“Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow… The power of sin, death and the devil has been destroyed by the cross of Jesus… God declares you perfect because of the accomplished work of Christ… There is now no condemnation for those of you who are in Christ… Because of Jesus’ righteousness God is well pleased with you… You are accepted, accepted, accepted by a Gracious God through Christ… Jesus Christ has set us free from the demands and expectations of the law…”

My soul resonates with joy when I proclaim and hear Gospel statements like the ones listed above. My heart gets fired up over the freedom that comes from the Gospel. My hands clasp together in a victorious manner over the power of the Gospel. I also find myself smiling with a subtle yet triumphant half-smile due to the conquering and fulfilling nature of the Gospel. However, over the years I have found that every time that I hear or proclaim the free message of the Gospel that a faint conditional statement is also heard in the distance. What happens is that after the fired up heart, clasping hands and half-smile, a conditional statement seems to come creeping out of the depths of my sinful flesh saying, “yeah but, just because Jesus died for sin, it doesn’t mean that we have a license to sin. We need to be careful of having too much freedom for we do not want to end up in lawlessness land.”

I have found that as Christians we many times attribute ‘lawlessness’ or we could say ‘the license to sin belief’ to the preaching of the Gospel. Somewhere in our thinking we rationalize that if the Gospel is presented as “too free, too unconditional or that Jesus fulfills the law for us” that the result will be lax morality, loose living and lawlessness. It is as if we believe that the freeing message of the Gospel actually produces, encourages and grants people a license to sin. Because of this rationalization we find ourselves strapping, holding and attaching restrictions to the Gospel so that we might prevent or limit lawlessness. In other words, the Gospel is placed into bondage due to our rationalization and reaction to lawlessness.

In Galatians 2:17 Paul says, “If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not!” In this verse the Apostle Paul shows us that it is not a fair conclusion to link lawlessness to the freeing message of the Gospel. To put it in another way, the proper effect of the Gospel of Jesus (i.e. justification by faith alone) does not grant a license to sin nor lead us to lawlessness. The Gospel is not and cannot be held responsible for lawlessness. For if lawlessness did come about by the preaching and teaching of the Gospel, then that would make Jesus Christ a promoter, supporter and distributor of sin and rebellion! In other words, Paul is declaring, “God Forbid this rationalization!”

So, what does this mean for us as people of the Cross? It means that there is Freedom for the Gospel! We do not have to hold, restrict and condition the Gospel of Jesus. We get to preach the full freeing message of the Gospel without having to fear that by doing so we are bringing about lawlessness. We get to teach and live the full freeing message of the Gospel without having to worry about issuing a sin license to others. Furthermore, we can also know by Galatians 2:17 that if lawlessness and a license to sin exist, that these perverted freedoms can be traced back to something else other than the Gospel of Jesus Christ, namely our sinful nature.

May our souls resonate today with Paul’s words from Galatians 5:1, “Christ has set us free! This means we are really free. Now hold on to your freedom and don’t ever become slaves of the Law again.”

For those of you who follow the news in the evangelical world, you know that Tullian Tchividjian is the grandson of Billy Graham and the pastor at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church where the late D. James Kennedy served for many years. And if you follow the news, you’ll also remember that Tullian’s transition to Coral Ridge was not easy. How could it be after so many years with such a prominent pastor? Transitions are always painful, especially when they happen in churches unused to transitions.

I’m not glad for Tullian’s difficult year–the hardest of his life he says. But I’m thankful for the fruit of the Lord’s refining. I sense in Tullian a deeper passion for the gospel than ever before, a desire to exult in justification by faith alone with new found vigor. I hear this passion in talking to Tullian in person and in reading his latest book.

Surprised by Grace: God’s Relentless Pursuit of Rebels is not just a series of sermons on Jonah. It’s the story we all live in, whether we realize it or not. We all flee to Tarshish at times. And on other occasions, we’ve all found ourselves in the belly of the great fish. We all need more grace. We all need the gospel. All the time.

