When I had a friend, a family, pretty close to us,
I love these people.
I don't know if they'll ever hear this,
but the Bailey family, Joe and Donna Bailey
are just sweet people, love the Lord.
They had gotten right with the Lord,
gotten back in church at our church in Park Street.
She was a bank teller, and I remember one week,
I think it was because my parents were gone,
so she picked us up from school,
when I was a kid, middle school, I think.
And she said, oh, today was an exciting day.
I found counterfeit money.
And I was like, really, how do you know it's counterfeit?
Like, if it's monopoly money,
I think I could pick it out, right?
But how is it that you knew that the money that you found,
you're counting all this money, how did you know?
She goes, well, you know, I deal with money so much
as a teller, and that was back before debit cards
were a big thing, and so she was like,
I'm handling money cash all the time.
And she said, you know, when you deal with
the authentic bills all the time,
then when something comes across that's different,
you can tell the authentic, and dealing with the authentic,
and knowing the authentic can make the fake stand out, right?
And I thought that was an interesting thing,
and then later on, I heard the story about somebody
that taught, and I don't know if it's a true story
or if it's a fake story, but it's a good story.
It's a good illustration, preacher story,
where this guy who wanted to teach somebody
to do the trade of Jade, selling Jade,
and this guy came to me, I wanna learn how to do this trade
and know what Jade is, and so he made him just hold
a piece of Jade all the time, and for weeks and months
and years, he's just holding this Jade,
and it's kind of one of those Mr. Miyagi moments,
you know, paint defense, you guys don't know what I'm talking
about, like, I don't know what I'm learning,
I'm learning something, I think I'm just doing
guys' chores, right?
But it was one of those days when he threw him a new one,
and there was something, and he's like,
this isn't Jade, he goes, now you know the trade,
because by knowing the genuine, you can pick out
what's not authentic.
Today, I want you to think through this with me,
we value the authentic, don't we?
You value authentic things, if I gave you something,
I had somebody the other day, and if he's here,
don't get offended, this is just what happened, okay?
I love you.
I don't think he's here, but anyway,
he's like, hey, do you want some AirPods?
Do you guys know what AirPods are?
Yeah?
They're Apple's overpriced headphones.
And so, sure I'll get some, and he's like,
my friend just had an extra pair, and he wants to sell,
okay, cool, so I got them, and I paid this really low price
for them, and I put them in, and I tried to connect them,
like, these are not genuine Apple parts.
I was like, oh man, I want the genuine,
who wants the genuine thing?
Like, if you're gonna pay that much money,
you want the real thing.
We value the authentic.
Now, here's who else values the authentic.
God values the authentic.
The difference with us and God is that God knows our hearts.
He knows when we're being hypocritical
and when we're being authentic.
And what God values, and I wanna kinda key you in
this morning, and I want you to feel the weight of this,
and I want you to feel the urgency in this,
it's so important that we understand
that faith in the God of the Bible, authentic faith
in the God of the Bible is essential for your life.
It's essential for your eternity.
God, God values our faith.
And in fact, he says, we've been studying
in the book of Hebrews, if you have your Bibles,
Hebrews chapter 11 is where we are.
I'm gonna have you go back a little bit
to Hebrews chapter 10, verse 38.
It's at the end of this passage that he's wanting
these some who are believers, some who are not yet believers
but are maybe intellectually events.
He says, hey, I want you to be convinced of this thing
that you ought to go forward and put your faith
and trust in Christ.
And you ought to do that.
In fact, he says in verse 38, now the just,
those who are justified, those who are saved,
those who are given as we're gonna talk about today
and inherited righteousness from God,
those people shall live by what?
Okay, say it like you mean it.
Man, almost all you did it, that's good.
The just shall live by faith, but if any man draw back,
my soul shall have no pleasure in him.
He says in verse 39, but we are not of them,
hey, my Hebrew, Israeli, Jewish, people of Israel,
children of Israel, you people who have this background
and this heritage, we're not of people who drew back.
We're people, we're not of those who draw back
in a petition but of them that believe
to the saving of the soul.
He said, we people of God, we chosen the chosen Jews,
we are people who believe we don't go back.
And so in the first couple verses we've been looking at,
last week we talked about how that God values faith.
