I invite you this morning, if
you have a copy of the Word of God with you, to turn to the
second chapter of the book of 1 John. I want to read beginning
with verse 1. And read down through verse 11.
My little children, John writes, and his little children were
children of the faith. In verse 12 we find that to be
true because he says, I write unto you, little children, because
your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake. So he's writing
to the little children, children that are in Christ, those that
belong to the Lord, those who have become his little children.
that they might be teachable, and that they might be converted.
It says, These things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if
any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ
the righteous. And he is the propitiation or
satisfaction for our sins, and not only for the sins of the
Jews, but also for the sins even of the Gentiles, is what this
means. And hereby we do know that we
know him if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and
keepeth not his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not
in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in
him verily or truly is the love of God perfected. Hereby know
we that we are in him. We know that we are in him because
the love of God is in us, and it has been perfected, it is
being matured in us. And he says that hereby we know
that we are in him, and he that saith he abideth in him ought
himself also so to walk, even as he that is Christ walked when
he was here in this world in his earthly pilgrimage. Brethren,
I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment,
which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word
which ye have heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment
I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you, because
the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth." Hallelujah. The darkness is past, and the
true light, the light of the gospel, now shineth. You're not
the children of the night, but children of the day. He that
saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness
even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth
in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.
But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in
darkness, and knoweth not whether he goeth, because that darkness
hath blinded his eyes. I wish to speak this morning
primarily on verse 6, on verse 6 of 1 John chapter 2, where
the scripture says, He that saith he abideth in him, that is in
Christ, ought himself also to walk even as he walked. Now, he that saith he abideth
in him, that is exactly what every believer, it's exactly
what every Christian does say. Now we must be in Christ and
abidingly in Christ or else we are not saved. It is our union
with Christ that makes us Christians. Our union, I say, with the Lord
Jesus Christ. They that are joined unto the
Lord are one spirit with Him. By union with Christ, we're saved
because Christ is our life and we live as we are in union with
Him, His life. Because He lives, we live also. If we're in Him, then we're alive
in Him and we have the favor of Almighty God upon us. We're
in Christ, brother, sister, as the manslayer in the Old Testament
was in the city of refuge. We have fled for refuge to the
Son of God. Who is the hope set before us
in the Gospel? Christ is the hope that we have
set before us in the Word of God, and we've been enabled by
the Spirit of God to flee the wrath to come, and have been
enabled to come to Him who is our hope, who is our refuge.
and we found life and salvation in him. And even as David and
his men sheltered themselves in the caves when Saul was after
them, so we hide ourselves in the Lord Jesus Christ. Rock of
Ages, do you remember that old song? Rock of Ages, cleft for
me, let me hide myself in thee. Now we've entered into Christ
as into the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. He is our
sanctuary, He is our shelter. And now we abide in Christ as
the stone abides in the wall, and as the wave is in the sea,
and as the branch is in the vine, so are we in the Lord Jesus Christ,
if we're believers, if we've been saved. As the branch receives
all of its sap from the stem, so all the sap of spiritual life
flows from Jesus Christ, into us, his people. If we were separated
from him, we would be just as dead branches that are cut off
from the vine, only fit to be gathered for the fire and to
be burned. We abide in the Lord Jesus as
our shelter. We abide in him as our home and
our life. Ours is no transient union that
we have with Christ. While he lives as our head, We
shall remain his members, members of his many-membered body. And we're nothing apart from
this union that we have with the Lord Jesus Christ. I know
that there are many who feel that they can be saved and have
nothing whatever to do with this union with Christ, but it's not
so. There are many in the religious
world that name the name of Christ, but know nothing of this union
that we have with Christ. Over in the book of Romans, in
chapter 7, there's a very interesting passage. that has caught my attention
on many occasions. It says, Wherefore, my brethren,
in chapter 7 verse 4, ye also are become dead to the law by
the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to
