The Walk after the Talk

About 20-some years ago I heard someone at a conference tell a story about what happened in the church he was pastoring. He grew tired of preaching lovely sermons each and every Sunday seeing that, in all reality, not much changed around the place. He'd give a sermon about joy, for example. He'd get the usual, "Great message today, Pastor!", and "powerful words, Pastor", and "that was really challenging". But the next week would come and the people were no more walking in joy than they were the week before. He decided that he would no longer move onto the next topic until the church was practicing what he had already preached on. Talk about guts. He stood up on Sunday morning, went to the pulpit, and when it was time to speak to God's people, said only, "Love one another. Have a lovely week. You are dismissed." , and then he sat down. It took a while before the people began to 'get it'. Somehow, they figured it out. They started loving each other. It was practical. It was real. It honored God. If I remember correctly, a few months went by before he preached the next 'sermon'. I believe it was , "Love your neighbor as yourself". Wow. So simple yet so hard. We love ourselves pretty much. We treat ourselves pretty well. Do we love our neighbor the same way? I don't think I'll ever forget that story. I just thought it was so awesome.



Like I've talked about before, I think we take a very simple walk and turn it into a maze of programs, complicated sermons, and lists of rules that protect us from breaking other rules. Jesus said, "follow Me".



Quite honestly, there's a whole lot I know in my head about walking the walk. I've been studying the Word practically since I was old enough to think. Life is where the rub comes in. Oh, we can theorize about patience and say," ah...what a lovely sermon on patience" but when we're in the checkout line with a slow clerk and a broken scanner.......or when the car breaks down for the third time in a month and we don't have the moolah to repair it....that's when the walk needs to match the studying. That's when we see if we're allowing God's Word to change us and conform us into His image. We have to practice living in his presence at those moments. We need to DO the things He asked us to do. Hiding his Word in our hearts is necessary to avoiding sin. Studying so that we know what God said in His Word can be useful, no doubt. Unfortunately, many times this has taken the place of living it. Paul did stay on in Corinth to teach them the Word of God for a year and a half.....I'm not against teaching. The people in Corinth didn't know God's Word. The gospel was new. It hadn't been long since Jesus died and rose again. People were pretty much blank slates when it came to what they knew about Jesus. The jews could connect their prophecies to Him and most of them had a great understanding of the torah but didn't know much about Jesus. There weren't Bibles you could just take home and read and study.



Let's contrast that with today. Most believing homes in the developed world have multiple Bibles. Most people in churches today have been there a good portion of their lives. Most of the time, the pastor is giving a sermon that is just slightly different from the last one he gave on that topic a year ago. I really don't think my experience has been a whole lot different than anyone else's but I could be wrong. I can say that just because of the sheer volume of time I've spent "in church", I've pretty much heard lots of variations on the same messages over and over again. I'm not being demeaning to these pastors, I'm merely relating my experience. I rarely learn something particularly new or applicable, nor do I see a whole lot of people reached for the Lord in these meetings. When Paul was in Corinth, it says that he stayed and 'reasoned with them'. To me that doesn't imply a lecture, it implies dialogue. It just seems like we spend a lot of time preaching to the choir, passing along the academics, instead of spurring each other on in our knowledge and love for the Lord and teaching what we have experienced from God's Word.



One of my favorite periods of time I've had with the church, is back in New York when we led a cell group. We had a bunch of new believers in it and we generally didn't have a set text to study from(not that there's anything wrong with having one). Each week we would get together and have coffee, chat for a while, then sit down and go around in a circle, each one answering the question...,"what is the most significant thing that happened in your life this week?" Some weeks it would be nothing more significant than having a birthday or your child starting first grade. Other weeks people would have serious issues like, "I got pregnant before I came to Christ.....what do I do with this baby", or "I just lost my job", "I'm struggling with such-and-such sin." Instead of trying to preach a one-size-fits-all message, we used the Word to minister to each other in each of these situations as they came up. I am still in touch with many of these people. God knit us together. God built us up in His Word as we applied it to our lives. It was exciting. It was awesome. We grew. Unfortunately, we had to stick to the program that the church was dictating and every six months the group had to multiply or divide or whatever. The organic aspect of our friendships was changed and we had to start all over again with a new group. We became a slave to the cell group "program" instead of what was working to change us into the image of Christ. It took me a long time to get over that whole thing and it was very disillusioning at the time. I have since learned a lot, grown a lot, and put it behind me, but I am very determined to never again be a slave to a program, only to the Spirit of the living God. This is much harder to do than I ever imagined. Even in a non-typical church environment, we can become a slave to a different kind of 'program'. Any time it starts to be academic at the expense of practical, we run the risk of just getting bored at best, or 'puffed up' with knowledge. I think these verses in II Peter 1:5-8 talks about what we need to be effective in our Christian walk. 5For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. 8For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.