Gen 6:5-8:22
Do you love Jesus? Do you love him?
I don’t mean do you have soppy sentimental feelings for him. I don’t mean do you love him like you love ice cream. I mean, do you love him? Would you die for him? Is he the most precious person in the world to you without whom you cannot imagine living? Is he your personal Alpha and Omega, your beginning and end?
He is the centre of the Universe. All that was made was made by him and through him and for him – including you (Col 1:16).
Do you love him? Is he the centre of your universe, the centre of your life? Does your life revolve around him: his desires, his will, his words, his calling?
Because that is faith. That is what real Christian faith looks like in practice. That is what we sign up for when we say “Christ is Lord”. I take myself off the throne of my life, and say to Jesus “I apologise for taking your place, your throne is ready, Sire”.
Do you love Jesus?
Today we read the story of a man who had that kind of faith. A man who trusted God enough to let God be God and he the creature, and risked everything: life, money, time, reputation – he staked it all on the word of God. And in the end God was right and everyone else was wrong and everyone - except Noah and his family - died. They lived – and that only by the grace of God. As Heb 11:7 It was by faith that Noah built a large boat to save his family from the flood. He obeyed God, who warned him about things that had never happened before. By his faith Noah condemned the rest of the world, and he received the righteousness that comes by faith.
Do you have faith in Jesus? Really? How deep does your faith go? How much do you really trust His word?
1. Faith comes from a changed heart.
2. Faith is trusting God’s word
3. Only faith in Jesus Christ is saving faith
1. Faith comes from a changed heart
I want today for us to examine our hearts – the central part of our being: our mind, our desires, our drives, our loves. Because what we do is driven by what we love. Our choices, our will, is determined by what we love. And if we love God, by his grace, if he has changed us from the inside out – then our lives will start to look different. Very different.
For example, I love bacon. Yum. So if I’m faced with the choice of a bacon sandwich or a celery sandwich – which one will I choose? My choices are determined by what I love.
So if you are coming to church hoping for some kind of self-help advice or a support structure to help you achieve your goals – then you are going to be disappointed! Because church exists to replace love of self with love of God, through the gospel of Jesus. We are here to glorify GOD, to help us take our proper place, the place we were designed for, made for, in achieving the purposes of God. In obeying him and achieving HIS goals in our lives. In changing our foolish goals into his glorious and eternal goals.
And the only way we can do that is by a dramatic heart transplant: only by God changing us from the inside out.
Look at the state of humanity in 6:5: The LORD observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil.
We are in rebellion against our creator. We run against the grain of the universe. We’re like a river trying to run uphill. Our hearts are a torrent of evil, gushing out. Don’t believe me? Think about these two illustrations I heard recently.
The first was about a toddler having a temper tantrum. I’m sure we’ve all seen it or experienced it. The toddler “throwing his toys” as the expression goes. Absolute rage clouds the little face, and then they scream and scream and kick and hit and throw – totally out of control. Often hitting the mother in the face as they try desperately to calm them down. The person telling this story then said “imagine if that toddler had a weapon in their hands”.
In their blind rage they would pull the trigger, hit out with the stick, attack with the knife. In our hearts we are little murderers. We’ve just learnt some self-control.
The second was about a drunk uncle who was saying sexually graphic things to his nephews at a family gathering. The boys’ mother heard what was going on grabbed them and rushed them to the car. In the car she said this: “There is nothing that comes out of a drunk man’s mouth that was not there in the first place”. Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks says Jesus (Matt 12:34). The drink did not put those lewd sexual thoughts in his heart. All it did was release them from the heart to the mouth.
We’ve seen that already in Genesis. We’ve seen how Eve looks at the fruit, disbelieves God’s word, puts her own words in instead and what God calls bad she calls good. And her foolish husband is nice instead of godly and says “yes dear” instead of “Eve, repent!” – and then of course blames her when God questions him. Ah, true love. And men have been following in Adam’s footsteps ever since. Men! Be like Jesus, not like Adam!
And sin grows very rapidly, with great destruction, and Cain soon kills Abel – because of the anger and jealousy and hatred in his heart. What does God say to Cain? 4:7-8 [W]atch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you!
We need a new heart. Humanity is in need of a new heart. Noah himself needs a new heart, a heart transplant. But how? How do we move from 6:5 “only evil all the time” to 6:9 “Noah was righteous and blameless?”