him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit
unto God. I want to emphasize this morning
that apart from a union with the Lord Jesus Christ, nobody
is saved. You cannot be saved apart from
being married to the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what salvation
is. It's a marriage to the Son of
God. It's a commitment that we make
to Christ. and we come to Him and we accept
Him, it is Christ in us who is the hope of glory. That scripture
will never read any other way. It's Christ in you. You can't
get away from that. It always must be that Christ
has formed union with you, that you're in Him, and He is dwelling
in your heart by faith. But we're married to another,
even to Him that has been raised from the dead. So we're joined
to Him, and that's what it means to abide in Him. And as I said,
this is no transient union. This union's going to last, and
it shall remain as long as Christ has members. He's the head of
the body, and all those who are believers, those that are converted,
regenerate of the Spirit of God. They're in Him, and they have
life because of this union. And I say to you this morning,
we're nothing apart from Him. When it comes to salvation, just
draw a line through it. There's no such thing as salvation
apart from a union with the Lord Jesus. As a finger is nothing
without the head, as the whole body is nothing without the head,
so are we. Nothing! apart from the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now talk about your religion,
talk about your conformity to the commandments, talk about
whatever you want to talk about. But are you in Christ? Are you
joined to Him? You're nothing unless you're
in Christ. You cannot be a member of Christ without being joined
to Him. If this arm was not joined to
my body, it could not talk as if it was a member of me. It
could not. And so if you're not joined to
Christ, you're no member of Christ. So since we then are the people
who say that we abide in Him, it is upon us. that the obligation
of the text falls this morning. It is upon us. We say that we
abide in Him. We say that we're alive. We say
that the Spirit of God now dwells in us. We say that the love of
God has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. We
say that the pure Spirit of God has entered in unto us. And so
we abide in him, and I say that the obligation of the text falls
on us. We ought ourselves also to walk
even as he walked. Now, beloved, I would like to
say that I have never met a believer Neither have I ever read after
a believer who ever said that he walked exactly as Christ walked
in the world. I've never met one who could
say, I perfectly walk as Christ walked in the world. I know every
one of us do err, every one of us do fall short of walking exactly
like the Master walked when he was here in this world. None
of us can say that we're perfect in this body because we're not.
This body is a sinful body. We still have the old nature,
the old Adam nature, and we do not always walk as Christ walked,
but we ought to. We ought to walk even as he walked. Now this word ought means, it
denotes necessity. It denotes must. It's of a necessity
that we walk as he walked. It is a must that we must set
our aim upon walking as the Lord Jesus walked when he was in this
world. Now then, in him like him, that's
what we're trying to say, a Bible ought has great weight. with
a conscientious man or woman. Ought it not be so? I mean, should
this ought not carry a great deal of weight with us? If we
say we abide in Him, we ought to walk even as He walked. Then it shall be so, God helping
us. We shall attempt by the grace
of God, by the Spirit of God, to walk as He walked. If we say,
then we must do, we must do. As they say, if we talk the talk,
we must walk the walk. If we make the perfection of
abiding in Christ, we must prove it by our practice and by our
walking with the Lord Jesus Christ, being a follower of his, walking
as it were in his footsteps. The sheep of Christ has heard
his voice and they follow him. That's two marks. of a believer. They've heard the voice of the
Son of God, and they follow Him. They follow Him. Now then, this
is true of every person who says that he is in Christ, for the
text, I think, is put in the most general and absolute manner. Be the person old, be the person
young, Be the person rich, be the person poor, learned, or
simple pastor here. It is incumbent upon them all
to live like Jesus Christ. You say, Preacher, that is a
tremendous, tremendous goal to set for believers. Well, I'm
not going to preach down the Word of God. I'm not going to
trim it down and trim the message down. If you abide in Him, walk
as he walked. The first thing about a Christian
is initiation. Initiation into Christ and the
next thing is imitation, the imitation of Christ. We cannot
be Christians unless we're in Christ and we're not truly in
Christ unless in him we live and move and have our being and
the life of Christ is lived over again by us according to our
measure. be imitators, Paul said, followers
of God as dear children, Ephesians 5 and verse 1. So may the Holy
Spirit let us feel the weight this morning of this sacred obligation
in light of the fact that we're soon to remember our crucified
Lord at the table. But now just wait just a minute.
