Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / January 21, 2024 | Enchanted - Is Karma Real?

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January 21, 2024 | Enchanted - Is Karma Real? · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Morning.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Good to be with you.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I know some of you are very glad to be back here in the Mulvane Auditorium.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I just want you well.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: We'll miss our friends over in the cab.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: I just let you know the uh Mulvane Cab volleyball tournament is coming up here pretty soon.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Hope you guys were able to square up your competition.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see who makes it out in the end.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that's where we'll hold all these services.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's how we're gonna decide it.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: So last week we started a new series called Enchanted, and also I would say, so Jason gave a great message about how we need to trust in God and and how uh there's that ladder of trust, right?
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: That we need to place the Lord at the very top of that ladder, and sometimes other things find their way up there.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: And Jason also made it one for one in his use of props in sermons, where I I think I counted up.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm at like 2% of the time I use props.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: So this is another thing that I'm I'm gonna try and work on.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'll see if I can bring some more ladders on stage.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: So this idea of enchanted, though, is the one that there are spiritual practices that have sort of made their way into our faith in God, um, our relationship with God.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that some of these things, they don't always um, they're not always clear and present to us.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but in fact, they sometimes weasel their way in.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: They take up sort of residence in the back parts of our heart.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: They're a little secretive.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so, of course, we might not say, as Jason said last week, that we don't trust in God or that um he is not the h the one deserving of the highest place, but through our actions does he always sort of reign there at the top.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this morning we're looking at a different kind of thing, and I want to talk about karma, actually, and how it is that karma weasels its way into our faith as well.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, even if we would say that we don't believe in karma as maybe the Hindus or the Buddhists might, um, still how it has sort of parts of it have been added on to what we believe about God.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, just to be clear, when we talk about karma, there is the broad belief, okay, that uh good things, sort of good input, results in good output, and bad input results in bad output.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: So good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's kind of beyond that, there is this specific, um, when you go beyond using karma in a general sense and into actually what that belief entails, it also has to do with the resurrection, excuse me, not resurrection, that's our thing.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it has to do with reincarnation.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: So when you talk about reincarnation, it's this idea that um your actions in this life and uh are basically leading forward into a new life where you will be better off or worse off than you currently are now, and your current state has to do with how you were in the past.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: So probably many of us would say, well, I don't I don't believe in that, but yet are there elements of it that we hold on to?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because there are there are certain things that we love to see in this world where we might not use the word karma, but we'd say they had it coming to them, right?
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: So think about you're at like a pool party, right?
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: About six months from now.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: And you're at that pool party and somebody's standing near the edge of the pool, you know, just having a conversation, and then the prankster is comes up and they want to shove them into the pool.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: But as they do, the person turns to the side and the prankster goes toppling over into the pool, and you watch that and you say, Ah.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Had it coming to them, right?
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: They got what they deserved.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's what they were trying to do.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, think another, you're on the highway, right?
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's late at night and you're driving, it's pretty quiet, and all of a sudden a car just zooms right past you.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: 30 miles faster than you're going right now.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Just blazing speed, and it's probably 10 minutes later that you catch up to them because they're pulled over on the side of the road with a couple lights blinking behind them, right?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: You say they had it coming to them.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: So there is this internal sense of justice that we have almost where we're like, we like the idea, right, that God maybe in those situations we would not say, well, God turned this person aside at the pool party, but nevertheless, that they got what was coming to them.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: That sense of internal justice that we have sometimes finds its way into inappropriate places.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Inappropriate in the sense that we apply it too much.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you can also take this into things like superstition, right?
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how many of you are going to be wearing your particular chief's gear this evening, but I've got to tell you, it will not make, okay, the bill's secondary any worse at defending our receivers, as much as you might like it to.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: As much as I might like it to.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: So when we we talk about these things, we understand that there are areas of our life where we're pulled into uh sometimes attaching meaning to things that have no basis in reality, yet allowing it to control our behavior, right?
