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Category: Discipleship

Do We Really Understand The Incarnation?

Published by Jeff Kennon on December 9, 2014

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Do we really understand the story of God becoming man? Do we really know what “coming down” would cost God? Do we see the incarnation as a story of love?

Consider the story of Father Damien as told by John Ortberg in his book God Is Closer Than You Think…

Father Damien was a priest who became famous for his willingness to serve lepers. He moved to Kalawao – a village on the island of Molokai, in Hawaii, that had been quarantined to serve as a leper colony.

For 16 years, he lived in their midst. He learned to speak their language. He bandaged their wounds, embraced the bodies no one else would touch, preached to hearts that would otherwise have been left alone. He organized schools, bands, and choirs. He built homes so that the lepers could have shelter. He built 2,000 coffins by hand so that, when they died, they could be buried with dignity.
Slowly, it was said, Kalawao became a place to live rather than a place to die, for Father Damien offered hope.

Father Damien was not careful about keeping his distance. He did nothing to separate himself from his people. He dipped his fingers in the poi bowl along with the patients. He shared his pipe. He did not always wash his hands after bandaging open sores. He got close. For this, the people loved him.

Then one day he stood up and began his sermon with two words: “We lepers….”

Now he wasn’t just helping them. Now he was one of them. From this day forward, he wasn’t just on their island; he was in their skin. First he had chosen to live as they lived; now he would die as they died. Now they were in it together.

One day God came to Earth and began his message: “We lepers….” Now he wasn’t just helping us. Now he was one of us. Now he was in our skin. Now we were in it together.

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You Know What’s Crazy About Christmas?

Published by Jeff Kennon on December 5, 2014

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You know what’s crazy about Christmas? It’s not Black Friday, the mall, traffic, my weight gain, or Jack Frost. It’s Jesus!!

Consider the words of Philip Yancey:

It took courage to endure the shame, and courage even to risk descent to a planet known for its clumsy violence, among a race known for rejecting its prophets. A God of all power deliberately put himself in such a state that Satan could tempt him, demons could taunt him, and lowly human beings could slap his face and nail him to a cross. What more foolhardy thing could God have done? 

The Creator of the cosmos became the created. The one who holds the universe in place became the one who needed to be held and cuddled. The giver of life became the one who needed his mom for life. The infinite became finite. The light of the world had come into the world, yet the world did not know him (Jn. 1:9-10).

George MacDonald put it beautifully:

They were looking for a king
To slay their foes and lift them high,
Thou cam’st a little baby thing
That made a woman cry.

Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Phil 2:6-8).

It can be easy for us to lose sight of the craziness of the King of Kings becoming a servant of servants. We can plow through Christmas and allow the familiarity of Jesus’ birth to blunt the wonder of it. What a risk God took to become one of us! And all for our redemption.

As we go about our final weeks of Christmas mania, let’s be sure and meditate upon the true craziness of the season; the craziness of the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us (Jn 1:14). And as we do, let’s allow this story, the Christmas story, to rewrite our story!

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But God!

Published by Jeff Kennon on November 25, 2014

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The Apostle Paul writes:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

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, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Because of our rebellion against God, we were dead, BUT GOD….

We were in bondage to evil powers and our own desires, BUT GOD….

We were objects of God’s wrath, BUT GOD….

But God, being rich in grace, mercy and love, made us alive, seated us in the heavenly realms, and has reversed the conditions of our sin. We have “been rescued,” writes Peter O’Brien.  And this rescue is from “death, wrath, and bondage and [includes] a transfer into the new dominion with its manifold blessings.”

And so as many of us sit around a table this Thanksgiving season and enjoy family, friends, and fine food, we would do well to ponder “But God!” If not for His mercy, grace, and love, the greatest need we have would not have been met. And the greatest gift we could ever receive would not have been given.

Thanks be to God!

