In the Psalm already quoted the Psalmist sings again: "I have set the LORD
II. The Results of Walking with God 1. The first result of walking with God is great joy, abounding joy. "In Your presence," sings the Psalmist, "You will fill me with joy" (Psalm 16:11).
There is no greater joy than that which comes from right companionship. Who would not rather live in a hut with congenial companions than in a palace with disagreeable associates? Who would not rather live on a bleak and barren isle among real Christians than in the fairest land the sun ever shone upon among infidels, blasphemers, drunkards, hoodlums, and the sexually immoral? The most attractive feature of heaven is its society, especially the society of God and the Lord Jesus. Samuel Rutherford said: "I would rather be in hell with Christ than in heaven without Christ: for if I were in hell with Christ that would be heaven to me, and if I were in heaven without Christ that would be hell to me." But when we have the conscious presence and companionship of God on earth, "we have two heavens, the heaven to which we are going and a heaven to go to heaven in." In one of the loneliest hours of His lonely life, Jesus looked up with radiant joy and said, "Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me" (John 6:32).
Can you remember some ecstatic hour of your life when you walked, and sometimes talked and sometimes were silent, with an earthly companion whom you loved as you loved no other? Oh, happy hour! but only faintly suggestive of the rapture that comes from walking with God, for He is an infinitely dearer and better and more glorious companion than any earthly one could be. How the homely details of everyday life are transfigured if we have the constant fellowship of God in them. There lived in the Middle Ages a lad named Nicholas Hermann. He was a raw, awkward youth, breaking all things that he touched, but one day the thought was brought to his mind with great force that God was everywhere and that he might have the constant thought of God's presence with him and do all things to God's glory. This thought transformed his life. He soon took a job where his duty was of the most menial character--in the kitchen, washing pots and kettles, but, to use his own way of putting it, he "practiced the presence of God" in the midst of his humble toil. That kitchen became so holy a place that men took long journeys to meet Nicholas Hermann and to converse with him.
2. The second result of walking with God is a great sense of security, of abiding peace.
In the Psalm already quoted the Psalmist sings again: "I have set the LORD always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken" (16:8). Certainly not. How can we be moved if God is with us? What harm can befall us?