Enoch: Redwood Faith

In a one-off pastor Ian Graham invites us to consider God’s vision for our lives in the obscure, but powerful, example of Enoch.

Transcript

Mother’s Day And Two Calendars

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I also want to say Alfredo referenced the calendar, and what he's referencing is the church calendar. And that is the time that we try to keep and step in with as Ecclesiah. There also, it turns out, is another calendar that is set by our culture and is set by things like Hallmark. And I want to say, I'm honestly tempted every year this comes up just to ignore it and not say anything about Mother's Day. Because it's not that we have any lack of regard or honor for our mothers. We have profound regard. But we also know that the way our culture approaches this often does not bear any witness to the complexity of what it means to encounter Mother's Day. So with that, I've made a bit of a negotiation with myself. First of all, the scriptures are maximalist. And what I mean by that is Jesus doesn't have to deny or minimize our pain and suffering, or the ways that things are not as they should be. He doesn't do any of that. He takes them all unto his very self. Without denying them, without minimizing them, healing them. And I believe that not only will time heal all wounds, but the wounds of Jesus will heal time itself. And if there are years that the locusts has stolen and eaten from you in your life, especially as it regards anything around this idea of being a mother or with your own mother, he will restore the years the locusts as he. It could be simple, I should say. It was not simple in the first service, so. What do you want to be known for? I found a sentence, I want to read it for you because it's beautiful. Superlatives abound. When a person tries to describe old growth redwoods, immense, stately, mysterious, powerful, yet the trees were not designed for easy assimilation into language. Their existence speaks for themselves, not in words, but rather in a soft toned voice of patience and endurance. Ecclesia, this is from a national parks website. Some bureaucrat just waxing eloquently about coastal redwoods. And I like, this is this is love that a lover is inviting us to share in their delight. It's a really beautiful sentence. And so much of what's said here, I think, contains a vision for us as people who dwell in Jesus, to use his prepositional phrase, with Jesus over the long haul. And what I want to do today, I hope simply, but I hope beautifully, is just cast a vision for us. To take the long view. To see that God really actually likes you and wants to be with you over the long haul, and that the invitation is to be with him, to be where he is, and to receive his vision for what he might do with our lives if we stay planted and rooted in his soil. That is so much better, so much further beyond anything that we could ever imagine or achieve for ourselves. And to do that, I want to start in a very obscure place in the scriptures in Genesis chapter 5. How many of us have determined, maybe you grew up in church, maybe you were a new Christian, you're like, you know what? I'm gonna read the whole Bible. And you're like, I'm definitely gonna do this. And then you get to the early parts of Genesis and you're like, why are there all these genealogies and names? What purpose could this possibly serve? Has anybody had this experience? Has anybody determined to read the whole Bible in perhaps a year and fallen short? Just me. Okay. But the other side of it, has anybody succeeded? We also need to know that this is possible. Have you succeeded at reading it? Yes, okay. You can raise your hand. This is good. I'm asking you to brag. Perfect. It is possible. But there are roadblocks put in our place. Things that are not obvious why they're in there. And in Genesis 5, we encounter one of those early roadblocks. Thus, all the days of Mahalalel were 895 years and he died. When Jared had lived 162 years, he became the father of Enoch. Jared lived after the birth of Enoch 800 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days of Jared were 962 years and he died. Now, if you're following along, you're asking a very basic and very pertinent question. Why? I don't know. Verse 21 of Genesis 5. When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after the birth of Methuselah 300 years, had other sons and daughters, thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years. And then we get a little break in the pattern. If you read Genesis 5, you see that the scripture writers establish a pattern of a length of time, which is a very inordinate length of time from our vantage point. And why these people were living so long, we're not really told. At some point, God's sort of tired with their length of years. And then at some point, subsequently, God says, Oh, also you can eat meat. And I don't know if those two things are related. If you're a vegetarian, you're like, size, right. Jesus ate fish, so deal with that what you will. Now, but there's this important thing we have to keep in mind when we open the scriptures is that, especially when we see a pattern established and then we see a deviation from that pattern. When you see the pattern broken, perhaps there is a call to pay attention. So we have this pattern in the genealogy, certain length of years, talking about their lineage, their sons, and then they died. And then with Enoch, we have something slightly different. Enoch lived 365 years, he walked with God. And then he was no more because God took him. The biblical writers were not using word processors like we used. They didn't have infinite access to space on the internet, like we can just write infinite scroll, it goes to the bottom, and then it never stops. They didn't have the access to paper that we have. Resources were finite. And so one of the things we've determined from this conclusion is that there are no unnecessary details. And so why does it tell us that Enoch walked with God and then he was no more because God took him. Now, I think this is inviting us to the compelling vision that God has for each and every one of us. To walk in the way of Jesus over the long haul of our lives, to