The Bible is replete with examples of some of the worst and some of the best fathers.

Noah is an example of a good father. We normally think of him as the guy who built the ark, brought the animals on the ark two by two, and restarted the human race after the catastrophic flood. He was also a good father. The building of Noah’s ark was probably the most remarkable accomplishment in history up to that time when you look at the dimensions for the ark that is given in the Bible and the lack of power tools in that day. Noah’s greatest accomplishment was his family’s faith!

Noah raised a family in a difficult time. It was an age of wickedness and evil thinking.

That sounds much like our own day, but Noah proves that a man can be a good father and raise a godly family even in the worst of times. His was also an age of corruption and violence.

He resisted peer pressure. Teens have told me that peer pressure is on of their toughest struggles.

Walking: a close daily intimate relationship with God

Before we’re told that Noah walked with God, verse 9 says he was a “just man.” The term “just” in the Bible doesn’t have to do with living a good life. To be “just” in the biblical sense means to be without sin before God. Being this is not something that is earned, but is bestowed upon a person by God. This concept of God making a person just before Him is known as “justification.”

The word “perfect” here does not mean he never sinned. The Hebrew word means “without blemish, complete, sound, upright, whole.”

3 Notes on Hebrews 11:7·

Righteousness” means the same thing as the word “just” in Genesis 6. To be “righteous” means to be able to stand without sin before a holy God. Well, none of us are perfect—including Noah, so that presents a dilemma. Even if we reform and live for God, we’re still not perfect. But that’s what God demands—absolute perfection.

·Second that this righteous standing before God is bestowed, not earned.

Hebrews 11:7 says Noah became “heir” to this righteous state before God. To become an heir means to receive something absolutely free. That’s what salvation is: a free gift from a loving God.

It’s only through Jesus that we can have this gift of righteousness before God. The Bible teaches that on the cross, Jesus died for our sins in our place.

The third truth we see is that righteousness is by faith. “[Noah] became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.”

The first thing to do to be the dad God wants you to be is to have your sins forgiven by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. Once he was saved by God’s grace, we’re told that Noah “walked with God.” As Noah’s sons watched his life, they saw a man who practiced what he believed.

Noah’s kids would say, “Dad’s walk matched his talk”— and you can follow a man of integrity. Noah looked around at the wickedness and the violence of his day and he refused to follow the lead of his culture. The world said, “Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die,” but Noah said, “No, that’s not a God’s way. I want to walk with God. I want to please God in my life. I want to live for God. I want to obey His rule in my life.”

The world was going to hell in a hand-basket, but Noah resolved to be different from those around him and to walk with God.

What does it mean to “walk with God?” Walking with someone means you’re going in the same direction as him. Now if you and God are traveling together, who’s going to lead the way? Why God is, of course. That’s the only way God will have it HE has to be in control. So to walk with God is to walk in His ways, to follow His lead.

First, spend time with God in His Word and prayer. You cannot cultivate a relationship with someone you don’t spend time with. Dad, do you have a time in God’s Word and in prayer every single day? A time when God can set you straight; correct you; get you reoriented on a daily basis towards Him; get you to refocus your priorities? You’ll need to do that to walk with God.

Second, be the spiritual leader of your home. When Joshua came into the land of Israel, he didn’t give his kids an option about serving the Lord. He said, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” You need to be the key leader in going to church and putting the Lord first in your life and reading the Bible in your home.

Third, to walk with God, OBEY Him. God came to Noah and told him to build an ark. “A what? What in the world is an ark?” It had never rained before and there were no large bodies of water. What God was asking him to do didn’t seem to make any sense to him. But he did it out of obedience to God.

He says to give up your life to save it.

He says to give so that you may receive.

He says the way to greatness is to be a servant.

God says to “let your speech be seasoned with salt,”

God commands “Be angry and sin not,”

God said “You shall not steal,”

God commands us to keep ourselves unspotted from the world

In the church, God teaches us to find a ministry to serve God with your talents and abilities.

Let's walk with God through a vibrant, passionate daily time with God, by being a spiritual leader in our homes, and by being consistently obedient Christians in each of these areas. Yes, Noah was a saved man, and he walked with God.

Compare God’s descriptions of Noah and his neighbors:

His neighbors were corrupt, violent, wicked, evil.

Noah was justified, holy, one who walked with God.

Noah was a righteous man living in an evil day, which called for him to be a witness to those around him.

Are you a witness for Christ? Do you invite others to church to hear the Gospel? Do you tell others about Christ’s love and how they can have their sins forgiven? Do you share with them how they can have eternal life through Jesus Christ?

One more truth: Noah didn’t have a lot of visible fruit for his preaching. But not everyone rejected his message. There was one group of people he won, and they were the most important of all.

This was the most important thing he did in his life!

Noah’s family members were his only converts—yet God deemed him a success!

He was not a great financier, but he was a great father for his boys.

He was not a corporate executive, but he was a conscientious example.

Noah may not have been a great preacher, but he was a great pattern.

When Lot fled Sodom and Gomorrah, he begged his family to escape, having received warnings of Sodom and Gomorrah’s imminent destruction. Lot, who compromised every step of the way with the culture around him, had absolutely no credibility with his family spiritually. They mocked his warnings. When God began to rained down his judgment and Lot fled…he fled alone. Every one of his family members perished in Sodom and Gomorrah.

Authenticity and genuineness without hypocrisy is a persuasive argument for a person’s faith: the strongest argument that can be made. That’s why Noah was able to reach his family. He was not hypocritical and they saw the reality of his faith.

Kids react to hypocrisy, but they respond positively to a genuine faith in God. God help us to be REAL Christians; to be sold-out, whole-hearted Christians; to be faithful Christians; to be obedient Christians, just as Noah was.

As it was in the days of Noah, so it is in our day: a time of wickedness, violence and sin. God’s grace is sufficient for fathers now as it was then. May God enable us to win our families to Christ!

Let us walk with God by first being saved and second by obeying God in our lives.

Let us witness faithfully for Christ.

Let us be so real and authentic as Christians that our families are convinced Christianity MUST be true, and thereby lead them to faith in Christ by our godly example.