THINK TOGETHER
Have you ever had something happen to you that wasn’t fair?
READ TOGETHER
We all want life to be fair don’t we? When we do something bad we should be punished. And when we do something good we should be rewarded. Fair means that bad people and good people should not have the same things happen to them. Good people should have a good life, while bad people should have a bad life. Isn’t that how God should make things happen?
But the Wise Teacher in Ecclesiastes wants to make sure we know that life is not fair at all. He gets really upset because both the good people and the bad people have the same things happen to them. Listen to how he explains it all here in Ecclesiastes chapter 9. It’s a bit hard to understand, but listen carefully to see if you can hear his complaint about God and about how unfair life is.
Ecclesiastes 9:1-3. 1But all this I laid to heart, examining it all, how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God. Whether it is love or hate, man does not know; both are before him. 2It is the same for all, since the same event happens to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil, to the clean and the unclean, to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As the good one is, so is the sinner… 3This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that the same event happens to all…
The Teacher can’t understand why both good and bad people have to die. But he’s forgetting this important truth – nobody is good. Everyone is a sinner. We all deserve to die because we have all sinned against God. The Teacher wonders out loud if death means that God hates us or loves us – Whether it is love or hate, man does not know. But we never have to wonder if God loves us. Why? Because with Jesus we know for sure that God loves us, because his death was the only truly unfair death. He suffered and died but didn’t deserve it. But did God hate Jesus? NO! God loved him and loves us very much, and that is why Jesus died for us.
Because of Jesus we know that God loves us very much.
With Jesus we don’t have to worry if life is fair, we can just trust God.
DO SOMETHING TOGETHER
Do you have any pictures of loved ones who have passed away? Talk with your kids about death. Is death fair? How does Jesus use death to bring life?
PRAY TOGETHER
Jesus, I know God loves me because you suffered and died unfairly for me. Amen.
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