Noah's Big Obedience Part 2

O-B-E-D, I-E-N-C-E, obedience is the very best way to show that you believe. Doing exactly what the Lord commands, doing it joyfully. Action is the key, do it immediately, and joy you will receive.

Yeah, thank you. As, and you can tell why I'm preaching and not singing here. But as a child, my maternal grandmother was widowed relatively early in life.

She dedicated the next decades of her life serving overseas as a missionary for many years in Africa. And so, I didn't get a lot of time with grandma growing up, but when I did, it was very intensive. And so, she would come back on furlough periodically.

I remember one time in particular, my mom was having some complications due to a pregnancy, so she was in the hospital for several weeks. And that meant that grandma was in charge while dad was at work. And so, we had a lot of opportunity to have our hearts exposed in those close quarters.

I was about 10 years old, and so you just imagine me 32 years ago, right? And it kind of gives you a little idea of what she was dealing with. And she decided on that trip, I'm going to teach you the obedience song. And what was on her heart was she was desperate that I understood as a child the priority of obedience, and the significance of obedience, and the importance of it for our spiritual life.

And so, obedience really is doing what the Lord commands. And it's doing it joyfully, and action is the key, doing it immediately. I would say the only exception I would take, and it's small, but with the lyrics of that song, would be that obedience is not merely the way that we kind of prove what we believe, but rather it is the outflow, the demonstration of what we believe.

And Noah was a great obeyer. He was a man of great faith, and faith and obedience are always linked together in the Scriptures. To believe God is to obey God.

And likewise, to disobey is a reflection of unbelief in the heart. And so our passage this morning unfolds this wonderfully for us. If you're keeping an outline, this morning's sermon is entitled, Noah's Big Obedience, Part 2. So it's not surprising if you were here last week.

I'm going to go ahead and read our passage this morning, beginning in verse 9, and then we'll look at how this unfolds today. These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among those in his generations, and Noah walked with God.

Noah became the father of three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Now the earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.

Then God said to Noah, The end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. And behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth. Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood.

You shall make the ark with rooms, and you shall cover it inside and out with pitch. Now this is how you shall make it. The length of the ark, 300 cubits.

It's spread 50 cubits, and its height, 30 cubits. You shall make a window for the ark and complete it one cubit from the top, and set the door of the ark inside of it, and you shall make it with the lower, second, and third decks. As for me, behold, I am bringing the flood of water upon the earth to destroy all flesh, in which is the breath of life from under heaven.

Everything that is on the earth shall breathe its last. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall enter the ark, you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you. And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark to keep them alive with you.

They shall be male and female. Of the birds after their kind, and of the animals after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive. As for you, take for yourself some of all food which is edible, and gather it to yourself, and it shall be for food for you and for them.

Thus Noah did, according to all that God had commanded him, so he did. The outline for this morning's passage is Unpacking Noah's Big Obedience. Unpacking Noah's Big Obedience, and our first point is Noah's character.

We got through three of five points last week, and just by way of review, Noah was one of the most exceptional individuals to ever walk on the face of the planet. Moses says that he was a righteous man in verse 9, blameless among those in his generation, and he walked with God. Noah lived rightly.

It's what the righteous do. Who are the righteous? They're the people that do what's right. Their lives are ordered as a pattern consistently with what God says is right.

And furthermore, Noah was blameless, which we said meant that he addressed sin in his life in such a way that there was a consistency between what he professed to believe and what he actually lived out. So paper and practice lined up. And Moses makes it clear that Noah was not the member of an upstanding society.

As you picture Noah, he didn't have a healthy local church that he was a part of with accountability and encouragement. Rather, he was among those in his generations. He was among the wicked.

Genesis 7-1 says that Noah alone was seen to be righteous before God in that generation. So he was really rubbing shoulders with the wicked. He was not having his good morals corrupted by bad company.

Rather, he lived righteously among the unrighteous. And so how was it that Noah did not get sucked into the norms, and dulled, and tempted, and saturated with worldly thinking? We see this strength does not come from Noah, but from God. Noah walked with God, the end of verse 8. And so this is important to always understand that the impetus behind Noah's strong convictions was that he spent time with God.

