Enoch’s Story!
Thesis: Enoch was a man who walked so closely with the Lord that one day they just walked off together to Heaven.
Series: BC Justice League
Introduction to series: Opening thoughts to the series - “BC justice league” – God’s biblical super heroes before Christ.
Over the last few weeks we have been sharing the power of the story! We have been looking at how a person’s life can make a difference in the eternal realm of God.
http://www.whatsyourstoryonline.com/: Quote: Stories are powerful. Stories give meaning to who we are and how we became who we are. Stories help us understand how life happens, and they give value to our experiences. Some of the most powerful testimonies to Christian faith come not from lists of accepted doctrinal beliefs (though they’re important) nor from recitations of biblical principles (also important), but from the enlivened re-telling of how God has acted, overtly or covertly, in each of our lives.
We have learned about Hannah, Samuel, David, about Easy Eddie and Ace Butch O’hare, Bethany Hamilton, Isaiah, Esther, Naaman, Ruth and today Enoch. We have seen and learned that God can use us to make a difference for eternity like he did with these individuals.
Learning from real life teaches the most valuable lessons of survival in this life. These heroes of the faith show us the lessons of life. We have discovered how to please God. We discovered that it is God who creates heroes of the faith with those who say “I Will”.
I look at these men and women and I discovered that they where people who made a difference with their lives. The reason they made a difference was because number one they had a relationship with the LORD. They lived their lives in service to the Lord. It was God alone who they served. They were individuals committed to Christ and His work. They discovered what God was doing and then became involved in it. The result of this decision propelled them into becoming a hero of the faith.
Texts:
Gen. 5:21-24
21When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. 22And after he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. 23Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years. 24Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.
Hebrews 11:5,6
5By 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. 6And 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.
Jude 1:14-16
14Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones 15to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” 16These men are grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.
Hebrews 11:1 –3 (NIV)
1Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
2This is what the ancients were commended for.
3By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
James 2:20-24 (NIV)
20You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? 21Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. 24You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.25In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? 26As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.
Introduction:
Enoch’s name means dedicated one. He definitely lived up to his name. Enoch life is summarized with some of the deepest words of the Bible. He was a man who walked with God for over 300 years on a daily basis and then one day he and God walked off to Heaven together. He was a man who was at peace with God a man who had a deep intimate relationship with the Lord. Enoch enjoyed a close communion with the Lord that many of us desire and crave. Enoch’s heart was toward God and not the world. He looked to God as that indescribable treasure of everything he desired in this life. He found it in his daily walk with the Lord. He walked with God in love, he would soar with the Lord when he walked him and one day he soared off into eternity with his first Love.
Nothing separated Enoch from the Lord not money, not business, not the world, not self-pleasure. He was never alone – the winds carried him to Heaven. Why?
Because nothing separated him from his daily walk with the Lord. It was his daily walk that enabled Enoch to soar to the heights of heaven. God just said to Him, “ Come away with me!”
Enoch was there because his faith enabled him to die to himself spiritually which helped him to surpass the natural death process. Lets learn three things from Enoch’s life:
I. Enoch’s life teaches us how to walk with God in a fallen world.
a. Enoch’s life had a mission and focus it was to walk with God.
i. Unity Baptist’s pastor shares from His sermon Faith: Enoch-walking with God in faith sermoncentral.com shares:
Picture in your mind, if you will, Enoch, walking with God in the coolness of the evening, just as night and day are meeting and lengthened shadows begin to fall across the earth…Together they walk, speaking, communicating, …One the created, the other the Creator…and as they walk, Enoch pleases God….Daily this walk takes place …it takes place in the chill of winter and the heat of summer…Enoch daily walks with God in the freshness of Spring and the drab foreboding of fall…And then, one day, as Enoch and God walk together and as the sun slowly sets, Enoch notices that he has traveled far from his home and from his family and he possibly says, ‘God , I did not realize we had walked together such a distance from my home, should we not turn now before the deep darkness of night falls?” and God, hearing these words of a man who pleased Him said, ”No, Enoch, Lets continue our walk. Tonight , I would like you to go home with me.” And together, God and Enoch, walked and continue to walk to this very day.”
• The idea to be pleasing to God is amazing considering how many are not pleasing to God. But Enoch was pleasing to God! These two walked side by side.
