"So the Lord said, 'I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping things 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)."
"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)."
IDEA: When we trust God in the sunshine, we may wonder if he is sufficient when the floods come.
PURPOSE: To help listeners realize that the God they embrace in faith when the sun shines will be there for them when the flood comes.
Have you ever envied men or women who came to trust Christ out of a life of sin? Why?
Do you think if Noah gave his testimony, he could talk about his wild and sinful life?
I. Noah trusted God with the details of his life when his countrymen were not thinking about God at all.
There was only one man in that age with whom God was not frustrated:
“Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God.”
Does that mean he was simply a “morally upright” individual? Was that the secret of his preservation from the flood of God’s judgment?
Is it possible to be moral paragon and not necessarily be a person of faith?
Noah was a person who listened to God and responded and did the unusual when God required it of him.
He built a ship when the sun was shining, constructed it on land a long distance from rivers or seas.
He not only obeyed God when he heard a broad, blanket command, “Build and ark!” but he also acted “according to the directions” in assembling the materials, doing the measurements and caulking.
He included God in the everyday DETAILS of the planks, the partitions in the boat, ant the pitch by which he made the monster of a ship secure.
We say “the devil is in the details,” but faith is also in the details of life as well. We walk with God when we talk about the details of life with Him.
Noah’s great virtue was that he trusted God for the large and small decisions of life.
II. Noah trusted God in the sunshine when there were no clouds in his sky.
He had no reason to build an ark except that God told him to do so.
The life of faith is lived when there is no obvious immediate payoff.