Ironworks | Our Walk

yeah well i've i've been uh wanting to share this with you guys uh this particular topic uh every once a month we do this iron works and i for the last couple years i've been um just sharing various topics that you know kind of tend to surface uh over the years in ministry just watching how we as guys uh do well or are not so good like what are some of our strong points what are some of our weak points and uh so you know it's good for us to be able to kind of just sit and get the guys together i'm always thankful i love saturday morning iron works um you know as iron sharpens iron you know that's that's what the bible talks about how we get to sharpen the you know the countenance of a friend and i think that's what sometimes is good for us as brothers to you know sharpen each other talk about things that we need to talk about um one of the things that i thank the lord more and more every day that goes by in my life is how i had a dad that was into you know sharpening and works even though the sparks fly when you're sharpening it it never slowed my dad down even to this day my dad will call me and just say hey brett you know how you doing and remember don't let satan get a handle on you like that's a phrase i knew about that represented like five or ten family devos when i was a little kid and you know he drew pictures he used to do our family devos and he'd take a chalkboard and draw these great uh stick figure guys they were they'd come to life as far as me and my sisters were concerned but you know he'd draw little pictures of a little guy and he's going along life also this little handles on the back of his back you know and you see this this kind of evil hand coming in and and starting to get a hold of that handle and the more he got a hold of it the bigger the handle got and and like any and he drew this whole thing by the end of the thing this little guy's being jerked around by this evil hand you know and and it's like satan wants to get a handle on you that was like language he'd use and so even to this day you know here i am 54 years old and you know don't let a second get a handle on you um and i'm thankful for those reminders because you know we guys satan wants to get a handle on you and jerk you around and uh and get you stuck in sin and trapped with uh just stupid things um so i'm thankful for those reminders you know and uh or or you know as long as the list of those things my dad will even to this day still remind me of those things but i'm thankful that i have someone like that who who's constantly kind of just keeping the edge you know trying to keep things sharp i hope every man has a guy if it's not your dad hopefully it's another brother or a couple other brothers that you are accountable to and with and talk to if nobody can speak into your life you're in a horribly dangerous position you might not think you're in a dangerous spot uh i'm sure that cuomo and uh clinton and cosby and others you know i'm sure they all thought they were perfectly safe too uh but uh but they ended up just you know kind of blowing up their lives uh and that's what happens with us guys um and by the way isn't it interesting this that the enemy he's kind of got one play and he uses that play over and over and over again but you know if you're if you're running up the middle and you get 11 yards every time you'll use that play uh over and over again you know and that's that's what the enemy does and um so man you got to be careful as a guy in this world today we need to be sharpening one another and that's what these iron works are about i wanted to talk this this morning about uh the simple topic of your walk if you could just sort of uh introspectively think for a second you know how is my personal walk with the lord you know if you had to um uh tell tell someone okay my walk is pretty much fill in the blank is it is it steady uh is it is it you know immovable is your walk uh consistent or is your walk is it sometimes a sprint uh is it is it is it just a marathon is it is it a walk is it a run is it is it leaping and flying isaiah 40 you know talks about they that wait upon the lord they shall mount up with wings like eagles they shall run and not grow weary they shall walk and not faint have you ever wondered why the lord put that in that order in my mind you know initially it just seems like first of all they should walk and not grow weary they shall run and not faint and then they shall mount up with wings as eagles but i wonder if the lord puts the walk last in that list because it might be just the best i know guys that mount up with wings like eagles but they never walk how many times have you seen a guy who gets on fire for the lord and just like he's just ready to roll man i'm going to be a missionary i'm going to go to this i'm going to write write the bible in my own handwriting i'm going to memorize all the scripts and you know just suddenly guys just start getting all you know fired up but that's today tomorrow they're down to the strip club uh you know checking out the girls it's like what happens to these guys i'm not sure the lord always asks for a sprint um thank the lord i was never a sprinter even in high school and i was in good shape i loved being a shot putter discus javelin because we just sat around in the sun and once in a while we'd you know put the shot i'd watch all those other crazy people running around and go haha you know we put the speakers on my volkswagen up on the roof you know and just listen to music and you know it's just great um i like the slow and steady man that's the way to go um is the lord in into us having a walk with him um you know a lot of times you hear this kind of in the bible the language of the bible is are you walking with the lord does who had a walk with the lord and you never hear the run except for paul you know he says i've run the race to win the prize paul did talk about that in a running sort of sense but um but even in paul's wording there when you look it up in the greek text it's not running like sprint it's more of a long long marathon um and uh and that's that's what the lord i think would ask of you maybe today is to say how is my walk is it steady is it progress is my walk better today than it was ten years ago if you're an older christian you know you have to ask these things and and i believe the bible gives great credit to people who have that walk one of the guys in the bible that's pretty famous even though he only gets like a couple verses in the whole bible like think about the think about the guys that got all the ink you know moses joseph daniel david those are all great dudes some of those guys had really great walks other guys did david had a very inconsistent walk um you know david at times was doing really well but there were times where he plummeted down to where he was you know psalm 32. you know oh the lord's hand was heavy on me and i he was trying to keep my sins secret to the lord and he wasn't really walking with the lord at that moment the good thing about david is he got back on the on the wagon and and got going again that's good but this idea of a walk um you know the one who's probably most famous for his walk is a guy named enoch why don't you grab your bible turn there to genesis with me and i want to kind of review this little guy enoch um and we'll think about what what what did god think about this guy enoch now in genesis chapter five we have that most amazing genealogy um i love that uh you know why is this an amazing genealogy well it's it's interesting because there's the list of those guys from you know um uh from really all the way from adam uh to noah uh the the antediluvian world as they call it you know the pre-flood people and these were the families and the fathers of these uh people um now why is it most amazing um the gospel message is embedded in this little genealogy i love this if you look at each name of these guys um this isn't really my point but i can't go buy this without saying something about it um so you know you look at um you know adam there in the list uh in in chapter five adam you know uh does anybody know what his his name means man adam man that's what it means man um but then you go on down the list you got seth in verse seven which means appointed enochs means subject to death uh cain and you know it goes right down the the list you know of all these things uh mahalil and jared but if you put it all together in the names list i don't have time for this you can look at this on genesis 5 teaching online that we did but it means if the whole thing is put all the words together man's appointed subject to death sorrowful from the presence of god one comes down dedicated dying he shall send to you to the poor being destroyed rest and comfort it's a great like does the lord encrypt stuff in his word i don't know but this is pretty cool if you ask me when you take all these meanings of the names and you can get the gospel message out of genesis chapter five in a in a genealogy uh that's that's the bible i like to read you know just there's there's so much here um now some people get caught up on all these mysterious things about the bible and i've learned that you know what i'm i i could spend the rest of my life just trying to figure out the things that are overtly said i don't have to go looking for the mysterious things because i'm still trying to figure out you know some of these basic things but one of the names in here all these names are listed and and the names you know it just says you know he he lived 15 years and we got sons and daughters and this guy lived you know 300 years or 600 years you know the the pre-flood world they lived a long time but there's one guy in this list that gets more of a of a biography a little bit than these other guys check it out it's right here in chapter 5 verse 21. it says and enoch lived 60 and five years and begat methuselah and enoch walked with god after he begat methuselah 300 years and begat sons and daughters how long did he walk with god i don't think any of you have matched that yet at least i don't think so uh or you'd be in the guinness book of world records um 300 years walking with the lord and verse 23 and all the days of enoch were 365 years and enoch walked with god it says it twice when when the bible says something twice it's it's it's just wanting us to notice and it's an emphasis it's something that's important so here we go again he walked with god and it says he was not for god took him and then it goes on and explains methuselah um now all this to say why does enoch get these several you know these three verses four verses really um and what's the deal with that why did enoch get more ink than everybody else well the bible gives us a hint right here that he walked with god he had that walk with the lord and because of that something strange happened to him uh what happened to enoch well it says here enoch walked with god verse 24 and then he was not for god took him what what in the world is going on there god took enoch what does that mean well we believe that god just took him without dying he's one of the few guys in fact there's only two guys in the bible that uh didn't seem to see death which is an interesting discussion in and of itself for you bible students you guys know that in the last days there's these two prophets of old that are going to come back during the during the tribulation period remember those two witnesses that are talked about in the book of revelation um who are those two witnesses well many of us believe they're they're prophets from the old testament and so some argue that it'll be enoch and who was the second guy who didn't see death right elijah he went up in that fiery turret right so so some say maybe it's that you know the bible says it is appointed once for a man to die so maybe these guys the lord said okay we're taking you up early uh and tucking you away for a while but in the end we're gonna bring you back and uh they're gonna be the two witnesses in jerusalem some people believe it's those guys others say no it's moses and elijah and i there's arguments for that moses there was some weird stuff going on around his death if you remember where satan contended for the body of moses remember that whole thing in the book of jude so there's all kinds of debate about who those witnesses will be but some suggest it's enoch because he was never one who saw death he was taken up to be with the lord now uh another sideline i get off on tangents if you're new here don't be shocked by this um uh but um but one thing i want to remind you you know i'm one of those guys that believe the rapture of the church is real it's going to happen first thessalonians chapter 4 says you know there's going to come a time uh just right before the tribulation where it says those that are alive and remain shall be caught up to meet the lord in the air um and so the rapture of the church is something i believe in and what's interesting is i believe enoch is a great picture of the rapture in the old testament i remember these layers in the bible and the old testament illustrates new testament truths you know the flood was coming the earth was about to be destroyed noah was alive but the lord takes enoch before the wrath of god is poured out upon the world in the flood the lord takes enoch why because he walked with god um and this guy that walked lord the lord says i'm taking him out before i'm going to flood the earth that's interesting to me some people say yeah but we're going to have to go through the tribulation and the rapture is at the end of the tribulation but see look at noah had to go through the tribulation no i don't know about that um well yeah thank you thanks thanks john the drum's right here yeah um yeah i don't know about that no i'll tell you why i don't know about that because noah is a beautiful picture of what god's going to do with the jews in the tribulation he's going to bring his people the jews all of his role will be saved during the seven year period called the tribulation they're going to be saved even as noah and his family were saved in the through the flood so there's some interesting pictures again i don't build my whole theology on or doctrine on the rapture and rapture of the church on enoch but uh there's there's a hundred other verses that we could talk about uh about that but it's just an interesting little picture of what i think is gonna happen in the last days there's a people group that's gonna be taken to be with the lord before the wrath is poured out on the christ-rejecting sinful world if you're a christian today if you believe in jesus it's not 144 000 jehovah's witness it always cracks me up how the jehovah's witness try to claim that they're the 144 thousand uh even though they're listed by tribe there in the book of revelation you know but no it's not 100 it's anyone who's a believer in christ and is saved will be taken up to be with the lord enoch is a picture of that i believe uh the the taken up and why was he taken up because he walked with god i know that that might seem like a minor topic for us to talk about but i think it's super important first of all let's break it down those just just first of all he walked second secondly he walked with god and uh and then we'll talk a little bit more about uh what eat what else enoch did there's actually one more thing we learn about enoch in another scripture so walking now notice he's walking with god amos the prophet you can jot this down in your notes amos 3 3 amos the prophet said can two walk together except they be anybody know agreed right uh the prophet was walking writing down something can two walk together except they'd be agreed in other words when two friends are walking together um there's usually some level of agreement if you're walking with someone if you see two guys walking down the street and they're just kind of walking together you know well those guys might know each other and at least they're not fighting each other and they're not walking opposite directions and and that's kind of the implication when you walk with someone there's an agreement you know if men are walking contrary to god is it possible for them to walk with god well of course that's impossible you can't be contrary to god now now that's the saddest question here this morning that you have to ask do i walk contrary to god i know that there's over the years i've watched guys say man i just don't feel very close to the lord i don't feel like the lord hears my prayers i don't feel like when i read the bible it doesn't really do much for me but here's the thing and i don't mean to sound condescending because we're all sinners and we all make mistakes but there is a difference between a guy stumbling in a mistake versus a guy who's walking in his mistakes a guy who's just saying yeah i'm taking up sin and i'm pretty much going to do it and i'm going to keep doing it and i'm not even really wrestling against it if you're a guy who's walking contrary to god don't be shocked if your prayers seem to fall flat and if your reading of the scriptures seems to be boring and a waste