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: So, funny enough, the first sort of quote this morning uh comes from Keanu Reeves.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: The recognition of the law of cause and effect, also known as karma, is a fundamental key to understand how you've created your world with actions of your body, speech, and mind.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: When you truly understand karma, then you realize you are responsible for everything in your life.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: It is incredibly empowering to know that the future is in your hands.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: So he get Neo gave this interview, or it's not even an interview, it's a actually a like a Buddhist um training video series that he did back in the 90s and uh where he talks about these things.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: So he is right about one thing.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: He is right about one thing.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: That is cause and effect, okay, it is comforting to us because it makes sense.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: It makes some sense of the world that we live in, that there might be this sort of sort of enclosed sphere where everything that is good receives good, and everything that is bad receives bad.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um that doesn't have any loopholes to it, right?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's no way that people should be able to weasel out of this.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it also helps us to make sense of terrible things that happen, because depending on how far you walk down this, there's this concept that ever, and this is true within those who practice karma and believe in it wholeheartedly, is it really came about by saying to Buddha, like, how is it that there are poor in this world and the needy and those who struggle and those who are born in the lowest caste?
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how can we make sense of that?
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because obviously we look out into a world that is not as it should be.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: And Buddha said, Well, clearly, it is because of the life that they lived previously.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so, I'm not saying that people who believe in this don't have compassion, but there is a complete understanding for how and why this world has so much brokenness because it is what somebody is getting what they deserved from their past.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Their actions have come forward.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so it makes us feel better because we can avoid pain or struggle by trying harder to be better people.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: But on the flip side, this is true with success as well.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody looks at the success that they have in this life, and normally the way that we look at success is about wealth and power and prestige and fame and all of those kinds of trappings, right?
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: But the idea of success is also one where it's self-fulfilling.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: They say, well, obviously, I have been blessed in this way because I have done good things.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so, furthermore, then it creates this illusion that anybody can be successful, as the world would say.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody can have those kinds of things.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: They can make be the A-list movie star by simply walking up the steps of putting good energy or setting a vision into the world.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: So there are probably some of those things, depending on where you're at, that you say, well, I don't believe that.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: But we might believe part of it.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: And at first glance, this idea of something being in our, you know, our lives are in our control, that things work out on our timeline, um, that we can be rewarded for being good people.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is actually something that at first glance the Bible almost seems to support.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to Job's friend Eliphaz speak with him about why he is experiencing so much trouble.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Eliphaz says, Consider, Job, who has perished when he was innocent?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Where have the honest been destroyed?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: In my experience, those who plough injustice and those who sow trouble reap the same.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: So Job is, or Eliphaz is speaking to his friend Job, and he says, Well, Job, if you had only been more righteous, this wouldn't have happened to you.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: It has a really simple explanation for why you are struggling so much.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you would just, in fact, his friend Bildad later on, another one of Job's friends, sort of gives the same message in a different way.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: He says, if you would simply repent of your sin, Job, and you would turn away from your foolishness, the Lord would fix all of these things.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: But if you know the story of Job, you know that the reason that he's going through hardship, ironically, is because he is a righteous person.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so this idea of reaping what you sow is something that we use to explain what's going on in this world, but it's not always accurate in the sense that they're talking about it.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: We can't draw conclusions about righteousness from somebody's fortune or failures.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: We want to, we want to do it in our own lives because it has rules that we can clearly understand, but that is not how God works.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: If he was, then he would be like a vending machine, right?
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: We put in exactly the amount that we need to get what we want in return, but the Lord doesn't work that way.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not just Eliphaz who believed this, right?
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: It is not just him and those who are commenting on Job's life.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, this is something the disciples struggled with as well.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Look at this from John chapter 9.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: As he was passing by, Jesus saw a man blind from birth.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: His disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: This man or his parents, that he was born blind?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: You can imagine their bigger question there.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus, this man, obviously he is blind, we get that, but um, tell us what he had done wrong so that his hardship makes sense to us.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: That the grief that he has experienced by being blind his whole life, that there's something that tells us that he had deserved it all along.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus replies to them.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Neither this man nor his parents sinned, Jesus answered.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: This came about so that God's works might be displayed in him.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: It was God's will for the man to be born blind, but not because of his sin or his parents' sin.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: In this case, in this particular one, it was so that Jesus could heal this man, and then he would go and be called before the Pharisees for having a miracle clearly performed upon him, and he would testify about Jesus, about who he was and what he was doing.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, in a funny way, he would ask the Pharisees, Do you want to be a disciple of Jesus too?
