Nick continues our new series on Genesis. This week he is speaking on Genesis 7. His topic is "A man of faith"

Summary

Transcript

Hello, good morning. I think we need to hear your body. Happy smiling faces.
Yeah, we're moving rapidly through Genesis.
It's still going to take us a while. It's not one of those deep letter by letter exegesis,
but we want to find out what God is saying to us week in and week out.
And I was very pleased and relieved to see my title this week. Now we're a man of faith.
I know Jonathan spoke absolutely last week with a challenging passage.
For those on the preaching team, it's a bit like spinning the wheel of jeopardy.
Sometimes these early chapters of Genesis. But what a series that we've got.
It's an epic series full. And Sheila's doing a wonderful job in the entrance hall there,
putting up key themes from each. And if you haven't seen it or haven't noticed it,
as you go out, have a look and see the creative artwork that she's doing out there.
Reminding us of the key themes week by week by week.
But at the end of Jonathan's talk last week, we were introduced to Noah, a man of faith.
I'm going to put these, I'm in between. You see, I can't see this and then I can't see you.
So I don't know what to do. I need more faith.
Noah, a man of faith.
Yeah, so Jonathan, at the end of chapter six, talked about the story of Noah, how God came to him.
And the world had become so corrupted and so ruined.
That God said, right, I'm going to do something about this.
And I'm going to flood the earth. But in the process, he didn't just spot Noah.
Like, oh, here's somebody. He knew Noah. And he knew what was in his heart.
And so he spoke to him and said, I want you to build a boat in order to save you, your family,
and two of every kind of animal that walks all over the earth.
And so as we come into chapter seven, we've got the story of what actually happened when the flood covered the earth.
And there's all sorts of stuff as Jonathan alluded to last week, that in history and archaeology,
that would point to the historical facts of this story.
And it's amazing. But because it's not a historical lecture that we're into this morning, we want to know what God is saying to us.
And so the question is about faith. Noah had faith.
Hebrews 11 says, by faith, when warned of a flood, not yet seen, Noah built an ark to save himself and his family,
he moved and lived by faith. And faith is what pleases God.
It's as simple as that. It's not very complex. It's not very complex, but that's the hardest thing.
But faith is what pleases God. It's what God judges.
You know, it says that when Abraham had so many things against him, if you read the story of Abraham, as we will do,
and as we go through the story, you'll see so many things that he got wrong.
So many errors, so many mistakes, so many failings, so many sins.
But yet God knew that he was a man of faith. And when he saw faith in him, he credited it to him as righteousness.
And God noticed in Noah, despite the sin, because he says Noah was blameless over all the earth.
Well, in actual fact, probably technically, he wasn't blameless because he was born into sin the same way he was born outside of Eden,
the same way so that everybody else had been. He was corrupted like all of us.
But yet there was something in his heart that expressed itself in faith.
And God saw that faith and said, I like that. And he credited to him as righteousness.
And he was able to save him. He's blameless over all the earth.
Faith is more than just believing stuff. We can believe in all sorts of things.
I won't mention some of the things we can believe in because we've got some younger members here.
But you know the sort of thing I'm talking about.
It's more than just believing in God. It's a foundation of trust in God.
Over everything else, the foundation that governs everything that we are, every decision that we make,
everything that happens to us, where we live by faith, it gets into all of that.
It's not just about an hour and a half on a Sunday morning as we know.
It's about what happens to us in the darkness. It's what happens to us in the grief.
It's what happens to us at the graveside. It's what happens to us in the hospital room.
It's what happens to us in the celebrations. It's what happens to us everywhere.
Faith is the foundation of life, whatever happens to us.
And faith is not automatically part of religion.
When Jesus said, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?
It was a genuine question.
Will he find faith on the earth?
He'll find religion. He'll find churches. He'll find all sorts of things going on.
But will he find faith when he met people and he saw their response to him and he said,
well, I've never seen such great faith.
Or where his disciples found him, where Peter, I mean, I'm sorry for Peter, don't you?
I mean, he tried everything. And he did everything so well.
