In our lives, how many of us have never never felt at any point in time that we have been unfairly treated? Have we ever made the statement, “Oh that’s unfair!” The speaker is sure we have. As we go through life and observe some things, we say it’s unfair to us; that’s it’s a gross injustice.

How do we feel? Oftentimes we feel very angry; cannot tahan. We cannot sleep, cannot eat. “How could this happen? How could he allow this to happen?” We hear this very often amongst children. “Mummy not fair. How come Koko can have I cannot? How come you scold me never scold Jie Jie?”

We human beings are very strange. When we’re so called fairly treated or more than fairly treated, we don’t see it. When mummy gave you a bigger piece of cake, you would never say, “Why is my slice bigger than Koko?” “It’s not fair that I have the bigger slice!”

We rather eat eat eat cannot finish throw away. Very seldom we see the good things done to us. But we’re often very quick to pick out things not fair/unjust and become unhappy, and react in a way that’s oftentimes not like a Christian. We have to relook at some of these matters.

Why do people think some things unfair?

1. Because of our concept of what fairness is
   The speaker thinks one reason is because of our concept of what fairness is; because often we equate fairness/justice with equality. If something is not equal, it is therefore unfair or unjust.

The speaker saw a cartoon. It was a picture of a wall. Behind the wall was a field of people playing sports. There were two guys trying to watch the football. But the wall was too high. One guy was taller, the other shorter. There were two crates of the same height. To be equal, each of them should be given equal height to stand on. Fair or not? The taller one stand on the crate can see the football. The shorter one can’t. Equal. But fair? Not fair!

Another picture where one crate is taller and the other shorter. The taller crate given to the short guy and the shorter crate to the tall guy. Both are just able to look over the wall.

So what’s fairness and justice?

Give a bigger cake to a bigger guy who needs more food and a smaller cake to a smaller guy who needs less food. If it was the opposite the smaller guy wouldn’t be able to waste it throw the food away and waste it; the bigger guy wouldn’t have enough to eat.

Equality versus fairness.

When we come to a different treatment, we wonder, “How come you do this, never do that for the other?” There could be a whole underlying difference. So equality does not necessarily mean justice or fairness.

We need our concepts right. Or we’d be unhappy in life.

1. Because of our expectations
   We’re unhappy because of our expectations. Our expectations is that the world is perfect. We really expect everything to be just nice. If that’s our attitude to life, we will always be unhappy. So when the speaker talks about handling injustice, he wants to point out the fact that there is and will be injustice at some time. These things happen.

Ignore the first reason. If we get that concept good, then we need to come to the second concept. There is and there will always be injustice in this world. That’s the way it is. But when we are faced with it, how should we as a Christian handle them?

Again when we look at human beings, it’s interesting. When we’re faced with this we become indignant. We blame everybody - we blame our loved ones for being unkind and blind. We blame the church. The government. Then we blame God. Blame everybody including God. Then we react in a certain way that’s managing to ourselves and others. Because we take a view. If they can do it why not we? Is this the way we should react? Let’s learn from some biblical examples today of people who have been really really treated unjustly. And let’s see how they handle it. Then we use these examples to reflect on our own experiences. The speaker believes that in all if not many cases, we are nowhere close to being treated in these ways. In fact many a times our experiences may not be true injustice but is in the first concept. But let’s assume some of us do meet with genuine injustice. Are they even anywhere close to what you’re going to read in the following examples?

1. Jesus
   Matt 26:59-61
   This was the trial of Jesus. It’s very interesting because in v59 says, “Now the chief priests, the elders, and all the council sought false testimony against Jesus to put Him to death”. If a false conclusion was made, it’s a mistake. But this wasn’t just a wrong conclusion, this was actually malicious. Because from the onset, they wanted a false testimony. What was the main purpose? To put Him to death. This is injustice! What wrong has Jesus done? Number one: He had done no wrong. Number two: He actually came to do all good things. He deserved a big thank you. Not to have thanked Him was bad enough. But they went the complete reverse. They wanted to put Him to death. To do so, they needed false testimonies. v60 says they tried very hard but found none. Even though many false witnesses came forward, they found none. This was further testimony of how good Jesus was.

