Tragedy and Triumph: Week 2

Morning, Welcome to Church at the Cross, saying, my name

is Andrew. If you're new, if this is your first time, welcome,

so glad that you're here. We are in a message

series that's called Tragedy and Triumph. And in this series

we are looking at examples in the Bible or stories

from the Bible where there may be a tragedy, a

painful experience, and God transforms that for his glory and

for his purposes.

And that's what we'll be looking at another story today.

So as we prepare to open God's word, would you

join me in prayer so we can prepare our hearts. Father, God,

thank you for your grace and your presence with us.

And God we come today.

We set aside this time to receive from your word,

to submit our hearts, our minds, our attitudes to your word.

God.

We live in a day and age where there is

so much opinion, so much persuasion, so much spin on everything.

It seems like everybody's got an angle, everybody's got a

different perspective, a slanted look at reality. And so God,

in that confusion, we can come to your word and

count on your word to be truth, timeless truth for

our lives for our day and age, and so God, today,

would you give us ears to hear, hearts to understand.

May this not just be information, but may there be

transformation today because of your word.

In Jesus's name, we pray Amen.

Years ago, when I lived in Pennsylvania, I lived in

a small little borough on the west side of Pittsburgh.

In this little town was called Oakdale. And Oakdale was

just your classic American small town. You know, one one street,

no traffic lights. There was the Moore's Hardware that had

been there for decades and everybody had shopped at Moore's Hardware.

There was Thomas Little Funeral Home owned by the same family,

and everybody in Oakdale had been there to pay their

respects for one.

Reason or another.

Everybody's had wings and pizza at Peppercini's, you know, Friday

nights after football games, go to Peppercinese Like it was

a small town, classic small town. In fact, there's a

sign in Oakdale that says America's Hometown. And I don't

know if that's an official title or if they just

claimed that, but it's America's hometown.

Now.

Geographically, Oakdale sits at a low level, low spot in

the geography surrounded by hills, and there's a small creek

that runs through Oakdale, and every ten years or so

that creek will flood rainstorm, heavy runoff, and it will

flood the whole town. I mean streets underwater, stop signs underwater,

homes and buildings underwater. And it's just historically every ten years,

in two thousand and four, twenty thirteen, most recently in

twenty four, Like every ten years, it just floods. And

so when I was living there, I was serving at

a church in Oakdale in twenty thirteen when that flood hit,

and it was a massive flood. It took out many buildings,

many homes were not recoverable, and the church I was

a part of mobilized for the cleanup effort. We rolled

up our sleeves and we got our hands dirty, and

volunteers went door to door throughout the community helping people

bring out their belongings. I remember in one home we

had to pull out an old refrigerator out of the

basement and haul it up out of the cellar. We

were ripping out old, nasty, soggy carpet and cutting dry

wall like helping with the cleanup, and it really was

a tragedy because some people couldn't recover their homes.

They needed to relocate.

I know a couple of businesses couldn't recover and had

the total loss and rebuild somewhere else. And even in

that tragedy, the Church showed up. The people of God

moved in, the people of God represented the love of

Jesus and serving and loving our neighbors, even in that

tragic moment. Well, I'll tell you that story because today

we're gonna open the Bible at Genesis chapter six, where

we read about a flood, a global flood that covers

the entire earth that wipes out all of humanity. In

this story, there is one person who survives him and

his family, and his name was Noah. If you've read

the Bible, you may know this story. God warns Noah

in Genesis six that a flood is coming, and God

gives no instructions to build a boat, to build a

large arc that would save his family, would save the

animals and protect them through the flood. And so I

want us to look at this text in Genesis chapter six,

starting in verse seventeen, you can read along with me,

God speaking, I'm going to bring flood waters on the

earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature

that has the breath of life in it. Everything on

earth will perish. But I will establish my covenant with you.

That's Noah, and you will enter the arc. You and

your sons, and your wives, and your son's wives with you.

You are to bring into the arc two of all

living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive.

With you.

To have every kind of bird, of every kind of animal,

and every kind of creature that moves along the ground

will come to you to be kept alive. You are

to take every kind of food that is to be

eaten and stored away as food for you and for them.

