Noah: the Fountainhead of Faith
Faith of Our Fathers
April 24, 2022
Rev. Dr. Gabe Sylvia
Using Noah to open the 2022 series on the faith of our fathers, the sermon shows how God's wrath and grace meet in the flood narrative, how God's people are preserved by worship and divine grace (foreshadowing Christ's atoning blood), and calls believers to prioritize sacrificial worship, stewardship, and prayer.
Summary
This sermon launches the 2022 series on the faith of our fathers by moving to the Old Testament story of Noah to demonstrate that Christian faith is rooted in redemptive history. Noah is presented as a righteous man whose obedience and worship (building an altar, offering clean animals) led to both physical preservation in the ark and spiritual preservation by faith. The need for blood to bridge human unholiness to God's holiness points forward to Christ's atoning work. The preacher applies the text: believers should prioritize God and worship over physical comforts, recognize God's preserving grace, steward the earth faithfully, and engage in persistent prayer that trusts God's saving work.
Key Points
- Series context: shifting from the New Testament to the Old to show continuity of the Christian faith.
- Noah's story highlights both God's wrath (judgment in the flood) and God's grace (salvation of Noah's family).
- Noah was righteous and responded in worship—building an altar and offering clean animals—which foreshadows Israel's sacrificial worship.
- Preservation of God's people is both physical (the ark) and spiritual (saving faith); worship and God's grace are central to that preservation.
- Sacrificial acts of faith demonstrate prioritizing God above physical well‑being; believers are to put worship and the church first.
- The shedding of blood is required to deal with human unholiness; this points to Christ, whose blood protects all who trust him.
- God's grace, expressed and acknowledged in worship, spares life from judgment and preserves his people as it did Noah.
- Believers are called to steward the earth as God's and to pray, trusting that the prayers of God's people have powerful impact.
- The sermon closes with a reflective question about the present impact of believers' prayers compared to Noah's example.
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