Another hymn to start your day.  Few things can brighten a heavy heart as well as can hymns of praise to Our God and King.  Click  the link to listen to All Creatures of Our God and King in the cyber-hymnal as you enjoy the lyrics below.

All creatures of our God and King Lift up your voice and with us sing, Alleluia! Alleluia! Thou burning sun with golden beam, Thou silver moon with softer gleam!

Refrain:  O praise Him! O praise Him! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Thou rushing wind that art so strong Ye clouds that sail in Heaven along, O praise Him! Alleluia! Thou rising moon, in praise rejoice, Ye lights of evening, find a voice!

Refrain

Thou flowing water, pure and clear, Make music for thy Lord to hear, O praise Him! Alleluia! Thou fire so masterful and bright, That givest man both warmth and light.

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Dear mother earth, who day by day Unfoldest blessings on our way, O praise Him! Alleluia! The flowers and fruits that in thee grow, Let them His glory also show.

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And all ye men of tender heart, Forgiving others, take your part, O sing ye! Alleluia! Ye who long pain and sorrow bear, Praise God and on Him cast your care!

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And thou most kind and gentle Death, Waiting to hush our latest breath, O praise Him! Alleluia! Thou leadest home the child of God, And Christ our Lord the way hath trod.

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Let all things their Creator bless, And worship Him in humbleness, O praise Him! Alleluia! Praise, praise the Father, praise the Son, And praise the Spirit, Three in One!

Refrain

More hymns today.  I am trying desperately to counteract the serious mood I’m in.  Enjoy Blest Be the Tie That Binds (words below) and click here if you’d like to hear it on the cyber-hymnal.

Blest be the tie that binds

Our hearts in Christian love;

The fellowship of kindred minds

Is like to that above.

Before our Father’s throne

We pour our ardent prayers;

Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one

Our comforts and our cares.

We share each other’s woes,

Our mutual burdens bear;

And often for each other flows

The sympathizing tear.

When we asunder part,

It gives us inward pain;

But we shall still be joined in heart,

And hope to meet again.

This glorious hope revives

Our courage by the way;

While each in expectation lives,

And longs to see the day.

From sorrow, toil and pain,

And sin, we shall be free,

And perfect love and friendship reign

Through all eternity.

Today, I need the refreshment that hymns can bring.  Read the lyrics below and click this link if you’d like to listen to the hymn For the Beauty of the Earth from the cyber-hymnal.

For the beauty of the earth For the glory of the skies, For the love which from our birth Over and around us lies.

Refrain:  Lord of all, to Thee we raise, This our hymn of grateful praise.

For the beauty of each hour, Of the day and of the night, Hill and vale, and tree and flower, Sun and moon, and stars of light.

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For the joy of ear and eye, For the heart and mind’s delight, For the mystic harmony Linking sense to sound and sight.

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For the joy of human love, Brother, sister, parent, child, Friends on earth and friends above, For all gentle thoughts and mild.

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For Thy Church, that evermore Lifteth holy hands above, Offering up on every shore Her pure sacrifice of love.

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For the martyrs’ crown of light, For Thy prophets’ eagle eye, For Thy bold confessors’ might, For the lips of infancy.

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For Thy virgins’ robes of snow, For Thy maiden mother mild, For Thyself, with hearts aglow, Jesu, Victim undefiled.

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For each perfect gift of Thine, To our race so freely given, Graces human and divine, Flowers of earth and buds of Heaven.

Refrain

Matthew 22:2 “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come. 4 “Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’ 5 “But they paid no attention and went off– one to his field, another to his business. 6 The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. 7 The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. 8 “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9 Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ 10 So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. 11 “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 12 ‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ The man was speechless. 13 “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 14 “For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

This is our final parable in the Kingdom of Heaven series. 

Warning: it’s not pleasant or easy to understand.

No, this one is about the aspect of God few people really want to acknowledge:

God’s right to be obeyed and His wrath upon those who refuse to do so.

