Timothy J. Clarke - The Walk of The Believer: Walking With God

I cheer you up on the first day of the year to tell you that if you can’t do anything else, you can walk with God. Oh, I feel the Holy Ghost right there. Would you look at a neighbor and say, «Even I can do that»? I may not be able to do what Pastor Kelly does, or what the First Lady does, or what some other personality in the church does, but if I’m committed to Christ and have yielded my life to Him, I feel an unction right there: I can walk with God.

Walking with God is not the purview of the bishop. Walking with God is not limited to the high and mighty, third and fourth generation believers, but it belongs to someone straight off the street. God, I wish I had a church here! Dion, I wish—I mean, I love you; you know I love you. I love me some of you! I do! I love me some of you! I’m so proud of you, but every now and then, I wish you all would go out there and rent a sinner. They ought to hold a «Bring a Sinner to Church» event, and you should just bring a sinner to church who doesn’t feel as if they did God a favor by showing up, but who realizes they were a wreck and a mess, and God saved them. When you realize where you’ve come from and what it took for Christ to save you, you get over yourself real quick.

Walking with God is not the purview of those who’ve been in the church all their lives—whose daddy was a bishop, whose grandpa was a deacon, whose grandmother was chair of the Deaconess Board, president of the missionary society, and in charge of the Rise and Shine Biscuit Committee. No! Walking with God belongs to everybody, no matter who you are, no matter how recently you’ve gotten saved. Bruno and Teresa, if you got saved last night, you can start walking with God! Genesis says, «Enoch walked with God, ” and beloved, that word—and I’m going to move on— that word „walk“ in the biblical sense is an expression of fellowship and obedience that produces favor. Okay, I’m going to try one more time. To walk with God is to be engaged and involved in a level of fellowship and obedience that results in favor from God.

When we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word, what a glory! Nobody knows that song but me! Real man, you know—what a glory He sheds on our way! While we do His sweet will, He abides with us still, and with all who will trust. I was wondering, Pop, when you’re gonna help me? „Trust and Obey.“ Okay, where are my church folk? Well, very well: „Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus. Oh, you have to trust and obey.“ Then in fellowship sweet, let me stop, „At His feet, or we’ll walk by His side in the way. What He says we will do; where He sends we will go. Never fear, only trust Him and obey.“

To walk with God is to encounter, engage, and be involved at a level of not just fellowship, but fellowship that produces obedience in your life, which results in divine favor. There are some things you and I can’t get from God unless we walk with Him. And, „Enoch walked with God.“ Well, I have 20 minutes and 19 seconds. Um, they threw the clock on me. Here it is—what does that mean? Ask a neighbor, „What does that mean?“ The relevant question of my text is—you know I always ask: Irrelevant for the late Dr. Samuel D. Proctor said, in his Hegelian approach to hermeneutics and homiletics, that one must always lift and raise a relevant question. My relevant question today is: What kind of walk did Enoch have that it is said of him not, „He gave a lot of money, ” not, „He ran the church, ” not, „He was a church boss, ” not that he was a spiritual godfather, but that he walked with God? Can I ask you this, and I’ll move on, I promise I will. I promise I won’t linger on this, but I need to just query you on this. What better epitaph would you want, Edmund, than for Vivi to say, „My daddy walked with God“?

What greater legacy could you leave them? I used to call them little girls—grown women—than for them, on the hour of your passing and the day of your committal, to look at you and repose and say, „My mama walked with God.“ Oh my God, my God! What every parent in this room, while you are doing what you ought to do to provide for your family—having insurance, leaving money, having a will, and ensuring you leave an inheritance—what are you doing all of that for? I want to urge you today to consider that you might want to leave something the attorney can’t put in the will: an epitaph that says, „My mama, my daddy, my grandma, my grandpa walked with God.“ What does that look like? What does it mean? What does your mommy, your daddy, and your grandparents’ legacy look like? Liz, when your mom died, I was so moved…