Category: Discipleship

Temptation: A Denial Of God’s Goodness

Published by Jeff Kennon on May 15, 2015

The basic idea behind all of temptation is this…

God is presented as depriving us by his commands of what is good, so we think we must take matters into our own hands and act contrary to what he has said. This image of God leads to our pushing him out of our thoughts and putting ourselves on the throne of the universe. The condition of the ruined soul and world naturally results. (Dallas Willard in The Renovation of the Heart)

Therefore, as Paul wrote to the church in Rome, we must be careful not to be conformed to this world and it’s understanding of God, but instead, be transformed by the renewing of our mind.

We must begin to see temptation for what it is and understand God for who He is. God is not a cosmic kill joy trying to destroy all fun and joy, but instead wants us to experience ultimate happiness. As C.S. Lewis has written, it is not that our desires for happiness are too strong, but too weak. Lewis writes that “we are half-hearted creatures, 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. We are far too easily pleased.”

Temptation, therefore, is about causing doubt in us towards the goodness of God. “God is just holding out on you,” we are told. So we must have our minds renewed, as Paul has written, toward the image and character of God. Willard correctly writes that “the single most important thing in our mind is our idea of God and the associated images.”

We do ourselves well to gaze upon the glory of God. To know God who is holy and loving is to be changed by him. Paul wrote that we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another (2 Cor. 3:18).

When the world hints, or rather shouts at us, that true happiness is found in being free from the bounds of God, we need to remember the character of God. We need to recall that He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (Rom 8:32). We can trust God in obeying his commands. We can begin to see temptation for what it truly is, a denial of the goodness of God.

As temptation comes our way, in whatever form, let’s recall the true character of God who gave himself up for us and trust the words of the Psalmist…

You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Ps 16:11)

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Growing In Humility

Published by Jeff Kennon on May 6, 2015

Pride is our greatest enemy! It has been defined as “contending for the supremacy of God.” Basically, pride causes us to think that we no longer need God. We tell ourselves we are ok. Pride causes us to go blind to our need for anything or anyone other than ourselves. Even as we grow in holiness, pride has a way of implanting in us and germinating into a desire for recognition of our new found godliness.

The Bible is fairly clear about the dangers of Pride. Solomon writes that pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall (Proverbs 16:18). Jesus declared that pride was one of the things that comes from within a person and defiles him (see Mark 7:14-23). And James writes that God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6).

So how do we grow in humility? First and foremost, we look to the cross. John Stott writes:

Every time we look at the cross Christ seems to say to us, “I am here because of you. It is your sin I am bearing, your curse I am suffering, your debt I am paying, your death I am dying.” Nothing in history or in the universe cuts us down to size like the cross. All of us have inflated views of ourselves, especially in self righteousness, until we have visited a place called Calvary. It is there, at the foot of the cross, that we shrink to our true size.

The deeper we go in understanding the cross, the more humility will ooze from our souls. The cross is where our greatest need was satisfied. The debt of our sin which we could not pay, was paid by Christ. God justified us, redeemed us, reconciled us, and is now transforming us by His grace and grace alone through the cross of Christ. It is not by our works or merit, but by grace in which we are saved.

Second, we grow in humility when we understand that our sin is just as great as those around us. Why is it that we see the sin in our lives akin to nothing more than a small habit problem while we view the sin of others as that which deserves God’s discipline? Collin Hansen, in his new book Blind Spots, writes that “if your sin is somehow less deserving of judgment that someone else’s, you’re in trouble.”

Third, growth in humility happens as we begin to preach the gospel to ourselves daily. The emphasis here needs to be on DAILY. Milton Vincent writes:

Nothing suffocates my pride more than daily reminders regarding the glory of my God, the gravity of my sins, and the crucifixion of God’s own Son in my place. Also, the gracious love of God, lavished on me because of Christ’s death, is always humbling to remember, especially when viewed against the backdrop of the Hell I deserve.

Preaching the gospel daily to yourself means you must find time to open God’s word and read it. And hopefully, not just read it, but study it, memorize it, and meditate on it. We need to be reminded each day of who we are and what God has done for us by the cross.

