Enoch: Fact-Checking Your Walk - Part B

What is it like to relate with God? Please God. Walk with God. That's simplicity.

I love that. You see a walk with God is different from a jog with God or a chat with God or a weekly visit with God. Let's go have our weekly hour with God. A walk with God is consistent daily 24 7. Do you want a strong spiritual life?

We often make it more complicated than it needs to be. Today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Skip shares how getting back to the essentials of your faith can give you a simplified but powerful walk with God. Then at the end of today's program, Skip and his son Nate share about some ways you can declutter your life to cultivate your relationship with God. Like a prayer walk, just sort of talking things out with the Lord helps me to just bring life down to its irreducible minimum. The other thing I would add is be honest with God.

You just want to tell him everything you're feeling because he knows everything about you anyway. Thanks Skip. If you want to hear more, please stay tuned after the teaching. Now we want to tell you about a great resource that will help you tap into a deeper faith and more meaningful prayer life. Hudson Taylor, the great missionary to China said, it is possible to move men through God by prayer alone. Ian Bounds, who authored nine books on prayer said, God shapes the world by prayer. The more praying there is in the world, the better the world will be. And Billy Graham said, to get nations back on their feet, we must first get down on our knees.

Here's Skip Heitzig. You know, the Bible says that we will experience God's peace when we pray. And it tells us to pray about everything. We want to help you know how and what to pray and what to expect. That's why we're offering Lord Teach Me to Pray in 28 Days by Kay Arthur. When you give to support this ministry, prayer is meant to up the game of peace and joy in our hearts. Lord Teach Me to Pray is our thanks when you give $25 or more today to help keep this ministry on the air, connecting you and others to God's word.

Call 800-922-1888 or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer. Okay, we're in Hebrews chapter 11 as Skip Heitzig starts today's study. To walk with God is to please God.

In fact, let me show this to you. When the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, Septuagint version is a Greek version of the Old Testament. They took the text of the Old Testament, the Masoretic Hebrew text, and a group of scholars, 70 of them, that's why it's called Septuagint, translated it from Hebrew into Greek. They translated the Hebrew of Genesis chapter 5 where it says, he walked with God. They translated it, he pleased God. So to the translators, to walk with God is exactly the same as pleasing God.

It means one and the same thing. Now here's to me what is exciting. We get a little insight into pre-flood spirituality.

Okay, hang with me on this one. This is pre-flood spirituality. This is antediluvian spirituality. And if you go back and if you just think, what would really early spirituality look like? Old Testament spirituality. Some people think, well, if it's Old Testament, it's got to be harsh and legalistic and a whole bunch of rules and sacrifices. No, spirituality in its earliest years was just walking with God.

That's simple. God was a companion with them. Remember what it says about Adam and Eve in the garden, God walked with them in the cool of the day. Don't you love that? I take a walk early in the morning.

I like to walk a few miles a day and I get up really early and do it. It's a cool of the day. And I always think about, Lord, I'm walking with you in the cool of the day.

This is cool. And so that's the idea of early spirituality is just hanging out with God, daily intimate communion with God. That's how spirituality was defined in the earliest revelations of it. Same thing also in the book of Genesis with Noah. In Genesis chapter six, we are told the Lord saw the wickedness of man, that it was great in the earth, that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Verse eight, but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Verse nine, this is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God. Noah walked with God.

There it is again. Also with Abraham, Genesis 17, the Lord appeared to Abraham and said to him, I am almighty God, walk before me and be blameless. In Genesis 24, Abraham sends out a servant to find a bride for his wife. The Lord, before whom I walk, will send his angel with you and prosper your way.

Same language. It's just so beautiful and stripped down and it's the essential of what a relationship with God is. What is it like to relate with God? Please God, walk with God.

That's simplicity. I love that. You see, a walk with God is different from a jog with God or a chat with God or a weekly visit with God. Let's go have our weekly hour with God.

A walk with God is consistent daily, 24 seven. You let him in on everything. You are walking with him. You're always in his presence.

It's not like a radio playing in the background. You know the tune, man. You're part of the tune.

So again, I want to turn this around to you personally. What about you? Are you walking with God? That is, are you living to please him? Would that be your legacy that you are pleasing him?