Faith is the evidence of things hoped for,
the evidence of the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things that I've seen,
that idea of substance is a putting under,
it's a foundation that are the way that the just,
people who are saved live their lives,
it's on a foundation of faith and trust in God,
it's evidence of things not seen.
We act as if it's true because we believe that it is.
The just shall live, you're getting it, awesome.
He goes on in verse two and says, it's by this faith,
this true authentic faith in the true son of God
that the elders, those people who've gone before,
obtained a good report, who is their report to?
Their report was to us, how many guys agree,
their faith helps your faith?
When you see the people that have gone before
in the Old Testament and you hear their stories of faith,
last Sunday night a pastor of mine was preaching
an incredible message about David and Goliath,
you guys remember that?
And he called it David and the Dwarf
and I thought that was pretty funny.
And he was talking about how that David
put his trust in the Lord, not, he says,
in that particular passage he talks about,
God doesn't save by sword and spear,
the Lord is the one who wins for you,
the Lord wins for us.
And so we're encouraged by those ones who have gone before
and how they responded.
Today he says here in verse two elders obtained a good report,
they're a good report to us, but it's also a good report
to God that what pleases them,
what pleases God is faith, and we'll talk about that today.
We also saw an illustration of faith that God,
that we believe because, and it has to be by faith,
we see evidence of God's creation,
but it's through faith that we understand
that the world was designed.
That we see, and I kind of taught you that from the stars
down to the cells in our skin,
there's evidence all around us that God designed the world.
And it's through faith we believe that.
Today he goes into some of those elders
and the report of faith that they have,
and in fact over the next few weeks,
we're gonna be looking at a bunch of these different
patriarchs, those who went before,
who were not of those who went back under perdition,
but were on those who went forward
to the saving of the soul,
those who were just, who lived by faith.
And in that teaching today,
I want you to understand that authentic faith
in the true and living God is absolutely essential
for your life, for your life now and for eternity later.
Authentic faith in God is essential.
And we're gonna see four lessons
from three different characters.
I tried to make it three from three,
but it's four from three, all right?
Will you forgive me?
All right, will you remember it?
Will you remember it?
Can you try to remember?
Who wants to learn something today?
Who wants to grow because of what you're here for?
I wanna do that too.
I wanna live by faith.
And so we're gonna learn four lessons
from three, three guys in these three verses
that will help us to live by faith
and understand what authentic faith looks like.
The first lesson we're gonna learn
is from a guy named Abel.
Abel teaches that a real faith and authentic faith
is a faith that obeys.
A faith that obeys.
Look at verse number four.
It says this, by faith, now that is a phrase
we're already pausing, two words in and I'm pausing.
In two words he says by faith.
Look at verse five, well how does that start?
How does verse seven start?
Verse eight, verse nine, verse 11,
no, through faith, I got ya.
Does anybody sense a pattern?
Who senses a pattern?
What's this whole passage about?
What are we gonna talk about for the next couple of weeks?
That's right.
Who thinks faith is important?
It's important but it's important who you have faith in.
What I taught you last week
is everybody has faith in something.
Who's your faith in and is your faith authentic?
Now here's what he says about Abel.
By faith Abel offered unto God
a more excellent sacrifice than Cain.
By which he obtained witness that he was, what's the word?
Righteous, what does righteous mean?
Righteous means right before God.
Righteous means right before God, okay?
Now how did he, he says he obtained witness
that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts
and by it he being dead, yet speaketh.
Now here's what I want you to do.
I want you to grab your Bibles
and I want you to go to Genesis chapter four.
Genesis chapter four, I have one of these fancy Bibles
where I have more than one ribbon, okay?
I like lots of ribbons.
And in my Bible you can put a ribbon in one ribbon
and the other because in Genesis chapter four,
we're gonna actually, on a couple of occasions
in the next few minutes, we're gonna be on the almost
the same page back in Genesis when we go back and forth.
In Genesis chapter four, we find out who Abel was.
If you look at four verse one, it says this,
and Adam knew his wife, knew Eve his wife.
Who are Adam and Eve?
They're the first human beings.
They were created by God.
You asked me, Ben, do you think these were historical figures
with all my heart?
These are real people.
