Spiritual Growth

By Pastor Sam Chess

I. Morphing into Spiritual Growth

Galatians 4:19 My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed (morphed) in you.

II. Ten steps toward having Christ formed in you in 2003

A) #10- Slow Down!!!!!

1) It should be instantly clear to us that living a frantic pace does not lead to deep spiritual growth..

2) Jesus didn’t hurry... and by definition you cannot move faster than the one you are following!

B) #9-- Practice solitude!

1) In times of solitude we withdraw from conversation, from the presence of others, from noise, from the constant barrage of stimulation.

C) #8 ---Rediscover Joy!

1) Joy is at the heart of God’s plan for human beings… Joy is at the heart of God Himself!

2) John 15:9,11 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

Before I move on to the next point let me add some further clarification. We’ll call this point…

III. Training vs. Trying

Trying hard can only accomplish so much….

If you are serious about being transformed if will have to involve more than trying… It will have to include training.

There is an immense difference between training to do something and trying to do something.

You will have to arrange your life around certain practices that will enable you to do what you cannot now do by willpower alone!

If you are going to try to run a marathon, all the will-power in the world won’t get you from the start line to the finish line. If you are serious about following Christ and making about having his character formed, “morphed” in you then it must involve more from your life than sitting in the spiritual couch with our spiritual Twinkies and saying; God; hit me with your power.

Sometimes we coast along until we feel like we are teetering on the edge of spiritual transformation and falling back into our own willful, sinfulness and then in desperation we cry out to God to save us from ourselves. We strain to pull our spiritual chin back up on to the curb.

Spiritual Transformation is not a matter of trying harder, but a matter of training wisely.

Spiritual depth isn’t so much determined by what I do in times of crises but in what I do in all those days leading up to the times of crises. In fact, how I respond to times of crises will be directly linked to how I trained spiritually leading up to that time.

I remember trying to tell this to my son Anthony a few years ago. Life, itself, isn’t determined by the big events of our lives. Each of our lives are defined by the choices we make each day leading up to the big events. And the same exact principle applies spiritually.

When I talk to us about the Top Ten list for spiritual growth in 2003, I’m not really giving you, just some cute suggestions. I’m giving us spiritual disciplines that if trained into our lives over the next year will transform us into totally different people

1) When I say we need to cure the hurry sickness in our lives I actually believe that our frantic pace is training something into us other than deep spirituality. I actually believe that unless we practice slowing down we will, day after day, miss those times of intimate communion with God that He uses to slowly but surely change us into his likeness.

2) If you truly allow the joy of God to seep back into your life it will deeply affect your own daily life and will affect the lives of everyone who knows you

3) When I encourage you to find planned times of solitude, I really believe that if you will do that, what will take place during that time will be the catalyst for further multiplying change as time goes on. Add further times of solitude as the year progresses and in two years your spiritual growth will be far advanced of what it would have been had you not decided to “train”.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets 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 a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I preached to others I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

Hebrews 12: 1,2 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

A) #7---- Practice Humility

The interesting thing about this word is that I can put it up there as #7 and all of us will agree with the two word statement but none of us are quite sure exactly what that means.

Probably the best way to determine what humility is, is to determine what it’s opposite is and work back from there.

The opposite of humility is pride!

Pride was at the very root of Satan’s sin, at the root of his temptation of Adam and Eve, and pride is deeply ingrained in each one of us. Pride moves us to bow before a mirror, rather than God. Pride moves us to judge other people rather than serve other people. Pride is comparative…. It always leads us to rank ourselves next to others and pushes us to better them, and then shove it in their face.

The whole essence of “morphing” into Christ-likeness is to love God and to love other people.

Pride destroys our capacity to love

Pride = Anti-love… the two are mutually exclusive… to the degree you are ruled by your pride your capacity to truly love others is proportionately lessened.

Jesus told a story about two men at prayer. The first was a tax collector. He was greedy, dishonest, probably corrupt. The second was a religious Pharisee who thanked God that he wasn’t like the sinful tax collector. Jesus said, your religion stinks,… Below your show of spirituality is a heart full of sinful pride, and you don’t even realize that your pride under the surface is an even worse sin the tax collectors surface sins.

1) Trimming off the Spiritual Fat

We consider it perfectly normal for an entertainer to shamelessly promote themselves. We would think it was odd if they didn’t.

In our culture, pride is considered a virtue. When Muhammad Ali said “I am the greatest” everyone yells yes, yes you are.

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Boxing promoter Don King was quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying, “I never cease to amaze my own self“… then he added, “I say that humbly”. Imagine how that would have sounded if he had been saying it with pride.

What a radical difference from the attitude of Jesus, the one who’s character is being morphed in you….

Matthew 11: 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

Matthew 23:11,12 The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

Matthew 20: 26-28 …whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave-- Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Jesus invites us, in fact, He expects us to live a life of humility… How do you do that??

You are to live and respond as Jesus would if he were in our place.

Humility is not about convincing ourselves or others that we don’t amount to anything. If God had wanted to make us nothing he could have done so…. He didn’t, he made us in his image!

If you are attractive and somebody tells you so; what is the humble response????

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Humility is not about denying the positive traits God has built into you. It does however involve a healthy dose of self forgetfulness.

When we really begin to progress in the humility of Jesus, we become less and less preoccupied with ourselves, our wants, our desires, our needs. When we are with others we become increasingly preoccupied with their wants, their desires, their needs.

When we are around other people, we become less and less concerned with how they can benefit us, and we start to ask ourselves how the characteristics God has morphed into us can benefit them.

Growing Christ’s humility in us brings relief… relief from the belief that the universe revolves around us. It brings the freedom to stop trying to be what we are not and accepting our positive traits as God’s provision for us to use in helping others.

2) To pursue or not to pursue….

Here is a big problem… how do you pursue humility. The temptation to pride is so present that when we pursu righteousness and succeed in finding it; we soon are tempted to fall off the wagon back into pride.

Let’s say you have a sin that been particularly persistant in your life. When I’m focusing so hard to overcome something it fills my mind. I then become more aware of others who are involved in the same sin but their not putting half the effort into overcoming that I am. What’s wrong with those people????? Don’t they have any self respect.

One of the hardest things in the world is to stop being the prodical son with turning into the older brother.

3) How do I grow in humility without becoming proud?..

1) Practice hidden service…

A) The ministry of the mundane

Force yourself to begin to work into your life acts of service for which no one will ever thank you, for which you cannot possibly hope to receive any personal benefit, but that bring some hidden benefit into the lives of others.

Richard Foster- Nothing disciplines (trains) the desires of the flesh like service, and nothing transforms the desires of the flesh like serving in hiddenness. The flesh whines against service but screams against hidden service. -Celebration of Discipline

B) Become a member of God’s “Secret Service”

The higher your “importance” quotient the greater your need is for this ministry.

C) Practice taking the “latch off the door”

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When my only task is to be available, it’s impossible to be interrupted!

D) Force your mind to think from others point of view

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Conclusion:

You’ve heard of people who are severely neurotic actually thinking they are the Messiah. All of us to one degree or another have a messiah complex; think we are something far more than we really are.

Jesus, the real Messiah, was no Superman. He did not defy his enemies while bullets bounced off his chest. The whips of the Romans drew real blood, the thorns pressed into real flesh, the nails caused mind numbing pain, the cross led to actual physical death. Through it all he bore with them, forgave them, loved them to the end.

Strangely, the only one in the universe that didn’t suffer from some level of the Messiah complex was…. The Messiah Himself. And he is the one who has promised to form… morph… his character in you!