Rev. Dr. Brent Russett – Asbury Free Methodist
October 9, 2022
Ephesians 4:17-5:2
Thanksgiving weekend is an opportunity to be reminded to give thanks. We have celebrated God and his goodness in our lives this morning. I am going to continue our series on spiritual formation: how God transforms us. In it, we will see much to give thanks for. I am thankful that God takes us where we are, but he doesn’t want to leave us where we are. He helps us to enter into this process of being changed.
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You heard the scripture read. Put off falsehood and speak truthfully. Don’t sin in your anger. Don’t steal but work so you can share with those in need. Your talk is meant to benefit those who listen.
Ephesians 4:31–32 (NIV)
31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
That is transformation. That is change. Maybe you have felt the need for change. You see your life or an area of your life, and you know that it needs to be transformed. How do we go from where we are to where both God and we want us to be?
What you need to know is that change does not usually happen overnight. Could God snap his fingers and make us instantly spiritually mature? Sure. But he doesn’t choose to. It is in the process of growth that you learn about who he is and who you are, and your faith in him develops and grows.
This morning I want to start to describe the process of transformation. This week and next week will be joined together to build one picture of the stages of spiritual growth.
I am going to try to describe the stages of spiritual growth on two levels. I want to describe the overall journey, but I also want to describe how God uses these stages in different areas of our life.
I am going to map it out in four stages. This could be broken out into seven stages. However, I think I will look at the big picture with four stages. These are the classic stages of spiritual formation.
Awakening
Renunciation and Cleansing
Illumination and Aliveness
Deep union
Let’s start with Awakening. That will be as far as we get today.
Jesus was preaching the sermon on the mount, and this is what he said:
Matthew 7:13–14 (NIV)
“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
Here is what you need to know. There are many paths to get to the gate, but there is only one gate by which you can enter the new life. Some of you searched for a good long while. Some of you, like me, had your parents point you toward the gate. Sometimes hardship and trouble drive us toward the gate. The Spirit of God is constantly nudging us toward the gate. But you must pass through the gate in order to enter this new life.
This morning we will be celebrating communion. We will be remembering the cross of Christ. The cross is what the gate is made of. This gate leads to life. It leads us into the Kingdom of God. It is the way into abundant life.
The gate is not a church door or a religious door. The Bible describes the gate as narrow. The gate is Jesus Christ himself and what he has done.
To enter into this new life, we need to come through Jesus. That means humbling ourselves and admitting that we have sinned and broken God’s laws and that we want a relationship with God, but we can’t do it on our own. We need Jesus to perform a miracle on our behalf. We need him to take away our sin and give us new life.
What we find on the other side of the gate is new life. The Bible describes us as moving from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. We are moving into the King’s territory, where he rules, and things are different.
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We go through the gate that is Jesus, and in doing so, we commit ourselves to follow Jesus. We put our lives in his hands.
. You can do that by simply praying, “Jesus, come into my life, forgive me of my sin. I chose to follow you.” If you pray a prayer like that in faith, Jesus walks you through the gate into a new life.
There are many labels for the walk through the gate. Becoming a Christian, being saved, being born again, but the label I want to use today awakening.
This awakening can be gradual or radical. I can take place through an extraordinary experience or an everyday event.
But there are two parts to this awakening. There is this
- encounter with God, and then there is
- this encounter with ourselves.
Remember Isaiah, in Isaiah chapter 6. He had this vision of heaven, and he saw the Lord high and lifted up. What was his response? I am a sinner. I am a man with unclean lips and live amongst a people of unclean lips.
You step through this gate, and there is a whole new way of being. You see who God is, and you see who you are. This may come immediately or take some time. But there are normally two emotions that go with it. There is
- Comfort
- Threat
When you see who God there is a great sense of comfort. You see that God is love. He is on your side. You see that he wants you, and you belong to him. You start to understand a little about grace. It is not about what we have done but what God has done for us. We don’t deserve this new life, but it is a gift freely given. There is a great sense of comfort in that.
On the other hand, it is not uncommon to feel threatened. You see your true self, and the picture isn’t pretty. When you compare yourself to others, you may or may not feel ok about who you are. But when you encounter God and see him for who he is, and then you see yourself in light of who he is, you know that things have to change. But you are not sure that you want them to change.
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The reality is that many of us come to God. When you see what God wants, his goal is to have a deep loving relationship with you. But usually, at this stage, we feel like God is means to my lifelong desire for security and happiness. God is going to help make me happy. Life is about me and what I want – and God will help me get it.
Most likely, our lifestyle is largely reflective of the world’s agenda. Our schedule, time, and money are all built around family work and entertainment. We can’t see how God relates to any of these. There is sin, but they don’t really think about it as sin. How we treat people, the people we are in relationship with, and how we treat ourselves are often divorced from the fact that we have come into a relationship with Jesus.
