God really is patient with me

One day Jesus was teaching in the temple and among those listening were some priests and Phaisees. And Jesus told a parable that offended them, so much so that they began looking for a way to arrest Jesus. You see, the parable Jesus told was about God’s judgement upon the priests and Pharisees and it angered them. But it is interesting when you look at the parable closely you will see that though it ends in judgement, the parable really illustrates God’s patience, persistence, and sacrificial love.

The parable is found in Matthew 21:33-41
The parable starts out with a landowner (God) who rents out a vineyard which he planted and built with his own hands. When harvest time came he sent servants to collect what belonged to him, his share of the fruit. But it says those living on the land:
Beat one
Killed another
And stoned a third

Note from vs. 41 that the landowner, from the very beginning, had the power to forcibly remove the tenants from the land but he chose not to. Instead he demonstrates patience and forbearance and sends even more servants than the first time. And we are told that the tenants treated these servants the same as the first group.
You would think that at this point the tenants have thoroughly demonstrated that they are wicked, greedy, and murderers and that the landowner (God) should just destroy them and wipe them off of his land. But no, his love and desire for them is overwhelming and he sends his son, hoping that they will respect and listen to him.
But the tenants take him outside the vineyard and kill him.
Now, it is somewhat easy to listen to this parable and pass our own judgement on those priests and Pharisees. From where we sit today it is pretty plain that God was reaching out to them over and over, even after they proved themselves to be sinners and it was they who rejected God.
But listen to these verses in Romans 5:6-8:

“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possible dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Each one of us is a tenant in God’s vineyard. And each one of us has proven ourselves to be wicked, greedy, and murderers. Yet God in his patience, persistence, and sacrificial love has reached out to us through his son, who he sent into this world