Tag: The gospel

How Great Is Our Salvation?

Published by Jeff Kennon on April 29, 2015

What is the greatest thing that has ever happened to you? Completing a college degree? Acquiring your dream job? Getting married? Having children? No doubt, these are some great things. And when it comes to getting married and having children, they are major life changing events. Having a family is a gift from God.

But when it comes to the greatest thing that has ever happened to us, for those of us who are “in Christ,” I would have to say that our response needs to be our salvation.

In Romans 1-11, Paul writes of the excellencies of the riches of God’s grace in saving us, reconciling us, and restoring us as his rebellious children through the death of His son. Most likely you have read through Romans and know the depth of his writing in explaining our salvation.

When Paul begins to conclude this section of the letter explaining our salvation, just before he begins writing what I like to call the “practical” or “living it out” section, he reflects back upon the ways of God in saving us and writes a most glorious response. He writes:

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

“For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?”
“Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Romans 11:33-36)

Paul is most overwhelmed by the ways of God in saving us. His depth we cannot fathom. His knowledge is beyond are grasp. And His richness in mercy and grace leave us awestruck. His plan to rescue us is by Him, for Him, and through Him. God is the source, instrument, and goal of all things. All glory, therefore, belongs to Him.

Charles Hutchinson Gabriel (1856-1932) wrote these words…

I stand amazed in the presence
Of Jesus the Nazarene,
And wonder how He could love me,
A sinner condemned, unclean.

How marvelous! How wonderful!
And my song shall ever be:
How marvelous! How wonderful!
Is my Savior’s love for me!

We do well to think about the great salvation we have in Christ. Martin Lloyd-Jones, in one of his sermons, asks us to make such thinking a habit and to let our understanding of our salvation spill over into those around us. He says:

Do you habitually think of your own salvation as the greatest and most wonderful thing that has ever happened to you? I will ask a yet more serious question: do you give your neighbors the impression that you have found the most magnificent thing in the world? I have a terrible fear that many people are outside the Christian church because so many of us give them the impression that what we have is something very small, very narrow, very cramped and confined. We have not given them the impression that they are missing the most glorious thing in the entire universe.

So, what’s the greatest thing that has ever happened to you?

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Not A Life Of Ease

Published by Jeff Kennon on March 18, 2015

I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.
-C.S. Lewis in God in the Dock

In our world of satisfy self at all costs, C.S. Lewis’ quote is profoundly alarming. Plus, doesn’t our mantra for convincing others to follow Christ involve sharing the “happiness” that comes from doing so?

I think the difficulty in appropriating Lewis’ statement is that there is the tendency to equate following Christ with the American Dream. In other words, if you follow Jesus, then all will be well on this earth. You will graduate from college, land a great job, find the perfect spouse, own a house in a suburban neighborhood, have 2.5 kids, and retire happily ever after.

Now don’t misunderstand me here, I’m not condemning those who have a nice house, job, etc…. There is nothing necessarily wrong with those things, but they are not the goal of Christianity. If that were the case, then we have much to explain to those whose relationship with Christ has caused them to lose everything. Family has abandoned them. Money has become scarce. And even their lives are in danger. And yet they still continue to follow Christ. Why? Consider the words of Paul…

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him (Phil 3:7-9).

When Paul found Christ, his life radically changed. It was now through Christ that he found the righteousness he so longed for. It was no longer Paul working to achieve right standing with God, but instead resting in what God had accomplished through His son on the cross. Paul no longer had to perform for God to love him. And for Paul, this was an incredible release!!! Therefore, Christ became his treasure and all else became “rubbish.”

As you most likely know, Paul’s commitment to Christ didn’t result in a life of ease. Things became more difficult for him. New problems came his way. Paul’s encounter with Christ is much like that described by Elton Trueblood when he writes:

Occasionally we talk of our Christianity as something that solves problems, and there is a sense in which it does. Long before it does so, however, it increases both the number and the intensity of the problems. Even our intellectual questions are increased by the acceptance of a strong religious faith…. If a man wishes to avoid the disturbing affect of paradoxes, the best advise is for him to leave the Christian faith alone.

