As we walk through Hebrews 11, the third portrait in the gallery of faith is a painting of Noah. First of all, in this gallery we saw Abel in Genesis chapter 4. who was murdered by his brother Cain and buried in the ground. His blood cried out to God and still speaks to this day, the author says, of his righteousness. The second portrait in this gallery was Enoch. And we encountered him in Genesis chapter 5. Enoch walked with God by faith, and God took him without seeing death. And the third portrait In this gallery of faith in Hebrews chapter 11 is Noah and we find his portrait here in Genesis chapter 6. Let's read beginning in verse 9. Genesis 6 beginning in verse 9. This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God. And Noah begot three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth." Of course, there's much more about Noah. in Genesis chapters 6 through 9, but these verses I believe are God's estimate of this man. But the finishing touches on this painting are added by the author of Hebrews. You see them there at the top of your outline. He finished this portrait hanging in the Hall of Faith. He says, by faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. Now the author here in the book of Hebrews puts his finger on the foundation of Noah's life. His faith. In fact, this verse here in Hebrews chapter 11 begins and ends with faith. Now that's noteworthy. Hebrews chapter 11 is the hall of faith and the author attributes faith to every person who hangs in this gallery, but Noah alone is cited twice for his faith. Everything that we're going to talk about this morning, Noah's character, Noah's obedience, was the product of his faith. Faith was indeed the foundation of his life. Everything else was built upon it. First, I would tell you that this faith was nurtured in Noah by his father and his grandfather and his great-grandfather. His great-grandfather was Enoch. Now, Enoch only lived 365 years before God raptured him, so he was not still alive when Noah was born. But Enoch's son was Methuselah. You remember we talked about him a few weeks ago. He lived until the flood. His very name was a prophecy of the flood. Noah's father was Lamech, and his faith was displayed in naming Noah. Look back a page at Genesis 5 and verse 29. And he, Lamech, called his name Noah, saying, this one will comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands because of the ground which the Lord has cursed. Lamech looked back to the curse in Genesis 3, and I think he no doubt also looked back to the gospel promise that was connected with that curse, the gospel promise of a seed of woman who would be a deliverer. The name Noah means comfort, and I believe Lamech named Noah looking forward to the comfort that men and women would have when they experienced the promised seed and his deliverance from the curse. And so I think there's very little doubt that from even a child, Noah understood the gospel. He understood the promises of God, and he embraced them by faith. Now beyond this saving faith in the gospel promise of God, Noah believed the impossible simply because God had said it. According to verses 13 and 17 here, God told Noah that he was going to destroy every human being. but him and his family, in a worldwide flood. By the way, we're going to talk about this next week. I believe there were a billion human beings on earth at this point. Many times we read scripture and we think there were just a handful of people, you know. No, there were hundreds of millions of people at this point. We'll talk about it next Sunday. God told Noah, I'm going to destroy all of them. in a flood that takes in the entire world, and you're going to build an ark. What's an ark? No one had ever seen that kind of flood before. No one had ever seen a boat like that before. And yet Noah believed God, believed the impossible and set out to build a huge 450-foot ocean-going vessel. Get this, another boat that big, another ship that big was not built until the 1800s. When Columbus set off in the ocean blue in the Santa Maria, it was a much smaller ship than the Ark. We'll talk about this in a few minutes, but Noah invested more than 100 years of his life in building an ark to survive the kind of flood that no one had ever seen before or has ever seen since. Noah believed the impossible because God said it. I mean, what kind of faith does that? I mean, think about it today. The vast majority of human beings today take the Genesis flood as a fairy tale. You believe that? At best, it's a myth. It's a legend. Even many evangelical Christians believe that this flood was just a local flood. It just destroyed a few people. Why? Because they struggle to reconcile what the Bible says, what God says in his word, with what science has to say. And which do they opt for? I mean, when you think about it, we are in no different situation today with regard to what God says about the flood than Noah was. We can choose to believe God, what God says here in the book of Genesis, or we can choose to believe what modern science and modern scientists have to say. I can tell you which one Noah believed. Noah believed God. Which