Tullian Tchividjian's Blog, page 7

Monday Morning Music

“A simple smile can change a day,

An understanding look can say,

I know exactly how you feel…”

Happy Monday to you all…this should help you. It’s helping me.

Jesus Is God’s Love Language

Here’s what I preached on Easter Sunday…Part 12 of my series on Romans. You can find the whole series here…my favorite series of sermons that I’ve ever preached. I’m having an absolute blast. Can’t you tell

Romans: Part 12 | Tullian Tchividjian from Coral Ridge | LIBERATE on Vimeo.

Monday Morning Music

Sometimes the Monday low after a Sunday high requires something sweet…

“Let me sit inside your silence; let me ease the hurt you hide…”

God's Love For Sinners Is A Person

The love of God for sinners is not a concept or a category…it’s a person. Jesus is God’s love language.

I’m not sure I’ve read anything outside of the Bible that captures the love of God in the passion and person of Jesus like these sentences from Francis Spufford’s book Unapologetic:

Just look at him. There’s something disgusting about him, don’t you think? Something that makes you squirm inside. He’s so pale and sickly-looking, with that dried blood round his mouth. He looks like a pedophile being led away by the police. He looks like something from under a rock; as if he doesn’t deserve the daylight. He’s a blot on the new day. Someone kicks him as he goes by, and whoops, down he goes, flat on his nose with the cross pinning him like a struggling insect. Jesus is a joke. He’s less a messiah, more a patch of something nasty on the pavement. And as he struggles on he recognizes every roaring, jeering face. He knows our names. He knows our histories.

And since, as well as being a weak man, he’s also the love that makes the world, to whom all times and places are equally present, he isn’t just feeling the anger and spite and unbearable self-disgust of this one crowd on this one Friday morning in Palestine; he’s turning his bruised face toward the whole human crowd, past and present and to come, and accepting everything we have to throw at him, everything we fear we deserve ourselves. The doors of his heart are wedged open wide, and in rushes the whole vile and roiling tide of cruelties and failures and secrets. Let me take that from you, he is saying. Give that to me instead. Let me carry it. Let me be to blame instead. I am big enough. I am wide enough. I am the father who longs for every last one of his children. I am the friend who will never leave you. I am the light behind the darkness. I am the shining your shame cannot extinguish. I am the ghost of love in the torture chamber. I am change and hope. I am the refining fire. I am the door where you thought there was only wall. I am what comes after deserving. I am the earth that drinks up the bloodstain. I am gift without cost. I am. I am. I am. Before the foundations of the world, I am.

God’s Love For Sinners Is A Person

The love of God for sinners is not a concept or a category…it’s a person. Jesus is God’s love language.

I’m not sure I’ve read anything outside of the Bible that captures the love of God in the passion and person of Jesus like these sentences from Francis Spufford’s book Unapologetic:

Just look at him. There’s something disgusting about him, don’t you think? Something that makes you squirm inside. He’s so pale and sickly-looking, with that dried blood round his mouth. He looks like a pedophile being led away by the police. He looks like something from under a rock; as if he doesn’t deserve the daylight. He’s a blot on the new day. Someone kicks him as he goes by, and whoops, down he goes, flat on his nose with the cross pinning him like a struggling insect. Jesus is a joke. He’s less a messiah, more a patch of something nasty on the pavement. And as he struggles on he recognizes every roaring, jeering face. He knows our names. He knows our histories.

And since, as well as being a weak man, he’s also the love that makes the world, to whom all times and places are equally present, he isn’t just feeling the anger and spite and unbearable self-disgust of this one crowd on this one Friday morning in Palestine; he’s turning his bruised face toward the whole human crowd, past and present and to come, and accepting everything we have to throw at him, everything we fear we deserve ourselves. The doors of his heart are wedged open wide, and in rushes the whole vile and roiling tide of cruelties and failures and secrets. Let me take that from you, he is saying. Give that to me instead. Let me carry it. Let me be to blame instead. I am big enough. I am wide enough. I am the father who longs for every last one of his children. I am the friend who will never leave you. I am the light behind the darkness. I am the shining your shame cannot extinguish. I am the ghost of love in the torture chamber. I am change and hope. I am the refining fire. I am the door where you thought there was only wall. I am what comes after deserving. I am the earth that drinks up the bloodstain. I am gift without cost. I am. I am. I am. Before the foundations of the world, I am.

Jesus Is God’s Love Language

The love of God for sinners is not a concept or a category…it’s a person. Jesus is God’s love language.

I’m not sure I’ve read anything outside of the Bible that captures the love of God in the passion and person of Jesus like these sentences from Francis Spufford’s book Unapologetic:

Just look at him. There’s something disgusting about him, don’t you think? Something that makes you squirm inside. He’s so pale and sickly-looking, with that dried blood round his mouth. He looks like a pedophile being led away by the police. He looks like something from under a rock; as if he doesn’t deserve the daylight. He’s a blot on the new day. Someone kicks him as he goes by, and whoops, down he goes, flat on his nose with the cross pinning him like a struggling insect. Jesus is a joke. He’s less a messiah, more a patch of something nasty on the pavement. And as he struggles on he recognizes every roaring, jeering face. He knows our names. He knows our histories.

