This morning I want to look at the life Enoch mentioned briefly in Genesis Chapter 5. “Enoch lived sixty-five years and begot Methuselah. After the birth of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God three hundred years and had other sons and daughters. Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him.”
Enoch “walked with God”. Say that with me, “Enoch walked with God”. Then he was not, for God took him. Here is a man who was the 7th generation after Adam, and he began to walk with God. I want to say three immediate things about this, just as “general” observations: 1) My first thought is “that is the place we ought to be, right there, walking with God”. His great-great-great-great-great-grandfather Adam had walked with God in the garden, and now here was a future generation in a one-on-one relationship with God.
2) Secondly we learn from this story that Enoch didn’t start walking with God until he was sixty-five years old. That is certainly comforting to us, that even if we have not been “walking with God” it is not too late for us to start. We know nothing of what Enoch did with those first sixty-five years, perhaps he was a really good person, but it was the next 300 that would make the real difference as he “walked with God.”
3) Third, just as a note, I also found it interesting that it was after the birth of his first child that Enoch turned to God. Some of us can relate to that.
BUT, what does it mean to walk with God? It meant “to walk close to Him”; it means to be “intimate”. 300 years of personal relationship. So powerful a relationship that God didn’t let him die, just took him straight up to heaven. So close a relationship that God wanted him to be with him in heaven. Enoch was apparently a prophet, but Moses doesn’t record the details of Enoch’s ministry, but what he does mention is the close relationship that he had with God.
In order to walk together, the Book of Amos (3:3) says “In order for two to walk together they have to agree”. We not only have to agree with God, but we have to have a passion for his presence. We have to desire to be intimate with God, putting aside our ways and seeking God’s. We have to desire and agree with the things of God. Desire to draw near to his presence.
There is a place that God desires for us to come to, that the world’s hold will lose its grip on us. In order to come to that place we have to give up our hunger for the things of this world, and get an appetite for God. In the Book of Proverbs “The soul that is full, will loathe the honeycomb” (Prov 27:7a). When your soul is filled with other things, and you are feeding your appetite with the desires and the pleasures of this world, and then you come to the banquet feast of God, and God lays before you His riches, and you go “mmgghh, I couldn’t eat another bite”. Actually loathing what is the good part, because you are already full of junk.
It is sort of like if I have mound of junk food that has been laying on the counter all day and every time you walk by you grab a package of Twinkies, a handful of popcorn, a snickers bar, a coke, some chocolate, and then at 4:00 o’clock I call you in for supper and you go “I’m not really very hungry”. I remember in Cotulla, little Kimball Martin had come with his parents to Communion and as I was about to serve him, he said “No thanks, I’ve got gum”. Now I don’t think Kimball even understood the implication that I am about to make, because he said it out of boyhood innocence. But the real implication is, that when we feed our appetites with something else, when we come to our relationship with God, even the sweet honeycomb will be loathsome to us. That Proverb goes on to say, its an interesting thing, “but to a ravenous appetite, even the bitter is made sweet” (Prov. 27:7b). Think about it, when you walk with God, even the most difficult tragedies in life, are just simply made sweeter by his presence. When we are feeding and hungry on a relationship with God, the bitter moments of life just get better. Just to finish that story, I was caught off guard by Kimball that morning, but the following month, I was ready for him, “O Kimball, this is something better than gum, the body of Christ, broken for you.”
I was thinking about the recent events in Joe Schafer’s life. Carla Mogford’s brother. Colon cancer was detected shortly after he went on a Walk to Emmaus. At first thought, it seems O’ how tragic, but from every account I have received, including from his Pastor in Sonora, is how his faith and walk with the Lord have been strengthened. I am certain that Joe already had Colon cancer when he went on the retreat, but God has used that event to be intimate with Joe, uplifting him even in the difficult moments of life. And what joy I saw last Tuesday night on his father’s face to give good reports on both Joe and his sister Sara.
So I ask, what is feeding your appetite? What is it you are hungry for? Are you eating just for pleasure, or are you taking on spiritual nourishment to strengthen your journey. Are you feeding on a relationship with God?
We have started this new Bible Study. Over 100 of you are reading it. If you do it faithfully, you can read the entire Bible through in a year. It takes just about 10 to 20 minutes a day. You can feed on the Word of God for just 20 minutes a day and draw near to God. God look at me and see that I am spending twenty minutes a day in Your Word. And God says “What are you doing with the other 1,420 minutes of the day?”
O’ watching television! And God says, ‘You feed your appetite for an hour watching television and you are bragging about eating my word for 10 to 20 minutes?’ (meekly) Well God, it was actually about four hours! (more assertive) But I did go to Church for a whole hour on Sunday! ‘Well take your hand an pat yourself on the back, because you have now spent (with the Bible reading) 3 ½ hours this week focusing on me, out of 168 hours available to you.’ And my friends that is less than 2% of the time, just a fraction of your week. Not so for Enoch, he must have been desperately hungry for God, and he pushed in to an intimate relationship with God, and walked with God. And Enoch pushed in so close that God just took him to be with him fulltime.
Intimacy is marked by a very close association with someone. In our opening “Call to Worship” today we read from James the 4th Chapter. That we are to submit ourselves to God. That we are to resist the devil. But more importantly that if we draw near to God, He will draw near to us. As we push in to closeness with God, He will be pushing in to a relationship with us. As we draw near, and pray more and more, God will be walking with us and communicating with us. As we study, God will be pushing in revealing. In fact God has been waiting for us to come walk with him. In fact we show up and say, ‘O’ God, I’m glad I found you here in the garden’ And God goes “What took you so long?” In fact God started it with Adam, looking for Adam in the garden “Where are you?”… “I want to walk with you?” …
We are over here and we are hiding! “Why are you hiding?” Because we are naked and exposed, because we have spent our week filling it with pleasures and in our gluttony we have no room left for you. And God said to Adam, “Who told you that you were naked?”
You know what Adam was walking so close to God that he didn’t even have to tell Adam that he was sinning. Adam was hiding because he already knew the problem. And so do you. How long has it been since you have been intimate with God? How long has it been since you have come to the cross? How long has it been since you came to the altar and walked and talked with God about your relationship?
(1) Inspired by John Lanier “Hungry for God”, Part I
