How do I grow? Training in Christ

 

Welcome! Today we continue our series on identity, belonging, and purpose, looking at a very practical question: How do I grow?
 
Growing is an interesting thing. Even with ostensibly secular areas of life, growth is often slow, and easily missed, until a new perspective causes you to see things that you had not noticed. Now, I say “ostensibly secular” because, in reality, there is really no such thing as a secular area of life. All of life is spiritual, as, no matter what we are doing, we are doing it in God’s world, under God’s watchful eye, and God greatly desires to be involved in every part and aspect of your life. If a part of your life seems secular to you, it is maybe only because you are choosing to do that part of your life apart from God. But we are already getting off track – as I was saying, a new perspective or experience can cause you see growth that was previously hidden to you.
 
I had one of these experiences in my work as a professor at Clemson over the past two weeks, as I received a request to serve another department seeking to establish an undergraduate program.  This request made me realize that, in my role as undergraduate coordinator for my department over the past 7 or so years, I have indeed grown in understanding some key things that make a program run smoothly and run well. I had never really thought about this, as I am usually feeling like I am dealing with what some call “the tyranny of the urgent” – the next “crisis”, big or small, real or imagined, that is set before me.
 
I think Christian growth can be like this as well. In fact, it is probably unhealthy to be overly focused on your own growth. This is especially true if you are constantly comparing yourself to others. But at the same time, it is undeniable that some people seem to grow consistently and substantially in their faith over time while others either stagnate, or worse, seem to regress or even fall away.
 
Because of this, I think that “How do I grow,” is an excellent question, one worthy of even more than one message. But that is true, I believe, of all of the questions we are exploring in this series.
 
Let’s start today by briefly discussing what growth means in a Christian context. I really like what Paul says in Colossians 1. I am going to start this mid-sentence, starting with verse 10. In effect, Paul says to the Colossians, “I pray for you” (although he is more specific about his prayers than this). He says, “I pray for you”…
 
so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please Him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of His holy people in the kingdom of light. – Colossians 1:10-12
 
What does it mean to live a life worthy of the Lord? I like what John MacArthur has to say about the Greek word translated as worthy:
 
"Axios (worthy) has the root meaning of balancing the scales—what is on one side of the scale should be equal in weight to what is on the other side. By extension, the word came to be applied to anything that was expected to correspond to something else. A person worthy of his pay was one whose day’s work corresponded to his day’s wages. The believer who walks in a manner worthy of the calling with which he has been called is one whose daily living corresponds to his high position as a child of God and fellow heir with Jesus Christ. His practical living matches his spiritual position." (MacArthur)
 
Note that although balancing the scales is at the root of this word, we cannot possibly even begin to balance the scales of what Jesus has done to save us. But I don’t think that can be the meaning here – Scripture has much to say about how salvation is a priceless gift that cannot be repaid, and I think it is unproductive at best to think along such lines. At worst, we can fall into a works-based gospel, which is a false gospel (by which I mean a false “good news”) and is in fact no gospel at all. But MacArthur equates axios not with paying back, but instead with responding in an appropriate manner, in a way that makes sense, that is consistent with what is true. I think this is right.
 
We are to live a life that is appropriate to the fact that God loves us and that we love God. This is a mature way of living, a way that reveals someone who has experienced real Christian growth. Paul then goes on to say that we should be pleasing God in every way. What does he mean by “bearing fruit in every good work”? I think we can tend to have a narrow meaning of “fruit” that focuses on being involved in leading people to Christ. But I don’t think that you will find that this meaning of fruit really makes sense when you look at its use in other passages in the New Testament. The best word translation and explanation of the word fruit I have ever seen was from a Christian teacher on the internet in the relatively early days of the internet, someone who went by the name Metachoi. In case you are curious what that word means, it is translated in the New Testament as “partaker,” as in we are all “partakers of Christ.” In any case, Metachoi equated “fruit” with “results”, and I still remember the study where he looked at verse after verse, and indeed, this makes sense. Note, for example, that the “fruit of the Spirit” refers to the results of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. It also makes sense of the passage we are looking at today – so “bearing fruit in every good work” can be understood as “showing good results in every area of life. 
 
Paul goes on to describe growing in the knowledge of God, and then he describes one aspect of Christian maturity as experiencing the power of God so as to have endurance and patience. I find this interesting – it seems that endurance and patience are never things that we just grow to have, intrinsic to ourselves. Instead, we always have to depend on God’s power for these things. As someone who can struggle with both endurance and patience, I find this oddly comforting. But to back up to higher level view, this passage is saying that a mature believer should both be continually growing to know God and continually depending on the power of God in daily life.
 