“If someone accuses you of being a Christian, would they find enough evidence to convict you?”
Most times when someone wants to accuse us of bad things, if they dig hard enough they’d probably find something because none of us are perfect. If we turn it around, if they want to accuse us of being Christian, would they be able to? How good of a Christian are we?

With Jesus we can see that they tried so hard and found nothing. At last, 2 false witnesses came forward and said Jesus said He was able to destroy the temple and raise it up in 3 days. Did Jesus say this? Indeed He did. So the only way to truly accuse Him was to use what He had truly said. But they twisted the meaning to what He did not mean. Because Jesus was giving a prophecy of the temple of His body. But in any case they were bent on killing Him one way or another.

Matt 26:3-4
This had been plotted long ago. These were supposed to be religious people. Yet it was these very people who could come together to discuss and plot how to take Jesus by trickery. There was absolutely no shred of justice at all in what they were doing.

Jesus was treated very unfairly. It was injustice. As a result of this, he was crucified and died. He was beaten, spat on, finally dying on the cross not for any bad He had done. Ironically for the good that He sought to do.

A lot of times when we’re neutral and don’t do good or evil, we’d have a neutral outcome. If we don’t do any good and get a bad outcome, we’d already be angry. But if we already took the effort to do good and get a bad outcome, how would we feel? That happened to Jesus. For the very people He came to save; He wanted to save their lives, they wanted to take His life. For the very people He came to love; not only did He get no love in return, He for Hager. Is this not injustice?

How many of us have experienced anything close to this? Yet oftentimes our reaction is very very severe.

How did Jesus react to all this?
Luke 23:34
Jesus was already suffering so much on the cross. Of the several things He said on the cross, this was His prayer for the very people who treated Him unjustly.

“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”

This is a big lesson for us. If we have indeed gone out to do good and receive a bad treatment as a result, before we jump very quickly to blow up in anger, ask ourselves: is what we’re doing really the right thing and worthwhile doing? If it is, keep doing it. Whether it’s loving our children, parents, friends, sometimes we really feel they don’t appreciate. Not only don’t appreciate, you get the flip side. Learn from this experience. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”

Acts 7:60
“Lord, do not charge them with this sin.”
This was what Stephen prayed as he was being stoned to death. We may say, “Oh! The earlier example Jesus leh. Jesus of course can lah.” But this was Stephen learning the example of Jesus. For preaching the gospel he was stoned to death. But as he was being stoned to death, he had a clarity of mind for his mission and love for the people to pray as Jesus did.

1. Joseph
   Gen 37:16-28
   Joseph sought his brothers. He learnt they had gone to Dothan. He went to look for his brothers. Joseph went because his father had given him instruction to look for them. It looked like a very neutral regular affair. But if we look at the reaction in v18 “when they saw him afar off even before before he came near conspired against him to kill him”. We read this like a movie. We can see two scenes: Joseph walking and his brothers talking.

Imagine Joseph walking there in his heart so happy to see his brothers. He was probably excited. But the other side didn’t share this excitement. He had absolutely no clue what his brothers were talking about. Maybe he thought they were excited to see him too! But actually they were plotting to kill him. How sad can that be.

v20 “Come therefore, let us now kill him and cast him into some pit; and we shall say, ‘Some wild beast has devoured him.’ We shall see what will become of his dreams!”
There was so much bitterness and hatred against Joseph. Why? Because they were jealous of him. Not because Joseph had done anything to deserve such feelings against him. We don’t read of Joseph being that irritating little brother. He just dreamt a few dreams and told them to his father and brothers. He had no idea this had planted such deep hatred in his brothers. This is injustice. How can you anyone treat their brother badly, let alone so badly they wanted to kill him?

As we read the story, we know eventually Joseph was sold of to the Midianites, and taken to Egypt. A young teenager. With a future right before him. All of that changed just overnight. All this was taken away from him overnight. How would one feel? How would he feel? How would we feel if we were there?

Who to blame?

“God! Have You no eyes to see? What have I done! My father very far can’t see. You also cannot ah?”

