-Mike

If I’m to be whom You desire
All throughout my life
A vessel unto honor, Lord to Thee
And before Your throne to hear You say
That I have done my part
Lord, I need an undivided heart

These are good lyrics and a good reminder. Paul told the Corinthians to be undivided in their devotion to the Lord (1 Corinthians 7:35). That’s something we need to be reminded of all day every day. At least I do. But here’s the rub. When someone steeped in performance-based Christianity (PBC) hears these lyrics, they can quickly turn them into a to-do list. PBCers like to-do lists. PBCers are on the prowl for good to-do lists. I know because I used to be one (a PBCer – not a to-do list).

The PBCer will read “if I’m to be whom you desire….[if] I have done my part…I need an undivided heart” and conclude that God is only pleased with me if I have all of my ducks neatly in a row. They will ask, “how can I do this better?” or “I need to get better at this so God won’t be disappointed in me and my performance.” In PBC it’s all up to me to keep God’s favor by performing better, so if I’m to be whom God desires, I better get busy and get my act together.

Performance-based Christianity is a burdensome and harsh taskmaster that says “do more and do it better” but the gospel simply says “it is finished.” It’s done and I didn’t do it. Even Paul’s command for undivided devotion is gospel-soaked. His intent wasn’t to “lay any restraint upon you..” That kind of freedom only comes from the gospel. Only as I remember who I am in Jesus, am I free to fail in my pursuit of an undivided heart and still be counted as one who has an undivided heart. That’s because Jesus represented me the moment he stepped out of heaven and what I couldn’t do on my own, God did for me (Romans 8:3-4). His righteous requirements have been met for me by my Savior. Relax and enjoy Jesus today!

-Mike

-Mike

It is important to understand that fruitfulness and growth are the results of focusing on Christ and desiring to honor Him. When growth and change are our primary goals, we tend to be preoccupied with ourselves instead of with Christ. “Am I growing? Am I getting any better? Am I more like Christ today? What am I learning?” This inordinate preoccupation with self-improvement parallels our culture’s self-help and personal enhancement movement in many ways. Personal development is certainly not wrong, but it is misleading—and it can be very disappointing—to make it our preeminent goal. As we grasp the unconditional love, grace, and power of God, then honoring Christ will increasingly be our consuming passion…The only One worthy of our preoccupation is Christ, our sovereign Lord, who told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.”

Looking at my own performance for comfort, joy, or assurance leads to disappointment, disillusionment, and despair. Look to Jesus!

-Mike

The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. (Exodus 34:6-8)

Moses’ worship was spontaneous, based on God revealing himself not only as just and holy, but also as merciful, kind, gracious, and forgiving sin. God is a God of hope and mercy. I thought of Romans 2:4,

Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

-Mike

“The ironic thing about legalism is that it not only doesn’t make people work harder, it makes them give up.”

I’ve seen the performance-ism brand of legalism take the wind out of the spiritual sails of people close to me.  Gospel-lite performance-ism leads to either prideful living marked by a critical spirit, or discouragement and eventually, despair.  Both are sad to see, but the beauty and power of grace is its ability to restore, heal, and make all things new.

-Mike

The greatest attacks on the gospel will always come from within the church because somewhere along the way, we’ve come to believe that this whole thing is about behavioral modification and personal moral improvement and grace just doesn’t possess the teeth to scare us into changing. -Tullian Tchividjian

-Mike

IN CHRIST ALONE—BUT I’VE GOT A FEW THINGS TO ADD

Matt: So how did Christians become legalists about the whole idea of sanctification, where did we get it wrong do you think?

Tullian: I think since Genesis 3, we have all been prone towards works righteousness. Our heart is bent to do it on our own and that doesn’t go away after we become Christians. We still drift into what Jerry Bridges calls the “performance treadmill.”

For instance, none of us has a problem saying that our good works don’t get us in. We know our good works don’t get us in. Any good works are as filthy rags because we’re justified by grace alone through faith alone and the finished work of Christ alone. We acknowledge that.

