We're turning your Bibles to
two places in Scripture. The first one is in Hebrews chapter
11, and the second one is in Genesis chapter 5, on walking
with God. I think some of the simplest
words in Scripture are the hardest to understand, aren't they? But
by God's grace, we want to look at this, this man whose name
was Enoch. who walked with God. We'll begin
in Genesis chapter five after we pray. Let's pray. Gracious Father, we pray that
you would cause us to walk with you and teach us what it is,
teach us how to do it, and make us go in your ways, Lord, according
to your mercy and grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray, Lord,
that you would teach us as your dear children and help us not
to pretend to know what we do not know, but we pray, Lord,
that you would make it clear to us, because like Solomon,
the wisest man who ever lived said, I don't know how to go
out or how to come in, so how could we claim anything more
than he? Unless you lead us, unless you guide us, we will
not understand. So we pray, Lord, for Jesus'
sake, for your name's sake, because of your faithfulness, by your
grace, teach us how to walk with the Lord Jesus Christ. In his
name we pray, amen. I think it helps to understand
simple things by thinking about how God has given us examples
in our own lives of what they mean. I remember going out with
my father and my brothers and a group of people on a trip one
time where I think we were hunting, we didn't get anything, but we
walked a long way. I didn't know where we were going,
And there were a lot of things we saw on the way I had never
seen. I never once thought that I had
to know the way before we went, because my dad was, I was confident
he knew where he was going. Whether he did or not, I don't
know now. But we did, we wandered around a long time. And I didn't
worry too much about encountering something that was beyond my
ability to cope with. I was confident my dad would
deal with it. When I went to school as a child
and other kids talked about their father, my dad wasn't very big. He wasn't a great man. But I
thought he was big. I thought he was a great man
because he was my dad. And so I use that as an illustration
that when we walk with our Father on earth, we're confident that
He knows where He's going, that He can deal with the situation,
and we walk along, and we trust Him. And that helps us understand
what walking with God is. And also I think about how we
have friends in this life that we have a good relationship with. And it's often the case in my
own experience that I enjoy going out with my friends for a walk.
There's something about walking with somebody where it frees
you up. It frees you up to talk so that
you talk about things that are dear to you. You might first
start talking about others or you might start talking about
things. But ultimately, when you really
enjoy that fellowship with someone who you have a close relationship
with, You talk about yourself and your needs and your fears
and your joys. All those things start entering
into the conversation. And those people that you consider
close to are the people you spend a lot of time with. You walk
with them. You're with them. You talk to
them. You listen to them. You enjoy being with them because
they disclose to you what they think, and who they are, and
what's dear to them. And you find it's common to you. Whatever they like, you find
that you like too, because that's that bond of friendship. You
have something in common. You think about things in the
same way. You have the same concerns and fears and anxious thoughts,
and you find comfort in the same things. So when you walk with
somebody, It carries with it the concept, the understanding
that you're aligned with their thinking and you'd love to be
with them. You'd love to hear what they
have to say. And you love the fact that they listen and that
they're able to guide you through wise counsel, through wise words
to help you understand things that you didn't understand before.
So we understand that about our human relationships, whether
it be our father, or our mother, or our friends, or our husband,
or wife, whoever they are, our own children. We enjoy, as fathers
and mothers, spending time with our children to tell them how
God has taught us in our own life. don't we? We like to walk
with them. In fact, we enjoy that liberty
that comes from walking because it separates us from the everyday
concerns of life. We're just able to walk with
them. In the Old Testament scripture, God admonished the people. He says, now I want you to talk
about these things when you sit down, when you rise up, when
you walk along the way all the time. This should be the conversation. This is what you're meditating,
what you're thinking about. This is what you're talking to
your children about. And so it is with the Lord Jesus
Christ. In Genesis chapter three and
verse eight, it says, they heard the voice of the Lord God walking
in the garden in the cool of the day. So Adam and Eve, After
they were created, the Lord walked with them. It was not uncommon
for him to talk to them, to disclose to them, to give them an understanding,
to make himself known to them. And that, there's no higher blessing. There's no greater
blessing. than to have the eternal God
walk with you. The fact of the matter is, though,
God doesn't come in our way when he walks with us, when we walk
with him. We go in his way. God doesn't have to change his
way to walk with us. He brings us to walk in his way. And so I want to read this in
Genesis chapter five with you about this man named Enoch. But
don't lose sight of the sequence that God has revealed here in
scripture. We started with Abel. What did
we learn about Abel? It's important, what we learned
about Abel, we want to build on that. And what we learned
about Enos, Seth and Enos, and now we're getting to Enoch, we
want to build on those things because as we do, it gives us
a greater appreciation and understanding of what happens in the life of
a believer. All these men and these women,
as we go through Hebrews chapter 11, all these men and women represent
the operation of faith in the life of every believer. All of
us who trust Christ walk in this way. We have those experiences. This is the operation of God
in our hearts. And remember, it's built on the
foundation, as we sang, Jesus paid it all. The work is finished. All my help from thee I bring. So when we read about Abel and
then Seth and Enos and now to Enoch, We want to understand
that God is building here. What did we learn from Abel?
That Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. Abel, by faith, offered what
God required and what God accepted, and what God accepted in order
to accept him. God looked upon the offering
and accepted Abel. He had respect unto the offering
and therefore had respect unto one who offered. And so it is.
We who believe on Christ come to God, how? How do we come?
Do we come to make ourselves acceptable to God? Can we do
that? Can we change our own behavior
to align ourselves with God's way? Can we do that? Can the
leper change his spots? Can he make himself an unspotted
animal? No. No more can we who are by
nature accustomed to doing evil do good. God has to make us acceptable. He has to give us a new record
in heaven, a new account of our lives in heaven, and he has to
give us a new heart here on earth. He has to put us in alignment
with himself. And so in Abel, we see that the
first thing that we learn as believers is to come to God by
Jesus Christ, by the offering of the Lord Jesus Christ for
our sins and for our obedience, everything that he is, that's
the way we come. We come to God trusting by his
word that God looks upon his son, and he considers only his
son and receives us as his son." That's it. That's trusting Christ.
That's what Abel did. He offered to God a more excellent
sacrifice than Cain, by the which he obtained witness that he was
righteous, God testifying of his gifts. And by it, by that
testimony of God concerning his gifts, which pointed to Christ,
he being dead, yet speaks because God spoke concerning Abel. And
in contrast to that, Cain, as you remember, brought his own
labors, the fruit of his own labor. And then when God rejected
him, what did he do? He hated God. He felt he was
entitled to God's respect. He had this attitude that God
should respect me. I labored. How could you ignore? How could you discount? I gave
my best shot. I was sincere. I did the very
best I could do and you are counting it worth nothing? And so he hated
God. He hated his brother because
God accepted him, Abel, because of the sacrifice. Cain was angry. His countenance fell. He went
out from the Lord. And you know what he did? He
departed from the Lord. He left God. And when God spoke
to Cain about what he did, And he asked him these things. He
said, he says, why are you, Roth, verse
six of chapter four, why are you angry? Why is your countenance
fallen? If you do well, shalt thou not
be accepted? Abel was accepted. What did he
do? He did nothing. He looked to
Christ in offering the sacrifice. He believed that God accepted
him because of Christ. But Cain thought God would accept
him because of his own worth, his own works. And so when God
didn't, his countenance fell. He was sad, he was depressed.
Because of his pride, he thought, if God doesn't accept me the
way I am, what good is my life? So he was angry at God, he was
angry at his brother, he killed his brother. And then, when the
Lord said to him, he said, you're cursed from the earth, he said,
which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood.
When you till the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto
thee her strength, a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be
in the earth. God sent Cain out, fugitive. People are gonna hunt you down.
You're gonna be like a drifter. Like a hobo, you can't find a
place for rest in the earth. So Cain, what did he do? Did
he know God? Did he understand God? No, he
did not know God. So what he did was, he said this. It says in verse 16, Cain went
out from the presence of the Lord and he dwelt in this place.
And that's in verse 16. But in verse, In verse 14, he said this, I
shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth. It shall come to
pass that everyone that finds me shall kill me. I was looking
for this other verse. Oh, he says in verse 13, Genesis
4, 13, Cain said to the Lord, my punishment is greater than
I can bear. I can't bear this. That was true, wasn't it? Cain
could not bear the punishment God brought upon him for his
murdering of his brother Abel. And that sprang because he wouldn't
come to God through Christ. He would not come to God because
of Christ, on the basis of what Christ had done. And so he couldn't
bear the thought that God would reject him because of his works,
and he went out and killed his brother, and then he couldn't
bear the punishment. You know what that word bear there is
in verse 13? It's the same word that's in
Genesis chapter 32 when the Lord says that blessed is the man
whose iniquities are forgiven. Cain couldn't bear it. Of course
he couldn't bear it. But he's going to bear it because
he stood before God in his own person. But to the one who's
blessed, Christ bears our sin and he bears the punishment for
them. And Cain didn't understand that. He was not aligned with
God. He didn't know God and he couldn't
live in accord with God. And so then we had the account
last week also of Seth and Enos. Remember Seth's name means substitute.
Enos was his son. Enos was weak and frail and sickly
and miserable. That's what his name means. He
was the son of the substitute. All like Enos, who in themselves
have nothing and find Christ to be their substitute, they
call on the name of the Lord. Call on Him to be saved. Call
on Him to save me. I can't save myself. And then
they call on Him in thanksgiving. for his grace and his mercy with
the people of God. So Seth and Enos were gathering
together with all those who called on the Lord and they were calling
on God because of his salvation, calling on him for it and in
thanksgiving of it. This is what we do. We are not
like the children of Cain who left and went out from the presence
of the Lord. We are like those Seth and Enos
who gathered together separate from what we used to live, depending
upon ourselves, walking in our own pride and our lusts. But
now we call on the name of the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ,
to save us, and we're thankful for it, that he would be so gracious.
