Walking Is Great Exercise Series

SERMON BRIEF

Date Written: September 2001

Date Preached: September 18, 2001

Church: BBC (PM) Sunday

FOUNDATIONAL ELEMENTS

Series: Learning Lessons from the Past

Title: Walking is Great Exercise

Text: Genesis 5:21-24

Introduction:

Have you noticed how over the past few years that there are many commercials and advertisements for how to lose weight and become physically fit?

Diet and exercise has always been the doctor’s prescription for a healthy life, and today that is still a great way to approach the way we treat our bodies.

But have you recently looked at the magazine rack in the local grocery store checkout line, many of those magazines have articles in them that focus on diet and exercise for all people at all phases of life.

These articles help to sell the magazines because people want to know the newest and most recent trends in exercise and the fastest way to lose weight and tone up their muscles.

So what is the “BEST” exercise? These articles have many different opinions, but I believe that there was a man in the Bible who discovered the best exercise and tonight we are going to read about him.

Turn with me to Gen 5:21-24 and let’s read the passage [read passage] Enoch had a great exercise…He walked with God. Our passage tonight tells us that, “…Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him…”

Now looking at the original Hebrew word in this passage it does not translate as we might think. It is NOT speaking of the physical exercise of placing one foot in front of the other…but it references and is referring to a lifestyle.

Tonight I want to go over with you how you can have a HEALTHY Christian walk with God by sharing 5 characteristics of walking with God or Living The Christian Life.

The 1st characteristic that we need to observe is that when we are ‘walking’ with God we are going in HIS direction.

The Hebrew phrase or idiom that is translated ‘walking with God’ is used to describe GOD’S lifestyle. So for Enoch to be able to walk with God, he had to be going in God’s direction.

If you are going to take a walk with someone, you must go in the same direction that that person is walking. So for us to live the Christian life or “Walk With God” we must go in God’s direction and not our own.

God’s direction is one that we must pursue, it is NOT impossible and God has made it obtainable to those who truly desire to follow Him.

1st of all God’s way is clearly marked. The man in our passage tonight, Enoch, responded to God’s revelation in his life. Whatever God disclosed to him, he accepted it as the way that he should live.

To live the Christian life today, we no longer have to guess or ponder on which way God is going. God was supremely revealed in the person of Jesus Christ and if we follow the teachings and examples of Jesus Christ…we will be following God.

The Bible tells us in 1 John 2;6 “…the one who says he abides in Him out himself to walk in the same manner as He walked…”

In other words “…those who say they live in God should live their lives as Christ did…”

But not only is God’s way clearly marked, God’s way is clearly the BEST way we can travel, regardless of what we feel or think.

When one reads Gen 5 they are convinced that Enoch found the BEST type of life to live. The other people mentioned in this chapter had meaningful lives, but relatively uneventful lives.

But we find Enoch standing out from the crowd and his life was special because he chose to follow the BEST way…to follow God’s way!

Sometimes walking with God is not the most comfortable or most convenient way to live. It is NEVER going to be the easiest way to travel. The reason it is NOT easy is because you are traveling AGAINST so many other people going the WRONG way…going against God…walking against God.

So for us to live the Christian life that we need to live we first must be going in the direction that God is going…to do that as Christians we must follow the teachings and examples of Jesus Christ that we find in the Bible.

But not only is walking with God, going in His direction, the 2nd characteristic we can find here is that walking with God also means to proceed at God’s pace.

If you think about it, when you go to walk WITH someone, you have to walk at the same PACE as them, or you are NOT walking WITH them.

Enoch had to keep up with God and God’s pace. We know what direction God is headed by looking to Christ, but what do we know about God’s pace?