Organic vs. Mechanical Change: Click | View Series

The previous post dealt with the myth that religious busyness leads to godliness. In this post we'll see how real change is produced.

Real Change Is Checklist-Free

All the religious fervor in the world can’t bring real, organic change. The greatest commandment is to “love God with all of our hearts” (Matthew 22:37), and religious adherence to a to-do list can’t produce the first ounce of love in our hearts.

For example, say you have a man who doesn’t love his wife. Because of her complaints to her friends that he is a “bad husband,” he gets embarrassed and buys a book that lists out all the things good husbands do. He makes a checklist of what he finds: be home on time; don’t argue; be sensitive; buy flowers, etc. He does those things on the checklist diligently. He hasn’t, of course, addressed the real problem, and that is that he doesn’t actually love his wife.

You Can't Love in Obedience to a Command

Outward obedience to religious commands does not produce love in the heart, which is the heart, Jesus said, of all the commandments. And here is the crucial point: we simply cannot love in obedience to a command. In other words, in telling us to love him and others with all of our hearts, God has commanded of us something that is impossible if we don’t already have it. It is as if he has commanded us to be born again, and we are no more able to bring about our second conception than we were our first one. Even if we are the best checklist-keepers in all the earth, if we don’t do what we do naturally, from love, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13 that it all amounts to nothing.

Where Does Organic Change Come From?

So where does organic change, change that flows from love for God and others, come from?

The Scriptures say that it only comes from faith in the gospel. In John 15 Jesus said that when we abide in the vine of his love we would grow like fruitful branches—being filled with the fruits of a love for each other (v. 12) and a joy that leads to obedience (v. 11). Our obedience would not be the duty or drudgery of to-do lists but the delight of passion.

Here’s a sobering question to ask yourself: if your friends and family were asked to list the top 2 or 3 words that describe you, would love be one of them? If not, is it possible that you are religiously busy but not really changed? Perhaps all of your church activity has brought you close to the vine but not planted you within it.

Real Love Begins With the Gospel

The gospel changes us in an entirely different manner. Only the gospel can create a real love for God and people in us. By realizing how much God has loved us, we begin to delight in him. God’s love and beauty creates admiration and love in our hearts. His love for us begins to overflow in us toward others. What we do for others is no longer toward acceptance and satisfaction, but from it. We quit doing all of the “religious,” “moral,” or “loving” things we do because we “have to” to maintain our status as a good Christian, but because we want to—in response to Jesus and out of the overflow of his love in us! Love from him produces love for him and for others.

Love begets love. As 1 John 4:19 says, “We love him because he first loved us.”

J.D. Greear is speaking at the Advance 10 conference April 26-28 in Durham, NC. For more info go to advancethechurch.com.

Advance 10

The Advance 10 conference will equip leaders to engage the changing culture of the New South with the unchanging message of the gospel. Find out more.

Organic vs. Mechanical Change: Click | View Series

J.D. Greear is speaking at the Advance 10 conference April 26-28 in Durham, NC. For more info go to advancethechurch.com.

There are two ways people try to change. The first way is organic change (I borrow this terminology from Dr. Tim Keller, a man from whom I've learned a great deal on this); the second is mechanical change. Organic change is natural change—growth from within. Organic change is how a plant grows. Organic change is a change of the heart that produces a change of behavior. Jesus describes this kind of change in his discourse on the vine in John 15. He said that as we (the branches) simply “abide” in him (the vine) we naturally produce abundant fruit, just like a plant. If we are not being fruitful, then our connection to him must be severed. This kind of fruit is natural, organic fruit. This is how the gospel changes us.

Watering a Sandbox

Mechanical change, by contrast, is artificial change. It is growth by addition. It would be like hanging pieces of fruit on an artificial tree. I recently caught my four-year-old daughter watering her sandbox. When I asked what she was doing, she said, “I'm trying to make it grow.” Having seen her mother water plants and make them grow, she thought she could grow the sandpile in the same way! But sand is not alive, and watering it won’t make it grow. The only way to make a sandpile grow is to add more sand to it. Religion changes you mechanically. Religion adds a lot of things to your life and makes you very busy. You get list upon list of things that you have to do to be regarded as a good Christian. You may or may not like to do them. The things religion gives you to carry often feel burdensome.

A lot of Christian growth instruction ends up being “mechanical” change. You are given lists of things to do that “good” Christians do.

Three to Thrive?

I grew up in one of those churches where busyness seemed to equate to godliness. “Three to thrive” was our mantra—meaning that spiritual health was dependent on attending three church services weekly—Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night. In addition to that, we had Sunday school, AWANA, weekly visitation, at least 2 yearly revivals (and that was if the Spirit wasn’t REALLY moving—if so, you might be in revival once a month), missions conferences, last days conferences, marriage conferences, singspirations, Vacation Bible Schools, prayer festivals, sword drill contests, Bible quizzing nights, cantatas, light up the city day, etc.

And when you weren’t at church, you were supposed to be busy at home doing spiritual things, too. We had little envelopes “in the pew rack in front of us” that we were supposed to fill out each Sunday that logged for the church clerk how busy we had been for Jesus:

• Had we read our Bibles that week?
• Had we prayed?
• Had we shared our faith?
• Was there a tithe included in this envelope?

I guess keeping us busy was a way of keeping us away from sin. I think it worked for me, somewhat. The only drug problem I had as a kid was that I got drug to church all the time.

Now, it was not entirely my church’s fault that I equated busyness with godliness. My church believed the gospel. And I understand that there are activities we can and should engage in that will help us grow spiritually. But somehow I got the message that being a Christian was a list of stuff you did. I got the message that I would be a good Christian if I would do, with diligence, what good Christians did.

In the next post we'll see how real change is different from mechanical, checklist religion.

Advance 10

The Advance 10 conference will equip leaders to engage the changing culture of the New South with the unchanging message of the gospel. Find out more.