And so just like Rommel so aptly read in John chapter six, I hadn't
considered that, but I want to read it again to you, in John
chapter six, that he read this in verse 65. He said, no man
can come to me, Jesus Christ said this, except it were given
to him of my father. And that's when it says in the
next verse, from that time many of his disciples went back and
walked no more with him. God has to give us this gift.
We can't just lift ourselves up and get ourselves out of the
mess we got ourselves into. We ruined ourselves. You can't
rebuild yourself. We brought the judgment of death
upon ourselves. We can't remove that judgment.
It's God's just condemnation upon us. And so the Lord Jesus
says, my father will bring to him, to himself, Those that he
gives that to, it were given to them to come to him. And so those who were not given
to come to Christ didn't walk with him anymore. So that helps
us now as we read about Enoch here in Genesis chapter five. It says in Genesis chapter five,
verse 21, and Enoch lived 65 years and he begat Methuselah. Most people know Methuselah was
the man whose lifespan was the longest recorded lifespan in
history, 969 years. Enoch was his dad. Enoch was
65 years old when he begat Methuselah. And then it says in verse 22,
and Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah 300 years.
and begat sons and daughters. So understand there wasn't much
said in the Bible about Enoch. But it does say that when he
was 65 years old, he had a son named Methuselah. It turns out
that Methuselah lived 969 years, and he died, his last year of
his life was the year when God brought the flood on the earth,
when Noah entered into the ark. That was the 600th year of Noah's
life, and if you add it up here, you'll see that that was exactly
the length of time Methuselah lived, just as an aside. But
Enoch was 65 years old when he had this son, Methuselah. And
it says that Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah
300 years. I don't know if he walked with
God before. I've always understood it to mean that he lived 65 years,
and after Methuselah was born, he then walked with God 300 years. And I like to think of it that
way because I'm 65 years old. And I have, I don't think I've
got 300 years left to live. But think about this. The men
in these days lived 900 plus years. So Enoch died a young
man. He died a young man because he
finished the work God gave him to do in a short amount of time
compared to the other men who lived. And that reminds us of
many things. It reminds me of people that
we know in history. Augusta's top lady lived 38 years
and died. And he wrote the most amazing songs like, Rock of Ages
cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee. Could my tears forever
flow? Could my zeal no respite know? These for sin could not atone,
thou must save and thou alone. 38 years, God taught him that. And he wrote these hymns and
wrote things that were far beyond my ability. Only 38 years old. And there was another man named
Robert Murray Machine who lived only 30 years. He had such an
influence. He was a Scottish man and he
had a huge influence in his life, only 30 years. If you were to
take everything, now think about this, and I look back in my life
and I think this way. If you were to take everything
you accomplished in let's say you lived 85 years, running time
forward, or even just take your life right now. Maybe you're
30, 40, 50 years old, whatever it is, only 10 years old. If
you were to take everything that you've accomplished in your life
up to this point, what could you say about it? It really amounts
to nothing, doesn't it? I mean, I could, there's nothing
about myself that I've accomplished that I could look back and say,
see? You read sometimes the resume of these people. Well, for 20
years, he served as the chief of this department, and in another
30 years, he did this. Before that, he got his doctorate
in this, and he also had a master's in this. Man, where did this
person have time to get all these things accomplished? But even
the best of men, even the best of men, it says in the Psalms,
man and his best estate is altogether vanity. Solomon wrote the book
of Ecclesiastes to say, look, under the sun, it's all vain.
In light of just looking at things in this world, everything is
vanity. So if you take our lives, each one of us, and you think
about what we accomplish in our short lives, because it is short.
We're not going to live 365 years. Whatever it is we've done, it
really amounts to a hill of beans, doesn't it? You think about what
you did at work. All those years you went to work.
You wonder, why did I go to work all that time? Notice how God
takes a man who lived 365 years and he distills his entire life
into a little tiny phrase here. Notice, a little tiny phrase.
A very short, concise capture of the man's life. This is what
was significant. It says here in verse 22, Enoch
walked with God. He walked with God. Like that
son who walks with his father and knows his father, knows the
way they're going, who trusts his father to deal with all the
difficulties along the way. Like the person who walks with
his best friend. Let's go for a walk. Let's talk
about things and just walk along. We don't know, we might walk
10 miles. But the time won't seem long because we're talking
about things that are mutually dear to us. We're in total agreement
about this. Our fears, our delights, the
things we strive for, the things we hope to gain, all those things
are common to us. Here's a man, a man who walked
with God, the infinite God. God who is holy, who can't be
measured, who can't be comprehended, because he's so infinite in his
wisdom and his being. This man walked with him. God didn't come to where he was
and walk with him. God brought him to where he was,
and so he walked with God. He walked with God. Notice, he
begat sons and daughters, and in verse 23, all the days of
Enoch were 365 years, and Enoch walked with God. It says it again,
this is Enoch's, the totality of his life, he walked with God.
