“Faith Makes You Do Crazy Things”

Scripture: "By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith." -Hebrews 11:7, NIV

As a husband of almost five and a half years to one of God's greatest gifts to Earth in my wife, I have learned to tap into a side of me that I would normally consider crazy. Case in point, about a month ago, we purchased ten theater chairs because my wife wanted to convert our finished basement downstairs into a theater. Due to these chairs being pretty heavy, she desired to have a platform built to place these chairs on there to give it an authenticity a la a theater. At first, the thought was to build the platform; however, we ran into a builder at Home Depot one night and he came by the next afternoon to quote us. Upon his quote being a little over our means and the fact that my wife could not contact another gentleman to do the work and because I love her and wanted the platform that bad, I decided that we could go purchase the wood and other tools needed to build the platform. Mind you, I call this instance crazy because though I am an engineer by trade, I am not a builder using wood or anything like that. When it was all said and done, the love for my wife and to make her happy prevailed because the non-builder that is me and she put together this platform. If you think about this thing spiritually, God has planted some things in your Spirit that you thought were crazy, but because you have developed faith in Him, you walked with the "crazy thing" He placed in you, and next thing you know, He has blessed you! Just in case you have not experienced this phenomenon, let today's text bless you.

Our main scripture for today is located in the book of Hebrews. According to my research, this book addresses three distinct groups: believers in Christ, unbelievers who had knowledge of and an intellectual acceptance of the facts of Christ, and unbelievers who were attracted to Christ, but ultimately rejected Him. In addition, one of the major topics within this book is that of faith. Chapter 11 of Hebrews denotes those who are considered heroes of faith within the Bible. Today's main scripture focuses on one of these heroes and how his faith made him do a crazy thing.

The author begins the text by writing, "By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family". Wow! What a profound piece of scripture! Verse 1 of Chapter 11 tells us about what is faith. It tells us that "now faith is the substance of things hoped for, but the evidence of things not seen". If you go back and read Noah's episode in Genesis, you'll find out that God charged Noah to build an ark because He would eventually destroy the Earth by water. If truth were told, God has charged us with tasks because something eventually would occur. I recall hearing my wife telling another sister how she knew of a young lady, who was single, that bought more than enough washing detergent because she was anticipating being married and lo and behold, God allowed her husband to find her and she was ready to wash. Due to his faith in God and adhering to God's voice, Noah, though he had NEVER seen a drop of water come from the sky, began to build the ark. The text indicates he did it in "holy fear". Mind you, this fear is not the fear one has of a gun, but fear being reverence of God. Ladies and gentlemen, God is looking for you and I to fear Him like we supposed to! God is looking for you and I to reverence Him on a greater level! When we do that, we will be careful of the things we say to people. We will be careful of the things we do. We will be careful in how we do things. Due to his holy fear, the ark was built to save him and his family. When God orders you to do something faith wise, know that it usually has life-saving repercussions behind it. It may not necessarily be your physical life that's saved, but it just may be your spiritual life that is saved!

Due to his faith driving him to build the ark, the author concludes that "by his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith". Through Noah stepping up, exercising his faith, and building the ark, he condemned the world and became an heir of righteousness! Do you realize that your faith have some awesome benefits attached to it? Do you realize that you would become an heir of righteousness. When you are righteous in the eyesight of God, there isn't any good thing that He would withhold from you! Because of Noah's faith, his family was saved, animals were saved, and the world was able to be re-populated again with people and animals.

In closing, because of the faith my wife had in me, it drove me to do something out of my comfort zone, something "crazy" in my eyesight and build this platform alongside with her. Just like that, God has faith in you and me. He wants you to exercise your faith in such a way that crazy things will occur from you and yet bless His Kingdom, you and your family. We have a great example in Noah. Won't you step out and allow faith to serve as the dominant factor within your Christian walk? If you do, it has some attached blessings with your name on it!