• Enoch kept pace with God and stayed clung to His side and one day they just strolled off together. Wow, what a way to be set free from this earth!
• Amos 3:3 tells us “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?”
ii. It was a life set on the purpose to progress in a walk with God.
1. Walking with God implies consistency daily. Enoch did not just walk with God for a while and then quit. He did not stand still with God he kept pace with God. He walked beside God and he never left His side. He walked in unbroken fellowship with the Creator of the universe.
a. It never says that Enoch argued with God where they should walk.
b. Enoch walked with God! He went where God went.
2. His walk did not just draw him closer to Heaven but it put distance between him and the world. His desires changed with each step he took with God.
3. He did not attempt to walk to Heaven on his own no he choose to walk with God following God’s Path of progression.
4. Enoch’s walked caused his faith to soar and his eyes to be totally fixed on the Lord.
iii. This implies a steady progress on a daily plan. It tells us we have to be intentional and protective of this time with Him.
1. Discipleship Journal tells us how to strengthen our walk with God:
a. Boehmig states, “A daily meeting with God is one of the greatest necessities of life. It is also one of the most difficult to maintain. How can you do it?
b. Here are some thoughts adapted from his article “Steps to Intimacy with God” from D.J. issue 32 pages 22-25.
i. Make a commitment to do it everyday.
1. “If you want something to dominant your life, you must do it daily.”
2. Pick a time that is best for you to do it! Guard it!
ii. When you start you walk with God be realistic – give it a reality check!
1. Don’t form to high of goals off the bat.
2. Set a realistic time to do it.
3. Don’t pray for Africa all in one day. Start small and build to a longer time frame.
4. Start with 15 minutes then after a month add 15 more!
5. If you can only do three minutes a day start with that.
iii. Keep a personal journal.
1. Follow a simple plan by first noting the date.
2. Enter the Scripture you have read today.
3. Write down any notes on the Scripture read.
4. What was the main thought of the text write it out. One sentence only.
a. This makes it easier to remember.
5. Write in the people you pray for.
a. Family
b. Friends
c. Church
d. People in need
6. Write down the personal prayer needs to pray for.
a. Devotional life
b. Spiritual Life
c. Personal goals
d. Today’s affairs
7. Then write down your reflections on the experiences and lessons of the previous day.
iv. Keep track of answered prayers for others and your own requests.
v. Keep track of your spiritual milestones.
vi. Hang in their for 6 weeks.
1. Some say it takes six weeks to form habits good and bad. Stick with it.
2. Enoch did it for over 300 years.
vii. Don’t allow discouragement to kill your prayer walk with GOD.
viii. Be creative some days do an actual prayer walk. When you walk by someone’s house pray for them.
1. When things cross your mind at work take time to say a prayer.
2. Pray in the car!
c. J.C. Ryle states, “Make it a part of every day’s business to read and meditate on some portion of God’s Word….yesterday’s bread will not feed the laborer of tomorrow. Do as the Israelites did in the wilderness. Gather your manna fresh every morning….Give the Bible the best, and not the worst, part of your time” (24).
iv. Thoughts on How to avoid a shriveled soul with God! In other words how to stay motivated and continually walk with God.
1. Discipleship Journal article by Borthwick:
a. “When I was a younger man, I heard someone say that life is the accumulation of one’s choices. Now I believe it. I see in myself good things and bad that are the result of repeated choices over the days, weeks, months, and years of my life. I am indeed reaping what I have sowed-for good and for ill.”
b. Nine ways to avoid a shriveled soul:
i. Avoid Gossip
ii. Release bitterness
iii. Take risks
iv. Trust
v. Don’t live for ‘Stuff’
vi. Master your appetites
vii. Grow deep
viii. Be generous
ix. Think globally
T.S.- Enoch’s walk with God teaches us the importance of a private devotional life and the importance of maintaining our fervor for the Lord. But we also learn the importance of placing our faith in the Lord because when we do it whole heartedly it pleases God.
