Is God Fair?

Is God fair? It seems that this should be an easy question to answer, but bear with me for a moment before you respond with a resounding yes, and let me ask another question. Have you always felt like God was fair to you? Think about that for a second while I explain this concept of “fair.”

The easiest way to illustrate what is fair is by using sports, and since March Madness just finished up, we will look at basketball as an example. 

In basketball, each team has five players on the court at a time, the court is ninety-four feet long and fifty feet wide, baskets are worth two or three points, and the team with the most points when time expires wins. There are several other rules that apply to each team, but you get the point, each team plays by the same rules so that the better team will be declared the winner. 

As humans, we are in love when things are fair, it is to the point that when the only subjective part of sports, officiating, decides the outcome of a game we spend our whole next week talking about it. (I still think Super Bowl 50 was a setup)

By its definition, “fair” equals good and right, and God is good and God is right so God must be fair, right? Let’s go back to that earlier question, have you always felt like God was fair to you? You probably want to say yes because you feel like that is the right answer, but perhaps you feel like He has not been fair to you. You struggle while others succeed. You work hard but never get noticed. You pray but it seems like it stops at the ceiling while others are sharing stories of God’s answered prayer day after day. Is God fair?

This isn’t a new question,, Jesus was asked by one of His disciples, “We’ve given up everything to follow You. What will we get?” Jesus responds, in typical Jesus fashion, by telling a story. (Matthew 19:27)

He says that in the morning a landowner goes out to hire some people to work his fields, and he will pay them what is right at the end of the day, they agree and start working. This man did the same thing at noon, three, and even at five in the evening. 

When it came time to pay everyone, he started by paying the workers he hired at five in the evening first and gave them a full day’s wage though they only worked a few hours. These guys were thrilled, obviously, and ran around telling the other guys. So by the time the people he hired in the morning got to the front of the line to get their money, they expected to get paid more. 

Let’s hit pause for a second. Would you expect to get paid more? I would. I’ll be honest, the first time I read this story I was expecting Jesus to say, “And those first guys, the ones that had worked hard all day, they got ten times what they agreed to.” They expected to get paid more, and I would be right there with them.

Do you know that the biggest cause of disappointment in life is unmet expectations? Whether it’s from God, friends, our pastor, teacher, spouse, whoever, unmet expectations cause disappointment. Think about it, if your grandma gives you $100 for Christmas every year, and one year gave you $50 you would be disappointed, but if your Uncle, who gives you nothing, gave you $20, you would be thrilled. Why? Expectations. 

Ok, back to our story, these guys expect to get paid more, so what happens to them? They get paid the same as everyone else and they are disappointed. They thought they should get more, but they don’t, so how does the landowner respond? He says, “Friend, I haven’t been unfair! Didn’t you agree to work all day for the usual wage?” 

This landowner, representing God in the story, says he has not been unfair, but paying the workers who only were in the fields a few hours the same as the ones who worked all day seems kind of unfair. So what happened? Why did it look like he was unfair? And why does it seem like God is unfair to us at times? Let’s keep looking at our story.

The landowner goes on to say this, “Should you be jealous because I am kind to others?” The word used here for “kind” is the Greek word Agathos and it is the same word that Jesus uses a chapter earlier when He says, “There is only One who is good” refering to God.

You see the reality is God is good, but His goodness often distorts our perspective on what fair is.

I don’t know about you, but I really don’t want God to be fair to me. If He is fair then that means that I have to pay for my own sins, and Romans tells me that the payment for sin is death, but it goes on to say that the gift of God is eternal life. 

I’m afraid that by fixing our focus on what is fair we miss how incredibly good God is and has been throughout our lives. 

So is God fair? The answer is yes, but He is also really good, and as I look back through my life I see God being good far more than He is fair. I’d be willing to imagine the same is true for you if you think about it. 

So this week when something happens to you and you don’t think it’s fair, pause, take a deep breath, and remember all the times that God has been really good to you and allow that to shape your perspective.

Garrett

**Story: Matthew 20:1-16**