The Gospel of Jesus Christ
Part 3 of a 3 part series on spiritual growth
I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that I’ve spent almost every day of my adult life thinking about spiritual growth.
I came to faith at 18 on my college campus and now, at nearly 33, I still sit here today giving thought to following Jesus.
Throughout my time following Jesus, I’ve had seasons of being embedded in shame, and I’ve done my best to pretend sin wasn’t that big of a deal at times. Even though I’ve missed the mark far too often, God has been faithful to keep me and continue the work He’s started within me.
It was about 5 years ago when God made it clear something was about to shift for me.
I was stopped at a red light in Conway, Arkansas, driving to work when God opened my eyes to my current reality with Him.
I was so far away from the type of man He wanted me to be. As I was sitting at the red light the cry of my heart was, “God, I’ve come so far. You’re telling me I’m nowhere close?” I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced helplessness before, but it’s not a good feeling. That’s exactly where I was—totally helpless.
Over the next few years, God did a radical work within me. Today, I barely even recognize the person sitting at that red light five years ago.
God set me free.
He grieved me over my sin, yet invited me closer.
He exposed my flaws, yet looked at me with grace.
He left no stone unturned, yet refused to toss them at me.
Perhaps this is why I’m so passionate about people following Jesus with all they’ve got in every manner of health. I know it’s possible.
It’s possible to not be punched in the face by lies we believe around every corner.
It’s possible to not be chained to old sins that won’t go away.
It’s possible to not be anxious all the time but experience genuine soul rest.
What I’ll be listing out below is a quick survey of how we should feel when we sin, what we should do about it, and how we actually grow spiritually.
First, how should we feel when we sin against God?
There’s two opposite ends of the spectrum that I covered in the last two newsletters.
Hate yourself for it
Dismiss it like it doesn’t matter.
For obvious reasons, we would say those are ridiculous responses to our sin, but I think most of us toe the line on those two.
We may not hate ourselves, but we punish ourselves.
We may not dismiss it like it doesn’t matter, but if we’re honest, we kinda move on after offering up a quick prayer to God.
I’m going to offer a third option—
Be deeply grieved.
This is what Paul says to the church in Ephesus:
“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”
—Ephesians 4:30
This is in the middle of his exhortation to them about living their new lives in Christ. It seems as if he’s making the point that any action that goes in opposition of the new life we have in Christ will grieve the Holy Spirit.
What does it mean to grieve the Holy Spirit?
The simplest illustration I can give is that of a fish out of water. A fish is fine in water because that’s where it thrives, but as soon as you take it out of the water and put it on dry land, it starts to, in our case, be grieved. It immediately feels it: something’s not right.
We grieve the Holy Spirit when we take Him somewhere He is not supposed to go, or, equally, when the Holy Spirit is trying to take us somewhere we refuse to go.
Now that we have a new life in Christ, we are supposed to do every single thing we do in step with the Holy Spirit. Everything. So every action or inaction that goes out of step with the Spirit grieves the Spirit.
So what about us? If the Holy Spirit is grieved, how should we feel when we sin?
I’m of the camp that says we should be like Jesus in every possible way.
How we communicate.
How we love.
How we lead.
How we serve.
How we see the world.
How we see people.
How we pray.
How we teach the Bible.
Everything.
This also means that I firmly believe we should aim to feel the same things God feels.
And if we feel the same things that God feels, we should be grieved when we sin. If the Spirit is feeling that, I want to feel that.
So what does it mean to feel grief?
Paul says there are two kinds:
“For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.”
—2 Corinthians 7:10
Godly grief
Worldly grief
Worldly grief appears to be the kind of grief we feel when we realize we’re caught. Perhaps it’s something we didn’t feel bad about until someone called us out on it, and we never allowed that grief feeling to go beyond the surface. Once the embarrassment wears off or the “news cycle” passes on our mess up, we typically return to our sin.
Godly grief, however, is much different. This is the type of thing you feel deep within your soul. It’s your soul crying out, “No matter what it takes, something has to change!” And, even if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing, you work hard to make that change.
