Authentic faith takes risks

People today are looking for a genuine faith, living faith, a faith that is able to withstand the pressures and scrapes of everyday life. That is our quest in these studies. Faith that will last the distance, a faith that will enable us to live each day a life of integrity. Noah was such a man, one who put God’s Word to the test.

Noah, the man with the big boat. Lots of jokes are made about him, doubt cast over whether he could have built the ark, whether the flood was world-wide and so forth. What I wish to focus on is his walk with God, his child-like faith. What can we learn about his simple trust in God, as he stood almost alone against a hostile world?

Jokes about Noah What type of lights did the ark have? Flood lights. Lessons to learn from Noah – stay fit. When you are 60 years old you may be asked to do something really big. Remember too that the Ark was built by amateurs. The Titanic was built by professionals. The story of Noah just seems too big to believe.

When Joe came home from Sunday School his mother asked what he had learnt that morning. ‘Well, our teacher told us how God used an army general called Noah to wipe out a whole lot of people. First he got thousands of his engineers to build this huge battle ship that could carry heaps of animals and a few people. He had animal trainers then go around the world collecting up pairs of animals and shipping them to the battleship. The animals and General Noah and his clan then got aboard the ship and waited. They then use artillery from the battleship to blow up a huge number of dams all round the world. This created a massage tidal wave that swept across the earth and drowned everyone except those left on the battleship.”

“Now Joe, is that really what your SS teacher taught you?” “Well, no, Mum. But if I told it the way the teacher did, you’d never believe it.”

What about us? Are we ready to go on a faith journey with Noah and take risks like he did?

Walking away from God In Gen 6:5ff we read some of the saddest words in the Bible: “The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said ‘I will wipe mankind, whom I have created from the face of the earth.’” The earth had become a very violent place to live in and it was corrupt we read in 6:11.The picture was thus not a pretty one at all. It was a picture of people walking away from God.

In many ways it is a snapshot of our society today. People living as if God did not exist. Jesus warned about this attitude in Matt 24:37ff in referring to his second coming to earth. “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away.” People living as if nothing was wrong. Just business as usual, oblivious to what was about to happen. Did Noah warn them?

In 2 Peter 2:5 we read that Noah was ‘a preacher of righteousness’. His whole life was a message to those around him. As he daily walked with God, pressing on in building the ark, so God’s message was going out. The problem was thus not that people were not warned. Rather they chose to ignore the warnings and carry on with business as normal. Walking away from God.

Walking in the grace of God In Gen 6:6 we read “But Noah found favour in the eyes of the LORD.” Noah responded to the incredible favour or grace of God and lived a righteous life. In Calvin’s commentary on Genesis this verse is translated ‘But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.’ The seeds of a righteous life grow out of our response to God’s grace, God’s undeserved kindness towards us. God saw the rampant wickedness of the world yet still he extended a 100 year period of grace.

We need to remind ourselves regularly that we are saved by God’s grace and that further we are kept daily by his grace. Our day to day existence is totally dependent on God extending his grace to us. Paul outlined this to the people of Galatia. The people referred to in the book of Galatians had agreed that they were saved by grace but then felt that they were to then press on in their own strength and goodness. Such was not the case. Foolish Galatians, Paul called them. It is God’s grace that sustains us each day of our lives, until we meet Jesus. Mark Twain, in a quip about heaven said “On arrival in heaven, do not speak to St Peter until spoken to. Leave your dog outside. Heaven goes by favour. If it went by merit you would stay out and the dog would go in.” Rescued by grace and sustained by grace.

Walking by Faith with God. Noah shone out at a time of corruption and violence. In Gen 6:9 we read “Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.” He was walking in a different direction to those around him. While others around him were steeped in corrupt and violent behaviour, he was marching to the beat of a different drum. He was walking with God, much like Enoch did in his age. Apart from these two men, other people listed in the Bible at that time were said to have lived in their times. There is a big difference between just living and in walking with God. Are you and I just living today or are we walking with God in our generation?

