The World Changer at the End of the World: The Race of Life

We're glad you're joining us for a new beginning with Greg Laurie, a podcast supported by Harvest Partners. Get more encouraging audio content when you subscribe to Pastor Greg's Daily Devos.

Learn more and sign up at harvest.org. You don't want to just start this race well. You want to finish the race well. How many trip and fall in their race of life? In one of his most requested messages, Pastor Greg Laurie urges us to press forward and not rest on our laurels. Extensive Bible knowledge and years of spiritual experience make you think you're somehow above it all? You think you've reached some kind of a plateau spiritually?

The Bible warns that him that thinks he says, take heed lest he fall. This is the day when the lost are found. This is the day for a new beginning. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. Again you hear all the angels are singing.

This is the day, the day where life begins. Funambulism is the skill of walking the tightrope, the high wire, and performers face mortal danger. It's a long way down.

The last thing they want, literally, is to make it only halfway across the high wire. Today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie points out it's even more important to finish the race of life well. There's mortal danger, there's uncertainty, and breathless moments. But thankfully, when we fall, the Lord is there to catch us and restore us.

This is the day, the day where life begins. I want to focus on a man who lived in the last days, if you will. Now they were his last days.

They're different than ours. We're waiting for the judgment that will come upon the planet by fire. He was waiting for the judgment that would come upon the planet by water. His name was Noah. He was living in the days before the great flood. Jesus actually brought him up as a picture of what things will be like before Christ returns. In Matthew 24, it said the arrival of the Son of Man will take place in days like Noah's. Before that great flood, everyone was carrying on as usual, having a good time, right until the day that Noah boarded the ark. They knew nothing until the flood swept everything away.

Then Jesus says, the Son of Man's arrival will be like that. Two men will be working in the field. One will be taken, the other left.

Two women will be grinding at a mill. One will be taken, and the other left. Be alert and be awake because you have no idea when your master will show up. In light of that, how should we live? Let's go back to that last days believer, Noah. How did he live? We already saw this together.

If you're taking notes, here's point number one from our last message. Noah had a great reverence for God. Noah had a great reverence for God. Hebrews 11 says, Noah moved with godly fear or with godly reverence.

I think that's something that's lacking in the lives of many believers today, an actual reverence for God. Number two, Noah walked with God when no one else did. Genesis 6, 6, 9 says, Noah walked with God. Then we know that Noah was also a witness for God. 2 Peter 2, 5 says he was a preacher of righteousness.

Listen to this. Did you know that Noah lived 120 years and never had a single convert? Yet he's called a preacher of righteousness. He stands as an example to all of the faithful seed sowers out there who cannot always measure their success in sharing the gospel outwardly.

Maybe that describes you. You've told your whole family about Jesus. No one's believed. You've told all your friends about Jesus.

Not one of them has become a Christian. You've let your neighborhood know you're a believer. You've invited them all to church and no one has responded to your invitation and you feel like a failure.

Well take heart because it's not over till it's over. You see my job is to sow seeds. By that I mean my job is to get the gospel out there and it's the Holy Spirit's job to bring about a conviction in the heart of a non-believer. Only he can do that.

But don't underestimate the power of that little seed that you've sown in your family's life, in your children's life, in your grandchildren's life, and in the lives of others. I read the story about a missionary who was named George Smith. He probably thought his ministry was a complete failure. He'd been in Africa only a short time and then he was driven from the country leaving behind only one convert.

A very poor unknown woman. He died not long after that while on his knees praying for Africa. Years later a group of men stumbled upon the place where George Smith had prayed and they found a copy of his Bible that he left behind in Africa. They met the one convert of George Smith's ministry. But as it turns out that one convert had reached others who reached others.

A hundred years later a mission agency discovered 13,000 people trace their conversion to the ministry of George Smith. You've got to think forward. You're taking the time to sow the seed of the Word of God in the life of your child and you don't have some great far reaching ministry and you feel like you don't have enough to do.

Listen. You don't know who that child will turn out to be. You don't know about that seed that you sowed in another place.

So you just pray and leave it in God's hands. So Noah didn't have a lot of people that believed. But we're still talking about him today aren't we? So he did reach his family. And that is a big deal.

Because Hebrews 11 says, By faith Noah being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly reverence and he prepared an ark or a boat for the saving of his household. So he did reach his family. And I can think of people who have gone into ministry that have done a great job reaching out to a lot of people and have neglected their family in the process. My first priority is to God. My second priority is to my family.

Ok. So that is very important to me. And it should be to every one of us. You know contrast Noah with Lot. Lot in a sense was like Noah in that they were both awaiting a cataclysmic judgment. Noah was awaiting the judgment of God that came through the flood. Lot was waiting for the judgment of God that came upon Sonim and Gomorrah. But Lot was so compromised. Though he was a believer. But he was so compromised he could not even reach his own family. So when he revealed to his family that God's judgment was coming and he said we have got to get out of town. They laughed at him like he was telling him a joke. Blew him off. Why should we listen to you? You?