of time if you're walking contrary to god you're not walking with god and the only way to be a christian man uh who's hearing from the lord and sensing the lord's presence in his life is you need to be walking with the lord there's a walk that's required not walking contrary to the lord let's get extremely uh you know practical on this one if a guy is you know allowing his own life to be in a place where he's walking in sin practicing sin you know like in galatians it talks about in chapter six verse one it says you um we need to deal tenderly with those that are overtaken in a fault it says in galatians 6 1 but you which are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of meekness considering yourself lest you also be tempted now that's an interesting thing the way we're supposed to deal with people who are overtaken into sin or a fault you which are spiritual restore such one in the spirit of meekness what's this about did you know there's a difference in the bible between someone who is overtaking sins versus the guy who's overtaken innocent what's the difference well let's say a guy you know has just stumbled along walking with the lord and then he sees an image on instagram or uh he he's watching a movie and suddenly there's this lusty scene and that guy's like oh man and he just senses he shouldn't have been watching that show in the first place uh or whatever and and the question is what's going on in his heart there's a guy who just stumbled in a a lustful thought or a lustful temptation um that's different than the guy who's got a secret account online where he's got a secret identity and he's he's got a certain account that lets all the uh images of pornography or girls in bikinis or whatever and you're actually making provision practicing walking in sin walking contrary lord on a steady progressive thing it's not that you're wrestling against it you're just kind of making it so nobody's going to catch you that nobody knows you know that that's what you're doing so you got this kind of secret thing going on man i i wish i i could tell you some of the stories of things that i've had to deal with in marriages um you know there there's guys that had entire uh i've counseled guys through they had an entire apartment rented and ready to roll so he could bring girls home to his house that his wife didn't even know he had an apartment a separate apartment where he could go meet girls uh and the wife and the kids didn't know anything about it when you're making provision at that level of sin you're you're doing what the bible would maybe define as practicing sin what does it mean to practice in when you practice guitar what are you trying to do you're trying to get better at playing the guitar if you're practicing sin you're trying to get better at committing sin uh and and if you're practicing sin that's there's a big difference between practicing sin versus stumbling in sin you know i would even maybe quantify david's sin with bathsheba remember there where he was just standing on the roof and and he sees this girl and he lusts after her and he calls her up to his palace and he sleeps with her um i don't know that david was necessarily purposefully trying to overtake sin on that moment he went out on his roof maybe maybe not we don't know for sure he we do know that he should have been off fighting battles with the other guys remember that all the men were at war david's at home with all the ladies that's a mistake right there uh was he practicing sin i don't know but he surely stumbled in sin and then where it started to become sort of a practice of sin was when david tried to cover it up remember he tried to cover it up and he killed uriah the hittite and you know and all this stuff that's when it became a practice and that's when he got called out by nathan the prophet the reason i say this is because practicing sin is ever so dangerous can i tell you why um the idea of practicing sin it's because there you know as a guy who i do believe in eternal security and i do believe and you know we're saved by god's grace um and i and i do believe that a man can say i know that i'm headed to heaven uh by the grace of god but at the same time i want to i want to tell you you got to be careful because um the bible there's there's a there's a few scriptures that that make me a little nervous have you ever heard people argue that once saved always saved can you lose your salvation argument and you calvinists and arminine has been for hundreds and hundreds of years for centuries people have been pounding out can you lose your salvation once they've always said i think it's a little more nuanced than either of those arguments i think both of those arguments are interesting and fun to talk about but maybe a little bit restrictive um walking with god does not include practicing getting better at sin and here's where the scriptures are very scary uh jonathan downey pardon me galatians chapter 5 verse 19. listen to this does this make anybody nervous it says now the works of the flesh are manifest or made known which are these adultery fornication what is fornication greek word porneia where we get our word pornography so sexual immorality anything that's outside of the marriage bed that's sexual in nature is called fornication in the bible uncleanness lasciviousness idolatry witchcraft hatred variants emulations wrath strifes seditions heresy envying murder drunkenness revelings and such like now listen paul goes on he says which i've told you before as i also tell you in times past that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of god does that make you nervous those that do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of god see for me as an internal security guy i kind of go oh boy that's tough but it causes me to dig a little deeper and say what is paul saying here because in some senses if i read this just as it says right here which one of us in this room are going to heaven well bro i've never murdered anybody do you remember what jesus said on the sermon on the mount he up the stakes a little bit when he said if you have hatred in your heart toward a brother you're guilty of murder well i've never committed adultery brett jesus said if you look upon a woman with less than your heart you're guilty of adultery but even if we don't go with that line of thought there's a few here envying have you ever envied anybody drunkenness um uncleanness uh you know some of these words you know we get kind of a little weird about like what's lasciviousness partying in a sinful kind of way is is sort of the idea witchcraft is an interesting word uh you know you guys are going well at least i'm not harry potter i don't have to be on this list here great i'm not on that one witchcraft you know the the the greek word for that word is pharmakia which is where we get our word pharmacy which is more of a drug issue kind of interesting um that look it up you can look it up yourself so again it starts to get a little a little brutal when we talk about you know strife have you been angry wrath which is unrighteous wrath there's a righteous anger but there's also an unrighteous anger have you ever been unrighteously anger i sure have um so you say brett does that mean you're not going to inherit the kingdom of god well here's where we got to break it down a little more importantly where it says those that commit such things will not inherit the kingdom of god the wording there is kind of an interesting thing when you break it down in the greek language it uh and not to be fancy with all this stuff because i don't i'm not good at uh i barely passed english in high school um but uh the thing that's kind of interesting here is it's present active participle well whoopee doo present active participle what's that well the idea in the greek is it would almost could better be translated perhaps those who continually practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of god and and we know that's true because remember paul talks to the church in other places and says you guys have done this fornication adultery murder but you no longer do them you've been saved and you've been forgiven so there's there's the idea of you know people that have been saved who've done these things so it's not just the committing of this once it's the idea of a practicing of sin and if you're practicing sin i as a pastor don't want to give you know a bunch of guys this false sense of security hey i was saved at camp when i was in sixth grade you know and i accepted jesus but now i'm doing porn and you know