Summation of the Glorious Ruin

I hope you've benefited from the quotes I've posted over the past few weeks from Tullian Tchvidjian's new book Glorious Ruin: How Suffering Sets You Free. You can search this blog for the tag/label "Glorious Ruin" to find all the quotes.

As of now I'd list this book as one of the top 5 I've read in the past few years. I suspect I'll be re-reading it many times in order to absorb everything he says. I do not mean that it is a hard read - it's not. I mean that the content is such that it must be digested over time and used to evaluate my personal life experiences. I suspect you would find the same.

Here is the key thought from my first read through of the book.

Most books about suffering focus on the "Why" question (why must I suffer?) and/or the "How" question (how can I grow from or benefit from my suffering?).  Tullian moves past both of those to the more important "Who" question. From Martin Luther's "Theology of the Cross" he points out that God is most revealed in suffering, because He is a God who saves us through His own vicarious suffering on the Cross of Christ. We prefer a "Theology of Glory" - where God always and only blesses and prospers us. The Cross, however, reveals that the place of pain is the place were God is most clearly revealed in Scripture and life experience and where He is most truly known. Although the author of the Book of Job tells us why Job suffered. Job was never given that answer. He was never told "Why." His "friends" spent all those chapters moralizing his suffering (If you were good you would not suffer) and minimizing it (Just get over it). Job's only answer, all that he was given,  was a revelation of Who - the one true eternal God whom he met in his suffering. That revelation made him a "glorious ruin." That answer was enough.

"I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye sees you;
therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.”
                 (Job 42:5-6 ESV)

The gospel enables us to escape from the prison of How and Why, and find freedom in the Who. The only answer is meeting God in Christ -and, to borrow the title to one of Tullian's other books, "Jesus + Nothing = Everything."

My brief thoughts do not do the book justice. Whether you agree with these comments or not, go read the book for yourself. I do not think that you will be disappointed.

Next on my reading and quoting list - The Circle Maker: Praying Circles Around Your Biggest Dreams and Greatest Fears by Mark Batterson.

Satisfied by the Naked Longing

Tullian Tchvidjian (Glorious Ruin, pages 177-178) on understanding the Book of Job:

"Take the book of Job. Some commentators actually become exasperated with Job because it seems to go on and on, endlessly repeating the same arguments without providing any definitive answers. there's just chapter after chapter of Job and his friends covering the same territory over and over again. But the redundancy serves both a theological and a literary purpose. Yes, it does go on, and on, and on, with no definitive answers - which is exactly how most of us experience suffering in real life. that is, you are in good company. Job wasn't given a definitive answer either. God did not come to him at the end of the book and say, You made it Job! Now let me tell you the real reason why you suffered. All we find at the bottom of Job's suffering is a naked longing for God. Which, it turns out, is enough."

That is the best summation of the message of Job I have ever heard or read.

  

Closing the Idol Factories

"As our idols reveal to us, we all have some corner of our lives where we need to be converted afresh, where some false hope needs to die if faith is to be born. This side of the pearly gates, you and I can be relied upon to forget the goodness of the gospel. Like factories, our hearts, to paraphrase John Calvin, will never cease to produce new idols. The only hope lies in hearing the crushing word of the Law and the absolving word of the gospel every day. Every minute!

As an aside, this is precisely why churches need to preach the basic gospel every Sunday. Sermons with advice (or "application") about relationships or money or social justice will always fall flat, regardless of how sound the advice may be. they do not take into account the depth of suffering experienced in the life of a believer or the sin that persists in every Christian...."

           -Tullian Tchvidjian, Glorious Ruin, page 165

No Expiration Date

"...I was not, and am not, immune to these toxic assumptions. It took the repeated defeats of my adult life for me to even begin to grasp the sustaining power of the good news, that God's grace doesn't expire after the first conversion or nervous breakdown. This is such good news! You see, along with the vast majority of professing Christians, I had reduced the gospel to what non-Christians must believe in order to be saved before moving into the deeper waters of sanctification. But suffering taught me that the only deeper waters are those of our own need: none of us ever grow to a place where we no longer require the 200-proff version of God's mercy and forgiveness." 

      - Tullian Tchvidjian, Glorious Ruin, page 164

Yes! Give me the old 200 proof version off the Gospel!

Aware of Weakness

WOW!

RT @PastorTullian "The Holy Spirit's ministry is not to make us stronger so we need Jesus less but to make us aware of our weakness so that we need Jesus more."

Freedom to be Small

"The world tells us in a thousand different ways that the bigger we become, the freer we will be. The richer, the more beautiful, and the more powerful we grow, the more security, liberty, and happiness we will experience. And yet, the gospel tells us just the opposite, that the smaller we become, the freer we will be. This may sound at first like bad news, but as we will see, it could not be better news.

In the Bible, slavery is equated with self-reliance.... When your meaning, your significance, your security, your protection, your safety are all riding on you, it actually feels like slavery....

...God wants to free us from ourselves, and there's nothing like suffering to show us that we need something bigger than our abilities and our strength and our explanations. There's nothing like suffering to remind us how not in control we actually are, how little power we ultimately have, and how much we ultimately need god. In other words, suffering reveals to us the things that ultimately matter, which also happen to be the warp and woof of Christianity: who we are and who God is."

        - Tullian Tchvidjian, Glorious Ruin: How Suffering Sets You Free:, pages 142-143

Present in the Defeats

"...a theology of glory sees God at work in the victories of life ratter than the defeats.

...a theology of the cross allows us to love and serve a suffering person independent of whether on not, or how fast, he is healing. We can walk with these people in their present pain, as opposed to impatiently focusing on their future health.

God is right there, not somewhere else."

