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>> May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord, our Redeemer. Amen.
I think I heard this statement from an Irish pastor a while back. He said, ‘The Welsh
heard the Gospel and they preached it. The English heard the Gospel and they organized
a committee about it. The Irish heard the Gospel and they fought about it.’ We can
extend this statement to other communities as well, perhaps the Americans heard the Gospel
and they wrote about it. The Asians heard the Gospel and they reflected and meditated
on it. The Hispanics heard the Gospel and they celebrated it. The Africans heard the
Gospel and they danced about it.
Of course, we also know about sections of the church who heard the Gospel and turned
into business but for now, we will not mention them. In our modern day, some of us are satisfied
with defending the Gospel. Some of us sing about it. Others debate it and indeed, some
make business out of it. There was a time when the evangelicals were regarded as the
custodians of the Gospel but this shifting trend has brought about such an extension
to the point that even the word evangelical needs redefinition today. Evangelicals, and
I speak as one, are being viewed more and more as people who have a fortress mentality,
barricading themselves for fear of contamination by the world. Our position is viewed in some
circles as the traditional position that is not really engaged in missional issues. So,
a new position is emerging post-evangelicalism.
The distinction seems to lie more on how far one can go in engaging with the trends of
the world. Do we view the world as an enemy or as an opportunity? The tradition of three
enemies of the Christian faith, the word, the flesh and the devil, are slowly being
absorbed into the church or is it that the church is being absorbed into the arena to
the extent that only the devil still remains as a shadowy, elusive enemy who we still have
to watch about?
Subsequently, the distinction between a Christian and a non-Christian in as far as lifestyle
is concerned appears to be merging. Perhaps due to pressure by civil liberty groups which
continue to lecture Christians to be tolerant, accommodative and politically correct we seem
to have decided finally to collaborate with them. Chuck Colson writes and says, ‘Privately
practiced religion is, I suppose, still acceptable here but come out of your prayer closet and
voice an opinion informed by religious values and representative from the liberal elite,
educators, media moguls, attorneys, politicians, civil liberty groups will have you for lunch.
Thus, we seem to be losing ground. The reason for this may not be because we do not have
the right kind of doctrines, at least not all the time. It is not because we do not
publish enough books, because we do not have the latest morals or fad or crazy on the ‘how-tos.’
No. We have made Christianity unpalatable to many by how we conduct ourselves and how
we walk as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.
When there is no distinction in conduct between Christians and the non-Christians, as far
as corruption is concerned, as it relates to the rate of divorce, in young people becoming
pregnant before marriage or our definition of marriage or the rate at which we terminate
pregnancy, in the way we lapse into traditional, quasi-religious practices, in our attitudes
towards those of different race or ethnic communities, then we need to ask ourselves
whether Christianity still makes any difference at all in our lives.
[Applause] We continue to be fascinated with new fads
and ideas and morals of evangelizing the world. How to make your church grow in three months.
Seven ways to bulge your spiritual muscle and on and on ad infinitum. If you are not
an adherent to the latest fad or if your language misses the catch phrase that is in vogue among
those you know, then you're made to feel like you're missing your entire purpose in life.
Yet, like the Epicureans and Stoic philosophers some of us keep running after new ideas. Perhaps
like me, we may have even become professional conference attendees. We keep looking for
the next conference to attend. If we're attending every conference, when do we ever sit down
to implement? Maybe someone needs to call our bluff, that we actually are not the people
we claim to be.
In the previous chapters of the book of Ephesians, Paul spent a substantial amount of time painting
a picture to the believers of their position in Christ. Like a multi-faceted glittering
diamond, he has taken the faith and turned it around for all to see. He takes us on a
journey all the way to heaven where we are seated with Christ in the heavenly places.
But Paul now turns around about, and it brings us back to earth where the rubber actually
meets the road.
It does not end with just admiring the faith or even appreciating it. He turns around on
us as if to say, now turn orthodoxy into orthopraxy, the principles into practice, the theology
into lifestyle, the position into living. He wants us to practice the Christian life.
In order to do this, Paul uses a phrase that is common in common language to many of us.
He uses the phrase, walk. Walk. It is only parents of new children who would understand
the significance of this phrase. When Johnny takes the first walk, they rush for the camera.
Call the grandma and say, ‘He’s walking! He’s walking!’ Most of us who are older
parents would wonder ‘so what? People are walking all the time.’
But Paul uses this language in a significant way. We have already seen him use the language
of walking in chapter 2:2 ‘from your trespasses and sins in which you once walked.’
Chapter 2:10 ‘created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that
we should walk in them.’ Chapter 4:1 ‘walk in a manner worthy of
the calling to which you've been called.’ Chapter 4:17 ‘walk, that you must no longer
walk as the Gentiles do.’ Chapter 5:2 ‘walk in love as Christ loved
us and gave himself up for us.’ Chapter 5:8 ‘walk as the children of light.’
Chapter 5:15 ‘look carefully, then how you walk not as unwise but as wise.’
No wonder the Chinese Christian leader, Watchman Nee, used to refer to Ephesians as Sit, Walk
and Stand. Indeed, it has a lot to do with walking.
A traditional Maasai Moran could make observations and conclusions about an individual simply
by looking at the footprints they have left behind on the ground. They would know whether
it was an adult or a child, a man or a woman, carrying a load or not. Faltering or walking
steadily, the direction they were headed. The possible duration since they passed. Thus
the footprints they left on the ground would tell a whole story about them.
What does your walk reveal? What story does your walk tell about you if we were to follow
you a few months before this Congress? What if we followed you a week before this Congress?
