MBS - June 20, 2017

Alright, let's get into Noah. Hey, let me give you a couple of thoughts as we roll into this idea of famous fathers in the Bible and what we can learn from them. Lessons we can learn from them. I ran across something that's called and it's pretty old, but I just ran across it. 50 reasons why it's good to be a man. I was really studying for Father's Day. And there are a bunch of them. I pulled out about ten of them. Here's one of the 50 reasons. Here's number ten in my book. You know stuff about cars. You know, good to be a man because you know stuff about cars. Number nine that I pull out of the 50 reasons. If someone forgets to invite you to something, you can still be friends. That's a good thing to be a man. It's good to be a man because you can drop by and see a friend without having to bring a gift. Here's another reason it's good to be a man. If another guy shows up to the same party and the same outfit as you, you become instant buddies. You never get chased and scary horror movies. Here's another reason in this. There were different names in here. You can admire Clint Eastwood or some other stud actor like that without trying to star. You're never, your buddies never trap you with a statement like this. So, do you notice anything different? Here's number three was in my book. If something mechanical doesn't work, you can hit it with a hammer and act like you know what you're doing. Number two, mechanics tell you the truth. Here's number one. Here's my favorite one of all 50. You can go to the bathroom without a support group. So, as that was my top 10 out of the 50 reasons it's good to be a man. Let's look, when we come to Noah, we all know the story of the flood and stuff and like that. When you think about Noah, man, you can almost think about our age. You can almost think about our day in a world that was taken over by evil and violence and corruption. Noah, it's stated to us in scripture. Noah was a righteous man. However, Noah wasn't just a righteous man. He was a follower of God. He was really the only follower of God left on the earth. The Bible says even in the midst of an evil generation, he was blameless among his people. He was blameless among his people among all the people of the earth that were evil and vile. Then it said these words about Noah, look, he walked with God. When it comes to you and when it comes to me, when our obituary is written or when our eulogy is written, could it be said of us? Would it be said of us that insert your name was blameless in his generation? He walked with God. He was righteous. That's my desire. We think about Noah and all of these guys we're going to look at over the next couple of weeks. They are godly. They're good examples. We're also going to see, even with Noah, he wasn't perfect. I don't want you to let the idea and let the fact that you may not be perfect to stand between you and God and being what God has called you to do because none of us in here are perfect. Over and over again, when we see the account of Noah, we read, Noah did everything just as God commanded him. Noah did everything just as God had commanded him. Noah lived 950 years and he exemplified obedience over and over again during Noah's generation. The wickedness of man had covered the earth like the flood. I mean the flood was the flood of water, but evil had covered the earth even before that. God decided to restart humanity through Noah in his family because he was faithful because he was righteous and because he walked with God. I'm going to give, I'm going to push the reset button. I'm going to control all delete if I'm going to power down and power this thing back up and he chose Noah and we want to be that kind of man. If you want to know the scripture, let me read the scripture Genesis chapter 6 verse 5 to 11, if you have your Bibles open. Here's what it says. It says, "The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on all the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time." Imagine that, every inclination of all the hearts of all the men and all the women was evil all the time. The Lord had regretted it says in verse 6, "The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth at all and his heart, God's heart was deeply troubled." So the Lord said, "I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created and with them the animals as well, the birds and all the creatures along the ground for I regret that I had made any of them." But Noah, I love that word, "but." And one of the things that I think started the first night at Euthkamp is that word right there. If you have a paper Bible or something, if you're taking notes, that word "but" is always important. As a matter of fact, I'll let off the first night talking with this category because I knew it would get their attention with the kids. This said, "I'm going to give you five of the best buts in the Bible." And you had everybody perk up. And so I went through, like for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus. And I did that because 2 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 14 starts with, "But thanks be to God." But thanks be to God who always leads us in Christ triumphal procession. And so I talked about