In our church we have small same-sex groups that focus on changing areas of our lives where we want to reflect Christ more. We call them Life Groups because we want to intentionally form the life of Christ in one another. This life can be summed up by the fruit of the Spirit that Paul talks about in Galatians 5:22-23: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
I have just started one of these with two other guys and we’re going to work together through Tim Chester’s book You Can Change. It has 10 chapters which all ask a different question, and each have a ‘change project’ at the end. I plan to write a short summary of the chapter (before we meet) and then detail some of our learnings (subsequent to our discussion).
Chapter 1 poses the question “What would you like to change?”
Chapter Overview: What would you like to change?
Chester explains how we were made to reflect God’s glory/image (Genesis 1). Sin has ruined that, so we no longer reflect him (Genesis 3) and that is the reason for all our negative emotions and sinful behaviours; “we have an inbuilt bias against God’s ways”. However, Jesus came to be both our example and redeemer and restore us to God’s original intent (John 1:14). We’re “new creations” (1 Corinthians 5:17) and therefore no longer image the first Adam (who fell into sin) but the second Adam (Jesus, who is perfect!). Whilst we’ll never be perfect until we receive resurrection bodies, we can now have confidence that we will change; we now have an inbuilt bias towards becoming like Christ. The way change happens now is as we see and reflect Jesus, the true image of God (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Here are 2 quotes that stuck out for me as I read the chapter:
I am convinced that holiness is always, always good news… the secret to gospel change is being convinced that Jesus is the good life and the fountain of all joy. Any alternative we might choose would be the let-down.
The Puritan Thomas Watson said that sanctification, the process of change [to become like Jesus], ‘is heaven begun in the soul’. Sanctification and glory differ only in degree: sanctification is glory in the seed, glory is sanctification in the flower.
Discussion and Reflections
Here are a few thoughts and take-aways from our discussion. As an FYI, it was a fun start and one of our life group members got attacked by a cat halfway through (we were all on Skype in different locations).
In no particular order:
Firstly, we all identified areas that we wanted to change – some to do with motivation, some to do with attitude and some to do with action. It’s always humbling and uplifting to share the areas of your life where you feel weak, and it’s incredibly bonding too.
Secondly, we had a good discussion about whether being “predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son” (Romans 8:29) in some way jeopardised freewill on the one hand or meant that we could just do what we wanted because we’d be forgiven and get to heaven on the other. I think(?) we concluded ‘no and no’… but I feel we’ll go back there again.
Thirdly, we talked about how God is not interested in making us “nice people who do good works and make others happy” – he wants to make us like Jesus and often that will mean we might come across as offensive, not nice and not good to many people in the world; which is incidentally what they thought of Jesus too! Of course, if we become more like Jesus we’ll be more patient and kind and loving and all those other wonderful qualities; but the aim is not to be religious or good or spiritual or nice, it’s to be like Jesus.
Fourthly, we talked about how whilst we know things in our heads – for example that God’s way is right and best – it can be hard to feel them in our hearts and let that truth affect our lives, motivations and allegiances.
Fifthly, we talked about how love for God must precede everything else. That is how the 10 commandments and Jesus’ summary of the commandments are ordered. If both God’s love for us and our love for him are not our foundation and motivation then we’ll try to change to please others or please ourselves, not to please him. And then at the bottom of our effort to change will be selfishness and pride.
Sixthly, as a follow up to number five, we talked about how the gospel helps us. We are not changing to get into God’s good books or be blameless before him. We are accepted by God and blameless in his sight because of Jesus’ performance, not ours – we are saved by faith and not works. As we put our trust in Jesus we are legally righteous before God. Therefore our motivation to change is not to get right with God but to thank him, reflect him, know him and share his love with others. It’s about growing a relationship.
Finally, we talked about the second quote above – “the secret to gospel change is being convinced that Jesus is the good life and the fountain of all joy, Any alternative we might choose would be the let-down” – and whether we really believed it. We said we did and we didn’t.
Chapter two next week.