THE GROWTH EQUATION
How do things grow? Let’s start with something simple (or
not, if you don’t have a green thumb).
You plant a seed in the right soil, give it the right amount of sun and
water, fertilise if necessary, and, hopefully, it will grow into a lovely
plant. (Strangely, weeds don’t require any of that care!)
How does a child grow? It needs to be fed, cleaned, and kept
comfortably warm, and, also, needs affection and appropriate social
interaction. For healthy, mature growth, the child also needs to exercise and
to master the skills appropriate to its developmental stage. There are things a
parent does for the child, and things the child must learn to do itself.
How does a Christian grow? Right now, spiritual growth might
feel like it’s all too hard with our normal lives upended, but the apostle
Peter had something to say about this. Remember, he was writing to a persecuted
church in an environment that was awash with false teachers.
3 His divine power has given us everything we need
for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his
own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has
given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you
may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the
world caused by evil desires.
5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your
faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and
to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to
perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, mutual
affection; and to mutual affection, love. 8 For if
you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from
being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus
Christ. 9 But whoever does not have them is
nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their
past sins.
10 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make
every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these
things, you will never stumble, 11 and you will
receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ.
.
The first thing to notice is that God has already given us
everything we need for a godly life (v3). It doesn’t matter where we’re at, or
what’s going on around us, our primary resource is God himself, and our life
and growth come from knowing him. He has not left us as orphans (John 14:18),
his Spirit dwells in every believer, revealing Christ to us “through our
knowledge of him”. This growth may not happen as quickly and easily as we
would like to imagine; but happen it will if we continue to walk with him and
feed on his word. Our goal should be just like that of Paul:
“ that I may know him and the power of his
resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his
death, 11 that by any means possible I
may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3: 10-11)
So, we feed on his word and grow in him, and put our reliance
on his “great and precious promises”. God promises, in many places in
Scripture, that he will redeem us, sanctify us (make us holy) and bring us home
to himself in a glorious eternity. The more we learn to understand his promises
and fix our eyes fast on them, the more our faith will grow, and the more we
will grow in Christlikeness, because the temptations of the world and our own
“evil desires” will have less power over us.
Just as a parent brings a child to birth, and feeds it and
shelters it, so that it will live and grow, so God has given us life through
his Spirit and feeds us on his word. But for a child to not merely survive, but
to mature into a functioning adult, their comes a point where they must be
active participants in the process, willing to exercise their minds and bodies.
And so it is in the spiritual realm. God, and God alone, has made our salvation
possible, through Jesus, but we have a part to play as well in reaching our full
maturity. Otherwise, (to change the metaphor), we will be people living in
spiritual poverty while our bank account holds riches beyond our wildest
dreams.
And this is where the growth equation comes in (verses 5 –
7). Peter introduces us to a process of addition which we must participate in.
(If you want to go into other realms of biblical maths, you could try
subtracting sin, multiplying the church, and rightly dividing the word of
truth!)
We start with faith, that is, faith in Jesus as our only hope
of salvation, which is the entry point for every believer.
To faith we add goodness, which means moral uprightness,
choosing to do the right thing, the best thing you can, rather than cutting
corners.
To goodness we add knowledge, specifically the knowledge of
God. We let his word saturate our thinking, so that we may see him more clearly
and understand better his character and his will for us.
To knowledge we add self-control, a fruit of the Spirit’s
work in us. This is the ability to say no to our own desires and impulses when
they are not in line with the will of God, to resist not only what is obviously
sinful, but also those subtler temptations to indulge and prioritise our own
interests at the expense of others.
To self-control we add perseverance. The best intentions in
the world will not achieve anything if we give up the moment things get
difficult. The Christian life is often more like a marathon than a sprint, and
we mustn’t underestimate the importance of just keeping going, through easy
times and hard ones. This is where fixing our hope in God’s “great and precious
promises” is so important. Our earthly goals will often get frustrated, but
God’s promises stand unchanged, and if we make those our anchor point, we can
ride out any storm.
To perseverance we add godliness – our goal in all of this,
the goal of the Spirit’s work within us, is that we should become more like
Christ, and walk with him.
To godliness we add mutual affection. The Greek word used
here is philadelphia, literally love of the brothers. We start here by
learning kindness and generosity of heart towards each other in the family of
God’s people.
To mutual affection we add love. This is what we are aiming
for, the love which God commands us to have towards whoever has need of us (i.e.our
neighbour), the love which is clearly described in 1 Corinthians 13. But it is
important to note that we can’t get to that place without the other steps Peter
mentions. There are no shortcuts, but nor is there any need for discouragement.
God has given us all that we need: our salvation, his indwelling Spirit, his
word with all its wisdom, and the infinite riches of his grace. Even in
lockdown, deprived of some of the forms of community that encourage us, these
things are still ours in abundance.
No comments:
Post a Comment