The Lord’s Message:  Hall of Faith, Faith of Noah

The Lord’s Message:  Hall of Faith, Faith of Noah
Date:  February 9. 2025
Where:  Tilghman Methodist Church
Scripture Reference:  Hebrews 11:1, 7

            We are continuing our sermon series, Hall of Faith.  Our definition for Faith is found in Hebrews 11:1. From our study on the life and faith of Abel, we discovered that we should not simply go through the motions of worshipping God, but we need to give our whole heart.  Last week, in studying the life and faith of Enoch, we discovered that our walk with God is a daily walk.  The more we walk with God the closer we are drawn to Him and the more we understand and love God.  One day our walk with God to take us to be with Him in heaven for eternity.  This Sunday, we are going to look at the life and faith of Noah.

            Let us pray.

            Many of us growing up in the church have heard of Noah.  What do we know of Noah?  Noah built an ark, because God told him there was going to be a flood that would wipe out all of humanity and every living land animal.  Noah did as God instructed.  Noah rounds up two of every kind of animal, male and female, and brought them into the ark along with food and water to keep them and himself and his family alive.  God caused the rain and the flood.  It rained for forty days and nights.  The ark floated along in the stormy waters.  The rains stopped.  The Ark came to rest on Mt. Ararat.  After some time had passed and the rains had stopped, Noah sent out a raven.  The raven did not come back.  Then Noah sent out a dove.  The dove came back with an olive branch, a sign that the flood waters had receded to the lowest parts of the earth.   Then Noah waited another seven days and opened the ark and all the animals, Noah, and his family came out of the ark and reinhabited the earth. 

            I want to look more closely at Noah’s faith.  If we turn our Bibles to Genesis 6: 9, we find Noah described as “a righteous man blameless among the people of his time and he walked with God.” Noah walked with God as his great grandfather, Enoch, had “walked with God.”  Noah is doing this when all the rest of humanity has abandoned their belief in God and are doing all things to please themselves.  We are told this in Genesis 6:5. 

            Can you imagine some of the things that were being said about Noah?  Goody Two Shoes, Holier than thou, Are you crazy?,   

Pastor Mark A. Tabb writes that Christians “are surrounded by people who would love to see us fall.” He notes some of their favorite phrases:

“Come on, what will it hurt?”

“Why do you have to be so weird about all of this?”

“It’s no big deal.”

“Everyone else is doing it.”

“One time won’t matter.”

“How do you know it’s bad if you won’t at least try it?”

A woman was interviewed by reporters on her 102nd birthday. When asked about the benefits of living past the century mark, she answered, “No peer pressure!”   Think of the peer pressure exerted on Noah.  Noah’s faith was being tested every day living in this culture.  This is the same culture we are living in today.  What if you were the only one in your whole society who had the integrity and the courage to say, “No”? Could you do it? Could I do it?

If there was not enough pressure on Noah to conform to the actions of people of his day, God asked him to build an ark.  As far as we know, Noah was far away from any great body of water.  God tells Noah to build an ark, not a rowboat.  The dimensions of this ark are 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high.  We are talking about a massive ship.  We are not told that Noah has any carpenter skills.  Matter of fact, after the flood Noah plants a vineyard and grows grapes to make wine.  It takes 100 years for Noah to build this ark.  Can you imagine the ridicule that Noah has to endure for 100 years?  Day in and day out.  Every time, they are out there building the ark, someone is coming by and mocking them.  I suspect that even his own sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, if they are not saying it, are thinking to themselves, Dad has gone crazy.  Noah’s wife is hearing from the other women when she goes to purchase food or gather water from the town’s well.  Noah is the biggest laughingstock.

            Thomas Borkovec, a professor of Psychology at Penn State University, is an expert in the field of worry. He has determined that the single most common source of worry is not the fear of war, financial disaster, holes in the ozone layer, AIDS, cancer, loss of a job, or divorce. According to Dr. Borkovec, the single most frequent source of worry is other people’s opinions of our lives. “If this happens, what will they think? What will people say? Will I be laughed at? Will I be excluded?”

  Noah is the biggest laughingstock, still he perseveres.  I am sure there were times when Noah felt like giving up.  But, because he walked with God, God kept reassuring him.  In the end, Noah finished the ark just as it was beginning to rain.  Noah had kept his faith, despite all of the persecutions.  He did not let other people’s opinions worry him.   

We spend too much time worrying about what others think of us, instead of walking with God.  We do not need their admiration or their scorn.  We need only to keep following God.  Jesus told us do not worry about being insulted or being persecuted in

Matthew 5:11-12. 

            We should instead think of ourselves as a fork in the road or causing a crisis.  Jim Elliot was a famous missionary who was killed trying to bring the Gospel to the Auca tribes deep in the heart of Peru. Before his death, Elliot wrote, “Father, make me a crisis man. Let me not be a milepost on a single road. Make me a fork that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me.” 

            In 1 Peter 1:13-16, just as God is holy, as faithful followers of Christ, we are called to be holy.  It is part of our calling to live a life, so that Christ may be known.  In doing this, we are going to be confrontational to the rest of the world.  The world is going to hate us,

John 15:18-19.  Noah was hated by the rest of the world for walking with God.

 In Hebrews 11:7, Noah is described as a man of faith who condemned the world and became heir of righteousness.    How as followers of Jesus would we think that the world would treat us any differently? 

            The more that we read our Bible, live what the Bible teaches us, and be the Bible to others, the more the world is going to hate us.  But we need to remember what Jesus said in

John 16:33.   Amen.