The source of his strength came from God alone. And so when we see the big ask that comes here in a little bit, we're understanding that this was out of the overflow in the soil of Noah's heart that was daily obedience, daily walking with God. We know little of what religious practice looked like in this time.

We know what it'll look like very clearly with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the patriarchs. But we know at this time at least, man would have seen creation, God's invisible attributes. The law of God would have been written on the heart.

We know that Seth's line began calling on the name of Yahweh. We saw from Cain and Abel that they were offering sacrifices. So Noah had some revelation from God and what it meant to walk with God.

And obviously God spoke directly to Noah. And so Noah is said then to be a man who is righteous, blameless, and walked with God. I just want to ask you a personal question before we move on to think about for a moment here this morning.

I'm not going to ask you to say it into a microphone. I'm not going to ask you to write it on a piece of paper and hold it up for everyone to see. But if you were to honestly describe your relationship with God this morning, right now today, and use two to five descriptive adjectives, what would those adjectives be? And I hope as you think about that, it's an encouraging answer.

When you think of describing your relationship with God. I've been at the Christian life long enough and among all of you long enough to know that it's not always the adjectives that we want. It's not always encouraging.

Sometimes we describe our walk with God in less than desirable ways. We use words like this. I've been coasting lately.

Or perhaps I've been complacent. Or inconsistent. My walk with God has kind of been a struggle lately if I'm honest.

Things have felt a bit dry. Kind of been going through the motions. I've been prayerless.

I've been neglecting the word. I've been distracted. And sometimes we answer that question about our walk with God and we're saying, Man, the Lord is teaching me things right now.

I'm sensitive to the Spirit. I'm battling sin. I'm thankful for the cross.

It's vibrant and dedicated. I'm not asking you to gauge your walk with God based upon merely emotional indicators and how you would feel about your relationship with God. But rather how meaningful is your engagement right now with truth? With God? Is it meager? Is it leftovers? Is it relying on yesterday's bread or last week's bread? You find you're relating kind of like someone who's regularly missing spiritual meals and you just keep promising, Okay, tomorrow I'll get to it.

Tomorrow I'll get to it. Tomorrow I'll get to it. And your life is filled with other things.

Do you know how to vibrant walk with God? And it's an encouragement to us to understand that obedience is going to flow out of a vibrant relationship with God. Sometimes as Christians when we're weak and we lack conviction and our obedience is half-hearted, we need to be reminded of the source of obedience. That the Christian life is lived by Christ in you.

That His truth must dwell richly within you. That He must be actively working within you. And so Noah here, not inconsequentially, walked with God and that's going to be the impetus for which his obedience flows.

We saw not only Noah's character but his context, his cultural surroundings. Point number two, the earth was corrupt. Verse 11, before God and the earth was filled with violence.

And so we saw that mankind left his own devices, ruins everything. And this is a testament to original sin. This is man's hopeless, fallen, futile condition apart from the intervening grace of God.

And so from the greatest to the least. From the greatest to the least on earth. From the rich to the poor.

From the young to the old. From the rural to the urban. All of creation here is spoiled and ruined and tainted by sin.

It was darkened. The collective moral conscience was darkened as the knowledge of God was suppressed in unrighteousness. And so in the midst of all of that corruption, God grabs a hold of Noah.

And Noah finds favor in the eyes of God. He finds approval. God grabs a hold of Noah and he pulls him out of that darkness.

He pulls him out of that muck and mire. And he tells him his plan in verse 13. He says, the end of all flesh has come before me and I'm going to destroy.

And so we saw in verse 13 that the Creator intends to be the destroyer. He's going to destroy people and planet. Notice the language.

I'm about to destroy them with the earth. And this is not God letting loose in a blind rage. He's not like a human.

Sometimes as humans we get upset and we do things that we wish we could take back. Because we lack self-control in the moment with what we say. We let our anger, our emotions get the best of us.

