Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today. Our desire is for the Word of God to be spread throughout the world.
so that all may know Christ. Join us now. For a portion of one of our services here at Kerwin Baptist Church. Located in Kernersville, North Carolina. Into it.
Number one, I want you to notice Noah's character. before God. Look at verse 9, and it's on the screen for you if you need it. Noah was a just man. And perfect.
In his generations, and Noah. Walked. With God. Noah's character. before God.
I don't know about you, but if you're going to be a father... that walks with God. you're going to have to have the right character. In your life. Notice these three things.
I want you to see. Number one, it says Noah was just. This word in the Hebrew simply means. righteous.
So Noah lived right before God. And Noah lived right. around others.
Now, Noah had a project that he was given, which means every day. For years he was working. And he was working on something that he wasn't going to see ended in a month, or two months, or three months, or even 10 years, or even 30 years, or even 80 years. This guy, every day, and I don't know about you, I would have had some bad days in there. And I know you hire help, but listen, you're building with wood and different things.
There had to be a time where he hit the wrong nail. Yeah. You know, I'm sure he's probably like me when that happens. I just say, Glory to God, hallelujah, and praise the name of Jesus, our Savior. And uh Other Musings like that.
But Noah was just. Noah didn't say this about himself. God was saying this about He was just, it means he was righteous. Noah's second, it says Noah was perfect. And this word perfect in the Hebrew, it simply means complete.
It means mature. It doesn't mean that Noah was sinless, but he was upright. He was sincere. He had integrity. He had character.
All the bases were covered. And all the bases weren't covered because Noah was just that great of a guy. Noah's bases were covered because he walked with God. That was the whole point. But notice in number three, it says that Noah walked with God.
This is what stirred all the product, this is what created this. This word walked. was interesting. It means to have continuous conversation. It means constant communication.
So that means this: that Noah's daily life was in step with the Lord. was always communicating with God. I'm afraid that there's a generation of people that Sunday morning, Sunday night, if they come on a Sunday night, that's the extent of their communication with God, unfortunately. And I encourage you, listen, dads, especially today. You and I have the weight of the world on our shoulders sometimes.
That doesn't mean, obviously, our wives and mothers have a job we couldn't do. We just couldn't do it. But we have our own things, and God has made us a certain way that we bear certain things. And I'm going to tell you something, you're just not going to be able to do this the right way without walking with God. And here's why it's so important.
Noah had character before God, but let me explain why it is so important to walk with God. It is because you can't walk with God and stay distance from God at the same time. Yeah, it's a menu. You all with me? Say amen.
You can't walk with him and yet be a distance away from him.
Something's gotta give. Either you're going to stop walking with him. or you're going to change your life. And you're going to change your character. And that's why I believe Noah was the man he was is because he walked with God.
And when you walk with God, you have to stay close to God. Because if you don't stay close to God and you try to walk with God, you're going to be miserable. There's going to be tension. You're not going to function right. You're going to have confusion in your life.
And one or the other is going to give. Noah walked with God. If you notice here in this verse, Noah lived right. Noah was right. And Noah kept himself right.
He was right on the inside. Just He was right on the outside. And Noah kept right. on the inside. Or what we would call the upside.
It means this. Notice he was just inside. He was perfect, complete on the outside. But the reason he was right on the inside and right on the outside is because he kept himself right on the upside. He walked with God.
Now, let me show you a verse that I think is interesting. And here we go, hundreds of years later, obviously. But look at Micah 6, verse 8. It's on the screen for you. I want you to see this.
And what doth the Lord require of thee?
Now, just notice this, but to do. justly to love mercy and to Walk. humbly with thy God. He just described. How the Bible described Moses all the way back in Genesis chapter 6.
to do justly. To love mercy, who do you show mercy to? Others. Right on the inside, right on the outside, and to walk. Humbly with God.
Noah's character. before God. I want to encourage you today. Let's have the right character. before God and before others.
And the only way to do that is to walk with God. I want you to notice number two and Noah's commitment to his family. Noah's commitment to his family. A man one time asked his son, he said, son, what does it mean to be a Christian? And his son replied, Dad, I'm not sure, but I think you and I should be one.
