This week we launch a series on spiritual growth, looking at eight catalytic beliefs that will help take your faith to the next level. Join us this week as we look at one word the writers of Scripture use to sum up God’s will for you and me.
Next Steps
I want to start today by considering a very important question:
Whose job is spiritual growth?
Psychologists say one of the primary causes of conflict in households involves arguments over what’s generally called division of labor – which task belongs to which person?
If the bed goes unmade, if the dishes go unwashed, if the diaper goes unchanged, who’s responsible? Who owns getting the job done?
Now, it’s amazing how many relationships never achieve clarity around something as simple as division of labor issues.
Many families have never had calm rational conversation around who is best equipped according to their giftedness, interest, passion and so on to take out the garbage, iron the clothes and so on.
The result of this is lots of things don’t get done because each person in the relationship thinks that the other person is responsible.
Here’s why I mention this. We’re starting a nine week series on spiritual growth and for many people, there’s confusion about the division of labor issue on spiritual growth.
In this series we’re going to talk about eight core beliefs that are catalytic to spiritual growth.
And this opening message is about spiritual growth on a fundamental level. There’s a fundamental belief in the Christian faith called the doctrine of
Sanctification
The Doctrine of Sanctification has to do with spiritual growth.
The word in Greek which gets translated “sanctification” is related to the word “holy.”
And the gospel, of course, is not just that we’ll go to heaven when we die. The gospel is the offer of life in God’s Kingdom right here and right now, as well as after we die.
God’s plan is that his image in us, which is marred by the fall, should be restored in all of its beauty and glory, that human life should and will be as God intended it.
Sanctification will take place for us. But for many of us, there’s confusion about the division of labor issue as it relates to sanctification. Is it God’s job or is it mine?
Some people have taken the position that sanctification is solely the job of God.
They say, “If I do anything at all, if I make any effort to be holy, it’s works-righteousness. It’s legalism. I’m living in the flesh. I can’t do anything at all.”
That’s what people who hold this position say. And sometimes they cite certain verses to show that sanctification is solely God’s job.
1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.
Romans 7:18
For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
They’ll cite a verse like that and say, “Human actions are futile. It’s doomed from the start.”
So there are some people who object to any call for strenuous effort or costly following by saying that human efforts are opposed to grace.
A pastor of another church told me anytime he talks about costly discipleship, sacrifice or obedience at his church, a large number of the people respond, “We’re into grace. That costly stuff is legalism.”
I asked a group of people one time, “How do people grow in the Fruit of the Spirit?” The Fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5 – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. “How do people grow in the Fruit of the Spirit?”
One woman who had been a Christian for a long time said, “I just claim the Fruit of the Spirit. I wake up in the morning, and I just claim it. I just claim joy and so on.”
I said, “Does it work? Is it that simple, with no effort or discipline?”
She said, “It doesn’t take effort or discipline. I just claim joy. That’s all I do, and I’m a joyful person. You can see that, can’t you? Now you know why. I just claim it. That’s what you ought to do, too.”
Now, if it’s just God’s job, if any human effort is opposed to grace, then you better not do anything. Just wait around until you get zapped.
On the other hand, there are some Christians who take a kind of Marine approach to spiritual life, as if spiritual growth is sheerly a product of my commitment level. It’s just kind of a mechanical deal.
They may cite verses like
Leviticus 11:44
I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy.
“God’s job is to make sure he is holy. My job is to make sure I am holy.”
Then the church becomes a contest to see who’s most holy.
*Who can memorize the most Bible verses?
*Who’s in the most classes and groups?
*Who’s serving the most?
*Who has invited the most people?
*Who reads the bible the most?
*Who prays the most?
People get this kind of checklist mentality, “As long as I’m doing this and this and this, then I must be growing spiritually, quite apart from any sense of whether love or joy or any of the fruit of the Spirit are being produced in my life.”
If it’s all my job, if it’s up to me, I better never relax. I’ve got to try harder, run faster, pray harder, serve more intensely. I better be doing something spiritual all the time.
So whose job is sanctification, spiritual growth?
Paul has some very important things to say in his letter to the church of Philippi about spiritual growth.
There’s a real striking statement he makes:
Philippians 2:12-13
Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed — not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence — continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.
First Paul says, “Work out your salvation.”
In other words, your role is very important. Spiritual growth will not just get zapped into you.
