Tullian Tchividjian's Blog, page 41

Suffering Does Not Rob You Of Joy—Idolatry Does

As most of you know, I've been preaching a series of sermons through the book of Job entitled "The Gospel of Suffering." These sermons are changing my life. I'm learning so much about the gospel, idolatry, the long-term blessings of God-appointed trials, and so on. You can listen to the sermon series here.

A few weeks back I was expounding on Job's sweeping losses and his response to those losses in chapters 1 and 2. What we learned together was stunning.

Job's maintained his joy and perspective in a season of suffering because he held onto a robust theology of grace. Job knew that he was not entitled to anything he had—God held the title to everything. He knew that everything he had was on loan from God—he understood he was an owner of nothing and a steward of everything. So he was able to say, "I came with nothing from the womb; I go with nothing to the tomb. God gave me children freely then, He took them to himself again. At last I taste the bitter rod, my wise and ever blessed God" (John Piper). While he loved his health and children and reputation and wealth, he didn't locate his identity in those things.

This clearly shows that if the foundation of your identity is your things—the thing that makes me who I am is this position, these relationships, having this name, having this  money, and so on—then suffering will be pulling you away from the uttermost foundations of your joy, and that will make you mad, bitter, and sad. But if your identity is anchored in Christ, so that you are able to say, "Everything I need I already possess in Him", then suffering drives you deeper into your source of joy. Suffering, in other words, shows us where we are locating our identity. Suffering reveals what we're building our life on and what we're depending on to make life worth living.

This means that suffering itself does not rob you of joy—idolatry does. If you're suffering and you're angry, bitter, and joyless it means you've idolized–and felt entitled to–whatever it is you're losing. Entitlement and self-pity stem from our belief that we deserve more than what we're getting–love, attention, respect, approval. The gospel, however, frees us to revel in our expendability! The gospel alone provides us with the foundation to maintain radical joy in remarkable loss. Joylessness and bitterness in the crucible of pain happens when we lose something (or think we deserve something) that we've held onto more tightly than God.

As Paul Tripp so probingly asks, "How is your present disappointment, discouragement, or grief a window on what has actually captured your heart?" When we depend on anything smaller than God to provide us with the security, significance, meaning, and value that we long for, God will love us enough to take it away. Much of our anger and bitterness, therefore, is God prying open our hands and taking away something we've held onto more tightly than him.

With this in mind, I find this fictional story from Elisabeth Elliot (taken from her book These Strange Ashes) to be refreshingly rebuking to my own soul–and therefore, remarkably liberating:

One day Jesus said to his disciples: "I'd like you to carry a stone for me." He didn't give any explanation. So the disciples looked around for a stone to carry, and Peter, being the practical sort, sought out the smallest stone he could possibly find. After all, Jesus didn't give any regulation for weight and size! So he put it in his pocket.  Jesus then said: "Follow Me." He led them on a journey. About noontime Jesus had everyone sit down. He waved his hands and all the stones turned to bread. He said, "Now it's time for lunch." In a few seconds, Peter's lunch was over.  When lunch was done Jesus told them to stand up. He said again, "I'd like you to carry a stone for me." This time Peter said, "Aha! Now I get it!" So he looked around and saw a small boulder. He hoisted it on his back and it was painful, it made him stagger. But he said, "I can't wait for supper." Jesus then said: "Follow Me." He led them on a journey, with Peter barely being able to keep up. Around supper time Jesus led them to the side of a river. He said, "Now everyone throw your stones into the water." They did. Then he said, "Follow Me," and began to walk. Peter and the others looked at him dumbfounded.  Jesus sighed and said, "Don't you remember what I asked you to do?  Who were you carrying the stone for?"

Suffering Does Not Rob You Of Joy—Idolatry Does is a post from: Tullian Tchividjian

How To Avoid Christless Christianty

I've been in San Diego since late Wednesday for the National Outreach Convention. I speak later this afternoon on the need for God to launch a gospel-revolution inside the church so that there will be a gospel revolution outside the church. Please pray for me.

