Living Worthy in Transformation
Geek Maturity

This morning I want to preach a Los Alamos Geek sermon.  We are known for our geekness and the enjoyment of things geek.  If you consider yourself a geek, please raise your hand.  Some of you didn’t raise your hand because you are wondering, “Does he mean my right hand or left?” If that is true you are a genuine geek.  So, this morning I am going to appeal to the geek side of your brains.  We are going to explore what it means to mature as a Christian. We are going to look at 4 models of Christian spiritual growth.  We are going to chart Christian development on X-Y graphs.  Aren’t you excited?  Don’t you just really enjoy wrestling with a model of something?  Isn’t it a hoot to reduce the complex into simple two dimensional representations of reality?  Here we go; spiritual growth how do we model it?
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Graph One: The Slope
I kind of always thought of Christian maturity as a gradually increasing slope over time.  As I get older I gradually get better.  As I study my Bible and pray and go to Bible class and preach sermons and read books and go to seminars and discuss concepts with others and just experience life, I learn more about God. I learn how to live a better life.  I progressively become more mature.  So the chart would look something like this.     

  Maturity

 

                             Time        

The line on the graph may be at a different angle for each of us.  But over time we should, if we stay with it, become more spiritual.  We should become more like the Jesus the longer we are Christians. 

There is a verse of Scripture that advocates this kind of graph.  It is really a pretty cool verse.  The context of the verse is a comparison between the Old Law of Moses and Christ’s new covenant with us.  It is a contrast between legalism and freedom in Christ.  Notice what it says. 

2 Corinthians 3:17–18 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.  And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. 

As long as we keep looking into the face of the Lord we continue to glow with ever-increasing glory.  We become more like Jesus the longer we live in the freedom of his presence.  Wow.  That is amazing.  So, the point of this graphical representation of our maturity says, “Keep on looking at Jesus and you will persistently grow more like him.” 
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Graph Two: The AH HA
Another way of looking at growth is not so much a gradual growth, but rather sudden bursts of growth.  We will be going along pretty constant when something happens or we hear something that really resonates with us, or we hear a really great sermon from a fantastic preacher and suddenly we have an AH HA moment.  We get it.  Our mind quickly shifts.  A switch is thrown and we snap up to a new reality.  When these transformational moments occur our minds are renewed and suddenly we make a jump in our spiritual perception.  On a graph it looks something like this:
 

 

Maturity

 

                             Time

There are moments when the Spirit reveals a new way of viewing the world around us and our thinking is suddenly different. It is not a gradually realization but more of a light bulb coming on. Once we make this jump there is no going back.  You are a new person. It is transformation.   I love it when this happens.  One moment we are old and the next we are new.  The Christian life is a series of new moments!  Listen to a passage that promotes this view of growth.

Colossians 3:1-10 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.  2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.  3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.  4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.  5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.  6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.  7 You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived.  8 But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.  9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices  10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.

We become new when we commit to Jesus in baptism.  Then we are raised with Christ and we set our hearts on Christ.  Notice now the re-newed.  And it is the same in the Greek.  We are being constantly re-newed.  Again and again we are made new.  We have those new jumps; those new AH HAs; those new insights which change our behavior.  We have our minds renewed.  I like this model because it helps us to watch for and incorporated those special moments when the Spirit reveals new truths. 
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Graph Three: The Two Step
Another way of looking at our growth is the two steps forward and one step back concept.  The thought of this graph says that our progress as Christians is not simply a straight line upwards, or a series of jumps, but rather a jagity line which should go gradually up, but not directly up.  We make progress and then Satan attacks and discourages us. And we fall back.  But then we step up again and move forward and Satan is more worried and attacks us again and we take a blow backward.  But we don’t give up we keep on moving to be more like Jesus.  This chart looks something like this. 
 

Maturity

 

                            
                             Time

I have been thinking about this model more and more.  In our recent study in transformation I have been oddly up and down.  I am normally a pretty constant kind of boring guy. I am who I am and that is me. But lately I have been all over the charts emotionally.  And I think this chart explains it.  When we make progress such as we have in our study of transformation; when we have the AH HA moments, we attract Satan’s attention. He, then, attempts to make us feel worthless, and pointless, and that we are wasting our time trying to grow spiritually.  Satan would want your graph to look like this:

 

Maturity

 

                             Time           

He wants us to gradually become apathetic; listless, just going through the motions without any passion. He knows if he can discourage us, he wins.  So, this two step forward one back graph helps me to understand what is really going on in my life.  I have an AH HA moment and make that jump and you can count on Satan to smack you with negative feelings.  Let me show you an example of this. 

Matthew 16:15-23   "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?"  16 Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."  17 Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.  18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.  19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."  20 Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.  21 From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.  22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. "Never, Lord!" he said. "This shall never happen to you!"  23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."

Peter went from the AH HA to the UH OH; from two steps forward to one step back; from the heights to the depths.  That is what we must expect. Am I right? 
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Graph Four: The Spiral    
One more geek view of our growth, a spiral.  What I call the empty-filled cycle.  Our spiritual growth is a result of becoming aware of a point of resistance in our lives and then working to become empty to that resistance and then allowing the Spirit to refill us. It looks something like this…

 

 

Maturity

 

                             Time

In the course of our Christian lives the Spirit will bring to our attention points where we are not in synchronization with God’s will.  It may be a sin.  It may be a point where we are holding onto something that hurts. It may be a situation where we have the wrong attitude and it is keeping us from his will.  It may be an attachment to something that is keeping us from growing.   Whatever it is, we become aware of resistance in our lives and the proper response is to become empty. Empty meaning; to give up that pattern of thinking or behavior; to release the emotional connections to it.  Then as we become empty toward this thing, God then fills us with his attitude.  He gives us the right response.  He guides us in wisdom.  He re-news our minds.  This is the point of James 1.

NLT James 1:2-5  Dear brothers and sisters, whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy.  3 For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.  4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything.  5 If you need wisdom-- if you want to know what God wants you to do-- ask him, and he will gladly tell you. He will not resent your asking.

Whenever resistance/trouble/trials/problems/situations are presented to you look for the opportunity for to become empty.  Become empty enough to ask for wisdom.  Then once you are empty toward the problem; you are not being conformed into a typical pattern of behavior, you are then open for your faith to grow by being filled with God.  Our growth as Christians is this repetitive process of empty-filled, empty-filled, empty-filled…  We approach our spiritual growth as a series of empty-filled cycles which last a lifetime. 
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Each of the graphs states an important truth about our growth as Christians.

A preacher was walking down a country lane when he saw a young farmer struggling to load hay back onto a cart after it had fallen off.  "You look hot, my son," said the parson. "Why don't you rest a moment, and I'll give you a hand." "No thanks," said the young man. "My father wouldn't approve." "Don't be silly," the minister said. "Everyone is entitled to a break. Come and have a drink of water." Again the young man protested that his father would be upset.  Losing his patience just a little, the clergyman said, "Your father must be a real slave driver. Tell me where I can find him and I'll give him a piece of my mind!" "Well," replied the young farmer, "you can tell him whatever you like, just as soon as I get this hay off him."

In our geekness; in our attempt to come up with the ideal model of Christian growth, let’s not miss the main point.  Let’s make sure we get the hay off the message and realize that we are called to transformation.  It is not optional.  It is not a good idea.  It is not a suggestion.  We are commanded to be transformed. 

Romans 12:2   Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is-- his good, pleasing and perfect will.