And since, as well as being a weak man, he’s also the love that makes the world, to whom all times and places are equally present, he isn’t just feeling the anger and spite and unbearable self-disgust of this one crowd on this one Friday morning in Palestine; he’s turning his bruised face toward the whole human crowd, past and present and to come, and accepting everything we have to throw at him, everything we fear we deserve ourselves. The doors of his heart are wedged open wide, and in rushes the whole vile and roiling tide of cruelties and failures and secrets. Let me take that from you, he is saying. Give that to me instead. Let me carry it. Let me be to blame instead. I am big enough. I am wide enough. I am the father who longs for every last one of his children. I am the friend who will never leave you. I am the light behind the darkness. I am the shining your shame cannot extinguish. I am the ghost of love in the torture chamber. I am change and hope. I am the refining fire. I am the door where you thought there was only wall. I am what comes after deserving. I am the earth that drinks up the bloodstain. I am gift without cost. I am. I am. I am. Before the foundations of the world, I am.

Preachers Should Be Like Naughty Kids

Some of the best, mind-blowing paragraphs I’ve ever read on grace come from Robert Capon. The following sentences on preaching made me sing:

I think good preachers should be like bad kids. They ought to be naughty enough to tiptoe up on dozing congregations, steal their bottles of religion pills…and flush them all down the drain. The church, by and large, has drugged itself into thinking that proper human behavior is the key to its relationship with God. What preachers need to do is force it to go cold turkey with nothing but the word of the cross–and then be brave enough to stick around while [the congregation] goes through the inevitable withdrawal symptoms.

But preachers can’t be that naughty or brave unless they’re free from their own need for the dope of acceptance. And they wont be free of their need until they can trust the God who has already accepted them, in advance and dead as door-nails, in Jesus. Ergo, the absolute indispensability of trust in Jesus’ passion. Unless the faith of preachers is in that alone-and not in any other person, ecclesiastical institution, theological system, moral prescription, or master recipe for human loveliness–they will be of very little use in the pulpit.

Amen…and Amen!

There are way too many “good, religious kids” in the pulpit these days pushing the idea that is most naturally comfortable to all of us: “proper human behavior is key to [our] relationship with God.” May God raise up a generation of preachers who fearlessly storm the gates of “just do it” religion with the jaw-dropping, chain-breaking, cage-rattling, freedom-inducing words of our Savior from the cross: “It is finished.” I pray everyday for God to unleash desperate preachers who are bold enough to push the irrational logic of His grace in the face of enslaved people.

So…go on preachers, I dare you. In fact, I double-dog dare you. There’s no better time to abandon your preaching to those three game-changing, paradigm-shattering words than today–Good Friday!

Monday Morning Music

Anything I could or would say about the experience you’re about to have would simply take away from its pure perfection.

So…sit back, relax, and dream on little dreamers.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls…I give you trance at its finest.

Reader’s Digest Christianity

For a while, my parents were getting Reader’s Digest every month while I was growing up. Because they were stored in the bathrooms, they were widely read. In each and every issue there was an interview with some celebrity, usually an actor or an athlete. Reader’s Digest’s favorite kind of celebrity was the “self-made” variety: someone who had come from nothing, preferably a broken home in which the single mother had to work multiple jobs to afford the windows that protected the family from the ceaseless gunfire outside. The interviewers inevitably ended their pieces by asking the celebrity something like, “If you could offer one piece of advice to our readers, what would it be?” (In fact, this makes up the bulk of Reader’s Digest…the part that isn’t ads. It’s full of pithy little pieces of advice for an improved life: “For a fun afternoon with the kids, try making caramel apples! To sleep better, try eating more blueberries! For a more fulfilling marriage, try going camping together!”) The celebrity would always say something like, “The one thing I would like to tell your readers is that you can’t let anyone tell you that you can’t accomplish your dreams. I’m walking evidence of that. If you want something badly enough, and work at it hard enough, you can accomplish anything at all.”

So much Christianity has become Reader’s Digest Christianity: “Jesus can help you achieve your dreams. He’ll go ninety-nine yards if you just go one. Do a little and he’ll do a lot. God helps those who help themselves.”

The Kingston Trio has a great song called “Desert Pete” about a man crawling through the desert, dying of thirst, who comes upon a decrepit old water pump. Next to the pump he finds a bottle of water. There’s a note, too. The note next to the bottle says that he has to use the water to prime the pump before he can drink any. Here’s part of the chorus:

You’ve got to prime the pump. You must have faith and believe.

You’ve got to give of yourself ‘fore you’re worthy to receive.

You’ve got to give before you get.

That sounds like a lot of preaching these days. “Do for God and then he’ll do for you”, “Do your best and then God will do the rest.” It’s Reader’s Digest Christianity.

I’ve said before that for every good story in the Old Testament, there is a bad children’s song. Perhaps one of the most well-known is “Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho.” You know the one:

Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho;

Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, And the walls came tumbling down!

