Matt Chandler Quotes & Sayings

I am praying that the issues from the last 12 generations go into the ground with me so I have NEW issue is to pass on to my son. — Matt Chandler

If we don't understand the bad news, we will never grasp the good news. — Matt Chandler

Progress stems from education, culture, freedom and equality. Without these fundamentals, mankind will flounder. — Matt Chandler

Prayer does two things. It shows the complete sufficiency of God and the complete helplessness of man. It shows that God is not lacking, that He is in need of no thing, that He is infinitely and gloriously wealthy, that He can give to, He can bless and He can answer without the need of help from anyone or anything else. And it also shows that we are in desperate need of that kind of sufficiency. — Matt Chandler

Fearless faith results from holding on to Christ as our treasure. Gospel courage comes from gospel preciousness. If we truly believed that our reward in heaven far surpasses all the comfort and convenience and collections of the world, we, too, would be willing to consider them all as loss. — Matt Chandler

Let reputation be one of the green or red lights that leads you toward or away from a person you are considering dating. — Matt Chandler

I don't believe in the end that God gave me cancer, but He certainly could have stopped it and didn't. — Matt Chandler

And in the most brutal irony of all ironies, the esteemed high priest was mocking him, the one who wrote the law itself. The one appointed to offer sacrifices for blood atonement was despising the Lamb of God. Did they know that for centuries of the sacrificial system they'd been rehearsing the slaughter of the Messiah? — Matt Chandler

Men of God are those who walk in the fear of the Lord. — Matt Chandler

This wasn't a legalistic play. He simply wanted more and more of God. — Matt Chandler

Trying to figure out God is like trying to catch a fish in the Pacific Ocean with an inch of dental floss. — Matt Chandler

Where your delight is, the rest of your world is going to follow. — Matt Chandler

I 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 Chandler

The reason Christians get married "before the church" is not to give a religious appearance to the ceremony but because Christians hold the marriage covenant in the context of the community of the body of Christ. Seeking the support and counsel of family is an extension of this. — Matt Chandler

In too many marital conflicts, we work too hard at winning the argument and too little at winning the heart. You can express your feelings and thoughts, even share criticisms and complaints, but the end goal of marital conflict should be care for your spouse's soul, not trying to rack up the most points. Seeking to win is not love. — Matt Chandler

Christ distributes courage through community. He dissipates doubt through fellowship. Max Lucado — Matt Chandler

When sin becomes bitter, then Christ becomes sweet. Thomas Merton — Matt Chandler

We 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 Chandler

Every one of us loves Pauline theology, but few of us want Pauline pain. — Matt Chandler

We must help men and women see the epic in the ordinary details of life. — Matt Chandler

This is the question: Are you using God to get something from Him? Or is God Himself the goal of your striving? — Matt Chandler

The reconciling gospel is always at the forefront of the church's social action, because a full belly is not better than a reconciled soul. — Matt Chandler

When the people in a church dwell together in the unity of the gospel and together pursue the building up of one another in love, they are providing fertile soil for the roots of deep joy. But — Matt Chandler

Most people are pleasant when the world is going the way they want. But a person's character can be seen most clearly when the brokenness of the world has invaded his or her peace, when the way he or she thinks things ought to be is interrupted, disrupted, and dismantled. — Matt Chandler

Church is not meant to be fun. It's meant to be formative. — Matt Chandler

The marker of those who understand the gospel of Jesus Christ is that, when they stumble and fall, when they screw up, they run to God and not from him, because they clearly understand that their acceptance before God is not predicated upon their behavior but on the righteous life of Jesus Christ and his sacrificial death. — Matt Chandler

We believe more readily in the abstract application of God's promises than we do in their application to us personally. — Matt Chandler

Grace does not make sin safe. But grace does make sinners safe. — Matt Chandler

What stirs up in my heart is, 'Oh would we see an outpouring of the Holy Spirit.' — Matt Chandler

Intellectual ascent to correct doctrine is not salvation — Matt Chandler

The gospel creates a new reality that deepens our understanding of the world and our place in it. — Matt Chandler

Comfort is the god of our generation, so suffering is seen as a problem to be solved, and not a providence from God. — Matt Chandler

Religion is usually the tool the self-righteous man uses to exalt himself. — Matt Chandler

God is at work in the mess. That's the message of the Bible. That's why the Bible is not pretty. That's why it's grimy, because God is working in the mess. He's working in the tears. — Matt Chandler

A sure way to have someone crushed by their doubt is to preach a sermon on how to remove your doubt. — Matt Chandler

The Church should spend less time trying to be "relevant", which can come across as disingenuous, and more time trying to align their hearts to the authentic gospel message. — Matt Chandler

When you blow it, God still celebrates His Son in you. The litmus test of whether or not you understand the gospel is what you do when you fail. Do you run from Him and go clean yourself up a little bit before you come back into the throne room? Or do you approach the throne of grace with confidence? If you don't approach the throne of grace with confidence, you don't understand the gospel. — Matt Chandler

Could it not be, that God loves me too deeply, by having people challenge me so that I know I'm not perfect. — Matt Chandler

