I preached from Matthew 20:1-16 on Sunday 23rd August 2026 at All Souls Church, Eastbourne. You can read the sermon below or watch it by clicking the image above. God bless!
Is God generous?
Once, when I was very young, I got angry at my brother’s birthday party. Because I thought, it’s not fair. Why are we celebrating him and not me? I was born too, right?
But my parents showed me a bigger perspective. My brother’s birthday party wasn’t an act of war against me. It wasn’t about excluding me or saying he was more important than me.
My mum and dad simply wanted to be generous to him. And sure enough, when my own birthday came around, they were generous to me too. So why was I grumbling?
That’s kind of what this parable is about. This story that Jesus tells. God wants to be generous. And here’s the twist. It’s God’s own people who aren’t happy about it.
We want to earn
Let me set the scene. Back in Matthew chapter 19, Jesus is talking to his disciples. And it’s Peter, the chief disciple, who speaks up.
In verse 27 he says “We have left everything to follow you [Jesus]! What then will there be for us?” (19:27, NIV)
And Jesus basically says, “don’t worry, Peter. You’ve got a great future ahead of you. Stay with me.”
But he goes on. Because there’s something about Peter’s attitude that he doesn’t like. Something lurking behind Peter’s question.
Do you ever get that feeling? Someone asks you a question, and you feel like there’s something behind the question. Imagine your friend comes up to you and says: “do you enjoy being the centre of attention”?
Ow, you can feel it can’t you. They’re not just asking out of curiosity. There’s an accusation behind the question.
That’s just an example, by the way, I’m not speaking from personal experience.
Anyway, here we have Peter saying to Jesus “We have left everything to follow you! What… will there be for us?” (19:27, NIV)
Can you feel what’s behind Peter’s question? What’s on his heart?
He seems to be saying, Jesus, you owe us. Big time. We’ve left everything to follow you, Jesus. We’re the OG disciples. We’ve put in more hours than a lot of people ever will. So what do we get?
And you might think, what’s wrong with that? You do a job. You get paid according to how many hours you work. More hours. More money. If you do X, then you will get Y. It’s how the world works isn’t it?
Well yes, it is how the world works and it’s good and right when people are paid fairly.
But in the kingdom of heaven, in the family that Jesus is building, things are different. When you become a Christian, you don’t join a company. You haven’t been put on some cosmic payroll. You’ve been adopted by a generous Father.
Jesus says in chapter 19 verse 30 “...many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.” He says it again in 20 verse 16. “...the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
It’s one of the most famous phrases of Jesus. He says it twice in this short chunk of text.
And in between, he tells a story. Because he wants to show Peter, and all of us, what he means. What does he mean that the last will be first and the first will be last?
But God wants to be generous
Well, here’s the story that Jesus tells. Matthew 20, verse 1.
Matthew 20:1-16 (NIV)
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
3 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went.
“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About five in the afternoon 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.’
8 “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.’
9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius.
11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These 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.’
13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you.
15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
Notice the workers at the start of the story. In verse 2, the landowner agrees to pay each of them a denarius, a day’s wages. But in verse 4, all the later workers are told that they will simply be paid whatever is right.
So those first workers, the early risers, they’re obsessed with recording everything. They agree to their payment right at the start. And they keep a careful record of all the work they do and how hard it is.
So they’re ready to say in verse 12 that they have ‘borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day’. They’ve put the hours in. They’ve put the hard work in. So surely, they are more than entitled to their denarius. They have earned it, right?
But the other workers are brought in throughout the day, after standing around in the marketplace doing nothing. And they’re brought in, right up to the last minute, to do substantially less work on the vineyard.
And they are the ones who get paid first in verse 8. “...the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
And even more shockingly, they are paid just as much as the early risers. Every single worker on that vineyard, regardless of how many hours they’ve worked, they all get a denarius. A full day’s wages.
Understandably, the early risers grumble. It’s not fair. They say ‘These [people] who were hired last worked only one hour… and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’ (20:12, NIV) We’ve worked harder than them! We deserve more than them! Surely!
Who is Peter in this story? He’s one of the early risers, isn’t he?
And he’s beginning to think that surely, as a disciple, he is entitled to more than the other Jesus followers. You know, the ones who have it a bit easier, right?
And Jesus responds to Peter through the words of the landowner in the story. Verse 13. ‘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?’
In other words, “I want to pay everyone the same. Not because I am unfair to those of you who have worked longer. But because I want to be equally generous to all of you.”
This story is about grace. When God shows us grace, it means that he gives us what we don’t deserve. That’s what grace is. Getting what we don’t deserve.
And this God, the Jesus God, he wants to be generous. He wants to show grace to many. He is the landowner in the story.
What about the marketplace? It’s full of people who are lost. Standing around. Looking for purpose in their lives, but unable to find it. Is that not what our world is like?
Picture the scene. You’re hanging around in a shady alleyway somewhere deep within this marketplace. It’s busy. It’s noisy.
And part of you wants to leave. You’re overwhelmed by the marketplace, scared of it, even.
But another part of you is tempted by it. Attracted to it like a moth to a flame.
That’s what we’re all like. We’re not just victims of the world’s corruption. We’re also contributors.
But Jesus, the landowner, he steps into the world, he steps into the marketplace like he owns the whole thing.
