Southwood Presbyterian Church

Why We Do Small Groups: Life Change (and the Gospel)

Monday, June 06, 2011

Life Change is the shorthand response we have adopted to the question, “Why does Southwood do small groups?” As small group leaders we need to have a clear idea what life change means in the light of the Gospel. A misunderstanding of this can lead to legalism and works oriented small groups that place a premium on saying the right things and doing the right activities rather than discovering and rediscovering the surpassing worth of a relationship with Jesus rooted in the Gospel (Phil 3:8). Here are three thoughts we need to keep in mind about life change as we lead our groups.

Life change isn’t essentially about new behavior or disciplines.
Life change starts in the heart with new affections, new desires, and new motives that lead to new behavior (life change). Tim Chester points out in his book You Can Change, “If you don’t see your sin as completely pardoned, then your affections, desires, and motives will be wrong. You will aim to prove yourself. Your focus will be the consequences of your sin rather than hating the sin itself and desiring God in its place.” (p.28) In addition, we will become very skilled at pretending and performing in our small groups, never able to really connect and encourage one another as we have been set free in Christ to do, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works… encouraging one another…” (Heb 10:24-25) The place from which any good work or encouragement springs is the heart captivated by the truth of the Gospel seen in the Cross of Christ.

Life change is rooted in our status before God (Justification), which in turn is the source for change (Sanctification).
It has been well said that sanctification follows where justification leads. (Tim Chester, You Can Change, p.56) Our new status before God is forgiven and righteous, and to the degree that the truth of this new status sinks in is the degree to which change will come to fruition. The challenge is to keep the law and gospel separate; to keep the goal from being changed behavior rather than believing the Gospel deeper.  “Then they said to [Jesus], “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” (John 6:28-29 ~ Emphasis added) Our work is to believe the Gospel deeper be discovering and rediscovering the glory of the cross of Christ. Martin Luther captures well the implications of a deeper belief in the Gospel and the implications of our forgiven and righteous status:

“It is the supreme art of the devil that he can make the law out of the gospel. If I can hold on to the distinction between law and gospel, I can say to him any and every time that he should kiss my backside. Even if I sinned I would say, ‘Should I deny the gospeI on this account?’ … Once I debate about what I have done and left undone, I am finished. But if I reply on the basis of the gospel, ‘The forgiveness of sins covers it all,’ I have won.” — Martin Luther, quoted by Reinhard Slenczka in “Luther’s Care of Souls for Our Time” Concordia Theological Quarterly 67 (2003)42

Always start with yourself.
“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  (2 Cor 5:21). Tim Chester wonderfully points out (You Can Change, p. 58) that this verse speaks of our new status before God (justification,) and it is that very status that is the source for life change. He offers a challenge to personalize the verse by inserting a sin you struggle with. For example: “God made Christ who had no lust to punished as porn addict for me so that in Christ I might become sexually pure before God.”  Here is a tool Chester suggests to personalize 2 Cor 5:21:

God made Christ who had no ________________________ [insert your sin] to be____________________ [insert what your sin makes you] for me, so that in Christ I might become _______________________ [insert the opposite of your sin] before God.

As leaders we must set the pace of spending time before and never straying far from the cross of Christ, the only source for life change (sanctification). “[The Cross] should often be in our thoughts, on our lips, in our songs, determining our actions, shaping our attitudes, captivating our affections.” (You Can Change, p.128) As starving needy beggar who have found the food of forgiveness at the foot of the Cross, you can and will take other starving beggars there too. The Gospel seen in the Cross of Christ is the only source for life change. As small group leaders let’s work to never forget that.