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because he was now.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is where we get the phrase, I was blind, but now I can see.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: So a second time they summoned the man who had been blind and told him, Give glory to God.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: We know that this man is a sinner.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: They talk about him in a weird way, even though he's right in front of them.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: He answered, whether or not he's a sinner, now he's in third person, I don't know.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: One thing I do know, I was blind and now I can see.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: But they say, You were born entirely in sin, they replied, And are you trying to teach us that the difficulties of this world are not a direct result of sin?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they threw him out.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: So the Pharisees recognize that the man's healing was miraculous, but they persist in this idea that it was his sin which brought about the affliction.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Bad equals bad, right?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: So here's where now we kind of step into a bit of um, let's just say, nuance, okay?
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: When we compare karma to what the Bible has for us, there are some similarities and there are some differences.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because if we look at these two passages, okay, God didn't afflict Job because of his sin, and the man was not born blind because of his sin, we might walk back and say, okay, case closed, so this never happens, that the Lord does not visit justice upon somebody, um retribution for their sin.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: We'd say, so that never happens, right?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: No, it does happen.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, it does happen quite frequently in the Bible, that individuals, families, sometimes nations, experience the judgment of God because of their sin.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: This, if you want your vocab word for that, it's called retribution theology, but we're only going to use that a couple more times, and then we're going to speak about it more generally.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: But there is this a truth, and so this is what I want to kind of, we need to split this hair well, which is that there are times in the Bible where judgment is visited upon people because of their sin.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Two quick examples.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: One might be in the book of Numbers, you have Miriam, this is Moses' sister.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: She rebels against his leadership, and she's afflicted with a skin disease immediately.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Moses recognizes that that punishment is from the Lord, and he prays that the Lord would remove it, and he does.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Or you might go to the book of Acts, where you have the very, very early church, and everybody is coming together and sharing what they have to help the poor and the needy, and Ananias and Sapphira sell some land and lie about part of it.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: They keep some of the money for themselves.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: That wasn't bad, but the fact that they lied about it was.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And God strikes both of them dead immediately.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Peter speaks to them and he says, there's this very uh, what am I saying, not cold line, but just like hardcore, where he says, the footsteps of those that just buried your spouse are now coming to collect your body, and then they fall down dead, and you're like, ooh, boy, that's a power, Peter.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: You can do that.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: But this is an example where it does seem to be that certain things happen, retribution for those who rebel against God.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, what are the differences?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: And how might we separate these things from each other?
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Three questions that we need to ask.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Three questions that clearly separate the way God's justice works from the way this fake system of karma works.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: The first question: who is in control?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: When you look at the Buddhist teachings of karma, we are in control of our destiny.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, they will use the phrase that we make our heaven and we make our hell.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: This idea that every single one of our actions is going to be returned to us in the appropriate and proper way, sets expectations that we can control our future.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: And furthermore, that the experience that we have right now, though we don't remember our past lives, that they are where we are at now, our station in life, is due to what we have done in the past.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so everything is within our control.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: And we like this.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: We like being in control.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is part of the reason why karma as a system is captivating to us because we love the idea that by trying harder we can always improve our situation.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it's true, there are certain times in life where, generally speaking, good input good equals equals good output, right?
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: You go to the gym.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Generally speaking, if you're consistent with the gym, you're gonna get better at doing things in the gym, okay?
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: If you eat healthy, your body is going to feel better because you are putting good things into it.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: So occasionally this system works in our life, but you and I both know, we understand, we have lived long enough to see that this world does not go according to the way that we would always want it to go.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: If it did, there would not be pain and suffering.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: There would not be pain and suffering in our life.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: So this idea of control is present here, but what the Bible says instead is that God is always in control.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Though we have the ability, insofar as the Holy Spirit is within us, to avoid sin, to flee from it, to walk away, the idea that by removing sin from our life we can exempt ourselves from suffering is foolishness.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: If that was the case, there would be no such thing as a martyr.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: If that was the case, the disciples would not have been stoned, beheaded, crucified, run through with spikes for their faith in Jesus Christ.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: If that was actually the case, there would be no suffering for any of us here.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: For those of us who are truly righteous, right?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: There would be no such thing as pain.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: But we know that there is, and some of you are going through it.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: God is always in control.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's a hard thing for us to accept at times because not only do we like being in control, but once more we have to then transfer some of that control that we want to have over to the Lord.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: And we give it up to Him.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: The one who created us, the one who puts breath in our lungs, the one who uh gives us another day, the one who knows the end of our days and will eventually call us home, the one who says that it is foolishness to act like we can actually control sort of what happens three years from now, though we might plan with wisdom and all of these things.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: God is the one who is in control.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so we say, what is the difference between karma and God's justice in this way?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: We say, well, in the one, we are always in control.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: We are always the final authority in what happens, we are the final say in our future.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the other one says, God is always in control.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: It is God's up to him.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: When things happen, when they are allowed to happen, sometimes when hardships are allowed to occur.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: Second question At what time?
