Spiritual Formation – Part 5
By Rev. Dr. Brent Russett Asbury Free Methodist
October 16, 2022 – Galatians 5:13-26
I wish that the older we became, the more spiritually mature we would become. I wish it were automatic. But life doesn’t work that way. That is why I want to talk to you about the stages of spiritual growth. I want to encourage you to grow up to maturity in Christ.
When I was kid, they used to give out pins if you had a perfect attendance in Sunday School. I got one of those pins – which, of course, had more to do with parents getting me to Sunday School than it had to do with me. My parents should have been awarded the pin. There were a few others who were awarded pins that day, but I am not sure if they are even still walking with the Lord. Perfect attendance at church doesn’t make you spiritually mature. I hope it helps, but it isn’t a foregone conclusion.
There was an old minister named Vance Havner. He used to say if we put people in Sunday School classes based on their spiritual maturity, that there would be a lot of 60-year-olds sitting on those small chairs in the grade one class.
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This morning I want to talk about the stages of spiritual Formation. I want to paint a pathway so that you can see where you are and see where you are going. Last week we looked at the first stage – awakening. This week we are going to cover the last three stages – Renunciation and Cleansing, Illumination and Aliveness and then Deep Union.
These stages not only describe our overall spiritual journey, but they can describe what God takes us through in different areas of our lives.
You might remember from last week that there are two parts to awakening. There is an encounter with God and an encounter with ourselves. We see God for who he is – his love, his goodness, his grace, but we also see ourselves for who we are – and it is not a pretty picture.
There are two emotions that come with this encounter. There is comfort, for God loves me right where I am. But there is also a threat. God is calling me to change – and change is hard. You know when you are getting close to the end of this stage when the Christian life becomes more than just an experiment. You decide that Jesus’ way is the best way, and you are going to choose to follow him.
The song that these people sing is
I have decided to follow Jesus
I have decided to follow Jesus
I have decided to follow Jesus
No turning back, no turning back.
That is where we get launched into Stage 2.
Renunciation and Cleansing
You heard the scripture read this morning.
Galatians 5:16–17 (NIV)
16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.
In this stage of spiritual growth, we bring our behaviours and attitudes and desires into increasing harmony with our growing understanding of what it means to be Christlike.
There are different phases to this stage of spiritual growth. It is like a farmer preparing a previously untilled piece of and for planting or a gardener preparing to plant a huge garden.
The first thing that he or she does is go over the field, removing the big rocks. These are the blatant sins in our lives. The fathers and mothers of the faith used to talk about these as the gross sins.
We read about some of those in our scripture reading
Galatians 5:19–21 (NIV)
19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.
When you first become a Christian, God goes through your life and, in cooperation with you, removes the big rocks.
The next phase of clearing the field is God in cooperation with us, going through our lives and removing the big stones. These are things that might be acceptable in culture but are not acceptable scripturally. Or they may even be things that are biblically acceptable but are wrong for you.
Given your internal wiring, God may convict you of watching particular programs or movies that you know other Christians are watching. He may convict you of how you spend your time or your money.
In Romans 14, the apostle Paul deals with eating meat. Some people were eating meat, and others were eating only vegetables. This didn’t have anything to do with being a vegetarian. When people bought meat at the Roman market, they couldn’t be sure if it had been sacrificed to an idol before they bought it or not.
Paul basically says you need to be guided by your conscience and don’t condemn those who come out at different place on those particular issues.
People, there will be those things that God calls you away from or towards that he doesn’t call others of his people away from or towards. First, don’t judge others. Make sure what you are doing is not harming the faith of others. But do what God is calling you to do. You see, he is removing the stones from your particular life.
Galatians 5:16–18 (NIV)
16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
This isn’t about something that is legalistic. This is something that God is leading you into or out of. I knew people who were saved out of the whole sex, drugs and rock and roll of the seventies. They couldn’t listen to any rock music because it brought them back in their mind to before they were saved, and it stirred passions that should not have been stirred – and so they couldn’t listen to a particular kind of music. That is God removing the stones of their particular field.
You may be at this particular phase right now. Here is my word to you.
Galatians 5:25 (NIV)
25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
There is another phase of this particular stage. Sometimes the family cultures from our past or the wounds of our past shape ungodly and unhealthy responses in the present. God wants to reshape those mental structures and heal those wounds.
If you grew up in a family that was racist, or overly critical, or emotionally toxic – those things probably influenced how you think in an ungodly way. If you grew up in a family where you didn’t receive the good that you should have, or you were exposed to the bad that you shouldn’t have been exposed to – then the chances are that you will need to relearn and heal. That is part of what goes on in this stage.
All of us have those kinds of things in our lives. Sometimes we are on our spiritual journey for a long time before God brings up some of those things. But God is looking to create in you a beautiful garden.
I grew up on a farm. I remember once my dad sent me over to a certain field to disk the land. Everything was going well until I went a little to close to this wet spot and got stuck in the middle of the field. I was really stuck. It took a while for me to get unstuck.
That happens in our lives as well. It seems like our spiritual life is going well – and then we hit a bog. God not only wants us to avoid the bog; He wants to dry it up so it is a healthy part of the garden as well.
The song we tend to sing during this stage is
Little by little, Day by Day
Little by little, in every way
My Jesus is changing me
Since I made a turn about-face,
I’ve been growing in his grace
My Jesus is changing me.
Let’s move on to the next stage of Spiritual growth.
Illumination and Aliveness
As with the other stages, this one has different phases as well. The first phase is total consecration. Rather than my being in charge of my relationship with God – God is given absolute control in the relationship.