The gospel of Jesus Christ is worth living for, yes, and it is worth dying for, of course, but we show it is supremely valuable to us when we deny ourselves and take up our crosses to be a blessing to the people who the gospel is calling us to. — Matt Chandler

We can all look at life and agree that there are some parts that have no purpose - like neckties or cats. — Matt Chandler

The Kingdom of God wasn't born on the Fourth of July. — Matt Chandler

Jesus doesn't avoid those who mess up. Jesus runs to those who mess up. — Matt Chandler

You're exhausted in the faith because you're looking at you. The more you look at yourself and the less you look at God, the more you get frustrated at yourself. — Matt Chandler

When God saves you, he doesn't do it because you gave him permission. He did it because he's God. — Matt Chandler

I think that church membership is a huge consideration, precisely because there is no such thing as a perfect church, and in our day and age in the West, we have so many options to choose from. Churches are full of sinners, so there will always be some messiness in a church. Churches are like families that way. So when a person stays in a church for a long period of time, there is evidence that she has been able to see that everything's not perfect, but she nevertheless said, I'm going to stay. I'm going to try to make this work. My commitment is more important than my desire to run away. — Matt Chandler

The pastor owns the opportunity to issue of the flock that it is OK not to be OK. — Matt Chandler

Forming culture is not a one-time event. — Matt Chandler

Community is only as strong as what it's built upon. — Matt Chandler

Every missionary I know is extraordinarily ordinary. Everything they do, they do by the grace of God. — Matt Chandler

You don't really need to make a vow to stick with someone in the best of times. The inclination to run doesn't exist then. It's the low times the covenant is made for. — Matt Chandler

You are being discipled by something. — Matt Chandler

If the gospel is true, your life should look like it's true. — Matt Chandler

Abram, the first Jew was actually an Iraqi. — Matt Chandler

If 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 Chandler

You have no shot at experiencing real change in life if you're habitually protecting your image, hyping your spiritual brand, and putting out the vibe that you're a lot more unfazed by temptation than the reality you know and live would suggest. — Matt Chandler

Paul teaches that mature Christians are serious about the things of God and pursue God seriously, because when Christ is revealed in all His glory, we want to be raised with Him. We want all the riches. We want Him with us always. We don't want a life-sized salvation; rather, we want an eternity-sized salvation. So we don't stop at conversion; we press on. Because we want to make it evident that we believe someone is going to step in at that final moment and say, "I paid for that. I absorbed that. What was due for that, I paid for it all, not according to their riches but according to Mine. — Matt Chandler

So quit looking for 'the one'. You have a better chance of finding an Oompa Loompa riding a unicorn, fighting Bigfoot. — Matt Chandler

In essence, we are reconciled to reconcile. — Matt Chandler

But either way, the fruit of turning to God - before we sin, after we've sinned, even right there in the middle of our sin - is where Christians go to experience the flavors of God-fearing honor, gratitude, dependence, worship, confidence, trust, freedom, revival. Even those sins from our past that have been the most regrettable, the most difficult to move beyond - the ones we'd give anything if we could go back and do over again - Christ is able to redeem and rewrite even those into masterful sequels and come-from-behind victories. He takes what's given us fits for so long and gives us instead a reason to celebrate what He's done. To celebrate our redemption. To celebrate our Redeemer. — Matt Chandler

Have you read your Bible or has the Bible read you? — Matt Chandler

If we confuse the gospel with response to the gospel, we will drift from what keeps the gospel on the ground, what makes it clear and personal, and the next thing you know, we will be doing
a bunch of different things that actually obscure the gospel, not reveal it. — Matt Chandler

God is not just intensely personal. He is infinitely powerful. — Matt Chandler

The Christian views trials as a pathway to maturity. — Matt Chandler

nobody told me the second I gave my life to him, he would start tilling up the very deep places of my heart, revealing the darkest, nastiest things. Nor was I told about the stuff that would come to the surface so that I could deal with it and find my way to joy, through the cross. No one really preached that message. — Matt Chandler

We know that what we find physically attractive has been for the most part culturally informed, it is wise to acknowledge that God has hardwired us for the commitment of companionship over and above sexual attraction or physical pleasure. Companionship brings deeper joy and greater pleasure than the mere physical could ever bring by itself. If you have physical attraction and no companionship in your relationship, you'll eventually be miserable; but if you have deep companionship with each other, physical attraction isn't as important and becomes less and less so as time passes. In the movie Cast Away, we — Matt Chandler

Holy discontentment produces a lot of restless energy that seeks rest in Christ and His gospel. — Matt Chandler

No one can out-sin the cross of Christ. — Matt Chandler

If you struggle with being able to run hard after the Lord because you feel so unworthy, so unclean, so unsteady, listen up: "While [you] were still weak, at the right time," God came to your rescue. And still does. And still is. — Matt Chandler

While the good news of the gospel may not appeal to everyone, the bad news of the gospel still applies to everyone. — Matt Chandler

There isn't a violent soul on the planet that God might not save and transform for himself. — Matt Chandler

