Our Dislike Of Death Bed Conversions or A Total Misunderstanding of Grace

"For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and to them he said, 'You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.' they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, 'Why do you stand here idle all day?' They said to him, 'Because no one has hired us.' He said to them, 'You go into the vineyard too.' And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.' And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, saying, '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.' But he replied to one of them, 'Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?' So the last will be first, and the first last."

To summarize briefly, the master hired workers early in the day and went out later in the day and hired more. Those who worked just a short while received the same day's wage as those who worked the whole day. In Jesus' parable, those who worked the whole day were angry about those who worked just a short while. A direct parallel at the time of writing would be teaching that kingdom of God is open to the Gentiles, as it always was, along with the people of Israel, who had been the people of God for a longer time. A modern parallel would be the people who have grown up in the church their whole life being frustrated with the elderly lady accepting Christ in the last moments of her life. We see jealousy over those who got what they really did not deserve by those who felt they earned it.

Last Sunday I heard a sermon on this parable. The preacher never addressed the source of jealousy. He just shared his own struggle with being jealous over death bed conversions and admitted that his jealousy was wrong. He will work his whole life for the Lord while the person who comes right at the end receives the same blessing; that's frustrating to my friend who preached and to others of a similar mindset. In the frame of worldly reason, that just does not seem fair. I think the source of this frustration is a misunderstanding of two things: the life God has planned for us and God's amazing grace.

When I look back on my years of wandering, I do not look fondly. I do not think those times were great despite the festiveness of the world being exemplified in the way I lived. I look back and wish that I could have been in love with the Lord the whole time. My life in the Lord is much better than that life ever was. I missed out on a lot by wandering aimlessly.

We find ourselves jealous of people in the world when we feel that the people in the world are living a life better than the one we are living in God. When we do not strive to experience God every moment of every day, we often miss out on what God's intention for our life is. Oftentimes we are not living in the joy and peace that God wants us to live in, and our sad, selfish spiritual life creates in us a secret love for the world. Eventually, this secret love, if left uncheck, might morph into indulging those secret loves with the possible cost being our faith. Whether we indulge in it or not, the secret love for the world is only there because we do not experience the Christ-like life to the fullest, the life God has desired for us to live.

When we experience God to the fullest throughout our days, we will not be jealous of the people that come late in life and receive the same eternal reward as we receive because we know that the time we spent working for the Lord is also a great reward. We were happy to work because we love the privilege of being a follower of Christ. And we should be overjoyed, like the Lord becomes, to have more workers no matter what stage of life the new worker is in.

After the sermon, I went over and talked to my friend about what I just shared here. An elderly lady was there and she shared, "If you have a giant cup and it is full, you will be just as happy as those who have a small cup and it is full." She was implying that those who are faithful all day will have a giant cup while those who are faithful just a short while will only have a small cup. This idea that she will be rewarded more in heaven for her life of work compared to the reward a recent convert would receive is a complete misunderstanding of grace. What she fails to see is that her works are not what makes her right with God. Her works are, in themselves, a blessing from God. We are privileged to be involved in his work. She is only right with God because God is infinitely graceful despite our failings. Our misunderstanding of the grace of God and an overestimation of our righteousness is what leads us to think we are more deserving than others. None of us are more deserving. It is only by grace that we spiritually breathe.

If we live in the realization that our life in Christ is a better life than the other lives we could be leading and that our life in Christ is solely available through the grace of God, then we will not be jealous of people who come late in life and lived the way they wanted nor think that our reward will be greater than them because of our life of service. May we live life to the fullest in the grace and love that Christ shares with us.

Grace Hit Me

I would like to share some quotes from an adulterer, murderer, and denier of Christ.

"The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake." - The Adulterer

"I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." - The Murderer

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time." - The Denier

It amazes me how legalistic we can be at times. I remember a conversation with another Christian in which they would not want someone who ever looked at porn to be in a pulpit. They would leave the church. If applied to its logical conclusion, this sort of legalism would prevent David, Paul, or Peter from preaching in our churches. This is kind of ironic since most churches read something written by one of those guys every week. A legalistic test of morality to a current leader's past is pretty silly since the same legalistic test would eliminate much of Scripture.

The grace of God amazes me, and we need to be open to that grace in those around us. That person that seems most likely to do anything for the kingdom because of their tarnished past might just be the person who God will use to change your church. God has a history of working in that way. God is full of grace, and for that I am most thankful.

Graceful Quote

From Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment:

“At the last Judgment Christ will say to us, ‘Come, you also! Come drunkards! Come, weaklings! Come children of shame!’ And he will say to us: ‘Vile beings, you who are in the image of the beast and bear his mark, but all the same, you as well.’
And the wise and prudent will say, ‘Lord, why do you welcome them?’
And he will say: ‘If I welcome them, you wise men, if I welcome them, you prudent men, it is because not one of them has ever been judged worthy.’
And he will stretch out his arms, and we will fall at His feet, and we will cry out sobbing, and then we will understand all, we will understand the Gospel of grace! Lord, your kingdom come!”