But there is an awakening, and it is comforting, and it feels threatening at the same time. Over time we get this sense that things have to change.
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Let me talk to those of you who are around those who are just awakening to life in Christ. Here is what you need to know, it is really messy.
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Come with me to 1 Corinthians and overlook Paul’s frustrations with Corinthian church and look at what he has to say about being infants in Christ.
1 Corinthians 3:1–4 (NIV)
3 Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. 2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. 3 You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings?
This tells us something about people who are “mere infants in Christ.” They are not living by the Spirit. They need a special diet because they cannot handle all of God’s truth. They are still worldly. They are reacting to situations as they have always reacted to situations. There is jealousy, and there is quarrelling, and they are taking sides on issues that shouldn’t have a side. Paul’s the best, Apollos is the best- when the reality is that our faith is all about Jesus.
These people are messy to be around, but we all must start somewhere.
It would be pretty crazy for parents to say to their baby, you smell; I’m not going near you. It would be pretty crazy of the church to look at Newborn infants in Christ and say you smell; I’m not going near you. But I have seen it done before. Not in this church, but I have seen it done.
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I love being around new Christians, but it can be awkward.— If before you became a Christian, your coping mechanism when things went wrong was to go out and get drunk. After you become a Christian and things go wrong, your coping mechanism is still going out and getting drunk – and then you call your pastor. – Awkward conversation. But we all have to start somewhere.
There are some real challenges and severe dangers in this part of the spiritual journey.
The fact that they have changed sides and gone from the kingdom of darkness and come into the kingdom of light — you know that the enemy of our souls is going to try to destroy their faith.
Temptations are rampant. Some of those temptations come from the enemy of our souls, other comes from our own desires, and some come from the social network we are in that doesn’t want us to change. What we value is in flux. We used to value what the world values, but God is giving us a different love.
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Shame is often a real factor in this stage of the spiritual life. They start hanging out with Christians, and they look like things are going well, and yet they are still trying to figure out how to think of themselves in light of who they were and who they are.
Yet, at the same time, often, there is something good and wonderful happening on the inside. People love Jesus. They feel themselves coming alive. There is this wonder that God loves them. They are getting new insight into what this new spiritual life means.
Let me talk to those of you who are at this stage right now. I am so glad that you have chosen to follow Jesus. I want you to know that you can’t make yourself grow, but there are ways to cooperate with God that will help you to grow.
Think of your spiritual life as a plant. If a plant is fed the right stuff and watered the right way, it will grow unless of course, you put too much poison into the pot. Your spiritual life will grow if it is fed and if you don’t poison it too much. You don’t have to force yourself to grow. You just have to cooperate with God. Learn to talk to God. We call that prayer. Get to know Jesus by reading the New Testament in the Bible. You can trust God to show you what is your next step in your spiritual life.
You know you are coming through this stage of awakening when giving your life to Jesus has become more than an experiment. You have become convinced that God’s way is the right way. You are going to choose to follow him, not just as an experiment, but as a way of life. You know it might get hard at points, but you also know that it is right and good and that it is the way to life. That is Awakening.
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Now let me talk to those of you who have been with Jesus for a long time. You can remember back to how you gave your heart to the Lord. That is a wonderful thing to do – especially on a Thanksgiving Sunday. We will remember again as we celebrate communion together.
But remember when I said that this isn’t just about your overall spiritual life. This awakening can be about areas of your life.
You may have come through this initial stage twenty years ago. But if you are following God, there will be other times of awakening. You have come through the gate, yet there are areas of your life that have yet to be touched by God’s transforming power.
There comes a time in our lives when we are touched by the power of God, and we are convicted of a particular area of our lives. We have this encounter with God and this encounter with ourselves. God shows us something that needs to be transformed.
Maybe it is how we talk to others, or maybe it is an area of unforgiveness, or maybe it is an area of purity. Maybe it is going back in your life to something that has never been dealt with in your life, and yet it is affecting your life now.
You have this encounter with God, and you see yourself. It can be both comforting and threatening. It is comforting because we see God at work in our lives, and most of us have come to understand that God is for us and wants what is good for us. It is threatening because we have to change. The chances are that if whatever God is calling you to change has been with you for a while, it is rooted deep. You know that change will be challenging.
But here is the good news. You are not left to your own devices. It is not all about your own willpower. If God is calling you to do something, then he is going to give you the power to do something. Your job will be figuring out how to cooperate with God.
Awakening is just the first step of transformation. Next week we will look at the other stages
Awakening
Renunciation and Cleansing
Illumination and Aliveness
Deep union
In all these things, there is God’s side and your side. God will only do what you allow him to do. He does not force himself on you. He walks with you, inviting you into real, true abundant life. The question is, will you join him on this journey.