Interview: Growing in Christ · South Street Free Church · December 2022
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On this site: PAUL WELLS – Growing in Christ Interview
we are excited to have Paul Wells with us today to talk about how we can grow in Christ Paul before we talk about our topic please feel free to introduce yourself and welcome to the show yes hello there and uh good morning or good afternoon or good evening whichever time you're watching uh I live in Liverpool but uh I worked in France where I was a theological educator for 40 years and I'm living in Liverpool for personal reasons now uh mainly because I have uh no more children living in France they all live elsewhere
in the world so we moved back to Liverpool where I grew up we moved back to the UK in 2012 in fact so I've been back in the UK for 40 years for 10 years but uh I was in France for 40 years so all my working life was in France that's why um uh a lot of my books are published in French and this book what we're talking about this morning growing into Christ uh appeared in French and in English simultaneously as I was writing it in English I was also working on a French version and they both came out at the same time which
is very nice so that's basically why I am and where I've come from and now I'm back where I grew up which is a strange thing normally people move from north to south yeah and don't go back to where they grew up I never thought I'd return to Liverpool but the Lord knew otherwise so there we go you probably got a unique insight into this uh Paul what was the spiritual temperature um of Christianity in France and how do you kind of compare it with where we are in England at the moment well I think everywhere in the western
world is the same you know Christian morality uh is uh off the table now and secular morality is dominating so it becomes more and more difficult to have a Christian profession publicly however in France the Evangelical Church has grown over recent years and I think largely because of the work of the theological formation and training of pastors enabled men there are several places that do this in France including where I was working in Aix-en-Provence near Marseille um and so the Evangelical Church has been growing
uh rather in an encouraging way and one thing this is rather remarkable is many of these congregations have a considerable number of immigrant people as well that is people from French Africa or from the West Indies or people who speak French from elsewhere so uh that is very encouraging I think to see the growth of the church throughout France at present yeah brilliant thank you for that Paul we're here to talk about your your new book uh growing in Christ it's a labor table before his pull what does the bible tell
us about our need for growing in Christ well um Jesus was a man and uh Luke chapter 2 verse 52 tells us that Jesus grew in wisdom and years and in favor with God and man and just as Jesus knew a human growth throughout his life we humanly become more and more like the Lord Jesus Christ was as he lived as he models our lives and helps us to grow into him uh the the books titled growing in Christ but really it's about growing into Jesus Christ becoming more and more like him now um the great thing is that the Bible uses
uh very human and simple ways of talking about spiritual growth and we've tended to lose that perspective because you know we think about spiritual growth in terms of justification sanctification and Holiness which is a systematic way of approaching the subject but the Bible has a great way of speaking about uh growth into Christ and one of the ways it does throughout scripture is the illustration of plant growth and we get that in Jesus's uh parable of the sower for instance but also in the many images about olive
trees and growth and producing fruits you know the first Psalm the three planted by the river of water and then of course in the New Testament we have the Apostle Paul who I think is Big Expositor of Christian growth picking up those themes you you know he speaks about Israel was the Olive Tree and Romans and talks about us being grafted into the Olive Tree and growing Jesus also talks about the True Vine and growing into the True Vine and then we have in the Apostle Paul this marvelous illustration of childhood and
maturity you know when I was a child I thought like a child but when I grew up and became a man I thought like a man so Christian growth is like a growth from childhood to maturity basically and I I think we can measure our growth according to that human pattern that scripture lays before us thankfully once we're saved the Lord hasn't planned it that we're then left um to our own devices to to to follow this path what makes his God put him place to help us grow Paul the means that are put in place I think we can think
of that in terms of justification and sanctification uh we we can measure our stature in Christ by our faith in Christ do I have real faith in the Lord Jesus Christ can I say that I am justified before God as my sin being forgiven and then of course the sanctification which is this Progressive growth up into Christ growing more like him in Holiness um but I think the Bible lays down five steps very clearly which I follow in my book and I don't really know of any other book that presents and lays it out like that although
a friend I was talking to me who's talking to me the other day said oh where John Newton in one of his letters the famous hymn writer he he uses that kind of model for growth as well I didn't know about that was interested but I've not tracked it down and the five steps are God plantsis and then we put down roots and then we mature and come to maturity through growth and then finally we produce fruit in eternity so we can follow that certain pattern am I planted by God have I received the word through the Holy Spirit
