Walk With God

Introduction

On behalf of the elders, it’s my privilege this morning to welcome uh Fred and Pearl Ligan to our midst. They are no strangers to us. They have been with us multiple times. They work and labor for the church. Brother Ligan preaches the gospel in South Africa. It’s a difficult work. And it’s a work that for many years now. Each of you, as members of this congregation, through your contributions, have helped support financially. We have extended some financial support to Brother Ligan for many years now. I’m not quite sure how many, but we’re happy to do so. He does a good work. We hear good reports from him. And so we’re very pleased that we are able to participate in that work in this way. Brother Ligan comes to us whenever he can.

Whenever he’s in the States, he makes a special effort to visit us and other congregations that support him. And we’re privileged that he’s going to be speaking to us at this hour. But I also want to encourage everyone at 5 o’clock this afternoon be back. We’ve set up a special service, and Brother Ligan has agreed to come and talk with us, and he’s going to give us some insights into that work that he and Sister Pearl are engaged in in South Africa. So that’s at 5 o’clock this afternoon. Encourage all to be back. But for now, let’s uh focus our hearts and minds to prepare to feast from the Word as Brother Ligan brings us a lesson.

Certainly good to be with you again. It’s been four years since we were here. I’ll talk about the work this afternoon, and I hope that you’ll be here that you may hear what you have to do in helping this work to be accomplished. It’s your work as much as it is mine and Pearl’s, and we are glad and hope that you’ll let us share with you the things that have been accomplished and show you some things about South Africa this afternoon. We see up on the board walking with God. I want to before we start talking about walking with God, just think about walking. How often do you think about walking? When you got out of bed this morning, what’s the first thing you did? Well, you probably thought, well, I’ve got to go to services, and so therefore I’ve got to get dressed.

But that may be true, what you thought in your mind, but what did you do that you didn’t think about? You walk. You didn’t stay by the bed. You got up and you walked. Many times we walk or take for granted the fact that we can walk until maybe we fall down and have to have crutches, or maybe we get old and we have to have help along with the walk or something, that’s fine. But how often have we thought about walking? We need to understand that walking is of great importance. When you have a child, when that child is born, it doesn’t walk. But you feed it and you help it so that one day it will. And when it takes that first step, you are excited.

Matter of fact, we all would like to be there when our children have taken their first step. A lot of us we men, we don’t get to see that because we’re away somewhere working. But the mother, what’s the first thing she tells you when she came in? Why, Johnny walked today. Johnny took his first step today. But what does that do for Johnny? That means he can now get around. He can get into all those things he ought not to get into. And so that teaches us with walking, we have to realize and get Johnny to realize that with walking comes responsibility. Oh, responsibility. What responsibility do I have? As a parent, we have to teach Johnny not to come to the church building and push those beautiful little trays or try to pick them up.

I had a younger girl one day when I was preaching. She came up and she we had a tablecloth on the table. She came up and she pulled on the tablecloth. And I took her little hand and I put it back away from her, and I pushed the tablecloth back, and I started preaching again only to have her come around the other side over here. So I just picked her up. And I held her and continued to preach until her father finally received, got enough courage to go up and admit it was his and take her away from me. But they were trying to teach her, or they needed to teach her responsibility.

And I wanted to talk with you this morning about the subject of walking with God. Walking with God. Open your Bibles to the book of Ephesians, chapter 5, and we want to begin at verse 1 and go through verse seventeen. Ephesians 5 1 to seventeen says, Be ye therefore imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love, even as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us an offering and a sacrifice to God of an odor of sweet smell. But fornication and all uncleanliness or covetousness, let it not be named among you as becometh saints, nor filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not befitting, but rather giving of thanks. For this ye know of a surety that no fornicator, nor unclean person, nor covetous man who is an idolater, shall inherit the kingdom of God and of Christ.

Let no man deceive you with empty words, for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them, for ye were once darkness, but now are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. For the fruit of the light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth, proving what is well pleasing unto the Lord, and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them for the things which are done by them in secret. It is a shame to even speak of. But all things when they are proved are made manifest to the light. For everything that is made manifest is light. Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepeth, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee.