This parable teaches that there will be no mere slap on the wrist or opportunity for a do-over, as God the coach encourages, “Keep going!  You can do it!”  No, the invitation is issued.  Responses are made:

• Ho-hum, I’ll think about it while I go to the office and do important work, or head to my field to examine the fruits of my own efforts and count the money that will be flowing in once I harvest.
• Invitation?  Ha!  You came to the wrong person.  King?  What king?  I’ll show you who is king!

If God had allowed do-overs at that final moment, would their responses have been the same?  I wish they’d be different responses, but Scripture asserts otherwise.  Arrogance says that people who refuse to acknowledge God’s right to be obeyed won’t obey even if a do-over is possible.  They’ll find excuses not to believe because they don’t want to obey (Luke 16:19-31).

That is why God is justified in what He does with unrepentant hearts. The army God sends (because in this parable God Himself is the King and Jesus is the Bridegroom coming for His Bride)—the army is comprised of the angels of wrath.  The destroying angels at the last day (Revelation chapters 7-11) will execute God’s judgment on those who refused to obey, to believe in God’s gracious provision out of His holiness and mercy.

The good and bad (the full spectrum of everyone who repents) are given wedding clothes to wear (that is, the fine linen of righteousness).  But one guest tries to sneak in with his own clothes that are not clean, righteous, or holy.  Just as on Judgment Day, only those made clean by obedience to God’s Messiah will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  Those who tried to clean up their own acts by philanthropy or random acts of kindness, but whose hearts refused to obey God, will be seen by the King as without wedding clothes.

Jesus tells this parable as the last of the Kingdom of Heaven parables for a reason.  He is headed to the Cross where He will die for human sin.  It’s God greatest demonstration of love and affirmation of why we ought to obey Him.  Jesus is the Bridegroom and He wants you to repent and come to His wedding banquet, wearing the full righteousness and holiness that His death made possible.

The serious tone of this parable stresses the importance of today’s invitation.   Don’t wait for a do-over.  Respond with faith and obedience to this Kingdom invitation.

Matthew 20:1 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. 3 “About the third hour 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 the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. 6 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?’ 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 the eleventh hour 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 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.’ 13 But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the man 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.”

The Kingdom of Heaven parables have taken a turn from how precious is the Kingdom to how righteous it is.  As Jesus presses onward to the Cross, His urgency to talk about Kingdom matters takes on an increasingly somber and pointed tone.

The whole issue of fairness has been in the media lately.  Is it fair that illegal immigrants would be simply granted–by political tinkering–what those who have waited patiently in the legal process have not yet received?  Is it fair that young black men are viewed with greater caution whereas young white men less so?  Is it fair that some people have great jobs, great upbringings, and great homes while others do not have such privilege?

Let’s make one thing very clear: God cares a whole lot less about human ideas of equality and fairness than He does about Kingdom ideas of righteousness and grace.

Human ideas of equality and fairness always involve horizontal comparisons:  man-to-man, woman-to-woman, or man-to-woman.

God’s idea of equality and fairness results in one thing: all humans perish.

God doesn’t want equality of outcome and fairness for us.  Furthermore, He doesn’t want plain-old-justice for us because that would mean we’d all be in hell instead of any of us in the Kingdom.  Man-to-man and woman-to-woman, every human being is a sinner and rightfully deserving of eternal separation from a holy God.

You want what’s coming to you? 

Hell. 

That’s about it.

That’s why God, being rich in mercy and caring about His Image and His glory, decided that equality of outcome, fairness, and justice weren’t enough.  There needs to be righteousness and grace to cover us.  His generosity overflows.

To the first worker in the field, because he’d seen what the last hired received, he felt like he was owed more, maybe about 11 hours-worth more.  There was an arrogance that said he knew better than the landowner, never mind that one denarius was his own contractual agreement.

Yes, God can do what He wants with money and with people.  He can choose to give some prosperity and education, hiring them first—as in the parable—even though the hard work in the heat of the day might make them feel like self-made men who were owed what they get.  Payment, not grace.  All the work, all the compensation, NONE of the spiritual blessing of knowing dependence upon God.

