All posts tagged Matt Chandler

Matt Chandler :: CatWest

by Tim Schraeder on 03/04/2011 in Catalyst West 11 with No comments

Matt Chandler serves as Lead Pastor of The Village Church in Highland Village, TX. He describes his eight-year tenure at The Village as a re-planting effort where he was involved in changing the theological and philosophical culture of the congregation. The church has witnessed a tremendous response growing from 160 people to over 8,000 including satellite campuses in Dallas and Denton. Alongside his current role as lead pastor, Matt is involved in church planting efforts both locally and internationally through The Village and various strategic partnerships. Prior to accepting the pastorate at The Village, Matt had a vibrant itinerant ministry for over 10 years where he spoke to thousands of people in America and abroad about the glory of God and beauty of Jesus. His greatest joy outside of Jesus is being married to Lauren and being a dad to their three children, Audrey, Reid and Norah.

  • Living out the Gospel demands a courageous lifestyle.
  • 1 Corinthians 15
  • In Matt’s early days of embracing faith, God was gathering kindling around his soul.
  • He had a lot of questions about his faith.
  • When God opened up his heart by the power of the Spirit, he knew he didn’t have to have the answers to all of his questions.
  • When we accept Christ it’s easy to get lost doing the work… avoiding this, doing that, stopping this, starting that, etc.
  • Doing the “work” of being a Christian is exhausting.
  • It does not take long, once you get away from the Gospel, to imagine that God loves a future version of “me,” not “me as I am right now.”
  • God doesn’t love some future version of you but loves you now.
  • Paul calls people back to the Gospel.
  • The Gospel doesn’t just justify us… it’s God’s primary tool in our sanctification.
  • The Gospel isn’t what saves us, it’s what’s saving us and what will save us
  • Romans 1:15
  • Paul was preaching the Gospel to those who were already saved.
  • We abandon the Gospel and walk away from it and try to walk in a new gospel.
  • The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not just what saves us, it’s what sustains us and what will save us regardless of future circumstances.
  • D.A. Carson - “People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.”
  • No one accidentally becomes godly.
  • We grow by the power of the Holy Spirit.
  • Our effort towards growing in godliness must be cloaked in an understanding of grace.
  • Colossians 3:1 – If then you have been raised with Christ…
  • Paul presents the Gospel clearly before he gets into any type of behavioral modification.
  • Paul rarely addresses behavior before he addresses the Gospel.
  • The difference between grace-driven effort and self-motivated effort?
  • Grace-driven effort uses the weapons of grace instead of the will and mind of the heart.
  • Someone who uses their will uses promises… If I do this, God will  ____________ .
  • The thing we want is our god. That’s our idol. We’re using God to get what we want.
  • The things we desire make horrible gods.
  • Someone who uses their will can also use fear.
  • If I do this, God will do _____ this to me.
  • We try to behave in a way that minimizes punishment and maximizes blessings.
  • Grace-driven effort uses the weapons of truth.
  • The blood of Christ (Eph 2:13)
  • I’m accepted by God and it has nothing to do with me.
  • The word of God (2 Tim 3:16-17)
  • What demons do and what the Holy Spirit does is very similar… they whisper to us.
  • The Holy Spirit reminds us of who we are… causes us to say, “This isn’t who I am…”
  • The demonic whispers lies of condemnation, guilt, etc… anything that causes us to run from God instead of running to Him.
  • The promises of the New Covenant (Heb 9:15).
  • When you understand the weapons of grace, you will run towards God when you fail.
  • Grace-driven effort attacks the roots and not just the branches.
  • When you are using your will, you’ll just try to overcome sin with behavioral modification.
  • When you can keep sin at a behavioral level it will crush you.
  • If you can feel the weight of your sin in rebellion to God, you’ll be at the heart level.
  • It’s what’s really happening at a heart level that drives you towards sin instead of holiness.
  • Grace-driven effort is driven by the roots not the external behavior.
  • Pursue the heart, not the action.
  • Most people get broken by the results of their sin, not the act of their sin.
  • People have a worldly sorrow instead of a godly sorrow.
  • Grace-driven effort understands that to sin is to sin against the Lion of Judah.
  • Sometimes it’s silly the reproach we bear on the name of Jesus Christ.
  • Grace-driven effort doesn’t forsake sin, it dies to it.
  • By developing an appetite for what is good you’ll lose an appetite for what’s bad.
  • Pursue the things that are on high where Christ is.
  • Head towards Christ, press towards Christ… turn your eyes upon Jesus.
  • The things of this earth will go strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.
  • You do what you do because you want to… you haven’t cultivated an appetite for what’s better than that.
  • Change your appetite.
  • Cultivate an appetite for what’s beautiful and what’s eternal and that’s what you will crave.
  • Grace-driven effort is violent.
  • The flesh and your will are not violent.
  • The flesh asks, “How far is too far? Where’s the line?”
  • Grace-driven effort is violent and understands that any sin at any level is a cosmic threat to the good of our soul and to the glory of God.
  • It gives no space for sin.
  • Grace-driven effort puts to death even the smallest sins.
  • Those small lies aren’t harmless, they are aiding and embedding the enemy.
  • Grace understands we are imagining more than we are doing.
  • People are easily manipulated.
  • People confirm to the pattern we set for them.
  • People may have stopped sinning, but are they really free?
  • People need to fall so deeply in love this Jesus that this world will lose our affection and embraces.
  • We are ill-equipped and ill-prepared, we need the Holy Spirit’s power.
  • Jesus gave us His Spirit.

