[0:00] Well, we are closing in on the homestretch in our study of the godly man's picture. We're down to the last four or five weeks or so. Today we're looking at two more features of the godly man.
[0:13] He does spiritual things in a spiritual manner, and he walks with God. He does spiritual things in a spiritual manner, and he walks with God.
[0:24] And really, that's just to say that the godly man isn't a Christian in name only. He's not a Christian in name only. He's a true-hearted, living, walking, spiritual person.
[0:42] Jesus, when he was writing to the church in Sardis in the book of Revelation, he says this. He puts his finger on where they were. And it seems like this is exactly what we're talking about in this chapter.
[0:57] He says, I know your deeds. You have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up. Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God.
[1:16] What was incomplete about their deeds? What was incomplete about their deeds? They had them. They were doing things.
[1:29] What do you suppose was Jesus' complaint about their deeds? Anyone? Well, it wasn't the quantity.
[1:39] It was the quality of them. It wasn't the absence of them. It was what kind they were doing. I have not found your deeds complete. You have this reputation of being alive, but there was something missing in it.
[1:53] And that's what we're talking about. The godly man is spiritual. He's alive. He's walking with God. And he does spiritual things from his heart.
[2:08] From his heart. Jesus said to the woman at the well, the father is seeking those who will worship him in spirit and in truth.
[2:19] And whatever else that might mean, that certainly means the father is looking for those who will really worship him from their hearts. In their spirits. Peter said, you also like living stones are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
[2:44] The godly man just isn't singing. He's singing from his heart. He's singing with his mind, with a soul lifted up to God.
[2:55] He's not doing it just for himself. He's not doing it in relation to himself to feel a certain way about himself. The godly man isn't just saying his prayers. He's he's praying with his heart.
[3:07] He's having interactions. He's having dealings with God. So the godly man isn't just giving his tithes and offerings. He's offering true spiritual sacrifice.
[3:21] His heart is even in his his giving. Watson says a godly man spiritualizes his duty. He's not only for the doing of holy things, but for the holy doing of things.
[3:36] So the godly man isn't just here and doing good things. It's the way he does it, the way he enters into it with his heart that this is talking about.
[3:46] The godly man's soul is engaged. Now, wasn't that very much the Lord's continual complaint against Old Testament Israel? See if you can finish the sentence for me.
[4:01] You come near to me with your mouth and honor me with your lips. But what? Your heart is far from me. You're here.
[4:12] You're saying you're speaking. You're saying all the right words, maybe. But your heart. This is far from me. No love for me. No heart for me.
[4:23] No desire for me. Now, the godly man's soul is near God and spiritual things. And so that's what we want to first dig out. We're going to talk about walking with God a little bit later.
[4:36] But let's just talk about the spiritual. The godly man does spiritual things in a spiritual way. Now, what does that look like? What does that mean? Well, very first of all, basic, basic, basic is that you do it from a born again heart.
[4:52] To do spiritual things before God is to do them with a born again, a new heart. A man who isn't born again, no matter what he does, he can't do things in a spiritual way toward God.
[5:06] So let him be here every time the door is open. But he's still dead. He's still dead to God. He's still distant and disconnected.
[5:17] So Nicodemus, you rabbi, you member of the Sanhedrin, you teacher of Israel. You must be born again.
[5:29] Nicodemus didn't have a problem with his outward so much as with his inward. A dead heart produces dead works. A dead heart has no love for God in it.
[5:40] And the first and greatest commandment is that you love the Lord your God. And so even as they do their works, the unregenerate, the unborn again person has no love of God in it.
[5:56] So it's incomplete, has no heart in it. So the question is, have you been born again? Have you passed from death to life?
[6:06] And maybe you don't even know exactly how that happened. But can you say, I once was blind, but now I see. I once was dead, but now I'm alive and I'm alive to God in a new way.
[6:18] It's like I was in a deep, deep sleep. But now I'm awake. Well, that's partly, that's the first. What does it mean to do spiritual things in a spiritual way?
[6:32] You do it from a new heart. Second, what does it mean to do spiritual things in a spiritual way? You do it with a mind engaged. Modern Christianity, or at least modern American evangelicalism, distances the heart and the mind.