But once God saves us it gets weird because we start thinking, OK, my good works do keep God’s favor. My good works may have not earned God’s favor, but it’s up to me to keep God’s favor. As a result, we become the hero of the story. We become the centerpiece of our own narrative, and Jesus is sitting on the sidelines and we’re on the field and he’s like, “Put me in, coach,” and we’re like, “No. We got it. Thanks for getting us on the field, but we’ll take it from here.” And we add all sorts of things.

When we think about legalism we think about, Don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t—whatever. That, however, is not the subtle kind of legalism that Christians like me are prone towards. Christians like me are prone towards the kind of legalism that says God is angry with me if I don’t read my Bible today. And if I want to be sure God loves me, I have to make sure that I dot the i’s and cross the t’s. And if I’m not nice to my wife, one day God is going to shut me out.

The good news of the gospel is that my standing with God is not dependent on my obedience but Christ’s obedience for me. People will say, “Well, you can’t say that because then what impetus will you have to get people to do what they need to do?” and I simply go back and give them an illustration and say, “Listen: if I know that my wife loves me unconditionally—whether I’m being nice or whether I’m being a jerk—does that make me want to be more of a jerk?” [Laughing] It actually makes me want to be nicer. The thing that makes me want to love my wife more is when she loves me when I’m not being nice.

That’s the kindness of the Lord that Paul says leads to repentance. It’s the amazing grace of God, the unconditional favor of God given to us because of what Christ has done that transforms the human heart and turns us into the kind of people the Bible describes.

WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU HAVE NOTHING TO DO

Matt: Aw man, I love it. Yeah! That’s good stuff. I think, so often, we get that backwards. It’s very subtle. As you said, we have these things on our radar of what the Christian life is like: don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t cuss, and we subtly fall into these patterns of works righteousness. It’s tricky and it’s hard to really see in the day-in and day-out.

So what’s the big idea you’re hoping readers are going to come away with after they read Jesus + Nothing = Everything?

Tullian: My hope and prayer is that this book will set people free, that it will cause them to relax and rejoice because we live our lives under a banner that reads, “It is finished.”

The question I ask throughout the book is this: “In light of Christ’s finished work and the imputed righteousness that we possess, what are we going to do now that we don’t have to do anything?” That’s a scandalous question to ask people because they think, “Wait a minute . . . we have to do this and we have to do that.”

It reminds me of Jesus’ disciples in John 6 when they said, “What must we be doing to be doing the works of God?” And it’s like they got their pad and pen out and they’re all ready to take notes and make a checklist to do those things Jesus tells them to do. And Jesus says, “You want to know what you need to be doing to be doing the works of God? Believe in the one whom God has sent.” And they’re like, “That’s too good to be true. What are you talking about?”

We have a ton of things we think we need to do. We have to change the world and we’ve got to fix problems and we’ve got to fix people, and I’ve got to fix my wife and make sure my kids turn out OK. I need to make sure people are obeying God. These are things people, pastors specifically, fall into and Jesus is like, “Just trust me. Trust me. I’ve done it and it is finished. It’s a done deal. Just rest.”

_________________________

Here’s a link to the original article:

http://theresurgence.com/2012/02/10/it-is-finished-and-so-is-this-interview

In the first post, Matt talked with Tullian about the challenges he faced in 2009 that sparked his book. Below is the second installment in which Pastor Tullian talks about idolatry, brokenness, and how he has no reputation to protect

IDOLS AREN’T (JUST) WOODEN STATUES

Matt: You know one of the things that really stood out to me as you were talking is this concept of idolatry. In our own contemporary times, how do you bridge that conceptually? And what were the things that you would term as idolatry in your own life during that time? What did God reveal to you?

Tullian: Often when we think of idols we think of wooden statues that people in far off lands bow down to. Yet the Bible makes it really clear that an idol is anything you are depending on other than Jesus to make your life worth living.

