By what sort of reckoning do you suppose that God owes you a salary? If you’re going to take that approach and determine what you deserve from the Lord your God, the truth is that the only wage you have earned is death, on account of your sins — your native unbelief — your worship of false gods — your works of self-righteousness — your laziness, selfishness, and greed.
But, thankfully, the Lord is kind and good, He is gracious and merciful, and He does not pay you the wage that you deserve. He does not subject you to punishment. He does not throw you to the jailers and hand you over to the torturers. He does not extract from you the debt you owe to Him. Instead, according to His grace, in His tender mercy, divine compassion, and steadfast love, He grants to you the forgiveness of all your sins and Life and Salvation with Him in His Kingdom.
He reckons you righteous by His kind generosity, for Jesus’ sake. And He does all of this before you have done any good works at all! Indeed, all truly good works flow out of faith in His Gospel, which must then precede and sustain the righteousness by which you live and work before Him. Apart from faith it is impossible to please Him, but there is no faith apart from the Gospel.
If you labor all day long, and if by your work God serves your neighbor, the credit belongs entirely to Him, the Lord your God, and you are still an unworthy servant at best. There is no day on which you ever do more than what is your duty. And as often and as long as your heart grumbles against the Landowner and turns away from Him in dissatisfaction, you have earned nothing but death.
The Lord your God does not “owe” you anything. He does not need anything from you. He does not need your help. Everything you have, all that you are, and whatever you are able to do, it is all His gracious gift to you. It all depends on Him. So, He does not owe you anything; and yet, He gives you everything — entirely by His grace, that is, by His divine charity. It is for the sake of His divine and holy Love — that of the Father for His Son in the Holy Spirit — that He does for you and freely gives to you all good things. In such Love He reveals and gives Himself to you.
And here, in turn, is the fruitful life to which He calls you in peace. It is a generous sharing of His own Life and His own Love, for He calls you to be His very own, to be like Him. He calls you, and He sends you, and He gives you work to do within His Vineyard, which is His Kingdom. Why should you stand idle? The Lord gives you life, that you might live in faith and love before Him.
He calls you to work within His Vineyard, not because He needs your help, but, again, because He loves you. For in this way also, you share His Life and His Love. It belongs to your discipleship, in which you follow after Christ Jesus and learn from Him. Thus are you transformed by His Word and conformed to His Image and Likeness as the Son of God. The work that you do at His Word is a bearing of His Cross, that you might die to yourself and live unto righteousness in Him.
He calls you to work within His Kingdom in your own place, within your own office and station. That is where and how you offer to Him the sacrifice of thanksgiving. You call upon His Name in holy faith, relying on Him for everything you need. And you return to Him the only thing you have to give, which is thanksgiving for all that He has done and said and given to you in Love.
It is in thanksgiving to the Lord that you pursue your labors in faith and love. You go to work in the Vineyard in the confidence of Christ Jesus, knowing that you are His and He is yours. His God and Father is your God and Father. His Holy Spirit rests upon you and sustains you in all your callings and stations. And as you are loved by God, so do you love your neighbors in the peace of Christ. You deal with your fellow servants, not according to what (you think) they deserve, but according to the grace and mercy of the Lord your God, who deals with you by His Holy Gospel.
You live in the Lord’s Vineyard. That is the first and foremost thing to be considered. Before you have ever begun to work in His Vineyard, you first of all live in His Vineyard as a branch of the true Vine, Jesus Christ. It is by His grace alone, through faith in His Gospel, His forgiveness of your sins, that you live with Him in His Kingdom and abide with Him in righteousness forever.
As you belong to His Vineyard, the Lord loves and serves and cares for you by the Ministry of the Gospel, by the labor and service of those whom He calls, ordains, and sends to you in His Name. That is the Liturgy of His Gospel, the Ministry or Service of God in Christ Jesus. That is how He first of all cultivates and cares for you, before you are called and sent to serve and care for others. And, truly, there is no good thing that He withholds from you or fails to do for His Vineyard.
Whatever is needed, whatever His Church requires, the Lord provides. He does it through men like Peter, James, and John, Matthew and Luke, Barnabas and Paul. He does it through your own pastors to this present day, and so shall He provide to the close of the age. For He has never failed to call and send such servants to His Church on earth. Though they are men of flesh and blood, like yourself, sinners in need of forgiveness who live solely by the grace of God in Christ Jesus, they speak and they serve in His Name, caring for the Vineyard of the Lord with His own Word.
As for them, so also for you, it would be far better to depart from this vale of tears to the nearer presence of Christ Jesus. Yet, for now, according to the wisdom of God, it is more fruitful that you remain in the flesh and live by faith under the Cross, that you might love and serve your neighbors in the world as agents of the Lord, as instruments of His grace, mercy, and peace in Christ Jesus.
Thus, you also are called and sent, according to your own vocation and station in life. “Go,” the Lord Jesus says. “No longer stand idle, but go. Do this or that in My Vineyard. Serve where you are able. Do what I have given you to do.”
Do not worry about the time of day or your season in life, whether it is “early” or “late.” Do not compare and contrast what you are given — and what you are given to do — with your neighbor’s lot in life. Do not compete or contest. But as your Lord says, “Go,” simply do as He says.
