Vision - Noah
Seeing with the knowledge of your heart and soul
“Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.” What a powerful description of a man’s life….
That is the kind of quote I would like to have on my Spiritual resume. You know, the stuff they keep on file about you in heaven. We are going to take the next few weeks and look at some of our Biblical forefathers and their concept of vision. We are going to look for the signs of how important vision is in the lives of believers and how it should shape our lives.
Let me define the type of vision I mean. I am not talking about how we see with our eyes. Not the 20/20 stuff that most of us don’t have without correction of glasses or contacts. I am talking about Biblical vision, seeing with the heart and mind. We might say Spiritual vision, it is the ability to see and hear with something that God gives you. It happens with the gift of the Spirit. Some might call it discernment, the ability to understand things that others don’t always see or feel.
Most of us have already made up our minds that we don’t have any Spiritual vision. In a way it scares us and we are afraid that if it was true, EVERYBODY would think we were weird. Some doubt the gift and think that they need spiritual glasses to really see clearly. Most of us don’t believe what we feel and see and handicap the vision that God gives.
But, what is vision?
Phil Grant describes Spiritual Vision this way, he said:
A vision is the dominant factor that governs your life.
It determines all the choices you are making.
It’s what’s left after all the layers are peeled away like an onion.
Clinging like glue to the inside of your rib cage...
It’s what your mind naturally gravitates toward when it is not legitimately concentrating on something else.
It’s ... what determines your friendships and your relationships that you are cultivating ...
It’s what your prayers are about--what you dream about and are giving money toward.
Citation: Phil Grant, Leadership, Vol. 15, no. 3.
Mr. Grant seems to be describing an obsession. When a person is open to spiritual vision they become focused and live and breath in expectation of the vision of God. When they know God’s will they want to get in line with his work.
- From our scripture this morning we know that God was angry at how his creation was turning out. Corruption and violence were everywhere. It affected everybody except this fellow named Noah Zark. That is the way I have always heard it pronounced…Noah Zark. Well, Let’s move on.
So Noah heard from God. The scripture says, “God said” That sounds very direct to me. God told him what he thought about the world and that he was going to destroy man kind and t earth…
You know that Noah must have been a faithful man or perhaps polite, because he did not interrupt God when has days “Put and End to all people.”
All when God says it means ALL. An logically that includes Noah and family…But God immediately gives Noah the plan to build a boat, an Ark.
So, Noah heard from God and obeyed the Lord’s command to build an enormous ship. This was no little raft or row boat. This was a big; really big building…… it was bigger than any thing that would have been constructed on the sea at this era in time. The shear size of the project would have been astounding. Picture yourself building a boat the length of one and a half football fields and as high as a four-story building. The neighbors are going to think you went nuts.
When Noah started the project, he was acting out of faith in God. Faith in the promises that God offers to those that will obey his commands. That means that God would give all the tools necessary. Long life, raw materials, good health all needed to complete this fantastic undertaking.
Let’s look at his background. Noah, whose name means rest, was the grandson of Methuselah. Noah is said to be the connecting link between the old and the new world. He is the second great father of the human race. It wasn’t until Noah was 500 years old that his sons were born – they were Shem, Ham & Japheth.
He was known as a “just man, perfect in his generation,” and one who “walked with God”.
Noah was one of thoes guys that was probably a good neighbor. It appears that everybody liked him, he is said to be blameless among the people. Except for that one flaw, he is a little crazy, because he thinks that God told him to build a really big Boat. The building of the ark takes around 80 years… A giant boat the size of a decent shopping mall with 3 floors, build hundreds of miles from a body of water where it could actually float.
Yep, after he had kids, he went nuts… I think a lot of us can agree on that point in our lives, but not all of us would respond in the same way.
Folks – the Ark is a sign from God to all thoes that lived around there that something big was going to happen.