And then it says, and he was not, for God took him. In other words, he was just living
his life, walking with God, doing what he did the day before, walking
with God, and the day after, walking with God. And suddenly,
he was no longer in this world. He was with God in glory. And
as a child, when I heard this story for the first time, I thought
about this. My mind was just lost in the
wonder of this. Here's a man who was walking
along in this world and suddenly he was with God in glory, walking
with God there. He didn't change his behavior. He just went on walking, walked
right into the presence of God. Amazing. Now look at Hebrews
chapter 11. Again, this builds on what has
been said before. Abel came to God on the basis
of Christ's sacrifice. Enos and Seth lived their lives
calling on Christ, the Lord, to save them. And they were with
God's people doing the same thing, giving thanks to his name in
the courts of the Lord, calling on him with the cup of salvation
in their hand. Fill it, and let me bring it
to you again in thanksgiving." And here we see the next thing
in the life of a believer. The believer not only comes to
Christ, comes to God through Christ, and calls on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and worships God because of him, because of his
salvation, but he walks, he walks with God. And walking is a way of saying that he continued
in this. He went on in it. This was the
pattern of his life. In fact, walking includes our
attitude, it includes our thoughts, it includes our conduct, it includes
our expectations, the way we live our lives. It's everything
about the way we live as believers. Here in Hebrews chapter 11, it
says, now notice, Hebrews chapter 11 is about faith. We are not
of those who draw back to perdition, but we're those who believe to
the saving of the soul. And I'm quoting that from the
last verse of chapter 10. But here, faith, remember faith.
By faith, Enoch, verse five, Hebrews 11, five. By faith, Enoch. was translated, remember? He was walking with God and God
took him. By faith, Enoch was translated
that he should not see death. I remember thinking about that
as a child when I heard that. I want to just walk right out
of this world. I don't want to die. I just want
to walk right into glory. Well, here he is. Enoch was translated
that he should not see death. Do you know this is actually
the case of every child of God? Every one of his people never
see death. That doesn't seem possible. I
mean, I know that we're all going to die. I saw my beloved mother
after she died. I saw many people who have died.
Death is real. How can God say that in John
11, verse 26, how could Jesus say, he that liveth and believeth
on me shall never die? How could he say that? That's
the way it is. That's the truth. We never die. Our spirit has been raised to
life. We've been created in Christ Jesus. The Spirit of God now
dwells in us. Spirit of God can't die. Our
body is dead because of sin. And there's a point where what
we call death is actually what God calls just a continuing on
into glory. Like Enoch, he was translated
that he should not see death and he was not found He was a
popular man, a noble man, a man of renown, a man of great responsibility. He was a seventh from Adam. Men
looked up to him. He was a teacher, a preacher.
Enoch walked with God and people were surprised. Where is he?
What happened to Enoch? They looked for him. They missed
him. They remembered that he was a
man who walked with God. They thought about his life.
Where did he go? God took him. It says that he was not found
because God had translated him. Now notice here, for before his
translation, he had this testimony. What was the testimony from Genesis
chapter 5? He walked with God. But here it says, he pleased
God. But without faith it is impossible
to please him, for he that cometh to God must believe that he is,
and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. That's the totality of Enoch
in scripture. Now there is a mention of what
he did in the book of Jude, but there's not much spoken of this
man. But what you can remember about him is that he walked with
God. And that's the testimony of God concerning all of his
people. They walk. with Him. They walk with Him.
Now let's look at a few scriptures here. What does it mean to walk
with God? I want to know. I want to walk with Him. Who
walks with Him? Who walks with God? And how? What does it mean? Well, we saw
there in John chapter 6, by Rommel bringing it to our
attention, that we can only come to Christ if it's given to us
by the Father, by God the Father. We don't come to the Son of God
without God the Father bringing us to his Son. And when we do, we don't depart,
we continue, we walk with him. Because those who left him, who
didn't walk with him anymore, it must not have been given to
them. So we know that to walk with God is coming to Christ
in some way. So what does this mean? I want
to take you back to another scripture that Rommel mentioned in 2 Corinthians
5. Look at this one. 2 Corinthians
5, verse 7. It's very simple. He says, in verse 7, we walk. by faith, not
by sight. That's so key here to understanding
what it is to walk. What is sight? Well, that's living
by what we see. That's living by what we, the
way that we would think things are. But walking by faith means
living by what God says things are. That's the difference. It's by what we think or the
world thinks, what men say versus what God says. What do we live
by? Do we live by what God has said
or by what we think naturally or by what people say? Philosophers
or scientists or politicians or whatever. We walk by faith. In other words, we depend on
what God has said is the way things are. Look at 1 Corinthians
chapter one. 1 Corinthians chapter 1, I want
to read this. This verse is amazing. You couldn't
believe it unless God had said it. And this is the way we walk.
