Storytellers: Noah

Storytellers: Noah

Introduction:

This morning we are starting the second sermon in a series entitled Storytellers.  During this time, we will take a look at various characters in both Old and New Testaments.  These characters had unusual relationships with God.  They walked with God in an intimate way.  They didn’t just walk with God, they also talked to God.  Their relationship with God was so good, so pure, so deep that it often spilled out into every corner of their life.  They began to share their “God Story” with everyone that came in contact with.

Practical Application:

So, what is your “God Story”?  Your “God Story” is story of how God saved you and transformed your life.  Do you remember that moment when God came into your life? Perhaps it was when you were young.  Perhaps God saved you during your teenage years or maybe when you were an adult.  The challenge this morning is to simply be willing to share your “God Story” your story of salvation and transformation with the population!

The Challenge: Share Your Story of Salvation and Transformation with the Population!

Point:

You might be sitting in your seat this morning and saying to yourself “I share my faith. I invite people to church.  I have offered to pray for someone.  I have been on a mission trip. I have ministered to the homeless” Friends these are significant points of faith but none of them are evangelism.  Simply put, evangelism is the Gospel message, the Good News of Jesus Christ, being proclaimed in an unafraid and unashamed manner.  Now, how many of us have done that?

Transitional Statement:

Well friends, this morning we are going to talk about a man.  A normal man who lived several thousand years ago.  This man is well known and we have been learning about his story since we were all children.  Of course I am talking about Noah.  Here is what we know about Noah:

1. Noah was a family man.  He had a wife and he had sons.

2. Noah was a man of faith. He was a righteous man.

3. Noah had considerable talent for building big boats.  

4. Noah was a patient man. It took him a long time to build said boat and when the boat was being utilized, he was a stuck on it for approximately 370 days.  Imagine that you were trapped on a rudderless watercraft for a year.  

5. Noah is one of the most fascinating characters in all the Bible.  One of the things that we may forget about Noah is that he was a storyteller.  He was unafraid and unashamed of standing for God and trying to make Him (God) known to the masses.  

This morning, we are going to read about Noah and learn lessons on how to tell our story from his example.  

2 Peter 2:5 NLT

5 And God did not spare the ancient world—except for Noah and the seven others in his family. Noah warned the world of God’s righteous judgment. So God protected Noah when he destroyed the world of ungodly people with a vast flood.

What Can We Learn From Noah’s Story?

I. Noah’s Contrast 

Genesis 6:9 ESV

These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God. And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Point:

We are just six chapters into the story of man.  Sin among men has escalated quickly and spread throughout the world in a rapid manner.  It seemed as if no one was immune to the touch of sin.  How bad were things, check out Genesis 6:5. 

Genesis 6:5 ESV

The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Things were so bad, so evil, so wicked that God grieved making man.  Literally, things were so bad that He (God) decided to hit the reset button on all of humanity.  

Then we come to Noah.  In Genesis 6:9 we discover a few facts about him. 

He was Pure…Righteous

He was Positive…No one hand anything to say negative about Noah

He was Prayerful…He walked and talked with God 

He was Productive…He invested in his family

Living in this world of evil was a man named Noah.  His name meant “Relief”.  We discover in Genesis 6 that Noah was not like the others.  His life was so different, so strange that it stood out from all the rest.  Noah’s life stood in stark contrast to all the other humans living in his generation.  

The Bible gives us three really interesting facts about Noah.  First, he was righteous.  The Hebrew word for righteous literally means “blameless” or “innocent”.  Even though Noah lived in a murderous generation, he was blameless and innocent.  Noah, even though he lived in a generation of death, his life brought light.  

The second  word we hear about Noah is blameless.  The Hebrew word for blameless also means clean. Noah was somehow able to live in a sinful world without becoming stained by it.  This means that his peers could not influence him.  

Thirdly, we see another interesting fact.  Noah walked with God.  Last week we looked at another man who walked with God.  Remember Enoch.  Enoch walked with God and God so enjoyed the walk that he just went ahead and took Enoch.  Enoch didn’t die.  Enoch was Noah’s Great Great Grandfather. 

Do you remember the Hebrew word for walk?  The word is the same when referring to both Noah and Enoch.  They both walked with God.  The word is הָלַך or halak and is pronounced haw-lak’. It means “went along continually”.  