But then he goes on to say, “For it is God who works in you.”
You’re not doing this project on your own. Spiritual growth is empowered by God. It’s impossible without him.
It’s a both/and deal.
In fact, a key phrase that he uses is at the end of verse 12 when he says, “Work out your salvation… with fear and trembling.”
Now, that was actually a stock expression in Paul’s day. He doesn’t mean work out your own salvation with a sense of nervous anxiety, not knowing whether or not it’s going to be good enough for God.
It’s a phrase that could mean a humble attitude of dependence, and I would say that’s what he’s talking about here.
There’s a role I’ve got to play in this, but I don’t control it.
See, if you think about things in life, there are some things I can control. That’s a category.
*I can make a phone call.
*I can drive a car.
*I can watch TV.
*I can control that stuff.
Then there are some things I can do nothing about. That’s another category.
I can’t control the weather. I can’t change it. Only God can change the weather.
I can’t control the Chicago Cubs. I can’t do anything about the Cubs. Only God can help the Cubs.
But then there’s a third category if you think about it.
Things like going to sleep. I talked about this recently. Think about going to sleep for a minute.
If you’ve ever had kids or been around kids, you know that when they reach a certain age, there’s often a struggle.
Parents will say to kids, “Go to sleep.”
What does the child respond with? “I can’t go to sleep.”
And, of course, you can’t make yourself go to sleep the way that you can make a phone call or something.
But parents will assure their kids that you can do certain things to open yourself up to sleep if you really want it.
You can get in a dark room, lay down on a soft mattress, turn out the lights, close your eyes, and sleep will come. It will come.
You can’t control it, but you’re not helpless. You can open yourselves up to it, and then it comes. It’s kind of a gift.
Another analogy is a sailboat.
Think for a minute about the difference between a motor boat and a sailboat. In the motor boat, I’m in control. I start the engine. I control the speed. I go wherever I want to go. I’m in control with the motor boat.
Sailing is a different story. When I’m sailing, I’m not passive. I have a definite role to play. I hoist the sails. I steer with the rudder and so on, but I am utterly dependent on the wind.
So there is no room for pride on a sailboat or the false idea that I’m in control because if the wind doesn’t blow, I’m dead in the water. I’m not going anywhere.
When the wind blows, on the other hand, amazing things can happen.
Now, the wind does amazing things. There’s something amazing and mysterious about it.
This is what Jesus says in John 3:8 when he was talking about spiritual life one time.
John 3:8
The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.
In Scripture, both in Hebrew and in Greek, the word for wind and the word for Spirit is the same word.
Pneuma – wind, Spirit
Jesus says, “The pneuma” – the word for wind – “blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.”
It’s free and powerful and way beyond your control. “So it is with everyone born of the pneuma, of the Spirit, through whose life the winds of God are blowing.”
The sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit is powerful and mysterious and awesome, and I can’t control it. I can’t manufacture it. It’s not about me coming up with a little program that’s got predictable results, and I’m in control of it.
But, on the other hand, I’m not passive. It’s worth my greatest efforts to catch the wind of the Spirit, to be sanctified by God. My job is to discern where the wind of the Spirit is blowing, and how do I catch it?
This is what the Apostle Paul does.
And we’ll look at four truths about this in the time that remains today.
Announcement
Alright, we’re going to look at four crucial truths that the writers of Scripture teach about sanctification, about spiritual growth.
And the first one is this:
You are being formed spiritually, whether you know it or not.
People in our day are tempted to think of spiritual growth as an optional part of Christianity, take it or leave it.
But the truth is you are being “formed” spiritually. Everyone is.
In Romans 12 Paul says, “Don’t be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
Paul says if you’re not being trans”formed” by the renewing power of God, then you’re being con”formed”, shaped or molded by the forces opposed to God that are at work in this world.
So the question is not IF you’re being formed spiritually; the question is who is forming you?
And if it’s not God, then you have an enemy, a spiritual adversary, the evil one, who will be perfectly happy to do the task.
We live in a world that deforms people spiritually, and sanctification is so important that it is the single word that sums up God’s will for human life.
Paul says in
1 Thessalonians 4:3
It is God’s will that you should be sanctified.
Hebrews 12:14
Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.
Holy could be translated “sanctification” – same word.
