How You Can Walk with God

I have to go back a number of years to share I think the most important walk I have ever taken. You know, some people walk with others all the time. Others, it’s not really a part of your life. Some of you have probably pictures of maybe a vacation or a romantic walk on a beach or a walk through the forest. But there is a walk that I can’t forget.

I mean, it’s one of those that it was during a time where Theresa and I were dating, we were getting more and more serious, we had a lot of issues to really think through. The implications of us getting married were really, really big. And we had met my parents once and as we were getting more serious, we went to meet them again and we had done sort of that dance where you meet each other’s parents and God was drawing us together. And, yet, we hadn’t kind of completely sealed the deal.

And as we were with my parents, we decided to take a walk, you know, you’re in love and want to get some time alone. And it was just barely, barely sprinkling so I had this, it was kind of old but a huge poncho that had this big hole in the top of it.

And, you know, we started outside and the rain that was light was turned to heavier and heavier. And so, I remember it was big enough that both of our heads could get inside of it. And we’re holding hands and we are walking around as the rain is coming down all around us. And as I held her hand and all that rain was coming down, I can’t explain it exactly. I obviously knew I loved her. I thought as best I knew God is leading and I wanted to marry her and, you know, all those great feelings that you have.

But there was something in that walk. It was like a metaphor of the rain of life, the challenges that come, there’s all that stuff, right? We have all that stuff of life. We have heartaches and challenges and health issues and family problems.

And what I remember having this inner sense of, “I think there’s plenty of rain that we are going to come upon in life,” and I felt sheltered under that poncho. And as I held her hand, it was this sense of: If I’m going to go through life, I want to go through it with this person. It’s just a walk that I’ll never, ever forget. And we have been on that walk now for a little over forty-five years.

And I think about it because during these forty-five years or so, it’s not just about marriage, but there has been a connection, there has been forty-five years of support through challenges and hardships and in the midst of it, intimacy that has grown deeper and deeper, you know, offspring. You know, where you have these children and you think they are a part of us. We have become best friends, we have hit huge barriers and then we have experienced really big breakthroughs.

And we have been walking together. There’s been deep, deep challenges. But what I would have to tell you is that in our personal walk together, the shielding of God’s grace, we have been through the rain of disappointment and betrayals and sick kids and cancer and broken hearts. But there has been a bond between us that got created by another walk.

And that has been, despite all of our ups, all of our downs, all of our personality differences, all of our heartaches and arguments and challenges in our marriage, the bond has been our own personal walk with God.

We both were introduced to a personal relationship with Jesus. And God brought wonderful, kind people into our life that taught us how to walk with God. Not how to perform, not how to get Him to love us, but to grasp that He loves us and to really walk with Him.

And it’s more than just believing and receiving Christ, it’s more than just spiritual activities, it’s more than breaking bad habits and forming good habits. It is a step-by-step walk with God where you experience His presence, where He comforts, where He directs, where He reveals things about you, some that you don’t like and – but He does it with gentleness and He provides clarity and direction and you are on mission with Him and you experience Him and you find that for us, we start first thing in the day, because He is the most important person in our life.

What I want you to know is that He invites you to walk with Him. And I don’t know your background, I don’t know what you’re going through, I don’t know all the distractions.

I want you to listen to this invitation: “Come unto Me all of you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” That’s Jesus. That’s Jesus speaking to you today. Come, just come. Not come because you have it all together or not even to get it all together. All of you who are weary. You’re just worn down, you’re tired of the pressure, you’re tired of trying to please everyone and be everything and, you know, be a great this and a great that and do the job and have the family or be this single person and do the… I mean, heavy-laden life of pressure, come. Come unto Me.

And then notice, here’s the invitation. Once you come, believe, trust in Him. Yes, it’s repenting of our sin and believing and trusting Christ’s work on the cross has paid for our sin, that His resurrection is true and real and He’s alive. And that we believe and entrust ourselves to Him. That is certainly this coming for salvation.

It just so breaks my heart that I meet so many Christians, I think they think that’s the beginning and the end and, you know, I hear, “Oh, I prayed a prayer or I’m trying hard to be a good Christian and, you know, I know I’m saved.” And they completely miss the very next part of the invitation isn’t just to receive eternal life, not just to receive forgiveness, but it’s, “Come and walk with Me.”