[6:56] And the Bible never puts those things apart. They put them together. And so they do it with their mind engaged. And now I think here we can say, oh, my mind can be a wandering sheep.
[7:10] It is hard for me to maintain focus in my spiritual duties. Watson again. Yes, sad experience proves it. The thoughts will be dancing up and down in prayer.
[7:24] The saints are called stars. And many times in duty, they are wandering stars. Their heart is like mercury, which will not settle. Though maybe you've seen mercury poured out and it just moves around and it will never find its spot.
[7:38] And so that is our constant struggle as Christians. To get these minds to focus on God. But that's what the godly man does. His mind is focused on the Lord.
[7:51] And so that is our constant struggle. But let me say, to struggle means you also are alive. And so if you are struggling, take heart. That's something to be encouraged with in a certain respect because that says you're alive.
[8:06] And so, yes, brothers and sisters, we fail. But we rise up and we try again. We keep at it. Our minds are at least that much engaged that when we wander, we bring them back and we try again.
[8:24] So that's what it means to do spiritual things in a spiritual way. It's not an absence of thought. It's not mindlessness. It's not somehow disconnecting our thoughts from our hearts.
[8:40] There's this whole strain of Christianity that's now taking things from far eastern religions. And instead of prayer being offering our petitions and our requests and our praises in a verbal way, with words to the Lord, they talk about contemplative prayer, drop into the center, disconnect your mind, and just be with God.
[9:08] And whatever that ends up being, the Bible talks about and shows us prayer as being something with our minds engaged. We are to love the Lord, our God, with all of our minds.
[9:24] So that's the godly man. So what does it mean to do holy spiritual things in a spiritual way? He does it with his mind engaged. And now third, he does it with faith and love.
[9:36] Now here's, so the newborn heart, his mind engaged, and he does it in faith. He does it holding on to the Lord, relying on the Lord, believing that God exists and he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
[9:55] There's this heart that says, my God is good. And now I'm going to him. I'm going to worship him. So by faith, Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain.
[10:10] You know, Cain offered the fruit of the land. Abel offered the flock, pieces of the flock, the sheep. But the book of Hebrews points out the real key difference is that Abel's sacrifice was driven and filled with faith.
[10:30] Cain's wasn't. And so we do it by faith and love. And so we do it. We do it more than just duty sake. Nothing wrong with duty. Nothing wrong with duty.
[10:41] That's not my point. Watson says, though, many people look no further than the bare doing of duties, but never heed how they are done. They do it.
[10:52] They do their duties merely to shut the mouth of conscience. And so is there a place for the sense of duty? Certainly. But we want more than that.
[11:03] God wants more than that. God does not judge. Here's Watson again. God does not judge our duties by length, but by love. God does not judge ouŕ „raise. Not how long we do them or how frequently we do them, but what is the love in it?
[11:18] He has some sort of way of measuring and seeing and looking for the love that is in our prayers, the love that is in our singing, the love that is in our giving, the love that is in our serving.