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: When does it happen?
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you look at karma, you're in a feedback loop, okay?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Everything you do has a response, and it is either going to happen in this life or in your s in the next one that you have, right?
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to come back and you will be paid back for the work that you've done in this life.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's a system that, as you keep hearing me saying, on paper, it makes sense, right?
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: We have this expectation to get back what we deserve.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: And within karma, we think that we deserve quite a lot.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so when it comes to the timing of things, we expect and have a reliable sort of notion of, hey, I helped this person across the street.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: I, I don't know, paid it forward at the Starbucks line.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so now, in my next life, I'm going to have a lot more money.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to have a lot more skill and talent.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: But God does not work on our timeline, right?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to what he says to Abraham in Genesis 15 when telling Abraham about what was going to happen in the future.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: He says, But you will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age, Abraham.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the fourth generation, they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: What God is saying there, He's speaking to Abraham, who's currently living in what would later be the land of Israel.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: He's living in the promised land.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: And Abraham, who was called there and has been faithful, is going to die and go to his ancestors, but or and go to his ancestors, but his offspring, those who would go forth from him, from Isaac and Jacob, they eventually are going to face slavery for 400 years in Egypt.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, that's the shorthand of what he's referring to here.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: The fourth generation, we mean 400 years.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so 400 years later, they are going to come out of the land of Egypt and return to where Abraham is right now.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: And at that time, this is where we get to in the Old Testament with this last spring in Numbers.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: We'll talk a little bit about it this spring in Deuteronomy, but then Joshua and judges, especially, as they begin to fight against the peoples who are already there.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: It is part of God's judgment that those people are destroyed because he is watching their sin build up over time.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: But yet here in the Lord's timetable, he says, it'll be about 400 years until they experience what they deserve in this life.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: There are going to be many Amorites who live in terrible sin and idolatry, and nothing happens to them in this way in this lifetime.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yet the Lord is working out a larger plan.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: So when it comes to the Bible, God was already watching the terrible sins of the Amorites and the rest of these ungodly nations in Canaan.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: But when it comes to his justice, it's always on his timeline.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: And what we also know.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Which we'll talk about in just a moment, is that there is no part of his justice that is ever forgotten on a people, an individual or a group.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yet, what sometimes happens is that it occurs later than we would expect.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Third question and final question: Can I be good?
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is a good question.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Can I be good?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: Karma says yes.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: The definition of good is a little hazy.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: What it means to be good, it's kind of up to debate.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, you can be good.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: You can do enough good things.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, that is how we explain all the success of this world.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's everybody who was good in the past life.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: Everything that is fantastic right now, all the blessings of this world that we would, again, say are true blessings, like you're rich and you're powerful, and you've got an IQ of 180.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody has an IQ that high.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: But anyhow, an IQ, you're very smart, right?
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's because you were righteous in a past life.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: You can be good.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: You can meet the standard.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: You can do what you were supposed to do.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you will receive the benefits.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: What does the Bible say?