In the crucible of pain and suffering, idols were being revealed to me. God was showing me all of the things I was trusting in to make me feel important and secure and to make me feel like I mattered. He pried my hands open and forced me to let go of the things I didn’t even realize I was depending on. And it was during that time that I really thought I can’t take anymore.

My best friend, my closest confidante and adviser, my dad, is dying in a hospital, the church seems to be falling apart, people are out to get me . . . everything just seemed in complete disarray. I didn’t know what was right, what was wrong, what was true, what was false. Rumors were going out like crazy, things were being said about me that weren’t true. People were knowingly believing and spreading lies and not caring, and I had never experienced anything like that from Christians and certainly anything like that from inside the church. So I was just being left to thresh. God was breaking my legs and stripping me down to what seemed like nothing. As I say in the book, it’s only when you come to the end of yourself that you come to the beginning of God’s amazing grace. And when we look back over the course of our lives, it is during those very times when we are absolutely at the end of ourselves that God teaches us grace.

One of the things I had to deal with during the aftermath was how do I forgive these people? How do I go through life without being bitter and vengeful?

After six months they called for a congregational meeting to have me removed and when that failed, they left the church. It has been a little over two years now and they’ve since started their own church. In a sense, a lot of the problems at the church ended when they left. We started to heal and we started to rebuild and since that time God has launched a gospel riot, and we’re just riding the wave and having a blast. But in the aftermath, I had ask, “how do I deal with the desire to not go out and get these people?” (laughs) I mean, how do I deal with the hurt and how do I deal with my children who saw Christians behaving badly and how do I comfort my wife who doesn’t want to be a pastor’s wife anymore? I was dealing with all of those things afterwards, and the gospel visited me then too.

It’s only when you come to terms with your own sin and your own brokenness that God can give you the kind of compassion that you need for people who sin against you. During those times, God teaches you that anything that has been done to you or is said about you is nothing greater than anything you have done or said about others. God’s law crushed me, and it was God’s gospel that was rebuilding me. So I came to a much greater sense of my own sin and need. My own fallen-ness and brokenness and Christ’s sufficiency and his cleansing blood which covers all of my mistakes and all of my bad motives.

What I tell people all the time is Christian people need to hear much more about what Christ has already done than what they need to do. And what we discover, and what I discovered during that time, was you actually do and love more, not when you’re told to do and told to love, but when you come to greater grips with what Christ has done for you and the unconditional love he bestowed on you. When that really grips your heart, forgiveness and compassion and sympathy and all of those things begin to show up in your life.

It’s like C.S. Lewis said, “you never find first things by pursuing things secondary, and you always get the good stuff when you pursue Jesus.” Peter only began to sink when he took his eyes off of Jesus to look down on the water and see how he was performing (Matthew 14:29–30). So I was just radically gripped by Christ’s finished work for me. And that really became the impetus for the book. I felt like I wanted the whole church to know what happened to me and how the gospel saved me 18 years after I became a Christian. And how the ongoing now power of the gospel is the only thing that can sustain us.

THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL IS NOW

Matt: Yeah, I love that. It’s just getting back to the basics of gospel centrality and that phrase you use, “now power of the gospel,” what do you mean by that?

Tullian: I mean what Christ accomplished for us with his life by his death and his resurrection is powerful in my life now. When a lot of people think about the gospel, they think once God saves us, he moves us beyond the gospel and moves us into deeper theological territory. Yet the Bible makes it clear that God never moves us beyond the gospel. After he saves us, he moves us more deeply into the gospel and we never move beyond that. I don’t care how long you’ve been a Christian, you never move beyond your daily need for Christ’s finished work on your behalf.

The challenge of the Christian life becomes, “How do I connect what Christ has already accomplished for me in the context of conflict, frustration, anger, temptation? How does Christ’s finished work empower me now to say no to the things that God hates and to say yes to the things that God loves? Where does the power come from to be sustained in the moment?” It comes from what Christ has accomplished for us.