Tullian writes:

I once assumed the gospel was simply what non-Christians must believe in order to be saved, but after they believe it, they advance to deeper theological waters. Jonah helped me realize that the gospel isn’t the first step in a stairway of truths but more like the hub in a wheel of truth. As Tim Keller explains it, the gospel isn’t simply the ABCs of Christianity, but the A-through-Z. The gospel doesn’t just ignite the Christian life; it’s the fuel that keeps Christians going every day. Once God rescues sinners, his plan isn’t to steer them beyond the gospel but to move them more deeply into it. After all, the only antidote to sin is the gospel—and since Christians remain sinners even after they’re converted, the gospel must be the medicine a Christian takes every day. Since we never leave off sinning, we can never leave the gospel.

This idea that the gospel is just as much for Christians as for non-Christians may seem like a new idea to many, but, in fact, it is really a very old idea. In his letter to the Christians of Colossae, the apostle Paul quickly portrays the gospel as the instrument of all continued growth and spiritual progress for believers after conversion: “All over the world,” he writes, “this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God’s grace in all its truth” (Col. 1:6 NIV).

After meditating on Paul’s words here, a friend once told me that all our problems in life stem from our failure to apply the gospel. This means we can’t really move forward unless we learn more thoroughly the gospel’s content and how to apply it to all of life. Real change does not and cannot come independently of the gospel, which is the good news that even though we’re more defective and lost than we ever imagined, we can be more accepted and loved than we ever dared hope, because Jesus Christ lived, died, and rose again for sinners like you and me. God intends this reality to mold and shape us at every point in every way. It should define the way we think, feel, and live.

Martin Luther often employed the phrase simul Justus et peccator to describe his condition as a Christian. It means “simultaneously justified and sinful.” He understood that while he’d already been saved (through justification) from sin’s penalty, he was in daily need of salvation from sin’s power. And since the gospel is the “power of God for salvation” (Rom. 1:16), he knew that even for the most saintly of saints the gospel is wholly relevant and vitally necessary—day in and day out. This means that heralded preachers need the gospel just as much as hardened pagans. (16-17)

Surprised by Grace is well-written, exegetically careful and pastorally sensitive. Tullian mines the world of literature, art, and theology to bring out the abiding significance of this beloved story. And through it all, he points us to Christ.

Barney struggles to raise his oversized purple head, weakened by the gradual loss of viewership in recent years. Once a formidable voice in children’s TV programming, he now grasps weakly at his friends, who stand quietly beside. He manages to seize a fistful of Elmo’s scruff and draws him close. “One thing you must never let a single child forget: ‘You are special.’” The falsetto-voiced monster puts a furry hand on Barney’s and turns to look at the others. All of them knew that a very important message had been entrusted to them. Of all moral lessons in children’s TV programming, this was to be foundational.

And if you notice, whenever kids shows step away from silly fun or situational problem solving and toward moral admonition, it is usually on this very topic: the importance of a positive self-image and the confidence that should result from it. And so, educational TV coaches us to think positively about everything from our hair color to our particular set of interests as the means of instilling confidence for living.

I am not advocating a low self image, of course. I am simply pointing out that insecurity seems to be the only thing appropriate for public correction. In fact, we could say that in the moral universe of children’s programming, insecurity is the chief sin. Why?
Before we attempt to answer that question, let me present another: I believe that God calls insecurity sin, too. But why?

The answer to the first why? and the second could not be more different. Our cultural instructors disapprove of our insecurity because it is an offense to individual worthiness. God disapproves of our insecurity because it is an offense to his Son’s worthiness. God’s problem with insecurity is worth pondering.

Insecurity and Confidence in the Flesh:  It may be counterintuitive, but according to the Bible, insecurity is what Paul calls “confidence in the flesh.” But how does it make sense that insecurity and confidence can be related? Every coin has two sides. On the top side, confidence in the flesh is the self-assurance that comes from possessing those attributes that supposedly determine worthiness. But the bottom side of the coin is just as dangerous: the insecurity that comes from not possessing them. In both cases, we place our confidence in personal attributes we think bring life.

