Walking Worthy of the Lord
By Jay Wegter
Questions related to this study:
- Why must we walk worthy of the Lord?
- How is a worthy walk defined?
- How is a worthy walk achieved, or accomplished?
I. Why must we walk worthy of the Lord?
God is glorious; He is infinitely worthy of the honor and obedience of the creature. God’s glory is His very essence—who He is. His glory is intrinsic to His nature. When we perceive His glory by faith in His infallible Word, we are beholding the outshining, the emanation of, and the radiating of His perfections. The redeemed creature’s response to God’s glory is awe, wonder, worship, adoration, submission, and obedience. He is of infinite worth, therefore our reasonable, rational response to God must be a worthy walk (Eph 4:1; Col 1:9-10; 1 Thess 2:9-12).
The creation is filled with ‘sermons without words’—the heavens are constantly telling the glory of God (Ps 19). The creation preaches the wisdom of God, the power of God, the glory of God, and the divine nature of God (Rom 1:18-23). Therefore, every human is without excuse. It will only take a flower petal, or a ladybug to condemn the unbeliever on the last day because God has given such a powerful testimony of His existence in the beauty and order of creation. (NOTE: the example we used in the study of a hummingbird knowing how to construct a perfect cushiony nest cup for its eggs and young. How can you reduce an animal’s behavior to an arrangement of molecules? These things are too wonderful for us to even begin to fully investigate—Psalm 139:6).
God created us for Himself. We are made to ‘run on God’ so to speak. We owe our existence to Him every moment. But the entrance of sin cut us off from God, leaving us spiritually dead, alienated from Him, rebels, and strangers to His glory and beauty. But God has intervened and provided perfect salvation in Christ to all who believe and repent so that we might be brought back to God (Eph 2:1-10). Every true believer is bought with a price—the blood of Christ (1 Pet 1:17-19). God owns the believing sinner outright, and we are to express His rightful ownership by giving ourselves back God daily, unconditionally in worship, enjoyment and obedience (Rom 6:11-13; 12:1-2; 1 Cor 6:19-20).
II. How is a worthy walk defined?
‘Worthy’, (Greek, axios) – pertaining to, or being fitting and proper in corresponding to what should be expected. That which demonstrates balance or equivalency. By way of example, Paul speaks in terms of equivalency in Romans 8:18: “for I consider that the sufferings of this era (or ‘this world’) are not worthy (or ‘are not of comparable value’—not ‘equivalent’) to be compared with the future glory to be revealed to us.”
Notice the aspects of a worthy walk highlighted in bold italics: “For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light” (Col 1:9-12).
A worthy walk has God-ward elements as we see above in our passage from Colossians chapter one. These dimensions of a worthy walk which are commanded by the Lord are addressed to the believer’s will and affections. Notice that the power, glorious might of God and the radical strengthening are so we will be steadfast and patient. Another way of saying that is: so we won’t quit, but instead be consistent in our obedience and faithfulness. The fact that this divine strengthening is needed bears witness to the fact that the Christian life is a fight with many obstacles, setbacks, and adversaries standing in our path.
In addition to a God-ward element, a worthy walk also has social, fellowship, or corporate elements as we can see in the passage below from Ephesians chapter four:
“Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph 4:1-3).
A worthy walk before the Lord is our calling; for we were called with a holy calling (2 Tim 1:9). That holy calling involves a commitment to bless others, to be holy, and to be willing to suffer for the sake of righteousness (See 1 Peter chapters 1-2).
Our faith is being tested, refined, and proven and will someday be presented publicly by the Lord as more precious than gold which is perishable (1 Pet 1:6-9). Our faith is involved in walking worthy of the Lord—for we are commanded to focus our thought life and affections on things above. Paul tells us the core reasons why:
“Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor 4:16-18).
“Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory” (Col 3:1-4).