By the way, this is why we’ve asked you to take the spiritual growth assessment. If you haven’t taken it yet, I want to encourage you to do it today.
It’s important that you know how you’re currently being formed spiritually.
You know what’s amazing to me on this – I know people who abdicate on the one process they know is God’s will for their life.
People will pursue all kinds of other things with passion and devotion, but when it comes to spiritual growth they’ll abdicate responsibility.
And they’ll give all kinds of excuses for not pursuing spiritual growth.
*”My group leader is not very good. I could grow a lot spiritually, but he just doesn’t have his act together.”
*”My schedule is too busy. When things settle down, I’ll pursue spiritual growth.”
*”My church doesn’t have an adequate program for spiritual growth. If I could find the right church, I would grow spiritually.”
*”My husband doesn’t give me the kind of spiritual leadership I need to grow spiritually. I’ve told him over and over, ‘Start leading me,’ but he doesn’t lead the way I tell him to lead. If I had a more spiritually mature spouse I’d grow spiritually.”
Listen, the offer of the gospel is the offer of the possibility of being sanctified.
The gospel that Jesus came to preach – go back to the beginning of Mark or the beginning of Matthew – the writers say that Jesus came proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of heaven. “Repent and believe the Good News, the kingdom of heaven is near.” You can live in it.
It’s possible to live in the presence and under the power of God now. And if I do that, of course, that’s a choice to live God’s kind of life.
Sanctification or spiritual growth is simply another way to talk about that kind of life – a life of truth and love and joy and humility and community and servanthood and a passion to see others experience the same kind of life.
If you don’t want to live that kind of life now, what in the world makes you think you would want to live that kind of life eternally after you die?
It’s God’s will for your life that you be sanctified.
Alright, so the first point about spiritual growth is – you are being formed spiritually, whether you know it or not.
Which leads us to the second truth in Scripture regarding spiritual growth.
Failure is part of spiritual growth.
Notice what Paul says in
Philippians 3:12-13
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead.
That’s pretty remarkable for the apostle Paul. He says, “I haven’t arrived yet. I’ve been after it for many years now. I haven’t arrived yet.”
Little kids get in the car to take a long vacation. What’s the very first question they ask? “Are we there yet?”
We’re such an instant gratification society.
Well spiritual growth doesn’t happen that way. Paul says, “Am I there yet? Not yet, not today, not tomorrow. But this one thing I do: I just don’t give up. I just keep after it.”
Now here’s the thing. In the pursuit of spiritual growth, you will fail. I’ll just guarantee you that. It’s consistent with Scripture, and it’s certainly consistent with my own experience.
What do you do if you’re real serious about pursuing spiritual growth and you fail?
Well, Paul has a strategy for dealing with failure. And it’s found in the passage we just read.
Philippians 3:13
Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead.
One word summarizes Paul’s strategy for dealing with failure. Forget it – “Forgetting what is behind,” he says.
Now, this is kind of odd. We tend to think of forgetting as a bad thing. Something we shouldn’t do.
This is kind of a silly story about an elderly man and woman.
The man says, “I’m going to the ice cream store, do you want anything?”
She says, “Yes, I’d like a sundae. I want strawberry ice cream, hot fudge topping, whipped cream, nuts, and no cherries. You better write it down.”
He says, “I don’t need to write it down. I got it all right here.”
She says, “You better write it down. I know what your memory is like.”
“Don’t worry about me, I’ve got it all right here.”
He comes back an hour later and hands his wife a brown paper bag. She opens it up and inside is a ham sandwich.
She says to her husband, “You forgot the mustard.”
Kind of a silly story, I know.
We think of forgetting as something that gets us into trouble or something that we shouldn’t do.
Here’s the truth. Forgetting is indispensable to spiritual growth. Forgetting is a key practice in spiritual life.
You need to develop the discipline of forgetting. You need to ask the greatest counselor in the world, the Holy Spirit, “Will you help me, Holy Spirit, to overcome my mistakes and sin and guilt and inadequacy and disappointment?”
*I need to confess.
*I need to set right whatever it is that I can set right.
*I need to learn whatever it is that ought to be learned.
*But then I’ve got to move on. I can’t be trapped or imprisoned to failure because spiritual growth is a process, and I need to keep moving.
“And therefore,” Paul says, “I forget what’s behind.”