one will you believe? The great Baptist preacher, Charles Spurgeon, in his sermon on Noah's faith points out a third facet of Noah's faith. Noah didn't just believe God's promise, Noah also believed God's threatening. You know, there are a lot of evangelical Christians today, they love to speak about God's promises of salvation, God's promises of grace and mercy, God's promise to provide and uphold us, but they don't even want to say the word hell. And they certainly don't want to talk about the fact that God has promised to send those who reject the Lord Jesus Christ to the eternal lake of fire. Spurgeon put it this way, I quote, you cannot have faith in the promise unless you are prepared to have faith in the threatening also. He who does not believe that God will punish sin will not believe that God will pardon sin, unquote. There are too many hairy half-faiths and Henrietta half-faiths around today. The doctrine of hell will freeze your blood if you think it through. It ought to chill your soul. But don't shrink from believing what the Bible says about hell, lest you fail to believe what it says about heaven and salvation and Jesus Christ as well. Much of what Noah did, he did because he believed not only that God was going to deliver him from that flood through the ark, but also because he believed God's threatening God's warning that he was going to destroy all flesh in that flood. Another observation about Noah's faith. Noah believed God and his word when few, almost no one around him did, and the few were of his family. Not easy to believe when nobody else believes. I mean, that's one of the reasons that God gives us a local church. I think sometimes we don't value what happens here on Sunday morning. When we come and we sing hymns, we sang old hymns this morning, and we all sing them, and we sing them to each other, and we confirm our faith to one another, and there is tremendous value in that simple act. There's tremendous value when a person stands up here and sings a special on Sunday morning and everybody at the end says, Amen! I agree! That has value. That reinforces our faith. You know, there are people in this world, Christians in this world, they don't have that. Wes tells me from time to time about a a man in Norway that he corresponds with, he emails with, who does not know another single Christian face-to-face. Now that's not in an Arab country, that's in Norway. Noah is the patron saint of believers who have to stand alone. with no one, or at least very few, to reinforce their faith and encourage them. And then a final observation about Noah's faith. Noah continued to believe God year after year after year, even though there were no visible results of his faith. You know, for many people, Christianity is like a rabbit's foot. They expect that it's supposed to bring them good luck. They believe, and because they believe, they expect that means that nothing bad is going to happen to them. They believe, and because they believe, they expect that that means they're going to prosper. Everything they do is going to succeed. And I know people that believe like that, and when that doesn't happen, they're not Christians anymore. Noah's faith certainly wasn't like that. God told him, I'm going to send a flood, and I'm going to wipe out mankind, build an ark. And he didn't hear from God for another 120 years, as far as we can tell. 2nd Peter chapter 2 says that he was a preacher of righteousness. I don't think he ever had more than a dozen people in his church. We'll talk a little bit more about this in coming weeks. Think about this. Think about this. God left the door to the ark open for a week. Noah had been preaching for 120 years. The door of the ark was open as they shepherded the animals into the ark, and not one human being went through that door except for Noah's family. Hard to preach for 120 years with no results, I can tell you. from this side of the pulpit. But biblical faith, the kind of faith that Noah had, isn't based on success. It isn't based on results. It's simply based on what God has promised and said. That kind of faith takes us through difficulty, takes us through non-success, takes us through the times of difficulty. That's the kind of faith that Noah had. Now, I've called Noah's faith the foundation of his life, but you know, Beneath the foundation of most buildings, there is a substratum. You remember the World Trade Center? You remember those towers? They had a huge foundation under those two towers. But beneath the foundation, 65 feet below ground level, that foundation rested on bedrock. And in Noah's case, the substratum, the bedrock, was grace. God's grace. You see, we need to go back before our text here in Genesis chapter 6 verses 9 through 12 to find the true first cause in Noah's life. Look back at verse 8. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Now, as I mentioned, God's grace in Noah's life started many generations before he was born. That's the case with many of us who grew up in Christian families. We had grandparents. We had great grandparents who nurtured the faith of our entire extended family. And I'll tell you what, there is no greater legacy that you and I can inherit than that kind of a legacy of grace. Parents, grandparents, make certain that you are the conduit of God's grace in your family, that you pass on the inheritance of a godly faith in your family. In just a moment, I'm going to outline the character of Noah, his righteousness, his integrity, his godliness. I've already spoken in detail of Noah's faith, but we need to understand that God's grace came before all of that. God's grace was the cause of all of that. No person is ever righteous before God apart from God's grace in his or her life. Ephesians 2.8 lays out the order. By grace through faith. Which one's first? By grace. By grace through faith we're saved. By grace through faith we're justified. By grace through faith we're sanctified. It's always the same order. Faith was the foundation, yes, but beneath that foundation in Noah's life was God's grace. Let me put this another way because I want to make sure. This is easy to get confused with Noah. It's easy to think that God looked around that entire corrupt earth, all the people that he was going to destroy and say, because it makes these kind of statements again and again in chapter 6 and chapter 7 and chapter 8. Oh, there's a righteous guy. I'm going to pour out my grace on him. No, backwards. It's never that way. God didn't see his righteousness. God didn't see his character. God didn't see his obedience and decide to pour out in his grace on him. No, it's never that way. Rather, it was because God was gracious to him. And why was God gracious to him? Not because of anything that he saw in Noah's life. God was gracious because God decided that he loved Noah. And he poured out his grace on Noah, and therefore Noah believed, and therefore Noah developed character, and therefore Noah obeyed for 120 years. That's how it always is. Grace comes first. In fact, it's interesting. The first mention of the word grace, the first time the word grace is used in the Bible is in Genesis chapter 6 and verse 8. The first time that the word righteousness is used in the Bible is in verse 9, which comes first? Grace. God's grace is always the foundation of any righteousness in a person's life. Now, I've tried to be clear that grace was at work in Noah's life before he was born, but I believe that that that grace worked in Noah's life in a very particular way, a very peculiar way. I preached last Sunday about the plot of Satan to ruin the entire human race, not just spiritually, but even genetically, to poison the gene pool of the entire human race through fallen angels. And I observed last Sunday that Satan more or less succeeded in that plot. But part of God's grace in Noah's life was that God preserved him and his family from that demonic contagion. I believe that even extended to keeping the genetic makeup of Noah and his wife pure so that they could be the lineage of the seed of woman, the Messiah, the Christ. And so God was at work before Noah was even born, preserving that line, preserving that lineage. Now, built on this foundation of grace through faith was the character of Noah. And three elements of Noah's character are outlined here in Genesis 6 and verse 9. Noah, number one, was a just man. Number two, perfect in his generations. Number three, Noah walked with God. So first of all, Noah was a just man, and the word translated just there is the same word as the word righteous. He was a righteous man. As I said, this is the first use of the word righteous in the Bible. Now, the word righteous is used about a zillion more times in the Bible. So this is a really important concept, a really big idea in the Bible. And here's the problem right from the get-go. Righteousness in the Bibles is actually difficult to understand. And I'm going to tell you why. It's really actually pretty simple. The word is used very differently in the Old Testament than it is in the New Testament. Have you ever noticed that? In the Old Testament, righteousness is primarily a man-focused thing. It's an outwardly focused thing. In the Old Testament, righteousness is conformity to a standard. Conformity to a standard. And what would the standard be in the Old Testament? You can speak. What? Holiness is a standard too. What standard? The law of God. Okay, it's conformity to the law of God. Now, we get to the New Testament. And particularly in the writings of Paul, righteousness is a completely different thing. It's a God-centered thing. In fact, Paul, in the book of Romans, where he primarily talks about this, he calls it a God kind of righteousness. It's not any kind of righteousness that man can work up. No matter how good they are, no matter how much their life conforms to the standard of God's law, no, this is a God kind of righteousness. Where's the only place that a human being can get a God kind of righteousness? Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ worked a perfect righteousness. His life was perfectly conformed to the law of God. And God takes that righteousness from Christ's account the moment we are saved, and He puts it on my account and on your account. So when God looks at me, when God looks at you, He sees us as perfectly righteous. Now, if you understand what I just told you, you understand why the Jews were confused. Coming from an Old Testament background, The Jews thought that in order to be right with God, you had to do what? You had to keep the law. They didn't realize that it had to do with trusting their Messiah, so that the perfect righteousness of that Messiah would be theirs. But, both sides of this are true. Both kinds of righteousness are expected of us. Now stick with me, okay? First of all, if you and I are going to be right with God, we must trust Jesus Christ. How was Noah saved? By faith in what? God's promise. What promise? What? What promise? Genesis 3 and verse 15, that God was going to send the seed of woman, going to send a deliverer, a savior. Okay? And when Noah believed, what did God do for him? This is where it gets kind of non-intuitive. You say, I'm not sure I can believe that. Yeah. He put upon his account the perfect righteousness of Christ that Christ would, in the future, work for him. But then, because God had done that work, and we call that justification, okay? We call that justification. Because God had justified Noah, Noah set out in his everyday life to be righteous. to live righteously. You see, these two are supposed to be connected. If I trust Jesus Christ for the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ, and God puts that on my account, then because God has done that, I seek to live righteously. I seek to live in conformity to the moral law of God. I seek to live in conformity to the moral law of God, not in order to be saved, but because I have been saved, because I have been justified. So these two definitions of righteousness are both true, and they both need to be a reality in our lives. Now, we're never going to be perfectly conformed to the law of God until we are glorified But that's where all of us ought to be seeking to live our lives. Next, our text calls Noah perfect in his generations. Perfect in his generations. And again, that translation, perfect, is confusing. No human being can be perfect. Not even the Pope. Not even Donald J. Trump. And so when God calls Noah perfect here, we kind of scratch our heads and we say, how can that be? You see, the idea here in that word perfect is the idea of complete or whole. And that thought can take our minds in three different directions. So stick with me. OK, first of all, It has the idea that there was no area in Noah's character that was lacking. He was spiritually mature in every area. Now that is a mouthful. He wasn't perfect, but he was spiritually mature in every area. I mean, how many Christians are really that well-rounded, you know? Many Christians can be wonderful servants in the church, but they neglect their homes and their wives and their children. How many can be theologically mature? They can discuss every aspect of Christian doctrine, but they don't really have a lot of love for others. You see what I'm saying? It's hard to be balanced, isn't it? It's hard to be that well-rounded. And that's what this is saying about Noah. He was spiritually mature in every area. And then in the second place, Noah had integrity. And I think sometimes we equate integrity with honesty. That's really not the idea of integrity. Integrity means that something is the same all the way through. What you see is what you get. Again, many Christians have a wonderful reputation, they have a wonderful testimony, but that's because they've done a good job of hiding certain faults and certain secret sins. Some Christians are known in their church for their spirituality or for their service, but their co-workers don't have the same view of them because they're not the same person at work that they are at church. They praise Jesus at church and then take His name in vain on the website, or on the worksite. Noah was a man of integrity. He was the same all the way through. The same in every part of his life. And then this word takes us in a third, very different direction. You see this word perfect was actually used most often in the Old Testament to describe the sacrifices that the law of Moses demanded. Those sacrifices, those animal sacrifices, lamb and sheep and goats and bullocks, those sacrifices had to be Perfect, meaning they couldn't have any blemish. The animal couldn't be wounded in any way. The animal couldn't have any congenital birth defects. The animal couldn't have any kind of a disease at all. It had to be perfect. So that's how the word is used. Now, think about that meaning of the word And go back to the phrase that's used here in verse 9 where it says, Noah was perfect in his generation. He was unblemished, undiseased in his generation. Now, what do verses 11 and 12 tell us about his generation? What word is used three times in verses 11 and 12 to define Noah's generation? Corrupt. That word corrupt is normally used in a spiritual sense, but there's a handful of times in the Old Testament when it's used in a physical sense, a physical corruption. And I believe that part of what this word is saying about Noah is that the rest of that generation had been genetically corrupted, but God had preserved Noah from that corruption. He was unblemished. He was undiseased. His gene pool had not been affected so that he and his wife could be the line for the coming Messiah. And then there's a final element in the description of Noah, and it is primarily in Hebrews 11 and verse 7, the verse that I have printed there at the top of your outline. There we're told that Noah moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household by which he condemned the world. Now we've been speaking of Noah's character, and character normally is something that's more internal. Now we're going to talk about how that character was displayed in his actions, in his obedience. Now Hebrews 11 and verse 7 first of all reveals the motive for his obedience. He was moved with godly fear. Fear of God. Another confusing topic. We often debate about, what is the fear of God? And oftentimes, we're told that it means reverence. And I think that's part of it. And I actually think that this is part of the fear of God that's been lost today in evangelical circles. I mean, you look at the worship in the average evangelical church, and it doesn't have anything to do with revering or honoring God. It has everything to do with pleasing me and what I want. So I really do wish that we had more of that kind of fear of God. I don't even think there's a lot of that around today. But I think what Hebrews 11 and verse 7 is talking about here is something that is a motive for action. Noah believed God when he said that he was going to destroy all the inhabitants of the earth And he feared lest that same fate overtake him and his family. And so that fear motivated his obedience to God's command to build the ark. See, sometimes we think that the fear of God is anything but real down-to-earth fear. But I've got to tell you, real down-to-earth fear is part of fear of God. It's part of the fear of the Lord. Noah feared That fate, it was part of what motivated him to build that ark. Do you find that kind of motivation in the New Testament? What does Jesus say about lust in Matthew chapter 5? If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you, for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell. Let me ask you, do you believe Jesus when he says that? Is that just hyperbole? If you believe what Jesus says, then you fear. It motivates action. It motivates us to wrestle with sexual temptation because we fear the fate that Jesus threatens might overtake us. There is an element of real fear in the fear of God. I don't know what kind of father you had, but I had the kind of father that I loved and I feared. And I think that's part of what you and I ought to feel when we think about an eternal God who holds us in the palm of his hand. I like the way C.S. Lewis puts it. He's not a safe God. And I want you to notice that Noah didn't just fear for himself. It says, moved with godly fear, he prepared an ark for the saving of his household. So he feared for his family as well. And that's part of what motivated him to act and to obey. Oh, listen, Christian parent, Christian grandparent, godly fear ought to drive you and me as well with regard to our grandchildren, our children. We ought to fear for their souls. We ought to be raising them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We ought to be shepherding their hearts and pointing them to Jesus and the grace and mercy of God. Godly fear will motivate us to do that. And godly fear will motivate us outside of our families as well. Godly fear will motivate us to share the gospel. Some of you are familiar with what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5.11. He says, knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. If you and I really have anything for the souls of other human beings, then part of what we feel for them is the fear that they are on their way to hell. And that fear ought to motivate us to point them to the ark. God's prepared an ark. His name is Jesus. Make sure you get in the ark. I'm sure that's what Noah said. I'm sure that's what Noah preached. Godly fear will motivate us to share the gospel. And then Hebrews 11 and verse 7 reveals the nature of his obedience. It was a peculiar kind of obedience. Noah prepared an ark for the saving of his household. And I don't know where I heard this phrase. I'm sure it's a quotation from somebody. His obedience was a long obedience in the same direction. A long obedience in the same direction. When God first took note of mankind's corruption, this is what he said in Genesis 6 and verse 3. You have it in front of you. My spirit shall not strive with man forever, For he is indeed flesh, yet his days shall be 120 years." God gave mankind 120 years to repent before he sent the flood. And obviously, he gave the same length of time to Noah to build that ark. Now, I think sometimes people, you know, they may say the idea of Noah building that ark, but let me ask you. How many years would it take you to figure out how to become a really good carpenter? 10 years? 20 years? 30 years? 