Synopsis: In a world where evil seems normal, are you still grieved by what grieves God? Noah stood out as the only righteous man in a completely corrupt generation. His story teaches us how to live with faith when everything around us is falling apart. Discover how to maintain your spiritual distinctiveness without losing hope in a culture that’s drifting further from God’s design. #FindingFaith #NoahsExample #CounterCulturalChristianity
Text: Genesis 6:1-7:5
Date: October 5, 2025
Introduction
Opening Illustration: Every once in a while, I come across a story that reminds me of the true condition of morality in the West. This week I came across two articles that simply put, had me stunned. The first came out of Canada, where last week a group of three men legally adopted a three year old girl. That was one of those news articles where you knew it was coming eventually, but when it happens you just say “Oh wow.” I think the most shocking part about that story, is that so many people don’t find it shocking. There is seems to be a general sense of zero moral clarity from society as a whole.
Personal: There are many articles I could have chosen, and I’m sure I am preaching to the choir when I say that we are living in a time period of severe moral confusion. It often leaves Christians, who are trying to live faithfully, rather confused. How are we supposed to live faithfully for a god in a God-dishonoring society.
Context: That is a question that the Bible addresses on repeat. We think of the Israelites in the Old Testament living as exiles in Babylon. We think of the prophet Daniel living as an exile in Nebuchadnezzar’s court. We might think of the New Testament where the early Christians were a minority in the midst of the pagan Roman empire. But among all these stories, there is one that stands as markedly unique, and that is the story of Noah. The Bible depicts the culture that Noah was living in a culture that was not just morally degenerate, but was truly morally bankrupt. The conditions were so wicked and so evil, that God would send a worldwide flood to destroy all of humanity. And so when we look to the story of Noah, we can draw principles from his life and his story, of how we can live for God in the midst of a godless society. Today I’ll draw out three responses to that question from the life of Noah.
#1 We Grieve the Ruin of God’s Purposeful Design
As Genesis 6 was just read to us, we saw that the first four verses paint a picture of a society gone absolutely morally bankrupt. And we’re going to look in a moment at how this text describes the moral bankruptcy of Noah’s age. But first I want to see how God responds to the moral bankruptcy.
God Grieved: In verse 6, when God sees the horror of it all, we read:
Genesis 6:6 ESV And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.
We must be careful with this language. God does not regret as humans regret, in the sense that we feel we made a wrong decision. No, God does not make wrong decisions. Rather the language here communicates something about God’s heart. What we learn about God’s heart is that this kind of societal decay “grieves” him. When God sees human suffering he is grieved. When God see atheism he is grieved. When God sees false worship he is grieved. When God sees entertaining the demonic, he is grieved. If we are going to ask, how should respond, let us first look to God.
“Corruption” / Spoiled: What was God grieving? There is one verse that, is a bit hidden, but serves a summary statement of how bad it had gotten. We read in verse 11:
Genesis 6:11 ESV Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence.
The word “corrupt” carries with it the idea of “laid waste” or “ruined”. If you remember the prophet Jeremiah and that interesting story of the loincloth. As a prophetic witness, Jeremiah was commanded to take his loincloth (that’s his underwear) and hide it in the cleft of a rock, and leave it there for many days. When he returned to it we read:
Jeremiah 13:7 ESV … And behold, the loincloth was spoiled; it was good for nothing.
It was ruined, it no longer served its purpose. In Noah’s story, that word is describing society as a whole. Society was like that loincloth, it was ruined. Sin had so pervaded culture, that culture was now unable to accomplish the purpose for which it was made by God. It was good for nothing but destruction.
Four Aspects: And there are at least four aspects to the moral decay from the text.
1 Culture of Demonic Influence: First, there was a culture of demonic influence. We are told in verses 1-2 the follwoing
Genesis 6:1–2 ESV When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.
The question becomes who are “the sons of God” and who are the “daughters of man”? Clearly, Moses—the author of Genesis—is saying that the offspring of those two coming together was very bad. We read further in verse 4:
Genesis 6:4 ESV The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.
I have put together an hour long podcast that I included in my weekly email last week around the identity of the Nephilim. And if you’re interested, I recommend you look that up. I believe what we have here is a deep ingraining of demons and people. Just as in the Garden of Eden where Satan, that fallen angel, took on a physical form and deceived Eve, so in our text here do we have other demonic beings taking on human form and mating with women. There is an intentional intermingling of the Church and the Demonic.
