Evening Sermon

March 30, 2008

Walking in Jesus

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Last week we saw the goal of the ministry of the Word in the church of Jesus Christ, the goal of the church's existence. That goal might be expressed in Jesus' own words, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations."

Jesus explains to us what that means, what discipleship involves, continuing on in,

Mat. 28:18 "...baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 "teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

Paul expresses the same goal as his own personal joy in ministry,

v.5 "For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ."

So how do you get there? Good order. Orderly lives. The stability of unchanging, steadfast faith. How do you gain that as a description of your own lives? What is the path to what we might describe as such a great success in the Christian life? Verse 6 and 7 define that path for us. v.6-7

Let me begin this very broadly, and call you to focus upon the balance of verse 6. So simple. So straightforward. So clear. It is the connection between,

I. FAITH AND LIFE. The connection, the relationship between those two. What you believe and how you live. Often you recognize that relationship by an overview of a whole book, the clearest example being the book of Romans. You read of faith in chapters 1-11. What you are to believe concerning God. And then, with a abrupt and stark transition, chapter 12 begins the applications of life.

Rom.12:1 "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."

Ephesians demonstrates the same model. Three chapters of exquisite doctrine, the doctrines of grace. And then, equally abruptly,

Eph. 4:1 "I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called."

All of this is crucial, for there are so many misunderstandings that abound today with this relationship between faith and life. To be simplistic, let me describe opposite misunderstandings this way. On the one hand, there are those who say that doctrine refers to what you believe about how you are saved, and good doctrine means that you believe God saved you. By faith, faith alone, and not by works. But life, on the other hand, the practice of living life is something that you do. God did his part, now you do your part of obedience. The implication is that you do it by the working of your own strength. There are all kinds of variations upon that, but let me leave it in that form.

On the other hand, there are those who likewise say that doctrine refers to what you believe about how you are saved, and good doctrine means that you believe God saved you. By faith, faith alone, and not by works. And life, the practice of living life, is no different. In terms of life, living in obedience to God, you can't do anything. God does it in you. The implication is that you cannot be exhorted to perform any duty of obedience because you cannot do it. There are all kinds of variations upon that, but let me leave it in that form.

So there you have it. Which is correct? Why, neither one, of course. The balance is so clearly expressed here in a single verse, v.6

The idea is that the exhortation to live your life in obedience to God, to walk in Him, is built upon the necessary foundation of your faith. And don't be confused. To "live in him," to live in Christ, doesn't mean that you live passively waiting for Jesus to do everything in you. It is an exhortation, a command, and to use Scripture to interpret Scripture, it would mean exactly the same thing as what I read from Ephesians 4, "I, therefore, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called."

And to further prove that that is a proper interpretation of what it means to "walk in Christ," remember how Paul has prayed for the Colossians,

Col. 1:10 "...that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God."

So that's faith and life. Faith is the foundation for the applications of holiness and obedience. The call to obedience is but the application of a true and lively faith. So let's start with that foundation. Faith. Paul addresses the Colossians as those who "have received Christ Jesus the Lord."

Not just any religious faith will do. Not even some partial understanding of Jesus the savior. But "Christ Jesus the Lord." So the first question to answer is,

A. What it means to receive Christ. The Greek word means to take to yourself, to join someone to yourself. To appropriate something for yourself. And so it not so much an action that you perform, but the way in which you receive a gift. You take to yourself the gift that is offered to you. That's faith.

The gospel is a promise of the forgiveness of sins. It is the promise of adoption. The promise is offered to you in the gospel, and what it means to receive Christ is that you accept and receive the benefits of that promise.

And you say, "Thank you."

To receive Christ is to believe in Christ. It is to believe in the promise of Jesus to apply to you the benefits of his great work of redemption, to give you credit for what he has done for you. And so we read in John's gospel,

John 1:12 "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name."

To receive Christ is to believe in Christ. 1 John 5:11 "And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life."

Or more personally, John 11:25 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. 26 "And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?"

To receive Christ means to be saved!

Romans 10:8 "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith which we preach): 9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11 For the Scripture says, "Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame." 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. 13 For "whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved."

