The Sweet Spot of Spiritual Transformation

Dannah Gresh: We live in a world that is full of distractions—things competing for our attention, our affection. Brian Hedges says . . .

Pastor Brian Hedges: We have to want something more. We have to see that there’s something more desirable, something that’s better than all of these lesser things that are calling for our attention.

Dannah: Thank you so much for listening to the Revive Our Hearts podcast episode for July 20, 2023. I’m Dannah Gresh. Our host is the author of A Place of Quiet Rest, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Let’s face it. We often find our sense of meaning and purpose in lesser pursuits—our jobs, our hobbies, our service—even the various hats we wear as wives, moms, sisters, daughters, or friends. In reality, only one identity truly matters: the identity we have in Christ. Maybe you’ve heard it before but I think it’s worth repeating, “Who you are is based on and flows out of whose you are.” 

And we can also say this: who you are in Christ directly affects the process of becoming more and more like Him. That process is what theologians refer to as “sanctification.”

Our guest today, Brian Hedges, is the author of a number of books, including one on sanctification called Christ Formed in You: The Power of the Gospel for Personal Change.

I first met Brian and his wife, Holly, before they were married, when we all served with the revival ministry Life Action. Brian and Holly eventually settled here close to the Revive Our Hearts headquarters. Brian now pastors Redeemer Church in Niles, Michigan, where several of our staff attend.

Not too long ago Brian led a workshop on spiritual change, and it made such an impact on a couple of our producers that they said, “We’d love to share this content with the Revive Our Hearts audience!” 

So my co-host, Dannah Gresh, sat down with Brian to explore the concepts he presented at that conference session. Let’s listen together to Brian Hedges and Dannah Gresh.

Dannah: Welcome, Pastor Hedges, to Revive Our Hearts.

Pastor Brian: Thank you, Dannah. It’s good to be here.

Dannah: What I heard through the grapevine is that you taught that spiritual transformation happens at the intersection of three distinct but related things. What are those three things?

Pastor Brian: Those three things are: identity, desire, and habits. Those are the words that I put on them, anyway. There’s different ways of approaching that. We may think about positional sanctification as well as progressive sanctification. There’s different ways people have described this. But I think those three words are helpful—identity, desire, and habits. If you think of a Venn diagram with three circles, and the intersection of those three circles, the middle . . .

Dannah: Yeah, thank you for explaining a Venn diagram, because for a moment I felt my math class coming back to me. I wasn’t sure what that was! So, say that one more time. A Venn diagram is when three circles overlap?

Pastor Brian: Yeah. In that one place where all three circles overlap, I think that’s where you get the sweet spot. So if one circle is identity, one circle is desire, one circle represents habits, it’s when you get those three things working together that I think you find some real momentum in personal growth and spiritual formation, transformation. I think we change when those three things come together.

Dannah: So when we aren’t changing, is it because one of those three things isn’t happening? Or we’re not getting it right in one of those areas? Where do we start? Talk to me. I’m stuck somewhere in my spiritual journey. Where do I start?

Pastor Brian: Absolutely I think it can be because of something missing in any one of those three components. I don’t have any particular secret here, but I think if we listen carefully to what the Scripture says, we’ll see that Paul in his writings is always talking about these three things. 

So take any of Paul’s letters and he often begins by talking about who we are in Christ. You have that, for example, in Ephesians. If you underline every time you read the words “in Christ” or “in him” in Ephesians, you’ll see that Paul has a lot to say about our identity in Christ, our position in Christ, who we are in Christ. We are adopted in Christ. We’ve been redeemed by Christ. We’re raised and seated with Christ in the heavenly places. All of those statements are statements about something that has objectively happened to us, something that is changed in our basic identity because of our union with Christ. That’s a great starting place for anyone who’s stuck. 

I think one of the first questions is: are you in a vital, living relationship with Jesus Christ? If so then there’s a new identity, the core of your being. You’re not the same person you were before you met Jesus.

Dannah: Right, a new creation. Now, maybe somebody’s listening and they’ve been a believer for a long time, but they could feel insecure about their identity or they’re finding their identity is not in Christ but in other things—achievement, work, their family, Pinterest-perfect home—all that kind of stuff can be a counterfeit for our identity, right?

Pastor Brian: Yes, I think we have to go back to those basic truths again and again and remind ourselves of what our true identity is.

Dannah: Yes.

