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Welcome to Daily Drive Time Devotions, hi this is Pastor Tom and we are in week
two of our look through the book of Genesis. Last week as we began this study I
let you know we're going to go a chapter a day this time instead of our usual
chapter a week. And so as we go through day six to ten of our study this week
we're going to be looking at Genesis chapter six to ten.

And those are chapters about the life of Noah, the life of Noah. Noah's life is
one of the greatest examples of God-centered motivation that you can find. You
want to live your life motivated by God, not by yourself, not by your fears, not
by other people, but truly motivated by him, Noah's life is an example of that.

As we walk through these chapters we're going to see how the motivation of God
can come into our lives. This is the secret, Noah's life is the secret of a man
who survives the disaster of his age, who was motivated above everything that
was going on around him to live an anew in a different way. Now as we enter into
the life of Noah there is a question that we have to answer at the very
beginning and that is why a flood?

Why did God even allow this to happen, what's going to happen? The reason is
that mankind had become increasingly and incredibly evil. We saw it in Genesis
chapter three with Cain and Abel and then with Lamech, but then in Genesis six
we see that it's everyone.

Listen to Genesis chapter six verses five to seven. The Lord saw how great man's
wickedness on the earth had become and that every inclination of the thoughts of
his heart was only evil all the time. The Lord was grieved that he had made man
on the earth and his heart was filled with pain.

So the Lord said, "I will wipe mankind whom I have created from the face of the
earth, men and animals and creatures that move along the ground and birds of the
air, for I am grieved that I have made them. " That's why it happened. Verse
five, every inclination of his thoughts, only evil all the time.

I hear people sometimes question why God would possibly allow a flood to happen
as if somehow that was a mistake. I understand that as human beings we
oftentimes want to inject our own opinions into things, but the idea that
somehow I can out-opinion God, that I understand things more than he would.
First, I wasn't there.

First, I have no idea of what's in the creative mind of God. And the idea that a
flood happened and that God wasn't deeply grieved, when these verses tell us how
grieved God really was, misses the entire point. All of these people were headed
for destruction.

And so the flood came so that more people weren't born that were headed for
destruction because God wanted to head us toward salvation and not destruction.
And because of that, God uses a man and his family by the name of Noah. In
Genesis 6, 8-22, Noah builds an ark.

As he builds that ark, you and I begin to learn about the motivational power of
the life of Noah. And it's not the kind of motivational power that you might
think about today. We sometimes motivate ourselves through psychology, but Noah
was motivated instead by his relationship with God, by his theology.

And in Noah's life, the first thing you see is the motivational power of
obedience. You see that in the way that he built the ark. Noah, in verse 8,
something amazing happens.

Noah, the Bible says, found favor in the eyes of the Lord because of his
character, because of his heart. And out of that, well, out of that is verses
9-19. And then I want to skip to verse 22.

This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the
people of his time, and he walked with God. Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and
Japheth.

Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. God saw how
corrupt the earth had become for all the people on earth had corrupted their
ways. So God said to Noah, "I'm going to put an end to all the people for the
earth is filled with violence because of them.

I'm surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 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,
and 45 feet high. I'm going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all
life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it.

Everything on earth will perish. You are to bring into the ark two of all living
creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. " And then in verse 22,
"Noah did everything just as God had commanded him.

" I love verse 8, "Noah found grace. " Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
That's the first appearance of the actual word grace in the Bible.

He found grace because God had a plan, and God's plan always includes grace. And
there are three things about Noah that allowed him to be the one that God chose
to build this ark. The most important thing about the ark is Noah, not the ark.

We get all caught up in the 450 feet long and 75 feet and all this, "Wow, what
would it look like in cypress wood? What kind of wood really was that? " We get
all caught up in that, and it's interesting.

It's details that are interesting. But what's really important is Noah. What's
really important is the character of this man, and the Bible tells us here that
there are three things that we need to not forget.