am I regenerate and born again and then have I put down Roots I think that's all about discipleship and being discipled and becoming a disciple and spreading out our roots and making our Hold On Christ greater and greater and then there is the growth process itself which is sometimes painful growing is a great thing it's wonderful but it's sometimes painful as well we have Growing Pains you know and and sometimes that pain of growing is part of the process and then finally we reach a stage of maturity and then you
know we die and we follow Christ's path from suffering to Glory through the resurrection and the best is still to come that is fruit will be produced in eternity will be new people in eternity and so the whole of creation is moving to this transformation and we in Christ are moving with him to that final transformation and that's the wonderful thing the best is still to come so we're full of folk yeah there are lots of kind things that the Lord has given us to encourage us to grow in our faith but some people can fall
into a trap or treat in these things like a buffet table you know I don't need to go to church I can watch online or I don't need to read the Bible or to pray or to have fellowship with other believers what are the dangers in thinking that you can pick and choose these things Paul well I I think behind those dangers you mentioned there is a big danger which sometimes we don't see um and that is that uh our spiritual status or our growth uh is thought of in terms of things we do and uh you know it's a do religion we
have to do certain things and really uh that's not the new testament's approach at all it's not about what we do it's about what God has done for us um and when we realize what God has done for us then out of gratefulness we're not seeking to do things to please him but we do things because he's done them for us huh and so this is the difference between morality and doing things to be better and living in Christ which is all of Grace and walking by the spirit of the Lord Jesus of course none of us could be in Christ
without the Holy Spirit none of us can grow an inch without the Holy Spirit working in our lives so Grace is a relational thing it's not about we can do to what we do to please Christ it's uh it's about him working in us and it's about our response to that relationship that he's established with us because he's our Lord and anything we do we do without some gratitudes so you know a good uh indicator is um if we don't like praying well maybe there's something not right if we don't like opening scripture and if we don't
like hearing the word then maybe something is wrong with us and we've got to uh find out what it says huh uh when I was in Texas recently visiting my son we went past the church and um there was a big billboard outside the church as outside all the churches in Texas you know everyone's promoting themselves and this enormous billboard said in neon light there no rules only Jesus you know uh and that's very attractive just Jesus well that's true and it's not true it is only Jesus yes it's only our relationship with Jesus
but once we're in Christ we will want naturally to do certain things and there are rules there is self-discipline in the Christian life and that self-discipline is our responsibility uh I think it's very often the Puritans said so no rules only Jesus is uh is only half the truth really once we have Jesus the rules uh are no longer rules but the subjects for gratitude and subjects for recognizing all that the Lord has done for us so things which might have been difficult before become easy you know this is what Jesus
said my yoke is easy in my burden is light yeah that's really helpful Paul thank you you can only grow in Christ if a person has actually been born again through an authentic Faith to begin with tell us about why it's so important that we get this bit right before we do anything else Paul well uh Bible says a lot about this of course putting down the foundation putting down the roots and uh starting points are always important in life so basically the fundamental question is am I in Christ have I been introduced into
Christ am I planted into him by the Lord Our God and of course this is the work of the Holy Spirit and without a work of the Holy Spirit there is no spiritual beginning there might be moral improvements but basically it's the relationship with Jesus the being in him and growing in him which is fundamental uh and importance so uh being born again is is the start of new life it's the start of real life uh in Jesus and then once we are born again Jesus says uh abide in me and I in you and you will produce uh much fruit
but we have to be introduced into Jesus now that's a remarkable illustration that Jesus uses uh in John John's gospel uh because uh the vine and the branches you know to produce fruits a new branch has to be tied into the vine and the vine has to be cut so we're introduced into the death of Christ to live from his life and of course the death of Christ is our identification with the cross uh dying to our old selves and being alive again in Christ when that happens his life flows into us so Paul can say it's not I who
live but Christ who lives me and the life I live by faith I live it by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me so every Christian should be able to say with the Apostle Paul I was crucified with Christ yes I live but not neighbor Christ Living in me and our life is a christ-centered life a christ-oriented life and a christ-alimented life for that reason and um the work of the Holy Spirit uh J.I Parker described it with three p's uh Power presence uh or performance now a lot of people say it's uh
