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Author: Jeff Kennon

I am the director of the Baptist Student Ministries at Texas Tech University. I am married to Paige, and have three children, Krista, Justin, and Josh.

How Great Is Our Salvation?

Published by Jeff Kennon on September 22, 2014

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Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

-Hebrews 2:1-4

Do we understand how great a salvation we have? Consider the word of Martyn Lloyd Jones:

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.

Our salvation is no small thing. It is that which angels “long to look” (1 Peter 1:12). Do we think about this daily? Do those around us know how wonderful it is?

We must daily preach the gospel to ourselves and think on the glorious truth of our salvation. For by doing so, we are reminded and therefore transformed by the amazing grace of God.

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The Gospel-Wakened Church

Published by Jeff Kennon on September 20, 2014

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Jared Wilson, in his book Gospel Wakefulness, lists 6 ways in which a gospel-wakened church seeks to live.

1. The gospel-wakened church resolves to love their neighbors.

The gospel-wakened church resolves to live for those outside its walls, to give herself away in love and on missions. She makes Christ’s business to seek and save the lost her business. When awe of Jesus captures a church, her people become missionaries to their own communities and contexts, making this vow: “Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.” And there is no greater good than Christ, no firmer foundation than him.

2. The gospel-wakened church resolves to look foolish.

A gospel-wakened church is a resolute church that embraces the loss of her reputation for the gain of God’s glory. She is willing to look stupid, irrational, impractical, silly…for the right reasons. She will spend as much or more time and money on others as she does herself; she will send her people into the farthest reaches of the world to die; she will eat and drink with sinners; she will welcome the broken and weary; she will favor the meek and lowly; she will cherish the powerless; she will serve and suffer and savor the sweetness of the good news. 

3. The gospel-wakened church resolves to trust God’s Word.

The gospel-wakened church knows where truth is, she knows where hope is, she knows where wisdom is. She trusts no other words but the Scriptures.

4. The gospel-wakened church resolves to live in Christ-centered harmony.

With Christ’s glory beheld by mutual vision, the gospel-wakened church is harmonized, each distinct voice and gift joined in the unity of the gospel.

5. The gospel-wakened church resolves to be worshipful.

The gospel-wakened church can’t help but worship. Her affections are renewed, her sense of worship is wakened to the one true God above all gods. 

6. The gospel-wakened church resolves to glory in the gospel.

How did Christ welcome us? With grace, despite our sin. With embrace, despite our demerits. With cover, despite our shame. With love, despite our animosity. With sacrifice, despite our unworthiness. That is how Christ welcomed us. The gospel-wakened church welcomes each other in that way, for God’s glory. 

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Around The Web

Published by Jeff Kennon on September 18, 2014

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Loving The Lost: Churches Without The Broken Are Broken Churches – Many Christians are “generational believers,” as they have grown up in a Christian home. That is their reality, but there is a bigger reality. Sometimes we can easily forget there’s a hurting world out there. We drive through it on the way to church, or on the way to work. But at the end of the day, we don’t come to terms with the vast brokenness that surrounds us.

10,000 Little Moments And The Minute Particulars – “The character of your life won’t be established in two or three dramatic moments, but in 10,000 little moments.” 

What Is All This “Gospel-Centered” Talk All About? – The label “gospel-centered” is neither here nor there. There’s nothing sacred about it. But the heart of what is being recovered, both in terms of worldview and in terms of growth, is vital for calm and sanity amid the ups and downs of life in a fallen world.

Look and Live – The reason it feels like just another Sunday morning is because the stakes aren’t high enough.

How 727 Megachurches Spend Their Money – Two organizations that know megachurches well have released a new study they describe as “by far the biggest-scale, cross-denominational response anyone has ever collected about church finances.”

Reading The Bible and The Bible Reading You – I’ve been thinking a great deal lately (this topic seems to come up over and over and over again) about how different groups of North American Christians read the Bible.

The Story of God

 

 

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In The Beginning…The Gospel

Published by Jeff Kennon on September 17, 2014

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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.        –John 1:1-3

John chose an incredible way to begin his gospel of Jesus Christ. He places Jesus not in the manger, but “in the beginning.” As D. A. Carson writes, “It’s possible that John is making an allusion to his colleague’s work, saying in effect, ‘Mark has told you about the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry; I want to show you that the starting point of the gospel can be traced farther back than that, before the beginning of the entire universe.'”

Before creation, Jesus was. Before Abraham, Jesus was. In fact, Jesus himself said, Before Abraham was born, I am (John 8:58). And,  before John the Baptist, Jesus was as John the Baptist’s testimony was, He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me (John 1:15).

There was never a time when Jesus was not. Though we may try to stretch our imagination as far back in time as possible, we will never come to a time when Jesus did not exist.

Jesus, the Word, who was with God in the very beginning, “came into the sphere of time, history, and tangibility,” writes Carson. In other words, “the Son of God was sent into the world to become the Jesus of history, so that the glory and grace of God might be uniquely and perfectly disclosed.” And such glory and grace was made manifest on the cross where Jesus, for our sake [was] made to be sin [though he] knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Let us therefore remember that the gospel starts before creation and recall the words of Paul in Ephesians 1:3-4:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

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Experts In The Gospel?

Published by Jeff Kennon on September 15, 2014

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Are you an expert in the gospel? That which Paul claimed to be of “first importance,” which is that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures (1 Cor. 15:3-4), is this what you are well trained in?

