Text from A Sermon on Hebrews 11:7 “Noah’s Faith”.
If you have your Bibles today, and I hope you do, please turn with me once again to Hebrews chapter 11. Today we will consider the first three verses and then look down to verse 7 as we look at the faith of Noah and how it worked out in his life. Just always remember as we are studying this chapter that the author of Hebrews in the first 10 chapters has laid out his argument that faith in Jesus is the only way to salvation.
Faith in the law, faith in the angels, faith in Moses, faith in a sacrifice other than the sacrifice of Jesus is not the way to salvation. In fact, it leads to condemnation before God. And he is giving us examples from the Old Testament of people who lived by faith, who were declared righteous by their faith.
And today we consider the example of So please follow along as I read from Hebrews 11 beginning in verse 1 and then down to verse 7.
“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”
And then down to verse 7.
“By faith, Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear, built an ark to save his family. By his faith, he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. Let’s pray to the just and merciful God.”
Let’s pray.
By the power of your great Holy Spirit, give us the insight and life-changing clarity we need as we study this passage. May your glory be proclaimed and may we see the goodness of the salvation that comes by faith and by faith alone. In Jesus name. Amen.
INTRODUCTION
Christians are just a little bit crazy. They give up Sunday mornings.
Some of them give up Sunday nights and Wednesday nights and other times throughout the week as well. Then they go around living according to an ancient structure of do’s and don’ts, seeking to be holy, seeking to be righteous, and sometimes seeking to love and to serve those who refuse to love and to help themselves. This is what the world oftentimes thinks about Christians, and it’s true from the world’s perspective.
As we mentioned earlier, Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 1 that the wisdom of God is foolishness to the world around us. It is foolishness to those who are dying, to those who are perishing, but to those who believe it is the wisdom of God. And for those of us who are set apart by the wisdom of God, by faith in the work of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, well let’s just say the world sees us as fools.
And this is what the people of Noah’s time thought about him as well. Just some crazy guy out there in the desert, presumably the desert, building a giant boat. But we will see today that Noah is not presented to us so that we will be just a little bit more comfortable being crazy to the world.
Noah is presented to us as one who lived by faith in a world that tempted him to live by sin and by works. And as we look at Noah’s faith in Hebrews 11:7, you and I will learn that Noah was righteous by faith, that he was active by faith, and that he proclaimed by faith.
RIGHTEOUS BY FAITH
At the end of verse 7, we begin to see Noah’s righteousness by faith.
We read this, “He became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.”
When you and I read the Old Testament, we are tempted to look at the law and to the prophets and to think that the Old Testament people of God, whether Abraham and following as the nation of Israel or even going all the way back as we looked last week at Abel and Enoch, but the people of God, we are tempted to think that they were declared righteous because of what they did. But the author of Hebrews argues that you and I receive righteousness and all of God’s people have always received righteousness by faith.
One of the uses of the law is to point people to their need for a savior, for someone who can provide salvation from the judgment of God. The law is a light that shines into people’s lives to show them where they fall short of God’s glory. It teaches us how what God expects his people, how he expects people to live.
And yes, perfect law keeping is the standard by which we will all be judged. But because of this, the law acts to point you to the truth that you cannot perfectly keep that law. And therefore should seek one who will provide the perfect sacrifice for you and will provide righteousness for you.
So we’re told in Genesis chapter 6 twice, once in Genesis chapter six, nine, and then again in verse one of chapter seven, we are told that Noah is righteous. Through Genesis 4 and 5, we see the growth of humanity through the line of Cain at the end of Genesis chapter four and the line of Adam or Seth throughout Genesis chapter five. And through these two genealogies, we see the size of the population on the earth growing.
And as the population on earth grows, so does the influence of sin. The influence of sin and evil grows to such an extent that God declares in Genesis 6:5, “The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on earth had become and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.”
Does not leave a whole lot of wiggle room. How many thoughts? Every thought. How evil? Only evil. When? All the time.
Sin’s evil and influence had grown and extended throughout the creation to the point where God said, “I will destroy the destruction that sin has brought and is bringing upon this earth.”
And he was going to do it through a flood. And in the middle of this situation, we’re told in Genesis five that Noah is born.
He’s going to be the one who rescues and provides rest for the creation. And then in Genesis 6 and 7, we are told that Noah is righteous. And the temptation, as I mentioned, is to think that Noah is righteous because what he did, it says he walks with God.
But we learned as we looked at Enoch’s life, that Enoch walked with God by faith. And if Enoch walked with God by faith, that means that Noah walked with God by faith. And the author of Hebrews takes this and tells us that Noah was righteous by faith.
We look at Genesis chapter 6-9 in the life of Noah, and we think, you know, the path to rightness or righteousness with God is to do something big or strange or crazy or amazing for God. Or even to put up with the ridicule of those who hate God, and God will love you. God will be pleased in you.
It is impossible to please God apart from faith. And so Noah pleased God and was declared righteous by God because of his faith. Because of his faith, Noah received a righteousness from God.
