Sermons

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January 13, 2002
First in a series on “Walking By Faith”
Pastor Dan Baumgartner

Genesis 5:21-24 & Hebrews 11:5-6

Yesterday I had the privilege of teaching a Young Life Leadership seminar down at SPU. The topic they gave me was “studying the Bible.”

That happens to be something I am very passionate about, and could probably have talked for much longer than they invited me to. I found myself telling these college students from all over Western Washington (it’s always interesting to stand up in front of folks to talk, and listen to what comes out of your mouth!) about what we do hear at Bethany in pausing to light a candle each week before the sermon text is read. You know, we don’t do it because God somehow hasn’t been here up to this point in the service. But it’s a reminder, just a move we make to mark the action of coming to the scripture each week. It’s an acknowledgment that God really does speak through the scripture, and that we want to come expectantly to hear that Word.

If you listen to the commercials on TV, especially the beer commercials…we only get one shot at this journey called life, so “Let’s go for it!” Let’s see how far we can get, let’s travel the maximum distance possible. But how will we measure it? The most common units of measure are things like career accomplishments, like status with our peers, or public recognition. Or maybe gaining the ability to retire early, and be financially secure to do other things. Or in a better light, the number and quality of relationships we accumulate along the way. All these can be signposts that measure how far we’ve made it.

We think (and act) like the most import thing in life is how far we get. But the most important thing in life is learning to walk with God. The Christian faith is not a destination…but a relationship.

All through the Bible, people are on a journey. Starting with Adam and Eve walking out of the Garden of Eden, the People of God are always going somewhere it seems. Sure, stumbling and fumbling…but moving with God. And when they quit moving…it’s usually a bad sign. Usually it means that they’ve quit listening, quit being responsive to God. They’ve parked themselves and said “That’s enough.” No more risks, no more journeys, “I’m going to stay right here. This life is good enough.”

The problem is: It wasn’t good enough. Not in God’s relationships with Noah or Abraham or Moses or David. It wasn’t good enough for Jesus either. Maybe that’s why He just kept telling people to leave home and follow Him. Maybe that’s why He kept sending them out, calling them back, sending them out. Maybe that’s why he kept talking about the WHOLE world (not just a local community). It seems that the point of life is NOT getting settled, or comfortable…but walking with God. If God is truly a living God, truly a dynamic God who is on the move, then we will be too, if we are following.

In next few months, we are going to pursue this theme of walking, of life as a journey…and see what it means…to Walk by Faith. And so we begin by finding ourselves way back in the early part of Genesis, in the middle of an ancient genealogy, catching up with one walker…named Enoch. Enoch, first of all, is part of the answer to a couple of Bible Trivia questions:

Question: Who was taken off earth right to heaven, without tasting death?
Answer: Elijah…& Enoch.

Question: Who was the oldest person in history?
Answer: Methuselah…the SON of ENOCH. 969 years old!

When we dust off the 5th chapter of Genesis, or the 11th chapter of Hebrews, we find just a few glimmers, a couple whispers about Enoch. We really don’t know much about him. So why bother? Well, there’s something intriguing, something different about Enoch. To look at this genealogy in Genesis 5, we will need to get over the long lives people lived. I don’t know how you want to deal with that. You could say the Biblical author exaggerated badly. You could say that they measured years differently back then. Or, what I think, after exhaustive study on the subject…you can just say they lived longer back then! Enoch was, in fact, the spring chicken in this crowd. He was a mere 65 years old when he had his first son. Just 65. Those of you who are parents of young children already know, then, that Enoch must have been a man of incredible faith…to start a family at 65!

Now, in Genesis 5 this genealogy displays an almost mathematical form, in three steps:

1) Person A lived X years, and fathered Person B.
2) After Person B was born, Person A lived Y more years.
3) All the days of Person A were X+Y years. And Person A died.

Over and over, this is the pattern. But the pattern breaks with Enoch. It doesn’t say “Enoch lived Y more years,” but Enoch walked with God. And then again, when it adds up all his years, it doesn’t say “He died.” Instead, it says “Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him.”

There it is again: Enoch WALKED WITH GOD. Craig Barnes says it so nicely…that “Enoch walked with God so long, that eventually they got closer to God’s home than Enoch’s, and God said “Why don’t you just come home with me?” Sort of like when you pull up in front of the house that you know so well, it looks so familiar, and you’re just…home.

Well, ultimately, that home, our true home…is in heaven, and it’s in heaven because God is there. That’s where the walk ends up. In that light, listen to John 14…Jesus says to his disciples: “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.”

What a great picture…what a great privilege for those who have accepted the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ…to walk into heaven, to be with Jesus, to see Elijah and Enoch and others who have gone before…to arrive at…HOME.

I have this dream that pops up every now and again, especially when we drive across the country. I dream about putting on a pair of hiking boots, packing a tent and a few things and just taking off walking. No reservations, no agenda, no deadline…just walking. And if there’s a beautiful valley to go look at, I’ll go. If I feel like hiking up a peak, I’ll do it. I don’t have to worry about where I’m going, because I have no agenda. And I don’t have to worry about arriving anywhere…because I know I’ll eventually end up at home. I’ll walk back up the steps at 352 Blaine Street, and be home (Anne suggests I pursue that dream at a later date!).