III. How is a worthy walk achieved?
A worthy walk has a God-ward dimension (Col 1:9-11). It has a corporate dimension (Eph 4:1-3), and it has an equipping dimension (1 Thess 2:9-13). In this section we will examine the equipping dimension. For, it is through equipping that we attain a worthy walk. In a nutshell the equipping dimension means that we must be trained in righteousness in order to walk worthy of the Lord (2 Tim 3:16-17). That training is also called shepherding, mentoring, or discipling. Note how the apostle Paul summarizes his work in training of the Thessalonian believers:
“For you recall, brethren, our labor and hardship, how working night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you, we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. You are witnesses, and so is God, how devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers; just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children, so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory. For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe” (1 Thess 2:9-13).
To walk worthy of the Lord is to live as His disciple. A disciple of Christ is a Christ follower. We need discipleship in order to learn to obey all that Christ has commanded of us (Mt 28:18-20).
Notice the three verbs that are highlighted in the 1 Thessalonians passage: encouraging, exhorting, imploring. These three words have an ascending level of seriousness. Anyone can encourage, even a very baby Christian, an immature believer can. But, to exhort (which means to call to a clearly defined path of obedience), the person exhorting must be an example of obedience himself. He must have a ‘track record’ of obedience. He must be ‘a product of the product’—in other words his life must demonstrate the consistent walk that Biblical teaching produces. To implore is the most serious of the three. Imploring means solemnly charging and warning someone of the dire importance of obedience and the consequences of disobedience.
In our Friday morning study we discussed the fact that there is a paradox in association with the believer’s saved status. He is wretch, a broken hell-deserving sinner, yet in Christ he is complete; he is whole; he is a child of God, who has been adopted by the God of the universe. We see how the apostle Paul exercises spiritual/moral authority in his teaching, preaching and writing. Yet he never forgets that he is ‘chief of sinners’ (1Tim 1:15). Paul wants his readers to know that he owes all to the grace of God (1 Cor 15:9-10).
In order to walk worthy of the Lord, we must walk the ‘narrow path’ described by our Savior (Mt 7:13-14). The promises, threats, and commandments of God form a very clear ‘boundary’ of the narrow way spoken of by Jesus. We are created in the image of God— therefore, we are morally ‘bounded’ creatures that are not permitted to make our own rules. The offer of making our own rules was the LIE offered by the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Jesus says what Satan offered was tantamount to murder (Jn 8:44).
As bounded creatures we are to run the race set before us (Heb 12:1-3) within the boundaries. One cannot run the race successfully outside the boundaries. Very close attention to the boundaries is essential in order to finish the race. Just as in sports, a goal made from ‘out of bounds’ does not count, so also in the Christian life we cannot serve God if major parts of our lives are out of bounds.
The commandments addressed to believers are aimed at what Scripture describes as the ‘new man’. Regeneration by the Spirit has created a new nature in the believing sinner (2 Cor 5:17). This ‘new man’ is new because the old things have passed away—all things have become new in terms of his goals, affections, and direction. He is new also because he has a new Master, Christ the Lord, and a new destiny, eternal glory.
The new man is undergoing continual transformation by the Word and the Spirit (Rom 12:1-2). He is being transformed as he engages in a host of ‘replacement behaviors’. He is to put off the behaviors of the old man (the flesh) and put on the behaviors of the new man (the spiritual man) (See Eph 4:14-32; Col 3:8-24).
The NT commandments in Scripture to believers are addressed to our ‘being alive in Christ’—these imperatives are aimed at the new man. We could say it this way: the new man is what a believer is—his identity in Christ. Now the new man must begin asserting himself—he must begin living as a new man—as a new creation of God. He must live this way so that he can increasingly become like his Savior, for that is what it means to walk worthy of our Lord.