Verse 29 of this chapter 11 of Matthew says, “Take My yoke upon you and learn from me.” Take My yoke, in other words, let’s get hooked up together. It’s a picture of a couple oxen and there’s a yoke that goes over both of them and Jesus says: Join Me. Let’s do life together.

And, you know, if you know anything about the oxen and yokes is that they would pair an experienced ox with a younger one and they would carry the burden of the load so that that young one learned how to keep in step and that’s what Jesus is saying: I’m stronger, I can handle anything, but I am inviting you to – let’s do life together. Let’s get in sync.

In fact, the Bible uses the word, “Keeping in step with the Spirit.” It uses this metaphor: Walking with God. And He says, “Take My yoke upon you.” And a yoke was both literal but when a rabbi was being approached by disciples and, you know, Jesus chose His disciples but in that culture, most young men especially, they were sort of evaluating all the different rabbis.

And they would ask and they would request, “Would you be my rabbi? I want to be your apprentice. I want to learn to think like you and speak like you and know God like you.

I want to have the character that you have. So, would you be my rabbi?” And they would join him and they would become a part of his team, if you will.

And when a rabbi would say, “Well, taking my yoke means are you willing to take my instruction and the discipline of walking with me in order to learn from me? How to think like me, how to speak like me, how to know God like me, how to do relationships like me.”

So, this invitation, He says, as important and vital and critical as putting your faith in Jesus as your Lord and Savior - step one, amen, praise the Lord, press ahead - but the next step is to say, “Lord, I want to follow You, I want to take Your yoke upon me, I want to learn,” listen carefully, “Lord Jesus, I want to learn what it looks like to do life with You. I want to learn to look at circumstances the way You do, I want to connect with Your heavenly Father the way You connect with Him. I want to experience Your power, I want to experience Your peace, I want to learn how to stay connected to You throughout the day. I want to learn to care about other people the way You cared about other people. Lord, I want to walk with You and do life with You.”

So, He says, “Take My yoke upon you.” And so, that instruction means you are committed to learning His Word and learning His ways. This is what the Scripture says, this is how to do life. This is how to manage your money.

Not to get this or get that, it’s a stewardship. That this is how you do relationships, this is how you parent, this is how you treat the opposite sex, this is how you respond to your enemies.

That’s what it means to take His yoke upon you. It’s a walk. And it’s a walk that’s step-by-step. It’s a walk where you trip, it’s a walk where you stumble, it’s a walk where you fail, it’s a walk where you get mad at times and try to rip off the yoke.

And then He tells us just such encouraging – He says, “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me.” But then He tells us why. He says not only will He give us rest, but He says, “For I am gentle and humble in heart and you shall find rest for your souls.”

In other words, He’s not overbearing. It’s not like a cult. It’s not like you’ve got to do this, you’ve got to do that, you’ve got to follow all these rules. It’s, “I am gentle.” I am understanding. I get you. I mean, I really get you. I understand what you’re going through. He says, “I am gentle and humble.” Some of the old translations say meek. Not weak, but meek. It’s power under control. And He goes on to say, “You’ll find rest for your soul.”

And then He, in contrast to your work - they want to put a yoke on you, right? They want to get everything out of you? He says, “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Now, some of you are thinking, The Christian life doesn’t feel easy to me. Well, part of that is because so much in our journey is our flesh waging war against the spirit.

And we haven’t gone into training to experience a light yoke, to experience God’s power, to experience what it looks like to not trying to live the Christian life in your will and energy but how to live the Christian life where the life of Christ is flowing in you and through you.

And what I would say to you is that, you know what? It is a journey and this is a tremendous invitation. And it’s the invitation that I took the Lord up on, my wife took the Lord up on, and what you know and I know, there’s lots of rain, right? There’s lots of struggles, there’s lots of disappointments, there’s lots of pain that - it’s a fallen world - we are all going to experience.

Learning is a process, walking is a transfer of your balance, it requires faith, it requires study, it requires intentionality.

And, you know, I could give you, you know, I’ve talked about Moses and I’ve talked about David and, you know, I could talk about Mary and that it’s never too early to start, right? Here’s a fifteen, maybe a sixteen-year-old girl that God calls and He wanted to take up residence, literally, in her - the incarnation, fully God, fully man. And He speaks to this young girl and her response is the heart of what it looks like to take His yoke upon you and learn from Him. And she says, “Be it unto me according to Your Word.”