He can choose to give others the more spiritual existence of knowing they had been waiting all day and therefore, they might be more acutely aware of their depending on the grace and mercy of God.  Thankful for having been hired.  Thankful for such generosity and kindness.  All grace and payment as the cherry on top!

God always does what is right (v.4), yes?

We get ourselves in trouble when we begin horizontal comparisons which lead only to bitterness, envy, jealousy, resentment, anger, and hate.  Do you realize that the first horizontal comparison is what led to the first murder?  That’s why God says that sin is crouching at our doors but we must master it.  We master sin by honoring God instead of seeking the upper hand on our brothers.

It is far better to see that the Kingdom ideas of mercy, righteousness, and grace require our looking to the LORD to see that the real blessing is often upside down to what might be logical to us.  Jesus says (v. 16) “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Matthew 18:23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. 26 “The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. 28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. 29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’ 30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened. 32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. 35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”

People don’t get mercy these days.  All you have to do is watch the nightly news and you see the wicked servant wanting his pound of flesh. Retribution. Revenge.  Justice on their terms.  People ripping each other apart because they don’t understand the Kingdom idea of mercy.

Or maybe they don’t want to understand.

Mercy is a Kingdom idea.  We might refer to heaven as Club Mercy because it will belong to those who showed mercy to others.  They didn’t dwell in the flesh or in selfishness, greed, hatred or even envy of their fellow man.  They didn’t resent another’s privilege or feel as though they were gypped in life. When they were wronged, they turned the other cheek.  When they were insulted, they remembered the insults they hurled at their fellow man not realizing it was Jesus who felt every one of them.  When someone asked for forgiveness, they granted it–not because it was easy–but because it was the only right response of those who have been forgiven.

Eternal residents of Club Mercy have this in common: All of them know that any debt they may be owed by their fellow man is nothing compared to what has been forgiven them by the King of Kings.

Jesus is not some nicey-nice whitewashed pansy when He says,

This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”  

He didn’t say that to a “good and faithful servant” who had shown mercy to others, but to a WICKED one who refused to be merciful.  Where are you today?  Do you know the meaning of mercy?

Matthew 13:47 “Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. 48 When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. 49 This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous 50 and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 51 “Have you understood all these things?” Jesus asked. “Yes,” they replied.

In Jesus’ day, fishing was a common livelihood.  Boats went out into a lake or a sea with nets attached.  The nets would have weights at the bottom and corks at the top to keep the nets extended.  The two boats worked together to take the half-circle of net and using its long ropes, drag the net ashore.  The net would have all kinds and sizes of different fish in it.  Only the very smallest of fish would be able to swim through the openings in the nets.

When the fishermen arrived on the beach with their catch, they’d begin sorting the fish into categories:  good fish and bad fish.  Good fish were put into stone or clay basins.  The unclean fish (those without scales or fins, see Deuteronomy 14:9-10) would be thrown away.

Jesus says that this kingdom likeness refers to the end of earthly time.  There will be a gathering of the visible church (like a net filled with all kinds of fish), but then there will also be a purifying.  Jesus does not look at the net and see a bunch of dud-fish that are only worth throwing out.  Just like the story about the field with wheat and weeds, there is a sorting that goes on at the end of time.  The good are kept.  The bad are thrown out.

In every church, there are those who have every evidence of being genuine Christ-followers. 

But in every church there are also those who present no true evidence of belonging to God at all. 

They may sit in the same pews.  Sing the same songs.  Bow their heads to pray the same prayers.  They may give every external clue that they’re just like believers…except…they are unclean.  They are missing the seal of the Holy Spirit because their faith was never genuine, heartfelt, or truly submitted to the Father.  Maybe they went through all the motions for other people to see, but willingly abandoned Jesus on all the time outside of the public display.

Jesus is not interested in your Sunday best.  He’s interested in your everyday best. 

The net doesn’t do the sorting.  The net is for gathering.  But we must bear in mind that the Kingdom of heaven will be purified by the hand of God, sorting each of us according to what we did with Jesus.