Your kids see you, they watch you, they know if you're walking with God. Notice. Noah's commitment to his family. Look at verse 18. But with thee, God says to Noah, will I establish my covenant, and thou shalt come into the ark, thou and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with V.
Did you catch that? God's covenant included Noah's family. Noah's faithfulness, Noah's walking with God secured the salvation of his household. They found grace. Because Noah found grace.
When Noah found grace with God, that meant his family found grace with God. Notice in here, with thee. With thee, thy sons. Notice, thou, thy sons, thy wife, and thy sons' wives, with thee. God says, I'm going to protect them with.
You, look at Hebrews 11 verse 7 here this morning. What does it say about Noah? Look at this. By faith, Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, Moved with fear, prepared an ark. Notice this.
to the saving of his house. Amen. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. And so did his family. Fathers, may I say something you and I will one day.
Give an account. to how we were a father. It's not, listen, we're not going to be judged with condemnation. We're going to be judged with evaluation. Listen to me, when you put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ.
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. But when you and I get to heaven, we are going to give an account for how we've lived and what we've done. It's not an account of condemnation. We've already been forgiven and we're clear and holy before God. But it will be an evaluation kind of judgment.
And you and I will give an account. to how we let our family. How we walk with God in front of our family. Everything that Noah did with God had an impact, it had an influence. on his family.
Noah had character before God, but Noah had commitment. to his family. I want to show you an illustration here today. I thought this was interesting.
Some of you may have seen this somewhere in the past. I think I remember years ago. Seeing it and something that I read, but I decided I'm going to dig into it. And I wanted to show you today. a bit of a contrast of how One man has an impact on the generations after him.
And there's two men. And Jonathan Edwards, many of you know the great preacher Jonathan Edwards, and there's another man named Max Jukes. I don't know if you've ever seen this, but they both lived in the early 1700s. They were alive at the same time. And what's interesting is both of them, by two different organizations, did research on both of these men.
And I wanted to show you this. Jonathan Edwards obviously was a famous preacher. He often wrote, and it was accounted that he prayed for his children every day fervently. He raised them in the fear of God. And generations later, his descendants included ministers, judges, college presidents, statesmen, all kinds of things.
His wife, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about that. The woman he married. Um she Was known to be a godly woman in her own right. The way she raised her kids, taught her kids in different things. Um Jonathan Edwards, his grandfather was a man named Solomon Stoddard.
And he was the pastor of what's called Northampton Church. Jonathan Edwards later pastored that church, that his grandfather had pastored, and he worked for his grandfather. His grandfather was nicknamed the Puritan Pope, and he was the first librarian at Harvard University years and years ago.
So Jonathan Edwards ends up marrying. Um Here, this Sarah Pierpont is her name. And her dad was the founder of Yale. and they were Christians. You know, Yale and Harvard used to be extreme college universities.
They were Bible colleges.
So Jonathan Edwards marries her. He works for his grandfather. He ends up pastoring this church. And they begin to raise their family, nurture their family, lead them in the ways of God. Jonathan Edwards didn't just pray for his kids and loved his kids, but he taught his kids.
He lived right in front of his kids. He was an example to his children. And according, there was A.E. Winship and Benjamin Warfield that decided they were going to research the life of Jonathan Edwards in a different way. And by the early 1900s, they researched all the way back from the early 1700s to the early 1900s.
And in the lineage that Jonathan Edwards and his wife had left, there were 13 college presidents, 65 college professors. There were 30 federal judges out of their family, 100 lawyers, 60 physicians, and the vice president under Thomas Jefferson was their grandson named Aaron Burr. Not only that. Their descendants held positions as U.S. senators.
There were governors, there were mayors, there were military officers, and countless missionaries. all from one man's lineage. Wow. Who's Max Jukes? Besides having a really weird name.
Max Jukes was a real man who lived in New York in the early 1700s, exact same time frame that Jonathan Edwards was. Alive. In fact. They believe that there was a time that they can trace back that Max Jukes heard Jonathan Edwards preach. He was not necessarily famous in his lifetime, but he became very famous.