As Christians we walk, already knowing where we will end up. And because of that, it changes the way that we walk. People who believe in heaven…walk differently than other people. People who believe in heaven walk differently than other people. Why?

a) We don’t have to worry about our destination. We’ve been promised by Jesus that we’ll be with Him in heaven. So we don’t have to be legalistic, keeping a scorecard or tally sheet, trying to figure out how to earn our way into the right place.

b) and we don’t have to worry about whether we’ll be welcome there…God’s love has been poured out, shown to us in the open arms of a Father who’s been longing for his child to come home, shown in the open arms of Christ on the cross. We WILL be welcome.

c) AND we don’t even have to worry about how long before we get there. If it’s not our time yet, there must be things still to do, still some miles to walk. All we have to think about…is walking with God. That’s a hugely freeing thing for me. We live in a very complicated, fast-paced world, don’t we? But I just have to walk with God.

The contrast between the anxiety and the simplicity options made me think of two real walks I’ve taken lately. The first one is one I often take, here, around the top of Queen Anne. Actually, it’s a run, usually, to get some exercise. But I’m normally jamming it in between 2 meetings and a lunch date, swerving around cars and through traffic, with the dog leash in one hand…knowing I have to be back in 20 minutes so I can cool off, shower, and get back for a meeting.

The second one was very different. The day after Christmas, we drove over to visit my sister in “extremely rural, Idaho.” I took the dog, and headed up an old logging road. There was snow everywhere, and the road wound up into some rolling hills, following a small creek. I didn’t really have to be back at any particular time. I could just walk, and think, and talk with God, and listen. Along the way I stopped four or five different times, just to listen. And do you know what I heard? NOTHING! Well, that’s not exactly true. I heard the sound of the creek running, and occasionally the sound of some ice breaking and falling into the creek. That’s all. Which one seems more like walking with God? It’s not hard to figure out. People who walk with God…can walk differently than other people.

People who walk with God can walk without fear. Why? We’re not walking alone! I’ve told you this before, but over 350x in the Bible, God tells people “Don’t be afraid!” Because we ARE afraid! And most of the time, that is followed by God’s statement: “I will be with you.” Don’t be afraid…I will be with you. We do not walk alone, in Jesus Christ. We also don’t have to walk and continually look over our shoulders, worried that the past is catching up with us. Jesus has taken care of our past. He holds out to us this remarkable thing called forgiveness. Each week in confession, just as Frank led us today…we are reminded again…we can walk without the heavy pack. The past is taken care of.

In 1678, a man named John Bunyan…a poor, uneducated “tinker” (someone who traveled around mending people’s pots and pans!) met Jesus Christ, and began to follow a call to preach and teach. Because of the political situation in England at that time, a man could be arrested for preaching outside of a state-approved church. That is what happened to Bunyan, and he was thrown in prison for over 12 years!

While he was there, he wrote allegory called Pilgrim’s Progress. It is a journey story, of a man who lived in City of Destruction. The man’s name was Graceless, one-without-grace. He starts out on a journey towards the Holy City. His story begins in the wilderness, and ends with him crossing a river into the City…not unlike the Israelites we’ll start reading about next week, starting in the desert and finally crossing the Jordan River into the Promised Land.

Graceless’ name changes to “Christian” along the way. You have to love all the character names in this story. Christian’s two friends, Pliable & Obstinate, try to deter him from his journey. He soon runs into trouble in the Swamp of Despond…a place where all one’s doubts and sins form a quagmire that threaten to stop the journey. And after escaping there, he runs into another great character, Mr. Worldly Wiseman, who manages to interest Christian in swerving off another direction. Christian soon begins to feel like he’s done something he shouldn’t have, and he freezes, and begins to sweat. But fortunately God provides another man, “Evangelist,” (teller-of-good-news). Evangelist approaches Christian and says simply “What are you doing here?!” Christian’s job, you see…is very simple. Walk. Walk with God. Walk towards God.

The funny thing is…this is how it’s supposed to be for US too. We were designed, made, created, wired…to Walk with God! We have this longing for something beyond ourselves…and no matter how much the New Spirituality gurus tell us all we have to do is look inside ourselves for the answers to life...the Christian Faith claims that our salvation comes from outside ourselves…from God. From a God who came to us in Jesus Christ, God With Us.

And so when we aren’t walking with this God we were made for…

OF COURSE we feel guilty when we quit walking.
OF COURSE we feel restless when we try to just settle in
OF COURSE it feels wrong when we walk off in some other direction, or are unable to keep walking.

But God provides even for that…by walking with us. He came off of a cross, out of a tomb…to walk with us. And calls us to walk by faith. That’s where old Enoch’s name comes up again in Hebrews 11, there in the list of heroes of faith. A list of people who, on the basis of what they knew about God, and His promises…stepped into the unknown, and started walking with God. Why?

In Pilgrim’s Progress, when Christian first sets out, he invites his friend Obstinate to go with him. Obstinate says (somewhat Obstinately, of course!), “What? And leave my friends and comforts behind?” And Christian says “Yes, because all that you forsake is not worthy to be compared with that I am seeking.”

I looked this week at all of the stories in the gospels where Jesus begins to gather his disciples around him…we looked at one with the elders on Tuesday night, Luke 5, Jesus tells Peter and other fishermen to go back out to deeper water and put their nets down, though they have fished without success all night. Only now, they suddenly catch too many fish to hold in TWO boats. And Peter is humbled, and bows at Jesus’ feet, aware that he is in the presence of someone far greater than himself… Jesus. What does Jesus say? The same thing he says in EACH of his calls to his disciples. Very simply,

“C’mon, let’s take a walk. Follow me.”

So we walk…not knowing where we’re going…but sure of where we’ll end up.

Enoch did that for 365 years. Really, ALL we know about Enoch and all of his years…is that he was someone who walked with God. And personally…I can’t think of a better way to be remembered.

Next week: We begin to follow Moses and the Israelites in Exodus 14, as they leave Egypt…and start walking with God.