And he was the one who said, Lord, let me walk to you on the water. I can do it too.
And so he got out of the place, started walking, then he sank to you.
Oh, you have little faith. Wow.
I'm sure Jesus was smiling at the time. Let's put a bit of apocryphal interpretation in there as well.
But, you know, faith is what he's looking for.
Faith moves God and without faith is impossible to please God.
It's not where I'm likely to please God without faith, or God would prefer it if we had a bit of faith.
He's actually saying without faith, there's no, I'm not even talking to you.
Faith is so important and it's so, so much of a challenge to our lives.
It's so easy for faith to be put to one side, to be put on the shelf,
and for us to just go through the motions of life.
Go through the motions of religion.
Go through the motions of church.
Go through the motions of church. Leadership, dare I say.
And yet still put faith on the side and on the shelf and leave it there.
But yet without faith, it is impossible to please God.
And characters like Noah challenged the very heart of our relationship with God.
It is the number one thing on our checklist when we are assessing our relationship with God.
Now, I've got some points that I want to just bring up that hopefully will challenge us and make us think through.
About what faith is not and what faith is related to the story of Noah.
Faith is not, let's wait and see.
And sometimes that's our favourite approach.
I have to put myself in that as well.
You know, well, we'll see what happens and then we'll give thanks to God.
But faith is not about wait and see.
It's not about hedging our bets.
Noah didn't say, I think I'll wait and see if it rains.
Because then, he'd have missed the boat.
Oh, you see?
Do we wait and see and then give thanks to God?
If God wants it to happen then of course it will and if he doesn't then it won't.
And then it sounds like faith, doesn't it?
But it's not actually.
What God told Noah made no sense.
It was very easy for him to ignore.
I haven't read it in there but I'm probably somebody clever than me.
It was like as if there had been no rain.
Anyway, rain wasn't a usual part of the life.
I mean, can't imagine it, can you?
Every time we look out the window it's raining here.
So, you know, if God says I'm going to send a great rain over the earth, he says, well, what's new?
But to Noah, it was all new.
And elsewhere in the Bible it says in the times of Noah,
people were marrying and giving him marriage.
Their life was going on as normal. God hated it.
He saw the corruption that was there but the people themselves loved it.
Oh, it's great. Never had it so good.
Times are going on.
And God spoke to Noah about something not seen, not understood, not felt,
but yet discerned in the spirit of Noah responded with faith.
God is looking for that active partnership.
Noah didn't know anything, all he knew was to build a boat.
He didn't know what would happen, what the future would look like,
but he knew that God had spoken to him.
There's a story and I hesitate to, I'm not hesitate to tell the stories
because God has done great things.
But, you know, full disclosure,
faith is not my automatic go-to all the time,
as I'm sure it's not yours either, before you look at me like that.
When things happen, when challenges come, when fear comes in,
when worries are there, when there's financial pressure, when there's health pressure,
when there's family pressure, whatever.
We don't think, oh, it's all right, we're going to pray.
Everything's going to be fine. God is in control.
We don't always think like that.
We run to the panic button.
There was a lady in our church in Mexico who was, well,
she was part of our church in Mexico.
She was a missionary in Latvia and she'd gone out a number of years before
and it's been a remarkable story and I only found out more about it as time went by
because she's quite a quiet person.
But she went out, you know, like many of the stories of missionary heroes that we've read,
she went out to Latvia with one suitcase and that's all she had.
And the way things unfolded, she ended up, she bought a house, she got established there
and when you heard the story of her ministry and the people that she'd impacted,
it was just incredible what God had done in her life.
But she was getting older and she was suffering with arthritis
and the winters in Latvia were not kind to her and she was really worried and fearful
about the coming winters and she felt with that and a number of other factors
that it was actually time for her to come home.
And so she contacted us and said, I want to come home, but I can't
because I can't sell my house, I can't.
There were all sorts of reasons why she couldn't do it and she just felt trapped.
And so I, along with another leader from the church, we went out to Latvia
to see her, to encourage her and to see what was going on out there.