In the apostle Paul’s religious and cultural setting, he possessed all of the prized features that commended him to God and others. You and I have probably never met anyone who wants to be publicly known as a Pharisee or wishes he had been circumcised on the eighth day. In our culture, these are not particularly commendable things. But we all know the things that are.  And more poignantly, we all have felt the desperation of not having them.

For some of us, this is the background static of our regular thinking, and we need to realize that it’s not wrong primarily because it makes us unhappy, as our various puppet friends would emphasize. Insecurity is sinful for more serious reasons than that. Here are at least three of them:

1. Distraction with Self:  Insecurity gums up our ability to do what God made us to do: love him and others. How many times have you been in a situation where you should have offered care to someone or approached God privately in prayer, but your mind is slogging through another round of how awkward you look in your pants that morning or how much smarter the person you’re talking to is?Being self-conscious is being conscious of self. We are not loving others when we are obsessing with ourselves; we are not in humility counting them as more significant and more worthy (Phil. 2:3).

2. Dissatisfaction with God:  Insecurity is often nothing more than grumbling for better manna. We are sick of adequate nourishment; we want extraordinary flavor. We don’t like what God has given—money, position, appearance, personality—and we grumble for something better. Such discontentment is a snare of “many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction” (1 Tim. 6:9). Our dissatisfaction with self is often nothing more than our dissatisfaction with God. Insecurity is not sin primarily because it is an insult to our value (though it is), but because it is an insult to God’s wisdom.

3. Justification by Works:  Insecurity shows that we are still in some way believing that our justification is based upon our own attributes and accomplishments. Most of us are not tempted to think ourselves worthy because we are of the tribe of Benjamin, but we may wish we at least had a bigger church, more impressive children, another degree behind our name. But finding confidence in those things is a direct rival to finding confidence in Christ.
And this is the sanity the apostle Paul brings to us in our insecurity: “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil. 3:7-8a). Paul would not say to us in our relentless insecurities, “I know you don’t feel worthy, but you are. God made you special.” If being special were the solution, our lives would be an endless cyle of crash diets and job searches. But these are only our pathetic attempts to flip to the top side of that same corroded coin. It would still be confidence in the flesh.

Paul tells us to abandon finding our worth in anything other than Christ and his redemptive work on our behalf. Privately cycling through another round of self-derision cannot be compared to abandoning ourselves to the service of others. The weariness of continual grumbling cannot be compared to the gain of godly contentment. The fickle admiration of people cannot be compared to the hearty approval of the Almighty. The wobbly confidence we maintain in ourselves cannot be compared to the surpassing worth of confidence in Christ.

If Paul had a parting message, it certainly would not be that you are special. It would be that you are righteous in Christ, and the crowning proof of this awaits you at the finish line, so press on in faith (2 Tim. 4:6-8). We should not be so concerned with being special that we fall short of being found in Christ.

David Powlison writes an Antipsalm 23:

I’m on my own. No one looks out for me or protects me. I experience a continual sense of need. Nothing’s quite right. I’m always restless. I’m easily frustrated and often disappointed. It’s a jungle — I feel overwhelmed. It’s a desert — I’m thirsty. My soul feels broken, twisted, and stuck. I can’t fix myself. I stumble down some dark paths. Still, I insist: I want to do what I want, when I want, how I want. But life’s confusing. Why don’t things ever really work out? I’m haunted by emptiness and futility — shadows of death. I fear the big hurt and final loss. Death is waiting for me at the end of every road, but I’d rather not think about that. I spend my life protecting myself. Bad things can happen. I find no lasting comfort. I’m alone … facing everything that could hurt me. Are my friends really friends? Other people use me for their own ends. I can’t really trust anyone. No one has my back. No one is really for me — except me. And I’m so much all about ME, sometimes it’s sickening. I belong to no one except myself. My cup is never quite full enough. I’m left empty. Disappointment follows me all the days of my life. Will I just be obliterated into nothingness? Will I be alone forever, homeless, free-falling into void? Sartre said, “Hell is other people.” I have to add, “Hell is also myself.” It’s a living death, and then I die. 