What if we followed you immediately after this Congress to your home, to your office
and to your ministry? What would your walk tell us about you?
Paul points to us a number of things I want to bring to our attention. First of all, walk
in the newness of life, verse 17 all the way to verse 32 of chapter 4. He begins by pointing
to us a negative, how we ought not to walk but in so doing, he's bringing out a positive.
The Ephesian believers are urged not to walk like the other Gentiles or as some versions
would put it, not to walk like the heathens or the pagans. The fact that he's talking
of the other Gentiles gives us the impression that a, that the people he was addressing
were also Gentiles or they were Christians living in a Gentile-dominated area. Paul uses
the word ‘walk’ to refer to live or act or pursue a particular course in life or conduct.
It is the lifestyle that one ought to engage in.
In addressing the Ephesians not to walk like the other Gentiles, Paul is either referring
to their former lifestyles or the fact that since now they are converted, they do not
need to live like the heathen that are around them. How were the Gentiles living then? Their
lifestyles were characterized by futility in their minds. They were living under a cloud
of darkness that seemed to have engulfed them, resulting in hardness of heart. This subsequently
made them alienated from God. The Ephesians are urged not to live as practical atheists
who find God irrelevant in their lives. The heart condition has led to unnatural outflow
of certain behaviors in the life of the Gentiles. They became callous, they gave themselves
over to sensuality, they practiced every kind of impurity as if there was no law or regulation
to live by. They were filled with greediness and lustful corruption. This type of life
should not be the trademark of the believer, Paul points out to us.
He says the reason we need to do this is because you have been taught a different kind of lifestyle.
It is not just the don'ts that he is bringing to their attention but it is also the dos.
They have learned Christ in a certain way and since they have been taught Christ's teachings,
they should live their lives in the way that they had been taught. Indeed their lifestyles
should be the opposite of the things that they had noticed among the Gentiles. Instead
of falsehood, they should be speaking the truth. Instead of being controlled by anger,
they should manage it, or it will lead them to sin. Instead of stealing, they should work
with their own hands to give to those who do not have. Instead of unwholesome talk,
they should speak gracious words that would edify.
This points to the newness of life that they have been called to. In other words, disassociating
from everything that is regarding their former lifestyles. This includes bitterness, wrath,
anger, slander and malice. Instead they should put on forgiveness, kindness, tenderness.
This type of lifestyle will not grieve the spirit of the living God. As the Kikuyu saying
goes, “Utatigaga Ndakoraga”, which simply means “One who does not leave, does not
find.” If we are to find the kind of life that God is calling us to, we have to leave
our former lifestyles that we used to live.
It is true that Christianity has struggled with a credibility gap. It seems like sometimes
we have shot ourselves on the foot. In a time when some have substituted the preaching of
the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ with pep talks on motivation and the like, how people
live no longer seems a major issue provided they make the dollars, climb the economic
ladder, and have the feel-good factor.
Some have regressed into a mixture of Christianity and traditional religious practices, which
border on the occult. We find this leads people to syncretic lifestyles where they easily
relapse into their pagan practices without even a blink. When some ministers have become
con artists, who will sell to you a bottle of fake oil and other paraphernalia, man driven
more by profit and gain rather than a desire for prophetic transformation in the lives
of those whom they are leading.
The true cry of the heart of authentic walk with the Lord ought to be there in our lives.
Otherwise, we’ll be viewed as a bunch of noisy vuvuzela-blowers who are standing on
the periphery of life rather than engaged in the actual field playing the game.
In a well-advertised meeting, in one of our rural towns, a preacher proclaimed that he
was going to pray with women who are expecting, and they will be able to conceive. In her
desire to be prayed for, a woman trekked a long distance, walked to the meeting and the
preacher had bought packets of tea that would cost $1.25, and in the meeting, he was selling
them for $6.25 as the panacea that would procure this miracle of conception because he had
actually prayed over them. The poor woman who had attended the meeting remarked, ‘Surely
I am so needy, I wish he was even selling them for 50 cents so I would buy.’
This kind of behavior puts off people from the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We lose
our cutting edge when the attraction of our walk with the Lord has diminished to such
an extent that people no longer see a difference between us and Christians or those of our
faiths or even those of non-faiths; therefore, they are not drawn to ask questions about
the Lord Jesus Christ at all.
The onus is on us to rise against the grain and the trend of our cultural moments. To
be able to make an impact, we need to be different for indeed we are different. We believe in
Jesus. We are seated in the heavenly places in Christ. We are no longer aliens but the
children of God. We are a new creation. We live a life of fullness in the spirit of the
living God. Therefore, let us truly walk as a different people in the world today for
thus, we have been called.
This is an invitation to bring out Christianity out of the closet into the public arena, out
of the convention halls into the streets and the marketplace of our cities, out of the
ivory towers of theological reflection and nit-picking into the practicum of the living
room and the rural marketplace. This is where the rubber meets the road, as we say in Africa,
where the grass is turned into goat.
The missionary martyr, Jim Elliott, recorded and said in his journal, ‘I sought God in
the commonplace and I found him every day. Not in the streets of Jerusalem, not caressed
by Galilee’s spray. But I found God in the sidewalks, the backyards and our upstairs
and I walked with him on Main Street. He handled my school affairs. My Christ stands not in
a synagogue with a beard and a long white gown but I know him in the grocery store.
He rides our car downtown. Many smile when I tell them. Some say it is not right to find
our Lord on Broadway beneath the glory of a neon light.’
Friends, Jesus wants us to walk with him in the everydayness of our lives.