“All Christians,” writes Milton Vincent, “should become experts in their knowledge and use of the gospel, not simple so they can share it faithfully with non-Christians, but also so they can speak it to themselves everyday and experience its benefits.”

We must understand that the gospel is for Christians. True, it’s through the hearing of the gospel by which we are saved, but we never move beyond it. Nor does there come a time we do not need it.

It’s by the gospel that we are transformed as we understand it more completely.  As we hear, read, mediate, and memorize the glorious truth of God’s grace found in the person and work of Christ, our hearts are compelled to follow the one who gave himself up for us.

Therefore, we must work at becoming experts in the gospel. We must not become weary  from “preaching the gospel to ourselves” each day. We must seek to memorize and meditate upon gospel passages such as Ephesians 1-3, Colossians 1-2, and Romans 1-11.

“If Christians would do more preaching of the gospel to themselves,” writes Vincent, “non-Christians might have less trouble comprehending its message, for they would see its truth and power exuding from believers in indisputable ways.”

So will you work at becoming an expert in the gospel? Will you daily place in front of your eyes, ears, mind, and heart the wonderful grace of Jesus?

Everything in our world speaks against the truths found in the gospel. Our world is not full of grace and mercy, but rather unforgiveness and disdain. Therefore, we must daily seek to know the reality that we are “God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved” (Col 3:12). And we must become experts in such truths!!

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Around The Web

Published by Jeff Kennon on September 11, 2014

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Three Questions To Help Diagnose Possible Football Idolatry Wherever there is a consuming passion for anything that is not God there is the danger of idolatry. And football is certainly a consuming passion for many in this country. So what are some of the signs that football has grown to idolatrous proportions in the heart of the Christian?

Can Everyone Be A Leader? Simply put, not everyone is a leader nor should everyone be a leader. But everyone is an influencer.

7 Signs Your Spending Too Much Time Looking At Your Phone Recent research has confirmed that cell phone “addiction” is actually a real thing. Professionals have even devised methods of determining if you suffer from a psychological condition that warrants actual medical intervention.

God Loves My Boring, Unimportant Neighborhood – I’ve not seen too many books on missions, church planting, and ministry strategy that addresses a city like mine.

What People Who Are New To Your Church Want You To Know Until you are new, until you’re a visitor, it’s difficult to understand what it’s like and to put yourself in a visitor’s shoes at your church, but it’s so important to try. A warm, welcome, and helpful environment is one of the most essential ingredients for a person to become a follower of Christ and grow and connect within the church.

I Want A “Do-Over” – The gospel is God’s announcement to failing people like you and me that we are now free from the slavery of “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

Man of Sorrows – Some great theology in this song.

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Our Old Life Is Finished!

Published by Jeff Kennon on September 10, 2014

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I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  -Galatians 2:20

Concerning this verse, John Stott writes:

In Christ “old things are passed away” and “all things are become new” (2 Cor. 5:17, AV). This is because the death and resurrection of Christ are not only historical events (He “gave himself” and now “lives”), but events in which through faith-union with Him His people have come to share (“I have been crucified with Christ” and now “I live”).

Once we have been united to Christ in His death, our old life is finished; it is ridiculous to suggest that we could ever go back to it. Besides, we have risen to a new life. 

In one sense, we live this new life through faith in Christ. In another sense, it is not we who live it at all, but Christ who lives it in us. And, living in us, He gives us new desires for holiness, for God, for heaven. It is not that we cannot sin again; we can. But we do not want to.

The whole tenor of our life has changed. Everything is different now, because we ourselves are different. See how daringly personal Paul makes it: Christ “gave himself for me.” “Christ…lives in me.” 

No Christian who has grasped these truths could ever seriously contemplate reverting to the old life. 

–The Message of Galatians

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Resolved…

Published by Jeff Kennon on September 8, 2014

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Jonathan Edwards, during the years 1722 to 1723, while a young man, composed a set of resolutions for himself. For Edwards, these resolutions were a way for him to gauge his relationship to Christ as well as to provide a set of goals for his life.

Throughout his life, these resolutions were his constant companion as he resolved “to read over these resolutions once a week.” Stephen  Nichols thinks we might benefit from doing the same. He writes that the Resolutions are as relevant today as they were when [Edwards] first penned them so long ago. Reading though them on a regular basis may very well help us also to live with all of our might to the glory and praise of God.

While each of Edwards’ seventy resolutions are valid and worthy of reciting, there are a few that personally seemed to rise above the rest.

5. Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.

7. Resolved, never to do anything that I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.

14. Resolved, never to do anything out of revenge.

15. Resolved, never to suffer the least motions of anger to irrational beings.

17. Resolved, that I will live so as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.

25. Resolved, to examine carefully an constantly what that one thing in me is that causes me in the least to doubt the love of God; and so direct all my forces against it.

28. Resolved, to study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly, and frequently that I may find, and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of them.

55. Resolved, to endeavor to my utmost to act as I can think I should do if I had already seen the happiness of heaven and the torments of hell.

56. Resolved, never to give over, nor in the least to slacken my fifth with my corruptions, however unsuccessful I may be.

65. Resolved, very much to exercise myself in this all my life ling, that is, with the greatest openness I am capably of, to declare my ways to God, and lay open my should to him: all my sins, temptations, difficulties, sorrows, fears, hopes, desires, and everything, and every circumstance.

70. Let there be something of benevolence in all that I speak.

As you can see, though written almost 300 years ago, these resolutions continue to challenge and speak to the heart. Though Edwards did not write these resolutions to be published, we benefit greatly because they were.

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