Jonathan Graham May 22, 2012 To my church family at Faith Assembly of God: I have had to write sentences, and

paragraphs, and pages, on topics from bacterial growth to Plato to Constitutional Law, and none has been harder to write than this letter. I know why that is: This church has been my home for almost a decade (which is, in itself, an incredibly strange sentence to write). This church has raised me, fed me, nurtured me, reproved me, strengthened me, and encouraged me through the majority of my formative years, and I am now at a loss for words to express the gratitude that I feel for everything that you have given me over the years. My fiance Olivia and I will be married soon, and we will be leaving Faith to prepare for ministry. I will be studying the Scriptures, trying to know better this God we serve, and Olivia and I will be adjusting to our new life together. Our plans are not definite, but we do feel God moving us away from Faith to His next season for our lives, and so this letter is goodbyefor now, at least. I cannot pretend that I could know the mind of God, or divine the future. Im sure that many of our paths will cross again, and I know that we will not be separated for an eternity, though it might feel like it by the time we see some of you again. But I do know that for this season, God is sending Olivia and I elsewhere, and I go glad to serve Him. Goodbyes, however, are not the purpose of this letter. I am writing this to share a few things that Gods Word has left burned into my heart, and that I am burdened to share with the church that has been my home. You have been so faithful to me, and I would be dishonoring that if I were not faithful to share this message with you. The Apostle Paul told us that it was of first importance that Christ be central to our theology (1 Corinthians 15). This was the entirety of the Gospel that Paul preached: That Christ died for our sins, was buried, rose again, and was beheld by many witnesses. This is truly of first importance, and I urge anyone who reads this message to hold fast to it, in the most intimate places of your heart. Anything elseeverything elseis superfluous in light of this one truth: That Christ died as a remedy for our sins, and that He rose again. Let that ring in your ears and in your hearts daily, because without that truth, we are lost. This really is the central truth of our faith, and it is a truth that so many Christians have abandoned. This single passage encompasses the entire Christian narrative, and yet so few churches hold fast to it. This text holds the goodness of God, the severity of Sin, the fullness of our justification, and the source of our ethics. This Pauline Gospel demonstrates how good God is, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). Gods grace is so great precisely because we dont deserve it and cannot earn it, and yet we so quickly forget that. Especially here in the south, we begin to think that our salvation is some sort of birthright, or that God saved us because of some intrinsic value we hold to Him, when the truth is that God saved us

because of His intrinsic greatness, and to think otherwise is damning. Never forget the goodness of God. In fact, it is the goodness of God that makes sin so severe. It is the nature of the one we sin against that makes our sins such egregious trespasses. Since God is perfectly good, then to transgress even one of His commandments is as if we had broken them all, just as James tells us (James 2:10). Its Gods goodness that makes our badness so awful, and, referring back to our text in 1 Corinthians, our badness could only be overcome by the death of God Himself, in the person of Jesus Christ. Matt Chandler is fond of saying that the Cross is the ultimate acknowledgement that were all screw-ups and cant cut it. And so God the Son, rich in mercy and full of love, gave Himself for us, that we might be justified, and justified fully. Ours is not some half-complete justification that we must now struggle to fulfill: Our justification is complete because the Person who gives it to us is complete. Christs resurrection demonstrated the validity of His message of repentance, and the fulfillment of the requirements of the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 5:17). The resurrection assures us that we will be raised with Christ to Gods Glory in spitenever becauseof ourselves. The only way that this is possible is if the wages of our sin have been collected in full on our behalf (1 Corinthians 15:17; cf. Romans 3:23ff). As the hymn says, no guilt in life, no fear in death. This is our promise from Christ: That we go home justified because of what He did, not because of what we can do (Luke 18:9-14). How then do we live, in light of the burdened Cross and empty Grave? How do we comport ourselves, here in the foothills of eternity? We live with a fire in our bones that ultimately cannot stay shut up. It bursts out; it changes the way we live. The Gospel pulls sinners to salvation. The Gospel drives our ethics. The Gospel changes the way we view others, removing barriers of race, age, socio-economic class, or gender (Galatians 3:28). The Gospel burns our soul when we sin, driving us to repentance and confession to one another. The Gospel drives the Church entire, into evangelism, into theology, into a deeper love for God and for His Word, into a deeper communion with the Spirit (indeed, the only way to experience communion with the Spirit is through the Gospel, and for the purposes of God to advance the Gospel), into community with one another, and into abandonment of all that is not Christ and His glorious grace. No purpose of God will be realized in your life if your life is not Gospel-driven, because the only purpose God has for your life is to glorify and make much of His name. The Gospel of Jesus Christ does just that. And so I leave you with both warning and encouragement: Never let this Gospel slip from its place at the head of your table. This Gospel is the power of God to your salvation, if you believe it (Romans 1:16). It is the only thing that holds together the community of the new covenant, and it is the only way by which we might be saved. Remember that the Gospel is not just a trip down Romans Road, it is not simply a series of steps, but it is the active Word and work of God in your life. May Christ help us, that we never sell this Gospel short.

As I close this letter, I want to especially thank Pastor Jason for his faithfulness to the Gospel. God has used you more than you know to shepherd me personally, and I have grown so greatly under your ministry. I will be praying for you and your family, and I cannot thank you enough for your work in my life the past few years. You taught me much, and you helped me to hold fast during some very trying times. Thank you for your patience with my teenage angst. And to all my friends and family here at Faith Assembly, I thank you. To all the leaders who taught me thank you for your time. I hope someday to see you all again, and I pray that God continues to use you to bless the next generations. To my peers, continue to fight the good fight of faith. I love you all. Go in grace. Jonathan Graham.