Aug 16
12
So Walk ye in HIM
How often I hear the foolish criticisms of men talking about the old hypocrites down at the church. They won’t join in our rallies, participate in our demonstrations, or join in our protests. We are actively engaged to reform our society and yet they stand idle with no concern. We post the Ten Commandments on a sign in our parking lot but we never hear the old hypocrite mention them. I suppose to natural eyes we do seem a paradox and perhaps even a bit hypocritical. “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned (1 Cor. 2:14)”
Believers do not walk as other men walk; they walk by faith. Faith is a spiritual gift and sees what natural eyes cannot perceive. Faith sees that in this flesh dwelleth no good thing. Faith sees the obedience of Christ as the end of the law for righteousness. Faith sees the sufferings and death of Christ sufficient to atone. Faith sees the glorious name of God propitiated in the person and work of Christ: How God can be just and justify all that believe on Christ. Faith receives from Christ an understanding of grace, mercy, kindness, love, and desires those qualities to be their own. Faith sees in Christ all it needs, all it desires, and all that God requires.
This is the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, Paul speaks of in Titus 3. It is my one desire as your pastor to communicate to you this one thing. “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him.” (Col. 2:6)
Darvin Pruitt.
WALKING UPRIGHTLY OR NOT UPRIGHTLY?
If the message preached, and the message you delight in, does not declare Christ to be the end of the law for righteousness, to be your Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification and Redemption, then Paul wrote to the Galatians that it is not walking “uprightly according to the truth of the gospel.” The following is from the book of Galatians. Mixing the law with grace does this:
· Proves one a transgressor against God (Galatians 2: 18.)
· Counts Christ death vanity (Galatians 2: 21.)
· Proves one thinks they are sanctified by the work of their flesh (Galatians 3:3.)
· Puts one under the curse of the law (Galatians 3: 10.)
· Claims God’s salvation to be by law instead of by promise (Galatians 3: 18.)
· Claims justification to be by law instead of faith (Galatians 3: 24.)
· Promotes self-righteousness and division by making men think their works make the difference between them and other men (Galatians 3: 28.)
· Counts the work of God’s true messenger’s vanity (Galatians 4: 11.)
· Proves one to be the son of the bondwoman, serving Mt. Sinai, rather than Jerusalem which is above and free (Galatians 4: 22-25.)
· Proves one a persecutor against believers who walk in the Spirit (Galatians 4: 29.)
· Makes Christ of no effect unto you (Galatians 5: 4.)
· Makes the offense (truth) of the cross to cease before men (Galatians 5: 11.)
· Makes church’s bite and devour one another (Galatians 5: 15.)
· Proves one is driven by the law instead of led by the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5: 18.)
· Proves one is unable to crucify the flesh, to live in the Spirit and walk in the Spirit (Galatians 5: 24-25.)
· Oppresses others so as to glory in what you forced them to do rather than in Christ (Galatians 6: 13.)
“As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power: In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead” (Colossians 2: 6-12.)Clay Curtis.
Carnally Minded Or Spiritually Minded
Tom Harding
For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace (Rom. 8:5-6).
Paul in these God-inspired words draws a sharp contrast between believers in Christ and no condemnation (Rom. 8:1) and unbelievers condemned in their sins. These two distinctions divide the whole human race in two groups, those justified in Christ (Rom. 3:24) and those condemned in Adam and spiritually dead in sin (Rom. 5:12). The description of the, “carnally minded” is death and eternal condemnation. They are described as those that have no faith in Christ, but rather trusting themselves that they are righteous (Luke 16:15; 18:9). The carnal mind is described as those who are at, “enmity against God” (Rom. 8:7), described as those who cannot satisfy the holy law of God (Rom. 3:19), described as those that, “cannot please God” (Rom. 8:8).
However, the description of the “spiritually minded” is much different, “to be spiritually minded is life and peace” in Christ Jesus (Col. 1:20-21). Described as sinners, “who walk after the spirit” are those quickened together with Christ (Eph. 2:1-6; 2Cor. 5:17; 2Pet. 1:4). They are described as those that see all of their salvation accomplished by Christ (Rom. 5:8-9; 5:9-21; 8:3), who have righteousness fulfilled in them by Christ, (Rom.4:6 8:4), who live by faith in Christ (Rom. 3:28) and in Christ are well pleasing unto God (Eph. 1:6; Heb. 11:6). Those who are reconciled to God in Christ are no longer at enmity, nor against God (2Cor. 5:17-21), but have submitted themselves unto God (Rom. 10:3-4) and who have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in them (John 16:13-15; Rom. 8:9-10; Col. 1:27).
Now you can plainly see the vast difference between those who, “walk after the flesh” and those who, “walk after the spirit.” Now the important question of the moment is this, which way are you walking? By faith or flesh, by grace or works, mercy or merit, propitiation or pride, Christ or ceremony, truth or tradition, redemption or ritual, righteousness established by Christ or religion established by man! To walk in the flesh is death (Proverbs 14:12). To walk in the Spirit is life and peace in Christ (Rom. 1:16-17). “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Rom. 8:14).
what it is to “walk in him.”