Noah lived in a violent, evil society.  Yet, Noah was righteous.  Noah was blameless.  Noah went along continually with God.  You might say that Noah was the “real deal”.  There was nothing counterfeit about him.  

Point:

Friends, let me tell you what crushes our stories of salvation and transformation faster than anything, hypocrisy.  What do I mean? When we tell people about Jesus, when we deliver to them a witness about salvation and transformation but our lives are full of sin and worldliness, people are turned off to the message.  

Are we guilty of being hypocrites this morning? How can you know?

A Hypocrite Does Anti-God Actions While Speaking Pro-God Words!

Point:

Not Noah.  Noah was the real deal.  He lived it each and everyday.  Even though he lived in a crooked and deprived generation, Noah’s life lived in stark contrast to the rest of the world.  

Point:

Friends, the first step in being able to offer a sincere Christian witness is a sincere Christian walk. Let me say that again.  The first step in being able to offer a sincere Christian witness is a sincere Christian walk.  

Before people ever hear a word about our Jesus, they should first see our obedience, our complete and total surrender to Jesus.  If they do not see our that our work matches our words, then we are guilty.  We are not righteous and we are not blameless.  We have become a barrier at that point to someone accepting the Gospel message.  

Blog Quote: Changing The Face of Christianity by Brad White

Today’s Christian and today’s Church has a problem. That problem is unintentional Christianity. By unintentional, I mean accepting the label as “a Christian”, yet not trying to “be” a Christian; not being intentional about your spiritual development and transformation into Christ-likeness.

Point:

A few years ago, I sat down with a college student.  This young person was struggling.  His life had been totally influenced by the world but he had a background in Christianity and church.  He was addicted to drugs and a slave to alcohol.  He was living with a girl at the time.  He just been in jail and it seemed from the outside that his life was in dire need of remodeling.  

During the conversation, this student told me that he was the only Christian that his friends knew.  He told me that he was actively trying to share Jesus with his buddies.  

You know what I told him?  I told him to “STOP”! I told him that he was living an anti God life while speaking Pro God words.  I told him that this lifestyle was simply going to cause confusion among his friends and make the job of reaching his friends for Christ even harder.  

Point:

To be an legitimate storyteller, we have to let go of the world and cling to the subject of our story…that being Jesus.  It is the only way people can truly see the difference Jesus has made in our lives.  There must be a contrast between our lives and theirs.  

Point:

Now, before you get confused, we are all sinners.  No one will be sin free, even when we come to know Jesus.  We will still make mistakes and we are all equal at the foot of the cross.  The point I am making is our effort to obey Christ in every area of our lives.  It is a daily, consistent, submittal of our desire to His Kingdom Authority.  

Point:

This is the type of relationship Noah had with God.  He was blameless, righteous, and walked with God continually just like his Great Great Grandfather Enoch.  His walk matched his talk.  Question, does your walk, our walk, match our talk?

Colossians 1:22 NIV

But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation--

What Can We Learn From Noah’s Story?

I. Noah’s Contrast 

II. Noah’s Call 

Genesis 7:1 ESV

Then the Lord said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation.

Point:

Noah had a big call on his life.  First, he had to build a boat.  A large ark that would protect his family and all the contents inside.  God gave Noah specific instructions on how this ark was to be built and Noah obeyed completely.  

Then Genesis 7 reveals something else special about Noah.  We know that it took Noah nearly 100 years to build the ark.  100 years.  That’s along time but it was also one big boat that one family had to build.  So, what did Noah do during that time? 

Well, Genesis 7:1 tells us what he was doing.  He was constructing the Ark but he was also calling his generation to follow God and repent of their evil ways.  God says “I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation”.  This meant that while Noah was building the ark, that he was actively living out his faith in front of his peers.  

Noah displayed obedience to God’s commands.

Noah displayed faith in God’s coming judgement. 

Noah displayed a longing for salvation and redemption when he entered the ark.  

The ark itself is a witnessing tool of Jesus’s death and resurrection.  In the ark we see a form of baptism.  People being submerged into water only to be pulled from the floods days later.  It is a picture of Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection.  

Listen to what the Apostle Peter says about the subject of the Ark and the story that it can tell. 

I Peter 3:20-22 ESV

18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, 19 in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, 20 because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. 21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, 

Point:

The “this” that Peter is talking about is of course the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  However, he is also attaching symbolically the nature of the ark being submerged in the flood waters and then being recovered 40 days later as a foreshadowing of Christ resurrection from the dead. 

