Listen to Sunday’s message by Pastor Phil Olsen
Fair is in the eye of the beholder. Is it fair when he gets the raise when you know you’ve worked as hard as them? Is it fair when you pay for others lack of discipline because they can’t show up to a meeting on time and the rest of your schedule is thrown off? Thats not fair. How about God dying for His people to pay for their mistakes and them still rejecting Him to His face. The guilty condemning and crucifying the innocent. Is that fair? Yet that God still continues to love and pursue those people…us. What do we do about that? God has turned fair on its head. How can we pay back God? How do we show Him gratitude? Jesus says in Matthew 10:8 “Freely you have received, freely give.” Give the life God gave you away. God has turned fair on its head. Apart from giving yourself away, we can’t experience the life God wants for us.
But the world is not fair. It’s been said, “no good deed goes unpunished.” It’s easier to be always out for your own in this world. God turned fair on its head. It won’t be easy and you will certainly run into some problems, but it’s the only way to live. God has given you everything you own, and He owns everything you don’t. Life may not seem fair, it will try to take all you have, but you have the ability to trust in the God that created life and turn fair on its head, by giving what you have been given away.
Life is not fair until you walk with the Almighty, because when you walk with God you realize what can be taken unfairly doesn’t even compare to what cannot be taken. Your money can be and will be taken from you unfairly, but the life that God gives you through His son Jesus, cannot be taken. “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” The most powerful stance in this life is not a clenched fist, but an open hand.
We have the change to turn fair on its head. We can give our life away. We can give our finances away. But won’t the world take advantage of us? Maybe. They did with Jesus. They crucified Him, but He had already given His life away and in the process saved the entire human race.
When you give you:
- Break control. What you trust, you will serve, and what you serve controls you. Give it away and you break control and change your trust.
- Point your heart. Giving shifts our perspective. If you want to know where your heart is, look at your checkbook. What Jesus says is true.
- Release impact. Break the fascination with fair, and discover the freedom of impact