Power that is gifts and powers to do Miracles there's nuts or performance you have to obey the law you have to obey certain rules but really the essence of Christian life is not power or performance its presence and Parker pointed out that you know the Puritans uh and the reformers were very much uh concerned with the presence and living in Christ's presence you know Calvin's motto was Coram Deo living before the presence of God constantly so this means that there's no uh Sunday and no weekday this means that every
day we're living in Christ's presence and before him and as to him yeah so that's the that's the blessing of being in Christ I think yeah going as a Christian isn't particularly tangible and it's also possible to look like it you're growing on the outside but be spiritually dead inside what are some ways to measure our own individual Christian growth yes um several things will be said here really it's a vital question and I I really don't know how to resume um the first thing to remember is any growth process is not
a matter of minutes or hours or days months but growth processes are over years in time you know um we measure growth not by looking back to last week but by looking back over the years and spiritual growth is a progression over the whole of life we are in Christ but the final renewal we're growing towards that final renewal so it's a long time period that we're talking about so we live in a day when everything is instant from coffee to gratification you know everyone wants instant results your team isn't doing well
in the Premiership so what you do you suck the manager you bring in a new one you want instant results you know and this is the mentality of people today everything has to be bigger better faster but uh growth in the Bible is a slow ongoing process and we look at it by looking back on ourselves now one important thing we can do is say am I today handling this problem that I have with my life in a better way in a different way in a more christ-oriented way than I was doing when I was immature huh uh what's my way of
handling problems like then the other thing I would say that might be a problem is that we tend to look and measure ourselves by other people but the Bible discourages from doing that I think we look at Christ first of all not just other people you know I think people get discouraged by conferring themselves with other people and sometimes people get very proud by taking themselves to be models for other people and and that can be very oppressive for other people you know so there's an element of pride in it so I I
would say you know uh being like the Lord Jesus is about obedience it's about humility and the things inside us which are real obstacles to growth uh are our pride and our lack of humility and basically our self-love uh very often and uh I think we have to be realistic about those and measure ourselves according to the Lord Jesus Christ over years and not to other people in the era now yeah yeah you've mentioned the word a couple of times throughout the interview discipleship how important is it and what can churches
do to embed this to be part of their ongoing culture well I don't think there is a culture of discipleship in Evangelical churches at all and this is very very sad and I think this is why many young people and others go off the rails huh because you know there's the first love and then the first love doesn't produce fruit the first love disappears uh it grows cold and so discipleship is important to avoid this kind of uh train crash which many people encounter I think when they get to their 30s you know when you're
young and you're studying you're finding your first job uh you know that life seems to be very attractive when you've got three kids and you've got to get up in the middle of the night and change the nappies uh or give the kid a bottle well life becomes a lot more difficult when you've got a hunker down to a job and earn a living things become more difficult and I think lacking in a culture of discipleship when people reach this kind of midlife crisis they often go off the rails uh stop going to church altogether or
maybe they invest more in their material possessions and instead of being fully involved as they were previously now I I honestly think that churches need to think seriously about discipleship programs and um individuals need to think about how to disciple themselves with the materials available and I was speaking to uh a pastor of many years experience and the other day I said what do you do in your devotions he says well I read the scripture I pray I meditate and every day I read five or six questions and answers
of the Westminster Shorter Catechism huh so he's done that for years and um I think uh texts like the Westminster catechism the Heidelberg Catholicism need to be used uh for discipling ourselves and for discipling other people we need a training programs uh I think which are well structured we have some which are great but um I think we need to develop this a lot more and with young Christians people who become Christians they ought to be introduced into discipleship programs and not just lab setting out uh on the
three uh on a limb on their own you know this is important but it's not our immediate reaction we we have this idea that if you converted everything's going to be fine afterwards but you know we need discipleship for everything to be fine afterwards which also means uh mentoring and having people who are capable of being role models and and teaching young people to grow into Christ yeah yeah once we're in Christ we're filled with the Holy Spirit tell us about this poem tell us about what role he plays in uh the Holy