Noah constantly witnessed and shared his faith both in word and in action to the people.  Isn’t it a shame that none stepped forth and said yes to the message?  God gave them 100 years and a visual tool of salvation and still they said no.  Yet, this did not deter Noah from the call to champion God’s story playing out in his life.  You see, it matter not who responds, it only matters that we are obedient to the call of sharing the message of salvation and transformation with our world.  

Acts 13:47 NIV

For this is what the Lord has commanded us:  “I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.”

What Can We Learn From Noah’s Story?

I. Noah’s Contrast 

II. Noah’s Call 

III. Noah’s Chance

2 Peter 2:5 NLT

5 And God did not spare the ancient world—except for Noah and the seven others in his family. Noah warned the world of God’s righteous judgment. So God protected Noah when he destroyed the world of ungodly people with a vast flood.

Point:

So, again the Apostle Peter talks about Noah.  He tells us that Noah “warned” the world of God’s going judgement.  What does that mean?  The Greek word for warn means “publicly called”.  Noah did not stay silent.  He got out there and boldly communicated the the house was burning down. He did not just share the message with his children or those he thought would support him, he shared the message with the public in general.  Complete strangers. People that he knew and people that he didn’t know.  

Its interesting to take the same Greek word for warn and transliterate it to Old Testament Hebrew.  The Hebrew word for “warned” is זָהַר.  It is a verb of course and is pronounced zahar or zaw-har’.  It is a fascinating word that gives us deeper clues to Noah’s personality.  This Hebrew word means light, shining or send light out.  

Point:

Isn’t that beautiful.  Noah only had one chance, a fleeting opportunity of coming judgement to be a light in the world.  God called Noah to send a light out into the dark world.  

Illustration:

Not only did Noah know that he had one chance to send the light out, but he also knew that there was one way to salvation.  That one way was the door to the ark.  

Go back to Genesis 6:14-17.  Let’s read what it says.  

Genesis 6:14-17 ESV

Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark 300 cubits, its breadth 50 cubits, and its height 30 cubits. Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above, and set the door of the ark in its side. Make it with lower, second, and third decks. For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die.

Point:

Did you catch that?  There was one roof, three decks and one door.  One way.  One way to be saved from the floodwaters.  

Illustration:

During Thanksgiving, my family traveled to Kentucky.  We visited The Creation Museum and Noah’s Ark.  You can see the picture of the Ark on the screens (Picture 1).  It was huge.  The Ark in Kentucky was built to the exact specifications given in the Bible.  That was one big boat.  Next, you will see that there was only one entrance to the Ark.  One door.  (Picture 2). Anyone who entered that door would be saved.  Anyone who said no, I will try to float this out was destroyed.  Sadly, only 8 people were saved.  Gives new meaning to the verse that says narrow is the way and few find it doesn’t it.  

Well friends, Jesus compares himself to that door.  

John 10:9 ESV

I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.

Jesus again says that he is the only way.

John 14:6 ESV

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

It was in this moment that I realized that Noah had a powerful story to share.  A powerful story that is still be played out today. 

Is Noah’s story that much different than ours?  

Are we not called to live contrasting lives to that of the world?  

Are we not called to meet our generation for Jesus Christ and call them to repentance, salvation and transformation? 

Are we not only given a short window to share this message about the door, the one way to salvation?

Why should we feel so compelled to share the Gospel?  Whats the with all the urgency?  

Is it urgent because hell is real?

Is it urgent because we know Jesus is coming?

Is it urgent because we must warn people about hell?

Is it urgent because someone might die and live eternally separated from God because you didn’t share?

Friends, let me tell you why its so urgent that we share the Good News of our God Story, Jesus Commanded IT.  He told us to do it.  Over and over again, Jesus shouts TELL THEM!

Perhaps we do not feel the urgency of the call is because in our hearts we do not believe that hell is real.  We do not really believe that Jesus is coming.  We do not really believe that people will die and go to hell.  We do not really believe someone might die and live separated from God.  

Our theology is not delivered on the careful words of our tongues, it is delivered by our actions or apathy towards God’s Word and His commands.  

If we really believe these Biblical truths, it will inspire us to take the chance, stand for God and share our stories.  

Romans 10:4 NLT

But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?

Tell Your Story Today!