God here is measured and perfect. He's not caught off guard by the iniquity of man. So his purpose here is reasoned and principled out of an overflow of his holiness.

And I would say even his mercy to limit corruption on the earth. The Creator intends to be the destroyer. So this was Noah's context.

This is an encouragement to you. If you are in a workplace that's perverse. If you're in an educational environment that's perverse.

If you're in a neighborhood that's perverse. If you're on an online environment that's perverse. You could live set apart.

Noah did too. This was his context. A wicked and perverse culture and yet he's shining blameless in the midst of it.

And so we saw the holiness of God to come and judge sin. It is good and right. It is the very best thing that God could do to judge sinners on earth.

And out of that then we see Noah's commission. This is our third point as we unpack his obedience. Noah's commission.

He's given a charge. Essentially basic construction plans to build a giant floating triple-decker chest. That's what an ark is.

It's a chest. It's a big wooden box. God said make it out of gopher wood.

We don't know what gopher wood was. Probably some type of pine. Maybe cypress.

Maybe fir. No one knows what gopher wood is exactly. But this is a massive project even by today's standards.

We said last time Noah likely possessed some knowledge of shipbuilding. I was talking with a tradesman this past week who was talking about the difference between someone who's new to a trade and someone who's been out of trade for a decade. It's significant.

It's significant. That difference. Just 10 years at a trade.

And then the difference between 10 years and 30 years of doing the same thing is significant. Okay, so you imagine Noah here. People have long lives.

He's living for hundreds of years prior to construction of the ark. So whatever you picture in your mind here, Noah would have been a very capable human being. Okay? A very capable human being.

We often picture this time as very primitive. I think it's kind of the wrong mind's eye conclusion. Long lives would have meant you could grow in knowledge and you weren't starting over each year, each generation, having to learn it.

You had long lifespans. Why is he building the giant barge? Verse 17, because God is bringing a flood. We focused on this.

The Lord draws attention to this. Behold, I'm bringing. This is my flood.

I don't want there to be any question about it. I have a purpose. I have an intent.

And everything that breathes, everything under heaven, every living creature on earth will be destroyed. God chose to do this using a flood. He chose water.

He said there were several reasons for this. Likely, when a flood is severe and it wipes away all of mankind and all of his accomplishments, all of the memory of man off the face of the earth. Fire, of course, could do the same thing, but a plague or a disease or merely the angel of the Lord killing people would leave memories of mankind and his accomplishments.

And so the flood wipes it away, the complete removal of all corruption from the face of the earth. Not only that, but the flood points to future destruction. It came suddenly.

It was unavoidable. It really reminds us of coming judgment. If you remember Jesus and speaking about the kingdom said, it's going to be like this parable of a wedding where there's 10 virgins that are locked out.

Why? Because the bridegroom came back and they were unprepared. Elsewhere, he talks about the suddenness of judgment coming unannounced, unexpectedly, cataclysmically. And so ultimately, the flood then will point beautifully to God's salvation, the preservation of his chosen people through judgment.

And David expressed this in Psalm 32 where he said, let everyone who is holy pray to you at a time when he may be found. Surely in a flood of great waters, they will not reach him. David's talking there about the flood of judgment.

When God comes to judge, depicted as a flood, his own possession, his own people will be protected. I mean, they'll be insulated. I don't know if that just thrills your heart.

There is no fear of condemnation. There's no fear of judgment. That when the judge comes to recompense evil and his enemies, we're standing with him watching, protected from that flood of judgment.

What's the stipulation? Well, as David would say, call upon the Lord. Call upon the Lord while he may be found. And so God preserves his elect when judgment comes.

He preserves through the flood of judgment. And in fact, this is exactly what we see in our next point as we unpack Noah's big obedience. Point number four, Noah's covenant.

Noah's covenant. We've seen his character that was godly and set apart amidst his crooked generation. We saw his context, the wickedness of the world.

We saw the commission, the specific instruction he's given. Now in verse 18, we come across the verse that we can just read over very quickly and it is substantial in understanding Noah's obedience. Verse 18, but I, but I will establish my covenant with you.

