The Lowly Walk, Part 1

The believer calls himself a child of God, a believer has joined God's family, belongs to the heavenly Father, and that says something about how he ought to live. If I'm my father's child, then I will honor my father with a sad failure in our commitment.

It is indeed not to live up to such an identity. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Thanks for joining us as John begins a series on the attitudes and actions that should characterize every believer. It's a foundational study titled, Getting in Step with the Christian Walk.

You know, John, I think the study we're about to start today is going to be extremely helpful for our listeners. Scripture lays out some very specific instructions for us to follow for living the Christian life. It's really step by step, as our title implies. And we don't have to guess about whether we're doing things the right way or the wrong way. This is really practical stuff. Well, of course it's practical stuff, because the Christian life is just that. It's living the Christian life. And I think it's really helpful that the Apostle Paul uses the term walk, because that breaks it down to one step at a time. The Christian life, then, is a step at a time, and it's that way every single day. I think that's why Paul said, I die daily. He knew that every day he had to die to himself and live to Christ and walk in obedience.

So this study is really very, very practical. This is pragmatism that is legitimate pragmatism, how to live the Christian life, not only to honor God, but to fill your own life with fruitfulness and joy and usefulness. And of course, the end of this all is to imitate the life that Jesus Christ lived.

That's right. The Christian life should be an imitation of Christ. We should be gazing into His glory, and as we gaze at His glory, the Spirit changes us into His image from one level of glory to the next. You're going to see in this study the power of humility, the need for gentleness, how to cultivate patience, how to bear with others in love, and the nature of true unity.

Very foundational look at the qualities you must be known for if you bear the name of Jesus Christ. The title again, Getting in Step with the Christian Walk. Helpful, encouraging days ahead. Stay with us.

Yes, do stay with us, friend. This is foundational teaching for new Christians and veteran saints alike. So to show you what a life submitted to Christ looks like and the blessings that come from walking with Him, here is John launching his study titled, Getting in Step with the Christian Walk.

Take your Bible and let's look together at the fourth chapter of Ephesians...Ephesians chapter 4. It's a tremendous passage, its import and its impact so rich, we're going to take our time in gleaning everything we possibly can. When a person joins a certain organization or a certain society, he obligates himself to live or to act in accord with the standards of that society. He obligates himself to function according to the aims and the objectives and the goals and the drives and the purposes of that society to which he attaches himself.

It can be illustrated in many ways. As an American citizen, a person who chooses to live in the United States of America, you obligate yourself to abide by the principles, the standards and the laws that govern this society. As a person who is permitted to work in the place where you work, whatever place that is, a business or a plant, a shop, an office, a school, whatever it is where you work, you work there on the premise that you conform yourself and cooperate with the standards and the goals and the objectives and the principles that are a part of that particular organization. If you choose to join a service club, you obligate yourself to function in reference to that service club in the manner that they prescribe. If you want to become a part of a certain cult, a certain athletic team, a certain assembly line, a certain religious order, a certain business, I don't care what it is, there are certain principles that you pledge loyalty to uphold.

That's the way human society is made. And if you choose not to cooperate and if you fall out of the line of conformity, you will lose your place within the framework of that organization. If a person fails to become what that society feels is necessary, if he fails to fulfill its purposes and aims, he becomes a hindrance to that society and is dismissed from it, set aside. It can be seen, for example, in our own situation in government. If you do not conform to the standards of the government, the laws the government has set down, you will be taken out of the society and you will be incarcerated somewhere where you will no longer be able to hinder the ongoing of the function of society.

If you identify yourself with a certain organization in business and you fail to live up to that expectation that the organization sets and you fail to conform to their standards of operation, you will be fired. And that's the way it is in society. You are called upon to function in accord with that with which you identify.

That's just standard fare. I can't tell you how many lectures I've heard from coaches through the years in athletics that have said, look, if you're not going to do it our way, then get off the team. Now that's a pretty standard approach to anything that we align ourselves with. The old story of marching along with everybody else in the army and keeping in step is a part of human society and mentality. Societies which we identify with socially, economically, politically demand cooperation and conformity if we are to maintain a place within it. Now this can become so binding on people that it's amazing what they will do to conform. I'm utterly amazed at how people will become, quote-unquote, the organization man to fulfill whatever the organization tells them to fulfill if they think it will get them a raise or push them up the ladder a little higher. I am amazed at the loyalty of some people to the various lodges and secret societies and things that they belong to and service clubs so that if they miss something somewhere, they'll walk across the burning desert on hands and knees twelve hours in a row to get to a meeting to make sure they don't violate the code.

