“I want to encourage you – stay with God” through every season of life, said H.B. Charles Jr., during the April 2 chapel service at the University of Mobile. “I don’t care how things look in your life – if you are in Christ, you are never walking by yourself.”
Charles serves as the pastor-teacher of Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church of Jacksonville and Orange Park, Florida. Charles started pastoring at age 17 as a senior in high school, succeeding his father at Mount Sinai Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles. He has served at Shiloh since 2008. Charles is the author/contributing author of several books and is host of The On Preaching Podcast, which is dedicated to helping pastors preach faithfully, clearly and better.
With a message from Genesis 5:21–24, Charles shared with students about how Enoch walked with God.
“The text is reminding us there is a big difference between living and walking with God,” Charles said. “There’s a difference between existing and walking with God. There’s a difference between going through the motions of life and walking with God. What I want to say to you is that walking with God is the only way to truly live.”
Charles asked students to reflect on what it means to walk with God as he reminded them of Micah 6:8, “He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you, but that you do justly, love kindness and walk humbly with your God?”
Three things to consider
“What does it mean to walk with God?” Charles continued. “There are three answers I want you to consider. I want you to consider with me how walking with God begins, how walking with God progresses and how walking with God climaxes.
“First, let us consider walking with God. You can either exist and just go through the motions, or you can walk with God. I believe that change happens through faith in God and fellowship with God. It all begins with faith in God. Hebrews 11:5 lists Enoch in the faith hall of fame. Enoch lived with a testimony that his life was pleasing to God. Mark it down, you are not walking with God if you live in a manner that is not pleasing to Him. Hebrews 11:6 says, ‘Without faith it is impossible to please God.’ For the one that would come to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. You can’t walk with God if you don’t please God, and you can’t please God if you don’t trust God. Romans 14:23 says, ‘Whatever is not of faith is sin.’ Walking with God begins with faith. You must believe that He exists — that God is real.
“You must believe that He is a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him, and brothers and sisters, that promise is ultimately and exclusively found in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the good news of the gospel. The bad news is that all of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and have to give an account for how we have lived our lives. The worst news is there is nothing good in us to commend to God for His approval… nothing we can do to fix what our sins have broken, that is where Jesus steps in and brings the good news to us.
“The best news is if you are here today and you are estranged from God that God still allows U-turns, and if you will make a U-turn in your life and run to the cross, confess your sins, and throw yourself on the mercy of God and put your trust in the bloody cross and empty cross of Jesus Christ for salvation, today you can have free forgiveness, new life and eternal hope and it begins a new relationship with God. Isaiah 55:6–7 says, ‘Seek the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord, and He will have compassion on him. Let him return to our God, and He will abundantly pardon.’ Walking with God begins with faith in God and it also begins with fellowship with God.”
Lost in an ‘Uber-culture’
Charles related to students how today’s society has “lost the art of walking by living in an Uber-culture where we just ride everywhere we go.”
“Outside of exercising, many people view walking as tedious, troublesome and time-consuming,” Charles noted. “But in Scripture, everywhere the typical person including Jesus went they had to walk to get there. Whatever they were doing or wherever they were going, it was such a normal part of the daily experience that in Scripture walking became synonymous with life itself, and so in the Scripture walking is a metaphor for one’s lifestyle, one’s consistent conduct, one’s habitual behavior and this is how the Scripture speaks of Enoch to say that Enoch walked with God is to say that he lived in fellowship with God. It doesn’t say Enoch walked ahead of God, it doesn’t say Enoch walked behind God, it doesn’t say Enoch walked away from God. It says Enoch walked with God.
“It was a life of personal, abiding and increasing fellowship with God. There’s not much biographical information about Enoch in the Scriptures, but I take the liberty to say that Enoch was a holy man, Enoch was a humble man, and Enoch was a happy man. How do you know HB? Because Enoch walked with God.”
“Hold onto your seats,” Charles said as he prepared students for what was coming. “I’m about to blow you away because for Enoch to walk with God means that God walked with Enoch.
“Have you ever seen a parent walking with their little child? The parent is not really walking with the child as much as they are waiting on the child to catch up. Isaiah 30:18 says, ‘Therefore the Lord waits that He may be gracious to you, and therefore He exalts Himself that He might show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice and blessed is all those who wait on Him.’ We serve a gracious God who waits on us so that He may walk with us — what a glorious privilege.”
Ongoing walk
For his second point, Charles asked students to take notice of how walking with God progresses.
