Keep it Fresh
Notes
Transcript
Series recap: (Looking at how Scripture uses Water to teach us about God and life) 1. Jesus is the source who quenches our thirst 2. When we have Jesus, he gives us the Holy Spirit to empower us.
Have you ever been asked to do something that you know is impossible, but you tried anyway?
So, I was a Youth Pastor for almost 10 years before becoming a Chaplain in the Army. And there’s one thing Youth Pastors are notorious for, creating ridiculous challenges that people could never do but teenagers always want to try. So, I never did this one because I thought it was just too gross and I didn’t want to deal with it, but the most famous Youth Pastor challenge is the Gallon Milk Challenge. Has anybody in here attempted the Gallon Milk Challenge?
The Gallon Milk Challenge is where you have 1 hour to drink a whole gallon of milk. On the surface, it doesn’t sound too bad. I mean, you could probably drink a gallon of water in an hour, so why not a gallon of milk? Well, it is nearly impossible. Virtually every person who attempts the challenge either gives up, which is not as fun, or throws up, in which case everybody has a good time laughing at your expense because you thought you could handle it. Throwing up is funny to middle schoolers, I don’t know. You lay the silly challenge out, and somebody always believes they could do the impossible. And everybody else gets a laugh.
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Maybe when you think of impossible challenges that make you look silly, you think of pain. You had a coach in high school, or maybe even a Drill SGT here, who would choose workouts that were impossible for you to complete. Everybody has to run the sprint in this amount of time, or everybody is doing it again. And you know for a fact not everybody in the group can run it that fast. The coach knows for a fact not everybody can run it that fast. So you’ve just got to mentally prepare for the pain that’s coming. Maybe it was a music teacher who gave impossibly hard pieces to beginners. Maybe it was a teacher who gave impossible math problems way above the class level. And in all of those situations, you tried something you didn’t think was going to work, and you failed in front of everybody. It’s never a fun place to be.
This morning we are going to be looking at a person in Scripture who was asked to the impossible. He was asked to do something that must have sounded so silly, so crazy, that you know everybody was making fun of him the whole time. But, Noah said yes.
If you have your Bibles, we will be in Genesis 6-9 this morning. No, I am not going to read Genesis 6-9. But we will be looking at some verses all through these 4 chapters.
If you don’t know the story of Noah, here’s the short recap of the story. God tells Noah to make a boat, an ark because he is going to flood the whole world. Noah builds the boat. Noah and his family and the animals get into the boat. God brings the flood, and everybody and every animal and every living thing not on the ark dies in the flood. Afterwards, God establishes his covenant with Noah that he will never flood the earth like that again, and the rainbow is the sign of the covenant. That’s the cliffnotes.
But we need to get more into the details. Why did God flood the whole entire earth? That sounds a little rough.
Why the flood: God must judge evil
Why the flood: God must judge evil
The Bible uses really strong words to describe how God felt at this time. Evil, wickedness, grief, and regret.
5 When the Lord saw that human wickedness was widespread on the earth and that every inclination of the human mind was nothing but evil all the time, 6 the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and he was deeply grieved. 7 Then the Lord said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I created, off the face of the earth, together with the animals, creatures that crawl, and birds of the sky—for I regret that I made them.”
Nothing but evil ALL THE TIME. And then this word in verse 6, God regretted making man. This word is only used to describe God 3 times in the whole Old Testament. That God regretted something, which is a really weird way to think about God. God knows all. He knew this would happen, so why would he regret it happening? It shows us how much God cares about his people, who he created. He is personally involved, so much so that it absolutely grieves him, hurts him, when those who he created have become nothing but evil.
And it wasn’t like it was just a few people, look at verse 12.
12 God saw how corrupt the earth was, for every creature had corrupted its way on the earth.
Every creature. Every single creature. This wasn’t just a few bad apples. God looked at the world, and all he was able to see was evil. Violence. Chaos. Wickedness. Every inclination of the human mind was nothing but evil all the time. For every single person. And God decides, I need to hit the reset button. I’m going to destroy the earth.
Yet, he didn’t. In comes Noah. So why did God choose Noah to be the one person?
Why Noah: He walked with God
Why Noah: He walked with God
God adds a disclaimer here. The whole earth was corrupt, except for one person: Noah.
8 Noah, however, found favor with the Lord. 9 These are the family records of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among his contemporaries; Noah walked with God. 10 And Noah fathered three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Honestly, this is one of the most boggling aspects of this whole story. I mean, there is some crazy stuff in Noah’s story, and we will get to more of those specifics in a second. But this is the craziest thing to me: Noah walked with God even though every single other person in the whole entire world had forsaken Him.
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How hard is it to walk with God now? Even with going to church and knowing that there are others around you who are trying to do the same? It’s hard. It’s hard to stay faithful and stay true when you have lots of friends who are doing the opposite. You have lots of friends who are living “corrupted” lives, and you have some friends who are walking with God. And everyday you have to make the decision to walk with God. Yet, here’s Noah, walking with God in the midst of not knowing a single other person who is dedicated to doing the same.
Could you do that? Will you do that?
But because Noah walked with God, he trusted God, and he had the faith to say yes to what must have sounded absolutely ridiculous at first.
God laid out some pretty clear instructions for the ark. It was to be 450 ft long. 75 ft wide. 45 ft high. Have 3 decks. Only one door. Covered with pitch inside and out to make it waterproof. And its got to be able to hold 2 of every animal and all their food and all the food you will need to eat.
I’ve got a diagram that kind of shows the size of this build.