When we see an embracing of the demonic, an embracing of Eastern mysticism, as part of the normal fabric of a society, we should grieve as God grieves.
2 Culture of Marital Perversion: Second, and related, the text says there was a culture of marital perversion.
Genesis 6:2 ESV the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.
These were clearly forbidden marriages. God had designed marriage, as a foundational building block of society, back in Genesis 2. But here in Genesis 6, we see the total corruption of God’s vision of marriage. They are breaking all bounds, and giving themselves in marriage to those whom God has forbidden to enter into marriage with.
When we see the breakdown of God’s vision of marriage, we should grieve as God grieves.
3 Culture of Violence: Third, there was a culture of violence.
Genesis 6:11 ESV Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence.
We are not given details of that violence particularly, but we can imagine. In the end of Genesis 4, we have a man boasting of his murder of another man. This was a culture where murder ran rampant. This was a culture where violence was celebrated. This was a culture where the weak and the vulnerable were not protected, but were harmed. This was a culture where lawlessness reigned supreme.
When we see violence like this in a society, we should grieve as God grieves.
4 Culture of Atheism: Lastly, is what I would call a culture of atheism. Verse 5:
Genesis 6:5 ESV The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Hear the language used to describe all of civilization in Noah’s day. “Every intention of the thoughts of the heart.” Intention means purpose. Something you set out to do with an agenda. Something you put your mind and effort to. Every intention of the heart. Every motivation. Every heart’s desire. Was only… evil… continually. It is striking that Moses here does not describe the actions, but the condition of the heart of the people. He’s describing their desires. And he says that a depraved mind had so smothered every person alive, that all of their thoughts and all of their desires were always wicked.
When we see the general attitude of a society, so fixated on self-exultation, and godless attitudes, we should grieve as God grieves.
Not As Bad: That was Noah’s day. As I read those to you, I don’t think it is very hard for us to see some similarities. We are not as depraved as Noah’s day. So long as the Church is here, we will not fall to that degree. The Church, driven by the power of the Holy Spirit, prevents society from degrading to the degree it degraded in the days of Noah. Yet there are similarities!
Slaves: If we are going to understand the gospel, we must understand that we were not simply blind to all of this before Christ came in our lives, we were slaves to that culture, and that way of life. That was our condition. This is why Ephesians says that we were “dead” in our trespasses and sins. We were!
Practical: Refuse to Let Evil Become Commonplace: But let us make this practical. In my second point I will speak about action we can take to push back on the darkness. First, if we truly grieve a culture like this, then we must refuse to let evil become commonplace in our hearts and minds. We must pray that God gives us sensitive consciences that are not dulled to wickedness around us. The enemies strategy is seige warfare. In seige warfare you surround a town and defeat it by slowly starving them from their resources until they just give up. A seige can take weeks and months as supplies and will power eventually just fail. The enemies tactic is to so normalize sin over so long a time frame, that eventually you just accept it as normal and move on. The first step, is to not allow ourselves to become jaded to what is truly wicked. We must pray to this end “God give us a tenderness of conscience to the evil around us.”
2 We Embrace Life as a Cultural Anomaly
Remember, we are answering the question, how do we live for god in a godless culture. The second lesson from Noah is that we must embrace the life of a cultural anomaly.
Found Favor: Noah’s story really begins In verse 8:
Genesis 6:8 ESV But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
The word translated “favor” in our ESV Bibles, is the exact same word in the Old Testament that is usually translated “grace.” In fact, if you had an old King James Bible, that verse is translated
Genesis 6:8 KJV 1900 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
This is the very first place where the word “grace” is used in all of Scripture. Noah didn’t find favor because he was living for God. Noah lived for God, because he had received grace. This word is used all throughout the Old Testament. 19 times in the Psalms we read the phrase “Be gracious to me O God.” That’s this word. It conveys undeserved favor. It conveys receiving something freely from a superior power. In the midst of a culture gone ary, God pours undeserved, unmerited, agape love down on one man. This is the first we read about Noah’s life. It’s before he has done anything. Before he built an ark. Before he preached. Noah aquired grace. And that grace utterly transformed him.
