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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Jeffrey Harper

Living the Life of Enoch

Father in heaven, we have gathered here today with 1 primary purpose, and that is to seek your face.

Father, we recognize that there is Nothing in ourselves to recommend ourselves to you.

But Father, we come in the name of Jesus.

We come with boldness because your word says that we can approach your throne of grace with confidence.

Lord, we're told that Jesus is our mediator in the heavenly sanctuary and he takes our prayers and he mingles them with his own blood and presents them to you, the Father.

Thank you that we can be here studying your word And we invite your Holy Spirit to be here.

Father, we need the author of salvation, the author of scripture, to help us understand your message.

And we pray all these things in the name of Jesus and all of God's people said, Amen.

All right, let's make sure this is on here.

How many of you have ever heard of Hudson Taylor?

Hudson Taylor was a famous missionary back in the 1800s and he has a powerful testimony and God led him to work with the Chinese and he moved to China and was there for many years, ended up passing away in China.

And when you read his testimony, Hudson Taylor, for the first 15 years of his ministry, was passionate about God, he loved God, He wanted to do God's work.

However, Hudson Taylor often relied on his own strength.

And he writes a lot of letters to family, kind of talking about his struggle with Jesus and feeling like God was with him and feeling like he could have success and wondering where God was in all of this.

And he wrote a letter to his sister in 1869, it's a powerful letter, and kind of talks about his conversion experience, how after those 15 years of ministry, God changed a page in the chapter of his life where he started relying more on Jesus and resting in Christ and praying more and seeking him more.

And I wanna read to you a part of this letter.

And I like that he calls his sister Deary, right?

Well, Deary, my mind has been greatly exercised for 6 or 8 months past, feeling the need personally and for our mission, the China Inland Mission, CIM, of more holiness, life, power in our souls.

But personal needs stood first and was the greatest.

I felt the ingratitude, the danger, the sin of not living near to God.

I prayed, agonized, fasted, strove, made resolutions, read the word more diligently.

I sought more time for retirement and meditation, but all was without effect.

You're seeking God, but is it making a difference?

I begin the day with prayer, determined not to make, take my eye from him for a moment, but pressure of duties, sometimes very trying, constant interruptions, apt to be so wearing, often cause me to forget him.

Have you ever spent some beautiful moments with Jesus during the day?

You wake up, you have devotions, and then a few hours later, you lose your patience.

Lord, I just spent this great time with you.

Then one's nerves get so fretted in this climate that temptations to irritability, hard thoughts, and sometimes unkind words are all the more difficult to control.

He goes on writing this letter to his sister.

When my agony of soul was at its height, a sentence in a letter from dear McCarthy.

John McCarthy was a fellow missionary there in China, And McCarthy writes him this letter, and in this letter, there's something that McCarthy says that seems to open up Hudson Taylor's eyes, and he ends up drawing near to Jesus.

The sentence that really spoke to Hudson Taylor's mind and heart is a simple sentence.

McCarthy wrote in his letter to Taylor, how to get faith strengthened.

Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the faithful 1.

And we could spend entire message, entire Bible study thinking about that 1 sentence.

But that idea that it's not just his striving after and seeking his hardest to follow Jesus, That's not where the power lay.

He realized the power was resting in what Christ had done.

I looked to Jesus and I saw, and when I saw, oh, how joy flowed, that he had said, I will never leave you.

Ah, Hudson Taylor writes to his sister, there is rest, I thought.

For he has not promised to abide with me, never to, has he not promised to abide with me, never to leave me, never to fail me?

But this was not all he showed me, nor 1 half.

As I thought of the vine and the branches, what light the blessed spirit poured directly into my soul.

And here's just 1 more page from this letter.

How great seemed my mistake, and having wished to get the sap, the fullness out of Christ.

I saw not only that Christ would never leave me, but that I was a member of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.

The vine that I now see is not the root merely, but all.

Roots, stem, branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, and fruit.

Wow, Jesus is not only that, Hudson Taylor writes.

He is soil and sunshine, air and showers, and 10, 000 times more than we've ever dreamed, wished for or needed.

What Hudson Taylor realized was that what he needed wasn't patience, what he needed wasn't greater success and advantage, what he needed was Jesus himself.

And when he longed for the presence of God, not for success, not for baptisms, when he longed not to overcome, but when he longed for the presence of Jesus, that oneness with him, that's when things started making a difference.

I believe, friends, that today, if we wanna be ready for the soon coming of Jesus, that What Jesus desires for each 1 of us is oneness with him.

I believe that God is calling each of us to a deeper intimacy with Christ than we've ever experienced before.

My parents, I'm thankful, were dedicated, balanced, Seventh-day Adventist Christians who loved God.

Learned how to have devotions and spend time with him, and like many of us, probably you can resonate that my walk with God, there's been ups and downs.

But it seems like in the last couple of years that God is teaching me to rely on Him in a deeper way than I've ever experienced, than I've ever known.

And the question that I have for you, for Advent Hope today is, do you want a deeper experience with Jesus?

Because I believe that God wants to speak to you in a more direct way.

He wants you to listen more clearly to his voice.

He wants to give you an experience that you've never had before, even if you've walked with Jesus for a long time.

And as we look in scripture, there's a lot of people that experience oneness with Christ.

But Enoch is 1 of those people, and that's who we want to study today.

White tells us, it was looking in faith to Jesus and asking of him and believing that every word spoken would be verified that Enoch walked with God.

He kept close by the side of God, obeying his every word.

His was a wonderful life of, what's that word?

Please turn with me and your Bibles to the book of Genesis.

The Bible doesn't tell us a lot about Enoch, very little.

A few passages here and there, but we're gonna study what scripture says, not all, but what Scripture says about the life of Enoch.

Genesis chapter 5, starting there in verse 21.

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Living the Life of Enoch

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