Kelley - Growing down: unlearning the patterns of adulthood that keep us from Jesus

Copyright 2018 by Michael Kelley

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

978-1-4627-7632-0

Published by B&H Publishing Group

Nashville, Tennessee

Dewey Decimal Classification: 248.84

Subject Heading: ADULTS \ CHRISTIAN LIFE \ SELF-RELIANCE

Cover design and illustration by Wayne Brezinka.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Christian Standard Bible, Copyright 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible and CSB are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.

Also used: English Standard Version. ESV Text Edition: 2016. Copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

Also used: King James Version ( kjv ), public domain.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 22 21 20 19 18

For Jana,

Who shows me what it looks like to live in the most responsibly childlike way. I love you very much.

Chapter 1

Faith Like a Child

Puppy

There is a brown and white puppy with a torn-up right ear that lives in my sons bed. His colors arent as bright as they used to be; theyve faded after a hundred spin cycles in the washing machine, thousands of trips in the car, and nine years of various kinds of stains from various kinds of bodily fluids. It was this same stuffed puppy that my older son, Joshua, clung to during the first few years of his life, when he was being treated for leukemia. It was this same puppy that Joshua then handed down to my daughter, Andi, so she wouldnt be scared to sleep in her big-girl bed. And its this puppy that was regifted to my youngest son, Christian, to help him say good-bye to his pacifier. Thats where the tattered ear comes fromChristian started chewing on the ear at night instead of his pacifier to help him go to sleep.

That puppys got a lot of baggage on him. Because he does, hes probably more sentimental to my wife and me than to any of our three children at this point. They dont remember all the times Puppy comforted them through pain and heartache and sleeplessness; they dont remember how he was the only thing that would scare the monsters away from under the bed or nurse a sick tummy; they dont remember the heart-exploding sweetness of seeing him passed on from child to child. But we do. And because we do, its a little sad to know that Puppys days are numbered in our house.

Our kids are growing up, and as they do, Puppy will eventually go the way of the plastic green army men and dinosaurs. But thats life, right? Like pajamas with characters, Happy Meals, and Disney Junior, Puppy is just another casualty of the reality of the passing years.

Life is about moving from one season to another, and hopefully growing through each one. When you grow, you move past certain things and into other ones. Thats true about physical life, but its also true in a spiritual sense. Both physical life and spiritual life are about growth. In fact, if youre not growing, youre dying.

Born Again

From the moment a baby is conceived, he grows in all different kinds of ways. Within three days of conception, the fertilized egg is dividing rapidly into many cells. Four weeks later, he is already developing a face and neck, as well as a heart, blood vessels, lungs, stomach, and liver. And that baby is just getting started. Once born, a healthy, full-term baby will typically double his birth weight at six months, triple at one year, and almost quadruple before he turns three. Anyone whos ever had that ear-splitting whine wake them up regularly around two or three a.m. knows the baby is hungry because hes growing, and hes growing fast.

Its not that different spiritually.

Problem is, we have been conditioned to think about life in Christ beginning with bowing your head, closing your eyes, and repeating some lines of a prayer led by the preacher at the front of a church or auditorium. Im not entirely knocking that; weve got to start somewhere. But if thats the only way we think about becoming a Christian, then we are missing the cataclysmic, soul-transforming change that happens inside the heart of that one with his or her head bowed and eyes closed. When Jesus talked about the beginning of that processwhen someone moves from darkness to light and death to lifehe likened it to being born again.

Kind of weird, right? Nicodemus thought so, too. He was the scared Pharisee that came to Jesus late one night under the cover of darkness because he was afraid someone would see him talking to this upstart rabbi. He was the one who knocked on the door and whispered in hushed tones, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could perform these signs you do unless God were with him (John 3:2). When Jesus responded that no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again, Nicodemus was a bit confused.

He was a Pharisee after all. He was a child of Israel, a teacher of the law. He thought he knew all about the kingdom of God. He was educated, committed, and respected for his knowledge: But how can anyone be born when he is old? Can he enter his mothers womb a second time and be born?

Fair question. A little disgusting, but fair.

Something far less gross, but no less dramatic, would have to happen for life in Christ to begin. Jesus went on to say that entering the kingdom of God is a second birth, one of the Spirit. Just as the wind blows wherever it wills, so does the Spirit, blowing through the dead hearts of mankind and bringing life. With new life comes new... everything. A new family. New desires. New loves. New values. Just as a baby in the womb starts growing from the moment of conception, we, in our new selves in Christ, start the forward progress of growing up in Christ from the moment of our new birth by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Growing Up

Jesus often used agricultural metaphors in his teaching. A big reason he did so was simply because those were the more relatable terms for his audience; these were people who knew about farming and ranching. They were people of the land, and thats the language Jesus used to communicate to them. In keeping, then, with the teaching methodology of Jesus, is the idea that all living things grow. And as in the case of a tree, a flower, or an animal, if a person isnt spiritually growing, theyre dying. Take a look at one of the ways Jesus described life in Christ in John 15:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. Every branch in me that does not produce fruit he removes, and he prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me. (vv. 15)

Jesus, as the vine, is the giver of true life and nourishment. No branch has life on its own; its only alive to the extent that it is locked in and receiving its life from the vine its connected to. When that connection is broken, the branch is just a stick, useful for not much else than kindling for a fire. But when the branch remains connected to the vine, the inevitable result is continued and sustained growth that results in fruit. This is far from an isolated text in the New Testament; the Bible shows us over and over that the life of the Christian must be characterized by growth:

• The righteous thrive like a palm tree and grow like a cedar tree in Lebanon (Ps. 92:12, emphasis added).
• I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the grow th (1 Cor. 3:6, emphasis added).