Noah

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

A few weeks ago, I had the joy of getting to be at the Coldplay concert with my family.

I love Coldplay.

I've loved them for 20 years now.

It's fun to have something that uh I loved in college and now that my kids they kind of love in college as well.

That was fun.

That was great.

Uh and so we're there.

It's graduation celebration time.

You have our whole family.

And then as the music's getting, uh Guy and his family, he's about my age, and he's got his kids.

He had younger kids though, but uh the music starts.

And it's a cold play, it's great, it's amazing, right?

And and both he and I are in like just full dad position, right?

Hands like this, the music's going.

I'm like, yeah, it's good.

Oh, this is good.

And then and then he got to something before I did, and I couldn't do it because I didn't want to like um somehow look like I was mocking him.

What I was was I was jealous of him because all of a sudden it got to a really good part, and he pressed his lips together like that, right there.

And then he got his hand and he just started pumping, started pumping to the music, and I looked over, and I'm still in just classic dad.

Yeah, this is good, but I want to pump with you.

It was so amazing.

I'm like, this is this is his dad as it gets right here.

I I actually wanted us like for me for Father's Day.

I'm like, I wish I could play a cold play song and get you all to pump with me just as a present to myself.

Um, but uh uh because of copyright rules, I can't play cold play.

Um, so would you would you just at some point today you hear a song, press those lips together.

And just would would you do it for me just at some point?

That would be a gift to me.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

You know, today we're talking about how do you leave a legacy that lasts?

How do you leave a legacy that lasts?

I actually didn't think much about leaving a legacy until I had kids.

Um, you know, I when we're kids were little, every once in a while we'd go to Disneyland together.

And as we'd go to Disneyland, uh some point one of them would get tired, and so I'd put one of them on my shoulders and carry them, or maybe there was a parade going by, and so I'd hold them up on my shoulders so that they could see.

And that's always struck me as a picture of what I wanted to do as a dad.

My prayer, my dream was I longed that my kids would sit on my shoulders so that they could see further and go farther than I ever could.

I I had this longing that my ceiling would actually be their floor.

You know, we don't think about legacy a lot, do we?

But all of us will leave a legacy, every single one of us.

It's funny, we focus so much on living longer, but not as much on living well or leaving a lasting legacy.

How do you leave a legacy that lasts?

We're in this series called uh this the maybe I could say it.

There we go.

The dysfunctional family of God.

And uh, if you got your notes, why don't you open them up?

And if you got your Bible, you could open it up to Genesis chapter six.

We're looking at the life of Noah and leaving a legacy.

Go ahead and turn to your neighbor and say, leaving a legacy.

Now, I want to give you the context for Noah and what we're stepping into.

And the context is dysfunction at every level.

If you go back to Genesis 1, 2, and 3, Genesis 3, you'll see uh marital dysfunction, Adam and Eve.

Sin fractures intimacy with each other, with God, introduces pain, disconnection, and domination.

Last week we looked at Cain and Abel.

You'll see not just marital, but familial dysfunction.

Cain and Abel, jealousy, anger turned deadly.

We see not just the first family and the first brothers, but then sadly, tragically, the first murder.

Cain murders Abel.

And then if you read on in chapter four, you'll see it move from marital, familial, then to societal.

And person you probably aren't familiar with, a guy named Lamech, uh, and he's kind of lame.

Uh it is how it is.

No, Lamech, he gets offended by somebody and he kills them.

Then he brags about it, and he institutionalizes this revenge killing, this policy of retaliation, and violence starts to become a virtue, and it moves from societal, these cities of violence, then to global humanity.

Corruption is celebrated, injustice institutionalized.

Wicked is no no longer the exception, it is the expectation.

And this brings us to Noah.

Genesis 6, verse 5, we see this recap or overview.

Genesis 6:5

The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.

Then we get this insight into God, he says, the Lord regretted that he made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.

And then you get this glimmer of hope in the midst of such darkness.

But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

Like how Dr.

Bill Arnold said it, humanity's heart is evil and Yahweh's heart is broken.

And this is the context, this is the backdrop for the story of Noah.

And probably many of you are familiar somewhat with the story of Noah.

If you're not, let me just give you a recap.

The story of Noah in response to the gravity of humanity's wickedness, the righteous judgment and justice of God is coming upon the earth.

What began in Eden as very good spiraled into violence, corruption, and chaos, and so a flood, flood to wipe out wickedness.

