Grace roots E-Book

Ken Legg

• Herausgeber: novum publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 179

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Ken Legg is the founder and senior pastor of New Beginnings Christian Church on the Gold Coast in Australia. He has been involved in church planting, pastoral and teaching ministry for almost 50 years. He has spoken at conferences in Israel, Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Germany. Ken Legg has authored several books, including "This Is The Life!", "What's Eating You?", "New Covenant, New Glory", "Firm Foundations", "Grace Roots", "Grace: The Power to Reign", "Tetelestai - It is finished" and "The Road Ahead". He has also appeared on Christian television and has a daily radio programme in Australia called "Set Free with Ken Legg".

Leseprobe

Acknowledgments

When I wrote Grace Roots, I was very blessed by the support of several people who believe in what I do.

Although there are too many to mention by name, I would like to take a moment to mention a few and express my sincere appreciation.

As always, my wife Marianne has been both a great encouragement and a practical help to me. I so appreciate her wisdom and insight. Her suggestions at various stages of this book have caused me to word some things a little differently. I even left out some parts. She also pointed out some grammatical errors to me.

Once again, I would like to thank Beverley Tulloch for all the time she spent editing this book. My special thanks to Beverley for meeting the deadline at such short notice.

They say, "A book is sold by its cover." Melissa Dalley has created exactly what I envisioned for the cover. Well done Mel.

The leadership and congregation of New Beginnings Church in Reedy Creek on the Gold Coast continue to be a great inspiration to me week after week with their enthusiastic response to the teaching of grace. Not only are they true believers in this message, but they are also proactive in our outreach to take the gospel of grace outside of our own church to various parts of Australia and even other countries around the world.

In closing, I want to thank our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I was aware of His power and enablement day by day as I wrote "Grace Roots". In eternity, the church will be "to the praise of the glory of His grace" (Eph. 1:6). But why wait until then?

Introduction

Never say never. When I published my latest book, "New Covenant, New Glory," I said, "This is definitely my last book." So, I guess I have some explaining to do!

I will try to do this using an illustration from the life of Elisha.

In a time of famine, one of the prophet's sons went out to gather herbs and cook a stew. He also picked some wild gourds, not knowing that they were poisonous. When the stew was served, one of the prophets realized that it was poisonous and shouted:"There is death in thepot!"(2 Kgs 4:40). Elisha instructed them to put some flour in the pot and when they did, the stew was no longer poisonous.

This incident shows me how deadly being a Christian can become when it is mixed with legalism. When Christians feed on a works-driven diet, they become spiritually sick.

I have had the privilege of distributing the fine flour of God's grace to countless guilt-ridden, performance-driven believers and have watched them be set free and restored to spiritual health. One of the great benefits of my ministry is receiving feedback from those who have been set free by hearing the message of grace. Some of the testimonies are amazing. The gospel of grace is truly God's power for salvation.

Recently we had some visitors from a sectarian movement in our home. I immediately turned the discussion to the finished work of Christ and said that anyone who trusts in the work of Jesus on the cross is perfectly righteous in the eyes of God. "We agree that we can only be saved through Christ," they said, "But if we don't do the following..." Then they added a "to-do list" of requirements for salvation. Whenever a "Christ-plus" message is taught,"grace is no longer grace"(Rom. 11:6). The tragedy is that it's not just cults that do this. Quite often I hear this being taught in some churches and believed among Christians.

Sometimes I think about the fruit that legal "Christianity" produces. It has at least two characteristics.

Firstly, it leads to self-righteousness. Cults ask: "Why don't you take the gospel of the kingdom of God from house to house like we do?" Likewise, self-righteous Christians parade their works before others with an air of superiority. They brag about their tithing, their praying, their fasting, their moral purity, their witnessing, their keeping of the marriage covenant, etc. All of this leads tothembeing glorified, not Jesus. In contrast, Paul asks under grace:"Where is boasting? It is excluded."(Rom. 3:27).

Secondly, the result of legalism is usually condemnation because people simply cannot always live up to their self-imposed demands. As a result, they either become depressed and discouraged or they repress it and fake their spirituality. There's death in the pot.