The ark is an offering of salvation to two floods. In the first event, the ark is a giant bill board which is an automatic discussion starter. Any one passing by is going to notice a 4 story building and stop and ask questions. Noah and family would have to explain what God was going to do and why….
That is called evangelism, or perhaps it would have been a call to repentance.
The second offering of salvation from a flood is the physical. The obvious save place to ride out the storm and rising water. Today we are looking at the less obvious thought.
The first flood has been going on for hundreds of years as the world goes sprinting down hill as a fallen people headed toward destruction. Noah’s world was flooded with evil and everyone was affected, except Noah. He was still righteous, God was still proud of him and how he lived.
God has declared that destruction is coming and gives the world an 80 or more year last chance while Noah builds the boat. The ark is a huge exclamation point in God’s warning. Because, how can you miss seeing the boat….everybody is talking about it.
Let’s review what is happening, God has informed Noah that He regrets having created mankind. As a result him is going to wipe mankind along with the animal kingdom off of the face of the earth. He is going to use water to wash all the evil from the earth and have a pristine, clean world. (sounds like baptism)
God then informs Noah that He is going to preserve him and his family IF, and here’s where the vision begins, IF Noah will build an ark 450’ long, 75’ wide and 45’ high! Now why in the world would God ask anyone to build an enormous ship hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean?
It was because God was giving anyone who would pass by this unbelievable structure something to think about. . When Noah’s neighbors to out to stroll through the neighborhood for fresh air or when they head off to work they have to consider wither Noah is crazy or if he really knows something.
Either way, Noah was the man whom God had called upon to do His work. For Noah, obedience meant a long-term commitment to a project. Many of us have trouble sticking to any project for more than a few weeks, whether or not it is directed by God.
Isn’t it interesting that the length of Noah’s obedience was similar to our expected life span today. For over 80 years Noah worked at constructing the Ark. He put us with the questions. He listened to people whisper about how he thought GOD spoke to him. And still he lived a life time of obedience to God’s work.
Perhaps this is one great challenge Noah’s life gives us—to live, in gratitude of God’s grace, an entire lifetime of obedience to Him.
How does a man, for a period of 80 to 100 years, constantly preach God’s Word, warn against God’s coming judgment and build an ocean liner all at the same time?
Can someone please tell me how this can be done? Because, if it had been me, I think I would have told God to just include me in the flood because there’s no way I could do it. And this story shows how little people change. No matter how long and hard the pastor works, it does not guarantee success. The people rejected God and were already EVIL and they failed to respond to all of Noah’s actions.
Noah was able to faithfully fulfill God’s will because He had received God’s vision for his life.
If a Christian wants to experience life as God intended, then he or she had better be seeking God’s vision for his or her life because it’s vision that give us purpose, it’s vision that drives us and it’s vision that enables us to live above the rat race of this era where we are never noticed.
If we are not interested in God’s vision for us and willing to embrace HIS plan then we are never going to catch the boat. We will never see what is coming until the burdens of life hit us like a waterfall. If we ignore the vision of live through God’s eyes we can never reach the level that God intends. Which is ultimately a life in the presence of God and not what seems important here.
So how can you begin to seek the Vision God has for your life? You start by studying and understanding the following principles of vision.
Principles of Vision
- Vision is able to accept the idea of a reality of conditions that do not now exist – Noah believed what did not yet exist.
- Always be open to change – Noah’s relatively happy, peaceful life was changed.
- Vision Is always God given, not man-centered – Noah allowed God to bring him the vision.
- Vision focuses on what others think is impossible – Ask any of Noah’s neighbors, they would have said, “It’s impossible!”
- Vision always involves risk; invites criticism – I imagine that Noah was laughed at and ridiculed regularly.
- Vision always makes room for God’s known will – Noah knew God’s will for man and preached it.
- Vision should not get derailed by fads, trends, methods – Noah didn’t alter God’s blueprints.
- Vision never is satisfied with the status quo – Noah could have only built a bass Boat
- Vision must never be side-stepped by human tradition (we never did it that way before) – No one ever built an ark before.
