But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. | Romans 6:22–23
On Sunday, we looked at the Genesis 39 to answer the question: IS LIFE FAIR? In the sermon, I focused on the numerous forces that act on our life, why we experience injustice, and how we can have hope in a world that is continually unfair. I acknowledged that life isn’t fair and then tried to give some background to why that is. I started from the premise that we all expereince injustice, but there is another way to answer that question, and that is: to reframe what fair and unfair even means.
In my house growing up, the declaration: that’s not fair, was answered with: if life were fair, we’d all be going to Hell. I am pretty sure that my father was passing along the lesson that he had learned from his father. What this simple quip reminds us, is that sin puts us in opposition to God. What we deserve is the wrath of the Creator for dishonoring Him and His creation. We don’t feel like we deserve this; logically, it is hard for us to comprehend that we really DO deserve this. The Bible tells us that our sin has earned us punishment; that we now deserve the wages of sin.
This redefines fair for us, because we usually begin conversation of justice and injustice as if we exist in a neutral territory. As long as we do more good that bad, things should go well. The Bible describes sin as a huge handicap, a great hole that we have dug. What would be fair, is for God to give us the judgement we deserve. If God were merely fair, we’d all be going to Hell. This moves the line. Anything good that we have, anything we get to enjoy, is the grace of God. His blessings are not confined to the times that we really feel #blessed. He gives grace upon grace, so that the underlying grace is not even recognized anymore.
When we accept: if life were fair, we’d all be going to Hell, then we can begin to see how unfair our life really is. We get so much that we do not deserve. The many graces of this life are merely a taste of the perfection that God promises is awaiting those who recognize their sin and put their hope in Him. We think we want fair, but grace is so much better than fair. I am thankful that we have a God who is able to balance mercy and justice (Exodus 34:6-7) in a way that assures that all sin is dealt with but still allows sinners to be redeemed!