Personal Growth: What If Jesus Could Help You Grow?

Introduction

This message opens a new series, running several months at Church at Home, called "Christian Personal Development? How Faith in God Can Help Us Grow." The preacher knows the phrase doesn't land the same way for everyone. For some, personal development is a low-grade philosophy. For others, it's genuinely interesting, something they already practice, sometimes through coaching.

One thing is certain: it's everywhere. In movies, advertising, books, and even at work, where apparently 20% of professional training relates to it. One definition among many describes it as an educational approach to personality that builds self-reflective, communicative, and relational skills, transferable to life in society. Behind it all, you find a search for well-being, better self-knowledge, the valuing of each person's potential, a better quality of life, and the fulfillment of deep aspirations. A blend of psychology, philosophy, sociology, with a dash of neuroscience.

The preacher has himself taken part in several personal development groups and finds this movement interesting: it questions our beliefs and reflects on how to live better. He doesn't want to turn this into a debate over whether it's a good movement or not. The idea is rather to take what's good from it, and to see, over three or four months, how God sheds light on the big themes of personal development. And you, do you have that desire to grow? He himself would like to be a better father, a better husband, a good friend, a good coworker. Today's question: how can Christian spirituality help us become a better version of ourselves?

Outline of the Message

1. What personal development promises, and its limits

• A few core principles of the movement: everything changes through mindset; you must seek positive thinking and reject the negative; the solution lies within us, because there's real potential in every human being; your dreams can become reality if you work seriously toward them.
• You find these messages in slogans: Nike's "Just do it" (you have the capacity, it's up to you to act), Adidas's "Impossible is nothing" (everything depends on your will), L'Oréal's "Because you're worth it" (human beings deserve confidence and attention), Apple's "Think different" (a new world is possible when you change how you think). Even cartoons: in Zootopia, a rabbit can become a police officer, a job reserved for big predators, because everything depends on our will.
• There's something good in all this, especially the emphasis on human dignity. But the preacher points out its limits: an idealized human being, capable of the impossible, which may go a bit too far; a cult of performance that becomes dangerous the day you lose your abilities or fall ill; a huge emphasis on individual responsibility, heavily centered on the self; and cult-like excesses, as in any movement.
• These limits don't stop us from recognizing good insights on how to grow.

2. God's law like an X-ray: it reveals the problem

• Before opening today's passage, a detour through the Old Testament. Through Moses, God gives the ten commandments: rules and practices meant to help human beings grow and become better people. In a sense, God was already giving personal development advice.
• But the Bible doesn't stop at the ten commandments. They come at the beginning of the story, and everything that follows shows that the law is not what saves us. The law is like an X-ray: when you've broken your arm, it hurts, but you can't see where the problem is; the X-ray shows what's broken inside. The law shows us that there's a problem in the heart.
• Jesus summed up the law in two commandments: love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself. Faced with these commandments, we realize how hard it is to actually live them out.
• Paul says it in Romans 7: "But if what I don't desire, that I do, I consent to the law that it is good. So now it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. For desire is present with me, but I don't find it doing that which is good." (Romans 7:16-18, WEB)
• Personal development offers rules and methods. What Christianity brings that's distinct is the idea that there's a problem to be dealt with at the root. Rules don't change the inside. The heart is marked by a rebellion against what is good, against God. The whole Old Testament recognizes this dead end, and the people wait for a Messiah who will deal with this problem of sin that separates us from God.

3. Jesus invites us to follow him (John 1:43-51)

• John, one of the disciples, tells us that Jesus is God incarnate, come to us: the Logos, ultimate knowledge, God the creator made man. The passage shows several people discovering who Jesus is.
• First thing: Jesus says to Philip, "Follow me." He presents himself as a teaching master, at a time when there were no schools like today, but sages and rabbis one could go and listen to.
• God doesn't just want us to sign on to a set of beliefs. He wants us to walk behind him, with him, and to trust him. That's costly: if a stranger told you "come, follow me, leave everything," you'd have to be crazy or love risk to do it.
• The preacher loves this freedom: Jesus proposes, he doesn't impose. He doesn't stick labels on people (you're a Christian, you're not). He simply invites everyone to discover him and follow him.

4. Philip invites us to draw near and see before judging

• Philip starts to understand who Jesus is, and he's all in: the Messiah awaited for years, the one Moses wrote about in the law and the prophets spoke of, the one who will solve the problem of the law we can never manage to keep. He shares what he's experienced with Nathanael.
• Nathanael's reply: "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" He has his prejudices. Nazareth, in Galilee, wasn't a respectable place in his eyes. A bit like rival towns for sports fans: when something comes from a place you don't like, you dismiss it right away. Nathanael judges without knowing.
• Today, the reaction is often the same: sure, there are plenty of solutions for living better, but definitely not Jesus. Maybe people around you think nothing good can come from Jesus. But do they actually know him?
• Think of trying a new drink for the first time: if someone tells you it's excellent and you say "I don't think I'd like it" without ever having tasted it, that's not very consistent. Better to taste it and find out. It's the same with Jesus: are you judging God on hearsay, or have you actually gone and read for yourself who he was, maybe even prayed to him?
• Philip doesn't argue: "Come and see." He invites Nathanael to step out of his comfort and go toward the unknown. Do you dare leave your comfort zone to go see what Jesus offers? That applies to Christians and non-Christians alike. A practical encouragement: "I don't know how to get out of this situation, but I'll start by seeing whether Jesus can help me."
• Jesus is worth the detour. The preacher quotes Luc Ferry, an atheist philosopher, who states that without the distinctly Christian valuing of the human person, the philosophy of human rights would never have come into being. There's something in Jesus's words that transformed our world and its view of the dignity of men and women.