Powlison writes:

The antipsalm tells what life feels like and looks like whenever God vanishes from sight. As we hear about Garrett and the others, each story lives too much inside the antipsalm. The “I’m-all-alone-in-the-universe” experience maps onto each one of them. The antipsalm captures the driven-ness and pointlessness of life-purposes that are petty and self-defeating. It expresses the fears and silent despair that cannot find a voice because there’s no one to really talk to.

. . . Something bad gets last say when whatever you live for is not God.

And when you’re caught up in the antipsalm, it doesn’t help when you’re labeled a “disorder,” a “syndrome” or a “case.” The problem is much more serious: The disorder is “my life.” The syndrome is “I’m on my own.” The case is “Who am I and what am I living for?” when too clearly I am the center of my story.

But, he says, the antipsalm needn’t tell the final story. It only becomes your reality when you construct your reality from a lie. In reality, someone else is the center of the story. Nobody can make Jesus go away. The I AM was, is and will be, whether or not people acknowledge that.

When you awaken, when you see who Jesus actually is, everything changes. You see the Person whose care and ability you can trust. You experience His care. You see the Person whose glory you are meant to worship. You love Him who loves you. The real Psalm 23 captures what life feels like and looks like when Jesus Christ puts his hand on your shoulder.

Psalm 23 

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. 

Powlison continues:

Can you taste the difference? You might want to read both antipsalm and psalm again, slowly. Maybe even read out loud. The psalm is sweet, not bitter. It’s full, not empty. You aren’t trying to grab the wind with your bare hands. Someone else takes you in His hands. You are not alone.

Jesus Christ actually plays two roles in this most tender psalm. First, He walked this Himself. He is a man who looked to the Lord. He said these very words, and means what He says. He entered our predicament. He walked the valley of the shadow of death. He faced every evil. He felt the threat of the antipsalm, of our soul’s need to be restored. He looked to his Father’s care when He was cast down — for us — into the darkest shadow of death. And God’s goodness and mercy followed Him and carried Him. Life won.

Second, Jesus is also this Lord to whom we look. He is the living shepherd to whom we call. He restores your soul. He leads you in paths of righteousness. Why? Because of who He is: “for His name’s sake.”

You, too, can walk Psalm 23. You can say these words and mean what you say. God’s goodness and mercy is true, and all He promises will come true. The King is at home in his universe.

Jesus puts it this way, “It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). He delights to walk with you.

I know you’ve been there. It’s prayer request time in your small group meeting and someone says something that makes you squirm.

• “I think we should all be praying for Jane. She’s been on my heart lately. She told me confidentially . . . “
• “We should be praying for our leadership. I still can’t believe they decided to . . “
• “My husband wouldn’t tell anyone this, but he . . .”

Despite our best intentions, prayer request time and open discussion in a small group setting can be like an obstacle course. We want everyone to grow close and to talk freely about genuine issues in their lives, but while doing so, the group has to conquer hurdles of gossip, criticism and indiscreet speech. How can we both encourage honest communication and guard against unprofitable conversation? The following guidelines may help.

Don’t tell the group anything about another church member that you don’t have permission to tell.

Some people in crisis would love to have your small group praying for them, but others choose to ask for prayers from only a few close friends. Be sure to ask before you mention their situation to your group.

Don’t tell the group anything so personal about your spouse or child that it would break their confidence.

It’s important to remember that people feel differently about what’s appropriate to share with the group. A good rule of thumb is, “What would happen if one of the group decided to discuss this situation with my family member?” If your spouse or child would be uncomfortable in such a situation, you should probably keep quiet. Also, be careful to avoid criticizing your family members in speaking to others. If you need counsel or support in a difficult family situation, choose one trustworthy person to talk to, not the whole group.

Don’t repeat what you hear in the group without permission of the one who shares the information

If the individual experiencing a trial wants the whole church to know, he or she will tell them or give you permission to do so. Keeping confidences will build trust among the members of your small group.

Don’t use the meeting to air your complaints against the church.

