Enoch: Understanding The Concept Of Walking With God

UPGA SERMON FOR SUNDAY SERVICE:

ENOCH: UNDERSTANDING THE CONCEPT OF WALKING WITH GOD.

Study Texts: Genesis 5: 22 - 24; Hebrews 11: 5 - 6

Introduction:

- God is always looking for a walking partner, someone whose heart can be after His own heart, and who will only do what is well pleasing to Him.

- God created man for the enjoyment of a walking relationship that involved companionship, dialogue, intimacy, joint decision-making, mutual delight, and shared dominion.

-- God longs to walk with you, which is why his arms of grace have been pulling you into a closer walk with him.

- Enoch was the first man in the Bible who walked with God. Even though men began to call upon the name of the Lord in the early days (Genesis 4:26), Enoch was the first man to uncover the true delight of walking with God.

- He found something even Adam didn't experience. He pressed into God until he learned how to commune with God through every facet of life.

- Enoch's example continues to witness to all generations of the great zeal God has to walk with man. When the zeal of God captures you, it will ignite you with a great passion to walk with God and to be his friend.

- As you draw closer to God, he may not likely take you up to heaven as he did Enoch. However, he does desire to reveal the beauty of his face to you.

- When we walk with God, we enter the dimension where God unfolds the secrets of his kingdom. Through Christ, we can explore the glorious riches of knowing God to a greater degree than Enoch because of the Spirit of God which has been given to us.

- We shall discuss this topic under three subheadings:

1. The Subject of Walking with God

2. The Secret of Walking with God

3. The Stumbling blocks of Walking with God

1. The Subject of Walking with God:

- Enoch walked with God, continually conversing with him and growing closer to him. In him, we see a new kind of believer. He walked arm in arm every day with the Lord – the Lord was his very life — so much so that at the end of his life, he did not taste death but was translated out of life.

- Like Enoch, those who walk closely with God are translated out of Satan's reach — taken out of his kingdom of darkness and put into Christ's kingdom of light (Col 1:13).

- Enoch learned to walk pleasingly before God in the midst of a wicked society. He was an ordinary man with all the same problems and burdens we carry. He was involved in life with a wife, children, obligations and undertook all his responsibilities. He cared for his family: he worked, ministered and occupied; but he was not earthbound. None of the demands of this life could keep him from his walk with God.

- In his spirit, Enoch was not a part of this wicked world. Each day as he walked with the Lord he became less attached to the things below. Like Paul, he died daily to this earthly life and he was taken up in his spirit to a heavenly realm.

- All around Enoch, mankind grew increasingly ungodly. Yet as men changed into wild beasts full of lust, hardness and sensuality, Enoch became more and more like the One with whom he walked.

- Though he had no Bible, no songbook, no fellow member, no teacher, no indwelling Holy Spirit, yet Enoch knew God.

- Hebrews 11:5 says of Enoch: "Before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God." What was it about Enoch that pleased God so much? It was that his walk with God produced in him the kind of faith God loves. Hebrews 11:5 - 6.

- If the church is walking with God daily, communing with him continually, the result will be a people full of faith — true faith that pleases God.

- What does it mean to "walk with God"? It means several things:

1. Walking with God implies that the prevailing power of iniquity in a person's heart has been taken away by the blessed Spirit of God.

2. Walking with God implies that the person has actually been reconciled to God the Father, by accepting the free gift of Salvation through the precious blood of Jesus Christ.

3. Walking with God implies that the person has an abiding communion and fellowship with God in regular prayers, praises and meditation in the word of God, and walking in total obedience to it.

4. Walking with God implies our making progress in the divine life. Living victoriously above the dictates of the flesh and overcoming sins and pollutions in the world.