"By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith (Hebrews 11:7). "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.' But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God (Genesis 6:7-9).

IDEA: It's possible to miss the trees for the forest.

PURPOSE: To help listeners appreciate that what seems to matter most may not matter much at all.

When someone says, "You can miss the forest for the trees," what do they mean?

Is it possible to miss the trees because of the forest?

I. In the story of the flood, we can overlook Noah.

Hebrews 11:7 - the author of the letter to the Hebrews doesn't even refer to the massive flood that apparently engulfed the world. Instead he refers to Noah's fear of God and his faith and the ark he built as a result. He says nothing about the flood itself. Why?

God sometimes appears to overlook the flood to see the individuals who trusted in him.

II. We can observe this principle at work throughout history. What seems to matter much to others may not matter much to God at all. What other people would tend to overlook is where God puts the focus.

If you read the Christmas story as the people of the ancient world might have read it, where would the emphasis be? [On Caesar's decree, etc.] Would anyone have thought that the journey of Joseph and Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem was anything more than a minor inconvenience?

When Paul sat in a dungeon in Nero's Rome, where would the newspapers of that time have put their focus? Nero and his adventures would have been on the front page. When God looked down at Rome, what mattered most to God? We name our dogs after Nero and our sons after Paul.

C. S. Lewis died in England on the same day that John Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas TX. Lewis's family withheld the news of his death because it would have been smothered by the coverage of Kennedy's death. If they had newspapers in heaven, what would the headlines have been on that day?