 

 

 

 

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The Holy Pursuit Of Happiness

Published by Jeff Kennon on November 18, 2014

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Blaise Pacal, the 15th Century French mathematician and Christian philosopher, wrote:

All men seek happiness, this is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.

More recently, Tim Chester has written:

Everyone is trying to find salvation. 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.

Bottom line: Everyone is seeking happiness. That which we long for and that which we will sacrifice all that we are for is happiness. The problem that we have is that we look for happiness in all the wrong places and in all the wrong things.

C.S. Lewis writes:

What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could “be like gods”–could set up on their own as if they had created themselves–be their own masters–invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside of God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history–money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery–the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy. 

The reason why it can never succeed is this. God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on gasoline, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing. 

Our pursuit of happiness therefore, is one that is holy in nature as it is found in God. To live for the glory of God and to live holy lives brings infinite delight. We were created for His glory and no true happiness can be found apart from why we were created.

But as C.S. Lewis points out, we have been duped into believing that we can attain happiness on our own apart from God. In fact, the world, in both subtle and not so subtle ways, continues to tell us that God is a cosmic kill joy. The world says that to really live you must loose yourself from all religious shackles. There is no way one can be happy while being obediently tied to God.

The Psalmist, however, writes that in God’s presence there is fullness of joy; at [his] right hand are pleasures forevermore (Ps. 16:11). Paul shares with the church in Philippi that there is nothing that compares to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. In fact, Paul considered all things rubbish compared to knowing Christ (Phil. 3:8). And Jesus tells us that for one to really have life and to have it to the fullest, he/she must come to Him (Jn. 10:10).

We as believers must remind ourselves of this glorious truth that joy is found in Christ alone. And we must communicate it to the world around us as well. We are many times quick to mention the cost of following Christ, and that we should, but we must not forget what we receive.

Jesus told us that the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it (Mt. 13:44-46).

The truth of what Jesus tells us about the Kingdom, which is Himself, is that it is invaluable treasure. What one loses or gives up because of it is of no concern. The greatness of the Kingdom outshines anything in comparison.

So, let’s pursue happiness, but as Lewis writes once again, let’s not be too easily pleased, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. 

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How Do You Read The Bible?

Published by Jeff Kennon on November 11, 2014

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When we think about reading the Bible, do we ever imagine that there might be a danger of reading it wrongly? Consider the words of Eugene Peterson in his book Eat This Book…

Reading the Bible, if we do not do it rightly, can get us into a lot of trouble. The Christian community is as concerned with how we read the Bible as that we read it. It is not sufficient to place a Bible in a person’s hands with the command, “Read it.” That is quite as foolish as putting a set of car keys in an adolescent’s hands, giving him a Honda, and saying, “Drive it.” And just as dangerous. The danger is that in having our hands on a piece of technology, we will use it ignorantly, endangering our lives and the lives of those around us; or that intoxicated with the power that technology gives us, we will use it ruthlessly and violently.

For Peterson, a way to read Scripture that “guards against depersonalizing the text into an affair of questions and answers, definitions and dogmas; a way of reading that prevents us from turning Scripture on its head and using it to justify ourselves,” is the lectio divina. 

The lectio divina comprises four elements:

  • Lectio – we read the text. This reading of the text involves listening to the text. “Just because we have read it,” writes Peterson, “doesn’t mean we have heard it.” And we must be careful not to “assume too much” of the text but to “listen to the counsel of our Christian brothers and sisters who tell us, ‘Read. Read only what is here, but also be sure that you read it the way that it is here.'” This involves developing good hermeneutics. This reading does not bypass the grammatical-historical method of interpretation.
  • Meditatio – we meditate the text. “Mediation,” writes Peterson, “moves from looking at the words of the text to entering the world of the text.” It is not about making things up, but instead weds us “to a historic faith…that trains us to read Scripture as a connected, coherent whole, not a collection of inspired bits and pieces.”
  • Oratio – we pray the text. Peterson declares that “Scriptures, read and prayed, are our primary and normative access to God as he reveals himself to us. Prayer detached from Scripture, from listening to God, disconnected from God’s words to us, short-circuits the relational language that is prayer.”
  • Contemplatio – we live the text. “Contemplation,” says Peterson, “means living what we read, not wasting any of it or hoarding any of it, but using it up in living. It is life formed by God’s revealing word, God’s word read and heard, meditated and prayed.”

