Hebrews 11:22

It was by faith that Joseph, when he was about to die, said confidently that the people of Israel would leave Egypt. He even commanded them to take his bones with them when they left.

The Story of Joseph is one of absolute faith and trust in an Almighty God regardless of the circumstances. What is amazing is that twenty-five percent of Genesis is devoted to the life of Joseph yet the Book of Hebrews records nothing of his pit, prison or palace experiences. Only Hebrews 11:22 mentions Joseph as it references his command concerning his bones. Joseph was a mighty man and a leader’s leader, yet it was his faith revealed as he spoke about his bones, that qualified him to join the ranks of the leaders in the Hall of Fame of Faith (Hebrews 11). It’s not really about what we go through that is important but what we believe because of who we look too. While Joseph was gathered with his children and grandchildren, he began speaking about the divine plan of God for him, his family and for his nation. He said to his family, “I am about to die, but God will surely take care of you, and bring you up from this land to the land which He promised on oath to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” Genesis 50:24. Even when he was dying he was still focusing his family on the Father. Genesis begins with creation and ends with a casket but that is not the end. Joseph left a legacy of leadership because he relied on God’s:

• Promises

Joseph understood that regardless of what circumstances may have dictated, God’s Word would come to pass. When Joseph said, “God will bring you out of this land,” the Israelites had no reason to want to leave Egypt. They were the most favored people in the nation, they were given the best food, the best land and the best living conditions. Pharaoh and everyone loved the Jews so for Joseph to talk about them someday leaving made no sense at the time. Yet Joseph knew that things would change and the time would come when his descendants would not be prosperous and free. Faith sees life through the lens of the Lord, scripture becomes the spectacles that we look at the world through. Today there is a tendency for Christians to reverse this and view the Word through the paradigm of the World instead of what God has already said. Real faith is not that we name it and claim it, but God said it and we believe it. Faith is believing what God said would be, even when it is not and believing until it comes to pass. So Joseph trusted and believed God even in what had not happened yet. Where there is no faith in the future there is no power in the present.

• Power

God’s power is unshakable regardless of the conditions, concerns, or chronology before or after us. We must remember that worry will wear us out and shorten our life while robbing us of joy. Faith isn’t having it figured out it’s having a Father that does and a faith that cannot be tested is a faith that cannot be trusted. Something that we seem to forget is that the first word in “testimony” is “test” and passing the test is part of the testimony. Delay does not mean denial, when God spoke to Habakkuk, he said pertaining to his vision, “If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently, for it will surely take place” Habakkuk 2:3. God does not wear a wrist watch to work, He operates in the fullness of time. I have come to discover that He is rarely early but He is never late. What Joseph knew was that God’s promises would come to pass whether he was alive to see it or not, because they were not dependent on Joseph’s power. When God places a vision in your heart it doesn’t always mean that you will hold it in your hand but He will.

• Peace

Even while Joseph speaks of his date with death, he is enjoying his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Only God can give us peace in the passing, a peace that passes all understanding. Sometimes it is hard to describe peace but we know when we have it and when we don’t. Peace is a product of resting in God’s provision. Joseph was at peace but not with the place, because God’s promised provision was not Egypt. Why was Joseph not content to be buried in Egypt? Why was he so insistent on going with the Israelites when they did leave Egypt? Because he was not ok with settling for anything other than God’s planned best.  Joseph was interested in being a part of what God was doing on the earth whether he was dead or alive. Can you say with integrity that you want to be a part of what God is doing today, regardless of whether or not you live to see all of if fulfilled in your lifetime? Joseph knew that God would keep his promises and wanted to go where He was taking his children in the future. Joseph understood what few of us do, that God’s work doesn’t end with us, Joseph looked forward with anticipation to the fulfilled promise. He lived his life in the sunrise of eternity not at the sunset of time. He viewed his life as having value to God in the now but also in the then. As the Israelites were exiting Egypt, Moses gave a commandment regarding the bones of Joseph (Exodus 13:18-19). He commanded hundreds of thousands of Israelites to stop as he asked, “Where are the bones of Joseph?” They didn’t have a casket committee but they should have been prepared because Joseph had warned them. I don’t think that Josephs casket was carried at the end of the procession as they left Egypt, but at the head of the line. This casket represented faith in God, what it communicated to God’s people was “I told you that God would fulfill His promise.” They carried his bones out of Egypt through the Red Sea around for more than 40 years of wilderness wanderings. The truth is that there was more faith in the bones of Joseph than in the feet of the Israelites. Moses would look at the Promised Land but Joseph would possess it even in his death. Today are you remembering the unbreakable promises of God, relying on the unshakable power of God and rest in the unmistakable peace of God?

Hebrews 11:7

7 It was by faith that Noah built a large boat to save his family from the flood. He obeyed God, who warned him about things that had never happened before. By his faith Noah condemned the rest of the world, and he received the righteousness that comes by faith.