live out what Eugene Peterson quoting Friedrich Nietzsche calls the law of obedience in the same direction. To walk with God. What do you want to be known for? What do you want to be regarded as? Now, to set the context in Genesis, we have a narrative context that will be helpful. Genesis 1 and 2, God narrates the world to life. Words creating worlds. And God joyfully brings the world into being. And every time he completes a day of his work, he steps back from his work and says, Pretty good. And he does this for subsequent days leading up to the sixth day, where he says, Let us make humankind in our image, male and female, he created them. And he said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. And he takes a step back on that sixth day and he says, Good. Very good. But we know, if we have any familiarity with the texture of the story, that these chapters of early bliss do not last long. By Genesis 3, this overarching shalom has been fractured. The serpent whispers his conspiracy. Did God really say that, please? Did God really say that it was good? Did God really say that this was not good for you? And we see the earliest man and woman act out of alignment with God's ordering of the world. They try by being acquisitive, by trying to grasp, by trying to clutch that which God has forbidden to be in the words of the serpent, like God. And they don't get the results that they desired. And what they find instead is that as they take from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that they are naked and ashamed. And they're trying to cover their nakedness and their shame with figs and leaves. This starts a downward spiral where everything is breaking, there are fractures everywhere. In Genesis 4, brother is killing brother. In Genesis 6, God is so overwhelmed with sorrow at the thorough evil of the human heart, always everywhere, that he's like, why did I make this world? Now again, we have all sorts of philosophical assumptions. We bring about God called theology and what it means for him to be God. But if you read Genesis 6 in its plain voice, it is saying, God is sorry that he made the world. The word, the Hebrew word is nakam, like he repents, like there's something internal, a struggle going on. Do with that what you will. It's a sermon for another time. But we see how thoroughly broken everything is. And yet Noah finds favor in God's eyes. And God faithfully determines to preserve Noah and his lineage. In Genesis chapter 11, we see that God, starting over in a sense with Noah, doesn't fix everything. We see all the nations of the earth sharing one language. They commit to a sort of pre-modern secular humanist project to build a siege tower towards the heavens, assailing, taking the kingdom without the king at Babel. To have God without God's reign and rule and expectations. So this is the context of Enoch walking with God, and then he is no more. Brother killing brother, creation undone, a secular humanism promising the kingdom without the king. It sounds a lot like our world. And amidst this overwhelming tide, this torrent of rebellion to God, this unraveling that sin has wrought upon the world, amidst all of this, there are two men who stem the tide. Noah, we've already referenced, and Enoch, who walked with God, and then he was no more. Because God took it. The life of Enoch has inspired all sorts of speculation throughout the story of the scriptures and beyond the scriptures. There are traditions that suggest he is the first and founder of the human art of writing. There are books dedicated to Enoch that pertain to be from his perspective about what's going on in the heavenlies. Enoch keeps appearing in the salvation story, and again, if you look at it at scale, there's just a few verses about him. Why does this man who seems to be so unremarkable, why does he feature so prominently in the salvation story? Perhaps it's because he walked with God. What would it mean for us to live in the way of Jesus over the long haul so that it could be said of us that we walk with God? What do you want to be known for? What do you want to be regarded as? That this is the defining characteristic of our lives. And how would people around us know? You know, I spend a lot of time around people that aren't Christians. And they they have some vague awareness of what I do. And my prayer is always like, if there's a moment to seize and a word to be spoken, God help me to be courageous and speak it, even if it sort of causes the record to scratch. Friends hanging out. And I'm like, hey, do you know about Jesus? Like, there's a time for that. But I also pray, I'm like, Lord, just help these people to see that I have been with you. That there's something about my life far from perfect that just is has a gravitational effect. Not because I'm awesome, but because you are. The psalmist writes of this kind of life. And I think this is where we want to land our invitation here this morning. Beginning in Psalm chapter 1, the psalmist writes, Blessed or happy is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked, or stand in the way that sinners take, or sit in the company of mockers. So it's interesting that the psalmists start this way, almost with a negative. Right? You would think, like the psalms we have, if we have any awareness of them, we think of them as a catalog of praise songs, but really this starts with a wisdom proverb. And it's the kind of wisdom proverb that's not like, here is the blessed life, do all these things. It's the kind of wisdom proverb that says, don't do these things. And the psalmist describes walking in the way of the wicked. How easily do we start walking in ways that we think are going to provide us with some easy pleasure or feedback or notoriety? But there's a motion here. As you start walking in this way, then you find yourself stopping there. Standing in the company of sinners. Have you ever looked around and just been like, how did I get here? How did my life come to this? And then we see that the motion is stopped. It is settled. It is parked. Sitting in the seat of scoffers, almost like you're stuck. Blessed is the one who does not do these things, does not go these ways. Later on in the psalm, the psalmist will