John Ortberg tells of a man in a church he once pastored whom he called Denny. Denny was not a happy man. He had attended church his whole life, but he had never been happy. Even the expression on his face was perpetually negative – so much so that one day a deacon asked him, "Denny, are you happy?" Denny answered, "Yeah." The deacon replied, "Then tell your face."
Now, one of the MANY things Denny did not approve of was contemporary music in the church. He often complained that the music was too loud. But no one realized how far he would go until one day a man came to the church office, flashed his badge, and announced that he was from OSHA. He was under orders to investigate a complaint someone had made about the decibel levels at Church services. Of course, it was Denny who had registered the complaint. The staff could only laugh – and the agent could only join them.
But actually, Denny’s attitude is no laughing matter. Listen to John Ortberg’s observation as he looked back on this situation:
“Denny is not changing. He is a cranky guy. He has been cranky his whole life. Not just about church – he does not effectively know how to love his wife; his children cannot tolerate him; and he has no joy. He’s been going to church his whole life, sixty years. And nobody in the church is surprised that he stays cranky year after year. It is as if we expect a bad attitude – that’s just Denny. Nobody is expecting him to be more like Jesus year after year." (John Ortberg, The Life You’ve always Wanted)
For some reason, in the modern evangelical church, we’ve left the idea of spiritual formation as a nice option rather than an essential part of our faith. We focus on evangelism and personal conversion. After people make professions of faith we encourage them to be baptized, join the church, read their Bible, and pray. We may council them not to drink, smoke, cuss, or chew or go with girls that do, we may even tisk-tisk them if they mow their yard on Sunday, but we don’t talk much about being “conformed to the likeness of Christ” (Romans 8:29). Yet, this is just as much God’s revealed will as personal salvation:
For this is the will of God, your sanctification 1 Thessalonians 4:3
Someone once taught me that sanctification means “saint making.” God makes us into the saints He’s already pronounced us to be through our trust in Jesus. Obviously a saint would act, think, and speak like the Lord as He’s portrayed in the gospels.
After we come to faith in Christ, God begins the process of shaping our souls. He saved us, in part, to remake our character, so that we would once again reflect His purity and goodness. God renews His original image in us. Here’s the catch: on this side of eternity we’ve got to cooperate with the process. Cooperation or a lack thereof is the reason why some Christians look a lot like Jesus, while others (the majority) are virtually indistinguishable from the rest of the world. The power of God is an absolute necessity for transformation, but we have a role to play as well.
Think of your spiritual life as a sail boat. Unless the wind blows that vessel is dead in the water. But even when the wind blows it won’t necessarily do any good. You’ve got to hoist the sails and guide the rudder before you’ll make any progress. Many Christians go passive and refuse to hoist the sails when the wind of God blows. Usually it’s because they’ve been taught that beyond a profession of faith they just bide their time until eternity rolls in and sweeps over them. Others raise the sail, but pilot it in the wrong direction.
This morning I want to show you how God shapes a human soul to change their character and show you how to cooperate. This is the life that God has in mind for you. By cooperating with Him you’ll begin to live the life you’ve always wanted.
How God Shapes a Human Soul
He’ll make you swallow some of your own medicine
When we swallow the bitter pill that we’ve been dishing out it will do one of two things: either makes us bitter or develop a sense of empathy and compassion for others. You have to be alert to this or you won’t see the connection. I can promise you, however, that whatever you dish out will be returned to make you better.
That’s how it happened with Jacob. Remember his medicine? Trickery and deceit. God led Jacob to live with and work for one of the greatest con artists of the Bible, his uncle Laban. Just as Jacob used a disguise, his father’s blindness, and his father’s craving for tasty game to steal the blessing from his brother Esau, old uncle Laban used a wedding veil, the darkness of night, and Jacob’s dulled senses from too much drinking to fool him into marrying the wrong woman. In this way Laban was able to swindle 7 more years of labor out of Jacob.
After the deceit Jacob learned the terrible effects of sin on other people. Jacob himself was viewed by Laban as an object for profit, not a flesh and blood human being to be valued and cherished. Jacob must have learned how his brother and father felt from his own trickery. Laban’s little game saddled Jacob with two strong-willed wives who struggled for supremacy through a child-bearing contest. Imagine the tension and rivalry he dealt with every single day. Eventually Jacob was reduced to a stud. At one point he was actually hired for sex by one of his wives. Talk about degradation! He learned empathy. Jacob now knew from experience what it was like to be a victim of deceit. He obviously felt compassion because he stopped using the method that had been so successful for him previously.
God will make you swallow some of your own medicine to shape your soul. When I led a church plant in High Point, I had no qualms roping in members of other churches. I encouraged it. I loved to share how much better our church was than all those “dead traditional” ones. Guess what God did? My members and attendees began leaving my church for the “greener grasses” of other churches. It hurt. It produced great anxiety and doubt within me. Today I am horrified by the thought of so-called sheep stealing. If someone wants to join our church from another fellowship, that’s fine, but I will not actively seek them out or try to generate some kind of church competition. I tasted my own medicine and it was bitter. Now God’s making me better.
He’ll help you see that real success comes from a strength not your own
Upon his arrival in Haran Jacob immediately started using his wits and strength to achieve what God had promised him. He lifted a huge rock from the well to impress Rachel. He did not pray for God’s guidance his attraction to her. He appears not to have bothered to intercede for her when she was later unable to conceive a child. When Jacob figured out that Laban was cheating him out of livestock he used selective breeding techniques and the equivalent of white magic to achieve prosperity. At the end of 20 years Jacob embarked on a scheme to escape with his wives and property back to Canaan and it nearly worked, but Laban and his small army caught up to him.