Yesterday, however, I got to spend the day with my friend Mike Horton and others at Westminster Seminary in Escondido. Mike asked if I would come and speak in chapel, meet with the faculty, and have a time of Q&A with the students. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Mike gave me a copy of a new book that he edited and published through Modern Reformation entitled Justified: Modern Reformation Essays on the Doctrine of Justification. I was flipping through it last night and was super impressed by what I read.  At the end of the book Mike outlines six-core beliefs that define the mission of Modern Reformation and the White Horse Inn (his weekly radio broadcast). While all of the six beliefs are foundational, I was struck by the gripping clarity of belief number two on the importance of Gospel-centered preaching. Everything he writes here not only defines my theology of preaching but is, in my opinion, the only type of preaching that will rescue the church from Christless Christianity. He writes:

Scripture is of no use to us if we read it merely as a handbook for daily living without recognizing that its principle purpose is to reveal Jesus Christ and his gospel for the salvation of sinners. All Scripture coalesces in Christ, anticipated in the OT and appearing in the flesh in the NT. In Scripture, God issues commands and threatens judgment for transgressors as well as direction for the lives of his people. Yet the greatest treasure buried in the Scriptures is the good news of the promised Messiah. Everything in the Bible that tells us what to do is "law", and everything in the Bible that tells us what God has done in Christ to save us is "gospel." Much like medieval piety, the emphasis in much Christian teaching today is on what we are to do without adequate grounding in the good news of what God has done for us in Christ. "What would Jesus do?" becomes more important than "What has Jesus done?" The gospel, however, is not just something we needed at conversion so we can spend the rest of our Christian life obsessed with performance; it is something we need every day–the only source of our sanctification as well as our justification. The law guides, but only the gospel gives. We are declared righteous–justified–not by anything that happens within us or done by us, but solely by God's act of crediting us with Christ's perfect righteousness through faith alone.

Preachers, read that paragraph over and over.

As I've said here before, don't make the mistake of assuming that people understand the radical nature of gospel indicatives, so that your ministry is focused primarily on the imperatives. The commands in the Bible are like a set of railroad tracks. The tracks provide no power for the train but the train must stay on the tracks in order to function. The law, in other words, never gives any power to do what it commands. It shows us what a sanctified life looks like but it has no sanctifying power. Only the gospel has power, as it were, to move the train. This is why the Bible never tells us what to do before first soaking our hearts and minds in what God in Christ has already done.

The fact is, that any obedience not grounded in or motivated by the gospel is unsustainable. No matter how hard you try, how "radical" you get, any engine smaller than the gospel that you're depending on for power to obey will conk out in due time.

Preach the gospel!

How To Avoid Christless Christianty is a post from: Tullian Tchividjian

Monday Morning Letter To The Elders And Deacons

Brothers,

As I was thinking about you and praying for our church this morning, God renewed my conviction to be resolute in demanding that our men (and specifically our Elders and Deacons) understand and embody the life-giving power of the Gospel in their daily lives. The best way to tell how well the Gospel is gaining traction in a local church is the kind of men it produces. So here are some questions I asked myself this morning before God and I'm asking you to do the same:

Do you rejoice in position, power, accomplishments, entitlement, control, degrees, knowledge, status, authority, numbers, and rank? Or do you rejoice in service, mercy, sacrifice, pastoral care, love, prayer, prudence, grace, relationships, and repentance? Are you proud or humble? Do you put others before yourself? Do you find your daily security and significance in your own accomplishments or in Christ's accomplishment for you? Do you seek first place or last place? Do you boast on yourself or on Christ? Do you talk about yourself a lot? Are you prone to envy and do you get defensive easily? Do you weep with those who weep? Do you love people and look for opportunities to serve and shepherd them? Do you revel in self-confidence or self-sacrifice? Do you have people in your life that you confess specific instances of sin? Do the people in your life find it easy to correct you?

I know these are tough questions to ask yourself but honest answers to these questions will tell you how well you grasp the Gospel and how qualified you are to lead this church. The Bible demands that we be Gospel-men. And since his security and significance is in Christ, a real Gospel-man is not afraid of questions like this.

Furthermore, we all have blind spots, so I charge you to ask your wives and your children to answer these questions about you. If that charge makes you feel uncomfortable than it's a sure sign that you know you need to grow in your grasp of the gospel–like I do! As I said yesterday to the whole church: your spiritual health is my greatest goal and responsibility.

Please know that I love you all, am learning and growing with you, and am grateful to serve with you.