Negative speech against the church or its leaders is always inappropriate in this forum. The Bible forbids both complaining (Philippians 2:14) and listening to idle complaints against elders (I Timothy 5:19). Exploring grievances in a small group forum is divisive because it breeds discontent and distrust (Proverbs 6:16-19; Titus 3:10-11). Talking directly to the leadership is the appropriate, biblical way to deal with genuine concerns (Matthew 18:15-17).

Remember that confidentiality within the group does not override God’s instruction concerning church discipline. Don’t expect the group to keep it a secret from the church leadership if you are continually and unrepentantly sinning in some area. If you are having an affair, harboring a grudge, etc., and make it clear you plan to continue in this sin, the group is obligated to act according to biblical guidelines (Matthew 18:15-17; Galatians 6:1; James 5:19-20; 1 Corinthians 5).

Everyone in the group is responsible for the conversation and its content. If the group strays into unprofitable speech, you need to correct them.

If you are uncomfortable with the way the conversation is leaning, take responsibility to gently redirect it. Stopping a friend in mid-sentence with “Maybe we shouldn’t be talking about this . . . . By the way, how did your prayer request from last week turn out?” is much kinder than allowing them to continue in speech they’ll regret later. Silently enduring a session of gossip or criticism profits no one.

Let no corrupt speech proceed out of your mouth, but such as is good for edifying as the need may be,
that it may give grace to them that hear.  Ephesians 4:29

When most of us stop long enough to consider what establishes our identity, what really makes us who we are, many of us act as if the answer to this consideration is “our performance.” In Who Will Deliver Us, Paul Zahl expands on this:

If I can do enough of the right things, I will have established my worth. Identity is the sum of my achievements. Hence, if I can satisfy the boss, meet the needs of my spouse and children, and still do justice to my inner aspirations, then I will have proven my worth. There are infinite ways to prove our worth along these lines. The basic equation is this: I am what I do. It is a religious position in life because it tries to answer in practical terms the question, Who am I and what is my niche in the universe? On this reading, my niche is in proportion to my deeds. In Christian theology, such a position is called justification by works. It assumes that my worth is measured by my performance. Conversely, it conceals, thinly, a dark and ghastly fear: If I do not perform, I will be judged unworthy. To myself I will cease to exist.

The gospel frees us from this obsessive pressure to perform, this slavish demand to “become.” The gospel liberatingly declares that in Christ “we already are.” While the world, the flesh, and the Devil constantly tempt us to locate our identity in something or someone smaller than Jesus, the gospel liberates us by revealing that our true identity is locked in Christ. Our connection in and with Christ is the truest definition of who we are.

If you’re a Christian, here’s the good news: Who you really are has nothing to do with you—how much you can accomplish, who you can become, your behavior (good or bad), your strengths, your weaknesses, your sordid past, your family background, your education, your looks, and so on. 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 your sin. As my friend Justin Buzzard recently wrote, “The gospel doesn’t just free you from what other people think about you, it frees you from what you think about yourself.”

You’re free!

As I said in my previous post, now you can spend your life giving up your place for others instead of guarding it from others—because your identity is in Christ, not your place.

Now you can spend your life going to the back instead of getting to the front—because your identity is in Christ, not your position.

Now you can spend your life giving, not taking—because your identity is in Christ, not your possessions.

Paul speaks of our “having been buried with him [with Christ] in baptism,” in which we “were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead” (Col. 2:12). Our old identity—the things that previously “made us”—has been put to death. Our new identity is “in Christ.” We’ve been raised with Christ to walk “in newness of life”—no longer needing to depend on the “old things” to make us who we are.

All this is our new identity—all because of Christ’s finished work declared to us in the gospel.

When we truly see and understand all these aspects of what we’ve become in Jesus Christ, what more could we possibly ever want or need when it comes to our self-identity? Here in Christ we have worth and purpose and security and significance that makes utterly laughable all the transient things of this world that we’re so frequently tempted to identify ourselves by.

(Excerpted from my forthcoming book:        Jesus + Nothing = Everything  – Tullian Tchividjian)