Heroes Week 2

Welcome to the North Iron Church podcast.

Our mission is to take the gospel from the upper peninsula to the ends of the earth.

We pray this message will inspire and encourage you in your faith journey.

Enjoy our hero series where we dive deep into the lives of heroes in the Bible.

Good morning.

Welcome to North Iron.

My name is Brandon.

I get to serve here as a discipleship pastor along with my wife, Michelle.

And may I also say a happy Memorial Day weekend for those who are going to be out celebrating, maybe going to cemeteries, different places.

I know that's a tradition with my family.

Just wanted to say thank you for all the things that uh that you have done or people that you know have done in service of our country.

It's really just one of those important things to recognize and say thank you for.

Also, want to recognize we've got a lot of people that are joining us online.

Would you do me a favor and welcome them here this morning?

So, like I said, um I'm here to continue on in a series.

We started last week.

Pastor Noah was up here and he launched us into that series, Heroes of the Bible.

And I get to pick that up.

We're gonna look at Noah today, not Pastor Noah.

That was last Sunday.

We're gonna look at Noah from the Old Testament this Sunday.

And so if you've got your Bibles, you can go to uh Hebrews chapter 11.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

That's gonna be one place we're gonna be at.

Also Genesis chapter six.

And by the way, if you need a Bible, we've got some friends up in the front row, just raise your hand, they'll bring you one right to your seat.

You can follow along with that or what's on the screen, what's on your Bible app, wherever you're gonna be.

Uh, but we're gonna be in those two spots.

So Hebrews chapter 11 and Genesis chapter six.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

So we're gonna take a look at Noah's life today, some things that I think are pretty impressive, things that we can admire about what he did do, and some things that he didn't do that I think are important when we're talking about that idea and that concept of faith.

And we're using Hebrews chapter 11 as uh as a springboard back into the Old Testament.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

In Hebrews chapter 11, it's kind of commonly referred to as that spiritual hall of fame, right?

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

We've got a bunch of names that are listed in there.

You might recognize some of those names: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, talked about Abel last week, Enoch last week.

We're gonna get to Noah today.

And there's so many different more, but but he makes the cut, he makes the list, which is, I think, a really cool and impressive thing.

But don't think for a second that we're going to skip over his flaws or his weaknesses or his sin in his life.

We're not gonna do that.

And and I I want to do that for really one purpose.

I believe that it brings some confidence, it brings some assurance, seeing how God has used people like Noah, the incredible things that he got to do, but also that there was still some issues that he was working on, things that he was dealing with, brings me confidence and assurance that he can do the same thing in my life and he can do the same thing in your life.

And so we're gonna take a look at all of that this morning.

And uh, you know, one of the things that um I think is really kind of interesting in this passage are uh uh a lot of a lot of a lot of things that we can use to build our faith, things that we can use to understand how God works, how God operates, things that he's asking us to do.

And so sometimes we're gonna look at some things that are that are specific to him, specific to those things that are in his life, but I think we can also apply it to ours.

And so this morning there's really kind of a a theme that we're gonna continue through this series, and I want to share that with you because there's three really important things that I think are attached to that.

And here they are that each of these heroes that we're gonna talk about, uh, including Noah, they held on to the belief that no matter how how faint or how weak that belief that God was real.

That's the first thing.

We're gonna see this in all of these characters we study, and that number two, he he would keep his promises, he will keep his promises.

And then the last thing, and that seeking him was worth the effort.

And so this morning, that's really where I want to get to.

That's what we want to talk about with you.

And so let's dig right in.

So if you have your Bibles, we're gonna go to uh Hebrews chapter 11.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

We're gonna start off in verse 7, where we see this By faith, Noah, when warned about things not yet seen in holy fear, built an ark to save his family.

By his faith, he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with the faith.

We're actually come back to this verse several times because there are a lot of things that we're gonna unpack from this verse.

But I always find it um interesting when I ask people, hey, what do you know about scripture?

What do you know about the Bible?

And maybe they've been to church for several years, maybe they've never been to church.

I think one of the more commonly recognized and understood stories in our lifetime is this flood experience, right?

Noah.