We know Joseph was a man of faith. It wasn’t like he was a naughty boy always doing the wrong thing. He was a godly man but God didn’t protect him. God didn’t strike his brothers dead or to freeze. He was sold off to Egypt. In Egypt he worked in the household of Potiphar. Very quickly his fate seemed to change. He was trusted and given big responsibilities. Out of something bad something good/not so bad seemed to have emerged.

Gen 39:11ff
At that time Joseph went into the house to do his work and there was none of the men inside. v2 says his mistress caught him by the garments and said, “Lie with me.” He ran away. But when he did, his garments was left in her hand. She had been trying to entice him all this while. But he had said, “No how can I commit this great evil against God?” He was a godly man. He had all this while made the right decision and did the right thing. And here he managed to have a close shave. But when this happened, wah the mistress was so angry. She turned around and accused him instead. v14 she called the men of the house and said, “See he has brought in a Hebrew to mock us! He came into lie with me and I cried out with a loud voice. And when he heard this he left his garment and fled outside.”

If we were watching this movie our heart would boil right?

The speaker remembers when he was watching movies with his family the adults would comment that the director was stupid for letting the good guy die and the bad guy win.

Because somehow in our human psychology the good must always win and the bad must suffer and go to hell.

If we were watching Joseph we would be so angry “How can this woman be like this? She turned the story totally the other way around! It was her!” But it’s like this. Unjust. There’s injustice in the world.

What happened to Joseph? He was thrown into prison. It was like someone was playing a game with him. Ah happy childhood. Take away. If all his childhood was suffering suffering it’ll be different. But it was good and taken away. Slave and then entrusted to take care of the whole house. Take away.

And each of this taken away was of no fault of his. Not just no fault, but also when he came and did good will.

God was with Joseph even in prison. Do you think that he knew what was happening? Of course not. Now we know because we read it. If some people go through this kind of experience, they’d have given up on society and goodness. “Why should I be good? Not just once or twice but repeatedly doing good doesn’t pay. If I don’t do bad that’s already very good.” Many people will go to the other extreme and do bad because they want people to regret and suffer with them. Human beings sometimes can turn to the other extreme. Some give up not just on society or goodness but also God. To them there’s no God because if there was all of this should never happen. This is the way some people will react.

But when we study the story of Joseph we know this isn’t the way he reacted; he kept his cool; he kept his calm and trusted God. Eventually he was delivered from prison, came before Pharaoh and saved many people. Only later on in life he came to realise…(see next verse)

Gen 50:15-21
“Perhaps Joseph will hate us, and may actually repay us for all the evil which we did to him.”
Were the brothers crazy to think this? It was perfectly logical and reasonable. Because they know many human beings will react like this. Maybe Joseph was just giving face to the father so he didn’t take them on. Maybe they thought Joseph would think: “Now that father is dead. It’s my time. I’m in power.” If we don’t take revenge because we don’t have the means to, that’s nothing to boast about. If we don’t take revenge when we can, that’s truly good.

v16-17 “So they sent messengers to Joseph, saying, “Before your father died he commanded, saying, ‘Thus you shall say to Joseph: “I beg you, please forgive the trespass of your brothers and their sin; for they did evil to you.”’ Now, [;ease, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of your father.” And Joseph wept when they spoke to him.”
They hid behind their father’s name. Joseph wept.
v19 Joseph said to them, “Am I in the place of God?”
v20 “But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good”

It wasn’t that Joseph didn’t recognise the evil that was done. “Huh what evil? Got meh? I don’t remember.” No! He knew! He knew and he remembered all the evil that was done against him. But he had a very very different view. He saw the will of God and accepted the fact that people are imperfect and can be unjust. This is life. But he had complete trust that all was in the hands of God. And that all he needed to do was to continue to trust God and do the right.
In conclusion:
Rom 12:17-21
17 Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men.
18 If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men.
19 Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.
20 Therefore
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
If he is thirsty, give him a drink;
For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head.”
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

This is not easy. But this conclusion is very important and a practical teaching in our lives today. May the Lord help us.