Enjoying Life When Your Dog Growls At You

Enjoying Life When Your Dog is Growling at You

Matthew 20:1-16

INTRO:

One of the most resounding things in my memory is my mother telling me, “Josh, life isn’t fair.” I have carried that with me throughout life. The only thing I can say about it is that she was right. Life doesn’t seem to be fair. In fact it seems to be quite the opposite of fair. I have been turned down for jobs because I was of the wrong ethnicity. I have been denied a promotion because I was the wrong gender. I have often been denied employment because I was under qualified. Sadly I have also been denied employment because I was over qualified. That one really didn’t make any since at all.

I am sure I am not the only one who has experienced life this way. I know that there are some of you who have been turned down for a loan because the loan officer had a bad day and didn’t want to deal with you long enough to finance you. I know there are cell phone owners here who have been charged for a little thing called roaming when you didn’t think it was just but you couldn’t argue your case enough to get it removed. There may be someone here today who was accused of something and felt the consequences just so an example could have been made of somebody by your boss. The thing you noticed is that even though you are working and doing the best you could the slacker across the way got off with out even a confrontation.

I am sure that I am not the only person in this room who as a kid with a sibling thought my parents treated me unfairly at times in comparison to the treatment my sister got. I know I am not the only brother who received my sister’s spanking. I am not going to allow my sister the opportunity to tell you about all of my spankings she received because as for now it makes me look better.

The cold fact is that life isn’t fair. The more we try to please someone the more we stand to be let down. People are human in that they have there own way of viewing situations. They can have a “skewed” view of reality that keeps them from seeing all sides of reality. They can have their own opinions which may immediately charge the man in a conflict between a man and a woman or to vote for the white guy in a battle between races. Truly and undeniably we are unfair people living in an unfair world.

{}{}The good news however is that God is fair. If we will learn to hold on to Him, even when we don’t understand the path He is taking, it will turn out alright in the end.

God is a God of Grace. That is something we simply cannot understand as humans. God can see the big picture, he is omniscient, and that is something we homo-sapiens can only dream about. God is just in his generosity which is a trait we don’t possess.

Illus:

While on a trip to Switzerland, an America businessman was watching a Swiss clockmaker carving the case of an ornate cuckoo clock. As the businessman watched the clockmaker carve out the case, he was astounded at his slow rate of progress. The businessman finally said, “My good man, you’ll never make much money that way.” “Sir,” the clockmaker replied, “I’m not making money, I’m making cuckoo clocks.”

Notice the difference in the two men’s goals. The businessman was after the pay check and the clock maker was after the joy of a job well done.

"For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

"About the third hour he went out 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 the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. About 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?’

" ’Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.

"He said to them, ’You also go and work in my vineyard.’

"When 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.’