If you have a Bible, let me invite you to turn with me to Hebrews. Chapter 11, this evening we're in verses 5 and 6, as we consider, once again, the saving faith of the various patriarchs. We're in a section on saving faith, and we're in the middle of three examples of saving faith, saving faith before the flood, the saving faith of Abel Enoch and Noah. Last week we considered the faith of Abel tonight of Enoch by faith Abel worshiped God, and here we see tonight by faith Enoch walked with God.
And these are two sides of that answer to the famous first question of the shorter catechism, aren't they? What is the chief end of man? Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. Abel and Enoch glorified God and enjoyed him by faith, and we can do also.
Now, what do we learn from Enoch's saving faith? Let me invite you to consider it from Hebrews 11 verses 5 through 6. This is the word of God. My faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him.
Now before he was taken, he was commended as having pleased God, and without faith it is impossible to please him. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. Amen. This is God's word, listen to him in prayer.
Father, help us to understand your word and your ways and grant us by grace to share the saving faith that Enoch has and to share in the hope that you show us through him. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. So what do we see here?
We see that saving faith, we see the life that saving faith receives. We see that in verse 5, he was taken by God into eternal life, and we see the relationship that saving faith pursues. While he was on earth in verses 5 and 6, he walked with God. And we see finally the rewarder saving faith believes in in verse 6.
And there we see something of the generosity of God. So let's think about these three things. First, the life that saving faith receives in verse 5. By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found because God had taken him.
He didn't see death. Now who is he? Who was this guy? Genesis 5 tells the tale, and you may want to turn there, just consider it for a moment as we think about him.
Genesis 5 tells the stories of those who came before the flood, and it's sometimes called the chapter of death. Because then we learn that the descendants of Adam through the line of Seth down to Noah. We learn who each of their father was, we learn who their son was, we learn how long they lived, and for each we learn how long they lived before they died, and then as the fallen sons of Adam, we learn that they died. Genesis 5 is just one long list of people that died over and over and over, but not this guy, not Enoch.
Genesis 5 verses 21 to 24 says this about him. When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters. That's all the days of Enoch were 365 years.
Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. So this guy is the seventh in the line from the, or the seventh patriarch from Adam through Seth, and when he was 65 years old, he had a son named Methuselah, and he lived in total 365 years, after which he mysteriously departed from earth without dying. That's what we know, there's a lot that we don't know. What we do know is he was taken up, he was removed, he was not found.
They searched for him, but couldn't find him. That's not some euphemism for being eaten by an alligator, swallowed by a python, or getting lost in a cave. I mean, he did not see death. He did not go through death experientially or personally.
He was translated directly into the very presence of God, like the prophet Elijah. When he was talking, you may remember with Elijah in Second Kings 2, and then chariots of fire came and horses of fire separated the two of them, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. He didn't die. He just went right to God.
God took him where fallen eyes can't see him. So the writers again, affirming by faith we believe in things our eyes cannot see. My faith is experiencing those realities as a man who never died. And this is what we're made for.
That is, well, not so extraordinary experience necessarily, but life in the presence of God. Souls in a body that will never die face to face with God. That's what we're made for. All that death in Genesis chapter 5 is not the way it's supposed to be.
It's not the way it ought to be. It's the result of sin, the wages of sin is death. But the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus. And Enoch enjoyed that free gift without experiencing the death.
Is it because Enoch didn't sin when he was perfect? So we didn't have the wage of sin applied to him? No, it's not that. But it's because God promised he would reverse the curse of the fall through the blood of the substitute in death.
Abel professed his faith in that substitute when he offered an animal sacrifice. And it's through the precious blood of Christ. We know that ultimately sinners come to God and Abel offered the sacrifice that prefigured Christ and Enoch shared the faith of Abel and drew near to God in much the same way. He knew he deserved to die.
Everybody around him was dying. He knew the wages of sin is death. He knew that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness for sins. And he trusted in the provision of God's promise to supply the land who takes away the sin of the world.
Now we know that story more explicitly and better and more clearly, obviously, than he would have at least as far as we know, as far as the scripture tells us. But he had life because another died in his place, Jesus. And so this is not simply an invitation for us to marvel and say that sounds great for him, but it's an invitation for us to long for this life that he had for ourselves. That is to share in the life, in the presence of God forever that Enoch and Elijah already have.
And we are promised in Christ we will have. And so the long for that life, to desire it. And so to encourage one another along the way, that this is not all there is. There's much more and much better yet to come.
