What We Work Out

back to Phase 2

Week 4:  What We Work Out

The Big Question: So Now What?  (I’m “saved,” but I’m not yet in Heaven.  What am I supposed to be doing with my life?)

When we think of the word “salvation” it is easy to connect to the idea of “What We Have.”  Jesus gave us a gift when he paid for our sins on the cross.  Because of his death, burial, and resurrection, when we believe in Him we can have confidence that we are “saved.”  We have been snatched out of the darkness – out of the eternal fires of Hell.  That’s pretty cool.  It’s like we have a fire insurance card in our back pocket.  We have it, and there is nothing we can do to make it any more effective.

It is also easy to connect to the idea of “What We Hope For.”  While it may be difficult to understand what it will be like in Heaven, we can have confidence to know that it will be better than our current existence.  As we watch the horrific events on the nightly news it is easy to buy into the “hope of our salvation” that will come when Jesus returns.

Now, that leaves us with a question.  If we can’t improve what we “have” and we aren’t yet to the place that we “hope for,” then where are we now?  We are still living in a very turbulent, sin-sick world, surrounded by people and systems that do not love God and do not have our best interest in mind.  What do we do?

Allow me to make a bold statement.  I believe many Christians do not experience real joy in life because they have either forgotten or were never taught that there are actually three parts to salvation.  Part one is what we have.  Part two is what we hope for.  Part three is what we work out.  The only salvation that we have in the present moment is the salvation that we have been told to “work out.”  Many Christians have shied away from this idea because it sounds like we are supposed to work really hard so that we can earn our salvation; as if God will not love us unless we jump through the right hoops and do all the right things.  That is not the case at all.

Remember, we already “have” salvation.  We are 100% a child of God when we say, “yes” to Jesus.  What we don’t have and what we need to work out is the quality of relationship that we experience with God.  It is only when we work on our relationship with God that the joy of our salvation will begin to grow and flourish in our lives.

This week marks the beginning of the second half of this study.  In weeks 1-4 we looked at some foundational truths about the nature of things.  Those lessons were primarily passive and informational.  Beginning this week, we will look at the more practical side of things.  We will look at what we are supposed to be doing in this life and explore practical ways that we can begin doing them right now.  This week will still be a bit on the conceptual side as we lay the groundwork for the more practical weeks that follow.  Then, in weeks 6-8, you will be exposed to very practical steps that you can take to begin cultivating your relationship with God and experiencing his joy in your life.

Lesson Summary:  Once you have been “saved” it is then time to “work out your salvation.”  The purpose of this life is to grow in a relationship with God and to be continually refined and developed so that, more and more, you begin looking like your Heavenly Father.  Just like a newborn baby needs to grow, so does a person who has just been spiritually reborn.  God has given his people the Holy Spirit who lives within us in order to train us and empower us to grow in maturity.  Through a commitment to the spiritual disciplines we can “work out” and “train” each day, much like an athlete works out in order to become better at their event.  This phase of life is called Spiritual Formation, or “Sanctification”, and is the daily process of entering into a dynamic relationship with God, getting to know him better, submitting to His plan, letting Him transform you from the inside out, and seeing what kind of “fruit,” or practical work, that He wants to do through your life to make a difference in the world.  As with the development of any new habit, the early phases of spiritual formation are a great struggle between our own selfish desires and the plan that God has for us.  The journey is full of peaks and valleys.  It is sometimes joyous and wonderful and at other times hazardous and painful.  Yet, it is a journey toward a real and meaningful reconnection to the purpose for which we were created.

It’s All About Change

Today we will spend time purely in the Bible.  Ask God to use these verses to teach you what He is asking you to do.

Read Ephesians 4:11-16.  What are the leaders of the church supposed to provide for the people of the church?  What is the main objective of the church?

Read Psalm 51:10.  What is the attitude and the request being made in this Psalm?

Important Term:  In the next two verses you will find the word “transform.”  It is translating the Greek word “metamorphao” from which we get the word “metamorphosis.”  Metamorphosis is what we call the process that a caterpillar goes through when it changes into a butterfly.  In what ways can you compare the process of a caterpillar’s metamorphosis to what the following verses are teaching about the spiritual life?