Though Paul endured a life of hardship and abuse, he continued strong in his faith. Peace with God meant more to Paul than comfort on earth. Paul knew that regardless of what happened to him, his goal of gaining Christ would be fully realized one day. That is why he could say “to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21).

So why follow Christ? Why take the road least traveled? Why encounter new problems? When we have such questions, I think we do well to go back to Paul’s words and remind ourselves of what we have in Christ: To be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith (Phil. 3:9).

There is nothing but Christ that can satisfy the deepest longings of our souls; the longing to be made right and anew with our Creator. And once this truth has apprehended us, we hold on to it regardless of what comes our way, knowing that we will never be abandoned or forgotten.

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The Gospel: A Wonderful Announcement!

Published by Jeff Kennon on March 17, 2015

A good reminder from Douglas John Hall to those who proclaim, preach or share the gospel that it is, in fact, good news!!!

The words preach and sermon have moralistic connotations for most people because, alas, that is how preaching has been used—as a form of exhortation, cojolement, pep-talk. If you listen carefully to the linguistic mood of most sermons, you almost invariably find that they are full of shoulds and oughts and musts: laying down the law, sometimes bombastically, more often today nicely, with gentle persuasion—but still, the law. It is not accidental that preaching, for most people, connotes admonition: “Don’t preach at me! Don’t sermonize!” we tell those who would have us alter our ways.

But for the New Testament the proclamation of gospel in the biblical sense is a completely different matter—in fact it’s almost the antithesis of laying down the law—as we can see in the Isaiah passage Jesus quoted:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good tidings to the poor…to proclaim release to the captives…recovery of the sight to the blind…liberation of the oppressed…the year of the Lord’s favor (Luke 4:18-19).

It’s more nearly a matter of releasing people from the law—social laws, penal systems, economic laws, moral laws, gender and sexual laws, dehumanizing ideologies, conventions and man-made injunctions by which human beings have been falsely bound.

As George Buttrick, the unforgettable twentieth-century preacher of Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City, used to tell us in his homiletics classes, the whole mood of the sermon should be “The most wonderful thing has happened!” – not “You had better get to work, you underachievers, and make something wonderful happen!” Gospel is always in the indicative, not the imperative mood.

Waiting For The Gospel, Douglas John Hall (p. 5-6)

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Why We Never Graduate From The Cross

Published by Jeff Kennon on January 27, 2015

What actually happened when “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ” is a mystery whose depths we shall spend eternity plumbing –John Stott

We will never fully comprehend the love God has for us. A love and commitment to His creation that was so great that it resulted in the crucifixion of His Son. For many of us, John 3:16 is the first verse we learned and memorized and one in which we now tend to just quote from rote memory. However, the intensity of this verse still remains as we are told exactly how much God does love us…

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

God loves us SO MUCH that HE GAVE HIS SON. And when God the Father gave us His Son, the world didn’t even recognize him. John writes, He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him (Jn. 1:10-11).

In place of bestowing a crown upon the King of Kings, we nailed Him to a cross. Instead of building Him a palace, we placed Him between two thieves. But all was a part of the plan of God. Christ did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). Jesus gave Himself up for us (see Gal. 2:20). Though He knew no sin, He became sin on our behalf (2 Cor. 5:21).

So as we gaze upon the cross, we witness the inexhaustible love of God. A love in which we must continue to remind ourselves of. In a graceless world in which love is shallowly rewarded according to merit and charm, the cross tells us that we are loved unconditionally by the one who created us. Though we look for love in all the wrong places, hoping it will fulfill the cravings of our heart, there is no other love than that found on the cross which will fill the deepest longings of our soul.

Jesus words that greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends, were not just proverbial fluff for Jesus, but were demonstrated upon the cross. Jesus words took on flesh and blood at the place of the Skull. Jesus, who is the very “radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and [who] upholds the universe by the word of his power (see Heb. 1:3), laid down His life on our behalf.

We cannot, therefore, graduate from the cross. The love of God is too deep to plumb it’s depths and our need to be loved is to great to be met anywhere else. Isaac Watts, in his hymn “When I Survey The Wondrous Cross,” concludes it by writing…

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

When we survey that wondrous cross, we come face to face with the amazing grace of God and begin to realize that there is no greater love. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:6-8).