And the final area of maturity mentioned in this passage is “joyful thanks” – the perfect combination, much like peanut butter and chocolate – joyful thanksgiving. As I and others have taught previously, joyfulness is not just happiness – and it is possible to be joyful despite mourning and grief, for example – having a hint of a smile among the tears. And not only joy but also thankfulness, gratefulness, being in a state of continually thinking of the Lord’s mercies and kindness. All in all, I find these few verses a beautiful picture of what Christian growth should lead to. There are many other passages that we could have used to explore the results of Christian growth, but I particularly love the breadth and the conciseness of this passage.
 
So now that we have a picture in our minds of what growth should lead to, how do we get there? How do we, in fact, grow?
 
My first answer to this question might be the most important. If this answer seems circular, or maybe disingenuous, trust me when I say it is not. What is the first way we grow? We grow by wanting to grow.
 
This kind of answer is not true in many areas of life. If you want to be taller, I’m sorry – wanting to grow in height won’t make you taller. If you want to be rich, again, I’m sorry – the world is filled with poor people who want to be rich.
 
Now I am certainly not saying that wanting to grow is all you need in order to grow in Christ. But I believe it is a necessary first step. And I believe that it is one that many people struggle with, although they may believe otherwise.
 
I think we would all agree that Paul wanted to grow. Listen to how Paul describes how much he wants this:
 
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. – I Corinthians 9:24-27
 
How much do you want to grow? This much?
 
I think there are a lot of people who do not really want to grow in Christ in all that this entails in the passage we just looked at. For example, there are people who want to see God help them grow in certain character qualities, but they don’t want to overcome a sin area in their life. They may rationalize the sin, saying it is not that bad, or even declare that it is not sin at all. They may find all kinds of ways to rationalize this, perhaps finding a teacher on the internet who teaches what they want to hear. The Bible talks about this in 2 Timothy 4:
 
For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. – 2 Timothy 4:3
 
And there are others who have almost the opposite problem. To their credit, these people are deeply distressed about an area of sin in their lives, but they try to fix the problem in their own strength, or they block God from growing them in other areas of their life, such as in becoming a regular reader of Scripture, or in becoming someone who prays regularly, not only about this one sin area, but prays intercessional prayers for others, or they ignore God’s instructions to join up with a local group of believers. There are people who won’t admit this, but the reality is that if God would just fix their own issue, they would then drift away and live an increasingly secular life apart from God. It should be no surprise, then, that God may choose to not answer their prayers to help them overcome this one issue.
 
And then there are people who have, for a wide variety of reasons, allowed their love of God to cool. This could because they have idols in their life, things they love more than God, or they could simply have neglected seeking God for a while and allowed the constant noise of the world to fill their thoughts and their hearts.
 
How do we grow? We grow by wanting to grow. And what if we don’t have enough “want to”? We should confess this to God. Because the truth is that even our “want to” is a gift of God. We cannot maintain even our “want to” in our own strength apart from God.
 
And this leads to my second point. How do we grow? We grow by maintaining a lifestyle of self-awareness and repentance. A few of my favorite verses that speak of this:
 
Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord. – Lamentations 3:40
 
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. – I John 1:8-9
 
Repentance is not based on how loudly we cry. Repentance is not about trying to convince God that we will really change this time. Repentance is not about making promises we cannot keep.
 
Repentance is, first, about agreeing with God as to what we have done, and then, agreeing with Him that it is sin. The most common Greek word for sin is fascinating to me – each time I explore it, I feel like I learn more. The Greek word is “hamartia,” and it means literally “missing the mark.” The context of the word is archery. Picture an archer pulling the bow and aiming for the target. When he releases the arrow, it either comes up short or otherwise misses the mark. But there is a deeper context – the main point, I believe, of this word picture for sin. Picture an archery competition. Hamartia doesn’t only mean that you miss the mark; it means that you miss out on receiving the prize. You come up empty. Apart from Christ, this is a key message of the Bible: sin separates us from God because God is perfectly holy. And unless our sin is dealt with, we will forever be separated from God; that is, we will miss out on receiving the prize of eternal life. But Christ has died for our sin, and so when we put our faith in Him, our position of eternal separation from God is reversed, and we are reconciled with God. Yet we continue to sin. Does this sin return us to a point of eternal separation from God? No. As Jesus tells Peter via analogy when washing His disciple’s feet, Peter no longer needs a head-to-toe bath; but he does need his feet washed. In the same way, we need to continually restore our relationship with Christ through self-examination and confession – not for the sake of our salvation, but so that our relationship with God is fully again restored.
 
What about when we are stuck in patterns of repeated sin? These behaviors may be broken in many cases by consistently returning ourselves to prayer, self-examination, and confession. We need to understand that our repeated sin is a symptom. Why are we giving way to temptation? There can be many reasons. If you are finding no success in overcoming sin in an area, even for short periods of time, I encourage you to talk with one of the pastors. What you are experiencing is not uncommon, and many people have overcome their sin patterns through Christ. In some cases, we may recommend that you see a Christian counsellor who has more specific training in a particular sin area.
 
