Last week we began speaking about confidence. Confidence is something we all need. I think we all agree on that. The problem is that some of us don’t live with any confidence. Or maybe, we do live with confidence in brief moments and flashes throughout our week, but most of the time, we don’t live with confidence. That is evident, by our behaviors: loss of interest in activities or hobbies, feelings of guilt, worthlessness, and/or helplessness, irritability, restlessness, overeating or loss of appetite, anxious or empty feelings, difficulty concentrating, or making decisions? I’m not saying that you need all those, but when you mix those signs and just think about it, it could be a loss of confidence in Jesus Christ. It can be a lack in confidence in your faith. We all have periods in our lives that give us this feeling. It’s true.
However, our faith should not be shaken because of a lack of confidence. No, we should have confidence in Jesus Christ as our Lord and savior who lived, died, and was risen from the grave. We need to confidently live our lives in the face of a circumstances that drive us to be lacking in confidence. You see, we may think that when our confidence shakes that it’s our problem, but our God, He is confident, and when we pray, we are able to do the will of God. Quickly, let’s go to Matthew 26.
36 Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” 37 And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” 39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:36-46)
Jesus went straight to God when he was feeling his confidence shaking. You think Jesus didn’t feel like we do sometimes. He was stuck between a hard choice and a difficult circumstance. I know our lives are crazy and out of control and the people who shake our confidence, whether they know it or not, just deride us and chop us lower, but really, I want you to see that Jesus was facing wrongful accusation and the penalty of death. He knows what it feels like to be shaken to the core because he was shaking to his core.
Today we’re going to jump right into it and talk about Noah. Let’s open our Bibles up to Genesis 6.
When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.
5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. (Genesis 6:1-6)
I want you to notice this in verse 4, the writer of Genesis, Moses, he writes, “these were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.” That’s how you would start the beginning of a fairy tale. Moses was basically saying that even people who did great and incredible things in life and people spoke of their deeds in generations thereafter, well, even they, look in verse 6: the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.
The reason I want you to see this is because I think sometimes we lose our confidence when we see people who we believe to be great and amazing fall and stumble. Moreover, I think we believe in God less because some of our heroes, they were supposed to be these amazing Christians and human beings, but they turn out to just grieve God. They show their true natures—they are evil in their hearts and that’s all that’s on their hearts. I’m going to tell you that these people back in Noah’s day, are no different that the people of our day. They were no different than in the days of Christ, nor were they different in the days of our country’s forefathers. Seriously, if you don’t get this, make sure you do—even legends fall short of the glory of God. I know plenty of people who fall short, don’t look any further than Olympic gold medalists. But you can go right to your work place or your home too.
This is why Jesus Christ was sent to the world. He was God’s one and only begotten son, and he took the form of a human being, even though he was a king, and he lived the life of a lowly servant, like a homeless man, though he was God. God saved us because not even the greatest amongst us could save themselves. It grieved God that evil was on our hearts. It grieved him that we couldn’t do anything about it. It was in God’s love, that Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection saves us. This is confidence.
It’s believing that Jesus died for our sins, and was resurrected from the dead to give us new life. We trust this with undeniable conviction. When we choose to follow Jesus with our lives, this is something we have confidence in. The author of the book of Hebrews in the New Testament puts it this way, “Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.” Guess what, we hoped God would save us, and He did, He saved us two thousand years ago and made us heirs with Him in God. We can’t see it yet because we’re not there yet, but then again, aren’t we all living as a community of believers under the kingship of God? I think we are. I know we are.
But just because we’re not there yet, doesn’t mean that we should lose confidence that it will come. I mean Jesus came. He lived, he died, he rose again. We believe that and we know it to be true. Yet confidence doesn’t abound in us as it should, even though it should. God gave us favor when Jesus died for our sins. He wiped them away, he sacrificed himself so that when we appear before God, we will be spotless. We have favor with God because of our righteousness through Jesus Christ. I want you to see this in the life of Noah now: Favor comes from walking with God. Go to verse 8 in Genesis 6.
8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. 9 These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God. (Genesis 6:8-9)
Wait one minute here. If we take out the name, “Noah” and instead, replace it with our name, doesn’t that describe what theologians would describe happens after “substitutionary atonement”? If you don’t know what substitutionary atonement is, let me explain it to you. It means, Jesus, who is perfect, who is God, died in our place when he didn’t have to for our sins. As a result, he paid the price of our sin so we wouldn’t have to. This resulted in us having found favor in the eyes of God. It resulted in us being called a righteous person, blameless in our generation. We walk with God because we believe Jesus did this. I should hear some Amen’s now. I hope you agree.