John writes that this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 Jn 4:10). As it has been written over and over, we cannot, and must not, graduate from the cross! For it is our continual gaze upon the cross in which we begin, as well as continually feast upon, the unending love of God.

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Beating The Gospel Into Our Heads

Published by Jeff Kennon on October 7, 2014

“Most necessary it is,” wrote Martin Luther, “that we should know this article [the gospel] well, teach it to others, and beat it into their heads continually.”

Why would Luther say such a thing? Are we that hardened and forgetful? Milton Vincent, in his book A Gospel Primer, lists 31 reasons why we need to “preach the Gospel” to ourselves daily. For reason number 2, “My Daily Battle,” he writes:

The gospel is so foolish (according to my natural wisdom), so scandalous (according to my conscience), and so incredible (according to my timid heart), that it is a daily battle to believe the full scope of it as I should. There is simply no other way to compete with the forebodings of my conscience, the condemnings of my heart, and the lies of the world and the Devil than to overwhelm such things with daily rehearsings of the gospel.

So why do we need to continually hear the gospel and have it “beat into our brains?” Because of the daily spiritual battle in which we are engaged. The soft whisperings of the enemy, the world, and at times our own conscience, speak loudly to our souls that we are just not good enough nor obedient enough to warrant God’s favor. As a result, we begin to waver and doubt.

Therefore, we need to fight back. The apostle Paul wrote for us to take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication (Ephesians 6:13-18).

As you read Paul’s words, I’m sure you noticed the bolded words “truth”, “righteousness,” “gospel,” “faith,” “salvation,” and “word of God” These words are basically synonyms for the gospel. So what Paul wants for his readers is for them to arm themselves with the gospel message. It is the good news of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection that protects, guards, and allows us to stand firm.

According to Scripture, those who are “in Christ” are “delivered from the domain of darkness and [are] transferred to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:13). There is “no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” for we have “been set free from the law of sin and death (Rom. 8:1-2).

Because of the wonderful truths of the gospel, may we pick up and read, meditate, and memorize God’s word today and discipline ourselves to do so daily. I like what Jimmy Davis writes in regards to the spiritual disciplines (Bible reading, prayer, etc….): I don’t read my Bible to get the Father to love me. I read it to hear him say he loves me in the gospel of his Son, Jesus Christ.

Let’s beat the gospel into our heads!

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God’s Grace: Two Quotes You Need To Read

Published by Jeff Kennon on June 6, 2014

For the past few weeks or so, I have been doing some extra reading on God’s grace. As I have, there has been one minister/writer/theologian that has continued to be quoted.

Whether reading Tullian Tchividjian, Brennan Manning, or Justin Holcomb, just to name a few, they each draw from the work of Robert Farrar Capon.

Here are a couple of thoughts from Capon that continue to quoted and referenced…

From Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus:

What role have I left for religion? None. And I have left none because the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ leaves none. Christianity is not a religion; it is the announcement of the end of religion.

Religion consists of all the things (believing, behaving, worshiping, sacrificing) the human race has ever thought it had to do to get right with God. About those things, Christianity has only two comments to make. The first is that none of them ever had the least chance of doing the trick: the blood of bulls and goats can never take away sins (see the Epistle to the Hebrews) and no effort of ours to keep the law of God can ever finally succeed (see the Epistle to the Romans). The second is that everything religion tried (and failed) to do has been perfectly done, once and for all, by Jesus in his death and resurrection. For Christians, therefore, the entire religion shop has been closed, boarded up, and forgotten. The church is not in the religion business. It never has been and it never will be, in spite of all the ecclesiastical turkeys through two thousand years who have acted as if religion was their stock in trade. The church, instead, is in the Gospel-proclaiming business. It is not here to bring the world the bad news that God will think kindly about us only after we have gone through certain creedal, liturgical and ethical wickets; it is here to bring the world the Good News that “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly.” It is here, in short, for no religious purpose at all, only to announce the Gospel of free grace.

From Between Noon and Three:

The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar full of fifteen-hundred-year-old, two-hundred proof Grace–bottle after bottle of pure distilate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the Gospel–after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps–suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home before they started…Grace has to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale; neither goodness, nor badness, nor the flowers that bloom in the spring of super spirituality could be allowed to enter into the case.

