Walking the talk

There was an incident at work a few years ago where my colleagues were talking about another colleague behind their back. I usually would stay out of these conversations but that day I wanted to fit in so I agreed with an unpleasant comment someone made. As soon as I spoke up, another colleague loudly said: That’s not like you, Shirley. That’s not very Christian of you.

He was pointing out my hypocrisy. From time to time he had heard me talk about church and being part of a choir. I knew that he knew I was a Christian. I hadn’t realised how carefully he was watching to see if I walked the talk.

I’m sure it’s not just me who has found themselves in this sort of situation. No matter how long or how short we’ve been a Christian, a follower of Christ, there will have been times when our walk has not matched our talk.

Walking the talk means putting your words into action. Showing that you mean what you say by actively doing it yourself. It is a version of the everyday phrase ‘practice what you preach’.

Today’s Bible readings seem to emphasise the importance of walking the talk.

We see that, like my example at work, we humans aren’t so good at walking the talk. God, our creator, has given us His Law to follow. He has told us the best way to live our lives, how we should behave in relation to God, our families and our neighbours.

And yet, putting God’s Words into action proves an impossible task for us mere humans.

We don’t always honour our parents. We don’t always treat our spouses or our neighbours in the right way. We can sometimes place things, people or even ourselves as being of more importance to us than God. Letting these ‘idols’ direct our choices and behaviours, even if they lead us away from God’s way.

As humans we can’t walk God’s talk. And this is because, as the Psalmist says, ‘Our sins are stronger than we are…”

But thankfully, the Psalmist also tells us that there is hope for us. He describes God as the God of our salvation, and the hope of all the ends of the earth. He tells us that, yes, even though our sins are stronger than we are, God will blot them out.

The reason we have this hope is because we have a God who always walks the talk. Through the prophet Isaiah, God tells us that His words are powerful because they are active. He describes it like this: “My word…that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”

Here, God is declaring that He is a God who walks the talk. He does what He says.

In the scriptures we know that God doesn’t just give us a list of commandments to follow. Because He knows that our sins are stronger than we are, God sent His Word, Jesus Christ, into the world as a human being to show us what it would look like if a human being embodied and lived God’s Words. If a human being walked God’s talk.

Jesus lived a perfect life in the flesh, without sinning. Through his death and resurrection, He offers us freedom from being controlled by sin. He declares that there is now no condemnation for those who choose to believe in Him and receive Him. He promises to give His Holy Spirit so that we too can embody God’s words. We can have God’s Spirit living inside us, guiding our actions, giving us power over the sins that are stronger than we are in our own strength.

This is the Gospel message. This is what the Sower in today's parable went out to sow. The Good News of God’s kingdom. The word of God that became flesh and lived among us.

Whenever someone shares God’s words from a pulpit, or we read them in a bible, or hear them in a hymn, it is a challenge to act, a seed planted that needs to produce a result. God sends His word and wants us to take them in and let the words transform us in some way. To change the way we are walking. To challenge us to walk the talk and embody God in our daily lives.

But this parable of the sower, and my example at work, reveals to us that sometimes, there are things that can stop us from absorbing God’s words and from walking the talk.

How we respond to God’s words when we hear them comes down to our mindset – how we see the world around us. Are we looking through our own human perspective or through God's Spiritual perspective?

The first mindset we see in the parable is one of misunderstanding:

We can hear the word of God’s Kingdom and misunderstand it. We can be offended at a message that says we need rescuing in the first place. Offended by a message that calls us sinners, and tells us our sins are stronger than we are.

When we see the world around us from our own perspective, we can think we are good people, when we compare ourselves to people we perceive as doing worse things than us, we can set our mind against the Gospel because we cannot see it through God’s perspective. We don’t understand that when our “good” is placed next to God’s “Holy perfection” it doesn’t look so good anymore.

And so this mindset rejects the word of the kingdom when it is sown. It rejects the forgiveness and salvation that God offers because it doesn’t understand that it needs forgiving or saving.

The second mindset the parable describes is one of: Shallow acceptance.

We believe God’s message, accept it but then expect an easy ride and don’t realise that walking the talk will cost us something. Walking the talk means travelling the path that the Living Word, Jesus Christ, walked. A walk that can include family conflict, being slandered, being attacked because of holding an unpopular stance on a moral issue.

Because there is only a surface understanding of the Gospel, when these hard times come, we can reject the word and not allow it to grow in us and build deeper roots of faith that will be able to weather these storms.

The third example the parable gives of why God’s word doesn’t grow in us is of someone who hears and understands the word but cares more about the world than they do about pleasing God. The desire to be popular, to fit in with the crowd, or to strive for money and success outweighs their desire to do things God’s way and walk the talk.

So, what mindset do we need to have in order for God’s word to produce the fruit in us that He has sent it to produce?

Paul gives us an answer in his letter to the Romans. He tells us that we need to set our mind on the things of the Spirit. We have been given God’s Holy Spirit to live inside us. The Holy Spirit provides us with real power to obey God, to walk the talk in our daily lives.

Yes, we will sometimes, many times, slip up. While we are on this earth we will have the constant struggle to keep our mind focused on God’s kingdom, to keep walking under the power of the Holy Spirit. But that is why we have Jesus, the hope of the whole earth. Who has given us his unblemished record before God so that, when we are in Christ Jesus, God looks at us as His holy children. Even when we trip over and don’t walk the talk, we have access to God’s mercy. We can repent, be forgiven and get up again.

What can we do to nurture a Spiritual mindset, a good soil, that allows God’s words to grow in us and produce fruit?

a) Pluck out the weeds and thorns – Allow the Holy Spirit to examine us and then actively turn away from (put to death) the sins and habits in our lives that do not fit in with God’s way for us. The Holy Spirit will show us the areas in our lives where we are walking with anger, unforgiveness, gossip. And, when we see ourselves through the light of God’s word we can pray and ask God to help us root these sins out.

b) Keep watering ourselves with God’s Word and allowing the Holy Spirit to fill us every day. Just as the soil needs water for plants to grow, our minds need to be saturated with God’s word so that our thoughts align more and more with His way of thinking. The more we read the Bible, pray and meditate on His words, the more they will grow in us and produce fruits that will help us to walk the talk.

The good news is that God is on our side. He has planted us in his kingdom and he wants us to produce fruit. Be encouraged today that there is hope, especially in those times when we have failed to walk the talk. God has sent His Son (His Word) to save us, to live in us, and He tells us that He will succeed in the thing for which He was sent to do (to produce Sons and Daughters for His Kingdom). Children of God who will walk the talk when we live empowered by His Holy Spirit.