describe them as almost nothing. But the glory that God wants to give to us has a weight to it, as 2 Corinthians will talk about. This cavod, this weight that is almost ineffable and indescribable, but is undeniable. That's what God has for us. But the opposite of that is this chaff that's blown away in the wind. Our kids pick up the dandelions that are in our front yard. There's a lot of them in our front yard, we've got to be honest. And they blow them, and then there are more. But even their feeble breath causes them to scatter. And this is the image of the psalmist. When we walk in the way that is anathetical to the way of God's goodness and blessing, we become like nothing. We're just blown to and fro. Thomas Merton speaks of a time where he and his friends had built a fort in the woods near his home. Anybody ever had this experience? You had like a secret hideout place that was only yours? And you get the visions from like the little rascals, you know, where they have this tree house that is like mechanically engineered by eight-year-olds, and you're like, I don't know if I can live up to that standard. But in your mind, it is almost as good. Sandlot, same thing, right? Just amazing tree houses. He talks of a time where he and his friends had built a tree house. Now, the other side of that is how many of you are older siblings? You have younger siblings in here? Raise your hand. Okay, thank you, thank you. How many of you are younger siblings? Thank you. Excellent. Now, Thomas Merton describes his younger brother, John Paul. And in that age-old archetypal story of the older brother and the younger brother, the younger brother just wants to play with the older brother. He just wants to participate. But Thomas Merton, playing his part in that archetype, does not want his little brother anywhere near he and his friends that have built this amazing fort. And he describes his brother wanting to draw near, trying to draw close, and Thomas Merton and his friends doing everything they can to keep him away. He says, John Paul was standing in a field about a hundred years away from the clump of sumacs where we have built our hut. It's this little perplexed five-year-old in short pants and a kind of leather jacket standing quite still with his arms hanging down at his sides and gazing in our direction, afraid to come any nearer on account of the stones that we have thrown his way. He's insulted as he is saddened, and his eyes full of indignation and sorrow. And yet, he does not go away. We shout at him, get out of here, beat it, go home. We wing a couple more rocks in that direction. And he does not go away. We tell him to play in some other place. He does not move, and there he stands, not sobbing, not crying, but angry and unhappy and offended and tremendously sad. And yet, he is fascinated by what we are doing. Nailing shingles all over our new hut and his tremendous desire to be with us and to do what we are doing will not permit him to go away. The law written in his nature says that he must be with his elder brother and do what he is doing. And he cannot understand why this law of love is being so wildly and unjustly violated in his case. Many times it was like that. And in a sense, this terrible situation is the pattern and prototype of all sin. The deliberate and formal will to reject disinterested love for us for the purely arbitrary reason that we simply do not want it. We will to separate ourselves from that love. We reject it entirely and absolutely will not acknowledge it simply because it does not please us to be loved. Merton describes the law that is inscribed on his little brother's desire to be with him. And Ecclesia, I think God is in every way like this. And this is what Merton is subtly suggesting to us. Is that even though we wing rocks in his direction, even though we reject his presence and his nearness, he stands far off, not rejecting us in reciprocity or likewise, but just trying to draw near. Because the law inscribed in his nature says, I need to be where they are. I love that Merton even says that the little brother referencing God is interested in what we're up to. And yet he will allow us the freedom to reject him and push him away. The life that Psalm 1 is inviting us into is a life that doesn't reject the nearness of God's presence. To see that there is another way than the way that scoppers tread, another way from the place of standing where sinners are mocking and sinning, we're invited to see God's welcome. Love that continuously, steadfastly knocks upon the door of our hearts. We see throughout the scriptures over and over again that no matter how frequently we collectively or we individually tell God, I don't want you here, he will not give up on us. He stands at the door and he knocks. And if we open, he will come and he will dine with us. This is his covenant faithfulness, his has said, his steadfast love. Verse 2 goes on in Psalm 1: Blessed is the one who does not do these things, but rather the one whose delight is in the law of the Lord, who meditates on his law day and night. The psalmist says that the way that we, in the strength of God's unfailing love, stand against the overwhelming tide that can be our culture, our defaults, our flesh, to use the words of Paul, is simply paying attention to the words that God has spoken to us. We do that every week collectively here. And that's why it's such a special time. There's a sustained attention that's happening here. There's something powerful that happens. Not because of the way the words are spoken, but because God is inhabiting the words that He has inspired as gifts to His people, as blessings in a special way that unites us as one people. It's profound. We turn our attention towards the true story of the world and allow ourselves, even for just a moment, to inhabit it. God meets us there in power. The Hebrew word for delight here in Psalm 1, chapter 2, has the semantic rage not only of joy, but of interest and of need. This is about paying attention. It's about something that we need to live. Perhaps you have a hobby, a relationship, something that brings you delight. You probably tell other people about it, right? It's probably somewhat obvious to those