What it Means to Walk with God

I’ve had a number of surgeries, but got my knee replaced not that long ago. And so, I found myself, you know, rehabbing, walking outside.

And you have a lot of time to think and you’re looking at nature and you find yourself looking all around as you take a slow, quiet walk, you pray, you process, sometimes I listen to God’s Word or a good book. And more than anything else, I think I see the beauty all around me that it’s there every single day, but I don’t see it when I don’t take those walks.

And once you learn how to walk, it’s not too difficult, but it does require balance, one step after another. In fact, walking is a process.

And it’s interesting, I began to think about this idea of walking, both physically and as the metaphor.

And the first time anyone is walking in the Bible, it’s in the garden and it’s a shared time and it’s relational. It’s our first parents: Adam and Eve. And it appears from the text that it’s just habitual, that there’s a certain time of the day that the Lord Jesus manifests in His preincarnate body and they walk together and they talk and it’s a perfect environment. There’s no shame; there’s no guilt. It’s just relationship.

Reminds me that God made us for Himself, that He wants to share His presence. In fact, the entire story of the Bible is about this story of God repairing after the Fall when sin entered, when this barrier came between us and our heavenly Father. That the story of Scripture is God wanting to restore that relationship, that He wants to walk with us.

Burning bushes, tabernacles, temples, incarnation of the Son of God, the indwelling Spirit, a millennial kingdom, a new heaven, a new earth - the garden is how it all starts.

It ends in a city. But it’s really all about one thing. It’s enjoying the presence of God. And at the very end of Scripture it says, “The nations will walk in the radiance of the glory of God.”

And all I want to get to is this idea of walking and God’s presence and what it really means to walk with God. In fact, the psalmist describes the blessings of the man or the woman, “who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the path of sinners or sit in the seat of scoffers. But his delight,” or, “her delight is in the law of the Lord.

And in His law,” God’s law, “he meditates day and night.” And then there’s this amazing promise, “And he will be,” or, “she will be like a tree firmly planted by the streams of water. It yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither.” And listen to this, “And whatever he does, whatever she does will prosper.”

There’s something about how we walk that determines our future and our life. And David makes this huge contrast. The second half of that Psalm 1 passage is the wicked are not so. And it’s this opposite, drastic picture of the wicked, people who don’t walk with God, the outcomes are negative, chaotic, violent, bad.

But by contrast, the man or the woman who walks with God and then notice the connection here, they delight in the law of the Lord. They delight in God’s truth.

So, what I want you to get is that walking with God really matters. And there’s a way to walk with God and you can walk with God now even like I can walk with God. And the whole purpose of the law, the purpose of the tabernacle, the purpose of the Red Sea,
the purpose of the judges, the purpose of all the wisdom literature, the purpose of the great prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel – the journey with this whole nation of Israel and the coming of the Messiah, Jesus, and His perfect life that He lived.

He walked with the disciples. And His death in our place and His resurrection and His current intercession for us at the right hand of the Father is all focused on this: He wants to be with us. He wants us to walk with Him.

And eventually, He is going to bring a new heaven and a new earth and eliminate sin and pain and tears and death so that we can be with Him.

But until then, Old Testament and New Testament are a story of God’s invitation and His way and His path that you can walk with Him.

In fact, Solomon picks up the journey as we go through Scripture in our mind’s eye. Solomon picks up the theme and he says who we walk with will determine our destination. Think of that.

It’s not just learning to walk, it’s not just learning to walk with God, but who we walk with in life will determine our destination. Proverbs 13:20, he says, “He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of a fool will suffer harm.”

The theme of God’s presence is everywhere in the wisdom literature. In fact, in Psalm 15 David tells us that those who want to share in God’s presence – he asks this question: “Who can abide on Your holy hill? Who can be in Your presence? Who is welcome into Your presence?”

And then he begins to answer the question, “He who walks in righteousness and speaks truth in His heart.” And then he talks about not slandering his neighbor and then he talks about the kind of relationships and hating evil. He talks about keeping your word, swearing to your own hurt and not changing.

He talks about even the use of our money where we don’t charge interest to brothers and sisters in Christ and we’re not manipulative. And he goes, “He who does these things,” the very end of Psalm 15, “will never be shaken.”

We learn in the wisdom literature that it’s not good for a man or for a woman to walk alone and that a chord of three is not easily broken.