taking drugs and you know once in a while i have a little sexual fleeing here and there hey but at least i'm saved by god's grace and god's grace has become this little doormat where you wipe your feet before you get you know going to church uh and that's not that's not a healthy thing have people wondered why you know why do christian churches and pastors get up in such a tizzy about homosexuality come on it's just a sin if you're willing to admit that it's a sin which the bible says it is um then why why would would you get so up on you know why you talk about homosexuality so much brett there's other sins out there here's the reason why it's what i'm talking about let's let's compare anger and homosexuality okay some of you guys are angry men you treat your wives badly you get grumpy at home and you yell at the kids um you know what nobody celebrates that i've not seen a parade in portland with angry flags and a bunch of men we're angry men we're hanging in and celebrate anger you know we don't see that we we're just not seeing that around most people know the angry man's just a jerk and he needs to stop it he needs to humble himself get some encouragement and help and repent of his sins even the average worldling would say yeah it's not cool to be an angry man so that's the difference there's people going saying we're going to celebrate this sin and and listen you can almost sort of say we're going to practice this sin most guys that are even angry men are not saying yeah i'm practicing and getting angry better and better nobody's saying that but with the homosexual issue people are saying it's a lifestyle that you can choose and you can live that lifestyle and you can prac you can be a practicing homosexual and it's still okay and the bible says on this list if you're a practicing you know uh homosexual then it says here that you're in danger danger that you may not inherit the kingdom just like i'd say that to the angry man well bret there's that makes me nervous because i have sins that have plagued me my whole life some of you guys might say well the pornea one is the one that makes me nervous because some of you guys have struggled with pornography since you were a little kid and a lot of men a lot of men have struggled with that you're not alone on that but see here's the difference if you're saying i'm going to practice pornography i'm going to figure out how to do it and look at stuff and engage in that kind of stuff for a long time and just keep doing that and figure out ways to hide my sins so nobody finds out then you're practice i put you in the same category as the the the person who's saying i'm practicing sin that that's that's a dangerous place for you guys to be by the way we did a whole ironworks on pornography and talked about that not that we handled the issue uh but we scratched the surface here at an ironworks uh on pornography you can look it up on our ironworks series online uh it's one of the biggest problems i think men deal with in a lot of ways but there's a difference if a guy struggling with pornography i put him in a different category biblically that's the guy that's trying to wrestle against his own sinfulness you kind of hear paul now we don't think that paul was wrestling with pornography but he was wrestling with something when he says i do the things i don't want to do and i don't do the things i do want to do oh what wretched man that i am you know there's no good thing that lies within my flesh paul was wrestling with something isn't it funny that you know isaiah the prophet who's you know we kind of picture him as this stained glass character from the old testament but he says whoa is me apparently had a horse named disney no just kidding no he said whoa is me i'm a man who's of unclean lips what does that mean isaiah struggled something about what did he swear like a sailor i mean who knows prophet prophet isaiah walking around hey thus saith lord blankety blank like i don't know what he was doing but but all i know is he had something wrong with his lips he was speaking ill of people or i don't know what he was doing but remember the lord came and said that that's okay i'm gonna take care of that he you know took the coal and cauterized his lips like this crazy story there of of what the lord did to help him so that he could speak the word of the lord and stuff like that but see here's the thing guys is we need to make sure that as we start this conversation of walking with the lord and what that really means it cannot mean walking contrary to the lord because two can't walk together unless they be agreed you and i we need to agree with the lord if you're going to have a walk with the lord you've got to agree with the lord well brett i agree with the lord well that that's the academically correct answer but but do you agree with the lord when it comes to pornography when it comes to certain sins that the bible lists as sins do you agree with the lord because as soon as we stop agreeing with what the bible says we're starting a walk that's contrary to god and you cannot walk with god unless you are walking with god that's what enoch does he walked with god who was the first guy who walked with god in the bible anybody adam says he walked with god in the you know cool of the day until he sinned remember sin was the thing that stopped that walk adam and eve walked with the lord in the garden that what a great image that don't you wonder what that was like for adam and eve to be in the garden of eden everything's great no sin uh you know you got just tons of food around and a naked lady and god walking with you and there's no sin it's not sinful it's like everything's great and then they sinned and it messed up the whole thing and what happened to adam and eve's walk once they sinned it ended they ran into the bushes and hid and the lord's like uh adam eve where are you guys i always joke did the lord lose adam and eve like two people on the earth oh what did i do with those two people they're hiding on the earth somewhere where are you no no i think the lord was saying where are you guys at in your life and in your walk what happened we were walking in the garden yesterday but now you're quivering in you know with some scratchy leaves covering yourselves hiding in the bushes what's going on there you know i sense that in our culture we men are you know if satan can mess with men and get us off of our walk and makes us hiding in the scratchy bushes because we know we're sinful and not really wanting to step up to the plate because we know we're wretched miserable sinners if satan can get us there mission accomplished if you get all the men that are supposed to be men of faith in this world all you know caught up in sin he's got he's got us um sometimes i wonder why women have been so strong historically in the church it's because i think oftentimes men we get all caught up in sin and then we feel like we're ill-qualified to do things that are godly and minister and pray and lead people because because of our own sin and satan sort of takes your legs out from under you and so the women step up to the plate and historically there's a reason why women have often stepped up in the church i've always wanted athe creek to be a church where men could step up and walk with the lord and lead by example in business in our careers in our families not just in the church building i'm talking about the church that men athe creek men would step up walking with god and that we would take it by the horns and just lead you know there's something funny about this culture of you know canceling males uh and females everybody's being cancelled but you know toxic masculinity and and all this stuff about um you know male privilege and and stuff like this and and uh it's just trying to push men down more and more these days but i think in those days we as godly christian men need to step up and walk with god and be in a place where the lord can use us be in a place of relationship with god you cannot walk with god unless you have a relationship with god i love that you know this guy enoch goes down in history with no other real you know narrative about him he he wasn't into you know hunting he wasn't uh into boating or he wasn't in a motor cross he was into walking with god and this guy goes down for millennia as the dude that walked with god and so pleasing to god was that the god says you know what i'm just going to take enoch out i like this guy he's coming home up to heaven he goes walked that's the first part of this enoch walked with god how do you walk with god