“Not to be served, but to serve.” What a difficult lesson to learn. Yet how necessary.

How little we know of serving others, even after many years of Christian living! Yet how essential to discipleship! Humility reminds us of the need to die to ourselves, take up our cross, follow Jesus and serve others. It is one of the hardest things we have to learn.

Time is running out. For seven chapters and for 16 of my studies, ever since the parables of the kingdom in Matthew 13, we have witnessed Jesus’ withdrawal from the leaders of the people and even from the crowds in order, at this stage of his travels, to teach his disciples about the nature of his kingdom and about what they would have to be like if they were to be a part of it. Now the withdrawal stage is ending, and Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem to die by crucifixion.

There is one last point. I am not sure Jesus had anything like this in mind when he told this provocative parable, but it is suggested by that most important verse which both introduces the story and ends it: “So the last will be first, and the first last.”So the last will be first, and the first last.” (v. 30). The important word here is “many,” for the teaching is not that every person who begins early with God and works for him throughout a lifetime will inevitably be last or that everyone who begins late will inevitably be first. That will be true for many people, but it will not be true for all.

Another lesson in the parable is that God cares for people more than for things. Why is it that the owner of the vineyard gave those who had labored only one hour the same amount as those who had labored all day? Was it not because he knew they needed the denarius?

In the earliest days of Old Testament history, from the calling of Abraham about 2,000 years before Christ, God began to deal with the Jews in a special way. It is almost as though he turned his back on the Gentile nations, at least for a time, as he began to create, redeem, and eventually teach and disciple those to whom the Lord Jesus would eventually come. The Jews were quite proud of that heritage, as we ourselves would be.