And then, the application. We read in the NKJV, "So walk in him." "Therefore" walk in him. Again, the idea is of an application to what has preceded. SINCE you have received Christ, THEREFORE walk in him. In this case, there is actually an even greater emphasis upon the exhortation, for their is no transition word "so" or "therefore" in the Greek. Just the foundation defined for the exhortation. The force of the sentence is upon the exhortation, the imperative tense of the verb. The first part of the sentence is simply a dependent clause of explanation, and it includes the transitional word "therefore."

v.6 "As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in Him."

I hate to be a grammar teacher and make you diagram this sentence, but I'm tempted to do that here at least in your mind. Actually, the diagram is simple. The main verb of the sentence is WALK. Again, as an imperative, a command. The subject of the sentence is given only by implication of the more lengthy first clause. YOU are the subject. You who have received Christ. You who have received Christ, hear and heed this command. Walk in Christ. Live your live in Christ, in a manner worthy of Christ. And that is,

B. The explanation of life. To walk in Christ. Conduct your life in a manner consistent with the fact that you have received Christ! What Paul has prayed for he now exhorts!

Col. 1:10 "...that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God."

That's the relationship between faith and life. So let's move on to the subject of life. Christian living, the application of the gospel in the life of a Christian. And let me emphasize this as repetitively as I possibly can. These applications are for those who have received Christ. They are not the means by which you receive Christ. These applications are for those who have already become Christians. They are not the means by which anyone becomes a Christian.

With that, let's talk about life. Beginning with,

II. THE FOUNDATION OF LIFE. The beginning, or first stages of Christian life. Paul uses a very excellent metaphor. The image of a plant or flower, a tree planted in the ground. And the crucial foundation of a plant or a tree is,

A. The roots. v.7 "...rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith."

Rooted in him. What a marvelous description of the Christian life. Roots go deep. They dig down into the dirt.

So much of modern Christianity is shallow. Pitifully shallow. Doctrinally shallow. Shallow faith, faith content to know and understand so little of God's goodness and glory as it is revealed in the Scriptures. Faith willing and content to remain a matter of surface level experiences, superficial or sentimental religion that seldom goes down deep.

Well, beloved, let this verse be a call for your faith to be rooted deeply, deeply in the knowledge of God, to go back to the prayer of chapter 1:10. And the word for the knowledge of God is theology. Oh, don't ever say you don't want to study theology, because you are saying by that you don't want to know God! Don't ever be content with a shallow faith, but instead let your roots go down deep. Deep into the word of God. And deep into your own heart and soul. That you would be rooted in Jesus Christ. That the tap root of your life, that both enables you to stand up tall and sustains you with all the necessary nutrients to sustain life would be Jesus Christ.

Not a simplistic, "What would Jesus do?" approach to life. But what should I do in order to demonstrate that the fundamental source of strength in my life is Jesus. Indeed, to demonstrate that Jesus is my life.

That's what it means to be rooted in Jesus. And then, "built up in him." Here we have the analogy of a building, so what is the meaning of,

B. The building. It's a bit of a mixed metaphor, the plant with its roots and the building. Somewhat literally, it means to finish the structure upon the foundation that has already been laid. It reflects a constant increase in the exercises of life. The very same image is used for the building of the church,

Eph. 4:15 "...speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head--Christ-- 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love."

So there is to be progress made in this great construction project known as the Christian life. Their is progress to be made in your life, the building up of a great building. You ought not to be content to be an unfinished building, languishing as an uncompleted construction project. You ought not to be content with the identity or impression of a small cabin or run-down shack. The description of the life of a Christian is that of a building being completed, a grand and glorious building because this building is done "in Christ."

And all of that goes along with what comes next,

C. Established in the faith. Beloved, that's the objective. Established. Confirmed. Made sure and certain. Or, perhaps, finished! The building is actually completed.

Not that God is ever done working in your life, or that you would ever achieve the status of perfection. I don't mean "complete" in the sense of there is nothing else for God to do, but I do mean complete. A level of maturity. A well-ordered life, as we studied last week. Steadfastness of faith.

But where does that come from? What is,

III. THE MOTIVATION OF LIFE. It is not automatic. Surely you all know that well enough. Being rooted and built up in Jesus Christ and being established in the faith is not something that just happens! It is not a declaration of God about it, such as justification, but it is our own experience of life. Built on the faith by which we are saved. But still, I ask, how? How can you send your roots down deeply into Christ? How can your life be build up in Jesus Christ? How can your faith be established?