Because here's what you have to realize. God does not exist to serve you. The universe is not some cosmic playground where you're here now and you're here to discover who you are and your uniqueness. No, you are here to find out who God is and to live to glorify him. And when you do, that's when you find out who you are and what he can do through you. Revelation chapter four sums it up.

The anthems of heaven, the people in heaven and the beings in heaven say, for thy pleasure, all these things were created. Jesus said, I always do those things that please him. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5, we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to the Lord.

Let me tell you why this is so crucial and why it is really the irreducible minimum. When pleasing God becomes the determining factor for your life, everything else is easy. When pleasing God becomes the determining factor for, I'll even say this, for the decisions in your life, life becomes easy. What would God do? What would God have me do? What is the Lord's will in this?

When everything is sort of compared to that as the standard, everything becomes easy. Remember what Jesus said? Seek first the kingdom of God and everything else will be added to you. All you have to do is seek his kingdom, look for his glory, live to please him, live to walk with him. The rest will just fall into place. It's all you have to do.

It's that simple. Live to please him, walk with him. George Mueller, one of my heroes in the faith, said 90% of the difficulties in life are overcome when our hearts are ready to do the Lord's will, whatever it may be.

When that's the disposition of our heart, Lord, I don't exactly know what your will is, but whatever I find it out to be, that I'm going to do. See, now you're living to please him. That's fact-checking your spiritual life.

Are you fact-checking your faith? Let it be that simple. I'm going to walk with him. I'm going to live to please him. So that's the legacy of Enoch. He pleased God, walked with God. Then we're left with a third and that is the lessons of Enoch.

We looked at his life and his legacy. Now there's a couple lessons that the author is playing off of in the next couple of verses, or the last verse, the next couple of sentences. Hebrews 11 verse 6, he says, But without faith it's impossible to please him. So here's two men of faith, Abel and Enoch.

Look at their faith. Here's a guy who entered into faith. That's Abel. Here's a man who walked that's Abel. Here's a man who walked in faith. That's Enoch.

And then he springs off of that. He says, But without faith it's impossible to please him. For he who comes to God must believe that he is, number one, and number two, that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.

So those are the lessons of Enoch. The only way to please God is faith. To walk with God, you have to first come to God. To come to God, you have to first believe God. To believe God, you have to first believe in God, right?

That's the starting point. You have to believe that he is. That doesn't mean that you just believe there is a supreme being up there named God, or there's some being, I don't know what he's called, because a lot of people say, Oh, I believe in God. I believe God exists. The idea of what the author of Hebrews is saying is you have to believe in the right God.

See, if you look at that sentence again, the emphasis there is on the word he. Without faith it's impossible to please him. He who comes to God must believe that he is.

He is. You have to believe that the God of the Bible is the real God. That this God is the right God, the real God. Now, a lot of people say, Well, I've looked for God. I've never found him.

Somebody said, What about an atheist? Atheists can't find God. Listen, atheists can't find God, usually, not always, but I found often for the same reason police criminals can't find policemen. They're not looking for him.

When you're not looking for him, you don't find him. If you seek him, the Bible says you will find him. There are answers, and they will lead you to God, the right God. So you have to believe the God who is God. And who is that God? He's the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Old Testament.

In the New Testament, he's the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Trinitarian God of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You have to believe in the right God and come to the right God. I used to work in the medical field before I became a pastor, and I remember working at a little hospital in California called Westminster Hospital. Didn't even exist anymore. But it was a little hospital, and I was on call that night in the radiology department, and a woman came in on a gurney, a little bed, and she was nervous. She didn't know what was wrong with her. And she had a stack of books. Jessie was funny because one was on Buddhism, one was Christianity, one was all the different religions. And it's like she wanted to say, I believe, but I don't know what I believe in, but I'm just sort of covering all my bases. And so it was a really good opportunity for me to just engage in a conversation. So you have a lot of these books. What are you reading?

What piques your interest? I'm studying comparative religions, and I'm nervous, and I'm praying, and I'm crying out to every, you know, she said every expression. And so it was really great to find out where she was coming from and to draw her toward the Lord during that evening.

So that's number one. Believe that He is. You have to believe in the right God. Number two, not just to believe in God actually, but to believe in God personally, that there is a personal God, that He is a rewarder, it says, of those who diligently seek Him. In other words, God is personal. God will reward. God will provide salvation to anyone who seeks.

