"How To Walk With God"

Galatians 5:16-26

“How To Walk With God”

By: Rev. Kenneth Sauer,

Pastor of Parkview United Methodist Church, Newport News, VA

www.parkview-umc.org

One time I was in a mall, when I spotted a cute little kid with his mother.

When her son started to veer away from his mother, the woman called out his name: “Noah.”

I had never heard of a child named Noah before.

I figured that this woman must be a Christian or even Jewish—to have named her son Noah.

So I walked over to the woman and her child, looked lovingly at the child and quoted from Genesis chapter 6: “Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.”

The mother of the child just stared at my smiling face for a couple seconds.

Obviously, she had no idea what I was talking about.

And without saying a thing, she turned and whisked little Noah away.

Anyhow, this is how the Bible describes Noah… “among the people of his time…he walked with God.”

That’s what I want to do.

How about you? I want to walk with God!

Among the people of my time, I want to walk with God.

We are told that the people during Noah’s time were “corrupt” and “full of violence.”

Noah was really, really going against the grain of the world by walking with God…

…but it sure was well worth it!

And in this day and age, we too, are going against the grain if we are walking with God…

…things don’t change much…

…human nature remains the same…

…but if we do walk with God, well, just like it was well worth it for Noah—it will be well worth it for us and for those around us as well.

So how do we go about walking with God?

In verse 25 of our Epistle Lesson for this morning Paul tells us: “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”

Which also can be translated as “let us walk in line with the Spirit.”

But I suppose that we must understand what it means to “live by the Spirit” of God before we can begin to unravel what it means to “walk in line with the Spirit” of God or “keep in step with the Spirit” of God.

Every one of us, every believer has a sort of civil war going on inside of us.

It’s a continuing battle, a war between our fallen nature and the Holy Spirit Who has moved in and taken residence within our hearts.

It’s a battle between our old nature and our new nature…

…it’s a battle between what our sinful nature desires …

…and what our new nature desires.

As far back as I can remember, a part of me wanted to ‘walk with God’—

---to be the person God wanted me to be—

--to be the person I knew…deep down inside…I could be and was created to be…

…but I couldn’t figure out how to go about doing it.

Because I was being controlled by another part of me that was at complete odds with walking with God.

I was very much part of the world.

Just about everything I was involved in, whether it be in thought or deed, was in direct opposition to the way of God.

I was in slavery to sin.

And a very big part of me enjoyed that slavery.

But at the same time, another big part of me wanted to be free from that slavery…and free to do what is right.

But how could I make myself free?

Well, I couldn’t make myself free, but I could choose to be free.

During my freshman year of college I met a kid who asked me if I was a Christian.

I must admit that I was more than a little surprised by his question, but my answer was “yes.”

After-all, I had gone to church all my life and I did believe in God.

So, this Christian kid and I became very good friends.

But it didn’t take long for me to figure out that his definition of what a Christian was and my definition of what a Christian was were completely different.

He was walking with God.

It was very evident in the way he talked…

…in the way he treated other people…

… where his priorities were…

… and most of all in the way he lived.

Over time, I came to see that it was truly possible—not only to believe in God and want to walk with Him—but it could actually be done.

Wow.

I wrestled with that new found epiphany for a while.

If this is actually possible, do I really want to do it?

Do I really want to do it enough…