It was a sermon by a man named Tullian Tchividjian, which that name deserves a sermon in and of itself, but the sermon was entitled "Jesus Plus Nothing Equals Everything". The basic gist of what he was preaching was that it is the Power of the Gospel and it alone that changes and transforms us and continues to do so throughout our lives. We are not the result of discipline and determination, rather we are the result of the Spirit of God transforming us through the life, the death, and resurrection of Christ, reconciling us to the Father and fulfilling all requirements of the law that we might be free to live not for ourselves but for Him, who for our sake gave His life, being motivated by Christ's love for us which we are incapable of being separated from and all of this done not by looking at and evaluating what we need to do better and how we need to grow but rather by looking back at what Jesus Himself has already done and accomplished and earned for us.
In light of this reality, spiritual growth does not look like me doing better me looking better, but rather it looks like us understanding in a greater and more colorful the essence of the Gospel which is that God in Christ has done everything. We live under the banner of "It Is Finished!". Christ has accomplished everything for us, freeing us up to where we have to do nothing. He was strong for me, which frees me to be weak. He succeeded for me which frees me to fail.
"So this is the question. What are you going to do now that you don’t have to do anything? That will set you free. Because what’s ironic about this is, once the gospel frees you from the enslaving pressure to do anything for Jesus, you’ll want to do everything for Jesus. There is this remarkable fear that if you preach the radicalism of God’s unconditional grace, people are going to take advantage of it and they’re going to go off the deep end. Parents are afraid of that and preachers are afraid of it. It’s not true. Think about this. The more assured I am of my wife’s unconditional love for me, whether I’m being nice or not nice, the more assured I am that she will love me just the same whether I’m in a good mood or a bad mood, whether I’m being nice or mean, that makes me want to be nice. This idea of “Yeah, grace but. . .” is not what Paul says in Romans 6. He speaks about the radical substitutionary life and death of Christ in Romans 5, and then he begins Romans 6 by saying, “I know what you’re thinking. Shall we sin more so that grace may abound?” His preaching led to someone asking that question. That’s how scandalous grace is. The preaching of the gospel should cause people to ask that question. And Paul goes on to say, “By no means.” And what you would expect him to do in that moment is to put the breaks on grace and give a little law. “Let me maintain some spiritual equilibrium here. I’ve given you grace. Now let me give you law and balance things out.” That’s not what he does. What he does is go deeper into grace. He actually probes the gospel more, not less. So this idea that grace is dangerous and needs to be kept in check is the devil’s lie. Yes, it will mess up your hair. Yes, it’s undomesticated. Yes, it will wrestle control out of your hands. Yes, it’s scary because it’s uncontrollable and it’s untamable, but it’s the only power that can melt a human heart." ~ Tullian Tchividjian
In this sermon Tullian preaches out of Colossians 1:9-14, in which we are told that we have been redeemed, qualified, forgiven and transferred from darkness into light. Those things have already been done and Paul's prayer for the saints is that they would grow not in external behavior, being able to do the right things and not do the wrong things, but rather that they would "filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord...". The action comes out of the growing in knowledge and understanding. In Philippians it says "I pray that your love would abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight..". Every time that Paul gives commands to church of how they ought to live in light of the Gospel it never precedes the Gospel. He always first tells them what God has done from them already in Christ Jesus because that is our fuel to live in a manner worthy of the Lord. "For Christ's love compels us..." to live not for ourselves but for Him who for our sakes died. It is not our love for Jesus that compels us, it is Christ's love for us that compels us. For we love because He first loved us. Our weak, tired, and selfish love was never meant to be transformative, but God's love for us is transformative and is what inspires our own love for Him.
If it is grace plus something then Christ's life and death counts for nothing, therefore it must only be Christ's life and death and resurrection....alone.
But let's be honest most of us agree to this and are even thinking that of course this is true for our justification, but what about for our sanctification. Don't you have to read your Bible and pray and meditate and fellowship with other believers and evangelize? So we have become like the "foolish Galatians" who Paul asks "Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" So having been justified by grace through faith alone are we now trying to be sanctified by the flesh or by "grace plus..."
"Do you want to know what sanctification is? It’s a big theological word for Christian growth. The best definition of sanctification I can find is this. Sanctification is simply getting used to your justification. Sanctification is receiving Christ’s words “It is finished” into our rebellious regions of unbelief. I tell people all the time, “Preach the gospel to yourself every day.” People come up to me and go, “What do you mean?” So I point them here to Colossians 1:12b-14. I tell them that preaching the gospel to yourself every day means that you go back to these verses and come to a greater, bigger, deeper, brighter realization that you have already been qualified, delivered, transferred, redeemed and forgiven. Martin Luther said it best when he said, “To progress is to always to begin again.” Going forward requires a daily going backwards. Backwards to what? Backwards to the reality of what has already been accomplished for you. It’s going back to the already secured reality of your justification and hitting the refresh button a thousand times a day. It’s living in these verses. The apostle Paul never tells us what to do before he tells us what God, in Christ, has already done, ever. Colossians is four chapters. In the first two chapters, all he talks about is what God, in Christ, has done. It’s not until he gets to chapter three that he says, “Therefore, in light of all that God has done for you in Christ, go out and live this way.” We tend to skip over chapters one and two in our thinking. We think much more about what we need to do, and then we run out of gas. Because the engine that is powering us forward is not the gospel. It’s willpower, it’s self-righteousness or it’s something smaller than the gospel. So we conk out." ~ Tullian Tchividjian
This last little bit is another excerpt from the Sermon I listened to (which you also can listen to on thevillagechurch.net/sermons, if you'd like which I'd highly recommend), and this first part is quote I have heard before though I'm not sure who wrote it and it is called "The Fellowship of the Unashamed". this is how he concluded the sermon.
" 'I am a part of the Fellowship of the Unashamed. The die has been cast. The decision has been made. I am a disciple of Jesus. Therefore, I won’t look back, let up, slow down, back away or be still. My past is redeemed, my present is empowered and my future is secure. I’m done with low living, sight waking, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tame visions, mundane talking, cheap giving and dwarfed goals. I no longer need preeminence, prosperity, position, promotions, praise or popularity. I don’t have to win, be first, be right, recognized, regarded or rewarded. I now live by faith, lean on His presence, love with patience, live by prayer and labor with power. My goal is God’s glory, my face is set, my pace is fast, my road is narrow, my way is rough, my companions are few, my guide is reliable and my mission is clear. I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, turned back, deluded or delayed. I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of adversity, negotiate at the table of the enemy, ponder at the pool of popularity or meander in the maze of mediocrity. I won’t give up, shut up, let up or slow up until I have stayed up, stored up, prayed up, paid up and spoken up for the cause of Christ. I must go till He comes, give till I drop, preach till all know and work till He stops me. Christ has qualified me to become a part of the Fellowship of the Unashamed. I am His and He is mine.'
"Now that kind of life cannot be lived apart from the power of the gospel. It’s when you come to the heart realization that it is finished, when you come to the heart realization that Jesus plus nothing equals everything and that everything minus Jesus equals nothing, until that grips your heart, then you will continue to live in a posture of slavery. Paul said in Galatians, “Christ has come. It is for freedom that He has set us free.” Jesus said, “I have come to set the captives free.” So if you’re a Christian, you’re free. You’re free to succeed, you’re free to fail. You’re free to win, you’re free to lose. You’re free because Jesus paid it all. It’s finished, and that’s good news." ~ Tullian Tchividjian
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