I know that there's some here who cannot say, who cannot say
that they are in Christ. If you're not in Christ, then
you're out of Christ. If you're not in Christ, then
you're without Him, and you're without hope. And out of Christ,
you're in a dangerous and terrible and a very ruinous position.
There are some here, it would be a miracle if there wasn't,
I would think, who are in the utmost danger. In a most emphatic
sense, they're lost. They're without God. They're
without Christ. They're strangers to the heavenly
hope. They're strangers to the message
that we preach, that life and salvation is to be had through
faith in the Son of God. Poor souls abiding under the
wrath of God. Abiding, I say, under the wrath
of God. The mercy is that you're not
past hope. We mentioned in our prayer that
the day of mercy is still upon us. The day of grace is still
here. And the day of salvation is this day. And that the Lord
has been pleased to save some, and He will save others, but
the door is open now. That's a glorious thing. There's
an arm, friend, that can reach you. an arm, and the mighty arm
of God it is. There's a voice that calls sinners
through the gospel. Look unto me and be you saved,
all ye ends of the earth. I am God and besides me there
is none else. Turn the eye of faith toward
him who died on the behalf of sinners and trust him who died
on the tree to save his people from their sins. God grant today
that you may that you may look to him in faith. Now I want to
try in the short time that I have left to me this morning to ask
and try to answer two questions. Now the first one is this, why
ought we as believers to walk as Jesus did? Why ought we to
do this? When we read the word ought,
if we're honest, we will make inquiry as to the reason and
the measure of this obligation. There's a need to be to every
godly man or woman that they should do what they ought. Wouldn't you say that? Wouldn't
you say that every godly man or woman ought to do, they should
do what they ought to do? Should do what they ought. Now,
first of all, let me say that the reason why we ought to walk
as he walked is it is the design of God that those who are in
Christ should walk as Christ walked. It is a part of the original
covenant purpose for whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate
to be conformed to the image of his Son. God predestinated. You see, the Lord Jesus was perfect,
absolutely perfect. And when he lived in this world,
he did not sin. There was no guile found in his
mouth. He lived and served the will of God in those years that
he lived on this earth. Served it perfectly. And the
purpose of God is that all of those who are found in His Son,
that they too should come back to that original covenant purpose
and that they should be conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus
Christ. God has predestinated that to
be the end of all believers. We're going to be like Christ.
We're going to see him as he is one day, and we're going to
be like him. And now in this life, we're to
progressively, as we know him and as we know his word, as the
word testifies of his walk, we're to conform ourselves to that. Now this is the very drift to
the plan of the grace of God. The aim of the covenant. He chose us in Christ before
the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without
blame before him in love. That was the purpose of God in
laying hold of us is that God might have a family that would
be like His family, that would be a likeness that would show
a likeness to Him. And God is holy. And He said,
Be ye holy as I am holy. That you should be holy and without
blame before Him in love. That's why He said, It's grace
upon you, my friend. That's why He delivered you and
saved you, called you out of sin. This is the very aim of
God's elective grace. This is the object of redemption. This is the fruit of irresistible
calling. This is the accomplishment of,
or that which accompanies justification. This is the evidence of adoption.
You know that God has put you into his family, adopted you
as one of his children. You see, he don't just adopt
you into his family and does nothing about the rebel nature
that you have. Oh no, the flag of rebellion
is taken down. And God puts the flag of faith
and the flag of submission and surrender in your heart. And
you come as one who has the very nature of Almighty God implanted
in them. And when God puts one into his
family, he puts his nature in them so that they're like him. And so they're able to walk as
the Lord Jesus Christ walked. Now then, he has given his son
to die for us. His death is our death to sin,
and because he died to it, we must reckon ourselves also to
be dead unto it. Now you understand that the book
of Romans chapter 5 and verse 6 says a great deal about reckoning
ourselves to be dead unto sin. Christ died for sin and we are
to reckon ourself. We are to reckon that his death
was our death. I truly believe that his death
to sin was my death to it. Now if his death to sin was not
my death to sin, then I yet must die the death of a sinner. But
because he died my death in my place, now I'm called upon to
reckon. myself to be dead indeed unto
sin, but alive unto God, to bring forth fruit unto God. I'm married to him who was raised
from the dead, that I might bring forth fruit unto God. And the
fruit is the walk of the believer. If every one of us As the Father
desires to see Christ in us, Christ may be glorified in every
one of us. He desires to see Christ glorified
in every one of us. And what better way could Christ
be glorified in us but that we walk as he walked? That's the
way Christ is glorified in a believer. Would you have the Lord miss
his purpose? His purpose of grace? His purpose of covenant? His
purpose of redemption? Absolutely not. You're a chosen
generation, Peter said. You're a royal priesthood. You're
a holy nation. You're a peculiar people, zealous
of good works. And what is this? but that you
should walk even as he walked. That's what it is. Well, that's
the reason why. Well note, if you will, we also
must remember that we're members of Christ's body. As we said
earlier, we're joined unto the Lord. Jesus is one body, and
Christ cannot be made a monster, and you would not be made a monster.
Now you listen to what I'm saying here. Now here's a fellow, he
says, I'm in Christ. I'm in Christ. And he's to walk
as Christ walked. He's to glorify Christ. And yet
if any man had eyes, ears, hands, or other members that were not
conformable to the head, he'd be a strange, he'd be a very
strange character, would he not be? Now what I'm trying to say
here is, If a man had the mouth of a lion, the eye of an ox,
the feathers of a bird, these things would have no consistency
with the head of a man. Now we read of the image in Nebuchadnezzar's
dream that it had a head of fine gold, legs of iron, feet part
of iron and part of clay. And surely Christ's spiritual
body is not compounded of such discordant elements. No. Now what I'm saying is that one
who says that I'm joined to Christ, that I'm a member of Christ's
body, If he were to go out here and live like a worldly sinner,
like a rebel sinner against God, yielding himself to all of the
foolishness and wickedness of this world, and submitting himself
as a member of Christ's body, so to say, to the world, that
individual, his very members, would be discordant to the Lord
Jesus Christ. He would be like the fellow that
had a mouth of a lion, and the eye of an ox and the feathers
of a bird. What a picture that would be
if a man were to be that way. And so if a believer professes
to know Christ and be in Christ, then he's called upon to be like
Christ in order that there would be perfect harmony in the body
of Christ and that there would be no discord in the members
of the body. Surely Christ's spiritual body
is not a compound of such discordant elements. The church is Christ's
body on earth, the fullness of him that filleth all in all. And will that fullness be something
defiled, something deformed, something full of sin, subject
to the devil? God forbid. God forbid. If you say that you abide in
him, then walk as he walked. As he which has called you is
holy, so be ye as members of his body holy too. And as your head is holy, so
you be like him. So it ought to be, brethren. So it ought to be, sisters. Okay,
now secondly, the second question I have is this. What is required
or what gifts must we receive from the Lord in order to walk
as Jesus walked in this world? Well, first of all, we must be
given a nature like that of Jesus Christ, a nature. Now this is
very important to see because you see in the flesh no man. The Bible says that the carnal
mind is at enmity against God. It's not subject to the law of
God, neither indeed can it be. So God, coming back to what we
said earlier, must plant in us a divine nature. He must put
his nature in us. We must be given that nature
like Christ. Christ must come in to us and
take up his abode. He must live in us. You must be born again. You must
be a new creation in Jesus Christ. There's no walking with Christ
in newness of life unless we have a new heart and a right
spirit planted within us. The Holy Spirit must resurrect
us spiritually from the dead, or else our walking behavior
will have the very smell of death about it, no matter how we try
to cover it up. And that's the reason why there's
a lot of religionists around, and I tell you what, you dare
of death is all over them because they've never had this new nature. They've never had Christ to come
and indwell them. And when he comes to indwell
them, he perfumes their lives. They're alive. They're alive
from the dead. and there's much of this old
putrefaction of sin that is put aside and put away and there
is a lifting up and there's a change and old things are passed away
and all things become new. A new creature is essential to
likeness to Christ. It is not possible that the carnal
mind can ever wear the image of Jesus Christ, so quit looking
for it. We'll keep looking for it in
these religions. We keep polishing on them a little bit. I mean,
we keep spraying on a little bit of some kind of polish or
whatever you want to call it, thinking we can get the image
of Christ out of them if we keep rubbing on them and working on
them, but it's not so. You see, Christ has got to come
on the inside. He's got to be inside of you.