Pastor Brian: Here’s another passage from Paul. Many of your listeners would be familiar with Galatians 2:20 where he says, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith, and the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” 

So Paul in that statement is saying something that is true of every believer, that if we’re in Christ, we’ve been crucified with Him, and the old “I,” the old “me” is dead, no longer lives. We now have a new life, a new identity in Christ. The Christian life in many ways is going back to that foundational reality again and again and again. Because all change flows out of that. It all begins with that.

Dannah: Right. I have Ephesians 1 marked up. It looks like my twin toddler grandbabies were in there because I have to go back to that over and over and just read it, soak my heart in it, because I forget who I am in Christ. 

So one reason you might be stuck is because you’ve gotten some spiritual amnesia in terms of who you are, and you need to anchor your identity in Christ. What about desire? What’s that have to do with it?

Pastor Brian: So, desire has to do with the orientation of our hearts—our loves, our desires, our ambitions, the things that we long for. We could say it this way, that in spiritual transformation, first of all, we become who we really are in Christ, we live out of that identity, but we also become what we love. 

If identity has to do with our union with Christ, desire has to do with our devotion to Christ. Just as we need to be rescued from this spiritual amnesia, as you put it, we also need to be rescued again and again from our idolatries. I think it was John Calvin that said the human heart is a factory of idols. Even as believers, we can really get off base where we’re setting our minds and our hearts and our affections on lesser things, on inferior things, on competitors, instead of setting our hearts on Christ.

Dannah: Yeah, and that happens gradually. It’s not like we wake up one day and say, “Hey, I am not going to set my heart on Christ today. I’m going to set it on being the mom that everybody looks to and says, ‘She has it all together,’ or “I’m going to set it on my career. Things aren’t going the way I want in my family, in my life, so I’m going to be successful in my career.’” That happens incrementally and deceptively. Christian women don’t generally say, “Yeah, I don’t want to have a passionate desire for Jesus.” It happens over days and weeks and sometimes over pain and hurt, right?

Pastor Brian: Absolutely. I think this is one aspect of the Christian life which requires some kind of daily discipline of reminding ourselves of the truth of the gospel. Jesus, in His call to discipleship, says, “If anyone would follow me, let him deny himself and take up his cross. Come after me” (Matt. 16:24 paraphrased)

That’s something we do daily. We deny ourselves daily. We take up our crosses daily. That can sound like a negative thing, but remember what else Jesus says in that same passage. “He who seeks to find his life will lose it, but he who loses his life, for Christ's sake, will find it” (vv. 24–25 paraphrased). So it’s reminding ourselves what we really want. The deepest desires of our hearts are not going to be satisfied in anything less than a thriving relationship with our Creator and our Redeemer.

I think the problem with other desires is that they are deceitful desires. They’re lying to us, they’re telling us that we can find satisfaction and joy and fullness in something other than a relationship with the Lord Jesus Himself.

Dannah: Yeah. You mentioned a bunch of writings from Paul in terms of our identity. What are some passages we should look to in the Scriptures if we think maybe our desires and our passions are a little out of order?

Pastor Brian: Well, just stick with Paul for a moment. We could also look at some of the more practical passages. Ephesians 1–3 is largely focused on who we are in Christ and on God’s great redemptive purposes that are being worked out in Christ, and then in and through the Church. But then in chapter 4, Paul turns a corner and he tells us that we’re to walk worthy of our calling. By the end of chapter 4, he’s telling us to put off certain things and put on certain things. And you find that same pattern in Colossians, especially in Colossians 3, where he tells us to put off a number of different things and to put to death sin of various sorts. In all those passages, he’s really addressing our hearts and the behaviors that flow out of the heart. 

We might also think of the words of Jesus where He says, “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks” (Matt. 12:34). It’s from the heart that flow these different sins. There are many passages in Scripture that address this. The heart really is at the core of who we are. We live out of the heart. We could think of the heart as command central in a human being’s life. It’s where we live from. I think it’s Proverbs 4 that tells us to “keep our hearts with all diligence, for out of it flows the issues of life” (v. 23 paraphrased).

Dannah: I love that. You know, I’m thinking about two things. One is, put off some things, and put on others. I think sometimes, when we’re in a place of trying to fix our hearts and our lives and our desires, we forget about the “put on” part. We get legalistic with ourselves. “Don’t do X, Y, and Z,” and we forget to put on the things that are going to fill that vacant space in our hearts effectively. Do you see that sometimes?

