In Touch Ministries

Dr. Charles Stanley: Walking in step with Him, there is peace. There is tranquility. There is contentment, there is joy, there is satisfaction. Troubles, heartaches, trials, burdens, yes, but beneath all that, learning, learning how to trust Him, getting insight, seeing things I'd never seen before, knowing a different way to help somebody.

In other words, when you're walking in step with Him, listen carefully, you cannot lose. You cannot lose walking in step with Him.

Guest (Male): Do you have that kind of peace, tranquility, and joy that Dr. Stanley just mentioned? If not, you may be out of step with God. Today on In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley, you'll be challenged to make a practice of aligning your life with Christ's life. Here's Dr. Stanley's message to lay the groundwork for Walking in Step with God.

Dr. Charles Stanley: Have you noticed if you're walking with someone rather briskly and you're walking in step with each other, it seems to be easier to walk, more freely, more pleasurably? There's just something about walking in step. Then somebody gets out of step, and psychologically something just happens on the inside of you.

The same thing is true when you and I are talking about walking with God, walking with the Lord Jesus Christ. Walking with Him in step with Him is one thing. Out of step is something entirely different.

I want you to turn to the fourth chapter of Ephesians, and this is where I want us to begin in this message. I want us just to read those first three verses of that chapter. While you're turning there, the first three chapters of Ephesians is all about what God has done for us, our salvation experience, and then the awesome spiritual treasures that are ours as a result of that.

Then when he comes to the fourth chapter, he talks about how we're to live, how we're to live on the basis of two things: who we are and what we have. Who we are, we are followers of Jesus Christ. What we have is we have Him living on the inside of us, living His life in and through us. Throughout Paul's epistle, he's reminding us that we are in Christ, and He's in us, and He's working and living His life out through us.

When he begins his fourth chapter, this is the reason he says, "Therefore," based on those first two things. "Therefore, I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you. Plead with you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you've been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance."

That doesn't mean just tolerating somebody; it means making allowances for their mistakes and so forth, for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. A lot of things we could say about the rest of that passage, but what I want us to look at primarily is this whole issue of walking in step with God.

We talk about walking with Him, and we say, "Well, I know He's walking with me because He says He'll never leave me nor forsake me." It's one thing for me to be saved; it's something else for me to walk in obedience to the Lord, in step with Him, which is what that's all about, and in a relationship with Him that makes it possible for me to enjoy life. God did not mean for us not to enjoy life. That is, righteousness and holiness doesn't mean you stop enjoying life.

Righteousness and holiness and obedience, those three together make up the key to living a life that is enjoyable and is fruitful and so forth. In light of that, I want us to notice two or three things. The first one, I want to clarify this whole meaning of the idea of walk. For example, when Paul uses that word, here's what it means: it means to walk about. *Peripateo* is the Greek word which means to walk about, and what he's talking about is the way we live our life.

When he says in this passage here, he says, "I implore you to walk about," that is, to walk in a manner that is worthy of the calling with which you've been called, so that our lifestyle. This is what he's talking about. How do we live our life? If I should ask you this morning, is your lifestyle one in which you are daily walking in step with the Lord as He gives you guidance and leadership in your life? Are you out of step with Him?

That is, who are you in step with? When he talks about walking here, he's talking about your lifestyle. He says many things about walking here, but I want you to notice that first of all. Then notice what he says here when he says, "in keeping with the calling with which you've been called." Now somebody says, "Well, God's never called me. I'm not a preacher, I'm not this, I'm not that." That's not what he's talking about.

The truth is, all of us have been called. You wouldn't be sitting here more than likely if you were not. There are really four calls that God issues to every person. The first call is the call to salvation. That's what He's doing in a person's life when they get under conviction, they don't know what's happening in their life and can't figure it all out and so forth. So, He's calling them to salvation.

The second calling once they're saved is a call to sanctification, which means to live a godly life. It is something that happens once and for all at salvation, that is, He sets us apart as a child of God for the purpose of God. Secondly, it is a cleansing process that goes on continually. The third calling is the call to service. There's nowhere in the Bible that God says, "Well, now that you're saved, relax."

He talks about our serving Him. So, the third call is the call to service. The fourth call is a call to accountability. That is not only accountability in this life but accountability at the judgment. So, we all have those four calls. I want to ask you this morning, have you heard the call to be saved and surrendered to Him?

Secondly, have you heard the call to sanctification and that is to live a godly life? If you say, "I haven't heard that," then you weren't listening, because that began the moment you were saved. The third call is a call to service. You say, "I haven't heard that one either." You haven't been listening. There's no such thing as God calling a believer to sit down and do nothing for the kingdom of God when the way He gets the gospel to the world is through us.

The call to accountability, that's the call most folks don't want to think about. Accountability, that's way out yonder in the future somewhere. The truth is, you and I are accountable to Him every single day of our life for all of our words and actions and deeds. So, when he says in this passage, when he says, "Therefore, I, the prisoner of the Lord," speaking there because he is in prison, he says, "implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you've been called."

That is, when you look at who called you, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. When you look at who called you, God, the Creator and our Father. When you look at who called you, the Lord of life. When you look at who called you, the Jesus who lives inside of every single one of His children. Think about this. He says, "I implore you to walk in a manner that's worthy of that." He says that in different ways in other epistles also, "walking in a manner worthy."

What is he simply saying is this: that here is God's standard over here. This is His standard. This is who He is. Let's just put it who He is. Then here's who we are. What He's saying is, "I want you to live in such a way that it's all balanced." Not that Jesus is here and you're out yonder in left field somewhere, but "walk in a manner worthy." That is, you look like who you say you are. You and I look like who we say we are, who we claim to be. So, let's think about that for a moment.

Who are you? The Bible says that once you're saved, you are a child of God, and that you and I are representatives of His. We are ambassadors of Jesus Christ on this earth. When he says in this passage that we are to walk in a manner that is worthy of who we are, then think about what we do. We represent Him; we're His ambassadors. We speak for Him. That is, He's left us here in order to do what? To live out in this life a life, listen, that, watch this, that looks like His.

You say, "Oh, I can never look like Jesus." We're not talking about physical. We're talking about something that's far more impressive, far more powerful than a human physical, fleshly body. We are to walk in such a manner that our character, conversation, and conduct is so much like His that somebody can't miss Him who lives inside of us. Living the Christian life, and you hear me say this often, it's serious business.

We are ambassadors of the Son of God. We represent the Lord Jesus Christ. When he says, "I implore you to walk that way," he says, "It's essential, it's who we are." If you'll think about this, we are an extension of His life. He's in heaven. We are we are exhibitions of His love when we love other people. We're demonstrations of His power when God works through your life and my life in the life of someone else. So, we are very important now as of God.

It's not a matter of prideful importance; it's a matter of submission to His will and allowing Him to live and work within us. So, in order for all that to happen, you and I have to learn how to walk in step with Him. It's easy just to walk around, but to walk in step with someone, you keep cadence with them and so forth. There is something, and next time you take a walk, your husband or wife or a friend, and you all take a little brisk walk, you just remember, when you're walking in cadence with the other person, it's easier.

When you are here and they're back there somewhere, it's a whole different story. So, I would ask you this morning, that being true, how is your walk with the Lord Jesus Christ? Could you say, "Man, I'm in a mess. I'm stumbling all over the place. I don't know where I am. I think sometimes I'm running and God's back yonder and I'm, I don't know where I am in life." Well, I want you to listen carefully, because I'm going to help you if you let me.

I want to show you how you can walk in step with the Lord Jesus Christ, and it's pleasant, and it's wonderful, it's exciting. You know, once you get a, listen, once you start walking in step with Him, you will never be satisfied walking out of step with Him. Because the truth is, all of us this morning are walking in one of two ways. I'm in step or I'm out of step.

Only you can decide that, and it's not for someone else to tell you what that's all about as far as your personal life's concerned. So, let's think about what does that kind of walk look like. As Paul says, "When you walk in step with Him, your life is going to look different." In fact, he says in the sixth chapter of Romans, he said, "Once you and I trust Jesus as our Savior, we begin to do what? To walk in newness of life," not like we used to walk.

We're not walking in step with the ones we used to walk in step with. It's a new kind of life. Somewhere along the way, I think a lot of believers have forgotten the fact that it's a new kind of life. What makes it so new is this: that now it's not God up yonder and me down here doing the best I can, it's Jesus living on the inside of us through the Holy Spirit and doing what? He's the one who's living it out through us.

You say, "Well, if He's going to do it, I don't have any responsibility." Oh, yes, I do. The responsibility to believe what He says, trust what He says, His promises, and to obey Him. So, the big question is, and this is what I want to spend the rest of the time on, what do I have to do to walk in step with the Lord? Now, I could give you a lot of sentences and explain this, that and the other, and so forth. I'm only going to give you six words. Six words, all it takes.