So, all I want you to do is pause right now. This is a little bit different series. I mean, I’ve thought about this, been praying about this, and every now and then I want to pause and I just want to talk to you personally. I’m in a discipleship group with about five guys, all somewhere in their forties. So, they have got kids of various ages, they are being bombarded by the world, they have the normal struggles of marriage, they have got very demanding jobs.

And as I listen to them and I hear their struggles and we hold each other up, I realize we are walking together. And they think I’m helping them, but the fact of the matter is they are greatly helping me. We are helping each other.

But the most fundamental thing that I see in their life is the challenge they have to walk with Jesus in a way where His Word is the guiding principle of their life, where His Word is coming into their heart, coming into their life. They have so many pressures, so many distractions just like all of you.

But, you know, if you study the gospels what you find is that you can’t walk alone, but you’ve got to walk with the right people. Those gospels reveal a Jesus who - He spent all night praying and then He chose twelve and in Mark 3:13 it says why, “That they might be with Him.”

God’s Word isn’t just something out there, it’s not a bunch of principles, but it’s the incarnation of God’s Word. It was the living Christ doing life with those men.

And sometimes we gloss over these gospel passages, right? You know, they went from Jerusalem, you know, over to this city and we read this city and that city and this city and that city.

Well, most of us don’t know the geography. Multiple times it was ten miles, twelve miles, fifteen miles. Two or three occasions it was thirty miles or fifty miles. And they walked. And so, there was a pace, there were conversations, they were hanging out together, there was joy and laughter and jokes and private one-on-ones. There were moments of confession, times where, you know, you could be up near the front talking with Jesus or maybe near the back as everyone is walking ahead and say, “Lord, I’m really struggling with…” And you could share your heart.

And then there’s times He would stop and, you know, give some instruction or give a parable or you, as a group, would experience something and as you experienced it, He would pause and say: Guys, come here, I want you to see what really happened here.

When we walk, you take a step and then – are you ready? You lose your balance and then you trust that your other leg is going to come out and hit the ground before your face hits the ground. Now, if you have watched a nine-month-old or a twelve-month-old or a fourteen-month-old depending on when they’re learning to walk, you know, they take a step or two and then, bam! On the floor. And the good news is they’re not very tall so they don’t fall very far. But when you learn to walk, you stumble, you trip, you fall.

And I’d like you also to remember, because some of us have such a warped view of our heavenly Father. Think about that young mom or that young dad, or especially grandparents. Man, grandparents go nuts over little grandkids that are learning to walk, right?

You know, we are videoing this and we are sending it to each other and that little one takes one step and another step and not quite the third step and smack! Goes right on his face. And everyone is going, “Yay! Yay! Yay! Way to go, Bobby! Way to go, Mary! That’s so great. Come on, get up, let’s try it again.” And we grab their little hands and take a few steps.

We rejoice at their attempts. We praise them and affirm them and get excited that they are taking steps, that they are losing their balance, they are taking risk.

I want you to know that’s how God feels about you. So often we get stuck, we get so busy because we forget the Christian life is a walk, one step at a time. And it’s not only one step at a time, but there are stumbles. In fact, there’s not only stumbles, there are times where we fall, where we fail, where we hit kind of hard, where we know exactly what we should have done and we don’t do it.

Or we make excuses about what we could have done and didn’t. We all struggle in this walk, but we are walking with Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit and your heavenly Father, with arms out wants you to walk with Him.

Not just a little prayer in the morning, not just a church attendance, not just listening to podcasts, not just a tiny little devotional or reading a verse or a little reading plan. Not just predigested food that other people who are studying give to you, but He wants to walk personally with you.

He wants to speak directly to you through His Word, by His Spirit. He wants you to build convictions. He wants certain things from His Word and His truth to get sealed inside your heart that becomes so real and so right that they are like a rudder and you can’t waver from them because it’s something God has done in you. All that is a product of walking with God.

In fact, by the time we get to the New Testament, the apostle Paul takes this idea of walking and He turns it into a metaphor. And so, Ephesians chapters 1, 2, and 3 tell us: This is what God has already done for us.

This is who you are in Christ. You are redeemed, you are forgiven, you are filled with His Spirit, you are sealed by His Spirit, you have an inheritance, you have been adopted, you are loved, you are a son of God, you are a daughter of the Most-High God.

