There is nothing in His justice which forbids the exercise of His mercy… Grace is the good pleasure of God that inclines Him to bestow benefits upon the undeserving. -A. W. Tozer
Growing up, my brother and I were constantly comparing what we had to what the other had. Everything needed to be equal and fair. If we happened to not get the same exact amount of dessert, it was the beginnings of World War III! At first, mom or dad would intervene and make things right, but after some time of playing judge and jury they finally resorted to telling us that life isn’t fair and we would just have to deal with it. What is an extra quarter inch of dessert in the grand scheme of life anyways?
Eventually my brother and I outgrew our, “he/she got more than me,” phase. At least that’s what I thought! Lately, though, the Lord has been teaching me that this kind of thinking often occurs among brothers and sisters in Christ, just as it did between my biological brother and I.
If you’ve ever found yourself thinking some of these thoughts, you might have a case of Christian sibling rivalry.
He comes to church on Sundays but never helps with anything! If he were a real Christian, he would be helping us!
We have been trying to conceive for years, and this couple just got married and are expecting! It’s just not fair!
That person has done nothing but treat me badly, and now they have the nerve to ask for my help? I don’t think so!
That’s great that she gave her life to the Lord on her deathbed, but I’ve been serving the Lord all my life, and she gets a free pass right at the end? That isn’t fair!
He is getting so much attention since he got out of rehab. Here I am, clean for 3 years, and no one pays any attention to me! I’m the good one, how come no one notices?
Believe it or not, there are actually some passages in the Bible that address this very kind of sibling rivalry. God’s grace is great when we are the recipient, but watching others receive His grace when they clearly don’t deserve it? That’s hard. It’s even harder when God calls us to show His grace to the undeserving through our words and actions.
Allow me to let you in on a secret. NO ONE deserves God’s grace- not even you.
Since all have sinned and continually fall short of the glory of God, and are being justified [declared free of the guilt of sin, made acceptable to God, and granted eternal life] as a gift by His [precious, undeserved] grace, through the redemption [the payment for our sin] which is [provided] in Christ Jesus. -Romans 3:23-24 AMP
Jonah and the Ninevites
In the book of Jonah, God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh and tell the people that God is going to destroy them because they are wicked. Instead of going to Nineveh, Jonah flees in the opposite direction. If you’ve never heard how the story goes, he gets on a boat, a big storm comes, the others on the boat throw him overboard, he almost drowns, and then a big fish swallows him up and spits him out on dry land three days later. After that, Jonah begrudgingly travels to Nineveh and delivers God’s message. The people of Nineveh repent and God spares their city. Then Jonah throws a biblical temper-tantrum. (If you’ve never read the book of Jonah, I encourage you to do so- it’s only 4 chapters long!)
What’s up with Jonah? Why didn’t he just go to Nineveh in the first place? It’s simple- the Ninevites didn’t deserve God’s grace. Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, and they were enemies of Israel. The Assyrians were mean and brutal, and wicked through and through. Jonah knew the God he served, and he knew that if the Ninevites repented, God would spare them. Jonah wanted them to get what they deserved, and when they received God’s grace instead of His wrath, he was not a happy man.
He and God had an encounter in the desert after the city was spared, and Jonah learns a tough lesson. (Jonah 4)
Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. -Matthew 28:18
The Prodigal Son and his Brother
Meanwhile, the older son was in the fields working. When he returned home, he heard music and dancing in the house, and he asked one of the servants what was going on. ‘Your brother is back,’ he was told, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf. We are celebrating because of his safe return.’
The older brother was angry and wouldn’t go in. His father came out and begged him, but he replied, ‘All these years I’ve slaved for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends. Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the fattened calf!’
His father said to him, ‘Look, dear son, you have always stayed by me, and everything I have is yours. We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found!’
The brother was so focused on himself and how unfairly treated he felt that he was not able or willing to participate in the celebration of his prodigal brother’s homecoming. When new believers come to Christ, or old believers change their ways, we must be careful not to be like the prodigal’s brother.
If anyone claims, ‘I am living in the light,’ but hates a fellow believer, that person is still living in darkness. Anyone who loves a fellow believer is living in the light and does not cause others to stumble. But anyone who hates a fellow believer is still living and walking in darkness. Such a person does not know the way to go, having been blinded by the darkness. -1 John 2:9-11
The Vineyard Laborers
“Whether God calls someone early or late in life to partake of His grace, the glory and praise for our salvation is His and His alone and in no way amounts to unfairness. Just as the landowner has a right to do what he wishes with his own money, so does God have the right to have mercy on whom He will have mercy.” –gotquestions.org
Is Grace Unfair?
God’s compassion flows out of His goodness, and goodness without justice is not goodness. God spares us because He is good, but He could not be good if He were not just. When God punishes the wicked, Anselm concludes, it is just because it is consistent with their deserts; and when He spares the wicked it is just because it is compatible with His goodness; so God does what becomes Him as the supremely good God. This is reason seeking to understand, not that it may believe but because it already believes. -A. W. Tozer
Sometimes it may seem that the grace of God, or lack thereof, is unfair. However, we know that God is a just and fair God, and 2 Timothy 2:13 tells us that God can’t act in a way that goes against His very nature. So even though we might feel unfairly treated, we must rest in the knowledge that God, in ways we can’t comprehend, is a just and a fair God.
He is the Rock; His deeds are perfect. Everything He does is just and fair. He is a faithful God who does no wrong; how just and upright He is! -Deuteronomy 32:4