Is it easy? I didn't say that. I said it was just six words. If you and I will practice these six words, we will walk in harmony, in concert with, in a way that you and I can say, "Sure, I'm in step with God. I'm not arguing with Him. I don't have things in my life that shouldn't be there." I want to just lay these out for you to think about, if you will.

The first word is surrender. Now, this is where for most people it all begins and stops, because they don't want to surrender themselves to God. But this is the first step. That is, if I'm going to walk in step with the Lord Jesus Christ, I must surrender my life to Him. That settles the issue, that now I acknowledge that, listen, that He's the one who's giving the direction about which way we're going. When He says to the left, we go to the left. When He says to the right, we go to the right.

In step with Him means, listen, I'm following Him. Now, following Him doesn't mean He's out yonder somewhere, but He and I are walking in step with each other. But before I can do that, I have to surrender my will to Him, my desires to Him. It's what He wants. Now He's the one who's leading. So, it comes to a matter of surrender.

When you think about, "Well, what am I going to surrender?" Well, it's not a matter of what you're going to surrender, it's, listen, the biggest problem we have is not things, it's self. Self-will. What is it I must surrender to Him? I must surrender my rights to myself and say, "Now, I'm going to walk a godly life." In order to do that, Lord, here's my life. So, the first one is surrender. That's pretty evident.

Now, the second word is sensitivity. Now, why do we say sensitivity? Very important. How are we going to walk in step with Him if we don't listen to Him? I hear people not too often, but in Christians who've been Christians a long time, "Well, I don't think I've ever heard God speak." Well, I can tell you right now, if you never hear God speak and you never hear Him give you any direction for your life, then you're not walking in step with Him.

You can't walk in step with the Lord Jesus Christ and never listen to Him. Somebody says, "Well, I'm trying to do the best I can." Did you know that the Bible never says do that? The Bible never says do the best you can. The Bible says we're to trust Him, we're to rely upon Him, we're to lean upon Him. I must learn to listen to God.

The one thing that I prayed most about my children when they were very, very small, the one thing I prayed, the one specific thing I prayed above all else, trusting God to make get them saved early in life, is to teach them how to listen to God. I can remember when both of them, when I realized that both of them knew how to listen to God. Both times, it was in two separate times, but both times we were praying.

I was praying with Beck one time, Andy the other time, and when they started praying, I remember exactly where I was and where they were. I can remember thinking, "God, he knows and she knows how to listen to you." What greater lesson can you teach your children? Yet we as parents often times, we don't know how to listen to Him. So, if you don't know how to listen to Him, how are you going to walk in step with Him? Because watch this, He gives direction.

God doesn't say, "Report for duty." We report for duty and get direction. You have to learn to listen to Him. I wonder if you know how to listen to Him. You say, "Well, I just come to church and I listen to the pastor preach and I think that's all that's needed." So, I just go from there. Well, let me tell you why that won't work.

I can remember, I used to be in Air Force ROTC when I was in college, and at some point in that period of time we had lots of drills and so forth. One of them was to march the rest of the company around the field. It came my time, and I'm going along doing fantastic. All of a sudden, something gets my attention. The moment it got my attention, I got out of step.

I had to bring everything to a halt. It was very embarrassing to me. Because here's everybody else walking in step. I get out of step and they get confused. I think about how many times have I been out of step because something got my attention, listen, that wasn't in the pathway in which Jesus may have been leading me.

Ask yourself that question, how many times have you been drawn away or something came along and got your attention? Next thing you know, you're heading in another direction. You can't even believe you went in that direction. Got out of step. We get on our kids because we say, "You're not listening." The truth is we do the same. You cannot walk in step with God until you learn to listen to Him.

You say, "Well, is that difficult?" No. Can you do it instantaneously? Probably not, if you never have. But I'll tell you one thing, if you say to Him, "God, I want to learn how to listen to you. I want to hear you. I want you to speak to my heart." When you submit your will to the Lord Jesus Christ, and you submit your will on the basis that you want to hear God, not so you can get what you want, but so you can do what He wants you to do, God's going to speak to your heart.

You've heard me say this before. I remember a gentleman in his 70s who called. I called him back the next day, and I'll never forget what he said. He said, "Uh, I've been listening to you all these years and learned this, that and the other." He said, "But yesterday, I believe God told me to call you."