Fortunately, more and more teachers of grace are writing good books to counteract the deadly legalism. But we have certainly not yet reached the stage where we have too much grace teaching. We need more. "Grace Roots" was written to fill the sack of flour.

Every month I send out an e-zine (e-magazine) called "Grace Roots" to a list of subscribers. This book is a collection of some of those articles that I've edited; and a few new ones have been added.

Are you a victim of legalism? If so, it is my prayer that your 40-day journey in "Grace Roots" will be a detox from legalism for you; and that it will help ground your heart in God's grace.

This is really my last book ... I think ...

Ken Legg

Gold Coast, Australia, 2012

“...we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand...”

DAY 1: Indescribable worth

Who can calculate a person's worth? Nowadays, a lot of emphasis is placed on self-esteem. Countless books have been written on the subject and there are a variety of courses and seminars designed to boost a person's self-esteem.

These courses and information sources open up a range of possibilities for feeling better about yourself, e.g. setting goals, positive self-affirmation, changing your appearance, blocking out negative and critical influences, etc.

But for Christians, the question of their worth is determined by something much more powerful than self-talk, success or making ourselves look or feel better. God has made two irrefutable statements about us.

First, He gave us the highest place in the universe when He created us in His image. As the crown of creation, we were created to be inhabited by God Himself and to reflect His own moral image. Then, to top it all off, He gave us dominion over everything on earth.

We know that humanity has responded to this amazing love in the most shameful way. By breaking with God through disobedience, rebellion and defiance, our sin has brought death, disease and destruction upon us and our world.

Amazingly, however, God's love for us was not diminished by this. It was precisely at this point that He made His second clear statement regarding His esteem for us - redemption.

The value of an object is determined, among other things, by the price that is paid for it. God paid the highest price imaginable for us by giving His best so that we could be redeemed from our sin and reconciled to Him. What an amazing love!

Once when I was preaching in Zambia, I held up a 50,000 kwacha bill. That's about ten Australian dollars, which is a lot of money for the average Zambian. I asked: "Who would like this?" All hands immediately went up.

Then I wiped it on the floor and asked, "Who wants it now?" Without hesitation, each hand went up. Then I crumpled it up as tightly as I could in my hand and repeated the question: "And now? Who wants it?" Again, everyone did. Finally, I threw it on the floor and trampled it under my foot. I held the pathetic-looking specimen in my hand and asked again: "Who wants it now?" Every hand was up.

I explained that everyone wanted it because, although it had been dragged through the dirt, crumpled and trampled on, none of these things devalued it in any way. I would also have had a brand new, fresh 50,000 kwacha bill, but I couldn't buy any more at the supermarket with that than I could with my dirty, trampled bill.

Dear friend, you may feel dirty, crumpled and devastated because of what life has done to you, or even because of some of the choices you have made. But whatever has happened to you in life in no way says anything about your worth.

The question of your true worth was settled two thousand years ago on a hill called Golgotha. There your Creator became your Savior and paid a price that no one else could have paid for you. Peter said:"…you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold... but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot."(1 Peter 1:18-19). That is your value.

You can show the world that you know your true worth by letting God's glory shine through you. Paul says:"For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s."(1 Co 6:20).

DAY 2: Have you submitted yourself to God's righteousness?

Paul described theJews as having "zeal for God, but not according to knowledge."(Rom 10:2). Like many religious people, they were zealous but were thoroughly mistaken.

Paul then went on to identify the main area where their misguided zeal was most evident. He said,"For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God."(Rom 10:3).

The Gentiles were characterized byunrighteousness, but the Jews byself-righteousness. The Gentiles ate from the "evil side" of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the Jews ate from the "good side" of the same tree. Satan doesn't care which side you eat from as long as you eat from that tree. God wants us to eat from the tree of life, i.e. from His Son Jesus Christ, because He has been given to us as our righteousness.

Sadly, man's efforts to establish his own righteousness are not limited to the Jews. The very essence and heart of all religion is like this. That is why the message of the gospel of grace is so unique and so beautiful. Righteousness will never be achieved by our efforts. Our best efforts will never be good enough. We will always fall far short of the glory of God. But God has given us His righteousness in Jesus.