Pastor Brian: Oh sure. We could easily get caught up with sin management, or sin avoidance, and all we’re thinking about is the negatives. The don’ts. I think it’s another reason why it’s important to think about desire and love and what it is we’re pursuing, what we’re seeking after, and be reminded continually that sanctification, spiritual formation, really has to do with our relationship with the Lord first and foremost. And then, out of that, how it affects other relationships. It’s not simply a matter of behaviors. It’s not a matter of dos and don’ts. But it is, are we devoted to the Lord as our Redeemer, and as our Savior, as our God and Master?

Dannah: Sometimes I really am in a place of being completely devoted to Him, and I’m just floating through life in one direction, pointed to Jesus. But then . . . I don’t know if you’re familiar with Greek mythology and the sirens that cried out to the sailors? It's like this thing is just over there—it could be a cupcake sometimes, just calling me when God has called me to a fast. Or it could be entertainment, the TV, or my screen, scrolling through . . . Things just calling me to numb myself from the troubles of the day. What do we do when we hear those voices?

Pastor Brian: It’s interesting that you mentioned that story from Greek mythology. So there’s a couple of different stories. Maybe you’ve heard these. There is the story of Odysseus and the Sirens. When he and the sailors were venturing into that territory, he essentially has himself chained to the mast of his ship. He had all of his sailors stuffs their ears with wax so that they’re not able to hear the voice of the sirens. But he wants to hear the voice, and so he has himself latched to the mast of the ship and says, “Under no circumstances are you to set me free until we’re out of danger.” 

But there’s another story, a story also of Jason and Orpheus. Jason, when he knew he was going to encounter the sirens, brought onto board the ship Orpheus, who was the greatest musician of the land. Instead of using ropes and chains and trying to constrain people and putting wax in their ears, he just has Orpheus play a more beautiful, powerful song than the song of the sirens. It drowns out their song. 

I think that’s a strategy for how we are to fight against these competing desires. It’s what the old Scottish theologian Thomas Chalmers called the expulsive power of a new affection. We have to want something more. We have to see that there’s something more desirable, something that’s better for us to pursue than all of these lesser things that are calling for our attention. Because I think if we’re honest, we just live in a world that is full of distraction and full of things that are competing constantly for our attention and for our affection. We have to be reminded that there’s something much greater than what the world has to offer.

Dannah: What a beautiful story. I’ve only ever heard the one about being tied to the mast. I like the second story much better! That's a new Greek mythology siren story. 

Pastor Brian: It’s a great story.

Dannah: And you know what? That’s kind of what happens when I anchor myself in the Word every morning, when I spend time with Jesus. Usually I’m looking at the woodpeckers and the cardinals and everything coming to my birdfeeder. That holy time is like a song that’s more wonderful than all the things that will cry out to me all day long. When I get busy and I don’t do that, I don’t do as well in the day.

Pastor Brian: Sure.

Dannah: Because I haven’t been satisfied by a better song. So you’ve talked to us about identity, anchoring our identity in Christ, or re-anchoring it in Christ if you’ve gotten off course. You’ve talked to us about finding that true desire that will satisfy us, the desire for relationship with Jesus. What about habits?

Pastor Brian: Well, I mean you actually just gave us a great segue for that in talking about this time with the Lord everyday. Habits have to do with the patterns by which we live our lives. We think of spiritual disciplines, things like time in the Word, time in prayer, time in silence and solitude. But there are many other habits. There are lots of different spiritual disciplines we can use. 

The habits have to do with what we do. This is where the behaviors come in and actually are important. I think we can say it this way: just as identity has to do with our union with Christ, and desire has to do with our devotion to Christ, habits have to do with our imitation of Christ. 

If we look at Jesus and we look at the way Jesus lived His life, what becomes really clear is that His utter devotion to the Father gave His life a certain shape. It meant that He did certain things. We see Him withdrawing from the crowds to spend time in solitude with God. We see Him rising in the morning to pray. We see Scripture just flowing out of Him. Jesus, in His incarnate humanity, had committed the Scriptures, the Old Testament Scriptures, to memory. He meditated extensively on Scripture so that He’s able to pull those Scriptures out at a moment’s notice. It’s those same kinds of spiritual disciplines and habits that we can use to structure our lives, to make obedience to Jesus in living out this transformed life doable in our daily lives. 

Dannah: So good. I don’t know if this is a habit. I think it is a habit. God’s been communicating to my heart that I do some of these hard habits, for some people, really well, like prayer and Bible study. But I don’t play well. I don’t celebrate well. God’s been inviting me into the discipline of enjoying his creation. That’s kind of a lesson I’m learning right now. 