Some people believe it covered the entire world, some believe it affected just the known world at the time.

And honestly, the text could go either way, so it doesn't matter.

Don't get caught up in it.

In Genesis 1, in God creating the world, you see, God divided the waters from the land, and here we see an act of uncreation.

The waters returned to cover the land.

In a world gone mad, Noah stood apart.

He found favor in God's eyes.

There was only one who didn't capitulate to corruption, who, in the midst of evil, chaos, and wickedness, lived a counter-cultural life.

And God in his grace chose Noah to begin again.

And what did he do?

He called him to build an ark.

An ark.

What is an ark?

Well, let me tell you, I'm glad you asked.

An ark is a 450-foot-long boat, 70 feet wide, 45 feet high, three-story vessel that Noah was building for approximately somewhere around 50 to 75 years.

God gave people decades to turn from their wickedness, by the way.

Eventually the ark was completed.

The animals came two by two onto it.

The rains came, 40 days of rain, 150 days of flooding, devastation, uncreation.

Noah, his sons, their families spent a little over a year on the ark as they waited for the waters to recede.

And when they stepped off, they stepped into a new world, a new beginning, a fresh start for humanity.

This is the backdrop.

This is the story of Noah.

How do you experience or how do you uh have a legacy that lasts?

No.

Right at the very beginning, this is like the big idea for the entire sermon.

Is I want you to just see this thing, and this actually we find it uh actually before we even hear much about who Noah is.

Is simply this thought the legacy you've been handed doesn't have to be the legacy you leave.

The legacy you've been handed doesn't have to be the legacy you leave.

Now think about this.

The legacy Noah's handed, we we think about this culture of corruption, that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, that everything is going this way, and he lived a counter-cultural life.

He said it wasn't that he's just like, I can live differently in light of this legacy you've been handed.

Doesn't necessarily have to be the legacy you leave.

Now, in Genesis chapter 5, there's this incredible little thing about Noah that his parents said about him that we miss that is, I think, so significant in this conversation.

Genesis 5 · chapter mention

In 529, it tells us why his parents named him Noah.

Noah, by the way, means rest.

It says, he named him Noah and said, He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the Lord had cursed.

Noah's parents' vision for Noah's life wasn't that he would do something great, that he was destined to do, you know, whatever, or yeah, Noah's vision or Noah's parents' vision for his life was Noah was their retirement plan.

That's what that's saying.

Yeah, it's like, you know what?

Life's hard, it's been long, the only way we can't work is having a kid that will start to work and take care of us.

So we're gonna call you rest, because you're our rest, and we're gonna just take it easy.

The legacy you've been handed doesn't have to be the legacy you leave.

Now it's interesting because we all carry wounds, don't we?

We all carry family wounds.

Mother, fatherhood wounds, and fatherhood wounds honestly are some of the deepest ones we carry.

And there's been words that have been spoken over you, or a path that was charted for you.

And honestly, for some, it's been something that you've been trying to break free, but you just keep feeling yourself drawn back to.

You've run from it, and then you became a parent, and you start saying the same things your parents said, and you're like, wait a second, am I just becoming the legacy you've been handed doesn't have to be the legacy you leave.

So how do you have a legacy that lasts?

Let me just give you three thoughts here.

First, legacy starts with your audience.

Legacy starts with your audience.

So you notice in verse 8 it said, but that now Noah found favor with in the eyes of the Lord.

Noah found favor.

If you got if you're taking notes or you start drawing a circle in your Bible, that word favor.

It also in Hebrew is the word grace.

Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

Legacy starts with your audience.

I want you to notice this.

God has grace eyes for you.

I don't know what you think God looks like when he looks at you.

When his eyes gaze at you.

I don't know if you think it's angry eyes, frustration, disappointed eyes.

God has grace eyes for you.

Grace, God's unearned, undeserved favor towards you.

Grace is his empowering presence to enable you to do and to be what you could not do or be on your own.

This is grace.

And he turns and he has grace eyes towards you.

Legacy for us, by the way, begins.

It is the starting point with who am I living for?

Whose approval are you living for?

But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

We seek favor in everybody's eyes, don't we?

Who am I living for?

Whose word of affirmation means most to me?

Gosh, man, we we are trying to live for the affirmation or approval maybe of someone past in our life.

It could be a parent, a coach, it could be we're trying to live for the approval of other people around us, and we're running after all these things.