The Lamb of God is God's righteousness

When the Jews sacrificed for their sins, they brought a lamb to their priest. As soon as the priest took the lamb, the Israelite was no longer the object of consideration. From that moment on, the focus was on the lamb. The only thing that mattered was whether the lamb was without spot and without blemish.

Jesus is the spotless Lamb of God. During His entire earthly life, He did no sin, He knew no sin and there was no sin in Him. He fulfilled righteousness through His perfect obedience to God. He was obedient unto death, even death on the cross, where our sin received its just judgment once and for all. This is the righteousness of God.

Everything that God's righteousness has ever required of a human being has been perfectly fulfilled by Jesus on our behalf. He is the one in whom God is well pleased and in Him we are perfect!

On the cross, God allowed Jesus, who knew no sin, to become sin for us. And in return, His righteousness was imputed to us. He is now our righteousness (see 1 Cor 1:30). That is His name, Jehovah Tsidkenu, the Lord our righteousness (see Jer 23:6).

By whose obedience are you justified?

Which of our sins did Jesus commit in order to be made sin? None; our sins were imputed to Him. Which of His righteous deeds did we have to fulfill in order to be made righteous? None; His righteousness was imputed to us or credited to our account. On the basis of this complete exchange, God has justified us, i.e. declared us righteous. This is His eternal statement about us. Furthermore, He will always treat us as righteous, because that is what we are now.

Like many religious people, the Jews mistakenly thought they could become righteous through their behavior, especially through their obedience to the law. They made this mistake because they did not understand the righteousness of God. God's path to righteousness does not lie in right behavior, but in right believing. We do not behave unto righteousness, but we believe unto righteousness.

By whose obedience are you justified - by yours or by His? The Bible leaves us in no doubt:"For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous."(Rom 5:19).

He was obedient; we believe - this is the righteousness of God.

Have you submitted yourself to God's righteousness?

DAY 3: Does God have a sense of humor?

In Ecclesiastes 3:4 it says:"There is a time to laugh".But when is that time? Is it okay to laugh in church? Is humor taboo when it comes to preaching?

Many are divided on the subject. In earlier times, for example, T. Harwood Pattison was against it, arguing: "Religion is too serious a matter to be treated in a trivial or jocular spirit."

But others disagree. Charles Spurgeon, for example, said that people open their mouths when they laugh and when their mouths are open, you can pop the truth in!

He used humour in his sermons from time to time and was criticized for it. His enemies called him a "pulpit buffoon". Among his critics were journalists who spoke out against his use of humor in preaching. In April 1855, the "Essex Standard" wrote of him: " His style is that of the vulgar colloquial... All the most solemn mysteries of our holy religion are by him rudely, roughly and impiously handled. Common sense is outraged and decency disgusted. His rantings are interspersed with coarse anecdotes."

Yet John Stott insisted that even Jesus used humor when he taught, saying, "It seems to be generally accepted that humor was one of the weapons in the armoury of the Master Teacher."

Jesus and humor

This last quote should settle the matter. After all, Jesus came to reveal the Father to us. Any impression of God that does not match the perfect representation that Jesus gives us is a false image and should be destroyed.

Yet for some reason, Jesus is always portrayed as pious, gloomy and sad. It is true that His teachings addressed serious issues, and also that His mission led Him to a cruel death on the cross. But He could never be described as a kill-joy or a party pooper. He was often at parties and even performed His first miracle at one. (By the way, I suspect some wish He had turned the wine into water!)

When the familiar question is asked, "If there were ten people from history you could invite to your party, who would you choose?", how is it that Jesus is almost always on the list?

What was Jesus' intention with His humor?

The question of whether Jesus had a sense of humor in His time on earth is at least as important as the question of the intent of His humor. In our culture, we often use humor at the expense of others, i.e., to payout on one another. But Jesus used humor to get us to laugh at ourselves.

