It Is God's Will That You Walk with Christ!

3/31/24

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Sermon Transcript

Good morning! Greetings from the Fulshear congregation. If you haven’t been to Fulshear, it’s easy to find. It’s the spot in Houston where they decided to tear up all the roads at the same time. I’ve been teaching there a class on Hosea. We’re on about Lesson 26 or so, about halfway through the book. So, yes, we’re taking our time. And so if I start talking this morning about Pekah and Pekahia, you’re going to know what happened. But that’s not our topic for this morning. Our topic for this gospel meeting is “What is God’s Will for You?”

And let me start the class this morning with a question. What is the key to maintaining your physical health? Well, I suppose there could be many answers to that question, but if you’re like me, you get all of your medical advice from the AARP magazine. And in that magazine there is only one answer to that question and it is walking. Walking. Walking is the key to our physical health. Either 5,000 steps or 10,000 steps or whatever the article says, but it is walking. I guess the thought is if you keep moving nothing bad can happen to you.

And so we’re told that repeatedly and that should not come as a surprise at all to a Christian and why is that? Because walking is also the key to our spiritual health, our spiritual health. The Bible has a great deal to say on the subject of walking and in fact one of Paul’s epistles has a has that it’s one of its main themes the subject of walking and that is the epistle to the Ephesians. Ephesians 2:1-2, “You were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked.” Ephesians 2:10, “We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 4:1, “Walk in a manner worthy of your calling.” Ephesians 4:17, “No longer walk as the Gentiles do.” Ephesians 5:2, “Walk in love.” Ephesians 5:8, “Walk as children of light.” Ephesians 5:15, “look carefully how you walk, not as unwise but as wise.”

So just in that one epistle and just in those few verses that we read, we have five commands on how we’re supposed to walk and two warnings on how we’re not supposed to walk. And as we look through the rest of the Bible, we see a lot more on the subject of walking. But just from those verses we read, I think we can see the title of this class, which is, “It is God’s will that you walk with Christ.” It is God’s will that you walk with Christ.

But what does that mean? What does that mean to walk with Christ? We know what it means to physically walk with someone, but what does it mean to walk with someone as the word “walk” is used in Ephesians, for example, as Paul uses the term? And I think we all know the answer to that question. Certainly it is not like walking around the block, but it’s your way of life. When Paul uses the word “walk” in Ephesians and tells us how to walk and how not to walk, he’s describing our way of life, how we live, how we make decisions, how we set our priorities. He’s describing the things we do, he’s describing the things we say. How I walk is how I live my life.

And when it comes to how we walk in this life we each have a choice to make. Everybody has a choice to make on how they walk in this life. Paul for example says we can walk with God (Ephesians 5:2, Ephesians 5:8) but Paul also says we can walk apart from God (Ephesians 2:2, Ephesians 4:17) so we have a choice to make but you know what if I I just want to stand here. Standing still is not an option. It’s not an option when it comes to how I live my life. That is just not an option. When it comes to the kind of walking we’re talking about this morning, no one, no one is standing still. We’re all moving toward one destination or another. We’re all walking. We’re all living our life.

Standing still is not an option. But, if I’m gonna choose, you know, I said earlier we have a choice, so if I’m gonna choose how I’m gonna walk in this life, you know, it might be good to know what are my options. What are my options on how to walk in this life? And I guess we might think there must be countless options on how to walk in this life. You know, there must be thousands of choices about how to walk in this world, right? Wrong. Wrong. There are four choices precisely for not three not five not more than four four there are four choices and everybody on planet Earth has chosen one of those four choices on how to walk in this world.

Well what are those four choices? The Apostle John gives them to us. First John chapter 2 starting in verse 15: “Do not love the world or the things in the world if anyone loves the world the love of the Father is not in him for all that is in the world the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life it’s not from the father but it’s from the world and the world is passing away along with its desires but whosoever does the will of God abides forever.” In those three verses, John lists the four choices that everybody has for how to walk in this world. I can walk according to the desires of my flesh. I can walk according to the desires of my eyes. I can walk according to the pride of life, or I can walk according to the will of God. Those are my options. Those are my only options.

