Spiritual Growth - Gods Job or Our Job

Whose job is spiritual growth? This study focuses on the doctrine of sanctification, which is related to the word holy (hagios). The gospel is not just that we’ll go to heaven when we die; the gospel is the offer of life in God’s kingdom. God’s plan is that his image in us, which was marred by the Fall, should be restored in all of its beauty and glory.

But for many Christians there is confusion about the division of labor necessary for spiritual growth or sanctification. They ask, “Is it God’s job or mine?”

Some Christians have taken the position that sanctification is solely God’s job. To support their position they cite verses like Romans 7:18, where Paul says, “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.” Citing verses like these, they say human action is futile. Some Christians object to any call for strenuous effort or costly following by saying that human effort is opposed to grace.

On the other hand, some Christians take a Marine approach to spiritual life, evaluating spiritual growth as a product of one’s commitment level. They may cite verses like Leviticus 11:44: “I am the LORD your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy.” In effect, they believe God’s job is to make sure he’s holy; their job is to make sure they are holy. For these believers the church then becomes a place of contest to see who has memorized the most Bible verses, who has witnessed to the most people, who has the most regular quiet time, who has prayed the most. People with this checklist mentality believe that as long as they’re doing these things they must be growing spiritually, even if love and joy aren’t being produced.

Sanctification is a joint project between God and us.

Philippians 2:12–13. Paul says to work out your own salvation, which means your role is important. He goes on to say, “For it is God who works in you.” You’re not doing this project on your own. Sanctification is empowered by God; it’s impossible without him.

When Paul says, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling,” he does not mean you should work out your salvation with a sense of anxiety, not knowing whether it’s going to be good enough for God. Instead Paul uses the phrase to refer to a humble attitude of dependence. He’s suggesting we have a role to play, but we don’t control it.

Some things we can control; others we can do nothing about. But there is a third category, such as going to sleep. You can’t make yourself go to sleep the way you can make a phone call. But you can get in a dark room, lie down on a soft mattress, turn out the lights, and sleep will come.

Think about the differences between a motorboat and a sailboat. In a motorboat, you are in control. Sailing is different. When you sail, you are not passive. You hoist the sails and steer with the rudder but are utterly dependent on the wind. There’s no room for believing you are in control, because if the wind doesn’t blow, you’re dead in the water. When the wind blows, on the other hand, amazing things can happen.

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."

The word for wind is the same as the word for spirit both in Hebrew and in Greek. Jesus says the wind blows wherever it chooses. We hear the sound, but we don’t know where it comes from, and we don’t know where it goes. It’s free and powerful, way beyond our control. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit, through whose life the winds of God are blowing.

The sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit is powerful and mysterious. We can’t control or manufacture it. It’s not about us coming up with a program with predictable results we control. On the other hand, we’re not passive. Our job is to discern where the wind of the Spirit is blowing and know how to catch it.

Sanctification is normative, not optional.

Paul says he may get a lot of things wrong, but he works toward sanctification. It’s difficult to be made holy, and sometimes we’re tempted to give up.

Read Romans 12:2. Paul suggests that if you’re not being transformed by God’s renewing power, then you’re being conformed by the forces opposed to God.

The question is not if you’re going to be formed spiritually; the question is by whom you will be formed. If you’re not formed by God, then you have a spiritual adversary, the Evil One, who will be happy to do the task. We live in a world that deforms people spiritually.

Hebrews 12:14. Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.

The offer of the gospel is the offer to be sanctified. Jesus’ message was, “Repent and believe the good news; the kingdom of heaven is drawing near, and you can now live in it.” If we do that, it is a choice to live God’s kind of life, and sanctification is simply another word for that kind of life. It’s a life of truth, love, joy, humility, and servanthood.

If you don’t want to live that kind of life now, what makes you think you’d want to live that kind of life eternally after you die? It’s God’s will that you be sanctified.

Sanctification is a painstaking process.

Sanctification is a process, not an event. We’re an instant gratification society, but sanctification does not happen that way. Paul says, Am I there yet? Not yet. Not today. Not tomorrow. But this one thing I do: I don’t give up. I just keep after it.

In the pursuit of sanctification, you will fail often. What do we do if we’re serious about pursuing sanctification and we slip into bad behavior?

