 Is God fair? In short, no. The question as to whether God is fair really boils down to our perspective as opposed to God's perspective. We look at things from the standpoint of what we received or what others have received or what's going on in other people's lives. So, think about this. Someone is born here in the United States. Another person is born in Yemen. You don't have to be from Yemen to know that the United States is far better to live in than Yemen or some war-torn country. Through no fault of their own, they were just born in an impoverished state or some place where there is just civil unrest. Some people were born wealthy, some were born poor. Some people hit the genetic lottery while others did not. All of my brothers are taller than me. That's not fair. However, I'm much better looking. That's not fair to them. Some people were born on this side of the border, whereas others were born on that side of the border. That's not fair. Some people live in a place where there's famine and drought. That's not fair. So, the things that we can control, maybe we wouldn't have a problem, but so many things that happen to us that are out of our control that are in God's hands. Well, what's up with that guy? How God responds and how he deals with us sometimes can be a little bit confusing. There are some things that if we were to do that God does, somebody might want to call us a jerk, right? Think about this. Uza, who was simply trying to make sure that the Ark doesn't fall to the ground, stuck his hand out and touched it to keep it from falling and God killed him. Well, you disobeyed God. Yeah, God, but I'm trying to protect the Ark. That's not fair. Job's kids, part of some heavenly discussion about how Job is going to respond, are toyed with and are killed just to prove a point. For the kids of Job, that's not fair. Or what about Aiken's family? Yeah, Aiken, you stole and you hid the treasure. And so, yeah, it was fair for you to die, but his wife, his children, even the animals, it's not fair. Jesus walks through the crowd. Presumably, a lot of people there need healing, need a blessing, and he heals one person. Is that fair? He can raise anyone whom he wants to from the dead, but he only raises Lazarus or this child here. What about the rest of them? Is that fair to their parents? As I said before, oftentimes we look at things from the standpoint of our own perspective rather than God. But the Bible says that his ways are far above ours. His thoughts are far above ours. They're not like ours. And so we look at things from our humanly finite perspective, our fallible perspective, rather than from his infant perspective. He is God, and so he knows, because he has a bird's eye view, he knows what's going to happen. Remember, God is omnipresent, right? That means that he's everywhere at the same time. That's just not relegating him to just this time. He's everywhere in the future, as well as the past, also in the present. So the question is, do we trust God? The Bible says this, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And we know that there is no injustice with God. So there are times where he does things that are beyond our scope, our understanding, and certainly beyond our control and are not in keeping with what we would do. But then again, there are a lot of things that we would do that we might think are fair, but would just cause even more chaos. So is God fair? Well, no, he's not. But he didn't have to be fair. He's just, and I thank God that he's not fair. Was it fair that Christ went to the cross to pay for our debt? The debt that we incurred? No, that wasn't fair. What's fair is that we pay our own sin debt, that we bear our own burden. But he did something that was completely unfair. Fair would be to give us our just desserts. There are some things that God can do that we can't do. And I'm not speaking on ability. I'm speaking upon prerogative and right. I can go and get in the car and start driving. My wife can go and get in the car and start driving. My three oldest children, they're all adults, they can get in the car and start driving. But my youngest child, Bailey, she's 15. If she gets in the car and start driving, we got a problem. Is that fair? Is it fair that just because she hasn't reached a particular age that she can't drive? Well, then have to be fair. It's just right. And because God is right always, there is no injustice in him. So if he decides to, as he says, to have mercy on whom he wants to and harden whom he wants to, if he decides to do whatever he wants to, he is just. From our perspective, maybe not. But from his, yes. Because remember what justice is. Justice is how he looks at us. Not how we look at the situation or how we look at him. Around about the time that I was about 9 or 10, 8, 9, 10, we used to watch Kung Fu on Saturday nights. Me and my brothers and some of our best friends from the neighborhood. Every Saturday night we would watch Kung Fu talk about on Sunday what we saw. But Saturday, we would practice our technique out on each other as it's getting dark, kicking each other in the head, just having fun. Normally at that time, we had to be inside when the street lights came on, right? But on Saturdays, we got to stay out a little bit later so it was as dark, but we were still able to stay outside. One particular Saturday as we're practicing and I'm having fun, I'm kicking my brother in the head for free. My mother calls us, me and my brother Chris, she calls us saying, Chris and Corey, Chris and Corey, time to come on in. Oh, Mama, come on, it's Saturday. You said we can stay out late. No, come on inside. Mama, please, I said come inside. We got our head down, we're upset, complaining. That's not fair. You said that's not fair. That's not fair like kids do, right? And as we were coming inside, we're complaining about our plight, complaining about how unfair she is making statements as I thought underneath my breath, but not enough. I can't stand her. She makes me sick. That's not fair. Well, my head is down and we live in these apartments where you have to walk upstairs to the door. And so as we're walking upstairs, I didn't pay attention to her standing at the top, listening. And she said, uh-huh, I'll make you sick, huh? And so what was I to do? What I could do, blame my brother. Chris said it. We get inside, said get your stuff, get your jacket and go get in the car. Mama, come on, can we please stay? Miss Judy can watch us or somebody else can watch us while you go and come back? No, get your stuff and get in the car like I said. Come on, Mama, please, Mama. It's not fair. You get your stuff and get in the car. So we get in the car. Well, little did we know what was in store for us back in those days. This is the 70s. And so you didn't have a fast food joint on every other corn like you do today. And we certainly didn't go to and eat fast food often times. If we went to a McDonald's or something like that, maybe once a year, maybe twice a year if we were really lucky. But this night, she has something in store for us. She took us to White Castle. White Castle has the taste that some people won't live without. Now, White Castle back in the day, that was my spot. And so she took us to White Castle. She got us about, I don't know, about 20, 30 different burgers. It'll be tiny burgers for, I think they were like 20 something cents, 30 cents at the time. And so we come back from White Castle. We sit down in front of the TV and there's a movie. I forgot what the movie was, but it was a movie that we wanted to see. And then after the movie went off, then Kung Fu came on. We had a wonderful time. We were complaining about what's not fair because the other kids got to stay out late and play, but not us. But in the end, though, we didn't know what Mama was doing, complaining how unfair she was, what she had in store was far better than what we could have imagined and was certainly better off for us than it was the other kids. So I thank God that Mama wasn't fair. I thank God that she was good and loving. More to the point and even more so, I thank God that he's not fair, but he's just, he's loving. He's awesome. Amen.