Grace and Fairness

Grace is getting what you don’t deserve. Fairness is getting what you do deserve. If you have been brought up as a Christian you know a lot about the word grace. You know that the Bible teaches we are saved by grace, which specifically means God forgives our sins because of Jesus’ death on the cross. Being saved by grace means getting to heaven is a gift we receive, not something we earn. Throughout the years we are told to appreciate grace as God’s most important blessing to humanity. And most of the time we humbly acknowledge this.

But we have moments of doubt. There are things Jesus said which make us wonder about grace. One example is a story Jesus told about workers in a vineyard. On a certain day, some men worked 12 hours, some worked 10, some worked 6 and some only put in an hour’s worth of labor, yet all of them received the same pay! The story Jesus told wasn’t about pay scales, it was about grace. He was teaching people that it doesn’t matter how long a person is a Christian or how much work he/she has done in the service of Christ, in the end, those who have received grace go to the same place – heaven.

We all like the story of the thief on the cross converting in the last moments of his life and hearing Jesus’ words, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” But it also leaves us a little uncomfortable, like the story of the workers in the vineyard. We don’t like to admit it, but some of us might feel a little resentful about “being good” all our lives and then getting the same reward as some folks who had all the fun and then suddenly had a “God experience” at the end and snuck their way into heaven. That just doesn’t seem fair! Or, maybe we don’t really understand grace as well as we think.

Join us for worship Saturday or Sunday. You might find grace is much more than you ever imagined.

Saturday evening worship: 6:00 pm
Sunday morning worship: 10:00 am