If you are a little child in the home, you are given a high and holy calling already in the Fourth Commandment. When you honor your father and mother, when you love and cherish them and serve and obey them, you please the Lord your God by such behavior, because that is what He has given you to do. It is not about earning your righteousness and salvation, which are already yours by grace through faith in Christ Jesus. It is only to serve in the place where God has stationed you.
For each of you, whatever your job may be, whatever your place in life, whatever the time or the season, wherever the Lord has stationed you, do what He has assigned to you. Take care of your portion of the Vineyard, be it big or small. Be a servant of Christ to your neighbor. Do your job.
Work not as a man pleaser, but in the fear, love, and trust of God. Not as though to gain heaven for yourself, as if you even could. Do not work for any wages from the Lord, but in thanksgiving for what He has already done and given to you by His grace. Live and work by faith in His Word, in the confidence that your labors in the Lord are not in vain; for He is the true Vine, and He bears good fruits in you after His own kind — to the glory of God and for the good of your neighbors.
If you are tempted to compare and contrast the burdens and labors of your calling with those of the Lord’s other servants, consider the holy Prophets and Apostles who in most cases were martyred for their faith, who were tortured for their faithful speaking, who were hated by all men, regarded as refuse and rubbish and worse. Consider the crosses they bore and suffered — in some cases real crosses with real nails. Consider how they glorified their Lord in their bodies, in life and death. And rejoice if you are also counted worthy to share in that glory of His holy Cross and Passion.
Bear and carry His Cross within your callings and stations, in relation to your neighbors, in the confidence of the Lord’s Word and promise to you. He will give you what is good and right, not according to any merit or worthiness in you, but according to His own righteousness and mercy.
You’re not on your own. You are sustained in holy faith and love — you are sustained in the work to which the Lord has called you — by what the Lord has done for you, first of all — and so also by what He continues to do for you, and say to you, and give to you — all if it by His grace alone.
The truth of the matter is that Christ Jesus, the Lord, the incarnate Son of God, conceived and born of St. Mary, He has borne the whole burden and the full heat of the day on your behalf. There is not an hour of the day that He has not been working to serve and sustain the entire Vineyard. On the one hand, He has suffered all the wages of your sin by His own death. He has been paid in full for all the wrong that you have done, and for all the good that you have failed to do. On the other hand, He has also borne the fruits of faith and love by His Cross and in His Resurrection. He has brought forth a plenteous crop of grapes, a rich harvest, by His own hard labor and bloody sweat.
He has done right by His Vineyard throughout the long day and the harsh hours of His Passion. And even now, as He has risen from the dead and lives and reigns to all eternity, He continues to care for His Vineyard. He has not left it to fend for itself. He is not an absentee landlord.
You have heard how He calls and sends workers to cultivate and care for His Vineyard. So does He call and send pastors to preach repentance and forgiveness of sins in His Name — to call you from your sin and death to His Life and Salvation, not by your works, but by faith in His Gospel.
He cares for His entire Vineyard at all times and in all places. And so does He also care for you, in both body and soul, for this life and for the Life everlasting. Because He is merciful, generous, and good, He does not neglect even the small things in your body and life here on earth, but He daily and richly provides you with food and clothing, shelter and protection, and all that you need.
So, too, your life in the body — right here, right now — has meaning and purpose, significance, and value in Christ Jesus. First of all because of the price that He has paid for you. Not a denarius of gold or silver, but His own holy and precious Blood, His innocent suffering and death — that is what He has given and paid for you — so that is what you and your body and life are worth.
What is more, your life in the body has meaning and purpose and value and significance because of the good work and fruitful labor that Christ Jesus now performs and accomplishes in you, and through you, for the blessing and benefit of your neighbors in the world, and for the support of His Church and Ministry of the Gospel here on earth, to the praise and glory of His Holy Name.
Go about your work, therefore, wherever and whatever it might be — be it big or small, much or little, for many years, or only for a brief season — in the joyous confidence and certain hope of Christ Jesus and His Cross and Resurrection. It does not really matter at all where you stand in comparison with anybody else. Everything depends upon the Word of God in Christ, upon His grace and tender mercies, none of which shall fail. The One who calls you is faithful and just.
Your Savior, Christ Jesus, has pledged Himself to you. Before He has sent you to work, He has already pledged Himself to you, along with all of His good gifts and benefits. And He has made you equal — not only to the holy Prophets, Apostles, and Martyrs, who labored long and hard ahead of you — but He has made you equal to Himself, the beloved and well-pleasing Son of God.
The Lord Jesus Christ, the almighty and eternal Son of the living God, has named you with His Name, anointed you with His Holy Spirit, and made of you a child of His own God and Father, so that you are an heir of the Kingdom of Heaven.
See here, at His Altar, how He presses into your hand the true Coin of His realm, a Denarius for the eternal Eighth Day. By and with the Gospel, the forgiveness of all your sins, He gives to you His own holy Body and precious Blood. With such Treasures as these, freely given to you by the Lord, you lack nothing; for Life and Salvation are yours in Christ Jesus, forever and ever.
In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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