And then in chapter 4, after three chapters of: This is who you are, this is all God has done. You don’t have to earn His favor, we don’t walk for His approval, we walk from His approval. And so, in verse 1 of chapter 4, the apostle Paul says, “Walk in a manner worthy of the Lord.” And then in verse 2 and 3, he makes it clear that this is in the context of deep, authentic, sacrificial relationships.

And then after explaining this personal process of transformation, he tells us in early chapter 5 to walk in love as imitators of Christ. And then a little bit later he says, “Walk in light.” And then he goes on to say, “Don’t walk as unwise men but walk as wise, making the most of the opportunity.” And then he follows that by telling you: This is how to do it. Don’t be filled or be drunk with wine but be filled or controlled by the Spirit.

And then he says: Let me show you when the Spirit is filling you, controlling you, when you’re walking vibrantly with the Lord Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit, with comrades-in-arms, let me show you what that looks like in your marriage, let me show you what that looks like in your parenting, let me show you what that looks like at work, let me show you what that looks like in the conflict and the challenges and the spiritual battles that you have.

And that’s the rest of the book. It’s walking in a manner worthy. Literally, that word worthy, we get our word axis. Picture in your mind, if you will, you know those scales, the kind of balances where you put weight on one side and one side goes up, then the other side goes down?

This is a word where if you would imagine everything you are in Christ on one side of the scales: loved, adopted, sealed, you have an inheritance, you are precious, you have an identity, you have a purpose. Those are true.

And he says: Let what is true of you, your beliefs, be balanced out by your behavior. In other words, progressively live out in everyday life, everyday relationships, at home and at work and roommates and with kids or grandkids or employees or neighbors. Just everything you do, walk, process – right? One step at a time. How? You lose your balance. There’s faith, there’s trust, there’s going to be occasional falls. Are you getting it? You may stumble, you may even fail, but walk in a manner worthy of the Lord.

And so, he says there’s this amazing journey that He calls us to. And that you can know how to walk with God in the midst of a challenging environment, in the midst of the lures of the world of this age, in the midst of temptations that are very hard to overcome you can learn to walk with God.

I’m learning physically, as I have kind of had to learn to walk with this brand-new knee that I have is the physical act of walking, getting outside, it’s physically, emotionally, and spiritually enriching.

You know, I can sit and read and I do still and I can be in front of a screen and I can listen to a podcast and, you know, I can listen to a good book, I can read a good book.

But I just would tell you, there’s something about physically going outside and walking where there’s no screens, where there is the beauty of nature, where there is time to think and process and you can actually pray out loud and in our day and age people don’t think you’re weird because especially if you put in one of those earphones in one ear or the other, they just think you’re talking to someone on the phone.

But what I have to tell you is is that this concept of the Christian life as a walk I think has been lost. I think so many people are living with a sense of duty or a sense of guilt and, you know, “I know I’m supposed to read the Bible and I can’t get disciplined.” Or, “I know I’m supposed to pray but, you know, they are really short and just kind of mostly in the car or when I’m really desperate.” Or, “You know, I’m trying to have my quiet time or I’m trying to walk with God, I’m trying to break this addiction, I’m trying to be a better mom, better dad. You know, I know I shouldn’t be doing x, y, or z.” Or, “I’m trying to stop this or start that.”

And I think so often we lose sight that the goal is to experience God’s presence and that we can walk with Him in truth, we can walk in light, we can walk at His pace, and we can walk according to the destination that is going to bring us the greatest joy and Him the greatest glory.

And what I would say is this: I think walking is a process for little babies that involve losing their balance, trusting one foot after the other, and that the people with their arms out are not going to let them fall and get hurt. And what I would say is someone helped them learn how to walk. Someone cared enough to hold those little hands and to praise them and encourage them and to give them the help they needed to learn to walk.

And if you look at Scripture, the great men and the great women of God, they never walked alone. Jesus walked with the disciples, Elijah walked with Elisha, Joshua walked with Moses, Timothy walked with Paul. Here’s the question: who are you walking with?

Many years ago, I was crawling as a brand-new Christian, struggling in just about everything: my thinking, my morality, my relationships and many of you heard me talk about Dave the bricklayer many times. But Dave invited me to learn how to walk with Jesus.

What has sustained my life, what has helped me become a child of God that enjoys the presence of God, what has helped me more than anything else to be the man and the husband and the dad and now the grandfather that I am seeking to be is the practice of learning to walk with God that Dave the bricklayer showed me how to do.