[11:29] so not by length not by their mere presence but by love so the godly man has love love for god in his duties so if you were to ask why are you doing this and it whatever else he would say down at the very bottom he would say i love the lord a godly man is a god lover so his duties are his delight and when they are not his delight he senses that something is not the way it should be and his duties are his delight because love makes them his delight the godly man is like jacob remember he's he was tricked into serving laban for the hand of rachel and it says all the years of his service were of little account because he loved her he loved rachel love made his duty his obligation easy to bear and if you would say oh lord i need more of that heart i'm right there with you give me a heart god give me a heart that would love you then i would take up my duties with delight then i would make progress then i would go forward if i had more of a heart watson says if we want to have our duties be spiritual we must have hearts that are spiritual an earthly heart cannot be spiritual in duty let us beg from god a spiritual palate to relish a sweetness and holy things i'm going to repeat that let us beg from god a spiritual palate you know what he means a spiritual taste buds to to relish a sweetness and holy things and so if really if you just want to take away one thing from this sunday school lesson one thing from this sunday school lesson just one thing to put into your heart and mind to put in your pocket then pray for a spiritual palate pray for spiritual taste buds our hearts because our hearts follow our delights our hearts will follow the things that we enjoy and we'll pursue them and so we want to pray lord change me that i might delight in you why you know psalm 119 is so long so long so carefully constructed so in a certain way repetitive about what the psalmist loves what was driving what was what was the impetus what was that he really loved the word of god it was sweet to him it tasted good to him he relished it and because he relished it he was all in with it so we want to say oh that i would delight in your word like psalm 119 we are too often like people with covid 19 you know with the suppressed taste buds with the suppressed ability to smell and so we want to pray lord give me those spiritual taste buds give me that spiritual sense of smell that when i am near you i delight in you and when i come to my spiritual duties i delight in this i'm and i will run after you for lack of spiritual hearts we come to duty without delight and go away without profit christian if you want to move more spiritually in duty get the spring of your heart mended uh in the context he was talking
[15:34] about a watch and he's saying if you want the hands of your watch to move in time and in the way they should and they're not you need to get the the spring of that in the watch fixed if we want our hearts to move in spiritual rhythm in the way that they're supposed to move then we need to get the spring of our heart mended and so you know really if you want to stop here and you can pray and lord give me a new heart lord awaken my taste buds i see that i just have too little delight in spiritual things so give me that delight so the godly man he serves god he worships god with delight with his heart in it but it's not just what we would typically call uh spiritual duties he's not just having dealings with god when he's doing his devotions in the morning or when he comes to church on sunday his whole life and this is the connection between our two points his whole life is walking with god those spiritual duties come in a context of a life that he's living in fellowship with god that's the godly man and that's our next point the godly man isn't just with god on sundays he walks with god every day so where is the godly man we would say where is enoch no he is out walking with god that's where you'll find him that's where you'll find him he walks with god in the cool of the evening but he also walks with god in in the heat of the day he he is living his life with god genesis 6 9 says that noah walked with the lord noah walked with god now noah's days were corrupt days they were corrupt the people that he lived with were corrupt the wickedness of man was very great in the but the but but but the evil of that day didn't stop noah from walking with the lord every day of his life so noah walked with god now that is the life of faith isn't it to walk to to live is to walk to to believe is to walk in faith uh to obey is to walk in obedience deuteronomy uh moses after he regave the 10 commandments to the second generation of israel he says this walk in all the ways of the lord your the way that lord your god has commanded you so walk so to live to walk is to live and so when i say the godly man walks with god it's just another way of saying the godly man lives lives with god he life is a journey and he's doing that journey with the lord so how does he do it he does it he walks under god's eye that's how he walks he he has the sense that the lord is with him the lord is with him and he walks with him i've set the lord always before me psalm 116 says for you o lord have delivered my soul from death my eyes from tears my feet from stumbling that i may walk before the lord in the land of the living now in that passage where he talks about that i might walk before the lord in the land of the living i think he's all he's really