And that is still the way God works today. God only accepts his people as righteous because of faith and grace. We call this the doctrine of justification.
If you and I look at the law, we come to the first commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” And if we’re honest, we have at least one God before him, and that is ourselves. As we look to ourselves for wisdom, as we look to ourselves for guidance, as we look to ourselves to define what is right and wrong, according to what feels good to me.
And so we have violated the first commandment and all the rest of them, the violation of all the rest of them flows out of that one. And we cannot stand before God as righteous. The best righteousness that we can bring to him on our own, in our own pride, in our own arrogance, saying to God, “You know, I gave a five dollar bill to that homeless guy once before or I served in the soup kitchen every week or you know what, I treated my kids and my wife really well.”
The best that that righteousness will get us is condemnation before God. God, in Isaiah 65, says those good works to me are like filthy rags. But God provides an alien righteousness to us.
You and I have no righteousness on our own that we could bring to God to please him. But God, through our faith in the completed work of Jesus Christ, will declare us to be righteous in his sight. See, justification is the concept is the teaching that that God has removed our sins from us and placed them upon Jesus at the cross.
2 Corinthians 5:21. “He who knew no sin became sin for us.” Our sins were imputed to him so that his righteousness could be imputed, could be placed on, could be given to us.
It’s the point of what God or what Paul says in Romans chapter 3 verses 21 through 31, starting out reminding us that now a righteousness from God apart from law has been made known to which the law and prophets testify. Even Paul says everybody in the Old Testament testified to the truth that righteousness only comes from outside of sinful human beings. He goes on to say that everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and are justified and are declared righteous freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
It removes boasting from us. It removes the sense of I have to earn salvation from God from us. Brothers and sisters, not only can you not earn salvation from God, but it is so exhausting to try.
It is so hard to go, “I am just going to keep the law on my own so that God loves me.” Because if you truly understand the law, the fact that it’s not just external action, that it is that it deals with the heart as well, as Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew five through seven, that it deals with heart attitudes, that it deals with heart desires, that it deals with heart affections as well as outward actions.
You will be crushed under the weight of the law. And yet when Jesus says in Matthew 11, “Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest.” He is saying, come to me and take my righteousness upon you so that you will find rest from your struggle against sin and self-righteousness and self-salvation.
God is a just God, Paul says in Romans three. He is the God who will punish sin because he has said that sin will be punished. But Paul says he is also the justifier of those who believe in the work of Jesus Christ, which means that rather than your sin being punished in you, your sin has been punished upon the cross and you can have life and salvation and life more abundant in this world and in the next.
The original audience of this letter was tempted to look at the law and say, “I am going to turn back to law keeping as my only hope, my only hope for righteousness, my only hope for salvation from God.” And the author is saying, “Just like Moses was righteous by faith, that is the only way you can be righteous.” Noah, Noah, not Moses, sorry.
Noah received a righteousness that comes by faith because he could not present a worthy righteousness to God on his own. In order to be righteous before God, you must have faith in the completed work of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And so Noah was righteous by faith.
ACTIVE BY FAITH
Noah was also active by faith. At the beginning of verse seven, we see, “By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear, built an ark to save his family.” Now, as we consider Noah being active by faith, we need to understand where his faith was.
We’ve talked as we’ve gone through these first six verses, that there were faith and belief in the promises of God. For Enoch, for Abel, their faith was in the promise that God would provide a Redeemer. And we do know that God expands his revelation to Noah, and Noah’s faith is in not only that promise, but in another promise that God gives to him.
And it’s a twofold promise. It’s what he was warned about when it says he was warned about things not yet seen.
First, God warned Noah of impending judgment.
Genesis 6 tells us that because sinful men were pursuing destruction, God would give them the destruction they were after as he flooded the earth and as he destroyed all living things that walked upon the earth. And so Noah’s faith was in the fact that God would actually do what he said he was due to bring judgment upon sinful humanity. But secondly, God had told Noah that he would provide rescue, he would provide salvation through the building of an ark.
And so Noah’s faith was also in the fact that if he would do what God called him to do, God would provide salvation for him and for his family. Noah responds to God’s promised judgment and God’s promised salvation with faith. He believed that God would do what he said he would do and also with a holy fear, a fear motivated both by terror and by awe.
Why terror? Because God had promised he was going to save him and Noah believed that God would save him. Why terror? How high is Mount Everest? Could you imagine that being completely underwater and you’re stuck in a boat with no rudder, no steering wheel, wholly reliant upon God and God alone for your safety and for your rescue? You might be just a little bit scared. You might actually be described as terrified in that moment.
Even contemplating the extent and the power of the judgment of God as you are building that ark should evoke a little bit of terror, a lot of bit of terror in your heart. And so this fear would have been motivated by a terror, but it also would have been motivated by the reverent attitude of awe and worship of one who has been confronted with the holiness of God and has been changed by that holiness. Think of Isaiah in Isaiah chapter 6.
He’s confronted with the holiness of God. He falls to his face saying, “I deserve to be undone. I deserve to be disintegrated for I am a man of unclean lips in the presence of a holy and majestic and righteous God.”
The angel brings that redemption to his lips, puts the coal from the altar in the picture of Jesus, providing redemption for Isaiah. And what’s his first response? He hops up and he says, “God, what can I do for you?” His salvation was not because of what he was willing to do. His redemption was not based in his own personal righteousness, but his willingness to act on behalf of God was rooted in the fact that his life, his heart had been changed.
Noah responds with action. We keep in mind first that we are not saved by our actions. You’ll hear me say this over and over again throughout the rest of this chapter.
We are not saved by our actions. We are saved by faith. But we are saved for good works. according to Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10.
James 2 tells us as well that you can claim to have faith. But if love for neighbor does not flow out of your faith, you you really need to examine yourself and make sure that your faith is not a dead faith. Acts of service to God and to neighbor can be evidence, evidence to you and evidence to the watching world that God has made a change in your life.
Think about Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. He goes through his experience with the three specters. He shows up to to his office the next morning and Bob Cratchit is there waiting for him.
And Ebenezer Scrooge is excited because his life has been changed by these three specters. And so Bob asked him, well, can I have a raise? Can I have some time off? Can I can I have just a small lump of coal to keep myself warm as I do the book work for you? And Ebenezer looks at him and says, “Bah humbug, absolutely not. Nothing’s changing in my relationship with you. But let me tell you, my heart’s really been changed.”
You might ask yourself, has your heart really been changed? Are you growing in your concern for the oppressed and the beaten down? Are you growing in your love for your neighbor? Are you growing in kindness towards those who think differently than you? You are saved by grace through faith so that you can perform the works that God has prepared for you from before the foundation of the world. Noah was active by faith.
PROCLAMATION BY FAITH
And lastly, Noah proclaimed by faith. Noah was justified by his faith. Noah was moved to action by his faith and he proclaimed to the broken world by faith.
It says in verse seven, “By his faith, he condemned the world.” Noah’s proclamation likely had somewhat of a passive and an active component. Passively, Noah proclaimed judgment and salvation through just merely acting to build the ark.
Dan Doriani argues in his book, The New Man, that one of the best ways we can proclaim to our culture about biblical marriage is by pursuing biblical marriage in our own homes, in our own families. In the early church that existed within a world marked by sexual promiscuity and sexual domination and objectification, the church would have been ridiculed for pursuing biblical marriage that is marked by a husband’s Christlike love for his wife and the wife’s submission as the church submits to Christ to her husband.
And while that would have brought ridicule in a world that looked at sex as just something to pursue for pleasure and for power, there were people who were drawn to ask questions about how Christian husbands treated their wives with honor and with respect rather than merely as objects to be owned.
Growing in holiness by faith will proclaim to the watching world that the gospel is true.
But actively, Noah would also have had to explain while he was doing this crazy thing of building a boat, a giant boat. And he would have to tell them of God’s promise to both judge and to save.
We do know that like Isaiah, nobody listened, nobody repented because there were only those eight people listed upon the ark. But Noah would have proclaimed by faith the message of judgment and salvation given to him. So Noah was righteous by faith, Noah was active by faith, and Noah proclaimed by faith.
CONCLUSION
Do the people that you know outside the church think that you are one of those crazy Christians?
Now, I’m not talking about handling snakes.
I’ve never talked about handling snakes.
I never will talk about handling snakes.
But do your friends and family who are outside the church think you are crazy because your life is actually being changed by your faith? Or do your friends and family say, “Yeah, she goes to church, but she’s cool. She hasn’t let it affect her in any way, shape or form.”
Are you seeking progress in your battle against sin? Are you seeking and seeing progress in your battle against lust or against your battle for loving your enemy, in your battle against anger, in your battle to love God more, in your battle against sarcasm and passive aggression, in your battle for biblical marriage, in your battle against idolatry of political party? Are you seeing by faith progress in those things? God calls us after he declares us righteous.
God calls us to pursue a holy life. You are set apart for good works. You are not saved by good works.
You are not saved by your pursuit of holiness, but you are set apart for that pursuit of holiness. You are set apart for good works. Are you progressing in the action and proclamation that God calls you to by faith? Does the world think you’re crazy? Let’s pray.
God and Father above, we do thank you for this truth that we are righteous by faith and faith alone. And Lord, we thank you for the truth that even though our pursuit of being active and proclaiming by faith is faltering and faulty, we thank you that our righteousness by faith can never be moved. And so, Lord, help us to pursue you by faith and to pursue service by faith.
And so, Lord, we thank you for the truth that we are righteous by faith and we thank you for the truth that we are serving you by faith as well. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
As you go this week, take this blessing upon you as you go to work, as you go to play, as you go into your homes. May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance. We hear these words from Revelation.
He who testifies to these things says, yes, I am coming soon.
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
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This text from A Sermon on Hebrews 11:7 “Noah’s Faith” has been lightly edited for readability.