Kevin Deyoung Quotes

Try this New Year's resolution: I won't check my phone, my tablet, or my computer until I've first read a chapter in my Bible. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Think of (the Kingdom) like the sun. As it peeks through on a cloudy day, we do not say the sun has grown. We say, 'The sun has broken through.' Our view of the sun has changed, or obstacles to the sun have been removed, but we have not changed the sun. ~ Kevin DeYoung

The Spirit is like God's engagement ring saying to us, "This promise is only the beginning. You have no idea how much I will bless you. There is a wedding feast coming to you that you wouldn't believe. But I've given you my Spirit so you will believe that it is coming. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Busyness must start with the one sin that begets so many of our other sins: pride. ~ Kevin DeYoung

If we do not worship God, God will not be the lesser for it. But we will. ~ Kevin DeYoung

To paraphrase Titus 3:3, we live as slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in chaos and envy, hassled by others and hassling one another. We are all very busy, but not with what matters ~ Kevin DeYoung

Sometimes Christians live in a terror of universal obligation: AIDS over here, people to be saved over here, a crushing sense of low-level guilt every day of our lives. Question to ask: Where has God put me right now? I need to say no to a whole bunch of other things because if I don't say no I can't say yes to others. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Am I trying to do good or to make myself look good? ~ Kevin DeYoung

God, don't let anything unpleasant happen to anyone. Make everything in the world nice for everyone." And when we aren't praying this kind of prayer, we are praying for God to tell us that everything will turn out fine. That's often what we are asking for when we pray to know the will of God. We aren't asking for holiness, or righteousness, or an awareness of sin. We want God to tell us what to do so everything will turn out pleasant for us. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Fifth, the redemptive-historical significance of marriage as a divine symbol in the Bible only works if the marital couple is a complementary pair. ~ Kevin DeYoung

We can stop pleading with God to show us the future, and start living and obeying like we are confident that He holds the future. ~ Kevin DeYoung

We're not only living lives of vanity; our passion for God is often nothing more than a passion to have God make our search for vanity a successful one. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Through faith we are joined to Christ and have union with him. That bond is unbreakable. Our union with Christ is an established fact, guaranteed for all eternity by the indwelling of the Spirit. When we sin, our union with Christ is not in jeopardy. But our communion is. It is possible for believers to have more or less of God's favor. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Sincere biblical repentance is as much a work of grace as not sinning in the first place. ~ Kevin DeYoung

When it comes to sanctification, it's more important where you're going than where you are. ~ Kevin DeYoung

We wake up most days not trying to serve, just trying to survive. ~ Kevin DeYoung

If God opens the door for you to do something you know is good or necessary, be thankful for the opportunity. But other than that, don't assume that the relative ease or difficulty of a new situation is God's way of telling you to do one thing or the other. Remember, God's will for your life is sanctification, and God tends to use discomfort and trials more than comfort and ease to make us holy. ~ Kevin DeYoung

My fear is that of all the choices people face today, the one they rarely consider is, "How can I serve most effectively and fruitfully in the local church?" I wonder if the abundance of opportunities to explore today is doing less to help make well-rounded disciples of Christ and more to help Christians avoid long term responsibility and have less long-term impact. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Just as heaven and earth were created to be together - and, indeed, that's how the whole story of the Bible ends - so marriage is to be a symbol of this divine design: two differentiated entities uniquely fitted for one another.7 ~ Kevin DeYoung

To start the day without prayer is to suggest the devil is feeble, God is irrelevant, and we can handle things on our own. ~ Kevin DeYoung

The New Testament calls upon us to take action; it does not tell us that the work of sanctification is going to be done for us. . . . We are in the 'good fight of faith', and we have to do the fighting. But, thank God, we are enabled to do it; for the moment we believe, and are justified by faith, and are born again of the Spirit of God, we have the ability. So the New Testament method of sanctification is to remind us of that; and having reminded us of it, it says, 'Now then, go and do it'. ~ Kevin DeYoung

God's grace saves us from ourselves. ~ Kevin DeYoung

God does have a specific plan for our lives, but it is not one that He expects us to figure out before we make a decision. ~ Kevin DeYoung

We think relevance and relate-ability are the secrets to spiritual success. And yet, in truth, a dying world needs you to be with God more than it needs you to be with it. ~ Kevin DeYoung

There is no positive case for homosexual practice in the Bible and no historical background that will allow us to set aside what has been the plain reading of Scripture for twenty centuries. The only way to think the Bible is talking about every other kind of homosexuality except the kind we want to affirm is to be less than honest with the texts or less than honest with ourselves. ~ Kevin DeYoung

