Grace Alone

In the past six years since I became an avid road cyclist, July has become my favorite month of the year. Before moving to Texas it was usually the month in which I got more miles on the bike than any other. But that's not the reason it's my favorite. July is almost fully consumed by the Tour de France. This year it begins July 3 and ends July 25, and I try to watch it every day (if at all possible).

Bike racing is not particularly exciting, unless you are a cyclist. Then you understand what these men do. They ride every day for three weeks (with just two rest days) at an average of about 25 mph for about a hundred miles per day. During this time they will spend six days in the high mountains, climbing thousands of feet each day. You can only appreciate what it takes to complete such a race if you are a cyclist yourself, and have ridden your bike more than a hundred miles in a single day, or climbed a high mountain on your bike. Then, you can begin (and only begin) to appreciate how difficult the Tour is.

The goal of most professional cyclists is simply to complete the Tour successfully at some point in their career. Only a handful have realistic hopes of winning the Tour. A few will be able to dream of winning a stage (one day of racing). For most, the best they can hope for is to become a "super domestic" (or teammate) for a real GC (General Category) contender. If they are able to help their teammate to the overall win of the Tour de France, the financial rewards will be significant, because every GC winner shares his prize with his teammates.

At a celebratory dinner on the night the race ends the winning team dines in style and converses joyfully about the great moments in which the race was won. Envelopes are handed out to each team member by the GC winner with a portion of the prize. Naturally the amounts vary, depending on how much the individual team member contributed to the win.

What do you suppose the teammates' reaction would be if the envelopes were passed out and everyone got the same amount? Or worse yet, suppose the winner passed out envelopes to every rider in the Tour (regardless of which team they rode for) with equal amounts. What do you suppose the super domestics' reaction would be?

It would probably be much like the workers in the vineyard who had labored hard all day under the burning sun and received the same amount from the owner of the vineyard as the workers who worked only one hour at the end of the day. Matthew 20:11-12 says: "When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 'These men who were hired last worked only one hour,' they said, 'and you have made them equal to us.'"

What Jesus was trying to teach us is that God doesn't owe us anything. We cannot earn salvation by our hard work. We can never be worthy of spending eternity in the presence of God, considering our sinfulness. So God's gift of salvation is just that. It's a gift, by grace alone. He doesn't owe it to us. We don't deserve it. We didn't earn it. But out of His goodness, God gives it to us anyway.

The Bible tells us that there will be rewards in heaven, for those who have served God faithfully here on earth. It also makes clear that those rewards will vary. However, none of us will be jealous of another. Nor will we question the size of our reward, or anyone else's. Because then we will understand that these are rewards of grace. God doesn't owe it to us. He gives it freely. And we will receive it gratefully and joyfully, knowing that the only One who deserves the glory He receives in eternity is Jesus, who earned salvation for us all.