The Body of Christ (Gait Training)

Open in prayer

Remind everyone about the movie, The Agenda: 2 Master’s of Deceit, that we will be showing, Friday July 31, 2020!

I want to start off this morning, by backing up to last week’s message and saying a few things about it, as it sets the stage for today’s message and maybe some more to follow. If you were here last week, or maybe watched online, then you know that I talked about the series title, “The Body of Christ: The Mystery Revealed”.

In that message, I asked everyone here if they all agreed that EVERYTHING that God has created He created for a specific purpose.

EVERYONE, agreed with a resounding “YES”, to the question!

I went on to discuss of how God created a “3rd race” of humanity, that is outlined within the Bible and of how this new creation was hidden within the Bible for centuries as a “mystery”.

The MYSTERY hidden within the prophetic writings and centuries past, was revealed through Jesus the Christ.

Christ in us, our hope of glory, according to the Word, is part of that mystery.

But this mystery also included the intent and will of God, to take two races on the earth, the Jews (His beloved and chosen people) and the gentiles (everyone else) and bring them together (through the blood of Jesus) and create one NEW RACE..........the Body of Christ........the church!

If you are a believer, a follower of Christ, then each and every time that you look into a mirror, or each and every time that we assemble together as Christians, you are witnessing and beholding the mystery of God now revealed. You are seeing the church!

And in talking about the mystery of God revealed through the birth of the church, I also came back around and shared about the designed purpose of the church. In other words, just as I asked you at the start of me message last week about whether or not you believed that everything that God created has a purpose, I then shared with everyone as to what that designed purpose for the church was!

In I Corinthians 12:27, Paul tells us,

1 Corinthians 12:27 ESV

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

And according to the Bible in Ephesians 2:10,

Ephesians 2:10 ESV

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

So, we are the living, breathing body of Christ here on earth, created by the Lord as His perfect workmanship, as a vessel designed for doing His works, GOOD WORKS, here on earth, since He is now in heaven!

And there is yet another revealed reason for the creation of the church as we find in Ephesians 3:10-11, where Paul tells us,

Ephesians 3:10–11 ESV

so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord,

And Peter said the same thing in his epistle of I Peter 1:12, where he said,

1 Peter 1:12 ESV

It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.

In other words, God is using us, the living, breathing body of Christ, to reveal to the angelic beings in the heavenly places, His wisdom and the greatness of His will and the mystery of the ages that was hidden, even from the hosts of heaven!

We are God’s billboard, if you will, created to display to the inhabitants of the earth the glory of Christ through our lives, but also, to display God’s glorious will and His beauty and greatness to the hosts of heaven! AMEN!

What does your section of the billboard look like? What are the hosts of heaven witnessing about your life and what kind of message about God are you sending to them and to the world that you live in around you?

As Paul said in I Corinthians 10:31,

1 Corinthians 10:31 ESV

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

In other words, from the most basic, remedial tasks of our lives, to the most detailed thought and energy intensive things that we can do on a daily/constant basis, we are to do them all so that our bodies are glorifying our great God and Creator, Yahweh!!!!

Today, I will continue with this mini series of messages entitled, “The Body of Christ”, with today’s message being focused on one specific part of the Body of Christ.........our walk!

You know, when I was in college learning to work in the career field of Physical Therapy, we studied the human anatomy, top to bottom.

We went to the cadaver lab and examined, hands on, the human anatomy and learned the muscles and tendons and ligaments and their origins and insertions!

We studied the neuro-anatomy and which nerves inserted and gave function to which muscles.

And once you have studied the anatomy and everything that makes it work, then you studied kinesiology, which is the science of human movement.

We learned symmetry and how the body was supposed to move to achieve various normal functions.

And a large part of our studies in the science of kinesiology, went into the act of ambulation, walking, or as we refer to it in therapy, we studied GAIT TRAINING.

There is a lot that goes into our ability to get up and walk. It’s not just as simple as we take it for granted to be!

You must first understand the principles of infancy and that of primitive reflex integration and of how God created baby’s with inborn and natural reflexes to assist with feeding and protection and then ultimately on to standing and walking.

Saying that evolution designed infants with built in protective mechanisms and safeguards, is an absolute preposterous joke!

