By Tullian Tchividjian
Tullian Tchividjian is the Senior Pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian
Church in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. A Florida native, he is a visiting
professor of theology at Reformed Theological Seminary and a grandson of
Billy and Ruth Graham.
Editor's Note: As church leaders, our ability to
stay focused on Jesus and the power of the Gospel is an everyday thing.
No one heralds this more than the grandson of Billy Graham and pastor of
Coral Ridge, TullianTchividjian. We recently spoke with Tullian about
his new book, Jesus + Nothing = Everything, the danger of approval addiction, and the power of the Gospel.
THE MERGE
The book was born out of a terrible season of pain and suffering for
me. I’m only 39 years old, but so far the hardest year of my life was
2009. It was very difficult for a handful of reasons, the primary one
being that was the year the church I planted down here in South Florida
merged with Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale. The
church I planted in 2003 was about five-and-a-half years old and about
15 minutes up the road from Coral Ridge. Coral Ridge is a well-known,
famous church that was founded by Dr. D. James Kennedy in 1959. He
passed away in 2007. The church was, for the very first time, in the
unique position of having to go out and find a pastor. They had never
been in that position before so they approached me. I told them I was
humbled and I was honored but that I was not interested. They came back
a couple of months and basically asked the same thing. Again, I said
I’m humbled, I’m honored, but I’m not interested.
About four or five months later, they came back, and that’s when they
proposed a potential merger between the two churches. So we put a team
of guys together from our church and their church, and we met for
probably three or four months going through a meticulous due diligence
process, looking under every rock and behind every tree. It became very
clear at the end of that process that this is, in fact, what God wanted
us to do. He wanted us to merge these two churches and birth one new
church out of it. So we knew it was going to be very difficult. We
knew it was going to be painful. Coral Ridge, as well known as it was,
had been in decline for about ten years and really needed some updating,
needed a facelift, needed a change. So we knew it was going to be
painful. We knew it was going to be difficult.
I felt like the father of a blended family, and all of the fireworks
that we anticipated started going off almost immediately. There was a
small but vocal group of people in the church, long-time Coral Ridge
people, who opposed the merger before it even happened. And then after
it happened, they started opposing it from within the church and really
challenging me publicly in various ways, through letters to the
congregation, anonymous blogs, a petition drive. Because the church is
well known and my family is well known, it became fodder for the press.
It was widely publicized that there was trouble at Coral Ridge. It was
embarrassing on numerous levels. I was being attacked; my character
was being attacked, not only inside the church but also publicly outside
the church. I had never been through anything like this before. The
shelling was heavy. I wanted to give up on numerous occasions.
I had been there for about two-and-a-half months when a petition drive
was started inside the church to get me removed. Of course, as you can
imagine, it was very painful for my wife and for my three kids. We
wondered what in the world we had done. God had been doing great things
in our church plant and through our church plant. Everything was going
really well, and my life as I knew it had come to a screeching halt.
Life became very, very hard. And I can remember, I tell the story at
the beginning of the book, I tell the story of me finally having it out
with God in the summer of 2009 and basically telling Him, “I want my old
life back. God, You really screwed up here, and I want my old life
back.” And very gently but firmly, through Colossians chapter 1, God
reminded me that it wasn’t my old life I wanted back.
APPROVAL ADDICTION
It was my old idols I wanted back, and He loved me too much to give
them to me. And what I realized in that moment was just how dependent I
had become on human approval and human acceptance and what other people
thought of me to make me feel important and to make me feel like I
matter. And it was during that time that God liberated me by helping me
to see that Jesus plus nothing equals everything. And I know that
sounds like a trite, preachable tagline, but it became my lifeline.
You don’t realize just how desperately you need Jesus until He takes
away a lot of the things that you are depending on that are infinitely
smaller than Him. There were people out to get me, there were people
wanting to take me down, there were people who were opposing me at every
turn. I didn’t realize just dependent I had become over the years on
what people thought of me until God took that away. And now, for the
very first time, I have those who don’t like me, who don’t approve of
me, who are out to get me, who are criticizing me privately and
publicly, and stirring up trouble to get me thrown out. God brought me
to the end of myself. He broke my legs, and in the process, taught me
grace.