In Christ Alone,

Tullian

Monday Morning Letter To The Elders And Deacons is a post from: Tullian Tchividjian

Growth By Remembering

My friend Elyse Fitzpatrick has taught me a ton about the gospel. Through her many excellent books, she has taken me to gospel depths that have changed my life. During the most difficult year of my life (2009) Elyse provided gospel-drenched counsel and insight that, in a very real sense, saved me. Thanks Elyse!

This morning, as I was re-reading a portion of her book Because He Loves Me: How Christ Transforms Our Daily Life, I was recaptured by a truth that I preached recently. In a sermon on Colossians 1:9-14, I noted that it's important to see how in these verses Paul doesn't pray for something the Colossian Christians don't have. Rather, he prays they will grow in their awareness and understanding of what they do have.

I used to think that when the Bible tells us to work out our salvation, it meant go out and get what you don't have—get more patience, get more strength, get more joy, get more love, and so on. But after reading the Bible more carefully, I now understand that Christian growth does not happen by working hard to get something you don't have. Rather, Christian growth happens by working hard to live in the reality of what you do have. You could put it this way: rediscovering the gospel everyday is the hard work we're called to.

You see, the secret of the gospel is that we become more spiritually mature when we focus less on what we need to do for God and focus more on all that God in Christ has already done for us. The irony of the gospel is that we actually perform better as we grow in our understanding that our relationship with God is based on Christ's performance for us, not our performance for him. The gospel tells us that God doesn't relate to us based on our feats for Jesus, but on Jesus' feats for us. Big difference!

With this same idea in mind, Elyse writes:

One reason we don't grow in ordinary, grateful obedience as we should is that we've got amnesia; we've forgotten that we are cleansed from our sins. In other words, ongoing failure in sanctification (the slow process of change into Christlikeness) is the direct result of failing to remember God's love for us in the gospel. If we lack the comfort and assurance that his love and cleansing are meant to supply, our failures will handcuff us to yesterday's sins, and we won't have faith or courage to fight against them, or the love for God that's meant to empower this war. If we fail to remember our justification, redemption, and reconciliation, we'll struggle in our sanctification.

Christian growth, in other words, does not happen first by behaving better, but believing better–believing in bigger, deeper, brighter ways what Christ has already secured for sinners.

I closed the sermon on Colossians by saying:

Let me summarize what Paul is saying in this whole section (v.9-14): You will grow in your understanding of God's will, be filled with spiritual wisdom and understanding, increase in your knowledge of God, be strengthened with God's power which will produce joy filled patience and endurance (v.9-12a) as you come to a greater realization that you've already been qualified, delivered, transferred, redeemed, and forgiven (v.12b-14).

What these verses liberatingly teach us is this: because of Jesus' finished work for us, we already have the justification, approval, acceptance, security, freedom, affection, cleansing, new beginning, righteousness, and rescue we long for. Preaching this to myself everyday–that is, remembering the gospel–provides both the reason and the resources I need to go and grow.

C.J. Mahaney sums it up well: "Reminding ourselves of the gospel is the most important daily habit we can establish. If the gospel is the most vital news in the world, and if salvation by grace is the defining truth of our existence, we should create ways to immerse ourselves in these truths every day. No days off allowed."

Growth By Remembering is a post from: Tullian Tchividjian

The Gospel Everyday

I once assumed the gospel was simply what non-Christians must believe in order to be saved, while afterward we advance to deeper theological waters. But I've come to realize that " the gospel isn't the first step in a stairway of truths, but more like the hub in a wheel of truth." In other words, once God rescues sinners, his plan isn't to steer them beyond the gospel, but to move them more deeply into it. All good theology, in fact, is an exposition of the gospel.

In his letter to the Christians of Colossae, the apostle Paul portrays the gospel as the instrument of all continued growth and spiritual progress, even after a believer's conversion.

"All over the world," he writes, "this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace in all its truth" (Col. 1:6). He means that the gospel is not only growing wider in the world but it's also growing deeper in Christians.

After meditating on Paul's words, a friend told me that all our problems in life stem from our failure to apply the gospel. This means I can't really move forward unless I learn more thoroughly the gospel's content and how to apply it to all of life. Real change does not and cannot come independently of the gospel. God intends his Good News in Christ to mold and shape us at every point and in every way. It increasingly defines the way we think, feel, and live.

