Living Stones – Tuesday, January 16, 2018
God at work
Philippians 1:6
He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;
Today we are repeating our key verse from yesterday. When we looked at the matter of Christian growth yesterday with this verse providing the frame of reference, we focused on the end point of Christian growth saying we are to keep growing until Jesus comes or we die.
Today, however, this verse provides a different frame. The emphasis now is on the agent of Christian growth. Paul here emphasises that the work of growth that is taking place in us is being carried out by God and not us.
We often think of Christian growth from the perspective of the things that we have to do. And there are things that we must do in order to grow but the actual growth is carried out by God himself at work in us.
This idea is outlined in the obvious illustrations and parallels drawn from agriculture and is repeated when these agricultural illustrations are used as analogies for the Christian individual and the church as a whole. The case of the church takes the organisation of growth further because in the church we see that there is a role for the preachers and teachers, but God remains the agent of growth.
Paul the Apostle, writing to the church at Corinth was addressing the issue of their maturity and carnality when he employed the agricultural metaphor to help them understand that he and Apollos were not in conflict with each other and neither was seeking his own followers. He wrote, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.” I Corinthians 3:6-7 Here Paul emphasises forcefully that the God is the agent of growth.
If you go back to the context of that quoted passage you will see that Paul challenged the individuals and the church on the matter of growth. And his argument shows the role of planting and watering that teachers play. But it is God who caused the growth and “gives the increase.”
Now, just as we said, some time ago, that “fruitfulness is built into our design,” so too we can say that growth is built into our design. To not grow, and to not bear fruit, is to not function according to our design and to disappoint our designer. We see this principle laid down at the very beginning in Genesis, “Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so.” Genesis 1:11.
Taking this further, growth, then, is a ‘natural’ thing, and in our case as Christians, we need to resist God in order to stunt our growth. The things that we fail to do, the things that cause us to be “babes in Christ” represent disobedience and resistance to God.
God, as the agent of growth, also creates and provides the enabling environment for growth to take place. Again, we see this at the very beginning in Genesis, after God is done with all of creation then He makes man to inhabit it, to care for it, to thrive in it, and “to be fruitful and multiply in it.”
When God was rescuing the children of Israel from Egypt this point about God creating an enabling environment, in the physical sense, for His people to thrive was repeated. “but the land which you cross over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain of heaven, a land for which the Lord your God cares; the eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year.” Deuteronomy 11:11-12
Today, we struggle with parallels from agriculture because for many agriculture is something with which we are unfamiliar. And where there is agriculture going on a lot of it is using mechanisation and other new technologies that upend some of the illustrations. With complex drainage and irrigation systems on the large scale and with hydroponics on the farm scale, the ancient hymn, “We plough the fields, and scatter,” may have very well lost its meaning. But that growth requires obedient effort from us and the miracle of growth from God hasn’t changed.
When our leaders and teachers plant a seed through preaching, teaching, and writing; and when we are admonished to read and study the message and the Word; and when we are challenged to pray; and when we are urged to come to fellowship; we are being called to do the planting and watering. The growth that moves us from being ‘babes in Christ” to maturing “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;” is God at work in us.
Paul, continuing his written engagement with the Christians at Philippi said “for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. Philippians 2:13
Think on these things:
- Are you obedient about carrying out the activities required for your growth?
- What are your habits of the faith?
- Do you think that you are growing into the stature of the fullness of Christ?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today that we would be obedient with the disciplines necessary for God to cause us to grow.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex
