Noah's Ark

INTRODUCTION

Revisiting a series that we worked through a few months ago....THROWBACKS.

“Kids’ stories” from the Bible — the ones we grew up hearing in SS — aren’t just for kids. They contain real truth to guide our lives right now.

This is one of my favorite series we’ve done — I love to revisit some of these stories and see how they apply now.

Tonight: We’re looking at the story of Noah’s Ark.

Genesis 6 if you want to go ahead and turn there.

Little background on where we are...

We’re only 6 chapters into the Bible, and humanity has already royally screwed things up.

To the point, that God decides he’s going to destroy the earth he had just created a few pages earlier.

The Bible tells us that every creature at this point was corrupt — God wanted to start over.

We pick up there, where God warns a man named Noah of what’s about to happen, and gives him an important assignment.

READ: Gen. 6:9-22

PRAY

The story of Noah carries on into chapter 7, 8, and 9 as Noah and his sons go on to build the ark, board the ark, survive the flood, and reestablish creation after the floods recede.

Through all of this, there’s an underlying theme in the story of Noah that keeps coming to the surface: OBEDIENCE.

Noah is obedient to what the Lord commands him to do, and in his obedience, we see some principles that we can put into practice in our own lives as we follow God.

1. Obedience is preceded by righteousness.

Look at the opening of the section we just read, v. 9 — look how it describes Noah...

A righteous man

Blameless among his contemporaries (people around him)

Walked with God

Noah was living a Godly life before God ever brought a huge task to him.

He had to be righteous before he could be obedient.

Be clear: Absolutely God can do a 180 in someone’s life and and they go directly from sinfulness to unreal obedience.

Think of Saul/Paul — went from persecuting and arresting Christians to being the greatest missionary who ever lived after one encounter.

These examples exist, but the vast majority of the time we see the same pattern: righteousness comes before obedience.

Even in examples like Paul, their entire life changes — he doesn’t continue living in disobedience — he turns and begins from that moment to follow Jesus in all areas of his life.

There’s a simple reason for this: You have to be able to hear God to obey what he tells you to do.

Richard Blackaby — Businessman’s tie illustration

I’ve shared this before, but I think it’s such a powerful example of what it looks like to hear the voice of God on a daily basis and obey what he calls us to.

Noah walked with God — he was already in tune with the Lord. So when the assignment came, he was listening for it, and ready to follow.

2. Obedience sometimes doesn’t make sense.

Think about Noah’s encounter with God.

Learns the world is about to be destroyed.

Immediately is told to build a giant boat.

Let’s look at where Noah lived...

He’s nowhere near water.

The boat God tells him to build a giant boat. This isn’t a boat to hook up behind your camel and haul to the lake for the weekend. It’s massive, and built by hand.

Obedience doesn’t always make sense to us.

Nothing about Noah’s situation is logical.

There’s nothing to suggest that there were clues a flood was coming.

There’s nothing to suggest anyone else knew God was destroying the earth.

There’s no logical reason for Noah to be building this boat —

He’s got a good thing going with his family.

He’s comfortable.

He probably had to abandon a job/livelihood to work on this thing full-time.

Nothing about this from a human perspective would make sense for Noah.

Obedience doesn’t always make sense to others.

Think about Noah’s neighbors/family....

They had to think he was crazy.

They’re nowhere near water, and here’s Cousin Noah building a giant boat saying it’s going to come a flood.

We even have reason to think that before the flood, it had never actually rained. Water came up from the ground.

Noah becomes the crazy uncle you dread inviting to the cookout — he’s got a conspiracy theory about everything.

Noah had to have been ostracized...

This is really the rub for us. Obedience doesn’t make sense to us, or to other people.

Because obedience doesn’t make sense, it makes us and others uncomfortable.

That’s the hard part — and where the excuses start.

We don’t want to be weird.

What will people think? They’re going to think I’m crazy. They’re going to think I’m one of those hardcore Christians that actually believes the Bible and takes my faith seriously.

Because obedience is uncomfortable, we often rebel against it. Or at least that’s our first inclination.

But we have to understand this last thing: Obedience isn’t always about the present.

3. Obedience is preparation for blessing.

Look at Noah’s example — his obedience directly led to the saving of his family, and the repopulation of the earth.

Here’s the hard part — Noah had to get through the discomfort of obedience to get to the good part.

Obedience isn’t trusting God even through the difficulty that he has a plan and a purpose for the season that you’re in.

In the face of ridicule and impending doom, Noah decided that he would trust what God told him to do, even if he couldn’t see the end result.

Our obedience puts us in a position to be blessed by God for following him — to see fruits of our labors.

Think of it this way....

Farming — prepare fields, plant seeds if you want to see crops.

When we’re obedient, we prep the fields and plant the seeds trusting that God is going to send rain.

Our obedience is always preparing us for something — God has a purpose for his glory and your good.

CONCLUSION

Personal story — being obedient to God by stepping down.

3 Questions

Am I living in a way that I’m ready to be obedient when God calls me?

What’s God calling me to do right now?

What’s preventing me from being obedient to what God’s called me to do?