What's the but in contrast to? Well, I'm going to wipe out the whole earth, wipe out all of creation, every breathing thing, but with you, I will establish my covenant. This is a refrain over and over in Scripture. What separates the wicked and the righteous? It's always the personal intervention of God.

Ephesians chapter two, but God being rich in mercy. And so no, I'm going to destroy everyone, but guess what? I'm going to intervene here and I'm not only going to act to destroy, but I'm going to act to save and I have a plan to save you. Notice the pronouns, my covenant.

So this is God's promise to Noah, his formal relationship with Noah, his formal agreement with Noah. It's a promise made to Noah and God is the one who enacts it. It's not that Noah called upon the Lord and said, Hey Lord, here's the deal.

I need some things and I would really like you to make me an offer. Okay? No, Noah's going about life doing whatever he was doing and the Lord, that great hound of heaven comes and seeks him out and says, I'm going to make a promise to you. You're saying God is the one who initiates salvation.

He loves to make promises to his people and God doesn't love to just make promises. He loves to keep promises and even our own salvation, Jesus will say, this is a new covenant in my blood. I mean, this is a formal relationship that man can have with God, not on the basis of who he is, but on the basis of God's own character, his own oath.

And so mankind is always saved through covenant. And so Noah here represents this covenantal family that on earth will be God's special people. Over and over throughout the Old Testament, God's people will be referred to in shorthand as his covenant people.

God here is confirming a covenant with Noah that is going to preserve his life. And this is going to be the basis for Noah's obedience. Okay? And I want you to just want to pause here for a second and get this really clear in our minds.

I mean, it's interesting. If you interact with people and you talk about the doctrine of salvation, talk about soteriology, that's a doctrine of salvation. You talk about a big view of God's grace, his sovereign grace and salvation.

And you say that here's how salvation works. God has a certain people who he's chosen to be his own. And he causes those people to be born again to a living hope, and then he not only starts the work of salvation, but he brings it to completion.

It's his work, ultimately. One of the objections that you'll hear is, well, if you teach a message like that, people are going to live however they want. The implication being that the pathway to right living is to teach people that their salvation is somehow dependent upon their performance.

And so you misunderstand the Scriptures. You're saying that God comes to Noah and he looks upon him with favor. He justifies him.

And then he makes a promise to Noah, I will save you. I'm going to establish my covenant with you. You're going to make it through the floodwaters.

And then on that basis, Noah obeys. Not out of fear, not out of desire to perform so that God will be pleased with him, but rather out of the understanding of God's gracious covenant that he has made with him. John Calvin writes, let us know that the promises of God are what quicken us and inspire each of our members with vigor to yield obedience to God.

That without these promises, we would lie in torpid indolence, almost lifeless, so that neither hands nor feet can do their duty. Saying you have it all wrong if you think that foolish way that man will not be motivated to obey if he understands God's grace. Rather Noah can build the ark saying I trust the promise of God that he will in fact deliver me.

And so the obedience that he renders is an expression of faith and love, not merit. And so God in this covenant promise to save Noah says you are going to enter the ark. This is the plan of salvation.

There's going to be one way through the waters. It's my appointed way. And we said that this already begins to point ultimately to the crosswork of Jesus Christ.

This ark will have one door in it. It's the very same language Jesus used to describe himself, that he is the door. And there's no other access point.

If you try to climb up over the walls, you don't get in. Rather he's the way, the truth, and the life. And no one gets to the father except through him.

And the door of salvation is available. It can be opened to anyone who knocks on it, everyone who asks receives. But it is an exclusive entrance point.

And so God's covenant here to Noah is to save him, to preserve his life, through his appointed means of salvation. And as commonly the case with God and his covenants, he makes the covenant with Noah, and then there's other beneficiaries. It's like when the insurance bill gets sent to our house or now to my inbox, whatever it is, a notification on my app.

Anyway, when it comes, it's my name on it. And guess what? I get to pay for it. But there's additional beneficiaries, are there not? Everybody in my family is covered with the policy.