And I'll tell you what, John really hit the nail on the head
here when he talked about the commandments, and he talked about
how the brother, he says, he that saith he is in the light
hateth his brother is in darkness even until now. Some of the religionists
that I've known in my lifetime, oh, how big they were on their
religion. But they had no love in their
hearts even for their own kinfolk, even for their own family, and
even for the religious people that they seemed to associate
with. They were just looking for a chance to put an eye in
their back. Had no love in their hearts. Well, the Lord said, one of the
evidences, you don't walk like Christ if you hate your brother.
You love your brother. You love your brother. We know
that we pass from death to life because we love the brethren.
God has put his love in our hearts. When Christ comes in, he puts
his love there. And until that love is there,
you're not going to walk like Christ. You're not going to live.
You're not going to love like Christ. And Christ told his disciples,
you love one another as I've loved you. The only way you can
do that by this shall all men know that you're my disciples,
that you have love one toward another. And until that love
is there, Christ is not there. You can't walk like Christ walked
in love until he's in you, until he dwells in your heart by faith. I'm telling you the truth. We've
got to receive something from the Lord. It's got to be inside
and work out. It can't be from the outside
in. It's got to be from the inside out. And the trouble with most
of these religionists around, nothing ever happened on the
inside of them. They don't have anything. And
if they had something, then it would eventually work out. Wouldn't
it be wonderful to see these people coming once in a while,
some of these hard-nosed religionists, and see them coming and apologizing? Wouldn't it be wonderful to see
them coming asking for forgiveness? You'd say, well, something's
happened in that fella. Oh, these people are beginning
to reconcile, get together, beginning to love one another. Oh, listen,
love covers a multitude of sin. And there's so much sin about
every one of us, and only the love of Christ in us, each one
of us, will enable us to live and to get along with one another.
Only the love of Christ. It's got to be in you, though,
my friend. It's got to be in you before it can be worked out.
Okay, so then, the visitation of the Spirit of God is what
we need. The Bible says that if you walk in the Spirit, you
will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. If you walk in the
Spirit, now my friend, you get up some morning and you say,
boy, my old flesh is strong today. It is strong today. I just feel
a power in my flesh today. It wants to go its way. It's
got its own ambition. It's got its own desires. It
just wants to do this. It wants to do that. And I want
to tell you what. You'll never ever be able to
overcome the old man apart from the Holy Spirit of God dwelling
in you. It's as the Spirit of the Lord
comes upon you that you'll be able to deny the flesh and deny
the old sinful man and walk as the Lord Jesus walked. We need
a fresh anointing of the Spirit of God. We need a fresh baptism
of the Holy Ghost. We need that the Spirit of God
would come down upon us in order that we might be able to walk
as Christ walked. Only in the power of the Spirit
can we walk this walk. Now the third thing, and then
again we must have, I think, because it would be no accident
if you walk as Christ walked, must be a strong resolve, a strong
resolve, must be stern resolution. You know, the preacher read to
me a scripture this morning. He that saith he abideth in him,
ought himself also to walk even as he walked. I need to make
stern resolution. The Lord lead the holy like he
lived, like the Lord Jesus, he was the holy one, and he lived
and he set his face like a flint, that he would do the will of
the Father. Set his face like a flint. Now you know a little
bit of that would go a long way with some of us, would it not?
Resolution. Resolve. I have resolved no longer
to linger. I have resolved no longer to
live in the world of sin. I have resolved to go straight
forward and to obey the word of the Lord. Stand to it that
you follow Christ. Stand alone if you must. but
stand to it. And again, we must have much
communion with the Lord. We cannot possibly get to be
like Christ except by being with him. We need to be with him.