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible does not say that.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: Psalm 14.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: There is no one who does good.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord looks down from heaven on the human race to see if there is one who is wise, one who seeks God.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: All have turned away.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: All alike have become corrupt.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: There is no one who does good, not even one.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: It is perhaps one of the hardest truths of the entire world, the Bible, Christianity, to accept that we have fallen short of God's standards, that we are sinners in need of a Savior.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: That no matter how hard we try, nobody except for Jesus Christ has ever lived a good life.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: Not any of us.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, some people live a life further away from God than others, but everybody has fallen short of his standards.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so when it comes to God's justice, there absolutely is an aspect to it that you reap what you sow and you get what you deserve.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: The part we don't like to acknowledge is that as we are all going to get what we deserve.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: None of us deserve anything good.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is the hard part.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: This is where karma really diverges from what the Bible clearly teaches about the way that God, really, his mercy and his grace are visited upon the world, which is that if there is anything good, it is a gift from him, undeserved, that very, very rarely in the Bible do you ever see an example where somebody is specifically sort of granted this amazing blessing just because God was happy with them.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: To clarify what I mean by that, we can look at a clear example.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: You can think of Solomon as the king, right where he prays this.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord says, Hey Solomon, listen, ask me for anything, and I will give it to you.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: And Solomon says, Really, what I want is wisdom to lead your kingdom.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is before Solomon fell off the deep end.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: He's doing great things at this point.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: And Solomon says, I want wisdom to lead your kingdom.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: And God says, I am so pleased with that request that I will give you the other things you could have asked for.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: But my friends, I have to tell you that by and large, God does not work with every single person like they are the king of Israel.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: That this world has hardships and troubles in it.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: And if we really got what was coming to us, if we really got what was coming to us, we would all be going to hell.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: So when we talk about our sin nature, this thing within us that leads us to rebel, the thing within us that pushes us against God, you have to also notice this is part of the process.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: This is why we are sometimes enchanted.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because part of that sin nature occasionally draws us towards things that sound good but are really destructive.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: So we, even if we say, Oh, I know I need Jesus, we take these little bits and baubles from karma and we attach them to our lives.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: We say, Well, I like being in control.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: I like the idea that things work on my timeline.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: I like the idea that some of my success in this life has to do with because I'm a pretty good person.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: We create this narrative in our heads.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Further, and it cuts both ways.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: One, if we're doing very well, the God must be very, very pleased.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: But on the other hand, and what can be very destructive is that if we are struggling, if we have cancer, if a loved one passes away, if our business has failed, whatever, if our tire goes flat, we can draw ourselves into these also false thinkings that say, well, God must be punishing me for something that's going on right now.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: And those things are not true either.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: So some of us need to be humbled that the success that we have experienced in this life, we need to remind ourselves that it isn't a direct measure of God's satisfaction with us.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps you're wise.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps God wanted to give you a good gift.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: But many successful people in the Bible needed to be humbled.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: Many successful people in the Bible, according to the world's standards, and what we might say to be somebody who had received all the blessings of God, we find out many times that God is unsatisfied with the way that they are living.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: These things don't equal each other.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: They're not on either side of an equation.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: We cannot judge somebody's relationship with God, nor can we even judge God's satisfaction with us based upon our fortunes or our failures.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: Good output does not always mean that there is a good input.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: There are plenty of people living in mansions with low blood pressure who need Jesus Christ as their Savior and don't trust in Him.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: Not that those things are bad, but just that they do not mean that God is satisfied.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Cut to the other side.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: Some of us need to be uplifted.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: Some of us who have bought into the narrative, this is part of the prosperity gospel, have bought into the narrative that health and wealth and all these things can be achieved if we are just more righteous, if we just pray harder.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: This was Eliphaz speaking to Job, and it is a lie.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: Alright?
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: Later on, Eliphaz is shown by God Himself to be an absolute fool for thinking these things.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so some of us need to be uplifted because we have bought into some false narratives about why it is that we are struggling physically or mentally or emotionally, and that it's because God is mad at us.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Alright?
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: That is not a direct measure of God's dissatisfaction of your life.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps you were unwise in certain things, or perhaps you were experiencing an effect of living in a cursed world where sin and death reign.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not evidence of God's dissatisfaction.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: There are many afflicted people who needed to be lifted up in the Bible, and there are many people without a 401k or who are struggling with cancer who are immeasurably rich in the kingdom of God.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: Bad output doesn't always mean bad input.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so these are the differences.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: Where do they come together?
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, one thing that karma clearly teaches is that you just get to keep going.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: That you just, if it's not this one, it's the next one.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: And if it's not that one, it's the one after that.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: And you can keep going and you can keep moving forward, and every single time you have the opportunity to make it better.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: What God's justice teaches us is that you get one shot that this is it, the one that you and I are experiencing right now, that there is no second go-around after this one.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: And whenever it is that the Lord decides to call you home, because he is in control, whenever it is that you go before him, you have a really big question that you're going to need to answer, which is, why should I let you into my kingdom?