Philippians 3:13.
13 Brothers, 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,

We tend to think of forgetting as a bad thing, as something we shouldn’t do. But forgetting is indispensable to sanctification.

Ask the Holy Spirit, “Will you help me overcome yesterday’s mistakes, sin, guilt, and disappointments?” We can’t be shackled to yesterday’s regrets, because sanctification is a journey, not an event.

It’s guaranteed you’ll slip; the danger is that when you slip you’ll get discouraged and give up. Paul urges us to keep going and to forget what is behind. Paul allows neither his failures nor his successes to keep him trapped in yesterday. Sanctification is a process, so don’t give up.

Sanctification is empowered by God, not by man.

If we are sailboats, God’s the one who supplies the wind. When talking about transformation, Paul uses an imperative, which is used when giving somebody a command. For instance, “Stop!” is an imperative.

There’s another grammatical form called the passive voice that indicates when something happens to you, such as getting hit by a truck or struck by an illness.

When talking about transformation, Paul often uses a passive imperative. Look again at Romans 12:2. It is an imperative, but he does not say, “Transform yourself.” Instead he says, “Be transformed.”

There are a few ways you can discern how the Spirit is working in your life. One is to ask the question, “God, how are you seeking to transform me in this moment?”

When you’re in line at the grocery store, behind someone who’s mathematically challenged, say, “God, how can you use this moment to train me in patience?”

When you’re on the verge of procrastinating again with a project, ask, “God, how do you want to train me in this moment to persevere?”

You can allow the winds of the Spirit to blow in your life. That’s why sanctification is never a mechanical thing. That’s why it will look different from one person to another, and it will look different in different areas of your life. You need to discern how God is at work.

Sanctification is normative, not optional. It’s a process, not an event. It’s empowered by God, not you. Titus 3:5 "he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit."

Apply Your Findings

Sanctification should be pursued for the sake of others, not just for our own fulfillment. There is a real danger in pursuing spiritual growth, because if it gets off track it can get individualistic and even narcissistic. The scribes and Pharisees in Jesus’ day thought of themselves as very holy, but they didn’t love anybody. They were too absorbed with themselves. The New Testament never defines spirituality or sanctification in solely individualistic or narcissistic terms. It’s defined in terms of community.

In Philippians 2:14, Paul writes, “Do everything without complaining or arguing.” In other words, as the community matures this is what you’ll find: no grumbling and no arguing, just grateful hearts. A community of servanthood will replace bitterness and resentment.

Paul defines sanctification within the context of community. If we don’t, the pursuit of spiritual growth can get distorted in a way that makes it all about the individual. We can get preoccupied with how we’re performing spiritually and how spiritually fulfilled we feel, and forget to live a life of servanthood and love. It is then we become spiritually narcissistic.

The goal of sanctification, in a single word, is love. There is a huge difference between being sanctified and being sanctimonious. Yet sometimes people get them mixed up. The goal of sanctification is loving persons.

God loved you when you were hardest to love. God wants to sanctify you, and that is not some spiritual project or piece of optional equipment. That is God’s destiny for you. If you miss out on that, you miss out on what you were made for. God’s intent is to sanctify you so you can love as God loves.

Sanctification is also another way of saying that we become holy, holiness is the consequence of the sanctification process. Thus Holiness (sanctification) is a fruit, not the root, of Salvation.

Encouragement in a discouraging world

If you haven’t noticed that we live in a negative world, you haven’t been paying attention. I minister to people all the time who are discouraged, not over personal problems, but just because of the negative things that are going on in the world. They seldom recognize the effect their environment and other people are having on them.

Jesus certainly understood the power of a negative environment. When He raised people from the dead, He always sought seclusion. He kicked all the unbelievers out because He knew their unbelief could affect the results. In the sixth chapter of Mark, we read that even Jesus could do no mighty works in His hometown because of their unbelief. And Jesus always operated in faith.

So how do you stay positive in a negative world? Let's start by using these verses from Joshua.

“There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Be strong and of a good courage: for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give them. Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest” (Josh. 1:5-7).