Catalyst 09 :: Matt Chandler

by Tim Schraeder on 10/08/2009 in Catalyst 2009 with 2 Comments

Matt Chandler serves as Lead Pastor of The Village Church in Highland Village, Texas. He describes his six-year tenure at The Village as a re-planting effort where he was involved in changing the theological and philosophical culture of the congregation. The church has witnesses a tremendous response growing from 160 people to over 6,000 including satellite campuses in Dallas and Denton. Alongside his current role as lead Pastor, Matt is involved in church planting efforts both locally and internationally through The Village and various strategic partnerships. Prior to accepting the pastorate at The Village, Matt had a vibrant itinerant ministry for over 10 years where he spoke to thousands of people in America and abroad about the glory of God and beauty of Jesus. His greatest joy outside of Jesus is being married to Lauren and being a dad to their three children: Audrey, Reid and Norah.

  • History is a weird animal.
  • History is a double-edged sword.
  • It can haunt you.
  • Matt shared the story of trying to dispel the mystery of Bloody Mary to his daughter.
  • We’ve been doing this to kids in church for years.
  • There are times you need to forget what lies behind you.
  • History can be a life-giving reality check.
  • When you clue into it, things can make sense.
  • There’s a lot of things going on… good and bad.
  • Some are successful others are struggling.
  • What have we been caught up in?
  • God created everything.
  • Wisdom cries aloud in the streets; she’s been with God since the beginning.
  • Everything God creates worship for the Creator.
  • Everything leads to worship.
  • But then the fall happened.
  • The fall made us disregard the creator and made us look to creation.
  • God is preparing mankind for reconciliation.
  • God’s promise to Israel has global implications.
  • The Pslamist sings about all the nations being glad.
  • Christ shows up, the great exchange takes place.
  • He made Him who knew no sin to be made sin for us …
  • His righteousness makes us holy and blameless.
  • It’s not by our own merit, but by the merit of Jesus Christ alone.
  • He gathered the disciples and said, “it’s go time.”
  • God made a way.
  • Acts 2 is the most unseeker friendly message of all time.
  • Thousands were added; 5,000 later; this thing begins to happen.
  • Men and women are being saved, reconciled to God.
  • God help us and save us from taking the narratives and making them into children’s stories.
  • Peter was called to Cornelius’ house.
  • Cornelius is saved in the middle of the message.
  • Then the church gathers to decide if Gentiles can really be saved.
  • Then it blows up… the Gospel spreads to all people around the globe.
  • What God said He was going to do is HAPPENING NOW.
  • It has been happening, it is working, it is moving.
  • The next 20-30 years a “global Christendom” is coming soon.
  • We’re caught up in something bigger than we can even imagine.
  • Hebrews 11
  • The gauntlet we will run through is uncertain.
  • We might survive the edge of the sword, or maybe we will die against it.
  • There will be seasons where the dead will be raised and times when there will be death.
  • Hebrews 12, THEREFORE… let us throw off every weight and the sin which clings so closely.
  • We need to redeem and reclaim some words that have been hijacked.
  • Somehow the idea of confession and repentance has a negative connotation.
  • It seems to be put away in the dusty corner of the believer’s world as if we believe the longer we are Christians, the lesser we will need to repent.
  • We look at it as something that only certain people need to do or that fundamentalists scream we have to do.
  • Luther nailed his thesis to the door… “the entire life of a believer must be repentance.”
  • I John 5
  • If we say we have no sin we’ve made him a liar and there is no truth in us.
  • If we live and we walk as if we are sinless, we are a liar.
  • We’ve created “bad” sins and sins Christ is cool with.
  • Repentance works is a continuing ethic.
  • There’s times our heart is going to give us a hitch.
  • There’s two ways to handle it: ignore it (you’ll be self-deceived) or you can dig deep (confess, repent and grow).
  • Every bit of hesitantcy in obedience is God beckoning you to deeper waters.
  • Get up, repent and mature.
  • Run with endurance the race set before us.
  • No one wants the ministry of Moses, his ministry was wandering in the wilderness with whiny people (Church people have always been whiny!).
  • Some of us will spend our whole lives with stiff-necked people.
  • The day is coming when history will be rewritten as it really is.
  • Your role is bigger than you think.
  • Play your part well.
  • Look to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.
  • Jesus is the founder of our faith.
  • Without Him, His cross and His shed blood there is no reconciliation.
  • By this Gospel we will be saved… past, present and future.
  • Don’t grow weary.
  • God has invited us to play a part.
  • THEREFORE, let us throw off our sin.
  • Let confession and repentance be a continuing ethic for us.
  • It will prevent pride from happening and make us thankful for all that God does.
  • Fix your eyes on Jesus Christ.
  • Jesus makes intercession for us.
  • May we not get distracted with historical silliness.
  • May we remember what we’re caught up in and the significance of it.
  • May we run well.