Since when did cells and tissue have the intellect to code into the genome of man, the reflexes needed to protect a newborn and to foster future functional abilities! It’s ABSOLUTELY INSANE what evolution proposes!

But, as the old adage goes, you must first learn to crawl before you can walk, right?!

Well, this is all part of the normal developmental process that God gave to a child, as they naturally know to begin rolling and then sitting up and then crawling, their little bodies are developing strength in their core muscles and their brains are developing patterns for future reflex activities that will lead to standing and ambulating!

This is why it is so amazing to watch them, when they take their first little steps. You are witnessing a created miracle of God, in that their little brains are encoded with the ability to learn balance and calculate, subconsciously, muscle usage and step length and width and everything that goes into those first few steps!

And so, in therapy, we studied, meticulously, the art of ambulation and we would watch and diagnose the gait abnormalities in people in case studies and then discuss how to rehabilitate those people with gait dysfunctions.

You had to know what a normal cadence should look like, from a person’s step length to their step width for a good base of support and balance.

You had to know how to eyeball the hip and pelvic movements, to ensure that their was adequate symmetry and fluidity.

You watched the upper body movement with symmetrical arm swing for assisting in the momentum of the cadence.

You broke down the gait into two phases: Stance Phase and Swing Phase.

You then watched the movement of each phase: heel strike, foot flat, mid stance and then toe off for the stance phase.

From toe off, you went directly into swing phase with acceleration, mid swing to deceleration and then back into stance phase again.

And then from there, you had to know all of the muscles to determine where the dysfunction resided and also the pathology behind their gait abnormality.

We thus named, the gait dysfunctions, based upon what was being exhibited.

For instance, a person with a stroke, may exhibit a hemiplegic gait, due to gross weakness in certain muscles. There may be marked hip circumduction due to weakness in the hip flexor muscles.

This person may also show a steppage gait, where gross weakness in the anterior tibialis muscle produced the inability to properly dorsiflex the foot and thus their foot would drag the ground.

Gross weakness in the hip abductor region produced what was called a Trendelenburg Gait, where the person’s hip would drop every time their leg was raised to walk.

There was an antalgic, or painful gait pattern.

And there are other dysfunctions and abnormalities that we learned to work with.

The point being, whenever their was a dysfunction in the anatomy of a person, you could see it, many times over, in the way that they walked and carried themselves in their gait!

Well, this is the point of my discussion today on the “Body of Christ” and that of the spiritual gait pattern of the believer.

Just like in my studies and work in Physical Therapy for 17 years and of how we were to know the gait of a healthy individual in order to help us recognise and rehabilitate a dysfunction in the human body.........................., the same principal applies to the spiritual life of a believer.

We must know what a normal, healthy Christian walk is supposed to look like, and then be able to recognise abnormalities and weaknesses in the body of Christ that produce gait dysfunctions and then address those issues and fix them, before their is damage to the individual/individuals!

The Bible talks a lot about our walk as a believer. In the New Testament, the Greek word “peripateō” occurs some 93 times, 71 of those 93 times, is referencing how a person live their lives, when talking about our “WALK”.

Peripateō, is used in the context of, ‘to walk in the tracks’ and ‘to follow in the tracks’, ‘to imitate, to do as others do.’

The Apostle Paul, who was sent to gentile nation by God, to spread the gospel message, used this same word in his epistles some, 31 times alone!

So, I think that it’s safe to say, that God is concerned about spiritual “gait pattern” and He wants us, as followers of His Son, to pay very close attention as to how we live our daily lives.

And Paul, like other Hebrew writers of the New Testament, understood this metaphor of walking, as pertaining to the the way a person lived their life, because it was a Jewish idiom that had come down through the centuries in the Old Testament.

Verses in the Old Testament like Proverbs 2:20,

Proverbs 2:20 ESV

So you will walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous.

Or like Deuteronomy 13:4, which says,

Deuteronomy 13:4 ESV

You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him.

Both of these passages show us that God inspired His writers to focus on the way the Jewish people were supposed to live their lives; that is, how they were “walking” on a daily basis.