And when your brothers and sisters in Christ are sick and tired of this world and of themselves and of the daily grind and of human injustice and of bodily decay and of persecution, suffering and death, remind them what you need to remind yourself that Enoch and Elijah, as it was with them, so it may be with you. So it will be with you. And so we have this hope of the life that lasts forever in the presence of God. He shared in that hope through his saving faith.
The second thing we see is the relationship that saving faith pursues while he was yet in this earth. What did he do? Well, verses five and six in Hebrews says, now before he was taken, he was commended as having pleased God without faith that is impossible to please him, forever for whoever we're drawn near to God, must believe that he is and that he's a reward of those who seek him. Enoch sought God.
Enoch drew near to God. And then when he was in his faith, do it, our passage speaks of drawing near and seeking and it mentions pleasing God. Genesis five, when you read it, mentions walking with God. Hebrews 11 mentions pleasing God.
In the four verses in Genesis five, it says twice of him that he walked with God. By faith he walked with God. Somebody said that would make a bad inscription on the gravestone. It tells us a lot about a person's life and death and faith and hope.
Now what's going on though, when our Old Testament in translation says he walked with God and our New Testament says he pleased God, what's happening here is that in the Septuagint, the Great Translation of the Old Testament, the phrase translated, the phrase is translated pleased God using the same Greek word as Hebrews 11. And scholars tell us that the Greek translation is well known for translating Hebrew ideas about God by words that don't include human physical characteristics. And so under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the Jews were taught to think of God this way, that he walked without him and even the Garden in the Pool of the Day, that he could walk with God, yet also under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, as we have it in Hebrews 11 in the New Testament, the Greek translation is pleased God instead of walked with God. And that's also true to the idea.
It's true to the idea in this way. Walking with God is pleasing God. And the two aren't fundamentally different ideas. Actually, Amos chapter three verse three ties them together this way.
Do two walk together unless they have agreed to meet. Walking together is mutual, right? Each does it because it pleases him to do so. And God is pleased to do so when his people desire to walk with him.
It pleased God to walk with Enoch, it pleased Enoch to walk with God and it pleased God to invite Enoch to walk with himself. And he did as it says for 300 years after the birth of his son. Some of you will know the hymn I come to the Garden of Alone. It's a wonderful story associated with that.
Peter Lewis tells the story of a Chinese pastor who was imprisoned in a labor camp for his faith and his captors put him in charge of cleaning and emptying the contents of the latrine every day. He would take the foul excrement out and distribute it as fertilizer on the fields. The smell was so bad that the guards would draw away from him and give him plenty of space to do the work he was assigned. And for that reason the pastor came to love, his lowly occupation because in the resulting solitude he could talk and sing to God aloud, both of which were otherwise forbidden in the camp.
And he joyfully named the dung heap in which he worked, his garden. And he sang, I come to the garden alone. While the dew is still on the roses and he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own and the joy we share as we teary there none other has ever known. By faith he walked with God.
By faith we may walk with God and talk with God and have fellowship with God and enjoy God. And draw near to God as the writer of Hebrews has been telling us time and again. Draw near to God boldly with confidence because the throne is open. It's a throne of grace.
And so saving faith walks with God and by faith we seek him. The end of verse six mentions those who seek him. In Hebrews 11, the end of verse six, those who seek him. The King James translates it diligently seek.
The NIV earnestly seek. But scholars are divided about whether it's intensive like that. The word seek is used in context to mean be a path underfoot. The idea is that if you seek your neighbor often you beat a path through the grass to his door.
And drawing near to God and seeking him are deliberate intentional activities. You don't accidentally draw near to the holy one. You do it intentionally. And he did.
And for 300 years he had fellowship with the true God. As I mentioned this morning, the story is told to illustrate. Like this a little girl came home from Sunday school and her mother said what did your teacher tell you today? And the little girl said she told us all about this man Enoch.
And the mother said what about Enoch? And she's the little girl told her mother the story that Enoch lived a long time ago. And God would come by every afternoon and say to him Enoch would you like to take a walk with me? And Enoch would say yes I'd like to take a walk with you God.
So every day God would come by Enoch's house and go walking with God. And one day God came by and Enoch let's take a long walk today. I want to talk with you. So they started out Enoch got his coat, he took his lunch.
They started walking. They walked and they walked and finally got late and Enoch said my it's getting late and I'm a long way from home. Maybe we better start back and God said you're closer to my home. And you are to yours.
Why don't you just come on home with me? And so he did. And he went home. So be with God forever.
This is what we were made for. And so are we seeking him? Are we seeking him? Are we walking with him?
Is this what we want to do for forever? This is what we were made for. We were made for friendship with God. The enjoyment of fellowship with God and we're promised even through God taking Enoch, we're promised that this is a thing that can go on unendingly.