It's amazing how people prescribe themselves into such binding things, but that's part of human society. We love to belong because belonging gives us acceptance. From the time we're very little, we're identified with uniforms. We want to be a Cub Scout not because we like what Cub Scouts do, but because we like to have shirts like other Cub Scouts have with little things hanging on them. We want to be in the Awana program as we get a little shirt. We want to be a part of the team because we get to wear the uniform, and everybody wants to be a part of the team.

That's just part of the human desire to belong and to gain some acceptance and a sense of identity. Let me illustrate that by having you look at the ninth chapter of the gospel of John. The Lord Jesus Christ had done a wonderful miracle in the ninth chapter of John. He had healed a man who was born blind and He had healed him for the glory of God. And it was a wonderful thing that He had done. The man had been blind all his life.

Jesus spit in some clay and made a little bit of mud and put it on his eyes and told him to wash in the pool of Siloam. And he did and he came back seeing and it was a wonderful miracle. And then, of course, the leaders began to try to investigate the miracle. It's pretty sad when unbelief investigates a miracle.

You never get the right results. And they were very antagonistic to what Jesus had done and, of course, they first of all wanted to talk to the blind man's parents to find out what they knew. We come to verse 22. These words spoke his parents because they feared the Jews.

What had they said? Verse 21, we don't want to answer for him. He's of age. Ask him, he'll speak for himself. In other words, they wouldn't acknowledge anything about how he was healed. They wouldn't discuss how he was healed. They wouldn't give credit to Jesus Christ. They wouldn't give glory to God. They didn't want to get involved in it at all.

And the reason is here. They feared the Jews for the Jews had agreed already that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue. They were so strictured by the desire for acceptance in the society they had chosen that they would not confess that the sight of their own beloved son had come at the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ for fear they would lose their social status.

Now that's a pretty binding thing, isn't it? They would not confess the reality of the miracle of their own blind son because they feared they would get the Greeks as un-synagogued, excommunicated and the thing that mattered most to them was not the truth but it was belonging to the society which they had decided to identify with. And people can identify with things that become so binding to them that they literally become blind to the reality of what they ought to know and ought to be a part of. Had they been thinking, they would have immediately wished to identify with the son and with the one who had made the blind to see, for there was the real power. Over in the 12th chapter of John and the 42nd verse, we find a similar occasion. John 12 42, and of course the Lord has come and fulfilled prophecy and all of this and it says in 42, Nevertheless, among the chief rulers also many believed on Him, but...and that's a tragic but...because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him lest they should be put out of the synagogue for they loved the praise of men more than...what?...the praise of God.

The same thing again. They had made such a firm commitment to the society they had chosen that there was no way that they were going to restrict the function they wanted within that society. They actually damned their own souls to adhere to the code.

Incredible. But that's how it is with man's willingness to conform to the standards of the group to which he makes his allegiance and from which he gains a sense of identity. That's the negative. And in the world, it amazes me that when people identify, they lock in and they'll do anything to conform. They want to abide by the principles. They want to be what they need to be. They want to get that acceptance.

And you know what happens? When you translate that into the church, something goes wrong. You get tons of people who come and a lot of people who want the blessing and the rights and the privileges and the honors, but somewhere along the line they never make the commitment to conform to the standards.

It doesn't seem to be nearly as binding. And maybe it's because in all of the world's things, Satan is in there holding it together. But in the church, he's there trying to rip it apart and it's tough to stick with it.

But you know, the standard isn't any different. And when you come to Jesus Christ, you enter His church, the body, you receive His salvation, He gives you all the rights and honors and privileges that come with being a Christian. And then He says, I want you to conform to My standards, doesn't He? And the New Testament says if there's anybody in your midst that doesn't conform to these standards, put them out. If there's somebody in your midst, 1 Corinthians chapter 5, who's living in an immoral manner in your midst, put them out.

If there's somebody in 2 Thessalonians who is walking disorderly who is doing what they ought not to do and they don't respond to you, put them out. If there's somebody, Paul said to Timothy, who is teaching things that are not consistent with what we know to be the truth of God, put them out. Listen, God has it that way in His church. He says if you're not going to conform and cooperate with what the church is doing, then you're better off to be out. In fact, sometimes the Lord puts people out on His own. And He said to the Corinthians, because of the way you have acted within the church, some of you are weak, some of you are sick, and some of you have died. And in 1 John chapter 5 He says there is even a sin and a death where the Lord literally excommunicates a believer, not losing salvation but being put out of the church fellowship because they are more of a hindrance than a help. Listen, beloved, if people can join athletic teams and businesses and conform with such rigid conformity, if people can be so fearful of being un-synagogued by the Jewish superstructure of their day that they literally damn their own souls and blind their eyes to the reality of the Son of God, if people can make those kinds of commitments to things that don't matter, do you imagine that we as Christians can make a high-level kind of commitment to walk in the fashion that God has asked us to walk within the framework of His own beloved church?