We're not consistent. We're not stable. We don't stick with anything. Most of the time we can't even make decisions. ~ Kevin DeYoung

There is no way to work your way to God. There is no way to climb up to heaven. There is only one way, and that is through Christ. ~ Kevin DeYoung

If we had done something - almost anything, really - faithfully and humbly for God's glory for all that time, we could have made quite an impact. But if we do nothing, because we are always trying to figure out the perfect something, when it comes time to show what we did for the Lord, we will not have anything. ~ Kevin DeYoung

We do not truly know what love is unless we know Christ. ~ Kevin DeYoung

God's timing is rarely our timing. ~ Kevin DeYoung

My temptation is to tackle everything at once, or nothing at all. ~ Kevin DeYoung

This is exactly the point Jesus reiterates in Matthew 23:23, where he exhorts the people to keep "the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness," without neglecting the responsibility they have to tithe their mint, dill, and cumin. Clearly, Jesus doesn't want us to keep the little commandments in Scripture and miss the big stuff, but neither does he allow us to overlook the smallest parts so long as we get the big picture right. He expects obedience to the spirit of the law and to the letter. Our Messiah sees himself as an expositor of Scripture, but never a corrector of Scripture. He fulfills it, but never falsifies it. He turns away wrong interpretations of Scripture, but insists there is nothing wrong with Scripture, down to the crossing of t's and dotting of i's. ~ Kevin DeYoung

The Luddite impulse is strong among Christians, and our first reaction is to rage against the machine. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Scripture warns us against pursuing sexual practice inconsistent with being in Christ. When we tolerate the doctrine which affirms homosexual behavior, we are tolerating a doctrine which leads people further from God. ~ Kevin DeYoung

The central plotline of the story of Scripture was set in motion: a holy God making a way to dwell in the midst of an unholy people. ~ Kevin DeYoung

I think the church is often a culprit in the busyness, especially in the evangelical church. Again, it's part of being Americans. Part of being evangelicals too is that we're highly activist. We are always diving in, willing to solve problems, and again there's a lot good there. But we also need the theological balance that the Kingdom is not ours to bring or ours to create. ~ Kevin DeYoung

They took a bite from the forbidden fruit, and the fruit bit back. ~ Kevin DeYoung

It is our confidence in the sovereign grace of God that gives us any hope of success in missions. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Real life applications get tricky when we think about them. ~ Kevin DeYoung

They've willingly embraced Christian freedom but without an equal pursuit of Christian virtue. Among ~ Kevin DeYoung

Here's the problem: when every sin is seen as the same, we are less likely to fight any sins at all. Why should I stop sleeping with my girlfriend when there will still be lust in my heart? Why pursue holiness when even one sin in my life means I'm Osama bin Hitler in God's eyes? Again, it seems humble to act as if no sin is worse than another, but we lose the impetus for striving and the ability to hold each other accountable when we tumble down the slip-n-slide of moral equivalence. All of a sudden the elder who battles the temptation to take a second look at the racy section of the Lands End catalog shouldn't dare exercise church discipline ont he young man fornicating with reckless abandon. When we can no longer see the different gradations among sins and sinners and sinful nations, we have not succeeded in respecting our own badness; we've cheapened God's goodness. ~ Kevin DeYoung

God's will is always your sanctification. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Stewarding my time is not about selfishly pursuing only the things I like to do. It's about effectively serving others in the ways I'm best able to serve and in the ways I am most uniquely called to serve. ~ Kevin DeYoung

The church needs lifers and those who can be counted on for the long haul. ~ Kevin DeYoung

To affirm the sufficiency of Scripture is not to suggest that the Bible tells us everything we want to know about everything, but it does tell us everything we need to know about what matters most. ~ Kevin DeYoung

You will not find what you want in the world, only in the Father. ~ Kevin DeYoung

When our lives are frantic and frenzied, we are more prone to anxiety, resentment, impatience, and irritability. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Decide" comes from the Latin word decidere, meaning "to cut off," which explains why decisions are so hard these days. We can't stand the thought of cutting off any of our options. If we choose A, we feel the sting of not having B and C and D. As a result, every choice feels worse than no choice at all. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Growing up in Michigan, I can't think of anything so explicitly communicated to me in my whole education experience as the vileness of in-your-face racism. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Jesus knew the difference between urgent and important. He understood that all the good things he could do were not necessarily the things he ought to do. ~ Kevin DeYoung