In eighteen seventy seven, Because there was a sociologist named Richard Dugdale, and he Came across this story of Max Jukes somehow while visiting jails in upstate New York. And he found out that there were so many prisoners there that were connected to this man. He was in their lineage.
So he decided he was going to research this, and they spent five years researching this man, Max Jukes. And he was known to be a very non-religious man. He was a drinker. He was someone that didn't value education. There wasn't much discipline in his life.
He married a woman that had low lack of morality, as he did. And together they began to raise a family and lineage. And this. Professor Dugdale decided to jump into this, and this so-called patriarch Max Jukes. And he had descended from Dutch ancestry, I guess you would call it.
And there was a downward spile from his generations. Here's Jonathan Edwards and his wife love God, serve God, teach God's word. And then for over 200 years, you see the lineage of all these things. And so they took the same 200 years from this Max Jukes, and this was his ancestors. There were 310 that ended up as paupers, we would call it.
They literally lived homeless, lived on the streets. 150 became criminals. Seven of those criminals were murderers. Over 100 were habitual drunkards. About 60 of them were habitual thieves.
Nearly half of the women in that lineage became prostitutes. And not only that, the Jukes family is estimated to have cost the state of New York over $1.3 million, that's 19th century dollars, and contributed to rising cycles of poverty, addiction, crime, and broken homes. And they found all this. And here's two men that lived at the exact same time. But they had different Morals.
priorities, different character. What a difference. Man, I want you to know something. You do have an impact on your next generation. I came from My family, as you know.
That had one grandpa on one side that was a horrible drunk. Had a grandpa on the other side, a wonderful man. Man full of character. Owned a nightclub, owned. an establishment, obviously, and So I came from a generation where they weren't Christians, they weren't in church.
There wasn't anything and my mom Grew up, all memories of them picking up my grandpa in the gutters every weekend, bringing him home. She has memories of my grandpa when he left Friday morning to work. They wouldn't see him again until Sunday night when somebody would bring him in from the gutter because he would get done work Friday, take his paycheck, spend it all on alcohol, never paid a bill, never contributed anything to the family. My grandma worked, paid the bills, paid the house, paid everything, raised the kids. He just worked, got enough money to drink for the weekend.
That's just what he did.
So here's my mom that grows up in that. Here's my dad that here, my dad's working as a comedian in a nightclub there in Miami. Had lived a wicked life at that point and didn't have those kind of things. And here these two meet at Bible College. And they're both afraid to tell each other about their lineage.
And yet, when they found out, they realized they were both in that same boat. And they decided, as they fell in love and got married, they decided that we're changing. the family tree. And they changed it. You have an impact.
On your next generation. Noah's commitment. to his family. Number three today, I want you to see Noah's Courage. against the culture.
Look at verse 12. And God looked upon the earth. And behold, it was corrupt. For all flesh Had corrupted his way upon the earth. You know, that's what flesh does.
Flesh. Corrupts. Noah lived in a wicked society, a violent society, an immoral society. And yet, I want you to notice because here's the New Testament and Old Testament obviously correlating with each other. Look what 2 Peter 2, verse 5 says.
Look at this. And spared not the old world, but saved Noah.
So, talking about God, God eliminated everything with the flood, but he saved Noah. Noah found grace. Notice this: Spared not the old world, speaking of God. He saved Noah, the eighth person, which was the eighth generation from Adam. Preacher of righteousness.
Bringing in the flood upon the world. of the ungodly.
So God calls him a preacher. Of righteousness. Remember, earlier in this passage, it says that Noah was righteous, just before God. And then later in 2 Peter, it says that Noah was not just and not just righteous, but he was a preacher of righteousness. It means that he wasn't just righteous in his life.
But he shared it, he preached it, he witnessed it, he told it. He lived it. Can I say something? You have to live it before you can preach it. It wasn't that Noah became a righteous man because he had preached about it so long, he figured, no.