I think we should, don't you? I think that's what Paul is calling us to do in the last three chapters of Ephesians. He starts out in verse 1 by saying this, and here's the heart of the matter, "'I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation to which ye are called.'" In other words, listen, you have in the first three chapters the rights and the honors and the privileges.

And now in the last three chapters he says, here are the requirements. If you want to be a meaningful part of God's church, if you want to be somebody that matters in His church, if you want to adorn the doctrine of God, if you want to advance the kingdom, if you really believe in this, then here are the standards by which you are to walk. When you and I entered the church of Jesus Christ, when we entered the body of Christ, and by faith one day I put my trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and He became my Savior and Lord, and that day I became a part of His kingdom. I became a part of His household. I became a part of His family.

I became one of the branches that extends from the branch, the Lord Jesus Christ. I became a part of Him that behooves me to live up to it. He gave me the rights and the privileges and the honors. He made me unsearchably rich. He gave me not out of His riches but according to His riches. He blessed me with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. He has set aside the future for my benefit and in the ages to come He will pour out His grace and His kindness toward us who believe He has done all of this for me. And now in chapter 4 there's a therefore here and I have to turn the corner and say on the basis of this kind of promise to me, what are you asking of me? The Apostle Paul comes through ringing loud and clear, walk worthy of such a calling.

This is who you are. Walk in accord with that. Live up to that standard. The Lord expects us to act like members of His body. He expects us to aim at what He aims at. He expects us to set the goal where He set the goal, to have the objective that is His objective. He expects us to be like Him. First Peter 2.15, Peter said that the will of God is that we with well-doing would put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. In other words, we ought to silence the mouth of the critics by the way we live.

And I guess that's why I say this so often. It's so sad that most Christians don't walk worthy of their calling. I remember Dr. Ralph Kuiper saying to me one time when I was just young in seminary, he said, the whole Christian life, John, the whole Christian life is simply becoming what you are. It's simply becoming what you are. This is who you are and this is how you are to live, living up to who you are.

And he's right. In the body of Christ, God expects conformity, not a conformity to rules and regulations out of fear, not a conformity to rules and regulations out of legalistic pride, but a conformity to righteousness out of deep love and affection for Jesus Christ. But nonetheless, conformity. I want to do what God wants me to do. I want to be what God wants me to be because of all that He has done for me.

I want to walk worthy. I want to be a worthy son, a worthy child. A believer calls himself a child of God, a believer has joined God's family, belongs to the heavenly Father, and that says something about how he ought to live. If I'm my father's child, then I will honor my father.

A sad failure in our commitment. It is indeed not to live up to such an identity. Philippians 1, 27, Paul put it this way, only let...now listen to this...only let your conduct be as it becometh the gospel of Christ, you see. In other words, match your conduct with the gospel. The exalted reality of the gospel demands an exalted lifestyle. Now that is precisely the issue we come to in Ephesians 4.

The first three chapters are positional truth, the resources, the riches, the things God has done for us, absolutely staggering and incredible things. He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. He made us to be holy, to be blameless in love. He even predestinated us.

He adopted us. He made us to the praise of His glory. He has made us accepted in the Beloved One. He has given us redemption, forgiveness. He's given us wisdom, prudence.

He's made known to us the mystery of His will. He has in the dispensation yet in the future to lift us up to heights we haven't even dreamed of, to give us an inheritance that was pre-planned before the world began. He has granted to us the Holy Spirit. He's given us resurrection power. He's made us alive from the dead. He's taken us who are far off, who are lost, who are cut off, and He's made us one new man in Himself. He's given to us the great mystery of the truth of the gospel, the truth of the church. And He's made it possible for us to capitalize on all of this by giving us His Holy Spirit who can strengthen the inner man so that Christ can settle down and be at home, so that we can be filled with incomprehensible love, so that we can have internal fullness, the fullness of God so that we can know the power that's in chapter 3 verse 20, and He's done it all for His own glory.

He's done everything for us. And simply, pointedly, directly does Paul say, walk worthy. Live up to it. It's high time that we circumscribed our living to our identity. Great New Testament truth. Now listen, beloved, the transition here between 3 and 4 is not a random one. It is the typical pattern of Paul to make this kind of transition. It is a transition from doctrine to duty, from doctrine to duty, from precept or principle to practice, from theology to life. It is not a random transition. He doesn't say, well that's all for that, first three chapters.

Now I think I've got something else I want to say. It is a transition that is inseparably linked. Doctrine...now watch this...always is the basis of duty. Duty always flows out of doctrine. There can be no living unless there are principles for it. There can be no lifestyle unless there is a theology at the bottom of it.

