Introduction
One of the key elements of a good sermon is making sure you have a really good illustration.
For those of you that preach, I know I have had to only come up with 3 so far, but tonight I would like to take you into the world Noah.
Whole sermon is almost an illustration. But through it I would like to show you how a man of God made God smile.
You see we often loose track of the fact that God has emotions. He weeps he cries, he laughs and he smiles. He smiles because of us. We are his pleasure. Through our worship we not only bring him honor, but we make sure he has a good day. He smiled because of what Noah did. Pleasing by what we say and do is called Worship. Now Noah did not have a great praise and worship group onboard the ark – so how did he make God smile, how did he worship him and bring him pleasure. Lets listen as uncle Noah tells his story. See if we can identify 5 points that ensure we can please our father and make him smile. Lets listen to Noah and his testimony:
Noah’s Testimony
Good evening
My name is Noah, the son of Lamech, who was the son of Methusaleh, and he in turn was the son of Enoch… Now there was a man for you. Enoch. Walked with God he did. They say that one day he and God were out walking and God said: "Enoch, we appear to be closer to my home than yours, so why don’t you come on home with me?" Enoch, now there was a man to pattern your life after.
I have been asked tonight to come and tell you of the flood. Not that I get asked much else, I mean Noah and the Flood, that’s my only real claim to fame, I mean no one wants to know about Noah the Home Improvements guy its just flood flood flood…anyway...
Well The flood… I was a young man then. A mere 500 years old. I read your local newspaper while I was waiting for Craig this afternoon. I don’t have to tell you what a wicked place my world was, just look around you. Anyway I don’t want to dwell on what it was like. It was bad.
Hard to raise 3 boys in that kind of atmosphere. Shem, now he was my oldest. Then there was Ham, my 2nd born. And Japheth, he was my youngest boy. They were good boys. It was hard to raise them right in that evil world
But I suppose what saved us was that we loved God and I knew he loved me in the same way that I loved my sons. I was always telling them of God’s faithfulness and power and mercy and love. Even after they were married, we met regularly to worship. We’d offer up sacrifices, sing praises to God and bow our faces to the dirt in prayer we would just know we were in Gods love.
You have a writer that walked in the time of our Lord. Matthew was his earthly name. He said it just right. In that time we had to love God with our heart soul and mind and body. In the time of the flood, as Mathew described it for you now the most important thing in life.
One day, out in the fields I heard the voice of God. I don’t know how I knew it was God’s voice - I’d never heard it before. But He said to me: "Noah I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I’m surely going destroy both them & the earth."
Build me an ark 300 cubits long, by 50 cubits wide, by 30 cubits high. … Oh, I forgot, you folks probably don’t even know what a cubit is, do you? Well, a cubit was the distance from a man’s elbow to the tip of his fingers. But then you don’t need to know what a cubit is to know that was one BIG boat. Three stories high and longer than a field of grain.
I was a builder then. I built houses, chairs, small boats. You name it, if it was made of wood, I could build it. But still… I’d never taken on anything quite this big before. Wasn’t sure I could get it done. But like I said… doesn’t pay to argue with God.
Besides, down deep I knew He was right. This was a wicked generation and something had to be done.
We had to rely on that Love we had for God. We had to trust him. My family trusted me enough to come on board, excuse the PUN, and we had to rely on that trust implicitly. People camped outside the building just to watch the spectacle and laugh. We couldn’t go into town to buy supplies caus’ people would just throw stones at us and laugh. We had to rely on God for everything. We had to trust him for our very survival. It was tough days. I mean they really thought we were mad. So did I sometimes. I main you folk get your mind around this technological age so quickly; here was a man of 500 trying to get his mind around the concept of rain.
Didn’t matter though. The Boat had to be built… Still we had to work the fields. Had to supply for our families. It took nearly 100 years to build that ark. But when it was finished… best work I’d ever done. I have to admit - at 1st I didn’t think it could be done. Didn’t believe anything that big could ever float. But I tell you, when it was finished, I knew no water would ever get into that boat. I had used every ounce of my abilities to do what God wanted us to do. He had blessed our talents and our hands. We had the ability, and once we gave that to God and started using those abilities, things really came together. I mean we invented scaffolding.
God gave us the exact dimensions, the exact layout and every inch was planned. We built that boat exactly how God wanted it. That was part because we had to trust him as we had no clue how to build something like this and part because he was looking after things and he had a right to be obeyed.
He said he would bring us the animals, and he did not fail.
A week before the flood, God gathered birds of every kind, animals of every size every shape and every color. Once the animals and all my family were inside - God shut the door (pause). I can still hear the creaking of the hinges and the sound of the door as it locked into place. It had the sound of… finality.
And then it began to rain… And it rained, and it rained and it rained. After a while you could feel the boat lift off the ground and float free in the water.
Inside the ark was like Garden of Eden. Every imaginable animal was there. And the smell? Well, there was a smell. But you know, it wasn’t all that bad. Kind of got so I liked it. It was the smell... of life. Many of the animals slept most of voyage – hibernation I think it’s called. Those that didn’t became like close friends. They would follow us around. The birds - they were my favorite. I suppose the journey would have been fairly hard except for one thing… God was there. Even when He wasn’t talking to us – and He did talk with us – you knew He was there. You could feel presence and you could sense he was watching us.
You know the story of how we knew that it was almost time to get out of the ark. Olive tree sprig and so on. The day came though that God told us we would be let out the ark. We were on top of a very high mountain, and as we walked down out the ark we just gasped. A clean world as far as we could see.
That night we had a celebration. We laughed and we sang and we danced. Mother made a meal that was finer than any she’d ever prepared. I knew as I heard God’s promises he made to us with the rainbow that we had done good. We thanked him that night right through the night. He smiled on us from that day forward and we never stopped thanking him and praising him with sacrifice.
He knows each of you just like he knew me and the boys. He smiles when we do things his way. He made us to create pleasure in heaven and for himself. I mean what an honor what a wonderful gift. We can make him happy. You see building the ark was an aside. Giving him the pleasure and causing him to smile was what have me and the boys lives so much purpose. Now that’s the real thing about this flood story.
Summary and Link Up
As we continue thinking about this story….think of what Noah did that ensured God smiled on him. Smiled because of him.
Lets use our sermon notes to refresh our memories.
I thought we should highlight these concepts of how we make God smile by just highlighting some of the main thoughts in the form of a simple crossword puzzle.
NB Please review Illustration on Noah Sermon Notes for the crossword used for Sermon Notes
3 Down – What is worship
Noah worshipped his God. You can not deny that. Worship is not something the song group does. It is something that we do every day. Everything we do that brings pleasure to God is worship. We make him smile in any way, and that’s us worshipping him
2 Down – Gives you purpose
Keeping God pleased and smiling was Noah’s primary purpose in all the work that he did. He had to have a greater purpose than just building the ark. In the face of the kind of opposition he faced, he needed a higher purpose.
1 Across – Love had to be complete
Coupled with the need for a greater purpose, his love had to be complete – no room for any doubt or gap in his love for God. Remember he mentioned Matt. 22:27-28. Love him with our heart mind and soul. It was his unquestioning Love that was the first ingredient in him making his father smile. It held Noah close to God and ensured that he knew when God was talking to him.
4 Across – Implicit Trust
What trust. Firstly God asked Noah to do something that no only he had never done before, but also that head never been done before – ever. That ark was huge. No construction like it had ever been attempted. I mean this huge monstrosity had to float on water that would come from the sky and carry thousands of animals. Lord…..i mean come on. But Noah had so much trust in God, that he not only went about doing what was asked, he went out and tried to warn others. That’s how much he trusted.
1 Down - Obey
Oh how any father smiles when his children do as they are told. Noah did exactly. I mean coating the ark with tar, could have been ignored, but how long would Noah and his family stayed afloat on the highest seas in history - Noah according to scripture “DID JUST SO.” Our lord is pleased when we completely obey him. (Psa 147:11) Everything…. Complete whole.
4 Down – Talents (1 Tim 16:17) Given us – not just stuff.
Noah had specific talents. God blessed him with specific talents because he was man for the job… He has a job for us and has thus given us specific talents to do that job.
But it started with Noah. He showed he was willing and God blessed his efforts every step of the way.
I think this is a problem for many of us. Don’t be afraid to try different things for God. Try them and by tring and allowing God to push your gifts a little, you will discover the special ones He has given you to use. And once you find them use them. Noah did!
5 Across and 2 Down – Praise and Thanks
Noah did not shut up. He made sure everyone knew who was behind it all. He praised God every moment he could. He stepped off that boat and began thanking God. He sacrificed he danced he sang, but he lived the rest of his life thanking God. How often do we say a heartfelt thank you to god? How often do we make sure that people around us know that we praise God for everything that occurs. Make it your goal to be a well know thankful praiser of God. God knows we attribute the glory to him.
3 Across – Conclusion Smile
You challenge tonight is be Noah bold in you approach to pleasing God. We must love him, trust him, obey him, give him praise and use what talents he has given us. Make him your dad. Because you will then know that he is personal. He can cry. He can smile.
