Tullian Tchividjian's Blog, page 5

Two Great Quotes From “The Doctor”

“We can put it this way–the man who has faith is the man who is no longer looking at himself and no longer looking to himself. He no longer looks at anything he once was. He does not look at what he is now. He does not even look at what he hopes to be as the result of his own efforts. He looks entirely to the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work, and rests on that alone. He stops saying, ‘Ah yes, I used to commit terrible sins but now I have done this and that.’ If he goes on saying that, he has not got faith. Faith speaks in an entirely different manner and makes a man say, ‘Yes I have sinned grievously, I have lived a life of sin, yet I know that I am a child of God because I am not resting on any righteousness of my own; my righteousness is in Jesus Christ and God has put that to my account.’” ~ D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“There is no better test as to whether a man is really preaching the New Testament gospel of salvation than the fact that some people might misunderstand it and misinterpret it to mean that it really amounts to this–that because you are saved by grace alone it does not matter at all what you do, that you can go on sinning as much as you like because it will abound all the more to the glory of grace. That is a very good test of gospel preaching. If my preaching and presentation of the gospel of salvation does not expose it to that misunderstanding, then it is not the gospel.” ~ D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Stop It!

Take note preachers: Believing that simply telling people to “stop it” (i.e., law without gospel) carries the power to exact lasting change is as silly and unrealistic as this:

Monday Morning Music

For those who follow me on twitter (@pastortullian), you know that Above & Beyond’s latest compilation Anjunabeats Vol. 11 has been sweeping me off of my feet all week. In fact, I tweeted the other day that we would experience a new reformation if all of you simply downloaded the whole thing So…I’m going to be posting my favorite tracks from Vol. 11 on Monday Morning Music for the forseeable future.

I gotta start with this brand new mix from Arty of London Grammar’s track “Hey Now”…it’s amazing. I hope it awakens you up like it awakens me.

Happy Monday…

Oh, and by the way, my friend and colleague Zac Hicks has written an incredible piece over at Liberate on why EDM (Electronic Dance Music) sounds so liberating. So…for those scratching their heads wondering what it is about this music that has captured me for so long and so deeply, Zac’s piece may give you so insight.

Ladies and Gentlemen…”Hey Now”:

“You know it is frightening,

you know it’s like lightning…”

Redeem Thyself

In the 2012 playoffs, the Yankees went down in flames, and they did it in a way that no one expected: the Bronx Bombers couldn’t hit! Long known for using their high-priced “murderer’s row” offense to make up for shaky starting pitching, the 2012 Yankees lost close, low-scoring games because they couldn’t score any runs. Alex Rodriguez took most of the blame because of his overwhelming contract.

Yankees fans, used to cheering the long ball, got frustrated. For one game, a fan took the time to paint a giant sign saying “A-Rod: Redeem Thyself” and bring it to Yankee Stadium. How do you think Rodriguez felt, looking up into the stands and seeing that sign? I know how I would feel! I’d want to jump over the wall, clamber up to that fan’s row, and scream in his face, “Look, I’m TRYING to get hits! Don’t you think I’d be playing better if it was up to me? Don’t you think I’d redeem myself if I could?”

Self-redemption is every human being’s fondest hope, but it’s also our impossible dream. In sports, people always talk about the disaster that can come from trying to make up for failures on the next play. Coaches always chide athletes to have a short memory; if you go into the next play, the next match, or the next game trying to make up for the mistakes of the previous one, you’ll usually only compound them. The assertion is simple: we can’t redeem ourselves.

Humans refuse to believe that we are beyond helping ourselves. In fact, we often protest that God only helps those who do! We dearly wish that we could atone for our own mistakes and say “Thanks but no thanks” to the offered atoning death of Another. We’re uncomfortable owing someone so much.

We only acknowledge our need for a Savior when the idol of self-salvation is unceremoniously ripped from our grasp. A few days after the “Redeem Thyself” sign appeared at Yankee Stadium, Justin Verlander’s three hit annihilation served as the Hammer of God, finally convincing the Yankees, and their fans, that a Savior from within is not enough.

Today, let us celebrate the Good News that we have a Redeemer, and he is not us.

Baptists, Bulletins, and Bedtime

Here’s a 10 minute clip from my talk at LIBERATE 2014…

Monday Morning Music

“I’ve been high and I’ve been low,

Far beyond and far below,

Never seen you before;

If I die before I wake,

Promise me you’ll remember me tomorrow…”

Merry Monday, my friends…

Punk’d By Grace

During a recent radio interview, 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 bathroom mirrors 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, “You mean, 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 the grace-delivered, blood-bought, deliverance of radical freedom 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).

Monday Morning Music

Huge shout out to my boy Rodolfo Rosario for passing this track on. It’s been on repeat for 5 days! Waiting to introduce this song to you guys has been torture. This is Electro House at it’s absolute finest…Happy Monday friends!