Noah did everything just as God commanded him. When I

was studying this, I noticed in verse twenty one, God

instructs Noah to collect food, vegetation, plants, edible food. I

think often we emphasize that Noah collects the animals and

saves the animals, but if you.

Think he also had.

To collect the food, the fruit, the vegetation, Like after

this flood, somebody's gonna need to replant the vegetation.

So I thought that was interesting. Also notice in verse

twenty two.

It says Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

Noah was obedient.

If you want to survive the storms of life, if

you want to come through the floods of life, obediences

you were starting place. So the floodwaters rose, and Noah

and his family went into the ark and all of

the animals with them, and they were saved. The text

tells us that it rained for forty days. The floodwaters

rose for over one hundred and fifty days, and it

was nearly a year before Noah emerged from the arc

back on dry ground. That's how long it took for

the water to recede. Let's pick up in Genesis seven,

verse twenty three.

Every living thing on the face of the earth was

wiped out.

People and animals and the creatures that move along the ground,

and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah

was left and those with him in the arc.

We keep reading that.

After the floodwaters dissipated, Noah's arc came to rest in

the mountains of Aerra Rat.

Would you say, Erra Rat, Erra Rats.

This is a part of the world that we know

today as Turkey. In those mountains and in my research,

I came across a news story that I had never

seen before. It's a news story about somebody who claims

that they found Noah's ark in those mountains. The year

was nineteen seventeen and there was a Russian military pilot

named Vladimir Roskovitsky, and Roskovitsky was flying a reconnaissance over

the air at mountains when he looked down and spotted

what looked like a large wooden shipwreck on the shore

of a mountain lake.

And as he looked at it.

From the air, it looked large enough in the dimensions,

very similar to what's described about Noah in the Bible.

So Roskovitsky returned to his base and he filed a report,

and there was an exploration launched.

The stories.

The news story says that one hundred and fifty soldiers

set out into the mountains to follow the Corodinets and

to recover the lost arc.

Just so happens that a few.

Days after Roskovitski's discovery, the Bolshevik Revolution erupted in Russia,

throwing that entire country into chaos and confusion, and the

search and exploration was called off. So what became of Roskovitsky. Well,

some legend says he just disappeared. Some legends says he

fled to the United States to escape the revolution in Russia.

Some say he was killed in Russia and the political upheaval.

We just don't know what became of him in this claim,

you know, it sounds like something that myths are made of.

Some say that the story of Noah in the flood

is mythical, that it really didn't happen. However, it's interesting

that in history, Noah is not the only historical story

of a global flood wiping out humanity. In fact, there

are more than two hundred examples of ancient cultures and

civilizations that have a flood story wiping out the whole

earth and the civilizations and cultures all across the world,

spanning across continents North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa.

And what's really interesting is that although they're on different

continents in different centuries, these stories that have survived have

some similarities.

I learned that eighty eight.

Percent of these stories describe one family surviving, sixty seven

percent of these stories mention animals being rescued on the boat,

and fifty seven percent more than half record that the

survivors ended up on a mountain, so there's some similarities.

One of these ancient stories is called the Epic of Gilgamesh,

and it simply describes a pagan god who who sends

a flood to punish human beings. I thought this one

was interesting. It's the Atrijesis epic, and it describes this

one pagan god who is so annoyed and so frustrated

with humans because humans had become so noisy and loud

that he, the god, couldn't sleep, so he sent a

flood to silence them so he could take a nap.

It's interesting that all.

These cultures have a similar story of this historical event. Now,

scholars and historians have debated the authenticity of the flood.

Some really doubt that it was a global flood, and

they'll point to some scientific fact that is arguable that

they point to. How could if there are more than

twenty thousand species of animals, how could Noah have collected

twenty thousand species times two and taken care of all

of them in one boat. Others will argue that the

amount of water needed, the volume of water needed to

cover the entire earth to cover over the tops of

the mountains would be so immense that the water pressure

would make the earth implode.

And so some.