They know about Noah, they know about the flood, they know about those kinds of things.

And what I find interesting is how we choose to retell that story, how we choose to engage with people in that story.

And maybe you're like me, maybe you have young children, and you wanted to introduce them to the story, and so you you busted out the the the children's Bible, and on page one of the story, you see God telling telling Noah to build an ark, and then you see him grabbing his hammer, right?

Or his wooden thing or hammer, whatever he's got, and he starts to build the ark.

And then you turn the page and you see that there's all these animals that are showing up, right?

There's all these animals that are two by two, they're coming to the ark, and and Noah still has the ark in the background, he's still building that.

And then you turn the page again, and all of a sudden it's it's gray, it's dark, it's gloomy, there's lightning bolts, and there's rain, and the boat's kind of floating on this big uh watery ocean.

And you turn the page one more time, and then there's this uh big rainbow on top of the page, and then they're all kind of exiting the ark.

And I get why we do that, I understand why we we portray that story that way, and maybe that's the version that you've been exposed to.

But this morning we're gonna go to the full unedited version, okay?

Which I think is gonna be a good thing.

It's gonna bring with it, I think, some some God-sized questions.

And I want you to know that it's okay to ask God-sized questions.

It's why we're here, it's why we study scripture, it's why we do these things that we do on a Sunday morning.

But maybe you've encountered questions like this.

How could a good God do this?

Like we look at the story and we're like, wow, that's that's pretty heavy, right?

So we asked this question, and and by the nature of what we're gonna get into today, I'm gonna talk about this later.

But we asked this one too.

Was the flood over all the earth?

Like, I've heard that question before.

Maybe you've heard that question before.

But what I see in scripture, and when I go through these stories, there's gonna be that phrase, the earth, the world, the entire earth.

You're gonna see that over and over again in the scriptures that we're gonna be reading.

So I think that yes, this really was a global event.

It wasn't a localized region, never has that indication whatsoever.

It's always the earth.

Well, have they have they found the actual ark?

I don't know.

I mean, I don't have an answer for you on that one.

I know they've done some things up in Mount Ararat, different places, they think they found some wood here, some wood there.

I don't have a definitive answer on that one, okay?

How did the ark fit that many animals?

Well, I know in a lot of times in my mind I'm thinking of full-sized animals.

But what if they were just uh the baby version of the animals?

Well, now we got a lot more space to work with, don't we?

So just a simple explanation on something like that, right?

Or how about this one?

How did they get all the animals together?

You know, was Noah off on safari every weekend gathering up animals and bringing them back to the Ark?

Probably not.

I think God had more to do with this question than Noah, but he was still a part of this in that way.

And then, of course, we have to ask this question, right?

Some of you are thinking about the poop question right now, like how much like you can ask that in church.

It's okay, you can ask that question in church.

Or, or perhaps one that I didn't put on here, maybe the most important one.

God, why mosquitoes?

Why did they make the cut?

Why not just right at the end?

That we could have, you know.

I don't know.

I don't know.

But this is this is something that we we understand uh there's a lot of questions that go into, a lot of different areas of Noah's story.

I want to stick to the faith component, but I don't want to leave you hanging.

Write this website down, answersingenesis.org.

Great website, great place to go to get some of the answers to some of those questions and so many more.

Ken Ham, who's the Christian apologist, dedicated his life and a lot of his work.

He has created the ark experience.

My family has been to that.

I would highly recommend going to that, where it's a life-size, full-size ark, dimensions included, in scripture, built to scale, got to walk through it, truly impressive, answers a lot of the things that are going on here.

So if you want to get into more of those kinds of questions, I would encourage you to do that on your own.

But I want to stick to the faith that Noah possessed.

I want to look at what faith Noah had so that we can put those kinds of same things into our life.

And so if we go back to what Pastor Noah was looking at a little bit with us last week, we see this just one verse prior in Hebrews chapter 11, verse 6, it says this, and without faith, it's impossible to please God.

Hebrews 11:6

Because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

So if I could kind of get into the how, right?

That's where we want to go.

I want to use our theme, and I want to ask that question.