All theology is simply an outworking of the gospel in our daily lives. So when I talk about the now power of the gospel, that’s what I mean. I’m talking about how the gospel and Christ’s finished work, in particular, impact the way I live. Impact my relationships. Impact me as a father dealing with my teenagers. Impact me as a husband dealing with my wife, a leader dealing with my staff, and a pastor dealing with his congregants.

YOU ARE FREE TO LIVE THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

Matt: Yes. It seems like it’s less an issue of, “Here are the steps I need to do to be a good Christian and keep my nose clean,” but when you’re captured by the beauty of the gospel and what Jesus has accomplished, you’re actually freer to live out the Christian life rather than being tied down and having fear of other people or whatever.

Tullian: Exactly. I think when most people think about Christian growth or what it means to progress in the Christian life—they would never say it this way—but the implication is we needed Jesus a lot for justification and we need him less for sanctification.

Christian growth, the way many people think about it, is we are becoming stronger and stronger, we’re becoming more and more competent, and yet the Bible makes it pretty clear, certainly Paul does, when he says he’s accomplished more than any of us could ever do for Jesus, and yet at the end of his life he says, “I’m the worst guy I know” (1 Corinthians 15:9). This signals to me that Christian growth and progress in the Christian life is not, I’m becoming stronger and stronger, it’s I’m becoming more aware of just how weak I am.

It’s not that I’m becoming more and more competent, it’s that I’m growing in my realization of how incompetent, how dependent I am on Christ. He stood condemned in my place and sealed my pardon with his blood. Hallelujah! What a Savior! The Christian life is not about my transformation; it’s about Christ’s substitution. He did for me what I could never do for myself, and that’s why Paul was so free at the end of his life to say, “I’m the worst guy I know! And it’s okay for me to tell you that because, in Christ, I have no reputation to protect. I don’t need to pretend. I don’t need to put on masks and make you think that I’m something I’m not. I am free—absolutely free—to say from the rooftops I am the worst guy I know, Jesus paid it all.”

I already possess everything in him. It’s about him; he’s the hero of the story, I’m not. This entire thing has nothing to do with me and it has everything to do with him. And when we rest in that, our hearts are gripped by it and our lives are totally changed and transformed because we’re no longer thinking about our transformation—we’re thinking about Christ’s substitution.

_______________________

Here’s the link to the original article:

http://theresurgence.com/2012/01/24/this-entire-thing-has-nothing-to-do-with-pastor-tullian

Matt: Today we’re interviewing our friend Tullian Tchividjian, he’s the senior pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale Florida, and he’s also Visiting Professor of Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary and a grandson of Billy and Ruth Graham. Tullian was the founding pastor of the former New City Church that merged with Coral Ridge in April of 2009. His book Jesus + Nothing = Everything is his first book since his devastating year in the loss of his father and being called to pastor at Coral Ridge.

WHAT IS GOD TEACHING ME?

There are a few powerful sentences in the beginning of this book that really stood out to me, and I think it will set up the context of what you went through at Coral Ridge when your churches merged, so I wanted to read that and maybe you could comment.

In the first chapter you say, “Never had I experienced something so tough. I could hardly eat, had trouble sleeping, and was continually battling nausea. I felt at the absolute end of myself. God! What in the world are you doing? I need resurrecting.” That’s a pretty powerful way to start a book. What were you experiencing? What were you recounting when you wrote that?

Tullian: As I spell out in the book, 2009 was by far the most painful year of my life. That was the year my father got sick and ended up dying, it was also the year the church I had planted 5½ years earlier, New City Church, merged with Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, which was a well-established, well-known church about 10 miles south of where New City was.

A CHURCH MERGER UNDER GOD’S LEAD

Coral Ridge was founded in 1959 by Dr. D. James Kennedy. The services at Coral Ridge were televised, and Dr. Kennedy was a real pioneer when it came to radio and all of those things, so when he died in 2007, Coral Ridge approached me and asked if I would consider being their pastor. I said, “I’m humbled, I’m honored, but I’m not interested.” They came back a couple months later and asked again, and again I said, “I’m humbled, I’m honored, but I’m not interested.” Five months later they came back and that’s when we started talking about possibly merging the two churches.