And you don’t compare how you’re doing with anyone else because you’re on your journey, not theirs.
And be patient because the danger is not that you’ll slip. That’s guaranteed. The danger is that when you slip, you’ll get discouraged and impatient and give up.
People tell me sometimes, “I get so discouraged. I’ve been wrestling with the same sin for weeks or months or years in some cases.”
So what? Keep going. Keep learning, keep connecting, keep serving, keep growing.
Paul says he forgets what is behind. He’s ruthless about forgetting. He will not allow his failures to keep him trapped in the past.
Spiritual growth is like two steps forward and one step back, because failure is part of spiritual growth… so don’t give up.
Alright, the third truth is this:
Spiritual growth is empowered by God
I want to come back to the sailboat.
God is the one who supplies the wind.
The apostle Paul has a strong tendency when he’s talking about transformation to use a certain grammatical form that is rather unusual.
This is a combination of two things. One is the imperative. An imperative is when you give someone a command – Stop! Listen to me? Do what I’m telling you! Something like that.
Then there’s another form which is called the passive voice. That is, when something happens to you. You get hit by a truck. You get struck by an illness and so on. That’s passive.
Paul, when he’s talking about transformation, often uses a passive imperative.
He does this in
Romans 12:2
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
It’s an imperative. He’s commanding it. He says do this.
But he doesn’t say, “Transform yourself.” He says, “Be transformed.”
That is, actively pursue the transforming power of God. And this is very common with Paul.
In
2 Corinthians 3:18
And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
He doesn’t say which comes from you.
Paul doesn’t say transform yourself, but he also doesn’t say just hang around and do nothing, and it will happen without you.
A good sailor, I’m told, can look on the water and discern from the pattern of waves where the wind is especially strong. That’s part of a sailor’s job – to find the wind and ride it as long as he can.
The question I have for you under this part of spiritual growth is:
*Where are the winds of the Spirit blowing in your life?
*Where and how is God at work in you?
*What sin is he seeking to free you from?
*How is he causing growth?
Because spiritual growth is empowered by God.
Alright…
You are being formed spiritually, whether you know it or not.
Failure is part of spiritual growth.
Spiritual growth is empowered by God.
And the last truth:
Spiritual growth happens best in community.
Now, this is real important because there is a kind of danger in pursuing spiritual growth and that is that if it gets off track, it can get real individualistic and self-preoccupied and even narcissistic.
We see that with the scribes and the Pharisees in Jesus’ day. They thought of themselves as very holy, very sanctified, but they couldn’t even love anyone. They were absorbed with themselves, preoccupied with themselves.
The New Testament writers never defines spiritual growth in solely individualistic terms.
It’s defined in terms of community.
In Philippians 2:14 Paul has been talking about how sanctification is happening. You’re to work it out. God is at work within you. Then he talks about what it looks like.
Philippians 2:12-14
Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed — not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence — continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,
for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. Do everything without grumbling or arguing.
In other words, as the community matures this is what you’ll find: no grumbling, grateful hearts, and no arguing. Bitterness and resentment will be replaced by a community of servanthood.
Let me ask you a question, especially if you’ve been a Christian for a while. Have you ever known someone who has been around the church for a long time that grumbles or argues and yet is thought of as a spiritually mature person?
I’ve known churches where people are growing more and more argumentative and bitter and yet they’re thought of as sanctified, holy people.
Paul defines spiritual growth within the context of community.
It’s very important that we understand this because if we don’t, the pursuit of spiritual growth can get distorted in a way that makes it all about me.
I can get so preoccupied with how I’m performing spiritually, what my spiritual temperature is, how spiritually fulfilled I feel. Have I got an impressive roster of spiritual practices that I observe?
Instead of becoming freed to live a life of servanthood and love, I get spiritually proud and narcissistic and self-absorbed.
Alright, now I want to close with this – the goal of spiritual growth is really our mission as a church – Christ-centered living. That we would do and say the things Jesus would do and say if he was in our place.
The goal of the process of spiritual growth is becoming more like Jesus in the everyday situations of my life.
You see, God wants you to grow spiritually, and that’s no small thing. This is not some spiritual self-improvement project. This is God’s destiny for you.
And I’ll tell you, if you miss out on this, you miss out on what you were made for.
Alright, let me pray for you.
Blue Oaks Church
Pleasanton, CA