[19:34] talking about is you've kept me alive and what this verse is showing us is is one thing that you know what all men walk before the lord all men godly or ungodly they live their days before the lord they walk before the lord in the land of the living so the picture is the lord is on the throne and he is looking at men live their lives and they live their entire lives in his presence under his view and it doesn't really matter whether they recognize god whether they see or honor god whether they obey disbelieve disobey it doesn't matter they are walking in the presence of the lord and so what david is saying is lord you've saved my life and now i can go on continuing to walk before you in the land of the living but the difference is the godly man recognizes god he sees god he sees that i'm living my life every day and before the lord and so everyone is under god's eye and the difference is the godly man and the un between the ungodly man is the godly man thinks about that that has an effect on his life that has a an hour by hour moment by moment effect on his life he he cannot escape the sense that the lord is watching me the lord is here with me the lord is for me or the lord is is looking upon me he's holding me accountable and that's what it means to live in the fear of the lord it means to live in the reverence of his presence and the holiness of god so wherever he goes and wherever you go and as i look out i see a lot of people doing a lot of different things and you have your job sites and you have your workplaces and you are at home and you are at the store and you are on the road and yet wherever you go you are going there with the lord you're living that life with the lord and the godly man recognizes that and so he he knows the lord is with him to help him i don't i don't want you to think that this is like this overbearing presence of the lord the lord is there to help him to watch over him to care for him to see him to understand him to have compassion upon him to shepherd him to hold him accountable the godly man doesn't live in a servile servile fear of the lord this frightening fear of the lord he he isn't a slave under the eye of uh of a of a harsh taskmaster who has this ready hand ready to whip that's not how the godly man lives with god with the sense of dread with the sense of punishment as i'm always on the brink of that no that's not what this is talking about um to walk with god like noah did like enoch did is to is to walk with god as friends with god as friends with god you know abraham went on all of his journey not knowing where he was going to go and he moved here and he moved there but wherever he moved the lord was with him and the lord was abraham's friend to protect him to bless him to keep him to help him and so to walk with god is to walk as friends with god and so walking with god it's talking about familiarity it's talking about intimacy it's talking about friendship this intimacy the soul has with
[23:41] god now friends walk together friends do life together friends share their joys and their griefs together you remember those two disciples they're going down the road to emmaus after on that third day after jesus died and you know how they were what they were talking about and how they were feeling things were strange things were not good jesus is now dead their hopes are crushed and yet there's these weird strange stories that people are saying that now he's alive and what are these two disciples of the lord doing oh they're sharing each other's they're sharing they're talking about this they're thinking about this they're contemplating this they're confused but they're in this together and they're they're two friends sharing despair trying to help each other trying to make sense of life trying to to get through this this very peculiar time together and then you know what happens well the best friend of all came up they didn't recognize him but now there were three friends walking together and they shared and their hearts burned as that third friend came along and opened up his heart and opened up his mind to them now that's how the godly man walks with the lord they're not sparring they're not enemies they're friends and so yes there's reverence there's reverence but there's also comfort and intimacy and love abraham it says was god's friend it doesn't say that god was abraham's friend although that was true abraham was god's friend abraham was god's friend so do you think of yourself that way that i'm god's friend i'm god's friend not that just that he's my friend but i'm his friend he counts me his friend god wanted and had a friend in abraham if you understand abraham's place and the whole redemptive story remember god used to walk with adam and eve in the cool of the evening and they were they were friends and that's the way life was meant to be between man and god and adam broke that friendship and betrayed his friend and now with the coming and the choosing of abraham and god working with abraham now god is now going to re-establish begin to re-establish this connection between god and man and abraham becomes the father of the faithful and it's going to be from him that the seed of the woman is going to come and he's going to bring reconciliation between god and man so god wanted and had a friend in abraham and he confided in abraham he he was going to do something very drastic in the city of sodom something that hasn't really been seen before or since and he says can i can i keep this from my friend can i keep this from my friend abraham can i restrain myself from telling him no i need to tell him what it's going going what i'm going to do isn't that how friends are isn't that what friends do i'm about to do something big and you want to tell your friend about it that's how all the godly are god is an immensely relational person he wants and he has lots of friends to share with to talk with and the godly are god's friends and so there's this mutuality between the godly
