1. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word, as we continue our summer sermon series, “What Can Faith Do?” based on Hebrews 11 is taken from Hebrews 11:7, it’s entitled, “By Faith Noah,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. So far through Hebrews 11, we’ve learned what faith is: “The assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” We’ve been shown how it takes faith to believe God created the world. Abel showed us that faith produces sacrifices of thanksgiving because God is already pleased with us in Christ. Enoch showed us that it’s impossible to please God apart from faith in Christ. Noah shows us the outcome of such faith and a daily walk with the Lord. But, it’s not pretty. Faithfully following the Word of Christ will do today exactly what Noah building an ark did then. How did Hebrews put it? “By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith” (Heb. 11:7). Noah’s faithful building of the ark “condemned the world.” That’s what happens still today. To say it another way, faithfulness in the church produces condemnation of the world.
3. Why did Noah build the ark? Was it in order to condemn the world? No. Scripture plainly says he had the conviction of things not seen: He was “warned by God concerning events as yet unseen.” And “in reverent fear” he believed that the God who warned him was faithful to his word and was able to accomplish what he promised. Noah had faith in God’s warning, without concern for what anyone else believed. That’s why he built the ark.
4. In the midst of a world that didn’t believe, trusting the assurance of God’s word condemned their unbelief. Before a people that Scripture describes as “corrupt in God’s sight” and “filled with violence” (Gen 6:11), the conviction that made Noah work to save lives condemned the sinful hearts around him. By being what Jesus would later call “salt” and “light” (Mt 5:13–14) in the midst of a darkened world, Noah’s actions of faithfulness condemned their consciences. The contrast between Noah’s faithful life and his neighbors’ wickedness made obvious to them that they stood condemned. Just living out his faith—trusting God’s Word and acting upon it— just being a faithful believer, condemned the unbelieving world.
5. As in Noah’s time, so, too, today. We don’t have to stand on the street corners and condemn people of their sin. We just have to live faithfully. The guilty world can’t stand righteous people because it makes them uncomfortable. Christian living shows the world that faithfulness is possible. If it’s possible, they’re reminded that they’re called to faithfulness too. Instead, the world tries to drag Christians through the mud, to bring them down to their level. The devil and the world rejoice when you give up faithfulness for the world’s pleasures. Consider the nature of pornography in our society. What else can that be but an attempt to pull everyone down? The amount of disrespect to our God given leaders encouraged among our youth and even adults, the lobbies of corruption, greed, abuse, the destruction of marriage, and the constant marketing to trust in money or the stuff we can buy to save us rather than trusting in God. The list goes on.
6. All this is the sin that clings so closely and tries to weigh us down. To prevent us from running the race of faith—because if no one finishes, we’re all losers together. It’s all promoted out there today, because a sinful world still knows that faith-living Christians would condemn their consciences just by being. So the devil, the world, and our sinful nature do everything they can to prevent you from faithfulness. That’s why the apostle Paul says, “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company ruins good morals’ ” (1 Cor 15:33). Those with whom you hang out, what you’re exposed to, if you’re not careful, will pull you away from faith in Christ as your Lord and Savior.
7. When you hear and follow the voice of God in Christ calling you away from the world’s snares, it’ll condemn all who’ve fallen for them—whether you mean it to or not. When you live your life for Jesus because he freely gave his life for you, it’ll condemn the vain pursuits of unbelievers. When you know that you’re forgiven because of the blood of Jesus shed on the cross and so you forgive even the one who sins against you, it’ll make vengeful & violent people uncomfortable and condemn their thirst for blood. Like Noah, when the church lets faith direct our convictions and actions, it’ll make people around you feel guilty and condemned.
8. When people feel the godly guilt of the condemnation of their sins, there are really only two reactions. Either they’ll reject it or they’ll repent. Those same options stand before every single person in the face of God’s perfect Law. God says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23). Will you believe that? That you’re a poor, miserable sinner who can’t live up to God’s glory and so need God’s Savior, Jesus? Or will you reject it—and so reject the God who said it?
9. God told Adam and Eve, “If you eat it, you will die” (see Gen 2:17). Look what came of their rejection. Death. God told Cain, “Sin is crouching at the door. Don’t let it” (see Gen 4:7). Look what came of his rejection. Murder. God told Noah he was going to flood the world. Look what came of his repentance and faith. Salvation. If we believe God’s Word and live out those beliefs, our family might reject it. They might reject us. So might our friends, neighbors, coworkers. But they might also hear the condemnation of sin and repent and turn from their sin to Jesus their Savior. We can’t let our fear of rejection prevent an opportunity for repentance.
10. Faith is trusting that God will work the way he’s promised to work. Noah trusted and so built a boat so that his whole family, eight souls in all, were saved. In fact, for 120 years the Apostle Peter says in 2 Peter 2:5 that, “Noah was a preacher/herald of righteousness.” Noah’s righteousness was proclaimed by his walking with God and being obedient to God’s Word and will in the midst of a generation whose every thought was “evil continually” (Gen. 6:5). God gave people a long time to repent of their sins, turn to him and be saved. You can imagine as Noah called people to repentance people would say, “Hey Noah, where’s the flood, you’re building your boat on dry land…” God’s Word declares that God sent his Son to save sinners, to give faith to the faithless, life to the dead. If the church doesn’t declare God’s condemnation upon sin, in word and deed, then how will the world ever even have the opportunity to repent of their sins? That’s how God has said he’ll work when Jesus said, “Repent and believe in the gospel” (Mk 1:15). The Law condemns sinful hearts, in nature and deed, so that it drives everyone to the only one who can save us—Jesus.
11. The apostle Peter described this work of Jesus in the image of the ark and the flood when he wrote, “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God. . . . God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this [flood], now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 3:18a, 20b–21). Jesus is the ark of life who, by the blood he poured out on the cross, now saves all believers through the waters of Holy Baptism by drowning sin in you and raising you to new life. He condemns sin by his cross but raises sinners like you and me to new life in the font. Daily Jesus reminds us of that sin-crucifying work in us, so that we may daily repent of our sins and cling to what he’s graciously done for us to save us.
12. When baptized believers live in that faithfulness, as in the days of Noah, it condemns the world. But that’s not a bad thing. The whole world needs to know the condemnation of sin in order that it might know we all need a Savior. Some will reject it. But some will repent. That’s why the world needs the church—now, more than ever—to “lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and . . . run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith” (Heb 12:1–2). Noah’s name in Hebrew means “rest or comfort.” God used Noah to preserve life and bring a kind of rest to the earth after the judgment of the flood. Noah’s faithfulness to God and His Word draws us to rest in the comfort of Jesus as our Lord and Savior from sin, death, and the power of the devil.
13. As Noah surely must have been tempted over the many years it took him to build the ark but still kept the faith, so, we’re called to remain faithful, even if it means rejection by friends and family. Everyone needs to repent and turn to Jesus, who makes each believer “an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith” (Hebrews 11:7)—that is, who makes all baptized children of God live forever in his kingdom. May God strengthen us all to such faith and to live in such faithfulness. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, until life everlasting. Amen.
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