Our Deferred Payment

The Dodgers and Our Heavenly Reward

The Dodgers are ruining baseball. At least for next year.

I was trained like every good red-blooded American to hate the New York Yankees, and as a Braves fan, I have nothing but animosity in my heart toward the Mets and Phillies. (As a Christian, I want to be clear: this is directed at the idea of them and not any individual player, fan, or coach.)

Yet it is none of these foul teams that are currently on the verge of destroying my favorite sport. I believe the culprit behind it is a tactic that, for the last several decades, has been a running joke of the sport.

Photo by Dez Hester @DezHester on Unsplash

Deferred Payments

The most famous case of deferred payments was that of Bobby Bonilla, who every year on July 1 was paid $1,193,248.20 by the New York Mets, despite the fact that he has been retired for 25 years and has not played for the Mets since 1999. Every year this was met with laughter, “Why are the Met’s still paying this guy?”

The Dodgers currently have $1.1 billion in deferred payments. This is intended to help players skirt the current tax problems and allow the organization the opportunity to essentially save that money and pay it out later. I don’t know the Dodgers’ long-term plan or the ins and outs of how this will work financially, but it has enabled them to essentially purchase the very best players the very second they become available.

As a baseball fan, I fear that this will inevitably lead to another lockout and less baseball next season. As a Christian, it has caused me to reflect on the concept itself and reminded me of my own destiny.

Deferred payments essentially are a promise that the work that you are doing now will be paid out later. Most of us understand this concept. Our banks do not automatically start filling up the moment we clock in at work. We typically wait until the end of the week, two weeks, or month and get paid in one lump sum for the time worked. We do the work with the promise of the reward. We trust that our payment will arrive. Yet the longer you have to agree to wait, the greater the trust has to be.

The MLB Collective Bargaining Agreement allows teams and players to agree to significant deferred compensation, but the money does not necessarily have to be sitting in an account waiting to be paid. This means that while the promise made is contractually binding, the future payment still depends upon the organization being able to fulfill that obligation. However, even with that, the value of the dollar is not guaranteed, and the stability of the market and government to enforce these contracts must be trusted.

Our Deferred Payments

As Christians, the Scriptures promise us a great deal, including not only the forgiveness of sins, adoption into the family, justification, sanctification, glorification, and so much more. Yet, on top of all of that, we are promised rewards. Just look at a handful of these verses.

Matthew 6:19–21 (ESV)

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in or steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Luke 14:13–14 (ESV)

“But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

Colossians 3:23–24 (ESV)

“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.”

The Bible is clear that we are not working to earn our place in heaven. We know that our salvation is “by grace” and “through faith.” Yet this does not preclude God from giving us the rewards promised to us in His new creation.

As a father, there is nothing my children had to do to be my children. But as a good father, when I make a promise to them, I attempt to keep it. I reward them and rejoice in giving the rewards to them. If I tell them that if they help pick up the floor, we can have ice cream, and they do not pick up the floor, it does not mean that they immediately stop being my sons. If they do pick up their toys, they have not earned being my children; rather, they have worked for the reward.

Trusting the Promiser

This is where I think the comparison between deferred payments and the Christian life gets really interesting.

The longer the payment is deferred, the more we have to trust the one who made the promise. When we get paid at the end of the week, we don’t spend much time worrying about whether our employer is going to pay us. We have probably seen the money hit our account dozens or hundreds of times before. But when the payment is pushed years or even decades into the future, the promise requires a greater measure of trust.

This is why the Dodgers can offer a player an enormous amount of money that he will not receive for years. The player is trusting that the Dodgers will still be there, that the contract will still be honored, and that the money will still be worth something when it finally arrives.

But the Christian’s deferred payment is different.

We are trusting in a God who does not change. We are trusting in a God who cannot lie. We are trusting in a God who has never broken a promise and who cannot fail to fulfill the promises He has made to His children.

Hebrews 10:23 tells us, “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.”

Our confidence is not ultimately found in the reward itself. Our confidence is found in the One who promised the reward.

God has promised us an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. He has promised resurrection. He has promised glorification. He has promised that we will be with Christ. He has promised that death will be defeated. He has promised a new heavens and a new earth. He has promised rewards for faithfulness.

And we wait.

Waiting for the Reward

The immediacy of the reward is not the motivator of the Dodgers who are playing right now. They are sacrificing their current payment to enable their team to have the best ability to go get other good players and win right now.

As believers, we sacrifice our current rewards that this world has to offer for glory far beyond championships, but the glory of our heavenly Father.

We give because we know there is a greater treasure. We endure because we know there is a greater reward. We suffer because we know there is a glory that far outweighs the suffering of this present age. We refuse the temporary pleasures of sin because we believe that what God has promised us is better.

The Dodgers are willing to wait for their money because they believe the promise is worth waiting for. How much more should we be willing to wait when the One who made our promise is God Himself?

The Dodgers can win a World Series. They can collect championships, trophies, and millions of dollars. But eventually every one of those things will pass away. Our reward will not. The Christian life is, in many ways, a life of deferred payment. We work now. We give now. We suffer now. We endure now. We serve now. And we wait.

But we do not wait because we are uncertain whether God will keep His promise. We wait because we know He will. The payment has been deferred, but the promise has been made.

And He who promised is faithful.