The Pilgrimage Road Of Faith: What Does It Mean To Walk By Faith? Series

How do we walk the road of faith? It's completely different than walking as a man of the world. So, we become like toddlers who are unable to walk, and we must learn to walk. How does that work?

God walks before us, in front of us, holding our hands, and teaches us to walk by faith. He does not shove us out there onto the road and say "Get going!" No. God walks with us, hand in hand, in front of us, face to face with us, as we learn to take our steps, one step in front of another.

Like a parent teaching a toddler to walk, we learn to live by faith. We carefully take our steps. And God holds our hands, face to face with us, in front of us, teaching us, encouraging us, correcting us, and giving us love and hope and truth. And slowly, but surely, we learn to walk in a new way.

“To live by faith is to live joyfully, to live with assurance, untroubled by doubts and with complete confidence in all we have to do and suffer at each moment by the will of God. We must realize that it is in order to stimulate and sustain this faith that God allows the soul to be buffeted and swept away by the raging torrent of so much distress, so many troubles, so much embarrassment and weakness, and so many setbacks. For it is essential to have faith to find God behind all this.” -Jean-Pierre de Caussade, 1675-1751, in Discipleship Journal, issue 40.

Today we’re talking about a road, a journey, a passage way. It’s a road that we can’t walk normally though, it can only be walked by faith. It can only be walked in deep connection to God through Jesus Christ. We’re going to press toward the goal on this road.

What is this road? What is the goal? This road is our journey through this life toward heaven. The Apostle Paul wrote about this journey in Philippians chapter 3, and he compared it to a race, running a race, and running it in a way to win the prize. The goal is of course, eternal life itself, arriving safely in paradise.

It starts in Philippians 3, verses 8-11 which says, “Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ 9 and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith. 10 I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, 11 so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!”

Everything else is worthless, and what Paul is referring to is earlier in the chapter he was dealing with people who wanted to bring back the Old Testament law as a way of getting right with God. So Paul is making a case for moving forward from the old testament law toward the new way of faith in Christ.

He no longer believes righteousness can come through the law, but he has become righteous through faith in Jesus.

He’s walking the new journey by faith. He’s discarding former things. And he’s counting everything else as worthless compared to knowing Christ.

Next in verse 12, “I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection.”

Paul didn’t consider himself done. He considered the Christian life a journey. That’s something we need to remember as well. It’s not done. It’s just begun.

The journey is ongoing, it continues!

In verse 12 still, “But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me.”

This is a really profound statement, Paul is saying that he continues on toward perfection, the same perfection by which Christ first possessed him. He knows he tasted of the perfection of Jesus when he was born again. And he longs to made one with that perfection in paradise. He knows in heaven, in the new body, he will be perfect as Christ, holy and pure, because of Jesus!

Then in verse 13, “No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead,”

So Paul has told us that we’re on a journey, we’re on this pathway of eternal life. He’s told us that it’s walked by faith. And the goal is the perfection of Jesus.