Is God Good?

Hebrews 11:5-6

January 31, 202

Open With Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rfd_1UAjeIA

Intro: A lot of people do not believe that God is good… They don’t believe that He loves them… They don’t believe that He is for them… Maybe you might have wonder if God is really good...

Many see the world in such a mess and have come to believe that God can’t be good, if He was,…. then all the evil and sadness would not be happening…… But they fail to fully understand the reason behind the mess and evil and sadness…. If they did, they would see God is truly Good……………………………………..

Now people need to know that God did not create evil…….  You see evil is the absence of goodness. It is whatever God is not…. And because of His goodness, God despises sin….. and He will judge all the evil one day…… This we can be sure of.

Today’s I want us to look at the faith of Enoch. He was a man who loved God, and believe d that God was good even when his world was very much like ours today. The majority of  people were living for themselves and had totally rejected God……

Now Enoch lived before the Great Flood of Noah’s time, which God used to rid the world of all of its evil. When you see a rainbow in the sjy it is a reminder that God will not destroy the world again with a great flood. 

Now look at what….. Hebrews 11:5-6 says, “It was by faith that Enoch was taken up to heaven without dying... “he disappeared, because God took him.” Before he was taken up, he was known as a person who pleased God. 6 And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to the Lord must believe that God indeed exists, and that God rewards those who sincerely seek Him.”

If we say, “God is good”, then by faith, we all should live as if we genuinely believe this to be true. right! Jesus made this clear when He said, “No one is good—except God alone” (Luke 18:19).

He said this because - God has no evil in Him, Zero. All of God’s intentions and motivations are always good.  And there is nothing unpleasant, evil, or dark in Him. 

You see folks, unless we live believing that God is good…. and believing that God keeps His promises, then Jesus coming to rescue us was of no value...That is only logical.

But God is good, and He is good all the time. And that is why Jesus came to rescue us because He is good and He loves us.

This is how this man Enoch viewed God. He chose to live as God wanted him to even when the majority of people lived in complete rebellion and rejection of God. Very much like our world today…

Now,… I would guess that many of you have never heard of this man Enoch before. And the truth is, information about him is very limited…. to say the least…. But God chose to place him in this chapter of Hebrews because of one thing. HIS FAITH….

Now this man Enoch lived 7 generations past Adam…..  I looked up my great, great, great, great grandpa, his name is: Erik Jørgensen Slåmot. Born 1775 in Norway and he died 1847….. 241 years ago…… He lived 72 years…. And his bones are probably returned to the earth by now…..

Now Enoch walked with God “365” years… He had his first kid at the age of 65……   His life is marked as an example of someone who honestly believed in God’s goodness all the days of his… 365 years… Now Enoch lived out his life in faith in God… and he shows us that we can as well….  So Let’s take a closer look at Enoch and at what the Bible tells us about his faith and then how that applies to us today…….

First it is…

I- By faith that Enoch went straight to heaven without dying.

Now, I am all for that, how about you? I am not afraid of death. I WANT YOU ALL TO KNOW THAT. Death for a Christian means a wonderful beginning. It means spending eternity with God and living in His perfect kingdom.  But…… it just getting there that I am not looking forward to. I am hoping or a meteor falling from the sky hitting me…. 😊 And it is a good thing that we have no idea how this abnormality (death) will happen………..

Now I say abnormality because death is a mystery, as well as the last enemy. All we know is life… so that makes death somewhat an abnormality. The Bible also calls it the last enemy. It is called this because God fully intended man to live forever in the garden, but sin brought death. So, it is an enemy……

Now for most, people fear death. And for good reason. But there is one thing that people fear more than death. More people are afraid of standing up here, talking to you all. 😊 They would chose death over speaking in public….. 

Now…Genesis 5:21-24 says, “When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah (969 years).  And after he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters.  Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years.  Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.”

Now I don’t know about you, but this is very amazing.

As we all know, there are two things are inevitable for all of us…… death and taxes…… Everyone dies, some sooner than others, but everyone dies “I read that the real reason why the government put into law the seat belt law, it was because they don’t want anyone to die in a car accident Because they need as many tax paying citizen as they can get” 😊

The Bible tells us that the reason everyone dies is because everyone sins…. Sin brought death to this world….. The book of Romans 3:23 says: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 6:23 says: “For the wages of sin is death.” Romans 5:12 says: “Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way, death came to all men, because all sinned.”  We can blame Adam and Eve for messing everything up for us.  Just think we could be living in perfect paradise right now if Eve would have just said no.

Sin is very destructive. It really makes a mess of things.

But the question is: If everyone sins, and if everyone who sins dies, then why didn’t Enoch die?...... Was it because Enoch never sinned? No! Everyone sins…… The only person who walked this earth who never sinned was Jesus Christ, and even Jesus experienced death!

Now think about it, why would Jesus, who never sinned, experience death, while Enoch, who did sin, did not experience death? What’s up with that?

The answer, is this. Jesus did not have to die. Jesus was sinless, and therefore Jesus was not under the curse of death. But Jesus willingly took our sins upon Himself and chose to die to save us.

