Sermon Tone Analysis

There once was an old preacher who lived in a country that was growing extremely wicked, and he felt called to call the people to turn from their sin and turn back to God.

The preacher saw great miracles throughout his ministry; but one day at what seemed to be the height of his ministry, a popular and wicked woman threatened to kill him.

And he, being full of fear ran into the woods, depressed and begging God to take his life because he felt alone in his effort.

This preacher was Elijah and in the midst of his depression, his fear, and his hopelessness that the world around him had fallen apart and that he was all alone, God reminded him that there were thousands of others standing up for what is right.

Have you ever felt this way before?

Like you’re all alone in your pursuit of a genuine relationship with Christ?

Like no one else seems to be facing the struggles of fighting to love the Lord like you do as your mind is plagued with doubt, your eyes are plagued with temptation, and your ears a riddled with lies from all over and it seems as though you’re all alone.

Well God comforts Elijah by telling him there are 7,000 people who stood with him and I’m glad to remind you this evening that there are people still standing today.

As we consider this thought of serving God in the midst of loneliness, I want us to look at a guy who was really alone while the whole world went crazy, and his name was Noah.

Genesis 6:5–22 (NKJV)

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

6 And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.

7 So the Lord said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.”

8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

9 This is the genealogy of Noah.

Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations.

Noah walked with God. 10 And Noah begot three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.

12 So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.

13 And God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

14 Make yourself an ark of gopherwood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and outside with pitch.

15 And this is how you shall make it: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits.

16 You shall make a window for the ark, and you shall finish it to a cubit from above; and set the door of the ark in its side.

You shall make it with lower, second, and third decks.

17 And behold, I Myself am bringing floodwaters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall die.

18 But I will establish My covenant with you; and you shall go into the ark—you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.

19 And of every living thing of all flesh you shall bring two of every sort into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female.

20 Of the birds after their kind, of animals after their kind, and of every creeping thing of the earth after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive.

21 And you shall take for yourself of all food that is eaten, and you shall gather it to yourself; and it shall be food for you and for them.”

22 Thus Noah did; according to all that God commanded him, so he did.

His Heart Was Settled

Within the heart of Noah, there is a sense of dedication.

The question of whether or not he would love the Lord and obey Him though the world turn against him, was as good as settled.

In Genesis 6:9 we read

Noah was a man who stood apart from the people of his time.

He marched to the beat of a different drummer and he maintained faithfulness to God while everyone else went the other way.

And doesn’t this speak to us?

We live in such a crazy world and we look at TV, or the reels on Instagram and think, “Wow, this place is going crazy!”

But what about when the temptations to live like the world come to your door?

What about when it’s your family, your friends, maybe even the people who sit beside you in church?

What if they quit being faithful and they tempt you to go the way of the world?

Well..

In Deuteronomy 13 we’re taught that our passion for God is to go beyond the words of false prophets, your best friends, and even your family.

Christ said in Matthew 10:37

So what we’re learning from the life of Noah is that we are to have our hearts settled to be obedient to the Lord no matter what comes.

It is not enough for us to say, “We’ll I’ll make the decision whenever that situation or that temptation presents itself, but we can’t do that or we’ll fail.

We must decide in our hearts, day by day, that we will serve the Lord.

When I was a senior in High School, I made a decision one night outside of a gym in Spartanburg, SC that I can remember as clearly as if it were today.

I remember praying to the Lord as I had reached a point of contention in my life where I wanted the best of both worlds.

I wanted to be friends with the world and have sweet fellowship with God.

And He broke me over that.

I can remember sitting in my truck weeping over the sorrow of my unfaithfulness and I said, “Lord, you’re so holy, that even if I were to die and go to Hell, you’re worth serving for the rest of my life.”

Now, I know that I am secure in Christ and that through Him my life can be used to praise the Lord.

But it was the desire of my soul to follow Christ wherever He should have me go.

And He changed everything completely.

That was a time of settling and a time of surrender for me and that’s what we see powerfully in the life of Noah.

His Life Was Surrendered

“Although the first two humans are flawless, well-designed and gifted creatures, they don't have the ability to make sense of life independently; they need the words of their Creator to understand who they are, what life is about and how they're supposed to live.

Living on the basis of personal experience, collective research and individual rationality doesn't work for human beings because it's not what we were designed to do.

In the same way, human beings are unable to figure life out on their own, no matter how hard we try.

The only other option for our daily living is to look to our Creator for our identity, for meaning in life and for parameters for our daily living.

” -Paul David Tripp

The text says that Noah was a righteous and blameless man among the people of his time.

This was a guy who lived out what his heart believed.

When the Bible says that someone lived a righteous and blameless life, it means they were obedient people.

And the only reason that Noah lived such a life is that he knew the God who is wise and worthy of his trust.

I’m not so sure that the building of the Ark was as radical as the faith that Noah had in his God.

He was a man with a heart set upon God.

In saying that Noah was righteous and blameless, we are being told that Noah was faithful in the midst of difficult and uncomfortable situations in the past.

Whether it was in relationships or everyday situations, we don’t know.

But he had a track-record of being faithful.

His Obedience Is A Sermon

In my office sits my grandpa’s Bible

A Sermon of Faithful Obedience

Noah’s life, according the Hebrews, teaches us about trust-filled obedience.

God was clear with Noah when He told him about the upcoming flood and that Noah was to build the Ark to rescue mankind and all Noah was to do was to simply obey God.

I’m sure Noah had tons of questions!

Many believe that Noah wouldn’t have been living near a location surrounded by water, and some believe that before the flood they may have never seen rain before, but regardless of the questions or “the events yet unseen” God gave a command and though Noah had never seen anything like it and though he probably didn’t even see evidence that a flood was coming, he chose to trust God.

What is faith?

Faith is trust that produces obedience.

We are people of faith.

We have faith in God, that He is true, faithful and just and that we can trust His word.

And that even when it seems the world is going insane and we think, “Hey, being faithful to God could really be difficult for me.”

We have faith in God’s eternal promise of glory and that His declaration of what is true and right is really true and right.

Throughout the book of Hebrews the idea of obedience to God is tied to inheritance.

And this should encourage us.

That even as the world goes crazy, there is a God to trust and an inheritance that awaits us.

He Owes It All To The Savior

If we read this passage wrong, we might end up teaching lessons saying, “If you’re really good, God will show you favor!” or “If you’re really good, God will have really big things in store for you.”

But what does the text really say?

Genesis 6:8

The most common way people mess this up is by reading this passage wrong and we end up thinking this is a story about some bad guys who didn’t get on the boat and one really good guy who got on the boat.

And people might say, “The moral of the story is if you’re a good person then God will save you from heartache or death or wrath.”

But the problem is, that’s not the meaning of the text, and it’s not the gospel.

The word, “favor” here is synonymous with the New Testament word we know to be “grace” and this is the first time we see it in the Bible.

The story here is that everyone on the Earth was sinful, there was nothing special about Noah in himself.

The greatest thing about Noah is that God gave him grace.

This is the good news of a bad guy named Noah receiving grace from God, and that same God is still giving grace to sinners today.

Now, after we see God giving grace to Noah, Genesis 6:9 gives us the beginning of of the story after God’s work upon him.

And it truly is a challenging thing for my heart to read this as a believer because as I read this I think to myself, “I’ve been saved by the same God that saved Noah, yet I have all of the Bible to read and learn from and I can look back upon the work of Christ, but is my faith as bold as his?”