It could be we're we're just somehow trying to live for the approval of our boss or our coworkers or the people around us.

Whose approval?

I love this.

You know what?

Noah spent like 50 to 75 years building this ark.

Do you wonder like what people said?

There is no water in sight where he's building it either.

No, what are you doing?

That's weird.

Probably save some wood for us.

I don't know.

I mean, there's all sorts of things that they could have said.

But here's the thing: if I have favor in the eyes of the Lord, I actually don't need your approval.

If I have favor in your eyes, God, if you're looking down on me with grace eyes, I can step into any situation confident because I'm not hoping you somehow you will accept me.

I'm fully accepted, fully approved.

And so I step into this moment, living for an audience of one.

Living just, you know what?

I God, you have it all.

We live in an attention economy where identity is shaped by affirmation.

What would change in your life if you realize you already have the favor of God?

He already has grace eyes towards you.

This whole idea of leaving a legacy is pretty overwhelming to me.

Uh this morning um we had a sweet little time uh around the table as a family, and each of my kids wrote notes, and like they were just precious to me.

Like their words, like it's just precious to me.

Um and they said things like, Dad, you're my hero.

Or I want to be like you.

Which is unbelievable.

And then it's overwhelming because I'm broken.

I don't feel good enough to be anybody's hero.

The pressure, like I I'm not good enough.

My dad, he drilled this verse in.

It's like one of, I think one of his life verses is 2 Chronicles 16, 9.

It says, for the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the whole earth, searching for a heart who's completely his, that he might strongly support them.

Like the grace eyes of God scanning this room right now, searching not for somebody that has it all together, but just for a heart that's his.

You're overwhelmed, it's too big, you can't do it, that's okay.

Because my grace, grace, God's empowering presence to enable you to do what you cannot do and be what you cannot be on your own.

He says, My grace is pouring out towards you.

I want to strengthen you.

I want to empower you.

I'm looking right now, and whoever's heart is mine.

I'm I'm eager to strengthen you.

Legacy begins with audience.

Who's your audience?

Who are you living for?

Uh, practically, what does this look like?

Um, there's a question that a mentor of mine, Dr.

Charlie Self, asked.

We were having a men's leadership thing in my backyard several years ago, and this question stuck with me because it's like kind of overwhelming.

Like, how do we do this?

And he just asked this simple question.

He said, This is the question that he asked himself every day.

Simply, am I doing today well?

There's nothing you can do about yesterday.

And tomorrow's yet to come.

Am I simply just doing today well?

Wake up today and God, do you have my heart?

And if not, let's do something about that.

And I want to live for your favor and your eyes only.

I will woke up today recognizing that your eyes, you are bestowing and looking upon me with grace.

And so I am living for you.

May I do today well.

For getting what is behind.

Am I living today?

Well, legacy begins with who's your audience.

Then it's built in the unseen places of your life.

It's not built outside of us, it's not built in the spectacular, it's surely not built on TikTok.

Instagram.

Notice what's said of Noah.

Noah was a righteous man.

Blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.

Righteousness means right standing with God.

Blameless has the idea of integrity before people, walked with God, has this life marked with the closeness and intimacy relationship with.

Now, when we hear the word righteous, what we often think is perfect.

Righteousness here does not mean perfection, it does mean right standing.

And if I am in Christ because of his finished work, I have right standing with God as a result.

When he's talking about Noah's like, he wasn't perfect.

In fact, we see some things that he messed up, especially near the end of his life.

It doesn't mean perfection, what it does mean is integrity.

It means integrity.

It's who you are when no one's watching.

Are you the same person in public as you are in private?

You know, uh pastors' kids get kind of a bad rap because uh they can kind of tend to go off the deep end, so I'm told.

I grew up, I'm a pastor's kid.

I would say one of the things that was incredibly foundational and formational to my faith, having a dad who spoke for a living on stage, was that he was the same man on that stage as he was at home.

That's integrity.

Parents, dads, moms, that we're the same person with their friends, we're the same person when we're in public, we're the same person that's posting online as we are in home, in our homes.

I can say this about my dad.

He is one of the most integral people I've ever met.

Legacy is built in the unseen places of our lives.

Integrity, by the way, I think for us dads, it's getting to the point where we I think this is so important and powerful that we just with our kids go, you know what, I blew it.

I'm sorry.

Would you please forgive me?

That's integrity.