Martin Luther often employed the phrase simul justus et peccator—"simultaneously justified and sinful." He understood that while he'd already been saved from sin's penalty, he was in daily need of salvation from sin's power. And since the gospel is the "power of God for salvation," he knew that even for the most saintly of saints, the gospel is wholly relevant and vitally necessary. This means heralded preachers need the gospel just as much as hardened pagans.

In his book The Gospel for Real Life, Jerry Bridges picks up on this theme–that Christians need the gospel just as much as non-Christians–by explaining how the spiritual poverty in so much of our Christian experience is the result of inadequate understanding of the gospel's depths. The answer isn't to try harder in the Christian life but to comprehend more fully and clearly Christ's finished work for sinners and then to live in more vital awareness of that grace day by day. The main problem in the Christian life, in other words, is not that we don't try hard enough to be good. It's that we haven't accepted the deep implications of the gospel and applied its powerful reality to all parts of our life.

As I see it, there are two challenges for preachers, those of us called to announce this good news. First is to help people understand theologically that the gospel doesn't just ignite the Christian life but it's also the fuel that keeps Christians going and growing every day. The second challenge, which is much harder for me than the first, is to help people understand how this works functionally.

I address the second challenge by regularly asking myself questions like this one: Since Jesus secured my pardon and absorbed the Father's wrath on my behalf so that "there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus," how does that impact my longing for approval, my tendency to be controlling, and my fear of the unknown?

In other words, how does the finished work of Christ satisfy my deepest daily needs so that I can experience the liberating power of the gospel every day and in every way?

If you're a preacher, then God has called you to help others make the connection between Christ's finished work and their daily life. To do this, we must unveil and unpack the truth of the gospel from every biblical text we preach in such a way that it exposes both the idols of our culture and the idols of our hearts.

Every sermon ought to disclose the ways in which we depend on lesser things to provide the security, acceptance, protection, affection, meaning, and satisfaction that only Christ can supply.

I pray that as you come to a better understanding of the length and breadth of the gospel, you will be recaptured every day by the "God of great expenditure" who gave everything that we might possess all.

The Gospel Everyday is a post from: Tullian Tchividjian

Is Being A Calvinist The Same As Being Reformed?

One of the ongoing discussions with regard to the resurgence of interest in Calvinism revolves around the distinction (if any) between Calvinism in particular and Reformed theology in general. Should a Calvinistic view on salvation be synonymous with Reformed Theology? Or, is Reformed theology bigger than just Calvinism? Can Calvinism alone be considered Reformed?

Michael Horton shares his thoughts in an article entitled "The Hallway and the Rooms":

If being Reformed can be reduced to believing in the sovereignty of God and election, then Thomas Aquinas is as Reformed as R. C. Sproul.  However, the Reformed confession is a lot more than that.  Even the way it talks about these doctrines is framed within a wider context of covenant theology. It's intriguing to me that people can call themselves Reformed today when they don't embrace this covenant theology.

Next month, Jamie Smith's new book Letters to a Young Calvinist: An Invitation to the Reformed Tradition will be released. I think Jamie's book helps the discussion along very well. Jamie is a professor of philosophy at Calvin College. I had the privilege of reading an advanced copy of this book and writing an endorsement.

Here's what I wrote:

James K. A. Smith winsomely steps into one of the most fascinating conversations in contemporary evangelicalism–the surprising resurgence of Calvinism among younger Christians. Letters to a Young Calvinist is thoughtful, nuanced, provocative, relational, and informed. No one will agree with everything here, but what I appreciated most was Smith's careful insistence that there's much more to being theologically Reformed than believing in the famous (and fabulous!) five points of Calvinism. He shows that the Reformed tradition is covenantal and cosmic in scope, big and bright in scale, doctrinal and devotional in spirit. A thoroughly engaging read!

Buy it. Read it. Join the discussion–it's an important one.

Is Being A Calvinist The Same As Being Reformed? is a post from: Tullian Tchividjian

Are You Afraid Of Grace?