But wait, that was John’s first century culture. We’re a lot more sophisticated today. We must have a lot more choices than that, right? Wrong, wrong. Look again at verse 16. “for all that is in the world, everything,” he says. That’s it, that’s it. All that is in the world. John is telling us that whatever we find in this world, if it’s not from the Father, it falls into one of those three buckets that he lists there in those verses. And again, those are the desires of the flesh, which we call hedonism, The desires of the eyes, which we call materialism, and the pride of life, which we call humanism. That’s it. And that has always been it. Hedonism, materialism, humanism. There is no worldly philosophy different from those three. Those three worldly philosophies describe all that is in the world, apart from the Father. That’s what John is telling us.

Paul told us the same thing. 2 Timothy 3, starting in verse 1: “But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. people will be lovers of self lovers of money skipping down to verse 4 lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” The same four choices we just saw from John Paul lists them in 2 Timothy 3. Will we be lovers of self (humanism)? Will we be lovers of money (materialism)? Will we be lovers of pleasure (hedonism)? Or will we be lovers of God?

Well before we look at how we should walk, let’s look a little more closely at how we should not walk. And let’s look first at hedonism. Hedonism. God says, “Seek ye first his kingdom.” The hedonist says, “Seek ye first your own pleasure.” A hedonist is devoted to earthly sensual pleasure as his way of life and that goal define how the hedonist walks, how he walks, how he lives his life. He’s motivated by pleasure. He’s controlled by pleasure. He’s controlled and motivated by the pursuit of pleasure and by the love of pleasure. He’s guided and his steps are directed by the lust of the flesh.

What does the Bible say about that philosophy? Well, we know that King Solomon followed that philosophy for a while. He described it very well in Ecclesiastes 2:10: “Whatever my desired I did not keep from them I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure.” That is the philosophy of the hedonist. Solomon denied himself nothing he lived only to feed his own desires and that same philosophy remains very popular today 3,000 years later. In fact, as we look around us today I think we might agree that hedonism is the dominant philosophy of our day. Why? Why do so many people live and walk for nothing more than their own pleasure?

Well Paul answers that question in 1 Corinthians 15:32: “If the dead do not rise, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” Absent God, absent the resurrection, Hedonism is the most logical of all philosophies. That’s what Paul is telling us there. If there is no God, if there is no afterlife, then why not just live your life according to the motto of a beer commercial and go for the gusto? If this is all there is, then why deny yourself anything? Just eat and drink, for tomorrow you die. Why deny myself anything if the only thing that stands before me is the grave? That’s what Paul is saying in 1 Corinthians 15. Why should I reject hedonism? Because there is a resurrection, because there is an afterlife, because there is a God, and because hedonism deadens our spiritual nerves. Hedonism muffles our spiritual alarm systems. Hedonism stifles our spiritual growth. Those who seek only worldly pleasure eventually become completely deadened and completely unreachable. They want each new pleasure to be better than the last and they give themselves over entirely to what becomes an endless, an endless spiral leading to despair. We have all witnessed it. They’re seeking happiness but all they find is emptiness, disappointment, and death. We must reject the walk of the hedonist.

Let’s look next at materialism. God says, “Seek ye first his kingdom.” The materialist says, “Seek ye first your possessions.” The materialist is devoted to things as his way of life. He’s motivated by money. He’s controlled by money. He pursues money. He loves money. His steps are directed by by the lust of his eyes. He lives only to consume, and whatever he has, he always wants more and more and more. One of the very first skeletons they uncovered in the ruins of Pompeii, that was destroyed by the ancient volcano, the skeleton they uncovered, his outstretched hands were reaching toward a pile of silver coins. While that man’s world was quite literally collapsing all around him, all he thought about was his money. The last thing he was thinking about in this life. And is modern man any different? Is modern man any different? It’s been said that most people today are frantically fighting for first class cabin space on the Titanic.

They grasp, they covet, they obtain, and then they sit at home feeling lost amidst their own disappointment. The Prophet Haggai described such people. Haggai 1:5: “Now therefore, thus says the Lord of Hosts, consider your ways. You have sown much and bring in little. You eat, but you do not have enough. You drink, but You’re not filled with drink. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages, earns wages to put into a bag with holes.” That verse from Haggai was written 2,500 years ago. But could anyone write a better description of our own modern society? They earn wages to put into a bag with holes. They eat, but they never have enough. And when is enough enough? For the materialist, the answer is never, never. That’s what Solomon ultimately discovered. Ecclesiastes 5:10: “He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver, nor he who loves abundance with increase.” The materialist never, never has enough. Their discontentment leads to their pursuit of money, but they never find the contentment they’re looking for, no matter how much wealth they accumulate. Man looks to money for permanence and for security, but money offers neither. I don’t know about you, I have never one time seen a U-Haul trailer attached to a hearse. And you know the question, how much did he leave? The answer is always the same. He left all of it.

