John 3:5-7
Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’”
“Flesh gives birth to flesh, but Spirit gives birth to spirit.” We understand that, but is that the end of the process? Doesn’t what happen after birth determine how this new life will be spent?
“Flesh gives birth to flesh”. Think of a newborn baby, helpless and in need of loving parents. Parents that guide them from baby to toddler, through childhood to pre-teen and on to teen, and then finally help launch them into adulthood. Flesh gave birth to flesh, but in our society, it takes 20 to 25 years to finish the major role of parenting. However, the parenting role just changes when they reach adulthood. We become more of a counselor/ mentor. Our role slowly changes from control of the child to influence in our adult children’s life.
What happens to that newborn if they are neglected or worse abused? They become wounded, unhappy, and confused. As they grow, they are constantly trying to fill the void that the lack of parental love caused in them. They do not understand how to love others because it was never modeled for them. They typically become a self-centered, negative influence on those around them and to society in general.
It seems to me there should be a parallel when “Spirit gives birth to spirit”. However, I have never seen the comparison worked out. Most churches have a “new Christians class”, but who is taking on the role of the spiritual parent to this baby Christian. Is anyone lovingly guiding the new baby through the steps to maturity? This makes me think of the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13, or the four soils: the hard path, the rocky soil, thorny soil, and the good soil. They all hear the truth but because of their differences in the understanding of God’s truth, they react to it differently. Jesus explained the soils in Matthew 13:18-23.
Matthew 13:18“Listen then to what the parable of the Sower means: 19 When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path. 20 The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. 21 But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. 22 The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. 23 But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”
We have all seen the four categories played out in people we know. What makes the difference? “Good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it.” Why don’t the others understand it? The writer of Hebrews recognized the problem. They said people are “not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness.”
Hebrews 5:11 – 6:3
“We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. 12 In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! 13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
6:1Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death and of faith in God, 2 instructions about cleansing rites, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3 And God permitting, we will do so.”
In the world of education, we move individuals from beginner steps, like adding and subtracting, to much more in-depth mathematical knowledge. It takes guidance and time to go from simple facts to a more advanced knowledge. In the world of business, the process continues. We teach a new employee additional information as we reach teachable moments, and over time, they reach a deeper understanding of how the processes work and why it is important to follow the established guidelines.
Why don’t we let the teaching of the deeper understanding of God’s truth get more attention? Do we stop teaching at the “elementary teachings about Christ” as the writer challenged? Do we leave those newly “born of the Spirit” to figure out the deeper truths by themselves? Do we let them spend the rest of their walk with the Spirit consuming only “milk”? Again, the writer of Hebrews says, “Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness.But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.”
I have learned, after training people in the business world for over 50 years, that people simple “don’t know what they don’t know”. There are things the trainer/ mentor knows and understands as basic knowledge that the trainee doesn’t even know exist. There is awareness and knowledge they need to be able to mature in their training. However, if someone doesn’t methodically take them from the basics to deeper knowledge, they will not achieve the knowledge it takes to mature in their progress, or at best they will learn by making costly mistakes.
Think about the current process in most churches. A new believer is drawn by the Spirit, “Spirit gives birth to spirit”. The new believer recognizes their need for forgiveness from God and repents of their sins. A church leader might give them a new Bible to begin reading and maybe invites them to a new believers’ class. Remember this person “does not know what they do not know”. They typically don’t even understand where to start reading the Bible or how it relates to their day-to-day lives. What process guides them down the correct path? What is the goal of the Biblical education system? How do we measure forward progress in their maturing?
Jesus spent three years with His chosen disciples. That is over a thousand days of hands-on teachable moments. We only see a handful of those days in Scripture, but every day for three years He talked to them, guided them, answered their questions, and corrected their confusion. Jesus was their Mentor. They looked up to Him and followed Him everywhere. There were other mentor/ mentee pairings in Scripture like Moses and Joshua, Elijah and Elisha, Paul and Timothy, etc. Mentors building into the next generation day by day as the teachable moments happened.
Where is this mentoring process today that can lead the new believer to become the “good soil” that produces fruit? Who are the people that can talk to the baby believers, to guided them, to answer their questions, and corrected their confusion? Who is available for those teachable moments?
There are steps between born again and Jesus’ definition of a disciple in Luke 9:23-24 – “If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me will find it”. It takes time and guidance to get close enough to Jesus to understand and desire to deny yourself and pick up your cross and follow Him. Deny yourself is something very contrary to our human nature and the culture around us. How do they know what did Jesus meant when He said, “pick up your cross and follow Me”? What does He mean when He said, “whoever loses his life for Me will find it”? How can a new believer understand these principles without guidance?
