what one seemingly “deserves” and what he or she receives. Remember, the whole point of the parable is to respond to Peter’s attitude as expressed in the words of R. C. H. Lenski: “The more we do, the more we earn, and the more God owes us.”[19]

If we are to succeed in living by grace, we must come to terms with the fact that God is sovereign in dispensing His gracious favors, and He owes us no explanation when His actions do not correspond with our system of merits. Indeed, as Paul said,

How unsearchable His decisions, and how mysterious His methods! For who has ever understood the thoughts of the Lord, or has ever been His adviser?

ROMANS 11:33-34, WMS

We are left without any grounds for grumbling about the treatment we receive from God. God never becomes obligated to us, so He can always say to us, “Friend, I am not being unfair to you” (Matthew 20:13). At the same time, God reserves the right to treat each of us differently, bestowing blessings as He sovereignly chooses. In the words of the landowner, God says to us, “Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?” (verse 15).

THE PROMISES OF GOD

The fact is, of course, God is gracious and generous to all who are His children. The parable doesn’t teach us only about the sovereignty of God in dispensing His grace; it teaches us even more about His gracious generosity. The Bible is full of God’s promises to provide for us spiritually and materially, to never forsake us, to give us peace in times of difficult circumstances, to cause all circumstances to work together for our good, and finally to bring us safely home to glory. Not one of those promises is dependent upon our performance. They are all dependent on the grace of God given to us through Jesus Christ.

The apostle Paul wrote, “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ. And so through him the ‘Amen’ is spoken by us to the glory of God” (2 Corinthians 1:20). What did Paul mean when he said all God’s promises are “Yes” in Christ?

First of all, Christ in His messianic mission is the personal fulfillment of all the promises in the Old Testament regarding a Savior and coming King. As Philip Hughes wrote,

In Christ is the yes, the grand consummating affirmative, to all God’s promises. He is the horn of salvation raised up for us by God, “as He spake by the mouth of His holy prophets which have been since the world began” (Lk. 1:69f.). In Him all things “which are written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms” achieve their fulfillment (Lk. 24:44). The covenant promises addressed to Abraham and his seed are realized in His single person (Gal. 3:16).[20]

Beyond the actual fulfillment of all the promises made about Him, Christ is also the meritorious basis upon which all of God’s other promises depend. John Calvin wrote in his comments on 2 Corinthians 1:20,

All God’s promises depend upon Christ alone. This is a notable assertion and one of the main articles of our faith. It depends in turn upon another principle —that it is only in Christ that God the Father is graciously inclined towards us. His promises are the testimonies of His fatherly goodwill towards us. Thus it follows that they are fulfilled only in Christ. . . . Secondly, we are incapable of possessing God’s promises till we have received the remission of our sins and that comes to us through Christ.[21]

Think just now of what you feel your greatest needs are, both spiritually and temporally. As you bring those needs to God in prayer, which would you rather present to Him as a consideration for meeting those needs: your spiritual disciplines, your obedience, and your sacrifice, imperfect as they are; or the infinite and perfect merit of Jesus? To ask the question is to answer it, is it not?

I don’t mean to disparage any spiritual discipline, commitment, or sacrifice. These all have their place in the realm of grace. But they are never to be relied on as a meritorious cause for expecting God’s blessing or answer to prayer. Martin Luther, in his exposition of Deuteronomy 8:17-18, spoke of “blessings that at times come to us through our labors and at times without our labors, but never because of our labors; for God always gives them because of His undeserved mercy” (emphasis added).[22]

If only we will learn to rest our entire case on the merits of Jesus Christ, instead of our own, we will learn the joy of living by grace and not by sweat.