And of course one day by sight, one day face to face. Is this what we long for? Is this what we desire? Where does this desire and this ability come from?
Well we actually get it from God himself. Enoch pleased God as the scripture says. And Hebrew says, I mean, Philippians 2 says it is God who works in you but to willing to work for his good pleasure. Where do I get the saving faith that pleases God?
Well God works in us the Bible says both to will and to do for his good pleasure. Hebrews 13 says, may the Lord equip you with everything good that you may do his will working in us that which is well pleasing in his sight. And so we get it from God. And so Augustine famously prayed, Lord command what you will and give what you command.
And the Lord has commanded us to walk with him and it's the Lord who can give us that. And so we see the life that saving faith receives. He's taken into the very eternal presence of God and we see the relationship that saving faith pursues even here and now upon the earth. And then we see finally the rewarder saving faith believes in in verse 6.
Without faith it is impossible to please him that is God for whoever we draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. So there's no substitute for faith. No substitute for trusting God to be your savior through Jesus. And he highlights two beliefs of faith.
Faith in God's person and faith in God's promises. And so the question is person who ever would draw near to God must believe that he is. That he exists. Your faith has to have an object.
He's not advocating faith in faith. He's not talking about taking a blind leap of faith. He's not advocating what some people say. Well you just got to believe man you just got to believe.
Believe in what? Believe in who? Well no, he's saying you actually need an object of your faith and that person is God. Not the God of our imaginations but the God who is.
And then that faith is also not only in him but in his promises. That he's the rewarder of those who seek him. That he's personal and he responds to us. He interacts with us.
He hears our cries and he rewards. Now don't be freaked out by the word reward there. Lewis itself is here so many times but I think it's always helpful to hear him. Lewis sees us and says we must not be troubled by unbelievers.
When they say this promise of rewards makes the Christian life a mercenary affair. There are different kinds of reward. There's the reward which has no natural connection to the things you do to earn it and is quite foreign to the desires that ought to accompany those things. So money he says is not the natural reward of love.
That's why we call him in a mercenary if he marries a woman for the sake of her money. But marriage is the proper reward for a real lover and he's not mercenary for desiring. He loves her and he's not a mercenary for a desire to be married to her because he loves her. So the rewards in scripture are not unnatural or disconnected.
Rather they are in a sense the very fruit and the culmination of the things you do to get them so to speak. You desire to be with God and God rewards you by being with you. And if you seek him he will respond to your seeking. And at the end of the day what we find is when we seek him well that he had been seeking us.
John 644 Jesus said no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day. If you seek God well it is that he has in fact been seeking you and therefore you will find him. And to those who seek him he rewards them with what? Himself.
This is not payment but a gift. To think of faith as meritorious here or establishing a claim on God and his rewards is to do the violence of the very concept of faith as another said which is the response of dependence on the grace and goodness of God. So it is sheer profanity insists the French Catholic in 1512 right at the time of the Reformation. You can hear it even in his ruminations about this.
It's profanity he says to speak of the merit of works especially in the presence of God. For plainly merit does not ask a favor but demands what is due. And to attribute merit to works is virtually to share the opinion of those who believe that we can be justified by works and error for which the Jews are most of all condemned. So let us be silent about the merit of our works which amounts to very little or rather nothing at all and let us magnify the grace of God which is everything.
He who defends merit respects man but he who defends grace respects God. If merit is to be attributed to anyone it is properly and completely attributed to Christ who has merited everything for us while we confessing that before God we deserve nothing look to him for grace. And that's what's going on here. The writer says those who seek him he rewards and he rewards with himself and it's not meritorious on our party.
The very seeking was prompted by him and the reward is his goodness and generosity of giving himself to us. And what we find is that those who walk with him in this life he brings to himself in the next for a fellowship of joy that will last forever. A fellowship of joy that Enoch is enjoying right now and it is yours for all who share that same saving faith of Enoch. Jesus said as we close let not your hearts be troubled but we even not believe also in me.
In my father's house are many rooms. If we're not so what I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and will take you to myself that where I am you may be also. What a great hope we have in Christ.
Let's pray together. Father thank you. And these are some of these realities are things we have not seen with our eyes. We have it yet tasted in fullness.
We thank you that you've given us a foretaste by the spirit coming into our hearts and lives and bringing the love of God into our hearts and the assurance of forgiveness and pardon and reconciliation. We thank you that we have this hope as an anchor for the soul that Christ has passed through the veil and he is anchored there and we're anchored to him by his spirit. And so the expectation we share with Enoch is that we can be with you face to face forever. Thank you.
And I pray that you would deepen that hope in our hearts in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Let's say them together and sing.