FROM DEWEY DOVEL: John Calvin once said, “the great end of our existence is to be found numbered among the worshippers of God.” Indeed, the Holy Bible necessitates that the creature ought to behold his Creator in His most excellent splendor, majesty and transcendence as a byproduct of recognizing that the glory of the Almighty concretizes the chief goal of creation itself and He alone is worthy to be the center of all worship! It is this antecedently referenced recognition that causes the Christian to come face to face with a singular objective to ground his life upon: wholehearted submission and obedience to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. For, God is known and revealed in Christ Jesus, the Son of God. The believer’s willful subservience to King Jesus flows from a deep-rooted posture of gratitude and love for the One who not only pardoned their sin, but also eternally reconciled the regenerate sinner to their holy Creator in order that they might enjoy unblemished fellowship with one another forever and ever! This knowledge drives the Believer to live a life Coram Deo, for when a sinner becomes born again, it is impossible for this newly created being to ever understand the nature of reality as they previously did in their unregenerate spiritual state. As the Lord told believing and justified Abraham, “I am God Almighty; walk before Me, and be blameless” (Gen 17:1b).
To become a worshipper of God is to, inevitably, traverse from being utterly consumed with worshipping ourselves as god and to submit ourselves wholly unto the one, true, living God; this transition encompasses the journey that a regenerate sinner undergoes when he is spiritually resurrected, by God’s sovereign grace, from his natural state of spiritual deadness into that of spiritual life in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:1-10). At the moment one repents from sin and places trust in Jesus Christ alone as the basis whereby they might be reconciled (justified) unto God, that individual can truly testify that they have come to personally know and experience the salvific love of God. It is the personal apprehension of the salvific love of God that energizes the believer towards holy living and humility before God and those He has providentially placed in his life. When a sinner becomes born again by the Holy Spirit of God, his heart is quickened from spiritual deadness to spiritual life, thus, enabling him to love God, serve God and obey God (not perfectly, of course, but increasing in capacity to do so as one is progressively sanctified); this, of course, stands in stark contrast to what the unregenerate sinner ever does in his unredeemed state, as he never seeks after God nor desires the things of God. Perhaps most notably, in this great redemptive act wrought by the triune God in the life of a sinner is the fact that whereas while dead in sin the unregenerate sinner hated God as well as never desired to have anything to do with God, the regenerate sinner comes to the point of, being compelled by the richness of the love that has been shown unto him through Christ, actually desires for the things of God. The regenerate sinner continues to develop an insatiable desire to know God, be in His presence, serve His kingdom’s purposes, and these aforementioned desires are merely the overflow out of a transformed heart. Therefore, the true worship of God is not simply doing “deeds” for God (although the true worshipper of God will certainly carry out “deeds” as a display/fruit of them being born again), but living a life that is in complete subservience to the triune God out of an earnest desire to worship Him in spirit and in truth with every facet of his/her creaturely capability.
The realization that the regenerate sinner has subsequent to his conversion, thus, causes him to walk worthy of God in a newness of life before God and before his peers (both inside and outside of the body of Christ). No longer does the born again Christian have any guilt, condemnation or any other reason to live in shame for his inherent sinfulness, depravity and unrighteousness; he has been set free therefrom and has truly become a new creature upon experiencing the sovereign grace and mercy of his Creator through the Gospel. The Biblical truth “there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1) has taken root in the redeemed sinner’s heart and he is able to enjoy his guilt-free life without any external hindrance whatsoever; nothing can separate
Dewey Dovel the Believer from the love of God (Romans 8:35) nor cause him to lose the reconciliation that he has experienced unto God through the Lord Jesus Christ. It is this very “guilt transfer” that provides the Christian with newfound confidence, stemming from his relationship with God, to walk in transparency in the communion of other Believers as a reflection of the restored communion that he has now come to possess with the triune God: this involves confession of sin, the sharing of praise for how God has worked in his life and the growing inclination to encourage and be encouraged by others towards a lifestyle of holiness (further consecration unto God). It is when the Christian comes to terms with his new identity as a regenerate sinner that propels him to obey, serve, submit and love God as well as his neighbor with a broadened depth as he continues to undergo the process of progressive sanctification; a clear conscience and Spirit-fueled joy, peace, hope and ability to enjoy God more and more with each passing day post-conversion is what supplies the Christian with an inexhaustible reservoir of worship to be extended unto God. My prayer is for me and all of my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ to personally walk in this aforementioned freedom that comes through our relationship with the triune God in the outworking of the Gospel within our own lives! Soli Deo Gloria!