Matthew chapters 21 and 22 contain three parables about God's rejection of the Jewish leaders of Christ's day. All three parables basically say the same thing. The point is that these elite Jews assume God favors them for salvation because of things like birthright and external morality, when in fact God cares very little about these things. What God cares about are those who humbly turn to believe in his Son, Jesus Christ. The people he ends up accepting therefore, are Jews, and even Gentiles,that see themselves as only accepted by the mercy and salvation found in Christ.
The parables are:
The parable of the two sons
The parable of the vineyard workers
The parable of the wedding feast
The parables bring out different aspects of why God rejects those that seem (in one way of looking at it) chosen and fit to inherit the kingdom. They also bring out with small hints why God accepts the less likely group to inherit salvation. At the core of these two truths is the fact that God delights to save sinners, not the righteous.
That God saves sinners only is a fact that most believers know well from the time of their conversion. However, there is an application often left unapplied. And this is what I’m getting at: we need to be continually reminded to give conscious thought toward who we are reaching out to and praying for. If we don’t, we may find ourselves laboring to save those that Christ wrote off. Surely this has been true in my own life. Unless I'm continually examining my efforts and prayers afresh I can spend a lot of time wrangling with lost religious people, when I probably ought to be looking for opportunities to share with a less informed and less refined group of unbelievers. Let’s face it, there are many lost religious people who are more than willing to talk about Christianity, yet never take one step toward the true form of it. I don’t think we should focus our efforts on these people.
Think about what Christ himself actually said. “I didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” This really really hit me the other day. It was like, WHAM! “I didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. … I didn’t call the righteous, John, why should you?”
All of this means that to a real degree Christ’s ministry could be seen as ignoring these “righteous” people, and even when they did get attention it was public denunciation. Should we not then follow his steps in our day and age? What does it mean for us to not waste our efforts on the lost religious?
Rather, than come up with some rule that bans all witnessing to religious people (for surely there are some appropriate situations), all I would advocate here is that we instead try focus on the people that are more known as sinners, and biblically illiterate. I think it was William Booth that said, "Go for sinners, and go for the worst!" We should be sowing our seeds of light in fields that are dark and gloomy. God, bring me some people whose lives are dark and gloomy; or if need be, send me to them. These are the people to which I want to be a witness.
God gets much glory out of saving the worst of sinners. In fact, according to Matthew 21:32, even outsiders that observe the conversion of a reputed sinner are brought into that much more accountability to get right with God themselves. This seems to be because God displays special transforming grace when he saves these people. Not only do I want to see that kind of grace poured out, but I have a feeling it is in ministering to those who have less light, that God will be more pleased to save.
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Please don't get me wrong, I'm not saying to stop praying for your family and coworkers if they are the “lost but confident” religious types. We are to share with all we find (22:10). I'm simply saying there is a principle in these verses we would do well to purposefully implement in our lives. For those that we are bound to be around on a long term basis, like coworkers and relatives, don't give up on them. However, when the choice is up to us, we should hunger and thirst for opportunities to share with the irreligious and reputedly sinful.