I see people all the time who have the habits of Bible study and prayer down, but they don't seem to be moving forward in sanctification. They don’t seem to be moving forward in the fruit of the Spirit. They’re not changing even though they have what I would call “good” disciplines down. Why is that?

Pastor Brian: That’s a great question. There’s probably a number of different answers. One of the things that comes to mind when you said that is that Jesus Himself confronted people and rebuked people who knew a lot of the Bible but they had missed Him. So in John 5, He says, “You searched the Scriptures so then you think you have eternal life. The Scripture testifies to me, and you will not come to me that you might have life.” So it is possible for people to go through the motions and to spend time with the habit and not really meet the Lord. So that’s the problem. If we make the habits or the disciplines an end in and of themselves, then a certain kind of rigidity and legalism can come into a person’s life. 

I think this is common that we see sometimes. People who are naturally pretty structured and disciplined, they can take on spiritual disciplines pretty easily in the same way that they work out every day and they count their calories and they’re great with finances. But they can be lacking in some of the fruit of the Spirit. It may be that what we’re seeing in their habits is not actually spiritual transformation, it’s just a leaning into things that come naturally for them. But they’re not really meeting with Jesus.

We can’t make habits the only thing, the only component. We also have to go back again and again to the desire component. What do we really love? If we love Jesus and we love what Jesus brings, we love the fruit of the Spirit, we love the kingdom of God—that’s going to impact the way we approach these habits. We’re not viewing the habits as a self-improvement program. That’s not what they are.

Dannah: Right.

Pastor Brian: The habits are the means for us to meet with the Lord so that we can imitate Him, so that we can follow Him, so that we can become more like hHm. If we’re walking out of our habits more selfish or less joyful or less peaceful or less longsuffering, less patient with other people, we’ve mistaken the means for the end. 

Dannah: Yeah, right. That’s a good thought. I had a time when my mentor said, “You know what? I don’t want you to fill out your prayer journal for a while,” because it had come to where if I had finished a full page, I had accomplished what I needed for that day. So I hear what you’re saying.

You said earlier that it’s kind of the intersection of these three things—identity, desire, and habits, all working together—that helps bring spiritual transformation. So take us to the Scriptures. Where do you get the idea that they can work together?

Pastor Brian: Well again, I would go to Paul’s letters because I think you see all of these things in his letters. Let me just go to one passage, Colossians 3. It’s one of Paul’s most practical passages in all of his letters. It begins with an emphasis on identity with Christ. Colossians 3:1-4, 

“If then you were raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” (NKJV)

There he’s anchoring who we are in Christ, in our union with Christ, in His death, burial, resurrection, and in his second coming. When Christ appears, you’re going to appear with Him in glory. But right in the midst of that, He’s also giving us a couple of commands. He’s telling us to seek the things that are above, and to set our minds or set our affections on things above. And really, there He’s talking about the direction of our heart. That’s language that speaks to our desire. 

And then, if you read the next verse, verse 5, he says, “Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” So there he’s talking about dealing with negative desires. If you keep reading through Colossians 3, he will go on to use the “put off” language and the “put on” language. He will tell us to essentially imitate Christ, that just as the Lord has forgiven us we must all forgive. And we’re to put on love. 

He gets into the realm of what we might call today spiritual disciplines, when he tells us to “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in hearts to God” (v. 16). It’s all right there in one chapter. I could show that in many other places in Paul’s writings and other places in Scripture as well. But that’s one place where you see all of it kind of concentrated in one place.

Dannah: Ah, I love that. If you’re feeling stuck today, if you feel like you just really have been in the same spiritual rut for a long time, you might open Colossians 3. You could use it as a prayer and talk to the Lord. You could use it to create your own Venn diagram of how you’re doing in these three different areas of discipline. And again, those three areas are identity, desire, and habits. 

This has been a great conversation, Pastor Hedges! I want to ask you a question. You’re a great tutor. This is like spiritual sanctification 101. It was great. Very understandable. I loved it. Usually I find that great tutors had great teachers. So who were some of the teachers who have shaped your understanding of spiritual transformation?