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Let’s talk some ship building for a second. Modern scientists have studied the dimensions, and its proportional to modern day cargo ships. Basically, these are the correct dimensions to build a sea-faring ship that can carry lots of weight and stay buoyant and survive the ocean.
This is about as big as any known historical wooden boat. There was a wooden Chinese boat from the 1400s that is reportedly bigger, but not much historical evidence points to any other wooden boat being as big as the ark.
And God is asking Noah to build this boat. Him and his family. With no power tools. No cranes. No huge machines. Just whatever ancient pieces of technology they had back then. Which is obviously possible, I mean people build the pyramids and other ships back then as well. But by himself? Or at least, just him and his sons. An absolutely daunting task.
But Noah had the faith to say yes.
But then there’s the second part of this craziness that you know Noah to be thinking about: How am I going to catch these animals? I’ve got to get lions, tigers, and bears? And giraffes? And elephants? And rats and mice and rabbits? And I’ve got to store them on here? And feed them? And keep them from eating each other?
No way. Impossible. God is asking Noah to do something that is impossible. What were other people saying when they saw what Noah was doing? Laughing. Making fun of him. Telling him he’s ridiculous. What would he need to be building a boat that big for? Oh, God talks to you. Cool. You’re definitely right. Oh, God’s going to bring all those animals here. Uh huh. You got this, bro. You’re literally crazy.
But Noah had faith. Noah trusted God. So why Noah? Noah walked with God, and he had the faith to say yes.
22 And Noah did this. He did everything that God had commanded him.
And God did everything he said he was going to do. He shut Noah and his family and the animals into the ark. The earth was flooded for 150 days before the water finally receded, and Noah and his family were able to leave the ark. 150 days in the ark. And they came out to a whole new world, and alone.
In the midst of this great judgment, there was also great grace. We don’t immediately see it because the harsh judgment sticks out so great. But God’s grace is still there.
Even in judgment, God’s grace still shines through
Even in judgment, God’s grace still shines through
First, there were lots of warnings and time for people to change their ways. When God first says this is coming, he says he is going to give them 120 years.
3 And the Lord said, “My Spirit will not remain with mankind forever, because they are corrupt. Their days will be 120 years.”
God is building in time for repentance. He desires for his people, his creation, to repent and turn back to him. This wasn’t a spur of the moment decision for God. In fact, it is a great illustration of what he will say about himself to Moses in Exodus.
6 The Lord passed in front of him and proclaimed: The Lord—the Lord is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth, 7 maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin. But he will not leave the guilty unpunished, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation.
God is slow to anger. Here with the flood, he is extremely slow. Waiting patiently. But, he will not leave the guilty unpunished. He waits and waits, but he follows through with what he declared will happen.
There was also the grace of Noah’s preaching. 2 Peter 2:5 describes Noah as a “preacher of righteousness.”
7 By faith Noah, after he was warned about what was not yet seen and motivated by godly fear, built an ark to deliver his family. By faith he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
That word “condemned” means he spoke judgment on. Meaning: he told everybody what was coming. Noah told all the people why he was doing what he was doing, and it probably took somewhere between 50-70 years to build the ark. There was time. Time for Noah to preach. Time for others to repent. Time for others to walk with God instead of choosing corruption, violence, and evil.
God gives time to repent. God sends people into our lives to show us areas where we are disobeying God. And we can listen or not. We can obey or not. We can repent or not. But God will do as he says.
After the flood, we see God’s grace towards Noah and future humanity.
20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord. He took some of every kind of clean animal and every kind of clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 When the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, he said to himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of human beings, even though the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth onward. And I will never again strike down every living thing as I have done.
And then God renews the commands he gave to Adam to Noah.
1 God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. 2 The fear and terror of you will be in every living creature on the earth, every bird of the sky, every creature that crawls on the ground, and all the fish of the sea. They are placed under your authority. 3 Every creature that lives and moves will be food for you; as I gave the green plants, I have given you everything.
The waters of the flood were judgment, but they were a renewing judgment. They were a cleansing judgment. It was a removal of the evil of the world, and God is calling Noah back to how it all began. He is to be a steward of the earth. Taking care of the land. Taking care of the animals. Taking care of each other. Walking with God.
Water cleanses. It renews. It makes new.
And it also points to Jesus.
The flood points to Jesus
The flood points to Jesus
Do you remember how Noah was described? He was righteous and blameless. He was righteous and blameless, and he was spared from God’s punishment. The Old Testament is just a shadow of what is to come. It directs us to the real thing, which is the work of Jesus.
21 Once you were alienated and hostile in your minds as expressed in your evil actions. 22 But now he has reconciled you by his physical body through his death, to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before him—
Before we are in Jesus, we are evil. Alienated from God. Hostile. Corrupted. But God. God made a way, and when we are in Jesus, because of the work he did dying on the cross for our sins, God sees us as holy, faultless, and blameless. Not because you are perfect. Not because you are actually blameless. But its because God has reconciled you, forgiven you, through the death and resurrection of Jesus, if you have put your faith in him.
And when we have done that, put our faith in Jesus and been made new, we also go through the water of renewal.
Baptism.
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Explain Believer’s Baptism.
It is symbolic of 2 things: The renewal/cleansing the water does. And the death and resurrection of Jesus that we are now a part of and saved by.
We are having a baptism next week. If you have put your faith in Jesus, you’ve been saved by Jesus, but have never been baptized or not been baptized after that moment, come talk to one of the Chaplains after the service or during the last song. We would love to share with you, and you could be baptized next Sunday, too, and experience the water’s renewal.