So God here makes this covenant with Noah that is going to be not just for Noah, but it will benefit his entire family and ultimately benefit the human race. We see God cares about life. He even cares about the animals.

Look at the purpose of every living thing. Verse 19, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female.

So God here is making a covenant promise to Noah for his benefit, for the benefit of his family. And even creation, the animals are going to benefit. He cares even about the animals to preserve them, okay? So all of you that have pets, I mean, this is part of God's plan.

That he'd preserve animals, certainly for our enjoyment, not just for pets but for our benefit, so we could eat them, so we could accomplish work with them and farm and transportation. We'd gain supply from products like milk and eggs. We'd use them for clothing.

People even go on trips and they spend big money to bird watch and things like that. God preserves the animals as well. He says two of every kind is what you need to take on.

Why two of every kind in male and female? Well, reproduction, of course. It's the only kind of pair that makes sense. Two males could not do that, nor two females.

When he says two of every kind, he's likely speaking of species, not species but the family level. So two canines. It's rather than taking a wolf and a fox and a dog, take two canines.

And in that gene pool, it will begin to spread out into various species, contains the genetic material required. Or two of the bear family. And from that bear kind would come black bears and grizzlies and polar bears and such.

It would certainly reduce the number of animals required to bring on the ark. We can't be exactly sure, but it would seem when God's talking about kinds here, he's talking about two animals that could reproduce because they're of the same ability. And so God here is just pouring out grace.

I want you to think about this. He came to Noah and Noah found favor in the eyes of God. That was God's initiating work.

Then he warns Noah of the flood that is coming. And then he gives Noah instructions for how he's going to be preserved. And then he provides the resources.

So God here has Noah building an ark. We said last week that he could have dropped this thing out of the sky prefab, but he didn't. He included Noah in the process.

He gave him this massive assignment. He was to not only build the ark, but he was to take for himself verse 21 food, which is edible and gather it to be food for him and food for them. And so Noah had to gain access to all kinds of food supplies, grains, cereals, corn, barley, wheat, et cetera, dried fruits, ability to store and preserve all of this food.

And this just demonstrates that this was an actual event. It would have been a tremendous quantity of food that was needed. It's interesting to me.

God could have worked a miracle. I mean, he has unlimited power. We read in the Bible of him sustaining people supernaturally.

If you remember, Moses went 40 days without food or water. Same thing with Jesus and his temptation in Matthew chapter four. It's impossible.

And you go a week without water and you're a goner. And so God could have provided for all of the animals and Noah in some kind of supernatural miraculous way apart from these means, but he didn't. He chose to work his provision through the instrumentality of Noah's cooperation and Noah's effort and Noah's faithfulness and Noah's work.

He said, Noah, if you want to eat, you need to get all the provisions together for you and for the animals. So it doesn't preclude the possibility of the animals just kind of on the scientific front of going into some kind of hibernation. It's possible they went into various states in that darkness and the confined spaces where they kind of become inactive and they require, as their heart rate slows, less food, there's less waste, they use less energy.

I mean, something like that is quite possible. But Noah had to bring provisions and this project would have been an astounding undertaking. And the scripture is clear to record.

Verse 22, thus Noah did according to all that God had commanded him, so he did. This brings us to our final point in unpacking Noah's big obedience. Point number five, Noah's compliance.

Noah's compliance. When you think of Noah, you need to think of a man of great faith and a man who is an obeyer, okay? A man who is an obeyer. This is going to show up again in chapter seven, the reminders that he did all that God had commanded him.

He built an ark. That's a big obedience. We don't know how long it took him.

The timeline is not recorded, so we can't be certain. Some assume 120 years. They kind of take the timeline out of verses one through four.

There's no indication that the ark was started or construction was started at that point. Certainly possible, but the text doesn't say. There's other assumptions that it was 100 years, a 100-year-long project, because the text says that Noah was 500 when his sons were born and 600 when the floodwaters came, but even that just tells us really roughly how old the boys were when the floodwaters came.

I think the most natural way to understand the text is that God comes to Noah, and he instructs him to build the ark. There in verse 14, make for yourself an ark of gopher wood. And in that instruction, he refers to Noah's sons and daughters, daughter-in-laws, excuse me, in verse 18, he says, you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you.

That certainly could be different conversations. On the face of it, the way it's written, it would seem that the instruction came to Noah when he already had sons who already had wives. If that was the case, then this project is shortened to probably at most 75 years and maybe even less.

And so this project was a massive undertaking. And Noah could have been a man of great resources. Obviously, he had to get all of these materials and get access to them.

It's not impossible that he would have hired people to help do the work. It could have been just him and his family members. But just the sheer metrics of harvesting the timber and milling the wood and assembling the vessel was a significant project.

And there's two points that I want to draw your attention to relating to the obedience and why God would require Noah to construct an ark. I mean, why not just provide the vessel? Why make him build it? Well, there's a couple of reasons. The first one is this.

The construction of the ark demonstrates God's perfect patience. It demonstrates God's patience. You say, I think it also demonstrates Noah's patience.

That's true. You have a project that could not be quickly completed. And according to 1 Peter 3.20, it was the patience of God that kept waiting in the days of Noah during the construction of the ark.

Why did God give Noah such a long project? Well, it was to demonstrate his patience. That rather than just decree that the earth would be destroyed and immediately flood it and destroy everyone, he was giving them warning, plank by plank by plank, tree that's felled by tree that's felled. That there's judgment coming and the only way of escape would be to get on the boat.

Time for people to walk by and see Noah making the ark and ask questions and hear about the project and perhaps repent. Don't you see this project? You need to understand that this is an inscrutable mind of God, a demonstration of his patience. And I was just thinking this week as I was meditating on that, man, this humbles me a lot.

I mean, we're so pathetic. We're trying to figure out what God is doing all the time. Oh, I think he's doing this and this and this.

I've kind of figured it out. I just highly doubt that Noah's thinking, hey, the reason why I got this massive project in part is so that God can demonstrate his patience to a watching world. He didn't know why God had asked him to do that.

And yet 1 Peter's clear. 1 Peter 3.20, God gave him this long project to demonstrate his patience so that he could be patient with mankind. And secondly, this demonstrates that Noah's obedience was by faith.

I mean, I can't even fathom the number of obstacles that he would have encountered in that project. You've ever felt overwhelmed by a task that you didn't wanna start? Can you imagine building an entire ark? It says that Noah did all that God commanded him. You understand for Noah, he believed God.

He actually believed that what God said was going to happen, even though with his physical eyes, he had no evidence to corroborate it. He knew God is true. God won't lie to me.

God won't change on me. Get this, God is not keeping something better from me. Rather, his very best for me is to obey.

Believing that there's a promised reward for obedience. Just even thinking of the instructions. I mean, imagine as you're getting 50% of the way done, 60% of the way done, 70%.

At some point, you had to think, I mean, could we like shave off a few cubits? Do we really need it to be that big? I mean, do we really need all those animals? It says that he did all that God commanded him. And we tell our kids a lot, if you pick and choose what part of an instruction you want to do, if you pick and choose what you affirm and what you agree with or what you enjoy or what you think is wise and you discard the rest of the instruction, whatever it is that you just did, it's not obedience. So obedience is not modifying the plan.

You can think of all the excuses that Noah could have offered. It's too big, it's too hard, I need a shortcut. But no, he built the ark and he did all that God commanded him.

Gopher wood, the rooms inside, three levels, one door, a window at the top, covered in pitch inside and out, precisely 30 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, 30 cubits high. Noah was an obeyer and he had a long and costly obedience. And I just tell you, the word obedience in scripture is the idea of hearing and submitting.

Okay, that's it. You hear it, you hear the instruction and then you submit yourself to it. And the Bible teaches it's the proper response to God's instruction.

It's the yielding of our will to God's. And Noah here is given as an example, it's stated twice in the text. Thus Noah did, according to all that God commanded him, so he did.