You may talk about your men of Gideon,

You may talk about your men of Saul;

But there’s none like good old Joshua and the battle of Jericho.

I know what you’re thinking: “C’mon, Tullian. Don’t be such a cynic. It’s just a cute, harmless way of helping children remember the story.” Ok, ok. I’m not saying that knowing, liking, or even singing that song is bad. But the song doesn’t really tell the story. Or, more accurately, it leaves out the most important part of the story.

But it’s not only the children’s song that leaves out the most important part of the story. More concerning to me is the fact that most sermons and Sunday School lessons do too.

You remember the story, don’t you? Joshua comes up against the city of Jericho. The people of Jericho built huge walls around their city because they wanted to protect themselves from this “God” they had heard so much about—a God who split the Red Sea in half for his people. Verse 1 says that the inhabitants of Jericho hid behind those walls, “not going out and not coming in.” And God’s big plan was to have Joshua’s army walk around the city for six days and then on the seventh day, walk around the city seven times concluding with a huge shout from God’s people. When the walls of Jericho “come tumbling down,” it seems as though Joshua’s faithfulness (and willingness to follow through on this ridiculous plan) is being rewarded. So this Joshua-at-Jericho story seems, at first glance, to fit perfectly with Reader’s Digest Christianity.

We read the story (or hear the sermons) and sing the song and make this whole account about Joshua and how he bravely fought the battle of Jericho and how as a result of his great faith, the walls came tumbling down and he led his people into the Promised Land. And then we turn it into nothing more than a moral lesson: “If we, like Joshua, have great faith and bravely fight the battles in our lives, we will see our personal walls of sin come tumbling down and enter into the Promised Land of spiritual maturity.”

When we read the story of Joshua this way, we demonstrate that we’ve completely missed the hinge on which this story turns. This whole story hinges on the placement of one verse: “See, I have handed Jericho over to you, along with its king and soldiers” (Joshua 6:2). The key point is that God hands Jericho over to Joshua BEFORE Joshua does what God wants! We expect God to say something more like, “If you do this crazy thing—if you prove your faith to me—I’ll reward your faithfulness by being faithful in return.” But in God’s economy, his promise precedes our faith! In fact, his promise CAUSES our faith. So, as it turns out, this story completely breaks down Reader’s Digest Christianity. It’s like a wrecking ball. God’s economy is the opposite of Desert Pete’s: you get before you give!

God’s word is creative (his words “let there be light” actually create light): when he calls someone “faithful” they become so. When he declares someone “righteous,” they are righteous. God makes his pronouncements at the BEGINNING, before any improvement or qualification occurs—before any conditions are met. God decides the outcome of Joshua’s battle before anyone straps on a shield or picks up a sword. And he not only decides to deliver unconditionally; he does so single-handedly. No one lifts a finger to dismantle the wall—the promised victory is received, not achieved. So, in the end, the seemingly harmless song is wrong and misleading because Joshua did NOT fight the Battle of Jericho. God did. Joshua and the Israelites simply received the victory that God secured.

Of course, this battle points us to another battle that God unconditionally and singlehandedly fought for us. It points us to another victory that God achieves and that we receive. We are the ones trapped inside the fortified walls of sin and death—of fear and anxiety and insecurity and self-salvation—and Jesus’ “It is finished” shout from the cross alone causes the walls of our self-induced slavery to come tumbling down. Real freedom, in other words, comes as a result of his performance, not yours; his accomplishment, not yours; his strength, not yours; his victory, not yours.

That’s good news!

Monday Morning Music

A few weeks ago I publicly confessed my two decade long addiction to EDM. And since then I have been posting weekly installments of this type of music to hopefully convert some and rally others. As I said to a friend via email yesterday, no music uncovers and explores the longing for love and the deep emotions tucked down inside me like EDM.

As I said in my original post a few weeks ago, the way that the best of these DJ’s/Producers are able to create moods and take the listener deep is nothing short of brilliant. They are maestros of emotion. The complexity and chemistry of sounds is magical, poetic, romantic and powerful. I know, it’s not for everybody (what kind of music is, after all?). I’m fully aware that growing up in South Florida where this music totally “fits” the sights, sounds, and smells may be part of the reason it is so ingrained in my heart and head. But try it. You may like it. It may loosen you up, chill you out, and make you dream of rooftops, ocean breezes, palm trees, city lights, and losing yourself in the one you love.

And there may be no one who does this better than my man, Kaskade (Ryan Raddon). He just “gets it.” He’s a clean-cut, non-drinking, non-drug using, husband and father of three who looks just like my boy Ben Peays (Executive Director of The Gospel Coalition. Of course, Ben is slightly better looking, but I say that only because I promised Ben I’d say that today). Kaskade is a minister of moods. He’s been at it for a long time and is in many ways, THE leader in the industry. I call his sound “happy house.”

There’s a lot more where this came from and I encourage you to look him up and try him out. It’ll do your heart good. Trust me.

So…without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, I give you…Kaskade.