8.6.24
This week we are looking at how spiritual transformation works, as we continue on in our series in the book of Jonah. And yesterday we saw that the key to spiritual transformation is for the truth - that salvation is of the Lord - to sink in deeply to our hearts.
Most religious people - and certainly those who regularly attend church - understand that salvation is of the Lord. That’s not really news to us. But then, Jonah knew that too. And yet it still hadn’t penetrated deeply into his heart. The Apostle Paul talks about how the gospel is an ongoing fruit that is born in our hearts. And it means that the depth of the gospel - the extent of the gospel - the beauty and majesty of the gospel need to sink in deeper and deeper over time. And that’s how spiritual transformation works.
But when we slow the process down to look at the nitty gritty of how all this actually takes place, there are several steps that we can see to the process. The first is that the gospel begins to affect our minds - how we think. Most religious people think of the gospel as a set of facts that need to be “agreed to” in order to get into the kingdom of heaven. And for the religious person, that’s old news. And yet, Jonah knew all these facts, but the extent of the gospel had to grow in his mind. As he was confronted with the depth of his own sin and rebellion against God, he began to see that he had been rightly banished from the presence of God - and yet his mind was drawn to the temple - the place of sacrifice. In other words, grace is an undeserved favor from an unobligated giver. And Jonah began to see that his understanding grace was too limited. Because in his mind, it was deserved (because he belonged to the right people who believed the right truth in the right God), and therefore, God was obligated to not ask him to go to such undeserving people as the Ninevites. And so the extent of how far the gospel reaches began to affect is mind.
The second step is that the gospel has to grow our love for God, as it moves our affections. As this aspect of the gospel begins to grip the heart, what happens is that it moves from seeing grace as merely a free gift, to seeing it as a costly gift. “Why would God love me like that? Why would he undertake such incredible sacrifice to come and rescue the likes of me?” Forgiveness is far more than God letting it go. And as our hearts are gripped by the costliness of what it took for God to rescue me, it moves the heart into deeper levels of love. Obedience that is born out of duty sees grace as merely a free gift - a get out of jail free card. But a heart that sees the costliness of that grace, produces an obedience that longs to please God from a heart of love.
The third aspect of a growing grace is how it then begins to affect how we actually live it out day to day. Grace moves from a Sunday theological concept in the back of our minds to a new longing for obedience lived out in the rough and tumble of day to day. As much as Jonah still didn’t want to go to Nineveh, he began to see that God’s grace compelled him to go - and so he went without delay. And grace that bears fruit in our lives moves us from merely knowing we are forgiven to a lifestyle that longs to live for and please the one who gave so much for me.
The result is a growing humble confidence. We are humbled as we see the extent of our neediness and rebellion…how completely undeserved his grace toward us is. But it’s a confident humility, since we know he willingly and gladly came to purchase that rescue. And our confidence comes as we see how deeply we are actually loved. Self-righteous people are confident, but not humble. Broken people are humble, but not confident. But a heart affected by the reality of the gospel, displays a growing humble confidence that can stand up to anything in life.