Finally, we must understand that growth in humility is a supernatural undertaking. It is dangerous to think that you have the power within you to develop an attitude of humility. It is our union with Christ, as His Spirit works within us, that transforms us. No doubt, God uses the daily preaching of the gospel to ourselves, etc…, but we must understand that it is God who works in us to conform us to the image of Christ.

Defeating pride is humbling yourself before God. It’s accepting Him at His word and trusting Him to do for you what you can’t do for yourself. It’s allowing His Spirit to change you to be that for which you were created.

And as we pursue Christlike humility, we do well to remember that everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted (Luke 18:14).

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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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Where Spiritual Disciplines Lead Us

Published by Jeff Kennon on April 22, 2015

I’m a big fan of practicing the spiritual disciplines (though I myself consistently falter in each of them). It’s vital for believers to read, study, meditate, and memorize Scripture. Communion with God through prayer and worship is also essential. However, we do well to remember the purpose of spiritual disciplines.

Brian Hedges writes that “the disciplines are meant to turn us into missionaries, not monks. The disciplines start in the closet, but end in the street. True Christlikeness is measured not by the breadth of your knowledge or the length of your prayers, but the depth of your love for others.”

“Christians feed on Scripture,” writes Eugene Peterson. But “Christians don’t simply learn or study or use Scripture; we assimilate it, take it into our lives in such a way that it gets metabolized into acts of love, cups of cold water, missions into all the world, healing and evangelism and justice in Jesus’ name, hands raised in adoration of the Father, feet washed in company with the Son.”

Similarly, Tim Chester and Steve Timmis write, “Biblical spirituality does not take place in silence; it takes place bearing a cross. It is not a spirituality of withdrawal but a spirituality of engagement. You do not practice it on a retreat in a secluded house; you practice it on the streets in the midst of broken lives.”

Paul writes: 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 Timothy 3:16-17).

Spiritual disciplines are not an end in themselves. They are designed for God to transform us in living lives of love, humility, obedience, and sacrifice in a world of pain.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Eph. 2:10). Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God (Eph. 5:1-2).

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Where The Depths Of Sin Are Seen

Published by Jeff Kennon on April 15, 2015

Sin is corruptive. It destroys us at our very core. But no where does sin show us “its full range and possibility” than in religion.

In his book Not The Way It’s Supposed To Be, Cornelius Plantiga Jr. quotes Geoffrey W. Bromiley:

The inward corruption to which Jesus refers in the scathing denunciation in Matthew 23 is not the corruption of deliberate and calculated insincerity. It is the corruption of a sincere and sincerely practiced religion, which is ultimately a supreme manifestation of religious pride…. The frightening picture opened up here is that when one recognizes obvious sin one has hardly begun to reckon seriously with this adversary. The open and blatant sinner, the oppressor or the harlot, is indeed a sinner. But it is not here that the genuine depth of sin is revealed, not even if the oppressor be ever so grasping or the harlot ever so shameless. It is in religious persons that the depths are to be seen.

So we ask ourselves, as did the Apostle Paul, “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” And to which the answer is: Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:24-25)

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I Can Face A Monday!

Published by Jeff Kennon on April 8, 2015

This past Sunday I had the opportunity to preach at a nearby church. One of the songs we sang was Bill Gaither’s Because He Lives. While singing it, I began to think about the first line of the chorus. Gaither writes, because He lives, I can face tomorrow. So when is tomorrow? It could be construed as some unforeseen day in the future, but for me, while sitting in church, I began to think about tomorrow being a Monday.

Monday. What is exciting about a Monday? True, Monday could be a day full of thrills but reality tells me that it will just be another day filled with routine. Staff meetings, creating “to do lists,” driving kids to school, sending emails, returning phone calls, working out, eating meals, and relaxing with family before bed. Some fairly ordinary stuff accompanies my Mondays.

So where does the resurrection fit in to all of this? Shouldn’t the resurrection push us to something bigger than watering the grass? Shouldn’t we be saving the world? Because He lives, I can face the mundane? That doesn’t sound very grandiose and yet while singing this Gaither song on Sunday morning, that’s what I was thinking about. Monday was headed my way.

The reality is that most people (actually I think all people) live ordinary lives. And for some this is a problem. There is a reason that TV shows such as American Idol are popular. We want to escape the humdrum days into a life of adventure. We are on a search for significance and think that the treasure of importance can only be found by doing something “big.” But is this true?

