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Walking with Christ
Introduction The Christian life has been described in many ways. Paul talks about the Christian life as a work, a battle, a race, a structure to be built up, a wandering as in the wilderness, a following of a guide and walking. This Sunday, we will look at the Christian life described as a walk.
The walk of a mature Christian In the Old Testament, the act of embracing and being serious about one’s faith was described as a walk in the ordinances of the Lord or walking in his statutes and laws. In Genesis, when God spoke to the 99 year old Abram to change his name to Abraham, God said, “ I am God Almighty. Walk before me and be righteous (Genesis 17:1)” The phrase, “walk before me” is for the Christian an act of living out a faith that is always in anticipation of God’s guidance. It is the striding out in faith, knowing that God Almighty is behind us guiding us and helping us should we fall. If God had always walked before us, then we would not be given the opportunity to exercise our spiritual muscles, for growth and character building. Thus as it was in the days of Abraham, so it shall be in our days when God allows us to walk before him and to obey his commands.
Yet walking in his ways also involves being led as a shepherd leads his sheep in the wilderness. What a glorious view of guidance. Sometimes God allows us to walk in front to build us up and sometimes God allows us to walk behind, leading us on in times of deep distress, of toil and trouble to lead us to refreshing and ease. How often we observe a young Christian being lead by Christ and a mature Christian being commanded to walk before God.
The walk of Conversion Walking with God begins with the walk of conversion. To illustrate this spiritual principle, let us turn to the first account of the walk along the road to Damascus in Acts 9:3-9. Saul was breathing murder and traveled along the Damascus road. And while he was still on the road, a light flashed from the sky. It is ironic to behold that the light that John wrote as the light which shines on in the dark and the darkness has never mastered it, the light which was a lamp to the people’s feet now temporarily blinds Saul in order to truly give him sight.
This must have been a terrible shock to Saul because he had always believed that he walked in the ‘light’ and that he and all he represented were in the ‘light’ and acted for the ‘light’. In his zeal for the ‘light’ he pledged to destroy those who deviated from the ‘light’ as he knew it. Saul was not blinded on the road to Damascus; he was already blind when he took up the mission to destroy Jesus. He was already a blind man on the road to Damascus and the true light that shone so brightly in the noonday sun was an antidote to his blindness.
The voice that issued out of the experience at the Damascus road commanded him to go to Ananaias for healing was not just for physical healing but also spiritual. We are told in the accounts in verse 8 that they led him by the hand and brought him to Damascus. Saul could not see and had to be led by the hand. In the eyes of God, Saul was a chosen instrument and his new birth along the road to Damascus was particularly violent. The hand of God was upon Saul through the hands of those who guided him into Damascus and also through the hands of Ananaias who lifted the scales from his eyes. It was at straight street (the present Darb al-Mustaqim) in Damascus that Saul regained his sight and his faith through the filling of the Holy Spirit.
Friends, the walk of conversion is always an encounter with Jesus who meets us on our personal journey to self destruction. Sometimes he temporarily blinds us only to reveal to us true reality. Sometimes he shocks us and shakes us out of our willful journey of destruction. May we have the wisdom to see what the Lord sees. May we heed the blinding light when it comes.
The walk of conversion Walking with Christ is also a walk of service. In the parable of the Good Samaritan in response to the question “who is my neighbor,” Jesus illustrated the principle of service to people not taking into account race, creed, color and religion. The man who was beaten up was to Jesus, a certain man. He did not specify whether this certain man was a Jew though it is implied. Our focus is not on the suffering of this man or the cruelty of the priests and the Levites but our attention should be rightly focused on the actions of the Samaritan.
Jesus is saying to us that service to others must not be limited by race, religion or pigment but it should be triggered by a need or suffering. The road of service entails cost, it entails a loss of time, and it entails physical stress (as the Samaritan had to walk while his own beast carried the sick man).
We are challenged to walk the road of selfless service. The ‘who’ of the object of our service should rightly be Christ. If we remember that it is Christ that we are serving then, we would be able to serve others regardless of creed, color or conviction.
The walk of the cross The third illustration is found in the accounts of Luke 23:26). We read…”As the led him away to execution, they seized upon a man called Simon of Cyrene on his way in from the country, put the cross on his back and made him walk behind Jesus.” When Jesus walks in front, leading the way it will be a time of intense suffering.
The Christian life or the walk with Jesus as Bohn Hoeffer puts it, “When Christ calls us, he calls us to die,” is a road of suffering. To many of his disciples, it was a one-way ticket to the Coliseum. To Bohn Hoeffer, it was death. Simon the Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus must have been so touched by his experience that later in Romans 16:13 we read of Rufus the son being an outstanding follower of Christ. Simon must have converted his whole family to Christ after that experience.
When Simon carried the cross, Jesus was walking in front, almost as if he was leading the way. God guides us by walking behind us or in front of us and when he walks in front of us it will be such times when we need him most. When we are carrying our own cross and toiling up our own calvaries, Christ will appear to help us in our suffering and will lead us on to glory.
The walk alongside Christ The last illustration is the walk of fellowship seen in the walk of the disciples to Emmaus. This time two disciples were walking along the way to a village called Emmaus and as they talked and discussed, Jesus we are told, came up alongside them and walked with them. Jesus was not walking in the front or behind, but he walked alongside them. In their intense discussion of the events of Jerusalem, they did not recognize Jesus. Friends, sometimes Jesus appears to us in mysterious ways and we do not recognize him because of the focus of our lives on earthly things. Jesus has promised that he will be with us even to the uttermost ends of the earth and we should recognize him. However, many of us do not and we pass up on a great blessing.
In the conversation of the disciples with Jesus, the disciples displayed ignorance of the significance of what happened in Jerusalem. The Lord rebukes them with these words…”How dull you are, how slow to believe all that the prophets said.” With these words, the Lord then explained to them beginning with the scriptures, the significance of his death and resurrection.
So it is with us. When Christ walks alongside us, it is an occasion for rebuke and instruction. He fellowships with us by supping with us. But he speaks and instructs us. Christ will make sense of the past and future and he will enable us to live for the present. The disciples felt a warming of the heart. And so we should.
Conclusion When we walk with the lord, he either walks behind us to let us grow. He walks in front of us to lead us to paths of service and persecution. He walks alongside us to instruct us. Friends let the Christ walk with you. Amen. |