In the end Jacob did prosper. He did gain riches. His life was protected, but the Lord revealed that it was by His power and not Jacob’s. He gave Jacob at least a couple of dreams revealing that He was the one blessing those sheep and goats with speckled, spotted, and streaked offspring. The Lord reiterated an earlier promise of protection as well. Even old Laban had a dream in which God told him not to lay a hand on Jacob or even speak evil against him. This must certainly have created an attitude of humility in Jacob. He learned the futility of his own intelligence and power. On the positive side he learned that no adversity can prevent God from blessing His chosen ones. In his humility Jacob was beginning to learn to rely on God. He still had some independence and pride left in him, but we’ll see how God took care of that next week.
This is a lesson God keeps teaching me and I’m finally starting to get it. All of my years as a pastor I sought knowledge on church success. I know all the information about how to plant them, organize them, and grow them. If there’s been a book written, a seminar delivered, or a plan published I’m sure I know about it. Yet, all that knowledge has not enabled me to lead a church that has achieved true spiritual success. Why? I’ve been using my own strength and intellect or copying the methods of others to try to do God’s will. In one church I initiated idea after idea only to see them fizzle. Now, here I am at a church that badly needs to grow and God keeps saying, “Wait. Seek Me.”
I do think He’s going to give us success, but it will be His way and in His time. It will be clear that God is the one who deserves the credit. He will receive the glory and we’ll get the joy of being a part of it.
When it comes to spiritual formation leading to character change we’ve got to turn some conventional wisdom on its head. Maybe you’ve heard someone say, “Don’t just sit there! Do something!” I feel that desire several times a day. For the most part God says, “Don’t just do something! Sit there and wait for My instructions!” To submit to such an approach shapes the soul into Christ-likeness.
He’ll allow you to retake the test you failed
When I taught high school, on occasion, when large numbers of my students did poorly on a test I’d allow them a redo. They could take test over for a better grade. God is into retakes. In fact, He insists on it. It’s a guarantee that if your faith fails one test it will come back in different circumstances to test you all over again. God will send the same test to you over and over again until you complete it perfectly.
Ideally, we get better at it each successive time we take the test. We notice things we didn’t see before and, hopefully, respond differently. We recently purchased old episodes of Gilligan’s Island on DVD. I used to love the show when I was a kid. Now that I’m older I still think they’re funny, but I’ve noticed a pattern that’s true of nearly every episode. An unusual thing happens, the castaways misinterpret it, and the majority of the show involves the goofy way they resolve the problem. For example, in one episode Gilligan is bitten by a fly with green and yellow wings. The professor wrongly concludes that it’s the deadly Mantis Condi fly whose bite kills victims within 24 hours. The symptoms are achy joints, loss of appetite, and itching. Gilligan displays all these symptoms, but what the other castaways don’t know is that his joint ached from the work he was doing, he wasn’t hungry because he’d eaten a pile of bananas, and he itched because ants were crawling through his clothing. At the end of the episode, oops the professor discovers he made a mistake. It’s not the Mantis Condi fly after all. God’s tests are similar to the way I see Gilligan’s Island. As we grow in faith and experience with God we begin to see the same test with a clearer perspective and patterns emerge.
Jacob faced the same test, but with different circumstances. God promised to bless him and bring him safely home, but his lying, cheating uncle stood in the way of that promise. This time Jacob included God in his vision and he passed the test. He did not cheat his uncle Laban. Instead he worked hard and made the man a great deal of money. He fulfilled his contracts when he could have escaped early with his wives. Jacob consistently undersold his services as a shepherd. He charged uncle Laban less than would be expected. Laban treated Jacob as an enemy, cheated him, and change his wages 10 times, but rather than take matters into his own hands as before, he trusted God to get him through it. In the end Jacob confessed that it was the Lord God intervening on his behalf that brought him through.
“If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been with me, you would have surely sent me away empty handed. But God has seen my hardship and the toil of my hands, and last night he rebuked you.” Genesis 31:42 (NIV)
Had Jacob passed the test with his older brother in this way he would never would have to have deal with Laban. Using trickery and deceit did not achieve the results Jacob hoped for. He got the birthright and the blessing, but he did not honor God because he did not trust God to work it out for him.
God has allowed me numerous retakes because I’ve failed so many tests. I’ve found that I’m a good started, but not so great in finishing. Another word for that is faithlessness, not being faithful to your commitments. It is failure to follow through. The November before last I was in the middle of a retest while teaching at school and serving as pastor of this church. I’d had enough of teaching and wanted to go full-time here before the end of the school year. After summoning up enough courage I went to my principal and told him I did not want to return after the Christmas break. He told me I had every right to do that. I was under no legal obligation. But, as a brother, he said, “I think the right thing for you to do is honor the contract that you signed and teach the full year.” Rather than dismiss his advice and do what was easiest, I prayed about it and sought godly counsel. God reminded me of my issue with unfaithfulness. He reminded me that if I failed this test by jumping ship too soon, another test would be right behind it. I decided to stay and fulfill my contract. I don’t know what kind of further testing I might have faced if I’d failed that one, but I’m glad I passed that one.
God is in the business of saving souls and then shaping souls to look just like Jesus. The question for us is whether or not we’ll cooperate. He’ll make you swallow some of your own medicine. Cooperate and you’ll become more empathetic and compassionate. Resist and you’ll become bitter. He wants to show that real success comes from His strength not yours. Cooperate by demonstrating humility. Rely on Him and confess Him when He comes through. If you fail a test God insists on retakes. Cooperate by taking the redo with faith. See the circumstances through greater maturity, otherwise you’ll be taking it again. God wants to shape your soul to be just like Jesus. Will you cooperate?
