Ha! It's Not About You!

(texts: Exodus 16:2-15; Matthew 20:1-16; Philippians 1:21-30)

Everywhere you look these days you see the message, “It’s all about you!”  It’s all about what YOU want, it’s all about YOUR desires, and it’s all about YOUR interests.  I think this started way back in the day when Burger King advertised that they would make their Whopper burgers just the way you like it.  BK was the place where you could have it your way.  As a kid I was completely sold on this idea of having it your way because I didn’t like tomatoes and onions on my Whopper.  I learned that you could get your Whopper with cheese, hold the onions and hold the tomatoes.  I learned at an early age that, well, it was all about me.

Nowadays we can customize what we purchase to our liking and even change it after awhile if we grow tired of our choice.  With the development and popularity of the mobile phone, many of us got tired of the same old ring.  The one ring tone is no longer good enough for us.  We want choices.  So mobile phones came with a range of sounds and tunes to set us uniquely apart from other phones.  Well, now the list of sounds and tunes built into the phone itself isn’t sufficient for us anymore.  So now we can contact our mobile phone carrier and buy our own ring tones.  From Bach to Bon Jovi, from theme for Hawaii Five-0 to Beverly Hills 90210, from Casablanca to Chicago, you can buy any ring tone you want for your mobile phone.  With our mobile phones and with just mobile phone technology itself, it’s all about you. 

I have also seen this with a new line of cars from Toyota called Scion.  From what I understand about how buying a Scion works, after you decide which one of the three model options you want, you can customize it with a vast array of options.  It’s amazing!  And it’s quite affordable believe it or not. 

Last week the Muhlenberg College Alumni office sent me an email stating that I can set up my own customized web page through the college web site.  It’s called MyMuhlenberg.  I can put any information and pictures I want on my own special page so I can share whatever I want with fellow alums.  Wow, my own web page!  Once again, it’s all about me.  It’s all about you.

There was a group of people in the Bible who thought it was all about them.  The Israelites, under the leadership of Moses and Aaron and of course the Lord, escaped from slavery in Egypt and crossed the Red Sea with God’s mighty hand.  They have traveled for about a month when they come to the wilderness of Sin.  There is nothing there for them to eat and they are hungry, so they complain to Moses and Aaron about the situation.  It’s all about them and their needs.  Don’t they remember?  Did they forget about God’s mighty deeds?  For they cry out they want to go back to their days as slaves in Egypt where they had plenty to eat and drink and were fairly comfortable besides the fact they were whipped, beaten and enslaved to do the Pharaoh’s bidding.  The Israelites are fickle and forget what God has done for them.  They can’t see the big picture.  They are unable to look beyond their own selves and simply trust in God.  They only trust what they think they know and remember from “the Good Old Days”.  What the Israelites failed to see was that it’s not all about them, it’s about God.

Despite their short-sightedness and in response to their complaint, God meets their needs.  God is not stingy with his people, for God is a generous God, a giving God, and a gracious God.  God provides them with quail to eat and bread or manna from heaven to eat each morning. 

Our God is a sovereign God.  God is powerful, creative, and decisively-present in all creation.  God is the creator and master of the universe.  Everything we have, everything we were, are and will be as creatures of the Most High God is freely given to us from God.  And because the God of the universe is sovereign, we are completely and utterly dependent on God for our abilities, our gifts, our every breath, and our entire lives.  And what God is testing and teaching the Israelites and us, too, is that they are alive and exist because of the almighty power and gracious, generous, loving hands of the one who brought them out of the land of Egypt from slavery to freedom.

Unless I’ve missed my guess, there is someone here today who is trying to do it all, trying to be all things to all people, striving for perfection and constantly falling short, and doing so all on their own.  Is there someone here today who thinks it’s all about them?  Is there someone here today who perhaps is looking for some help, some strength, some healing, some grace, some relief?

Our God is sovereign and generous.  He meets our needs not our greeds.  The laborers in the vineyard learned this the hard way, for they too lived their lives as though it were all about them.  Jesus tells our story in Matthew in an effort to describe to us what the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God is like.  The owner of a vineyard hired workers for his vineyard one day at five different times throughout the day.  He agreed to pay all of them the usual daily wage or “whatever is right”.  In those days the usual daily wage for a day laborer was a silver coin or a denarius.  A denarius was about enough to feed a large peasant family for one day.  So peasant families are completely dependent on wealthy landowners for work and wages to survive from day to day.  No matter how hard or long the laborers work, everyone is getting the same deal.