And it says Adam knew his wife Eve.
That's what happens when married couples procreate
and it says, and she conceived and bear Cain,
who's the firstborn?
Who's the firstborn?
She bear Cain and said, I've gotten a man from the Lord
and she again, bear his brother Abel.
And Abel was a keeper of the sheep,
but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
So you have two boys, two different pregnancies,
one older, one younger.
You have Cain who is a farmer.
Are there any farmers here?
Couple of you, we love farmers.
Who loves farmers?
Who loves food?
Amen.
So we love farmers, amen.
So you have Cain who's a farmer and then you have Abel,
and he was a shepherd.
So it says here in verse number three,
and in the process of time it came to pass
that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground
an offering unto the Lord.
And Abel, he also brought of the first things
of his flock of the fat thereof.
And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering,
but unto Cain and to his offering, he had not respect.
And Cain was very wroth and his countenance fell.
So you have two offerings that were given.
It says in that passage, after the process of time it happened.
So this isn't like a story.
This is one thing that happens.
I think people get mixed up when they read the Bible.
Sometimes that we read because there's succession,
that it's almost like day one, day two, day three,
like it's happening all right.
It says here in the process of time.
So it didn't happen right away.
It's at some point in their relationship.
Now they're older.
Are they babies or are they men?
They're men.
So from verse one, when she has them as kids,
to now they've grown up.
Okay.
And Cain, his gifting, his ability, his interest was farming,
Abel's was shepherding.
It says that Cain brought of his offering
and it makes sense that he would bring.
At some level it kind of matches offering.
He brings the fruit of the ground.
And it says something interesting about Abel's.
It says that he brought the firstlings of his flock
and of the fat thereof.
Now some may ask, okay, and then what happened?
God rejected Cain's, but he accepted Abel's.
Now some may ask, well, why did it?
Why did that happen?
Well, some have proposed several animal answers.
One is that Abel's was an animal
and therefore a blood sacrifice.
The Bible, even in Hebrews, has told us
that things were not forgiven or purged except by blood.
And even if you go back in Genesis chapter three,
verse 21, when God was sending Adam and Eve out of the garden,
what does it say he did?
And Adam and also, and Adam also and to his wife,
did the Lord of God make coats of what?
Skins and clothe them.
You remember that when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit
that they weren't supposed to eat,
then their eyes were open and they were, what does it say?
Ashamed.
And what did they do?
They went and hid, you guys are with me,
you guys want to answer the question, this is good.
They went and hid, but they also took fig leaves
and with those fig leaves they sowed aprons to cover themselves,
to cover their nakedness, to cover their shame.
After God sends them out, God does this interesting thing
where it's not with fig leaves,
not with plants, are you getting it?
Not with plants that they're covered, what does he do?
With animal skins, to get an animal skin to cover
their nakedness, what does he have to do?
Kill an animal, sacrifice blood.
So we see a pattern in just a few verses,
not leaves, blood.
Maybe that's why.
For sure, who is the one who is the one who is the one
who agrees with Abel, it was his best?
He says he brought up the firstlings of his flock,
the fat thereof.
Who also agrees, and this is I think a right answer
and I think we put all these answers together,
who agrees that God knew Abel's heart
and God knew Cain's heart?
He did.
And we are told that they were supposed to do these offerings
in terms of we know when God commanded Adam
and what God commanded Adam to do,
we don't know what God, the specifics of what God
commanded Abel and Cain to do in bringing these offerings,
but we do believe that they felt an obligation
to bring the offerings who agrees.
So God must have given them instruction on how to do this.
And I think the simple answer is this,
Abel was obedient, Cain was not.
Not just obedient in practice, obedient in,
in what?
In heart, in heart.
Sometimes I ask my kids to take out the trash.
Hey, Audrey, could you take out the trash?
Audrey does everything she does when she has a good attitude
and she's mad at me for talking about her,
but I'm going to.
She skips in prances and dances everywhere, right?
And so when she, will you take out the,
yes, I'll take out the, the trash.
That's how she does it.
Sometimes my kids, so they do it with a good heart.
You're like, you let your Baptist kids dance,
I can't stop her, she just dances all the time.
Sometimes when I ask my kids to obey, you know what they do?
