Genesis 6:22 * June 21, 2009 * Pentecost 3 * Pastor Pagels
In the name of Christ Jesus, dear friends:
Even though he graduated last in his class at
But most people don’t know that. Instead this military leader is remembered
for his part in another war that took place about a decade later. Even though he was a decorated war hero who
led men into dozens of battles the
From very humble beginnings in
But many people aren’t aware of that. Instead they associate this slugger with another baseball record that he held until 2007. The name Hank Aaron is synonymous with home runs because over the course of his twenty-three year career he hit a lot of them (755 to be exact).
It might seem kind of strange to put George Custer and Hank Aaron together, but as different as they are they do have something in common. Both men enjoyed distinguished careers. Both men have been the subject of best-selling biographies. But the rest of their lives and all of their accomplishments are really only background material because their places in history are defined by a single, solitary event.
Just like the man in our text for today. Noah was a husband and a father and a farmer who lived for 950 years. Peter calls him a “preacher of righteousness” (2:5), and Moses says that he was blameless among the people of his time (Genesis 6:9). But I wonder how many people are familiar with those facts. If we played a word association game and I asked you to say the first word that comes to mind when you hear the word “Noah,” my guess is that most of you would either say “flood” or “ark.”
The truth is that the account of Noah (Genesis 6:9-9:29) is dominated by the events that took place before, during and after the flood. And Noah did spend well over a hundred years of his life building the ark. But this morning it will be our goal to go deeper, to go beyond what Noah did and consider why he did it. As we embark on our summer sermon series that will introduce us to a great cloud of witnesses, we begin by examining the life and learning from the faith of…
NOAH, THE
The God-fearing roots of Noah’s family tree ran deep. He was a direct descendant of Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve. Noah’s great-grandfather was Enoch, a man who walked with God and one of two men in the Old Testament (the other is Elijah) who didn’t die a normal death because the Lord took him away.
Like his ancestors Noah also walked with God, and that proved to be a very lonely path because there weren’t many believers left in Noah’s day. In fact, Noah and the members of his immediate family were the only believers on earth. And the Lord’s heart was filled with pain (Genesis 6:6) when he saw how far his perfect creation had fallen.
“The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time” (Genesis 6:5). When the Lord looked down from heaven he saw wickedness and violence everywhere. He saw that the promise of a Savior was hanging by a thread. He could see that the light of the gospel was about to be extinguished, and so he decided to do intervene.
“The LORD said, ‘I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the whole earth’” (Genesis 6:7). That sounds like the statement of someone whose patience had run out, but even in God’s anger, even though God was determined to destroy his corrupt creation, he still gave his people one hundred and twenty years to repent (Genesis 6:3).
“But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD” (Genesis 6:8). That’s how the account of Noah begins. The Lord let Noah in on his plan to destroy the world and start over with his family, and God’s plan included very specific directions:
“Make yourself an ark
of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. This is how you are to build it: The ark is
to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. Make a roof for it and finish the ark to
within 18 inches of the top. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower,
middle and upper decks. I am going to
bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every
creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish”
(Genesis 6:14-17).
How far do you think God got into his directions before Noah’s mind went completely numb? Was it when God informed Noah that he was about to bring about a cataclysmic flood that would destroy all life on earth? Or was it before that? Was it when Noah started to calculate the dimensions of the massive vessel God wanted him to build? Or was it when he figured out how many years or how much materials this undertaking would take?
Noah could have raised all kinds of objections. He could have pleaded with God: “Please, be
patient. Please give your people just a
little more time.” He could have argued:
“God, I’m a man of the soil. I don’t
know how to build things. With a project
of this magnitude I wouldn’t even know where to begin.” He could have reasoned: “God, you do realize
that we are in the Middle Eastern equivalent of
Noah could have made excuses, but he didn’t. According to Genesis, he didn’t say
anything. Building the ark according to
God’s specifications took decades.
Building the ark required thousands of man hours and thousands of
trees. And yet this massive construction
project is summarized in eight words: “Noah
did everything just as God commanded him” (6:22).