the best buts in the Bible. I basically gave the salvation of the gospel message, but they were clued in. Once I'd used that term, they were like, "All right, we're going to see some best buts in the Bible." And it's just like here, but I love that word. All the everything up until then is negative. But then that first word of that verse, verse 8 is "but Noah." And I said that word "but" always means what comes after is distinctly different than what comes before. It's not "and Noah" was also evil. "And Noah" was also in righteous. "And Noah" it was "but Noah" was different. And so I challenged the kids, "Which one of you are going to be a but?" For Christ. Because Noah was. And as we come to that idea, it says, "But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord." This is the account of Noah and all of his family. Noah is a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time. And he walked faithfully with God. Now that is one of the best buts in the Bible. And my prayer is for us today, as we think about it, in journey four, as prayer for the students, is that we would be one of those but followers of God. That we would follow God in a powerful and real way. Regardless of what my family looks like, what my past looks like, what my history looks like, where I used to be. From this point on, we would be but John Mark, but Shane, but Doug, but this, but that family, that we would be that kind of a family. And then as we continue to read on this, "Noah had three sons; he had Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and just in case you were worried, that is not. " You don't translate that, that is not "mo" Larry and Curley, alright, but he had three sons. Now the earth was corrupt and God sited and full of violence. Now, if that is where we start reading about Noah, the last place you really read about Noah, you go over to Hebrews chapter 11, verse 7. You can stay there in Genesis, I will just read it to you. In Hebrews chapter 11, it is the Hall of Faith, it is the Hall of Heroes. It is those that have been enshrined in the Hall of Faith, the followers of God throughout scriptures. And if you look in verse 7, it says, "By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen in his holy fear, he built an ark to save his family." And then it says, "By faith he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith." He became an heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith. And so let me give you a couple of thoughts. Noah raised a family, as you think about Noah, here's thought number one, Noah raised a family in difficult time. It was an age of wickedness and evil thinking. Noah raised it, if you think it's hard to raise a kid this day. And today, I want you to know that it was just as hard in Noah's day. It was just as hard for Noah to walk with God, follow God, raise Godly kids and to save his family. and Genesis 6, verse 5, you can look back to the saw how great the wickedness of the human race was and had become on earth. And that every inclination of the minds and thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. Man, that sounds a lot like today, doesn't it? It sounds a lot like today. And we're here in Texas and we're a little bit insulated. We have our spaces and places and seasons and areas in Texas. We're like, what are they thinking? You know, a couple of years ago, it would have never dawned on me that my home city, Houston, Texas, would want to a subpoena, sermons from pastors. But they did it. You know, sure that that battle may have been won for a season. But if you don't think that battle is going to come back, just wait. My guess is it will be back in our generation. We look around and go, how could that have happened? I mean, just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I mean, think of what happened in just in the last eight years prior to this, just some of the things that took place with the stroke of a pen. No telling what's about to take place or what's going to take place with the next president or the next Congress or the next this or the next, it's just amazing. And so that's exactly what Noah lived like in verse 11. It says, the earth was also corrupt even before God. The earth was filled with violence. Man, it doesn't sound like today. I just marked that out. We think about all the terror attacks that are taking place over and over again and just the shooting the other day and someone rammed a group of group that were walking out of a mosque the other day and someone shot someone here and someone shot someone there and men violence. Just they don't care. We don't care and value life anymore. And the reality of it is, man, if you don't value life at the beginning, the very next thing is you're not going to value it at the end. Well, guess what? If you don't value it at the beginning and at the end, essentially and eventually you're not going to value it much between either. And so that's where we are today. Noah was just his generation. His people was just like ours. They were evil. All their thoughts were evil. They were conniving and they were violent. Man, it's a lot like us today. And so we need to understand if we're raising kids or grandkids, we have to be that way. So here's what I wanted to ask today. How did Noah succeed? What were some of the things in Noah's life that allowed him to succeed as a father in such a time like that? Here, let me give you a couple of thoughts. Thought number one, we're going to Sam Wright from Scripture. First of all, Noah walked with God. Noah walked with God. If you look back to verse nine, says this is the account of Noah in his family. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. So that's thought number one. How did Noah do it? He walked faithfully with God. Now, let's go back and think about that word righteousness. This is Noah was a righteous man. You know, as we think about that word, righteousness, first of all, it says Noah was righteous among people. Now, when we think about how do we gain righteousness among other people, they don't give us righteousness. We live out righteousness. Does that make sense? There's two aspects. If you think about being righteous before the people who watch you and see you, your neighbors, those you work with, those you work around in your kids, you earn righteousness. Or your translation might say he was a just man. In other words, he did what was right. He paid what was fair. He gave what was fair. He did what was right. And that's earned. And let me tell you what, we've all known of people who who supposedly were people of faith. But when you heard about how they live their life and their business dealings, it's like everything was shady. Now, you'd see them on Sunday morning, right? But you asked the world, what kind of a guy they were outside the world. They say, man, they'll steal you blind. They'll rip you off. They'll lie to you. They'll do this. So guess what? Noah, in whatever he dealt with, and let me tell you what, in his day, guess what? Noah had to trade goods and services. Noah had some sort of business. We're going to see here in a little bit after he gets out of the ark. If we get that far today, Noah was a man of the earth. That's exactly what we're going to see here in a few minutes. By the way, it leads to his sin. But he was a man of the earth. So he cultivated things. He grew stuff. Guess what? He probably traded those for goods and services. He created trade it for meat and mills and stuff like that. But to his generation, even though it was evil, even all the evil people who were around him looked at him and Noah had earned a righteousness. You say, how would he have done that? Boys, you look through scripture. Here were a couple of examples that I came up. You think of the New Testament. New Testament ideas and my assumption would be this is how Noah operated in his life. Paul said, let your speech be always seasoned with salt. In other words, let it be gracious and kind. So even among an evil generation, man, don't be sharp tongue. Don't be hard. Another thing scripture says says to us says be angry. Yet don't sin. Be angry. In other words, there can be seasons when we have a righteous anger. But don't let our righteous anger manifest itself in a sin of hatred. That's how we remind ourselves and stay just. Here's another one. If you're a believer, thou shalt not steal. Man, don't rip people off. Do the right thing. Be the right kind of business leader. And I could go on and on. And so if we are going to be like Noah, if we're going to be successful in raising our kids up in an evil and a perverse generation, we're going to have to be like Noah. We're going to have to walk with God. And by doing that, we need to understand that we need others, whether they agree with us or not in our faith, in our walk, in our worship practices, we need to be seen by others as just and righteous. So we actually earn righteousness from those around us. However, the greater righteousness we all know this as believers is the righteousness that we find in God's eyes. Now unlike the righteousness we are, we earn with other men and women and those we encounter with, we don't earn righteousness from God. Do we? The Bible says for all of sin, and for short of glory of God, the Bible says for the wages of sin is death, but there's that word. The free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus, our Lord. How do we earn righteousness with God? It's not at all. Listen to this. It's not at all earned. It's totally attained by faith. And that's the beauty of God offering his righteousness to us. Hebrews chapter 11 verse 7, I said it a few minutes ago, I want you to notice this righteousness. This is by faith. This is when Noah is talked about in the Hall of Faith. This is by faith. Hebrews chapter 11 verse 7, "When warned about the things not yet seen and holy fear of Noah built an ark to save his family." Now here's the word, by faith, he condemned the world. And by faith he became an heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith. So there's two areas that we earn righteousness in a perverse generation in a sinful world. One is we earn righteousness by living rightly with our brothers and sisters, whether they believe, whether they're in the faith or outside the faith. Paul tells us, make the most of every opportunity, right? Doesn't Paul tell us that? Man, we earn righteousness by being upright and just to say what you mean and mean what you