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now I want to share with you one final passage about reaping and sowing.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is the last one for this morning.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to see how God really feels about good input and good output.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: Galatians 6, 7 through 9.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be deceived.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: God is not mocked.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: For whatever a person sows, he will also reap, because the one who sows to his flesh will reap destruction from the flesh, but the one who sows to the spirit will reap eternal life from the spirit.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: Let us not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don't give up.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: So after all, reaping and sowing is absolutely a kingdom principle of the Lord.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, what God is most concerned about is your reaping and your sowing and where you're putting your priority in terms of your faith.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: There's not going to be a single person who gets to the gates of heaven and is able to go to God and say, I've been a pretty great person, Lord.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: I know you've been watching me.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I know you've been pretty impressed.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: I uh you allowed me to get that car that I had been wanting, and that was a sure sign that you really loved what I had done.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, I lived a healthy life, lived a good life.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: It was nice.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm thankful, God, that you and I, we were on the same terms.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: That you were paying me back for that which I'd given to you.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: You scoff, but this is the way some of us act.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's the way that some of us think.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're not that bold, but there might still be a narrative in our hearts that says the reason that my life right now is good is simply because I have been obedient to God.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: There might be many reasons right now where your life is good, but you cannot claim that that is the only one.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: So everyone needs to understand that they will go before God.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: The question you have to ask yourself is, what will you say?
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: What are you going to say to him?
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: When he asks you that question.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say it was today.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: Not 20 years from now, not when you're ready for it, not when you had time to prepare, but like today.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: You go before God, he says, Why should I let you into my kingdom?
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can't say it's because you're a good person, because you weren't.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm not.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because none of us are.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: We've all fallen short of God's standards.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: The only one who didn't is Jesus Christ.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so the only one who didn't deserve death was Jesus Christ.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: And yet Jesus Christ experienced death on our behalf.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: He took the punishment that we deserve so that by trusting in him and as our Savior, we would receive the righteousness that was due to him, that is due to him, that he currently lives with in God's kingdom, we would receive forgiveness for our sins because the penalty had been paid.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so there are going to be the worst of the worst people who get to God at the end of their lifetime.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: But maybe like the thief on the cross, they say, But Lord, I genuinely trust in you as my Savior.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: I repent of my sin.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: I know that I'm not a good person.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: And God says, Come on in.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we did the whole thing.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's to save a broken creation where nobody deserves to come on in.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the most broken people who are best able to understand the gift of God's salvation.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: Then the other person comes in.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: We've already talked about them, and they say, Lord, I've done pretty good.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I needed Jesus that much.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, Oof, boy, I feel like you missed something.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because the point is that you needed him.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: You needed him the entire way.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't need 40% of Jesus because 60% of you had it covered.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: You needed him all of the way.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: You needed to be covered in the blood of Christ because karma is not real.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: God's justice is real, and God's justice says that we have all fallen short.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, in sum, right, it is good for us, right, to recognize this internal sense of justice that we have.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think the reason, part of the reason why we are pulled into things like karma is because we are made in God's image.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's this aspect of sort of a return of justice that we love to see.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: But the part where we don't go far enough is that we don't always apply true justice to our own lives according to God's standard, which is the only one that matters.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: And when it comes to that, we have fallen short, and the only thing that carries us through is the blood of Christ.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: So when you go to God, whenever that is, 50 years from now, will you be able to say, I trusted in Christ as my Savior.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm covered by the blood of the Lamb.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: I know I'm not a good person, but Lord, you made me righteous because of your good gift.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: What will you say?
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we come before you today.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: God, we think about that future meeting with you.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: Every single one of us will experience it.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that thought might make some of us uncomfortable, Lord.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because we don't know what exactly we might say.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: God, we know that our good deeds, as your prophet Isaiah says, are even the best of them are like dirty rags.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because, God, we so often we rebel against you.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, even our best deeds are so often done for selfish motivation and selfish gain.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes because, God, we just want better things in the future.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: God, we buy into this idea.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, it is wrong.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: God, I pray that your spirit would convict us, would help us to see the truth of your word.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, what it means to know you as our Savior, to believe that your blood has covered our sins.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: And God, to trust in that, not ourselves, as the thing that will carry us through into the gates of heaven.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we love you.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you for the gift of Christ.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it's in His name that we pray.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: All right, everybody.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great week.