Paul told us in 1 Timothy 6:17 that we must not trust in uncertain riches and Jesus told us in Matthew 6:19-20 that all earthly riches are uncertain. In Luke 12:15 Jesus said, “take heed and beware of covetousness for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” In Matthew 6:24 Jesus said, “no one can serve two masters. You will hate the one and love the other. You will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” Not that we must not serve God and money. Jesus says we cannot serve God and money. If we’re serving money, Jesus says we despise God. The world has made its choice. What is our choice? We must reject the walk of the materialist.

Let’s look now at the third option, humanism. Humanism. God says, “Seek ye first his kingdom.” The humanist says, “Seek ye first yourself.” A humanist is devoted to himself in particular and to mankind in general. He is motivated by human pride. He is controlled by human pride, by human achievements, by human wisdom. His steps are directed by the pride of life. His man-made religion is a religion of self-glorification. His commitment to human potential and to human development is entirely through human effort. The humanist does not rely on God at all to explain how we got here. The humanist does not rely on God at all to explain how we should live while we are here. The humanist does not rely on God at all to explain where we’re going. The humanist believes that mankind with its own power can supply its every need, answer every question. The humanist is supremely confident in his own goodness, in his own power, in his own accomplishments. The hedonist had a lust for pleasure. The materialist had a lust for possessions. The humanist has a lust for power. Power.

According to that humanistic philosophy, there is no problem that mankind cannot solve all on its own, all by himself. Disease, death, war, poverty, ignorance, the weather, the mysteries of time and space. The humanist tells us we can solve them all, we can understand them all, we can answer them all, all by ourselves. Nothing is beyond our ability. Nothing is hidden from us. Nothing is impossible to us. That is the pride of life. That is the humanistic philosophy. And woe to those who stand in its way. History is littered with the bodies of those who stood in the way of the humanist. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, perhaps the most influential and the most vocal humanistic opponent of Christ in the last several centuries. He was born in 1844, he died in 1900. Insane, I might add. But his ideas lived long beyond him. Nietzsche called Christianity, quote, “the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, and the one immortal blemish on the human race,” close quote. And in his most well-known book, Nietzsche called for the entire world to adopt his humanistic values. And 50 years later, someone took him up on that suggestion. Adolf Hitler was so enamored by the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche that he handed a copy of that book to every soldier in the Nazi army. As I said, history is littered with the bodies of those who stood in the way of the humanist. They tell you they have mankind’s best interest at heart. Do not believe it. They are pursuing only their own power and only their own pride.

What does the Bible say about humanism? 1 Corinthians 1, starting in verse 27: “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are mighty and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen and the things which are not to bring to nothing the things that are why that no flesh should glory in his presence.” The path of the humanist is the same as the path of the hedonist and the path of the materialist it is leading to blindness and to death. We must reject the walk of the humanist.

Well we’ve now looked at three of the four options that we each have about how to walk in this life. The hedonist says to God, “I can escape you.” The materialist says to God, “I can replace you.” The humanist says to God, “I don’t need you.” The hedonist walks with pleasure. The materialist walks with money. The humanist walks with pride. But what’s left? What’s the only remaining option for how we can walk in this life? We read it just a moment ago in 1 John 2:17: “The world is passing away along with its desires. But whoever does the will of God abides forever.” That’s the fourth way on how we can walk according to the will of God. And that fourth way, how we should walk is the title of this class. It is God’s will that you walk with Christ. We must walk as Jesus walked.

One of the most challenging verses in the Bible for anyone who calls himself a Christian is found in the little book of 1 John. 1 John 2:6: “Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way that he walked.” Now there’s a verse that’s very hard to misunderstand, Isn’t it? If I say I’m a Christian, then I must live as Christ lived. I must walk as he walked. If I say I abide in Christ, I must walk as Christ walked. And the reverse message is equally clear. If I am not walking as Christ walked, then I am not abiding in Christ, no matter how loudly I may proclaim otherwise. What 1 John 2:6 is telling me is that whether I walk with Christ is the ultimate test of my Christianity.

