Opening and Introduction
Our text today, is the start of a story that many of us have heard from our Sunday School days. It’s the beginning of the Noah’s Ark story.
Sin had grown so great, that God decided to start over, erase the world, and begin again. It’s a story of the tragedy of sin. But it’s also, a story of mercy as one man and his family were saved.
Today, we’re going to look at the perfect world that God created for us, and how the destructive descent into sin moved God to flood the world with water.
We’ll also look at how God promised to save a small band of people from the torrent of destruction.
Finally, we’re going to examine the character of God as we look towards the mercy, that God shares with us all.
Grieving Father
The Bible starts with the miracle of creation. In six days, God created a perfect earth, with perfect plants, perfect animals and a perfect man. And after He created all of this, “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31, ESV).
God took man and placed him in a perfect garden, a perfect home with perfect food to eat, then He created a perfect companion for Adam, in his bride Eve.
He gave them only one command to follow: “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” (Genesis 2:17, NIV 84) But the perfect world didn’t last long.
Neither Adam nor Eve followed this command. They ate what they were forbidden to touch, and with that first sin, the whole of creation fell, and the world became an imperfect place.
It wasn’t too long after that, that their children also broke the rules. Cain became jealous of his brother Abel and committed the first murder. Additional generations progressed even further into the evils of sin.
Cain’s great-great-grandson, Lamech, showed his arrogance and disregard for God’s creation, and his disrespect for life. He intimidated his wives, by admitting, and even by bragging about, killing men in acts of vengeance. He compared himself to Cain that He was the greater sinner. What a thing to brag about.
Man became unbelievably evil. The problem leading up to the Great Flood was the sin that continued to grow, with man’s heart focused on violence and corruption.
“The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.” (Genesis 6:5, NIV 84)
This “very good” earth that God created, became tainted to the point that God’s actions were both warranted, and required. As a just God, He had to respond.
The words of the Bible, don’t hint at God being sorry for creating life, or mentioning any anger in His actions. If anything, they hint at a grieving Father. God is motivated by a sense of justice as He weights the situation, and looks to erase the undesirable offenders… wipe them all out by washing the world with a deluge of water. But not everything in the world would be destroyed.
God’s Favor
There was one man who followed God. Noah was a righteous man and considered blameless, different from his peers. The Bible tells us that he walked with God. It also tells us that, “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” (Genesis 6:8, ESV)
God told Noah of the pending destruction that would cleanse the earth of the wickedness. Everything that Noah knew was about to change. The people he traded with, the friends in the neighborhood, the roads he traveled on… all of that was going away.
But, for Noah, there was another plan. God told Noah to build an Ark to save him and his family. And Noah did everything just as God commanded.
He found the trees and cut them down, hewed the wood to make the planks and timbers, and assembled them to build the Ark that would hold an untold number of animals, and food. The build required thousands of trees to create a structure that was more than 1 ½ football fields long, and may have taken 75 years or so to build. Something that large is going to grab the attention of your neighbors.
And that attention allowed Noah to talk to those around him, for years. The Apostle Peter called Noah “a preacher of righteousness” (2 Peter 2:5, CSB), and what did Noah preach about?
He must’ve told others what he was doing, and why he was doing it. That made the Ark a huge warning of the destruction that was coming, and a constant indication of God’s judgement on those that didn’t follow Him.
The Character of God
The story of Noah is more than a big boat and a world changing flood. It’s the story of the revealed character of God. It shows us His holy nature, His justice, and His righteousness.
In the time that we have remaining, I’d like to look at two ways that the story of Noah, shows us who God is.
First, God is patient with us, even though we don’t deserve it.
It took time for Noah to do his work. But God waited while Noah built. Peter wrote:
“God patiently waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared.” (1 Peter 3:20, CSB)
What did God wait for? The warning of the Ark being built lasted several decades. Year after year, the boat was created and I’m sure lots of people asked why. All that time, Noah was a preacher, a prophet, a messenger. I imagine that he allowed anyone in earshot to hear the message that judgement day was coming. The evil world had the opportunity to listen, and repent, but didn’t heed his warning.
They rejected God’s honorable messenger Noah and rejected God’s message of redemption. They missed the warning of doom that God sent their way.
God was patient to allow people to learn of what was coming. But none chose to leave their comfortable lives of wickedness and sin.
God is still patient with us today. Some of us may still have some learning to do. There may be trust issues and doubts that we need to remove from our lives. Some of us may have experiences that we need to live out, perhaps to strengthen our faith, or maybe moments to build the faith of those around us.
For others, maybe we need to wrestle with God’s will. Somedays, we may struggle with sin, even when we know the difference between right and wrong. There may be other times when we fall, and don’t realize what we’ve done. A misspoken word, an angry outburst, an unforgiving heart… For any of those times that we fail to meet God’s standard, He’s patient with us too.
God was patient with the world during the time of Noah. He’s still patient with us today.
Second, God equips us to handle all the challenges that come our way. Noah wasn’t expecting to make a boat. Yet, that was the task that he received.
God provided the plans and explained what was needed to build the Ark. Noah followed the instructions. That construction took years to unfold, but God ensured that Noah had the time, the talent, and the materials to build the wooden structure.
Even though Noah was given this task from God, he didn’t have everything he needed all at once. He had what he needed, when he needed it. We don’t know if Noah had any boat-building experience. But we do know that God equipped Noah to take on the challenge of building the Ark.
Lots of things happen in our lives that we don’t anticipate, and we may not feel ready to take on those challenges. There are moments when life is really painful. Events that we don’t want to experience. Maybe events that we know we need to go through, and we just want to get them over with.
With all the talk about the Corona or Covid-19 virus, I think about how we cope with illness, and how we just want to get through feeling terrible and get back on with our lives. We don’t want to deal with feeling bad, but illness often comes our way anyway. We don’t want to hear the words of surgery, or procedure… cancer, or flu… or any of those diseases that can really affect our way of life.
There may be days when things don’t go the way we expect them to go, days when problems get in the way of our routine. Financial problems, relationship problems, health issues, and maybe problems with loved ones, or even deaths in the family.
No matter what’s happening in our life, God has a plan for us too. He loves each and every one of us, and gives us what’s necessary for our journey. It may be, that the problems we have, seem impossible to solve. God’s calendar doesn’t always line up with our schedule, but it does line up with what we need.
The Israelites struggled with God’s plan too. They wanted their promised land now, but God had them wander in the desert for 40 years. When God saw they were ready, THEN God led them to their new home.
But, when they were almost there, Moses died, and Joshua took over. Change can be an uncomfortable thing. God told Joshua:
“Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:9, ESV)
When it seems like hope is nowhere to be found, we may need to remind ourselves, that God is still there with us, preparing us for the challenges that we face, and guiding us through every difficulty.
When we’re facing our own flood of problems, God remains by our side, loving us, and supporting us. God prepared Noah for his journey. God plans ours too.
Conclusion
From creation, to corruption, to catastrophe, to redemption God has been there with man from the very beginning.
He loves His creation, and shows patience, even when the world rejects Him. God’s patience extends to us, and to the rest of the world, as He waits for some, to turn to His will.
Even faithfully following God, we’re going to experience challenges and problems in our life. But in the worst of our moments, God still loves us and is there for us. He equips us to handle the challenges in our life, and has already planned out the next step in our journey.