Now hold on a minute!  That’s not fair, is it?  Any lawyer can tell you this landowner is guilty of unlawful labor practices.  It’s not right to pay the same wage to someone who worked 12 hours as someone who worked only one.  It just doesn’t add up, does it?  And the laborers who worked all day didn’t think so either, so they took up this issue with the landowner.  Did you catch what the laborers said?  Here it is again,

“These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” 

Made them equal to us, they said.  What does this say about who God is?  We know God is sovereign and God is generous, but now we know that God is impartial and gracious.  Like God, the landowner chose to treat all the laborers equally.  He shows no impartiality and demonstrates what amazing grace is all about.  The Grace of God is always amazing.  It can’t be calculated or expected.  If it could, it wouldn’t be grace to begin with.  So in the eyes of God, through his loving and gracious and impartial eyes, God places each of us on equal footing.  It’s not about you, it’s not about me.  It’s about all of us united as one body, one community of faith under God in Christ Jesus.

The Apostle Paul expounded on this in his letter to the Philippians.  He says,

“Live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that…I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel…” 

What Paul is saying to the Philippians and to us is that because God has given us everything and blessed us beyond measure, our response requires that we move our focus off of ourselves and focus on God.  It’s not about you and it’s not about me.  It’s about God in Christ Jesus and showing the world what it’s all about.  Through joys and sorrows, we are to live together, striving side by side with one another with one mind, one focus, and one faith.

Whether we live or whether we die, we belong to God.  We are absolutely, positively dependent upon God for everything.  The Israelites didn’t get it.  They didn’t understand.  One minute they’re praising God for delivering them from Egyptian army and the next they are complaining against him.  They didn’t get it.  The laborers in the vineyard didn’t understand it either.  The first shall be last and the last shall be first puts all of us on equal footing with God so we may experience God’s grace together.

It’s not about you.  It’s not about me.  It’s all about our sovereign, generous, impartial, gracious and risen Lord.  And a generous, gracious, loving powerful God he is.  For it was the sovereign God of the universe, who created us and gives us life, that met us at our point of greatest need, our sinful nature.  And God in his gracious and loving way, in an extreme effort to show us that it is not about us, that we can not save ourselves from sin, sent us his son Jesus so that we could know the truth of who God is and know who we are meant to be and be set free by it.  In John’s gospel, chapter 3 verse 17 it says, “God sent Jesus his son into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”  It is through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, not our own actions, not our own abilities, not our own intelligence, not our own efforts and not our own work, that we are saved from the bondage of sin and set free to live for Jesus Christ. 

You can’t save yourself on your own.  Ask anybody who has been saved from drowning.  Ask any of the evacuees from New Orleans about what it means to be saved from death and destruction.  Like the Israelites and the laborers, I had to learn this the hard way, too.  In high school I thought I was indestructible.  I thought I knew everything.  I thought that I made such great achievements in high school and college based on my own hard work and effort.  But through my 20s, through various personal life experiences, my parents’ divorce and my grandma’s death from cancer, I realized there is so much out there that is out of my control.  And I’ve come to realize that it’s okay.  I’ve learned that there is more to life than what I can get my hands on, direct and order.  I’ve learned that I need to let go, take my hands off the wheel sometimes, and let God do the driving, for God is the one in control.  God is the one driving this finely-tuned sports car.  I gave him the keys awhile ago and what a crazy, exhilarating, exciting ride it has been and continues to be.  It’s not about you.  It’s not about me.  It’s about God in Christ Jesus.

My friends, we need to allow God to be in control, to save us from ourselves and our sinful nature.  We must be able to push our pride aside and allow grace and forgiveness and love to fill our hearts, minds and souls.  My prayer for each of us and I believe its God’s prayer, too, is this: Live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.  Choose to put your ego aside, let Christ make a home in your heart, and let us work together, striving side by side with one mind in mission and service to one another and to our needy world.  It’s not about you.  It’s about God in Christ Jesus, and He will not let you down or disappoint you.  Amen.

(A sermon preached by the Reverend Scott D. Nowack on September 18, 2005

at Abington Presbyterian Church, Abington, PA.)