Look therefore carefully how you walk. Not as unwise, but as wise, redeeming or buying up the time for the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not foolish. But understand what the will of the Lord is. Here it tells me that there are some things that I’ve got to understand if I am going to walk with God. And I don’t need to be foolish. I need to understand them. And of course, that means I have to study. That means I have to work. Now, when we think about these things, we realize that what has been stated here in Ephesians is how the Christian must walk or live before God. And so these are the things that as Christians we must do. Now, before you get excited or say, is he going to preach till midnight?

No, I’m not. But I just want us to look at a few things quickly. If you want to copy these, do it because we’re not only, we’re not, we can’t study and talk about all of them. But as a Christian, we must walk in truth. We must also walk and be in the Lord. We must walk by faith in the Spirit to please God. In newness of life, in love, in light. We must walk wisely. Wisely. That means we have to make the right choices. And so we must know how to walk. We must walk by the same rule. There’s not one rule for you and the person sitting, another rule for the person sitting next to you, and a rule for somebody in the back.

1. Walking by Faith

All of us as Christians must live by the same rule and walk by the same path. We must walk in honesty. We must walk worthy of the calling that is before us. And if we do those things, we have the promise of God that in the end we will walk in white. Now, as we’ve said, we can’t study all of these, but we want to look briefly at walking by faith, walking in newness of life, walking in love, walking in light, and walking in white. So we’re going to have to move rather rapidly. So let’s see how we can do this and how we can go. First of all, walking by faith. Open your Bibles to 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 1, we’ll read verse 6 to 9.

Here the Bible says, being therefore always of good courage, and knowing that whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith and not by sight.

Wherefore also we make it our name, whether at home or absent to be well pleasing unto him. Now notice he says, we walk by faith. Well, we ask ourselves a question on this one. What is faith? What is faith? Hebrews 11 is spoken of many times as a chapter of faith. So let’s go to Hebrews chapter 11 and read the first six verses. The Bible says, now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen. For herein the elders had witness born unto them. By faith we have understood that the worlds have been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen hath not been made out of the things which appear. By faith, Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he had witness borne unto him of his righteousness.

God bearing witness in respect to his gift, and though he being dead, yet speaketh. By faith, in it was translated that he should not see death, and he was not found because God translated him. For he has witness borne unto him that before his translation he had been well pleasing unto God and without faith. It is impossible to be well pleasing unto him, for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and he is the rewarder of them that seek after him. Now the Bible says that we cannot please God without faith. But what is faith? Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen. How do you know there’s a heaven? You ever been there? Anyone here ever been to heaven?

I don’t see any hand. We all hope to go there, but how do we know it’s there? And I’m not talking about what we look at at night as we look up into the starry skies and see all those billions of stars and the moon and those things. I’m talking about beyond that. How do we know it’s there? We know it’s there because we believe what the Bible teaches and what the Bible has to say. And because we believe what the Bible says, we have that hope of eternal life. And so we walk by faith. We also may want to look, or you may want to look at some more people who walk by faith than you can. Just go ahead and read from verse 17 to verse 31 in Hebrews 11.

2. Walking in Newness of Life

It’ll talk about a lot of people there that we understand and study about from time to time in the Word of God. We need to walk then by faith. Well, let me ask you a question. Have you ever thought in your life that I wish I could start all over again? I’ve made a mess of my life. Most of us did before we became Christians. Anyway, some made a bigger mess than others. Not all messes are the same, but we all made a mess because we all sinned. And as we think about that, what do we want to do? I want to change. Have you ever heard the poem in the land of beginning again? You know that there is a land of beginning again. No matter what I did before I became a Christian.

When I became a Christian, God forgave it. I could have murdered somebody. I could have done a lot of things. I’m not going to stand up here and tell you some of the things I did, but I did. But the point is, when I became a Christian, all of those things were washed clean. And I started all over again, just like that board up there. See, there’s nothing up there. Because I had come to the land of beginning again. But I must walk in the newness of life. I became a new creature. All the old things were passed away. Paul said in Romans 6, verses 1 to 4, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. Or we who died to sin, how shall we live any longer therein?

Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried, therefore, with him through baptism unto death, that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we might walk in the newness of life. Walk a different life. Oh, yes, we still make mistakes. We still sometimes do things that we ought not to do. But we have this new life. The Bible says that Jesus was the speaker in John 3 and verse 3. He said unto Nicodemus, Verily, very I say unto me, it someone be born anew. That means born again, born over. He cannot see the kingdom of God. We have to be born again. And that doesn’t mean that we can go around and say, I received the Lord as my Savior and expect God to forgive us.