Matthew 13:44 45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. 46 When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.

In the second installment of Jesus’ parables saying “The Kingdom is worth giving your all”, we see a merchant who is always on the lookout for the very best pearls.  Just like yesterday’s hidden treasure in the field, today’s pearl merchant gets it: this pearl is worth total sacrifice to have it.

The other day, the family and I went to Cold Stone Creamery where the sizes of ice cream are known as Like It, Love It, and Gotta Have It.  While we were there, I found myself thinking about this parable.

Would the fine pearl of great value be known as Really Gotta Have It, Drop Everything&Get It or Kingdom of Heaven Su-Pearl-ative?  Well, it doesn’t really matter because irrespective of what we might call it, Jesus says “The Kingdom of Heaven is worth giving your all.”

Do you Like It, Love It, Gotta Have It or are you willing to give up absolutely everything for it?

Matthew 13:44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

Do you view salvation to eternal life in Jesus Christ as the greatest treasure you could ever encounter?  Once you found it, would you give up everything to preserve it and to take ownership of it?  That’s what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.

How many of us, however, just go about our daily routines

as if Jesus merely accessorizes our lives? 

If we were to lose what we paid no price to gain,

would we think, “Oh well.  Easy come.  Easy go?” 

Or would we be in a panic, desperate to get it back?

Money—you can’t take it with you.   Lake houses and fancy cars—they’ll get passed on or sold when we leave this earth.  Stocks and bonds and gold and silver will all be left behind.  But salvation is different.  The martyred missionary to the Auca people in Ecuador, Jim Elliot (1927-1956), said it this way,

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”

Do you view the Kingdom as that kind of treasure?

Matthew 13:33 He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.”

Baking homemade bread is kind of a lost art.  Even with the advent of bread machines (like the one I bought at a Christian thrift store), bread baking doesn’t mean today what it would have meant to those hearing Jesus’ parable.  Bread was a staple and baking bread was a daily occurrence.

Many kids grow up these days not even knowing what yeast dough smells like or the way the dough ball grows and puffs.  One of my fondest memories was when my grandmother would come to visit and would bake homemade bread.  There is no better sensory experience to communicate home and hearth than bread…made from scratch.

I love baking bread.  I love the feel of warm yeast dough as it rises.  I love how it’s heavy and yet, in another sense, very light.  What’s heavy is the flour and the water and depending on the recipe, sometimes eggs or butter.  What’s light is the air created by yeast, Click the yeast article to see how it works.

Here’s something you didn’t expect in a devotional:  Recipes!

Try these yummy dinner rolls:  http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Sweet-Dinner-Rolls/Detail.aspx?event8=1&prop24=SR_Thumb&e11=cinnamon%20rolls&e8=Quick%20Search&event10=1&e7=Recipe%20Search%20Results

Or these lovely cinnamon rolls…aaaah….so light and fluffy you’ll want to kiss the cook.  Don’t let the picture throw you off.  Just make the dough, fill them, roll them, bake them and they’ll look too good to photograph.  Maybe that’s what happened here–someone kept baking them and then eating them right away before the shutter could snap them in all their beauty.  The recipe is nothing short of amazing.  My son will attest to that.  http://www.food.com/recipeprint.do?rid=50722

Yes, I love to bake.  Yeast, it turns out, can be one of God’s greatest gifts.  It’s a helpful additive to food, but here in our parable (yes, I do have a point), it’s also a wonderful illustration of the Kingdom of Heaven.  What starts out as small and really not all that interesting–it smells funny and it’s brown–yeast, when mixed in with flour and other ingredients does miraculous things.

The Kingdom of Heaven is like yeast.  The yeast of a well-lived Christian life can permeate everything we do and turn something kind of funky into something that seems just like heaven.  Let this yeast work throughout your life and let it yield airy, beautiful, fragrant results…yeah.  Yeast, tiny powerful yeast–that’s what the Kingdom of Heaven is like!