He ignores the stalls, the music, the animals, the buying and selling. He’s on a mission. He presses through the crowds until he finds… you. He holds out his hand and says, ‘come with me’.
He wants to bring lost people like you and me into his vineyard. His church. His family. He wants all sorts of people following him. Why? Because he needs us? No. Because he is generous.
Receive God’s generosity
From before the creation of the world, God has eternally been a fountain of life. The Father loving the Son and filling him with the Holy Spirit. God has always been generous.
And the Father created the universe through the Son and filled it with life. Trees, heavy with fruit. The oceans filled with fish. The skies filled with birds. God is generous.
And even when we turned from God’s generosity to lose ourselves in the marketplace of temptation, God remained generous. In the fullness of time, Jesus, God the Son himself entered into creation, entered into our marketplace, to join us in our darkness. And it cost him everything to get us out.
Notice verse 17. After telling the disciples this story about his generosity, Jesus predicts his own death. And I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
Because it is on the cross that Jesus pours out his own blood, his own life, to free us from the grip of the Devil and bring us into his vineyard. It costs him everything.
But he does it because he is generous. This is what God is like. To him, the shedding of his own blood, the taking on himself of all our sin, death and hell, to him even that is not too high a price to pay to rescue people like you and me.
So how generous is our God? He’s this generous.
He could not be more generous. And he doesn’t do it reluctantly. No-one’s twisting his arm into saving us. He does it because that’s the kind of God he is. The kind of God he’s always been.
Did you notice that in the story, the landowner gives each of his workers exactly the same pay, without favouritism?
And there is indeed one gift that Jesus gives to all his followers equally, without favouritism. What is that gift?
It’s Jesus himself. God’s greatest act of generosity is to give himself to us. To be united with us forever. This is the gospel.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16, NIV)
And here’s the twist. Often the people who have the biggest problem with the generosity of God are the people of God. Think of Jonah.
He was sent to preach to those awful sinners in Nineveh. And to his great surprise, they turned at the last minute and were forgiven by God.
And how did Jonah this Prophet of God respond? Did he celebrate with all those forgiven sinners? No. He sat alone outside the city and grumbled. He was angry.
Why? Because God wasn’t generous enough? No! Because God was too generous! And to the wrong people.
And then there’s Peter. Like Jonah, Peter was a Jew. His people had been worshipping the living God for centuries. And he had to learn that God doesn’t just want to be generous to them.
He does want to be generous to them but he also wants to be generous to the gentiles, the non-Jews.
And the penny finally drops for Peter in Acts 10. When God saves the Roman Centurion Cornelius, Peter says “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.” (Acts 10:34-35, NIV)
The arms of Jesus are open to all. And here we are. Most of us are gentiles, and we’re sitting in a Christian church in England in 2026.
Why? Because God is generous. And he wants to bring even people like us into his family. Right up to the last minute.
And whether you’re in the marketplace or the vineyard, you’re simply called to receive God’s generosity. To repent and believe the good news. To turn around and receive Jesus. That’s what a Christian is. A person who has received Jesus.
For those in the market, come to the vineyard
Now, if you’re in the marketplace this morning, you might be thinking, ‘ah… I can put off becoming a Christian until my deathbed. I’ll live however I want and then right at the last minute I’ll turn to Jesus.’
‘After all, he’s calling people right up to the eleventh hour. So I might as well wait til then.’
That’s the wrong lesson to take from this story. For one thing, none of us know when that eleventh hour will be. It could be years away. It could be now.
But also, why would you want to miss out on years of knowing Jesus? This generous God.
If he is calling you now, don’t put it off. Come home. Life to the full begins when you receive Jesus. And it can begin today.
For those in the vineyard, don’t grumble. Celebrate!
And for those of us who are already in the vineyard, this story has something to say to us as well.
The workers who arrive later, the baby Christians, they are just as important as the workers who arrive earlier. And that is a wonderful truth.
If you’re a new believer and you feel a bit out of place this morning, please know that God is absolutely delighted to have you in his vineyard. And we should be too. There are no second class Christians.
And for those of us ‘more experienced’ Christians, we need to hear the warning of this passage.
If we don’t like God’s generosity towards others, it might be because we’ve lost sight of how generous he has been to us. In giving us the greatest gift. Jesus himself!
And if you start to think that there is something greater to be received than Jesus himself, then you need to look again at Jesus.
The one who made you and the one who gave himself for you in self-sacrificial love in order to be with you forever. There is no greater gift. However long you’ve been a Christian, you have Him.
And you didn’t earn Him. And you never could and you never will. It’s all by grace from beginning to end. That’s the Christian life.
Peter and so many of us naturally say “what will I get”? God says “look at what I have given. My one and only Son.” There is no greater gift. And he’s been given to you for free and forever.
As Christians, we’re not trying to earn anything from God. There’s nothing more we could earn from God. Instead we rest in what he has already done for us. And then we flow out with that good news.
And the Christian life is difficult. And there is a cost to following Jesus. But it’s not about earning our way into the vineyard. It’s about how we live now, confident that we are part of the vineyard. Jews and gentiles. Young and old. This is the church.
“...the last will be first, and the first will be last.” It’s different. It’s glorious. It’s unstoppable.
And even if you could stop it, why would you want to?