That's the idea of this verse. Only a personal God can reward. By the way, only Christianity shows God as a rewarder.

There's a lot of religions that show God as a punisher, a cosmic policeman, but our God shows that God is a God of judgment, but He is a rewarder, one who blesses and provides those who diligently seek Him. Only a personal God can reward. A force cannot reward. A higher power cannot reward.

A great uncaused cause cannot reward. Only a personal God can reward. Just like when my puppy does something and I reward him, or when a child does something and a parent rewards him, it takes a person and God is personal. Proverbs 8 verse 17, I love those who love me and those who seek me diligently will find me. That's God as a rewarder. Jeremiah 29 13, you will seek me and you will find me when you seek for me with all your heart. That's God as a rewarder.

David knew that and said to young Solomon, his son, 1 Chronicles 28 9, if you seek Him, He will be found by you. So we come to God on faith. You believe that God exists, but you believe in the right God, the God of the Bible, and you believe that He's a personal God, because when you seek Him, He will provide salvation for you and you'll enter into a relationship with Him where you can walk with Him.

God's personal. Did you know that Albert Einstein believed in God? You know, people think he's the smartest guy ever. He believed in God, but Albert Einstein did not believe in a personal God. Einstein said, and I quote, certainly there is a God. That's Einstein, smart guy. Certainly there is a God.

Any man who doesn't believe in a cosmic force is a fool, said Einstein, but he concluded by saying, but we could never know Him, end quote. He's saying, I believe in God, but God is unknowable. God is not personal. He's wrong on that account.

Smartest guy in the world is dead wrong. God is not only somebody you can know, God is somebody you can please, you can walk with. He is personal and He is active in the life of His creation. So to say that God doesn't exist is fake news. To say that God is not personal and active is also fake news.

That's where you need to fact check. God is not aloof. God is not distant. We don't believe in a deistic God. God wound things up and just sort of step back.

I've read where people say, theologians. Yeah, God didn't even know coronavirus was coming. That's saying coronavirus is God or the devil is God or somebody else or something else is God to say that. God is sovereign. God is everything in control. And it's fake news to say God doesn't exist.

It's fake news to say God is not active and God is not personal. He is and He's a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. So ask yourself, are you seeking God? Are you walking with God? Could that describe your life?

Could you actually say, yeah, that sums my life up. I'm a person who walks with God. I'm walking with God. Maybe it would be more appropriate to say you're not walking, you're casually meandering with God, aimlessly bumping around here and there but not walking with Him. I read an article that was interesting that said 87% of Americans own running shoes but don't run. I wonder how many Christians have Bibles who don't walk.

He walked with God 300 years, just that simple intimate consistency with God. I read a story, I read a little article about this flea in Africa called Jiggers. It's in South America, Central America and Sub-Saharan Africa and I forget the scientific name but these are little bugs that they get into animals and people and usually around their toenails, their feet and so what they do is they burrow themselves into the skin and they lay eggs and the eggs hatch, yeah nice, and when they hatch they grow and when they grow an infection sets in and that creature becomes unable to walk.

One traveler said that he was in Africa and saw a tiger so infected with these jiggers, these fleas, its paw became so swollen it couldn't move or defend itself. Get that picture in your mind, child of God, can't move, can't defend itself. Is there something that has crept into your life, burrowed its way into your life, into your spiritual walk, some distractions? Let the Lord pull those away during this time.

Maybe you can't walk well enough. So Enoch becomes a great example of a fact check. Don't complicate your life with God. Let it be come down to just a life of faith where I walk with God every day just to please Him.

It's that simple. Walk with God and be free. I'm going to lead us in a word of prayer but I know that I'm speaking to somebody who has not begun a walk with God yet.

You're tuning in and I'm glad you are. You're watching on a computer screen or by television or you're listening by radio or maybe you have come to church before, maybe a lot, maybe sort of like you own running shoes but you don't run, you have a Bible, you don't walk. You're not walking with the Lord, you're not living to please Him.

