Extreme Living In Your Walk

Extreme Living In Your Walk

Extreme Living – part 4

TODAY - is week 4 in our message series EXTREME living… SO FAR – in this series we have talked about LIVING extreme, about exceeding the ordinary, the usual or the expected IN; our CHURCH, our HOME and in our WORK.

You know these things now do them! That is the path of blessing.– Jn 13:17 (NLT)

THIS MORNING – we are going to talk about living EXTREME in your WALK. AND WHAT – I mean by your walk is you spiritual life. UNDERSTAND – throughout Scripture we see the word ‘walk’ being used to describe someone’s spiritual life… their relationship with God.

And after he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. – Genesis 5:22

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. – Genesis 6:9 (How – did he do that? Walk with God? By being righteous and blameless among the people of His time)

And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul… - Dt 10:12

"Remember, O LORD , how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes." (Hezekiah) bitterly. – Isaiah 38:3

OKAY – now, that we have established that our walk IS our spiritual life/our personal one on one relationship with God… I WANT - to ask you a question… HOW – (by the way) IS your walk? Is it EXTREME? OR – is it ordinary, usual and expected?

Usual & ordinary 0 1 2 3 4 5 Extreme

‘My Walk’

NOW UNFORTUNATELY – I think we all have an idea what usual, expected and ordinary looks like in a WALK… I’m sure we have all seen I few… and I for one have been a few… BUT – does living EXTREME look like in a walk…

WELL – let me try to give you a picture of what living EXTREME in your WALK looks like…

• He was a well educated man from a good family…

• He had risen to the top of his corporate ladder

• He was the guy everyone wanted to be with and to be seen with

• He was proud & he was confident

• When he decided to do something he did it

• AND – one day he headed out in the wrong direction

• He became a persecutor of the church

• Had men & women thrown into prison

• THEN – one day on the road to Damascus, he had an encounter with the risen LORD.

• AND – from that moment on, everything changed…

• Saul – became Paul

• AND – Paul became a warrior for Christ (ashamedly living and breathing the church… I MEAN if you cut him he bleed the church)

LET’S – take a look at a few passages of Scripture that give us some powerful snapshots of Paul living EXTREME in his walk… The first is in Acts chapter 20… Paul is wrapping up his 3rd missionary journey and feels compelled by God to go back to Jerusalem even though he’s been told (by God) that trouble with a capital T, was what was waiting for him there.

And now I am going to Jerusalem, drawn there irresistibly by the Holy Spirit, not knowing what awaits me, 23except that the Holy Spirit has told me in city after city that jail and suffering lie ahead. 24But my life is worth nothing unless I use it for doing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus--the work of telling others the Good News about God’s wonderful kindness and love. – Acts 20:22-24 (NLT)

The NEXT passage is from 2 Corinthians 11; in these verses Paul lists the things that he had to endure BECAUSE he lived EXTREME in his walk…

I have…been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. 24Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. 25Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, 26I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. 27I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. 28Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. – 2 Corinthians 11:23-28