Introduction
Sometimes God asks people to do very strange things. Noah is perhaps a prime example. With hindsight it is blindingly obvious why he was told by God to build an enormous boat in the middle of dry land, we know what happened, but for Noah, all he had was God’s word. I don’t know how you feel when faced with stories of heroic men and women of faith like Noah, people who take God at His word. I feel both challenged and inspired. If I had been in Noah’s boots would I have had the faith, guts, determination to take God at his word? It is easy to put such figures on a pedestal and to think of them as being a different order of being, but they are flesh and blood human beings just like you and me. If you don’t believe me have a look at Gen.9:20 ff and see what happens when he plants a vineyard!
So where did Noah’s faith come from? Where did he find the grace to say “Yes” to God? There are two key phrases from the description of Noah that I want to focus on: “Noah walked with God” and he “did everything just as God commanded him”.
Walking with God Gen.6:9
In the brief description of Noah found at the start of the account of his life we find this telling phrase, he walked with God. We find this phrase earlier in the list of Noah’s ancestors, referring to Enoch. It seems there is a distinction between merely living and walking with God. Are there perhaps echoes of the passage we were looking at last week where we read of God walking in the garden in the cool of the evening (Gen.3:8). There is this sense of a companionable relationship between God and these people. As many of you will know I am a great fan of walking, taking our dogs out every day regardless of weather. Walking gives time for thinking and when in the company of others, conversation. Walking with God means keeping in pace with him and in touch with him, whatever the “weather”.
Repeatedly in the account of Noah we read that he “Did everything as God commanded him” 6:22, 7:5, 7:16. In the passage from chapter 8 we see his obedience in coming out of the ark and being fruitful. Noah had learnt the lesson which is drummed into army recruits, obey every command, even if to you it might seem ridiculous. This obedience to commands, saying “yes” to God, arose from the on-going walk with God. It is as Noah walked with God that he heard what God was asking / commanding him to do – the critical thing is, he did it. Just think of the consequences if he hadn’t!
The outworking of Noah saying yes to God is that God says yes to him. This is the basis of the covenant which God makes with Noah, the promise never to destroy the earth again. This is the first of a number of covenants found in the Old Testament all of which found their fulfilment in the new covenant sealed with the blood of Jesus which we celebrate week by week in our communion service.
As this is father’s day I wanted to close by looking at Noah’s role as father and how his relationship with God impacted that. We know that Noah was married and had three sons with their respective wives. Deborah was saying the other day that the S. American hymn-writer whom she is studying referred to Noah and seven families being on the ark, in his culture tribal roots can be traced equally through male and female lines. Noah’s obedience to God meant that the whole family of nations was blessed.