The best-looking Christian is the one growing by the Spirit into the likeness of Christ. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Fellowship with Christ does not exist apart from fealty to Christ. ~ Kevin DeYoung

On the last day, God will not acquit us because our good works were good enough, but he will look for evidence that our good confession was not phony. It's in this sense that we must be holy. ~ Kevin DeYoung

The person who never sets priorities is the person who does not believe in his own finitude. ~ Kevin DeYoung

What makes the Bible utterly unlike any other book - religious or otherwise - is the unsurpassed grace we encounter in its pages. We need Scripture because without it we cannot know the love of God. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Your tolerance is not love. It is unfaithfulness. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Christians often equate holiness with activism and spiritual disciplines. And while it's true that activism is often the outgrowth of holiness and spiritual disciplines are necessary for the cultivation of holiness, the pattern of piety in the Scripture is more explicitly about our character. We put off sin and put on righteousness. We put to death the deeds of the flesh and put on Christ. To use the older language, we pursue mortification of the old man and the vivification of the new. ~ Kevin DeYoung

We are so busy with a million pursuits that we don't even notice the most important things slipping away. ~ Kevin DeYoung

God does expect us to say no to a whole lot of good things so that we can be freed up to say yes to the most important things he has for us. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Don't just ask God for what we want. Let him teach us what we should want. ~ Kevin DeYoung

And we need Christians who don't make others feel guilty (and don't feel guilty themselves) when one of us follows a different passion than another. I read and write a lot. That's what I do well. But that doesn't mean anyone should feel guilty for not reading and writing as much as I do. You have your own gifts and calling. We have to be okay with other Christians doing certain good things better and more often than we do. ~ Kevin DeYoung

If we aren't prepared to be counter-cultural we aren't ready to be Christians. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Anxiety is simply living out the future before it gets here. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Homosexual practice is an example on a horizontal plane of our vertical rebellion against God. ~ Kevin DeYoung

When we can no longer see the different gradations among sins and sinners and sinful nations, we have not succeeded in respecting our own badness; we've cheapened God's goodness. If our own legal system does not treat all infractions in the same way, surely God knows that some sins are more heinous than others. If we can spot the difference, we'll be especially eager to put to death those sins which are most offensive to God. ~ Kevin DeYoung

I think most Christians hear these urgent calls to do more (or feel them internally already) and learn to live with a low-level guilt that comes from not doing enough. We know we can always pray more and give more and evangelize more, so we get used to living in a state of mild disappointment with ourselves. ~ Kevin DeYoung

We were taught in school, and I was taught at home and in church, that blacks and whites were equal and we should not discriminate based on skin color, even if my school was almost entirely white. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Of course no one argues that we Christians are tasked with building the new heavens and the new earth from bottom to top. That would be as impossible as it is ridiculous. But there are a number of people who have argued that we as Christians at least have a hand in the creation of the new heavens and new earth - that we partner with God in his mission to restore the cosmos. As energizing as that may sound, though, it simply doesn't ring true with the way the Bible talks about the new heavens and new earth. There's the clear testimony of the passages we've just considered, but there's also the fact that the land in which God's people dwell - whether the Promised Land or the new earth - is always said to be a gift from God to his people. ~ Kevin DeYoung

But this is my greatest need and yours: to know God, love God, delight in God, and make much of God. ~ Kevin DeYoung

When busyness goes after joy, it goes after everyone's joy. ~ Kevin DeYoung

The mystery of the Christian life is that Christ expects us to flee sin and the devil, but does not expect us to rid ourselves of either on this side of glory. Repentance is a way of life, and so is the pursuit of godliness. I wish every Christian could be reminded of these two things. ~ Kevin DeYoung

As Christians we need to be patient, understanding, and kind. Instead of going on the attack, we can ask genuine questions. Instead of bristling when our narrative is summarily dismissed, we can carefully explain our way of seeing things. And when we are wrong, we won't be afraid to say so. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Jesus understood his mission. He was not driven by the needs of others, though he often stopped to help hurting people. He was not driven by the approval of others, though he cared deeply for the lost and the broken. Ultimately, Jesus was driven by the Spirit. He was driven by his God-given mission. He knew his priorities and did not let the many temptations of a busy life deter him from his task. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Just very practically, pastors need to be careful that while they have a right to call people to absolute allegiance to the Word of God, we don't have the right to call people to absolute allegiance to our programs or every ministry we have at the church. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Perhaps God brought you into this mess so that he can bring you out of it for his glory. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Nothing in the Bible encourages us to give sex the exalted status it has in our culture, as if finding our purpose, our identity, and our fulfillment all rest with what we can or cannot do with our private parts. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Worry and anxiety reflect our hearts' distrust in the goodness and sovereignty of God. Worry is a spiritual issue and must be fought with faith. ~ Kevin DeYoung