So this book is basically an autobiographical account of the most
difficult year of my life, the year when God brought me to the end of
myself and helped me rediscover the “now” power of the Gospel, that
everything I need and everything I long for, in Christ, I already
possess. All of the approval I long for, all of the affection that I
long for, all of the acceptance I long for, all of the worth and value
and purpose I long for, I already possess in Christ. And when that
grips your heart, it absolutely sets you free because now you’re no
longer dependent on transient things like what other people think of you
to make you feel as if you matter. It absolutely set me free, and I
wrote the book because I love pastors.
It seems unfair to me that just because I come from a well-known family
and the church is well known that I’m the only one telling this story
and it’s getting press. I know a lot of pastors who have gone through
not only similar things but worse things than me, but my hope is to give
voice to the painful struggle of pastoral ministry and church
leadership and to really exhort Christian leaders and pastors to find
their identity and security and worth and value in what Jesus has
already accomplished for us. I think so often, at least this is the
case for me, you begin to believe "If my ministry is successful, I’m a
success. And if my ministry’s a failure, then I’m a failure." That
just confines you to life in a prison cell. It steals your joy, it robs
you of your freedom, it takes away your courage and your boldness to
say things and do things you need to say and do because you’re afraid of
what other people might say or how they might react.
The only thing that got me through, the absolute only thing that got me
through was coming to a fresh realization that everything I need in
Christ I already possess. And that just liberated me to live and lead
in a free, Gospel-centered way.
FREEDOM IN CHRIST
What I realized during that difficult time is that it was only the
Gospel that had the power to free me from my addiction to be liked. And
that is something that we struggle with, whether we’re conscious of it
or not. One of the reasons we get into ministry and get into preaching
is because we’re people pleasers. And that’s something that only the
Gospel can free you from and can free you for living life in a posture
of “to live is Christ; to die is gain.” I’ve discovered that pain and
suffering are the primary tools God uses to set us free.
Throughout the book, I state that real slavery, according to the Bible,
is self-reliance, trying to secure for myself the approval and
acceptance and meaning and validation that I long for. Realizing that
the Gospel is just as important after you become a Christian as it was
before is something that was brand new to me. I grew up in church
thinking that the power of the Gospel was for people outside the
church. When I heard the word Gospel, it was synonymous almost
exclusively with evangelism, that once God saves you, He moves you
beyond the Gospel. Another way I thought about it theologically was
justification is step 1, sanctification is step 2, and once you get to
step 2, you never need to go back to step 1. And what I’ve learned is
that sanctification is a process, that daily process of getting used to
your justification and believing that what God has said about you is
true.
That’s the hardest thing to believe. Unbelief is at the bottom of
every temptation we face to locate our identity in something smaller
than Jesus. It just seems too good to be true. "You’re telling me that
all of the approval I long for and all of the acceptance I long for and
all of the affection I long for, I already possess in Jesus? I don’t
believe that. I’ve got to go out and get that stuff for myself, and I
need other people to give it to me." And so the Gospel, the “now” power
of the Gospel—I don’t think too many Christians have a problem
believing that the Gospel justifies us, and I don’t think too many
people have a difficult time believing that it’s the Gospel that
eventually glorifies us, but I think we have a terrible time believing
that the Gospel alone is what sanctifies us. It doesn’t just ignite the
Christian life; it’s the fuel that keeps the Christians going and
growing every day. I could have said that theologically with great
passion before 2009, but it wasn’t until 2009 that it became a
functional, heartfelt reality for me.
REDEFINING APPLICATION
The other thing, too, is that I don’t want to readers to think that the
burden is on them to apply. I tried to redefine application in terms
of rediscovering on a daily basis by the power of God’s grace through
the internal witness of the Holy Spirit, realizing what Christ has
already applied to us. When we think of application, it’s how do we now
put into practice what God is telling us to do, and God’s always
saying, "No, the real meaning of application is daily rediscovering what
Christ has already applied to you and living in that reality of
acceptance and approval and unconditional love."
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