You see, up until this point, there was a decision to be made at every new rock and every new stone. You felt the call to do something different or to change something, but you know it would be easier not to do something. You finally make a choice, yes God, you and I will move this rock or will move this stone – and you do. The next stone comes up and there is this decision-making process that comes up gain.
When you get to this stage of Illumination and Aliveness – we come to understand anew that God’s way is the best way. We come to the point where we say this isn’t my field, my garden, my life anymore – it’s yours God.
I think this is part of what Roman 12:1 means
Romans 12:1 (NIV)
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
It depends on what tradition you grew up in as to how this was described. Some talked about total consecration. Others talked about making Christ Lord of all of your life. Other preachers were asked the question, “Is your all on the altar.” Whatever we label it, it is about saying yes to God, before he even asks the question. Total consecration.
That is our part. There is usually another phase that comes right after this. God responds by giving us a fresh filling of his Spirit. Whole new denominations have been found over the description of this experience. Some thought you had experience it this in a particular way. But God tends to deal with us differently, so we will have different kinds of experiences. There is not a whole lot of point in arguing over labels.
D.L. Moody described it as “before it was like I was carrying buckets of water, but now I have a river that is carrying me. Free Methodists would talk about sanctification. However you label it, it is you are totally given to God, and God makes you more fully alive.
Back to our illustration – The gospel has been planted. The rocks and stones have been removed. We have been growing. Our spiritual lives have been maturing. But we now have transferred ownership of the field to Jesus, and it is like he pours “miracle grow” on everything. Things become greener and more fully alive than ever before.
Worship and prayer become natural outflows of just living our lives. God is experienced in all things. We trust God with ourselves, and there is something good that happens in that.
Does this mean that we won’t find any rocks or stones or bogs that need to be dealt with? Quite the opposite. Now God has permission to restore the broken things in a way that he never could before you consecrated yourself to him.
There is a curious outflow from all of this. People who are here often become concerned for the broken and the lost of society. There is this increasing social concern. It is not done out of obligation but a deep sense that God has poured his love into us for others.
The primary temptation in this stage is pride and self-righteousness. We think that, somehow, we have arrived. You can usually tell when someone has fallen to this particular temptation – they show false humility, and they virtue signal rather than just being virtuous. They complain about the little things and lose patience with those who they view as less mature.
In short, after becoming alive, their own pride poisons the garden, and they end up pretending the garden is lusher than it is.
It tells you about the temptations because you need to know that wherever you are on your spiritual journey, it is possible to travel backwards.
But for those who are willing to fully consecrate their lives to God and experience the aliveness that comes from God – their lives do not become idyllic, but they become good.
The song that most represents these people, at least at the start, is
All to Jesus I surrender,
All to him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust him,
In his presence daily live.
Refrain:
I surrender all,
I surrender all,
All to thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all
The last stage of spiritual growth is called deep union.
I have a bucket list. I want to drive from Vancouver to California on a motorcycle. There are places in the world I want to see. But I have a spiritual bucket list as well. There are places I haven’t been to and experiences I haven’t had that I aspire to in this life. Deep union with Christ is at the top of that list. I tell you that because I want you to know that what I am talking about next is beyond where I am, but it is where I am heading by the grace of God.
I kind of feel like the Apostle Paul when halfway through his ministry, he wrote to the church in Philippi and said
Philippians 3:10–12 (NIV)
10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. (Catch this)
12 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.
The destination of our journey is to enter into a deep love relationship with God. I am calling deep union.
In some ways, it is the maturing of stage three, where we consecrate our lives to God, and he responds by filling us with his love.
But there is a deeper work to be done. There is this posture of yieldedness. Watching a person who is living in this way is like watching a musician playing an instrument where she or he has complete mastery and control. Their lives harmonize with the purposes of God in this world.
In this stage, God is taking a person’s spiritual life profoundly deeper than it has been before. Oftentimes, according to those who have walked this way, God will lead them into a time that can be described as a dark night of the senses.
In the previous stage, we experienced real aliveness from the Spirit of God. In this stage, there is a phase where we experience nothing. God says, will you trust me even if you don’t sense me. Will you trust me even if you don’t know me the way you thought you did?
This stage can be heart-rending. God, where are you. Now some us have gone through this where we have had stuff in our lives that we refused to deal with. Then we wonder where God is. This is different. We are fully surrendered to God – and yet he seems to be absent.
But in this stage, as God breaks us from the intellectual and emotional dependencies, we learn deeply what it means when God says, “The just will live by faith.” In this time, we may feel what Jesus felt on the cross when he said, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.” That is a quote from Psalm 22.
Yet even in this, The destination of our journey is to enter into a deep love relationship with God. God is in the process of removing the space between him and us where the union is complete and unobstructed.
The old mystics report coming out of this with a sometimes-quiet contemplative prayer and deep union. Sometimes, they experience ecstatic experiences. But they become lives deeply integrated with the life of God.
I am not sure that there is any song that best describes this – because here, there is rest and quietness.
Conclusion
I don’t know where you are at in your spiritual journey. Maybe you are just awakening to the things of God. Or maybe you are in this time of renunciation and cleansing. God is going through and removing the rocks and removing the stones and draining the bogs. Maybe you are in a place of total consecration. I suspect that that is where many of us are headed. There are some of you who are moving towards deep union with him.
I want to say this to you. Don’t stop. Don’t turn back. Don’t sit down and become comfortable. Keep going. I don’t care how old you are; keep going. If you are young, keep going.
The destination of our journey is to enter into a deep love relationship with God. Keep heading there.
Let me leave you with one last exhortation, – one last encouragement. It is the general answer to the question how? How do we keep on moving forward?
Galatians 5:25 (NIV)
Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.