Growth

My pastor preaches on growth this morning.

How do we grow?

A right concept of grace
A right relationship with the world
Transparency and honesty with God
A delight in spiritual disciplines and activities

What does scripture say?

Before I was afflicted I went astray but now I keep your word

Psalm 119.67

It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I may learn your statutes.
Psalm 119.71

We grow through pain. Moses had pain. Moses murdered a man, abandoned everything he knew and lived in the desert for forty years before God called him.  David had pain. God anointed David as a teenager then Saul chased him for fifteen years before he died and David could become king. Jacob deceived his father and suffered the consequences of his deception as he worked for his deceptive uncle for fourteen years to earn the right to marry the woman he loved. Even Christ "learned obedience" from suffering. 

We grow because God calls us. We grow because God afflicts us. We grow because we surrender to his will. These things: grace, how we see the world, our relationship with God, our disciplines — these are the mechanics but the core, the why is much deeper, much more difficult to endure or to understand. 

Few among us perform these mechanics by nature. Naturally we depend on ourselves. Naturally we look to the world to meet our needs and to satisfy our desires. We look to the world because we know the world and we see the world. Only after God removes the things we depend on do we depend on him. Only after God removes these natural trappings do we see that the world does not meet our needs or satisfy our desires. Only after God removes love, sanity, strength do we understand that these things only exist through him and apart from him we are nothing. Only then do we seek him through honesty and discipline. Only then do we understand that we breathe and walk and exist only by his grace.

Faith does not easily grow. We enter the world arrogant, deceitful, filthy narcissists. Depending on our parents, we may receive training that increases or decreases this arrogance. Regardless, God will faithfully use the rest of your life to undo the nature that Adam gave us all. 

I know, O Lord, that your judgments are righteous and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.
Psalm 119.75