Jesus + Nothing = Everything In MODRef
Tullian Tchividjian Blog | March 15, 2012
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The virulence of opposition was more than I could bear. I was undergoing the shelling of my life. I was ready to quit and escape elsewhere. It would be so easy just to walk away and never look back.All that is what I was going through when, mercifully, vacation time rolled around in June 2009.
On our first morning away, I woke up still saturated with the misery that had been intensifying for so many weeks. I opened up my Bible; in the reading plan I was following, it so happened that the day's passages included the first chapter of Paul's letter to the Colossians.
Desperate for help from God, I read those verses and my eyes were opened to see the incredible sufficiency of Jesus with greater clarity than I'd ever seen before.
In my misery I demanded an explanation from God. After all, I had done what he asked me to do---I had put "my baby" on the altar. And now this? Like Jonah in the belly of the great fish, I was arguing with God and making my case for why He owed me rescue. Worn out, afraid, and angry, I insisted that God give me my old life back. As I was reading Colossians 1 that morning it dawned on me that it wasn't my old life I wanted back as much as I wanted my old idols back and I knew that God loved me too much to give them to me.
You see, I never realized how dependent I'd become on human approval and acceptance until it was taken away. For the first time, I found myself in the uncomfortable position of being deeply disliked and distrusted. I was realizing just how much I'd been relying on the endorsement of others to validate me--to make me feel like I mattered. In and of itself, human approval and acceptance are not bad things. They are, in fact, a gift from God. But I had turned them into idols by making them my primary source of meaning and value and worth and significance, so that without them I was miserable and depressed.
God began rescuing me from my slavery by forcing me to more fully understand exactly what I already had in Christ. I was learning the hard way that the gospel alone can free us from our addiction to being liked--that Jesus measured up for us so that we wouldn't have to live under the enslaving pressure of measuring up for others--including ourselves. His good news met me in my dark place, at my deepest need. Through his liberating word, I was being transformed...freed...refreshed.
The verses that set me free, specifically, were Colossians 1:9-14. In those verses the Apostle Paul says (my summary): 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 those verses liberatingly taught me was that because of Jesus' finished work for me, I already had the justification, approval, acceptance, security, freedom, affection, cleansing, new beginning, righteousness, and rescue I was longing for. I started to see the many-faceted dimensions of the gospel in a more dazzling way. It's almost as if, for me, the gospel changed from something hazy and monochromatic to something richly multicolored, vivid, and vibrant.I was realizing in a fresh way the now-power of the gospel--that the gospel doesn't simply rescue us from the past and rescue us for the future. It also rescues us in the present from being enslaved to things like fear, insecurity, anger, self-reliance, bitterness, entitlement, and insignificance.
In the crucible of suffering, the now power of the gospel was liberating me to be okay with not being okay.
I was coming to glorious terms with the fact that because of Christ's finished work for me, I had nothing to prove or protect. I didn't need to pretend anymore that I was strong. I was being set free from the narcissistic impulse to impress people, appease people, measure up for people, or prove myself to people.
Read the whole thing here.
Comments:
March 24, 2012 at 04:15 PM
I don't see how you get this interpretation of what Paul says in Colossians 1:9-14. There's certainly nothing explicit about growing in spiritual wisdom etc. AS A RESULT of coming to a greater realization that we've been redeemed, at least in the ESV.
March 18, 2012 at 01:42 PM
Oh that the professing church-at-large would experience the liberating "Gospel riot" that only few in our day presently delight in! This will only be realized when sanctification is no longer viewed as a personal performance-driven process of weights and measures and law-duties. We are to walk abundantly in the Spirit, produce his heavenly fruit, and joyfully delight in the glory of Christ, into whose radiant image we are being transformed!
March 17, 2012 at 10:35 AM
Pastor
"the Father has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light."Col 1:12
"you're already qualified! You don't have to make the grade on your own or seek more approval from anyone. In Christ you're in!" this God-given qualification also meant a personal share for me in a bright inheritance that could never be diminished or stripped away.
excerpt from "Jesus + Nothing = Everything"
I also enjoyed the sermon clip "The Reading of the Will"
March 17, 2012 at 02:17 PM
Thank you for expressing what is so often a point/place of struggle for humans...defining our worth and or measure by society versus God's standards...your honesty was a rich blessing...as I have struggled with this for many years as a Christian, and I have witnessed others wrestle with this as well...
March 16, 2012 at 11:37 AM
Here's what I think. You get your book published ... great. Christianity Today book of the year? great. Big pastorate ... great. National conference speaking ... great. Get an article published in Modern Reformation - WOW! You are FINALLY legit! Surely now you can measure up to the standard of being a real theologian! Acceptance at last!
I'm not really even calvinist and I REALLY 'gospel-geek' out on that publication.
March 15, 2012 at 12:41 PM
Pastor
I remember the time period well.
CRPC went through the merger and came out of it to the Glory of God. And I have been blessed through the ministry.
March 15, 2012 at 02:13 PM
"In the crucible of suffering, the now power of the gospel was liberating me to be okay with not being okay.
I was coming to glorious terms with the fact that because of Christ’s finished work for me, I had nothing to prove or protect. I didn’t need to pretend anymore that I was strong. I was being set free from the narcissistic impulse to impress people, appease people, measure up for people, or prove myself to people."
100% APPROVAL, Tullian!
April 10, 2012 at 08:27 PM
[...] read this post recently, where Tullian quoted from Colossians 1:9-14. The apostle Paul was reminding the church [...]
Joe M
May 15, 2012 at 11:44 PM
I read that article just today in MR, which was longer than was posted here. To quote the end:
Sunday morning, September 20, 2009, was the morning when, as a result of the petition drive to force my ouster from our church, a congregational vote regarding me was to be taken after the service. I was there to preach before that vote took place; to say the least, it was an awkward environment. Pockets of people were there to take me down. As I preached, they stared at me with looks that could kill. I preached my guts out—it was the freest I've ever been in the pulpit. I was realizing in the moment that no one in the room that morning could take away anything I'd received from Jesus, which was everything. I was completely free!
But I wonder what the gospel would do DURING those moments of receiving criticism...to be able to listen openly and search for what truth might be there and to own up to it. As Ken Sande says "to take 100% responsibility for the 2% you contributed." And not only to hear their criticism, but to say "You know what? If you really saw my heart as God does, you would see even worse things than you've pointed out. But God has grace for me. And God has Grace for you. And for us." It's one thing to be resilient. It's another to model the honest repentance we long to see among our members. That's what I deeply desire to be true in my life.