II. Enoch’s faith teaches us the power of Faith in God.
a. Faith – is defined by the Holman Bible Dictionary:
i. FAITH Trusting commitment of one person to another, particularly of a person to God. Faith is the central concept of Christianity. One may be called a Christian only if one has faith. Our English word “faith” comes from the Latin fides, as developed through the Old French words fei and feid. In Middle English (1150-1475) “faith” replaced a word that eventually evolved into “belief.” “Faith” came to mean “loyalty to a person to whom one is bound by promise or duty.” Faith was fidelity. “Belief” came to be distinguished from faith as an intellectual process having to do with the acceptance of a proposition.
b. Enoch’s faith pleased God! Does yours please God?
i. Pleased defined – To do what someone else enjoys and loves.
ii. A faith that pleases God is vital to receive the blessings of walking with God and bypassing the death process.
T.S.- Not only do we learn from Enoch’s faith that pleased God but his message needs to be proclaimed by us so we can please God like he did.
III. Enoch’s God given message to this world still rings loud and true from Heaven .
a. His message is that God is coming back to this earth to judge each and everyone who has lived on it.
i. Yes, Enoch was a preacher of the Gospel.
b. Jude 1 – makes this fact known!
The Holy Bible, New International Version
Jude 1:1 (NIV)
1Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James,
To those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ:
Jude 1:2 (NIV)
2Mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance.
Jude 1:3 (NIV)
3Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.
Jude 1:4 (NIV)
4For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.
Jude 1:5 (NIV)
5Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe.
Jude 1:6 (NIV)
6And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.
Jude 1:7 (NIV)
In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.
Jude 1:8 (NIV)
8In the very same way, these dreamers pollute their own bodies, reject authority and slander celestial beings.
Jude 1:9 (NIV)
9But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”
Jude 1:10 (NIV)
10Yet these men speak abusively against whatever they do not understand; and what things they do understand by instinct, like unreasoning animals—these are the very things that destroy them.
Jude 1:11 (NIV)
11Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error; they have been destroyed in Korah’s rebellion.
Jude 1:12 (NIV)
12These men are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm—shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted—twice dead.
Jude 1:13 (NIV)
13They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.
Jude 1:14 (NIV)
14Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones
Jude 1:15 (NIV)
15to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”
Jude 1:16 (NIV)
16These men are grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.
Jude 1:17 (NIV)
17But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold.
Jude 1:18 (NIV)
18They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.”
Jude 1:19 (NIV)
19These are the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.
Jude 1:20 (NIV)
20But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit.
Jude 1:21 (NIV)
21Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.
c. Here is the warning to all listening today – Whether you want to be judged or not you will be judged by God and His host. Your evil deeds will be exposed and dealt with. You can try to lift yourself up and mock God but he will have the final say so in the end.
d. Enoch was not controlled by a fallen world and that is why he could walk with God.
i. It is also why he could deliver the message of God to fallen people as Jude shares here.
ii. The truth is we need more people like Enoch today. Men and women who are willing to proclaim God’s message to a fallen world.
1. Steven Cook shares why few today are willing to share God’s message:
a. It’s unpopular to the ungodly and they will not like you (Jude 14,15)
b. You could risk the loss of loved ones because they reject the message and you along with it (Jude 16)
c. People do not want to share that we will all be judged one day – maybe because it’s scary to know that this will happen.
e. We need men and women like Enoch who are willing to preach His message so that the harvest can go on for Jesus.
Conclusion: Enoch’s Life teaches us:
1. I am sure life was not always fair with Enoch- Having to live in a fallen world and preach to unrepentant people. This is hard especially when they do not like you. But God was faithful to Enoch because they daily walked together and talked about the tough times. My friend God’s presence is enough and Enoch’s life demonstrated this.
2. God used Enoch to reach lost people and even to walk off with Him one day – but Enoch was not perfect.
3. Enoch knew how to say “I choose to lose!” he knew that to walk with God daily he had to die his own daily plan and he chose to walk in step with the Lord. He also chose to walk on the paths God chose and not his own paths.
4. Enoch never quit walking with God for over 300 plus years and finally one day his persistence in walking with God paid off because he walked off with God. Enoch never said , “I am done walking with you- we never go anywhere”!
5. Enoch never lifted himself up he just lifted up Gods message and died to himself daily in his walks with God.
6. Enoch’s life teaches us the benefits of having a daily walk with God in a devotional way. His demonstrates to us what pleases God. His life teaches us how we need to proclaim God’s message to the people of the earth.
7. Enoch’s teaches us not to neglect God daily.
8. Enoch’s servant attitude with God brought him much more fame and fortune than he could ever have attained for himself doing things his own way.
