An Interview with 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.
How can pastors evaluate their sermons to see
if they're really preaching Jesus + nothing? What kind of litmus test
can we take to make sure we get grace right in our preaching?
Tullian: The litmus test that I use for myself is that
if people walk away from my sermons thinking more about what they need
to do than what Jesus has already done, I’ve failed to preach the
Gospel. The Gospel is the good news that Jesus has done for me what I
could never do for myself. And a lot of preaching these days is “do
more, try harder,” like you said. It’s behavior modification. We come
to church expecting God to give us a to-do list or the preacher to give
us a to-do list. As long as we are given a to-do list, we maintain some
measure of control over our lives. Just tell me what to do.
This message of radical grace, that "it is finished," is difficult for
the human heart, the sinful heart to grasp because we’re so afraid of
control being wrestled out of our hands. So we come to church saying,
“Pastor, my marriage is in trouble…my children are going off the deep
end…my business is failing…I’m coming to you as the expert to tell me
what to do to fix my own life…” And as a result, our lives get worse,
not better, because we’re taking matters into our own hands.
So my job at the end of every sermon—and this is the grid by which I
preach—I preach God’s law, and then I preach God’s Gospel. Both are
good. The law diagnoses my need and shows me that my best is never good
enough. So I’m always trying to help our people realize that they’re a
lot worse than they realize and they’re a lot more incapable than they
think they are. But the good news is that God is more than capable,
that He’s already done everything we need for Him to do. He’s already
secured in Christ everything we long for. So my job at the end of every
sermon is to, in some way, shape, or form, encourage our people by
saying, “Cheer up. You’re a lot worse off than you think you are, but
God’s grace is infinitely larger than you could have ever hoped or
imagined. It is finished.”
And what I’ve discovered is that the people who lean on "it is
finished" most are the ones who end up being the most free and whose
lives change the most. It’s the people who constantly demand to-do
lists and then preachers who capitulate to that demand and give them
to-do lists, those are the people who get worse. I’ve realized, and I’m
only 39 years old, but I’ve realized the more I try to get better, the
worse I get. I’m just realizing I am a narcissist. I think way too
much about how I’m doing, if I’m doing it right, have I confessed every
sin. In other words, I’m thinking much more about me and what I need to
do than Jesus and what He’s already done. And as a result, I’m not
getting better. I’m getting worse.
I’ve come to the realization that when I stop obsessing over my need to
improve, that is improvement. When I stop obsessing narcissistically
over my need to get better, that is what the Bible means by getting
better. That’s why Paul was able to say at the end of his life, “I’m
the worst guy that I know, and the work of grace in my life is that I’m
free to tell you that.” I think the whole notion of what it means to
progress in the Christian life has been radically misunderstood.
Progress in the Christian life is not "I’m getter better and better and
better…" Progress in the Christian life is, "I’m growing in my
realization of just how bad I am and growing in my appreciation of just
how much Jesus has done for me."
Can you give me a quick overview of your preaching prep,
what you do as a method or what that looks like for you during a week?
Tulian: I preach typically through books of the
Bible. I’m usually asking the team of guys around me, “What do you
think our church really needs to hear right now? Where are we? What do
we really need to hear?” Then they’ll help me think through various
books in the Bible that might be relevant for that particular season for
the life of our church. Then I have a research assistant—so let’s say
I’m preaching through Ecclesiastes, and I want to preach a fifteen-week
series on the book of Ecclesiastes. I ask my research assistant to
begin exploring the different resources out there. I give him a list of
books and resources to summarize for me, and then together, we
basically outline the entire series.
Once I have an outline of the entire series (and when I say outline, I
don’t mean I’ve outlined every sermon already; I mean just a broad,
general outline of the main point that I want to get across over this
entire series) then I really go to work in terms of really beginning to
think about what I’m going to say on Sunday. I begin thinking about
that on Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday are really busy days for me, so I
don’t think a whole lot about the sermon on Tuesday and Wednesday. I
do a lot of my sort of “seed” thinking on Monday, and then when Thursday
comes around, I start thinking more in terms of how I’m going to press
the Gospel into people through this passage. I start consulting
different sources, and my research assistant provides me with a weekly
brief, 8-10 pages of things to think through and ways to approach this
passage and preach the Gospel from this passage.
Then on Friday, I spend a couple of hours just putting some thoughts on
paper, coming up with a basic sermon outline. I usually preach
two-point sermons because my goal is to preach law and then Gospel, show
us our need and then show us Christ’s vision specifically in unique
ways. So my sermons are typically two points. I get that outline done
on Friday and jot some thoughts down on paper.
Saturday’s my real workday. I’m pretty much holed up in my home, in my
bedroom for four, five, six hours, depending on the difficulty of the
passage. I basically put everything I want to say on paper. I do not
preach from a manuscript, but I do pretty much write out almost
everything I want to say, and I try to get that on two pages
single-spaced just so that I have a basic idea of where I’m going. It
helps when I’m going to preach it to write it out, and then when that
process is over, I make some sermon notes out of those two pages.
I don’t practice a sermon beforehand. I don’t stand in front of a
mirror and preach it to myself. I just get up on Sunday morning, and I
trust that a lot of what I’m going to say is going to be
extemporaneous. I have a basic idea of where I’m going to go, and I
have thoughts written down, and I have certain sentences and quotes
written out verbatim that I will read, but I also give a lot of room to
the Holy Spirit to guide me and direct me in the moment as I’m looking
into people’s eyes and into people’s faces and gauging how they’re
coming along with me as I’m preaching.
As every preacher knows, our lives revolve around a weekly, public
deadline. You just get into a rhythm. There is no right way to do it
necessarily. I don’t think preachers need to spend 40 hours a week
preparing sermons. I think if you have to spend 40 hours a week
preparing for a passage, you don’t know the passage well enough to
preach it. I’m certainly not championing the idea of just getting up
and winging it either. What I’ve described is a process of preparation,
but realizing that life and interaction with real people helps me
prepare for sermons almost as much as sitting down with a hundred books
like I do and writing things out. So I’ve got to give room for pastoral
ministry to inform what I’m going to say.
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