9 Growth
You will never cease to be the most amazed person on earth at what God has done for you on the inside.
OSWALD CHAMBERS8
If someone asked you what the two most important questions you could ask were, what would you answer? If you are God’s child, there may be no more important questions than these two:
What in the world is God doing right here, right now?
And how in the world should I respond to it?
How would you answer these questions, and how would your answer shape the way you think about God, yourself, life, what is important, and what you should daily give yourself to?
Because Sharon didn’t answer these questions well, she was perennially depressed. Since Joe didn’t answer these questions well, he spent much of his life angry. Since Joslynn didn’t answer these questions well, her heart was constantly eaten by envy. Because Frank didn’t answer these questions well, he was all too driven by material success. Since Judy didn’t answer these questions well, she was entirely too focused on what others thought of her. Brad never answered these questions well, and as an old man, he looked back on his life with bitterness and regret.
Sharon, Joe, Joslynn, Frank, Judy, and Brad were all believers, but they all lived dissatisfied lives, thinking that somehow the good life had passed them by. They were all confused by God’s promises. They all wondered why he hadn’t come through for them, and each of their stories was a narrative of an ever-weakening faith. They never really understood God’s agenda between the “already” and the “not yet,” and because they didn’t, their faith didn’t rescue, encourage, protect, comfort, or guide them. Their faith was relegated to the “spiritual/religious” part of their lives but never became the overarching lifestyle that gave sense and meaning to all they did.
I think thousands of people remain in the same place as my friends. God confuses them, Christianity confuses them, living by faith confuses them, grace confuses them, and so their walk with God is very different from what they imagined it would be. Between the “already” of their new birth and the “not yet” of their final home going, they were gloriously forgiven and lavishly loved by God, but sadly, they lived like lost souls. They simply never understood or got on God’s agenda. Their Christianity lived most vibrantly on Sunday, but it was more a formal religious habit than a radical new way of living. None of them talked much about their faith to others because they just didn’t have much spiritual enthusiasm to share. I often wonder how many truly forgiven people live like lost souls, wandering through their Christian life like someone in a strange city with no map or GPS. I wonder how many truly forgiven people are lost in their job, lost in their marriage, lost in parenting, lost in their pile of possessions, lost in their pursuit of success—forgiven, but lost in the journey between the “already” and the “not yet.”
What is God doing right now? Well, if justification is an event that secures our forgiveness and acceptance with God, then sanctification is a process that works the radical transformation of our hearts. This lifelong process of radical personal heart and life transformation is the Redeemer’s focused zeal between the “already” and the “not yet.” Justification is God’s totally complete work to purchase your forgiveness. Sanctification is God’s ongoing work to change and grow you.
You see, God hasn’t promised you a good job or great kids. He hasn’t promised you an easy marriage and a comfortable place to live. He hasn’t promised you physical health and a good church to attend. He hasn’t promised that you would experience affluence and be surrounded by things that entertain you. What he has promised is that he will complete the work that he has begun in you. And if you’re honest, you will admit that you exhibit empirical evidence every day that you still need to change. Maybe that’s seen in a moment of irritation, pride, impatience, envy, lust, greed, or doubt. Maybe it’s seen in an act of rebellion, vengeance, or harsh and unkind words. Maybe it’s seen in cheating a little on your taxes, slightly bending the truth as you tell a story, or going to a website that you shouldn’t visit. Maybe it’s seen in subtle racism or in hoarding blessings that you should share. Maybe it’s anger in traffic or impatience in the line at the convenience store. But it’s there and you know it, evidence that you are not yet all that God in his grace can make you. You and I may be satisfied with who we are, but God isn’t satisfied and will not quit until his work is done.
At this point you may be thinking, “Paul, this all makes sense, but I’m confused as to what it has to do with a book on the awe of God.” Permit me to explain.
What Sin Does to All of Us
You’ll never understand what God is doing right here, right now until you understand what sin does to the way that your heart functions. We all know that sin makes all of us lawbreakers, but many of us miss the fact that sin does something much more foundationally destructive in our hearts. Sin makes all of us awe breakers.
A verse in 2 Corinthians 5 explains this concept of being an awe breaker. It says that Jesus lived and died so that “those who live might no longer live for themselves” (v. 15). Here’s what this powerful little phrase means: people whose every thought, desire, word, and action was meant to be motivated and shaped by awe of God, exchange awe of God for awe of self. It’s not just that sin makes us rebels and fools. It’s not just that sin makes us want to write our own laws. No, sin does something more fundamental to each of us. Sin captures and redirects the motivational system of our hearts. In a practically life-shaping way, sin changes how our hearts operate. Paul is talking here about two opposite perspectives on life. In one, the heart is filled with a vision of what I want for me and my little world; in the other, the heart is filled with wonder at who Christ is and what he has done. Each is driven by awe, either awe of personal glory or awe of the glory of Christ. Though we were created to be moved by the awe of God, sin causes our hearts to be moved by the small, individualistic agenda of awe of self. Because we break God’s awe design, we then proceed to break God’s law design. Let me say it as clearly and practically as I can. Because of sin, awe of God is very quickly replaced by awe of self.