Here the Lord was speaking to Joshua, who was taking over for Moses, a hard act to follow. The Lord told him, “Moses is dead. Now you go.” Then He told Joshua to be strong and of good courage and not to be afraid or dismayed. These are opposing forces. If you are afraid and dismayed, then you are not strong and of good courage. They counteract each other. So you’ve got to do two things and resist two things.

“There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee.” By emphasizing this, God was promising Joshua that if he would be strong and of good courage, nothing would prevent His will from being accomplished through Joshua’s life.

The Lord doesn’t automatically do things for you—He flows through you, and if you get discouraged or dismayed, you stop the process. It says in Ephesians 3:20,

“Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.”

The phrase “according to” means in proportion to, or to the degree of, the power that is working in us. God flows through people. If we become discouraged, we stop the flow of God’s power.

Here’s another example: In 1 Samuel we read the story of a terrible situation that David was facing. His father-in-law, Saul, was trying to kill him. He had been persecuted and running for his life every day for thirteen years. And now, all his possessions had been burned, his wives and all of the wives and children of his men had been taken, and his own men wanted to stone him. Not a great environment! Yet 1 Samuel 30:6 says,

“And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the LORD his God.”

Things looked bleak, David was in a situation where everything in the natural said “be discouraged and be afraid,” but David encouraged himself in the Lord. Do you know how he did it? He took the Word and began to encourage himself, and it was only a matter of hours before what God had promised him came to pass and he became king. If he would have given in at that last minute, he would have lost.

Brothers and sisters, there are a lot of people today who stand for a period of time and then quit. It’s like there are limits on how long they’re going to believe God. You might be thinking, Well, how long am I supposed to stand? The answer is simple: You stand until it works, until you’re encouraged. You just don’t ever give up.

If you say “Here’s the line. I’m only going to go this far,” I can guarantee you Satan is sharp enough to figure out where the line is and push you past that point. But when you say “I’m not quitting, ever. I’m never going to give up,” it makes a huge difference in the results you get. This is what God was telling Joshua: “Be strong and of good courage, no matter what.”

You need to recognize that Satan is using the evil and negative things of this world to discourage you, even if they are not affecting you personally. You can get discouraged watching politics, reading the newspaper, and listening to the news. If you don’t resist this, it will cause you to be discouraged and dismayed, and worst of all, your love for God will grow cold (Matt. 24:12). You have to choose to be encouraged—to encourage yourself in the Lord.

The Bible says in Isaiah 26:3 that the Lord will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are stayed upon Him because they trust in Him. Our peace is linked directly to what we think upon. We are plugged into this world like no group of Christians has ever been—reading, listening, and watching the same ungodliness as the world and then wondering why we get the same results. It’s simple: Garbage in, garbage out.

The Scripture says to Submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you (James 4:7). The classic example of failure to do this is in Numbers 13. Moses sent his men to spy out the Promised Land. The land was so prosperous that one clump of grapes had to be put on a pole and carried between two men. The report came back that it was a land flowing with milk and honey, but also that there were giants in the land.

Caleb and Joshua had a good report:

“And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it” (Num. 13:30).

But the other ten spies had a negative report:

“But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we” (Num. 13:31).

Ten out of the twelve were convinced they couldn’t do it—they saw the negative side of everything. Only two of them believed God.

Look at what happened later on, in Joshua, chapter two, after Moses had died, and the children of Israel were finally ready to enter the Promised Land. They sent two spies to Jericho to check out its defenses. A harlot named Rahab took them into her home, and here’s what she said in Joshua 2:9 and 11,

“I know that the LORD hath given you the land, and that your terror is fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you…And as soon as we had heard these things, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more courage in any man, because of you: for the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.”

When Joshua and Caleb said in Numbers 14 “their defence is departed from them” (Num. 14:9), they were right; that’s exactly what Rahab confirmed. If the Israelites would have encouraged themselves in the Lord and obeyed God, they never would have spent forty years in the wilderness, and the generation that came out of the land of Egypt would not have died in the wilderness.

Unless you have a deliberate plan to encourage yourself in the Lord, you aren’t going to be encouraged. It is not normal to be encouraged; it’s normal to be discouraged. It’s abnormal to be strong and of good courage, but it is certainly doable. God’s Word will tell you exactly how to do it. Keep on reading God's word, only true encouragement comes from Him.