say. To be caring, to be gracious. If you sign a contract, fulfill the contract. We earn it. But the place we cannot earn it is with God. And as we think about Noah's righteousness that we saw in Genesis chapter 6, Hebrews chapter 11 tells us how he got righteousness with God. Three times in Hebrews chapter 11 verse 7, three times it says he earned his righteousness with God by faith, by faith, by faith. Paul saying Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8 and 9, four by grace, you have been saved through faith. And so as we walk, we walk with almost this bifocal nature, this bifaith nature, why I am looking down at the world and my relationship with other men and women, we need to understand that I am constantly looking to earn righteousness from them or at least be seen as righteousness. How does that play out? That plays out in my words and my actions and my deeds and what I do. But at the same time, I understand with my relationship with God, I can't earn righteousness. Why can't I? Because he is a holy and a pure God and I've already fallen in sin for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There is no way I can ever earn a righteousness from God. It is totally given. But the key word Hebrews chapter 11 verse 7 is faith, faith and faith. And so as we think back of Noah, when God looked down at Noah, it says, "Noah was a righteous man. God was able to see from Noah's perspective that in all of his dealings, Noah was righteous. Even though they were evil, even though they were sorry." And I think that should be a challenge to us. Even when we're dealing with evil and sorry people, whether it's in business or life or whatever it is, we can take and we can live out all of those commitments and all of those relationships in a righteous way, even among unrighteous people. The second area is when you understand that from God's perspective, the only true and last in an eternal righteousness comes by faith in Jesus Christ. And so think about that. How can we walk with God in an ungodly world? Let me give you a couple of thoughts. I think the first thing is we've got to be committed to God's Word. We've got to be a people who are committed to God's Word. We've got to dig into God's Word. It was so great by night two, the young people. I'd just give them three verses. Second Corinthians, chapter two, verse 14, 15, actually four verses, 16, and 17, just those four. By the second night, when I would say, "Save these verses with me." They were just, they were logging them because they had committed to them. They would begin to put them to their mind and the heart. We need to be people who study God's Word. We need to read God's Word. Not just Tuesday morning when the pastor gets up and teaches. Not just Sunday morning when the life group teaches or you go to church. We need to be people of the book. We need to study God's Word. We need to let it inform us on how we live that we let our lips always be seeded as a whole. All of our conversation be seasoned with salt. Beyond that, we need to be people of prayer. We need to be people of prayer. And I'll have to admit to you that I've kind of always been a doer. It seems as though the older I get, I become more of a prayer. Is that true of anybody else in this room? Let's be honest. Is that all good? I'll just take a look back on my early days in ministry. I wanted to serve God and worship God. It's so much that I was always on the do camp. I was always in the do something, act something, man, just make something happen. As I've grown, and maybe I'm in this transition phase and transition season, or maybe I'm just more tired. That early in my ministry, hey, it didn't matter if I made a mistake. I had enough energy to recover from it. Now, what I'm maybe what I'm saying is God, how about a little wisdom? So maybe I can get it right the first time. Maybe in that camp with me. So maybe that's why I'm just like, man, I don't have enough energy for another do over. Right? Let's get it right first, God has probably been sitting there for the last 20 years going, yeah, you know, kind of had you prayed early, I don't want to go. And my guess is, he was saying, listen, but it was kind of fun watching you. You know, call the angels over. Hey, watch John Mark. He's about to screw up again. And he'll get out of it. But you know, and that's the beauty of I think where I am in my season. Hopefully where you are is man, I've never, from the moment I was in the ministry, I've never stopped reading the word. Man, I just plow through the word, plow through the word. But then it was like come come the end of the day. It was like, hey man, let's go. You know, and now I find myself more and more, setting back and pausing and say, God, what do you want from me today? What do you want me to do today? Man, whatever my energy, whatever my resource, whatever my conversation, what do you want me to do today? And so man, we've got to be people of the book. We've got to be people of the word, but we've got to be people of prayer. Here's another way that Noah walked with God. He was righteous in his own home. Man, he was righteous. And I just thought man, let me be like Noah. When we get to the end of the story here in a bit, Noah led his