around you, those close to you, what you enjoy. That's why they can give you good gifts because they're aware of the things that bring you joy. When we delight in something, we talk about it, we move towards it, we pay attention to it, we give it our energy. And hear the word for delighting in the law of the Lord is exactly that. It's inviting us to pay attention. Mary Oliver, in her ever-profound way, says attention is the beginning of devotion. And for us, one of the ways we begin to receive, to plant ourselves within the ever-vibrant soil of God's never-ending love is simply by paying attention to the words that he has spoken. It says of Enoch that he walked with God, and I can't help but fill in some details here and assume that Enoch's life was marked by paying attention. It's the only thing I can conclude because if you look, if you place Enoch on a scale compared to people like Moses and Elisha and even Jacob, Enoch has like three verses in the Old Testament. He doesn't do anything. But it says that he walked with God and then he was no more because God took him. The sole-defining feature of Enoch's life was that he walked with God. What do we want to be known? Jesus says, Remain in my love, and I will remain in you. And this is both an invitation and a promise. You know, the interesting thing about Enoch is his life keeps showing up throughout the story of the scriptures. Three verses in Genesis. And yet, if you read the genealogy, another genealogy of Jesus in Luke chapter 3, you cannot tell the salvation story without saying Enoch's name. When the writer of Hebrews is thinking about the great cloud of witnesses who have come before the Christians that he is writing to. The poet William Stafford says this the world happens twice, once what we see it as, second, it legends itself the way it is. I'm going to invite the worship team forward. Because what's happening in Enoch's life is exactly the economy of God's abundant and never-ending grace. Enoch's life from every measure and mark seems unremarkable, except this one thing: that he walked with God. There's a moment in the Acts of the Apostles where John and Peter are doing these great miracles, and literally the authorities are looking and they're like, we can't figure out how these guys are doing these things. They are unremarkable men and unlearned men. The only thing that we know about them is that they've been with Jesus. The world happens twice. Once what we see it as, second, it legends itself. And that's what God is up to. And all I simply want to do today is to give us a vision for what God is up to over the long haul of the trajectory of our life. You see, it's so easy for us to account for beauty that's external to us, outside of us. We can see a beautiful face or a beautiful scene, and we're like, wow, that's remarkable. It's moving. But I want you to just turn your direction and your gaze inward for just a moment. You can't even begin to imagine what God is doing with your life. An immeasurable weight of glory. He is transforming you from glory to glory. And I know it seems so insignificant, so mundane at times. And delighting in the law of the Lord takes on different textures through the different seasons and ebbs and flows of our life. Sometimes God is so obvious and so clear, and it's like, wow, yes, Lord, I see your face. I feel your presence. And other times through pain and through suffering or through just boredom, you're like, oh my God, I don't know what you're up to. But the promise is not about our posture. The promise is that the law inscribed on the nature of God is that he will not go away. Whether we push him away, whether it feels like he has moved away, he stands firm, saying, I am here, I love you, I am doing something more than you could ever imagine with your life. And we see this in Jesus as he gives himself for us. He says, Me going to the cross is but a seed. Unless a seed falls to the earth, it doesn't grow into anything. But if I am cast to the earth, I will be lifted up and I will draw all people to myself. An equosia, we need sometimes just fresh wind for the long haul of life. I know in my own life there have been moments where exuberance and abundance have defined every step. Oh my God, I see you. I rejoice in you. There have been other times in my life with frustration and just even feeling the disintegration. When I look within, I'm like, oh God, I'm not who I should be, I'm not where I should be. And I want to just remind you that the promise is his. The invitation is his. The growth is his. It's not Paul or Apollos who waters in the words of 1 Corinthians, but it's God who gives the increase. Remain in me and in my love, and you will bear much fruit. That is Jesus' invitation and promise to us. We pray come, Holy Spirit. God, would you give us a vision of faith, Lord, that legends itself? The power of your grace, Lord, you are turning us into more than we could ever ask or imagine. God, you tell us within that same passage in John 15 that you prune those you love. God, I think there are so many challenges that come up in our lives that if we will simply entrust them to you, they will be moments of pruning up, of shaking. But so often the temptation for us is to try to solve it on our own. And whether that be sins, God, that we're trying to overcome, or ways that we're trying to look and see if you'll provide for us, God. Lord, may we entrust ourselves to the goodness, the richness of your soil again, to remain in you. That we might be in the promise of the Psalms, like trees planted by streams of water, bearing fruit in season and out of season, prospering in all of our ways, God, because we are known for one thing: that we walk with you. So, God, invite us to your friendship, God. Invite us to your goodness, Lord. May we be yours and yours alone. We pray these things in your name, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. See, I'm going to invite you to stand where you are and worship you to lead us in a song of response. As we pray to the Holy Spirit, be present here. Just continue in that turn attention towards what God might be saying to you. And in just a moment, we'll come worship together to the table. Let's worship together.