Read Romans 12:1-2.  How are we to be transformed?  How would you go about doing that?

Read 2 Corinthians 3:18.  Is the transformation process a one time event?  What is it?

According to 2 Corinthians 4:16, how often does the renewal process take place?

What are we instructed to do in 2 Corinthians 7:1?

According to 2 Corinthians 5:17 what has happened to the believer?

In Colossians 3:10 what is happening to our new self?  Is it a stagnant event or ongoing?

Read Ephesians 4:22-24.  Can you detect a sequence of events, or a process, that should take place in a believer’s life?  Describe the steps.

Try to summarize these verses into one paragraph by answering this question, “Once I have been born into God’s family God expects me to…”

The Power for Change: the Holy Spirit

Read Philippians 2:12-13.  Who does the working in us to bring about change in our lives?

So far in this study we have talked about God the Father who created everything and demands justice for our sin.  We have also talked about the Son of God, Jesus, who came to pay the price for our sin and to reconcile us with the Father.  We have mentioned the Holy Spirit, but have not explained him at all.

Today we will focus in on this third, and vital, person of the Trinity.  Here’s an important point; the Holy Spirit is the key to the salvation (“what we work out”) that you currently experience.  Jesus gave us salvation – we “have it,” but we can’t see Jesus or alter what we “have.”  God the Father is who we “hope for” as we anticipate the wedding day with Him in Heaven, but we aren’t there yet.  It is the Holy Spirit that plays the active role, right now, to empower us to “work out” our salvation.

Read the following passages and see what the Holy Spirit does for us in our daily lives.  Make a running list as you read the passages.
Note:  The following list is by no means a comprehensive study on the Holy Spirit.  Think of it as a sampler plate to show you different aspects of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit was predicted way back in the Old Testament.
Read Joel 2:28-32.

Jesus promised that when he left the earth he would send the Spirit.
John 14:15-27
John 16:5-15
Acts 1:8

When the Spirit showed up, things happened.
Acts 2:1-4

Here is one example of how the Spirit worked in someone’s life
Acts 16:6-10

Paul taught about the role of the Spirit.
Romans 8:5-11
Romans 15:13
Galatians 5:16-25

Now that you have read all those passages, and have compiled your list, put it all together.  Who is the Holy Spirit and what does the Spirit do?

The Process of Change – the Analogy of Human Development

Key Word -- Relational

Read Hebrews 5:11-14.  What is the difference between an infant and a mature person?

Throughout this study we have been using two analogies to describe our relationship with God.  Today we will revisit the analogy of being born into God’s family.

We have been given new life in Christ.  That was a gift and there is nothing we could have done to make it happen.  The same is true for physical birth.  Did you ask to be born into your family?  No.  In fact, you weren’t even aware of being born into your family until a few years after the fact when you had developed the cognitive ability to grasp your own existence.  In the spiritual life, when we give our life to Jesus, we are born into God’s family and begin our journey as helpless, vulnerable, and very needy infants.  From that point on we enter into the process of growth.

We can draw a very close parallel between the natural developmental stages of a human, as it grows from child to adult, and the stages of development in our spiritual life.  Please understand that the following chart is not explicitly stated in the Bible.  Many passages – such as Hebrews 5:11-14 and Ephesians 4 – indicate that there is a maturation process from infancy to maturity, but there is no biblical author that creates a clearly defined process as I am proposing here.  However, I believe this chart is a useful model that helps us understand what happens as we grow.  This model is a synthesis of my own Biblical study, life experience, and a great deal of reading in the subject of Spiritual Formation.

There is one key point to remember about spiritual development:

There is one fundamental difference between physical and spiritual development.  While a human child will grow automatically, the human spirit will not.  Without the proper spiritual care, attention, nutrition, and exercise needed, it is possible for an individual to remain stagnant within one of the following developmental phases.  They may even regress.  Similarly, a human child may grow physically over time, but without the proper care and nutrition, they will become developmentally delayed, and, in extreme cases, psychologically scarred and dysfunctional.  Simply put…if you don’t nurture your spiritual life, it will shrivel.