He says, let me back up to verse 24. 1 Corinthians 1.24, unto them which
are called, both Jews and Greeks, in other words, Gentiles and
Jews, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God, because
the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of
God is stronger than men. For you see your calling, brethren,
how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not
many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish
things of this world, or the world, to confound the wise,
and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the
things that are mighty. and base things of the world,
and things which are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things
which are not to bring to nothing things that are, that no flesh
should glory in his presence. Why did God decide to make his
glory known, his saving glory known, by choosing these people
who were weak and despised and nothing in the eyes of the general
perception of mankind. I mean, we would have thought
Cain was much better than Abel, strong. Look, he's a farmer,
he's industrious. Or that Esau was much stronger
than Jacob. Or that Ishmael was better than
Isaac. We could have thought that about
all these people throughout history, but God chose the weak and the
beggarly, the weak and despised, in order to show that That the
only thing that is honorable is what God has done. That's
the issue here. That no flesh should glory in
his presence. No one can boast before God. No one can take confidence in
what they are before God. Notice, verse 30, but of him,
of God, the Father, are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made
unto us, notice these things, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
which means our holiness before God, and redemption. Now, how
do we walk? How did Enoch walk? He walked
with God. How do we walk, therefore? We walk by what? Faith, not by
sight. Can you see yourself accepted
by God because you understand what is right? Do you understand
God's law in the spiritual infiniteness of it, the holiness of God's
law? Do you keep it because of that understanding? Are you righteous
before God? Are you holy before God? Can
you see this? God says he has made his people
Wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption in Christ. He
made Christ our wisdom. He made him our righteousness,
our holiness, our redemption. Can you see it? Not with physical
eyes. In fact, everything you see by
your perception is contrary to that, isn't it? You don't seem
wise. When you read scripture, how
often do you think, I don't understand what that means? Just about all
the time, in my experience. How often do you look at your
behavior and find out it's not righteous behavior? My thoughts,
my motives, my intentions, what I say, everything is shameful. Am I holy? I don't see it. But I don't live by what I perceive
by my natural senses. I live based on what God has
said. I walk by faith. I depend upon what God has said
to be true of Christ and of those who believe him, and that's the
way I walk. In Amos chapter three, I think
it is in verse three, he says, how can two walk together except
they be agreed? We can't, can we? You take two
people of opposite political parties, let's say you take an
evolutionist and somebody who believes in God's creation, they're
not gonna walk together in life very long, are they? No, no,
no. God didn't create the world.
It sprang out of its own nothingness. No, no. God created it by his
word out of nothing. So they're completely at odds.
They're not going to stay together, are they? Now, we are by nature
opposed to God. How can we therefore walk with
him? God has to reconcile us to himself. He has to bring us
into that agreement with himself. He has to make us, he put us
in alignment with himself. We don't accomplish this. We've
offended God by our sin, by our disobedience. But God has to
put us in alignment. How does he do that? Look at
2 Corinthians chapter five. 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse
18, he says, all things are of God who has reconciled us, he's
removed the reason, he has removed our offense, against him that
would cause him to be opposed to us. He has removed that. He
took responsibility for our offense and removed it. He has reconciled
us to himself by Jesus Christ and he has given to us this ministry
of reconciliation to wit, this is it, that God was in Christ
reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses
to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
God has, in his Son, taken the sins of his people and therefore
not counted their sins against them, but instead has imputed,
has counted and credited to them the obedience of his son. And
therefore he took away their offense, that their sins were
to him. He took it away and he made peace
between them and him by the death of his son." That's what he's
saying here. Now, verse 20, we are ambassadors for Christ. As
though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead.
He's not here, but we are, and he sent us. Be ye reconciled
to God. Here's how he did it. For God
has made him, the Lord Jesus Christ, sin for us. We were the ones who committed
the sin. It was our guilt. It was God's condemnation against
us. It was to our shame. It caused
us separation from God, like Cain, sent out as fugitives and
vagabonds. But God made him sin. He laid
our sins upon his son and charged him with our crimes. and then
extracted from him the penalty that those crimes deserve by
punishing him for our sins. And in doing so, he made satisfaction
to his own justice and fulfilled his own righteousness so that
he was at peace with us and we could be at peace with him. He
made him to be sin for us, he who knew no sin, the Lord Jesus
Christ, that we might be made, notice, we being made, the righteousness
of God in Him. Where is righteousness? It's
in Christ. Do you have it in yourself? No. It's in Him. But
God imputes it. He pronounces us righteous based
on the obedience of His Son. Look at Galatians chapter two.
Now we're getting into this thing of walking with God. How did
Enoch please God? By faith. By faith? He says he
had this testimony that he pleased God, for without faith it is
impossible to please him. How can we please God? How can
we be approved of by God? How can he accept us? How can
he look, God who is holy, how can he look on us who are sinful
and accept us and allow us to be with him? How can he bring
us near to himself? How can he reveal himself to
us? How can he keep us there? He has to do something about
our sin, doesn't he? I want you to look at Galatians
chapter two here. Now, the account here in Galatians chapter two,
the apostle Peter went to the people of Galatia, and these
people were believers, but Peter was a Jew, and the Galatians
were Gentiles, and when he got there, he was fellowshipping
with these Gentile believers. But some Jews came while Peter
was there, and the Jews were people who had the law of God.