Anybody have kids like that?
Anybody kids obey like that?
Is that obedience?
No, obedience is doing what you're told
when you're told with a good attitude.
Cain's heart was not right before God.
And so God accepted Abel's obedient heart,
his obedient life, his faith, a faith that obeys,
and he rejected Cain's.
Now what ended up happening?
We know what happened.
Verse six, the Lord said to Cain,
why art thou wroth, and why is thy countenance fallen?
If thou doest well, shall thou not be accepted.
And if thou doest not well,
so what's that mean?
Verse seven, if thou doest well,
shall thou not be accepted.
You know what that means?
If you would obeyed, wouldn't your gift be accepted?
And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.
That language is like sin is like a crouched tiger,
ready to pounce.
I want you to know that sin is like that.
Sin, when it's finished, brings forth death.
Sin is dangerous.
You don't play with it.
And unto thee shall be his desire,
and thou shalt rule over him.
Verse eight, and Cain talked with his brother,
and it came to pass when they were in the field
that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.
And the Lord said unto Cain, where is Abel thy brother?
And he said, I know not, am I my brother's keeper?
Let me ask you a question.
Are you your brother's keeper?
The answer is yes.
We are all our brother's keeper.
Do you have a responsibility for other people?
Okay, church, I think you're confused.
Do you have a responsibility for other people?
Of course you do.
Do you have a responsibility for your family?
Yes, you do.
And he said, what's thou done,
thy voice of thy brother's blood,
cryeth unto me from the ground?
I think it's interesting.
God is a God of justice.
God's a God of justice.
It says, the voice of your brother's blood
cries to me from the ground.
There's this God's concern with blood.
God's concern with shedding innocent blood.
And I want you to know that sometimes it seems
as if people are sinning and they're getting away with it.
And I want to tell you this,
nobody's going to get away with anything.
None of us are getting away with anything.
Our sin is either paid for in God's wrath
being poured out in Jesus on the cross
where he made a blood atonement for what we did,
who agrees with me, or in eternity forever.
Revelation chapter 21, verse eight is a scary verse
if you do not know Jesus.
Revelation 21, verse eight says this,
but the fearful and the unbelieving
and the unbelieving, let me get there.
And the abominable and murderers and hormone-ongers
and sorcerers and idolaters,
well Pastor Ben, I'm none of those things,
and all liars shall have their part in the lake
which burneth with fire and brimstone,
which is the second death.
When you put your faith and trust in Jesus,
and that's shown out in your actions
in terms of the just living by faith,
God declares you righteous,
we're going to see that in a few minutes.
That's what happened here.
Abel believed the revelation that he had from God,
he obeyed God, and God testified that he was righteous,
not because of his works, but because of his faith.
And it says here that a faith that saves
is a faith that also obeys.
Are you with me?
We don't get saved because we're obedient,
we're obedient because we've gotten saved.
Do you get it?
So faith is putting, faith,
the faith, the kind of faith we see in Abel is a faith
that's not just putting trust in God
in extraordinary circumstances,
it's a faith that believes God just to be obedient today
with what I know I ought to do today.
Can I ask you a question?
If I were to ask you about the status of your faith,
how's your faith doing?
And the question I have for you is,
is there any part of your life
where you're being knowingly disobedient to God?
What would you say?
You don't confess to me, I'm not your priest.
You confess to God, but does God know your heart?
Is there something in your life,
is there some area of your life
where you have an acceptable level of disobedience
in your own heart and life?
A faith that believes God is,
you know what God says it's wrong,
I'm gonna say it's wrong too, you know what that's called?
It's called repentance, a change of mind
that leads to a change of the heart
which leads to a change of actions.
Are you being obedient?
Is your faith producing obedience in your life?
Is there something in your life
where you should be doing something and you're not?
Or is there something in your life
where you shouldn't be doing it and you are?
Abel teaches us a lesson that authentic faith
is a faith that obeys.
Here's a second lesson, this is from a guy named Enoch.
Look at verse number five.
Enoch teaches us that authentic faith
is a faith that walks.
Here I'm talking about walking with God.
Abel teaches us that faith obeys God.
Enoch teaches us that a faith that obeys God
is one who walks with God.
Look at verse five, back in Hebrews chapter 11.
