A Righteous Man

A Righteous Man

Genesis 6: 9-22 (NLT)

Intro is taken almost verbatim from Jeff Strite’s sermon, I Noah Man, sermon central.

Intro: As I was preparing for this sermon, I ran across this list.

"All I Really Need To Know I Learned From Noah's Ark"

. Noah didn't wait for his ship to come in, he built one.

. Plan ahead. It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark.

. Stay fit. When you're 500 years old, someone might ask you to do something REALLY big.

. Speed isn't always an advantage. The cheetahs were on board the ark, but so were the snails.

.Remember that the ark was built by amateurs and the Titanic was built by professionals.

. No matter how bleak it looks, if God is with you, there's always a rainbow on the other side/

. And above all else... don't miss the boat.

.There are many things to be learned from this story of Noah and the Ark, but most folks won't learn them because they don't believe what the Bible said about it.

.The Bible is very clear about the facts of the story:

.Mankind had become unbelievably evil... so much so that God was grieved and filled with pain and decided to send a flood to destroy all of mankind. BUT God found one man named Noah, and his family, who were worth saving.

.God instructed Noah to build a huge box of a boat called an ark and brought the animals to be saved to Noah. The floods came, the ark rose, and the whole earth was covered with water. Noah and his family stayed on board the ark for the better part of a year, and once they came off the boat God promised He'd never flood the earth again.

.I don’t really understand why so many refuse to believe the story of Noah and the ark.

. Over 270 cultures around the world still have ancient stories about a great flood, and most of them tell the same story:

. Man became corrupt

. The Flood was worldwide

. Eight people were survived the flood

. Representatives of all land animals were saved

. A dove was released to find dry land

. The survivors came down from a mountain to repopulate the whole world

. And the hero's name is often a variant of Noah:

Nu-u; Nu-Wah; Noh, Nos; and Nuh

.Historians have a rule of thumb they follow when encountering stories that are repeated across many cultures which seem to agree on so much. If there are this many facts that agree... the story's probably true.

.Now, the question for us this morning is this:

.What does God want US to learn from this true story?

There are many things we could learn from this story, we could concentrate on God’s judgment for disobedience, His love for his creation in saving the animals along with mankind, we could look at the wicked world that Noah lived in and compare and contrast with our society today.

. What I want us to look at this morning is why God chose Noah.

. What does a righteous man look like? We looked at some of these aspects when we looked at Enoch a few weeks back.

. Our scripture this morning tells us how one becomes righteous and how they should act after they become righteous.

. I believe that many are confused and how one becomes righteous and how they should conduct themselves as righteous people.

. Let’s look at the story of Noah.

. 9This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, the only blameless person living on earth at the time, and he walked in close fellowship with God.

10Noah was the father of three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

11Now God saw that the earth had become corrupt and was filled with violence.

12God observed all this corruption in the world, for everyone on earth was corrupt.

13So God said to Noah, “I have decided to destroy all living creatures, for they have filled the earth with violence. Yes, I will wipe them all out along with the earth!

14“Build a large boat from cypress wood and waterproof it with tar, inside and out. Then construct decks and stalls throughout its interior.

15Make the boat 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high.

16Leave an 18-inch opening below the roof all the way around the boat. Put the door on the side, and build three decks inside the boat—lower, middle, and upper.

17“Look! I am about to cover the earth with a flood that will destroy every living thing that breathes. Everything on earth will die.

18But I will confirm my covenant with you. So enter the boat—you and your wife and your sons and their wives.