Helping People Find Their Spiritual Growth

DENVER, CO (January 26, 2010) – There is no cookie cutter approach to individual spiritual growth – it is not something that can be mass-produced, but rather must be handcrafted for each individual.

That in essence is the core of this morning’s message to hundreds of Evangelical Covenant Church pastors gathered for the annual Midwinter Pastors Conference, delivered by well-known author and speaker John Ortberg, who serves as senior pastor at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in California.

“Why do we all go into the work we are doing?” he asked in describing the multitude of reasons people enter ministry. “There are so many things to handle – all of the programs, all the x’s and o’s that are involved.” He then turned to the life of the Apostle Paul and his motive for ministry.
Paraphrasing somewhat, Ortberg reminded his listeners of Paul’s motivation: We proclaim Christ . . . so that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this reason I labor, struggling with all his energy that works so powerfully in me. “We labor in kind.”

How do you define a person who is mature in Christ? Ortberg shared the responses he received when asking that question of another audience: Loving, generous, joyful, humble, forgiving, active, confident, serving.

He then posed three questions.

First, are our churches regularly producing this kind of people? He noted these are not the words that average people think of in defining people.

Second, how is your church doing in producing people with these qualities? “On a scale of 1 – 100, where does your church fit?” he asked. A show of hands revealed: a handful of raised hands for 80% or better, a good number of hands for 60-80%, with the most hands falling into the 40-60% range.

Third, if at my church we keep doing what we’ve been doing, will it get us to where Paul thought we ought to be?

“It’s not about programming,” he stressed. “It’s about this gospel gripping real human beings.”

The problem, he explained, is that “the gospel we present has a gap between me and God – and that gap is sin. So, can human beings bridge that gap on their own? No, of course not. That gap is bridged by faith in Jesus Christ and his forgiving grace.”

But there is another current problem facing us: “sin separates me from where God wants me to be. People think they can close this gap on their own, often resorting to a little list of devotional activities. Our answer is to do more devotional routines.” He cited a George Barna survey that asked average people what they think spiritual development means. The answer: “try really hard to follow the rules of the Bible. Is it any wonder people are not compelled by this?”

“There is this cycle,” he continued in his explanation. “People feel really guilty because they are not doing enough (spiritual things). So, they try to do more devotional routines. When that doesn’t work, they try even harder. When that is not effective, they feel a sense of fatigue and they slack off. Then they quit. Then they feel guilt once again and start all over to try harder.“We give people the wrong gauges to measure spiritual life,” he said in response. “The difficulty in gauging spiritual life by the level of spiritual activities is that in Jesus’ day, the Pharisees would have come out on top. The great challenge for us today is how to gauge in such a way that the Pharisees do not come out on top.”

He shared an encounter with Dallas Willard and his question to Willard, asking how he measures spiritual growth. Willard replied, “I ask, am I growing more or less irritated these days? When I am in tune with the spirit, my soul doesn’t sense as much irritation, and when I am criticized, I am not feeling discouraged.”

“We ask people to be saved by grace,” Ortberg continued. “We need to help them learn to live by grace.

“Grace is not just forgiveness,” he said. “It is the power of God at work in me. We were made to run and live on grace. People desperately need to learn to live on grace. Most people don’t know how.”

He then introduced the image of water and the important role it played in the lives of people in Jesus’ day who lived within a desert environment. Jesus invited people to come and drink of the water he gives, producing a river of living water that will flow through us to others.

“What does it mean to be thirsty in today’s context? Work life, financial challenges, family concerns. Jesus says come to me. The thirsty among us are often the whiners and complainers – people are nervous, upset. Out of their inner being flows that thirst.

“That’s the place Jesus is talking about – deep inside with the anxiety, the fear, the things we try to mask,” Ortberg continued. “Jesus offers that powerful image of the river flowing through the desert of life. That river is a gift – it is life. It also is grace. When that river dries up, life dies. This is the human condition – apart from God, emotional death.”

The image of the river appears from the beginning of the Bible in the garden to the end of Revelation 22, he noted – “The river as the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and the lamb.

“It’s not about being religious. It’s about the flow and flourishing. The world is waiting for flourishing human beings.

“What if Jesus is right and the river is flowing all of the time?” He asked. “What if God is at work all of the time? My job is to jump into the river and stay in the flow, with the river flowing through my belly.

“Don’t quench the spirit,” he admonished. “It is as simple as finding out what keeps us open to the spirit – and what are those things that quench and grieve the spirit, and then to avoid them.

“The challenge is in helping people find how to stay in the flow. Growth for every individual is handcrafted, not mass-produced. There is a need for discernment. Find that unique condition that will help each person grow.”

One problem with some, he suggested, is that they listen to an expert share what they do (in terms of spiritual practices), “and then they try to imitate. It doesn’t work and they give up.

“We need to understand ourselves and what moves us away from God, even by small degrees. Then learn how to put off those things and put on the fruit of the spirit.”

He closed with a pointed reminder: “Your life is not your project. There is a fundamental principle to remember: There is a God. It is not you. In part, that means that as you grow spiritually, you are becoming more of what God intended you to be.

“God’s greatest longing is that you not become like someone else, but that you become more like you, the person God had in mind.” Remember, too, he said, that “the world is not likely to be transformed by a gospel proclaimed by untransformed people. What is it you want to be?”

Editor's Note: Paula Fuller will be the speaker for the Tuesday evening service, which will be broadcast live through the Covenant website at 7 pm MST. The Wednesday evening worship service will also be broadcast as well as the Wednesday and Thursday morning plenary sessions. Visit the Covenant website for details.