The law required, in the law of God, it required them to not
fellowship with the Gentiles. And so when the Jews came, even
though Peter had been fellowshipping with these Galatian Gentiles
who had believed Christ, he said, hmm, this looks a little funny,
so he left eating with the Gentiles, the Galatians, and he went over
and he sat down with the Jews. And this is the event that God
used through the apostle to teach us about how we are justified
before God. Listen carefully. In Galatians
chapter two, In verse 12, before that certain came from James,
Peter did eat with the Gentiles, but when they were come, those
who were Jews from James, he withdrew and separated himself,
fearing them which were of the circumcision. The circumcision
would be the Jews who trusted that because they were circumcised,
they kept the law, and therefore God would accept them, and they
were better than the Gentiles, therefore, in the eyes of God,
because of what they did. This is the whole point here.
By keeping the law, they thought they were accepted and the Gentiles
were not because they didn't have the law and they wouldn't
keep it. So these people, these Jews, were trying to convince
the Galatian Gentiles it's not enough to just look to Christ
and trust Christ. You also have to keep the law.
Verse 13. And the other Jews dissembled
likewise with him insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away
with their dissimulation. This dissimulation means this
hypocrisy. Peter was acting a hypocrite.
Verse 14, this is Paul talking. But when I saw that they walked
not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, notice,
they didn't, what? Walk. They didn't walk uprightly
according to the truth of the gospel. I said to Peter before
them all, he's gonna make a public lesson of Peter, if thou being
a Jew, Now, the Jews were bred. They were born and raised. They
grew up with the law. It's like little kids who go
to Sunday school. Every week of their life, they get grown
up. They were taught these things.
The Jews had God's written law. And what is the law that God
gave to Moses? Now, follow me now. The law pretty
much can be summarized in two parts. First, what God requires
of us for obedience. Thou shalt love the Lord your
God with all your heart. You shall not kill, you shall
not steal, you shall not lie, you shall not covet, you shall
not commit adultery. That's the obedience God requires.
The law is divided up into what God requires of us for obedience,
and then the second part of the law was what God provided for
the transgression, for the sins of people. That was in the priesthood,
in the sacrifice, in the tabernacle, all that part of the law is about
what the priest had to do and what he had to offer in order
for the sins of the people to be taken away. So two things.
Here's what God requires for obedience. Here's what God requires
for sin payment. That's what the law was. Now,
listen. Verse 14, again, when I saw that
they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I
said to Peter before them all, if thou being a Jew, you were
raised under this law, you know what it says. If you live after
the manner of Gentiles, the Gentiles did not have the law, they did
not know what the law said. In fact, they could care less
about it, really. You can imagine what it's like.
It'd be like, I don't know, I'm not gonna give you an illustration.
It was pretty clear. These Gentiles just didn't have the law. They
knew the Jews despised them. Some of the Gentiles felt bad
about being so corrupt and sinful that they couldn't be like the
Jews and they were envious that God would favor the Jews. So
he's telling Peter, look, you are a Jew, but you're acting
like you don't need the law. because you've professed faith
in Christ. That's what he's saying. If you,
being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles as if you
don't need the law of God by your own personal obedience for
acceptance, and not as do the Jews, why do you compel the Gentiles
to live as do the Jews? So, Peter is saying here, I mean,
Paul is saying, look, Peter, you have said that, you can read
this in Acts 15, how that we couldn't bear the burden of the
law, but we believe that we're justified because of what Christ
has done. And so Peter said, we believe
we're going to be saved just like the Gentiles. So Peter stopped
acting like a Jew in the sense that he's saying, I don't depend
on my personal obedience to the law. And this is what he preached. And he was acting this way. He
was acting like a Gentile in the sense that he didn't trust
the law. He trusted Christ. But when the Jews came from Jerusalem
to these Galatian Gentiles, Peter said, oh, I better move back
over to that table. So now he's trying to compel
the Gentiles to act like a Jew in his behavior. It says, why
do you do this? That's hypocrisy. Verse 15, we
who are Jews by nature, we have the written law of God, and not
sinners are the Gentiles. We know the Gentiles are all
sinners. They don't have God's law. Verse 16, here's the crux. Knowing that a man is not justified
by the works of the law, no man can come before God and receive
from God a sentence of justified, righteous, by his own personal
obedience. The law requires this obedience.
And the law also requires a sin payment. You cannot do either
one. Knowing that a man is not justified
by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ.