Scholars will say this is probably more of a regional flood,

you know, more localized, just a part of the world,

a big one, but just not the whole world. And

some will point to the fact that there is no

physical evidence of Noah's arc. Let me tell you, it

doesn't bother me to believe that this flood was a

global total flood. God can do whatever he wants.

That doesn't bother me, and it doesn't bother me.

On the other hand, if someone believes it was a

smaller flood, a regional flood, it doesn't bother me. That

we haven't recovered Noah's boat, Like, none of that bothers me.

But there is something that bothers me about this story.

There's one thing in this story, in this text that

really bothers me.

Can I show you what I'm talking about?

Look at our text, Chapter six, verse five. The Lord

saw how great the wickedness of the human race had

become on the earth, and that every inclination of the

thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.

Here it is verse six, and the Lord regretted that

he had made human beings on the earth, and his

heart was deeply troubled.

This is what bothers me. It bothers me that in our.

Bible it says God has regrets. I mean, this bothers

me because how can an all knowing God, an all

powerful God, how can you regret something? If God is perfect,

if God is holy? Like, does this mean that he

makes mistakes, that he messed up, that he you know,

this bothers me. And so that's why we're gonna dig

into this because me to understand what is this text teaching.

Us about God?

It says here in verse six, the Lord regretted. This

word regret in English it comes from a Hebrew word,

because Genesis was originally written in the ancient Hebrew language.

This word regret in Hebrew is a word nacam. Would

you say, na com na com and it can be

translated as to be sorry, to regret, even to.

Sigh, or to breathe heavily.

Now, in our English Bible we see nacam translated in

many different ways. Actually, more than ten different English words

are used. Nacam shows up in the Bible in the

English Bible, nacom will show up and English will translate

it as to be sad or to grieve, or to repent,

or to have pity or to change mind, all depending

on the tense and the context of how that word

is used. But it's such a complex word, and so

that's why we need to understand the totality of scripture

the character of God.

To understand what this text is saying.

This text is not saying that God is in heaven

looking down on Earth in a panic, like he's wringing

his hands. Oh no, what am I gonna do?

That's not what the text is saying.

What the text is saying is that God sees the

wickedness of humanity because God gave human beings free will

to choose sin, to choose evil if that's what they chose,

and he sees that they've chosen evil, and he's sad.

What does nakam also mean? It means to sigh heavily.

I can just imagine God's seeing the wickedness, seeing the violence, and.

He's disappointed. What does verse eleven say?

Now, the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was

full of violence. God sees the violence and he we

may have different opinions about the historical facts around the flood,

global flood, regional flood. The reason that this story is

in the Bible is not to give us a scientific

account of how many gallons of water was in the flood.

That the reason it is in the Bible is not

to give a geographical coordinates of where to find Noah's ark.

The primary reason.

That this story is in the Bible is so that

we can understand God's character and how he relates to humanity.

The first point I want to make today is that

the flood story is a contrast of humanity's tragedy and

God's triumph, contrast between the character of God and humanity.

We see, on one hand, humanity's sin in God's righteousness.

On the other, we see humanity's immorality and God's morality.

We see humanity's chaos and God's control. God is very

much in control in this story. If you read the

rest of the text, you'll see that there are specific

details that God is in control of every detail. He

gives Noah very specific instructions how to build the arc,

how tall to make it, how wide to make it's

gonna be three decks it's going to be made on

cypress wood and pitch.

All of these instructions.

There's very clear details about it. Rained for forty days,

the floodwaters rose one hundred and fifty days. The flood

lasted seven months before it began to recede, like very detailed.

Because God is in control even though humanity's out of control.

So it's a contrast between humanity's tragedy and God's triumph

in this story.

The flood is not the tragedy.

Humanity's is the tragedy. Yes, the flood's tragic, it's sad,

it's destructive, But the flood is not the tragedy. The

flood's not the villain here. It's the sin of humanity.

It's the real tragedy. When you see evil in the world,

what do you feel when you see the violence, when

you see the corruption, when you see the evil?

Like, what do you feel when you.

See injustice news reports of a child being abused, of

somebody being assaulted, of somebody being murdered, Like do you

feel sad?