6:8 “Noah found favour with the Lord”. The only way out of this mess is to follow the voice of our Saviour. Faith that comes from a changed heart can only come from hearing and trusting God’s word.
2. Faith is trusting God’s word
Did you notice Noah’s role in the story?
6:22 So Noah did everything exactly as God had commanded him.
7:5 So Noah did everything as the Lord commanded him.
God speaks. Noah listens and obeys. That’s faith.
Faith is not perfection. Faith is not trying really hard. Faith is not being superhuman. Faith is not something we generate by sheer willpower. Faith is simply believing the words of God, and then living your life accordingly.
Noah believed God’s word in Genesis 6:5 The LORD observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil.
Noah believed that. Noah knew that he and his family did not deserve salvation. How do we know he knew he was sinful? Because the first thing he did after being rescued was build an altar to thank God for rescuing him. He knew he did not deserve rescue.
Noah believed God’s word of judgement. How do we know that? Because he built the boat.
And Noah believed God that he can be rescued. When God said in 6:9 and 7:1 “You are righteous” he believed him. How do we know that? Because he built the boat.
Those are the three big themes of God’s message of Good News to us today that we MUST believe. We must believe that we are sinners. We must believe that God will judge. We must believe that, in Christ, we are righteous.
Let’s stop and think about these big themes from this story of Noah and the Ark for a bit.
Firstly, that we are sinners. Many people today don’t believe that we are bad. In Cape Town an eight year old boy stabbed a three year old in the head and killed him. In Bergen a 13 year old killed his brother and injured his father. On the bus an asylum-seeker being deported suddenly turns violent and murders three people. In our own neighbourhoods kids are being neglected, going without food, being left alone, being beaten, abused, and needing protective custody.
Good people don’t do these things to each other. Please can we drop the lie that we are inherently good. Because if we were our world would look completely different. Imagine watching the news where every story was the “happy” human interest story at the end of the news. Can’t? You know that we are in trouble. There is something wrong with the world. There is something wrong with us.
The actress Amy Adams, interviewed about her role in the new Superman movie “Man of Steel” (where Superman is a strong saviour figure) said: “Who doesn’t want to believe that there’s one person who can come and save us from ourselves?”
You know, I do think that those who shout the loudest are often shouting loudly to drown out their own thoughts, their own knowledge, that there is something wrong with them. That they are at their core not the unselfish, loving, kind, generous person they would like to be, but all too often bitter angry, selfish, unhappy. I would love for that to be true of me! But if my thoughts were broadcast unfiltered to the world, I would be ashamed. This me is not the me I am inside.
Many people understand that. Many people seek religion for that very reason. In this country, 32% of people believe in God, and 47% believe in a life force. People are into church, crystal healing, horoscopes, mediums – anything to help them out of the mess they’re in.
So people know. I am in a mess. I am bad. In the dark watches of the night we can be honest with ourselves.
But it is not enough to just believe that the world is evil, that we are “Bad”. It’s not enough: just admitting “I am a sinner” is not enough. It doesn’t get you anywhere, it doesn’t save you.
It’s the first step of course, and without it you get nowhere! But it’s only the first step. The second is just as important:
You have to believe that God is a just and righteous God, and he will judge the world.
You see if Noah had had faith to believe 6:5 (we are always evil all the time) but not God’s judgement – or if he’d though God’s judgement seemed a little excessive - what would he have done? Maybe bought an umbrella. Maybe made a small canoe.
You see, we also get the extent of our sin wrong. We think “I’m bad, but not so bad”. But we are a stench (horrible smell) in God’s nostrils.
Look at what sin, our sin, causes God to do: his anger is immense! God, who is good, he is the standard of good, shows what goodness must do when faced with our evil: blast it out of existence.
6:7 And the LORD said, “I will wipe this human race I have created from the face of the earth. Yes, and I will destroy every living thing.
6:13 So God said to Noah, “I have decided to destroy all living creatures, for they have filled the earth with violence. Yes, I will wipe them all out along with the earth!
6:17 “Look! I am about to cover the earth with a flood that will destroy every living thing that breathes. Everything on earth will die
7:4 Seven days from now I will make the rains pour down on the earth. And it will rain for forty days and forty nights, until I have wiped from the earth all the living things I have created.”
7:21 All the living things on earth died—birds, domestic animals, wild animals, small animals that scurry along the ground, and all the people. 22 Everything that breathed and lived on dry land died. 23 God wiped out every living thing on the earth—people, livestock, small animals that scurry along the ground, and the birds of the sky. All were destroyed.