But here’s the thing, I think many of us will initially experience godly grief, but we attempt to change by taking that grief through our worldly systems or mindset structures.
Here’s what I mean:
We’ll be deeply grieved by our sin because we feel what the Holy Spirit feels, but our next response is to talk poorly to ourselves.
Or maybe we’re convinced at a soul level that something needs to change, but we respond to that by trying to white-knuckle our way out of our sin.
If either of those two categorizes our response to realizing our sin, we’ll be stuck in sin the same way that “worldly grief” has us stuck in sin. Maybe we’re experiencing godly grief, but we internalize that grief in our minds as something that should drive us to shame and guilt, not freedom.
So what should we do, then, when we sin?
I said this in the first article—the healthiest response to our sin is the response most similar to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.
We cannot respond to our sinfulness with negative self-talk or guilt shaming. We cannot respond to our sinfulness with behavior modification and forcing our flesh to be presentable.
Our response to our sinfulness needs to be, “Well, this part of me needs to die anyway, so I’m going to submit it to God.”
—Quote from “The Gospel of Self-Hatred”
In order to understand the simplicity of a statement like, “This part of me needs to die anyway, so I’m going to submit it to God,” we must understand some of the promises that rest on our shoulders in Christ.
In Christ, we have forgiveness of sins. (Ephesians 1:7)
In Christ, we are holy and blameless before God. (Ephesians 1:4)
In Christ, our sins are no longer remembered. (Hebrews 8:12)
In Christ, our flesh has been put to death. (2 Corinthians 5:17)
In Christ, we are new creations. (2 Corinthians 5:17)
In Christ, we have received the Spirit of God. (Ephesians 1:13)
In Christ, we can hear the voice of God. (1 Corinthians 2:12-13)
In Christ, we will never again be condemned. (Romans 8:1)
In Christ, we will never be separated from God’s love. (Romans 8:31-39)
In Christ, we are discipled because God loves us. (Hebrews 12:6)
Listen, any time we recognize our sin, it’s not because we suddenly became holy enough to see it. Any time we realize our sin, it’s because the God of the universe loves us so much He wants to draw us out of that sin. He is the one opening our eyes to the reality of our depravity. He’s opening our eyes to it, not so that He can condemn us, but so He can invite us deeper into our experience of His love. He’s opening our eyes to it, not so that we can white-knuckle our way through it, but so that we will submit it to Him and repent under His strength and power.
God is already very aware of the grossest parts of your heart. It’s not like we catch Him off guard when we realize how sinful we are.
The Holy Spirit Himself is opening our eyes to this sin. Jesus said it would be this way in John 16.
And when [the Holy Spirit] comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment…
—John 16:8
So if it’s God Himself that’s convicting us of sin and opening our eyes to it, then He must also be doing it for a purpose. And what is that purpose?
It’s not to condemn us because if so, Romans 8:1 wouldn’t be true.
It’s not to find a reason to stop loving us because if so, Romans 8:31-39 wouldn’t be true.
It’s not because He hates us because if so, Hebrews 12:6 wouldn’t be true.
It’s not because He found something He forgot to forgive because if so, Ephesians 1 wouldn’t be true.
If God exposes our sin, it’s because He loves us and wants to remind us we have the ability to forsake that sin and walk more fully in the abundance of life He has for us.
Which leads us to the last and final part of this article. How do we actually grow spiritually?
We grow spiritually by becoming radically committed to cooperating with the Holy Spirit. And how do we cooperate? By relying on the power of the Holy Spirit already at work within us.
Here are Paul’s thoughts on how He did ministry, but the same principle applies to our ability to put to death sin and grow spiritually.
To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.
—Colossians 1:27-29
I quoted the entire section so you can understand the last sentence. Paul is toiling in ministry. How? “With all His energy that He powerfully works within me.”
There’s not an ounce of self-reliance in Paul’s statement.
And this is the picture of what it means to grow Spiritually. Take a look at Romans 8.