That's what it says right here. By whose faith? The faith of
Jesus Christ. In other words, the Lord Jesus
Christ, in his life, Because he believed God as a man, he
fully kept the law. The obedience of the law, he
kept it. And then, having fully kept it, he also fulfilled what
was required for the penalty of God against our sin as our
high priest, and he offered himself as the sacrifice. He kept the
whole law. So the faith of Jesus Christ
refers to all that Christ did in obedience to the law in order
to establish a perfect righteousness before God. It was by his faithfulness,
by his personal faith, and he is the object of our faith. He
gives us the faith, he's the author of it, and he also is
the one we believe, he's the one we look to. So it says this.
not by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ,
by His obedience. Even we have believed in Jesus
Christ, notice, not in our personal obedience, but in Jesus Christ's
obedience, that we might be justified, not by our personal obedience,
but by the faith of Christ, by His obedience, by His sin-atoning
death. and not by the works of the law,
for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." Keep
reading. But if while we seek to be justified
by Christ, because Peter did, and Paul did, and so did the
believing Galatians, while we seek to be justified not by our
personal obedience, or our circumcision, or anything that the law requires
of us, While we're seeking that, we ourselves also are found sinners
because the Jews thought they're not keeping the law, they're
just Gentile sinners. Is therefore Christ the minister
of sin? Because we trust Christ only and we forsake the law as
the basis of our acceptance before God, is Christ somehow a minister
of sin? Absolutely not. Because it's
only by looking to Christ that God's law is fulfilled. Christ
himself alone fulfilled this law. So we seek to be justified
by Christ. It doesn't mean that God's law
is being violated. It means that it's actually being
fulfilled. Christ did it. And we come, like
Abel offering the Lamb, we come trusting Christ's offering of
himself for us as our acceptance, our justification, our righteousness
before God. Verse 18, for if I build again
the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.
Peter had preached, saved by Christ alone, and yet he acted
like he was dependent on his works when he got up from the
table of the Galatian Gentiles to move to the Jews. Therefore,
he made himself, again, to be a sinner because he tried to
put himself under the law and put them under the law. And under
the law, you're always going to be guilty and condemned. Notice
in verse 19, for I, now Paul's speaking about himself here,
I, personally, I, through the law, am dead to the law. Why? How did the law make him
dead? Well, because the law requires
that the soul that sinneth, it shall die. And Paul died because
the law required his death. But how did he die? I, through
the law, am dead to the law that I might live to God. First of
all, I had to die. But when I died, what happens
when you die? The wages of sin is death. You die. Now you're
a dead man. The law says, you need to do
this. And a dead man can't hear and
doesn't care. He's dead. He's dead to the law. He died, he said, by the law
I died because the law pronounced the penalty of death upon me
and I died to it. And now I didn't just die in
order to be dead, but I died that I might live to God. And
he explains it in the next verse. And this is what we want to get
to. This is walking with God. Listen. I am crucified with Christ. How did he die? Because God put
me into a union, a relationship with Christ, so that what he
did is what happened to me. And what God gave to him is what
God gave to me because of him, because of his obedience and
his death. I, Paul said, am crucified with Christ. Because of my sin,
the law condemned me to death. My sin was laid on Christ. Christ
died under the law. He was made of a woman, made
under the law. He must therefore die because
my sins were made his. He who knew no sin was made sin,
and therefore the righteousness of Christ is made mine. So I
am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Wait a
minute. How did you live? Because when
Christ was crucified, he didn't stay dead. Why? Because he fully paid what the
law required and fully fulfilled all the obedience of the law,
both parts, the obedience and the penalty. and therefore he
was raised. God raised him because he fully
fulfilled all that was required. So Paul says, I was with Christ,
God put me in Christ, I was crucified, my body of death, my body of
sins was put to death, my relationship to the law was severed completely.
The law has nothing to say to me because it put me to death
in Christ. I live because Christ rose. Notice
he says, yet not I I didn't raise myself up, and I don't live in
obedience to the law now, but Christ liveth in me. And the
life which I now live in the body of this flesh, I live by
the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for
me." How do we walk with God according to this? My life is
not my own, it's Christ living in me. How can you claim that?
You have no evidence. Oh, yes, I do. I have God's word. And he has persuaded me that
this is the way things are. I am a foul and wretched sinner,
corrupt, have no business coming to God. God must reject me. But
God himself has provided his son to reconcile me, to remove
the barrier, the offense my sins cause. And he has preached the
gospel to me. He has made him to be sin for
us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him. And now I see in God's own word
that with Christ I died, my sins were put, I was put to death,
my sins were put away, and he raised me again because Christ
fulfilled the law for me. And now, not only did he fulfill
the law, my record in heaven is perfect in Christ, but Christ
himself lives in me so that the very life I live now, how do
I live it? Notice. The life I now live in
the flesh, in this life, the 365 years of my life, or whatever
they are, can be distilled to this, can be condensed and summarized
this way. I live by the faith of the Son
of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I believe that
I was made, I was brought into perfect alignment and agreement
with God in the death and the resurrection of God's Son. And
I further believe that by this life in me, He has given me this
grace to believe Christ and to live in expectation that the
power over this sin that still resides in me and the hope of
His promises are all fulfilled by God because of what He thinks
of His Son. And I live in total dependence
on this. I live by the faith of the Son
of God. What God thinks of Christ is my life. And I find that in
doing so, what am I doing? I have been given to God. I've
been given to Christ by the Father, and I've been brought to Him,
and I live in reliance upon Christ as everything in my salvation. That's walking. That's walking
with God. And what does that do when we
walk this way? It causes us to think about our
lives entirely differently. We are not like Cain, thinking
I've got to bear my penalty, or like Cain, thinking God's
got to respect me. No, we say, God has every reason
to reject me, not respect me. He has every reason to cast me
out and make me a fugitive and a vagabond. But unlike Cain,
I see that in Christ, God has laid my sins on Him and I am
accepted in Him. And I believe that, even though
I have no physical evidence for it. God has said it in His Word,
we walk by faith and not by sight. And in this walking, as Ramel
pointed out in several scriptures, which we don't have time to go
to right now, we see that we live according to the revealed
will of God, trusting Christ. We depend on all the, in all
the circumstances of our life, whether we think they're good
or whether we think they're bad, we trust God and he's working
it all to bring us to that ultimate conclusion where we just walk
right into glory We live upon Christ, and we're reconciled
in our minds because God reconciled us to himself in the death of
his son. He's given us his own spirit. Christ himself lives
in us. He is our light. The life I live
now, I live by looking to Christ. I walk in the light as he is
in the light, and I therefore have fellowship with him. because
I realize that God is not compromising one whit of his holiness because
he looks upon Christ and accepts me because of what he has done.