Noah did everything just as God commanded him. It sounds so simple. It sounds so easy. But it wasn't simple, and I'm sure that it wasn't easy. First, there were the physical challenges. Noah didn't have the benefit of power tools or heavy machinery or computer aided design. If we count his sons, Noah had a crew of three men who did everything from cutting to framing to nailing to sealing...by hand.
Then there were the personal attacks. These aren't recorded in the Bible, but can you imagine what it must have been like being the only believers in the world? How many people were talking about Noah behind his back? How many people mocked Noah to his face? How many people looked at what he was doing and concluded that he was out of his mind?
And then there were the inevitable moments of doubt. Noah could hear what people were saying. Noah could look around for miles and see nothing but dry land. Noah could look up and see nothing but blue sky. And since there were only eight believers left on earth, the devil was able to devote all of his time to tempting Noah and his family.
But the devil didn't get the best of Noah. Neither did the wicked world. Neither did his sinful flesh. Noah was able to go about his work day after day, month after month, year after year because he didn't fixate on the enormity of the task. Instead he focused on the God who gave him the command.
Again, it sounds so simple. It sounds so easy, but it isn't. It’s so much easier to focus on the tasks and find excuses for why we can't do them. For example, God asks us to honor him by giving him a portion of the wealth he has given to us. But we are in the middle of a recession, the worst in decades we're told. I have bills that need to be paid. I have a portfolio that needs to be rebuilt. There are things I want to buy and things I want to do. And so instead of giving God my first and best he gets whatever I have left.
God encourages me to let my light shine, but then the people I work with might find out that I am a Christian. I don't want to be put on the spot. I don't want to be asked questions I can't answer. I don't want to be labeled a Jesus freak, so I’ll keep quiet. I will keep my faith under this bushel from Monday through Friday and pull it out again next Sunday.
God tells us to offer our bodies to him as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1), to serve him at all times, to give God glory in everything we do. But sometimes we act like God is asking us to build him another ark. It's just too much, we think. It's just too hard, we say. We can't do what God wants us to do. Or maybe we don't want to do what God's Word commands us to do. We refuse to walk in Noah's footsteps, and the disobedient path we take will eventually lead to hell.
But you know what? As faithful as Noah was, he wasn’t perfect. As obedient as Noah was, he deserved God's punishment too. When the LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time (Genesis 6:5), he didn't put an asterisk at the end of the verse. He didn't allow for any exceptions. It's black and white in the pages of Scripture: "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23), even righteous Noah (see Genesis 9:20-23 for an example of Noah's sinfulness).
So what was it that made Noah different? Why did God spare Noah and his family? And how can sinners like you and me (and Noah) be saved from an eternal punishment that will be far worse than any flood?
God reveals the answer in his Word. In fact, God repeats the answer three times
in Hebrews 11:7: "By faith
Noah, when warned about things not 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 comes by faith."
Noah wasn't saved because of his obedience. Noah didn't save himself by building an ark. He was saved "by faith," by trusting in God's promise of Savior. And thousands of years after Noah died God fulfilled that promise. God sent his Son into this world, not to condemn it, not to destroy it, but to save it (John 3:17).
Jesus is the one and only exception to the rule that all people are sinful. Jesus was perfectly humble, perfectly faithful, perfectly obedient. And when his work on earth was finished he died (or more accurately, he was put to death). Jesus sacrificed himself on the cross for the sins of the world, for your sins, for every sin. Through his Word and water and wafer and wine Jesus has given you and me the gift of saving faith, the same faith that saved Noah, the faith to believe in him, to walk with him, to follow him wherever he leads.
It's fitting that our summer sermon series begins on Father's Day weekend, because every person alive is a direct descendant of Noah. On the day we set aside to honor our dads, we also thank our heavenly Father for our forefather Noah, an example of obedient faith, the kind of faith that is worthy of our admiration and imitation, the kind of faith that we will sing about during communion and that we will pray for right now:
Lord, give us such a faith as this,
And then, whate'er may come,
We'll taste e'en now the hallowed bliss
Of an eternal home. Amen.
(CW 405:6)