And she said, I'd really love, I really need to be back before the winter,
before the snow sets in, but I just can't see how it's going to happen.
And there's me, you know, suddenly, sometimes you do open your mouth
and you hear what you're saying, don't you?
And I said, well, why don't we, you know, has God spoken to you
about coming back?
She said, yes, I believe he has, I believe it's time for me to come back.
And you've seen God's faithfulness to you every step of the way
through the whole of your journey, through in Latvia,
and you've seen his blessing on you, yes, I have.
I said, right, well, believe God now that he wants you to come back
and don't wait and see, well, what haven't, you know, if I sell my house
and this will happen and that will happen and the other happen,
book a flight and plan to come.
And I must have had a certain area of authority because she did it.
And she booked a flight a few months ahead.
I thought I felt really pleased with myself.
I felt like a man of faith for the hour.
And I knew that within a week or so, the house would be sold.
Of course, it wasn't.
And it kept on going and nothing changed.
She booked her flight.
She was planning, she was packing up her things.
She was working out how to get back to England.
But yet nothing happened in terms of selling the house.
It went on and on and on until she was due back on a Sunday
on a Ryanair flight.
And on the Wednesday of that week, she rang me.
She said, you'll never guess what's happened.
I've got a cash buyer for the house.
This is the only person that had ever shown any interest.
She'd not even had anybody look at it.
She'd not even had anybody ring.
She'd not had any inquiries at the estate agent.
There had been absolutely nothing until three days before.
How many between Wednesday and Sunday is?
Four days before she was due to come, she had a cash buyer for the house.
And she came home and got open the door to her future.
And I was just blown away by that.
And I still am when I think about that.
And it's one example that I can think of.
We've got one's active partnership in our faith.
We don't just have to wait and see.
There are things that we have to put into place.
There are things that we have to say.
Not we'll wait and see if it's your will, Lord.
But because it's your will, we will trust you.
And therefore, we will act in advance of even seeing these things
fulfilled.
So faith is not a game of wait and see.
Secondly, faith is not a young person's game.
Verse six of chapter seven.
I haven't read the first, but I was supposed to, but I haven't.
But you can read it in your own time at home.
Pete's going to go and watch the sermon later.
So follow his example.
Seven, verse six, Noah was 600 years old when the flood covered the earth.
Albert got away to go yet.
600 years old.
Who told you it was a young person's game?
Who told you that it was all to do with our life performance and our track record and our CV?
Faith is there.
For all that Sheila brought the word.
If you just want to reach up and take hold of Jesus' hand,
I could apply that to faith.
If you just want to take hold of faith, it's there for you.
The opportunity is there for you regardless of the circumstance,
the situation, the age, the background, the story, whatever.
Noah was 600 years old.
Faith is a gift.
We embrace it.
We adopt it and it can start today regardless of what has gone before.
Whether it's faith for the first time, putting your faith in Jesus for the first time, you can do that at any time.
It's not a great long build-up towards that.
Today is the day of salvation.
And when it comes to our trusting in God, maybe you know deep in your heart.
Like I said, we don't always go to faith and sometimes we never engage faith.
We just worry and we fear and we're anxious and we're just running circles sometimes.
Well today, there's an opportunity to stop.
Maybe you've said it's over.
Maybe you've got, maybe you feel 600 years old in faith.
There's a whole background of story behind you.
There's so much under the bridge, so many things you've seen, exciting things you can think of from the past.
Stories you could tell.
We just celebrated the 20-year anniversary of being in Unit 3.
Maybe you think back that time and think, those were the days, my friend.
We thought they'd never end.
I was waiting for you, Howard.
But not now.
That was then.
But now it's, well, we're just old.
We're just finished.
It's just watching. What else goes on?
Faith is not just, let me just say it's not a young person.
It's not just a young person.
We want a young people to be alive with faith.
We want a young people to engage with faith.
We want them to experiment, to journey on the adventure of faith.
That's the whole vision and the whole purpose, that we don't just teach young people Bible stories,
but they actually experience God for themselves.
But what about us?
