Sermon Tone Analysis

WALKING WITH JESUS

By Rev. Will Nelken

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Presented at Trinity Community Church, San Rafael, CA, on Sunday, November 7, 2021

In the Bible, “walk” is often a metaphor for living one’s daily life, especially one’s lifestyle.

Today, would you think with me about your lifestyle as a walk with Jesus?

He invites you to come to Him, and to follow Him—but not from a distance.

He invites us to

walk with Him side-by-side, arm-in-arm, so He can whisper His words in our ears, and nudge us

in the direction He has in mind.

But Jesus is in Heaven and we are on earth, so how can this be?

Well, that’s why Jesus sent to

us the Holy Spirit, so He can be with us “in Spirit” all the time.

Walk by Faith

The Apostle Paul learned how to walk with Jesus in this way.

It was not always easy for him, as

it won’t be for you, so he offered this advice:

2 Corinthians 5

6

Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body

we are absent from the Lord— 7 for we walk by faith, not by sight— 8 we are of good courage, I

say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.

9 Therefore

we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. 10 For we

must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for

his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

The life we live now (at home in the body), physically apart from King Jesus (absent from the

Lord), has its special challenges, for which we always need courage.

There are different types of courage, but the kind we need most is good courage, or the courage to do what is good and upright.

It’s not easy!

We face conflicting pressures from outside, and conflicting pressures from inside.

Outside, the cultural currents (like, contemporary political correctness) swirl hard and fast

around us, threatening every day to sweep us off our feet in their direction—away from Christ.

Add to that the pressures we experience from family, friends, co-workers, teachers, and employers to make choices and conduct ourselves the way they want us to—many times, in contrast to what the Spirit is whispering in our hearts.

And, if that weren’t enough, our own feelings, worries, and fears stir our imaginations day and

night, pushing us in another direction, away from trusting and following Jesus.

In light of this persistent tug-of-war, Paul reminds us that we are called to walk by faith, not

by sight.

In this way, he presented the conflict as heart versus head, or trust versus senses.

The things we may see, hear, taste, smell, feel, or imagine (both good and bad) must become

subject to our faith in Jesus.

In our former way of life, we were inclined to those senses, and

led by them.

Now, we have a new way of life—the lifestyle of faith in Jesus.

Be Pleasing to Him

It is a gross error to think that we can continue to live just as we did before—choosing just

what seemed pleasing to us—and, at the same time, be pleasing to Him who loved us and

gave Himself for us.

Our old master (self) must be dethroned, so that Jesus can reign in its

place.

This is the walk by faith.

And like any other journey by foot, you must keep your eyes on the

path before you, lest you stumble into a pothole, or trip over a stone, or wander into the

brush, or slip in a puddle, or fall into a ditch, or bump into another traveler, or walk into a

lamppost!

Our physical and mental senses are good for many things, and should continuously be improved through study and learning (when you stop learning, you stop living), but their skills are

limited to the world of tangible things; they are useless in the invisible world of the Spirit that

envelopes us all.

This is why we need the fullness of the Holy Spirit today!

On a prison ship in a terrible storm, when all hope had been lost, the prisoner, Paul, urged the

crew to take courage, saying, “This very night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom

I serve stood before me and told me, ‘God has granted safety to everyone who is sailing with

you.’” (Acts 27:23)

How did he have such knowledge and assurance?

Not simply because an angel had appeared

to him, but because the angel had come from “the God to whom I belong.”

The walk of faith is not a walk in blind faith, but in the confidence that Jesus Christ is who He

said He was and will do what He said He would do!

This is the God to whom we belong.

And we belong to Him because He laid down His life for us and in our place.

He bought us!

We

are His.

Or, are we?

Who do you BELONG to?

We started our lives under the thumb of our parents—we belonged to them (appropriately,

for the most part)—and spent our adolescence (most of us) fighting off their “ownership” in

order to become our own young man or woman—in charge of our own lives, capable of making decisions for ourselves.

And so we have lived out our adulthood… and then we met Jesus

and surrendered to His Kingship (at least, initially).

But it takes time and effort to unlearn old habits!

And they don’t go away by themselves.

They’re not like autumn leaves that just fall off.

They need to be stripped away, cut off, killed,

buried.

Again and again!

Sometimes, God does the pruning; Sometimes, He wants us to do it

ourselves.

Habits are like “muscle memory”—they require no thought, no effort, no intention.

But to unlearn them requires MUCH thought, MUCH effort, and MUCH intention!

So, build good habits.

This requires good courage.

Even so, they take less work than unlearning the old.

The Savior was, to Paul, “the God to whom I belong and whom I serve.”

We, too, belong to Him

now, for we were “bought with a price.”

Do we, also, willingly, consciously, and intentionally

“serve Him”?

Who do you SERVE?

Paul introduced himself to the church of Rome as “a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an

apostle and appointed to spread the Good News of God… whom I serve in my spirit in the

preaching of the gospel of His Son.” (Romans 1:1,9)