By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet 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 is in keeping with faith.
Hebrews 11:7
All my life I’ve gotten sunburned. It never failed. Go outside to play as a kid and I come home as red as a cooked lobster that’s coming out of the pot. I was almost as red as a fresh rose. Sometimes I was redder than a hibiscus bloom. You get the idea.
But getting sunburned was only the start. Then there were the blisters that popped up from the sunburn. And eventually there was the peeling off of the dead skin that was killed by the sun.
We tried everything to stop the sunburn. Mom bought all sorts of suntan stuff at the store. Creams. Lotions. Sprays. None of them worked. On one vacation she even tried something new by smearing Vaseline Petroleum Jelly all over me. There were three things that happened from this great experiment.
First – I still got sunburned.
Second – You could fry an egg on my skin.
Third – I was so oily that I slid out of bed that night.
I knew that I’d get sunburned, but I just didn’t care. I ignored all the warnings. I decided that I knew better and just did what I wanted. And I’m still paying the price today. I can’t tell you how many pre-cancerous and cancerous things have been burned off or killed. And then there were the two surgeries where they dug out a large melanoma lump out of my arm.
Sometimes we do the exact thing when it comes to God. We know what’s the best way to live. Sometimes we pay attention to his warning. Other times we sort of forget. And other times we just run in the opposite direction.
But not with Noah. He heard God and then he did the wildly unusual thing of actually paying attention to what God said. But more than just paying attention, he actually did something about it. He changed everything about his life and took on the project of building an ark.
And why did Noah do all this? Not because he saw a picture of an ark on the side of a mountain. Or that it was written in the sky. He did all this and more because God spoke to him, and he believed God. He received it by faith and changed everything. His priorities all got changed. While we don’t know what his job was, for sure it wasn’t ark building. And his faith caused these three huge changes in his life.
Built an ark to save his family. This is what Noah’s famous for. Everybody knows that he built a boat. But he did it in a most unusual place; where there was no water. We can only imagine the criticism and cruel joking that all the wicked people of his day said[1]. What do you think people posted about Moses on social media?
Condemned the world. We don’t like to talk about this. It’s one thing for us to personally and silently live for God. But Moses actively condemned the wicked world that was all around him. There was no missing his message. And while we don’t have the words he said, he announced that God’s judgement was just around the corner.
Heir of the righteousness. Because his faith, Moses acted on what God said and built an ark. He believed God so much that he spoke to his family, friends, and culture, becoming “a preacher of righteousness[2].” He was keeping the faith so well that it infected all of his life. Believer and non-believer alike could all see it and they knew exactly what caused him to live the way he did.
The writer wanted to remind the Hebrews that even though they knew the story about Noah, that they weren’t doing a bang-up job of following in his footsteps. They had the facts about Noah but weren’t letting them inside to change their lives. Instead, they chose to listen to the world and all the problems around them. Wow. Did you hear what I just wrote? I didn’t intend to write something so convicting about myself and how I’m responding to the life I’m living. How I treat the people around me.
If I loved God as much as Noah, I’d be willing to do the same three things in my life. To do the good: what he says I’m to do. To speak the truth to the people around me, even if they say it’s bad. Even if it’s uncomfortable for them and me. To do the good even more, to live a life of righteousness that comes from his complete and full forgiveness in Jesus.
So, are we going to be pushed around by our feelings and our need to be liked? Or are we going to believe God more and live by faith? In our heads, it’s really a very simple choice. But when the rubber meets the road, it’s something very different. We’ve come to a fork in the road of life. Which way are we going to turn? Which way are we going to go? It’s time to choose to live by faith and not what others want. It’s time to live for and please God. Period.
Noodling Questions
Describe something where you knew best and are now paying the price for it.
Do you think of Noah like stories of Superman or was he real? Explain.
How do we push our emotions aside and let our decisions make our choices?
[1] Genesis 6:5
[2] 2 Peter 2:5
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