How exactly is Noah an example of faith that believes in God, understands that God keeps his promises, and that seeking him and his ways is worth the effort.

I want to keep that theme, and I want to get into about four things, not about specifically.

I want four things we're gonna look at his life that I think are gonna help us build and grow and increase in our faith as well.

So let's get into it, right?

So let's go back to Genesis chapter six.

Let's get some context.

What's going on?

How does Noah's story begin?

Well, the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth.

There's that phrase I want you to see that it comes up a lot.

And that every intention, every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

And the Lord regretted, it's a heavy word, that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.

So the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land.

Man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry, I'm sorry that I have made them.

I think this is why we tend to sugarcoat the story when we're we're talking to kids.

Like we want to, we want the mural on the wall, we want the little uh mobile with the ark and the animals, and we want that, but this doesn't usually make it when we're retelling the story.

We tend to kind of sugarcoat this portion.

Why?

Because it bothers us, right?

For being on that bothers me.

But can I can I gently remind you that it bothered God too?

I mean, I I highlighted these words with intent and with purpose.

I mean, he regretted, he grieved, he was sorry.

In fact, these words are used in in other places in scripture.

If you fast forward to the book of Isaiah, Isaiah uses the same language, the same words when he's talking about a bride who comes home to find that her husband has run off with some other woman.

And she is heartbroken.

She is grieved, she is hollow.

And this is how God feels.

This is how God feels when he sees what has happened on the earth, and he is broken.

And I guess if I could boil it down to one word as to why, it's sin.

Simply put, it's everywhere.

It's everywhere.

And I know we see it a little bit in these verses, but let's just go a little bit further into the chapter in verses 11 and 12, and we see this.

Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence, and God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt.

For all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.

And it starts with what God is seeing here.

It's everywhere.

It's everywhere.

And so God says, I need to put an end to this.

I need this to come to an end.

And we're thinking in our minds, again, back to that question that we asked earlier: how could a loving God do that?

How could a good God do that?

I want to maybe flip this 180.

I want to kind of interject ourselves into the story a little bit.

I want us to think about the fact that maybe it was us, that we were the only ones, the only ones in Ishburma.

You and your family, the only ones in Lance and Antonag and Marquette, wherever you're watching online, the only ones that weren't out committing heinous acts of sin.

That everyone around you was murdering at the whim.

Somebody, somebody crosses you and you just end their life because you want to.

Or somebody takes something from someone else just because they can and they want it.

Somebody looks at someone else and says, Oh, I think I'm I think I'm gonna have that person.

So they take advantage of.

And that's all they thought about.

That's all they did.

Everywhere you turned, everywhere you looked, everybody was doing all of this all the time.

Wouldn't you be crying out?

God, put an end to this.

God, please stop this.

I know I would.

And again, I get that's that's that's pretty heavy, that's pretty harsh.

Maybe let's bring it into a different illustration.

Cancer.

Like sin, only comes to steal, kill, and destroy.

That's what's happening in the world, and that's what's happening in your body when you encounter cancer.

But but don't we do everything in our power?

Everything that we can to use the words, flood our system with chemicals that would eradicate, that would destroy that cancer?

Can I lean on us just a little bit more here with this one?

I think oftentimes, not always, but sometimes, we as followers of Jesus, we as as proclaiming Christians, we have too soft of a view of God.

I think that I think there are times where where we're okay with Pastor Mark coming up on stage and talking to us about love and grace and forgiveness and mercy.

But we kind of sink back into our chairs a little bit when he starts talking about things like judgment and justice.

What's interesting is there's a word that's used, that's used in in scripture.

The word is mash heat in Hebrew, and it means destroy.

It means destroy.

And so what God is doing is he is saying, I'm going to mash heat the mash heaters.

I'm going to destroy the destroyers because that's the only thing that they're interested in doing.

And I want that to come to an end.

Let me give you one more kind of silly illustration.

Because it's all seen bodybuilders, right?

What if they were only interested in working out their upper body?

Right?

Chest day was okay, we're gonna do some shoulders, some biceps, triceps, we'll do abs, but no legs.

They would look really disproportionate, wouldn't they?