Do you feel angry? Like? What do you feel?

I'm not very active on social media and I don't

watch much TV, so most of the day I'm kind

of unaware of what's happening in the whole world.

But there are a.

Few days, a few mornings where I will pull up

a news feed because I want to make sure I'm

informed and up to date. And even like on a

Sunday morning, I'll look at our local news, look at

what's happening in Indiana and Indianapolis and are part of

the world.

And man, when I read some of the headlines, it's

so sad.

Read about shootings, drunk driving, accidents that take an innocent life,

terminal diagnosis, domestic violence, read.

About all these things.

It's just so sad to see the corruption, to see

the evil, to see the wickedness in our world. And

many of us we see these tragedies in our world,

and yet we are powerless to stop it or change it.

We hear of Christians and other countries being persecuted for

their faith and we feel powerless to stop it. Or

dictators and terrorist groups murdering into some people, and we

are powerless to stop it.

One of the differences between.

Us and God is that God sees the evil and

he has the power to do something about it. The

story of the flood is not about God wiping out

humanity on a.

Whim because he's irritated.

It's a story about God's righteous judgment on sin and wickedness.

Sin is the tragedy. Sin is the villain of the story.

So what does this text teach us about sin? There's

a few things we learn from our text. One, sin

infects everyone. Turn to your neighbor and say you're a sinner,

and I say I'm a sinner. Sin infects everyone. It's

not just confined to news headlines. It's not just wars

in foreign countries. It's not contained in prisons and a

legal system. Sin is right at home in our lives.

Sin makes its own in our hearts.

Our text teaches us this look at verse five, how.

Great the wickedness of the human race had become.

The whole human race wicked.

Not just a few bad apples, not just the worst

of the worst, not just the convicted criminal, the whole

where everyone is a sinner.

My two year old son is the cutest two year

old I know.

And he is happy, and he is full of life,

and he's cute and adorable. He's got great humor and

most of the time he's really happy, and he is

a sinner.

We were at breakfast in the.

Kitchen a few days ago, and Shepherd's learning how to

hold his juice glass.

With two hands.

And he likes to drink all of his juice in

one drink, without taking a break.

And he drinks all of.

It, and before setting it down on the table, he

lifted up over his head and he smashed it on

the ground into a bunch of pieces. And then he

looked at me and he said time out.

He knew he had done something wrong.

He knew he needed to be punished, Which is why

I agree with Genesis eight, verse twenty one. Every inclination

of the h human heart is evil from childhood.

Yes, I attest to that.

So, no matter how cute, no matter how happy, how

good we think we are, sin has infected us. Sometimes

we might compare ourselves to others to make us feel

better about ourselves. I'm not as bad as them. I'm

not a thief, I'm not a drug dealer, I'm not

a murderer. You know, I'm not as bad as the

really bad people. But the Bible makes it so clear

that sin infects our heart. Remember what Jesus said. The

Gospel of Matthew said I tell you that anyone who

is angry with a brother or sister will be subject

to judgment, anger, hatred in the heart. He says, I

tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully

has already committed adultery with her in his what.

His heart. Sin is external and internal.

It infects our hearts or desires, our things, our motives.

And we see this in our text.

In Genesis six, we read every inclination of the human

heart is evil. The text says, even the thoughts, the inclination,

the desires are evil. It's internal. A Mets once met

with a young man who confessed to pornography addiction. He

was happily married and on the outside, on the external,

he had not done any sin. He was faithful to

his wife, he had not had an affair, he had

not had sex with another woman. But internal he recognized

that this pornography was.

A sin against his marriage. See, it's internal.

It may be private, but it's not personal. Sin is

internal just as much as it is external.

That means holding a grudge, holding resentment.

It's just as sinful Withholding the truth may not be

the same as lying, but it is deceitful.

I know.

That I am not able to convince or convict anyone

of sin. Only the Holy Spirit of God can bring

that conviction and that clarity. All I can do is

warn us of the consequences of sin, and I implore

you to not ignore it, but to confess sin and

put your faith and trust in Jesus. I encourage you.

Do not minimize your sin. Do not say, well, you know,

it's no big deal. That's the way it is these days.

