How is your walk?  Now I’m not referring to your strut or your swagger.  Or whether you’ve got a hitch in your hip, or a prance in your dance.  I mean how is your walk with God?  Most often we describe walking with God in terms of closeness in relationship, and steadiness in progress.  Sometimes people mistakenly associate walking with God with a Kincaid portrait and the old hymn In the Garden playing in the background. 

Let’s look at a biblical illustration of walking with God using the Scriptures as our guide.

There are few Bible characters as intriguing and obscure as Enoch.  In light of recent presentations from Creation Ministries International, I would encourage you to take some time to read Genesis chapters 5-10.  Zeroing in on Genesis 5:21-24 we learn that Enoch: fathered Methuselah, walked with God, and was transported out of this world in a way that is atypical.

 Closeness of fellowship between God and our first parents was broken by sin.  We see the affect of sin on humanities ability to have a vibrant relationship with God in Genesis 3:8.  There was a time when the sound of God walking in the garden in the cool of the day brought a sense of security, love, and joy to our first parents Adam and Eve.  Sin left them only with the feeling of guilt and shame.  Pertaining to us, the catastrophic result of sin is not only a severed relationship with God; but death.  Romans 5:12 indicates, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.”

 In an unusual fashion, the cycle of death in the genealogy of Adam was broken by Enoch who “walked with God, and he was not, for God took him” (Gen.5:24).  This means that by some supernatural means Enoch bypassed deaths dark portal.  As one of my Bible School professors once said, “he is one of those guys that aint dead yet!“ 

 Enoch’s walk with God offers 3 takeaways for us to consider for our own walk with God.  As a summation of Enoch’s life, consider Hebrews 11:5 which says, “By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him.  Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God.  And without faith it is impossible to please him for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”                      

 Firstly, God provides the only means of escaping the fear of death.  Death is a dooming reality we tend to think very little about.  It is almost as if we think life as we know it will carry on forever.  Enoch (Gen.5:21-24) and Elijah (2 Kings 2:1-12) are two death evaders prefiguring the deliverance from death into which Jesus leads the faithful.  Hebrews 2:14-15 says in reference to Jesus Christ, “he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to life-long slavery.  You do not need to be a slave of the grave if you make Christ’s deliverance from death the basis of your own deliverance from death. 

 Second off,  pleasing God is the defining principle of walking with God.  From Genesis 5:22 we are told that “Enoch walked with God 300 years after he fathered Methuselah and had other sons and daughters.”  Fathering Methuselah marked a profound change in Enoch‘s life.  I suppose many fathers at Calvary Grace can identify with this.  Whether Methuselah was a difficult sleeper as a baby or a wild child through his teenage years is unknown to us.  What we do know is that the name Enoch chose for his son means, “When he is dead it shall be sent.”  One can understand the meaning attached to the boys name referring to the great flood.  It as though God showed up and said to Enoch, “The world will be forever changed after your boy dies.”  Or, “When he dies, judgment will come on the world for its wickedness.”  Can you imagine how that changed Enoch’s perspective on life?  Probably left him with some sobering thoughts about eternity.  How has the significance of what God has told us in His Word changed your outlook on life?  Do you sense God’s presence in your life in a significant way?  Is your walk with God marked by a desire to please God?  A.W. Pink once said, “Walking with God means that we cease taking our own way, that we abandon the worlds way, and that we follow the divine way.” 

 Lastly, Enoch’s 365 year life points to the necessity of walking by faith.  The opposite of walking by faith is walking by sight.  Have you ever walked around your house in the dark?  If you didn’t think I was crazy before asking, now I’ve removed all doubt!  You are likely able to navigate to where you want to get to based on familiarity with your surroundings.  Now envision for a moment moving into a new house and doing the same thing.  You walk around with hesitation, groping the walls, tripping over your own feet, uneasy about each step you take.  Walking by faith is akin to walking in the light.  I conclude with Paul’s exhortation to the Ephesians where he says, “for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.  Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true) and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:8,9).  Let us continue to walk with the Lord, with the view of pleasing him in all that is good, and right, and true.