Revision as of 17:32, 6 April 2023

Theological Proposition/Focus: God is a God who desires a relationship with each of us and therefore we have the opportunity to walk with God.

Homiletical Proposition/Application: Walking with God involves close communion, brings true satisfaction, and is something we are able to do!

Introduction:

Image:

Need: We need to learn how to walk with God because it has the potential to change every aspect of our life.

Subject: Prayer

Preview: Today we are going to talk about walking with God. We will begin with what, move to why, and conclude with how.

Text: Genesis 5:24

Setting the Stage:

If you read Genesis five you will see a pattern.

Adam live, bore a son, lived some more and then he died.

Seth lived, bore a son, loves some more and then he died.

Enosh lived, bore a son, lived some more and then he died.

The pattern continues throughout the chapter but one individual breaks the pattern.

Genesis 5:24 states "Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away (NIV)."

This "no more" comes from the Hebrew particle אַיִן with a pronominal suffix to mean "he was not." This is in stark contrast with those who died earlier and we are supposed to recognize the difference between the earthly end of this man who walked closely with God and all the others.

This begs the question: what does it mean to walk with God and how can I better walk with God?

Body

What does it look like to walk with God?

Hebrews 11:5

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.

We read the description of Enoch in Genesis but there is another reference to Enoch in Hebrews 11:5. Tucked in the testament of the faithful who walked closely with God is this reference to a man whose faith resulted in his assumption to heaven without experiencing death. So what does such a walk look like?

Walking with God looks like taking steps of faith (2 Cor. 5:6-9).

Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. For we live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.

The Context of 2 Cor. 5 is a focus on our future Heavenly dwelling.

A walk with God starts with a recognition that this present existence is not the be all end all of life. We look forward to a future in Heaven. And such a perspective should change us.

Fear of death is replaced with expectation of Heaven.

The physical comfort of life is replaced with an earnest longing for the presence of God.

The security of the seen is replace with faith in the unseen.

The goals of the present are replaced with eternal goals.

Image: a feedback loop

Compound interest is an example of positive feedback loops.

In all sorts of areas of technology there is what is called a feedback loop. Feedback loops can be good, when used properly, and bad, when improperly managed. Interest on an investment is a sort of positive feedback loop. Suppose your receive a large sum of money and invest it in a bank. After a yer you earn some interest and reinvest that, then the next year you have even more money to invest and earn even more money. This is what is called a positive feedback loop. I think that in many areas of our walk we have a positive feedback loop situation. You are faced with a trial, you put your focus on heaven and faithfully endure the trial. You see how God helped you through the trial and trust him more. In the next trail you again trust God but now your faith is even stronger because you grew in the last trial.

What is the point? you don't need to be a spiritual giant today, you just need to start with something small.

Walking with God looks like denial of the flesh and embracing of the Spirit (Romans 8:4).

in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

In Romans, and really in other epistles, Paul pits two areas of life against each other, life in the flesh and life by the Spirit. So, we need to better understand what the flesh is.

The flesh consists of the deep desires that pull us toward self: self-preservation, self-fulfillment, and self-exaltation.

One Christian Philosopher, Alvin Plantinga draws this further in describing sin as an affective disorder that we all deal with.

Plantinga writes

Our affections are skewed, directed to the wrong objects; we love and hate the wrong things. Instead of seeking first the kingdom of God, I am inclined to seek first my own personal glorification and aggrandizement, bending all my efforts toward making myself look good. Instead of loving God above all and my neighbor as myself, I am inclined to love myself above all and, indeed, to hate God and my neighbor....The defect here is affective, not intellectual. Our affections are disordered; they no longer work as in God’s original design plan for human beings. There is a failure of proper function, an affective disorder, a sort of madness of the will. In this condition, we know (in some way and to some degree) what is to be loved (what is objectively lovable), but we nevertheless perversely turn away from what ought to be loved and instead love something else.^[1]

In Romans 7:15 Paul writes "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do."

And In Romans 8:15 we see that living according to the Spirit involves putting to death our selfish self-centeredness.

For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.

Colossians 3:5 further states "Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry."

Walking with God looks like a life of prayer (Luke 6:12).

One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.

We need to model our life after Christ, he is the one who knows what it is to walk with God because was and is God!

