Walking Tall

October 8, 2006. Walking Tall. Genesis 5:21-24.

In many ways Genesis 5 is a contrast to Genesis 4. Beginning with Cain Genesis 4 describes the downward spiral of an ungodly world that is epitomized by the prideful, rebellious and murderous song of Lamech. Genesis 4 presents a willful, conscious effort to push God out of human society. In Genesis 4 Cain the murderer is seen as a hero, one worthy of respect, admiration and emulation.
Genesis 5 presents the activity of God’s grace with humanity and the results of that grace which is a desire to walk with God and hope for His deliverance.

A few things are worth mentioning about the chapter before we get to one of the two main characters it presents.
First, Genesis 5 gives a quick, but pertinent review of the creation of mankind.
People were made in God’s image with the capacity to pass that image on to their descendants. God created people male and female. The Scripture thus emphasizes that there are two distinct sexes each made in God’s image and each complimenting the other for God’s glory. God blessed Adam and Eve giving them special grace so that they could begin to fulfill His command to be fruitful and multiply throughout the earth. Adam’s rebellion and mankind’s fall from the state of innocence into one of sin isn’t mentioned directly. However, the footnote that closes Adam’s life is all we need to know that something went terribly wrong. Man was created in God’s image, blessed by God, had many many children in obedience to God’s command, but were not created to die. Yet beginning with Adam and each of his other main descendents everyone dies except Enoch who is the seventh from Adam and one of the most unique people in all of Scripture.

The story of Enoch begins with his name. It means to instruct, to initiate, to dedicate. Enoch’s name indicates clearly that through Adam’s son Seth a line of humanity developed that sought, worshiped and strived to obey the Lord. Enoch was given over to the Lord at his birth. He was initiated in the worship of God through the sacrificial system. And he was instructed in the ways and character of God. Enoch took advantage of these spiritual graces to pursue a lifelong walk with the Lord.

Enoch’s walk with the Lord begins with his parents bringing him up in the knowledge of the Lord and continues when he makes a determined decision to walk with the Lord.
We know that Enoch made this decision being fully aware of the other way to live.

The Scripture uses the term walk to describe one’s way of thinking and living.
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2  in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Eph. 2:1-3.

Paul isn’t saying that sin which is disobedience to God’s commands was an occasional action or even nagging habit for us. Sin was our way of life. We pursued a lifestyle of breaking God’s law and lived to carry out the passions of our sinful nature.
Gen. 5 is the first time the Scripture uses the term walk to describe how someone conducts his or her life and the direction they choose to follow in their life. Thus, what did it mean for Enoch to walk before God and what does that have to say to us today concerning our walk with the Lord.

To walk with the Lord is to take delight in Him. You can see this from Psalm 1 which contrasts those who walk in ungodliness with those who walk with the Lord. The ungodly person walks in the counsel of the wicked, while the godly man delight in the law of the Lord, thus demonstrating His delight in God.
God’s law reveals the purity of His holiness along with the perfection of His character. His word discloses the supremacy of His ways and manifests the wisdom, plan and blessedness of His salvation found in Jesus Christ.

Do you delight in God’s word? Do you want to hear from God by hearing his word preached and reading through His word? Is His word more treasured and valuable than the ideas, philosophies and ideologies of the world around us, especially as they are contrary to God’s word.

Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord! 2 Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart, 3 who also do no wrong, but walk in his ways! Psalm 119:1-3.

To walk with the Lord is to be aware of His presence. It is to live in such a way that reveres His Person and respects His holiness.

Enoch lived like he knew and appreciated the fact that God was fully aware of his every thought, every word and every action, thus before speaking or acting Enoch consciously weighed what he did with the knowledge that he didn’t do it in secret. He ordered his way of life toward the end that God would be pleased with what He saw. Enoch bowed to no peer pressure save from the Lord Himself. Enoch was delighted to have God’s approval on his life and did not give way to the fear of peer pressure just to appear alright in the eyes of others.

In whose eyes do you seek approval?

To walk with the Lord is to love God’s people. Walking with the Lord is never done apart from relating to others. We demonstrate our respect, love and obedience to God by showing love toward others.
Compassion - a feeling of distress at the pain of other coupled with a wish to see that suffering end. For instance the children in Invisible Children.
Kindness - showing goodness and favor toward others.
Humility - the desire or grace to put the needs of others ahead of your rights and privileges.
Gentleness - the quality of dealing with little force or being mild when having to correct, teach or rebuke someone.
Patience - continuing to love and seek fellowship with someone while waiting for the Lord to change their character.

You cannot walk with God without affecting others in a godly way. Moreover, just as God created us to be in relation to Him so He’s made us to be in relation to each other.

To walk with the Lord is to embrace, value and promote truth. The church has been given the responsibility to both guard and promote truth about God, His will, His salvation and the Person and work of Jesus Christ.
The people of God cannot take a nonchalant attitude toward truth no more than an attorney can take a casual attitude toward the law.
Truth is important because God takes seriously what He’s revealed about Himself. Moreover, the church is the only human entity that God has entrusted His truth to. As Paul told Timothy the church is the household of God the pillar and foundation of the truth.

Finally, to walk with the Lord is to engage a lifestyle of doing good works.
The second chapter of Ephesians begins by describing how we once walked or engaged in a lifestyle of sinful selfishness. That particular passage ends in verse 10 with Paul saying that subsequent to salvation we now walk in good works.
 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

Enoch’s walk with God included a lifestyle of witness as testified by Jude (Jude 14-15).
Walking with God calls us to walk among those who don’t know Him as a witness of His love, grace, compassion and holiness in Jesus Christ. As believers who walk with the Lord we look for ways to do good and so open up opportunities to declare the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Enoch’s story is unique in many ways one of which is his possible example of what may have happened to man had Adam not fallen into sin. It could be that man created innocent and without sin was to spend a lifetime carrying out God’s commands to subdue and fill the earth until the Lord literally brought him up to heaven. While that is mere speculation the stark reality is that apart from Enoch and later Elijah all people die.
This may have been on the mind of Enoch’s grandson Lamech the father of Noah. In Gen. 5:29 Lamech spoke of the hope of full and final deliverance from sin and its affects through the Noah. Though Noah provided a crucial temporary deliverance he was ultimately not the one who provided complete and permanent relief. That honor belongs to Jesus Christ.

Like Enoch, Jesus Christ walked with God. He delighted in honoring His Father and carrying out His will and agenda. Jesus lived before the eyes of His Father fully intent on pleasing Him in every area of His life. Obviously, Jesus loved His people. He demonstrated that love in showing compassion while He walked among them and then by dying on the cross for their sins. Jesus valued, promoted and proclaimed truth about His Father, Himself, mankind, sin and salvation. His life was filled with doing good and declaring the gospel of the kingdom centered on Himself and His work.
Like Enoch Jesus walked with God and could have been taken without having to die especially since unlike Enoch Jesus wasn’t born with a sinful nature nor did He commit any sin in His lifetime.
Yet our Lord’s walk with the Lord took Him to the cross so that He might die for all those who haven’t walked with God. He went to the cross so that those like us who don’t deserve to be taken to the Lord and enjoy His presence forever could spend an eternity delighting in Him as He shows us the riches of His incomparable kindness in Jesus Christ.

To Him Who Loves Us…
Pastor Lance