We’re working through the list of heroes in Hebrews 11 and last Sunday we looked at Enoch. There were a few eyebrows raised when people realised he would be the subject for our all-age service but in fact he’s an excellent choice as we explored what it means to walk with God.
Key texts: Hebrews 11:5-6; Genesis 5:21-24; Jude 14-15
Enoch walked with God. Walking with God = talking, laughing, listening, crying with God, like with a best friend. When walking with someone you love and trust: sometimes you chat about everyday things, sometimes you chat about deep things, sometimes you are silent and just enjoy the scenes around you, sometimes you laugh and play, sometimes you point things out to each other along the way… this is a picture of how we can relate to God. This is what Enoch did and it pleased God.
God invites us to walk with him.
Lev 26:12: “I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people.” (2 Cor 6:16)
Luke 24:14-16 “They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them.”
1 John 1:7 – “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
Enoch walked in the light. From his short speech in Jude we see Enoch was pretty clear about light and dark; right and wrong; godly and ungodly. He committed himself to walk with God. In the light.
We so often choose to walk our own way, do our own thing. We reject God’s outstretched hand. As a result we walk away from light and life and love and towards darkness, death & despair. So Jesus came to show us the way (He is the way the truth and the life). He takes our sin, our rejection of God and takes it from us and he takes our death and shows us that death will not have the last word.
It’s a choice we make to walk with God
Amos 3:3 “Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?”
God & Enoch had an agreement. Through the choices we make. The more we’re around someone, the more we’ll become like them. The more we’re around God, the more we’ll know Him and want to live for Him. Our faith pleases God. It is a joyful, wonderful, freeing thing to walk with God, rather than a duty that we beat ourselves up for when we go off-track. To walk with him is a gift of grace.
2 John 1:6 “And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.”
God rewards those who walk with Him
Enoch went to heaven without dying. This is what we know Enoch for (we loved this child’s retelling of the story). But, to his friends and people who he was living with, Enoch was already famous before he died. He was famous for putting God first.
3 Jn 1:4 “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.”
This is the joy John shares with his church but I believe it speaks too to God’s heart for his children. Walking with him gives him joy.
I’m not a Liverpool fan (although some in the church were) but there is their famous song, ‘you’ll never walk alone’. In this video the fans (who worship the club) promise they will never let them walk alone. They will always be there. Their loyalty and affection is assured. It’s quite a moving sporting moment (and shows why the squad a re famous for football and not singing).
Yet in the gospel our promise is not from us to God but from God to us. If we are in Christ we will never walk alone. He will walk with us. He will bring His work to completion. He will lead us home.
Leave a Reply