I listened to one of Tullian's sermons this morning about our inability to exact justice in this world. Often, we convict innocent people. Often, the guilty go free. In addition to the inadequacy of our criminal justice system, we experience non-criminal injustices every day, such as not being loved by our spouses, being slandered by co-workers, not receiving promotions, being gossiped about at church, etc. Of course, per Christ's diagnosis of sin in the Sermon on the Mount, we are guilty of these same things, both in actions and in our hearts. Praise God, the injustices of this world will ultimately be made right. Because of Christ, the justice that should be exacted against us has already been borne by Him.
Tullian went on to address karma, which I found fascinating. Tullian said that Eastern religions posit that, if we do more good than bad, then we will receive more good than bad in this life. He then went on to say that we Christians believe the same thing. We believe that, if we get up and pray and read our Bible first thing in the morning, that God will bless the rest our of day--that good things will befall us. We believe that, if we don't, bad things will befall us. What a LIE and TRAP of Satan. This type of thinking puts us right back under the burden of the law. We return to struggling to keep the law to please God and thereby make our lives better. This struggle leads either to self-righteousness (when we think God is rewarding us for being good) or despair (when we think God is punishing us for being bad). God doesn't want us to be self-righteous or despairing. God wants us to experience the liberty found in His unqualified, unconditional love. When we get this, when we know that God loves us even when we don't read our Bibles or pray, then we are free to be good, not bound to be good. Then, we run to our Bibles and to prayer to experience the unconditional love of God.
So, thank you Tullian. Thank you for your boldness in proclaiming the Gospel in all of its radically.
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