I've written an article over at The Resurgence on the primary lie Satan wants us to believe about God's grace:

The biggest lie about grace that Satan wants the church to buy is the idea that grace is dangerous and therefore needs to be "kept it in check." By believing this we not only prove we don't understand grace, but we violate gospel advancement in our lives and in the church. A "yes, grace…but" disposition is the kind of fearful posture that keeps moralism swirling around in our hearts and in the church.

Click here to read the whole thing and then come back here and comment.

I think this is an extremely important subject for the 21st century church to wrestle with if we are going to experience real Gospel revival inside  the church.

Are You Afraid Of Grace? is a post from: Tullian Tchividjian

No Utopia Now

Contrary to what some have concluded, a transformational approach to culture does not assume an unrealistic optimism about what's possible in our fallen world. Because the world will remain sinful until Christ returns, we know we can never achieve any utopia here and now. "Heaven on earth" will become a universal reality only when Christ comes back.

In this regard, it's been helpful for me to understand the distinction Abraham Kuyper made between "persuasion" and "coercion." For Kuyper, persuasion is the Christian's role and responsibility toward culture here and now—seeking to influence every sphere of society (such as the family, government, education) for Christ and bringing the standards of God's Word to bear on every dimension of human culture. Coercion, on the other hand, is the role and responsibility of Christ, not Christians. Jesus alone possesses the right and power to "coerce," or force, culture in a Godward direction, and this is a right he will fully exercise only when he returns to make "all things new" (Revelation 21:5). Understanding the difference between persuasion and coercion—between our role and Christ's role—helps us serve God with realistic expectations.

Of course there has always been considerable (and somewhat distracting) debate on whether, before Christ returns, things will get markedly worse, get markedly better, or just go on about the same. The answer to that is God's business, not ours. We're told to plant and water; God alone controls the results.

Our task as faithful disciples is proclaimed by the Welsh poet Ethelwyn Wetherald:

My orders are to fight;

Then if I bleed, or fail,

Or strongly win, what matters it?

God only doth prevail.

The servant craveth naught

Except to serve with might.

I was not told to win or lose—

My orders are to fight.

What we do know is that many Christians throughout the ages have sought cultural transformation, and in so doing they've had a huge impact on the world. One of them was the English politician William Wilberforce, whose conversion to Christianity impelled him to fight against the slave trade throughout the British Empire. He did this for decades, paving the way for the abolition of slavery and the reformation of morals in England. He was truly a man who changed his times. When Christians take the cultural mandate seriously, real change for the better can and has happened. No Christian has ever "turned earth into heaven, or the world into the church," says John Frame. "And sometimes they have made tragic mistakes. But they have also done a great deal of good."

The good news is that Christ not only began the process but also will complete it. And by his Spirit, he now empowers us to carry on his work. Led by Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit, we thus have all we need for our present task. In saving us, God has fully equipped us to carry out the cultural mandate he originally entrusted to us.

No Utopia Now is a post from: Tullian Tchividjian

Gospel-Centered Leadership

In the June 2009 issue of Tabletalk my friend Scotty Smith wrote an article to young Christian leaders exhorting them to be gospel-centered in their various roles. Reflecting on mistakes he's made and lessons he's learned over a 30 year span of fruitful ministry, he outlines his exhortation under three headings:

Gospel astonishment versus theological cockiness
Chief repenter versus former sinner
Preaching Christ to yourself versus preaching yourself

Scotty's timeless cry for "an emerging generation of leaders who will live and lead as genuinely as [the apostle]Paul" is painfully helpful, not only for young Christian leaders but for all Christian's everywhere.

You can read the whole thing here. Please do!

Gospel-Centered Leadership is a post from: Tullian Tchividjian

I Can't Trust God To Be Unmerciful

Robert Frost, America's grand old man of poetry in the twentieth century, occasionally explored God and faith in his earlier poems. Then, entering his seventies after a decade of great personal loss—his wife's death, the death of one of his daughters shortly after childbirth, and the suicide of another—Frost wrote two poetic dramas filled with references to God. The first, A Masque of Reason, is based on Job's story of suffering and comes across as rather inconclusive. But the second, A Masque of Mercy, has Jonah as the main character and wraps up in a more aesthetically pleasing way. In creative uniqueness it tackles the conflict in Jonah's thinking, as it "explores the ancient riddle of how God can be just and also be merciful." It also pulls Jonah toward Christ and the cross.