[27:49] and god there's this friendship this bond that goes both ways i think tonight we're going to close with jesus what a friend for sinners that's true he is our friend but the opposite is also true god would point to the godly and say he's my friend she's my friend now i i think that really helps us to think about how we want to live our life all that we do we we're going to do it in reference to our friend is my friend going to like this is this going to be is am i going to be treating god like i would treat my friend because that's what he is so first john chapter three our communion our koinonia our partnership our fellowship our bond our mutual bond is with the father and with his son jesus christ and so we're friends with each person of the trinity god the father god the son and god the holy spirit and if you live that way and as you live that way that's how the godly walk with god as friends and you know if you do something against your friend you say i'm sorry and if your friend does something for you you say thank you you're there to help your friend or serve your friend do good for your friend that's how friends are so as under god's eye as god's friend and what does it mean to walk with god it means to walk in visible godliness visible godliness how do the godly walk invisible not invisible but in visible godliness in noticeable seeable observable godliness so now do we do a lot of things that the ungodly people do sure a lot of things i'm not talking about bad things here i'm talking about we just do a lot of things that the god the ungodly do we we have pets we have children we take our kids to school we take our kids to practice we go to jobs we go to work we have families we do christmas you know we do lots of things um so are godly people visibly different well in a lot of ways no uh we we shouldn't be dressing completely differently as if godliness is in what we wear or certain styles or certain hair styles uh i i grew up in argus and if i saw a girl or a woman wearing a long ankle length jean skirt i knew exactly where they went to church because every woman every young lady wore these long jean skirts and so now maybe i was wrong some of the time but i don't think most of the time that's how a godly woman dressed now is that visible godliness well that's not what we're talking about now should our godliness come out in the way we dress sure but that isn't what the kind of godliness i'm visible godliness i'm talking about i'm talking about the kinds of things that the the bible spends most of its time talking about love visible love visible patience visible kindness visible gentleness visible righteousness that's what it means to walk with god i i i'm doing and i'm clearly doing the things that he wants
[31:50] so people should be able to tell pretty soon after meeting me that there is something different about me and maybe they didn't catch it the first one or two times but the real is the realization is beginning to dawn on them this person is different i've never seen someone quite like this person or not very often remember the jewish leaders that they whipped and interrogated the the apostles and the apostles were still courageous and bold and what did they observe they said oh wait a second these guys had they'd been with jesus that's how it should be if we're walking and we're living with god every day you know pretty soon your stride with your walking partner begins to match don't they so if you see two people walking down the road they're generally if they're relatively the same height their strides match don't they they start to walk like each other and in sync with each other and people will see it and that's what i'm saying that if our walking partner if our living partner is god then pretty soon we should begin to live lives that are visibly similar to him in love and in kindness and patience and righteousness and holiness and everything else so if you walk with god you start to walk like god and that's the point so what is this what is what is what is what does it mean to walk with god you you walk under his eye you walk with him as a friend you walk in visible holiness let me just pause there are there any comments i'd love to hear if you have anything comments or you want to add something to this um sorry i didn't give you a warning so if i'm catching you flat-footed anything i want to hear it okay well now watson after explaining what walking with god is he's going to give nine motives for it he actually gives ten but i'm taking away one of them so we have nine motives this is where you realize that these sermons must have been two hours long two and a half because they he fills them up and so we're going to have nine motives for walking with god to live before god and communion and fellowship with him and really the what we want to take from this is this is an encouragement this is why i should do it this is why i should not get discouraged if i'm tripping and falling here's here's why you should get up and keep going here's why you should pursue this nine motives to sort of like entice you into the way of noah into the way of abraham into the way of enoch one it's very pleasing to god to walk with god is very pleasing we we just got done talking about how we want to have delight in in the lord and in our duties we want to have this taste buds this delight this pleasure in it and that pleasure will encourage us well here's here's pleasure from god's side when god when we're walking with the lord god is pleased it's very pleasing to him enoch walked with the lord and he had this testimony that he pleased god and so you walk with the god and you're saying to the world i love this friendship more than anything i love my friend more than anything time with him is the sweetest time time with him is the best spent time and in return and god in return sees our love and sees our delight and sees our pleasure and sees us wanting to move and walk with
[35:53] him and it pleases him we take pleasure in someone who is acting as our friend and god is no different it gives him joy and so do you want to you want to please god bring pleasure to his heart walk with him walk with him he wants to be your friend be his friend chapter our second motive close walking with god is a good way to entice others to walk with him this is exactly the the way that peter talks to women who have unconverted husbands or any spouses with unconverted spouses peter told wives to so walk that their husbands might be won by their conducts so there is something very powerful and very inviting about a christian's walk and this is going on all of the time where you know right now on college campuses there are christians living before their unbelieving uh roommates and friends and those those christians are so there's something about them that is so enticing and they're saying okay i want to find out more about this christianity thing i want to be with this person more i'll go to you i'll go with you and hear a gospel presentation they're not winning them so much with their logist uh logical philosophical arguments they're