In fact, their best chance of experiencing faith for themselves and the goodness of God for themselves
is what they see in us and what they see in those that have gone before
and what they see in those that are right there.
So whether we're 95 or whether we're 75 or whether we're young things like me,
there's an opportunity for us to engage in the adventure of faith.
Thirdly, faith is not easy.
Did you know that?
Noah's task was not easy or enjoyable.
It's a great story.
You know, Noah often only crops up in cartoons or Sunday school stories.
If you think about Noah, you either think of those sort of really bright, colorful cartoon drawings
that you see in children's Bibles or Evan Almighty, Steve Carell.
And it's a bit of a funny story.
It's an interesting story.
It's a fascinating story.
But actually, it was a real story.
Noah's task was not easy or even enjoyable.
God said to him, I want you to build an arc.
And he was, oh, fantastic.
Thank you, Lord.
Well, building an arc is not easy.
Didn't even have YouTube videos or anything to help him in the process.
Hard work and inconvenience.
Faith requires resilience, determination, hard work, doing things we'd rather not do.
How do you get two of every kind of animal onto a boat and then sail with them for a year?
It's not one of those things you're just going to say, oh, Lord, more, Lord, give me more.
I want more of this experience.
We're living with one puppy.
It's not easy.
It requires resilience, determination, and hard work.
And as I've said, doing things that we'd rather not do.
But that's the cordial.
Sometimes I think we think, well, faith is easy or faith should be exciting or faith should be something to jump up and down about and sing about and dance about.
Well, it is.
But in the reality, in the everyday, in the Monday to Friday, it's hard work.
I remember the day when we finally bought 146.
And Andy had set up this almost like an eBay auction for the place.
And we've got our bids and everything in place.
And it was in there.
And they kept extending the time.
And it was just seemed like to be going on forever and ever and ever.
And in the end, the countdown came down to zero and said, congratulations.
You have won the auction.
And everybody was celebrated.
Oh, we've done it.
God, it was amazing.
An amazing story of miraculous provision and faith.
It was such a celebration and an exciting then.
Looking forward.
Now this means that there is a bright future ahead.
There's all sorts of things that are going to be achieved through this building.
And there are all sorts of things that are going to be achieved through this building.
But here we are today from that moment of celebration up till today.
It's not actually all been dancing and singing as it, Andy.
It's been challenging.
It's been hard work.
It's been burdensome.
Sometimes when you sit and you scratch your head at a meeting this week with a lot of head scratching.
Celebration led to hard work, transforming communities, believing it and celebrating it is one thing.
Engaging faith and doing it is another.
And there are greater things that still to be done in this city.
But there's harder work ahead.
There's challenge ahead.
There are things that will put us off ahead.
Things that will make us think, actually there's an easier way to do life than this.
But in actual fact, there's no other way because without faith it's impossible for us to please God
into experiencing the experience, the fullness of God.
Number four.
Faith is trust without knowing the end of the story.
Noah did not know what was going to happen.
He built the ark according to God's instruction.
He gathered the animals according to God's instruction.
They got on the boat according to God's instruction and then God shut the door.
And that was it for a year.
Imagine what that is just bobbing about with an affectionate reference to Steve Wright in the afternoon.
Serious bobbing, no G.
Some of you know what that's about, some of you don't.
Bobbing about on the sea.
God shut the door without telling him what came next.
How do you feel today as you're looking forward with faith?
Can you trust God even if you don't know the end of the story?
Are we happy to trust God if we don't know the end of the story?
If we think, well if I know the end of the story I'll have faith, it won't be a problem.
But I'm just a bit anxious about not knowing what's going to happen.
Just a bit worried about the fact that it might not work out as I want it to.
It is tough and it is difficult.
And this can be applied in so many ways.
Not just to that but I read Steve Legg's book recently.
Steve and Becca Legg who spoke at our women's conference.
Our husband Steve, a friend of ours, he has terminal cancer.
And God is doing amazing things in their life.
But he's written a book about what it's all about.
And he was talking about Becca, his wife there and the things that she'd said.
