Walking with God.
As we enter into a new year we look afresh into the future year with new goals for 2003. I wonder what our aims are in 2003? Look at the worlds aims and goals for 2003, personal aims such as packing in smoking or drinking, beginning physical exercise, losing weight etc. These are good and wise things to do but they are all self centred looking inward on improving ones own health or physical appearance.
In the business world, there are those who 2003 is about making bigger gains most of the large business empires will have this in their sights increasing consumer spending to increase their own profits.
Then their those who for 2003 is about making a clean start turning away from problems and trials and starting afresh looking for true happiness.
Gen 5.21-24. (Enoch was a man who had a fresh start) We also have a fresh start n Christ.The example of Enoch had as one of the Patriarchs (tribal leaders of Israel who lived before the time of Moses.)
Introduction.
Here we have the genealogy of the early patriarchs. What stands out is their long lives ( Dynasties, genetically pure, probably because of the water expanse keeping out cosmic rays, also the fact that God gave longer lives to populate the earth.)
Enoch was the 7th from Adam the father of Methuselah living 969 years the oldest human ever and then Enoch living 365 years the youngest lived around half the life of the people in his day. Yet in retrospect he still lives today for Enoch never saw death for God took him V24! But surely its Enoch himself who stands out in this long genealogy. Here, we shall focus our mind and heart upon and apply this part of Scripture to our own lives. What does God desire from us? To “walk with God”
Micah 6. 8. He has showed you O man what is good. And what does the Lord require of you ? To act justly and walk humbly with your God.
1.Enoch walked with God v24 only two men are spoken of as those who walked with God Enoch who predicted the flood and Noah who survived it.
Who likes long walks? Refreshing! Especially with good company!Sometimes in the walk of life do you find yourself grumble as you become tired? Enoch walked with God for 300 years.He persevered, this isn’t a literal walk with God as (God in the garden of Eden Gen3:8.) but that Enoch’s whole life was one which was devoted to Godliness. Enoch’s life was a holy life (set apart), with communion with God. In everything (day to day) he would set God before him knowing that the living God is watching every area and detail of his life. He Lived according to Gods precepts and divine will all his actions were governed to the end of pleasing his God.
Gods plan from the begining has been that his people walk with Him. It takes obedience and discipline.
Deut 8:6A A journey which should take 11days for Israel became a wander for 40 years, but now are called to walk in obedience into the promised land.
1a.Enoch kept in step with God. Are we today walking with God? I must confess at times my own life is not what it should be.I am not always walking with God. At times I fail God and my heart cries out for a closer walk with God. At times I work in my own strength and God is distant.Why?
We are often like the child who when walking with their parents they either have the tendancy to lag behind their parents kicking their heels or even run ahead doing their own thing for instance.
1. Maybe we’ve been walking for so long we’ve stopped and were tired and are reluctant to go on, were failing in zeal in our communion with God and we have become distant. And we appear to be walking alone.(footsteps illustration)
OR
2.Sometimes its our natural abilities and inclinations can runaway with us and we run ahead of God in our enthusiasm we begin to do the work in our own strength. we need to turn back towards Him and walk with him. Iremeber when I was first converted the Elders said I was like a horse on a bit!” It turned out it was my will Lord be done so often, my agenda and not really God’s and I needed to be slowed down.
Life application for each one of us that in every avenue of your life and fellowship here.
I pray that you “will walk with God” seeking his will, knowing his guidance, and his hand upon all your labours.
Because........
Psalm 127:1. Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labour in vain.
1b.Enoch persevered in his walk. 300 years
In difficult and Godless times. Enoch continued to walk, God was pleased with him he was no more! v24. He was taken, that could be us this year?
Enoch himself prophesied in Jude:14. Read.
I am sure this is what spurred Enoch on to walk with GOD in his day and likewise for us 1pet1:13.16.(Holy lives) Surely you like me desire a closer walk with God, as the hymn writer William Cowper said “O for a closer walk with God, A calm and heavenly frame, a light to shine upon the road that leads me to the lamb!”
2. Enoch pleased God.
How do our children please us?
Heb 11.5.Enoch was commended as one who pleased God.
To walk with God means to please God.
No matter what happened in Enoch’s life through the troubles the joys which I am sure he had “he pleased God.” This is a wonderful epitaph “He pleased God.”
I wonder what wil people say about us?
As Paul wrote 2Cor 5.9. So we make it our goal to please God
The World view today
Today many people are far more engrossed in pleasing themselves, than pleasing God. At times our desire can be to please our family our friends or even fellow believers. But our first desire should be to please God. This means to obey Him as Lord and Master of our lives to please God we must hand over our lives to God at some point.( Putting God first )
And for us Rom 12:1. Therefore, I urge you brothers to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. this is your spiritual act of worship. so often we de compartmentalise our lives into what’s for God and what’s not but the only way to please him is when we fully surrender every part of our lives.
Life application for 2003 God is watching over our lives through your troubles and joys “lets walk with God”, this pleases Him. God’s aim for our lives is that we become holy people. Lets strive to nurture this habit of walking with God 24hrs a day because this pleases God.
Jesus Pleased God the Father from the crib to the cross
Jesus our great example Luke.2:49. Father house. Matt 3.17. Baptism 17.5.Transfiguration. 26. 39 -Gethsemene
2a. God also pleased Enoch.
1.Is it not a joy at those times when we feel intimacy with God corporately and individual when we feel and know that God Emmanuel is with us and his hand has guided us and blessed us. ( Enoch had a intimate relationship)
a.Is it not pleasing to know that you are eternally saved that you have been forgiven and adopted into the family of God.
b.Is it not pleasing when you consider the office of Jesus Christ and all that he has accomplished for us through his death and resurrection and his coming return.
c.Is it not pleasing when we serve God with our lives in acts of service.”
d.Is it not pleasing when we see Gods hand at work in bringing salvation to those around us also. psalm 34:8.