40 years? Well, listen, Noah could have taken 40 years and still had 80 years to build the ark. 120 years. You know, we congratulate men and women today when they have spent 50 years in God's service. Noah spent more than twice that. See, part of the Christian life is endurance. It's keeping on, keeping on. A long obedience in the same direction. And in Noah's case, it was a long obedience in the same direction in the face of opposition. Because Noah's obedience was also a very public obedience. A very public obedience. How do you hide a 450 foot ark? You know, we have believers today, and I think many of them around us, we don't know it, who believe that their Christian faith is a private matter. It's not anybody else's business. You might be one. Anybody at your workplace know that you're a Christian? You're a private Christian. Jesus said what? He said, Only if you confess me before men will I confess you before my Father who is in heaven. You know, I think it's pretty easy if you let your imagination go a little bit to imagine the kind of jeering that must have become commonplace for Noah. Hey, Noah! I hear you're taking all the animals on that big wooden boat. Does that include the woodpecker? Hey, are you taking any termites with you? That was pretty fun, wasn't it? Hekla Noah. It was probably a pastime there wherever he lived. The great biographical preacher Alexander White imagines that Noah hired men outside of his family to help him build the ark. I'd never thought of that. But if that were the case, if Noah did hire workmen, then certainly it became common knowledge what he was building and why he was building it. And I guarantee you that Noah would have heard about it. In fact, I think it's probable that the opposition went beyond mere words. I mean, think about this. It says that this arc was made of wood with pitch inside and out. Now, you know what pitch is, right? That's tar, OK? You get some good old boys there that lived in Noah's neighborhood, you get them drunk on some of that beer that they were making back then, it might seem a good idea to go and set that bow to blaze. We're going to have a big bonfire tonight. In fact, Martin Luther believed that Noah's life was in danger. that it no doubt went that far. A long obedience in the same direction against opposition. That's what we are called to. And then there's a final phrase in Hebrews 11 and verse 7. that tells us that by building the ark, Noah condemned the world. And that final phrase explains the effect of his obedience. Now, I mentioned a moment ago that 2 Peter chapter 2 calls Noah a preacher of righteousness. But our text here in Hebrews 11 assures us that the greatest sermon that Noah ever preached was building the ark. When men learned that Noah was building the ark because God was going to judge and destroy the world in a flood and all of its inhabitants, it was a thunderclap of a sermon. Without Noah ever saying a word. Do you wonder sometimes why people who do not follow Jesus Christ cannot just leave us Christians alone? Do you ever wonder that? Do you ever wonder why more Christians die for their faith every month than any other religion on earth by far? It's because eternal judgment is part of our faith. To tell somebody, I know that I have eternal life because I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins and rose again to give me eternal life without saying a word That communicates to them, since they've rejected Jesus, that they're condemned to an eternal hell. It makes no difference that they claim not to believe in Jesus, that they believe that Jesus was a religious charlatan. It makes no difference that they claim to believe that there's not a heaven and there's not a hell. Simply by practicing our faith, we still condemn them, even if we never say a word of condemnation. Just by what we believe and who we are, we condemn the world. Now, I don't know about you, I've never thought of Noah as a hero of the faith before. I really never have. I blame it on Sunday school teachers, you know? Noah was just always, you know, kind of a cartoon character to me, you know? And that's my fault. But Noah is a hero of the faith. Noah's life and his character and his obedience are a challenge to us all. But it all started with God's grace. Grace through faith. And in Noah's case, it was faith in a simple gospel promise of God, the promise of a Deliverer. In our day, it's a little different because the Deliverer has come. Our promises, I think, are more sure. But it's still a matter of grace through faith. Have you put your faith in Jesus Christ? That's the start of all of this. Jesus died to bear your sin. He rose again to give you new life, eternal life. Have you trusted Him? Have you confessed your sin and turned from that sin to follow Him? Have you decided in those two ways for Jesus? If you're not sure, make sure. Jesus is the ark. The flood of God's wrath is coming. When Jesus comes back, which could be at any moment, the flood of God's wrath will begin. The door to the ark is open. Are you sure that you've gone inside? That you've trusted Jesus to forgive your sin? and you've confessed your sin, turn from that sin and turn to follow Jesus, are you sure? If not, make sure right now.