From the oldest writings found in the Bible and all the way through the New Testament and the New Covenant of the Christ, we find this analogy of our “walk” as to the way in which we are living our lives in our relationship with the Lord!

From all the way back in the oldest book in the Bible, which is the book of.....................Job, we find verses like Job 31:5, which reads,

Job 31:5 ESV

“If I have walked with falsehood and my foot has hastened to deceit;

So, the understanding of how a child of God is to live their life (their walk with the Lord) is found throughout the writings in the Bible.

If you want to be with God and in His presence, then you must “walk” with Lord. That is, you must live in accordance to His will and adhere to His commandments.

Genesis 5:22-24 tells us that,

Genesis 5:22–24 ESV

Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.

Enoch walked with God, and then he was taken to be with God forever!

Note that is says Enoch walked with God “AFTER” he fathered Methuselah, not before. How many of you that have raised children, know that there are some kids out there that will drive their parents straight into the arms of the Lord God almighty and test every fiber in the parents being!

In other words, you may never have been religious before in your life and you may never have prayed to the Lord God before, but by the time you have finished raising that child, you will be!

The way that a follower of Jesus the Christ lives their life, which is to say, the way that a Christian walks, is to distinguishable and different than that of the world and of the carnally minded person! The walk of the carnal minded man/woman is likened to that of a dysfunction, or abnormality in the gait that I mentioned a few minutes ago when talking about gait training in Physical Therapy. (Let me say that again, but with a little more clarity. If a person is living their life (if their “walk”) is in a carnal/worldly fashion and thus against the will of God and separated from God, then it is like a spiritual sickness that disrupts and prevents them from having a normal/healthy spiritual gait.)

Look here, I told you that, in the physical/natural state, if a person has hurt, or injured themselves, they will walk with an antalgic gait, which is a “painful” gait pattern.

DEMONSTRATE AN ANTALGIC GAIT PATTERN.

The same thing applies in the spiritual life of a person. (See, now you are all getting trained today and when we are done with series, you will all be spiritual Physical Therapists, amen!!!!)

When someone has a spiritual wound to their soul, it affects their spiritual walk. Just like you can recognise the painful gait of a person in the natural, so to can you see it in the life of a person who has been hurt spiritually/emotionally!

Young ladies who were never loved by their fathers growing up, will many times over, give themselves away to one man after another, after another, because their soul has been damaged and they hurt deeply inside and all that they know is that the love of a man is missing from their life.

They don’t know how to fix it, but they desire desperately to fill that void, and so they walk around living sinful, immoral lifestyles (a.k.a. walking in sin), from one man after another and all the while feeling more and more broken and marred and hurt!

Talk about Aubrey (without mentioning his name) and the young lady coming up at school and making strong sexual propositions to him and of how he walked away.

And young men, who are raised in an environment where the fathers are absent or completely derelict in their roles, these young men, many times over, grow up angry and frustrated and always trying to prove something to the world.

They are much more likely to become involved in illegal activity and the abuse of drugs and alcohol and much more likely to become involved in sexual sin, because of their painful gait pattern which was brought on by a deficit in their life!

You can see it in these people, it is easily recognizable in their lifestyles, that is, in their daily walking pattern.

Even if you do not know the source of injury, you can tell that these individuals are walking in pain, by the self-destructive way that they live their lives!

And just like in Physical Therapy, when we find the imbalance and correct the dysfunction and rehabilitate the person, by helping to remove the source of pain and strengthen the surrounding musculature to support and allow for a normal, healthy gait, so to does the GREAT PHYSICIAN do in the life of a spiritually wounded man/woman!

DESCRIBE HOW GOD COMES IN AND FILLS THAT PERSON WITH HIS LOVE AND CHANGES THEIR LIFE AND THE THEIR SPIRITUAL WALK

Mention of how Sarah Meyers and her testimony proves this very thing!

The gait of someone who is lost and in the world is nothing like the gait of someone who is found in the Lord and who has been set free from the corruption and bondage to sin!

And in like manner, a believer in Jesus Christ should NEVER even consider walking in their old gait patterns again, no matter how much the enemy lies to you and tries to lure you back into the “pleasures of this world”, you must NEVER yield to those temptations and fall back into it!