It is not by some sort of emotional or subjective personal experience that you are waiting for. All of this is not something dependent upon how you feel. So don't get trapped by that internal question, "How can I have more faith?" Rather focus upon the motivations described and defined here. Here is the path to such maturity of life as Paul prays for and to which he exhorts the people of Colosse. Rather than a matter of subjective experience, he refers to a transformation of your mind.

You see, with Christ, the mind is the turning point. The work of God in you is the work of the transformation of your mind. Remember,

Rom. 12:2 "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."

Therefore we read in verse 7, "as you have been taught."

So that's the key. That's the sufficient motivation for life, the obedience and maturity of life.

A. Teaching and instruction. Again, I could just comment upon how many professed Christians are simply content to stop learning. They are content to receive no instruction, to forsake teaching. And how many churches are there content to provide no teaching! Just examine the average sermon in the average church. Maybe, in some places, you get a decent motivational lecture. But that is empty, isn't it, without biblical teaching.

Maybe, in some places, you even get an edifying reminder of the doctrine of salvation by which you are saved. But if that is all that there is, then God's people remain hungry, even starved for good solid food.

My own children have entered a stage of life in which significantly increased quantities of food is absolutely essential. I have always been amused by parents of teenagers talking about the need to fill their children with food every three hours, at a maximum. At that stage of life, that's all the time needed for the body to simply burn up all the food that can be consumed in a single sitting. So you feed them again. We're starting to see that in our home, and of course, that's healthy! After all, this is the stage of life when the body is growing most rapidly.

So it is with our Christian lives. Teaching and instruction is our spiritual nourishment and sustenance, and it is all too common for Christians to act like they are on a strict diet rather than a growing adolescent. We need food to grow, and lots of it.

And not just babies milk! Some people actually act as if it is more godly to remain on baby formula than on solid food, as if a baby food jar of creamed corn is going to satisfy the hunger for a 16 ounce rib-eye steak!

Just listen to this rebuke, found in Hebrews 5 with reference to Jesus,

Heb. 5:9 "And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him, 10 called by God as High Priest "according to the order of Melchizedek," 11 of whom we have much to say, and hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. 13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. 14 But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil."

You are babies, the Bible declares to us! You yourselves should be teachers, but you are still infants drinking milk. You need meat! That's what it means to be of full age. The solution is obvious, as Hebrews continues,

Heb. 6:1 "Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, 2 of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. 3 And this we will do if God permits."

Let's move on. Teaching and instruction. And that, beloved, is precisely the content of the great commission which Jesus gives to his church,

Mat. 28:19 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 "teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

"Teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you." That's discipleship. That's Christian maturity. That's steadfastness in the faith.

So let me challenge you, to press on. To dig deeper in your knowledge of God as he is revealed in his word. Press on in your zeal to grow in your knowledge, that your faith might grow deeper in Christ.

Not mere theoretical knowledge, of course. Not mere intellectual knowledge. But the knowledge that exceeds merely "the elementary principles of Christ."

With one more thing to stress, and this goes back to that original connection between faith and life. One absolutely crucial aspect of this increase of knowledge and steadfastness of faith and life. One essential reminder as I would exhort you in the exercise of your Christian life. And that is,

B. Gratitude. Gratitude for the salvation which is yours by faith. Gratitude for the salvation that is yours, you who have "received Christ Jesus the Lord." When Paul says to you, "walk in Him," the context is clear. You do not "walk" in Christ by doing certain things in order to become a Christian or to win his approval and favor, but rather you "walk the walk" because you are thankful for what has already been accomplished for you by Christ, once and for all.

So as your mind is renewed with all manner of good teaching, as you are taught "to observe all things that [Jesus has] commanded you," as you seek to live a life worthy of the Lord, do so with overwhelming gratitude, "abounding in [your faith and life] with thanksgiving."

So don't ever lose the sense of the glorious work of Jesus Christ to accomplish for you your salvation. Don't ever lose sight of the glorious promise and confidence "of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ." Don't ever lose sight of Jesus, so that you will never falter in your gratitude for the great salvation that is yours by faith, and by faith alone.

Now, with that perspective, "Walk in him."

To put it another way, Heb. 12:1 "Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith."

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