Moreover, prayer is naturally in opposition to the flesh.

Prayer involves wrestling or grappling in large part because to pray is to admit we have need. Our flesh wants us to be our god and prayer forces us to acknowledge that we are not God and surrender ourselves to God.

In Summary: Walking with God looks like taking steps of faith to deny the flesh embracing the Spirit all through the power of prayer.

Why should I strive to walk with God?

Image: If I were Enoch I am worried that I would have told God "just wait, I am not ready yet."

Yes, I have to admit, I am not ready to leave this earth. There is still much I want to accomplish and while spiritually I know where I am going, I really am not ready yet. If God were to offer to take me to Heaven right now, I am afraid that I might say, "can we wait a bit?" What does this tell you about me? Well, for one, it tells you that I have not arrived in my walk with God. I really think that if my walk was where it should be then I would quickly respond to God and tell him that if He is ready for me to come to Heaven then so am I!

The answer is actually pretty simple, you should walk with God because you need God. But don't take my word for it, take what the Bible itself says.

Everybody has a God-shaped hole in their heart (Psalm 42:1-5).

Just listen to Psalm 42

1 As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? 3 My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” 4 These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go to the house of God under the protection of the Mighty One[d] with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng. 5 Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.

We each long for the ultimate relationship. Whether we know it or not, we are longing to walk with God.

Everybody needs a steadfast anchor in a fallen world (Psalm 1)

Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, 2 but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. 3 That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers. 4 Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. 5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. 6 For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.

Everybody needs a completely trustworthy friend (John 15 13-15)

13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

How can I learn to walk with God?

MTR: Take time to learn God's words

Do you have someone you are really close with that you can talk with and you know the meaning behind the meaning when they speak? Or maybe you have been with someone so much that you start to speak like them. Psalm 119 speaks extensively of God's word and in verse 11 we read

Psalm 119:11 I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.>/p> When we are regularly in God's Word we will naturally begin to at more and more like God! The net item required in order to walk with God is to make sure you are aligned with God.

MTR: Take time to align yourself with God's will.

In Amos chapter 3 Amos is speaking of the inevitable judgement that Israel is facing because of their sin. In order to make this argument Amos asks seven rhetorical questions that are meant to show Israel that some elements of life are common to all. One such common to all element is that fact that people walk together when they have a common purpose.

Amos 3:3, Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?

Image: Walking in crowds is not walking with someone.

I am sure you have been in large crowd of people. There is a big difference between navigating a crowd at the mall and navigating a crowd after a Huskers game. At the mall people walk randomly after the Huskers game everyone is walking with a purpose, to get back to their car. If you go downtown today and just walk around you will find that at times you are walking near someone but eventually they will duck into a tore, take a turn, sit-down or something else and you will no longer be walking near that person. You will immediately realize you were not walking with that person.

If you do not align yourself with God's will you may find yourself crossing his path periodically but you will never find yourself walking with God.!

MTR: Commit to extended time in prayer.

Let's admit it, extended time in prayer can be difficult.

Prayer is hard because it is a battle with the flesh. We must submit to the will of God and admit that God may not change anything in our circumstances but rather may change our will to better align with his. Prayer requires that be declare our complete dependence on God. That is hard but it is key to a relationship.

Image: The average person speaks around 16,000 words a day.

There are plenty of anecdotal claims about how much men and women talk but from what I can tell of actual citable sources, it seems that both men and women speak on average 16,000 words a day^[2]. With that in mind consider this: a relationship based entirely on short phrases is not a relationship. What would happen at home if you spoke to your spouse, parent, or roommate at most 3 sentences at a time a half dozen times a day? But how much better is your prayer life?

Luke 6:12, One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.

Jesus went - sometimes the reason we fail in prayer is because we fail to set aside for prayer.

Jesus intended - make sure prayer is more than just an accident but purposeful.

Jesus spent - prayer takes time

Jesus prayed to God - pray always includes God!

1. ↑ Plantinga, Alvin. Warranted christian belief. Oxford University Press on Demand, 2000. 206-208
2. ↑ Greve, Joan E. “Once Again: Do Women Talk More than Men?” Time. Time, July 16, 2014. https://time.com/2992051/women-talk-more-study/.