Perhaps the most important thing I can say is that there is certainly hope for you to overcome your sin through the power and grace of Christ. It may be a battle, and not a battle in the areas that you may expect.  
 
“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” – Matthew 26:41
 
The battle is best fought before you come close to falling. Related to this, and so important, I believe, is this verse:
 
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. – Philippians 4:8
 
The battle is won if it never begins. The more you fill the moments of your thoughts with Christ, the fewer opportunities Satan will have to tempt you to sin.
 
Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh. – Romans 13:14
 
Again, the way you do not think about something is to think about something else.
 
No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. – I Corinthians 10:13
 
And so we grow by maintaining a lifestyle of self-awareness and repentance. It is indeed a lifestyle, and it is indeed something to maintain, once you have established it, for the rest of your life. Because as you progress through life, new temptations will come; Satan will use new ways to tempt you, your flesh will find new ways to betray you, and the world will offer new sources of temptation as well. As the previous verse of I Corinthians 10 says,
 
So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! – I Corinthians 10:12
 
A third way we grow is through cultivating a multifaceted, continual prayer life. A key verse, and a surprising one, I think, in terms of its context, in that it comes immediately after discussing putting on the armor of God, is the following:
 
And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. – Ephesians 6:18
 
Is prayer then a part of the armor of God? It is not clear, but I think so. At a minimum, it is every bit as important a thing for us to do as putting on the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the footwear figuratively tied to the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit.
 
There are so many important details in this verse. Pray in the Spirit – this powerful idea is echoed in Romans 8:26, where we are told that although we do not know how to pray as we should, the Holy Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. Does this mean we are to pray without understandable words? No, but it means that if we are abiding in Christ, filled with the Spirit, our prayers will be powerfully enhanced by the simultaneous prayer of the Holy Spirit on our behalf. This is amazing, incredible!
 
The passage also says to pray on all occasions. This means to pray before you freak out. Have you lost your keys? Pray. Has the police car behind you turned on its lights, wanting you to pull over? Pray. Have you started a test, and you don’t have a clue about the first problem? Pray. All occasions. The happy ones too. All kinds of prayers and requests.
 
But then it goes on to tell us to pray not only for us, but for all the Lord’s people, for others. I love this. I believe, in general, developing an others-centered life is an extremely powerful way to grow. Yes, we are also told to pray for ourselves, for example what Jesus Himself said in the Sermon on the Mount:
 
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. – Matthew 6:9-13
 
But even this prayer focuses quite a bit away from self, as the praying person praises the Lord, and prays for God. “Your kingdom come, Your will be done.” This is such an interesting prayer – clearly the Lord does not need our help, or even God’s help, as the Lord is God. Yet we are asked by Jesus to pray for God’s kingdom to come and His will to be done. Some say that this means just in our own lives, but I think it goes beyond this. Prayer in general is at least as much about aligning our hearts and wills with God as it is about asking God to do something for us. When you pray for someone over time, you automatically become closer to them. It is no surprise, then, that as you pray for God’s kingdom, for God’s will, you become closer to Him, and you grow.
 
Let’s now talk about a fourth way that we grow: we grow through reading and obeying the Bible. The Bible is God’s inspired Word. A familiar passage on this comes from 2 Timothy. In this book, Paul is instructing Timothy, in effect, on how to grow. In Chapter 3, after discussing the many trials Paul has experienced, and reminding Timothy that persecution “goes with the territory” of trying to live a godly life, says this:
 
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. – 2 Timothy 3:14-17
 
Timothy may be our earliest example of someone who grew up in the church, in a Christian family, like many of you. In this passage Paul really talks about two benefits of reading the Scriptures: one, that it contains the information you need for becoming saved through faith in Christ, and two, that it equips you “for every good work” – that is, it helps you grow.
 
Scripture helps you grow through a variety of techniques or methods. Before I get into those methods, let me first point out that this passage describes the Scriptures as “god-breathed”. That is an interesting phrase, as the Holy Spirit, is literally the “Pneuma”, or breath, of God. That Greek word pneuma is the root of multiple medical words we use today involving the lungs; pneumonia is an example. God’s breath is repeatedly used in Scripture as an illustration of God’s will being carried out perfectly. God breathed into Adam the breath of life in Gen. 2:7; that is, God breathed on Adam, and he became alive. And in John 20:22, we are told that God breathed on the disciples as He told them “Receive the Holy Spirit,” and receive the Holy Spirit they did. 2 Peter 1:21 and 1 Cor. 2:13 reinforce the teaching that although the pages of the Bible come to us through the hands of men, fallible men, the content of that writing comes from the Holy Spirit.
 