As you read through these developmental stages, keep a check on your own heart and try to determine where you are right now.

Infancy

An infant is basically unaware of itself.  It is also incredibly self-absorbed and needy.  When it’s hungry, it cries.  When it’s messy, it cries.  When it’s tired, it cries.  When the parent feeds it, changes it, or sings it to sleep, it isn’t aware that an act of grace and loving kindness is being performed, nor does it have any concept of gratitude.

When we are spiritually reborn we aren’t much different.  We’ve spent our lives up to that point wandering around in the darkness and wallowing in the muck and mire of sin.  We have been shackled by the prison of selfishness and have developed habits of behavior that are incongruent with the value system of the Kingdom of God…but we don’t know it!  All we know is that Jesus loves us, that he died for us, and that he promised to get us out of this mess if we’d simply trust him.

In the infancy stage, the key word is STRUGGLE.  We struggle with sin.  The demons that enjoyed free reign in our pre-Christian life are not quick to give up their seat of privilege in our heart and will actually hit us with more intensity after we say “Yes” to Jesus.

Many times new believers have the idea that their lives will be miraculously different; that they will experience a 180 degree turn around and never be plagued with their old habits again.  A radical, overnight change does happen for a rare number, but for the vast majority of people their initial experience of being a Christian is to find themselves in messy diapers, unable to take care of themselves.

That is why it is vitally important that new believers become part of a community where they can be nurtured and cared for by older, more mature Christians.  This is called discipleship.  Having a mentor/guide/spiritual parent is very important to help a new believer grow quickly out of infancy and into the next phase of development.

Notice on the chart that shortly after spiritual birth there is a deep valley that is spanned by a bridge called “Identity in Christ.”  Spiritual warfare (being bombarded with temptation to sin) is very intense during the early phases of the believer’s lifecycle.  The only defense against the enemy’s attack, and the only true path to freedom from sin, is the truth.  We must cling to the truth that, in Christ, we have been set free, our sin has been conquered, that we have been made heirs of God’s Kingdom, and that God has declared us “not guilty” in his cosmic courtroom.

Read the following the passages to get a feel for what the spiritual life is like in this stage; Ephesians 6:10-13 and Romans 7:14-20

If you would like to learn more about this you can read the book Victory over the Darkness by Neil Anderson or visit his website at www.ficm.org.

Childhood

Eventually a child begins to walk.  When this happens her world expands greatly and she begins to learn at a rapid pace.  Yet, she still does not have the ability to process complex ideas and the subtleties of life.  The relationship between parent and child is primarily one of Rule Giver and Rule Follower.  The parent sets hard boundaries, the child tests the boundaries, and the parent enforces the boundaries.

“Don’t go near the fireplace, honey.”  She walks up, looks Dad in the eye, and touches the fireplace.  Dad swats her hand and says, “No.  I said don’t go near the fireplace.”  The slight sting on the back of the hand teaches the child that disobeying Dad and touching the fireplace is a bad idea.
Don’t misunderstand, the relationship is dripping with love and encouragement, but the boundaries have to be very concrete and black and white.  It’s the only thing a small child can understand.

In Spiritual development the same is true.  For people who have never considered having a relationship with God before, the idea of a Loving, infinite creator who desires intimacy and a dynamic love relationship is very overwhelming and incomprehensible.  Most people need to start simple and learn the basic principles of right and wrong.

The key word for this phase is OBEDIENCE.  It is for this reason that God established the Bible.  The Bible contains the clear accounts of God’s instructions for his people.  It records the history of how God dealt with his people by giving us the history of the nation of Israel.  As we observe their growth as a nation we can see the truth of this phase play out clearly.  In the early stages of Israel’s history, shortly after they were freed from slavery, God established a Law for them that was very strict, very clear, very detailed, and very directly enforced.  That’s because they were an infant society.  As the nation grew, over many centuries, they came to a point when they were ready to have the complexity and subtlety of Jesus revealed to them.  Jesus did not come to abolish the law; he came to fulfill its original intention – love, grace, and intimacy with God.  Had Jesus come to the Israelites when they were fresh out of Egypt, they would not have had the faculties to understand his complexity.

