If God is just why is life so unfair?
Logically Speaking • Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 49 viewsNotes
Transcript
What Is Justice?
What Is Justice?
The quality of being just; conformity to the principles of righteousness and rectitude in all things; strict performance of moral obligations; practical conformity to human or divine law; integrity in the dealings of men with each other; rectitude; equity; uprightness.
Why is Justice so important?
Why is Justice so important?
A few words to pull from the definition for our purposes.
· Righteousness
· Righteousness
What it means:
What it means:
the quality or state of being righteous. So yea let’s see what that old root word means…characterized by uprightness or morality:
the quality or state of being righteous. So yea let’s see what that old root word means…characterized by uprightness or morality:
What we want it to mean:
What we want it to mean:
A way to prove to myself and others I’m not such a bad person, this comes from people recognizing that “I’m not as bad as some other people I know.”
A way to prove to myself and others I’m not such a bad person, this comes from people recognizing that “I’m not as bad as some other people I know.”
· Integrity
· Integrity
What it means:
What it means:
adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.
adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.
What we want it to mean:
What we want it to mean:
Something that proves to others what a great person we are. A concept we hold onto in order to prove to ourselves and others that we are someone they want to know and are willing to be around and support.
Something that proves to others what a great person we are. A concept we hold onto in order to prove to ourselves and others that we are someone they want to know and are willing to be around and support.
Equity
Equity
What it means:
What it means:
the quality of being fair or impartial; fairness; impartiality
the quality of being fair or impartial; fairness; impartiality
What we want it to mean:
What we want it to mean:
Everyone is treated fairly and the same, as long as that fairness and equal treatment doesn’t really effect my comfort level, quality of life or property value
Everyone is treated fairly and the same, as long as that fairness and equal treatment doesn’t really effect my comfort level, quality of life or property value
One more word to look at
Justification:
Justification:
a reason, fact, circumstance, or explanation that justifies or defends.
a reason, fact, circumstance, or explanation that justifies or defends.
What does fair mean?
What does fair mean?
1. free from bias, dishonesty, or injustice:
2. legitimately sought, pursued, done, given, etc.; proper under the rules:
3. moderately large; ample:
4. neither excellent nor poor; moderately or tolerably good:
5. marked by favoring conditions; likely; promising:
Making Sense of all that
Making Sense of all that
Having defined all the terms we still need to understand a few things about Justice, God, and Fairness.
1. God is Just, we are not.
1. God is Just, we are not.
2. We don’t want to be treated fairly when it comes to our relationship with God.
2. We don’t want to be treated fairly when it comes to our relationship with God.
The kid in the news story was not being treated fairly by his classmates, or his parents. It isn’t fair for a kid to have to deal with or understand why his “friends” don’t want to come or worse yet his friends parents, don’t want to have their kids around him. It’s not fair that he has had to have several brain surgeries, it’s not fair that he sat around all day waiting for people to come, especially the ones that said yes only to have them not show up. I’m pretty sure that when you watched that you had the same reaction that I did. Possibly, anger, a little bi of self righteousness,, a desire to find out who some of those people were and make them feel shame, kind of like that grandma did.
Looking into our world today there are countless examples of people being treated unfairly, of justice being withheld or worse yet not even considered.
Life is unfair but why?
Life is unfair but why?
The answer is pretty simple.
Humanity spend a vast majority of it’s time working so hard at self justification and being the interpreters of what’s fair and what’s not fair.
God turns that on it’s head and tells us exactly what he requires.
Mankind, He has told you what is good
and what it is the Lord requires of you:
to act justly,
to love faithfulness,
and to walk humbly with your God.
This one verse in defines what it means to meet the requirements of true justification…
1. Act Justly,
1. Act Justly,
2. Love faithfulness
2. Love faithfulness
3. Walk Humbly with God…
3. Walk Humbly with God…
If we want life to be fair we just have to do these three things..
1. Acting justly happens when I stop trying to make excuses and start taking responsibility for my actions.
2. Loving faithfulness happens when I do the right thing regardless of the consequences.
3. Walking humbly with God happens when I look honestly at what it is that justifies me, and stop trying to get there on my own. This one is big because it is in this space that I set aside my well thought out and reasoned understanding of what a relationship with God and Humanity is, when I stop working so hard at being good enough, and realize that instead of God looking at me an treating me fairly, at giving me my just reward, he treats me as a son or daughter whom he loves. A son or daughter that messes up and messes up and messes up but that comes back time and again asking for forgiveness, asking for help, recognizing the brokenness that has become my life and the fact that the only one that can fix that brokenness is the one who made me in the first place.
This Week’s Challenge
This Week’s Challenge
Stop holding yourself and others to an impossible standard that you will never reach. Instead live and move and have your being in the grace that comes from a God that loves you and doesn’t treat you fairly!