Listen, that can change and it can change right now on this Wednesday night or whenever you're seeing this archive service. You can have a personal relationship with God so that your life is transformed. He gives you joy but then you live to please Him and the joy just gets more joyful, gets better and better and better. Listen, I have walked with the Lord for a number of years and they haven't not always been wonderful but the Lord's been wonderful. They've been hard times, they've been wonderful time, good times and I have not always been as consistent as I want but I'll tell you what, it's real today as it was the day I asked Jesus into my heart. He changed me and He's continuing to change me.

He brings me a sense of peace and purpose as well as joy and hope and you can have that. That's not just religious talk, that's not just church talk, oh that's what they say when the music is playing and He's got a Bible. Listen, it's real. Well I don't know if it's real. Well you'll never know it's real. You'll die not knowing it's real unless you try Him. It's like the man who walked up to an atheist who was spouting off why God doesn't exist and he walked up to the front of an auditorium when he was speaking and he started peeling an orange and eating it in front of the crowd and in front of the speaker and then he shouted up to the speaker and he said, let me ask you a question, the orange that I'm eating, is it sweet or sour?

And the speaker said, I don't know, what a stupid question, how would I know that? He goes, you'd never know it unless you tried it and you'll never know how sweet Jesus is until you try Him. You gotta receive the gift, man, you gotta peel it open, you gotta take a bite, you gotta taste and see the Lord is good because He is good but you've got to make it personal.

If you want to do that, do it right now. Say this prayer and mean it from your heart, say, Lord, I've blown it, I'm a sinner, I admit it, I know that, forgive me, I believe in Jesus, I believe in you, God, I believe in the God of the Bible, I believe you sent Jesus to this earth to pay for my sins to be raised victoriously from the grave and He lives right now. I turn from my past, I repent of my sin, I turn to Jesus as my Savior, I want to follow Him as my Lord and I want to walk with Him like Enoch every day of my life. Help me to do that, to keep it simple, to keep it real, in Jesus' name, Amen.

That concludes Skip Heisig's message from the series Fact Check. If you prayed that prayer, we'd love to talk with you. Just give us a call, 800-922-1888.

That's 800-922-1888. Now let's head into the studio with Skip and Nate as they share about some ways you can declutter your life to cultivate your relationship with God. Today we studied the life of Enoch and how he walked with God. We can often add things to our life that complicate our relationship with the Lord. Skip, what are some practical ways that you've been able to simplify your walk with God?

Yeah, we're really good at complicating life. God has already simplified a relationship. Think of it, God is independent and transcendent, and yet He says, all you need to do to come into a relationship with Me is an act of faith, to believe, repentance and faith. So apart from that, early on as a Christian, I did things that sort of stripped my life of complications. Like, for instance, I used to, when I was single, go camping a lot with a backpack, just go out in the woods, out in the desert, out in the wilderness, and just hang out with the Lord, with my Bible and water, maybe a little food or just water if I was fasting. But I really wanted to get in touch with God, and I remember intentionally just losing all the stuff in life. And then on a more modern level, I actually like to take walks with God. I like to walk sometimes in the area where I live and then talk to God, sometimes out loud, sometimes privately, but like a prayer walk. Just sort of talking things out with the Lord helps me to just bring life down to its irreducible minimum. The other thing I would add is be honest with God. You just want to tell Him everything you're feeling, because He knows everything about you anyway.

So why not just spill your guts? So good. What a good reminder. I've always been reminded by people to treat God like a friend. He is a friend, and so do things with Him that you do with a friend. Taking a walk with God, camping with God, talking to God. And when we realize the personality that God has, I think we grow more in touch and relationship with Him. In fact, I remember when I was dating your mom that she would tell me a story that she would sometimes make dinner and sit down alone but have a table set for Jesus, like she was cooking dinner for Him, and she would just talk out loud. I thought, okay, that's a little odd, but it's really cool at the same time. I just love the idea of that relationship.

It's a great way to get out of a person you don't want to date. Hey, sorry, I've got dinner with God tonight. I can't make it. Thanks, Skip and Nate. Well, we hope this conversation encouraged you. And right now, we want to tell you how you can help keep these teachings you love coming to you and encourage and encourage others by connecting them to Jesus. Just call 800-922-1888. That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate.

Thank you. Tune in again tomorrow as Skip Heitzig inspires you to step out in faith and shine for Jesus in the world through the story of Noah. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross and cast all burdens on His word. Make a connection, a connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever changing times.