winning those people with the the the winsomeness of their lives justin martyr the early church father said it was the christians holy and innocent lives that first attracted him to christ he saw something in them and his heart went out and it it wooed him into the the sphere of jesus christ and jesus christ caught him so we can do that with our lives and it's going on all the time that's not just happening uh in other places and other times it's happening all the time here it's happening in your home chapter i don't know why i keep on saying chapter three uh third motive careful walking with god silences the adversaries of the truth uh how they crow when another pastor falls how they love it when they see the righteous so-called righteous fall but you know there's no celebrating in the face of careful walking with god so they might persecute you for righteousness sake but they are not going to be able to laugh at you for sin's sake remember the conundrum that daniel's enemies had we're never going to find a basis for charging him unless we find some way of making this illegal what he's doing with god unless it has something to do with the law of his god so brothers and sisters reckless sinful behavior just puts a sword into our enemy's hands and we and godliness takes all the sword the weapons away it disarms them so number four walking with god is a pleasant walk the ways of wisdom are pleasant proverbs says psalm 89 says they shall walk oh lord in the light of your countenance that's what it is to walk with god the light of your countenance is to have the full smile of god on you and to live that way is is a pleasing life psalm 138 they shall sing in the ways of the lord you know what life is hard for every man under the sun there's trouble and there's strife and there's there's difficulties for every man for the godly included but you know psalm 138 is saying there goes a people who even though they're facing difficulties they're going on with a song in their heart because god is walking with them it's a it's a pleasant way to walk number five walking with god
[39:55] is honorable it's honorable you know if you have if you have to walk with a king to walk with the president to be his friend that's honorable that's something you would probably take pride in well how much more if you're walking with the lord of heaven and earth and he's saying he's my friend now that's honor now the world's not going to see it now but you know what things unseen are going to be seen and there's coming a day when his enemies will cower before him and his friends will boldly approach the throne because they've walked with god number six walking with god leads to rest it leads to rest you know there's only a lot there's lots of roads in this life there's only one that leads to rest at the end there remains a rest for god's people so god's friends get to spend the night so to speak in god's house they get to go to the party at the end uh there's only one road that leads to no more sighing mourning grieving tears death trouble there's there's only one road and it's walking with the lord let's keep moving we're almost done here number seven walking with god is the safest way to walk isn't that the picture of psalm 23 the lord is my shepherd he leads me in paths of righteousness that's just a picture of a shepherd walking with a sheep and i will fear no evil for you are with me to walk with god is is to walk with that fiery pillar by night and that cloud over your head to shade you during the day uh it it's to walk with that rock that springs forth with water it's the safest way to walk uh to walk in sin uh the bible says the way the wicked is hard it's hard it's full of potholes or pilgrim's progress and there was the hill of difficulty in those two roads off to the side destruction and i don't remember the other one but you know as soon as those two fellows took the two opposing roads they soon fell into trouble and they fell down and one of them fell down and fell down until he couldn't get up well to walk with god is to walk in safety eight walking with god will make death sweet will make death sweet you know enoch walked with god for 365 years and then he was no more he didn't die he was just he walked right off the earth he was taken away uh and really that is what it's like for the christian who spent his days close to god finally god was going to say okay time time's up there's nothing left to do now but to for you to die and i'll be waiting for you not even i'll be waiting for you and i'll go down with you into the with you into the river jordan to live as christ and to die as gain and so death is sweet because all you're doing is getting more of what you wanted more intimacy more closeness to fling aside your flesh to rise and live with the souls of just men made perfect so walk with the lord number nine those who walk with the lord are never wholly left by god and this is a maybe a sort of a a sober way to end this but it is to say there are times in the christian's walk where it doesn't feel like god is walking with you
[43:56] you feel alone you feel like he's hiding his face from you and this is just to say you walk with the lord he's never wholly going to leave you your feelings might say he's gone but he's not i hid my face from you for a moment but with everlasting kindness i will have mercy on you so that's to walk with god he's never going to leave you nor forsake you feels that way sometimes but he is the god who hides himself and and behind that veil he is still there he's still with you he's still protecting you he is still helping you and that's to walk with god so it's pleasant it's safe it's sweet and once it begins it won't end you know this is just to say this whole lesson is just to say you know for the christian heaven begins below you start to have dealings with god and you start to live with god below and it's perfected above and so let's walk with him so two more features the godly man does spiritual things in a spiritual way and he walks with god now may the spirit of the god of of our god help us may the spirit of jesus christ help us to do these things we're dismissed thank you
[45:28] Thank you.