Knowing God is pleasing” The world has not tasted the pleasure in knowing God. Do you know God ? Have you tasted His pleasures.?
3.Enoch began to Walk with God.
Did Enoch always walk with God? Walking in DARKNESS
A. Notice that Enoch began to walk with God after 65 years the birth of his son Methuselah must have been a turning point in his life. This shows us that Enoch previously walked as the rest of the world with little thought of God in his life. And that their came a time in his life at the age of 65 that he began to walk with God. Why? What was the turning point ?
1.Was it simply the birth of his son, of the emerging new life which caused Enochs changed life or was it something more ? (I remeber my sons birth was very traumatic)
b.To walk with God there has to be a starting point in our lives, a time when you have encountered God for yourself as a reality it took Enoch 65 years. What drove him to God was the revelation of Gods coming destruction of the world. This would have brought forth his own position before God seeing his own sinfulness that he also was guilty like the rest who walked in darkness.
Psalm. 56:13. For you have delivered me from death and my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before God in the light of life.
The Coming catastrophe.
2.With the birth came the revelation from God that He would destroy the whole earth with a global flood. This was revealed to Enoch we see that in the name given of Methuselah means “when he is dead it shall be sent.”
Thus every time he saw his son he would be reminded of the coming destruction.
3. HOW GODS GRACE ABOUNDS TODAY ?
Methuselah lived 969 years showing forth the grace of God giving others the opportunity to repent. Yet in the year he died, came the global flood. In the time of Gods grace
Enoch the Preacher ( initiated or dedicated)
Enochs life changed and now he would proclaim the coming of this awesome day the Lords return Jude 14.
19th cent W. Chalmers “brother we must hurry”
Warning “B.Russell said “Death is a night of nothingness.”
If your not walking with God today and continue, doesn’t the thought of the return of the Lord Jesus Christ bring a sense of fear for the consequences of ignorance are EVERLASTING ! Jesus said “weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Gods Grace.
Its been nearly 2000 years since the Lord returned to heaven surely the days of Grace must be cutting short! Walking in darkness 1000 years from Adam - Noah. This drove Enoch to preach coming of the Lord !
People ALL AROUND US today walk in darkness still. This should drive us like Enoch to do something we cant afford to be dismissive, the appointed day is approaching, believers don’t lose sight !
JHN 12:35. You are going to have the light just a little while longer . Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you. The man who walks in the dark does’nt know where he is going . Put your trust in the light while you have it, so that you may become sons of light.
So we must be converted by the Grace of God through Faith.
1.Enoch was able to begin to Walk with God because of faith, Enoch persevered walking with God because of faith. Enoch pleased God, only through FAITH in God.
Heb.11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek Him.
Enoch walked by faith.
Heb 11:5,6. By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. ou You can receive Faith any time any place any age for Enoch it was after 65 years in his life that he received Faith in God. It was at this point He saw God with the eyes of Faith, we see that the turning point must have been faith which Enoch received through divine revelation and demonstrated in his lifestyle “Walking with God.” So without faith he would have been unable to do these things.
Without faith It is impossible to please God
So what is this faith? v1. Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
Faith is being sure and certain.( It’s like when we celebrate our birthday its a time when we are filled with assurance about what we are to recieve and also the anticipation of what we are to recieve )
These two qualities need a beginning and a ending point. The beginning is when we begin to believe in the character of God, He is who he says, self existent living God Creator in His Word and His Son. Its far more than a mere assent to His divine being. And The end result is believing in Gods promises
Enoch began to believe after 65 years he received faith in God and his promises and Enoch believed in Gods future promises in the unseen the 2nd coming
Jude 14. Enoch the 7th from Adam prophesied about these men “see the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones.
C.H.Spurgeon description of “Faith sees the invisible, hears the inaudible, touches the intangible and does the impossible.”
Its a bit like the senses, just like we have our 5 senses through which we relate to those things around us in the physical world through our organs. Faith is a spiritual sense through which the soul comes into contact with and is effected by the spiritual. Just as the senses of seeing or hearing can lay dormant till the sight or the sound we see or hear and experience.
Faith is the vehicle which enables us to
1.begin to Walk with God.
2.To persevere with God.
3.To please God.
4.To believe in GOD.
Andrew Murray ; “Faith is the eye with which we can see God in all, which makes every part of it the transparent revelation of the nearness and goodness of God.”
And it is recieved through His Word and by His Spirit.
Illustration. Indiana Jones is standing with His back up against the wall, with a huge chasm in front of him which he must get across. To help him, all he has in his hand is his fathers guide book. “There is no way I can jump this” he says, “Its impossible !” Then looking in the book he sees that it describes an invisible bridge an he realises, Its a step of faith! So hesitatingly he steps out (you could demonstrate his actions) to his surprise his foot lands on solid rock- the bridge ! He wasn’t absolutely sure that there was a bridge but it said that there was in the book that he trusted and there was!
Application. Have you taken that step of Faith? Can I ask you today have you began as yet to “walk with God” have you given your life over to God submitted yourself to him in every area of your life. Or as yet are you walking the way of the world giving no or very little time for God in your life. In 2003 lets walk with God together
Andrew Murray said Faith makes “The pleasure of God our one desire, The will of God our one choice, the help of God our one trust, and the likeness of God our one hope.
Lets walk with God in 2003, Amen
Aubey Vaughan cbchurch.org.uk
