THE 7 CHARACTERISTICS OF THOSE WHO WALK WITH GOD
Genesis 5:21-24
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR: BIBLE RIDDLES
1. Q. What kind of man was Boaz before he married Ruth? A. Ruthless.
2. Q. What do they call pastors in Germany? A. German Shepherds.
3. Q. Who was the greatest financier in the Bible? A. Noah He was floating his stock while everyone else was in liquidation.
4. Q. Who was the greatest female financier in the Bible? A. Pharaoh's daughter. She went down to the bank of the Nile and drew out a little prophet.
5. Q. What kind of motor vehicles are in the Bible? A. Jehovah drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden in a Fury. David's Triumph was heard throughout the land. Also, there was a Honda, because the apostles were all in one Accord.
6. Q. Who was the greatest comedian in the Bible? A. Samson. He brought the house down.
7. Q. What excuse did Adam give to his children as to why he no longer lived in Eden? A. “Your mother ate us out of house and home.”
B. SCRIPTURES
1. “When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. And after he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years. Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.” Gen. 5:21-25
2. “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.” Hebrews 11:5
C. WALKING WITH GOD: WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
The writer of Hebrews equates walking with God as pleasing God. What exactly does walking with God mean?
1. Talking to God in Prayer.
2. It means living in the presence of God.
3. It’s the same thing as abiding in Jesus. He said, “Abide in me, and I in you” Jn. 15:4. The Life Application Bible Commentary says, abiding in Jesus means: Believing He is the Son of God, 1 Jn. 4:15,
a. Receiving Him as Savior and Lord, Jn. 1:12,
b. Doing what He says, 1 Jn. 3:24,
c. Continuing to believe the gospel, 1 Jn. 2:24,
d. Loving others in the Church, Jn. 15:12.
4. It’s a moment-by-moment decision. We can’t be neutral; we have to be actively involved with God.
5. Title: “THE 7 CHARACTERISTICS OF THOSE WHO WALK WITH GOD.”
I. WALKING WITH GOD INVOLVES THE WAY WE THINK
A. MENTAL STATE: FRIENDS OR ENEMIES
1. Paul told the Colossians, “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds…” Col. 1:21. Noah’s entire generation were enemies in their minds, but not Enoch. If you entertain evil thoughts, you can be an enemy of God in your mind and not know it!
2. Heb. 11:5 says, “Enoch pleased God.” [‘Pleased’ defined: God had the “feeling of pleasure and satisfaction with Enoch’s thoughts and lifestyle.”
3. Paul said, “be not conformed to this world: But be transformed by the renewing of your mind” Rom. 12:2. Enoch must have done that. He thought on things that are “true, honest, just, pure, lovely and of good report” Phil. 4:8.
4. It’s difficult to do. But walking with God requires us to cooperate with God in the transformation of our thinking. Someone said, “The greatest conflict taking place in the world today is the battle for control of our minds.”
B. INNER, NOT OUTER LIFE
1. The Devil tries to tell us that if our outer life is ok, then we’re fine with God. But God says, “The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” 1 Sam. 16:7. Our inner life & our fruit are what’s important.
2. We have a choice; Submit to God and resist the Devil. Paul said, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” Phil. 2:5.
3. Stop thinking like the Devil; start thinking like Jesus! The Psalmist said, “I have hidden Your word in my heart
that I might not sin against You” (119:11). God’s Word will change our outlook. Substitute God’s thoughts for your thoughts.
II. WALKING WITH GOD INVOLVES UNBROKEN FELLOWSHIP
A. STAYING IN FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD
1. Gen. 5:22 says, “After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years.”
This implies that Enoch had unbroken fellowship with God for 300 years! What a splendid walk!
2. One might desire a change of company if he walked with anybody else, but to walk with God for three centuries was so sweet that the patriarch kept on with his walk until he walked beyond time and space, and walked into paradise, where he’s still walking in the same divine company.
3. We also can have this kind of acceptance due to the blood of Jesus! “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin” 1 Jn. 1:7.