We have to do what God wants us to do. And also, we need to realize, he said in the fifth verse, verily, very I say unto thee, except one be born of the water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. The water is the baptism of water. After we have repented of our sins and come face to face with our lives and realize we’ve made a mess of it. And we are sorry for the mess we made. Have you ever spilt something on the floor? And you say, Oh, what am I going to do? When we were little, you know, and we spilled things on the floor. We said, hmm, what can I do? Oh, I know what I’m going to do. And so we run over to the table or somewhere and get a lot of that paper, you know, that’s white, and now it has pretty things written on it.

And we grab it up and we go down there and we clean it up, hoping mama will not find out. But she does. How did she find out? We put it in the trash can. And she went to the trash can to put something in the trash can and whoops. And then she comes and said, Fred, ma’am, did you spill the chocolate milk on the floor? No. Fred, did you spill the chocolate milk on the floor? No. I spilled it on the cabinet. I think that makes it alright. But it doesn’t. The point is, we made a mess, we clean it up. But really what cleaned it up was the paper that we used. We made a mess with our life and we can clean it up.

Not that we can do it ourselves, but the fact that God acts as the paper that wipes it up and he throws it or we throw it into the garbage or we throw it away and he forgives us for that. We need to realize we have to walk in this new life. And with that new life becomes the responsibility that we need. However, we must also realize that before we can walk just like a baby, we have to crawl. A lot of us want to just jump out of the old life into the new life and just go right on. We have to crawl before we walk. And we have to grow. Peter said in 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 1, putting away therefore all wickedness and all guile and hypocrisies and endies and all evil speaking, as newborn babes long for the spiritual milk that is without guile, that you may grow thereby.

What does the baby do when it’s hungry? Does it say, hey? I’m hungry, feed me. No, it cries. That’s what he says. As a newborn babe. Therefore long for that spiritual. That child that cries and lets us know. What do we do when we become Christians? Do we cry after the Word of God? Or those of us who are Christians? Do we pay attention to that new babe in Christ? Do we try to help them? I believe this is where we’ve made one of our greatest mistakes is the fact that we work and work and pray and pray for a man or a woman or a young person to become a Christian, and they become a Christian, and then what do we do? Okay. Jimmy and Jimmy and Jane obeyed the gospel last week.

They were baptized, and that’s fine. They’ll be coming to services, they’ll be going to Bible class, and they they’ll learn. It doesn’t work that way. They need teaching. We took the time to teach them what the Bible wanted them to do. And they did it. And then we seem to forget them. What would happen if a little baby was forgotten? It wouldn’t live long. Brethren, we need to do more teaching for our young people. You’ve got a lot of them here, and I’m glad to see these young people being used. You’ve got a lot of them, but they are the church of tomorrow. Now that means that we older people are going to have to listen to a lot of things we’ve already heard and we already know.

For what do they know? They’re new babes in Christ. We need to also realize that because we made a great mistake back years ago when we preachers, and I fall into this generation I’m talking about, when we preachers and the elders thought that, well, everybody knows what the Bible teaches on marriage, divorce, and remarriage. And so we preachers didn’t preach on it like we should. And the elders didn’t see that we preached on it like we should. And so we have a generation of children that have grown up that don’t really understand the seriousness of getting married. Or what about the institutional question? Or many things that we know are wrong in the Bible. Can you tell, or can our young people tell people, others, their friends, why we do not use instrumental music in the church of the Lord?

Yeah. Preacher said so. That’s not an answer. The elder said so. That’s not an answer. The answer is in the Bible. Have we helped them to understand that? We need to realize that as we are walking, we must grow, and this growth is slow in some cases. But we as older Christians must see that these young Christians grow, and I’m glad to see the young men you have help that you’re helping here as your preachers. That’s good. That’s what we need. We don’t need to shift off our young people into the foreign mission fields to do the missionary work that we older people ought to be doing. That’s a problem. Our young men go and do the foreign work while the older men sometimes stay at home.

Now I’m not condemning men for staying here. Don’t misunderstand. This is just a point that I’m trying to get us to understand. We need to see that the people, the young men and the young women, we don’t need to leave the young women out too, because if if you’ve got a good preacher behind every good preacher is a good woman. Somebody to lift his hands up and help him. And even criticize him. That’s you know, that’s kind of rough, but anyway. She’s going to do it anyhow. So you just as well listen. All right. But now, what I’m saying is we need to teach and see that our young people are taught, or young babes in Christ. Well, let me put it that way, no matter how old they are.