“I know she looked at me…her eyes”

Reflections On My “Break-Up” With The Gospel Coalition

What we’re talking about here is not just our tendency to lurch and stumble and screw up by accident, our passive role as agents of entropy. It’s our active inclination to break stuff, “stuff” here including moods, promises, relationships we care about, and our own well-being and other people’s…

Francis Spufford

Dear Friends,

It’s been a much quieter week for me. Last week was loud and exhausting. And (other than Miami Heat games, Dallas Cowboy games, Ultra Music Festival, and the music in my car) I’m not a fan of either loud or exhausting. Not many are. So, I’m grateful that God has granted me a quieter week.

Still, the very public “break-up” between The Gospel Coalition and me weighs heavy on my heart. And I want to say just a few things about it now that I’ve had some time to reflect.

First, I want to say that I’m sorry. I’m sorry for saying things in my own defense. One of the things that the gospel frees you to do is to never have to bear the burden of defending yourself. Defending the gospel is one thing. But when a defense of the gospel becomes a defense of yourself, you’ve slipped back under “a yoke of slavery.” I slipped last week. I’m an emotional guy. And in my highly charged emotional state, I said some things in haste, both publicly and privately, that I regret. I never want anything I say to be a distraction from the mind-blowing good news of the gospel and last week I did. I got in the way. When you feel the need to respond to criticism, it reveals how much you’ve built your identity on being right. I’m an idolater and that came out last week. Because Jesus won for you, you’re free to lose…and last week I fought to win. I’m sorry you had to see that. Lord have mercy…

Second, I want everyone to know just how much I absolutely love and adore my friend, Tim Keller. Tim is traveling but we’ve been in touch and are planning to talk this upcoming week. We are both committed to one another and the friendship we’ve enjoyed for many years. There are few people on this planet that I hold in higher esteem than Tim. He knows that. I love him. He has been a mentor and older brother to me for a long time and both he and Kathy have been near and dear to Kim and me. The thought that I said anything at all that would hurt Tim or call anything about him into question makes me both sad and sick. I’m really sorry about that. Please forgive me.

Third (and finally), I want you to know that while Christians have differences on a wide variety of issues, I believe that the world is big enough and the harvest is ripe enough for well-meaning brothers and sisters to agree to disagree. The world desperately needs to see Christians standing side by side and back to back, loving one another. And last week I found myself standing face to face with some Christians in a posture of non-love. I’m really sorry about that. As both Liberate and The Gospel Coalition move forward I want people to know that, while there may be differences, we’re on the same team.

The saddest thing about all of this is that, because of the public visibility of those involved, this conflict gained a lot of attention. The reason this grieves me so deeply is because the Bible says God wants the way Christians love one another to be a visual model of the way God loves us. He wants us, in other words, to live our lives together in such a way that we demonstrate the good news of reconciliation before the watching world. He wants us to be loving and patient and forbearing and deferential to each other. “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32). I’m guilty—we’re all guilty—of saying things and thinking things and doing things and failing to say, think and do things that exhibit the kind of treatment we’ve received in the person and work of Jesus—“While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

The late Francis Schaeffer once noted that bitter divisions among Christians give the world the justification they’re looking for to disbelieve the gospel. But when reconciliation, peacemaking, and unity are on display inside the church, that becomes a powerful witness to this fractured world. This conflict has “given the world the justification they’re looking for to disbelieve the gospel”, and I am sorry for my contribution to this conflict. Thankfully, God’s grace covers all our sin. I’d be lost and hopeless without the rock solid assurance that, if we are in Christ, we can never ever out-sin the coverage of God’s forgiveness. That alone makes me want to sin less.

So, whenever you see any of us who claim to be “Christ followers” behaving in a manner that is unlike Jesus, please forgive us. And please let that be a reflection on us, and not on Him. As imperfect people, we will continue to let you down and disappoint you, but Jesus will never let you down—he will never disappoint you, leave you, or forsake you.

I’m honored to be on “the same team” as Christians of all theological stripes and convictions. I love living in a “large tent” with lots of different kinds of people. In the meantime, however, please bear with us all as we grow and change together.

I love you guys. I really do. I am now and will forever be,

Sincerely Yours,

Tullian

What I’ve Done…

The hymn below by English poet and cleric John Donne (1572-1631) says it all: God meets my ongoing sin with his inexhaustible forgiveness. 70 times 7.

My friend Shane Rosenthal sent me a note explaining that, according to some commentators, there is double meaning in the line, “Thou hast done” which repeats throughout the poem. It obviously refers to that which God has done for Donne in contrast to that which Donne has done (and continues to do). But the other meaning, especially clear in the last stanza, is a play on the poet’s own name: “Thou hast Donne.” It is his realization that despite his weak grip on God, God’s grip on him is perfect and forever, that finally ends his fears.

It never ceases to amaze me that, if you are in Christ, you can never, ever, ever outsin the coverage of God’s forgiveness. Amazing love…how can it be?

WILT Thou forgive that sin where I begun,

Which was my sin, though it were done before?

Wilt Thou forgive that sin, through which I run,

And do run still, though still I do deplore?

When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,

For I have more.

Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won

Others to sin, and made my sin their door?

Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun

A year or two, but wallowed in a score?

When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,

For I have more.

I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun

My last thread, I shall perish on the shore ;

But swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son

Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;

And having done that, Thou hast Donne ;

I fear no more.