Everybody else is doing it. Do not ignore your sin

and say, well, you know, it's just my habit, it's

just my personality quirk. Do not harden your heart to

the spirit of God. That's what they did in the

days of Noah. This text teaches us a lot about

human sin and human guilt, and Genesis six, seven and

eight also teach us a lot about who our God is.

What does this text teach us about God?

First we learn God feels. God has feelings, God has emotion.

What does verse six say The Lord regretted that he

had made human beings on the earth, and his heart.

Was deeply troubled.

Means God felt it, He feels.

He feels the whole range of emotion.

He feels sad, he feels angry, he feels happy. He

feels the emotions. The difference between our feelings and his feelings.

God's feelings are not corrupted by sin.

He has perfect emotion.

What this means is that when you are suffering, God

feels what you're going through, when you're grieving, when you're hurting,

he feels you're suffering. I recently spoke with a member

of our church who told me that they've been fighting

cancer off and on, and he told me that his

doctors have concluded that he will always have some form

of cancer in his body for the rest of his life,

just in some way, shape or form, and they're just

trying to manage it and mitigate it. And my friends

said to me, Andrew, I have never felt closer to

Jesus than right now, in the midst of suffering. With

all that news, he said, I feel closer to Jesus.

Jesus is near to me, and I love the presence

of Jesus.

God feels.

Psalm thirty four says the Lord is close to the

broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

I remember once being treated unfairly by someone else, and

I felt like they kind of took advantage of me

and treated me unfairly, and I was angry. I was wounded,

and I remember praying to God about this in my frustration, saying, God,

I'm really angry about this.

Like God, this is unfair. Why did you let this heappen?

I said, I didn't deserve it. Then if I did

deserve it, God, can you tell me what did I

do wrong? And it feels unfair?

And I was surprised by what I believe the Lord

spoke to me. In my heart, I felt like the

Lord was saying to me Andrew, it was unfair and

I'm angry too, and I felt like he said, but

I'm not gonna let this corrupt you. I felt him say,

I'm gonna use this to teach you forgiveness, to teach

you grace, to teach you endurance, to make you more

like Jesus. It's so comforting to know that our God

feels identifies with us. So this text teaches us that

God feels. And we also learned God's character does not change.

God is holy, God is perfect, He is righteous.

And his character does not change.

You. See, God has a moral obligation to confront and

punish sin. If God ignores sin, then he cannot truly

be a righteous God. He must address it. We read

in verse twelve, God saw how corrupt the earth had become,

for all the people on the earth had corrupted their ways.

So God said to Noah, I'm going to put an

end to all people, for the earth is filled with

violence because of them. I'm surely going to destroy both

them and the earth. Now, if you look at these

two verses, I want you to notice two words here.

Notice the word corrupt. It's repeated twice. Here God saw

how corrupt the earth had become. And then I want

you to notice what God says, I'm surely going to

destroy both them and the earth. So there's these two

words corrupt, and so at first glance, it sounds like

God is just vindictive, he's capricious, and he is just gonna,

you know, wipe everything out because he's angry. But here's

he wants you to notice about these two words. It

says human beings have become corrupt, and then God says,

I'm going to destroy them. In English, these are two

different words in Hebrew. Remember, Genesis is written in the

ancient language of Hebrew. Both of these words come from

the same root Hebrew word, that is, the word shakath,

and shakath can also mean to ruin, and so one

way to read this theologically is to read that because

humanity is ruining itself, God ruined humanity. A Bible scholar

John Walton puts it this way. God has the responsibility

of caring for his creation that cannot be discharged by

simply letting sin run them up. Responsibility implies response. God's

decision is to destroy what was virtually self destroying already.

So God's judgment is really an acceleration of the consequences

that humanity chose for itself, consequences Humanity's ruining itself, and

it's really God's grace to just bring it to an

end and start over with Noah to bring a fresh start.

