If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.
There are three essential rules
when it comes to real estate: “Location!
Location! Location!” When I found out that I would be appointed to
St. Paul, I began to ask around, “What do you know about that church?” One consistent theme emerged: “That church is
hidden back in a neighborhood where nobody can find it.”
I choose to see it
differently. Our location isn’t a
liability; it’s an asset. Don’t think of
our campus as being “hidden back in a neighborhood,” rather, think of it as
“the center of one of the most dynamic, exciting, diverse, thriving, and desirable
neighborhoods in Charlotte.” We are not
hidden in this neighborhood, we are the
focal point, the hub, the center of this neighborhood.
One of the things I absolutely
love about being the pastor of a neighborhood church is standing on the front
steps every Sunday and greeting you all as you leave worship, and watching
people disperse back into the neighborhood as they walk home. How cool is
that? Where else do you get to do
that? Our purpose as a church is clear:
we have been put here, in this place, to share God’s love with the people who
are so close, they could walk. May we pray.
Think about walking. Does anyone here have any experience
walking? What are the some of the
reasons that people walk?
Walking gets us somewhere
Walking gets us somewhere. It is perhaps the most basic form of
transportation. Parents rejoice at a
child’s first steps, and then retract their joy about a week later because now
their child is into everything. If you can walk, you can get places. There are other ways of getting around, but
if you can walk, that’s as basic and reliable as it gets.
Perhaps you’ve heard the story
about the father who was driving his teenage son to school one morning, and
started to give his son a hard time for the umpteenth time about his long hair
and unkempt appearance. The dad said,
“Son, look at that wild hair of yours - you really should go get a
haircut. And why are you wearing those
ratty old flip flops?!? It’s the middle
of November! And would it kill you to
shave once in awhile?” The son had
finally had enough, and he said, “You know who else had long hair, Dad? Jesus!
You know who else had a beard?
Jesus! You know who else wore
sandals all the time? Jesus!” They drove on in silence for a few more
minutes. They reached the school, and
the car didn’t even slow down. Instead,
the father drove for another mile before finally pulling over. He opened the door and said, “Have it your
way, smart guy - Jesus also walked everywhere he went. Go, and do thou likewise.”
If you read the Gospels, you’ll
notice that Jesus and his disciples did a lot of walking. It is no coincidence, therefore, that many of
the images and metaphors used to describe Christianity suggest movement. We are followers
of Jesus - that means he must be going somewhere and we’re trying to stay up
with him. The very language we use
reminds us that Christianity is a faith on the go, and we are a people on the
move.
On the Christian journey, where we
are going is less important than how we’re getting there. Jesus doesn’t ask us to have the whole trip
mapped out and know each and every stop along the way. Rather, he calls us to follow him and walk
with him one step at a time. That’s what
the life of faith looks like - it’s trusting God enough to simply take the next
step. We walk by faith in the One who
knows the way far better than we do.
Praise Team - musical response: “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.”
Walking is good for our health
A second benefit to walking is
improving our health. The benefits of
walking are well-known. According to the
Mayo Clinic, moderate walking for as little as 15 minutes 3 times per week has
positive health benefits, including weight loss, stress reduction, reducing
risk for or better managing type-2 diabetes, lowering total cholesterol, and
improvement in mood.
Likewise, walking with God is good
for our spiritual health. Following
Jesus and walking according to the leading of the Holy Spirit helps us develop
Christlike character, grow in our love of God and neighbor, be quick to listen
and slow to speak, forgive others as we ourselves have been forgiven, be
generous, positive, and joyful.
Walking with God helps us to
become a little more like God each day. The
closer we get, the more of God’s character rubs off on us. When I was a kid, my mom used to say that she
was able to tell how my day had been by doing my laundry. The grass stains and grease stains on my
pants, the things she pulled out of my pockets, the wet paint on the bottom of
my shoes - all of that told her where I had walked that day.
When we walk with God, it shows in
the same way. Perhaps you’ve heard it
said that someone doesn’t just talk the talk, they walk the walk. When we say this about someone, it’s a way of
saying that person is the real deal.
They are a person of integrity - they way they live is consistent with
who they claim to be.
When we walk with God, it
shows. My hope for each of us is that
when people look through our pockets and at the bottoms of our shoes and the
worn-out places on our knees, the evidence will be written all over us that we
have been walking with God.
Walking builds relationship
A third benefit from walking is
the building of companionship and relationship between people. Friends, we live in a very distracted world. Walking is a way to put all of those
distractions aside and give our full attention to the person who is right
beside us. Walking with someone helps me
listen more closely and more carefully to them.
When Ashley and I take a walk, I
put my cell phone away and don’t look at it - no facebook, no email, no texting
- it’s a way to say, “I am fully present with you in this moment. You are the most important person I have to
interact with right now. Everything
else, everyone else can wait.”
Walking with another person is
something of a spiritual practice - tuning out all the other distractions and
giving each other the gift of being fully and completely present with the other
person in that moment. Even moreso than
an ordinary walk, when we are making our journey of faith with others – that is
a spiritual practice. When we are
intentionally seeking to follow Jesus, to pattern our lives on his, to be
filled with the Holy Spirit, to grow closer to God and trust God - we do all of
that keenly aware of others who are also making the same journey with us.
None of us walks the road alone
with Jesus. Looking around opens our
eyes to the reality that there are other travelers also on the journey -
brothers and sisters making their pilgrimage - ahead of us and behind us, to
our left and to our right, a great cloud of witnesses too numerous to count.
What good news it is that we don’t
walk alone! Those fellow travelers are
not competition; they’re companions.
Those fellow travelers are a blessing to us as we walk along, and we are
called to be a blessing to their walk.
Praise Team - musical response: “The Servant Song (vv. 2,4)
Covered in the dust of your Master
One last thing I want to say about
walking and the implications it has for our spiritual lives. In the time of Jesus, when people walked
everywhere on dry and dusty roads, you can imagine the dust that could be
kicked up. It was a mess. There is an old Jewish blessing often said to
the students of a rabbi: “May you follow your Master so closely, you are
covered with the dust of his feet.” In
other words, may your life closely and completely follow what your Master
teaches you that you walk in the same way, and order your steps according to
his. May you follow your Master so
closely, you are covered with the dust of his feet.
Here’s what I want us to consider:
when it comes to our Master, how closely and completely are we willing to
follow? When it comes to following the
Jesus who walked through the dirty places of a broken world in order to bring
it healing and wholeness, are we covered with the dust of those same dirty
places, or are our lives still a little too clean?
So, are we following Jesus
completely and closely? Or are we
following partially, and at a distance?
Following at a distance is a great rule in traffic; it’s a horrible rule
for a disciple.
The Christian life is a
journey. Walk close enough to Jesus to
get his beautiful dust on you.
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