He was righteous, he was blameless, and he walked with God. He was righteous. We
talked last week about the fact that righteous means you live in right
relationship with God, and because of that, you live in right relationship with
other people.

He was righteous. He had a heart for God. He had a heart for doing the right
thing.

You and I, as we walk through this world, I'm either going to have a heart for
the things of the world or a heart for God. It's just that simple. And each and
every day of my life, if you're like me, you find yourself swinging back and
forth sometimes.

You get caught up in possessions. "Wow, it would be great to have that. I've got
a heart for the things of this world.

" But then all of a sudden, you realize that's not going to last. Why should I
spend my life chasing after that? And you come back to righteousness, a heart
for the things of God.

Now, the Bible tells us in the New Testament that our righteousness is given to
us by Jesus Christ. It's not a matter of all the good things that I do, but
Jesus Christ has given us a righteousness that's above even that of Noah. It's
the righteousness of God, God's gift in our lives.

So I depend on what God's doing in me, in my heart, so that instead of living
for the things of this world and love with this world, I live for the things of
God. This world, what happened in the flood, it's a parable of this world. It's
passing away.

It's going to be gone. It's not going to last. It's the things of God that are
going to last.

And Noah, he was righteous. He cared about the things of God. And he was
blameless.

This word blameless, it's a very interesting, powerful word. The nearest English
word to this word blameless is the word whole. Noah was, Paul Ternier says he
was a whole person in a broken world.

He was the one whole person and his family in this broken world. You and I can
live broken lives because we live in a broken world, or we can live a whole
life. And the only way to live that whole life is because of the grace of God in
Jesus Christ.

Once again, our blamelessness is not something that we attain on our own. Our
blamelessness is given to us as a gift from Jesus Christ. I am so glad.

Because once again, it's above and beyond what even Noah could attain. It's
something that only God could give as a gift in our lives. He is righteous.

He was blameless. And then the third thing we learned from Noah is he walked
with God. He was a person whose relationship with God was the most important
relationship in his life.

And that was important. Just a note, Noah's father is certainly still alive at
the time that the flood happens. We know that by reading the genealogies.

Noah's grandfather was still alive at the time that the flood came. We know that
by reading the genealogies when they died. There are many, many others, I'm
certain, in his family who are also alive.

He had to choose to get on that ark knowing that people he loved were going to
die. He knew their evil. He knew the wrongs.

But you know this in your own family. When you see the evil and wrongs in the
people in your life that you love, you don't stop loving them. But he also knew
that God had a plan that involved pain.

And in that plan he was going to begin again. And so Noah, Noah walked with God.
Walking with God is not always easy.

Walking with God is sometimes very difficult. But Noah chose to walk with God
because he was a righteous and blameless man. And you and I can choose to walk
with God because of the righteousness and blamelessness that's given to us
through Jesus Christ.

Because of who Noah was, an ark was built. The Bible tells us in verse 22, "Noah
did everything just as God commanded him. " Complete and exact obedience.

And that obedience didn't come from his fear, it came from his character. That
obedience didn't come from God threatening him, "You better get this done or I'm
going to send the flood faster. " It came from his character, his heart for God.

That obedience did not come from his worry or his anxiety or any other place but
his heart for God. That's where obedience comes from, lasting obedience. Many
people believe and I believe along with them that it took Noah more than a
hundred years to build this ark.

It was no quick building project. That is a man who obeyed day after day after
day for year after year after year. And the only way to get there, the only way
to get there is through the righteousness and blamelessness, the gift of Jesus
Christ.

The only way to get there is through a relationship daily with God. Let's take a
minute to talk to him. Lord, let the life of Noah speak to me.

Speak to me about the motivational power of obedience and that Lord, instead of
obeying you based on some fear in my life, help me to learn to obey you based on
love because I know you know what's best. I know, I know that you have a future
and a hope for me and I know I can trust you. And so Lord, I trust you and I
pray you'd help me to obey, trust and obey today.

In your name, Jesus, amen. Tomorrow we're going to find Noah and his family
boarding the ark.