And I want you to know that like in anything, in any walk, if you want to stay in step, if you want to grow, there’s discipline, there is some hard work, there’s some times you don’t feel like it.

Listen to the words of Solomon. This is not only an invitation, but this is what it will take for you to learn how to walk with God and I want you to know I would be so honored to spend time with you the way a bricklayer spent time with me in a way that you could learn how to do this. And when I hear already in your mind, I don’t really know how, or, I don’t think I have the time, or, I have tried that before, I want you to know is that you don’t have to have a degree in this or that or have been to Bible school or seminary or be a super smart person. The Bible was written for ordinary people. The Bible says that the common people heard Jesus gladly.

But I want you to listen very carefully about what it will require of you and then I want you to listen for the absolutely amazing reward, not only in this life, but forever and ever and ever.

He says, “My son, if you will receive My sayings and treasure my commandments within you…”

It starts with you have to be in God’s Word. Being in God’s Word on a daily basis is the prerequisite for walking with God. Jesus said emphatically, “Man won’t live by bread alone, but every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”

God spoke, the world came into existence. You look through the prophets, it would be Jeremiah that would say, “Your Words were found and I ate them and they became for me the joy and the delight of my heart.”

Notice that word: they became. When you start getting into the Scripture, it can feel confusing and like duty and it’s hard. But that’s how it feels when you’re first learning to play the piano or the guitar or learn a skill or physics, right?

“My son, if you’ll receive my sayings and treasure my commandments within you,” then notice the attitude, “make your ear attentive to wisdom and incline your heart to understanding.

So, it’s not enough just to, “I read a chapter,” or, “I read a devotional.” Listen, incline your heart. I want to learn. What do You want me to do? I want to have a teachable Spirit.

“For if you cry for discernment, lift your voice for understanding,” if you don’t understand it, cry out to God, Lord, I want to know. This doesn’t make sense to me. I want to hear Your voice, I want to lean in, I want to walk with You.

You know, it’s a passion. David’s passion, “This one thing I ask of the Lord, that,” what? “I may know You and behold Your beauty.”

The apostle Paul would say – what? Philippians 3, “More than anything else in all the world, I want to know You and the power of Your resurrection and the fellowship of your suffering. Everything, all my success is like garbage compared to knowing You intimately.”

You see, there’s a commitment to His Word, there’s a teachable spirit, and then there’s this passion and desire. Ask God for it. And then notice the discipline. “If you seek for her as silver and search for her as for hidden treasure,” in other words, it’s a priority. It’s more than making money, it’s more than your kids on the sports teams, it’s more than academics. In other words, the priority is you would seek to know God like someone seeking for silver or for buried treasure.

Then listen to this promise, “Then you will discern the fear of the Lord and discover the knowledge of God.”

Think about that. You’ll have a sense of His awesome, reverential presence. You will discover an intimate, real knowledge of God. You’ll experience Your heavenly Father is just and kind and good and compassionate and understanding.

You’ll have a sense, as you rub up against evil and are tempted, that you’ll just know that is not righteous, that’s not a path I want to go on. He goes on to say when that happens, “For the Lord gives wisdom and from His mouth comes knowledge and understanding.” Listen to these benefits as you walk with Him, do life His way. That’s what the fear of the Lord is.

It’s saying, God, I am going to do life Your way, not my way. I want to walk with You. I want to submit my will, my emotions, my heart. I believe You made me, I believe You have my best in view. But my emotions go against that and the world goes against that, the enemy is trying to tempt me. But here’s the reward and this is why it’s worth it, “For from His mouth come knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity. He guards your path of justice. He preserves the way of the godly. Then you will discern what is right and what is just, what’s fair. You’ll learn every right course of action. Wisdom will enter your heart, knowledge will be pleasant to your soul, discretion,” wisdom, knowing what to do, when to do it, how to do it, “it’ll deliver you from evil, and God’s favor will be upon your life.”

Almighty God, I pray that You would speak to the hearts of every person hearing my voice. Lord, that they would receive Your invitation to come to You, to take on Your yoke, to walk with You and to experience the life that is really life. In Jesus’ name, amen.