Knowing -> Obeying -> Growing

Imagine you've just started a new position, working in a company that you have had no previous experience. During your interview for the position, you told your prospective new boss that you'd like the opportunity to take on the new position. You would like to grow in that position, and then continue in your career as a long-term employee growing in your contributions and value to the company. Now it's day 1 and there is a problem. You don't know how things work at your new company!

The nervousness of day 1 is partly related to uncertainty. You don't know the expectations of our coworkers. You don't know the daily routines. You don't know where the break room is or where the closest restrooms are, and you don't even know other people's names to ask! Day 1 can be a miniature psychological and emotional hurricane of meeting new people, learning tasks, and last but not least giving your best efforts to your work! 

Your employer has expectations for you, along with high hopes based on your qualifications and your interview. Your new boss will be expecting you learn to follow company protocol, and for you to show signs of improving the areas of work for which you are responsible. In order for you to grow in your contribution and value you'll need to display exemplary care and character towards the company's aims. Day 1 is a challenge precisely because it's the time in your employment when you know the least about how to best accomplish your work while furthering your abilities. 

There is a pattern filled with similarities between "day 1" of new employment and our relationship to God as believers. Growth and advancement come as a result of commitment and consistency. Commitment and consistency are produced out of a knowledge of expectations and satisfactory execution. 

We cannot obey something that we have no knowledge about. We cannot grow in something if we have no devotion to it. First, a person must come to know. Second, a person then lives a life that is in accordance with that knowledge. Third, the more a person lives life in accordance with what they know, the more they grow in that new life. These three steps then become a cyclical pattern: 

------> The more a person grows, the more they know. 

------> The more a person knows, the more they put into practice what they know.

------> The more they put into practice what they know, the more they grow.

Paul and Timothy in writing to the church in Colossae wrote about knowing, obeying, and growing:

For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God          (Colossians 1:9-10)

The ministry team of Paul and Timothy pray for God to fill the church with "the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives". They were praying for the church to know. This knowledge was specifically related to the church's relationship with God. For the Colossian believers to know God's will through wisdom and understanding was fuel in the fire of prayer offered by Paul and Timothy. 

They were also praying for the church to live a life which reflected the understanding given by the Spirit. There is a reason why Paul and Timothy were asking God to give to the Colossians knowledge; "so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way". In other words, Paul and Timothy were also praying that the church in Colossae would put into practice what they were coming to know. 

All this knowing and putting into practice would then result in "bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God". 

The Apostle John in his epistles often ties together knowing, with obeying, and obeying with growing. 

In 1 John the epistle opens with an appeal to what John knew (1:1-4). He then begins to instruct and correct false teaching regarding God's character and sinful humanity's character (1:5-2:2). John then expounds on how knowing and obedience are intricately related: 

3 We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. 4 Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. (1 John 2:3-4)

Here John emphasizes that what we do is explicitly related to what we know. Our actions reveal our beliefs. Our convictions inform our activities. We cannot put into practice that which we do not know. To claim to know something and then do the opposite is to not truly "know". To claim knowledge without having a practice of that knowledge is, according to the Word of God, a deceptive practice. 

The pattern is right here in front of us in God's Word. Do you want to grow individually? Do we want to grow together as God's people? Do we want to grow as believers in our faith, trust, hope, joy, love, and assurance? 

If we want to grow, then we need to know, and obey. We need to know God's revealed will in his Word. We need to obey God's commands given through his Word. This will lead to our own growth individually, and as we know and obey corporately as a community, growth will also then follow. 

The absence of any worldly wisdom in the New Testament always amazes me. At the start of any movement, event, program, or human endeavor, there is a genuine concern for the growth and future of the project. Yet at the start of Christianity the first followers of Jesus put almost no explicit care or concern with attracting members. The plan for growing the early church was found in obedience to the truth which the early church had known. 

Today we may look back and call the early church "grassroots" in it's approach. The Apostles had conversations with individuals and groups. Those conversations were rooted in what the Apostles knew about Jesus. As the Apostle's obeyed Christ's command to share their witness, the early church then began to grow. Despite hostile and opposition from 1st century Jews, 1st century Roman authorities, and various 1st century religious leaders, this little group of people obeying what they knew led to world changing growth. 

With no television commercials, no flyers, no criers, no Facebook promotions, with no celebrity backing, no tiktok provocation, with zero government support, with no earthly stockpile of funds, the gospel spread forth in a peaceful, people driven mission. We who claim to know the Word of God so well ought to return, reform, and repent back to the ways of the first century church. We who desire growth ought to learn from those who witnessed the most explosive period of Christian growth as the church grew from 120 people (Acts 1) gathered in one place in one city to churches throughout every major city in the entire Mediterranean basin within 60 years (Romans 15:23-24). We ought to rely on making God's Word known so that individuals and communities might come to know the Lord of the universe, obey his precepts and then we may witness Godly growth. If we want to grow, then we need to obey. To know how we should obey requires that we know what obedience looks like and then diligently put into practice what we've learned. 

Imagine it's the end of your first day at your new place of employment. You've made some mistakes, had a few corrections to make, and it took you at least three attempts to learn your co-workers names. Yet the first day is now in the books. Those mistakes you made today are mistakes to learn from and thereby grow into a more valuable member of the team. Will you put into practice what you've come to know from day 1? Will day 2 and every day beyond be marked by arrogantly ignoring or diligently putting into practice the things you learned from the day before? 

For many of us, we are long past our "day 1" as believers in the Lord. That means we've learned some things along the way. We've come to know more of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Each day we are given a choice of either becoming complacent or continuing to grow in our knowledge, and obedience of our Lord.