    -Tullian Tchvidjian, Glorious Ruin: How Suffering Sets You Free.  pages 122-123

Deconstructed by Jesus

More from Tullian Tchvidjian's new book Glorious Ruin: How Suffering Sets You Free:

"When the goal becomes conquering our sin instead of soaking in the conquest of our Savior, we actually begin to shrink spiritually....The tragic irony in all of this is that when we focus so strongly on our need to get better, we actually get worse." (page 82)

"I've said it once and I'll say it again and again, because I need to be reminded myself.: Christianity is not first and foremost about our behavior, our obedience, our response, and our daily victory over sin. It is first and foremost about Jesus! It is about His person, His substitutionary work, His incantation, life, death, resurrection, ascension, and promised return. We are justified - and sanctified - by grace alone through faith alone in the finished work of Christ alone. Even now, the banner under which Christians live reads, 'It is finished.' Everything we need and everything we look for in things smaller than Jesus, is already ours in Christ." (page 83)

"God is not interested in what you think you should be or feel. He is not interested in the narrative you construct for yourself, or that others construct for you. He may even use suffering to deconstruct that narrative. Rather, he is interested in you., the you who suffers, the you who inflicts suffering on others, the you who hides, the you who has bad days (and good ones). And He meets you where you are. Jesus is not the man at the top of the stairs. He is the man at the bottom, the friend of sinners, the savior of those in need of one. Which is all of us, all of the time, praise be to God." (page 92)

Rejecting Karma

"Grace fundamentally rejects the circularity of karma."

 From an article by Tullian Tchvidjian in Relevant Magazine - Does God Punish Disobedience? The article is excerpted from chapter 4 of Glorious Ruin.

Read it all at the link.
   

An End In Itself

 More from Tullian Tchvidjian, Glorious Ruin: How Suffering Sets You Free:

"Contrary to popular belief,Christianity is not about good people getting better. If anything, it is about bad people coping with their failure to be good....The gospel is a proclamation that always addresses sinners and sufferers directly (i.e., you and me)" (Page 78)

"Think about it: How often have you heard the gospel equated with a positive change in a believer's life? 'I used to __________, but then I met Jesus and now I'm __________.' It may be unintentional, but we make a serious mistake when we reduce the good news to its results, such as patience, sobriety, and compassion, in the lives of those who have heard it. These are beautiful developments, and they should be celebrated. But they should not be confused with the gospel itself. The gospel is not a means to an end, it is an end in itself." (page 79)

We Are Actors, Not Directors

More from Tullian Tchvidjian, Glorious Ruin: How Suffering Sets You Free:

"The gospel frees us to speak honestly about the reality of pain, confident that nothing rides on our ability to cope with or fend off suffering. Before we can even begin to grapple with the frustrations and tragedies of life in this world, we must do away with our faithless morality of payback and rewards.....We must return to the beginning (and end) of the whole affair: the cross." (Page 68)

:While God does indeed use the suffering in our lives, He is interested in much more than improvements in your personality or circumstantial happiness; He is interested in saving you. He is more than your Helper; He is your Redeemer. We do not have the primary role in this drama after all; we are the actors, not the directors. Sometimes it requires getting on our knees for us to see the truth." (page 69)

God Hidden in Our Wreckage

Pastor Tullian on Luther's concept of the Theology of the Cross:

"A theology of the cross...understands the cross to be the ultimate statement of God's involvement in the world this side of heaven. A theology of the cross accepts the difficult thing rather than trying to change it or use it. It looks directly into the pain, and 'calls a thing what it is' instead of calling evil good and good evil. It identifies God as 'hidden in [the] suffering." Luther actually took things one key step further. He said that God was not only hidden in suffering, but He was at work in our anxiety and doubt. When you are at the end of your rope- when you no longer have hope within yourself - that is when you run to God for mercy. It's admittedly difficult to accept the claim that God is somehow hidden amid all of the wreckage of our lives. But those who are willing to struggle and despair may in actuality be those among us who best understand the realities of the Christian life."

- Tullian Tchvidjian, Glorious Ruin: How Suffering Sets You Free, pages 42-43

Reading Through the Ruin

In case you haven't noticed, I'm reading Tullian Tchvidjian's new book, Glorious Ruin: How Suffering Sets You Free, and will be posting a lot of quotes as I work my way through it.

This is a book that is simultaneously deep and easy to read. It's going to take me some time to digest, and I'm finding it highly relevant to my recent and continuing life struggles - as I'm experiencing a lot of ruin that doesn't feel very glorious for the present.

You should check it out -you will not be disappointed.

The Freedom of Who

"But the gospel is not ultimately a defense from pain and suffering; rather, it is the message of God's rescue through pain. In fact, it allows us to drop our defenses, to escape not from pain but from the prison of How and Why to the freedom of Who."

     -Tullian Tchvidjian, Glorious Ruin: How Suffering Sets You Free, page 38

Tullian on Fox

Tullian Tchvidjian was on FOX & Friends this morning talking about his new book Glorious Ruin (among other subjects) And yes, they butchered the pronunciation of his name.

Tullian is one of my favorite authors and I consider him one of the most influential Christian leaders in America today. Can't wait to read the new book.

Where You Are

"God is not interested in what you think you should be or feel. He is not interested in the narrative you construct for yourself, or that others construct for you. He may even use suffering to deconstruct that narrative. Rather, He is interested in you, the you who suffers, the you who inflicts suffering on others, the you who hides, the you who has bad days (and good ones). And He meets you where you are. Jesus is not the man at the top of the stairs; He is the man at the bottom, the friend of sinners, the savior of those in need of one. Which is all of us, all of the time."

(Excerpted from Glorious Ruin: How Suffering Sets You Free, by Tullian Tchvidjian, pg. 80)

Hat Tip: Liberate