Faith is the common denominator, everyone expresses faith in something. We can’t go a single day without exercising faith in the physical world around us. The difference between the faith we exercise in our daily routine and our religious faith is the object of that faith. Yet here too everyone places their faith in something or someone. The humanist puts his faith in himself, the follower of religion, in his own good works. Your faith is only as good as the object in which you place your faith and the Bible insists that we personally put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ. Acts 4:12 says, “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Today we look at a very familiar story of faith, Noah and the ark. We don’t know a whole lot about Noah, what he did for a living, whether he was well off or poor. We do know that his name means rest, that he was the grandson of Methuselah. That it wasn’t until Noah was 500 years old that his sons Shem, Ham & Japheth were born. Most importantly the Bible tells us that Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time and that he walked with God. What mattered to Noah was his relationship with God, he made the goal of his life to live to please the Lord, voyaging by faith means:

• Revealing the Redeemer

The story of Noah’s life involves not one, but two great and tragic floods. The world in Noah’s day, like ours, was flooded with evil. Nine generations and over 1,000 years of human history had passed since Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden. Paradise had become a sewer and the number of those who remembered the God of creation, perfection, and love had dwindled to one family. So God informs Noah that He is going to bring judgment and wipe mankind off of the face of the earth. God then informs Noah that He is going to preserve his family if Noah will build an ark. Why would God ask anyone to build an enormous ship miles from the ocean? Was it because God was giving anyone who would pass by this unmistakable structure a second chance, God’s response to the severe situation was over a hundred yearlong last chance.  God called Noah to use his life to build a graphic illustration of God’s message of salvation to the world. When Noah’s neighbors passed by his house, they had to make a choice. Either they believed that there was a God who was worthy of worship, or Noah was wacked. Day after day as Noah built he revealed the Redeemers plan and for over one hundred years they had an opportunity to respond. Nothing like a huge boat on dry land to make a point, it’s not like God didn’t reveal Himself.  God’s will for Noah was to reveal God to the word in which he lived by faith and he responded. Today we have reduced God’s will to our wants, and the walk of faith to feelings. Faith reveals the Father, everyday Noah’s neighbors saw him committed to God’s picture for the world not his own.

For Noah this was a long-term commitment and it is interesting that the length of Noah’s obedience was greater than the lifespan of people today. Many of us have trouble sticking to anything for more than a few weeks, yet for over a hundred years he worked at constructing the Ark. The only comparable long-term project is our very lives. God’s vision for us is a life of faith that reveals the love of the Lord. What if we caught God’s vision to reveal the Savior to the sinner? It’s God’s vision that enables us to live above mediocrity, to live, in gratitude of God’s grace. Noah is the second great father of the human race, he is the connecting link between the old and the new world. Like Noah we too can be the connector between the old life and the new.

• Choosing God’s Call

There was a clear call from God and Noah had the choice to respond or refuse. God’s call included His plans, God is specific in both the design and what materials to use. Using the most conservative estimate available for a cubit, approximately 18 inches, the ark would have been roughly 450 feet long, 75 wide and 45 high. Picture yourself building a boat the length of one and a half football fields, over four stories high with approximately 1.5 million cubic feet of space. Choosing God’s call means responds to conviction not the crowd. Today are you willing to take a stand, to live by conviction in a world craving what is comfortable? Or will you compromise your beliefs in order to conform to the crowd? Noah was a man who did what God wanted him to do, not what the world expected him to do. Just like in Noah’s day there is violence and evil all around us and the crowd is calling us to compromise. Noah had to rest in God’s plan of provision, His design, it was built for seaworthiness not speed, it wasn’t about getting somewhere it was about salvation. Following Gods plan means resting in His provision, there were no lifeboats, no “plan B”. If this ark didn’t work, then all was lost, Noah’s total faith and trust had to be in God’s one means of salvation. So it is with us. There is no plan B apart from Jesus, we have to place all of our trust in Him. Noah followed the Father and that determined the direction of His life. When we watch the weatherman, if we believe him, it changes the way we live our lives, at least for that day. It determines what we wear, whether we go and where. Our faith in the weatherman, who is statistically not a very good prophet, changes the way that we live our lives. Noah believed God, and that belief impacted his behavior, it changed both his attitude and his actions. Instead of a fearful attitude about what others thought Noah revealed God to them through his actions. Today we allow fear to stifle our activity but God can use you to do what you never thought possible if you are willing to do what He says. Are you willing to do that, are you willing to do things God’s way rather than your own? Are you willing to trust Him rather than yourself? Over and over God uses ordinary people, He called reluctant Moses to reveal His rescue. He called young David to slay the giant, the teenager Mary to reveal the Savior and Saul to speak of His salvation. God specializes in calling the ordinary to the extraordinary. He is calling you to a life of faith and the real question is, without God, how long can you tread water?