So, we got in the conversation and you know, he, I mentioned to him what we'd been doing and so forth, and been praying for a building. Finally told him I'd found one that cost $2 million, and I said, "It cost $2,700,000." I said, "But I believe I can buy it for $2 million." He said, "You think you can buy it for $2 million?" I said, "Yes." He said, "I can handle that. I'll write a check for $2 million."

Now, that wasn't the important thing to me. The important thing is just what he said. He said, "You know, I'm 70," whatever it might be. He said, "For the first time in my life, yesterday I knew that God had spoken to me." I think about how many people who are Christians who can't put their finger on a time when they can say, "I know that God spoke to my heart and told me what to do at this point in my life."

You're going to walk with Him and walk in step with Him, you have to learn to listen. You say, "Well, how do I do that?" First of all, you got to want to. Secondly, you got to feel like that you need to. Then you might check yourself out and ask yourself the question, why do I want to do it? I think about what Jesus said in the eighth chapter of John. This eighth chapter is a fantastic chapter about what's going on in His life.

He says, for example, in the 28th verse, "So Jesus said, 'When you lift up the Son of Man, then you'll know that I'm in He, and I do nothing, listen, I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak the things the Father taught Me. And He who sent Me is with Me. He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.'" You know why? Because He listened to the Father. The only way for us to walk in step with Him is to listen to Him and learn His ways.

Guest (Male): You're listening to In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. Only Christians can walk in step with the Lord, and then only as we get to know Him. Getting to know Him is linked with the Bible. If you'd like to learn more about how to read and understand scripture, visit intouch.org and listen again to this message at the link to today on radio.

You can order a copy of today's complete message over at the bookstore. The title is, "Walking in Step with God," or order Dr. Stanley's entire In Step with God teaching set. There's all that and more at intouch.org. Call or text to 1-800-INTOUCH. If you prefer, you can write to us at In Touch, Post Office Box 7900, Atlanta, Georgia, 30357. Find out the heart behind Dr. Stanley's series, coming up in today's Moment with Charles Stanley.

In Touch Plus is streaming on Local Now. Featuring all the best of Dr. Charles Stanley.

Dr. Charles Stanley: We are to have strong convictions based on the Word of God. He's working out things that you and I would never know about in our future.

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Dr. Charles Stanley: Now watch this.

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Guest (Female): Does your prayer life need a jump-start? With the In Touch Praying with Purpose Cards, the time you spend talking with God will take on a whole new level of energy and intimacy. Beautifully designed and easy to use, or to share with a friend. There are prayers to lift up each day of the month along with corresponding Bible verses and more. For your set of Praying with Purpose Cards, call 1-800-INTOUCH or go to intouch.org/store.

Guest (Male): You're listening to In Touch. What can believers expect when they're walking in step with the Lord? Here's a Moment with Charles Stanley.

Dr. Charles Stanley: Now let's think for a moment of some of the things you can expect when you begin to walk in step with Him. First of all, you get to know Him better and more intimately. Most people know Jesus as a biblical character, just like some of the other characters in the scripture. You'll get to know Him better. What do I mean by that?

You'll get to know Him in an intimate way, that He's a personal friend, that He's with you all the time, that He has the best in mind for you. You'll begin to understand who He is in a way that you've never known before. You'll begin to see things from His perspective. That is, you'll see good where you've not seen good. You'll see evil where maybe you've not seen evil.

You'll see things that you've never even thought were important in your life, and all of a sudden they become very important, from His perspective. You'll go where you would never choose to go. Because you see, some people have the idea that if you walk with the Lord, it's just going to be ease, comfort, and pleasure and prosperity. No, and sometimes you hear people talk about that. It's not true. Wasn't true in His life.

It wasn't true in the Apostle Paul's life. It's not going to be true in our life. The scripture says, "For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps." When we walk in step with Him, He will lead us to go into those places that do what? That deepen that intimacy, that grow us up and mature us spiritually, and that make us the men and women He created us to be.

Guest (Male): Visit us at intouch.org to learn more about aligning yourself to the principles and purposes of God. Please share how this program has encouraged you to know Jesus better and live for Him. On the next edition of In Touch, Dr. Stanley's series explains how scripture, service, and self-denial are part of walking in step with God. I hope you'll join us again for In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. This program is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia, and remains on this station through the grace of God and your faithful prayers and gifts.