family onto the ark. Noah led his family onto the ark. Man, let me be that guy. Let me be that father. Let me be that spiritual leader that leads my family onto the ark. And I want you to know, I think I have a greater desire and a greater sense than I ever have as your pastor. To be a pastor that leads our church onto the ark, that every decision and every word and every action that I take is one that I'm constantly leading our church onto the ark. So that day when Jesus comes someday, that as best I could, God will look back and look down on me and say, well done, good and faithful servant. And my prayer is that just as a church, as a congregation, when it begins to rain and you and I both know the next rain is going to be a trumpet sounding that we can say that as a church, we're on the ark. And until then, we're going to spread the gospel, we're going to spread the word, we're going to be salt and light, we're not going to be fearful of anybody. Come one, come all. We're preaching the clear gospel. We're preaching the Word of God. We're going to be on a life-saving mission. We're going to be loving people. We're going to be caring about people, but we're going to speak the truth. And that's just kind of my calling. And Noah did it, boy, you think about Joshua. In the book of Joshua, when the children of Israel went into the promised land and they had partial obedience all the way through and Joshua was about to die. Do you remember what Joshua said? He said, "Choose ye this day who ye will serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Let me be that kind of person. Let me obey God." There's another thing. So he was a man of the Word. He was a man of prayer. He probably was a spiritual leader of his own home. Third, he obeyed God. He obeyed God. If we're going to be a righteous man, we have to obey God. Think about the words. Think about the things that Noah did. It took him longer to build the ark than the average lifespan of a human. When you imagine, I will tell you what, the perseverance and the stick to itiveness that Noah had to have had to build something that had never been built before. For longer than it takes, for longer than the average man lives, a good bit longer and to keep building it. And can you imagine, we all remember, was it Flip Wilson or Bill Cosby who did the Bill Cosby and Noah? What? This is the Lord. Building an ark. Right. What's an ark? You know, imagine just staying connected and willing to follow God to obey God. I mean, let us be that guy that when God speaks to us, if he's speaking to us and it takes a season for us to get there, that we would still obey God. In spite of what the world said, in spite of the heckling. And you know, and we're going to look at this more. And I don't, we're not going to get, this is Noah part one. I can just take because I got way more than I'm going to get on you today. But when it comes to the end of the day, we're going to see Noah was a preacher and a preacher of the gospel and the judgment that was to come. It appears to me, Noah didn't have one convert. It's not like the whole city follows him. It's not like the whole world came out and said, we're coming to saving faith. But no, yeah, they did. They believed him at the end. But the reality of it is, Noah obeyed God. And guys, here's my thought and this is where I think probably the best place to end today is with what is God telling you to do? Or let me, let me ask, what has God told you to do in the past that you haven't followed through an obedience? Maybe it's because you got bored. The emotion of the first calling or the first word from God about a certain thing as maybe that voice has gotten quieter. You've been distracted by the world. What word from God do we need to obey? So the challenge today is we live. Remember Noah, he was a righteous man in a perverse and evil generation. And here's my closing word of encouragement. If Noah can do it, so can you. if no one can do it. So can I. Remember, righteousness among those, even those who are evil, it's earned through our words and our graciousness and being salt and light and not stealing and telling the truth and letting our words be seasoned with salt. For God, our righteousness is not earned, nor is it deserved. It comes by faith as it is grace. My prayer for you as your pastors, you leave this day is at the end of this day when you put your head on the pillow. You would say, God is best I could. I lived righteously in an evil and a perverse generation. Let me pray for you. Lord, thank you so much for this day. Thank you for the opportunity to hang out with these guys and teach these guys and talk with these guys. God is we just stop right here in the middle of Noah and pick it up next week. My prayer is that we would just take what we've learned that Noah was a righteous man who was a man of the word, who was a man of prayer, who was a man God who followed you and obeyed you and listened to you, who was a leader of his home. Let us be that man. God none of us can undo one day that was done, one decision from the past. All we can do is start today. Let us live with a Noah like righteousness and Jesus name we pray. Amen. And Amen. God bless you guys. You guys go have an awesome day.