Perfection pretends like nothing's wrong and you ignore it or you just mask it or you wipe it away, cover it, put it under the rug.

Integrity says, you know what?

And our kids need to hear it, our kids need to see it.

I blew it.

I'm so sorry.

Would you please forgive me?

I like how Dao's Lord says the most important thing in your life is not what you do, it's who you become.

That's what you'll take in eternity.

And we know this.

Why this is so important to legacy is you cannot pass on what you do not possess.

We cannot pass on a vibrant faith if we're not walking with God.

We can't pass on a life of integrity unless we're walking and experiencing and living a life of integrity.

Legacy.

It begins with who's your audience?

Audience of one.

Okay, I am living for the favor of God.

He's already got grace eyes for me.

It's built in the unseen places of my life.

Inviting him into those areas that who I am in public and in private, who I am when nobody's watching, that's what matters most, by the way.

It's the decisions you make in obscurity that will shape your destiny.

And we try to hide it, think it's not a big deal, and pretend to be someone else.

And it undermines our lives and those we pass on.

And then legacy, this is so important.

Legacy is a byproduct, don't miss that.

It's a byproduct of faithful obedience.

It's a result of faithful obedience.

Eugene Peterson, who wrote uh the message paraphrase of the Bible, he wrote a book also called a long obedience in the same direction.

It's simply a long obedience.

You'll see Genesis 6, 22, Noah did everything just as the Lord commanded him.

Just as God commanded him.

And we see this repeated throughout the lifetime.

Now think about it, he's building an ark for 50, 75 years, getting his boys.

He's faithfully walking with God.

In my 30s, got this advice.

It was so like, it was life-changing.

Um, my kids were going to school, and there was a dad.

I guess they should go to school, you would know that.

Uh, they're in elementary at the time.

And there was a dad that I started, we started, we had kids young.

He started late.

I know I don't want to guess how old he was, but he was old, older than me.

Uh at least 20, it seems like at least 20 years older than me.

Um, but he he was wise.

You see, uh, I was really wrestling, especially in my 30s, 20s, like the sense of adventure, new beginnings, all these things was happening.

Uh 30s, like I had this ambition.

I want to conquer the world, I want to be somebody.

If you wanted to ask me about legacy, it was about accomplishments.

It's about what I do, the name that I make.

And then, like, we're in this season of elementary school kids, and if I'm honest, it just felt like groundhog day.

Wake up, get the kids ready, it's kind of a hassle.

You get them off to school, you work, you come home, you get them, you know, school, homework, bed time, you wrestle with them trying to get them to bed.

You maybe do some more work, go to sleep, wake up, get them ready for school.

It's just like on repeat.

Like, is this life?

And so many of us in the middle of that have this wonder lust that can shipwreck our lives.

And he said this to me he said, Ryan, you have to learn to love the mundanity.

Like the what?

The mundanity.

Or another way to say it, embrace the mundane.

I remember telling Jenny about this, and she did not like that at all.

She doesn't like anything mundane.

She's a seven on the Enneagram.

And she's like, mundane, mundane means ordinary, routine, or lacking excitement related to everyday or common things.

Legacy is a byproduct of everydayness.

Where's the spice?

Where's the adventure?

You want to leave, we want to leave a legacy that lasts.

It is just daily showing up.

And sometimes it's, you know, two steps forward, one step back, and sometimes, if we're honest, it's two steps back, one step forward.

But it's daily showing up.

It's just going, you know what?

It's not that spectacular, it's not sexy, they're not gonna make a movie about it unless it's perhaps the notebook, then that's kind of talking about the dailiness of it.

But everything else, it's not gonna show up somewhere, but it's gonna show up in your kid's life.

Because now I have an almost 21-year-old, an 18-year-old, and a 15-year-old, and I'm so grateful for that embracing the mundane of just showing up in the middle of it, of not just kind of copping out or just searching for something else, but being present to what God has in this moment, in this time, and you're just gonna show up and be faithful where you're at.

That is a legacy that lasts.

And here's why.

More's caught than taught.

We know it.

More's caught than taught.

It's not that great speech.

It's the lives we live that our kids will take from us.

I watch my mom every morning.

Wake up early.

Sit on the couch that none of us kids were allowed to sit on.

It was in the living room.

And she spent time with Jesus every morning.

Got her cup of coffee.

Every morning.