Paul said in 1 Corinthians 3, verses 1 and 2, and I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, as unto babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with meat, for you were not able to bear it, and nay, not even now are you able. We need to see that the congregation is taught on all things. And then we have Hebrews chapter 5. And let’s look at that right quick. Hebrews 5, verse 11 makes this particular statement. Hebrews 5 11 says, Of whom we have many things to say and hard of interpretation, seeing that by cause seeing that ye are become dull of hearing. For when by breathing of time you ought to be teachers, you have need again that someone teach you the rudiments of the first principles of God and have become as such as have the need of milk and not solid food.

For everyone that partaketh of milk is without experience in the word of righteousness, for he is obeyed. But solid food is for full grown men, even though who by reason of use have their senses exercised to turn good and evil. Wherefore, leaving the doctrine to the first principles of Christ, let us press on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works unto faith towards God. For the teaching of baptisms and the laying on of the hands and the resurrection of the dead and of eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits. For having touched those who were once enlightened and tasted in the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and tasted again the good word of God and the power of the age to come, and then fell away.

3. We Need to Walk in Love

It is impossible to renew them again unto repentance, seeing they crucified themselves afresh, the Son of God, and put God to shame. We need to be sure that we are taught. We need to walk in love. Jesus is our example in the Ephesians 5 1 and 2, he said, Be ye therefore imitators of God as beloved children. Walk in love, even as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us an offering and a sacrifice to God, a sweet odor or a sweet smell. You remember when the woman was taken in adultery in John 8 3 to 11, and Jesus said, Let him that is without sin cast the first stone. Why didn’t he throw the first stone? The law said that an adulterer or a person caught in the in adultery was to be stoned.

I’ll ask you one question. Where was the man? In this case, the Jews were only trying to trap Jesus. And so they brought the woman. But the Bible tells us that she was caught in the very act of adultery. If she was caught in the act of adultery, there had to be another person. But only one person was brought. Jesus exercised his love, his love for her, and showing, of course, the wickedness of the scribes and the Pharisees. We need to walk in love. We need to see that we live in love. Well, what is love? In 2 John verse 6, the Bible says, And this is love that we should walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, even as we heard from the beginning, that we should walk in it.

We’ve got to walk in the commandments of God. In order to walk in the commandments of God, we have to know what they are. Let’s go to 1 Corinthians 13. 1 Corinthians 13 is a wonderful chapter on the subject of love. And it would do all of us good to read it a bit more often than we do. Beginning at verse 4 says, Love suffereth long and is kind. Love envyeth not, and love boneeth not itself, and is not puffed up. Doth not behave itself unseemingly.

Take uh seeketh not its own, it is not provoked, taketh no account of evil, rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoice with truth. Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things, and then verse eight says, Love never faileth. We must walk, and our life must be a sacrifice. In Romans twelve, one and two it says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice or a holy sacrifice, acceptable to God which is your service. Be not fashioned according to the world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. We have to be on guard that we do not become like the world and all the world, we’re in the world.

But we must not become like the world. We can discontinue this walk. Some people will teach you in the world today, or that once you’re saved, you’re always saved. The Bible doesn’t teach that. They’ll say that if you accept the Lord as your Savior, you can do anything you want to do. The Bible doesn’t do teach that either. He said, Let us not therefore judge one another any more, but judge ye this, rather, that no man put a stumbling block in his brother’s way or an occasion for falling. I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, save to him that accounteth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. For if because of meat, thy brother is grieved, thou walketh no longer in love.

4. Walking in the Light

Destroy not with thy meat him for whom Christ died. Let not your good be evil spoken of. For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy and holy. He picks on meat because some of them were eating meat offered to an idol. He said it doesn’t matter, but if you have a brother that believes it’s wrong, if it says his conviction that it’s wrong, and it may cause him to stumble, we need to give up our meat. We need to give up anything that would cause that to happen. We also need to walk in the light. Let’s open our Bibles to first John, and we want to begin at verse five. First John chapter one. And we’re going to begin at verse five.

