By Faith…Enoch Pleased God

Hebrews 11:5-6

5By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. 6And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Enoch believed that he should please God.

Today’s passage is about a unique servant of God named Enoch. Most people are mystified by the life of Enoch because there are very few details surrounding his life and the one event that the Bible does record is very unusual. With such few facts written about Enoch we might not know what to learn from him. But today’s New Testament passage gives us many helpful clues to interpret this Old Testament story. Therefore let’s unlock the mysterious life of Enoch and learn his faith through this glorious passage. For, this passage has power built into it to transform our lives forever. May God bless us through it.

Look at verse 5a, “By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away.”

Being a servant of God doesn’t exclude you from experiencing the illnesses and pain of death. Take for example Elisha from the Old Testament, he served God powerfully and faithfully nearly his entire life but at the end of his days he suffered from an illness that finally killed him. King David, at the end of his life was very sick too and required a full-time nurse until his death. Even the greatest men of God were not except from the pangs of death. Even the apostle Peter and Paul were said to be executed by Roman soldiers. This was done to glorify God. But Enoch experienced an easy death, in fact he didn’t die at all, verse 5 says “that he did not experience death”. What a great blessing for Enoch, God allowed him to by-pass all discomfort and pain related to death. But that is not all. Enoch lived to be 365 years old before God took him away. Now, 365 years seems like a long time to live but it’s actually far shorter than others in his time. The average age of those recorded at the beginning of Genesis is 910 years-old. So God took Enoch when he was still fairly young (comparable to someone in their mid-thirties, our time). Someone might think that it’s not positive to be taken to heaven so early, “What about his family? What about his career? He didn’t even live out his life on earth to it’s full!” In our modern view, a short life is not a blessing but a kind of curse. But not in the case of Enoch! In Enoch’s case, he was like a young boy who gets to leave school early and go home before other kids. When you were a kid at school, you might have experienced the happiness of a parent coming early to pick you up from school. You got to pack up your backpack and walk out the classroom door hours before you expected. It was a blessing to go home early when you thought you would have to stay at school the entire day. Likewise, God called Enoch home after only 365 years. So, not only did Enoch not experience death but he also got to go home to heaven early. Can any blessing on earth compare to going to heaven earlier than expected? Can any blessing compare to the blessing of escaping the experience of death? Would Enoch be more blessed if he was made a king? Surely Enoch was one of the most most blessed by God! He was privileged, for God showed him special care.

How did he do it? The beginning of verse 5, says that “by faith” Enoch was taken from this world, so that he did not experience death. And it also says that before he was taken he was commended as one who pleased God. There is a cause and effect relationship here: Enoch’s faith pleased God and as a result God took him from this life and brought him to Heaven. We can learn an important lesson here: GOD LOVES FAITH! There is nothing that pleases him more than people having faith. When Jesus came to minister as “God with us”, he showed how important faith is and how much God was happy with faith. In fact there are only two times in the gospels Jesus was ever “amazed” and both cases involved someone’s faith. Faith is the physics of Heaven. On earth we have gravity, inertia and various other rules that govern the physical universe. But in reality faith supersedes these things because faith is on a higher plane. So to live in the world of faith is to live where God exists—the world that is above circumstances and situations. It brings God great joy to see his children choosing to live in the world of faith, the world where he is.

God wants people to live on a higher plane. God wants people to live out their life on the same plane where he himself lives. He wants them to think at his level and feel at his level. He wants people to come up to him so that he can have fellowship with them. He wants to have fellowship with us because he loves us. Living by faith is to operate on God’s level where all things are possible and where he is all in all.

Enoch was a man who lived by faith not just every once in a while but he was a man who lived by faith every day for three hundred straight years. Is it any wonder that God was so happy with him? Many people make a big deal about him because he was taken from earth but this is just a formality. He was already living at the level of heaven for 300 years while on earth. Someone might say, “Show me that he was living on such a high level.” Look at Genesis 5:21-24.

²¹When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. ²²And after he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. ²³Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years. ²⁴Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.

Here we find Enoch’s faith and his secret to “pleasing” God. There is an important expression that is written twice here, it is the expression, “Enoch walked with God”. There are a lot of things that this expression implies. But let’s focus on one thing. Walking with God means being a partner with God who is operating with God’s intent to bring salvation and judgement to this world. There is another great passage where another servant of God is walking with God. Let’s turn to Genesis 18:16-21.

 ¹⁶When the men got up to leave, they looked down toward Sodom, and Abraham walked along with them to see them on their way. ¹⁷Then the LORD said, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? ¹⁸Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. ¹⁹For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him." ²⁰Then the LORD said, "The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous ²¹that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know."