We need to be where his word is preached, where his word is
love, where his word is read. We need to read it. And in Acts
4 and 13 it says, Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and
John, perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they
marveled, and they took knowledge of them that they had been with
Jesus. That's always been a great comfort to me, because it doesn't
make any difference what you know. But if you've been with
Jesus, it'll get out on you. We need to commune with Christ.
We need to fellowship with Him. We were talking about prayer
last night, and we were saying that God talks to us through
His Word, and we talk to Him through prayer. We need communion
with God. We need to get along with the
Lord, unless we know Him, unless we get along with Him, and unless
He rubs off on us. Oh, my friend will never walk
as he walked. I wish that we could be so much
like Christ that we would be like the ancient saint of God
who died a martyr's death. He was asked before being put
to death, what are you? And he said, I'm a Christian. I'm a Christian. Wouldn't you
like to be a Christian? The Chinese word for Christian
is Jesus-man. Jesus-man. Wouldn't you like
to be a Jesus-man? I'm a Christian, he said. And
they asked him, what is your trade? What trade do you follow?
And he said, I'm a Christian. Well, what language do you speak,
old man? He said, I am a Christian. What are your holdings in this
world? He said, I am a Christian. They asked him if he had any
friends in this world, and he said, I am a Christian. That's what I am. For all he
was and all he had and all he wished to be and all he hoped
to be were all wrapped up in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And I'll tell you what, if you
ever come to the place where you have to die for your faith,
That's exactly the way it'll have to be. All wrapped up in
the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you live with Christ,
you'll be absorbed by him. And he will embrace the whole
of your existence, and in consequence, your walk will be like his. Take
care in this world that you copy only Christ. Did you hear what
I said? Take care in this world that
you copy only Christ. Take your lessons in holiness,
not from some poor erring disciple, but from the infallible master
himself. Your watch, you want to set it
with the right time, don't you? You want to set the right time,
you'd like to be able to get, I mean, you want to make sure
that the clock you're setting your clock by is the right time. Your pattern, my friend, let
it be the original. The original. Keep your eyes
on Christ. You say, well, I've been looking
around. Well, maybe you just better quit that looking around,
friend. You better get your eyes on Christ. and look to Him. And we'll have peace in this
body as long as we keep looking to Christ. There isn't any of
us, really, that are fit to be looked at very long. Would all
of you say amen to that? Is that true? Amen. Amen. We just look at Christ. Keep
our eyes on the Redeemer. We think of Him. We remember
Him. Keep your eye on Christ, dear brother, never mind the
rest of us. Never mind the rest of us. Look
to Jesus and to Him alone. No man was ever so truly free.
as Jesus, and yet no man was so fully subservient to the will
of the Father as the Lord Jesus. He was the unique originality
of absolute obedience. Christ was that. In a word, Christ
lived above the world. Let us walk as he walked, my
friend. Christ lived for God and for God alone. Let us do
the same. Christ persevered in such living. He never turned aside from it
at all. as he lived, so he died, still serving his God, obedient
to this Father's will, even unto the death of the cross. From
our spiritual birth to our death in this body, may we walk and
run parallel with the walk of our well-being. Beloved Master,
the Lord Jesus. Let us pray. Father, in the name
of Jesus, we thank you this morning for this text of scripture. Oh,
Father, we do pray that thou would forgive our failings. our
many, many failings. And oh, how we praise you that
you're faithful and that you're just as we confess our sin to
forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
And Lord, we just thank you for our blessed master and we thank
you for his example. And I do pray this day, Lord,
that there be some poor soul here that would become so sick
of sin and tired of self that they will look away unto the
Lord Jesus, and that they would be found, that they would find
grace to help them in this hour of need, that they might get
to Christ, believe on Him, and have everlasting life, and that
the Holy Spirit would kindle great love and great desire in
their hearts toward holy things, toward things of the Blessed
Spirit, toward things of the Word, eternal things, where Christ
is seated at the right hand of God. Oh, Father, work miracles,
save poor souls here, and deliver those that are Thy children.
Give them, my Father, much encouragement and grace through the message
this morning. We pray it in Jesus' name, and
for His sake, Amen.