you know it's interesting because colossians 2 6 says this as you have received christ jesus the lord so walk ye in him you know walking with god is not as complicated as people might think does a walk mean you have to know your hermeneutics and your eschatology and you know have memorized genesis chapter five the genealogies of you know like like what does walking with god mean colossians 2 6 tells us as you received christ so walk in him how did you receive jesus christ by just simply accepting the work that he did for you you and i didn't have to do the work he did all the work by believing in jesus if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart the lord jesus christ that god raised him from the dead you will be saved the bible says so you were saved by the grace of god through faith god's grace that we sang about earlier undeserved honor and favor you were saved by that grace and then the lord says that's how i want you to walk in that grace so it doesn't mean that you have to be perfect to have a walk with god does not mean perfection if that were true none of us would be able to say yeah i walk with god but the idea is that you're not practicing sin and walking contrary to god you walk with god by in the way the same way that you were saved you walk with god by his grace so if you if you think of your own walk are you first of all walking by his grace are you walking in his grace knowing that you can walk today not because you were a jerk yesterday and you don't deserve to walk with god no it's because morning by morning new mercies we see you can walk with god today because he's gracious the same way you were saved is the same way you walk with god i hope that makes sense you don't walk with god because by becoming a monk or becoming some preacher or you know book writer or an influencer or whatever you want to call yourself that's not walking with god walking with god is just the same way you were saved according colossians 2 6 6 so walk in him now um the the word walked is important with is important um hebrews 11 6 tells us something a little more um in fact why don't you turn to hebrews 11 because that's where we learn a little bit more about enoch hebrews 11. now hebrews 11 is of course what we lovingly like to refer to as the hall of faith these are the great men and women of faith from the old testament and the author of hebrews lists them for us and and talks about what makes them you know hall of faithers and what's funny about this list by the way there's people here that are in the list that you might be surprised that they made the list of the hall of faith you know if you go if you go to the hall of fame you know a football nfl hall of fame um if you're like me you kind of i've never been there but i know who's in there and there's some players like oh yeah he should have been in here a long time ago like have you ever seen people like it's about time they put him in the hall of fame but then there's other guys like who is that i've never even heard of him how did he get in the hall of fame you know this reads a little bit like that some guys made it some guys didn't but enoch of all people who gets like just a couple verses of the old testament makes it in this list along with moses and you know and uh uh you know isaiah and and rahab and uh sarah and noah like daniel like there's a bunch of guys that made this but enoch makes it in this very elite list it says here in chapter 11 of hebrews verse 5 it says by faith enoch was translated that he should not see death see that that's a commentary on what happened in genesis chapter 5 because in genesis 5 you're like what happened there he was not because god took him that's all we get out of genesis but here it says he didn't see death he was taken up so enoch was translated that he should not see death and was not found because god had translated him and before his translation he had this testimony that he pleased god point number two of what enoch did he not only walked with god he pleased god and you say well brett did he walk with god or did he please god i think the answer is he walked with god so he pleased god it's pleasing to god when a man walks with god just a general steady progressive walk oh man i i worry that we're um raising young men that are so quick to be up and down and um you know i know there's a certain personality trait you know david was a guy poor guy he was a little bit manic i think when you read the bible and read the psalms david david he was a mr emotional roller coaster um and and by the way some of the most talented guys are i mean david was one of the most talented guys in all the bible but as it turns out david was uh up ups and downs i tend to you know really appreciate those guys for their artistic abilities and creativeness but man that's not the guy you want when you just need steady eddy there's the steady eddie guys and those guys are in the bible too i think daniel was a steady eddie man the guy just through thick and thin ups and downs life and death just did the same thing every day i love that even joseph with his life being total mayhem steady eddie i love those guys but i i i'm concerned that we not only because people are wired that way but i think we've almost encouraged that maybe accidentally in our younger men to be sort of weaker not just say you know what this is a problem in my life but i'm going to push through this i'm going to just be a man who walks with god through all these challenges i'm going through i i just see this tendency maybe i'm getting old and i'm like the old guy when we were kids you do we used to do this well no i'm not gonna i don't want to act like that but at the same time be careful young men don't fall into this trap of just being sort of really soft when it comes to bad things happening in your life it's so tragic to me i mean i i admit that kids in the coronavirus and not being able to go to school is a bummer um and kids have been stuck in oh my i get it it's been hard but at the same time if you look historically what other children have gone through like the holocaust i think the coronavirus has been nothing it doesn't even register on the richter scale it's so tragic to me because um you know they say in our in our nation suicide rates are skyrocketing right now and and it's because you know there's there's so much tough stuff going on in people's lives and i i wonder if if there's you know just spiritual warfare going on there for sure but i also wonder if we've just not really equipped some of our young people to deal with challenges and difficulties um with the previous generation and there's not a lot of world war ii vets left in us in our groups of men but what what does that generation think about our being really sad and upset about uh the coronavirus and how horrible it's been and we're all so afraid the fear is so palpable then you just feel the fear as you're walking through costco and people are looking at you i've never done that i just heard that happens i don't go to costco or any shopping for that matter uh i've banned it in my life um but um but you know i i just sense real fear in people and and uh man we need to raise up young men that are like what happened to the land of the free and the home of the brave fear is the new you know valued quality in a person that you're afraid and you're really going to be really really good don't do that don't raise our young men to be that we need men that walk strongly with the lord so you know here's here's this thing where it says you know enoch was didn't taste death he because he pleased god but look at verse six but without faith is it 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 he's a rewarder of those that diligently seek him the idea of diligence so we see enoch he gets this narrative that he pleased god we know because he walked with god this is really interesting to me you know here um where do you walk when you're walking what is the path that you walk on um if i could quantify those things the path of fellowship you know it even says that here in our um verse back in genesis where it says that enoch walked with god there's a fellowship that takes place between god and that man do you have fellowship with god because you might say brett i'm walking with god because i try to keep the ten commandments and i read my bible and i but do you have a personal relationship with god when you're walking with someone you can't walk unless those two be agreed but there's something about just a real prayer life one of the litmus tests you can look in your own life