He was a doer of the word. He was a doer of the word. This would be the refrain in scripture over and over.

When God gave the law to Israel through Moses and Deuteronomy, said in chapter 12, verse 28, be careful to listen to all these words which I command you. So we learn about obedience. Well, you gotta be careful in obedience.

There's precision required. You're to listen to comprehensively all the words. So we don't get to pick and choose the ones we like and the ones we don't or the ones that are convenient or easy.

And then there's authority, which I command you. It's right here in Genesis 9, or 622 as well. God commanded him.

Okay, these aren't suggestions. They're obligations. A few verses later in Deuteronomy 12, 32, he'd say, whatever I'm commanding you, you shall be careful to do, and don't add and don't take away from it.

Didn't I just tell you that it is good for us to be reminded of this simplicity and the priority of obedience? Is it not? It is so straightforward. It's so clarifying. I mean, just recognizing God commanded it.

I mean, oftentimes, we don't like to call things that we're doing obedience and disobedience. I mean, certainly if you're parenting little ones, you use the word obedience in your house, I'm sure. But then we get older, and what do we start to call disobedience? I had another slip up.

What? I have an area that I need to work on. I have something I've been trying to improve. A bad habit that I need to address.

It's far less common to hear even a believer who loves Christ say, I'm being disobedient. I'm disobeying. And frankly, at the moment, I don't want to obey.

I'm struggling with even the willingness. And obedience brings obligation to us. Sometimes people get offended by that.

Over the years in ministry, I've had people that get offended by obligation language. They think that preaching the commands of Scripture is somehow legalism. And over the years, helping people understand that we're talking about salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone.

And then when God saves you, it's unto what? So you can be a disobeyer? No. Rather, we're created in Christ Jesus, His workmanship for good works, which He prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. So even though you're in Christ, and all of your sins have been paid for, it does not remove you from the obligation to obey.

See, obedience is good language. Noah's a good example for us because it automatically removes excuses that we would like to hang onto for our disobedience. I mean, this one comes up a lot.

In your home, it probably comes up. You can use other people's sin as an excuse for your lack of obedience. My spouse's disobedience justifies my disobedience.

My parents' disobedience justifies my disobedience. But see, when we talk about obedience, there's nothing that relieves you from the obligation to obey. Not your personality.

Not your past. And you can see so clearly the opposite of how obedience is described in the Bible. Words that bring vivid clarity to our hearts.

Words like stiff-necked. Stubborn. Unbending.

Unyielding. Line-crossing. Boundary-pushing.

Self-willed. Obstinate. Rebellious.

Strained. Defiant. Complacent.

Calloused. And when you and I disobey, you need to be reminded that our disobedience is always rooted in unbelief. The writer of Hebrews is clear that Noah believed God.

Hebrews 11, seven. He trusted God. What it means is that Noah believed that what God said would be the very best for him and that God had the authority to command him and that God would never do him wrong that in the path of obedience, he would somehow miss out on something better.

Do you think he wasn't tested in that? Hey, Noah, we're going fishing this weekend. What are you doing? Still building the boat. Hey, Noah, look at the cool thing I just bought.

You keep using your money to build a giant boat. I mean, whatever it was, I'm sure that he had temptations over those years to be thinking, surely, surely there's a better way here. And yet he continually trusted in the Lord.

You know what part of our problem is with obedience? It's people today live too much by what they feel. They do what feels right to them. They do what they feel like doing and they don't do what they don't feel like doing.

And the only descriptions I can find in scripture about following your own feelings would be warnings not to do so. These believers were to be people of faith, were to live by faith. And so when you and I think of obedience, it doesn't really matter whether you feel like it or not.

Do you believe God? That's not to say that your attitude doesn't matter, but rather by faith, then you and I learn to actually feel like obeying. How does that happen? Well, you begin to delight in God's character and you delight in his path forward and you see it as good. If you use the biblical words, your heart becomes inclined to God's instructions.

