A Walk With God

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:

Setting the Stage:

If you read Genesis five you will see a pattern.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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.

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!

Let's admit, walking with God 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.

How can I learn to walk with God?

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

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

MTR: Commit to extended time in prayer.

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. 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.

MTR: