righteous

Genesis 7:1-4 The Lord then said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, and also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.”

There are a lot of things to admire about Noah, but one of the most significant is that he was the one man in the whole world that God found to be righteous. I don’t think I’ve given that fact enough consideration before now.

What that meant was that Noah lived in a culture that had turned away from God. Every one of his neighbors, each one of his friends, every single person he did business with, served something or someone other than the Lord. The only people he could have God-talk with were his own family. Worship was either a family affair or something badly distorted. 

Yet Noah remained steadfastly faithful. How did he do that?

It’s a pertinent, even important question for me. Every day I make choices about what to watch on TV, what music I listen to, whether or not to laugh at certain jokes or join in the gossip. The culture I live in urges me to objectify others, to look out for myself, to seek first the pleasures of this world. Seldom on television or at the movies or in front of the news stand am I encouraged to meditate on the word of God, or to pray, or to serve. 

How much of that worldliness that follows something other than God has tainted my thinking? Am I willing to accept the sins the world flaunts? Am I building my own kingdom instead of God’s, pursuing worldly success instead of holiness? Am I even capable of recognizing how worldly I’ve become?

Here’s the core question: amidst this toxic world, have I stayed pure enough that, like Noah, God has found me righteous? Because his judgment will fall on the unrighteous of our time as surely as on the drowned generation of Noah.

It’s discouraging until I realize that I don’t have to do this alone. The same God who saved Noah from the flood saved me from my own judgment. Jesus is my hope, the Jesus who died on the cross, rose again, and ascended to sit with God as Lord of the universe. God would not find me righteous on my own, but when he looks at me he sees the perfectly white robe of righteousness Jesus draped me with. There’s nothing for me to fear.

Which makes me all the more determined to please God. What an amazing thing he did for me! Rather than fearing his wrath, I want to resist corruption to glorify him. Compared to that, all of the other goals I’ve ever had seem insignificant.