Gospel: And so it is with us. If you are a Christian, then you have received grace upon grace. God did not pour his love out on you after you had demonstrated that you were worthy, after you had demonstrated that you would live for him. While you were still a sinner, God poured grace out on you. Before you had done anything to earn it. This is the story of Christianity. Like Noah, we were a part of the fallenness of society. But God, gave grace.
Black Sheep: Once Noah receives that grace, he is a transformed man. He stands out among all of his contemporaries as a man who lived for God. Imagine for a moment that you are driving past a pasture full of sheep. Hundreds of white sheep all feeding on the grass. And there in the middle of that pasture of sheep there is one black sheep. And you notice it. It’s different than all the rest. It demands your attention. You can’t not see it, standing differently in the midst of all the other sheep. That is what it means to be a cultural anomaly. That is what Noah was transformeds into. Verse 9 summarizes Noah’s life well:
Genesis 6:9 ESV … Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.
Noah is described in three ways, let’s consider all three of them, as models for us of what it means to be a cultural anomaly living for God.
1 Loved Righteousness (the Law): First, we are told that out of that grace, Noah lived righteously. That word “righteous” can just as easily be translated as “just.” Noah was a just man. This has everything to do with God’s law. It means that Noah lived out God’s law well. God had declared what it meant to follow him. These are the laws of how you will live. These are the laws of how you will behave. These are the laws of how you will offer worship. When the text says that Noah was a “righteous” man, it means that he obeyed God’s word. He structured his life around the law of God. Not perfectly, for no man is perfect except Christ, but intentionally and carefully.
Genesis 6:22 ESV … he did all that God commanded him.
What does it mean to allow grace to make you an anomaly, like Noah. It means that you stand out in the pack as one who delights in God’s law. You know God’s law leads to life. And if everyone around you thinks you’re crazy for building your life on the law of God, you’re content to be the one crazy one.
2 Loved Purity: Second, we are told that Noah was “blameless in his generation.” That word “blameless” means “unstained” or “untarnished”. He did not mix his ways with the ways of the culture around him. He did not borrow from their playbook. The wisdom with which he led his family, and structured his life, was from God and not from culture. He didn’t take the best of what culture had to offer, and merge it with some of the Bible. He just lived for God. Noah lived in the culture around him, but he was not of the culture around him. He was blameless.
3 Relationally Tethered to God: Lastly, Noah is described as someone who “walked with God”. This refers to his ongoing relationship with God. Just as Adam walked with God in the Garden of Eden, in Genesis 2, so do we find Noah walking with God by grace. This language has everything to do with relationship. He walked with God. At the heart of Christianity is a relationship with God. Grace is given not just to make you obedient, but to make you a child of the Father, adopted into his family. Walking with God is the flower of all Christian excellencies. It is the ultimate end of the Christian’s heart. It describes that sweet communion of relationship between the Father and his beloved. It describes that daily familiarity between God and Noah. We might say that to walk with God is to experience a taste of heaven here on Earth. Hebrews 11 describes Noah this way.
Hebrews 11:7 ESV By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
By Faith: How do we walk with God like Noah? By faith! Noah could not yet see the rain, yet by faith he took God at his Word and began to construct the ark, trusting that His Word would not fail. By faith, Noah woke up every day, and determined to continue working on the ark. And as the years went by, he labored steadily at that task by faith. By faith, he believed that God would judge the world for their sin. By faith, the Apostle Peter tells us that Noah preached over those many years with very little success as far as we can tell. And by faith he boarded that ark when God proclaimed the time had come.
Application: I would like to give us one application on this point. And that is that we ought to be spending far more of our “creative energies” forming counter-cultural lifestyles to the world around us. Our primary effort should be in living such powerfully beautiful and joy filled lives for Christ that everyone knows we are the black sheep in the field. Our marriages look different. Our dating looks different. Our children look different. Our homes look different. Our work looks different. Our attitudes in conflict look different. Our thoughts on culture and politics look different. Our Sundays look different. We can critique culture, and we must. But what is your home like? When other encounter you, is like it must have been for the people in Noah’s day encountering him? We want to put our primary energies into forming godliness in our homes.
Summary: How do we live for God in the midst of a godless culture. We embrace the life of a cultural anomaly. We’re going to stand out. Very often we be labeled in all sorts of unfounded and ridiculous ways as a result. I’m sure they mocked Noah in his day. All the way up until it started to rain.