A group of men from New City and a group of men from Coral Ridge and me met once a week for months and went through a meticulous due diligence process to see if a merger could work. God’s leading was unambiguous, it was very clear. So in April of 2009 – Easter Sunday to be exact – the two churches came together as one new church. There was a small but vocal minority of long-time people at Coral Ridge who opposed the merger before it happened, and then once it happened, they started to attack my leadership and the leaders around me. It created so much unrest and division inside the church and I was faced, for the very first time, with a situation that I had never been faced with before.

PUBLIC ATTACK AND A CHALLENGE TO GOD

There were all sorts of things happening inside the church and there was an all out character assassination on me. Because my family is well-known and because the church is well-known, the papers and Associated Press picked up on it. It seemed like everybody in the country knew there was fighting taking place at Coral Ridge and it was a terrible, terrible time for about six months.

In the middle of that time, my family and I had to get away just to maintain some measure of sanity. We went to the southwest coast of Florida where we vacation every year and I was looking over the Gulf of Mexico one morning with my Bible opened to Colossians chapter 1 and had it out with God. I was frustrated with God. I was afraid. I was angry. I kept asking God why he had done what he had done.

It was hard enough putting this church plant that was doing remarkably well on the altar and merging it with Coral Ridge. Even if everyone at Coral Ridge had welcomed us with open arms, it would have still been difficult, and so here I was bargaining with God basically saying I had put my baby on the altar and this is what I get in return? And I finally just lashed out and said, “Just give me my old life back.”

GOD’S CHALLENGE TO ME

And it was through Colossians 1, which is really the birth of this book in my heart and mind, that God gently but firmly showed me it really wasn’t my old life that I wanted back but my old idols and he loved me too much to give them to me. I was just floored by the fact that I had for so long, unknowingly, depended on human approval and human acceptance to make me feel like I mattered, to validate me, to make me feel important.

For the first time in my life, human approval and human acceptance was being stripped away and God was revealing to me all the things I was depending on that were smaller than Jesus, trying to make my life worth living. It didn’t take the pain away, but it really showed me the source of my pain. It wasn’t what other people were saying about me and it wasn’t that my reputation was being soiled, it was that things were being taken away from me graciously by God. I was holding onto those more dearly than him and I was being stripped. God was breaking my legs and teaching me grace. He was teaching me the gospel. I tell people all the time, I never ever want to go through anything like that again, but I would never trade that experience for all the money in the world because of the way God taught me the gospel.

LIVING OUT WHAT I’D BEEN PREACHING

It was during that time that I really rediscovered functionally the NOW power of the gospel. I had been preaching the gospel with great passion for many years. I had been preaching it with great conviction and yet it wasn’t genuinely functional until God brought me through the crucible of pain and suffering.  I began rediscovering the reality and beauty and the brightness of the gospel.

Everything I needed and longed for in Christ, I already possessed.

It was during that time that God was helping me connect the dots between what I was experiencing and what Christ had already accomplished for me. And it was specifically in Colossians chapter 1, second part of verse 12-14 where Paul says you’ve already been transferred, you’ve already been qualified, you’ve already been forgiven, you’ve already been redeemed, everything you could possibly want, everything you could possibly desire, is already yours in Christ. It’s a done deal.

IT REALLY IS FINISHED

Now I live my life under a banner that reads, “IT IS FINISHED”, and it is that reality gripping my heart that’s set me free in ways that I had never ever been free before and it radically changed me. I tell people all the time that my focus is singular; my passion is myopic now. I don’t care as much as I used to what other people think about me, both good and bad. I’m freer than I’ve ever been and my preaching has radically changed. Everything about me has changed. I’m still learning, obviously, and will until the day I die, but I really, really learned how the power of Christ’s finished work intersects with my daily grind in a brand new way.