For Peterson, the lectio divina is the method of reading which guards against us turning the Scriptures into an academic book or a book such as Aesop’s Fables. He wants us to enter the text and allow the grand story of Scripture to rewrite our own personal stories. This, for Peterson, is reading the Bible rightly!

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Luther’s Theology of The Cross

Published by Jeff Kennon on October 31, 2014

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Today, October 31, in the year 1517, Martin Luther posted his Ninety-Five Theses on the church door in Wittenberg, Germany. Though it was Luther’s first attempt of many at writing or speaking against the theological thinking of his day, it was and continues to be a defining moment in history. The Ninety-Five Theses ushered in the dawn of the reformation.

Of the ninety-five theses, it is Luther’s ninety-fifth that leads us to consider what some say is the heart of understanding Luther’s theology. It reads: Away, then, with all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, “Peace, peace,” and there is no peace. Blessed be all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, “Cross, cross,” and there is no cross! Luther is concerned with those who speak peace without the cross and offer glory without suffering.

In 1518, in another set of theses prepared for a debate at Heidelburg, Luther further defined his theology of the cross. He wrote: That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the invisible things of God as though they were clearly perceptible in those things which have actually happened. He wrote further that he deserves to be a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross.

In the Heidelberg Disputation, it is important to understand that Luther is contrasting his theology of the cross with what he termed a theology of glory. A theology of glory was the medieval practice of theology that involved mere metaphysical speculation and attempted to find God by one’s own reasoning and wisdom. In contrast, a theology of the cross finds God on the cross through faith. Luther wrote that he who does not know Christ does not know God hidden in suffering. Therefore he prefers works to suffering, glory to the cross, strength to weakness, wisdom to folly, and, in general, good to evil.

For Luther, to know God is to know him on the cross. Walter Von Loewenich writes in regard to this principle that God reveals himself in concealment, God’s wisdom appears to men as foolishness, God’s power is perfected in weakness, God’s glory parades in lowliness, God’s life becomes effective in the death of his Son.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians: Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. Would we have chosen the cross and suffering as God’s mode of saving the world? The cross is so scandalous and is only for the severest of criminals. Who would look for God on the cross? And yet Paul, and Luther, directs our gaze at God on the cross hidden in the midst of suffering.

Luther, beginning with his 95 Theses begins to direct the church of his day back to the cross. The question we must ask is do we need to recover a theology of the cross as a church? Do we prefer glory, strength, and wisdom compared to humility, weakness, and foolishness? Knowing that following Christ involves taking up our cross, are we willing to live sacrificial lives for the sake of gospel and others?

Douglas John Hall writes that a theology of the cross insists that God, who wills to meet us, love us, redeem us, meets, loves, and redeems us precisely where we are: in the valley of the shadow of death. As a result, will we engage the world around us and meet others with the truth of the gospel in the midst of their pain and struggle?

May we stand as Luther and proclaim and live life under the cross. And, may we daily remind ourselves that the word of the cross…to us who are being saved…is the power of God (1 Cor. 1:18) Therefore, far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (Gal. 6:14).

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Speak & They Will Hear, Believe, & Call

Published by Jeff Kennon on October 29, 2014

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For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” (Romans 10:13-15)

These words from Paul present an incredible promise and an incredible challenge. Let’s think through what Paul is saying…

  • If people call on the name of the Lord, they will be saved.
  • But how will they call on one they have not believed in?
  • And how can they believe unless they hear?
  • And how can they hear unless someone tells them?
  • So we must go and speak!

