Page 14 - Good News Broward January 2014

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During a radio interview last
week, the interviewer told me a
story that gets to the heart of how
grace transforms.
He was a camp counselor
one summer and one of his
responsibilities was to go around
with another counselor and
check the cabins every morning
while the students were at
breakfast. In order to motivate
them to keep their cabins clean,
awards were given at the morning
assembly to the students who had
the cleanest cabin. One morning
the counselors walked into one of
the cabins only to discover that it
had been intentionally trashed.
The students thought it would be
funny to “break the law” and do
the exact opposite of what they
had been asked to do. Clothes
everywhere. Food all over the
floor. Words written on the
bathroommirrors with soap. Wet
towels balled up in every corner.
The place was a complete
disaster.
The two counselors were
speechless. The one looked at the
other and asked, “What should
we do?” After pausing for a
moment, the guy who was
interviewing me finally answered,
“Let’s clean it up.” His buddy
looked at him like he was crazy:
“Clean it up? Are you kidding?
These punks need to be
punished! I’m not cleaning up
their mess.” The other one said,
“Well, I’m going to clean it up.
And by the time I’m done with it,
these kids will win the award
today for the cleanest cabin.” After
some moaning and groaning, his
buddy decided to help him. They
cleaned the whole cabin while the
students were at breakfast. Picked
up and folded all the clothes,
scrubbed all the soap off the
bathroom mirrors, vacuumed up
all the food, made all the beds,
and hung all the wet towels up to
dry on the clothes line right
outside the cabin. Then they left
without saying a word to anyone.
When the students came
back from breakfast, thinking
they had pulled off a great prank,
they couldn’t believe their eyes.
They were the ones who were
now speechless. They initially
thought they were now going to
be in double trouble. They
sheepishly made their way to the
morning assembly. When the
award for the cleanest cabin was
announced and they won, they
couldn’t believe it. Instead of
being punished, they were
rewarded. They all found the two
counselors who had cleaned up
their wrecked room and begged
for forgiveness. And, according to
the guy who was interviewing me,
those boys kept the cleanest cabin
for the rest of the week.
What
those
boys
experienced
was
what
theologians
call
“double-
imputation.” Not only did
someone
else
bear
their
punishment (having to clean up
the miserable mess they made)
but they were rewarded for
someone else’s “righteousness.” As
my friend Scotty Smith recently
said, “The gospel isn’t merely the
absence of all condemnation; it’s
also the fullness of God’s delight
lavished on us in Christ.”
And notice…the result of this
irrational act of grace toward
these boys was NOT worse
behavior. It was sorrow and
transformation. These punks
were punk’d by grace…and they
would never forget it.
I close my book
Surprised by
Grace: God’s Relentless Pursuit of
Rebels
with a story (not sure if this
really happened or is simply
parabolic) from Civil War days
before America’s slaves were
freed, about a northerner who
went to a slave auction and
purchased a young slave girl. As
they walked away from the
auction, the man turned to the
girl and told her, “You’re free.”
With
amazement
she
responded, “Youmean, I’m free to
do whatever I want?”
“Yes,” he said.
“And to say whatever I want
to say?”
“Yes, anything.”
“And to be whatever I want to
be?”
“Yep.”
“And even go wherever I
want to go?”
“Yes,” he answered with a
smile. “You’re free to go wherever
you’d like.”
She looked at him intently
and replied, “Then I will go with
you.”
Many fear that grace-
delivered, blood-bought, radical
freedom (to do, say, and be
whatever we want) will result in
loveless license. But as the two
stories
above
illustrate,
redeeming unconditional love
alone (not law, not fear, not
punishment, not guilt, not shame)
carries the power to compel
heart-felt loyalty to the One who
gave us (and continues to give us)
what we don’t deserve (2
Corinthians 5:14).
Tullian Tchividjian is a South
Florida native, Senior Pastor of
Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church,
a visiting professor at Reformed
Theological Seminary, and
grandson of Billy and Ruth
Graham. He is the founder of
LIBERATE (liberatenet.org), a
bestselling author, a contributing
editor to Leadership Journal, and
a popular conference speaker.
Tullian and his family reside in
Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Follow
Tullian on twitter at:
@pastortullian.
Good News - Broward Edition
14 February 2014
LIBERATE
- Tullian Tchividjian -
Punk’d by Grace