- Details of vision must never be set in concrete – Noah never ran ahead of God to a conclusion, rather, he waited for God to speak. He never asked when the rain would start.
God used Noah in a mighty way. Noah preserved mankind through the Great Flood. Here’s a fact for you… God wants to use you and me in mighty way as well.
I started thinking about the obvious things I have heard about our church. I am a new comer. I was not here when the foundation was laid and the building assembled. I am standing here, where a little over 50 years ago was just a field.
Today, I am enjoying the physical vision that some of you and your families shared in the creation of this Bill board size place.
Here is something that we all need to think about. Spiritual vision is not just project oriented. It is for a lifetime. God’s people will always have visions and goals. God calls his people to offer a lifetime of service. His plan includes rest and celebration of success but it never just sits down to just be comfortable.
I sit and wonder what our vision should be today. I wonder what God is calling us to do. I have all kinds of things that fun through my mind. Some of the things seem so crazy. Some are so big I can’t imagine me ever being involved in doing them. By biggest fear is that I might only be having a personal goal and not a vision provided by God.
Do any of you ever feel like that?
Folks, when God sends his vision for a church. Lots of people get it and all too often nobody shares it. Visions are sent by God using the Holy Spirit and we have thoughts and dreams and have questions that we are supposed to share for the good of the family.
When the vision God gives is shared the transforming power of the spirit comes alive within the church and our community and things happen. If the people will listen….and respond… things happen. Wonderful things happen when people share God’s vision, like a place where nobody saw a building, one appears.
Lynn Anderson tells the following story.
About 350 years ago a shipload of travelers, with a vision for a better life, landed on the northeast coast of America. The first year they established a town site. The next year they elected a town government. The third year the town government planned to build a road five miles westward into the wilderness. In the fourth year the people tried to impeach their town government because they thought it was a waste of public funds to build a road five miles westward into a wilderness. Who needed to go there anyway?
Here were people who had the vision to see three thousand miles across an ocean and overcome great hardships to get there. But in just a few years they were not able to see even five miles out of town. They had lost their pioneering vision.
How much are we like the story of those pioneers?
Can you see any similarities between their town government and our church?
If I were to ask you this morning, what is your God-given vision?
What specific mission has God called you to pour your life into?
Do you have an answer? Have you been listening to God whisper his loving plans for you?
We can all experience life at the highest plane if we will actively seek God and ask Him to make it clear to us.
Noah was used by God, and folks, Noah wasn’t anyone of notoriety, Noah wasn’t a superstar, Noah wasn’t a standout, except for one thing… Key verse: “Noah did everything just as God commanded him” (Genesis 6:22).
That sounds like Noah did not have to be the big idea person. He did not have to have al the ideas and abilities. He only needs to respond to God’s commands.
So what do we learn form Noah?
First, we learn that in order to receive God’s Vision for our lives, we must be connected to Him. We must be properly related to God. We need to walk with him. Listen to how Genesis 6:9 puts it: Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.
Second, we learn that when God gives someone a vision, it is usually pretty specific. God wanted to use Noah to preserve the human race. He wanted Noah to build an ark and gave Noah specific dimensions. God then gave Noah specific instructions regarding animals and provisions. And, finally, God gave Noah specific instructions on when to enter and when to exit the Ark.
Third, we learn that when God gives us a vision, He also empowers & equips us to see the vision through to completion. Noah was not completely alone in his mission, but had three sons to help him, along with his wife and daughters-in-law. Most significantly, God Himself, will use His own power to make things happen.
Folks, look at the world we live in. Don’t you think that God is giving a vision to the righteous in this world?
I am telling you that he is and that we need to respond. If God is the planner what do we need to worry about. We just need to follow the designer’s plans.
Let’s get excited about our faith! Let’s pursue God with all of our might! Let’s seek God’s Vision for our personal lives and for our church! Vision is everything in the life of a Christian!
All Glory be to God!