There might even be some pictures out there on the internet if you wanted to search that up later, but it it's it's it's unhealthy.

It's it's not complete.

And so how I would tie all of this in together, spiritually speaking, is this.

I would say it this way: God loves his creation too much to let it continue in wickedness, and he loves his glory and justice too much to let the wicked go unpunished.

So, what I'm saying is, God doesn't skip leg day.

Wall sits for days, no problems, no issues.

In fact, in fact, listen to what it says in Psalm it says that righteousness and justice are the foundation, the foundation of your throne.

Steadfast love and faithfulness go before you.

And so when God looked down on the world and all he saw was just rampant violence, running wild, he decided to stand up on those powerful legs of justice and to do something about it.

He's gonna do something about it.

And it began with noticing something.

What does he notice?

Let's go back to Genesis chapter 6, verse 8.

Genesis 6:8

But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

Well, what does that mean?

Noah found favor.

Does that mean that Noah was without sin?

Now we've already kind of covered that.

We're gonna circle back around that at the end of the story.

We're not gonna let that one slide by.

So, so what is it that God notices in Noah's life that brings God's favor?

Let's go back to Hebrews chapter 11, verse 7.

Hebrews 11:7

There's more to pull out here.

By faith, Noah being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear, constructed an ark for the saving of his household.

By this, he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

So I'm gonna take a 30,000-foot approach here because we're gonna actually come back to this verse one more time.

So, so really what's happening here is God, or I'm sorry, Noah is recognizing who God is and who Noah is not.

Simply put, right?

That 30,000-foot understanding.

He is resting in the knowledge that God is the only one that can save him and his family from this coming flood.

He's the only one that can do that.

And so he places his faith, he places his trust in who God says he is and in and in what God says he's going to do.

And so I want to unpack four things that I think are seen in Noah's life that brought God's favor, beginning with that simple understanding that God is who he is, and Noah is who he is.

Here's the first thing that I want to talk about.

Noah believed God instead of his eyes or his feelings.

Now you have to remember that Noah got up for 120 years without seeing any evidence of an upcoming flood.

Blue skies, sun shining, birds chirping.

Grab your hammer, get to work.

It'd be similar to us living in, say, like, I don't know, middle of the country, like Nebraska.

And God says, I want you to build me a cruise ship.

No lake in sight, thousands of miles in one direction or the other from the ocean.

Like, I don't know about you, but I'm I'm guessing that some of the feelings that Noah's experiencing, some of the same feelings I would probably be having, are this is crazy.

This is nuts.

I must be insane for wanting to do what God is asking me to do.

Now, I think some of those feelings are valid.

I think they'd be okay.

God's given us those feelings.

I'll talk about that more in a minute.

But Noah pushed past that.

He pushed past that, and again, we go back to Hebrews chapter 11 and in verse 1, Pastor Noah talked about this last week.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not yet seen.

So you're starting to see a picture of Noah's faith.

It wasn't about what he could see, it wasn't about what he felt.

Let me give you an illustration from my work as a paramedic.

We get a uh a tone dropped at 1 a.m.

for an unresponsive person.

Happens all the time.

And we get to this location, sure enough, we walk in, and we can see across the room there's somebody that's kind of slumped over in a recliner chair.

They're not responsive.

But on the way in, as we're walking towards the patient, we see a bunch of beer cans, we see over here a bunch of open liquor containers, we can smell marijuana.

What are you thinking is wrong with the patient?

Easy diagnosis, right?

They're probably really intoxicated, right?

So we go over, we try to rouse them a little bit, and they start to slur their words, like, what are you doing here?

And they might even become a little bit combative, like, get away from me, don't touch me.

And then someone pulls out a little instrument from our medical bag called a glucometer.

Little poke on the finger, and it reveals that their blood sugar level is 35.

You know what happens to everyday normal people like you and me when our blood sugar gets to 35?

We can become unresponsive.

We can begin to slur our words and be confused.

We can even become combative, like, get away from me, don't touch me.

And so we begin to understand that sometimes it's more than what we feel or more than what we see as a paramedic.

It could happen to a young paramedic.

They walk in, they see all this stuff, slam dunk case, it's they're intoxicated, let's get them over to the hospital.

