Genesis Project: Building Boats That Float
Genesis 6:1-22
According to an e-mail I saw, everything you need to know about life you can learn from Noah. Among his most important lessons are these: 1) Don’t miss the boat. 2) We are all in the same boat. 3) In troubled times, travel in pairs. 4) When you are stressed out, float awhile. 5) Remember, the ark was built by amateurs and the Titanic by professionals.
No character in the Bible gets more present-day attention than Noah. This great-grandson of Enoch and grandson of Methuselah has present-day water parks named after him and Satellites looking for his ark. Everybody knows the story of Noah. Could we learn from Noah how to build a boat for ourselves that will float us through the floods of time? That is the question that I would like to pose today.
There are some things that this Old Testament hero did that you and I could well do in our time. First, Noah walked with God. That is a pretty good epitaph! He walked with God.
When you walk with somebody you get to know the person. Joys are doubled and sorrows are shared. It has been said that people who live together for a long time begin to look alike. My husband is praying that is not true! I do know they think alike. I know they can predict each other’s behavior without saying a word and read each other’s mind without entering a conversation. It comes through walking with one another.
The key to a spiritual life is to live in such a way that you only want to be where God is. When you develop this kind of relationship with God, you discover that there is never a burden that God does not carry, never a sorrow that God does not share. Noah walked with God. When everybody else was walking alone, chasing their own desires, following their own dreams, doing their own thing, Noah walked with God.
Don’t let the cares of the world, the pressures of the day, the doubts of your faith, the success of the hour, keep you from that intimate, daily relationship with God.
Noah was willing to follow instructions. Verses 14–16: God said, “So make yourself an ark of cypress wood. Make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. This is how you are to build it. The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, 45 feet high. Make a roof for it and finish the ark within 18 inches of the top. Put a door on the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. Isn’t it interesting how detailed this building plan is? Have you any feel for the ship we have just described? This is 1 1/2 football fields long.
Do you know that the footprint of the ark was about 33,000 square feet give or take a little. Can you fathom the whining of the neighbors? Can you imagine what it was like for this man, however they counted in Genesis, to hammer away at something for 100 years? Could it float? Verse 22 says, “Noah did everything just as God commanded.”
Following instructions has never been one of my strong suits. I would much rather do it myself than to follow somebody else’s instructions. There have been times, I have ignored God’s plan and tried to piece my life together on my own. Far too slowly I learned all I really need to do in life is follow. Just follow.
God’s blueprints of life have been clearly drawn. Dare I build my life with them even though they seem inconvenient and sometimes impossible? The key to Noah’s fate was that he was willing to follow instructions. I understand that our world needs great leaders but let me tell you, as a Christian, we need to be great followers of God. Noah knew how to follow instructions.
There is something else about this Old Testament hero. He endured the floods. Noah’s ark was no pleasure cruise. It was a floating zoo. I do not know what you do with this story, but sometimes I find myself asking questions. Did the animals fight like cats and dogs? Did the donkeys bray and the coyotes howl at night? Did these eight relatives really get along with one another or did they fight like normal relatives do? Imagine the work involved. I wonder who cleaned the stables, milked the cows, and fed the chickens day after day? Could anybody have stood the stink inside had it not been for the flood outside?
Lewis Smedes says in one of his books, “life is messy.” Indeed, it is. Every parent knows that when they change diapers. When families fight, spouses flee, and children suffer. Life is messy. When evil comes, terrorists strike and death arrives, life is messy. When jobs end and hope fails and despair dawns, life gets messy. What we learn from this ancient story is that when life gets messy, don’t abandon the ship. There is a flood out there. You need to stay inside.
Jewish author, Elie Wiesel, tells the parable about a man in a boat. The man is not alone although he acts as if he were. One night without warning, the man decides to cut a hole under his seat. Other people on the boat are totally alarmed. “What on earth are you doing? You are going to destroy us all!” The man replied, “What I am doing is none of your business. I paid my fare. This is my seat and I can do as I please. Leave me alone.” Elie Wiesel concludes his parable with this comment, “What a fanatic will not accept, but you and I cannot forget, is that we are all in the same boat”. As long as we are on the same boat, our survival depends upon our cooperation, our consideration, and our community. Don’t jump ship in a flood! Ride it out. This flood lasted for a year and several days, but Noah stayed there for the whole time.
Noah walked with God. Noah knew how to follow directions. Noah was willing to endure the floods. Now, one more lesson from this old story. Noah celebrated the rainbow. The rain stops, the skies clear, the floods rescind and after a year and 10 days and 4 doves, Noah flings open the door of the ark and steps back on earth. In our imagination we would have Noah stepping from his extended cruise onto a velvet carpet of lush green grass with vegetation waiting for harvest. Truth is, he steps from an ark into a barren land with bloated corpses and rotting plants. Have you ever tried to sweep up after a flood? It is a mess. Here, in this God-forsaken place called Earth, Noah builds an altar and worships God, celebrating the fact that he is alive. By the grace of God and the righteousness of one man, humanity is redeemed for all time. Never underestimate the power of one faithful person.
One man saved humanity. God, smelling the sweet aroma of Noah’s acts of worship says, “Never again will life be cut off by the waters of a flood. I set my rainbow in the sky as a sign of my covenant between me and the earth. No wonder Longfellow wrote, “My heart leaps when I behold a rainbow in the sky.”
God, of the rainbow, God of the cross, God of the empty grave,
How does the creature say Grace How does the creature say Thanks
Oh Lord, my God. May I be as faithful and as thankful as Noah!