Pastor Brian: What a great question. That’s so true. I tell people all the time, everything I say I’ve borrowed from somebody else or learned from someone else. None of it really has any original thought. Some people that come to mind . . . I absolutely love the English Puritans from the seventeenth century—John Owen, Thomas Watson, Isaac Ambrose—a lot of these authors. Some people I think are a little afraid of the Puritans because of the perception that maybe the language is hard to read. They all speak in Old English. But actually, there are now lots of modern reprints of the Puritans where the language has been modernized and the books have been abridged somewhat. They’re really accessible. So those have been very helpful for me.

I’ve also really benefited from the whole realm of spiritual formation literature. Books on spiritual disciplines. I think of Don Whitney’s book, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, or David Mathis wrote a book a few years ago called Habits of Grace. Those are great. Nancy wrote a wonderful book on this, A Place of Quiet Rest. It’s all about time with the Lord in the Word. I think that whole stream of literature is very helpful as well.

One other author maybe I would mention is John Piper who has said so much about desire for God, desiring God, and finding our joy in Him, our satisfaction in Him. That’s had a huge impact on my life as well.

Dannah: So Colossians 3, and you just gave us a whole library of good books to follow up with. I always find that books are great tutors. Thanks for spending some time with us.

Pastor Brian: Thanks for the invitation. It’s been fun. 

Nancy: That’s pastor and author Brian Hedges, talking to my co-host, Dannah Gresh, about that sweet spot of spiritual transformation, the intersection between who we are in Christ—our identity—our desires or affections, and then our habits, or what many refer to as the spiritual disciplines.

Brian wrote about these concepts and more in the book I mentioned earlier, Christ Formed in You. There’s information about how you can order a copy for yourself linked in the transcript of this program, at ReviveOurHearts.com. Also within the transcript, you can review the list of authors Brian just mentioned.

We’re able to bring you helpful content like what you just heard, thanks to the faithful giving of our listeners . . . and also their faithful prayers! Your giving and your praying are helping us reach listeners like Madeline. She sent an email recently, and we asked her to read parts of it aloud so you could hear it.

Madeline: Revive Our Hearts continues to be used by God in my life to bring freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness!

Nancy: Madeline’s the young mom of quite a handful of children—eight to be exact. She said their dishwasher broke a couple of months ago. She and her husband had been experiencing, as she put it, some “friction around the budget.”

Madeline: God was working in my heart to humble myself and learn to respect my husband's wishes. 

Nancy: She said washing dishes at the kitchen sink became her spiritual battleground.

Madeline: As I listened to Revive Our Hearts, at first my attitude was not pretty, grumbling about the man God gave me who didn't want me buying paper plates. But as I listened to Nancy's recent teaching on the woman at the well, I realized how much I was looking for my needs to be satisfied in places and people other than Christ. 

Nancy: Well, God used Revive Our Hearts to revive and change Madeline’s heart. It was sweet to read the details of how God provided a new dishwasher. God provided two separate people who send money to her and her husband saying that the Lord had prompted them to give this specific amount so they could get a new dishwasher.

When she and her husband went to buy the one they thought would work best for their family, the price was exactly the amount they had been given. What a precious encouragement that was! She finished with this:  

Madeline: I am so grateful for Nancy's teaching and how God has used Revive Our Hearts to minister to me through every season of my life!

Nancy: Wow, so sweet! Madeline, your original message came to me at the end of a day filled with lots of back and forth on "lesser things" that felt unproductive, honestly, even frustrating. So your words were encouraging to me personally.

Thank You, Lord. It is such a gift to have this glimpse of the Spirit at work in just one listener's life!

And to you, our listener friend, if you’d like to be a part of helping women like Madeline, we’d love to hear from you. Pray for us. Make a donation. 

And when you contact us with your donation of any size, make sure you ask about the magnetic notepad you can stick to your refrigerator door. It features a quote of something I’ve often said before, “Anything that makes me need God is a blessing.” Then there are blank lines on that page for you to jot whatever down it is that day that you need God and is therefore . . . a blessing. When you are done with that page, you can tear it off and start the next one and be reminded again: "Anything that makes me need God is a blessing." Write down what makes you need God that day.

Well, to make a donation, just visit ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-5959. Be sure you ask about the magnetic notepad so you can keep that list in front of you: "Anything that makes me need God is a blessing." 

You know, it’s easy for any of us to attach our sense of meaning and purpose to the things we do / our performance, rather than our relationship with Jesus. That’s something Kelly Needham joins us to talk about tomorrow. I trust you’ll be back for Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth wants you to live in the sweet spot of spiritual transformation and find freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the ESV unless otherwise noted.

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