What kind of example are you? He couldn't get his own wife out of the place. He got out of the city. But she looked back and faced God's judgment.

So the point is he was a failure in reaching his own family. But Noah was not. And then the Lord gives to Noah a very unusual command. It is in Genesis 6.

So pop over there now. Genesis 6. Verse 14. The Lord tells him to build an ark or a boat.

Verse 14 of Genesis 6. Build a large boat from gopher wood says the Lord. And waterproof it with tar inside and out. Then construct decks and stalls throughout its interior. Make the boat 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high. Leave an 18 inch opening below the roof all the way around the boat. Put the door on the side and build three decks inside of the boat.

Lower, middle, and upper. So this was a supreme act of faith considering the fact that it had never rained up to this point. It had not rained yet. The way the earth was watered was through this unique sort of water canopy the Lord had set in place creating a terrarium type effect on planet earth.

And you had all the beautiful vegetation and so forth. So it had not yet rained and there was no water nearby and the Lord says, build a boat. Noah is thinking, a boat?

What am I going to do with a boat? But he obeyed the Lord. One of the greatest acts of faith in history when Noah cut down that first gopher wood tree to build this ark.

But he did it. You know it is an interesting thing because Noah was not a builder. The Bible doesn't tell us he was in the building profession. He was what you would call an amateur. Well I think experts built the Titanic and that didn't turn out so well. But an amateur built the ark.

And it was very buoyant and very seaworthy as we will see in just a moment. And he put feet to his faith and did what God told him to do. Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a moment. Emails, letters and phone calls from listeners are so encouraging to us.

And they let us know the effectiveness of these studies. Greg, you changed my life. I had graduated from college last year. I came back home, got a full time job and I was kind of putting my faith on the back burner as I was transitioning from being a student into full time work. And now in my mornings, I listen to your podcast and I've never felt closer with the Lord. I've been praying more and I've been going to church regularly and your podcast has had an impact with my faith. So thank you for the work that you do in California.

I'm here in Tennessee and I get to listen to you usually in the car on the way to the gym where I work out. And I love your message. I love the simplicity and I love the truth that you bring each and every single day. So thank you for sharing the word of the Lord and all that you do there with Harvest Ministries. What a great story of how Pastor Greg's teachings from God's word have made an impact on this man's life. And if you'd like to listen to Pastor Greg's podcasts, you can do that through Google, Apple, or Spotify. Or just go to Harvest.org.

That's Harvest.org. Well, we're studying the Bible's account of Noah today in one of the most requested messages of the past year called The World Changer at the End of the World Part 2. Let's continue. I want you to think about the spiritual life of Noah for a moment. He had to sit on that boat for 40 days and 40 nights as the rain came.

And he ultimately was on board around a year. And the sea can be a very lonely place, can't it? And that thing must have stunk honestly.

All those creatures in there. But now his voyage is about to come to an end. And God's Holy Spirit blew across the land and the clouds began to dissipate. The sun appears and eventually the grass and the plants and the trees begin to come back to life. As the children's song says, the sun came out and dried up the landy landy.

Everything was fine and dandy dandy. You ever heard that song? But he waited and finally the moment has come for him to get off of this ark. And I want you to notice what he does. Genesis 8.20 says, Then Noah built an altar to the Lord. He built an altar to the Lord. You know it would have been very easy to just climb up that boat and say, OK man I'm so sick of being on the water I want to just run around for like a month on terra firma.

On firm ground. But the first thing he did because he had his priorities in order is he built an altar to the Lord and gave thanks to the Lord. He put first things first. And there is a lot of ways that we can do this as well. The simple act of saying grace over a meal is a great way to just give thanks to God. And by the way when your meal comes and you say grace it doesn't honestly need to be a ten minute prayer. OK. Just give thanks and eat the food. Pray for the missionaries afterwards.

It's good. Pray for them. But eat the food while it is still warm. And I think it is actually a really great testimony if you are in a public place with your family and you bow your heads to say grace. But just make sure you leave a tip afterwards and don't be a bad witness.

Right. But that is a way to put God first. Remembering the Lord with the faithful giving of your finances. Whatever money you make that is given to you by God. And you take a tithe of that.

Also known as a tenth of that. And you give it to God. And the Scripture promises that if you honor the Lord with your wealth and the first roots of your crops your barn will be overflowing. I saw a bumper sticker on a car that said tithe if you love Jesus anybody can honk. Right.

So that is just a percentage. OK. I am putting God first. And then another way to put God first is you know on Sunday it is like we are going to church today. That is what we do on this day. The Lord's day. Remember God. And God remembered Noah. You know Ecclesiastes 12 one says remember now the Creator in the days of your youth.