By faith, Enoch was translated
that he should not see death and was not found
because God had translated him before his translation.
He had this testimony that he pleased God.
Now this is an interesting thing.
Genesis chapter five, if you go to Genesis chapter five,
back where we were before, you're reading,
this is just across the page in my Bible
from where we were in Genesis four.
In Genesis chapter five, you get down to verse 21.
Genesis chapter five has given us
Adam's descendants all the way down to Noah.
He's given us these descendants
and he's giving us years.
If you look at verse one of chapter five,
this is the book of the generations of Adam
and the day that God created man
and the likeness of God made he, him, male and family,
created him.
Verse three, and Adam lived 130 years.
If they're myths, they don't live 130 years.
Does the Bible think that Genesis is history?
Genesis is history, okay?
So he's giving us descendants.
You get down, Adam to Seth, to Enos, to Canaan.
You get down to verse 21.
And Enoch lived 60 and five years in Begatmah, Thuzalah.
Here's what it is, verse 22.
Here's the testimony.
And Enoch walked with God after he Begatmah, Thuzalah,
300 years, say that's a long time.
Thank you, thank you, Robbie.
And Begat sons and daughters and all the days of Enoch
were 360 years and Enoch, what does it say?
Walk with God.
Look at verse 22 and Enoch, what?
Verse 24, and Enoch walked with God.
And he was not for God took him.
What an interesting thing to put in a line of descendants.
Enoch walked with God.
What does it mean to walk with God?
For sure, walking with God means spending time with God.
You and I can spend time with God.
We can walk with God in that way.
We can know him and be known.
We can actually have a relationship with God.
How does that happen?
Well, we spend time with him.
Let me ask you a question.
This week, don't answer my question out loud,
answered in your own heart.
Did you spend time with God?
You spend time doing a lot of things.
You spend time doing a lot of stuff.
You know, we all spent the same amount of time this week.
Every single one of us.
We all spent the same amount of time.
Who agrees?
Yeah, we all didn't spend the same amount of time
doing the same things, but we all spent,
did you spend time with God this week?
Enoch, walk with God.
We can walk with God.
Who agrees that walking with God also means
talking to God in prayer?
Who agrees?
You can talk to God and he can hear you.
He can actually answer your prayers.
The Bible says you have not because you ask not.
And like a dad wants to be a blessing,
last time we went through McDonald's
after we went to a concert,
after a concert we went to McDonald's.
And I got my kid's ice cream and it was really late
and my wife probably is not very happy with me
because it was like after nine o'clock.
And so we got ice cream.
And Audrey asked for, dad, can I have extra hot fudge?
Did I get her extra hot fudge?
I got it.
And Zika was, can I have a McFlurry?
I'm like, son, the McFlurry is like $1.50 more
than the hot fudge.
Who's hurting from McDonald's prices going up?
And so I'm like, it's like $1.50.
He's like, dad, but I like them with flurry.
Did I get them in McFlurry?
Cause I like to give my kids stuff.
I like to be a blessing to them.
I also like them to go to bed, but that's another thing.
God wants to answer our prayers.
I'm not saying I am not a prosperity preacher.
I'm not a prosperity preacher.
I don't believe that God's will is that everybody
be rich, healthy, and wise.
That is not it.
But I do believe that God answers prayer.
And I believe that when we ask God for things
that are within his will, and he wants to give it to us,
we can spend time with him.
We can talk to him.
Who believes that he can talk to us?
We hold a miracle in our hand.
And we can spend time to God in his word.
We can talk to him in prayer.
So my question to you is this,
do you have a walk with God?
Jesus told the Pharisees, or he told his disciples
talking about the Pharisees, when you pray,
don't do like the Pharisees.
They stand out in the street corners and they pray,
and they pray really loud and long.
They use all kinds of flowery language.
When you pray, don't pray like them,
because they pray not with God as their audience,
but with who?
Man as their audience.
And when you pray that way, he says truly,
I want you to know this, they have their reward.
What does that mean?
Their reward is an answer from God in prayer,
because they're not even talking to God.
Their reward is they get some kind of respect from people,
because wow, that guy can really pray.
He says, when you pray, what do you do?
Go into your closet, he said.
