Genesis 6:11-22; 7:24; 8:14-19
Matthew 7:21:29
“All Aboard”
By: Rev. Kenneth Emerson Sauer,
Pastor of Parkview United Methodist Church, Newport News, VA
www.parkview-umc.org
Interestingly enough, the name Noah has become fairly popular.
One day I was in a mall and spotted a cute little boy walking along side his mother.
“What a beautiful child you have,” I told the woman.
She smiled and I asked her what his name was.
“Noah,” she replied.
Thinking I was being cute…and thinking that the woman would know what I was talking about as well, I proceeded to say: “Noah walked with God.”
Well, the woman started looking a little worried. She was no longer smiling as she picked up Noah and scurried on down the hallway of the mall.
Noah is a cute name for a baby.
And…whether we are churched or unchurched…
…whether we know our Bibles or not…
…the story of Noah has become kind of a children’s story.
Just about everyone knows the story of Noah’s Ark.
It’s one of the first Bible stories we learned as children…
…and for some…
…it may be the only Bible story we learned as children.
There is something about all those animals lining up and going into that big boat that just lends itself to being told as an illustrated children’s story.
We teach our children songs about the animals going in “two by two.”
We decorate their rooms with pictures of smiling cartoon animals coming to enjoy a boat ride…and there is nothing wrong with this.
We know the story, but do we know what the story is really about?
When we ask ourselves these questions…when we dig a bit deeper…we discover that this is anything but a children’s story.
Instead, it is a profound passage of Scripture.
We are told that God saw how terribly wicked humankind had become “and that every inclination of the thoughts” of our hearts were only evil all the time.
That’s it. The people were evil and nothing else. There was no other inclination.
There was corruption and the world was filled with violence.
Sounds like complete anarchy.
But there was one man who did not succumb to the world’s corruption. He was a pacifist in a war torn world.
His name was Noah, and he was righteous and blameless… “and he walked with God.”
So Noah is given the task, by God, to build an Ark within some very exacting dimensions.
It’s going to be a big Ark.
It sounds like a daunting task especially since God has even instructed Noah to fill the Ark with enough food to feed everyone.
But we see in verse 22 that “Noah did everything just as God commanded him.”
Now we know that it took about 100 years for Noah to build the Ark, and he built it in a desert.
Can you imagine what Noah’s neighbors must have thought and said?
Can you imagine what an outcaste Noah had to become in order to do what God had commanded?
Can you imagine the ridicule, the laughs, the jeers?
Can you imagine yourself plowing forward in the face of so much adversity?
How often have we been called by God to fulfill some great task, but as soon as we feel the sting of disapproval from the world…we stop!
We are surrounded by an enormous community of folks…
…old persons, young persons, families with children who do not know the love of God that comes through a saving relationship with Jesus Christ…
…and we are called to reach out to them…to invite them to church, to Sunday school, to invite them into the Kingdom of God.
We know that this is what God wants us to do, but it’s so easy for us to make excuses and justify our inactivity.
I’m too shy.
I’m worried I might offend someone.
I don’t want others to think of me as one of those ‘religious fanatics’.
I want the best of both worlds…
…I want to know Jesus, but I want to be part of the world as well.
Are we building our Arks according to our call?
The Ark, in the case of Noah, was indeed God’s means of salvation!
And, in building the Ark, Noah was building…so to speak…the bridge between life and death, salvation and damnation…he was being obedient to God’s provision to save…if not all, at least some.
“Go into the ark,” God instructed Noah, “you and your family, because I have found you righteous in this generation.”
Would not God have said this to any and all…if only they had repented of their evil ways and turned to the Lord?
Would not God have been able to make enough room for everyone in that Ark…had everyone desired to live instead of die in sin?
Make no bones about it, we make our choices and we must live with them.
We know right from wrong…
…we ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…
…it’s so easy to make excuses, to ignore the voice of Truth, and to run with the pack!
The Ark only had one door.