He was righteous before he started preaching it. Listen, if you're gonna tell people that a flood's coming, And you're going to get up and preach, and you're telling them something's going to happen that they had never seen happen, and all these different things. Can I tell you something, you better be able to back up what you say. And yet he preached all those years and nobody came. A preacher of righteousness.
He refused to conform. to the corruption around him. God says when Noah lived, It was as evil as humanity has ever been. Even the Bible says, as in the days of Noah. how bad things got.
Look at Romans chapter 12, verse 2. You know it. and be not conformed. to this world. But be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Noah had courage. against the culture. Number four, I want you to see we're almost done. I want you to see Noah had confidence in God's word. Noah's confidence in God's word.
Now, Brother Frank, as he read the passage, We read it at the last verse, all the way down to the end of this chapter. It says, everything, this is the way the world was. This is what God asked Noah to do. This is what God called Noah to do. Noah did it.
Noah went through it. It was evil, but Noah found grace and his family got on the ark. And then it says that God gave instructions of the ark and it goes to every detail, everything that Noah followed. And then we get all the way to verse 22. Thus did Noah.
According to all that God commanded him, so did he. What is this? Noah had confidence in what God had said. And you and I need to have confidence, look at me, in what God has said. Noah, if you notice here, Noah obeyed without complaining.
Noah obeyed completely. Noah obeyed consistently. What does James 1.22 say? It says, Be ye doers of the word. and not hearers only deceiving your own selves.
You know what I love about verse 22? Twice it says. that this is what he did. What does it say?
Okay. Thus did Noah And then it says, everything God commanded him, so did he.
Now I will tell you this, at church, I try to be very biblical. And We do expository preaching here, and we're going to let the Bible do its work. And so, guess what? That's what I'm going to shovel at you. I'm not the best preacher in the world, never claimed to be the best preacher in the world, or any of that.
But this is where God's called me. This is what I'm going to do, and I'm going to hand you that. But if you're going to grow, you have to eat it. If you're gonna have to grow, you're gonna have to chew on it and swallow it and make it part of your life. If you don't grow here, that's your fault.
By the way, if a man like Noah can grow, it didn't have a church. Didn't have a pastor, didn't go to church every Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, Sunday, like, that sounds great. That's what I'm talking about. But he didn't have somebody that he blamed for not growing. Noah grew because he was in God's word.
If you've got the Bible, you should be growing. And if you don't, that's your fault. Don't blame anybody else. Don't blame your wife. I get that all the time.
Well, my wife, don't blame her. Noah's confidence in God's word.
God said it would rain. Noah believed it. God said, build an ark. Noah did. Why did God, you know, here He just has a family and all these animals is the ark?
No, I believe the ark was big enough so that not only the animals, but everybody that lived on that time, if they would have received and believed, I believe that they had placed on that ark. For God to save humanity, but nobody came. Noah did it. When God says something in his word, Listen, when God says something in his word, Fathers, we must believe it. and build our life on it.
I thought this is interesting. In 1934, There was a dairy farmer. in north central North Carolina. And he was such a man of God that he invited local businessmen. Local ministers.
to come to his farm. And he fed them and he said, I want to have a prayer meeting.
So they appointed a time and they came back, all these ministers and all these local businessmen. And they had a big prayer meeting on his property in He got up to all of them and said, listen, I'm just a farmer. I'm not a preacher. He said, but I'm asking that in this prayer meeting that this is what we would all focus on praying: that God would raise up.
Someone from this area. that'll preach the gospel to the ends of the earth. And all these ministers and all these businessmen, and that farmer's own son, who was 15 years old at that time, were in that prayer meeting. And guess what? that dairy farmer's prayer.
was answered. And God answered it through his 15-year-old son. His name was Billy Graham. Fathers? You don't have to preach to millions.
It's good. But you need to preach to your family. And you never know. who you might influence. that will end up preaching to millions.
Faithful fathers build on God's word. They don't build on the shifting sand of society. They build on God's word. Quit basing your life. Listen to me.
Quit basing your life around what you see. Quit basing your life on what's popular in trendy culture. Get a hold of God's word and simply do it. Quit following people, quit following trends, follow God's word. And can I say this way?