We need the bible if we are to be competent Christians. The Bible will build us up so that we can endure suffering. It will give us discernment for difficult choices. It will make us strong enough to be patient with others and patient enough to respond with kindness when others hurt us. The Bible will get us up to bring meals to new moms and pray for people on their hospital beds. The bible equips us to be truth lovers and truth tellers. It sens us out to care for the poor and welcome the stranger. There is no limit on what the Bible can do for us, to us and through us. ~ Kevin DeYoung

I tell my congregation at times, "You don't have to feel conviction for every sermon. Some of you are actually obedient and faithful in this area." Not perfectly, of course, but truly and sincerely. ~ Kevin DeYoung

You cannot be in Christ and be indifferent to the sin in your life. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Justification is God's declaration that we, though guilty sinners, are righteous in God's eyes. ~ Kevin DeYoung

There is no more authoritative declaration than what we find in the word of God, no firmer ground to stand on, no "more final" argument that can be spoken after Scripture has spoken. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Jesus submitted his will to the Scriptures, committed his brain to studying the Scriptures, and humbled his heart to obey the Scriptures. The Lord Jesus, God's Son and our Savior, believed his Bible was the word of God down to the sentences, to the phrases, to the words, to the smallest letter, to the tiniest specks - and that nothing in all those specks and in all those books in his Holy Bible could ever be broken. ~ Kevin DeYoung

You will never see the preciousness of a Savior, if you do not see the reality of your sin. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Unfortunately, Christians can speak in the same generalities. Again, it's not that we are saying false things (not usually). We just aren't digging deep enough to see what makes the true advice true. "Give it over to God" may be wise counsel, but what does that mean? How exactly do we give something over to him? Or someone else may tell you to "believe in the promises of God." Yes, that's true, but which promises? And how do those promises help me do the right thing right now? ~ Kevin DeYoung

As a pastor, I addressed the sorts of issues I see people struggling with most and the issues talked about most directly and most frequently in the New Testament. That leads us to recurring concerns with sexual immorality, relational sins, and vices associated with the breaking of the Ten Commandments. ~ Kevin DeYoung

we think of our children as amazingly fragile and entirely moldable. Both assumptions are mistaken. It's harder to ruin our kids than we think and harder to stamp them for success than we'd like. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Some Christians need encouragement to think before they act. Others need encouragement to act after they think. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Some of us live a Christian life as if we're always under the stern, watchful eye of our Father and he is very impossible to please ... No, God delights even in our heartfelt attempts at obedience. ~ Kevin DeYoung

The Bible talks about bestiality even less than it talks about homosexuality, but that doesn't make bestiality an insignificant issue - or incest or child abuse or fifty other sins the Bible barely addresses. ~ Kevin DeYoung

The less we expect to suffer, the more devastating suffering is to bear. ~ Kevin DeYoung

We are busy because we try to do too many things. We do too many things because we say yes to too many people. We say yes to all these people because we want them to like us and we fear their disapproval. ~ Kevin DeYoung

The irony is that if we make every imperative into a command to believe the gospel more fully, we turn the gospel into one more thing we have to get right, and faith becomes the one thing we need to be better at. ~ Kevin DeYoung

We have been stuffed full of praise for mediocrity and had our foibles diagnosed away with hyphenated jargon and pop psychology. ~ Kevin DeYoung

It used to be, as far as I can tell, that Christian parents basically tried to feed their kids, clothe them, teach them about Jesus, and keep them away from explosives. Now our kids have to sleep on their backs (no, wait, their tummies; no, never mind, their backs), while listening to Baby Mozart and surrounded by scenes of Starry, Starry Night. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Grace does not lead us to overlook obedience. Grace compels and empowers us for obedience. ~ Kevin DeYoung

The world needs to see Christians burning, not with self-righteous fury at the sliding morals in our country, but with passion for God. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Sanctification is not by surrender, but by divinely enabled toil and effort. ~ Kevin DeYoung

It's true that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1), but this does not mean God will condone all our thoughts and behaviors. Though in Christ he overlooks our sins in a judicial sense, he is not blind to them. ~ Kevin DeYoung

The world stands for everything that opposes the will of God. ~ Kevin DeYoung