Proof : Finding Freedom Through the Intoxicating Joy of Irresistible Grace

by Dan Montgomery, Timothy Paul Jones

Overview

It’s time to open your eyes to the freeing power of authentic grace—grace that releases us from trying to earn God's favor, grace that enables us to rest in the finished work of Christ, grace that liberates from the tyranny of trying to please others.

That's what the theology of Martin Luther and John Calvin did in their own day for the people around them. Time magazine recently dubbed Calvinism as one of the top ten ideas changing the world right now. And yet most of these discussions center on the issue of predestination or on whether particular people agree with the five points of Calvinism. Daniel Montgomery and Timothy Paul Jones think it's time to rescue the theology of the Reformers from such stale scholasticizing and to declare anew the dangerous and intoxicating joy of the gospel that they
proclaimed.

PROOF stands for planned grace, resurrecting grace, outrageous grace, overcoming grace, and forever grace. The authors offer proof of God’s grace upon which people can stand against the attacks of legalism that have led many of God's people to lose sight of the freedom and joy of the gospel. And this proof is intoxicating—it’s like a 200-proof drink that will leave you spiritually staggering at its effect on your life. God’s grace not only declares us “not guilty!” in his presence, it changes our relationship with God—forever.?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780310513896
Publisher:	James Omann
Publication date:	05/27/2014
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Daniel Montgomery is founding pastor of Sojourn Community Church, a multi-site congregation with three campuses in Louisville, Kentucky and one in New Albany, Indiana. Sojourn began in 2000 with about sixty people and has grown into a community of nearly four thousand. Daniel now serves Sojourn as pastor of teaching, leadership, and church planting. He has served on a leadership task force for the Southern Baptist Convention and on the board of directors for the Acts 29 church planting network. In 2011, Daniel cofounded the Sojourn Network to multiply churches in North America and beyond. He is the coauthor of Faith-Mapping (Crossway, 2013).

Timothy Paul Jones serves as professor of leadership at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and works in the SojournKids children's ministry at Sojourn Community Church. Before coming to Louisville, Timothy led churches in Missouri and Oklahoma as a pastor and an associate pastor. He has been widely recognized as a leading writer and researcher in the fields of apologetics, church history, and family ministry. He has authored or contributed to more than a dozen books, including Misquoting Truth (InterVarsity, 2007), Christian History Made Easy (Rose, 2010), and the CBA bestseller The Da Vinci Codebreaker (Bethany House, 2005).

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Dangerous Delight of Divine Grace

Human hopes falter and fail. Asked to tell a story in only six words, one novelist responded with these words: “For sale: Baby shoes. Never worn.” Human hopes can fall to pieces. But here is a beautiful bit of good news when we consider how often our plans can fall apart: This never happens to God. God knows all things, past, present, and future–so nothing happens that he cannot predict. God is powerful above and beyond all things–so no challenge ever arises that he can’t stop. That’s good news for believers in Jesus Christ.

If you’ve trusted Jesus, it’s not because you planned out your life in your fleeting and faulty wis-dom. It’s because God set his heart on you from eternity past; God made this choice knowing eve-rything about you–past, present, and future! As a result, nothing can change his choice to pour out his grace on you. Not your sin. Not your fears. Not the darkness that gnaws at your heart that no one else knows about. Nothing in your future. Nothing in your past. Nothing in all creation can sep-arate you from God’s love. Nothing. God proved his love for you once and for all through the cross of Jesus and the empty tomb–and nothing can change that determination to save you by his grace. His grace was…

PLANNED from all eternity, knowing that he would
RESURRECT your lifeless soul to lavish grace into your life that is
OUTRAGEOUS because it doesn’t depend on what you’ve done and
OVERCOMING because it transforms your desires so that you long for Jesus. Because this grace depends on what God has already determined and done, it lasts
FOREVER.

Together, that spells “PROOF,” which is precisely what God has provided in Jesus and poured out into our lives through the gospel: Proof of grace that will never let us go because it never depended on us in the first place; it depends instead on a God who is greater than anything we could ask or imagine.

Chapter One: Planned Grace

Chapter Two: Resurrecting Grace

Chapter Three: Outrageous Grace

Chapter Four: Overcoming Grace

Chapter Five: Forever Grace

Chapter Six: PROOF in Action

Conclusion: The Beautiful Paradox

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Daniel Montgomery doesn’t just understand grace … no, grace arrested him, then grace tutored him, and now grace compels him to help others stand amazed. -- Dave Harvey, Pastor, Four Oaks Community Church

PROOF paints a powerful picture that the gospel is not a cheap bucket of grace that sits at the foot of the cross. Rather, the gospel is an ever-flowing, deep river of irresistible grace that flows from the foot of the cross. -- Brian Croft, Senior Pastor, Auburndale Baptist Church