There can be no practice if there are no precepts. Doctrine and duty are linked as closely as the flower and the stem, as closely as the branch and the trunk, as closely as the trunk and the roots. Doctrine and duty. Notice the word in verse 1, therefore. We know what the therefore is, therefore, to take us back.

It's the transition on the basis of all of this doctrine, therefore this is your duty. That's always Paul's approach. In all of his letters, beloved, he does this. In all of the letters that he wrote to churches, you'll find these therefores. In fact, if you want an interesting study sometime, just go through Paul's epistles and study all the transitions where therefore appears. Let's go back to an illustration of it in Romans chapter 12...Romans chapter 12. Now we're all familiar with this great text.

It's one that we know and love. This is what it says. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God which is your spiritual service, or reasonable service. Now I want you to notice something. He is beseeching people and he is beseeching them to present their bodies as a living sacrifice. This is duty he's asking for.

He wants duty out of them. In fact, in verse 3 he talks about the gifts they're to manifest. Down in verse 9 he talks about the love that they're to manifest. And then further on, that they are to not be lazy in verse 11, that they are to rejoice in verse 12, that they are to give to the needy in verse 13.

They are to bless their persecutors in verse 14, rejoice with people who rejoice and weep with those who weep, to show sympathy, etc. All of these are practical things. Then in 13 he talks about how you're to respond to the government, how you're to respond to God's standards, how you're to respond to the weaker brother in chapter 14, how you're to respond to the weaker brother in chapter 15, how you're to carry out your ministry in chapter 15. Chapter 16, how do you relate to people who help you in the ministry? It's all practical. But notice, before he gets into this practical section, he says, therefore.

Now listen to me. In chapter 12, you have the first practical instruction of the book of Romans. The first eleven chapters are theology. Before he ever says anything about what you're to do, he gives you eleven chapters of doctrine.

Notice what he said. I beseech you therefore, brethren, on the basis of the mercies of God. And what are the mercies of God? They are the great theological truths that he has recited in the first eleven chapters. On the basis of these great realities about God which mercifully have been extended to you, this is your duty. On the basis of the righteousness of God, the uselessness of law and works, the saving power of faith, peace with God, standing in grace, the promise of glory, the gift of love, the indwelling spirit, adoption, reconciliation, union, slavery to Christ, deliverance from sin, freedom from judgment, sanctification, justification, glorification, security, unfailing promises on the basis of all of these great mercies of God dispensed a sinful man. Therefore, brethren, I beseech you, present your bodies.

See? It's always that way. Duty is always a response to doctrine. Behavior is always a response to precept. Life is always a response to theology. And I want you to know this because I want you to know why we teach doctrine. People say, well, you know, you get into such heavy teaching, you teaching doctrine.

Listen, I have to do that. That's what God has called me to do, to teach you the principles of life so that you can live life. The therefore is there for a reason. Look at Philippians chapter 2, verse 1. Philippians 2, 1. If there be therefore...there's that therefore.

He's given some great, great theological truths in the first chapter, great realities about Christ and what He's done in His life, about Christ's consolation, about Christ's love, all of these things. And now He says, if there be therefore any consolation in Christ, any comfort of love, any fellowship of the Spirit, any tender mercies, and compassion, fulfill ye my joy that you be like-minded, having the same love, meeting of one accord and of one mind. In other words, He says, look, if our theology is this, then, beloved, our behavior has got to be this. See? We've got to have a therefore based on theology and doctrine to live by.

Do you see the point? It's doctrine, doctrine, doctrine. Finally, therefore, here's the duty. You're listening to Grace to You, featuring John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. The study he began today on who the Lord desires you to be and how He wants you to live is titled, Getting in Step with the Christian Walk.

And friend, this is a very practical series. It really gets to the heart of Christian living, so I encourage you to review it again at your own pace. To download Getting in Step with the Christian Walk for free at our website or to order it on CD, contact us today. Our web address, gty.org, or you can call us at 800-55-GRACE. All of John's sermons are free to download at our website, including Getting in Step with the Christian Walk, as well as other popular series from the book of Ephesians, like The Fulfilled Family, Richer Than You Think and many others.

To take advantage of all of those free messages, go to gty.org. And if you're grateful that these Bible teaching programs are reaching you and your community, if you want to help connect God's people with biblical truth that changes lives, this is a great time of year to express your support. Giving to your local church comes first, we affirm that. But just know that your year-end gift to Grace to You will help us launch into 2023 on a solid footing. You can mail your tax-deductible donation to Grace to You, Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412. You can also give online at gty.org or when you call us at 800-55-GRACE. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson, encouraging you to be here tomorrow when John looks at how you can effectively fight the powerful temptations the world throws at you. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on Grace to You.