Could happen to a seasoned or maybe even a salty paramedic, right?

Seen it a thousand times.

But they miss this important thing.

This thing that if we don't give them some sugar, they would die.

But guess what?

It's the same with our spiritual life, it's the same with our faith.

Right?

There are times where we we have to push past what we feel, push past what we see, because there's something underneath, there's something greater that's actually needing to be investigated, needing to be found out.

Because if we don't do that, when we run into big questions in life, questions like this, questions like, what's my purpose?

Or where did the universe come from?

Or how does God feel about me?

We begin to use our sight only and our feelings only.

Well, this feels good, this feels like the right way that I should go.

Well, I saw mom and dad do it this way, so this must be the right way.

Can get us into a lot of trouble.

Or I know myself, I know how bad I am, so God, I know God must feel, He must feel hatred towards me.

The Bible rejects all of that.

In fact, if we were to go to Scripture, we see the complete opposite.

Listen to what it says in Proverbs.

There's a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.

You know what Scripture says?

There's only one road that leads to heaven, one path that we can take.

It's a narrow road.

And everything else that we might see or we might feel that our heart's telling us feels right, it only leads to destruction.

It only leads to death.

Or how about this one in Jeremiah?

The human heart is the most deceitful of all things and desperately wicked.

Who really knows how bad it is?

So there's a lot that could be going on in our hearts that we feel is right or correct.

And what God is saying is, wait a minute, wait a minute, that's not accurate.

It's not accurate.

Man, you know, if I don't know, if if only we had something that we could go to, if only there was an instrument, a spiritual tool that we could use to check, to make sure that our our feelings and what we were seeing was actually truth.

Oh yeah.

We have that.

God has given us his word.

He's given us his truth.

We can go back to that and check that.

When we're seeing something that's a little bit off, is this right, God?

Is this what you have for me when I'm feeling this way?

God, is this really what you want me to be doing?

We can go back and we can check that with scripture.

I love, I love what Paul does for his young protege, Timothy.

He says this in 2 Timothy.

He says, All scripture is inspired by God.

God is the one that poured his knowledge and his understanding and his wisdom into the men that wrote this.

Okay, that's how that happened.

He says, All scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives.

It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.

God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.

So we have that spiritual instrument to check our sight, to check our feelings, to make sure that we're following what God has for us.

And so that's the first thing that we can see in Noah's life.

The second thing is this that Noah feared God more than the people around him.

Again, everywhere he turned, everywhere he looked, it was just sin plus more sin plus more sin plus more sin, no remorse, no guilt, no penalty, unending.

Could you imagine being Noah or Noah's family?

Out there day after day, year after year building this ark, the the intense ridicule, mockery, bullying that was probably taking place.

Hey Noah, you out there building your boat again, dude?

You're gonna take it and put it on the lake?

Maybe maybe bring the maybe bring the kids and put them on the tube behind you, man.

Take a few laps around the leg.

Yeah, man.

Hey, hey Noah, noah, how much horsepower you got in that thing, man?

Noah's just building the ark.

No, there's the horsepower in here.

It's two.

Two horsepower.

Sorry, super weak pastor's joke.

I apologize.

But listen, he he again he he pushed past that.

His faith, I think, allowed him to push past that.

Why?

Because Noah.

Noah was more concerned about disapproval from God than he was about disapproval from those that were around him.

And again, we can go back to Hebrews chapter 11, verse 7, and we can see this one more time.

Hebrews 11:7

By faith, Noah being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear, constructed an ark for the saving of his household.

By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

What do we mean by reverent fear?

Well, it's it's not like Noah was kind of cowering in some corner waiting for a spiritual spanking from God.

That's not the kind of fear that we're talking about.

What we're talking about is a healthy respect, a reverent understanding, again, of who God was and what he had asked and what he was going to do for Noah and his family.

And so we we come across this idea of reverent fear.

And if you would indulge me in one more illustration from my other occupation, in the fire service, we use what's called an SCBA, a self-contained breathing apparatus.

And we wear that with all of our gear when we go into a structure fire.