And she realized she said that there are all sorts of things you have to come to terms with in the walk of faith.
And one of the things is that everything is going to be alright.
Everything is going to be okay.
But then she added it might not be the okay that I want.
But everything is going to be okay.
And that is really, really difficult when we're talking about faith not being easy.
To have faith in those circumstances.
I think of so many examples.
Noah is our big one today.
But Paul and Silas in the Macedonian jail.
They were imprisoned for preaching.
And they were put into chains.
They were flogged.
They were put into a dark dungeon.
The worst possible outcome for their life of faith you would think.
And their response was to sing songs of worship and praise.
And the thing is we know the end of this.
So we know that in the end that there was a miraculous deliverance for that jail.
But they didn't know.
In Hebrews 11.
Let me just quickly look up to the Hebrews 11.
It introduces us to the whole thing of faith and Noah and all the other characters.
You can find Hebrews quickly.
Nobody.
Not me.
Here it is.
Hebrews 11.
Go through it by faith, by faith, by faith.
Here we are.
Verse 32.
In Hebrews 11.
How much more do I need to say?
It would take too long to recount the stories of the faith of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jeff, David, Samuel and all the prophets.
By faith these people overthrew kingdoms, ruled with justice, and received what God had promised them.
They shut the mouths of lions, quenched the flames of fire, and escaped death by the edge of the sword.
Their weakness was turned to strength.
They became strong in battle and put whole armies to flight.
Women received their loved ones back again from death.
Amen, we say.
Then he says, but others were tortured, refusing to turn from God in order to be set free.
They placed their hope in a better life after the resurrection.
Some were jeered at, and their backs were cut open with whips.
Others were chained in prison.
Some died by stoning.
Some were sword in half, and others were killed with a sword.
Some went about wearing skins of sheep and goats, destitute and oppressed and mistreated.
Amen.
They were too good for this world, wandering over deserts and mountains, hiding in caves and holes in the ground.
All these people earned a good reputation because of their faith.
So faith takes you through every circumstance of life.
Faith takes you through the celebrations and the glory and the victory.
Faith takes you through the darkness and through the sadness and through the grief.
Faith is our calling.
Faith is trusting God without knowing the end of the story and how much we want the guarantees,
and yet he never, ever gives them.
Faith, fifth point, faith is lonely and it takes time.
Park life must have been weird.
There must have been a buzz about Noah's world where the God judged, where there was noise,
and there was activity, and there was celebration, and there was life,
and there was hundreds of thousands of people all going about their business,
and suddenly the flood came and there was silence.
There's not even a record of God speaking to them while they were in the ark.
One year in the boat, they just had to sit, trapped by their faith.
So faith is lonely and it takes time, and some of you can identify with that.
You know what it is.
You've put your faith in your trusting God, and things have panned out in a way that you think,
well, this is bleak.
Where is God in all of this?
But God was there.
God shut the door on the ark.
God put them in the ark.
God left them in the ark.
God had purpose for them in the ark.
He had a plan.
He had a future.
He had a vision of all that the future was going to look like
because of Noah's obedience, but in the middle of it all, Noah was just left there
with his animals and his wife and his children, probably in that order.
And he's just like...
It's not good.
It's not enjoyable, but it's where his faith took him.
And that can be the perfect description of our life.
Sometimes we're in the middle part.
We hear God, and we have faith in God, and we trust God, and then we put it into action,
and then there's just silence for a long time sometimes that just goes on.
And we can lose sight of what is ahead, because we're not thinking like that.
God is thinking about that.
He's thinking about the long-term vision.
We're just thinking about, well, how do we get through the next 24 hours?
Sometimes that's it. We're stuck there.
We have to just trust God in the process.
That is where faith really becomes real.
Can we give honor and glory to God in the middle of all of that?
Some of you will know, some of you won't.
A number of years ago we went to live in Zambia, and we had a decision to make,
and we decided to, in effect, burn our financial bridges.
We sold our house against advice, but it was a good decision.