We don't want a life-sized salvation; rather, we want an eternity-sized salvation. — Matt Chandler

In order for good news to be good - like the gospel is good (literally means "good news") - it must invade bad spaces. — Matt Chandler

Jesus says, "No one takes My life from Me. I lay it down" (John 10:18). — Matt Chandler

If you know EVERYONE, you don't know ANYONE. — Matt Chandler

To obey the commands of Scripture can finally become a delight when we see that the reasons almost always center around God's love and provision for us in Christ. — Matt Chandler

People don't like love, they like that flittery flirty feeling. They don't love love - love is sacrificial, love is ferocious, it's not emotive. Our culture doesn't love love, it loves the idea of love. It wants the emotion without paying anything for it. — Matt Chandler

Bad news is the backdrop against which the Good News really stands out. — Matt Chandler

We've got to get past this idea that God is most glorified when we're rich, healthy and wealthy and we go, "Isn't God grand? Look at all He gave me." Because if anybody joins us in that and says, "Oh, if you love Jesus, you get a house and health and cars? Then I love Jesus too." Because then all of a sudden you've got a different religion. You have the religion of cars and houses, not God. — Matt Chandler

The engine that drives all your activities is hope. What you hope in shapes you. — Matt Chandler

I think "HALLELUJAH" translates into "HALLELUJAH" in every language out there. — Matt Chandler

When 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 Chandler

The net that catches me when I confront traumatic events is that 10,000 years from now, they will be a reason for rejoicing. — Matt Chandler

It is arrogant to believe that you know what is true for you. Surely you know in your own life with you that you cannot be trusted. — Matt Chandler

Culture eats strategy for breakfast. Peter Drucker — Matt Chandler

Expositing. John 14, the speaker explains that the Holy Spirit making His home with us involves Him exposing other areas of our lives for repentance, regeneration, and renewal. — Matt Chandler

But God brings the rebirth. He restores what can't be restored. He takes what is brittle and broken and beyond all hope, and infuses His own life into dead spaces. Not just once, but again and again. Ever renewing. Ever revitalizing. — Matt Chandler

The Imperfect Pastor by Zack Eswine might be the most helpful and profound book I've read in years. If you're in pastoral ministry grab a copy. — Matt Chandler

Repentance is not just the beginner course; repentance is lifetime learning. The goal of Christian living is not to get past the point of needing to repent, but to realize that God has made us capable through Christ of doing repentance well - repentance that the Bible calls "godly" in nature - what the apostle Paul described as "repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth" (2 Tim. 2:25) - repentance that leads to real change. At the root level. Where it can grow us up into character and consistency and confidence in Jesus' power and strength, fully at work in our pitiful weakness. That's not shame and loss. Bad Christian. That's mercy and grace. From a good, redeeming God. — Matt Chandler

Through the gospel, Jesus is making a people for Himself. We call this people the church, and it is made up of individuals from every tongue, tribe, race, and nation. The new covenant creates a new community - one that brings Jew and Gentile, male and female, slave and free all together - and makes a new humanity out of them as they are united in Christ by faith in Christ. But the gospel doesn't just transcend and transform our human institutions and divisions; it also transcends and transforms our circumstances. — Matt Chandler

We've been given the covenant community because we need each other, and together we'll be more mature, experience more life, and know more joy than we ever would apart from one another. — Matt Chandler

So where's the rationale for Christian pride and presumption, seeing as that's all the hand you ever played in your salvation? Where does all this woof-woofing come from, like you're scaring off the bad guys, swaggering out into the octagon cage? Get over yourself. You were saved by grace alone through faith alone. Therefore, God gets all the glory alone. And when you understand this one basic issue, you'll stop going into you and start going into the Lord - just — Matt Chandler

When we heed God's Word, we are rejecting how the world tries to disciple us. — Matt Chandler

We see in the backstory of Acts 16 the beautiful reconciliation that the gospel achieves, not just of unholy individuals to a holy God but superficially incompatible people to each other! Jesus takes strangers and makes them a family. — Matt Chandler

Longing for something fresh, for something no one else has said often leads to bad exegesis. — Matt Chandler

God's rescue of us, followed by His acceptance of us, enables us to walk in one fluid motion of humility and confidence. — Matt Chandler

While we lament the apparent injustice of pain and suffering, how often do we forget that every good thing in a fallen world is wholly a gift of God's mercy and grace. — Matt Chandler

If the gospel is reduced because of our preferences or misunderstandings, we leave ourselves open to heresies and to attacking our brothers-in-arms. — Matt Chandler

He later came to love. Then God hijacked his life. The zealous Pharisee became the apostle with the gospeled heart. So of course he would say, "To live is Christ." In the logic of the gospel, there are no alternatives to Christ. Every other — Matt Chandler

The more a church is tapped into the gospel, the more transformative power will be present by the Holy Spirit in that church. But the more that church gets away from the centrality of the gospel, the more a church will run on fumes, seeing people conformed to a pattern of religion rather than transformed by the Spirit of God. — Matt Chandler

Love says: I've seen the ugly parts of you, and I'm staying. — Matt Chandler