4. A problem arises if we try to walk with God while we’re at odds with people, especially those at Church.
B. ILLUSTRATION
1. A farmer noticed a lot of dust and noise in his neighbor’s corral. Two oxen were fighting. His neighbor was urging them on with a stick.
2. He asked, “Instead of urging the oxen on with a stick, why don’t you stop them?” His neighbor said, “I can’t use them to pull my ox cart until they learn to get along.” “If I harness them together before they learn cooperation, they will pull in different directions.”
III. WALKING WITH GOD INVOLVES STEADY PROGRESS
A. A CHANGE IN LOCATION
1. Unless you’re walking just for exercise, walking requires going from point A to point B.
2. Enoch walked with God. At the end of two hundred years he was not where he began, he was in the same company, but he had advanced in his personal sanctification.
3. Enoch enjoyed more, understood more, loved more, had received more, and could give out more. A man or woman who walks with God will necessarily grow in grace and the knowledge of God, and in likeness to Christ.
4. We can’t imagine NOT seeing improvement, because “He who walks with the wise GROWS WISE…” Prov. 13:20. So we believe that Enoch’s life was a life of spiritual progress, he made headway in the things of the Spirit.
B. ARE WE GROWING IN GOD?
1. Peter advised us to, “grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” 2 Pet. 3:18. “Growing in grace” requires increasing our spirituality. “Growing in knowledge” requires learning the Scriptures, getting to know Jesus better and better.
2. It involves spending more time with Jesus than we used to; going farther with Jesus than we used to; becoming more fervent in the Spirit. So if you’re growing weaker, you need to alter your walk!
3. Instead of praying for just three minutes or reading your Bible five minutes, you should be increasing. Jesus told the church at Thyatira, “You are now doing more than you did at first” Rev. 2:19.
4. In 1970, David Kunst began his walk around the world. He walked for four and one-half years and for 15,000 miles. He wore out twenty-two pairs of shoes.
5. God’s not asking us to walk around the world but He is asking us to make progress. Everyone in this room can be a spiritual giant, but you will have to commit yourself to it and stick with it.
IV. WALKING WITH GOD INVOLVES SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD
A. WE MUST WALK IN THE LIGHT
1. I John 1:6-7, “If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin”.
2. “To walk in the Light” means to know the truth and to walk in it. It means to live holy lives in a dark world. Eph. 5:8 says, “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light…” and Phil. 2:15 says, “…that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world…”
B. IT MEANS TO KEEP HIS COMMANDS
1. God is holy by nature. He determines right & wrong by whether it’s consistent with His holy nature. To do what’s wrong in God’s sight is to violate His nature.
2. If our hearts and actions line up with God’s nature, we’re pleasing to Him. That’s what David meant when he told his son Solomon to “walk in His ways” 1 Kgs. 2:2-3.
3. Jesus said, “Whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight” Jn. 3:22.
C. WE CAN’T WALK WITH GOD & THE WORLD
1. “No man who is at war entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier” 2 Tim. 2:4.
2. Christianity’s not a playground, it’s a spiritual battlefield and some are losing the spiritual battle because they’ve managed to get tangled up in extracurricular activities.
3. We can get all tangled up in hobbies, sports, or whatever. But if we wish to walk with God, we can’t be distracted by other things. God won’t be allowed to be second place in our lives!
V. WALKING WITH GOD INVOLVES UNFAILING PERSEVERENCE
A. SOME PEOPLE QUIT WALKING WITH GOD
1. Adam and Eve stopped. They walked with God in the Garden of Eden, but after they ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, they were afraid of God and fled from Him.
2. But it was not so with Enoch. He walked with God three hundred years; Spring and summer fall and winter!
3. Martin Luther said, “I know not the way God leads me. But well do I know my Guide.” This great man of God was saying, “I don’t know which way God wants me to go. But I know He will get me there.”
B. EVEN WHEN LIFE IS DIFFICULT
1. Enoch walked with God in good times and in bad; in peace & in trouble. When life gets difficult – when we get sick or lose a loved one, we can say with Paul, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day” 2 Tim. 1:12.