And so maturity in the Christian life looks like not just I have to obey, but increasingly it's what I want to do. I want to obey. And I know that there's a blessing associated with obedience.

And I'm not just dragging my feet as I fulfill my necessary and required obligation to God, but it's what I find I want to do. And in case you need help making the connection, what were the words of the Lord Jesus Christ? If you love me, obey my commandments. If you love me, obey my commandments.

So you and I are to view obedience in the same way Noah did. I love the Lord. I love God.

And so I love his commandments. And out of an expression of love to him, I want to obey. I trust him.

As the hymn writer would say, how I proved him or and or. So Noah learned not to look to his own wisdom, not to walk by sight, but rather to believe God more than he trusted in his own heart. What I want to ask you is, you're hearing this message this morning.

I want to ask you how your obedience is going. What enters your mind this morning? Any areas of disobedience? Any areas that you haven't been wanting to face? Any areas that you've been slow to address that the Spirit of God has put on your heart and you just find, I just do not really want to go there? Maybe something that you need to let go of. Maybe something that you're fearful of because obedience is going to cost you in a way that you're concerned you don't want to pay.

Is there anything that God has commanded you to do that you're not doing? Or anything that God has commanded you not to do that you are doing? Just simple ways to begin to think about obedience. Can I encourage you to, to this week, take those areas and begin to ask yourself, where is this exposing unbelief in my heart? Because Noah was not thinking, I'm going to build the ark and miss out on all the fun with my friends and in the end it's going to amount to nothing. I believe God's going to come destroy the earth.

But he's promised to save me and he's going to save me through this boat. So I'm going to obey and I'm going to build it. As I was thinking about our ministry, I thought what a great thing to be said about the people of God at Cornerstone.

Would to God that this would be our reputation. Not that they're legalists, not that they're libertines, not that they're traditionalists, not that they follow men, but rather that church is obedient to Christ. They obey the word of Christ.

They're obeyers, they're submitters. So Genesis chapter six is such an encouragement to our hearts. I hope it's been a good reminder for you.

There's something so simple and clarifying about obedience language. And to recognize that Noah first and foremost, here is a picture of God's salvation. That's the resounding takeaway of the ark.

God's salvation, God's grace, his favor to undeserving sinners. We see that God rescues Noah through a covenant and the ark becomes his gracious provision for Noah. It ultimately typifies the salvation that we receive at the cross.

We understand that there is no other salvation. And also in chapter six, that there's a clear emphasis on the role of obedience in the lives of God's people. Not as the cause, but as the consequence of Noah's relationship with God.

He obeys. On all of this, I'm sure that you're thinking, or I hope you're thinking of the Lord Jesus Christ because he was the perfect obeyer. According to Hebrews chapter five, he learned obedience through the things that he suffered.

And so Jesus, children, this will be an encouragement to you. He had to learn how to obey. And guess what? He had imperfect parents, just like you have imperfect parents.

And if he learned to submit himself through suffering to God's plan, such that he could say at the end of his life in John 17, Father, I glorified you on earth, having finished the work, what you've given me to do. He obeyed perfectly in every way. And it's through that one man's obedience, namely the obedience of Jesus Christ, that many will be appointed righteous.

That God will judge all those who have faith in Christ, not upon our obedience, but upon his. Isn't that remarkable? That message never gets old. Let's pray.

God, thank you for the way that your word presses in and provides insight that cannot be understood by the natural man or through natural ways of thinking. But because you made us, because you knit us together, because we're created in your image, and you know everything about us, you've divinely intended your word to be that surgical work on our souls that shows us things that we need to see. And so Lord, no doubt, as we reflect on your gracious salvation and our obedience, it has exposed things in our hearts.

And Lord, I pray that we would respond to that in two ways. That first of all, we would be willing to say that Christ is worth more to us than anything else we would hang on to. And that we would gladly part with sin for his name's sake.

And that secondly, we would find great comfort in knowing that all of our disobedience has been forgiven through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you and your grace gave us his obedience. Lord, we thank you for that message of the gospel. We thank you for that work on the cross.

Amen.