Faith and Grace

William Graham Tullian Tchividjian (pronounced cha-vi-jin) 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. Tullian was the founding pastor of the former New City Church which merged with Coral Ridge in April of 2009. A graduate of Columbia International University (philosophy) and Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando (M.Div.), Tullian is the author of The Kingdom of God: A Primer on the Christian Life (Banner of Truth), Do I Know God? Finding Certainty in Life’s Most Important Relationship, Unfashionable: Making a Difference in the World by Being Different (Multnomah),  Surprised by Grace: God’s Relentless Pursuit of Rebels (Crossway) and Jesus + Nothing = Everything (Crossway). 

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It wasn’t until I went to bed last night that I went onto the T4A website and saw that I had an assigned topic, Surprised by Adoption. I’m going to be talking about a thick topic, the Law and the Gospel. And I’ll explain what that means and why that’s important. Let me read through Romans 7:7-8:4

What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.    Keep Reading>>>

Better Than Any Fish Story: Tchividjian on the Gospel in Jonah

We’re accustomed to describing the book of Jonah as that book about the guy who survived three days in a big fish. What if we began to understand it as a remarkable testimony to God’s extravagant, persevering grace, supremely demonstrated in the gospel of Jesus Christ? That’s what Tullian Tchividjian, senior pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, helps us see through his book Surprised By Grace: God’s Relentless Pursuit of Rebels. As part of The Gospel Coalition’s commitment to Preaching Christ in the Old Testament, I corresponded with Tchividjian about how he sees Jesus in a fish tale.

Why do you say Jonah is one of the best books for helping us get a better grip on the gospel?

Surprised by Grace started out as a series of sermons on Jonah that I preached during the hardest year of my life. Preparing those sermons and preaching them proved to be a functional lifeline for me, not because of things I learned about Jonah (everything we learn about Jonah we learn by way of negative example), but because of things I learned about God’s amazing, sustaining, pursuing grace. Keep Reading>>>

How Do You Make Christ More Appealing? A Good Word for Preachers

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. (John 10.27)

Have you ever been overcome with frustrated despair as you wonder how to get through to your professing Christian friend?  Have you looked into the eyes of an unbeliever and asked yourself how you might bring them to Christ?  Have you wondered how you might appeal to them and somehow have them follow the Savior?  If you are a pastor, have you sat in your study and wondered how you might help people to get it?

To one degree or another all believers have struggled through such thoughts. 

Often times though  in our noble ambitions we find ourselves retreating to unbiblical means.

We aim to make Christ more appealing to the one who seems to not think that he is so.  This usually means giving Jesus something of an extreme makeover so that the eligible unbeliever might be one over.  We might be tempted to change his message, his tone, his requirements, his work, his kingdom, and his demands.  Suddenly our ostensibly noble goal has placed in our hands the tools of idolatry as we craft a Jesus that looks like the rebel.

But this is not the way it works. Keep Reading>>>