Enoch on the other hand was a sinner like us, and was under the curse of death. If God had not taken him, Enoch would most assuredly have died like everyone else. But by his extraordinary faith, Enoch did not experience physical death. God took Enoch directly from this life into heaven. 

Hebrews 11:5 says, “By faith Enoch was taken from this life …; he could not be found, because God had taken him away.” …. Can you imagine going straight to heaven? One minute you are driving down the road and the next you in glory.

That would make the nightly news for sure. Your face would be in every post office. Your family would be looking…

But here is the truth, if you are a follower of Jesus, and “IF” the “rapture” of God happens, (Jesus’ return) well this is what it says…. 

1 Thessalonians 4:17 says, “We who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with those who have died and yet believed in Christ, we will be caught up into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.”

We will be taken directly from earth without ever experiencing death…… I am all for that….. And the majority of people will be looking for us. The world will be in chaos. We who are follower of the Biblical Jesus, they will not find us… Just like the people of Enoch time were looking for him. He was gone.

And so, by faith Enoch accomplished two amazing things: He did not experience death, and God took him directly from this life into heaven. That is awesome….. So………

We know that Enoch had faith because he pleased God….He not only believed, but….

II- He also chose to honor God with his life…….

Faith and belief are vitally important to have a right relationship with God…..…We need to look at Enoch as an example. Enoch showed us that he chose to ……… “walked with God.”

The entire list of the genealogy Genesis 5 does not say anything about others walking with God……… Only Enoch.

So why is walking with God important?...

For me, I think when you are walking with someone, it implies going in the same direction. If you are not in agreement with a person, you don’t walk with them. You walk away, right!

And so, to walk with God means: to agree with God, and to be in relationship with God, and to walk in God’s ways, and to follow alongside Him.

I look to the disciples of Christ and how they walked with Jesus. They went wherever Jesus went. They followed His direction, not their own. And only Juda chose to walk in a different direction and his life ended tragically. He chose the world over heaven…

So, to walk with God, is to go with God, to seek God’s direction rather than yours. It is trusting that His way is best, and to live a life that is pleasing to God.

Like Enoch, walked faithfully with God for 300 years!.... So folks, if he did it for 300 years…. we should be able to walk with God for the short period of time that we have here on earth……………

Hebrews 11:6 say, “And without faith it is impossible to please God.”  So again, walking with God also implies having faith in God. Faith is vital in our walk with God.

And so, we know that Enoch had faith, because he was commended as one who pleased God.

So, “Faith means believing God’s goodness”….

Now you may not always see it or understand it. But remember, faith is being certain of realities you do not see. Faith is based on the word of God. And God’s word tells us that God is good. God is good, and He is only good. Faith means believing in God’s goodness.

And you will never please God if you doubt either His existence or His goodness….Because……………….

III- Anyone who comes to God must believe that He exists.

When Moses was standing in front of the burning bush, God said to him, Exodus 3:14, “‘I AM WHO I AM.’ This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.”

God is the great “I Am.” He alone is self-existent. We must depend on God for our existence…. And anyone who comes to God must believe that “He Is.”

God says in Isaiah 46:9, “I am God and there is no other.”    God is who He says He is. He alone is God and there are no other gods. To believe that there are other god’s is blaspheming the one true God.

That is the first truth... And second truth is this:

Hebrews 11:6b, “Anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.”

Folks, it is not enough just to believe that God exists and He is good and the result will be, God will reward those who earnestly seek Him. You will never be disappointed when you seek God because God actively rewards those who earnestly seek Him.

Application: So, what does it mean to seek God earnestly?

We all seek after whatever we believe to be the best… right… But true biblical faith believes that God is best and right.

Faith means you earnestly seek Him first. And, as the Scriptures promise: when you seek God, you will find Him.

Walking with God means to following God’s Word (The Bible). It means to live every step of your life in conscious dependence and trust in God and living in obedience to His commands…

Desert Edge believes that God’s commands are meant for our good. We believe that we will be better off going God’s way than our own way, or the world’s way. And we put our faith into action when we walk with God even as Enoch walked with God.

Conclusion: As the apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 1:21 “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” That is another way to describe what it means to walk with God.

When you can sum up all of your life with the one word, “Christ,” then that shows that you truly do believe God’s goodness and that you are truly walking with Him. Are you walking with Christ?  Do you know for absolute certainty that you have a place in God’s heaven. When you stand before God at judgment day, what are you going to say to Him when He asks you why should I let you into my heaven. If your answer is, “Well I been a pretty good person.” That will be the wrong answer.

You have to believe and live for Jesus. Jesus death on the cross and His resurrection is the correct answer. Not by good works, but by the blood of Jesus alone. It is the gift of God’s grace why we can get into God’s heaven… If you belong to God, then… just like Enoch, God will also bring you to heaven, whether through death and resurrection….. or through the rapture at Christ’s return.

And once you see God in heaven, you will never doubt God’s goodness again. But in the end, it is our choice if we really do believe that God is good…..