And now Jesus isn't just saying that
the only place you can pray is where you store your clothes.
What he's saying is go in private.
And he says, when you pray to God in private,
the Lord who sees you in private will reward you openly.
The reward, here's the thing.
Prayer is not about getting treasure from God.
Prayer helps us understand that God himself is the treasure.
Do you get it?
Jesus is the prize, not what Jesus gives me.
And so we can walk with God.
Now in this particular statement, we find that Abel,
it says that he pleased God to the point that he walked
with God where he was not for God took him.
That's an interesting thing, and there's all kinds
of applications there.
But don't miss this.
How is your walk?
I know this, we're more likely to obey
when we spend time with God.
I know it with my kids, my kids and I are a lot,
they are a lot more likely to obey me,
to do what I want them to do, to live how I want them to live
because they know, because I've spent time with them,
that I love them, that I care for them.
They tend to be more obedient.
I know they can hear me, two out of the three.
They tend to be more obedient when they know that I care.
And that's something I don't just show one time,
it's something I don't show every day.
Are you with me?
We tend to obey God more when we spend time with God
and have his heart.
Spending time with God grows our faith.
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the,
you get faith in God as you pray to him
and as you hear from his word, that's what he does.
So Enoch teaches this that authentic faith
is a faith that walks.
Enoch also teaches us another lesson.
We learn from Abel that authentic faith obeys,
that authentic faith walks.
Number three, we learn from Enoch that authentic faith
is a faith that pleases God.
Verse five B, the end part of verse five says,
for before his translation, he had this testimony
that he pleased God, but without faith, it is impossible
to please him.
For he that cometh to God must believe that he is.
You're not gonna pray to a God you don't believe
could hear you, not consistently, not for a long term.
He that believes, he that cometh to God must believe
that he is and that he is a rewarder of them
that diligently please him.
Pleasing God comes and when we have enough faith
to walk with God, when we walk with God,
we tend to obey God.
And when we obey God, God is pleased.
It's impossible to please God without faith.
Now when you think about pleasing God,
there is that relational aspect to it.
When we please God by faith, when we have that relationship
after we get saved, it's important that we please God
because we won't have a good relationship with them.
Like we want our dads to be proud of us and happy with us
and we want them to be pleased,
so should we feel that way with our heavenly Father.
But I think there's also the aspect of this
that you and I, before we're saved,
God says that we are enemies of God.
We're enemies of God.
There's only one way to God.
That's through Jesus Christ.
Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life.
No man cometh to the Father, but by me.
And so here's what I want you to know.
This is the part where I'm telling you
it's essential that you please God
because if God is not pleased with you,
you aren't getting into heaven.
Are you with me?
I'm talking about pleasing the sense of being saved.
Now as a believer, there are times that I displease God
just like my kids can displease me
or I can displease my Father,
but that doesn't make me stop being this kid.
Are you with me?
When we put our faith in trust in God,
God makes us His kid and we can please Him.
So let me ask you another question.
This is about application today.
Let me ask you a question.
Who are you seeking to please?
What is the bullseye of your life in terms of wanting to please?
Who do you want to please?
Do you want to please yourself?
Do you want to please somebody else?
Or do you want to please the Savior?
I hope that your desire is to please not yourself,
not somebody else, ultimately the Savior.
And I want you to know that when you do,
He is a rewarder of them.
It says that diligently what?
Seek Him.
If you seek to please God,
you will be pleased and that God will reward you.
Is that exciting?
So exciting.
So we see from Enoch a faith that pleases,
a faith that walks.
We see from Abel a faith that obeys.
Here's the last one.
We see from Noah a faith that saves.
A faith that saves.
Look at what it says in verse 7.
This is back to Hebrews chapter 11, verse number 7.
By faith Noah,
being warned of God,
of things not seen as yet.
What was it that he had not seen?
He had not seen flooding.
He had not seen rain.
He had not seen the wrath of God in that way.
By faith Noah, being warned of God,
not seeing as yet,
moved with fear,
prepared an ark to the saving of his house,
by the which he condemned the world and became,
here it is, air of righteousness,
which is by what?
By faith.
We see this go back in, again, back to Genesis chapter number 6.
We're just moving right through,
because that's what the author of Hebrews does.