Do we really believe that we are so bad that the only true justice would be to wipe us out? I don’t. I don’t believe the word of God. I don’t have faith. Praise God that faith is a gift from him, that he can give me that saving faith to believe his Word! Just like Noah, who “found favour with the Lord” (6:8).
So, we need to trust God’s word that we are sinners. We need to trust God’s word that he is good and therefore will judge. And thirdly, we need to trust God’s word that He can save you. Not you. Because if we just believe the first two we will either despair – or we will try really really hard to placate God, calm him down, take away his anger. That’s what religion’s all about: giving God things or doing things to placate God.
But God’s word is clear. There is only one way to be saved.
In this story it was to build a HUGE BOAT, the Ark, in the middle of the desert, stock it full of food for a year, and wait.
For us, our Ark is Jesus. He carries us safely through the flood of judgement. He will deliver us safely home to the new Creation.
I’m sure there were others who sort of believed God. They saw Noah hammering away, building his ridiculous boat, and probably a few thought “what if he’s right?”
Maybe a few of them secretly built little boats, little insurance policies. A few probably said prayers to God, or offered him sacrifices to keep them safe. But they did not go to the Ark.
No, they tried their own way out. Their own little religion.
There are many people in our churches paddling their little canoes, sailing their little man made boats – self-made religion.
But what happened to all these boats? Were any of them prepared for the extent of the judgement? Look at 7:24 And the floodwaters covered the earth for 150 days. then 8:13 Noah was now 601 years old. On the first day of the new year, ten and a half months after the flood began, the floodwaters had almost dried up from the earth. Noah lifted back the covering of the boat and saw that the surface of the ground was drying. 14 Two more months went by, and at last the earth was dry!
12 and half months went by. Over a year! Was anyone ready for that? All their little canoes, their small boats...became little floating coffins full of dead bodies.
That is what we are like if we expect to survive the terrible blast of God’s righteous anger at the end of time. Do you really think your puny good works will be enough to withstand his fire?! Do you really believe that your little religion will be enough? Do you really trust that your efforts, your sacrifices, will be enough to shield you from the fiery furnace of God’s righteous judgement? If you do the Bible has a name for you: fool.
There is only one way to be saved. There is only one shield. There is only one who can absorb the righteous anger of God because he is the Perfect One, the one who died in our place, the one who paid the penalty for our sins, the Perfect Sacrifice, our Ark, our safe place, Jesus Christ the Son of God. Only God can defend us from God. No-one else is strong enough. Only faith in Christ is saving faith.
3. Only faith in Jesus Christ is saving faith
Because only Jesus is the righteous sacrifice provided by God at the right time. And only his sacrifice is sufficient to satisfy God’s wrath, because only his sacrifice is righteous, a pleasing aroma to the Lord.
We see a picture of that in 8:20-21. This is what Jesus does for us. Instead of the stink of our sin, we are covered by the pleasing aroma of the sacrifice.
8:20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and there he sacrificed as burnt offerings the animals and birds that had been approved for that purpose. 21 And the Lord was pleased with the aroma of the sacrifice and said to himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of the human race, even though everything they think or imagine is bent toward evil from childhood. I will never again destroy all living things. 22 As long as the earth remains, there will be planting and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night.”
The sacrifice, “approved for that purpose” released the covenant (promise) of life and protection from judgement from God.
Jesus, our sacrifice, “approved for that purpose” releases the covenant of life and protection from judgement for us.
It is only in Jesus Christ that our sins can be covered by his pleasing aroma. In him we can be proclaimed righteous. In him we can get a new heart, one that LOVES God, and therefore wants to obey him.
Noah was given such a heart. And so he had the faith which comes from a changed heart. We know that because he trusted God’s word. He believed God’s word about our sinfulness. He believed God’s word about the judgement to come. He believed that God could rescue him – that God could declare him righteous. And that changed his life. Because Noah had faith, Noah risked his life for God. His reputation (look at that idiot building a boat). His time (building the boat). His money (buying stuff to build the boat).
Dear friends, do we have faith like Noah – ordinary Christian faith? Is our life built on the Rock of Christ? Have we staked our reputation to his. Are we willing to give our time and money, everything we are, to the sake of the gospel, the good news about Jesus?
Are you paddling your own little boat – or are you in the Ark? Because only faith in Jesus Christ is saving faith.
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