A LIFE TO MATCH THE MESSAGE

He who says he abides in Him ought to walk

in the same way in which He walked.

I John 2:6

Immediately after a person's life has been touched by God if there's any gratitude in his bones at all, he's going to have a testimony: he is going to tell people what God has done for him.

"Jesus put clay on my eyes and I washed, and I see!"

"Come, see a man who told me all I ever did!"

''He laid his hands on me and now I can walk!"

There's something wrong with a person if he has been touched by the hand of the living God and he's ashamed to tell anybody.

Jesus charged the Gentile who had been freed from a legion of demons,

"Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you,

and how he has had mercy on you."

But, as time goes on, our testimony to what God has done for us should become less and less a matter of words and more and more a life that we live.

In the beginning you find yourself saying with wonder and joy, "Jesus changed my life!" That's beautiful - it touches hearts. Yet, there are people who five years later are saying, "Jesus changed my life!", but now that testimony is only words. It's obvious to everyone but themselves that beneath the religious veneer their life hasn't changed at all.

When we emerge from our spiritual infancy, our testimony is our life, our gospel is Jesus. And our testimony and our gospel have to match.

I no longer make the rounds telling people how Jesus delivered me from this danger and that enemy, forever making myself "Exhibit A", wowing them with my experiences, and my visions, and my revelations. Now I simply tell them what Jesus has done,

                                                                            is doing,

                                                                            and will do for them,

with as little reference to myself as possible. But I back that message, in the sight of God and man,

with a life that matches my gospel - a life that truly bears the marks of the Cross of Jesus Christ. That's my testimony! And that testimony is essential.

He who says he abides in Him ought to walk in the same way in which He walked.

Notice it doesn't say that we ought to strive to walk in the same way Jesus walked, or resolve to walk, or hope to walk as Jesus walked. But to walk now in the footsteps of Jesus Christ.

For to this you have been called because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in His steps.

We are to be living flesh-and-blood testimony that Jesus has changed our lives,

- that we have been crucified with Him,

- that it is, in fact, no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us.

Christ-like people,

- not just when we come to fellowship and spout off our spiritual insights,

- not just when circumstances smile on us and we feel good all over,

- not in our occasional dramatic acts of mercy when there just happens

  to be an audience around watching,

but day in and day out,

- toward the people we live with,

- in our dealings with those who ask for our help and those who help us,

- when we're alone.

If the love of Christ doesn't dominate your relationship with your wife, or your husband, your witness may sound wonderful but it has no substance. If the holiness of Christ doesn't dominate your eating habits, your thought life, your emotional behavior, you're deceiving yourself if you think the holiness of Christ is going to be present in your witness.

Too many of us have a good gospel, and a bad testimony. And, my friend, when you have a good gospel and a bad testimony, your gospel is like a bird without wings.

The wider the gap between the gospel you mouth and the testimony you live,

- the more of a blot you are on the name of Jesus,

- the more death you convey to the people around you,

- and the more judgment you bring down upon yourself.

Yet, in our fellowships we don't seem to believe this. It doesn't seem to bother us that our walk is falling short. 0, it bothers us when somebody else's fleshly walk causes us some trouble or pain or inconvenience. We can get real worked up over his hardness of heart. But our walk, the fact that our walk is a stench in the nostrils of God, doesn't seem to upset us in the least.

I can be so busy picking away at my wife that I never see how downright mean and unloving and inconsiderate is my treatment of her. Do you think I'm going to have any ministry until I get that right?

If I'm young, I can be so disgusted with the hypocrisy I see in the older generation that I fail to realize how absolutely thoughtless and self-righteous and cruel I am in the way I deal with older people.

And, if I'm old, I can be so turned off by the discrepancies I see in these young would-be "true disciples" that I overlook how sour and cynical my own soul has become.

I can be so impatient with how naive everybody else is that I fail to comprehend that for all my profound intellectual grasp I'm the biggest baby in town.

Never mind what's wrong with the other hypocrites,

- is my walk, this day, pleasing in the sight of my Master?

- Am I walking as He walked?

- Is my life where my mouth is?

Before our ministries can have any depth,

           any stability,

           any steadfastness,

there are some lessons in this area which we absolutely must learn.

1. If we are born-again disciples of Jesus Christ, God expects us to walk as Jesus walked. Not after we get to heaven, but now!

He who says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

Listen to Jesus talking to his disciples in the sermon on the mount.

''You have heard that it was said to men of old..... but I say to you....."

And everything Jesus demands points to a walk like His own.

Jesus calls for radical love,

          radical sexual purity,

          radical forgiveness,

          radical holiness,

                      radical self-control and discipline,

                       radical trust in God,

like His own.

And Jesus ends this sermon telling us that if we don't do these things, if we hear these heavenly words and do them not, we are fools building our house on sand and it will crumble with the first crisis that comes.

2. If we're born-again disciples of Jesus Christ, God gives us the power to walk as Jesus walked.

Until you are born of God, nobody expects you to live this kind of life. You couldn't live it if you tried a million years. But once you are born of God, you have the power.

''It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak to you, they are Spirit and they are life. And I'm speaking to you now and I'm giving you life now, not so that you can lie down in ecstasy but so that you can get up and walk in my will."

God has taken care of our guilt by the blood of His Son on that Cross. God has poured out His Spirit upon those who put their trust in Jesus' blood.

- But the Spirit won't move us around like a bunch of robots.

- The Spirit won't make us loving and kind like some kind of heavenly tranquilizer.

We have to yield our bodies and minds to Him and start walking in His will.

If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.

Walk by the Spirit and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.

The power is there but we have to step out of the boat and start walking on the water toward our Lord.

We keep saying,

- "But Lord, I have a hang-up here."

- "Lord, I can't forgive."

- "I can't pray."

- "I can't write letters."

- "Lord, I can't stop conning people."

And the Lord hears what our hearts really mean: won't. "I don't want to!"

You can get over your hang-up.

You can do everything I have commanded you because I am right there with you to strengthen you, if you will. ….. Will you?"

One more thing we need to understand.

3. If we are born-again disciples of Jesus Christ, God will deal with us when we refuse to walk as Jesus walked.

"Every branch of mine that bears no fruit he takes away."

If a man does not abide in me (does not do what I command him) he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered and thrown into the fire and burned.''

''Be not deceived. God is not mocked. Whatever a man sows that shall he also reap. For he who sows to the flesh will of the flesh reap corruption."

Paul is not talking about people who have never heard the gospel. He's talking about people who have been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, partaken of the Holy Spirit, the goodness of the Word of God, the powers of the world to come, but refuse to walk in that new life.

The same God who caused the stream to start flowing in the desert will make that stream dry up again if it insists on being a stagnant pool. The same Christ who put the lampstand in our midst will take it away from us if we fail to walk on in our first love.

God alone knows who they are. But there are souls walking the streets of our town - wandering in and out of our fellowships - who are precisely what scripture calls them - dried up springs, waterless clouds.

The light within has gone out. The house that was beautifully swept and garnished has become the abode of numberless demons because, step-by-step, their walk kept falling farther and farther below their gospel until there was nothing left for God to do but withdraw His Spirit from them.

This happens to people so subtly they don't realize what's going on until their power to repent is gone, unless they listen to God's warnings. And such a warning He is giving us this day.

The call to us this day is to get our eyes off our brother's and our sister's faults, and draw near to Jesus. And at every place where He shows us that our walk is not His walk, to change –

- not tomorrow,

- not next week,

- not when we get tired of sinning,

but now!

Today, if you would hear His voice, harden not your heart!