5. God knows you and considers you personally

• Jesus says of Nathanael, "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit!" Nathanael is stunned: "How do you know me?" And Jesus answers, "Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you."
• It's a small detail, but it's revolutionary. If Jesus is God, he sees us individually, he considers each of us individually as someone who matters. We sometimes feel like God is distant, that he speaks to the crowd and we don't count for much. Here, Jesus says: when you were all alone under that fig tree, I was watching you.
• We don't know what happened under that fig tree. But it means that when you're going through hardship, when you feel lost or alone, when you're living through something very difficult, Jesus is telling you: I see you, I see what you're going through, I am near you. God reads our hearts, he sees our story and what we've endured, and he cares about us. That's a real advantage of Christianity for growing and maturing.
• Nathanael instantly lights up: "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are King of Israel!" And Jesus tempers him a little: "Because I told you, 'I saw you underneath the fig tree,' do you believe? You will see greater things than these." He could have said "you've got it," but instead he slows him down. It's better to believe in Jesus not because he performs miracles or impresses us, but because we know him, because he is God, the way, the truth, and the life.
• Jesus doesn't want us to switch off our brains and trust blindly without understanding. He wants us to develop trust in his person. Christian faith isn't built on a logical system, but on a person, on a relationship with Jesus.

6. Faith opens the door to the kingdom of God

• "Most certainly, I tell you, hereafter you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man." The Son of Man is Jesus. In short: if you trust me, you'll see something far beyond what you can imagine.
• We don't know exactly what Nathanael was hoping for, but like most Jews of his time, he probably wanted the Romans gone, more freedom, more comfort, more well-being. Jesus answers him: what I bring is far greater than your comfort, it's access to God. This image of the opened heaven belongs to the Old Testament: faith opens up a dimension beyond our own view of things.
• Picture a sandbox: we imagine the world with only what's right around us, our own little kingdom, and we think it's amazing. Jesus says: I have something incredible to show you, a vast beach and a whole world all around. The kingdom of God is where God reigns.
• Very often, we ask Jesus to help us within our little sandbox, to come into our kingdom, where we're the ones in control. Jesus instead invites us into his kingdom, far bigger and far more beautiful.
• This may be one of the limits of personal development: a focus so strongly fixed on ourselves that we forget God has something far greater to show us. There are rules, but what God wants to show us above all is an encounter and another kingdom.

7. Conclusion: answering the call

• To grow, Jesus offers a personal encounter with God and invites us to follow him for a better perspective.
• Do you dare step out of your comfort to come to him, to see, to listen to what he says, and even to do what he says? We like listening, but following Jesus is an action: doing what he says, doing as he does.
• Are you letting God show you his perspective? In everyday life, we're sometimes so heads-down that we forget to take time to pray and ask: what is your big plan?
• The puzzle: we often think our life is a puzzle in which God is just one small missing piece. We should flip that image around. It's God who has the great puzzle, and we can ask him how our small piece fits into his plan: "Lord, show me your plan, what do you want to do with my life, with my family?"
• The message continued in small groups of three around three practical questions (listed below), followed by a prayer asking God for the courage to come to him each day, to read his Word, to pray to him, and to obey concretely when he calls us to love and to forgive.

Key Takeaways

• Personal development holds good insights, but also limits: an idealized human being, a cult of performance, a crushing sense of individual responsibility, a focus on self.
• God's law works like an X-ray: it reveals that something is broken inside, but rules alone don't change the heart.
• Jesus doesn't just want your agreement with a set of beliefs: he invites you to follow him, freely, without labels.
• Before judging Jesus on hearsay, "come and see": step out of your comfort zone and go find out for yourself who he is.
• God knows you personally, he saw you under your fig tree, and he opens up to you a kingdom far greater than your sandbox.

Personal Application

1. Have you ever noticed the limits of your own ability to grow, to do the good you want to do? Where does that show up most?
2. What has kept you, or is still keeping you, from coming and seeing what Jesus offers?
3. If you're a Christian, what is Jesus calling you to do in your daily life to follow him right now? What has that produced, or what do you think it will produce?
4. Are you asking Jesus to come into your sandbox, or are you willing to enter his kingdom instead?
5. When was the last time you took a moment of prayer to ask God how your puzzle piece fits into his bigger plan?

Scriptures Referenced

• John 1:43-51
• Romans 7:16-19
• Exodus 20:1-17 (the ten commandments)
• Matthew 22:37-40 (the summary of the law)
• John 14:6

Frequently Asked Questions

Is personal development compatible with Christian faith?

The preacher isn't trying to judge whether it's a good or bad movement. He recognizes there are good insights on how to live better and grow, and he suggests taking what's good from it. He also points out its limits: an idealized human being, a cult of performance, a very heavy individual responsibility, a focus on self that can crowd out God's perspective, and sometimes cult-like excesses.

Why aren't rules enough to help you grow?

Because the Bible doesn't stop at the ten commandments. The law works like an X-ray: it reveals that something is broken inside, but it doesn't fix it. Paul says it in Romans 7: "I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out." The problem is in the heart, and what Jesus brings is an encounter that deals with that problem at its root.

What does "come and see" mean in John 1?

When Nathanael rejects Jesus because of his prejudice about Nazareth, Philip doesn't argue: he simply says, "Come and see." It's an invitation to draw near and check things out for yourself before judging. The preacher applies this to everyone, believer or not: step out of your comfort zone, read about who Jesus really was with your own eyes, maybe even pray to him, rather than judging him on hearsay.