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About Jesus Steve Sweetman Noah's
Faith Hebrews
11 is often called "the Hall of Faith."
This chapter shows how certain men and women have trusted God
with their lives. Such trust
is what we call faith. As an
experiment, read your Bible
and every time you read the word "faith", replace it with the
word "trust." You might end up with a clearer understanding of
what faith is. It surprises
me how many Christians don't understand something so fundamental as
faith. Hebrews
11:7 tells us about Noah and how and why he trusted his life to God.
The verse reads, "by faith Noah, when warned about
things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family.
By this faith he condemned the world and became heir of the
righteousness that comes by faith."
We learn lots about Noah in this one verse, that should be an
example for us. We
see the words "by faith when warned."
God warned Noah of impending doom that He would bring on the
earth. How did Noah respond
to this warning? He trusted
God that God would indeed do as He said.
We
also see the words, "not yet seen." God
warned Noah of a flood of water that would cover the whole earth.
Many scholars believe that it had never rained to this point in
history, so when God spoke of a massive rain storm, Noah might have
scratched his head in confusion. Nevertheless,
if God said it would rain, Noah knew it would rain.
Even after entering the ark, the rain held off for seven days.
One might imagine Noah's wife pulling him aside and asking,
"I hate to question your ability to hear from God, Noah, but come
on, are you sure you heard Him right? The
sky is blue and everyone is laughing at us out there.
I feel so stupid. You spent one hundred years building this thing
and now where's the water. " Of
course God told Noah that he'd be in the ark seven days before the rain
came, so he knew better. The
next important words in this verse are "holy fear."
Why did Noah trust His life to God?
It was because He feared God. Noah
didn't just reverence God, he was afraid of the consequences if he
didn't trust his life with God. Fear
is more than reverence. Holy
fear is fear, that is, "being afraid".
Let's not reduce fear to simple reverence, as we often do. And
we also might want to think about putting the idea of "holy
fear" back into our preaching as well. The
next group of words are, "save his family."
Noah's trust in God extended beyond himself to the rest of his
family. He trusted God that
He would rescue his family from the flood too because he had trusted his
life to Him. Noah's
trust in God "condemned the world".
How did Noah's faith condemn the world?
I thought God was the one who condemned the world.
Well, it was God's idea to condemn the world in judgment, but He
used Noah in the process. Because
Noah trusted what God told him, he obeyed God, as foolish as it
appeared. His obedience and
participation in God's plan of judgment in itself was a demonstration of
condemnation to the world. The
last important phrase in this verse states that because Noah worked with
God in condemning and judging the world, he would be an "heir of
righteousness." This
is the final result of trusting God.
A special righteousness came to Noah.
God viewed him as being a righteous man.
This righteousness had consequences not only in this life for
Noah but in the next life. So
here is an Old Testament guy with what looks like a New Testament faith,
but really, faith is faith. There's
no real difference between Old and New Testament faith, except for our
clearer understanding of the role Jesus plays in our faith.
Trusting God is trusting God no matter what age we live in.
We'll be trusting our lives to God throughout eternity.
We
learn a lot from Noah's example. We learn that we must trust God with
our lives, and at times this trust is tested through severe hardships.
Finding faith doesn't mean living happily ever after in this
life. We'll live happily
ever after in the next life. We
also learn that our trust in God is based partially on us being afraid
of the consequences of not trusting God.
As it says in Hebrews 12:29, "our God is a consuming fire.
Once again, fear is more than reverence.
Fear is being afraid of the fire. Another
thing we learn is that we can trust God for our family.
I do believe that each and every person must come to Jesus on his
own. It's often said that
God has no grandchildren, but to you godly fathers out there, be like
Noah. Trust God that He will
clearly provide many opportunities for your family to find His
salvation, because He will certainly do that for you.
It's still their personal choice, but a choice heavily influenced
by Jesus. We
also learn that we might have the opportunity to participate in God's
judgment that comes from time to time and that will be clearly seen by
all at the end of this age. Some
of us might be alive when Jesus returns for that last great judgment.
Other's might return with Him in the sky when He brings this last
judgment to the earth. We
can at least participate now by preaching as Noah did (2 Peter 2:5), and
warning people of the impending judgment to come.
The
last thing we learn is that we will inherit a righteous
life. This means that by
trusting Jesus, God views us as being totally righteous, even as He
Himself is righteous, even though we are still far from righteous.
This life of righteousness begins right now and extends into
eternity. We will inherit a
life that is beyond our wildest imaginations. We won't simply be viewed
as righteous by God, we will in fact be righteous.
Imagine that, human beings finally acting righteously.
No matter how hard that is to believe, it will be so .
What God says will happen, will certainly happen.
We can trust Him for that.
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