But prior to that, we'll wear all this stuff and we will intensely train so that we feel what it's like to have all this gear on, and we purposefully will breathe down that bottle of oxygen that's strapped to our backs so that we can hear the the clicking sounds that our our our past device makes to alert us that, hey, you're getting low on oxygen.

And then when that clicking sound stops, we know we've got about 10% left.

And if I'm working hard, maybe that's maybe that's 20 breaths more.

If I'm in really good shape, maybe that's 30 breaths more.

So I better be thinking about getting out.

Now, I don't fear my my SCBA, but I have a healthy respect.

When it says, hey, hey, bud, get low on oxygen, you might want to head outside and get a new bottle.

Right?

It's kind of the same thing in my faith.

Like I want to be connected to the one who is supplying me with all of my needs.

I need what he has for me.

I want his approval.

I want what he has given to me.

Because if I become disconnected, if I if I don't have a healthy respect and I ignore that, well, then I'm in some pretty serious trouble, right?

Same thing with like being in a fire without a uh without oxygen, not a good spot to be.

And so I see this in my faith as well, that I can I can have that healthy and reverent respect and fear of who God is and what he can accomplish and what he's asked me to do.

And I can follow him, but I get it.

I get it.

We've got the the world around us chirping in our ear all the time, the enemy chirping in our ear all the time, just like probably what Noah's experiencing back in his day, some of that ridicule, some that mockery, right?

Questions that we run across that why do you do?

And you fill in the blank, why don't you do as a as a follower of Jesus?

Why do you go to church on Sunday mornings, man?

Why don't you sleep in?

It's a waste of time.

Really?

I mean, you're a good person, you don't need that stuff.

Or why do you give your money?

I mean, it's bad enough that you go to church on a Sunday and then you then you give them your money?

Are you kidding me?

Chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp.

You know you could have a nicer house if you didn't give that money away?

You know you could probably have that extra side by side you've been you've been eyeing up.

You probably go on some vacations, man.

Go go to Europe.

Knock yourself out.

Why do you why do you give your money?

Hey, why is you coming out to the bars with us on the weekends, man?

What's up?

Why don't you come hang out with us?

What's the big deal?

What do you mean you don't have an account with Pornhub and OnlyFans?

It doesn't hurt anybody.

Why not?

And we get this constant pressure from the world.

They're wanting us to fear missing out.

Fear living your best life.

That's what the enemies are pushing you.

That's what that's what they want you to do, that's the pill they want you to swallow.

And God says, no.

No, no, no.

You need to come to me.

Come to what I'm what I'm what I'm giving you.

It's good.

I promise.

But here's the reality.

Listen, everybody.

Eventually, everyone, everyone will fear God.

The Bible says that there is going to come a day when every knee will bow.

Whether you're doing that in a humble and submitted and reverent way, or whether you are forced to do it, every knee will bow.

What's important to you in that moment?

What matters the most vacation you went on?

The nicer thing.

I've heard it put this way.

About our faith.

Faith is living in a way today that you believe one day, you'll be glad you did.

I know what I'm going to be thinking about five seconds after I die.

Where's Jesus?

Where's he at?

Right?

I have that kind of faith.

Noah had that kind of faith.

I think you can have that kind of faith as well.

So that's a couple of things we've learned about.

Let's get into another one.

Noah acted instead of argued.

He acted instead of argued.

I really do admire Noah.

I really do.

I mean, just to get up every day and do what he did, to continue down that path, in spite of what was happening around him, in spite of what he couldn't see, in spite of what he felt, he just kept going.

He kept going.

Build the ark.

Check.

Help get those animals on the ark.

Check.

Make sure you get your family and get them on the ark as well.

Check.

Nowhere in scripture do we see Noah saying, well, God, time out.

One second.

I think I got a better way.

I think I know a better way to take care of the situation.

Never do we see Noah arguing with God.

God, I don't God, did you think about the what if this?

We don't see that.

We see him acting in faith and with obedience.

And then the day came.

The day came where this took place.

Noah was 600 years old.

On the 17th day of the second month, all the underground waters erupted from the earth.

Again, everything's being released from down below, the entire earth.