To play this out a little, once we’ve found favor in the eyes of God, which we have, we need to walk with God. You all know how to walk with God because we talked about it a few weeks ago. It is practicing our confidence in God by living our faith, making space for God every single day. It means we open up our Bibles, we read it, we pray to God, we talk to Him when we have a chance. This is what we do.
Go to verse 11 because once we have confidence by walking with God due to the favor we have on our lives, we begin to understand that there is a purpose for our lives that is kind of expansive. There some requirements that we have to undertake and live with. Before you get scared, I want you to see this. Let’s go and read the passage.
11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. 12 And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. 13 And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth. 14 Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. 15 This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark 300 cubits, its breadth 50 cubits, and its height 30 cubits. 16 Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above, and set the door of the ark in its side. Make it with lower, second, and third decks. 17 For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die.18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. 19 And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female. 20 Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground, according to its kind, two of every sort shall come in to you to keep them alive. 21 Also take with you every sort of food that is eaten, and store it up. It shall serve as food for you and for them.” 22 Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him. (Genesis 6:11-22)
I want you to understand this in timeline sense of things. Let’s say because this story is in the book of Genesis, the time period is what we would affectionately call the “Stone Age.” Scientifically, this is referred to as the Neolithic period. I don’t care whether you believe this to be in the early stone age or late stone age, or whatever you want to call it, this is a huge boat that Noah is instructed to build. Let’s do a quick comparison of what Noah’s ark to the Titanic. It’s a quarter of the height, about half it’s size, and two-third’s its with. If you haven’t seen Leonoardo DiCaprio in the movie, the Titanic was also built in the 20th century. We’re looking at easily a 4,000 year swing in history where God tells Noah to do something that was so impossible, that people haven’t really thought of making something that big until the 20th century. The Santa Maria, in comparison, which “discovered” the Americas, that was less than a tenth of the size of the Ark. It’s absolutely bonkers that God would ask Noah to do this, simply because Noah had the favor of God upon him. Yet, we know that God did.
God tells Noah in to make this Ark because He is establishing a covenant with Him. This is no easy task that Noah walks into. This is a building project that legacies are built out of. In Genesis 5:32, we know that Noah was at least 500 years old. Yes, in the ripe age of retirement he has kids. Then when he was 600 years old, the floodgates open and it rains 40 days and 40 nights. God speaks to Noah at some point after he has kids and when the rains come at 600 years old. I mean, God could have spoken to Noah at year 500 or year 575, I don’t know. I just know that the boat wasn’t built overnight. Even with all our technology, we can’t build boats overnight. This is the stone age people.
I’m talking about unprecedented confidence to build a boat of that size in the middle of the Asia Minor – Middle East. This isn’t something that he did at night after he put his kids to sleep. This was a project that just kept going and going. In fact, I imagine that his kids not only grew up building the ark with their father, it also became their full time jobs. Just imagine the land that they needed to just put the finished product. Yeah, bigger than a football field. The number of trees they needed, the amount of pitch they needed, where would you even find that? When we start following God, this is the type of life assignment we are walking into. Noah needed a lifetime of confidence to build and work strong day after day, year after year.
I know you’re tired of doing the normal humdrum building an ark for God that you never understood. I understand that building a career or a family or a business is just hitting your confidence, it’s shaking it back and forth. People all around you are having the time of their lives and you’re still chopping away, putting together a boat. But I will tell you that when you remain confident in the plan of God, then you will see it through, and the promises of God come true. God does not lie, nor does he delay, our God, in His time providers and gives and we better have the confidence to be ready.
When we accept God’s favor by walking with Him, we are walking into a confidence that none of us had when we started out in life. God isn’t like our confidence though. God doesn’t fade like our confidence sometimes does. No. God is everlasting. He is faithful to the end. God is the fountain of our confidence and when we trust in God, and I mean trust like you don’t trust anybody else in life, with your life, and you get closer to Him, we can all build things and do things that are beyond our time.
Noah built the biggest boat most had ever heard of until the 20th century back in the BC. Why can’t we do things that are light years ahead of us? I believe we can. I know we have the favor of God resting upon us. We have the vision from God to do so. Do we have the confidence to keep at it, knocking away, every single day of our lives? I know we do. Believe it, because Jesus Christ is your confidence and He will never let you go.
This come from a confidence that you and I were saved by the blood of Christ poured out on the cross for us, God established a covenant with us. He granted us new life as a child of God that can do greater things that Jesus because we have the confidence to ask in faith so our father in heaven can do for us so much more to manifest His glory through our lives.
Right now I want to open this space that we’re in to God. This space is a space for you to pray and get your confidence back. If you are feeling sorrowful and troubled, this is the time to ask God for confidence to all His will be done here on earth. If you’re here and you’ve silenced God because you haven’t walked with Him in a while, it’s time to say hello to God and start walking with him. I want us to pray.
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