I think sometimes when we are young we think well you know I have got my wild oats to sow. Really why? Well just because everyone says I do. Why should you?

Why would you? Do you want to do things today that you will regret tomorrow and in the years and maybe even decades to come. Why not start sowing spiritual seed in your youth. And lay a good foundation in your youth. It is almost like we have this big free pass to be crazy in our youth and do every wrong thing imaginable. Well that is certainly not what God wants you to do. That is why He says remember the Creator in the days of your youth.

Such an important time. The early years of our life. I became a Christian at age 17. I did some stupid things prior to that. Things I regret.

But I am thankful I didn't go much longer than that. And I look back on that day and I look at the course that the lives of some of my friends took that didn't believe as I believed. And I will run into some of them every now and then. And they are into their second and third and fourth marriages. Some of them have substance abuse problems.

Some of them never stop partying. And I just think of the course I took and how God blessed me and how God has taken care of me. And I realize I made the right choice. And when you are young that is a perfect time to make the right choice.

Ok so here is the story. Noah's Ark. Beautiful. They make it to the new land. And now they are giving thanks to the Lord.

And if this were a movie and if we wrote it this is where the story would end. You can see the closing scene. Noah is looking up to heaven.

Tears coming down his face. The flowers are growing. And the animals are hopping around. And there is a rainbow and the credits are on the screen. But that is not how the story ends. Because this is a Bible story. And Bible stories are true. They are not fairy tales. And when something happens that is not convenient it is there anyway.

Because if it happens it happens. And all scripture is given by inspiration of God. And the Lord doesn't cover up the flaws of the great men and women that He used. The story is told of the great British legend Oliver Cromwell who was having his portrait painted. And he said to the painter, make sure to paint me warts and all. That is because the painter was known to sort of flatter the people he painted. Cromwell said, I want people to see me as I was. And indeed when you look at the portrait of Cromwell he has warts on his face. And so when the Bible gives us a painting of one of its heroes. If there are warts you will see them.

If there are flaws you will be aware of them. So what happened next is kind of sad in many ways in the life of Noah. But it did happen. Genesis chapter 9 verse 20. After the flood Noah began to cultivate the ground and he planted a vineyard. One day he drank some wine that he had made and became drunk and lay naked inside of his tent. Ham the father of Canaan saw his father was naked, went outside and told his brothers. Then Shem and Japheth took a robe and held it over their shoulders and backed into the tent to cover their father. And as they did this they looked the other way so they would not see him naked. Wow.

Really? After all of that walking with the Lord. After all of that exercise of faith. This is how you are going to thank the Lord.

Well this is what he did. A few things pop out from this story. First of all it teaches us anyone can fall into sin. Anyone can fall into sin.

Including you. And if you think well that will never happen to me or I would never deny the Lord or I would never sin in that way. You could. Now prayerfully and hopefully you won't. And the fact is God will never give you more than you can handle.

Right? Because the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 10 13 there is no temptation taking you but such as is common to man. But God who is faithful will not allow you to be tempted above your ability to resist.

There is always a way out. If every temptation is in there. How many of you have been tempted to sin? Raise your hand if you have been tempted. Ok. How many of you have been tempted to sin and you have given in to the temptation?

You better raise your hands all of you. Because we all have haven't we? Now let me ask you this. Go back to that temptation you gave in to. Whatever it was. Was there a way out? Could you have resisted it? Could you have walked out of a door? Could you have terminated the conversation or whatever you were dealing with? Could you have gotten out of it had you chosen to?

The answer is yes. But if you don't choose to well you can choose the wrong thing. And that is what Noah did. You know it may surprise you to know that sometimes those who have known the Lord longer can be more vulnerable to slipping than the person who is young in the faith. Does that make sense to you? Sometimes those who have known the Lord longer can be more vulnerable to slipping than the person who is young in the faith.

You say but why? Because when you are young in the faith you know you are weak and vulnerable. So you are careful. And you hopefully surround yourself with godly people. But when you have known the Lord for a while you are thinking well I am pretty good.

I don't think I need to have those safeguards on my life anymore. I will just pretty much not be accountable to anyone and do what I want when I want. The next thing you know you are falling. Extensive Bible knowledge and years of spiritual experience make you think you are somehow above it all. You think you have reached some kind of a plateau spiritually.

But you will never reach that plateau. And the Bible warns that him that thinks he sins take heed lest he fall. You know there is a number of godly people who fell after they had known the Lord for years. Moses comes to mind. Remember when he struck the rock with the staff and water came out? Well he struck a rock again later in the story when the Lord had not told him to and was yelling at the Israelites saying must we get water out of the rock as we have done before. Kind of taking the glory for himself that only belonged to God. And because of this the Lord didn't let him enter the promised land. Moses. The man of God. The man that the Lord spoke to at the burning bush. The man who led the exodus out of Egypt. The man who put up with all of the whining and complaining of the Israelites and was so faithful to the Lord. Blew it at the end and he didn't make it into the promised land. David the sweet psalmist of Israel. The king of Israel. And the man uniquely identified as being after God's own heart sinned later in life as well. He was in his 50's.