5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
—Romans 8:5-11
This is a long passage to quote, but look at the point Paul is making here.
v5 - To live according to the Spirit, we must set our minds on the Spirit.
v6 - To set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace
v7 - To set the mind on the flesh is death (And yes, even if this is well-intended and looks “good” in an attempt to “clean yourself up”)
v10 - The Spirit is life
v11 - The Spirit gives life to your mortal bodies
If the Spirit does all that, how silly is it not to incorporate the Spirit of God into our spiritual growth? How silly is it to try and white-knuckle our way through “cleaning ourselves up” when we have the Spirit of God that promises to lead us into all life, peace, and flourishing?
Galatians 5 is a perfect example to illustrate and close this section.
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.
—Galatians 5:16-17
What are the fruits of the Spirit? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These things come only when we walk by the Spirit.
How do we walk by the Spirit?
We have the Spirit through God’s gift of salvation →
We live by the Spirit through asking Him for help →
We keep in step with the Spirit through His power →
We walk in step by the Spirit.
Walking in step means going where the Spirit goes.
The Spirit will always expose your sin, lead you to the Cross, remind you of God’s forgiveness and His Word of promise, convince you to leave your sin there, and strengthen you to walk in His power to go the way of God’s Way for your life.
And guess what? None of that involves shaming yourself.
In order to grow, we must be people who call sin what it is. We must own up to our sin and leave it where it belongs—with Jesus. He took on your sin and shame at the cross. Why should we pick it up again? We shouldn’t! We’re forgiven. We’re set free. We have new life. Living the life God has for us means getting rid of as much of the old sinful stuff as possible and living according to the new holy stuff.
Growing means we’re actively putting to death our flesh, not trying to make our flesh more presentable.
Growing means we’re actively pursuing Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit, not trying to act like we’re good just because we’re going to heaven.
Growing means we’re actively becoming like Christ in every way possible under the power and direction of the Holy Spirit, according to the Word of God.
The Good News of Jesus Christ is that we’ve been set free from sin and death and given new life in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Our responsibility is to involve the Holy Spirit and the Word of God in every corner of our lives while we do everything possible to take hold of our new life by putting our old life to death.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
And because all this work is done by the Holy Spirit powerfully at work within us, this isn’t burdensome.
Yes, it’s hard work.
But it’s not a burden.
Yes, it takes energy.
But it’s Christ’s energy within us.
Yes, it takes discipline.
But self-control is a fruit of the Spirit.
The day we decide, by the power and direction of the Spirit inside of us, to let the power and direction of the Spirit lead us in everything, that’s the day we step into the abundant life.
Let’s think practically here.
Have a sin you feel trapped with? Find a scripture that gets to the heart of the issue and pray it deep into your heart and mind. Ask for the Spirit to uproot everything evil in you and plant this Word of Truth in its place.
Then ask the Spirit to make the Word of God come alive in your life. Ask the Spirit to give you a soft heart. Ask the Spirit to help you walk in His power and perseverance according the that Word of Truth.
Then ask the Spirit to show you every last ounce of that sin living in your heart. Confess every drop. Bring it all to the cross under the promise of no condemnation. Do this repeatedly, asking the Spirit over and over again to give you eyes to see the glory of Christ that you may be transformed by His power. (2 Corinthians 3)
Do this, and don’t give up—relying on the power of the Spirit.
Remember, Jesus is on your side.
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
—Matthew 11:28-30
The beauty of the Gospel is that we finally get to rest. Our souls don’t have to labor for God’s love anymore. We aren’t slaves to our flesh anymore. By God’s resurrection power, we are brought into the light—into Christ—and we’re given rest for our souls.
Don’t miss out.
I hope you have a great week.
—Brandon
This is excellent! Thank you for your insight on this topic, and for the corresponding Scripture references. Definitely some needed reminders here.
So good. I’m claiming one of those verses to help me when the Devil tries to bring it to my remembrance and discourage me. God wipes the slate clean. Thank you God!