And the rain fell in mighty torrents from the sky.

Scholars and people that look back into history believe that there was this canopy that was surrounding the earth.

And basically, what God did is he poked a hole in that.

That's where the rain came.

The rain continued to fall for forty days and forty nights.

And it continues on.

That very day Noah had gone into the boat, there's obedience, right?

There's action, with his wife and his sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth and their wives.

With them in the boat were pairs of every kind of animal, domestic and wild, large and small, along with birds of every kind.

Two by two they came into the boat, representing every living thing that breathes, a male and female of each kind, entered, just as God had commanded Noah.

In fact, we see a couple different times in this section of scripture that there's a phrase, Noah did exactly as the Lord commanded.

Action, not arguing.

Then the Lord closed the door behind them.

That's the important piece of all of the things that are just taking place, right?

God was heavily involved in what's taking place here.

And so again, while I think that there's probably room for questions, I'm sure Noah had several.

I think we're allowed to have questions.

In fact, I think there might even have been situations where Noah was a little bit doubtful like this was really going to work.

I think that that's also a part of our life, a part of our faith.

In fact, I know it is, because in the New Testament we're told of a father who comes to Jesus.

His son is sick and dying, and he says to Jesus, Jesus, I know you can heal my boy.

Will you please heal my boy?

And Jesus looks at him, asks him a question, says, Do you believe that I can?

And the father's response, I think, is absolutely perfect.

He says, He says, Yes, I believe that you can heal my son.

And if there's any small part of me that still doesn't believe, help me with that part too.

So I think that's a part of faith.

Right?

We're continuing to act, not argue.

Ran across an illustration I think might out illustrate this a little bit better.

An aerospace engineer next to a tribes person, and in front of them is a gigantic Boeing 747, huge jumbo airliner, right?

The aerospace engineer, he could probably tell you all kinds of facts about this plane, how it was built, lift to thrust ratio, all the mechanics, all the hydraulics.

Tribesperson's looking at this thing going, you're telling me this big metal thing just goes up in the sky and stays up there and it carries people at the same time?

Right?

But it's time to depart.

It's time for the plane to take off.

The tribes person gets on.

Aerospace engineer doesn't.

Who gets to the destination?

It's that tribe person.

Let me put this into a faith context.

A lot of times people say, well, I'm not 100% sure that Jesus is Lord and Savior.

I'm not 100% sure.

Okay.

Are you 50%?

If you're 50%, I'm gonna suggest you you begin that relationship.

You you take that step, you take that active step towards who he is.

Because listen, like the plane, like the ark, Jesus is the only vessel that can rescue you from your sin, can rescue you from death, can deliver you to the destination of heaven somewhere.

He's the only one.

So scripture tells us that's his truth.

Whether you feel that way, whether you've seen it or not, that's what scripture says.

So I don't know about you, but I would rather be 50% sure that the flood was happening on the inside of the ark, than 100% sure that it was happening on the outside of the ark.

And so I'm gonna encourage you.

I can stand up here all morning and talk to you about what I've experienced with Jesus, and I think it would be good.

But I think the best way for you to understand and have that kind of assurance, have that kind of confidence that Jesus is who he says he is, is to step out in faith.

Bible says he's gonna meet you there.

He meets you in that moment.

And then in flight, if you will, along that boat ride, if you will, you gain more and more and more faith.

You begin to practice some of the things we've been looking at in Noah's life.

There's one more thing I want to talk about from his experience.

Noah's faith condemned the world.

And again, you look at that and you go, that's kind of harsh.

Why was Noah doing that?

Was he out there like, you're a sinner, and you're a sinner, and you're a spawn of Satan, and you're going to hell.

I can remember when I was at uh Western, my freshman year of college, and I was walking to class and I could hear somebody yelling and shouting.

And as I kind of came around the corner in the center of campus, there was this guy that was wearing this gigantic sandwich board sign, and on it was a bunch of lists of sins.

Fornicators, swindlers, cheaters, liars, murderers, whatever.

I mean, it was all over the front and the back.

And he's just out there yelling, you guys are all going to hell.

Is that what God's asking us to do?