So it is with our spiritual growth.  Simply put, a new believer needs to focus in on studying the Bible, understanding God’s guidelines for right and wrong, and simply obeying God even when it doesn’t make sense.

Notice on the chart that the climber is wearing a helmet with a light on it.  The light represents the Bible.  Being still newly set free from darkness, the young believer is still heavily influenced by the pattern of thinking that comes from the world’s systems.  It is only through a diligent study of scripture, and a faithful obedience to the seemingly upside down values of God’s Kingdom, that the child will mature into adolescence.

Adolescence

Adolescence is that wonderful time between childhood and adulthood.  The adolescent’s body and intellect is nearly matured, but his experience and wisdom is just beginning to develop.  He is able to process the complexities of life and can begin asking the really deep questions that may have paradoxical answers.  Yet, he has not been exposed to the realities of the world at large and is still dependent upon parents for basic needs.  In spite of this lack of experience, he can still achieve great things and become very productive in academics, sports, and work.  Adolescence is a time of energy, enthusiasm, and productivity.

The key words for this stage are FREEDOM and FRUITFULNESS.  When we come to this stage we have grown past the simplistic rules of do’s and don’ts and are able to begin understanding grace, freedom, and the leading of the Holy Spirit.  Our experience is dominated more by the light of God’s truth than by the darkness from which we have emerged.  Here we experience the filling of the Holy Spirit in a powerful way that enables us to achieve great fulfillment and fruitfulness as we see God working in us and through us to bring about change in the world around us.  It is here that we discover our uniqueness and adventure out on the mission that God has designed for us to do.  We discover that we have an important role to play in the body of Christ (the church) and in the world as a whole.  It is a great time of freedom and real intimacy with God.

Cycles of adulthood

At this point it would seem logical that the next step would be total maturity and unity with God, and that we would call that state of being spiritual maturity.  However, if you have been studying the chart, you will notice that there is something very disturbing that lies on the brink of adulthood.

The Wall

In the last 50 years there have been an alarming number of stories in which great leaders of the church have fallen into terrible pits of sin.  How could this happen?  How can people who have experienced such effective and fruitful ministries fall away so dramatically?

I believe one reason is because the church in America has not exposed new believers to the reality of what I like to call “The Wall.”  The Christian thinkers and spiritual leaders in the Middle Ages – St. John of the Cross, Theresa of Avila, etc. – called it the “Dark Night of the Soul.”

There comes a time in everyone’s life when we need to be tested.  The teenager needs to be sent to college and thrust out into the “real world” away from the security blanket of Mom and Dad.  The self-assured business woman needs to have a child and be knee-deep in diapers.  The up-and-coming business man needs to be beat out by a competitor and realize that he is not superman.  We need to be humbled and have a “reality check.”  While this process is not easy for a parent to watch their child endure, the parent knows that it is vitally important if the child is ever going to become a self-supporting adult.

The same is true in our spiritual life.  As ironic as it may sound, many times, during great times of spiritual fruitfulness, the sin of pride and self-reliance can creep into our heart.  We can begin to believe that great things are happening because we have somehow “arrived” in our spiritual life.  Our loving Heavenly Father knows that attitudes like that will destroy us, so he allows us to experience darkness once again.

When you study the Bible you will see this over and over.  Every leader that God wanted to use had to first endure a period of darkness -- a desert experience -- before he could be truly useful for God’s Kingdom.  Moses spent forty years in the desert before he led the Israelites to freedom.  Paul spent 13 years of obscurity in Arabia before he was ever allowed to be a missionary.  Jesus spent 40 days in the desert before he was commissioned to begin his ministry.

The only time that we can truly move into maturity is after we have been humbled, taken through the barren place, and reconnected to the truth that it is God and God alone that is our source of strength and meaning.

The reason many fall away is because American Christianity tends to ignore the spiritual reality of “The Wall.”  Young Christians are taught that adolescence is actually the goal and the apex of the spiritual experience.  So, when they hit the “Wall” they are bewildered and taken completely unaware.

You have now been informed.  As you read this, you are most likely in the early phases of your development.  Please don’t be discouraged; simply be aware.  In the end, after the desert, the place of light and unity with God on the other side is truer and purer than you ever thought possible.

Phases of adulthood

There is one more thing we must discuss before we conclude today’s lesson.  Once the first “right of passage” into adulthood takes place, we then enter into a new cycle of phases.  Think about it.  Do we ever stop growing and maturing in life?  In our physical development, we experience phases of adulthood:

• Young adult
• Newlywed
• Middle aged with children
• Empty nest
• Elderly

In each phase we cycle through brokenness, enlightenment, productivity, and then brokenness again.  With each phase, hopefully, we become wiser and more able to deal with the complexity and chaos of life.  More importantly, we become more able to help those who are younger and just beginning their journey.

Ultimately we hope to reach a place of maturity that is very well described by the Apostle Paul in Philippians 4:11-13.

Where are you today on this chart?  Ask God to help you know what you can do to help progress to the next level of spiritual development.

The Dynamic of Change – the Analogy of the Marriage Relationship

Read Hosea 2:16-20.  What does God promise to the nation of Israel if they will repent and return to him?

Today we will look at the second analogy in our study.  We are engaged to be married to God.  We are in a marriage-like relationship with him, so we can learn a great deal about how to know and love God by studying how a man and woman interrelate (or how they should interrelate, that is).

Just because a man and woman have exchanged rings and made a verbal commitment to one another, it doesn’t mean that they automatically have a dynamic relationship.  Any good relationship is one that has been cultivated through time spent, intentionality, and honest communication.  The same is true with God.  God is a personality that desires to be in relationship with our personality.  He reaches our deepest need in that each one of us longs to be known deeply by another and to know another deeply.  God calls us to do this.  Yet, this knowing of God is not an automatic thing.  It is a daily, intentional process of creating space for God to reveal Himself to us and for us to communicate with Him.

Important Tools for Developing Any Relationship

In the weeks to follow we will explore specific skills to help develop a relationship with God.  Today, as a means of preparation, look at the following list of elements that need to exist in any good relationship and brainstorm on ways that you could experience these things in your relationship with God.

Quality Time Together

Every relationship needs intentionally set aside time in which all the following items can take place.  Without intentionality, the storms and chaotic business of life will choke out quality time together.

Communication Skills

We are born naturally selfish.  We want our agenda to be heard and don’t really care about the needs of others.  It takes training to be able to truly, actively listen to another person, to crawl into their perspective, and to truly understand their thoughts, feelings, and needs.  It also takes skill training to be able to clearly articulate our own thoughts, feelings, and needs in a way that is easily understandable to a person who is listening to us.  Without these skills of communication a relationship will suffer.

Communication

Knowing the skills of communication is one thing.  Implementing the skills is another matter all together.  Great knowledge with poor implementation amounts to very little.  Spending time and exercising the patience required to adequately communicate is an important element of any growing relationship.

Play

One of the key components of any relationship is the ability to let loose, be yourself, and just have good clean fun together.  Play time rejuvenates the spirit and creates special bonds in any relationship.  “All work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy”

Supportive Community

Proper relational skills are not very well demonstrated in the world.  The common world system is based upon self-centeredness.  It is very difficult to uphold a high standard when everyone around you is caving in to compromise and worldly systems of thought.  It is important for a growing relationship to be networked with other people who are striving for the same ideals and can provide encouragement, support, and accountability.

These things are true of a relationship between two humans, but they are also true for a relationship between a human and God.  I believe God instituted marriage to be a living workshop in which we can learn how to love him.
Once again, think of ways that you could develop in each of these areas in your relationship with God.  We will discuss it more next week.

