When Life Isn't Fair

Introduction: A Personal Story from Northern Ireland

I come from the north of Ireland, born in the 1970s right into deep conflict — Protestants and Catholics fighting, and it was murder and mayhem. Let me bring you to a beautiful town called Moville. One day I was walking there with my family when I suddenly saw someone and grabbed my kids to meet him. That man was John Hume, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who worked with a Protestant leader, David Trimble, to bring a peace plan to Northern Ireland.

I looked at my children and said, "This man, you owe him so much. The reason you've had a childhood without bombings, without shootings, without mayhem — it all comes down to this man." He committed his life to bringing justice to everybody.

What Was Nehemiah Doing?

We've been talking for weeks about building in the book of Nehemiah. But suddenly Nehemiah stops the building, because in chapter 5 he needed to rebuild lives and rebuild justice before they could complete the walls.

Material things are important, but human beings are way more important. It's easier to rebuild physical walls than it is to rebuild and realign human beings. Nehemiah chapter 5 gives us steps on what to do with injustice.

Step One: Listen Up

"Now the men and their wives raised a great outcry against their fellow Jews... We and our sons and daughters are numerous. In order for us to eat and stay alive, we must get grain." (Nehemiah 5:1-5, paraphrased)

This wasn't exploitation by an enemy — it was fellow countrymen exploiting the economically weaker members of their own community. It led to anxiety, fear, desperation, and actual enslavement.

Nehemiah says, "When I heard their outcry and these charges, I was very angry." Notice the key word: when I heard. For six verses, he spends his time just listening. If you and I want to make a change in our family, our community, our nation — even the world — we need to learn to listen up.

Listening Up Locally

As an immigrant myself, I love getting in Ubers just to hear people's stories. Recently a driver told me how he fled an illegal war, and when offered $3,000 in government assistance, he said, "No, I don't want your money. Just give me an open door into the country. Let me work." The whole world is on our doorstep if we're willing to listen.

A partner church, Canyon Hills in Bakersfield, runs a food distribution program the locals nicknamed "Beans and Rice with Jesus Christ." They also started the "Canyon Closet," giving out household essentials. One pastor's daughter came home crying — not from sadness, but because her friends were overjoyed just to receive dish soap for their parents.

Sometimes fighting injustice doesn't mean crossing the nation. Sometimes it just means crossing the street. Another program offers people caught intoxicated on the street a choice: jail, or a sober center with a clean room, a change of clothes, breakfast, and conversation. That's what the church should be doing.

Jesus gave us the best social policy in the world:

"Love your neighbor as yourself."

If everyone looks after the person on their right and their left, everyone is taken care of.

Listening Up Nationally

We are pro-life for the womb — but are we also committed to caring for life after the womb? America has 5% of the world's population but about 20% of the world's prisoners. About 83% of released prisoners are rearrested within three years, and over 55% end up back in prison within ten years. But those numbers drop to just 8% when a released man connects with a faith group or Bible study. That's good news the church can act on.

Listening Up Globally

America is a blessing, but the world population is 8.3 billion — we're just "the .3." Right now, 380 million Christians worldwide live under persecution — one in seven. Hebrews tells us:

"Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering."

We need more than sympathy — feeling for someone. We need empathy — putting ourselves in their shoes and feeling with them. Europe has 600 million people, but less than 2% are connected to an evangelical church. That's 588 million lost people.

Step Two: Speak Out

Nehemiah says:

"So I continued... What you are doing is not right. Shouldn't you walk in the fear of our God?" (Nehemiah 5:9)

After listening, he starts to speak. There's a point where we need to become a voice for the voiceless.

I once witnessed a cashier verbally abusing an older coworker named Maria in a store, cursing her in front of customers. I gently said, "Whatever you've just said is not true. And you should never speak to anybody like that." I didn't shout — I simply said, "Enough is enough." A little bit of hope came onto Maria's face. Someone cared. Someone saw.

The president may never hear your voice. The mayor may never hear your voice. But if you speak up for one individual, your voice becomes the most important voice — maybe not in the world, but in their world. God has given you a voice. Choose the right issue, choose the right people, and speak up for them.

Step Three: Find It and Fix It

Nehemiah didn't stop at pointing out the problem — he created policy:

"Let us stop charging interest... Give back to them immediately their fields and their vineyards, olive groves and houses, and also the interest you are charging them." (Nehemiah 5:11-12)

The book of Acts describes Jesus as one who began "to do and to teach." Jesus broke the rabbinical model of merely teaching — he acted. In Luke 4, he announced his kingdom manifesto:

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me... to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

It's called the book of Acts, not the book of ponderings. Are we ready to do the kingdom stuff?

The Example of William Wilberforce

William Wilberforce became a Christian while serving in the English Parliament in the 1700s. He wanted to leave politics for ministry, but his mentor John Newton (who wrote Amazing Grace) told him to stay and use his influence. Wilberforce committed himself to two goals: the suppression of the slave trade and the "reformation of manners" — addressing, among other things, the staggering exploitation of women in London, where 25% of women were prostitutes with an average age of 16.

It took 46 years of relentless effort, but slavery was finally abolished in the British Empire — three days before Wilberforce died.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said it well, reflecting on the parable of the Good Samaritan:

"On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will only be an initial act. One day, we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway."

We thank God for those who help the person beaten on the road — but let's also work to transform the road itself.

Step Four: Rely on God

Nehemiah closes with this prayer:

"Remember me with favor, my God, for all I have done for these people." (Nehemiah 5:19)

Ultimately, after listening, speaking, and acting, we must trust God with the outcome.

My Father's Story

My father served nine years as a Royal Marine before a missionary named Ted Seymour led him to Christ. He became a police officer in Belfast right as decades of violence began, making him a target for terrorists.

On December 31, 1976, a knock came at our door. My father always stood to the side of the doorway with his gun ready, asking, "Who's there?" That night, a car bomb went off on our street — the very street where I learned to ride a bike. An 18-month-old neighbor boy, Graeme, was killed by shrapnel from that bomb. My father was first on the scene.

In 1977, while chasing a van involved in a bank robbery, my father was shot at close range by a young soldier who mistook him for a terrorist. The bullet went straight through his chest, nearly severing his arm. Somehow, he survived. He lost 300 colleagues during that era and still lives with PTSD today at age 82.

Yet he is one of the happiest men you will ever meet — full of joy, full of terrible jokes, full of blessing. My parents never allowed "them and us" language in our home. There was never a division — only a kingdom. Even carrying his wounds, my father would not let the outside get on the inside. That is Christianity — we're called to let the inside affect the outside.

I asked him once, "Dad, how did you cope?" He said:

"Son, I've had police officers die in my arms and I've had terrorists die in my arms, and I've spoken Jesus over both."

Conclusion: Leave Judgment to God

We don't get to choose the neighbors we're called to love. Jesus never said, "Judge your neighbor" — that's when injustice will be dealt with, but by another Judge, on another day. We make terrible judges. Only Jesus has a pure heart, and he will bring justice — both to the perpetrator and to the victim.

Our job is to guard our own hearts. As Paul said, I die daily. Whatever you're walking through, God loves you and is for you. Let's trust in the grace of God — for ourselves, and for those who have wronged us.

Lord Jesus, I pray that everyone would hear your voice and feel the hand of mercy upon them today. Where we can speak up and listen up, help us do it. Where we can find it and fix it, help us be active. And in our own hearts where we need grace and mercy, may we receive it today, for your glory, in the name of Jesus. Amen.