Do you see the promise? If anyone calls upon the name of the Lord they will be saved. A few verses earlier in Romans 10, Paul writes that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved (Rom. 10:9).

God is working. He is saving those who call upon Him. When we as Christ-followers go and speak the gospel, then people hear. And when people hear, they will believe. And when they believe, they will respond and call upon the Lord for salvation.

God is calling people unto himself and saving them. Jesus came “to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).  He did not come to be served but to offer his life as a ransom (Mark 10:45) and gave his life for us (Gal. 2:20). How marvelous is the grace of God!

But alongside such a merciful promise is our challenge as Christ’s disciples to make the gospel known. People will respond and believe, but they will do so only if they are able to hear. And how do they hear? It’s by our speaking.

Our calling is to “make disciples” (Mt 28:16-20) and to be “witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the world” (Acts 1:8). We have been given the ministry of reconciliation therefore, “we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us” (2 Cor. 5:20).

We are a sent people, by Christ’s authority, to make known the glorious mysteries of the gospel. We can be confident as we go that as we speak, people will hear, believe, and respond. And when they call on the Lord, they will be saved.

Let’s not be ashamed of the gospel therefore, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes (Rom. 1:16). Let’s be bold with all kindness and gentleness and patience and love and go and speak the gospel. And as we do, let’s remember the promise that God will save.

 

 

 

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The Ministry Of Proclaiming

Published by Jeff Kennon on October 22, 2014

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The highest service to perform, according to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, is the proclamation of the Word. This ministry of the Word is the fourth and final service in which Bonhoeffer believes the Christian community owes to each other.

Though Bonhoeffer does believe the proclamation of the Word is the most crucial service, this does not negate the others. He writes that “where the ministry of listening, active helpfulness, and bearing with others is faithfully performed, the ultimate and highest service can also be rendered, namely, the ministry of the Word of God.”

It is only when we listen, help, and bear with others that the door is opened to speak the word into their lives. Bonhoeffer writes:

If [speaking the word] is not accompanied by worthy listening, how can it really be the right word for the other person? If it is contradicted by one’s own lack of active helpfulness, how can it be a convincing and sincere word? If it issues, not from a spirit of bearing and forbearing, but from impatience and the desire to force its acceptance, how can it be the liberating and healing word?

Don’t Fear!

We must not fear this responsibility to speak the Word to one another. If we cannot bring ourselves to speak God’s Word, then we need to reexamine our view of our Christian brother or sister. Regardless of “how old or highly placed or distinguished [a Christian brother] may be,” writes Bonhoeffer, “he is still a man like us, a sinner in crying need of God’s grace. He has the same great necessities that we have, and needs help, encouragement, and forgiveness as we do.”

One thing that helps us in speaking the Word to others is allowing others to speak the Word to us. If we humbly accept reproof from God’s Word spoken by others, then “the more free and objective will we be in speaking ourselves.” Bonhoeffer writes that “the person whose touchiness and vanity make him spurn a brother’s earnest censure cannot speak the truth in humility to others; he is afraid of being rebuffed and of feeling that he has been aggrieved.” But let humility reign and we will speak the word because the humble “seeks nothing for himself and has no fears for himself, [so] he can help his brother through the Word.”

Speak It In Everyday Life

What Bonhoeffer means by speaking the Word to one another is important to understand. It is not necessarily done in a formal gathering but in the day to day activities with one another. He writes that “what we are concerned with here is the free communication of the Word from person to person, not by the ordained ministry which is bound to a particular office, time, and place.”

“God has put His Word in our mouth,” writes Bonhoeffer. “He wants it to be spoken through us. If we hinder His Word, the blood of the sinning brother will be upon us. If we carry out His Word, God will save our brother through us.” Fairly strong words for us to speak the Word. But we must remember that it is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Heb. 4:12).

Let’s not back away from speaking the Word to others today. For all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work (2 Tim. 3:16-17). But let’s do so only as we listen, help, and bear one another’s burden.

 

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