2. Because we know Him and what He’s promised, we can be assured “I’m not alone,” “He knows the way that I take” Job 23:10.
3. We can be confident that “All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” Rom. 8:28.
VI. WALKING WITH GOD BRINGS FUTURE BLESSINGS
A. THERE’S JOY IN PLEASING GOD
1. I’ve heard elderly people say, “I’m ready to go.” I’ve stood in front of caskets and heard people say, “My loved one’s better off.” There’s a lot of satisfaction in a life lived for God. Someday, we’ll be in that casket. We need to do something about this before we get there.
2. The writer of Hebrews said, Enoch “pleased God.” There’s something wrong if we don’t want the summary of our life to be that we pleased God. We should all want to hear God say, “Well done, good and faithful servant!” Luke 25:21.
B. THE END-PRODUCT OF WALKING WITH GOD
1. Moses said, “Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him” Gen. 5:24. Paul said, “Enoch was translated that he should not see death” Heb. 11:5.
2. The Latin word for “translated” means “carried over,” “carried across” or “caught up.”
3. One minute, Enoch walked with God; the next minute, God “carried him over,” “carried him across,” or “caught him up” into heaven!
4. Someone described it as, "One day Enoch and God were walking along and God said to Enoch, “Enoch, I think we’re closer to My house than to yours, so why don’t you just come on home with Me today!”
VII. WALKING WITH GOD INVOLVES FAITH
A. PLEASE MEN OR GOD?
1. Paul said, “Without faith it is impossible to please God” Heb. 11:6. Without a living faith, without an active faith, it’s impossible to please God.
2. He told the Thessalonians, we don’t try to please men, we try to please God (I Thess. 2:4). Our faith doesn’t cause us to be “people-pleasers.” We shouldn’t be seeking human popularity or fame, but to please God!
B. THE SPIRIT HELPS US DO THIS
1. Gal. 5:25, “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”
2. To walk with God, we go in His direction and at His pace. We don’t want to run ahead or lag behind. We need to keep in step with Him!
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION
1. Oluchi Nwankwo was a child growing up in Nigeria.
He’d heard about Jesus -- how He loved children; he was taught about His birth, His miracles, and how He healed the sick and accepted all who came to Him.
2. He was anxious to see this Jesus face to face. He wanted Him to touch him. But of all the Christians he’d met, none resembled this affectionate Jesus; none cared like Jesus.
3. Then one fateful day, on the street of Aba in Abia State, Nigeria, this little boy, age of 6, was hawking some bananas as instructed by his Aunty. “Banana, banana” he chanted along the way.
4. Suddenly he was bumped by a bus, knocked down and his bananas were crushed and mashed. He wept as he remembered the whipping that awaited him at home. He began to wail.
5. Yet no one cared; people walked around him going on with their business. He desperately wished Jesus were there to console him and throw His arms around him. He sat there wailing.
6. “Then suddenly a man walked straight to me and asked why I was crying. I showed him my crushed bananas and told of the punishment that awaited me at home.
7. “The man bent down, placed his hand on my shoulder, and asked how much it all cost? I told him. He pulled out from his pocket, five hundred Naira (approx. $4.00) and bade me go in peace.
8. Joy filled my heart. Oh, at last I had met Jesus! Who else could be so good? I joyfully asked the man: “Sir, are you Jesus? -- the Jesus I’ve been told about?” He simply smiled and said, “No, but I am his ambassador; I’m a child of God.”
9. That encounter changed Oluchi’s life forever. Oluchi HAD SEEN JESUS through the life of one of His disciples, in that singular demonstration of the love of Christ.
10. “…You are the Epistle of Christ …written not with ink, but with the Spirit of God” 2nd Cor. 3:3. [Told by Sis. Nwankwo.]
B. THE CALL
1. Will you make a commitment to walk with God? Will you take one step that will bring you closer to God?
2. You have to decide whether you will listen to God or listen to the Devil. Will you listen to God? Will you do what He wants you to do today? Prayer.
[I don’t know if this message is completely original with me, I’ve had it for many years. If any of my readers recognizes their work in this message, let me know and I will give you the credit. Thanks.]