A. We often, through the power of sin, the subtlety of Satan, and the strength of temptation, get drawn aside from the simplicity that is in Christ.
1. When the Lord is pleased in any manner to manifest himself to the soul, SIN receives a paralyzing blow—it cannot lift up its head in the presence of Jesus. He puts his victorious feet upon its neck, for he will not allow it to reign and rule in the believer’s heart; nor indeed can it do so when under the influence of his grace, according to the promise—”Sin shall not have dominion over you; for you are not under the law, but under grace.” (Rom. 6:14.) But when he withdraws his gracious presence, sin that before lay dead begins to revive. It is like the sleeping serpent—torpid in the winter, but revived by the warm beams of spring. So when sin once more comes forth out of its torpid state, and begins again to manifest itself in all its secret power and all its dreadful influence, the soul gets into worse confusion and trouble than ever; for fresh sin brings fresh guilt, and when guilt falls as a dark and gloomy cloud over the conscience, it hides and obscures all that God has done in the heart; it buries evidences, casts a mist of darkness over the throne of grace, shuts out access to God, and fills the whole mind with bondage, doubt, and fear.
2. SATAN, too, who, when the Lord was pleased to manifest himself, withdrew for a time, begins again to lay his secret snares—sometimes puffing up the heart with pride; sometimes secretly insinuating what a good and blessed experience the soul has been favored with, so as to lift it up with vain confidence and presumption, exalting itself and despising others; sometimes spreading a hidden trap for the feet, whereby he entangles it in some vile sin, or thrusts it down at once by some sudden slip or fall. If he does not succeed in this way, he will sometimes beguile the mind with some error, or work upon our reasoning powers, or raise up infidel thoughts, or whisper vile suggestions, or insinuate that all the soul has tasted, handled, and felt, was but delusion and deception; that he was the author of it all; and that we have been guilty of hypocrisy in speaking of anything which we thought God had done for us.
3. The WORLD, again, which seemed to have little influence when the soul was under the blessed teaching of the Lord, begins again to work with renewed power. The worldly spirit which exists in every believer’s bosom is easily inflamed, for sin and Satan are ever at hand to pile up combustible material and set it on fire. Under this wretched influence a whole troop of worldly thoughts and desires begin again to take possession of the mind—and as these regain their former strength, they shut out union and communion with the Lord of life and glory, and produce inward darkness, deadness, coldness, hardness, barrenness, and a general stupor of mind, all which sad evils give great encouragement to the powers of hell to renew their attacks, and often with too much success.
By these and various other ways which I cannot now enter into, the soul is drawn aside from the simplicity that is in Christ, and stripped of its enjoyments, its spirituality of mind, and its heavenly affections; and is thus no longer able to walk with God in the sweet fellowship which it had been favored with when Christ was made precious to the soul. I have gone through all this in order to show you how in our text the apostle meets this case. He says, “As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him.” Do you wish, he would say, to maintain that life of faith which you once enjoyed; to keep up that sweet fellowship which you once experienced; to retain those clear evidences and bright testimonies with which your soul once was favored? To obtain this, he says, you must walk in Christ as you received him.
B. But now arises the question– how did you receive him? Was it not as a guilty sinner, despairing almost of life, and finding in yourself neither hope nor help; in a word did you not receive him as a poor, needy sinner? Then you must walk all your days as a poor, needy sinner, that you may ever be walking in him as you first received him. What wisdom, what strength, what righteousness, what goodness of your own first gave you any spiritual acquaintance with Jesus, or brought him into your heart? Did he not appear to you in his own time, in his own way? Was it not true of him that his coming was “as a dew from the Lord, as the showers upon the grass that tarries not for man, nor waits for the sons of men?” (Micah 5:7.) Then you must walk in him, that is, in union with him, in his ways, in his dealings, in his teachings, in the display of his sovereignty, just in the same way as when you first received him as I have described.
What claim did you then lay to him, what merit did you bring before him? You came to him needy, naked, and unclean; so, as regards yourself, you must walk all your days in union with him as the branch with the vine, simply receiving of his fullness what he has to give. You came to him with cries and sighs, groans and petitions; you must walk in those cries, sighs, groans, and petitions, that you may have that same simplicity, sincerity, and necessity all the days of your life. You came to him as a poor sinner, justly doomed to die, and when you received him, you received him as a full, perfect, and complete Savior. You must walk then as a poor sinner still in yourself justly doomed to die, and only saved day by day by the same grace which saved you at first. Thus, you must walk all your life as poor, as needy, as dependent upon free grace, infinite mercy, atoning blood, as when you first approached the throne of grace, and Christ was made precious to your soul by the power of God. J.C.Philpot.