Are You A Family Of Faith? Series

This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth. Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. This is how you are to build it…”(Genesis 6:9-15)

The Lord then said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.”

And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him. Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters came on the earth. And Noah and his sons and his wife and sons’ wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. (Genesis 7:1-7)

I know of no aspect of life that can bring greater joy and greater frustration than trying to Build Winning Families. Strong, winning families don’t just happen. They are the product of a Biblical pattern, unwavering perseverance, and authentic living.

Divorce, abuse, and single parent families all mark the perilous nature of families in our day. Isn’t it time we got back to the blueprint of how to Build Winning Families? Today’s message will do just that.

We’re all familiar with the marketing concept, “Learn to think outside the box.” In everyday language it suggests expanded thinking. It is used in the corporate world as a metaphor to get a manager to think more creatively. The food industry has saddled this analogy and ridden it to million dollar sales. I am going to ask you to think outside the realm of the familiar, to think outside the box.

Remember this important truth: God may want to use your family in an unusual way. God wants to use your family as an instrument of His grace through which He can unleash His creative plans and projects. The story of Noah is an excellent illustration of this. Will you, like Noah, respond with obedience? Or will you succumb to Satan’s subtle hissings that everything is okay? Will he lull you to sleep with his trappings of deception? Christians in America are being lulled to sleep even as I speak.

Will you “get off the dime” and be used of God to rescue the perishing? My prayer is that the following insights will startle you enough to make the appropriate changes in your life.

Ø Addiction and pornography is a national epidemic among Christian men.

Ø One Christian author states that the divorce rate in the church is now 8% higher than among the people of the world.

Ø Billy Graham’s research says that at least 90% of all Christians in America are living defeated Christian lives (1).

As Americans, if we are truly honest with ourselves, we can come to only one conclusion: America is in trouble. The people of Noah’s day were in trouble, and we are in trouble. But God has a message of hope that provides us with His wisdom about what to do in these perilous times.

Families of Faith Learn How to Win in Difficult Times

God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people eon earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.” (Genesis 6:12-13)

Noah lived in a time remarkably similar to ours. People in Noah’s day were hardened toward spiritual matters, and that would be a fair assessment of our culture today. Headlines in the morning paper or the evening news telecast remind us how difficult and cynical the world can be.

The opening verse of chapter 6 tells us that the population in Noah’s day was increasing. It has been suggested that as many as one million people lived on the earth at that time. When the number of people increases, you can be sure that in a fallen world problems are not far behind. When people increase problems increase.