The brief play is set late on a stormy night inside a modern bookstore run by someone named Keeper, a pagan skeptic who'll later say, "I'd rather be lost in the woods than found in church." His alcohol-loving wife, Jesse Bel, is more openly searching for faith and sees that longing in others around her as well: "The world seems crying out for a Messiah," she'll say.

The play begins with Keeper and Jesse Bel locking their shop's door for the evening, leaving inside a customer named Paul (as it turns out, it's the Paul—the apostle). But someone bangs at the locked door. As they reluctantly let him in, the harried stranger exclaims, "God's after me!"

"You mean the Devil is," Jesse Bel remarks.

"No, God."

"I never heard of such a thing," she protests.

The fugitive answers, "Haven't you heard of Thompson's 'Hound of Heaven'?"

Paul at once interjects by quoting the familiar opening lines: "I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years."

But Keeper grumbles at the fugitive: "This is a bookstore—not a sanctuary."

From this strange and amusing start, the play proceeds to an extended conversation that keeps coming back to God.

"Why is God after you?" Keeper asks. "To save your soul?"

"No," the fugitive replies. He tells them he's a prophet, and his name is Jonah. He's been sent seven times "to prophesy against the city evil."

"What have you got against the city?" Keeper asks.

"He knows," Jonah answers. God knows.

Jonah identifies himself further (though Paul has already caught on): "I'm in the Bible, all done out in story." Then he complains, "I can't trust God to be unmerciful."

Paul responds, "There you have the beginning of all wisdom."

Jonah tells them about his earlier flight from God, and the storm, and the boat, and the crew—and the whale.

Jesse Bel sympathizes: "You poor, poor swallowable little man."

But Paul recognizes a man who needs rescue. He goes up to Jonah and crosses his forearms—to illustrate the cross.

"What good is that?" Jonah asks.

Jonah tells these three that he would like to announce an earthquake to destroy "the city evil," but he's sure God wouldn't send it. "Nothing would happen," he says—but suddenly a tremor sends books crashing from the store's shelves. Meanwhile, Jonah keeps hearing noises that he suspects are from God in pursuit of him.

Paul asks Jonah what he wants to see in God, if not mercy.

Justice is Jonah's answer; justice "before all else."

Throughout Frost's play, Jonah wrestles with how God doesn't seem to live up to justice. Jonah has been taught that people should be "strong, careful, thrifty, diligent," and he's upset by God's "modern tendency" not to punish those who fail to measure up to those ideals.

The conversation inside the bookshop bounces around in history, philosophy, and theology, and finally returns to mercy. Paul directs everyone's attention to the Sermon on the Mount and the "beautiful impossibility" it portrays:

An end you can't by any means achieve, And yet can't turn your back on or ignore, That is the mystery you must accept.

It throws us by necessity onto mercy. "Mercy is only to the undeserving," Paul says, which includes all of us, in God's sight:

Here we all fail together, dwarfed and poor. Failure is failure, but success is failure. There is no better way of having it.

A door opens on its own to the store's cellar. Paul, who has had a cross painted on the cellar's ceiling, encourages Jonah to go down into its dark depths: "You must make your descent like everyone." It will require Jonah's abandonment and submission, essentially a yielding of self.

Jonah is hesitant. Finally he steps to the threshold, but the door slams in his face, knocking him to the floor. Lying there, collapsed and fading out, he confesses, "I think I may have got God wrong entirely." His own sense of justice, he says, "was about all there ever was to me." His last words are these: "Mercy on me for having thought I knew."

Kneeling over him, Paul speaks his own concluding words, affirming that "the best we have to offer" isn't enough. "Our very best, our lives laid down like Jonah's . . . may not be found acceptable in Heaven's sight."

The play closes with words from Keeper, who admits, "My failure is no different from Jonah's." He says they should lift Jonah's body and lay him "before the cross," just as Paul wanted. As the curtain falls, Keeper moves toward the prostrate Jonah and offers the play's final line:

Nothing can make injustice just but mercy.

Or as the New Testament says, "Mercy triumphs over judgment" (James 2:13).

(Taken from my book Surprised by Grace pg. 174-178)

I Can't Trust God To Be Unmerciful is a post from: Tullian Tchividjian