Fools For Messiah’s Sake— Noah, Part II.

Again, even beyond Abel’s blood and Enoch’s faith, Noah rises up in Genesis as a Hero of Faith.  There are four lessons we can put into practice from the Story of Noah in Scripture.

The first is that Noah took God at His Word.  And so do we.  The choice is ours, and often ours alone.  Each of us will have to choose what we’re going to do with the Message God sends us concerning the Mission He’s given us.  Will we heed it as divine direction, an unfolding of His eternal will in Time, or cast it aside as just one more set of words taken from Scripture?  Biblically accurate, theologically sound, reflections of reality ...but in the end just words.  Nothing to see here, and certainly nothing to do.

Secondly, Noah wasn’t swayed by the shame, mockery or insults of others.  You know they called him a nut, right?  In fact, one of the legends surrounding his life says this very thing.  People laughed at him, mocked him, his generation counted him crazy as an out-house rat.  And rejected him, shamefully.  “A boat... for what?  Look at Crazy Noah, building an Ark for the animals.  And you’re going to put the animals on the Ark, is that right?  Two of ‘em, all the animals?  Haaaa haaaaa haaa!”

So when the Sun was high, and the gleam of these great warriors’ shields shone bright in the fields and the valleys, on the mountains and by the river-sides, Noah must’ve looked ridiculous.  Who builds a massive mountain of a ship on dry land far from the sea?  Listen to me, and listen closely.  You who take God’s Word by faith, who embrace it as your own, may adopt a course of action which looks like madness to The Matrix.  The Wisdom of God often looks like foolishness to men.

One of the hardest challenges of following Jesus is the willingness to look like a fool for the sake of the Son of God.  I’ll give you an example.  In 1 Corinthians 4:10a Paul say’s, “We are fools for the sake of Christ....”  Why “fools”?  He goes on to tell us in vv. 12b-13a.  “When we are cursed, we bless [eulogeo]; when we are persecuted, we endure; when we are slandered [‘insulted, spoken ill of’], we answer kindly.”  Right about now you’re probably saying, “This is going to make me look like a fool.”  It’s possible, even probable; but it’s better to look like a fool than to be a fool.

Paul said, “We are fools,” not for our own sake {which is where many people are} but “for Messiah’s sake.”  You may look like a fool in the eyes of the world, which has a twisted definition of what it means to be a man or a woman anyway, but the one who utters vicious threats and evil curses which he or she has neither the guts nor means to carry out is a fool!  “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be” just “like him”— Proverbs 26:4.

This part I can promise you.  If you believe in, if you converse in, if you seek to share with the broken people of this arrogant Age, the spiritual reality of redemption by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone to the glory of God alone, you’ll be mocked as a fool, laughed at as ludicrous, and have your beliefs set aside as narrow-minded.  Never seriously considered.  But if you stand tall as an Ambassador of the King, if you ‘hold fast to the straight line of the Hope’ you have in Jesus {Heb. 10:23}, and are faithful to make the Son of God and His finished Work the only issue in the Gospel one Day you will hear from the Master’s lips, “Well done, My good and faithful Slave.  Enter into the joy of your Master” {Matt. 25:23}.  And upon your brow He will set, with nail-scarred hands pierced for you and I, the ‘wreath of joy’ {Phil. 4:1 and 1 Thes. 2:19-20}.  And your ‘folly’ will have all been worth it!

HJC	Ric Webb  |  Shepherd Heart’s Journey Community 9621 Tall Timber Blvd. |  Little Rock, AR 72204 t +1.501.455.0296
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