It is IMPOSSIBLE to walk in the carnal, fleshly way of life and try to also walk in the righteous way of a blood bought child of God!

There is an old West African proverb which says, "The man who tries to walk two roads will split his pants."

In other words, you may start off comfortably walking with each foot on a path, but eventually, those paths are going to start separating and demanding that you choose one or the other. If you try to stay with one foot on each path, you will split your pants as you’re being pulled in two different directions!

In fact, Paul says it this way in two different passages, “walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called” and “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord”.

And the verbiage that Paul uses when he says that we are to “walk in a manner WORTHY”, does not mean that we have to try to earn the right of being a Christian and that we are not good enough to be called sons and daughters of God, or that we try to live up to some unattainable expectation set by God for us, in qualifying us to be counted as “worthy”.

The Bible tells us that in Christ Jesus, we have been made into the righteousness of God, that through the Christ and the great love of God, we are called the children of God and that He has given to us, every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms!

Does this sound like someone who isn’t “worthy”?

Rather, this word that Paul uses, “worthy”, actually refers to something that is “of comparable value”.

Like in Romans 8:18, Paul says,

Romans 8:18 ESV

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Paul is saying that whatever we suffer or go through in this life for Christ’s sake, is not “worth” (it’s not equal in value) to the unimaginable glory that awaits us in heaven.

There is nothing here on earth that is comparable in value to that which awaits the believer when they enter into the domain of the living God!

So, when Paul says that we are to “walk in a manner that is WORTHY”, he is saying that we are to live our lives in such a way that is comparable in value to our calling and comparable in value to the Lord and our relationship with Him.

And what does walking in a manner worthy (comparable in value) to the Lord look like?

Well, simply put, it looks like the life of Jesus the Christ and that way that He lived His life!

And if you look at the the passage in Colossians 1:10-12, we can see some descriptive terms that apply to this life and what we should observe in our Christian gait.

Colossians 1:10–12 ESV

so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

Bearing fruit in every good work (John 15 and the True Vine)

Increasing in the knowledge of God (Paul said in verse 9 that he prayed that the new believers would be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that they cold “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord”.)

Being strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might for all endurance and patience with Joy! (Power to resist the devil, power to take authority over the works of the enemy, power to love as God has loved us. [Example: Peter and John at the Gate Beautiful in Acts 3 and the lame man and of how they spoke in POWER and authority and showed the love of God to this man.])

The power that we receive that gives us all endurance and patience with JOY, is the abiding presence of Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22,

Galatians 5:22 ESV

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

Giving thanks to the Father! (Ultimately, we are to rejoice and give thanks to God in all situations and for all things, so that our walk becomes more and more equal in value to the calling with which He has called us. He gave everything in joy to purchase us, so in return and for equal value, we are to give back everything in joy and thankfulness to Him!)

The Westminster Shorter Catechism asked, “What is the chief end of man?”

And what was the answer, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever!”

Just like in Physical Therapy, we use different terms to describe different aspects of a normal, healthy gait pattern. So to, does the Bible use different terms to describe a normal, healthy spiritual gait pattern.

Walk in LOVE – Ephesians 5:1-2, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

Walk by FAITH – II Corinthians 5:7, “for we walk by faith, not by sight.”

Walk by the SPIRIT – Galatians 5:16, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.”

Walk in WISDOM – Colossians 4:5, “Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.”

Walk in the LIGHT – I John 1:7, “7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”

Walk in the TRUTH – II John 4, “I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we were commanded by the Father.”, III John 3-4, “ For I rejoiced greatly when the brothers came and testified to your truth, as indeed you are walking in the truth. 4 I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” (USE GAIT BELT TO DEMONSTRATE TRUTH HOLDING US AND GUIDING US!)

As Paul said, in I Corinthians 11:1,

1 Corinthians 11:1 NLT

And you should imitate me, just as I imitate Christ.

We need sound spiritual, Holy Spirit filled men and women in our lives, serving as examples of how to walk like Jesus, so that we can receive spiritual “gait training” from them and walk in the Lord!

We need to be able to say to other newer believers in Christ, the same thing that Paul said to the new believers in I Thessalonians 4:1-2,

1 Thessalonians 4:1–2 ESV

Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.