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What is The Gospel?

Published by Jeff Kennon on April 25, 2014

What is the gospel? Check out these definitions below…

The gospel is the announcement that God has reconciled us to Himself by sending His Son Jesus to die as a substitute for our sins, and that all who repent and believe have eternal life in Him. The gospel is not only the means by which you get into heaven, but as the driving force behind every single moment of your life.

–J.D. Greear in Gospel

The good news is that God would claim, clean, and craft for himself a people who would live the cruciform life of loving God and others as it is required in his Law. He would forgive them for living a me-first life and give them a new heart and the power of his Spirit to live the you-first life they were made to live.

–Jimmy Davis in Cruciform

The good news is news about something that actually, literally happened in real life. The good news is that eternal life is possible because Jesus died to forgive sins and came back to life to conquer death

–Jared C. Wilson in Gospel Wakefulness

The gospel is the announcement that God’s kingdom has come in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the Lord and Messiah, in fulfillment of Israel’s Scriptures. The gospel evokes faith, repentance, and discipleship; its accompanying effects include salvation and the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

–Michael Bird in Evangelical Theology

The heart of Christianity is Good News. It comes not as a task for us to fulfill, a mission for us to accomplish, a game plan for us to follow with the help of life coaches, but as a report that someone else has already fulfilled, accomplished, followed, and achieved everything for us. Good advice may help us in daily direction; the Good News concerning Jesus Christ saves us from sin’s guilt and tyranny over our lives and the fear of death. It’s Good News because it does not depend on us. It is about God and his faithfulness to his own purposes and promises.

–Michael Horton in The Gospel Driven-Life

The essence of other religions is advice; Christianity is essentially news. Other religions say, “This is what you have to do in order to connect to God forever; this is how you have to live in order to earn your way to God.” But the gospel says, “This is what has been done in history. This is how Jesus lived and died to earn the way to God for you.” Christianity is completely different. It’s joyful news.

–Tim Keller in Jesus The King

One way to summarize God’ message to the worn out and weary is like this–God’s demand: “be righteous”; God’s diagnosis: “no one is righteous”; God’s deliverance: “Jesus is our righteousness.”

–Tullian Tchividjian in One Way Love

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The Gospel & 5 Universal Fears

Published by Jeff Kennon on April 1, 2014

5 universal fears and needs have been grouped together by Marcus Buckingham in his book The One Thing You Need to Know. They are…

1. Fear of Death — The Need for Security
2. Fear of the Outsider — The Need for Community
3. Fear of the Future — The Need for Clarity
4. Fear of Chaos — The Need for Authority
5. Fear of Insignificance — The Need for Respect

The question we must ask in regards to these universal fears and needs is what do we do about them? How does everyone overcome their fears? How does each culture meet their need for security, community, clarity, authority, and respect?

Notice the question regarding our fears and needs is not “Are we going to do something?” but “What are we going to do?” Everyone has a plan. “Everyone is trying to find salvation,” writes Tim Chester. “They might not ask, What must I do to be saved? But everyone has some sense of what it is that would make them fulfilled, satisfied, and accepted.”

If one believes that to gain respect he or she must make millions of dollars or hold a high position of leadership, then he or she will do anything necessary to make money or attain power. If one holds that to achieve security he or she must obtain a certain college degree, then he or she will work towards his or her degree of choice.

Though everyone has a “salvation story” they trust in to be saved from their fears, we must inquire as to the validity of each story? In other words, do they work? Does the one seeking security receive it by developing a great retirement plan? Does the one seeking significance find it by having a “prestigious” job?

I am not going to delve into and expose the inadequacies of the variety of ways that fall short of eradicating our fears. Instead, using verses from the first couple of chapters of Ephesians, I want to show how the glorious power of the gospel is THE SOLUTION. These verses should speak for themselves!

Fear of Death — Need for Security

He chose us in him before the foundation of the world (1:4).

In him we have obtained an inheritance (1:11).

In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory (1:13-14).

Fear of the Outsider — The Need for Community

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone (2:19-20).

Fear of the Future – The Need for Clarity

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (2:4-6).

Fear of Chaos — The Need for Authority

And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all (1:19-23).

Fear of Insignificance — The Need for Respect

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (2:10).

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