We Take Great Confidence in God’s Deliverance
Lastly, we rest in the perfection of God’s deliverance. The story of Noah, and the flood, and the ark, is foreshadowing of Christ. The whole thing intended to tell the history fo that moment, but also to launch our eyes forward to the ultimate story of deliverance, and the ultimate story of redemption.
Had God’s Promises Failed: As Noah’s story begins, we as readers read the account of society and we are left to wonder, did God’s plans fail? Here we are just a few chapters after Adam and Eve, and all of society is only wicked all the time. What about the promises God made of the savior who would crush the “serpents head.” Did the wickedness of mankind overpower the promises of God? Did Satan outwit God? Noah overwhelmingly answers that question, that thought it may seem that evil gains great strides in the moment, it is God who has the final word.
#1 The Judgment: First, of course we see this in the judgment that came on that civilization. There is judgment for sin, and when that judgment comes it will be too late. Jesus teaches us this as one important lesson from Noah
Matthew 24:38–39 ESV For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
The Apostle Peter talks about Noah as a “preacher of righteousness.” I believe that means that Noah was not only a carpenter who constructed the ark, but he open air preached often towards that wicked culture. And his message probably sounded like this, “Your ways are sinful. And unless you repent of your sin, and walk wtih God, you will perish in your ways. God will bring judgment on you suddenly and totally, and it will be too late. But God has a made a way through that judgment. You need not perish. Repent. Follow God.”
Church, the judgment is coming. When Christ returns he will do so suddenly and violently. He will put an end to all lawlessness. He will judge evey deed and each person will give an account. If our faith is in Christ, and we are recipients of his grace, we will be spared through that judgment. But if we persist in our ways, that judgment will come and will be total. Repent while you have time. Turn to the living God.
#2 Salvation by Ark: Second, the Ark is a symbol for us our salvation in Christ. In the midst of God’s outpouring of wrath, God made one path of salvation for mankind to be saved from that judgment. For those who took refuge in the ark. When the flood came, those who were in the ark, literally passed through the judgment of God unscathed. Inside those wooden walls, Noah’s family, rested, trusting in God’s deliverance.
Just as in the days of Noah, God has made a way to pass through the judgment that is to come unscathed. Only the place we are to look is not to the wood of the ark, but to the wood of the cross. Christ has shed his blood on that cross, as an atoning sacrifice to cleanse you of your sin, to free your from your guilt, to grant you the ultimate rest that Noah only was able to bring in part. Though the judgment will come, you too will pass safely through it, if your faith is in Christ.
#3 God Shut Them In: Lastly I want us to see one little but hidden phrase in this story. It comes in the middle of chapter 7 where we read:
Genesis 7:16 ESV And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him. And the Lord shut him in.
“The Lord shut them in.” Noah built an ark by faith. He entered the ark by faith. But with no way to close the door, he was as good as dead, for the floods were such of a degree that the boat would have sunk without the door sealed shut from the outside. But who seal the ark? Who would place the stamp of salvation over Noah and his family? Who would ensure that God’s promises survived? THE LORD! Noah had work to do. Noah constructed an ark. Noah preached to that wicked generation. Noah brought his family inside the walls of the ark. But it was the Lord who saved him. It was the Lord who shut him in.
Church, take rest in this fact of our faith. Your faith is sealed shut by Christ. He brought you in, and he closed the door. He will safely deliver you to through to the other side. What a confidence this must have given Noah, as he looked back after he entered the ark, and saw the Lord closing the door behind him. And what confidence this ought to give you, Christian saint.
Jude 24 ESV Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy,
There is that wonderful word “blameless.” Who will keep us blameless? Is it us, by our own strength. Are we going to muscle our way through this life as Christians blamelessly. No! It is the Lord that shuts us in. The Lord keeps us from stumbling so as to lose our faith. The Lord keeps us blameless for that great day that we will stand before him. He has shut you in, and he will not cast you out.
Conclusion
Today we have looked at the story of Noah and the Flood. And we have seen some similarities to our own day. Noah has served as an example of how to live for God in the midst of a godless society. But I want to close by imagining for just a moment Noah and his family in that ark. There they are, sitting as a family together inside the walls of that ark. Outside, the greatest storm our world has ever experienced raged. I wonder what they did as they sat there together by candlelight. I suppose they recounted God’s goodness to them. I suppose they considered God’s grace in their life. I suppose they talked about the miracle of God closing the door. And, I like to imagine, that in their joy, they sang a song together, rejoicing in their God.