The Tools for Change – Introducing Spiritual Disciplines

Read Philippians 2:12-13.  What are we commanded to do?  Who actually does it?  What, then, is our part?

Read 1 Timothy 4:7-8.  What are we to stay away from?  What are we supposed to do?  Why?

In these passages we have two key words: “work out” and “train.”  “Work out” is the Greek word “kataergozomai”  which comes from the root word “ergo,” meaning “work,” from which the word “energy” comes.  The word “train” comes from the Greek word “gymnazo” from which the word “gymnasium” comes.  When you put these two concepts together, God is basically telling us to “work out in God’s gym” if we want to grow.

Over the next two weeks we will be exploring some specific activities that we can do to help us have a strong “work out” for our spiritual lives.  These activities are traditionally called the Spiritual Disciplines.  The word discipline, in this context, does not refer to correction, but to the discipline of training in a specific skill.

We will end this week by simply exploring two analogies to help us grasp the true meaning of “work” in the area of the Spiritual Disciplines.

The WORK of a Farmer

The goal of a farmer is to grow and harvest a crop, like wheat, corn, cabbage, etc.  Ultimately, the farmer has no power in himself to make the crop grow.  That growth is the miracle of life that God has placed within the DNA of the seed.  However, the farmer does have the ability, the “energy”, to create an environment that is conducive to optimal growth for the seed.  He tills the soil, fertilizes it, waters it, weeds it, and keeps out pests.  Then he waits patiently for the miracle of life to happen.

That is how it is in our spiritual lives.  Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is like a seed.  In that seed is all the potential for an absolute, loving relationship with God.  Yet, it lies dormant within the seed.  When we say “Yes” to Jesus the seed is planted in the soil of our heart.  At that point it is up to us to put in the “work” of a farmer to create a space for the seed to grow.  Our heart is the soil and we must take time and energy to water it, fertilize it, weed it, and wait patiently for the seed to grow.  We can’t make it grow, but if we don’t tend the soil, we can be assured that it will not grow.

The WORK of an athlete

An athlete’s goal is to win the prize in her particular sport.  Let’s use running a marathon as an example.  Just because someone wakes up one day and thinks, “I want to run a marathon” doesn’t mean she will actually be able to do it.  In that moment of decision she probably would not be able to do it, even if she desired to do so.  It will take months of daily discipline to get to the point of being able to run the race.  She will have to regulate her diet, run every day, go to the gym and build muscle strength, and make sure she gets proper rest.  Without that kind of discipline, she will never run the race.

So it is in the Spiritual Life.  When we say “Yes” to Jesus we may have the desire to be godly and be in a dynamic relationship with God, but we just aren’t able to do it.  We don’t have the knowledge or spiritual stamina to fight the fight and run the race.  It will take the discipline – the work out in God’s gym – to learn about the Journey, to develop the skills for the journey, and to build up the endurance to run the course.  We cannot win the race in our own strength, but if we do not hit the gym every day we won’t even be able to get out of the starting blocks.

Key Word – Sanctification

There is one final key word.  In John 17:17 Jesus prayed for us that the Father would, “Sanctify [us] by the truth; your word is truth.”

Read 1 Thessalonians 4:3 and 2 Thessalonians 2:13.  What is God doing to the believer?

The word “sanctify” is the Greek word “hagiazo” which is the verb form of the word “hagia” which means “holy.”  In other words, to sanctify something is to make it holy.

God’s desire for us – the crop of the farmer and the prize of the athlete – is that we become holy.  To be holy is to be set apart from the crowd and set on a positive course for God’s special purposes.  God wants us to be his unique children, his loving bride, spotless and blameless, healthy and strong, able to shine the light of his glory to a world that is lost in darkness and desperately needing the hope that comes only in salvation.

The question for you today is, “How is YOUR salvation?”  You may have the seed planted in your heart, but are you “working it out,” or is it just sitting there on thorny, rocky, undeveloped soil?

Ask God to prepare your heart for next week’s study where we begin to explore the Disciplines of the Heart and learn how to grow in our relationship with God.