But that door was big enough for all to come aboard…had they sought the Lord.
Noah’s neighbors had 100 years to repent, but only Noah and his family entered the Ark…
… “Then the Lord shut” them “in.”
The Lord shut the door to the Ark.
Noah, his family and the animals were inside…
…no one else could get in once “the floodwaters came on the earth.”
Let’s keep that in our thoughts as we look at the Gospel Lesson that Virginia read earlier this morning.
In Matthew chapter 7 Jesus tells us: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”
Could anything be worse than to have the Risen Christ give us a blank stare?
Could anything be worse than to have the Risen Christ tell us plainly, “I never knew you.”?
I would much rather be swallowed up by the floods.
And yet Jesus tells us that not all of us will make it.
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”
Salvation is by faith and not by works, but real salvation is lived out in faithful obedience.
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, struggled to be right with God.
He prayed, studied the Scriptures, performed good works, and preached the Gospel, but he found his trust in God severely lacking.
Wesley continued his struggle until May 24, 1738, when he went very unwillingly to a society meeting on Aldersgate Street.
There someone was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans, when, “about a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ,” Wesley writes, “I found my heart strangely warmed.
I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation: And an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”
It’s about trusting God isn’t it?
Noah trusted God.
He was faithful to God even in the midst of extreme apathy, total corruption and horrible violence.
He was asked to build an Ark in a desert.
He was obedient.
And while inside that Ark, as the flood waters rose, and there was no more dry land… “Only Noah” and his family were left… “But God remembered Noah.”
Being recognized has a lot to do with our self-esteem.
Just think of the lengths people will go to be recognized by their fellow human beings.
What lengths are we willing to go in order to be recognized by God?
What motivates us?
Why are we doing what we do?
Are we visiting the sick, bringing food to the shut-in…
…or are we too caught up in ourselves to give time to serving the Risen Christ?
I was having a conversation with our district superintendent, Myrtle Francis Hatcher, early last week.
Myrtle said to me: “Isn’t it interesting how we come into this world completely absorbed by ourselves?
We don’t care a thing about other people.
When we want to eat we cry—at any hour of the night—not worried in the bit that mom and dad need their sleep.
When our diaper needs changing, we want it done now!
If we have some gas, we will wake the entire household and let them know.”
Then we talked about, how, God’s plan for us in Christ, is to be on the journey of moving outside of ourselves…of becoming selfless instead of selfish.
And my friends, this can only begin to occur when we set our eyes upon Christ, and are obedient to Him.
Are we being obedient to God in the midst of apathy, corruption, and violence?
Are we walking with God?
John Wesley realized that his good works could not bring about his salvation, but even after his heartwarming experience he never ceased to do them.
His continued faithfulness to God in acts of justice and compassion were a result of his salvation.
Many people today affirm the basic creeds of the Church, and even refer to Jesus as “Lord.”
They do their work in the name of Jesus, their ministry that is.
But therein lies the problem—it’s their ministry, not God’s.
They are placing self rather than Christ at the center.
I know that most of us are guilty of this from time to time, that is why we must day by day reorient our lives toward God.
How serious are we about what we believe and how we live?
Are we giving lip service and building our house on shifting sand?
Or is our walk with God a serious one where our earnest desire is to want to know God’s will and then do it?
Noah lived out his salvation in faithful obedience.
He built that Ark despite what the weatherman had to say.
Hebrews Chapter 11 tells us that “By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark…”
In 1st Peter Chapter 3 we are told that “God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built…”
And in Matthew Chapter 24 Jesus tells us: “in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark…”
There was only one way into the Ark—only one door.
And when, after every opportunity to repent had been offered over and over again, the time came for God to shut the door.
What are we building our houses…our lives on?
Are we trusting in God or only in self.
Are we wise or foolish?
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven…”
Will Jesus know us, as ones who have come aboard the Ark, shall we say, as ones who have done the will of the Father in Heaven…
…or not?
