Day 17: He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. Psalm 103:10-12
Noah got drunk. Abraham gave his wife to the Pharaoh to be one of his wives. Jacob tricked his father-in-law out of a fortune. Moses murdered a man. Gideon set up an idol. David got a woman pregnant and had her husband killed. Paul persecuted the church. Our heroes of faith were sinners just like us, yet God used them to build up His church.
God’s mercy is vast. Yet sometimes it makes us uncomfortable. One of the most beautiful of God’s truths is one of the most difficult for us to accept. People have a very difficult time accepting the fact that God wants everyone to repent — even those who destroy families and beat women and rape and murder children.
In the “Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard” Jesus tells the story of a man who hired workers throughout the day. Some worked twelve hours. Others worked for nine, six, or three hours. Some of them even worked for just one hour. At the end of the day, he paid all of the workers exactly the same — a full day’s wage. I’m sure those who worked only one or three hours were thrilled. However, the people who worked all twelve hours were irate.
And in our world they had every right to be irate. It would be completely unfair to pay everyone exactly the same. Perhaps the ones who worked all day deserved only the full day’s wage, but the ones who only worked for an hour? Of course not! A person in our world would not have a successful business if this was how he or she chose to run it.
Thankfully, this is not how things work in the Kingdom of God. He does not treat us as our sins deserve. He is generous with His mercy. We sinners need that. None of us can meet the criteria for getting into heaven on our own. The only person who deserves eternal life with God is the one who can keep His commandments perfectly. No matter how good we think we are, we are not perfect.
Our jealousy regarding God’s mercy points to our sin of pride — the sin that started all of this in the first place. We really want to believe that we are good enough for God. We may even want to believe that we are as good as God. Part of us wants the satisfaction of believing that we do deserve heaven, at least a little bit, at least more than someone else we know who does worse things than we do. This thought makes us feel better than the “I am a poor miserable sinner” stuff.
Jesus died for our sin of pride as well as all of our other sins. We have been forgiven of all of it. Now we get to take that message of God’s forgiveness and mercy, of His generous love, and share it with those who are hurting from the guilt of their sins and with those who don’t yet realize they are in need of God’s mercy.
Bible Readings: Psalm 103, Matthew 20:1-16, Ephesians 3:14-21
Immanuel Lutheran Church 