Becoming One In A Million
Randall Caselman
5/27/98
Becoming One In A Million
Archeologists tell us there may have been one million people on the earth during the days of Noah. Yet God chose Noah to be the
one to initiate a new beginning. Noah was
one-in-a-million.
Imagine now that God is going to destroy the earth and He is searching for one person, one family to start over. Do you think He would pick us? That makes me a little uncomfortable just thinking about it. Why Noah? What kind of people can God use?
He uses people who are available.
God is not looking for the most extraordinary person, the most talented, the richest, the prettiest, the most educated or intelligent. After all God is omnipotent. He has the power to equip us with everything we need to serve Him.
God who gives seed to the sower and bread for food can and will supply our needs for a harvest of righteousness. What God does not do is violate our free moral agency. Availability is more important than ability. Attitude is more important than aptitude. God can and will supply the aptitude, the ability, but we must first be available.
Here am I Lord, send me, use me.
God uses people who dare to be different.
Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. Think about it now, over a million people on the earth and Noah is the only righteous one, the only one who walked with God. Indeed,
one-in-a-million.
Second Chronicles tells us, the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. God's eyes searched the earth and found Noah. God's eyes are searching the earth today looking for the righteous. Do they come to rest on us?
Notice how Noah was different.
He was righteous, blameless and walked with God. We do not have to search for ways to be distinctive.
When we are righteous, blameless and walk with God, we will be distinctively different and everybody will know and notice it.
Conformity was a sin in Noah's day. Conformity is an enemy of Christianity. Paul tells us,
we must not allow the world to force us into its mold, but we are to be transformed people, by the renewing of our minds, that we might become living sacrifices.
God uses people who never give up.
Moses worked on his project of leading Israel to the promise land for forty years. That's a long time for one project. But Noah bettered Moses by three times that.
Becoming a people and person God can use is a life long endeavor. Paul says the crown of life is reserved for those who will,
fight the fight, finish the course, keep the faith. Jesus told the churches in Revelation,
be faithful until and unto death and I'll give you the crown of life. Christianity is a religion of perseverance, of keeping-on-keeping-on.
Did Noah become discouraged? I'm sure he did, but he never gave up. Discouragement is one of Satan's most power weapons. He discourages us in many ways:
• Through problems. Have you ever known a good work that didn't involve problems? Rest assured that Satan will cause problems in anything good that we are called to do.
• By pressure. Noah was under the pressure of size and time. Think about the enormity of the project, a hundred and twenty years may seem like a long time, but maybe not to build a boat the size of a football field.
• Satan uses people to discourage us. There are always those you wish would join in, but don't. There are those who stand on the sideline questioning and criticizing instead of encouraging and edifying.
God uses people of faith.
Faith is following God's instructions, doing what He asks, regardless of human logic. Did it make any sense to build a boat when it had never rained? Did it make any sense to build a boat of this size, when the Mediterranean Sea was hundreds of miles away? Faith is having confidence in God and His promises through His word.
Faith includes obedience.
And Noah did all that the LORD commanded him. This is the kind of person and people God can use. Noah's obedience was due to his faith, his trust, his total confidence in God. What do we need to do today to obey Him completely?
Let me point out here that God uses ordinary people. If I had been writing the Bible, I would have left this part out. Noah is giant in God's world,
one-in-a-million. But Noah gets drunk, Abraham lies about Sarah being his wife, Sarah laughs at God, Jacob lies to his father and cheats his brother, Moses gives into pride, Rahab is a prostitute, David an adulterer, Peter denies Jesus three times. Yet when we turn to Hebrews eleven and read
God's Hall of Faith these men and women are there. Here is the good news,
ordinary people can become one-in-a-million.
God is not looking for perfect people. He is searching for those He can use, ordinary folk, like you and me. Have you blown it? God can handle that, He did with Noah. This is what God's love, grace, mercy and forgiveness is all about. Right now, the Lord is searching the earth for somebody He can use. Do His eyes stop on us?
Will we become one-in-a-million?
—Randall Caselman