about your walk with the lord if it's real or if it's just something you say yeah praise the lord god bless america i'm a christian and i walk with the lord one of the things that's kind of the real deal or not is do you have a prayer life i mean i'm not talking about blessing the food before dinner with the family that's kind of given but is that a real prayer life i don't believe so i think a lot of guys like well i pray because i pray at dinner time every evening with the family uh do you pray the bible says pray without ceasing do you have a kind of a constant conversation with the lord throughout each day that's a good indicator on how your walk is because part of this thing is is knowing god talking with god having a fellowship the path of walking with god includes talking with god and having that personal relationship with him so check check yourself that's just a litmus test i'm not trying to put a heavy trip on anybody i'm just telling you what the bible talks about but i don't think you can really walk with god if you're not praying to god or talking with god so the pathway of fellowship that's number one walking with god but the path also of holiness we've talked about that before god you know it's interesting um because this path of holiness and it reminds me of genesis chapter 17. and it says um this about um you know moses um pardon me abraham verse 1 of chapter 17. it says no where was i 17 1 and when abraham was 90 years old and nine the lord appeared to abraham and said unto him i am the almighty god walk before me and be thou perfect the lord told abraham in 17 1 genesis 17 1 he said walk before me walk perfect and i am the amon so i love this and then we see in chapter 18 verse 1 and the lord appeared unto abraham in the plains of mamrie as he sat in the tent in the heat of the day what was abraham doing there when the lord shows up in his tent i believe he was seeking the lord a man that is walking with the lord he's got this this relationship where he's seeking the lord and talking to the lord and the lord will show up he does he shows up seek ye first the kingdom of god at his righteousness and then all these other things will be added unto you too many men are seeking after success and seeking after wealth and health and happiness and all that but they don't realize seek first the kingdom then everything else is added to that you know the walk with god includes a personal relationship of prayer and seeking the lord if you don't have a real walk you're you know the indicator is probably you're not really seeking the lord well brett i sought the lord i prayed you know last week once and i didn't hear anything prayer is a funny thing because i think we think that if we pray once so we're gonna hear this voice from heaven and that could happen but it usually doesn't uh most of us have never heard the voice of god boom from heaven that'd be sweet but it hasn't happened to me but you know the lord speaks often in a still small voice the bible says god has the voice of many waters what does that mean sometimes he sounds like you know um a little drip quiet sometimes he sounds like niagara falls or oregon city falls the willamette falls there like sometimes sometimes it's just a little splash once in a while like like remember daniel he was seeking the lord and he sought the lord for 21 days and then the lord shows up 21 days when was the last time you were fasting and praying for 21 days i'm convinced the guy that just perseveres in prayer the lord does show up but it's not on our on our timetable um but but you got to have this active seeking of the lord but then you have to also have this pathway of holiness that we're talking about where you got to say i'm not going to just play around and mess around with sin because that's not walking with god that's how we started this whole thing so you got the pathway pathway of fellowship pathway of holiness but you also have to walk on the pathway of obedience doing what god calls you to do um this is an important part of your walk with the lord is just the path of obedience jot this down in your notes deuteronomy 13 4 it says you shall walk after the lord your god and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice you shall serve him and cleave to him this is what the lord was telling the children of israel that you need if you want to have a walk with the lord you've got to fear him and keep his commandments so so the man that is truly walking with god what you're going to do is you're going to see you're going to see this obedience you're going to see holiness you're going to see fellowship another thing about walking though and this is a key is you've got the path of fellowship thoughtful holiness path of obedience but you also have the path of renewal and that this is really important um it's like the lamentations verse we talked about last week and i think i'm going to teach tonight and tomorrow uh um about those verses that i touched on last week they're in lamentation chapter 3 where it says you know that it's of the lord's mercies that were not consumed but his mercies are new every morning great is thy faithfulness we're going to talk more about that because that's such a huge thing but here's the thing if you have a walk with lord i don't know about you i might walk with the lord from you know you know 6 a.m when we first get up and i might have a pretty decent walk noon but then i get busy and i get kind of and i get a headache and then by the time i'm left i'm a little grouchy and pretty soon i'm doing things and i don't feel like i have much of a walk anymore by the by the afternoon because you know i've failed i've made mistakes and things aren't going great but i love that the lord's mercies are new every morning i think it's in a way you might want to look at your walk with the lord as something that starts out each day brand new the lord wants to walk with you i wonder my brother-in-law john courson i don't know if you guys know john but john's just one of the more gifted bible teachers i've ever known and i grew up listening to this through the bible teaching and if you don't have john corson's commentary i think it's one of the best bible commentaries out there honestly it's um called the application commentary it's in our little bookstore back there but um it's it's great but um but john kind of never ceases to amaze me in his older years now um he started going on these walks um and uh and he's walking like 10 miles a day um which i can't even imagine that that just makes me tired thinking about it um and he's like getting really thin and really like really skinny i can't even imagine that either that's horrible um can't imagine that happened to a poor man you know john was always this huge you know muscular guy and now he's like this but but what i've heard he's doing is he's just walking and memorizing scripture and praying and seeking the lord and i think you know there's a lot of guys at his age in life that would just kind of say you know what i've kind of sought the lord i've kind of read the bible i've kind of done stuff but but i love that that you know my brother-in-law john he's just constantly pressing in and going deeper and i just think man i love that a guy has a walk with the lord and john's been through some ups and downs in his life i mean i don't know many people who've been through quite the same level of ups and downs his wife killed in a car accident when i was in a sophomore in high school um his daughter killed in a car accident when she was in high school when i was in my 20s and and his son dying of cancer like how many guys go through this in just you know one life or one person he's been through a lot of trials and difficulties but you know what he's just got this walk with the lord literally walking with the lord every morning and i i think about that you know part of your walk is daily walking with the lord is a daily thing that's another mark of a of a walk it's not you know on sunday only or once a month or or every so often how is your walk a daily walk remember the old hymn we sing once about just a closer walk with thee it's a great old hymn that's what i i would pray for you guys and for us as men that we have this close diligent faithful walk the path of fellowship where you're talking with god the path of holiness where you're not letting your sins make your walk starting to go contrary to god sins walk contrary so there's path of holiness path of obedience just doing what god wants you to do going where he wants you to go the path of obedience but also the