“What if ‘bigness,’” writes Michael Kelley in his book Boring, “is not an accurate measure of significance? What if the whole idea of ‘ordinary’ is a myth? And what if a life of great importance isn’t found by escaping the details but embracing them? What if God actually doesn’t want you to escape from the ordinary, but to find significance and meaning inside of it?”

The resurrection speaks a different word to us. The daily mundane activities are no longer just things to check off on our “to do list.” God is alive and working. He is beyond the mundane. Therefore, writes Kelley, “there really is no such thing as ordinary when you are following an extraordinary God.”

Paul, at the end of 1 Corinthians 15, which is an incredible chapter on the truth, validity, and implications of the resurrection, writes: Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

Because Christ has risen, continue plodding along knowing that what you do is not in vain. Your work and life while following Christ, though it may appear ordinary, will not be without purpose. “The reality of the future,” writes David Garland, “colors the reality of the present.”

So because He lives, I can face a Monday and every day knowing that because I serve a risen Lord, life is beyond ordinary!

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The Crown Of Thorns

Published by Jeff Kennon on April 3, 2015

Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe. They came up to him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and struck him with their hands. –John 19:1-2

Frederick Leahy writes:

There he stood, his face bruised, swollen and bleeding, and that thorny crown upon his head. He was so alone, ‘friendless, forsaken, betrayed by all’. That crown symbolized what sinful man thinks of Christ. He was not to be taken seriously. He was only fit for a stage-play! They made him a carnival king and placed on him the stamp of derision. With this mock robe, reed sceptre and crown of thorns, he was made to look like a theatrical figure. Luther says that Christ was ‘numbered with the transgressors, crucified as a rebel, killed by His own people in supreme disgrace, and as the most abandoned of men’. Ah yes! ‘supreme disgrace’, the shameful crown of thorns woven by the hands of men and placed on the Saviour’s brow – man’s estimate of Christ.

Certainly behind that crown of thorns worn for us we see invincible patience and invincible love–a love that we can never understand, but which, by God’s grace, we may experience. Only unspeakable love, unquenchable love, divine love could wear that crown of thorns; and that is the wonder of it.

But now the brow that once wore the cruel crown of thorns is now adorned with the diadem of the universe, for all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Christ. ‘We see Jesus…crowned’ (Heb. 2:9). ‘Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’ (John 1:29).

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A Hymn We Need To Recover

Published by Jeff Kennon on April 1, 2015

Written by Henry F. Lyte in 1824, Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken is a hymn that we would do well to recover.

Jesus, I my cross have taken,
All to leave and follow Thee.
Destitute, despised, forsaken,
Thou from hence my all shall be.
Perish every fond ambition,
All Ive sought or hoped or known.
Yet how rich is my condition!
God and heaven are still my own.

Let the world despise and leave me,
They have left my Savior, too.
Human hearts and looks deceive me;
Thou art not, like them, untrue.
O while Thou dost smile upon me,
God of wisdom, love, and might,
Foes may hate and friends disown me,
Show Thy face and all is bright.

Man may trouble and distress me,
Twill but drive me to Thy breast.
Life with trials hard may press me;
Heaven will bring me sweeter rest.
Oh, tis not in grief to harm me
While Thy love is left to me;
Oh, twere not in joy to charm me,
Were that joy unmixed with Thee.

Go, then, earthly fame and treasure,
Come disaster, scorn and pain
In Thy service, pain is pleasure,
With Thy favor, loss is gain
I have called Thee Abba Father,
I have stayed my heart on Thee
Storms may howl, and clouds may gather;
All must work for good to me.

Soul, then know thy full salvation
Rise oer sin and fear and care
Joy to find in every station,
Something still to do or bear.
Think what Spirit dwells within thee,
Think what Fathers smiles are thine,
Think that Jesus died to win thee,
Child of heaven, canst thou repine.

Haste thee on from grace to glory,
Armed by faith, and winged by prayer.
Heavens eternal days before thee,
Gods own hand shall guide us there.
Soon shall close thy earthly mission,
Soon shall pass thy pilgrim days,
Hope shall change to glad fruition,
Faith to sight, and prayer to praise.

(Check out Indelible Grace for an updated musical version of this hymn.)

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Category: Discipleship

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