Just what does ‘walking with God’ mean? Noah was seeking to hear God’s voice above the shouts of the people around him. He was seeking for an intimate love relationship with God. Noah found out what God intended to do and then became part of the action. At times it can be very difficult to hear God’s voice, especially when we are being avalanched with information these days, much of which is seeking to draw us away from God. It is estimated that by the year 2020 human knowledge will be doubling every 73 days. It is currently doubling every 6-9 months. Noah filtered out the voice of God from the noise and violence that surrounded him in his generation, just as we are to do in our generation.

Competing Voices: We are being avalanched with competing voices today. All around us, messages are being showered over us, demanding our attention. Through TV, radio, emails and the Internet, advertising materials coming in our letterboxes, well-meaning friends, even the bumper stickers on the backs of cars as we wait in traffic. You just can’t escape the information deluge. Is sometimes confusion with those messages. In Africa one day I saw two stickers on the back of a car: one said “Our God Reigns” and right next to it on the same car another said “You toucha my car, I smasha ya face”. Confusion, contradictory messages. What do we listen to?

We need to listen to God’s voice, to seek to walk with him, just as Noah did. How can we filter out God’s voice? By listening to his Word, the Bible. By taking time to read it ourselves, to set aside that time needed to listen to him each day. Read and listen to people who are expounding God’s Word. Carefully think about what is being said and how it applies to your life. Pray about what you have heard, asking God to make it real in your own life. Listen to God’s Holy Spirit in your inner spirit. Sit quietly, asking God to speak to you in the stillness of the moment. Noah listened to God and took God at his word. He believed the message God sent him, even though there perhaps was not a cloud in the sky. He believed God and not his local weather report. He had never experienced a flood before yet he believed. His faith was based on things not seen. That is at the heart of true faith.

Many years ago, a baby was left abandoned on the steps of St Thomas’ Hospital in London. The nurses found the baby boy and named him Thomas after the hospital with the surname Bridges after the two bridges that were on either side of the hospital. Thomas grew up and became a follower of Christ. He was later at a meeting where Charles Darwin spoke of his visit to Tierra del Fuego off South America.

Darwin said that the people living there were the most degraded and hopeless people in the world. He said “I would rather try to civilise the dogs in the streets than those people.’ Tom Bridges was challenged by these words for he felt that God’s Word could make a difference in these people’s lives.

He thus offered himself as a missionary to go to Tierra del Feugo and went with his Bible to live amongst the people there. Twelve years later, Darwin again visited the Islands and could hardly believe the transformation that had come over those people. God used one man whose heart was committed to him and who believed God’s Word to be his channel of blessing to others.

In order to be transformed by God’s Word, we need to be reading it. Some will say that life is too busy to do this. We find time, however, to do things that have perhaps little importance in the long term. Why do we struggle to read God’s Word and to listen to His Spirit? In simple basic terms, we have an enemy who will try to keep us from walking with God. Satan himself knows that at the core of a Christian’s life should be our communion with our God, so he will do all that he can to distract and discourage us from doing just that. I encourage people who are new to the Bible to start by reading the gospels in a modern day translation. Prayerfully ask the Spirit of God to reveal new truths to you day by day. Write down things that you are learning. Meet with another Christian who is on a similar spiritual journey to you and compare notes. Encourage each other as you both seek to walk with God. Remember: other books are written so as to inform us. The Bible has been written so as to transform us.

Walking in Righteousness We further find that Noah lived an upright life. He was He lived in obedience to what God had said. It was a righteousness that flowed out of his faith in God. As he trusted God, so God enabled him to obey. His heart was committed to righteous living. In Heb 11:7b we read “By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.” A person of faith will be a person of righteous living. Noah was the heir of such righteousness. He lit. took possession of this righteousness. In Ez 14:14 when speaking of the unfaithful nations of those times as they walked away from God, God says “even if these three men – Noah, Daniel and Job – were in it, they could save only themselves by their righteousness, declares the Sovereign Lord.” Noah lived an upright life before God. So should we.

To be a person of faith implies being a person who lives upright. The spirit level has been placed against our lives and found to be true. In Africa a new dormitory was being built for student accommodation at the Bible College. The door frame however was on a slant. I challenged the builder about it. No problems there, he explained. I will just cut the door to fit the frame. We can seek to the do the same with our lives. We need to make adjustments when our lives are out of shape.