“You cannot walk with God on a treadmill,” Charles said. “The sign that you are walking with God is not merely that you made a profession of faith one day. If you are truly walking with God that initial step will become an ongoing walk. What does that look like? It means to go with God and to stay with God. To progress in your walk with God, you’ve got to go with God.
“Amos 3:3 says, ‘Can two walk together unless they are in agreement to walk?’ Of course, the assumed answer to that rhetorical question is no, two cannot walk together unless they agree to walk together. You’ve got to make some agreements if you’re going to walk together. To walk together, you’ve got to agree on the destination. Different destinations will result in inevitable separation. You can’t walk with God unless you’re going to the same place. You’ve also got to agree on mode of travel. If one is walking and the other is riding, you can’t walk together. I have pastored all my adult life, and I have met many people who have been in church for years without spiritual progress in their life because they want to do the riding while God does the walking.”
Avoid being an ‘elevator Christian’
Charles noted that believers will never grow in their walk with God if they are an “elevator Christian.”
“Many Christians are just pushing a button on an elevator, hoping that God will accomplish your agenda for your life,” Charles said. “But faith does not mature on the elevator. You’ve got to learn how to take the stairs with God. It may be taxing, and it may be tiring, but the more you take step after step with God, the stronger your faith with God becomes.
“You’ve also got to agree on direction and that agreement is not a negotiation. God is not going to stop what He’s doing to walk with you. You’ve got to stop what you’re doing and walk with God. In Matthew 11:28–30, Jesus says, ‘Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy-laded and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your soul for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.’”
‘Middle miles’
Charles encouraged students to “go with God but also stay with God,” as he shared that author and Southern Baptist pastor Vance Havner said the most difficult part of the journey is what he called ‘the middle miles.’
“He is right,” Charles noted. “Anyone can be enthusiastic at the beginning of the journey. You’re fresh and full of energy, raring to go, full of expectation or you can be excited easily at the end of the journey. You may be weary and worn out, but the goal is reached. It’s those middle miles where you are too far in to see where you started, and at the same time, too far in to see where you are going to the end, to where you are tempted to give up. If you are serious about your faith, you will have those middle mile experiences. Some of you are going through such an experience right now, and I just want to encourage you, stay with God.”
Charles shared a story that he read several years ago about an author getting to the second grade and asking his mother if he could walk to school by himself.
“His mama was not ready to permit that,” Charles said. “But the child insisted, ‘I’m a big boy now, and I can walk to school by myself.’ He finally wore her down, and she gave into his request or so he thought. Then, one day at a family gathering, he was boasting and bragging about how he was walking to school by himself. His mama stepped in and said, ‘I don’t mean to burst your bubble, but I want you to know that you have never walked to school by yourself. Every morning when you leave the house, I let you get a house or two down and then I follow you every step of the way until you get safely in the school, and then at 3 o’ clock, I wait across the street and I follow you home every step of the way until you arrive safely.’”
‘Hope that transcends the grave’
As Charles related that story, he reminded students that if they are in Christ, they are never walking alone — that He is with them every step of the way.
“Let me say a word about how walking with God climaxes,” Charles said. “Only two people went to heaven without dying. I Kings 2:11 says the prophet Elijah went to heaven in a whirlwind, and in our text today we are told that Enoch transitioned without experiencing physical death. He was supernaturally relocated from earth to glory without ever tasting death.
“You don’t have to get caught up in all those investigation TV shows, just ready your Bible. This is the greatest missing person case in history. One day Enoch left the house, and no one ever saw him again. No one could find him. This little brief snapshot is one of the reasons why I believe the Bible is the Word of God. If this was merely a book that was the product of the imagination of man, there would have been a lot of effort to fill in the blanks and tell us how Enoch was translated from earth to glory, but with divine restraint, the record here just is, ‘He was not, for God took him.’ What a statement. Enoch didn’t have an undertaker. He had an upper taker. God just took him.
“If Jesus terries His coming, we should not expect this same experience, but this is a reminder that only the one who walks with God through faith in Jesus Christ has hope that transcends the grave. The Bible says, ‘I show you a mystery, we shall not all sleep but shall be changed in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye. The trumpet shall sound, and the Lord shall descend. And on that great day, we shall forever be with the Lord.’”
At the end of the message, Charles reminded students to look forward to the eternal hope that awaits believers and to make the most of each day walking with God and delighting in Christ.
Share with others: