Jesus + Nothing = Everything

I just finished the book "Jesus + Nothing = Everything" by Florida pastor Tullian Tchividjian.  It was an amazing book on the grace of God and our tendency to focus on ourselves and what we do, rather than on Christ and what he did.  It really changed my thoughts on what Christian growth and spiritual maturity really are.  Here is a list of all of my favorite quotes from the book...

“The great mistake made by people is hoping to discover in themselves that which is to be found in Christ alone.”

“To reach people in our day, the gospel will have to be distinguished from moralism, because moralism is what most people outside the church think Christianity is all about – rules and standards and behavior and cleaning yourself up.”

“The heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart.”

“Outside cleanup never leads to inside cleanup.  Only inside cleanup leads to outside cleanup, and there’s only One who can do that.”

“The gospel announces that everyone ‘in Christ’ is already accepted by God because of Jesus’s work for them.  Therefore, no improvement, good behavior, or performance is necessary in order to experience the deep acceptance we long for and in fact strive for on a daily basis.”

“My identity, worth, and value have nothing to do with my strength or ability to win.  It has everything to do with the finished work of Jesus for me.”

“Because Jesus was someone, you’re free to be no one.”

“The banner under which the Christian lives reads, ‘It is finished.’”

“We were dead in our trespasses.  The next move had to be God’s.  And in love, He made it.”

“Because Jesus has already earned God’s full approval and affection and acceptance for us, we no longer require that from anyone else.”

“The hard work of Christian growth, therefore, is to think less of ourselves and our performance and more of Jesus and his performance for us.”

“Christian growth doesn’t happen by first behaving better, but by believing better.”

“My standing with God isn’t based on their obedience for Jesus but on Jesus’s obedience for me.”

“The only thing you contribute to your salvation and to your sanctification is the sin that makes them necessary.”

“Sanctification consists of the daily realization that in Christ we have died and in Christ we have been raised.  Life change happens as the heart daily grasps death and life.  Daily reformation is the fruit of daily resurrection.  To get it the other way around is to miss the power and point of the gospel.”

“To focus on how I’m doing, more than on what Christ has done, is Christian narcissism – the poison of self-absorption which undermines the power of the gospel in our lives.”

“If you uproot the idol, and fail to plant the love of Christ in its place, the idol will grow back.” 

“The gospel liberates us to be okay with not being okay.”

“True spirituality takes us away from ourselves and into the messy lives of other people.”

“Real spiritual growth happens as we look up to Christ and what he did, out to our neighbors and what they need, not in to ourselves and how we’re doing.”

“God created you for beauty – and redeemed you for beauty – so that you and your joy and peace and gratitude for what he’s done for you in Christ would be put on display in a dark, watching world.”

“If you’re a Christian, your identity is firmly anchored in Christ’s accomplishment, not yours; his strength, not yours; his performance, not yours; his victory, not yours.  Your identity is steadfastly established in his substitution, not in your sin.”

“The level of passion with which God loves you is not determined by the level of passion with which you love Him.”

“Christianity is the only faith system where God both makes the demands and meets them.”

“Our performance doesn’t lead to our rescue, our rescue leads to our performance.”

“We spend too much time asking ‘What would Jesus do?’ and not enough on ‘What did Jesus do?’”

“When the gospel reorients how you feel and live, all of life becomes about the work Jesus accomplished for us, not what we can accomplish for him.”

“Guilt doesn’t produce holiness; grace does.”

Chosen and Saved

I have seen this image a lot when people talk about sharing their faith with others.  It's a cute little diagram, and seemingly correct.  When I was reading Ephesians 2, I noticed that this diagram may not be entirely true.

"And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience..."  Ephesians 2:1-2

According to this diagram, the human is not yet dead in sin.  They are still alive with a choice to either choose God or sin.  The reality is that we have all chosen sin rather than God.  We are already dead in sin.

"...among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind."  Ephesians 2:3

Another similar illustration: We are drowning in the ocean and God throws us a lift preserver, which is Christ.  It's true that Christ is what saves us, but again, we aren't drowning.  We are already dead at the bottom of the ocean.  People who are dead don't choose to raise themselves from the dead.

I heard a story of a seminary professor who took his students to a cemetery and asked each one of the students to proclaim to the graves to rise up from the grave.  Of course, nothing happened.  He said that it is the same with preachers preaching to lost souls.  The dead cannot raise themselves from the dead, and neither can anyone else.  The only one who can raise someone from death to life is the the One who defeated death.  