I'd wake up early, not because I was getting up, I just had to use the bathroom, was going back, but I'd just see her every morning.

And I saw that everydainess of her life.

And guess what?

I do every day.

Because more's caught than taught.

Her dailiness bled into my life.

Her faithfulness poured into my faith.

How do we leave a legacy that lasts?

It begins with who our audience is.

It's built in the unseen places of our life.

It's a byproduct.

It's a byproduct of just faithful obedience.

Mundanity.

You can use that word this week.

Noah closes, they get off the ark, and it closes with a covenant.

God makes a covenant with Noah.

He makes a covenant not just with Noah but with the earth.

He says, I'll set a rainbow in the clouds, and it'll be a sign of a covenant between me and the earth that never again will I bring destruction upon the earth in this way.

In fact, we'll see and read through Genesis that God makes covenants.

A covenant is a promise that he makes regardless of how we live and what we do.

This is what I'm gonna do.

We'll see him make a covenant with Abraham, and that through his family line, every nation will be blessed, and the coming Messiah will bring salvation.

The rainbow, by the way, the bow was a weapon of war.

God's saying, I'm setting down my weapon of war.

I love, I love that we have a covenant-keeping God.

I've shared this with some of you before.

One of my favorite attributes of God is his faithfulness.

I don't even know if it's legal to have a favorite attribute.

I'm not sure.

I'm still trying to figure that one out.

But it is.

It is.

And here's the reason why.

Like I wake up most mornings and I write lamentations in my journal.

The steadfast love of the Lord never fails never fails.

His mercies are new every morning.

Great is his faithfulness.

Like I woke up today to new morning mercy.

His steadfast love greets me because he's faithful.

I gotta tell you, in my twenties, thirties, even sometimes now.

Like imposter syndrome?

Absolutely.

Like just wondering, am I gonna make it?

Not like be a somebody, just make it in life, period.

Am I just gonna make it?

I'm just trying to eat by, get by.

I'm not sure if I can really get through this.

And then I come to Colossians.

This is the anchor verse, especially in my 20s.

He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it until the day of Lord, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Like, I don't know if I'm gonna make it, but you're a covenant-keeping God.

You said you began in me, you'll finish.

And so I don't see how it's working out right now.

And I'm just trusting, I'm just clinging, I'm just hoping because I'm confident in you, not in me.

And just hold on to that.

You're faithful, you'll complete it.

What you began, you'll finish in me.

But what about when I doubt, when I struggle?

2 Timothy.

Even when we're faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.

This is why you need to know God's word, because you need to be able to get your heart and mind anchored in the very promises of God.

What about when you blow it?

1 John 1 9.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and forgive us and purify us of all unrighteousness.

You have a promise keeping God who is faithful, who has grace eyes for you.

Legacy feels overwhelming, doesn't it?

It feels daunting.

Maybe you're a teen and you're like, I'm too young for this.

Maybe you're older.

I'm too late for this.

It's never too late.

And you're never too young to leave a legacy that lasts.

We all leave a legacy.

The question is, what kind?

What will it be?

When I was 19, there was a man that shaped my life profoundly.

His name's Will.

He was an old vet.

Will was a prayer warrior in our church in Santa Cruz.

Um older man, lived in a small uh little um what do you call those things?

A mobile home.

His wife had passed away several years before.

So he just prayed.

He had Parkinson's and the disease was taking over his body.

And he just, for whatever reason, began to pour into this little 19-year-old life.

Invite me over, I'd go over and spend some time at his mobile home and hear stories of his life.

He would email me, remember emails?

But he could he, you know, could only do single finger, so all his emails were all caps.

He just had it on all caps, he didn't have some of the great technology today.

He'd send me these prayers.

He'd end every single one of them.

In the sounds of Calvary's love.

Well, and then he passed away.

It's just a couple years in my life.

His prayers, his presence profoundly impacted my life.

He may have passed away, but God is still answering his prayers to this day.

It's never too late.

And by the way, you're never too young to leave the legacy.

So I want to just give you a moment.

Just to be with your Heavenly Father.

So disapproval.

Who are you living?

Just bring it to you.

Bring it to you.

Bring what's in you.

Let him meet you.

Let him minister to you.

Not what ought to be in you.

In Jesus' name.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

Please subscribe to our podcast for access to every episode as they're uploaded.

And hey, we'd love to connect with you.

Take a next step by filling out our virtual connection card at awakeningchurch.com slash card.