We learn here that God's character does not change. When

I was in college my undergraduate degree, my major was

Biblical studies, and so I loved all the classes on

the Bible, the church, history, philosophy. I loved those classes,

but because I attended a liberal arts college, I had

to take other classes that didn't fit in my major,

and I didn't like some of these classes like physical

science class. I thought I went to Bible College so

I didn't have to do mathem and science, and I

think I got to see in that class. So I

just barely go by. But what did we learn in

science class? What do we learn about water?

In science class?

Its molecular structure is H two oh.

What does that mean?

Two hydrogen atoms combined with one oxygen atom makes a

molecule of water.

That's what water is made up of. H two oh.

We know that water has different forms solid, gas, liquid.

It's a solid when it's ic in your freezer. It's

a gas when it's the steam or the water vapor.

It's liquid when it's coming out of the faucet, like

we learned this in science class. Do you remember learning

in science class which form of water has a different

molecular structure? Do you remember which one has two oxygen

and two hydrogen or where there's one the one that

has the one hydrogen.

Do you remember?

It's kind of a trick question because it doesn't change.

It's always H two oh. In whatever form it is solid,

liquid gas, it's always H two.

It doesn't change.

God's character does not change.

He is God.

He is perfect, He is righteous, and he is holy.

His moral integrity does not change. There's never a time

where God is becoming more godly, more righteous, and there's

never a time that he messes up and he's acted

less than godly. God's character does not change. What does

change is how much of his character we experience and understand.

The longer you walk with Jesus and follow Jesus, the

more of God's character you will experience. When you're grieving

the loss of a loved one, you're going to experience

his comfort in that peace that we read about in

Philippins chapter four, the peace that transcends understanding. When you

are disobedient and rebellious, you may experience his righteous conviction.

And when you're depressed and lonely and feel like giving up,

you will experience more.

Of his hope and more of his mercy.

His character does not change, but our experience and our

standing increases and grows. So we've already discussed that there's

the righteous judgment of God in this story. But you

know what else is in this story. It's not just

God's righteousness, not just God's judgment. There's grace in this story.

There's grace in this story. Now you hear me say, grace,

he wipes out the whole earth. How's there grace? There

is grace. Let's return to our text. Look at verse eight.

But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of

his time, and he walked faithfully with God.

Noah was not a perfect person. Doesn't say that.

If you read the rest of the story, you know

that he sins, he makes mistakes.

He's not a perfect person.

But Noah chose to follow God, and God gave him grace.

In verse eight we read it says, Noah found favor

in the eyes of God. I love how verse eight

is translated in the authorized version.

Look at this. It says in the authorized version, but.

Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. He

found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Interestingly, this

is the first time that the word grace appears in

the Bible in Genesis, chapter six, verse eight. This is

the first time in the whole Bible that grace appears

in the middle of this terrible tragedy, in the middle

of terrible sin and wickedness, when humanity's evil is at

its height, God's grace shows up for the first time

in the Bible. Because God's grace triumphs over Sin's tragedy.

Grace is greater than sin. Noah didn't deserve to be

saved from the flood, but God gave him grace, and

God rescued him from the flood. We read in Genesis eight,

verse fifteen. Then God said to Noah, come out of

the ark, you and your wife, and your son and

their wives. Notice that Noah provides a picture of Jesus.

Was Noah the only person saved from the flood? Who

else was saved in this story? His family, his children,

their wives. They were saved because of Noah. Effectively, humanity

was saved because of Noah. We are saved because of Jesus.

Just as Noah went through the flood waters, Jesus went

through the suffering of the cross. Just as Noah was

shut into the ark, Jesus was shut into the tomb,

and three days later came out alive, victorious over sin

and over evil. You see, Noah is a picture of Jesus.

The text goes on. Then God said to Noah, come

out of the ark, you and your wife, and your

sons and their wives. Bring out every kind of living

creature that is with you, the birds, the animals, all

the creatures that move along the ground, so they can

multiply on the earth and be fruit and increase in

number on it. It's grace, It's God's grace that God

started over with humanity, with a human being. He could

have wiped everything out and started all over and created

something brand new, but he chose to preserve humanity through Noah.

Notice, the whole.

Earth gets a second chance, gets a fresh start, a recreation.