The Inseparable Three: The great gospel terms - grace and righteousness, intertwined with faith. We should not speak of one of these wonderful truths without the others. As the grace of God flows out, it will produce faith in the lives of those whose hearts are soft towards God. The direct response of a living faith from such people is the desire to live a righteous life. We are saved by faith alone but such faith is never alone. The connection between these truths is thus strong.

Taking risks as we walk with God: Walking with God involves taking risks. The great missionary J Hudson Taylor once said ‘Unless there is an element of risk in the Christian life, there is no need for faith.’ Today we live in a world that specialises in risk-minimisation. Your investments should be risk proof, we are told, your life should be carefully monitored and controlled so that there is little chance for things going wrong. Drive in the safe lane.

Yet when we turn to the Bible we find the people who made a difference in their generations were people who took risks. Noah risked complete ridicule as he daily cut down the trees and built the ark. I’m sure he was the butt of many a joke as day after day for around 100 years he faithfully worked on. He stepped out with incredible faith, building a huge boat hundreds of kms from the sea. The same should be true of us in our generation. Be willing to go out on a limb in your faith. Remember the poster that says “If you’re not living on the edge you are taking up too much space.” Another poster that I like says “We take risks, not to escape life, but to prevent life from escaping us.”

We can either sit around and play it safe, or we can set out in faith and be part of what God is doing in our generation. Noah stepped out and took an incredible risk in his generation. God is at work in our world today and he invites us to join him. Faith will be needed as we step out. We will need to be totally dependent on Him and on his resources. Are you and I willing to take the risks involved in following God in our days?

Taking Risks in Obedience: Noah walked with God, he listened to God’s voice and he obeyed.. In Gen 6:22 we read ‘Noah did everything just as God commanded him.” That is the testimony of someone walking with God. Again in Gen 7:5 ‘And Noah did all that the LORD commanded him.’ Salvation came to this family through the obedience of one man. Later salvation was to come to the world through the obedience of one man, Christ Jesus. See Romans 5:19.

Noah built the ark as a means of salvation. The word used here could be translated chest or coffin, a box for preservation. The only other time the word is used in the OT is when Moses was placed in an ark amongst the rushes. There it was the means of salvation for the baby Moses. God acted through the obedience of the man Noah to bring about an act of salvation at a time of judgement. This is a wonderful picture of what God would do later in the life of Christ, to bring about salvation to all who will respond in faith.

Taking risks in our weakness:. God worked in Noah’s life, a person who was weak just like us. Please don’t assume that Noah was so different to us that we cannot identify with him. In Gen 9:21 we find Noah, after the incredible events of the flood and their delivery, lying naked and drunk in his tent. He had let his guard down. Please don’t think of people such as Noah as being different from us. They had their weaknesses but they didn’t allow such to disqualify them from service with God. We each have a dark side to our characters and behaviours. There is always some part of us that Satan will try to exploit to discredit us before God. Don’t allow him to use such to pull you away from walking with God. Confess what has happened, repent and get on with the walk of faith. In Gen 9:24 we read “When Noah awoke from his wine”… When each of us awake and realise what has happened, let us take action to restore the situation with God’s help. Allow God to work through your weakness by means of his grace.

The Apostle Paul struggled with the dark side of his life. In 2 Cor 12:7-10 he speaks about the wonderful visions that he has had but then states “To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness’. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weakness, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” Draw on the grace of God in your weakness. Allow him to fill you with his presence in the midst of your struggles.

The story is told of a party being held in a Scottish mansion. Many famous invited guests were present, including one man, Landseer, perhaps the greatest painter of animal life the UK had ever known. During the festivities, someone stepped back and accidentally spilt coffee over a white wall, leaving an ugly stain. There was embarrassment for a moment, with people wondering what the host would think. Then Landseer, the painter stepped forward and began to draw with a crayon around the ugly stain.

Little by little he transformed it into a beautiful picture of a Highland stag with its antlers outstretched. God as the great painter of our lives desires to draw around the ugly stains to produce great beauty. He wishes to use our lives, much as he used Noah in his generation, to demonstrate to an unbelieving world, the truth of his word. Are you and I willing to be used? Are we prepared to take risks, to trust God, to hand over control to him, no matter what others may think. Let us seek to walk with God and take the risk to live a righteous life before him.

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