We sold our house, and we basically put everything that we owned onto a ship,
and then sent it off on the ocean on a shipping container,
and we just turned up the four of us in Zambia, starting our new life that God had given us to live.
And yet things did not work out as we'd planned and hoped, and how much we look forward to,
and we had our gloriously victorious farewell services and all of that,
and all the excitement of everything else.
Very soon we were stuck in a very difficult situation,
where if we'd had a way out, we would have taken it,
but we didn't have a way out because God had shut the door.
And so we were left bobbing.
Bobbing up and down, not quite sure what to do,
and remember talking to a friend of ours,
a man who's just died recently called Dave Plale,
and he said, it seems, it was a very helpful word from guys,
it seems that God has got you over a barrel.
And you can't do anything, so don't do anything.
Don't make any decisions, don't try and fix it, just bob.
And sometimes that, as I said, is the perfect description of our life.
We're just in the middle of something.
But because we took that advice and we had no much choice to take that advice,
it did lead to an unfolding and an opening up
and an understanding of that God really is in control over the whole of our lives.
And yet it's in those moments of bobbing, in those moments of challenge,
in those moments of boredom, in those moments of wondering,
well, this doesn't look like faith, this doesn't look like victory,
this doesn't look like God is anywhere near where I am.
We can lose sight of our faith, but hold on if that is you this morning.
And so faith is not way to see, it's not a young person's game,
it's not easy, it is lonely, and it does take a long time to unfold.
And we need to make our decisions, and we can make our decisions this morning.
So like Sheila said, we can reach out to God, give me faith.
It's hard for me, Lord, but I choose to trust you.
I choose to trust you for my life.
I choose to trust you for my future.
I choose to trust you for my family.
I choose to trust you in my health.
I choose to trust you in everything because, Lord, that's what you've called me to do.
And for us as a church, we choose to trust God.
We don't know so many questions when it comes to leadership issues
and so many unanswerable questions.
What do we do? How do we how do we grow the church without the facilities?
How are those problems and yet God has called us to transform a community
and we can hold on to him without knowing all the answers
and without knowing the end of the story?
How do we do it? We hold on to Jesus and we reach out to him
and it takes us away from planning.
It takes us away from all the things that we try and achieve for ourselves.
It takes us away from our cleverness and our wisdom
and puts us in the hands of God.
Hold on to him because Noah was a man of faith and because of him,
because of that, he came to a point where the waters receded
and we shall get on to those.
As Chris takes it up next week, we'll get on to those
and we'll see how the world opened up and unfolded before him.
The journey of faith.
As the worship team come back, I want to invite them to come back.
I would like us to consider this word and to respond to the word of God
because faith is a need that we all have to get it right without faith
it's impossible to please God.
And yet it can be the biggest challenge in our lives because our hearts pull away
because we're fearful, because we're anxious, because we worry about stuff.
So easy to get into that.
What's our reaction when we read in the Bible it says,
don't worry about anything.
You think, oh well, that's easier said than done.
And as we worship, as we pray, I want you to make a response.
And sometimes we're very easy to say, well, you know, wherever,
if you want to just respond where you are,
respond in your own heart, I just feel it's important in terms of putting our faith into action,
that if you know that you need faith, if you know that you need strength for the journey,
if you know that you need the resources, if you feel, if you can identify with Noah
in all the difficulty and the challenge and the bleakness of his experience,
then I would invite you to come forward and to stand here and to pray.
And also as you do that, I believe there will be people here who,
maybe if you keep it quiet, keep it to yourself, you wouldn't know,
but I believe it's just a faith step of my own,
that people will have the word of God for you
and will be have an opportunity to share it with you.
And I want to encourage you, as people do respond,
and as we respond together, to also for us to pray together
and to seek God for his word for one another, because this is word that brings faith,
and it's word that inspires his word that encourages them in.
So just as Jonathan and the team begin,
I just want to make some space here, and I want to encourage you,
if there's anything in you, any measure of response,
did you want to say anything in?
Yeah, but I'll.
Yeah.
All right, okay.
Yep, you go for it.
Then do come forward, and we're more than happy to pray.