What drives me mad in evangelical circles, including some young Reformed circles, is that there is often a sit-on-the-couch-and-wait-for-God-to-do-something mentality that is unbiblical and wicked. It's probably been true of every generation, but I can see it most clearly in the younger crowd. There seems to be so little war when it comes to sin.
Matt ChandlerA Church worshipping as a Creature of the Word doesn't show up to perform or be entertained; she comes desperate and needy, thirsty for grace, receiving from The Lord and the body of Christ, and then gratefully receiving what she needs as she offers her praise- the only proper response to the God who saves us.
Matt ChandlerI learned very early that people need to have a good grasp of God's goodness and God's sovereignty.
Matt ChandlerBecause a God who is ultimately most focused on his own glory will be about the business of restoring us, who are all broken images of him. His glory demands it. So we should be thankful for a self-sufficient God whose self-regard is glorious.
Matt ChandlerYou and I are stymied in our own creativity. We can only create as sub-creators, and even then our best work is only sub-creation.
Matt ChandlerEngaging the city around us and ministering to its needs reveal to us the remaining bastions of sin in our lives, the areas we refuse to surrender to God.
Matt ChandlerEvery missionary I know is extraordinarily ordinary. Everything they do, they do by the grace of God.
Matt ChandlerIf you're not confident in the authority of the Scriptures, you will be a slave to what sounds right.
Matt ChandlerThe commands of God are given, not to rob me of joy, but lead me into the fullness of joy.
Matt ChandlerWhile the good news of the gospel may not appeal to everyone, the bad news of the gospel still applies to everyone.
Matt ChandlerHeaven is not a place for those who are afraid of hell; it’s a place for those who love God. You can scare people into coming to your church, you can scare people into trying to be good, you can scare people into giving money, you can even scare them into walking down an aisle and praying a certain prayer, but you cannot scare people into loving God. You just can’t do it.
Matt ChandlerThe great mercy of God was that while I was purposefully preparing God's people, He was purposefully preparing me.
Matt ChandlerThe work of God in the cross of Christ strikes us as awe-inspiring only after we have first been awed by the glory of God.
Matt ChandlerWhen I think about sanctification, a couple things immediately pop into my head. One is how slow it actually is. I think everybody wants the silver-bullet, the thing that makes sanctification move like a superhighway rather than the dirt path that it is. The other is that, by in large, the greatest single asset in ongoing sanctification is a serious pursuit of joy in the face of Jesus Christ.
Matt ChandlerIf you are in Christ, you are fully and completely forgiven for all your sin-past, present and future.
Matt ChandlerSome people are so moral they feel like they have no need for Jesus. True worshippers know they are in deep need of Jesus Christ and are transformed morally by "beholding Jesus" and seeing their lives transformed by the Spirit's power from the inside out rather than conformed to a pattern of religion from the outside in.
Matt ChandlerMore often than not, we want him to have fairy wings and spread fairy dust and shine like a precious little star, dispensing nothing but good times on everyone, like some kind of hybrid of Tinker Bell and Aladdin’s Genie. But the God of the Bible, this God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, is a pillar of fire and a column of smoke.
Matt ChandlerIf you add to or subtract from the cross, even if it is to factor in biblically mandated religious practices like prayer and evangelism, you rob God of His glory and Christ of His sufficiency.
Matt ChandlerApart from worshiping God, everything becomes superficial. But when you understand the driving force behind everything, all of a sudden there's an eternal amount of joy at our disposal, because everything we do is enlightened and enlivened by the endless glory of the eternal God.
Matt ChandlerThere isn’t a violent soul on the planet that God might not save and transform for himself.
Matt ChandlerGod is not in love with some future version of you. It’s not you tomorrow that He loves and delights in. It’s not you when you get your act together....If you believe that Christ’s love for you is a future love for you, then you dismiss the cross of Christ.
Matt ChandlerI preach hard against that idea and plead with people to make war against sin. I tell them it's not going to be easy. Some people are meant to wrestle with their sin a long time before God brings them to freedom, but let's wrestle. Let's fight. Let's do something besides just complain.
Matt ChandlerWe can never grasp the extent of our depravity until we recognize the excellencies of our created dignity
Matt ChandlerNo change of job, no increased income, no new home, no new electronic device, or no new spouse is going to make things better inside of you.
Matt ChandlerI think people can get a little weirded out by pain, suffering, and death. They don't know what to do so they end up saying things that are hurtful to people who have experienced loss.
Matt ChandlerI was used to being the smartest guy in the room, and then God dropped me in a place that was well beyond me. It was painfully awesome.
Matt ChandlerUntil Christ is our treasure, any other motivation we have to suffer for him is a fool’s errand.
Matt ChandlerFaith doesn’t mean an absence of fear. It means facing fear and trusting that God’s goodness is greater.
Matt ChandlerWe are supernaturalists first, not naturalists. The only reason we feel compelled to accommodate science is that science says we ought to. But it is science that should accommodate revelation. Revelation has been around much longer.
Matt ChandlerHe created the flavors! He created the colors. He created it all, and he did it all out of the overflow of his perfections. It’s not like he was thinking, ‘Oh, I’ve got some fajita flavoring over here. I know: let’s put it on the cow and the chicken.’ He created the avocado to have a certain flavor; he created the skirt steak, the fillet, and the tenderloin to have certain flavors. That was God’s doing. So every aspect of creation, from the largest galaxy to the tiniest burst of flavor in food or drink or seasoning, radiates the goodness of God.
Matt ChandlerGod ultimately raises up leaders for one primary reason: His glory. He shows His power in our weakness. He demonstrates His wisdom in our folly. We are all like a turtle on a fence post. If you walk by a fence post and see a turtle on top of it, then you know someone came by and put it there. In the same way, God gives leadership according to His good pleasure.
Matt ChandlerThis avoidance of the difficult things of Scripture — of sinfulness and hell and God’s notable severity — is idolatrous and cowardly. If a man or a woman who teaches the Scriptures is afraid to explain to you the severity of God, they have betrayed you, and they love their ego more than they love you.
Matt ChandlerIf the gospel of Jesus Christ is not at the center of a wedding ceremony, it is likely not going to be at the center of the marriage. This would be a grave mistake, however, as marriage itself is designed to be a great reflector of that gospel.
Matt ChandlerChoosing one thing over another doesn't necessarily mean we love the thing we choose. If given the choice to eat spinach or broccoli, you may choose broccoli. It may only mean you don't want to eat spinach. Heaven is not for people who just want to skip Hell. Heaven is reserved for those who love Jesus, who have been rescued by Him and who long to praise Him. If someone doesn't have much use for praising Him now, it's foolish to think they're ready for Heaven.
Matt ChandlerTruth is never our enemy, ever. So we should never freak out about people who claim to have discovered truth. If it's true truth, God owns it and has already accounted for it, and while nothing that is true ever contradicts God's revealed word in the Bible, discovered truth sometimes contradicts the words of Christians. We shouldn't be afraid of this, because God knew it before anybody else and its discovery is dependent on his sovereignty anyway. The truth is that the truth is ours - all truth is our truth because we are of Christ and Christ is of the sovereign God.
Matt Chandler