Thomas Jefferson wrote the epitaph on his tombstone. He wanted to be remembered for three things: his authorship of the Declaration of Independence, his founding of the University of Virginia, and his forming of the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom. He did not mention his presidency.

The summation of Noah’s life is found in Genesis 6:9. These words could fit well on a tombstone. “These are the records of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God.”

I want to live the kind of life where words like that could be chiseled into my gravestone, don’t you? Noah chose to walk with God while surrounded by wicked people like the world had never seen. His story gives us every reason to believe that one man or woman really can make a difference.

My son came home the other day talking about how hard it is to be a Christian at school. He attends public school and he doesn’t find very many boys who love Jesus the way he does. He says they use bad language and the teachers don’t seem to correct them. He’s only 12 years old. We told him it’s only going to get harder as you get older, but you really can enjoy God’s favor when surrounded by evil.

Noah did. He was a man of faith. The word “faith” bookends Noah’s epitaph in Hebrews 11:7. “By faith, Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world, and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.”

It takes faith to build an ark when the world has never seen a catastrophic flood.

It takes faith to do something nobody else has done.

It takes faith to continue doing what God has called you to do when everyone else is mocking you.

It takes faith to do this for more than 100 years without growing weary in well doing.

It takes faith to walk with God when everyone around you is walking to the beat of their own drum.

It takes faith to walk with God and not know where you’re going.

It takes faith to impact your family by the way you walk.

“Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him” (Gen. 5:24). Noah too walked with God and found God’s favor. He walked by grace and through faith and received salvation. What about you?

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“Every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.”

Romans 8:28 MSG