Like Abraham and Enoch, whoever walks with God becomes an insider into God’s work and also becomes his coworker. Jesus underlined this point when he spoke with his disciples near the end of his ministry:

¹⁵I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends…

During Enoch’s days the spiritual atmosphere was on a major decline. The believers in Enoch’s day were not following and walking with God but they were going their own way towards sinful behavior. There was a compromising environment where believers retained a spiritual name for themselves (i.e. The Sons of God) but they were not living up to it. This came to a head in the time of Enoch’s great grandson Noah and God wiped mankind from the face of the earth. It is no surprise that Enoch was a preacher in his generation. In fact, in the book of Jude we have the only personal quote from Enoch ever recorded. 

¹⁴Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: "See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones ¹⁵to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him."

This sermon by Enoch was very likely aimed at the corrupt pseudo-believers who would be objects of God’s judgement. How were they different than Enoch? They were different because they believed in “pleasing themselves” rather than “pleasing God”. Sure, they may have kept a form of godliness but they were ultimately living for themselves. Like Jesus in the book of Revelation, God was going to spit them out of his mouth because they were neither hot nor cold. Enoch was different because he didn’t follow the trend of his generation but lived by faith in pleasing God. His faith was that pleasing God was the right and better way of life. As he lived out this faith he “walked with God” and was pleasing to God. He was a partner with God and couldn’t help but become a voice for God in his generation. 

  Someone once commented that “Christianity in America is a mile wide but an inch deep.” Meaning that many call themselves Christians but their relationship with God is shallow. This is the case because most never walk with God so they never really know God’s plan. And they don’t walk with God because they are engrossed in pleasing themselves. They always think about God’s blessing on their life and rarely think about how they can bless God. It is not right for people to perpetually think about themselves and neglect pleasing God. Therefore, what this generation needs is young people who put their faith into living a life that pleases God. This passage was very convicting to me because I saw in myself a habit of wanting to “appease” God rather than “please” God. For I sought the LORD’s favor in hopes of getting what I wanted for myself. I was thinking deep down, “If only God could be content with me then I would be able to do what I want and not get in trouble.” This is the mentality of keeping God happy so I can get what I want.

It is one thing to say, “Please God, not myself.” but it is another thing to believe it and live it. In Enoch’s case he did this three hundred years straight. How did he do it? Look at Hebrews 11:6.

6And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

So when Enoch lived to please God and walked with God he was putting in a lot of effort. He sacrificed a lot of time, energy, money and material into it. He was investing not just some of his life but all of his life into so how did he maintain this high effort for 300 years? Answer: He believed that God rewards those who earnestly seek him. This was his secret to consistency. Amazingly his real reward didn’t come until 300 years later and that reward was God himself and not something else.

One time in 2006 I came to the conclusion that Apple Computer stock was going to go up in price really high. I was sure of this and so I took five thousand dollars and bought apple stock at $80.00 a share. I watched the stock every single day and it climbed pretty fast to $85.00 a share. I was so happy because I was already making a good profit. But after a couple of months the stock dipped down to $76.00 per share. “Oh no!” I said, “I am losing money!” I waited and waited for the stock to come up and slowly but surely it came up to $80.00 and then $82.00 (a little above the initial price). I thought to myself, “I can’t stand this feeling. I am going to get out and sell my stock before I lose all my money.” A couple people counseled me to stay-in and invest for the long term but I sold all my shares and got out with little bit of profit. In less than two months the stock went up to 85, then 95, then 105 — at that point I felt so stupid. But then it went up to 115, then 125, then 135, then 155, 175, 185, 195, 200!!! Ow my! I knew this was going to happen. But before the reward really came I had opted out. I had known at one time that this would happen but then I got scared that it might never happen and so I sold out.

In a sense believers are investors in God. We believe that if we put forth time and resources into seeking God that there will be a reward or a return on our investment. So many times this point strikes us and we begin praying earnestly for God’s kingdom. We spend time, even long hours, doing ministry work and at first we often see quick results. It seems that God encourages us by a quick return. So we keep going, investing time and resources into seeking him. But sometimes we hit a dry spell where instead of going up it seems like were going down. Things don’t get easier or better but they get harder and harder. And it is at this time that it seems were not getting any return on our investment but instead we’re losing on our investment. Ow man! So we pull off investing so much into seeking God and begin diversifying our portfolio. We may now begin putting some more time into making money or pursuing a relationship with a human rather than God. Diversifying seems like the smarter thing to do instead of risking everything on God. But Enoch’s case tells us different. Enoch put all his “eggs” into one basket because he believed that God rewards. It took 300 years before he finally got his reward but it was a great reward. He got to go and be with God, his very great reward.

From Enoch we learn that God does reward those who earnestly seek him. Therefore we should not give up when things don’t go our way or it seems that we are losing instead of gaining. But there is one catch. Our reward is God and not something else. Sometimes we earnestly seek God so that we can see fruit, but the fruit is not ours, the fruit is God’s. Our reward is God himself and to be closer to him. So we need to purify our intended reward for if our reward is in fruit or in being powerful or in being acknowledged or in being materially blessed, etc. we will be disappointed and give-up seeking God. But if our reward is God himself we can have faith that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

One Word: Please God By Faith

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