Spirit helps us to grow in Christ um as we become more like Christ and live out our relationship with him and I think in texts like Galatians 5 we have patterns or Ephesians 2 we have patterns of how we once were and patterns of how we are now and those things which uh these passages present uh become things which we have to Aspire so the fruit of the spirit love joy peace patience long-suffering Etc the Holy Spirit brings these things into our lives and as we look to Jesus these things mature and grow into our lives
so what was not natural to us uh before us sinners becomes natural to us uh as people who are growing into Christ and people who weren't patient become patient people who have Tendencies to anger uh or self-absorption become less angry and less as self-absorbed we grow to be like Jesus and Jesus is the Supreme model of someone who is living his life totally for other people you know nothing that Christ does he does for himself including dying on the cross it's all done for other people but Christ is very conscious
that in living for other people he is fulfilling uh his Divine uh role so he's very conscious of his own calling by being not someone called to be more me but someone called to be more for others and this is all part of growing up into crust I think yeah because for Lords use trials to help us grow in Christ yeah well someone someone I was talking to ask me about the book and they said why isn't there a chapter on suffering in it well I went back and I had a look and I think uh I found a page where there's a paragraph
on Trials but there's not much in it and well uh part of the reason for this is that you know there are so many books on suffering and trials that I think what you could say in a chapter wouldn't be adding uh much to what people like Tim Keller have said you know or John Piper so uh I decided not to go there and concentrate on the positive things however you know it's a constant in the New Testament that uh our trials do contribute to uh our spiritual growth and um and uh you know I was talking to a student one day
several years ago and the students said I'm finding studying this Systematic Theology a really hard going you know and well I said to the student uh you know uh the there's no gain without paying and um you have to invest uh and investment is not easy it's it's part of disciplining yourself and then I said to him something which years later he said uh said that marked him quite a way I said to him that I've never learned anything in my life through any of my apparent successes I got a doctorate in theology when I was
quite young you know what did I learn from that nothing really you know I just learned from that that I couldn't be proud about it um and anything that I've done in my life that's been easy has not taught me anything but what has taught me a whole lot in life have been my failures have been uh my things where I've been aware of my incompetence and basically you know um suffering brings dependence you know someone who's got a successful career a self-made person has no feeling of need of being helped by other people
but if you're in a hospital bed you're going to be very dependent on other people um for spiritual health very dependent on the Lord you know so this is part of what C.S Lewis said you know um God Whispers in our Joys he speaks to us in our trials and he shouts to us in our pain and failures you know and C.S Lewis had many five things to say about this and you know that's why there's not a chapter in my book you know when you when you've read C.S Lewis's book on suffering well I mean that has many great things to say
and how would I say anything comparable to all that but basically you know suffering is part of the Christian Life because we're being made like Jesus his path is suffering to Glory and the disciple is not greater than the teacher so if we're Disciples of Christ we follow the path of Christ and the path of Christ includes suffering with him in Hope For the Glory to come you know this is the fundamental model of Christian Life suffering and Glory huh yeah and we have the glory tomorrow not today but we have the suffering
today and so we do that by identifying ourselves with the way Christ lived we spoke about the spiritual climate both in France the UK and in the Western World we mentioned and we know that the public face is often the Prosperity Gospel pull so yeah but bear in mind everything that you've just said how do people get sucked into a Prosperity Gospel how is this having such an impact um on on Christianity right now well um I think it's part of this instant success culture uh and that uh Christ brings riches uh to you instantly
uh if you do certain amounts of things for him so uh part of its legalism part of itself uh Salvation and um this is all uh an ongoing from what Benjamin Warfield said in his two great volumes on perfectionism um there's either do religion or dependence religion and and do religion means that you have to do something and if you do that uh Christ will bless you and be prosperous and uh Warfield said do religion very often is like a magical form of religion which proposes replies and the solutions to all people's problems
immediately but in fact in the end it leaves people deflated and let down uh because uh that prosperity is is not part of the Christian message I don't think um how is it possible I ask a question that someone uh who lived and died with uh no place to lay his head it could become a model of prosperity for other people when Christ died on the cross all he had was the coat he was traveling in you know he didn't have any any portfolio or Bank uh accounts and he didn't arrive at Calvary in a stretch limo did he huh so