What this means is that we don’t think, desire, purpose, want, or plan as we should. We want our will to be done. We want the freedom to do what we want to do when we want to do it. We want our lives to be comfortable and our days predictable. We want the people around us to appreciate, indulge, and serve us. We don’t want people to disagree with us or tell us that we are wrong. We want affluence without hard work, and we want to do what pleases us without consequences. Sin leaves us tragically broken at the deepest of motivational levels, that is, at the level of our capacity for awe.
Now when God draws you to himself, you are completely forgiven and unconditionally accepted by him, but the battle for the awe of your heart continues. Yes, your heart is now awake to God’s glory in a way it has never been, but you still have awe conflict inside. There are still huge motivational battles to be won. This war for awe is really what the lifelong process of change for the Christian—sanctification—is all about. It’s not just about learning the correct theology and the right rules. If all we needed were theology and rules, the earth-invading person and work of Jesus simply wouldn’t have been necessary. Sanctification is really about the grace of God doing for us what we can’t do for ourselves: recapture our awe for God and God alone.
Spiritual growth is about recapturing your awe. The more that the awe of God rules the motivation systems of your heart, the more you will love his kingdom and find pleasure in his work and satisfaction in doing his will. Romans 12:2 talks of being “transformed by the renewal of your mind.” There it is. The mind is where change needs to take place. If grace does not transform my motivation, it will not alter my living.
God Battles for Your Awe
Since you are unable to run from or change your heart, you must depend on God’s powerful, transforming grace to do for you what you cannot do for yourself. God knew that, and that’s why he didn’t just forgive you. That forgiveness is a wonderful thing, but he did something else so amazing and mysterious that it is almost impossible to get it inside our finite little brains: he sent his Spirit to live inside you. His Spirit does battle with your flesh. Since this battle rages deep within the motivational system of your heart, it must be fought from the inside out. Knowledge is wonderful but not enough. Rules are incredibly helpful, but they lack the power to do what needs to be done. Sin has kidnapped your awe and put you in the center of your awe, where God alone should be.
Paul tells the Corinthian Christians to “be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20). Now what does that mean? If they’re believers, aren’t they already reconciled to God? Well, in this passage, Paul uses the term reconciliation in two ways. First is the positional reconciliation of justification. On the basis of Christ’s work, I have been reconciled to God, that is, accepted into his presence and adopted into his family. But Paul uses reconciliation in another way: the reconciliation of sanctification. Here it is: to the degree that my capacity for awe is ruled or controlled by something or someone other than God, to that degree I need to be further reconciled to God. That’s the war of sanctification. It is a war of reconciliation. It is a war to reclaim my awe for God and God alone.
Thankfully, you and I don’t fight that war alone. Look at what Paul says to the Galatian believers: “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do” (Gal. 5:16–17). You see, spiritual growth is about the recapture of your thoughts, desires, and motivations, which depends on the recapture of your awe. The goal is that you and I would no longer live for ourselves but live joyfully and willingly for God. We pursue and participate in the work of the Spirit as he works inside us to liberate us from our bondage to ourselves.
The Recapture of Your Awe at Street Level: A Portrait
Galatians 5 actually presents two awe portraits. Each gives a picture of how what controls your awe controls your living. The first portrait depicts the lifestyle of an awe breaker. Remember that sin causes all of us to become awe thieves. We take the awe that was meant to cause us to worship God and direct it toward ourselves. We put ourselves where God alone was meant to be, making our lives all about us. Now that doesn’t mean that when you’re living for yourself, you will do all the things described in Galatians 5, but these are the kinds of things that result when awe of God is replaced by awe of self.
Portrait #1: “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal. 5:19–21). This list is very helpful and instructive. Notice what unifies all these sin words: self. These are the kinds of things you fall into when, at the deepest level of the motivational system of your heart, you are living for you.
For example, when awe of self has replaced awe of God (i.e., when you are living for you), you will find it very hard to say no to you. You will find it very hard to stay inside the moral boundaries that someone else has set for you. So it will be difficult for you to harness your desire for personal pleasure, and you’ll be a sitting duck for sexual immorality and impurity. Your living will be morally shaped more by your physical senses and pleasure than by moral commitments. Because personal pleasure will mean too much to you, you will ask it to do for you what it cannot do, going back again and again for more and soon finding yourself addicted to what you thought you could control (drunkenness). Because you are living for you, you will find it hard to deal with the reality that others have what you don’t (jealousy, envy). And because awe of self has replaced awe of God, you will be mad at anything or anyone who happens to get in the way of what you want. You’ll be better at making war than peace (enmity, fits of anger, rivalries, strife, dissensions).
You see, all the dark, sad brokenness in the human community that results in such hurt, pain, disillusionment, and disappointment is rooted in a deeper brokenness. Sin is profoundly larger than simply doing the wrong things. Behavioral sin grows out of the malfunctioning, corrupted motivational system of the heart. You simply cannot live for yourself and stay inside God’s boundaries. You cannot live in a greater awe of you than of God and live the way God designed you to live.