"And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.  This he set aside, nailing it to the cross."  Colossians 2:13-14

It is through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that God is able to pull us from our helpless and hopeless state of being dead in sin.

One last illustration comes from John Piper.  Imagine that God and Christ are walking through a graveyard and see your body rotting in the bottom of a grave.  It looks horrible beyond description and absolutely stinks.  God looks at your body and says, "I want him."  He looks at Jesus and says, "Will you die so that he can be with us forever.  Will you die so that you and I can love him and bless him forever?"  Jesus says, "I will do whatever it takes."  

It's nothing we've done or can do, because we are at the bottom of a grave, rotting and stinking.  We are disgustingly dead creatures who have chosen sin over God.  But God chose to raise us up anyway.  There is nothing more humbling and beautiful than this. 

"He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure."  Psalm 40:2

Christ's Work and Our Holiness

We are not saved by our own works, accomplishments, or greatness.  We are saved by the finished work of Jesus Christ. 

The great exchange that took place on the cross was Jesus taking our sin and the punishment that came with it, and He gave us His righteousness and the beautiful access to the Father and His love that comes with it.  

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.  2 Corinthians 8:9

So when we become followers of Christ, our saving work is what has already been accomplished by Him.  Our salvation does not come from something we do.  But often times, we feel like we are the ones who are in charge of our salvation.  

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.  Ephesians 2:8-9

We are to rest in the finished work of Christ on the cross, fully reliant on His righteousness and sacrifice to purchase our salvation.  However, this does not mean that I can just completely forget about living for God.  I am not to continue to live in sin, and just flippantly rely on God's grace for me without living in continual pursuit.

"Faith alone saves, but not faith that stays alone."  -Martin Luther

“Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession.... Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.” -Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Sanctification is what should take place for the rest of our lives.  Sanctification is the pursuit of holiness.  God is holy, and He desires for His children to be holy like He is.

But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”  1 Peter 1:15-16

Even in our pursuit of holiness, we cannot attain it by ourselves.  Just like when we were initially saved, we must be continually reliant upon God's grace and work in our hearts.  

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.  Ezekiel 36:25-27

This is God talking to us.  It is His work in us that moves us to follow His commands and pursue a holiness that allows us to come before Him.  We cannot come before Him with pride in our hearts.  He must first cleanse us of the idols in our hearts and lives.  We cannot do this in our own power.  It is the Holy Spirit dwelling within us that completes our sanctification. 

Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.  Hebrews 12:14

Key word here is effort.  Even though we are reliant on God to do the work in us, God requires our effort, focus, and perseverance in our sanctification and pursuit of holiness.  Our strivings will not be easy, and we will lose often.  But when we stand before the Lamb seated on the throne, it will all be worth it.

We are Whores, He is Faithful

I was thinking the other day about God's faithfulness.  I'm amazed at how faithful He is to us.  I mean, really.  Why in the world would the Creator of the universe be so loving and faithful in the lives of such sinful people.  The church is constantly being called the Bride of Christ in the New Testament.  But I think on a more personal level, a fitting metaphor is that of a marriage.  We are married to Christ.  He is the bridegroom and we are His bride.  The moment we commit to follow Him, we have entered a covenant with Him to be faithful for the rest of our lives.

"I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord God, and you became mine."  Ezekiel 16:8

But I'm going to be honest, I can't go an hour without cheating on Him.  Whenever we sin, we are cheating on Christ, our bridegroom.
This makes me look at sin in a completely new light.  In Ezekiel 16, God goes on a rant to the Israelites about how unfaithful they are.  He is talking about us in that chapter.  He calls his bride, Israel (today, the church) a whore.

"But you trusted in your beauty and played the whore because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any passerby."  Ezekiel 16:15

As harsh as it sounds, it's so true.  We are whores in our marital relationship with Christ.  But what's amazing is the faithfulness of Christ.  He will never leave us or forsake us.  He is committed, unlike us.  He is the perfect loving bridegroom.  When we learn to look at sin in this light, we should be broken over our unfaithfulness and cling to our relationship with the Beloved!
In light of his faithfulness, we need to recognize our unfaithfulness and pursue a faithful relationship as the Bride of Christ.  Think about how Christ feels when he looks at his Bride whoring herself around.

"I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I atone for you for all that you have done, declares the Lord God."  Ezekiel 16:62-63

This is unbelievable.  The faithfulness and love of Christ should never cease to amaze us.  He has atoned for our unfaithfulness with his death!  He has laid down his life for his unfaithful Bride!  Our response should be that of love and a longing to run into the loving arms of our faithful bridegroom.

"As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you."  Isaiah 62:5