uh you know it's a it's a reversal of values I think huh and I'm all for Prosperity but our prosperity won't be here it'll be in the new creation that'll be the fullness and that's what I'm waiting for that's what I hope for so uh you know I very much like the uh the model of uh Charles Wesley I think it was or John Wesley or one of the wesleys you know I get mixed up uh I shouldn't but um he said you know that he wouldn't want to have the uh more than 10 pounds in his his name when he died you wouldn't want to have
any excess and uh moreover he always wanted to know what he was going to be doing for the next half hour of his life you know uh and and that was his way of living I think that's a cross-centered way to learn anything we've got we've got to give it it doesn't belong to us it belongs to the Lord so that's the fundamental attitude I think yeah We Believe In The Sovereign God for starter and finisher of our faith so when we consider how this how can we understand our own relationship with how much fruit we bear as Christians
and how yeah well um you know the Bible gives us a covenant model uh God first and then us uh God disposes and we propose on the basis of God's disposing of us and um you know I think when you look at a chapter of the Bible like Ephesians 1 for instance and Ephesians 1 1 to 11. it's all about what God has done for us in Christ The Inheritance before the foundation of the world the Redemption uh the growing up into Christ and the living in Christ and the future uh in Christ when we'll be finally transformed to be like
him that's what God does and then from Ephesians 1 12 following we get to our reply you know uh were to grow up in Paul prays for the Ephesians that God may give them a spirit of wisdom and Revelation in the knowledge of of him a spirit of wisdom and revel relation in the knowledge of him and then this knowledge is the love it's not had knowledge as such it's acknowledges the love of Christ because of the wisdom that comes from the Revelation that Christ has done all this for me and therefore I know them as the one
who's done this for me therefore I love him and then the Apostle Paul speaks here as well about uh that you may know uh what is the hope to which he has called you what are the riches of the Glorious inheritance of the Saints he is the riches huh this inheritance which is laid up for us in heaven so we have faith in Christ love for him and that we have hope and basically our response is our desire to grow and love and knowledge and and hope of Christ for the future basically you know um I think that this is very important
to see the whole of the covenantal structure of scripture God is always first and we are called to act on the basis of how God has acted for us for our Salvation so all of our life flows out of this attitude towards the grace of God it's our response to Christ's Grace so Christ is our savior and we respond to him and it's because of that we grow continually enter in throughout this book you know I I'm really beating one drum all the time basically and that is that uh in many of our Christian uh milia today there's
a downplaying of knowledge uh in terms of uh people's preferences for feelings and emotions and people decide a lot of things on the basis of emotion and feeling how I feel about it whether it makes me feel good and the basic model is growing in grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ so basically this book is how to know Christ better and how to build up our knowledge of him so that we may Love and Hope in him as the one who's Central in our lives yeah so knowledge is a very important thing and you know I
talk about relationship and knowledge and Theology and people often think of theology as intellectualism but basically theology is practical because it's the knowledge of God and it should always be practical and tend to practical results in our lives yeah yeah and this is about doing that it's not true knowledge yeah yeah that's why you you mentioned your book is all about spiritual growth growing in Christ but what are some indicators that we are actually growing backwards in our faith rather than growing growing
backwards in our faith uh well I think we're growing backwards in our faith if uh we're always thinking of me me me hmm um you know uh why do people sin uh people sin because they think it'll do something for them or get something for them it's all about me me me and um I think basically uh if we're thinking about me uh and if we're sinning because we're thinking about what's real for us and what we want to do and what we like to do I think that's a real indication that we're going backwards in our faith you know um
I'm not talking about church attendance or reading the Bible or anything like that is directly here but they are they are part of it you know if we have no desire to be with the Lord's people and if we have no desire to pray and read scripture well that shows that we're going back we're not priorities are wrong um an illustration here you know uh Jose Mourinho when he was at spursia called Boniface season Professionals in because of his behavior on the training ground and because he was shown no desire to play for
the team and basically he said to this player who moved on from Spurs soon after that I think uh looks and you've got great potential but you've lost your desire you've got no desire and it's up to you to put that right and I want to see you putting that right right so so um basically you know if we're aware of things in our life that we're wrong then we've got to take ourselves in hand and self-discipline is part of the Christian walk unfortunately that player didn't discipline himself and his career continue to decline
