Living by Faith in the Present, for the Future
Hebrews 11:7
March 27, 2022
I don’t have to tell you that we live in a perverse world. When you open up your news browser you are assaulted by that reality. Just this week:
- The latest Supreme Court nominee refused to provide a definition for the word “woman” saying she couldn’t because she is not a biologist.
- A biological trans-gender male “won” the women’s NCAA swimming title for the 500M freestyle.
- Disney is releasing a new cartoon movie for children featuring a homosexual kiss.
- A Christian news agency self-reported sexual harassment from two of its former leaders, including its president, over a period of about a decade. Worst of all, they acknowledged that allegations had been regularly made at the time of the events and the accusations were both ignored and ridiculed.
It’s clichéd to say it, but the world just seems to be going from bad to worse and sometimes you wonder, “How bad will it get?” I don’t know how much good news this is, but it has been worse in previous generations. Much worse. In fact, there was a time when the world was in such bad shape that there was only one godly family on the whole earth, and God decided to judge the whole world apart from that family and start over with humanity through that one man’s line.
I am speaking, of course, about Noah. Moses describes it this way: “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart” (Gen. 6:5–6).
Yet in the midst of such pervasive perversity, Noah thrived spiritually. Along with Enoch, Noah was the only other man of whom Scripture said that he “walked with God” (Gen. 6:9). He had an intimate relationship of fellowship and trust in God while surrounded by astounding rebelliousness. So the story of Noah is an encouragement for every believer who lives in a dark and perverse world (e.g., Rom. 1:28-32; 2 Tim. 3:1ff), for however wicked our world is, the world in which Noah lived was far worse, since it contained only one righteous man and his family. That’s why the writer of Hebrews points to Noah as an example of living by faith in Hebrews 11:7. In this one verse, we will find that —
Living by faith means obeying God by faith.
In the opening verses of this chapter we’ve seen that Abel worshipped by faith and Enoch walked (fellowshipped) by faith; today we see that Noah worked (obeyed) by faith. His belief in God’s word was so profound that it shaped what he did when no one else was obeying God.
In these verses, the writer demonstrates three aspects of Noah’s obedient faith:
- The Contexts of Noah’s Faith
- The Work of Noah’s Faith
- The Results of Noah’s Faith
Download the rest of this sermon on Hebrews 11:7.
The audio will be posted on the GBC website by tomorrow.
“Far over the Misty Mountains cold…” by Himalayan Trails is marked with CC BY 2.0.
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