In His time, the religious leaders were the self-righteous Pharisees. The word "Pharisee" means "separated one". The Pharisees were not only set apart unto the law, but also from the general riff-raff of society. They saw themselves as morally squeaky clean and wanted others to see them that way too.

Jesus no doubt caused many laughs when he pointed out how the Pharisees carefully positioned themselves at the intersections of the busiest streets when they prayed so that others would notice them; and how they pulled in their cheeks and whitened their faces when they fasted so that others would admire them for their spirituality. And when they invited someone into their home for a meal, they would draw attention to the spice rack and say, "I've paid tithes on everything on this rack!"

The more they exalted themselves and flaunted their self-righteousness in front of others, the more they brought others down with their judgmental, critical spirit.

Jesus' sayings are so familiar to us today that we no longer see the humor in them. But in His day, when everyone was trying so hard to keep all the rules, these one-liners made His listeners laugh and brought much-needed relief. He told them, "You strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!" (see Mt 23:24). And He told them to pull the beam out of their own eye before trying to remove a splinter from another person's eye.

Anyone who took themselves too seriously was a candidate for Jesus' humor. It was aimed directly at self-righteousness.

Thereisa time to laugh

So there is a time to laugh. Namely when we catch ourselves with an exaggerated sense of our own importance. Just as it is wrong to joke about serious things, it is equally as wrong to take seriously that which is a joke!Self-righteousness is a joke. In this context, laughing at yourself is a form of repentance, so to speak.

DAY 4: Think about your position!

One of the best pieces of advice I ever received regarding the Christian life was: "Think position!" In other words, learn to see your life as God sees it, i.e. as you are in Christ. The term "in Christ" or its equivalent is found over 150 times in the New Testament, so it is obviously crucial to our understanding of what it means to be a Christian.

Jesus was the first to teach that the relationship He would have with His people would be based on their position in Him. He said,"In that day you shall know that I am in My Father, andyou in Me, and I in you."(John 14:20 - emphasis by the author).

Every person is either in Adam or in Christ. And that determines who we are in truth. We began our journey "in Adam". In Adam we were sinners and in Adam we die. But when we came to faith in Christ, we were incorporated into Him. This means that we died to our old identity in Adam, we were buried with Christ, we were raised to new life with Him, and we are now seated with Him in the heavenly places (see Eph. 2:6). This is our position. “As He is, so are we in this world.“(1 John 4:17).

Are you an externalist or an internalist?

Every Christian is either an externalist or an internalist. An externalist constantly looks at himself on the basis of his condition. Our condition is made up of the things we experience, i.e. the external things of life such as our works, our performance, our successes, our behavior, the opinions and judgments of others, things that have happened to us in the past, etc. An externalist looks at these things to evaluate themselves.

An internalist, on the other hand, focuses on his position. Our position is the truth about us, based on our identity as a new creation in Christ. One of my favorite sayings is, "It is not your condition that determines your position, but knowing your position that determines your condition." In other words: It's not what you do that determines who you are, but knowing who you are that determines what you do. Therefore, we need to renew our minds on a daily basis by realizing our position and not our condition.

For example: every Christian sins. And yet we are never referred to as sinners in the letters of the New Testament. Not even once! We are saints; saints who sometimes sin, but still saints even when we sin.

Most Christians are externalists. If you visit a Christian bookstore these days, you'll find a plethora of self-help books in many: "Ten Ways to Be a Better Husband," "Six Steps to Controlling Anger," "How to Break Free from Addictions," "Keys to Overcoming Anxiety," etc. The message is to work on one aspect of your condition. That is change through behavior modification.

Become who you are

Let me ask you a question: "Are you workingonyour salvation or are you workingoutyour salvation?" If you ask some Christians how they are doing with a particular inner struggle, they might answer, "Oh, I'm working on it." That's their problem. Paul says,"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who worksinyou both to will and to do for His good pleasure"(Phil. 2: 12-13). Do not workonyour salvation, but workoutyour salvation.We work out what God has worked in us. When God saved us, He made us righteous in our innermost being, in our spirit. Dear friend, don't work to be righteous; you have already been made righteous. Know who you are, believe who you are, and you will become who you are. Focus on your position!