Here’s the point of this portrait: because we are all sinners, this kind of living is intuitive and natural for us. Have you ever lived a conflict-free week? Do you ever get jealous of someone or envious of another’s blessing? Have you ever struggled to harness your desire for the pleasures of sex, food, or drink? Have you ever brought strife into your life because you said or did something that was unloving or unkind? If we were honest, we would have to say that this list describes every single one of us. It is a shockingly accurate portrait of the life of every sinner. Why? Because sin makes all of us awe breakers. We all put ourselves in God’s place. We all enthrone ourselves in the center of our worlds. All sinners forget God and crown themselves, and what follows is massive moral and interpersonal dysfunction. This is not a here’s-how-the-bad-guys-live list. No, this is a what-sin-does-to-all-of-us list.
Portrait #2: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal. 5:22–24). Now what holds all these beautiful character qualities together? They all result from living for something bigger than you. This portrait shows how a person’s street-level living is transformed when the motivational system of his or her heart begins to be ruled by awe of God rather than awe of self. The agenda that drives every one of these things is bigger than personal pleasure and control.
Let me comment on what this list represents. These character qualities are not moral goals for you to achieve. You and I have no independent ability to produce these things in ourselves because we have no capacity for changing the motivational direction of our hearts. Even though God, in amazing grace, has forgiven us, too many of the things in the previous list still plague our lives. We still desperately need to grow. The clue to the nature of this character list lies in its identification as the “fruit of the Spirit.” These things are just not natural for us. They only ever result from the powerful transforming presence of the Spirit of God in our hearts. He comes to reside within our hearts to do in and for us the one thing we can’t do for ourselves: reclaim the motivational system of our hearts for God and God alone. The gospel is that Jesus not only died for your forgiveness but also died for your growth and transformation. Jesus died so that between the “already” and the “not yet,” we would progressively become people that this portrait displays. And you and I need grace for this transformation as much as we needed grace for our initial acceptance with God.
Look at the list and consider with me how reclaiming awe leads to transformed lives. What keeps us from loving others? Isn’t it always love of self that gets in the way of a consistent and practical love for others? Here’s the point: only people who keep the first great commandment will ever keep the second great commandment. Only when God is in his rightful place will others be in the appropriate place in my heart and life. Only when I love God above all else will I ever love others as myself.
How about joy? The DNA of joy is gratitude. When I am living in self-focused, demanding entitlement, I will find it very hard to be joyful. I will find endless reasons to complain. But if I am living in awe of God’s existence, sovereignty, and grace, coupled with a knowledge of the depth of my own need, I will find reasons to be thankful all around me. And as I do, I will live with the constant joy of gratitude.
Or think about peace. Why do I have so much conflict in my life? Why is it easier for me to make war than peace? The answer is simple: I tend to live for myself, and as I do, I find that people are always in my way. But when my motivations change and I am living for God and not for myself, I quit making everything about me. I quit personalizing things that aren’t personal. I am willing to overlook minor offenses, and I live in a more peaceful community with others.
How about patience? Do you know why few of us like to wait? We don’t like to wait because waiting immediately reminds us that we are not in charge. Nothing more quickly offends our delusions of self-sovereignty than being forced to step out of our own schedules and wait for another. Think about it. You have never gotten angry because you have had to wait for you! Only when my heart is progressively in awe of the agenda of One vastly greater and wiser than me will I surrender my schedule to him and be willing to wait for others.
None of the words in this second portrait pictures a behavior; rather, each represents a character item that will result in a whole catalog of behaviors. And the progressive presence of this kind of character in your life develops in response to the Holy Spirit’s progressive reclaiming of the motivational system of your heart, that is, your capacity for awe. The Spirit works within you to complete the work of Christ so that “those who live might no longer live for themselves” (2 Cor. 5:15). He is working at the deep motivational (awe) level, which is why Paul says that we “have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal. 5:24). Yes, your heart was crucified with Christ so that a new heart could live within you. Right here, right now the Holy Spirit who lives inside you is completing that work as he increasingly kills your awe of self and, by grace, plants within you a life-altering awe of God.
You can’t do that work of awe reclamation on your own. You desperately need grace. But you and I are called to treasure that work and to pursue and participate in it in any way we can. And we are called to humbly admit our need and again and again run to the grace that stands as our only hope of personal growth and change.
Restoring the proper function to any dysfunctional thing only happens when the power of change is applied to its brokenness. The spiritual growth of progressive sanctification concerns something vastly deeper than a greater allegiance to God’s rules. It requires God working to fix what sin has broken, and that brokenness exists in our hearts. Only when awe of God progressively replaces awe of self will we joyfully, willingly, and consistently live as God designed us to live. And for the reclaiming of the motivational system of each of our hearts, we have been given amazing, powerful, zealous, unending, and transformative grace.