from there because he wasn't willing to take himself in hand and I guess the reason for that was because he was thinking of me me and what he wanted he wasn't thinking of the team or what he could become he was thinking of me me me all the time and he didn't want to do this anymore you know he's a highly trained professionals they must get to a position where they've won a few things and they say well I can sit back on my own now and that's enough you know you lose the desire and basically I think uh if we're considering
blocks um in our spiritual life we can think about what we really desire and what we really want and if we become aware of problems well we can think about how we can take ourselves in hand to put those things right and you know uh rekindle the flame as uh as the that they used to say in the revivals you know and at certain moments in our life we all have to rekindle that and take ourselves in and I think that's the reason what is the end point of growing in Christ Paul what should a mature Christian look like well
basically you know one of the things I think is that um when the Bible speaks about fruitfulness uh that fruit is produced above all in eternity and so uh our full stature will be then uh you know Christ's fullness uh was not when he was dying on the cross Christ's fullness was when he became the Lord of all after the resurrection it wasn't uh as the second Adam suffering that he reached his uh final point when he was raised he gave gifts to men you know quoting the psalm the Apostle Paul says leaving captivity captain
and gave gifts to men so um the fullness is for the future were still in the old Adam physically with our physical bodies even though spiritual we are in the new Adam and we will birth roots in eternity when we are free of this body you know that's when we will stop sinning and the death of sin uh for Christ was on the cross when he put it to death but the death of sin for us uh is when we die and are liberated from the habits of the old Adam and we will bear fruit in Christ in the new creation eternally with a new
call to glorify him and to grow in eternity uh and produce fruits in m so you know I was listening to Richard Pratt uh the Third Millennium Ministries recently and he says something which is very good you know the kingdom of God doesn't grow up from Earth to heaven the kingdom of God comes down from heaven the New Jerusalem comes from heaven and we will produce fruits when we're taken up into having to be members of Christ Eternal Kingdom and that's our hope you know uh the uh the kingdom grows in this world but basically
it will come to fruition when Christ comes again and that's a wonderful thought any growing I do will be uh rewarded ten times over when Christ comes again and have a new me for good and the old me will have gone all together and this is part of a realization of our full Humanity that was a great thing for me is that being a Christian is is not being less human it's being more human than the true humanity is the new Humanity in Christ which is a Humanity for God's service and the service of others so I think this is
a great thing when I was a kid people told me the model was God first or the second and you lust huh and the well I I don't have any uh anything more to say not really you know that should be our order of things because it was Jesus's Order of Things and when our Earthly stages over and the play is finished then we'll know fruits uh born in heaven uh in the New Creation with Christ and this is a fantastic hope for all of us yeah yeah cool I really enjoyed reading your book I've Loved speaking to you over the last hour
as well before we let um no closing thoughts really uh it's been great to be being able to spend these few minutes with you uh I've really loved it and um I I I trust that you know that we can keep before us that the best is always ahead and the best business in the past you know there's uh we no need to regret that our youth has gone uh because there's always something better for us in Christ in the future yeah and whatever we've done in the past whatever we've been through faith in Christ because of his grace and
love well whatever we've been is nothing to what we will be and this is the basic Christian message I think and I think you know if you want a motto the best is always ahead yeah and yeah that's where growth points it points to the Future IT points ahead yeah so and how can people keep in touch with your work Paul huh so how can people keep in touch with your work well why would anyone want to keep in touch with my work you know there's great people out there there's J.I. Packer and and Tim Keller and Calvin and the
reformers so um well you know I'm just basically following the scripture and from what's other people have said that I've learned enormously from um however uh seeing as you've given me a chance to I I do edit the theological Journal here and you can this is you know quite difficult theology but there's some stuff in there for everyone there's interviews with you can consult this online at uniocc.com and you can consult back issues on that and you can read good articles on there if your theologically
inclined however if you want to keep work with me please do please just pray that the Lord will bless the years which lie ahead for me and most of all that we'll see Revival of God's Church in the our country and throughout the Western World in this time because that is sure what we need Revival comes uh as we grow into Christ and become Witnesses for him to those around us so may the Lord bless us and not amen thank you what we do always we'll find a link to that website and a link to your new book and there'll be
in the description of wherever you're watching or listening to this interview as well to do check those out well thanks again for your time really enjoyed speaking to you today thanks a lot have a great day take care
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