And of course Jesus told us the same thing. John 12:26: “if anyone serves me he must follow me.” Luke 9:23: “if anyone would come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” If I say I abide in Christ I must walk as he walked. If I say I serve Christ I must follow Christ. If I say I would come after Christ. I must take up my cross daily and follow him. Jesus left us a perfect example and he did that for a reason so that we could follow it. 1 Peter 2:21: “for to this you have been called Because Christ also suffered for you leaving you an example why so that you might follow in his steps.” And Following Christ means we neither fall behind or get out in front of him. Galatians 5:4: “you are severed from Christ you who would be justified by the law you have fallen away from grace.” We must not fall far behind. But then 2 John 9 says, “everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teachings of Christ does not have God.” We must not run out ahead. We must follow in his footsteps.

Well, how do we do that? How do we walk with Christ? How do we follow in His steps? How do we walk as He walked? Let’s look at Luke 9:23 again, because I think there’s one word in there, a key word in that verse, that I think really helps us answer those questions. Luke 9:23: “And He said to all, ‘If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily daily and follow me daily.’”

What is man’s most incredible invention? You know I guess there could be many answers to that question. The wheel, the rocket ship, the cell phone. But if you are here today and you are above a certain age, you may be thinking what I’m thinking was the most incredible invention I ever remember seeing and it was the pause button on the TV remote control. Now kids, and I’m going to call you a kid if that’s not amazing to you, you’re thinking it’s a pause button. No. If you’re above a certain age, you remember just how amazing it was that you could press a button and pause live TV. Well as wonderful as that invention is. When we look at the Bible what we find is That there is no pause button when it comes to walking with Christ. There is no pause button. Colossians 3:23: “Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.” Whatever you do. Does that leave anything out? Does that let me hit the pause button on my service to Christ? No, it does not.

Paul tells us the same thing in Romans chapter 12, verse 1: “I appeal to you therefore brothers by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice.” A living sacrifice is just that it is something that I do while I’m living. It is not something I can turn off and turn on it’s not something I can pause. God does not want us to walk with Christ just some of the time. God does not want us to walk with Christ just most of the time. God wants us to walk with Christ all of the time. It is a daily walk with Christ.

Now I these days. They seem to be all going out of business. But for those of you who remember what the giant bookstore looked like, you remember that one of the largest sections in that bookstore was the self-help section or the self-improvement section. It was always packed with people. You know, they wanted to improve their physical health, they wanted to improve their mental health, they wanted to improve their family health, they wanted to improve their business health. And what did they do? They headed straight to the self-help section of the bookstore looking for the secret and what did all those books say they all said the same thing. I’m here today to save you a bunch of money because you’re not going to need to ever buy one of those self-help books because every single one of them can be summarized by a single sentence. You will never change your life until you change something that you do every day. That’s it. Every self-help book I’ve ever heard of or seen comes to that conclusion. If my resolution is not a daily resolution, then my resolution will be a failed resolution. If I want to become stronger, I must exercise daily. If I want to become healthier, I must eat right daily. If I want to become better off financially, I must watch what I spend daily. If I want to learn how to play the piano, I must practice daily. And on and on. I will never change my life until I change something that I do every day.

And you know what? The same is true of our spiritual health. The key to spiritual improvement is the same as in those other areas. Spiritual improvement comes from daily changes. Spiritual improvement comes from my daily walk with Christ. Daily. Now, some people outside of the church think of their spiritual life only in yearly terms. We passed a few buildings today that I suspect this time most Sundays are completely empty and the parking lot was packed. Usually Christmas and yes Easter and let me just say if you haven’t been here a while and you’ve come today to this Easter service to celebrate the death, burial, and resurrection, we are glad you are here and we hope you’ll come back next week because next week we are again going to celebrate the death, burial, and resurrection. We do that every week. But for the most part we don’t fall into that trap. We aren’t just yearly Christians but let me ask this question. Do we fall into another trap? Are we just weakly Christians? Are we guilty not of thinking of our spiritual life in yearly terms but in thinking of our spiritual life in weekly terms? Yes, there are some things we must do on the first day of the week when we gather together to worship God, absolutely. But doing every single day of the week and not just on Sunday. God does not want just yearly Christians or weekly Christians. God has told us in his Word he wants daily Christians.

Well what must we be doing daily? How do we walk with Christ daily? Well let’s open the Word of God and see the answer to that question. First, we must teach daily. Now it seems for the most part today that baptisms usually occur just on Sunday, but that was certainly not the case in the early church. Acts 2:47: “And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.” Acts 16:5: “And so were the churches established in the faith and increased in number daily.” If people were being added to the church daily in the first century, doesn’t that tell us people were being taught daily? In fact, we know that Paul taught daily. Acts 17:17: “Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews and with the devout persons and in the market daily with them.” We must also be teaching daily maybe in person maybe over the phone maybe over the internet maybe through a website through email maybe through our example of faithfulness and devotion to God whatever we what however we do it we must be teaching daily because that’s the example that God left us in his.