He's going right through the Old Testament.
In chapter 4 of Genesis we learn about Cain and Abel.
In chapter 5 we learn about Enoch.
When we get to chapter 6, we learn about,
we learn about Noah.
It says in verse 5 of chapter 6,
and God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth,
and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart
was only evil continually.
Who agrees?
That's pretty bad.
Jesus says, as it was in the days of Noah,
so shall it be before the coming of the Son of Man.
Who agrees?
This isn't a bad description of our world right now.
That wickedness of man was great in the earth,
and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart
was only evil continually.
Is that not the internet?
Is that not our television?
Verse 6,
And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth
and agreed to met his heart,
and the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created
from the face of the earth,
with man and beast and creeping things,
the fowls of the air for it repented me that I have made him.
But here's a good news verse 8,
But Noah found grace in the sight of the Lord.
These are the generation of Noah.
Noah was a just man and perfect or complete or mature
in his generations.
Noah, what does it say?
What does it say?
Noah did what?
Hey, he walked with God too.
Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth,
and the earth also was corrupt before God,
and the earth was filled with violence,
and God looked upon the earth and behold, it was corrupt.
For all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
So what did God do?
It says in verse 7 of Hebrews 11,
by faith, Noah being warned of God.
Here's where God comes to know and warns them.
Look at verse 13.
God said to Noah, to the end of all flesh has come before me,
for the earth is filled with violence through them,
and behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
Make thee an ark of gopher wood,
rooms that thou makin' the ark,
and shall pitch it within and without with pitch.
So God warns Noah and says,
I'm gonna destroy the earth,
and so then he commissions Noah.
In verse 14, make thee an ark of gopher wood.
When God warns, what happens in our hearts is fear,
and that's what happened in Noah's heart.
It says that he was moved with fear, fear of God,
fear of God's warning.
So what did he do?
He obeyed God.
He was commissioned by God to provide salvation
for anybody who would get into the ark.
But who did he end up saving?
He prepared an ark, it says in verse 7,
to the saving of his house.
How many people got on the ark?
Go back to, actually go back to 1 Peter.
In 1 Peter chapter 3, we're told about Noah.
After reading this this week, I thought,
man, there's a lot here that I'm gonna leave unsaid.
You start reading this passage, and it gets pretty interesting,
and there's probably some things that you're gonna wonder
what I think about, or maybe you wonder what you think about.
So don't get hung up on this.
It says in verse 18, for Christ also, this is chapter 3,
1 Peter chapter 3 verse 18, I'm ahead of my PowerPoint,
so just listen in.
For Christ also hath once suffered for sins,
the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God,
being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit,
by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison,
by which sometime we're disobedient,
when once the long suffering of God waited in the days of,
who is it?
Noah was God patient in the days of Noah?
He was.
Noah spent years and years and years making the ark,
proclaiming God's wrath.
It says, while the ark was preparing, we're in a few,
that is, how many?
Eight souls were saved by water.
The like figure we're into, even baptism does now also save us,
not putting away the filth of the flesh,
but the answer of a good conscience towards God
by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who's gone into heaven,
and is on the right hand of God, angels and authorities
and powers being made subject unto him.
There's a lot there, but here's what Peter's saying.
Like the ark was a salvation for the people at Noah's time,
so Jesus is salvation for us at our time.
There was one door on the ark.
There's one way to get through the wrath of God in this flood.
That one way was this ark.
So to us, there's one way.
Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life.
No man comes to the Father, but by me.
Abraham believed God.
He made the ark.
He was physically saved in that ark through the provision of God.
But he also, it says here, what does it say?
Became heir of the righteousness, which is by faith.
How do you become an heir of righteousness, which is by faith?
Does that mean Noah was sinless?
We know Noah wasn't sinless, because after he landed at the end of the flood,
they went out and Noah, Noah got drunk.
And Noah did some very evil things in getting drunk.
Noah wasn't perfect, but Noah was saved.
That's the testimony here.
Why?
Because he believed God and God gave him righteousness.
It was an inherited, imputed righteousness.
What are you talking about? Imputed righteousness.
That's a big word.
What are you talking about? One more passage.
Go to Romans.
Romans chapter 4.
At the end, Romans chapter 4.