And this is the message which we have heard from him and announce unto you that God is light. And in him is no darkness at all. For if we have fellowship, if we say we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and his word is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness. For if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

My little children, these things write unto you that you may not sin. And if any man sin, we have an advocate for the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is a propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the whole world. And hereby we know him if we keep his commandments. For he saith that I know him and keep not his commandments as a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whosoever keepeth his word in him verily have the love of God been perfected. Hereby we know that we are in him, and he saith that saith, he abideth in him ought to also himself walk even as he walked. We need to strive to be more like God each and every day of our lives.

Without light, we are groping in the darkness and stumbling and falling and hurting ourselves. And the same is true if we walk in the darkness of the world. We’re just going to use John this time, chapter 12, 46 to 49. You may want to look and read John 1, chapter 1, verse 1 to 14. But here, verse 46 says, I am come a light unto the world. That whosoever believeth on me may not abide in darkness. And if any man hear my saying and keep them not, I judge him not, for I came not into the world, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth me and receiveth not my saying hath one that judges him. The word that I spake, the same shall judge him in the last day.

For I speak not of myself, but the Father that sent me. He hath given me a commandment that I should what I should say and what I should speak. Brethren, we need to study the word. Here are the commands and the examples and the things that the Lord wants us to do, and that we must do if we’re going to be well pleasing to him. Again, Second Corinthians chapter 4, verses 1 to 6 tells us that many will not come. Just stop and think when you get discouraged because they’re not, you’re teaching someone and they don’t obey. How many did Jesus have following him after his death, burial, and resurrection? Read Acts chapter 1 and chapter 2. And it’ll tell you. He was the master teacher.

5. Walking in White

He spoke the word of God plainly and simply. But not all the people were converted. And finally, walking in white. But you know, if we’re going to walk in white, have you ever had on a white shirt or a white dress? And maybe you go somewhere. Maybe you go to lunch somewhere, and you are eating, and you spill something on it. Just a little spot. Not a big spot, just a little spot. Maybe tomato sauce or ketchup. Or something of that nature. And you wipe it off. And that night you go to services. It’s a Sunday. Friend comes to me and says, Hey, Mary. Where did you get that little? Where’d you get that spot on your blouse? Oh, I thought I wiped it off. Or John, look at that spot on your shirt or your tie.

That’s not walking in white. That spot represents error or sin. Or are we’re going to let it represent it here? But God can take it away by our repentance. Let’s open our Bibles to Revelation chapter 1.

Revelation chapter 3, and we want to look at verses 4 and verses 5. But thou hast a few names in Sardis that did not defile them their garments. And they walk with me in white, for they are worthy. He that overcometh shall be arrayed in white garments, and I will in no wise blind his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before my father and before his angels. Yes, we may make mistakes. We will make mistakes. We do get spots on our soul. But by repentance and prayer, once we become a child of God, God has promised He will remove it. He’ll take it away, as though it had never been there. Now let’s go to chapter 6. And let’s look at verses 9 to verse 11.

And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of them that had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a great voice, saying, How long, O Master, the holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood of them that dwelleth on the earth? And there was given unto each one of them a robe. And it was said unto a white robe, and it was said unto them that they should rest yet for a little while time, until the their fellow servants also of them their brethren, who should be killed, even they that were to fulfill their course in life. And then one other one seven and verse nine, chapter seven and beginning verse nine, and after these things, and behold a great multitude out of every nation, and of all the tribes and the people in tongues standing before the lamb, or before the throne and before the lamb, were arrayed in white robes with psalms in their hands, and they cry with a great voice, saying, Salvation unto God who sitteth on the throne and unto the Lamb.

Conclusion

Today, right now, at this minute, are you and I preparing to walk in white? It’s just like walking. Walking is taken one step at a time. And that’s all we have to walk in life. One step at a time. And when we stumble, we can pick ourselves up and pray to God and ask him to help us, and he will. As we walk in this journey towards that white robe that we can have in the eternal after a while, we just have to do it one step at a time. If you’re here this morning and are a Christian, but like so many others, you have turned your back on the Lord or forsaken the Lord, you need to repent of those things and turn back to the Lord and ask His forgiveness.

And He will forgive you. If you’re not a Christian, you need to obey the gospel today and begin that walk. We hope it’ll be a long one that you’ll live many years, but it’ll be a walk that you must make and must take if you want to walk in white. And you can help others. And you can be a light unto the world, showing forth God’s love. If you’re subject to God’s invitation, won’t you come while together we stand and while we sing?