Matt: That is powerful. Just to have your character maligned and be under the pressure cooker of life in that way; that would just seem like such a nightmare. It’s really interesting that in the middle of that pain and that crisis that God shows up in that way.

_____________

Here’s a link to the original article:

http://theresurgence.com/2012/01/10/jesus-nothing-everything

In part two, Tullian talks about idols.

Free at Last: Part 1 | Pastor Tullian | January 29, 2012 from Coral Ridge on Vimeo.

On their return the apostles told him all that they had done. And he took them and withdrew apart to a town called Bethsaida. When the crowds learned it, they followed him, and he welcomed them and spoke to them of the kingdom of God and cured those who had need of healing. (Luke 9:10-11)

The twelve had just returned from being sent out to preach the gospel and take care of the needy. They were no doubt weary and probably looking forward to some down time with Jesus and possibly even getting away from the crowds for a while.  Luke tells us that Jesus withdrew with them to Bethsaida.

But while there, the crowds showed up unexpectedly. How did Jesus handle this inconvenience? He welcomed them. I’m afraid my response to this unplanned intrusion would have been more like the disciple’s reaction. In my selfishness I would probably have chimed in with them saying, “Send the crowd away…” (verse 12). But Jesus welcomed them, fed them, taught them, and took care of them.

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. (James 1:27)

-Mike

Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’ If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the LORD will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. (Isaiah 58:9-11)

Lord Jesus, change my heart to turn away from needless things that distract me from why I’m here. 

-Susan

It’s what everyone needs.  Everyone.  Gospel + safety + time.  A lot of gospel + a lot of safety + a lot of time.

Gospel: good news for bad people through the finished work of Christ on the cross and the present power of the Holy Spirit.  Multiple exposures.  Constant immersion.  Wave upon wave of grace and truth, according to the Bible.

Safety: a non-accusing environment.  No finger-pointing.  No embarrassing anyone.  No manipulation.  No oppression.  No condescension.  But respect and sympathy and understanding, where sinners can confess and unburden their souls.

Time: no pressure.  Not even self-imposed pressure.  No deadlines on growth.  No rush.  No hurry.  But a lot of space for complicated people to rethink their lives at a deep level.  If we relax, trusting in God’s patience, we actually get going.

This is what our churches must be: gentle environments of gospel + safety + time.  It’s the only way anyone can ever change.

Who doesn’t need that?

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/rayortlund/2012/01/27/gospel-safety-time/

These are the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham fathered Isaac, and Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, the sister of Laban the Aramean, to be his wife. And Isaac prayed to the LORD for his wife, because she was barren. And the LORD granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived. (Genesis 25:19-21)

Here’s what jumped out at me. Isaac was 40 years old when he married Rebekah, but Rebekah couldn’t have children so Isaac prayed for her to be able to conceive. Then the very next sentence says that the Lord granted his prayer and she conceived. Pretty cool, right? Yes. But look closer atthe details we get a few verses later:

When her days to give birth were completed, behold, there were twins in her womb. The first came out red, all his body like a hairy cloak, so they called his name Esau. Afterward his brother came out with his hand holding Esau’s heel, so his name was called Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them. (Genesis 25:24-26)

The narrative tells us that Isaac was 40 when he got married. We can safely assume that it became evident right away that she was barren and that he started praying for Rebekah to conceive right away. But when she finally gave birth, he was 60! Between “Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife, because she was barren” and “the Lord granted his prayer” in the very next sentence, there is a span of 20 years! Those two sentences covered 20 years! Can you imagine what must have happened during those years? The trials, the ups and downs, the faithless times, the discouragement, the moments of encouragement and resolve, the times of self-pity, the tears, the times of joy and hope, the gossip, the unfair criticism. I get impatient if I have wait 20 minutes for something!

But waiting for the Lord strengthens me; it renews and refreshes me and deepens my relationship with him and dependence upon him.

But they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31)

-Mike