The story of Noah is one of the first heart-warming and frightening stories in the Bible. It is frightening because the Bible says “Now the LORD observed the extent of the people's wickedness, and he saw that all their thoughts were consistently and totally evil. So the LORD was sorry he had ever made them. It broke his heart”. On the other hand it was heartwarming because the Bible also recorded “But Noah found favor with the LORD. Noah was a righteous man, the only blameless man living on earth at the time. He consistently followed God's will and enjoyed a close relationship with him.” In a world that was full of evil and corruption to the extent that it broke God’s heart, there was a single man who lived so righteously that he found favour with God. He consistently followed God's will and enjoyed a close relationship with him. What a testimony that was!

The world conforms; puts you into its mould, but life dedicated to God is transformed, renewed, made good and acceptable. Conformation is outward and does not in any way affect the inner-self. There are many in the Church who are only trying to conform – they dress like Christians, talk like Christians, behave like Christians, learn their vocabularies, but their inside is the old antithesis of the Christian life. Transformation reaches deeper. The work is done inside and made manifest in the outside. The radiance is inside and reaches to the outside

The story is told of the pig and the chicken that went to the Church and heard of the Pastor’s birthday anniversary celebration. They offered to be part of the birthday celebration by making their contributions to his breakfast. The chicken suggested that they give the Pastor a good breakfast of bacon and eggs. The pig turned to the chicken and said “You are asking me to make a total sacrifice while you give a donation.” A breakfast of bacon and eggs is a total sacrifice for the pig but an offering by the chicken. Every Christian is either making a sacrifice or a donation.

Humility is unique to Biblical faith. It is only Christianity that regard humility as a virtue; others either do not accord it a position of honour or utterly fail to recognize it. Christian humility can be defined as the bent-knee instance of awed and grateful awareness that existence is a gift of grace, and mercy beyond our understanding. Humility can be seen in Abraham as he describes himself as “dust and ashes” (Genesis 18:27); in Paul as he writes to the Church in Corinth in First Corinthians 4:6-7: “Now these things, brethren, I have figuratively transferred to myself and Apollos for your sakes, that you may learn in us not to think beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up on behalf of one against the other.  For who makes you differ from another? And what do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” (NKJV) - all we are is a gift from God. Humility is the sinner’s acknowledgment of his sins and unfitness for God’s mercy as we see in Isaiah “Woe is me -... unclean lips (Isaiah 6:5) We see this again in Paul in First Corinthians 15:9; Ephesians 3:18; First Timothy 1:15. 

You might ask how is that a problem? Yes, sometimes your position turns out to be a problem to you. You have to live up to that position. Moreover, your position brings you in contact with people; for Naaman, one of such people is an unnamed Jewish slave girl who served as his house maid. Some of us here have such girls in our homes. How often do we listen to their kitchen talks about us? That kitchen talk led to one of the greatest miracles in the Old Testament.