path of renewal where when you sin when you make mistakes you say you know what lord i'm going to confess that sin and start new every day because listen brothers guys that don't get this renewal part in the new mercies every morning the guys that don't get this they tend to beat themselves up and they realize well i failed in this sin again and i'm never going to get it right and you talk to yourself about how you're just a big failure and you're you know you struggle or you can just say lord i failed again and with a real heart of repentance confess that sin and then talk to the lord lord give me strength to overcome and to endure against those temptations of the enemy and and you know what's going to happen the guy that has the consistent walk is instead of your day kind of falling apart by noon it'll only fall apart by two o'clock and then you'll sin and you'll make some mistakes again and then you say lord oh and like paul oh i don't do the things i do want to do and i do the things i don't want to do was paul just an evil wretched sinner or was he a christian who was struggling to get it right and if paul the apostle who was way better than any of us guys in this room he was called the pharisee of pharisees if that guy struggled then guess what you and i struggle if there's one thing that i think you know the ministry and pastors and priests and all that there's been this sort of pretense that the priest with a pastor has it more together somehow than anybody else big mistake because they're you know i mean it gets really weird i i bet you some of you some of you know your wives probably think that you know honey i wish you could be more like pastor brent but if your wife talked to my wife she'd say never mind uh you know it's like you know it's funny we're all sinners and and you know the one thing is there is something about a guy that's saying man i want to walk with the lord and i want to get better and practice walking with the lord that guy's going to be doing better and there's something really rich about the guy that walks with the lord and and there's something that's pleasing to god about a guy that walks with god so enoch it says he walked with god and then in hebrews 11 he pleased god and without faith it's impossible to please god so enoch was a man of faith that's why he makes the hall of faith isn't it interesting a guy makes the hall of faith in hebrews 11 just for having a walk that's it that's all he has a walk i wonder if that's what the lord requires of you some of you guys are thinking i need to be a missionary in africa or start a church or do something huge i don't know if that's as pleasing to god in some ways than just a guy that says i'm going to walk with god every day spend time in his word every day getting on my knees and praying before the lord every day confessing my sins and starting out new mercies every morning just walk steady progress too many guys are so busy sinning they're quivering in the bushes like noah or adam and eve i should say and they're just derailing themselves the key is is to keep a short list of sin and walk with god what a splendid walk enoch had 300 years that's another thing i'm learning to value is the guys that walk with the lord year after year decade after decade i've been a christian for a long time i've gone to church pretty much my whole life and you know there's something to be said i've got to say for the men that i've watched walk with the lord for a long time you know i can see guys walk with the lord for a week or a year and really on fire and stuff but i'm starting to understand what the lord sees in a man that walks for 50 years 60 years 80 years just a steady walk i think that might just be one of the most pleasing things to god as i read the bible this seems to really please god by the way i know i'm connecting a lot of dots here hopefully um but um why do you exist anybody to please god that's your whole existence your existence you know the book of revelation chapter 4 says you know thou art worthy o lord and for thou has created all things and for thy pleasure thou hast created everything you were created for god's pleasure and as it turns out it seems when you read the bible one of the things that brings god's the greatest pleasure is for you to have a walk with him to walk with him like enoch for he walked with god and he pleased god oh wouldn't it be great if we had a church full of men that it's not that we're looking for great massive things and rallies and you know big uh hubbubs about ministry stuff and i think sometimes that's stuff that pleases us but i wonder if if there was just a church full of men that just had this steady walk and not just for a few weeks but a bunch of guys that just walk decade after decade just to walk with the lord you show me a church like that i'll show you a church of a bunch of young men that are going to grow up and see that and want the same thing for themselves we need that we need our young guys to see um not this mandy pamby you know church guy that sort of stumbles in once a while to church and kind of this weak need you know guy that says yeah i'm a christian god bless america our young men need to see guys that have a legitimate real walk with the lord and and i think we have a deficit in the world today of that walking with god enoch's one of my heroes of the bible you might say well easy for enoch but i live in a different time and i have so much to do who's got time to pray and read their bible and you know it's interesting that enoch was a prominent prominent guy being the seventh guy from adam um he was a family man look at verse 22 he begat sons and daughters it says here in our text um there's another thing about enoch that i haven't told you about did you know he lived in a in a sort of an evil age so you might say well enoch lived in that genesis period where everything was still pretty close to the garden of eden and everything was still pretty holy and they didn't have pornography and they didn't have you know internet connections and they didn't have you know this and that the other thing did you know that enoch was an end times god kind of guy he lived right before the lord destroyed the earth just like i think you and i might be living in a time before the wrath of god is poured out on this world again but enoch was an end times kind of guy did you know that he wrote a book the book of enoch question how many guys have read the book of enoch a few of you a couple of you guys it's funny because it didn't make the you know canon of scripture there there's some you know if you find these guys on discover channel or history channel watch out for the cardigan wearing uh you know religious guys on those channels they don't know anything but um you'll hear them puff their pipe well the book of enoch should have been included in the scriptures you know you hear these guys say that well that's just stupid um but but here's the thing that's funny the book of enoch is an interesting read but when you read it it's not the scripture in any lame-brained christianity 101 person who's read the bible could say yeah it's not quite on the same level as the bible bible is inspired word of god and the early church fathers as they put the canon of scripture they didn't include enoch but the thing that's interesting about the book of enoch is um that something he said was inspired but but what was it well as it turns out it's it's in the book of jude listen to jude i'll finish with this jude um there's only one chapter in jude but um enoch's quoted in the book of jude it says in in jude verse 14 it says and enoch also the seventh from adam prophesied of these saying behold the lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints to execute judgment upon all and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed and all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against them huh what did he did you notice that enoch was kind of coming against in his in his words here that are quoted by the jude so these are the words that are inspired that made the bible that enoch said it's in the book of jude and he's saying the lord's coming with ten thousands of saints when that's when does that happen the second coming of christ so enoch's talking about the end times way back in genesis that's an amazing thing you got to give enoch some credit there but then he also says the lord's going to execute judgment on all the ungodly and he says ungodly like five times uh he says to convince all that are ungodly among them of their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed i mean like he he had a thing about ungodliness why was enoch a guy who said i'm not into ungodliness because he was a guy who walked with god and he pleased god so the more he walked with god the more he had a thing where man i don't want anything to do with this ungodliness and he spoke words of prophecy against the ungodly and the wrath of god was coming to show judgment upon those that were ungodly what does it mean to be ungodly um someone who's not walking with god someone is walking in their sin walking in this life apart from god that's the ungodly and i'll tell you guys we need to be men and focus on that i wonder if maybe your walk with god should be a little bit more of a priority i'm not saying all you guys but could it be that some of you guys could say yeah pastor brad i could probably up my game in this area of my walk um and um and maybe you've been good at sort of pretense of yeah you know i read my bible and i go to church and i'm here on a saturday morning for crying out loud at least i'm that godly um uh but uh but but maybe you sense that i need to have that daily steady progressive walk walk implies progression maybe some of you guys are guilty of flying like wings of eagles running and not growing worry but you're walking you you know maybe you've been a good sprinter but you didn't do so good with the walk maybe you maybe you sprinted for five or ten years in ministry when you were a younger man but now you're kind of pooped and you've sort of let the the younger men take the walk part and you're just kind of in cruise control right now the lord would have you know that you need to be an older man who's walking steady progress seeking you know obedience and and prayer and and and fellowship with god this is what the lord would want us to renew perhaps today and i'd like to take a minute and just pray that in you know just for us to take time to pray for our own personal walk with the lord and would you just bow your heads with me as we sort of wrap this up the lord has put this on my heart because i'm convinced that some of you guys you already knew this before you even walked in today that you kind of needed up your game but maybe just hearing this you know why i believe we're living in last days kind of like enoch and i believe there's a lot of guys walking in this life unfulfilled wondering why their life even exists they're nearing the end of their career or in the middle of their career and they're thinking that's not all that it was going to be chalked up to be and maybe there's just an emptiness maybe there's just a lack but i think the answer you know when you realize your reason for existence is to please god then your walk becomes the most important thing in the world not your career not your kids sports not your hobbies or anything like that the most important thing for you as a man is to have a walk that is pleasing to god and and once you please god guess what everything else works out the kids sports work out your career works out but you'll find everything empty apart from a walk with god and so i want to challenge us today and if that's you if you're saying brett i um i know that my walk could be sharpened and and if that's you i want you to think right now what are the things you're going to do today now that's going to be different than what you've been doing for some of you it might mean reading your bible every day you don't have to read books of the bible every day i'm talking a chapter a day um it means prayer not when anybody sees prayer when it's just you and god i find my truck is the best prayer closet of all i've sought the lord more in my truck than just about any place other place because it's a place that's finally quiet and i can seek the lord and and uh hear him there in my truck do you have a place you can get away from everything all the noise shut down your phone and and just say i'm gonna seek the lord and pray uh maybe it's maybe it's for you to break off a sin that you've been practicing because you know that if you're practicing sin you cannot walk with god it's impossible to practice in and walk with god at the same time it's it's possible to walk with god and stumble in sin and struggle with sin that's join the crowd there but if you're trying to get better at sin practicing it getting better at it your walk is non-existent and even to the point where it says you will not inherit the kingdom of heaven that's that's heavy man guys if that's you and you're saying brett that's me would you acknowledge that before god right now just admit it by raising your your heads are bowed but would you just raise your hand before the lord and say lord i need help with that and just acknowledge that right now any one of you guys lord you see these hands that are up each one of us i think lord as we lift our hands to you i pray that you deepen us deepen our walk with you lord help us not to have that wavering faith and the wavering sinful things that we keep keep practicing and getting better at help us to repent of our sins walk with you lord commune with you talk with you hear from you lord i pray that the men in this room would have and the men watching online that they would have a renewed desire to have a just a daily walk a closer walk with you and we pray that when the spirit is willing right now in this setting and our flesh becomes weak lord be our strength i pray that we would see the value in having that walk lord help us to learn from enoch lord you planted this little guy and the bible is just an example of a guy who walked with you and pleased you may that be true of the greek men we ask this lord no and you've heard our prayer now we commit our lives to you we pray your blessing in jesus name amen amen amen let's stand together you know if you're struggling with breaking off of a sin and the whole practicing sin sure helps to be accountable to another brother um if you need help with that you know there's a bunch of guys in this room who have all struggled with sin except for you know a couple of you guys are perfect but other than that no no no every single one of us i i always am a big fan of guys getting to know each other and that's one of the things i hope you can do on these ironworks days is you know don't just be a stranger to the person you're sitting next to it's great when brothers get to know each other a little bit and i want to challenge you not just to bolt out of here this morning but to get to know the guy next to you that you don't know find out who he is get to know and then but but i think ultimately that every guy should have guys that they kind of have a regular chat with talk with and you know the bible says um there's safety and a multitude of counselors where the bible says we're to confess our sins one to another um i wouldn't encourage confessing yourselves to everybody but there should be a guy that you can confess man i'm struggling with this and he's not going to you know go and run and tell everybody oh you know someone says struggling with pornography and and then you know it's like i think there's something where you guys need to like have bros around you that can kind of stand with you and pray for you and uh you know kind of be accountable one to another accountability works only as much as you're willing to be accountable but if you're willing to be accountable to another guy i've seen the lord use that mightily hopefully you have that if you don't and you struggle with getting to know people then then i would start with meeting with one of our pastors on our pastoral team just come and grab coffee with the guys on our team and just get to know them first and then maybe you know you can start working on you know getting to know more guys you can say i'm not going to just have only my wife as my accountability partner that doesn't always work so well it's nice to have somebody outside of your marriage that's your accountability partner something for you to think about but may the lord bless you guys may you have a walk that's real and powerful and and so impressive that your sons and our son's sons will see what a godly man really looks like may that happen in jesus name god bless you

Channel: Athey Creek

Views: 3,096

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Brett Meador, Bible, Church, Teaching, Study, Christian, Jesus, Oregon, Through the Bible, Athey Creek, Athey Creek Church, Athey Creek Christian Fellowship, Men, Ministry, Ironworks, Iron, Works

Id: WPGjvJ9Imsw

Length: 71min 23sec (4283 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 14 2021