Look at verses 1 through 3.
This isn't on the screen.
Just read it with me.
This is talking about Abraham.
It applies to Noah here.
What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertain to the flesh hath found?
For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory,
but not before God.
For what sayeth the Scripture?
Abraham believed God.
What is that?
That's faith.
Who agrees?
That's faith.
Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him.
It was imputed unto him.
It's another way of saying that.
As righteous.
Abraham wasn't made righteous before God by works.
It was by faith.
Go down to verse...
Talking again about Abraham verse 20.
He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief,
but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded
that what he, God, had promised, he, God was also able to perform.
God says you are going to make of you a great nation.
And even though he was old, he believed God.
I don't know how I am going to have a nation full of kids.
I am really old.
But I believe God.
I am going to act on that belief.
Verse 21.
And being fully persuaded that what he had promised he was able to perform.
And it was imputed unto him for righteousness.
Now it was not written for this sake alone that it was imputed to him.
But it was for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we believe on him
that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead.
I can't be totally righteous.
You spend 10, 20 minutes with me.
You will find out I mess up.
I mess up all the time.
The word for mess up is sin.
Your pastor is a sinner.
None of you are shocked.
I still sin all the time.
I am not making it to God by my works.
I am making it to God because of what Jesus did.
And when I put my faith and trust in Jesus, God takes away my sin
and he gives me Jesus' righteousness.
It's an alien righteousness that I get to inherit because he performed it.
He did it.
He was in no point sin.
He didn't sin at any point.
He was tempted in all points like we are yet without sin.
This is the good news.
And that's why he says in verse 25,
What do we have?
Peace with God.
Now I am no longer an enemy of God.
I have peace with him.
And by faith I can please him.
I can have a relationship with him.
And I can be saved.
We have peace with God.
The enmities with God.
Now we have access to God.
By whom also, talking about Jesus, we have access by faith into this grace
where we stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
The only way we are getting into heaven is when we are made right with God
and we are made right with God by faith.
And a faith that saves is a faith that puts its complete trust in Jesus Christ.
So what do I tell you today?
Today is the day of salvation.
We are not promised tomorrow.
We have today.
Today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
God has offered to you salvation.
You have an obligation to believe, to put your faith in God.
And when you put your faith and trust in Jesus, who came and lived a perfect life
and died on the cross for your sin and mine.
When you put your faith and trust in him, the Bible says that God gives us the Holy Spirit.
He regenerates our hearts.
We put our faith in him and we become one of his kids.
He does it.
Isn't that amazing?
So today is the day of salvation.
And that's why he says about Noah, that when Noah, let's read the verse one more time.
He condemned the world because he put faith in God, they did not,
and became heir of the righteousness, which is by what?
Faith. Here's the problem.
The problem is that you and I stand guilty before God outside of Jesus Christ.
We stand guilty before God.
We have sinned.
And if we are to stand in our own righteousness, the Bible says that our righteousnesses are like filthy rags.
That outside of Christ, what I have to offer God,
if I'm offering him my righteousnesses like lepers, bandages, like used band-aids,
that's what I'm offering to God.
God says that he is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
God says that by grace we're saved through faith and not of ourselves.
That grace is not of ourselves.
It's a gift of God, not of works, less than any man should boast.
God wants us to be people of faith.
He's calling us to put faith in him for our salvation.
That when we put our faith in him, he will give us Jesus' righteousness.
I don't have to go to hell.
I can go to heaven.
Not because I'm good, but because he's good.
And he says that if I put my faith in trust in him, that he will not let me perish.
I will repent and believe and be saved.
And if you trust in God for your salvation, God's call to you is to also trust God for your life,
for your sanctification.
An authentic faith that is a saving faith is a faith that will also lead you to walk with God,
to obey God.
And when we walk with God and we obey God, he responds to our faith and helps us to understand that we can please him too.
We can please God.
And then when we please God, he's a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
Is that encouraging?
I don't have to perform for God.
God will grow in and through me.
Isn't that awesome?
So today, are you saved?
Has there been a place in time where you put your faith and trust in Jesus?
And I'll ask you those other questions.
Are you obeying God?
Are you walking with God?
Are you seeking to please God?
And presumably something funny.