Obviously, from this passage, Noah did not base his life on what he saw. And Noah did not base his life on what he had seen. He based his life on what God had said. They'd never seen rain. They never seen flooding.
They'd never seen an ark. They never had seen that animals would just all of a sudden show up.
So Noah didn't base his life on what he had seen up to that point. He didn't base his life on what he saw now because he'd never seen rain. And he didn't even see clouds filling up with rain. But he based everything on what God had said. He had confidence.
in God's Word. I just want to challenge you today, a little different sermon. Especially style today, but Be a father who walks with God. Be a father who leads your family to safety in Christ. Be the father who stands courageously against this culture.
Be the Father who obeys God's Word. with confidence.
Some of you might remember this. I was... I remember it. I don't know why that day. I was watching.
And it hit news. Ironically, this man's name is Derek Redmond. I would call this the good Derek Redmond that I'm getting ready to share with you. There are others. If you're visiting, we have a Derek Redman here in our church.
Okay. Derek Redman was A runner.
Some of you have seen this, you'll see it, and I asked Brother John, he was able to get this, but I just want you to. to see this talking about a father's love. Derek Redmond was running a race and very important and Pulled his hamstring. And he just kept at the race because he had always been taught. winning and losing are options, but quitting never is.
And you always finish. Runners were well done and then you all know the story. You remember. The dad ran out of the crowd as his son was slipping, came up beside his son, put his arm around him, and All of a sudden, they came to try the medical people started coming, and the dad went and said, Leave him alone. We're gonna finish.
and his dad helped him get to the finish line. and agonizing pain. I want you to see this, and then I want you to say what Derek Redmond said years later about this. Show this, John, if you've got it. I think that's his dad who's come down.
to help him. Here is Derry Redmond. And Redmond's gone. Redmond has gone in lane five. Looks like a hamstring.
His injury curse strikes again. It was just a fatherly instinct. Up to this day, I don't know why. I thought it was interesting, and you all, how many of you remember that? Y'all remember when it happened?
Okay, not as many as I thought. This is the Olympics, by the way. I was watching that Derek Redmond became a Christian. Apparently, I don't have done all that research, but he was speaking to some people and he said, you know what's interesting? He said, my dad coming out.
And he said, he put his arm around me and he said, we're going to finish this. You know, and as I thought about that, I thought, you know, I got three sons, and they might not win everything. But I do want him to finish. I don't want him to quit. As he was speaking to the crowd, he said.
My dad had taught that to me and he came out and helped me finish. And he said, here's what's interesting. He said, most of you could never tell me who won that race. He says, You don't know the name of the guy who got first place. He says, Most of you don't even know the name of the guy who got second place.
or third place. And he said, I was last. Runners were done way before I ever got there, and yet, who is it you remember from the race? The guy that finished. amidst difficulty.
You know, I want to challenge you dads. If I could put it in vernacular, we pull our hamstrings all the time.
Now I'm at an age, I literally do, okay? Played softball last night and didn't pull my hamstring, got three hits. I was just thrilled. I'm thrilled to make it out of the game without a stretcher. That's a good night, you know.
But dads, listen, we have a lot of things always happen to us. And to a dad, to a husband. It's hard to not win everything. It's hard to not win. at life sometimes.
Sometimes you don't win in your marriage like you want to.
Sometimes you don't win. with raising your children like you're really trying to. You're working hard and you're trying hard, and it seems nobody even notices it. And then, when you don't win, or when you do mess up, then everybody notices that. And they don't see all the hours that you're working, and all the paycheck you bring home, and all the bills you're paying, and all the things you're doing.
But let me tell you ultimately what your family will remember about you. And that's that you didn't quit. Thank you for listening today. We hope you received a blessing from our broadcast. The Kirwood Baptist Church is located at 4520 Old Hollow Road in Kernersville, North Carolina.
You may also contact us by phone at 336-993-5192. or via the web. at Kerwin Baptist Church.com. Enjoy our services live and all our media on our website and church app. Thank you for listening to the Kerwin broadcast today.
God bless you.
