Category: Discipleship

Created To Live For Something More

Published by Jeff Kennon on March 25, 2015

We were created and designed to live for more than ourselves.

“There is woven inside each of us,” writes Paul Tripp, “a desire for something more—a craving to be a part of something bigger, greater, and more profound than our relatively meaningless day-by-day existence.” The difficulty however, is that this search for something more is hindered by our craving for personal glory. “In a fallen world” writes Tripp, “there is powerful pressure to constrict your life to the shape and size of your life.”

In Genesis 3, we are told of the story of Adam and Eve’s move from their allegiance to God to their trusting in their own decision making. As a result, they made the choice to eat from the one tree in the Garden in which they were forbidden. Hoping for new knowledge, they discovered the emptiness that results in abandoning the Creator. And now, in lineage with Adam and Eve, we all are on the quest for something more.

What we must daily realize is that this “something more” we are looking for will never be found from within ourselves. We must not “shrink the size of [our] glory focus to the narrow glories of [our] own little selves,” writes Tripp. What we are looking for, and what “every human being quests for, whether he knows it or not, is not a thing; it is a person, and his name is God.”

The bottom line, writes Tripp, is that “it is only in communion with God and in submitting all other forms of glory to his glory that [we] will ever find the ‘above and more’ that [our] hearts seek. We were made to experience, to be part of, to be consumed by, and to live in pursuit of the one glory that is truly glorious–the glory of God.”

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31) and become completely satisfied and filled with the “something more” in which you long.

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Trusting In God Who Raises The Dead

Published by Jeff Kennon on March 24, 2015

The fact that Jesus has been raised from the dead changes everything. It changes what we hope for and where we place our trust!

Paul writes:

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive (1 Corinthians 15:20-22).

How vital it is to remember that just as Christ is made alive, so we will be made alive. And if God has the power over death, should we not trust him in all things? Since we serve a God who raises the dead, what have we to fear?

N.T. Wright writes:

If, then, we recognize the truth about the surpassing God, the God who raises the dead, we can trust him with every task that may come our way. He can be trusted with exams; he can be trusted with jobs, even when they don’t necessarily work out the way we thought they should. He can be trusted with marriage, both as we look forward to it with eagerness and trepidation and when we find ourselves within it and facing the stresses and strains that all contemporary marriages must expect. He can be trusted with money, even when it seems as though there is even less of it available than we had thought. He can be trusted with old age. He can be trusted with death itself. Of course he can; he is the God who raised the dead, who affirms the goodness of human life, who takes precisely the situation where there seems to be no hope in human terms, and brings new life exactly there.

As we draw near to Easter, let it push us to follow Christ more fully knowing that he holds the power of life and death. Let us be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord [our] labor is not in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58).

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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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“You Gotta Love Other People”

Published by Jeff Kennon on March 11, 2015

One of the most influential persons in my life was my grandfather, A.D. Wheat. Today was his birthday. Though he passed away several years ago, there are not many days that pass by in which I don’t think of him and the life he lived in front of me.

One thing that my grandfather always told me was, “You gotta love other people!” But this was more than just something that he talked about it. He lived it!

Before my grandfather passed away, he tape recorded many of his life stories and adventures. Paige, my wife, transcribed them into a book we put together so we could give it to our kids. Below is one of the stories he told. It’s of one of his many visits to those who lived in the nursing home. As I reread this story of his today, I was struck again of how blessed I am that God would put a man such as my grandfather in my life. How blessed I am!

I used to go and visit many of the nursing homes. There was one lady who was in one of them who never smiled. She just looked terrible. The ladies at her table said she was a grouch and to not pay any attention to her. So, I thought, “She’ll be my challenge now!”

I finally got her to where she would let me have her ice cream. We had ice cream socials every Monday at 4pm. I would go over there and she would give me her ice cream Well, the others in the nursing home couldn’t understand it.

One day, my church had some Day Lilies that many people had given to the church in memory of some of their family. The gave them to me to take over to the nursing home. When I went over there, this lady was the only one in the dining area. So, I walked over and put the first Day Lily on her table.

“Who’s this for?” she asked.

“It’s for you,” I said.

“For me?”

“Sure!”

“Well, it sure does show that some people love me!”

“Sure, we love you!”

A week or two later, I was back in the nursing home and was told that this lady was really sad because she lost her car due to her driver’s license being taken away. So I went over and began to talk with her.

“Nobody loves me,” she said. “I should just go away and die. I’m no good for anybody.”

“Yes, you are,” I said. “You always save your ice cream for me. I think the world of you.”

And then, I hugged her.

Later on, I was told that I really cheered her up. I really like doing those kind of things.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God (1 John 4:7-8).

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Is There Aversion To Theology Today?

Published by Jeff Kennon on March 6, 2015

I occasionally hear and read that there is an apprehensiveness towards Christian doctrine. David Wells, in his book No Place For Truth, has led a charge that we must reestablish Christian doctrine in our North American context or we will end up with a shallow faith that will be tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes (Ephesians 4:14).