Appears to be having something of a midlife crisis. Kicking back in his rooftop when he should have been leading the troops into battle and instead he is scoping chicks. And he sees the beautiful Bathsheba ironically bathing herself. And he lusts after her and you know the rest of that story.

How she became pregnant and he had her husband killed to cover it up. But that happened after he had known the Lord for years. And then David's son Solomon fell into gross sin in his later years as well. Solomon was given such great wisdom from heaven that people came from around the world to sit at his feet and drink it in.

And yet he went on an epic backslide and recorded it for us. It is called the book of Ecclesiastes. It talks about all the things he tried and experimented with and all the things that were so empty.

And ultimately he says hey here is the conclusion. Fear God and keep His commandments. That is the whole duty of man. So you say well why are you bringing all this up. I am just saying that anybody can fall into sin if they choose to. You don't want to just start this race well.

You want to finish the race well. Well it is a real privilege to have not only Pastor Greg with us today of course but his friend Pastor Levi Lusko from Montana and Pastor Jonathan Laurie. I am surrounded by pastors today. Yes are you intimidated?

A little bit. But Pastor Levi Lusko has just authored a new book, a kids book, a kids devotional book called Roar Like a Lion. And Pastor Jonathan is here today because he is a user of that very book right now. Jonathan you are actually going through this book with your kids. And I want to hear about that in just a minute.

But the question I wanted to ask both of you Jonathan and Levi. You know devotions with kids can be a challenge you know. It is a challenge just to get them to sit still.

What counsel do you have for moms and dads. I mean we are going to provide them with this great resource. But let's give them some practical suggestions on how to have a successful devotional time. I really found that having them do 100 jumping jacks before bed is just a great way to get them to wind down.

No just kidding. Actually I really have found that so often after dinner time for us is usually there is about an hour before that when we start winding down for bed. But when the kids will play on their devices and so forth. But we found like an hour before bedtime we have them wind down and they do their own personal reading. They have little books they like to read. They have their kindles they like to go through stuff and that helps kind of calm them down prepare them for bed. They start to get a little bit sleepy and in that mindset and that really transitions so well for us into devotion time. And so just that little that little break between device time and going to bed having them read for a little bit have a little quiet time makes such a difference.

Even if it's 10 15 minutes it makes a difference. That's great advice Jonathan and I would just add you know these kids have so much energy and I would just as parents say look at that the opposite way. Don't look at energy as the enemy find a way to harness it. So for example in one of the days in this devotional we'll talk about the seven laps around Jericho. Your kid might be bouncing off the walls and it's like OK great stop right there and say all right I want everybody to do seven laps around the couch seven laps around the kitchen island.

And so like lean into that find ways to tire him out and ways to use that energy for good and not for evil. That's great. So everybody you're listening to Pastor Levi Lusko my friend for years and Pastor Jonathan Laurie my son and they're talking about Levi's brand new book a devotional for the whole family but especially for the kids and it's called Roar Like a Lion 90 Devotions to a Courageous Faith. And if you've always wondered how to kind of get started on exploring the Bible with the little ones this is a great way to get in the game and to engage your kids.

It's beautifully illustrated it's truth is given in bite sized pieces where your kids will understand it and I think you as the parent or grandparent will have a great time exploring these truths with the little ones as well. So we want to send you this brand new book by Levi Lusko called Roar Like a Lion 90 Devotions to a Courageous Faith for your gift of any size. Whatever you send will be used to continue this ministry because I know a lot of you make a new beginning a part of your daily life or you listen to the podcast or you tell others to listen to it. Well thank you for doing that and by ordering these great resources we offer and we don't offer junk resources people.

I think you know that if we're going to send you something it's going to be something you want to have in your library and this is no exception. So for your gift of any size to Harvest Ministries we will send you Roar Like a Lion. Yeah that's right and we hope you'll help us start this new year off right with the resources to reach out as far as possible with the gospel. You know you not only give to us you give through us to touch lives and we hear from so many who have been touched but those connections were only possible because someone invested in the work of evangelism. We hope you'll make that investment and when you do we'll send you Levi's new children's devotional book called Roar Like a Lion and we won't be mentioning this much longer so contact us soon. You can make your donation online at harvest.org or we have a 24 hour phone number 1-800-821-3300. Again that's 1-800-821-3300. Well next time Pastor Greg wraps up our study of Noah, one of our most requested messages of the past year. Join us here on A New Beginning with pastor and Bible teacher Greg Laurie. This is the day, the day when life begins.