Second, we must study daily. Do we study our Bibles every day or is that also something that we’ve relegated to only one day of the week? Weekly Bible study is not the example of Scripture. Acts chapter 17 verse 11: “These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, and that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily.” Whether those things were so the noble Bereans searched the Scriptures daily. “Give us this day our what? Our daily bread.” You know I have never in my entire life ever met a single person who ate physical food only on Sunday. But how often do we consume our spiritual food only on that one day a week? We must study God’s Word daily.

Third, we must exhort daily. Do we see each other only one day a week? Do we talk with each other only one day a week? Do we encourage and exhort each other only one day a week? Again that is not the command of Scripture. Hebrews 3:13: “but exhort one another daily while it is called today lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” If we’re having trouble with sin I’m having with sin, then perhaps it’s because we are not being exhorted enough. Perhaps we are not being encouraged enough, encouraged daily, exhorted daily to live a righteous life. The solution to that problem is to follow the command of Hebrews 3:13 and exhort one another daily.

Fourth, we must grow daily. As a child of God we must be in a constant chain state of change. We must never stop growing. We must never be content with our current level of spiritual maturity. We must always be striving to change each and every day to become more and more and more like Christ our Savior that is the command of Scripture. 2 Peter 3:18: “but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Change is not the problem it’s easy to change growth growth it’s what we must do. Erosion comes naturally construction that’s difficult. If we’re not walking with Christ daily then we’re in danger of becoming more like this world and less like Christ. Are we growing more like the world or are we growing more like Christ each and every day? Are we changing the world or is the world changing us? Are we turning the world upside down or is the world turning us upside down? How does a plant grow how does a child grow weekly or daily? We know the answer to that. Child grows daily. Plant grows daily. We must grow in Christ daily. But if we spend six days in the world and only one day with Jesus, then will it be any surprise if we find ourselves growing more like this world and less like Christ. We must grow like Christ to be more like Christ each and every day.

Finally we must die daily. Hebrews 9:27 tells us that death is a one-time appointment that we all have. But there is a sense in the Bible in which death is not just a one-time but rather is a daily event. 1 Corinthians 15:31 Paul writes, “I die daily.” That was certainly true of Paul as he faced physical perils for Christ in proclaiming the gospel, but that must be true of all of us. We all must die daily. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran preacher who was killed by the Nazis he said when Christ calls a man he bids him to come and die. We must die daily that’s what it means to take up our cross daily. Paul told us what it means. Galatians 2:20: “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 in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” I must die daily. I must take up my cross daily. Death is the path to life for the Christians. I die daily so that I might live. Matthew 16:25: “for whoever would save his life will lose it Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” We die daily and the pathway to that growth is my daily walk with Christ. Not my yearly walk, not my weekly walk, my daily walk with Christ.

You know, of all the things that could ever be said to me, the most hurtful words I could ever hear from anyone would be these, “You’re no different than anybody else.” You do the same thing, you go to the same places, you talk the same way, you have the same values, you have the same priorities, You’re no different than anybody else. That would be the worst thing I could ever hear. Why? Because if someone said that to me, and if it were true, that would mean I am not following Jesus. I am not walking as Jesus walked. Because if I’m following Christ, if I’m following in His footsteps, and I’m walking like He walked, no one will ever say those things to me. My values will be different, my priorities will be different, My actions will be different. My attitudes will be different. My responses will be different. My relationships will be different. I will do nothing like this world. And that must not just be true of me it must not just be true of you it must be true of us the church the Lord’s Church. Why? Because a worldly church will never reach the world. The church must be different from the world to reach the world. We can’t be like the world and be a light to the world. If we’re going to help those who are slaves to pleasure and slaves to money and slaves to human pride. We cannot ourselves be their slaves. We cannot reach those driven by pleasure if we’re driven by pleasure. We can’t reach those serving money if we’re serving money. We can’t reach those who are trusting in the arm of man if we are trusting in the arm of man. We must be different and If we’re walking with Jesus each and every day we will be different.

And I’ll end today where we started. It is God’s will that you walk with Christ. Thank you very much for your attention this morning.