Gospel Motivated Change

By Rick Thomas

 

When people come to Grace Harbor Counseling Ministries for counseling, their primary objective is behavioral change. From a counselor’s perspective, change is always the goal. Our desire is for a counselee to grow in grace, practice the presence of God in their daily lives, and seek to make God’s reputation great while considering how to spur others on to love and good deeds.

 

Though a counselee’s goals and ours may be similar, our methods for reaching those goals typically differ. Rarely does a counselee initially see the importance of working at a deeper level than behavioral change. All too often, the desire of the counselee is to experience change in their situation because the “heat” they are going through seems unbearable. For many counselees, fixing a problem externally will do the trick. From our perspective, we know that problems in the “fruit” of someone’s life (outward behavior) have their genesis in the roots (inner desires and motives) of their life. And if the root (core) problems are not addressed, the chances of the fruit reproducing in the future are assured (see Matthew 7:16-20; Luke 6:43-54).

 

We are not opposed to encouraging people to make behavioral changes. For example, in Ephesians 4:25-32 Paul teaches about certain behavioral changes that need to take place. Here is a sampling:

 

• Stop lying and start speaking the truth
• Do not be sinfully angry and so give place to the devil
• Don’t steal; instead, get a job and share with those in need
• Don’t use your mouth for evil but for good
• Don’t be unkind or bitter; rather, be loving and forgiving

 

At the same time, character transformation is not as easy as telling someone to stop a bad behavior and start a good one! I think Paul agrees. If we take this Ephesians passage in context, which begins at 4:17, we discover that Paul pours a theological foundation long before he addresses the behavioral changes that need to take place. In other words, before Paul launches into how we should behave, he lays a solid theological framework that is grounded in the gospel.

 

Paul’s approach is not unlike Jesus’ metaphor in Mathew 7:24-27 regarding where a person builds his house. As Jesus teaches us about the wise man who built his house on a rock, we understand that “rock” to be Jesus Christ. The “rock” is not a thing; the “rock” is a Person. This Person is the holy Son of God who through His righteous life, atoning sacrifice, and resurrection from the dead secures salvation for all who will believe in Him. The Gospel (the Good News) is shorthand for all that Christ is and has done for us. By connecting the dots, we conclude that if our behavior is founded on anything other than the person and work of Christ we will not be able to manifest the kind of fruit (behavior) that lasts and honors God. As Jesus said in John 15:1-5:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. (Emphasis added)

An attempt to change our behaviors apart from the motivating work of the gospel is a fool’s mission. Jesus said, “Without me you can do nothing.”

 

Back in Ephesians 4:17-19, Paul carefully lays out what our life looked like prior to salvation. He points to the intellectual factor that makes up everybody’s life. Paul says that hardness of heart comes first, then ignorance, and then darkened understanding, which eventually brings alienation from the life that is in God. The fruit of this alienation from God, through this kind of hardness, ignorance and darkness, is callousness that gives over to licentiousness, greed and all kinds of uncleanness.

 

At this point, Paul makes a turn from what we were to what we are in Christ. He encourages the Ephesian believers by letting them know that this is not how they have “learned Christ”, “heard Christ” and were “taught in him” (vvs. 17-19). In other words, for the Christian, Christ becomes the subject (learned), object (heard) and the environment in which we grow (taught in him).

 

This is quite remarkable! Christ is all and in all!

 

But when does this great transition take place? The answer to this question is found in verses 22-24. The “put off” and “put on” in this passage is a past action that took place in a point in time. In other words, if you have learned Christ, you have then put off the old way of the unbelievers and have already put on the new way of Christ, which is created in the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. It is imperative that we understand Paul’s order of argument: he is saying that from our actual state of being will flow our doing. A Christian is “in Christ” (something Paul says repeatedly to indicate who a Christian is and why these behaviors naturally follow), founded on the person and work of Christ (who He is and what He’s done). The Gospel is the bedrock upon which a person begins to change. For a Christian, practicing the Gospel each day is the only way to be a true and transforming follower of Christ.

 

Not only is putting off the old unbelieving way of life and putting on the new creation in the likeness of God a one time, complete action at conversion, Ephesians 4:23 instructs us to continue to renew the spirit of our minds. This renewal is an action that is done to us by the work of God’s Spirit.

 

The solid footing is poured and set. It is at this point that Paul now instructs us to make external, behavioral change (beginning at v. 25). Without the foundation of the gospel, all our change would be like building a house on sand. It will not be able to stand the test of time and trouble. A simple analogy may shed some light on Paul’s theology. A child, at birth, has all she needs for a long physical life: she never needs more than the two feet, two hands, head and torso that she was born with. What she does need is to continue to strengthen herself throughout her young life in order to grow into full maturity. In similar fashion, we have all we will ever need for life and godliness at the point of our new birth in Christ.

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire (2 Peter 1:3-4).

After we have put off the old man and put on the new man (i.e., the act of salvation), and continue to cooperate with the Holy Spirit to be strengthened by His renewing work, only then are we ready for gospel-motivated change!