Historian Mark Noll has also chimed in along with Wells when he wrote The Scandal Of The Evangelical Mind. For Noll, the scandal is that there is no evangelical mind. He contends that there is a great divorce between intellect and piety within North American evangelicalism.

As I have thought about the issue of our North American scandal of a lack of theological thinking, I found an old copy of W.T. Conner‘s book Christian Doctrine. Conner was professor of systematic theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in the early to mid 1900’s. In the introduction to Christian Doctrine, written in 1937, he wrote…

Many people today have little patience with any kind of definite doctrinal teaching in religion. This aversion to religious doctrine is not confined to those who are altogether indifferent or hostile to religion. Even many religious people are unfriendly toward any kind of definite doctrinal teaching. They wish to confine religion to the realm of feeling or friendly good will, or make it a matter of practical social activity.

There has been much discussion as to whether religion is properly a matter of feeling, or belief, or activity. As a matter of fact, it is all three. Without the element of feeling, religion has little motive power; without doctrinal belief, the element of intelligence is lacking; without practical activity, it is vapid and empty.

No doubt, Conner does well at helping us to see that the antipathy to theology is nothing new to the 21st Century. But on the other hand, I think he helps us to achieve some balance in that though we must teach Christian doctrine, it must never be divorced from real life. As Conner has succinctly written, our faith is a matter of feeling, belief, and activity.

So what do you think? Are we needing a return to deeper theological thinking in today’s evangelical world? And what does it look like to do good theology?

For help in thinking about theology, consider reading Theology Is For The Living Room along with A Little Book For New Theologians: Why and How To Study Theology by Kelly Kapic. You can also read my review of Kapic’s book as well.

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The Cross: The Signature Of Jesus

Published by Jeff Kennon on March 3, 2015

Challenging words from Brennan Manning…

The signature of Jesus, the Cross, is the ultimate expression of God’s love for the world. The church is the church of the crucified, risen Christ only when it is stamped with his signature; only when it faces outward and moves with him along the way of the Cross.

Fidelity to the Word will take us along the path of downward mobility in the midst of an upwardly mobile world. We will find ourselves not on the path to power but on the path to powerlessness; not on the road to success but on the road to servanthood; not on the broad road of praise and popularity but on the narrow road of ridicule and rejection.

To be a Christian is to be like Christ. Somehow we must lose our life in order to find it. Christianity preaches not only a crucified God, but also crucified men and women. There is no discipleship without the Cross. I am not a follow of Jesus if I live with him only in Bethlehem and Nazareth and not in Gethsemane and on Calvary, too.

-Brennan Manning, The Signature of Jesus (p. 10-11)

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A Discipleship Problem?

Published by Jeff Kennon on February 25, 2015

What’s our problem in the church these days? There is no lack of research or books written regarding this question. However, as I have read and thought through some of the issues being raised about today’s church in the West, there is one quote that continues to come back to my mind again and again. It is by Mike Breen in his book Building A Discipleship Culture.

Breen writes:

We don’t have a missional or leadership problem in the Western church. We have a discipleship problem.

Is Breen correct in his assessment? Is discipleship the key?

Whenever I think about discipleship, I think of Jesus leading his small group of disciples as he taught them, encouraged them, prayed with them, empowered them, and sent them out to declare that the kingdom of God had come. And he did so, as Robert Coleman aptly writes, “for the salvation of the multitudes.”

We have to ask therefore, if we as a church are making disciples? And if we say we are, then are we seeing the gospel spread? Because if we are truly making disciples, then I believe we will, over time, begin to see the multitudes reached. It is disciples who make disciples. This means that if you are a follower of Christ, then you have been commissioned to help others follow Christ. Jesus’ disciples, in following Him, became “fishers of men” (Mt. 4:19).

So since it is true that it is disciples who make disciples, this means that it is not a one person job. It is for all followers of Christ. Ed Stetzer has recently written that when it comes to making disciples, you can’t mass produce them. “God did not plan for one person to disciple an entire church,” writes Stetzer, “and He didn’t design us to grow via mass discipleship.” Discipleship involves the whole body of believers. It’s not all on the shoulders of the pastor.

Paul told Timothy that “what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2). This is discipleship. It’s teaching others to teach others. We must pass what we know to others.

I don’t think I have written anything here that the majority of believers in a church do not know or have not heard before. The question is, “Are we doing this?” Are we making disciples who make disciples? And we may need to ask ourselves if discipleship really is a major problem in today’s church. You might not think that discipleship is the issue.

Regardless of what you might think today’s problem in the church might be, I pray that you (and me) not become too critical, but humbly realize that God is still in the process of building His church. And remarkably enough, He is using us to do it! The church is His Bride and though it is blemished at the moment, we know that God makes all things new.

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Category: Discipleship

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