The Bible is a miraculous gift to us. People like to joke that “life doesn’t come with an instruction manual” but they are wrong. The most important things God wants us to know are indeed written down in a love letter to us, the Bible, and it is foolish for us not to revere it, but more importantly, continually read it.
 
The Bible is deep. Even when one reads it over and over, God’s Spirit will bring out new things to you, deeper connections, greater understanding, and more ways to apply it to your daily life. As for commentaries, I only recommend reading them when you are stuck on the meaning of a particular verse or verses; but even then, I would remind you that commentaries are not inspired by God in the way that the 66 books of the Bible are. You will find contradicting opinions in commentaries, but the message of the Bible is astoundingly consistent despite being written by many different people in many cultures from many different walks of life over many centuries.
 
The Bible is useful for “teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training.” Teaching: Learning about God, both who He is and what He has done, learning about humanity, who we are and what we have done, and learning how God expects those who follow Him to live. Rebuking: This goes beyond teaching “about” and means that God speaks to us through His Word. As we read about something about how to live, the Holy Spirit nudges us and says, “Hey, buddy, this applies to you, too.” And our response should be “metanoia”, a change of heart followed by confession and a change of behavior. Correcting: The Greek word is “epanorthosis,” which literally means a straightening up again. The Bible not only tells us what to do, but it tells us how to do it. I have been struggling for years with the fruits of poor posture, including pain in my neck. It obviously isn’t enough for me to just know that I shouldn’t have bad posture. I also need to know how to practice good posture, and in addition, I need to know how to reverse the negative effects of bad posture to the degree that is possible. The Bible is like this; it helps us with practical steps, both as instruction and through examples, of how to correct ungodly living and how to live in accordance with God’s will. And training: Indeed, I see this aspect of growing as a believer so important that it is the subtitle of today’s message.
 
To use an analogy from another sphere of life: How do you grow muscle? By training. By using them. It is interesting to me that training involves more than just the use of a muscle, though. You likely have long-neglected muscles in your body. It is not enough to just use them to make them grow; you have to first carefully isolate their use, and, in effect, train them (or train your mind-body connection) in how to use them. In physical therapy, there were multiple times where I simply couldn’t do a new exercise at first at all because my muscles didn’t have a clue what to do. Growing as a believer through training is like this. The Greek word translated here as “training” is also used to describe training little children. Spiritually, we all start off as babes in Christ, and in many ways we are as clueless to proper living as both toddlers and unused muscles. The Bible provides instruction for all levels, from advanced to absolute beginner.
 
And note that these latter terms all imply not just head knowledge – far from it! They are all about doing what we learn. The well-known passage from James 1 comes to mind:
 
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do. – James 1:22-25
 
There are two additional important ways we can grow. I will not expound much upon these, because one of these we have looked at previously, and the other we will look at later in this series. But it is good to include them here because I think they are both incredibly important.
 
So Number 5 is this: We grow by being a part of a community of people who love and live for God. Proverbs 27:17 says,
 
As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. – Proverbs 27:17
 
People in community can do those same things we said of the Bible from the 2 Timothy verses: They can teach us, rebuke us, correct us, and train us. And equally important, we can do the same for them. Beyond this, God is love, and it is critical for us to likewise grow in love. Being a part of a community of fellow believers teaches us perhaps more than any other thing how to love and how to receive love. One of my favorite verses in all of Scripture is Romans 12:15, which says,
 
Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. – Romans 12:15
 
It is impossible to do this, and indeed, it is impossible to carry out many instructions of Scripture, if you are not in community with other believers. But we have said a lot more about being in community in our message on this topic a few weeks ago. I encourage you to go back to that message if you missed it.
 
My final suggestion for how to grow as a Christian is this: We grow by sharing the gospel with unbelievers. We will talk more about this in the larger context of discipleship in two weeks. Tom Short, a pastor in one of our sister churches, has joked (but is actually serious) that when people come to him with issues seeking counseling-type advice, his first impulse is always to tell them to go share the gospel with someone. Having marriage problems? Go share the gospel together. Struggling with sin? Go share the gospel. I can tell you in seriousness that this actually works. Often our struggles are related to pride and to selfishness, and that feeling in the pit of your stomach when you knock on the door of a stranger makes you quickly realize how needy you are of God in your life, knocking pride down a few pegs. And likewise, talking to people who are truly lost in the deepest sense of the word, people who have never had any relationship with God, makes you realize that your problems or conflicts are not nearly as important as you thought they were. As you reach out to others in this way, your heart bursts, and your selfishness is likewise knocked down.
 
Sharing the gospel also helps us grow because it gives us a different perspective on what we know. Nothing solidifies a belief like explaining it to someone else. And of course, we should share the gospel because God instructs us to do so:
 
Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. – I Peter 3:15b
 
And I hope that this message has helped to boost your hope. God has abundantly given us all that we need to grow as believers. Let us use all that God has given, and may we grow abundantly, together, in Him.