Is that what he's telling Noah to do to condemn the world in this way?

No.

I believe that what we see in Scripture is that we're to live.

Live in such a way that people see and notice what it is that you're doing.

And they ask those questions and they chirp in your ear, and you get to talk to them about why you do what you do.

That you live different, that you you act different, you talk different, you think different.

That's what I believe God is asking us to do.

To live out our faith.

Again, I go back to what Paul writes to the church in Rome.

He says, hey, listen, don't copy.

Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a person by changing the way, into a new person, by changing the way you think.

Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

Live differently.

That's what I believe Scripture is calling us to do, what God is asking us to do.

But the story doesn't end there.

I promise we circle back to this.

At the end of this, we find that the ark comes to rest on top of a mountain and the flood waters recede, and no one's family exit the ark.

And they begin to repopulate the earth and they begin to do like normal everyday things.

And one of the things that Noah does is he plants a vineyard.

And one day he decides, you know, I'm gonna enjoy all the fruits of my labor, all the fruits of all things.

And so he he gets he gets ripped, he gets drunk, strips down naked, laying in his tent.

I've never seen that on a mural, by the way.

But why include that?

Why keep that a part of the story?

Was it to embarrass Noah?

No.

It's to remind us that sin was still present.

Sin still remains.

So does that mean that God's gonna flood the earth again?

No.

He had a better way to deal with it.

He had a better way to handle our sin.

I love what Charles Spurgeon says.

There's a covenant that's made between Noah and his family and the rest of humanity.

God says, I'm gonna set up a rainbow in the sky to remind you of this promise I'm making to you.

And this is how Charles talks about the rainbow promises us that God will one day wipe out evil from the earth by taking the arrows of his wrath into himself.

That word rainbow in scripture is actually talking about a war bow.

He put his war bow in the sky.

And if you look at that and how it's shaped and how it's bent, and you put that string across the bottom and you pulled it tight, where's that arrow gonna go?

Jesus is the one that took the Genesis level wrath of God on himself, took the wrath that was meant for me, it was meant for you.

And he in turn trades that for forgiveness, for grace, and for mercy.

So this morning there's an invitation.

But first, we have to understand that there's going to come a day that we're all going to pass away.

And in that moment, what matters most from what I can see in Scripture is what I did with Jesus.

Who is Jesus to me?

So this morning I want to invite you to choose.

I want to invite You to choose the same as Noah chose, right?

Choose to believe in God even when you can't see it or you can't feel it.

Choose to fear God more than those around you.

Choose to act and obey rather than argue.

Choose to live out your faith for others to see.

So this morning, I want to invite you.

I want to invite you to stand with me.

I want to invite you to create some movement, a step of faith, if you will.

There's going to be some prayer partners down front.

I want to encourage you.

Maybe today you're realizing and recognizing, you know what?

I've been arguing with God way, way too much.

You know what?

I've been trying to seek the approval of my friends way too much.

I need to repent.

I need to change.

I need to let God's word transform me.

I need to have faith like Noah.

I want to encourage you to just move.

It's going to be a time of worship.

The band's going to continue to play.

And this space is for you.

Space is for you to be in that presence of God.

To hear from him.

Have him encourage you.

Maybe even correct you.

Whatever it is that God is putting upon your heart, I want to encourage you to take a step.

Take a step towards him.

Because he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

I believe that.

100% I believe that.

Would you pray with me?

Father, you are holy, you are awesome, you do things that are beyond my comprehension.

But I am grateful.

Father, I'm grateful for your love.

I'm grateful for the way that you have stood upon your foundation of justice.

You've interacted with our world.

And God, you invite us to be a part of a relationship with you.

And Father, I'm asking, like the Father in the New Testament.

God, if there are areas of my life, of our life that still need to be surrendered to you, help me with my unbelief.

Help us with our unbelief.

Father, we want to be like Noah.

We want to be like those great names of faith we see in Scripture.

We want to be in a relationship with your Son Jesus.

It's in his mighty name that we pray.

Amen.

Thank you for joining us for this message.

For past sermons, a giving link, and more, check out the footnotes below or visit our website at northiron.church.

We hope to see you soon.