Greg offers his perspective on the fairness of God.
Transcript:
00:07 You know Americans have a very refined sense of fair treatment.
00:10 In their view, everybody's gotta get exactly the same
00:13 or it just ain't fair.
00:15 And then, when they become Christians, or when they think
00:19 about Christianity, they want to transfer that notion to God.
00:21 And they think well God has got to treat
00:24 everyone equally in order for
00:27 Him to be fair.
00:29 I don't think fairness is a value
00:32 that is part of the
00:35 divine character. O.K.? Nor, need it be.
00:39 In fact, I don't think it's even required of us.
00:41 Look it, if you do a buddy a favor,
00:43 or even somebody you don't know a favor,
00:46 do you have some kind of moral obligation to do
00:49 everybody who comes along the exact same
00:52 favor? No. I think you have a sense
00:55 that your favor can be given freely
00:58 as you will which is why it's called
01:01 "your favor" and not "your obligation."
01:04 You're not obliged to treat everyone exactly the same.
01:09 And God is in the same circumstance and I actually know this
01:11 for a fact because Jesus told a parable
01:14 that made precisely this point. You might recall about
01:17 the workers that came in at different times during the day
01:20 and one person came in early in the day, another person came in
01:23 right at the end of the day and did very little work
01:26 but got paid the same
01:28 as the person who worked all day long.
01:30 And of course, the person who worked all day long
01:33 complained that that's not fair.
01:35 And Jesus said this, essentially,
01:38 "Can't I do what I want with what
01:42 is mine? Didn't I pay you what we
01:46 agreed to pay you? Are you bothered now
01:48 because I am generous to someone else?"
01:52 The lesson here is that God can do
01:54 what He wants with His generosity.
01:58 His grace, His kindness, His love,
02:02 His forgiveness, His mercy is all an element
02:06 of His generosity and there is
02:09 no obligation on God's
02:12 part at all.
02:14 Rather, He gives as He wills according
02:17 to the kind intention of His will as Paul put it
02:20 in Ephesians chapter 1.
02:22 That's what grace is.
02:25 Undeserved, unrequired,
02:29 unmerited favor of God.