Once enlightened by the Spirit, we quickly sense our sin nature, but are ill equipped to deal with it. What is this thing we call faith? What does the “faith of a child” look like? We need someone we can be vulnerable with to help us learn things like how to use the “Armor of God”, how can we live expressing the “Fruit of the Spirit”, how can we possibly love people with characteristic of 1 Corinthians 13, or how can we receive the “peace that passes all understanding”?
We typically tell new believers to start by reading the New Testament without giving them a basic understanding of where the principles came from, the beginning of God’s plan for His people, the Old Testament. I personally have read through the New Testament scores of times by reading a chapter a day for the last 40 years. Only in the last few years, through opportunities like the study of Genesis with Bible Study Fellowship (BSF), have I come to see God’s sovereignty and patience with His elect, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc. I now recognize these were men with sinful hearts just as I am. They did many foolish and sinful things on their spiritual journey, and yet God patiently guided them back on His path He had created from the beginning to accomplish His perfect will through fallen, broken men, just like me.
After reading the New Testament over and over, I understood the teachings of Jesus and the concepts taught through the New Testament writers, but I did not understand God’s sovereignty. I knew the dos and don’ts of the Biblical philosophy but did not grasp the “heart of God for His people”. The Old Testament shows a loving God protecting and correcting His chosen people. He reached to His people through the prophets, gave guidance for everyday living through the Psalms and Proverbs and showed His sovereign unfolding plan throughout the Old Testament books.
When we “do the right thing” because it is what the Bible says, that is religion. But when we seek guidance from the Lord through His Spirit to fully understand His desire for our life, and we do what He asks because we love Him and know He loves us, that is relationship, not a rules-based religion.
A newborn baby has needs. As these needs are met day after day by their loving parents, they begin to form the attachment we call love. Over time they recognize this care taking as love from their parents. As a child grows up with loving parents, the parents naturally become the child’s source of knowledge, peace, and protection from the world.
Shouldn’t this be the same with a “spiritual baby”? Shouldn’t a new believer be drawn to the love of God through His Spirit and His people before we start them down the “list of rules”? Scripture says there is only one Teacher and that is the Holy Spirit. When the Spirit begins to make the new believer aware of areas in their life that need to change, the new believer needs a loving, caring mentor they trust to guide them and help them find God’s way through the confirmation of the Spirit. Sanctification is a life journey, not a sprint. Learning to listen to the Spirit is a process that takes loving support. New believers need people that they can trust. People that they can open their hearts to and talk about things deep within them. They need a mentor that the Spirit can work through to guide their spiritual growth.
This does not happen in a “new believers’ class”. People cannot be vulnerable in a crowd of people they barely know. It takes a one-on-one relationship with a deeply trusted mentor that has earned their trust. Someone they have come to love as a “spiritual parent”. So, where do these mentors come from? What are we doing today to build the “inner core” of mentors that are an extension of the Pastoral staff for spiritual babies to talk to and are available as needed to guide them over time as they mature to disciples?
Looking back at how Jesus, Moses, Elijah, Paul, etc. mentored their disciples, we see they were the core they focused on. Jesus always drew a crowd and had compassion for them and taught them many truths, but when the “deep truths” were taught, it was His chosen disciples He focused on. How many times do we see Jesus get them alone during the three years they were together and have conversations with deeper clarification of what He had told the crowds?
It seems to me the Sunday Evening service idea has slowly dwindled in the last few decades. I felt then and still feel today that the morning service is a good opportunity to draw the “seekers” and help new believers hear basic teaching, but the evening service should be focused on building the core. Helping spiritually sound believers learn to be the mentors the new believers need, building extensions of the pastoral staff to reach a variety of people, young and old, male or female, in multiple walks of life.
To me the evening service should be more of an educational process than a typical preaching service. We could seek individuals interested in being mentors and invite them to participate. Like Jesus, the goal is to create a team to share the load of guiding new believers. Of course, anyone can come, but the focus would be teaching the core mature believers that are interested in building into lives for the Kingdom. These sessions could be more informal, open discussions, not just teaching. Discussions on topics like God’s Sovereignty, how to use the Armor of God, how to live the Fruit of the Spirit, how to love as God loves, how to handle the “thorn in the flesh”, what does it mean to “deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me”.
I don’t believe any mentor can have more than two or three people they are spending time with to help them mature. The mentor’s role is to help the mentee discover for themselves the deeper truths that, once fully understood, will allow them to live the life of a true disciple. Not perfect but surrendered to the Lordship of Christ and committed to “deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow Me”.
Christian Life Coach 