This tells me that you are never too far gone

for God to give you a fresh start. Just as

the flood waters washed away all of that sin and

all of that wickedness, so there can be a new

earth and a new creation.

God does a new work inside of us.

When you confess your sin and put your faith in

trust in Jesus, there is a new creation set in

Corinthian says, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation

has come.

The old is gone, the new is here. So, just

as the flood washed away the evil, God wh it's

just us clean.

He forgives our sin, He washes away the shame, he

washes away the guilt, all of the things that condemn us,

and he gives us a fresh start in a new life.

That's what we see here. We learned that the flood

God washes us clean. Do you know what a paddle

board looks like? This is a picture of a paddle board. Now,

I don't I don't know how to use a paddle

board up. I want to know where to start. But

my wife Lauren is really proficient at paddle boarding. And

a few years ago, we were visiting the Finger Lakes

in New York, and I had a kayak and she

had a paddle board, and we were making our way

across one of these lakes, and it was about a

mile or so across, and I was paddling in my

kayak and making really good time and having a great

time on the lake, and Lauren was behind me trying

to keep up, which is actually unusual because Lauren is

so good and so proficient. She's normally way out ahead

and I'm trying to keep up with her. Well, about

halfway through our adventure, we learned that.

Lauren had a problem.

Somewhere on her paddle board there was a crack or

a hole and was taking on water.

See the paddle boy was supposed to sit above the water.

Well, she was like ankle deep in the water, slowly

taking on water, slowly sinking in the middle of this lake.

And it made it really hard.

She was pushing and pulling and dragging it, out of

breath and just exhausted and worn out. Well, thankfully we

were able to safely get to shore without any problem.

You know, I still have this paddle board in my

shed at home, and I was out there not too

long ago organizing some things and see it hanging there,

and I think, why do I still have that? Like

it's broken, it's damaged, like I need to get rid

of it. Well, i'ma hold on to it. In your life,

sin will seep in and find its way in, and

it will drag you down.

It will hold you back, and you may try to

ignore it.

You may try to deny it, minimize it, fighting and pushing,

trying to work it off, trying to pay it off,

trying to set your own course through everything in your

own strength. And it's exhausting. And until you confess that

sin and turn to Jesus, that sin is going to

weigh you down, pull you down, and drown you. And

there are some of us that are holding on to something,

holding on to a sin issue, holding on to something destructive,

holding on to some toxic thing. Just like I've got

this broken paddle board that I need to get rid of.

You're holding on to something that you need to get

rid of by bringing it to Jesus and.

Letting him wash you clean. That's why I love baptism.

In a few moments, we're going to celebrate somebody being

baptized here today, because baptism is a sign of what

God does in our lives. When we confess our sin,

believe in Jesus, he washes us clean. When someone goes

under the water, all of the sin, all the guilt

is buried and washed with Christ. And when they come

out of the water, they're washed clean, a new beginning

and a fresh start. And before we celebrate baptism, I

want to invite all of us to take a moment

to respond to what we've heard today. Would you buy

your head and close your eyes with me? And today,

if you're listening and you want to put your faith

and trust in Jesus and ask for his forgiveness, you

can repeat the simple prayer by saying, Dear God, I

admit that I'm a sinner and I need your forgiveness.

I believe Jesus died on the cross for my sins

and rose from the dead to save me. Today I

confess Jesus as Lord of my life. Holy Spirit, come

into my life, lead and guide me. And now for

all of us, would you just take a moment to

from your heart and your mind to the presence of

God's Spirit, And if he wants to show you anything,

if you need to confess anything, repent from something, would

you just allow this opportunity to receive from him and

respond to what He puts on your heart, and.

I'll close us.

Father, God, we thank you for what you've taught us today.

We thank you for or the example of Noah, who

reminds us of Jesus and most of goll. God, we

are grateful for your grace that you forgive, that you

wash us clean. And so as we leave here today,

may we go in confidence knowing that we've been washed,

we have been forgiven, that we belong to you.

Shame, condemnation, guilt has no claim to us.

So may we leave here confidently and grateful for what

You've done for us.

And we pray all of this in Jesus' name. Amen,