He has given me, he has joined me to him so much, so inextricably
close that he looks upon me and he receives me for Christ's sake.
One more verse, look at Ephesians chapter five. I can't remember
if you read this one or not, Ramel. Ephesians chapter five,
look at this. while you're turning there. I'm reading another text right
now. All right, so Ephesians chapter five, verse one. Notice,
think of walking. Think of looking to Christ. Think
of being reconciled to God by the death of his son. God did
this. He brought us into his way. Be ye therefore followers
of God as dear children. What a comforting thought that
is, isn't it? Look back at the verse ahead
in the end of chapter four. Be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted,
forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven
you." Faith causes us to believe that, that God, for Christ's
sake, has forgiven me. And that puts us in a frame of
mind as someone who had such a load of debt and guilt and
deserving condemnation, full of corruption, having no way
to understand or come to God, God himself must reject me and
yet entirely For nothing I did, but by His grace alone, and on
the basis of Christ's righteousness, God forgave me all my sins. He lifted them from me. He laid
them on His Son, and He wiped the slate clean. I'm fully accepted
by God. Full remission has been made
in the court of heaven, for Christ's sake. Therefore, chapter 5, verse
1, be ye therefore followers of God as dear children, and
walk in love. as Christ also hath loved us. I was looking for this in John
14, I think it's in, actually it's in John 15, verse nine. Listen to these words. As the
Father, this is Jesus talking, as the Father hath loved me. How did the God the Father love
his Son? absolutely no risk, there's no
barrier there. All of the infinite and eternal
love of God the Father is towards His Son, right? As the Father
has loved me, so have I loved you. Ephesians 5, walk in love
as Christ also has loved us. No barrier, the infinite, eternal
love of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, towards his people. You walk in love as Christ also
has loved us and has given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice
to God for a sweet smelling savor. So now we've really distilled
it into these two things, even though there's much more to it.
God gives us to His Son. He receives all that Christ is
and did for us. He receives us as Him. He put
us in Him. He put our sins to death in Him.
Raised us, justified us because of Christ's obedience and death.
Now we're completely reconciled to God. And then He gave us His
Spirit to understand it and to believe it, so that we live by
faith in the Son of God. And now He tells us, be followers
of God, His dear children. Walk in love as Christ has loved
us. There's no limit, there's no
barrier to Christ's love for His people. He's fully done it
all. We have to walk in this. Enoch
did. His whole life condensed to this. He walked with God.
The life of every believer, not only like Abel comes to God because
of Christ and his offering, and like Seth and Enos calls upon
the Lord, Lord save me, and worships God on the basis of that salvation,
and for that salvation, and yet the believer also walks with
God in this. As you have received Christ Jesus
the Lord, so walk ye in him. Sometimes we think, I cannot
be a Christian. I am so perverse. I've done the
things I knew I shouldn't do and didn't do the things I know
I ought to do. And there's no goodness in me. That's true.
That's true. What are you going to do? I'm
going to look to Christ. As you have received Christ Jesus
the Lord, so walk ye in Him. Keep coming. Keep looking. Live
by faith in the Son of God. And therefore you'll know the
fellowship, the sweet fellowship of God himself walking with you
and disclosing his grace, his goodness, all of his perfections
to you in his son. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for
your grace and mercy that even in this man, Enoch, whose life
can be summarized as one who walked with God, we see the maturity
that you bring your people to, to understand that we not only
are justified by the Lord Jesus Christ, but we walk by your Spirit,
trusting him alone. And help us not to be overcome
by our sin. We pray, Lord, that the very
sin that seems to be so powerful against us would be used by Your
grace to bring us to Yourself. We would despise and loathe ourselves
and forsake our tendency to walk in these false ways, serving
ourselves, but we would walk honestly in the light of your
word. Order our steps in your word,
so shall we walk in them. And Lord, we pray that you would
give us this grace to not only look to the Lord Jesus Christ
for all things, but walk in love, knowing that you loved us and
have given yourself for us. Help us so to do with all that
you've given us to live for your glory. In Jesus' name we pray,
amen.